Author: Terren

V8 what? EcoBoost V6 is probably going to be a hot seller for the F-150

It’s been years of waiting, but Microsoft is finally expanding the Zune service internationally — a move that precedes the big Windows Phone 7 launch. Version 4.7 of the Zune software will be the desktop sync client for WP7 devices, and as such it’ll be available in more than 20 countries. Don’t get too excited, though — Zune Marketplace is a much more complicated situation, since Microsoft has to hammer our agreements in every country, and it’s not coming everywhere with every feature. Here’s the breakdown:

• The Zune Pass subscription service will hit the UK, France, Italy and Spain, offering unlimited streaming for £8.99 / €9.99 per month but no ability to keep 10 tracks a month as with the $14.99 US service.
• Music purchases will arrive in the UK, France, Italy, Spain, and Germany, and the format will be unencumbered MP3.
• Video purchases will come to the UK, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, with playback support across the PC, Xbox Live, and Windows Phone 7.
• Video rentals will hit the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Netherlands, Switzerland, Mexico, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and can be synced to the PC, Xbox Live, and Windows Phone 7.

Yep, it’s a little complicated unless you live in the UK or France, but we’re sure Redmond’s working furiously to wrap up all the deals it can. We’re also a little bummed that international Zune Pass subscribers won’t be able to keep 10 tracks a month, but hey — there’s a reason why America is awesome, and it’s not just football. Full PR after the break.

Continue reading Microsoft expanding Zune internationally, Zune Pass coming to UK, France, Italy, and Spain

Microsoft expanding Zune internationally, Zune Pass coming to UK, France, Italy, and Spain originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 19:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lea Vivot, the sculptor who revealed her statue of former Saskatchewan premier and Canadian health-care founder Tommy Douglas to the public last week, is threatening to take it down.

HP’s been saying it’ll use webOS on a tablet since the first moment it bought Palm, but it looks like things are starting to pick up ahead of that “early 2011” due date — in an email to the Palm Developer Community, HP’s Peter Helm says webOS will be used on “tablet-style devices similar to the iPad.” Check it:

Now that we are officially part of HP, we are going full speed ahead with our applications initiative. Our proprietary operating system, webOS, is now the OS that will be used in HP’s mobile devices. This includes mobile handsets as well as tablet-style devices similar to the iPad. We will accordingly leverage Palm’s ability to innovate and the scale of HP’s vast install base and distribution network previously unavailable to us.

Yeah, that’s pretty much the Rorschach test of seemingly-innocuous quotes; you can read it as anything from a meaningless passing reference to the market leader to an overt hint that we’ll be looking at an ARM-based device with a 9-inch display and a lengthy battery life. The possibilities are endless — let’s just hope whatever Palm and HP are actually working on delivers on the enormous promise of the platform.

[Thanks, Pierre-Marc]

HP says webOS tablets to be ‘similar to the iPad’ originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 15:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Theoretically, we think this could just be a really well-executed Photoshop mashup, but considering how good RIM is at keeping industrial design elements consistent from device to device, we tend to believe this alleged shot of a BlackBerry Storm3 in the wild. Specs are said to include a 3.7-inch display — up significantly from the Storm2’s 3.2-inch example and better suited to take on 2010’s top-tier touchphones — along with 8GB of onboard storage. We’d also heard in the past that the Storm3 would be slated for BlackBerry 6, a 5 megapixel cam, and a late-2010 launch on Verizon, and the new rumor of integrated mobile hotspot functionality would corroborate that a bit since Big Red’s really pushing that feature as a plan add-on these days. Torch owners, feeling any tinge of envy, or are you at peace with your decision?

BlackBerry Storm3 caught on camera? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 13:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The American research agency regarded as the definitive authority on defining economic recessions declared Monday that the longest recession in the U.S. since World War II ended in June 2009.

Google has made it official: full-fledged Docs will arrive on the iPad. You've been able to view work all along, but Google will soon flip the switch allowing edits—providing some nice competition for Apple's own iWork for iPad. [Google via Business Insider] More »

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Hold onto your hyperthreaded horses, because this is liable to whip up an angry mob — Intel’s asking customers to pay extra if they want the full power of their store-bought silicon. An eagle-eyed Engadget reader was surfing the Best Buy shelves when he noticed this $50 card — and sure enough, Intel websites confirm — that lets you download software to unlock extra threads and cache on the new Pentium G6951 processor. Hardware.info got their hands on an early sample of the chip and discovered it’s actually a full 1MB of L3 cache that’s enabled plus HyperThreading support, which translates to a modest but noticeable upgrade. This isn’t exactly an unprecedented move, as chip companies routinely sell hardware-locked chips all the time in a process known as binning, but there they have a simpler excuse — binned chips are typically sold with cores or cache locked because that part of their silicon turned out defective after printing. This new idea is more akin to video games that let you “download” extra weapons and features, when those features were on the disc all along. Still, it’s an intriguing business model, and before you unleash your rage in comments, you should know that Intel’s just testing it out on this low-end processor in a few select markets for now.

