Sony brings TomTom to US-bound XNV-770BT and XNV-660BT in-dash head units

We heard back at IFA that Sony was making the absolutely brilliant move of incorporating a market leading navigational system into its Xplod line of in-dash A/V units, and now that love is being shipped across the Atlantic (or the Pacific, if you're taking the scenic route) in the form of the XNV-770BT and XNV-660BT. The beautiful Sony / TomTom partnership will soon be assisting clueless American motorists when both of the previously mentioned units ship in November, with the 770BT offering a 7-inch capacitive touchscreen and the 660BT stepping down to a 6.1-incher. They'll both feature rear USB ports for iDevice connections, support for multi-channel audio playback and most importantly, pre-loaded maps of US and Canadian roadways. TomTom claims that its maps offer more than one million more miles of roads than other GPS brands in America alone, and buyers will also be treated to familiar TomTom extras like IQ Routes, Advanced Lane Guidance, MapShare and six million POIs. We still wish Garmin would've received the nod here, but it's certainly better than some white label system -- check 'em soon for $1,300 and $1,000 in order of mention.

Continue reading Sony brings TomTom to US-bound XNV-770BT and XNV-660BT in-dash head units

Sony brings TomTom to US-bound XNV-770BT and XNV-660BT in-dash head units originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Sep 2010 12:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nobody Is Going to Steal This Car [Pranks]

That lock may seem a little bit too big, but I know some parts of New York in which you will need to use it. A reader sent us another image: More »

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10 Reasons You Need An iPad For College

So you’ve heard about the Apple iPad and you’re heading back to school soon. Chances are you’re probably wondering if it’s a smart choice to invest your money towards purchasing an iPad for college. In this article we’ll help explain a few of the many benefits there are for college students who own, or will [...]

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Does A Programmable Wireless Xbox 360 Controller Count As Cheating? [Control Issues]

Datel's completely unauthorized TurboFire2 wireless Xbox 360 controller not only directly connects to the Xbox 360 without a dongle, you can connect it to your PC to apply "custom controller enhancements." Microsoft should sue! Oh wait. More »

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Meego flashed to Nexus One, Dell Streak, HTC Desire

Filed under: Linux, Mobile

Got an HTC Desire, Nexus One, or Dell Streak burning a hole in your pocket? Wish there was something you could run on it besides Android? Probably not, but for those of you out there who just can't stand running stock anything on your devices, why not take the plunge and install Meego?

Anybody else think that the Dell Streak pictured on the Meego Wiki page could use a serious screen cleaning?

[via Slashgear]

Meego flashed to Nexus One, Dell Streak, HTC Desire originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 27 Sep 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sprint Epic 4G update coming tomorrow, should fix 3G upload issues

So, you aren't crazy after all. Feels good, right? After nearly a month of bickering from Epic 4G owners, a Sprint forum administrator has finally come forward with glowing news about this so-called 3G upload issue: a fix is coming, and soon. If you missed out on the story, users were finding that their 3G uploads were being capped at around 150kbps, and a ginormous thread over at the carrier's message board has grown as the problem has persisted. Just today, though, one dshoem01 has provided the following snippet:

"Good news - an update will be released tomorrow 9/30. It will be rolled out over a 4 day period so not everyone will get it on day 1. I will have the standard MR information (fixes included, rollout schedule, etc) available tomorrow morning and will post it in a new featured thread."

Note that this doesn't specifically say that the 3G caps will be fixed here, but why else post this newsflash in the very thread that surrounds the issue? Rest assured, our fingers are firmly crossed.

[Thanks, Bradley]

Sprint Epic 4G update coming tomorrow, should fix 3G upload issues originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Sep 2010 14:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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DropMocks is a beautifully simple, HTML5-powered photo sharing site

Filed under: Photo

I'm a big fan of Gmail's HTML5-powered drag-and-drop attachment feature, and I've been waiting to see it pop up in other web apps. Thanks to Ryan Wagner over at CyberNet, I discovered DropMocks -- an amazingly simple little photo sharing site which offers the same functionality.

Open your pictures folder, select a few images, and drag them onto a DropMocks tab in a supported browser (Firefox 4 or Chrome 6 or 7). Once the upload is complete, you'll receive a short(ish) URL to share with your friends.

Multiple images are supported as well. Drag in 5 or 6 favorites, and DropMocks attaches them all to the same URL.

Clicking the previous or next image (or clicking a filename in the navigation box) causes it to slide into focus.

No account is required to use DropMocks, but if you do want to keep tabs on multiple uploads all you need to do is sign in with your Google account. It's also totally free to use, at least for the time being.

DropMocks is about as easy as it gets when it comes to sharing photos between your desktop and the web, and it's well worth adding to your bookmarks. It's certainly earned a place in mine.

