Not only does Windows Mobile sucks at kick ball – they aren’t even fun. But since they’ve been best friends with Coach HTC for twelve years, they’ve not only got a spot in the starting lineup but they’re batting cleanup as the Designated Hitter. Being World Series time (Go Yankees!), that’s what I thought of when I heard HTC CEO’s comments about the HTC Touch HD2 and Windows Mobile: HTC may be updating its brand, but it’s sticking by its longtime partner, Microsoft ( MSFT – news – people ).

It seems like the future, as it’s unveiled in prototypes, always seems much more exciting than the one we end up inheriting. Between Segway-esque unicycles , braille labelmakers , and Bluetooth-enabled gowns , the road ahead looks pretty sweet (if only in concept). Among the various ideas floated by Ericsson as part of its Life in 2020 project, the company has unveiled something called the Spider Computer.

Hey, HTC — we’re onto you. We know you’re a little upset that the lower-end Droid Eris isn’t getting much attention now that the DROID is all over Verizon’s marketing agenda, but it’s not like we don’t feel your pain. For those interested in spending a full Benjamin less on their next Android handset (on Big Red, anyway), the Droid Eris looks to offer that very solution, and now a few more sneak peeks have shown that a 5 megapixel camera (with a video record mode) is gracing the rear.

We’ve already heard some talk that ASUS might possibly be launching an e-book reader before the end of the year that may or may not be the world’s cheapest , and it looks like some unnamed execs at the company have now dropped a few more details on the matter. While it’s all still far from official, CENS reports that ASUS’ e-book reader could hit both American and European carriers by March, 2010, and that it’ll include both 3G and WiMAX versions (plus WiFi, naturally), but presumably not a version with both 3G and WiMAX.

When we were kids, we assumed that in the future everything would be powered by tiny nuclear fusion reactors: automobiles, toothbrushes, time machines (apparently we read a lot of sci-fi from the 1950s). The truth, as usual, is more mundane than all that: some of the more promising advances we’ve seen in green energy has been kinetic, taking the movement of automobiles or the tides and converting it into electricity. Pavegen, for example, can be set in public walkways to generate as much as 2.1 watts of electricity per hour from the footsteps of grizzled pedestrians.

Filed under: Motorcycle, ReviewsAprilia Dorsoduro 750 – Click above for high-res image gallery We were more than a little excited to throw a leg over the new Aprilia Dorsoduro right after unloading it from the back of our trailer. After all, the last time we rode a supermoto bike from the Italian motorcycle manufacturer (SXV 550) we had a blast backing the bike into corners and lofting the front wheel at will.

Filed under: Coupe, Performance, Europe, PorscheThe Brits at AutoExpress (essentially The Sun of car-related sites) have rendered Porsche’s supposed 928 successor, and as expected, their report is rife with speculation, innuendo and conjecture.According to AE, the big sports car would basically be a two-door Panamera positioned above the 911 because it hauls more luggage. Put another way, this reborn 928 would be an actual grand tourer and compete with the likes of other GTs.

Filed under: Performance, Etc., CadillacIf you’re looking for live updates from the Cadillac CTS-V Challenge, a variety of spectators are tweeting from the Monticello Motor Club. Get the lap times and more information by clicking here to follow along on Twitter.UPDATE: Top lap times after the jump. We’ll continue to update with the best times if you’re Twitter-averseUPDATE 2: Lutz pulls off a 2:58:072 lap on his first runUPDATE 3: Lutz’ best time is 2:56:321.

Filed under: Concept Cars, Geneva Motor Show, Japan, Crossover, Mitsubishi, DieselMitsubishi Compact Crossover – Click above for high-res image It’s been two years since Mitsubishi took the wraps off its Concept-cX crossover at the 2007 Frankfurt Motor Show, but before we see the production version at next year’s Geneva Motor Show, Mitsubishi has released a teaser sketch of its all-new compact CUV.Aimed at competing with segment stalwarts like the Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4, the Compact Crossover

Filed under: Aftermarket, SEMA Show, Coupe, Performance, Chevrolet2010 Yenko Camaro Prototype – Click above for high-res image gallery Remember when we said that the Yenko brand would be revived with new models based on the 2010 Chevrolet Camaro? Well, we won’t have long to wait to see the real thing. General Marketing Capital Incorporated (GMCI), the proud new owners of the legendary Yenko name and brand, have announced they will debut the first prototype of the 2010 Yenko Camaro at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas next week.

Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala is introduced today, I might have to try it out soon.  I don’t think there’s too many upgrades from the last version but according to Engadget , the Ubuntu features: featuring a faster graphical boot sequence (no more scary text scrolls), a revamped audio framework that improves sound control across multiple applications, and a new Software Center that visually simplifies the Add/Remove Applications tool.

All those smiles in the Microsoft camp after receiving record-breaking Amazon pre-orders and endless rave reviews for the Windows 7 may be fading a wee bit since the Ubuntu 9.10, known as the Karmic Koala, (that needs a bit of explanation) has finally been released. The OS hasn’t been put to test by all but it is already being told that the desktop version is slightly sad as you cannot run multiple drives with the current code base.

Samsung have created a new colour e-paper display that measures 10.1 inches. Right now it’s just a prototype and it has a contrast ratio of just 10:1 making it not too clear at all. The screen also only has the ability to reproduce 7% of the NTSC colours. Yes, it could be a while before it goes in to production but it is a great step in the right direction. Samsung aim to have the colour e-paper available in about 2 years time which will be about a year after PVI create colour displays for both Kindles and Sony Readers.

There’s just something about Apple that makes people go crazy whenever the company’s lawyers do even the simplest things — whether it’s filing routine trademark oppositions , getting patents granted , or, uh, defending allegations that the company is in league with the Mafia , Steve and friends just seem to inspire some strong reactions whenever they end up in the courtroom.

soupsoup : david-noel : Brutal: Garmin and TomTom stock after Google’s announcement of free navigation. Engadget: The Game Has Changed Read more about Google’s announcement here .

Cooking tablets and recipe readers have been pretty limited (and not very good) in the past — but this one looks extremely promising. Called the Qooq, the 10.2-incher boasts — in addition to a bunch of recipes, of course — complete meal prep videos, instructions and advice on choosing ingredients, shopping lists, meal planners — all which can be updated monthly via a subscription service. Specwise, we’re looking at a glass touchscreen, Ethernet and USB ports, an SD slot, WiFi, and a built-in stand.

In the best sort of tradition, Best Buy Mobile has gone for a repeat of its Palm Pre offering and is offering the $299 Motorola DROID at $199 thanks to the automation of a mail-in rebate you’d have to actually “mail in” if you were to purchase the handset straight from the carrier. Best Buy also seems to be the first place to offer pre-orders of the phone, so if you’re worried about a sell out or just generally averse to affixing stamps to things, Best Buy appears to have you covered.

Here comes Xerox , huffing and puffing its way back from obscurity with what it believes is a revolutionary new advancement. Its brand new silver ink and related printing technologies promise to make it possible for the lazy or breadboard handicapped among us to print their own circuit boards atop plastics, film, and even textiles. The wizardry of it lies in the company’s development of a metallic ink with a melting point lower than that of plastics, which allows the former to be laid (in liquid form) atop the latter.

VIZIO sure ends up in a whole lot of legal battles , but one way or another, it always seems to find its way out in the long run. Such is the case once again today, as the current LCD TV king has apparently said all the right things to Sony. If you’ll recall, Sony (along with a slew of others) filed suit against Vizio awhile back over patent licensing concerns, but now it seems the two have reached a mutual agreement to use each other’s technologies without bickering over who owns what.

Posted October 29th, 2009 by admin Categories: Iphone Accessories, Iphone ReviewsComments: Add a comment  Sify Nokia vs. Apple: the in-depth analysis engadget (blog) Contrary to what you may have heard, Nokia isn’t after billions of dollars, and it’s not trying to stop sales of the iPhone forever. … Nokia suit against Apple seen as battle of two Goliaths Apple Insider Apple will go to court against Nokia TECH.BLORGE.com Apple to Nokia: We’re Ready … InternetNews.com OS News

So of course things got a little wild last Thursday when Nokia announced it was suing Apple over ten patents related to GSM, UMTS (what you know as 3G) and WiFi — the pundit class immediately set upon the idea that the lawsuit was some …

There’s just something about Apple that makes people go crazy whenever the company’s lawyers do even the simplest things — whether it’s filing routine trademark oppositions , getting patents granted , or, uh, defending allegations that the company is in league with the Mafia , Steve and friends just seem to inspire a very different reaction when they end up in the courtroom.

