Gearlog

These Were the Droids Techies Were Looking For

2009-11-06T21:27:03Z

Officially, the Friday launch of the Droid and the Droid Eris went swimmingly, backed up by anecdotal reports from the stores themselves.

While it may take a day or two to truly assess how the launch went, a small poll of stores in Northern California, a tech haven, proved that Verizon had a hit on its hands.

"It's going great," Heidi Flato, a Verizon spokeswoman representing Northern California, reported. "It's going really great. Everyone's very happy."

"We do have lots of inventory," she added. "My understanding is that we were prepared for the launch." Flato declined to say how many phones had been allocated to each store, or if supplies were running low at by midday Pacific time.

However, store employees seemed to indicate the best of all possible worlds: a happy customer base, lines, but enough phones for everyone. One employee in a Sacramento Verizon store reported that they had been given 100 phones per store, at least in his region. Another manager, in the East Bay, said that figure "sounded about right". Two stores in the San Jose region referred questions to Verizon public relations representatives.
]]> lines of 100 people or so were reported. In California, those lines were estimated to be at about 40 people at the Sacramento store. Another Bay Area store's employee indicated that about 30 people had lined up in front of her South Bay store, before she asked to end the call to serve her customers.

Anecdotally, the Droid launch appears to have taken the first Storm, well, by storm.

"We learned a lot from that launch, in terms of what to do with promoting in advance," Flato said. "We were well prepared for this one."

"It's gone terrific," the Sacramento employee said. "We have plenty of stock, we had a big line outside, and we're selling it; the vibes from the customers have been awesome."

The Droid's launch was backed by Verizon corporate, Motorola, and the Verizon employee base, the Sacramento employee said, who described the phone and its support as "quality".

In Times Square, customers were offered the chance to control the Reuters ticker via voice, and New Yorkers were also offered at least the chance at concert tickets.

Controller Brings Skateboarding and Snowboarding to the Living Room

2009-11-06T19:58:21Z

It's always a great day when an outdoor activity becomes easier to simulate inside. Thrustmaster, the expert at mastering thrust, has released the T-Freestyle NW. This controller gives a more realistic feel to skateboarding and snowboarding on the Nintendo Wii.

Practice your maneuvers and stunts, and slide from one rail to another. The T-Freestyle NW is made of maple wood and bears a skull emblem for that extreme look. It's made to offer a combination of flexibility and resistance, giving you the same sensations as if you were outside having a real-world experience. It allows for lateral movement, but not so much that you could tip over, and attaches to the Nintendo Balance Board. Look for it to go on sale at the end of November for $29.99.

Do Your Devices Fail in 64-bit Windows 7?

2009-11-06T19:31:46Z

Windows 7 has been out for a couple of weeks now, and it's both received largely glowing reviews and sold up a storm compared to its predecessor, Vista. But we've been hearing some rumblings about the 64-bit version of the OS not being compatible with some devices. PCMag.com's editor-in-chief, Lance Ulanoff, reported that it didn't recognize a Sony DCR-TRV140 camcorder he tried to plug in. It's been common knowledge for a while now that 64-bit versions of Windows require digitally signed drivers, so mismatches aren't unheard of, but given the traction 64-bit gained during the Vista years, it's kind of surprising.

We'd like to find out the scope of this, and you can help us out. If you've had trouble getting any of your hardware to work with 64-bit Windows 7, leave a comment on this post and tell us what sort of device you tried to connect and what happened when it didn't work.

New BlackBerries Come In White, But What About Pink?

2009-11-06T16:43:53Z

Perusing Verizon's fall lineup yesterday, I was disappointed to see such a range of drab, black and gray phones, perhaps reflecting the drab, black and gray state of our national economy and indeed our very souls.

RIM, the makers of BlackBerries, are doing a bit to lighten things up by offering the carriers white models of their most recent devices; at left you see a white BlackBerry 8520 which would presumably come out on AT&T or T-Mobile.

But what of the pinks, the greens, the reds? The pink BlackBerry Pearl, after all, was a best-seller and helped open up new markets for the formerly all-business smartphone. (At least Sprint is coming out with a purple BlackBerry 8530.) Considering that Sprint's BlackBerry Curve 8330 currently comes in red and orange as well as black, I'm holding out hope that we'll see the new 8520, 8530, and 9700 in multiple hues as well.

