Continue reading Sphero toy ball rolls itself, you control it with your smartphone

Sphero toy ball rolls itself, you control it with your smartphone originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 12 Dec 2010 18:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Now that LG’s new Optimus Z is available from both KT and SK Telecom in South Korea, it’s obviously time to promote it — and how better to promote a hot new smartphone launch than with a random mashup of the green Android dude and Zorro? Actually, this fella is actually “Z Boy,” a tribute to the “Z” in “Optimus Z” — but he’s sporting the Zorro look as he wanders the streets of Seoul for the next month looking for victims potential buyers for the 5 megapixel, WVGA-equipped Android handset. With major entrants from Motorola, Samsung, and LG in the market, Android competition in South Korea is nearly as heated as it is across Europe and North America — so yes, if you’ve got to win over a few customers with a big, lovable robot wearing a face mask, then by all means, LG, do your thing.

LG enlists ‘Z Boy’ to promote Optimus Z, resembles an open source Zorro originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Wed, 18 Aug 2010 05:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We know you missed us last week, and for that we’re sorry. But here we are again, with another raft of news and an explorer’s account the 6-hour line that stood between her and two unlocked Canadian iPhones.

PS – Chris turned into a robot at about an hour and change into the podcast. Don’t ask us why, but these things happen when you spend most of your day staring into cell phones.

Hosts: Chris Ziegler, Myriam Joire (tnkgrl)
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Music: Daestro – Light Powered (Ghostly International)

01:14 – Motorola Droid getting Android 2.2 next week (update)
02:52 – EVO 4G’s Froyo firmware was available for download, manual install (update)
04:43 – Canadian iPhone 4 launch details emerge: Rogers offers 6GB for $30, iPad sharing for $20 (update: Bell’s iPad deal cheaper)
19:50 – Samsung Galaxy S review shootout: Captivate for AT&T and Vibrant for T-Mobile
33:00 – Dell Streak review redux: thoughts from the New World
50:13 – Listener questions

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Engadget Mobile Podcast 048 – 07.31.2010 originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Sat, 31 Jul 2010 19:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Actually, calling the i5700 Galaxy Spica from Samsung “aging” isn’t entirely fair — the Android-powered handset was only introduced in November of last year. Thing is, Android moves at the pace of a speeding green robot — and considering Sammy’s reputation for flooding the market with hardware, we’re not surprised to see a couple replacements leak out already. The so-called Galaxy Teos and Naos (pictured left and right, respectively) both feature WQVGA displays and 3 megapixel cameras paired with Android 2.1 and TouchWiz; the latter is apparently an affordable Orange exclusive in your choice of black or white. Samsung certainly has the high end covered right now with the Galaxy S series, so if we had to guess, these little guys (and their various siblings around the world) will help fill in the midrange.

Update: Samsung Hub points out that these are the same as the Galaxy 3 and Galaxy Apollo sold in other markets. The company’s certainly no stranger to changing phone names in different countries, so it’s not much of a surprise to see ‘em do it here.

Samsung Galaxy Teos and Naos rush in to relieve aging Spica originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Mon, 12 Jul 2010 15:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Because we can’t seem to get enough Motorola Droid Shadow / Xtreme teasers in our lives, here’s a few more with which to tide you over. First on the docket is a pair of pics from Droid Life, with the screen-saving film intact (and a still-visible Verizon logo underneath) and a cleaner side shot of its bulbous derriere. If that wasn’t enough, the clue-dropper wnrussell of HowardForums — who gave us the vast majority of the previous leaks — is back showing off a 1500mAh battery and claiming a name for that monochrome Motoblur-esque skin we saw earlier. In his words, “Ninja Blur is Blur running without the user knowing. For those who don’t like Blur.” Translation: it’s an Android skin that does very little but make aesthetic differentiators and probably slows down the processing speed a bit. Any chance the ninja can go into hiding in lieu of a vanilla robot experience?

Motorola Droid Shadow / Xtreme pictured again, powered by Ninjablur? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Jun 2010 15:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Alright, hot shot, so you’ve been pining after that impossibly expensive Ulysse Nardin Chairman — you know, the world’s first “hybrid” phone — for nearly a year now, and the millions of dollars in those off-shore accounts of yours aren’t exactly spending themselves. What’s next? Well, fortunately, Ulysse Nardin and its hardware partner SCI Innovations have been locked away in the laboratory upgrading the Chairman with a fairly impressive new set of specs that includes a larger 3.2-inch touchscreen, an 8 megapixel camera (up from 5), 32GB of memory on board, “proprietary rotor improvements” for better battery life (that’s something you don’t hear too often when discussing a phone), and an Android core.

As with the first version, the new model will be limited to just 1846 copies — assuming there are that many people on the face of the Earth wealthy enough to afford it — and will be available in your choice of steel, “Stealth” (which is apparently colored or blacked out, up to you), or a selection of precious metals. Of course, no luxury phone would be complete without an equally excessive charging solution, and the new Chairman delivers with a lacquered wood dock that tops off the battery while simultaneously backing up the phone’s contents to an external USB drive and offering luscious, soothing sounds through a pair of Bluetooth-connected speakers. Then again, if you’re ever in a position where you need that backup — if you lost your beloved Chairman, that is — we’d say you’ve got bigger problems to worry about than a little bit of data.

Green robot in an Armani suit: Ulysse Nardin Chairman upgraded with Android originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Apr 2010 17:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Cellbots gang has been furiously productive as of late. Not even a month after their wooden “boxbot” was first spotted on You Tube the project has moved on from its humble beginnings of lumber and windshield wiper motors to a full-on a neon green acrylic Truckbot that uses a G1 and Arduino board combination for control. Sure, we’ve seen Android-powered robots before, but these guys have done some pretty cool things, and have no intention of stopping now. They’ve already implemented an ultrasonic range detector so the ‘bot can override the operator and prevent itself from running off a cliff (although we’d like to suggest mounting one on the rear as well — for obvious reasons), voice recognition, and the Android compass into the control system. If anything, the amount of progress makes this project very well worth keeping an eye on. Move past the break to see some video, and then hit the source link to keep up with the action yourself.

Continue reading Android and Arduino-packin’ Cellbot features voice recognition, autonomy, and charm to spare

Android and Arduino-packin’ Cellbot features voice recognition, autonomy, and charm to spare originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Apr 2010 19:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While we’ve seen no shortage of smartphone-powered robots in the past, the Nokia camp has been sadly under-represented. But, there’s a new one coming to balance things out, a machine called Niko that has Lego Mindstorm NXT 2.0 components for a body and an N900 for a brain. The bot has been under construction for a few weeks but it has just made its YouTube debut with the short video posted after the break, showing it roving around and taking a photo whenever it bumps into something. When all systems are go and the machine is set free Niko will be posting messages and pictures to Twitter describing its every move in thrilling detail. We can’t wait for it to start picking fights with @CourtneyLoveUK.

Continue reading Niko, the N900-powered Lego robot, looks poised to take over Twitter (video)

Niko, the N900-powered Lego robot, looks poised to take over Twitter (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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