Cooking tablets and recipe readers have been pretty limited (and not very good) in the past — but this one looks extremely promising. Called the Qooq, the 10.2-incher boasts — in addition to a bunch of recipes, of course — complete meal prep videos, instructions and advice on choosing ingredients, shopping lists, meal planners — all which can be updated monthly via a subscription service. Specwise, we’re looking at a glass touchscreen, Ethernet and USB ports, an SD slot, WiFi, and a built-in stand.

Nokia has released a new firmware 2.0 for N97 smartphone. It’s already available for free download from the Nokia Software Update website (http://www.nokia.com/softwareupdate) or via the menu on the phone. The new Nokia N97 software update 2.0, according to Nokia, provides a “soft” scroll with ‘flip scrolling’. Also available are “hot” keys for quick access [...] Related posts: Nokia N97 Mini Smartphone, new details There has appeared some details about the new Nokia N97…

In the best sort of tradition, Best Buy Mobile has gone for a repeat of its Palm Pre offering and is offering a $299 phone, the Motorola DROID , in this case, at $199 thanks to the automation of a mail-in rebate you’d have to actually “mail in” if you were to purchase the handset straight from the carrier. Best Buy also seems to be the first place to offer pre-orders of the phone, so if you’re worried about a sell out or just generally averse to affixing stamps to things, Best Buy appears to have you covered.

Here comes Xerox , huffing and puffing its way back from obscurity with what it believes is a revolutionary new advancement. Its brand new silver ink and related printing technologies promise to make it possible for the lazy or breadboard handicapped among us to print their own circuit boards atop plastics, film, and even textiles. The wizardry of it lies in the company’s development of a metallic ink with a melting point lower than that of plastics, which allows the former to be laid (in liquid form) atop the latter.

VIZIO sure ends up in a whole lot of legal battles , but one way or another, it always seems to find its way out in the long run. Such is the case once again today, as the current LCD TV king has apparently said all the right things to Sony. If you’ll recall, Sony (along with a slew of others) filed suit against Vizio awhile back over patent licensing concerns, but now it seems the two have reached a mutual agreement to use each other’s technologies without bickering over who owns what.

Well, Magellan doesn’t seem to be doing much talking about this one itself just yet, but Best Buy has a fresh listing for a new SE4 nav unit from the company, and it seems to be available right now. Better still, Best Buy also looks to have knocked a full $60 off the MSRP right of the bat, bringing it down to just $119.99. That’ll get you a 4.3-inch touchscreen, NAVTEQ maps of the 48 contiguous states, Hawaii and Puerto Rico, six million POIs, and text-to-speech and turn-by-turn voice prompts, but seemingly few other notable features to speak of — not even so much as a memory card slot or MP3 playback, if Best Buy’s listed specs are right.

His latest appearance is in this maple-stained electronic reader from Nokia called Storyplay. In these days of electronic ink and Kindle competitors, Espoo has taken something of a different tact here, designed to help kids and adults …

First came Cadillac (naturally), and now some of General Motors ‘ other remaining brands are finally scratching the WiFi itch. Beginning next month, Buick, Cadillac, GMC and Chevrolet dealers will all begin offering up Autonet Mobile ’s $499 WiFi router as a dealer-installed option, though it’s on you to pony up the $29 ( or more ) it takes to get said device online month in and month out.

Here comes Xerox , huffing and puffing its way back from obscurity with what it believes is a revolutionary new advancement. Its brand new silver ink and related printing technologies promise to make it possible for the lazy or breadboard handicapped among us to print their own circuit boards atop plastics, film, and even textiles. The wizardry of it lies in the company’s development of a metallic ink with a melting point lower than that of plastics, which allows the former to be laid (in liquid form) atop the latter.