Verizon Confirms Droid Tethering, Announces Pricing

2009-11-06T15:05:13Z

Picking up shiny new Motorola Droid this weekend? Have you fingers crossed for some PC tethering? Well, Verizon has some good news and some bad news.

The good news is that the wireless provider is indeed letting owner utilize their handset as a wireless modem for the computers. The bad news? It's going to cost you--$30 a month in fact. That's roughly the price of the phone normal data fees.

Still, at least the companies are offer the feature, unlike some people *cough* AT&T.

Bird, Baguette Shut Down Large Hadron Collider

2009-11-06T12:04:59Z

Okay. So we know that the Large Hadron Collider, the world's most powerful particle accelerator, has run into a few snags recently, including a major coolant leak, an arrest, and numerous delays.

Now we can add bird droppings to the list. Or, more specifically, a dropped piece of bread.

Popular Science reports that a bird dropped a baguette on a section of LHC machinery outdoors, which eventually caused part of the accelerator to overheat--enough that if the LHC were actually running at the time, the heat would have triggered automatic failsafes and shut down the system.

The bread won't cause another delay in the planned reactivation next month, according to the report.

Flipswap Offering up "Free" Motorola Droid

2009-11-05T19:05:56Z

Love fancy new phones but hate paying money for things? Flipswap wants to help with its new "iDon't Pay for Droid" promotion. The company is giving away money toward the purchase of a new Motorola Droid: You can swap your current iPhone for up to $350, buy a Droid, and show your proof of purchase, and you'll get an extra $25.

Okay, it's not exactly a free phone (not even close, really), but who can blame the company for riding the Droid wave?

Interested parties can get the Droid bonus between now (well, tomorrow, when the Droid goes on sale) and November 30th by entering the promo code "getdroid" into the Flipswap site. More info is available at Flipswap's Droid site.

Quirky's Beamer: iPhone Case that Lights Your Way

2009-11-05T18:27:29Z

Quirky, the site that makes and sells the best of its community-developed concepts, just posted another why-didn't-I-think-of-that product in the beamer: It's an iPhone case that lights up to illuminate your phonecam photo subjects or just to help you find stuff in the dark. Press the button once for 10 seconds of LED light, twice to keep it on till you turn it off. The replaceable coin-cell battery is rated to last for 10 hours.

The case itself is hard plastic and comes in "one of Quirky's funky case colors," apparently including pink or black. If you want a beamer, get over to the presale at the site and "commit" to buying one for $32; when 500 people have committed, the case will be manufactured and shipped to buyers.

Go Glam with iSkin Solo FX Special Edition iPhone Case

2009-11-05T18:06:34Z

Check out the new iPhone 3G/3GS line from iSkin, the Solo FX Special Edition, which feels right for a go-go, music-filled, glamorous life. All three versions have a matte finish with an embossed pattern that promises to make anywhere you happen to be a dance floor. Even their color names tell of a trendy, party-hopping life: Onyx (black), Cosmo (pink) and Ice (white).

The case covers your phone's volume and power buttons, while offering openings for the camera lens, docking port, and headphone jack. It's also infused with Microban antimicrobial protection, to keep those icky germs away and reduce odor- or stain-causing bacteria.

This line comes with two different screen protectors, a clear film and one that turns into a mirror when the phone is off. I have a feeling anyone who chooses this case is going for the mirror. You can pick one up at iSkin.com for $34.99.

Verizon Shows Off New Rugged Casio G'zOne Brigade

2009-11-05T17:51:07Z

Along with a slew of other new devices like the Droid Eris, Verizon Wireless on Thursday debuted the Casio G'zOne Brigade--a waterproof flip phone with a full QWERTY keyboard and a 3.2-megapixel camera.

Verizon claims the phone is "water, shock, dust, vibration, humidity, salt fog, altitude, high temperature storage, low temperature storage, and solar radiation resistant." Basically it's the sort of phone a wilderness explorer, geologist, or Navy SEAL would love to carry around.

The phone is trying to target some of the office crowd as well by including a document viewer for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF support. It will also include standard Verizon software such as V CAST Music with Rhapsody and V CAST Video, along with support for VZ Navigator.

This new phone is the first of the G'zOne line with a QWERTY keyboard. We liked that the last unit of this family--the G'zOne Boulder--was seemingly indestructible, but it had muddy voice quality. Hopefully all the kinks have been worked out for sleek-looking Brigade.