[Thanks, Brian]

Intel wants to charge $50 to unlock stuff your CPU can already do originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 18 Sep 2010 18:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jose Bautista is Toronto’s single-season home run leader after smacking his 48th home run of the year, eclipsing George Bell’s mark set in 1987.

One of the best way to take full advantage of your solid state drive (SSD) is to use the performance-maintaining TRIM command. Technology blog GHacks shows us how to make sure TRIM is enabled in Windows 7. More »

Plans for a Saskatchewan children’s hospital got boost Thursday – a $200 million cheque from the provincial government.

Posted by Serge Lachapelle, Product Manager

If you use video chat in Gmail, you might be interested in a new Labs feature we just rolled out that allows you to preview new video chat features before they’re turned on for everyone. Visit the Gmail Labs tab under Settings, turn on “Video chat enhancements,” and right away, you’ll see higher resolution video and a bigger video chat window.

The higher resolution video uses a new playback mechanism which enables widescreen VGA and frees up valuable resources on your computer. For it to work, both you and the person you’re chatting with will need to have the lab turned on. Remember that you can always revert to standard video chat by disabling the lab.

We plan to add more video chat enhancements to this lab in the future, so if you have it on you’ll automatically get those too. Feel free to post your comments or report any issues you encounter in the video chat forum (we also follow #googlevideochat on Twitter).

Halo: Reach and Halo 3 go head-to-head in this graphical comparison between the two.

Bad news, folks: not only is the Sprint Samsung Galaxy Tab a 3G-only device, but Samsung just confirmed to us that telephony was cut out of the Tab for the US market. That means you won’t be able to pair up a Bluetooth headset and use the Tab as a really large phone like you can on the Euro model. That’s super lame — telephony features might have been the only way the inevitable two-year carrier contract would have been justifiable. Suffice to say, we’re even more curious to hear about official pricing now, but it doesn’t look like we’ll be getting it until Samsung and its carrier partners are good and ready. We’ll let you know.

Samsung Galaxy Tab loses voice capabilities in the US originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Sep 2010 20:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Windows, Mac and Linux users can now access the 64-bit beta version of Flash Player. [Adobe via 9to5Mac] More »

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Halo: Reach, the latest installment in Microsoft’s wildly popular video game franchise, is proving to be the fastest-moving title in the series yet, Microsoft said on Wednesday.

In the first 24 hours that Halo: Reach has been available, it has pulled in more than $200 million in sales in the US and Europe, making it the fastest-selling game Microsoft has ever released.

“Every major installment has grown in scope and popularity, firmly cementing the ‘Halo’ franchise as one of the most popular entertainment properties in the world over the past decade,” Microsoft Game Studios’ corporate vice president Phil Spencer said in a statement Wednesday evening.

Indeed, the popularity of the franchise appears to be enjoying unabated growth, and each new release has broken the records set by its predecessor, (at least according to Microsoft’s tallies.) Halo 3, for example, earned $170 million in its first day of availability when it launched in 2007, which broke the $125 million record set by Halo 2 in 2004.

By the end of Halo 3’s first week of availability, it had earned $300 million, and Halo: Reach looks to be well on track to break that record as well.

Tony Bartel, President of video game retailer GameStop predicted that Halo: Reach will be the “biggest title in the series as well as one of the biggest titles in 2010.” GameStop held midnight launch events in 4,000 of its stores on Tuesday, and eyewitness accounts tell of lines more than one hundred customers long waiting to get the game at stores all over the U.S.

GameStop is hoping to stretch out that first day excitement a bit longer by hosting a post-launch Halo: Reach tournament called “Melee by the Bay.” The tournament has participating GameStop locations hosting one-on-one tournaments beginning on September 24, which are then followed by a national four-on-four online tournament with a $15,000 grand prize.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010















microsoft game studio – Halo 3 – Halo Reach – Video game – Microsoft

Windows/Mac/Linux (Firefox): If you’ve got multiple Firefox installations across different computers, or just find yourself setting up Firefox often, Siphon is a must-add. This extension simply syncs a list of add-ons between browsers, with easy installation and deletion buttons for each. More »

The NHL confirmed Wednesday that the city of Ottawa will host the 2012 all-star game.