VIZIO sure ends up in a whole lot of legal battles , but one way or another, it always seems to find its way out in the long run. Such is the case once again today, as the current LCD TV king has apparently said all the right things to Sony. If you’ll recall, Sony (along with a slew of others) filed suit against Vizio awhile back over patent licensing concerns, but now it seems the two have reached a mutual agreement to use each other’s technologies without bickering over who owns what.

HTC is working on an Android 2.0 update for the HTC Hero according to Engadget. Hero owners can lean back and not be too disappointed when a Droid owner shows them Android 2.0. The only open question is how long Hero owners will have to wait until the Andr…

  CDMA-based Motorola Droid got official yesterday but Motorola is already preparing its GSM counterpart. The folks at Vietnamese site, Tinhte managed to get their hands on the device and shot a preview video exposing its GSM SIM slot along with a brief walkthrough of the phone. The specs are mostly unchanged but the software is really lagging as it may not be the final build. [Via Engadget ] Share on:

Filed under: Verizon Wireless , Apple Remember how in grade school, you usually made fun of the people you had crushes on? Verizon — hot on the heels of some surgically strategic anti-iPhone marketing to promote its upcoming Android line — is singing a very different tune in the corporate boardroom, with CEO Ivan Seidenberg (who has a storied reputation for running his mouth) saying during the company’s earnings call today that the company “obviously would be interested at any point

Filed under: Handsets , LG , Verizon Wireless , EDGE , CDMA We’ve been able to confirm with a trusted source that LG’s Chocolate Touch for Verizon — which will end up being about as far from the sexy BL40 as possible, unfortunately — is slated for a November 5 launch. With the DROID and Droid Eris both launching in the same window, it’s going to be tough for this puppy to get a word in edgewise, even though it’s the latest model in a storied brand and really doesn’t compete on any level with Verizon’s Android devices.

Filed under: Handsets , RIM , Verizon Wireless Given the timing of Storm 2’s launch and the Motorola DROID ’s unveiling, you’d think Verizon had all but abandoned its touchscreen BlackBerry. But lo and behold, we do have a new television spot. “Who says lightning never strikes twice” — who said it ever struck the first time ? Video after the break. [Via Gear Diary ] Continue reading First Storm 2 ad huffs and puffs for attention (video) First Storm 2 ad huffs and puffs for attention (video) originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:17:00 EST.

Filed under: Handsets , Pantech , MVNOs Back in our day, the kiddies all ran around with Helios , VK Mobile looked like it could be the next Pantech , and “ Kickflip ” was a phone, not a skateboarding move. Okay, fine — we knew like one or two people that used Helio, VK Mobile never even made a dent in the US market, and skateboarding had a lock on kickflips long before the wireless industry did — and actually, that perfect storm of bad news may have ultimately led the once-promising MVNO to the sad situation we have here today under Virgin Mobile’s stewardship .

Filed under: Handsets , HTC , Verizon Wireless , EV-DO , CDMA , Android Officially, the Droid Eris launches on November 6. Okay, officially officially, we don’t know when it launches, because Verizon hasn’t even yet admitted that it exists — but we’ve got enough evidence built at this point to say with confidence that it’s hitting shelves in all sales channels that day.

Yesterday, we wrote about a new, free product from Google: Google Maps Navigation . Another free Google perpetual beta product, one might say; nothing to get overly excited about. Well, the first reviews and reactions are in, and it seems that this is one of those Google products that change the landscape of an entire industry. GPS turn-by-turn navigation has historically always been something you had to pay for .

Now here’s some yummy news to wrap our minds around. Samsung, a company with a manufacturing portfolio so wide that you wouldn’t be surprised to see it selling toothbrushes and perfume, clearly also wants a slice of that growing ebook market and has now unveiled a 10.1-inch color display with that purpose in mind.

A few days ago a rumour started going around about a new larger Nintendo DSi that was being created. Nintendo denied it, but now we heard that it actually is getting launched as the Nintendo DSi LL and will be priced at around $221 (conversion from Yen). The Nintendo DSi LL will ship on November 21 in Japan and will have a 4.2 inch screen. The extra sized screen does make the whole unit a little larger and thicker too at 21.2mm compared to the 18.9mm of the previous model.