Price and availability of the G'zOne Brigade will be announced closer to launch.

Sprint Also Getting BlackBerry 8530

2009-11-05T17:35:10Z

BlackBerry plays well with others - when they come out with a product on one carrier, it often appears pretty quickly on other carriers as well. So we made sure to give Sprint a call when Verizon Wireless announced their BlackBerry Curve 8530, an upgrade to the popular BlackBerry 8330 that gives it a faster processor, new OS version and a tiny touchpad instead of the trackball.

Sprint confirmed that yes, they'll be getting it too - though they didn't lock down a date or price other than that pricing would be "aggressive." Verizon's version is $99.99. We've seen T-Mobile's similar (albeit non-3G) BlackBerry 8520 for as low as $48.88 with a two-year contract. Think Sprint could match that?

Video: Hands-On With the HTC Droid Eris

2009-11-05T16:46:00Z

The Motorola Droid doesn't go on sale until tomorrow, but Verizon Wireless is already pushing the second device in that line: the Verizon Droid Eris. Essentially a rebranded version of Sprint's HTC Hero, the Eris (see it in action in the above video) goes on sale the same day as the Motorola Droid, but for $99 ($100 less than Motorola's handset).

The Eris runs Android 1.5, features a 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen, and a 528-MHz Qualcomm processor (less powerful than the Motorola's ARM Cortex-A8). For more information on the handset, along with a slideshow, check out PCMag.com.

Nokia 3711 hits T-Mobile Stores, Has Maps

2009-11-05T15:54:26Z

T-Mobile and Nokia announced that the Nokia 3711, first unveiled last month, is now in T-Mobile retail stores and online at T-Mobile's Web site for $69.99 with a two-year contract.

The big news with this one is Nokia Maps, which lets subscribers find their current location, and then search nearby for points of interest using a T-Mobile data plan.

The flip 3711 also includes a 2-megapixel camera, a hidden-until-lit external display (similar to the Nokia 7205 Intrigue on Verizon), T-Mobile's web2go browser, stereo Bluetooth, a media player, IM and e-mail support, and Nokia's Series 40 OS.

Samsung, AT&T Unveils Mythic and Flight Phones

2009-11-05T15:34:51Z

Samsung Mobile has unveiled the Samsung Mythic and Samsung Flight, two phones that will hit AT&T stores and AT&T's Web site on November 8th.

The black Mythic looks sort of similar to the existing Solstice. It sports a 3.3-inch touch screen, along with Samsung's TouchWiz user interface for dragging and dropping semi-useful widgets all over the home screen. The Mythic also features quick Facebook and MySpace access, along with support for AT&T Mobile TV and AT&T Navigator.

The Flight (pictured), meanwhile, is a vertical slider--something we're seeing more and more of lately, after a few years on hiatus. The Flight features a somewhat cramped-looking QWERTY keyboard and a touch screen. It includes one-touch access to Web favorites, app shortcuts, SMS, MMS, instant messaging, and mobile e-mail. The Flight will be available in red or white.

No pricing information is available as of yet.

Verizon Unveils New Prepaid 3G Modem Plans

2009-11-05T14:45:00Z

Cellular modems are great for folks on the go, but many people don't want to be locked into a monthly plan. Today Verizon Wireless announced three new prepaid, no-contract plans for their Novatel USB760 modem, which works with Macs, PCs and Linux computers. Their rates are so high and their data caps are so low, though, that I don't see these plans becoming very popular.

Verizon's three plans are $15 for 75 MB and one day of service; $30 for 250 MB and a week of service; and $50 for 500 MB and a month of service. Verizon's traditional mobile broadband plan costs $60/month for 5 GB of service, but you need to sign up for a contract.

Verizon's prices are considerably higher than Virgin Mobile's Broadband2Go prepaid rates. Virgin Mobile uses the same USB760 modem, but works on Sprint's network. Virgin Mobile charges $10 for 100 MB over 10 days, $20 for 250 MB over a month, $40 for 600 MB and $60 for 1 GB. So it looks like Verizon is charging extra here for being the "Cadillac network."

Prepaid mobile broadband plans can appeal to light, occasional users who just need to get some work done every few months on the road. (Streaming video will bust those data caps very quickly.) But it looks like if you want to go prepaid, Virgin Mobile is the better bet for now.

The new Verizon Wireless prepaid modem will be available at Verizon Wireless and Best Buy stores on Nov. 16.