Filed under: Podcasts
Desirous of more of that enlightening Engadget banter? You’re in luck! We’ve got another installment of the newly-minted Engadget Podcast on tap, featuring an in-depth exploration of thoughts, feelings, and thoughts about feelings. This week Joshua Topolsky, Paul Miller, and Nilay Patel take you thorough a breathtaking range of topics, with a thorough dissection of the new MacBooks / MacBook Pros, a little Windows 7 talk, and an extra deep look at the T-Mobile G1 with the help of Engadget Mobile super-editor Chris Ziegler. Prepare for extreme geek-craft… now.
Note: We had some minor audio trouble with this one, so don’t be alarmed if you hear a little crosstalk — we’ll make sure things are as magically pristine as usual next week. Also, iTunes should be back properly soon, so stay tuned.
Hosts: Joshua Topolsky, Paul Miller, and Nilay Patel
Guest: Chris Ziegler
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Music: Dr. Teeth — The Interview Is Over
00:00:42 – Apple’s “spotlight turns to notebooks” event roundup
00:38:43 – T-Mobile G1 review
01:10:59 – Motorola Krave ZN4 officially launches on Verizon for $149.99
01:18:10 – Windows 7 to be officially named… Windows 7
01:21:18 – Engadget: now the Official Blog Partner of CES
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Contact the podcast: 1-888-ENGADGET or podcast (at) engadget (dot) com.
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Filed under: Transportation
The much-anticipated, well-expected MINI E — the first all-electric MINI — is headed our way before you know it. BMW’s built itself a decent performer, offering 204 hp of electric motor in a setup quite similar to the Tesla. The car boasts a 150 mile range off its 35 kWh lithium-ion battery pack, can hit 62 mph in 8.5 seconds, and does a full charge off of an included high current charging station in a mere 2.5 hours. There’s naturally a regenerative braking system on board to help beef up the battery in city driving. BMW plans on leasing 500 of these to commercial and private customers in California, New York and New Jersey sometime early 2009, and Europe might get a crack at the car soon after that. No word yet on when we’ll see this car ready for the masses, but perhaps we’ll get more info when the MINI E makes its “debut” at the LA Auto Show next month.
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Filed under: Wireless
We knew they didn’t like it, and now they’re going out of their way to prove it. After FCC chairman Kevin Martin set forth a proposal to use the freed spectrum from the forthcoming 2009 digital TV transition for bringing mobile broadband to more locales, broadcasters who’d rather not deal with the trouble are stepping in with a collective “nuh uh!” Station owners and the four television networks filed an “emergency request” on Friday afternoon in hopes of convincing the FCC to hold off on its plan to vote on white space rules until “everyone had a chance to comment on the findings.” The report that’s mentioned found that no significant interference would come into play should the waves be opened up for unlicensed devices, but a spokeswoman for the National Association of Broadcasters stated that “the FCC is misinterpreting the actual data collected by their own engineers.” Whether or not NAB will get the 45-day grace period it’s asking for, however, remains to be seen.
[Via Mobile Tech Today, image courtesy of Orbitcast]
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Filed under: Home Entertainment
AT&T’s been cobbling together a voice recognition system for decades, affectionally known as Watson. The good news is that unlike most every other voice recognition system out there, AT&T’s might be useful for, you know, stuff. AT&T’s working on making your plain-language utterances into real-life gadget actions, and has built a voice-operated TV remote to make the idea a reality. Built to operate the U-verse service, AT&T’s new mythical remote lets you ask for whatever comedies might be on, or — in the inexplicable example cited by our source article — search for movies starring Bruce Willis, all using your voice in regular person sentences. AT&T’s also working with other developers to build applications like a yellow pages app for the iPhone. There’s no word on when (or if) AT&T will actually offer up the remote for consumer use, or when other applications are due to hit the mainstream, but we must say we’re ready for the tide to shift in human-computer interaction, where the computer does the heavy lifting. Because we have some Bruce Willis movies to watch.
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Filed under: Cellphones
According to the UK’s Telegraph, mobile phones are responsible for yet another one of the great terrors of the 21st century: dermatitis. Apparently, “skin specialists” have discovered that certain metals used in cellphones are causing some users to suffer inflamed, reddened, dry, blistered, and cracked skin. Sounds awesome, right? It seems that about a third of heavy talkers are sensitive to nickel — a substance commonly found in gadgets — which can become irritating after repeated exposure. Says Brown University’s Dr. Lionel Bercovitch, “Given the widespread use of cellphones, the presence of metal in the exterior casing of these phones and the high prevalence of nickel sensitization in the population, it is not surprising that cellphones can cause allergic contact dermatitis.” There’s probably little you can do to out-and-out escape the problem, so we suggest full face mask whenever a call needs to be made — also, for dinner parties.
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