Digital camera inventor Steve Sasson collects honorary phd, Economist award engadget (blog) Bill Gates has filled his spare time collecting knighthoods and Harvard degrees, and Steve Sasson — inventor of the first, and assuredly biggest, digital … and more »

If there’s one thing we know about geeks, it’s that they hate having nothing to do . Bill Gates has filled his spare time collecting knighthoods and Harvard degrees , and Steve Sasson — inventor of the first, and assuredly biggest, digital camera — is now following in his distinguished footsteps. Sasson perfected a microwave oven-sized 0.01 megapixel prototype while working for Kodak way back in 1975, and has now been awarded an honorary PhD for his troubles from the University of Rochester.

In the name of cultural and linguistic diversity, our loyal comrades over at the ICANN are about to approve availability of domain names in non-Latin alphabets. That’s right, Chinese and Japanese folks will finally be able to address their websites in their native tongue, as will fans of Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek or Hindi scripts.

In the name of cultural and linguistic diversity, our loyal comrades over at the ICANN are about to approve availability of domain names in non-Latin alphabets. That’s right, Chinese and Japanese folks will finally be able to address their websites in their native tongue, as will fans of Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek or Hindi scripts.

Yesterday, we wrote about a new, free product from Google: Google Maps Navigation . Another free Google perpetual beta product, one might say; nothing to get overly excited about. Well, the first reviews and reactions are in, and it seems that this is one of those Google products that change the landscape of an entire industry. GPS turn-by-turn navigation has historically always been something you had to pay for .

Yesterday, we wrote about a new, free product from Google: Google Maps Navigation . Another free Google perpetual beta product, one might say; nothing to get overly excited about. Well, the first reviews and reactions are in, and it seems that this is one of those Google products that change the landscape of an entire industry. GPS turn-by-turn navigation has historically always been something you had to pay for .

Oh how the mighty have fallen. Nintendo just announced that its interim net profit was cut by more than half to ¥69.49 billion (about $770 million), from ¥144.83 billion last year at this time — figures that won’t be helped by the cheaper Wii price tag announced at the end of September. Speaking of which, Nintendo sold only 5.75 million Wii consoles from April to September ( down 43% from last year ) and cut its full year sales forecast for the April 09 to March 2010 period to 20 million units, down from an expected 26 million.

He is no less than a kid doing all things childish. He’s cute, can run as fast as a little kid, and even jump and land with grace. He is ROPID, the new robot from Japan. The new humanoid robot comes with talent, and responds to voice commands. Created by Tomotaka Takahashi, the man behind Panasonic’s Evolta robots, ROPID is the first among bots with a personality. And, interestingly, the 38-cm tall, 1600-g heavy robot has the capability of performing a few new tricks too, which the earlier bots of his era never do.

Olympus’ E-P1 micro four thirds camera only hit the market a few months ago, but already it seems as if a successor is inching closer to release. A peek at the outfit’s official Chinese website shows a panel and link for a “new” E-P2 camera, though it seems as if the page it’s listed on isn’t quite complete. Still, we’re guessing there’s a reason of some sort it’s listed, but we’re still struggling to find the patience required to see this whole thing through.

HTC is working to bring the Eclair to its Hero smartphone. However, it won’t happen overnight, as they need to make significant modifications on the Sense UI. Here’s what they said: “Yes, we are working on an Eclair update for the HTC Hero. Because Eclair is a significantly enhanced release, it will require some time to update Sense for this new version of the Android OS.

Our friend Mari at the official Motorola Blog just got back from checking out the 3D demo at Cable-Tec and was able to dig up a few extra details in addition to sharing her impressions. Overall she said the circular polarized and active shutter demos both “looked good” but each was driven by a different set-top-box so it was hard to do a fair a to b comparison. This also makes us continue to wonder how compatible these two 3D display technologies are — we suspect they’re compatible and that this was just to prove that both IPTV and QAM worked as a delivery methods.

The nettop might not be the most riveting piece of machinery out there, but ASRock ’s hoping to generate at least a small amount of buzz by outfitting its next trio with NVIDIA’s Ion graphics technology. Reportedly, the Ion 330HT, Ion 330Pro and Ion 330HT-BD will all ship with a dual-core 1.6GHz Atom 330 processor, up to 4GB of DDR2 RAM, 7.1 channel audio, gigabit Ethernet, HDMI / VGA outputs, six USB 2.0 sockets and a powered eSATA port.