DropMocks is a beautifully simple, HTML5-powered photo sharing site originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 29 Sep 2010 09:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Final 7 Racing For The Cup At TechCrunch Disrupt

Over the past two days, we've seen 25 startups (and 2 from the Startup Alley) launch on stage at our TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco. Our panel of experts questioned and voted on each. And now we're down to the final seven in the race to accept the TechCrunch Disrupt Cup from Soluto, the winner of our last Disrupt conference last May. Without further ado, the final seven startups in the running:

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Grab the auto-updating Bing Dynamic theme for Windows 7, enjoy some pretty pictures

Filed under: Fun, Photo, Windows

Originally launched back in August (yes, we missed it!), the Bing Dynamic theme pack is a quick and easy way to get the latest and greatest Bing photos pasted all over your Windows 7 desktop wallpaper.

Four new images were added to the rotation today, but I honestly have no idea how many images are actually part of the pack. Apparently two new images are added every week -- it uses an RSS feed to discover new images! -- and there's nothing better than turning your computer on to be randomly surprised by a new, beautiful landscape, right?

Grab the auto-updating Bing Dynamic theme for Windows 7, enjoy some pretty pictures originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 24 Sep 2010 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nintendo announces Wii Remote Plus with built-in MotionPlus tracking

As a follow-up to this morning's announcement, we now have some shots of Nintendo's colorful new Wiimote. Still no extra details, but what we do have is confirmation from Nintendo that they are indeed building the Wii Remote Plus, which combines a Wii Remote with its Wii MotionPlus gyro add-on into one Wii Remote-sized package. We spotted the controller in a FlingSmash bundle last week, the telltale "smile" text below the Wii logo, and now all we really need is a price and a launch date. Hopefully we'll be getting all of these colors when this lands in the US as well, but since this is a Japanese presentation that Nintendo is making this announcement, we can't be too sure.

Nintendo announces Wii Remote Plus with built-in MotionPlus tracking originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Sep 2010 16:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lint is a challenging, frustrating platformer - Time-Waster

Filed under: Fun, Games, Time-Wasters

As a platformer, Lint is fairly thin on the graphics. The protagonist is a tiny ball that rolls around and the whole thing works as one huge level, which you traverse screen-by-screen.

There is often more than one way to cross a given screen. Navigation is great; it's very fast and fluid. You can jump high, double jump (i.e., jump again when you're already airborne for an added boost), and scale walls easily. The controls are quite intuitive and easy to master, which makes the game more enjoyable.

The tricky part in Lint is the timing. It's quite simple at the start, but pretty soon, you need to accurately time your jumps. In the screenshot, that dark shape on the right is a hammer that pounds down repeatedly, and it will kill you if you touch it (even if you just glance it from the side while jumping). You need to jump down at exactly the right instant. If you die you'll start again at the left side of the screen -- so you need to spend a moment to get to where the hammer is. It's can be quite frustrating, indeed.

Another nice thing about this game is that you get endless lives, and respawning is instant (it doesn't pause even for a second, you just instantly reappear after you die). Give Lint a shot, but prepare to be frustrated!

Lint is a challenging, frustrating platformer - Time-Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 24 Sep 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Blio for Windows review, now available for download

Last week we brought you news that KNF-B was prepping for a September 28 launch of its Blio e-reader software, and according to our date books, the time has come! The free PC software (Windows XP, Vista and 7 are all supported) can be downloaded now at the source link below; the iPhone app should be hitting the App Store very soon, however. We've been using the program for the last few days to, you know, "read," so before heading over to download it yourself you'll naturally want to hit the break for our impressions of the unique reading application.

Gallery: Blio for Windows preview

Continue reading Blio for Windows review, now available for download

Blio for Windows review, now available for download originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Sep 2010 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feds Seek Sweeping Power to Hunt Bad Guys on the Web

The White House is working with several federal law-enforcement agencies to draft legislation that would make it possible to monitor all Internet communication services, including social networking sites, peer-to-peer messaging and encrypted email systems, according to a New York Times report.

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BlackBerry Style 9670 spotted in Sprint's database, yet another YouTube clip

Any lingering doubts about this thing's existence? Scatter 'em. The BlackBerry Style 9670 has just shown up in what appears to be a Sprint database leak, and given that it just received FCC approval earlier in the month, we'd say this is all lining up nicely for a near-term release on one of America's most well-known CDMA carriers. As the story goes, these database slips usually happen just weeks before the official public release of a phone, and we're guessing that both RIM and Sprint would love to have this out and about before the holidays. Head on past the break for yet another look -- assuming you need one, that is.

Continue reading BlackBerry Style 9670 spotted in Sprint's database, yet another YouTube clip

BlackBerry Style 9670 spotted in Sprint's database, yet another YouTube clip originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Sep 2010 23:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AOL Acquires TechCrunch [Techcrunch]

The rumors have proven true: AOL is snapping up Michael Arrington's TechCrunch family of sites. The site will share a stable with AOL's other major tech property, Engadget, along with TUAW, Switched, and DownloadSquad. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed, but Business Insider has a source claiming the site went for $25 million. More »

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