Engadget

In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news.

Another week is over, dear readers, and it's been an eventful one for me. I spent a few days in Detroit, wrapping up some testing for the AOL Autos Technology of the Year award, to be given out at CES in just over a month. This means I got a little seat time in some spectacular autos like the Audi S7 and Chrysler 300C SRT8, sampling some amazing new infotainment and safety technologies - and some terrible ones, too. Which stood out? You'll have to wait for the CES awards ceremony to find out.

Otherwise, it was a reasonably quiet week in news, but some of the biggest stories came just as we're heading to press. Apple CEO Tim Cook, in an interview with NBC's Brian Williams, gave a little clarity to the mystery of the "Assembled in USA" iMacs. He confirmed this isn't just an anomaly, that Apple is planning on bringing assembly of one of its "existing Mac lines" to the States. Which line, exactly, remains to be seen, but the iMac would be a logical choice, since it's already being run in limited numbers in the US. The Mac Pro also makes sense, a low-volume machine that features (relatively) simple construction.

Read More | 0 Comments

Mentions of Intel's Red Ridge tablet platform began cropping up in earnest well over a year ago, but things have been fairly quiet on the Medfield front -- with a few exceptions, of course -- ever since. Now, however, Intel's signaling that it may be ready to pop the cork at CES, as the label you're peering at above just made it through FCC processing earlier today. While there's dreadfully little to go on in the filing, we know that Red Ridge is a Medfield-based tablet platform, with the model shown here tested on a device running Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and capable of handling Bluetooth, NFC and 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi waves. Notably, we're also told that a "production unit" was used, hinting that we could see the commercial version of this mystery machine make its debut in just under a month. Rest assured, we'll be checking every nook and crannie allowed by law once we land in Las Vegas.

0 Comments

The Galaxy Note II is a big phone that has attracted an even bigger following: Samsung shipped over 5 million units in two months, even before the holiday shopping season commenced in full force. And we don't expect the company to slow down either -- now that the device is available worldwide and on all four national US carriers (not to mention a regional player as well), Samsung's likely to pick up the pace exponentially. We've already painstakingly reviewed the Note II in all its glory -- twice, actually -- but Verizon's particular variant has a few key differences that are worth noting. What kind of carrier "enhancements" and other goodies can you expect as a reward for your 300 hard-earned dollars? How does the Note II match up against the rest of Verizon's lineup? Follow us past the break and we'll give you the full scoop.

Read More | 0 Comments

While we're well aware that robots will prove our undoing, we didn't expect DARPA to make it so... easy. It just demonstrated and helped fund the MLB Company's V-Bat, a testbed UAV that can fly or hover while brandishing a 6-foot claw. Yes, we know what you're thinking. Officially, there's an innocuous reason for the giant arm: a stereo vision system, in tandem with GPS, lets the robot precisely deliver one-pound payloads with the kind of reach that us fleshy anthropods wouldn't have. We're not quite so comforted after realizing that the robot can find its target without human input, however. DARPA sees the V-Bat as a stepping stone towards more autonomous vehicles, and it likely has noble intentions at heart. If V-Bat's descendants ultimately decide that humans are the payload, though, we'll know exactly who to blame.

Read More | 0 Comments

You have to start somewhere. In a group interview between its CEO and several software developers, Nintendo recently touched on how the Wii U's primary controller, the GamePad came into being. Initially, development focused on a "Wii Zapper" with a small screen and a gyroscope connected to a Wii remote and nunchuk, feeding movement data to the display. This was soon subsumed into the 3DS, which was nearing the end of its design process. In fact, Nintendo titan Shigeru Miyamoto recalled the original 3DS handheld plans to add the gyroscope, even though hardware features had been "set" internally. This early model, however, catalyzed the idea of a second screen for the players' hands and lead to the barebones hardware you can see above. Crafted from double-sided tape and two Wii remotes, the prototype brought forth ideas for Nintendo Land -- and if we're honest, is a fairly decent outline of what the final product resembled, with buttons and controls (including triggers) distributed across both sides of the screen. Interested in the full development story of both the GamePad and Nintendo Land? Then you'd best visit the source link.

0 Comments

When it was founded in 2007, SoundCloud was primarily focused on enabling file-sharing of original audio tracks, and basic collaboration among artists. The two co-founders came from music backgrounds; indeed, in early interviews they compared their fledgling platform to a musician's version of Flickr or Vimeo. From the start, SoundCloud's embeddable waveforms differentiated it from MySpace, which was soon to begin its vertiginous fall from authority.