The crux of AT&T’s recent complaint to the FCC regarding Google Voice was that Google — not being subject to the common carrier rules that help facilitate fair, open telephone networks — was blocking customers from accessing numbers managed by rural carriers that charged higher connection fees, thereby giving it a leg up on its Old Guard competition by saving cash in ways AT&T and others are legally barred from doing.

The nettop might not be the most riveting piece of machinery out there, but ASRock ’s hoping to generate at least a small amount of buzz by outfitting its next trio with NVIDIA’s Ion graphics technology. Reportedly, the Ion 330HT, Ion 330Pro and Ion 330HT-BD will all ship with a dual-core 1.6GHz Atom 330 processor, up to 4GB of DDR2 RAM, 7.1 channel audio, gigabit Ethernet, HDMI / VGA outputs, six USB 2.0 sockets and a powered eSATA port.

Given the timing of Storm 2’s launch and the Motorola DROID ’s unveiling, you’d think Verizon had all but abandoned its touchscreen BlackBerry. But lo and behold, we do have a new television spot. “Who says lightning never strikes twice” — who said it ever struck the first time ? Video after the break. [Via Gear Diary ] Continue reading First Storm 2 ad huffs and puffs for attention (video) First Storm 2 ad huffs and puffs for attention (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:17:00 EST.

The nettop might not be the most riveting piece of machinery out there, but ASRock ’s hoping to generate at least a small amount of buzz by outfitting its next trio with NVIDIA’s Ion graphics technology. Reportedly, the Ion 330HT, Ion 330Pro and Ion 330HT-BD will all ship with a dual-core 1.6GHz Atom 330 processor, up to 4GB of DDR2 RAM, 7.1 channel audio, gigabit Ethernet, HDMI / VGA outputs, six USB 2.0 sockets and a powered eSATA port.

Given the timing of Storm 2’s launch and the Motorola DROID ’s unveiling, you’d think Verizon had all but abandoned its touchscreen BlackBerry. But lo and behold, we do have a new television spot. “Who says lightning never strikes twice” — who said it ever struck the first time ? Video after the break. [Via Gear Diary ] Continue reading First Storm 2 ad huffs and puffs for attention (video) First Storm 2 ad huffs and puffs for attention (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:17:00 EST.

Given the timing of Storm 2’s launch and the Motorola DROID ’s unveiling, you’d think Verizon had all but abandoned its touchscreen BlackBerry. But lo and behold, we do have a new television spot. “Who says lightning never strikes twice” — who said it ever struck the first time ? Video after the break. [Via Gear Diary ] Continue reading First Storm 2 ad huffs and puffs for attention (video) First Storm 2 ad huffs and puffs for attention (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:17:00 EST.

If you’re not already familiar with Peek , it’s a company making phone-factor handhelds that aren’t actually phones: for about $15 a month they’ll get you a device with a QWERTY keyboard for checking email and/or sending SMS. Now apparently they have made and plan to market a Peek device that does one thing and one thing only: Twitter. There’s already an Amazon page for the TwitterPeek device, and a photo of the packaging has appeared courtesy of Peter Ha (pictured below).

2012 might not be the year life as we know it ends, but it will definitely be the year MSN Direct wireless data service ends. Microsoft announced via a  direct service announcement  that on January 1st, 2012 the service will be shut down. MSN Direct wirelessly provides live information to portable devices such as GPS navigators, watches, and even a weather displaying coffeemaker. If you are a MSN Direct user, you have 2 years to come to terms and resign yourself to not have it in your life anymore.

If you guys, like us, were hoping that the upcoming HTC Desire aka Droid Eris will be as good as or even better than the Motorola Droid, well, we’ve got sad news for you. Word is that it will only run on a 528MHz Qualcomm processor and Android 1.5. It’s not exactly what we were hoping for, but on the bright side, we also hear that it will only retail for just $99. The Droid Eris will probably be marketed as a mid-level device.

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Anyone with an existing Android device and a nasty case of DROID envy today might want to hold off before switching devices, emptying the bank account, and possibly switching carriers in the process, because HTC’s got a little bit of information here to end our day on a high note. Here’s the full quote: “Yes, we are working on an Eclair update for the HTC Hero. Because Eclair is a significantly enhanced release, it will require some time to update Sense for this new version of the Android OS.

Anyone with an existing Android device and a nasty case of DROID envy today might want to hold off before switching devices, emptying the bank account, and possibly switching carriers in the process, because HTC’s got a little bit of information here to end our day on a high note. Here’s the full quote: “Yes, we are working on an Eclair update for the HTC Hero. Because Eclair is a significantly enhanced release, it will require some time to update Sense for this new version of the Android OS.

digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/gadgets/How_to_hack_your_own_DROID_dock_with_magnets_and_cardboard’; You know what’s magical? Magnets. They’re so magical, in fact, that Motorola decided to use them in its new DROID car and “multimedia station” docks. Based on the positioning of a couple of magnets, the phone auto-loads the pertinent application — the multimedia station at least offers a charging plug, but the car dock is all stand.

We have seen some pretty interesting packaging on recent Android phones like the myTouch 3G bundle . One might expect the first Motorola Droid would feature some extravagant box to match the huge marketing campaign behind it. The guys over at Engadget claim to have a stack of Droids and they snapped a few photos of the official encasing. The box is nothing too exciting, but I guess it’s what inside the box that counts.

Remember that wacky zoom lens attachment for Nintendo’s DSi that was launched back in January? Amazingly, the product design team convinced everyone else in the company to move ahead with plans for production, and now it’s making its way out to cold, steel shelves. $24.99 buys you a hard shell case for your handheld along with a detachable optical zoom lens, which supposedly gets your sensor eight times closer to a given subject than Nintendo ever intended.

There was something of an outcry in the Xbox community when Microsoft announced that the upcoming Xbox 360 Dashboard Update would disable “unauthorized” memory units . Datel, a manufacturer of such devices, recently expressed its disappointment following the announcement. Fortunately, it looks like it takes more than that to keep a good company down, as Maxconsole.net reports that Datel intends to release a solution to the problem.

MTube, known most famously in these parts for its diminutive, WiMAX-sportin’ media player , seems to be putting some time and effort into Android as of late. While the MTube II hybrid Android / XP / tablet / netbook has certainly inspired its share of techno-lust, the Android MID hits us where it counts: in front of the television. The unholy union of a handheld and a multimedia controller, this guy lets you drag and drop video from the device to your TV, stream media to the TV or vice versa, and transfer files between multiple MTubes — all this in addition to the core functionality of the OS.

Mmhmm. We see precisely where this is going. First came Microsoft’s Xbox 360 , then came the PlayStation 3 . Now, the beast that is Netflix ’s “Watch Instantly” is coming to Nintendo’s Wii… or that’s the scuttlebutt, anyway. According to StreamingMedia , an undisclosed source close to the project has confirmed that the Big N is currently testing Netflix streaming on the Wii, and that it’ll be rolled out to the public “very soon.” Our initial reaction is to think that “very soon” will translate into “before the holidays,” though we all know that only time will tell.

MTube, known most famously in these parts for its diminutive, WiMAX-sportin’ media player , seems to be putting some time and effort into Android as of late. While the MTube II hybrid Android / XP / tablet / netbook has certainly inspired its share of techno-lust, the Android MID hits us where it counts: in front of the television. The unholy union of a handheld and a multimedia controller, this guy lets you drag and drop video from the device to your TV, stream media to the TV or vice versa, and transfer files between multiple MTubes — all this in addition to the core functionality of the OS.

Netflix is finally, officially about to hit the PS3 , leaving the Wii as the odd console out. Well, besides past hints and the whole “duh” aspect, StreamingMedia swears that the Wii is next , and has seen pitchas to prove it. Of course, those pictures can’t shared in order to protect they’re source, and what’s more, they’re hearing that “Nintendo originally planned to bring the Netflix service to the Wii before the end of this year” but they’re “also considering holding off on the Netflix service until they release their next generation Wii HD unit in early 2010.” So, uh, just keeping your breath on that one.