With this week's relaunch, SoundCloud aspires to more than a gleaming redesign, though it definitely brought out the silver polish for this refresh. The new SoundCloud has reshaped its feature set, formalizing an organic expansion into a broad listening platform. It is more than a refreshed site; it is a new product targeted point-blank at the headphone set rather than the mixing board crowd. Have artists been marginalized in the new and enlarged vision? And for the music fans the site hopes to attract, does SoundCloud work as a listening station?

Read More | 0 Comments

China's Onda was once somewhat known as a manufacturer of low-cost PMPs that packed some relatively high-end specs, but it's unsurprisingly since moved on to more of a focus on tablets. While those haven't exactly garnered much attention to date, it's latest certainly continues that high-specs / low-cost tradition. Known only as the V972, the tablet packs Android 4.1 for an OS (a 4.2 upgrade is apparently promised), and it's among the first to use Allwinner's new quad-core A31 processor. The real standout detail, though, is a 9.7-inch screen that boasts the same 2048 x 1536 resolution as the Retina iPad. Otherwise, you'll get 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, a microSD card slot, front and rear cameras, and a promised eight to ten hours of battery life -- all for $240. Those interested in taking the plunge on one will have to wait a bit longer, though -- it's currently listed as out of stock on Onda's website, and there doesn't appear to be any other retailers selling it just yet.

0 Comments

It's just a month away, folks. Just one month until the most wonderful time of the year for gadget lovers. It's CES, and in 2013 we're doing it up bigger and better than ever before. Last year we had our first presence on the show floor, a stage with live video broadcasts all day and wild and crazy video podcasts through the night. This year our stage will be even bigger, even better, and we'll be firing out even more video than last year. If you enjoyed our Distro special editions last year you'll be happy to know that we're doing more issues this time -- one for every day of the show! As ever, we'll be your go-to source for breaking news served straight to your browser as it happens, and we also have a few more surprises in store that you'll be finding out about real soon.

With more than 50 Engadget staffers on-site this year, flown in from all corners of the globe, we're poised to have our biggest year ever. We're thrilled to announce that, for the fifth year in a row, we're the Official place to get your news online. Yes, we're the Official Online News Source of the International CES again in 2013, and we couldn't be more proud. Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of CEA, the producer of the International CES, had this to say:

The International CES is the world's largest innovation event and Engadget does a terrific job of bringing all the breaking news to its global audience. Each year, Engadget ramps up its CES coverage in bigger ways and the 2013 CES is looking to be the best show yet. Engadget's team of dedicated reporters are seemingly everywhere at CES, covering the breaking product news and scoring the top name interviews that help make the CES experience even more robust for all who follow CES' inspiring innovations and technology news.

Thanks, Gary, we think you're pretty great, too.

The International CES 2013 takes place between January 8th and the 11th, but the news will start flowing a few days before and our series of preview articles starts today. We'll be working harder than ever to bring you the best news coverage live from Las Vegas -- unfiltered and unadulterated, just like always.

Read More | 0 Comments

This Engadget Podcast comes to you cold: that is to say it's notably un-Heater'd, allowing the remaining hosts to tak a dispassionate look at some of the hottest new computers to hit the shelves running this week. Let's do this.

Hosts: Tim Stevens, Dana Wollman
Guest: Ben Gilbert
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Music: Orbital - Never

01:55 - Engadget's New York City meetup wrap-up!
03:20 - Tim Cook confirms one line of Macs will be exclusively US-manufactured in 2013
11:55 - T-Mobile and Apple sign agreement to launch products in 2013
22:30 - Apple iMac review (2012)
34:35 - Samsung ATIV Smart PC review (AT&T LTE)
39:50 - ASUS Zenbook Prime review (UX51Vz): a blazing 15-inch Ultrabook with a lofty price
43:05 - Instagram pulls Cards support from Twitter, favors its own web experience
45:00 - Netflix signs licensing agreement with Disney, will be exclusive US subscription service for first-run films beginning in 2016
47:38 - Eric Schmidt: 'it's extremely curious' that Apple hasn't yet sued Google






Hear the podcast

Download the podcast

LISTEN (MP3)
LISTEN (AAC)

Contact the podcast

Follow us on Twitter: @danawollman @realbengilbert
Send your questions to @tim_stevens.
Leave us a voicemail: (423) 438-3005 (GADGET-3005)
E-mail us: podcast at engadget dot com

0 Comments