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Acer ships AMD-powered Revo RL100 HTPC to Americans: $499 and up

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Acer actually popped out its Revo RL100 media center right around six months ago, but for those unable to make the trip to Asia, today’s the day for getting jovial. Said player is now shipping to the US of A, hailed as a “digital hub” and outfitted with a dual-mode wireless touchpad / keyboard as well as the company’s own clear.fi streaming solution. A pair of models will be available — one with Blu-ray and one without — with the entire box measuring just 1- x 11.81- x 7.09-inches. As expected, an HDMI port ‘round back will handle the bulk of the data transmissions, and an internal NVIDIA Ion graphics chip will be responsible for 1080p video playback. Within, you’ll get a 1.3GHz AMD Athlon II K325 CPU, 750GB SATA hard drive, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, three USB 2.0 ports, a multi-card reader, 802.11b/g/n WiFi and an Ethernet socket. Windows 7 Home Premium will be the OS of choice, and it can be yours for the tidy sum of $499.99 (or $569.99 if you’re looking to add BD capabilities).

Continue reading Acer ships AMD-powered Revo RL100 HTPC to Americans: $499 and up

Acer ships AMD-powered Revo RL100 HTPC to Americans: $499 and up originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Jun 2011 00:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Player 1 Start: The Wii U Vs. The Playstation Vita (Fly Or Die)

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Nintendo and Sony just announced the much-anticipated Wii U and the Playstation Vita last week at E3 and, well, we were pretty impressed. The Wii U, Nintendo’s new console, is a real step up for the brand as it adds HD game play and a unique new controller that incorporates third-screen features with Nintendo’s own paradigm-shifting controller style. The Vita is a little less exciting to console gamers as it’s a handheld, but it is definitely an improvement over the old PSP and PSP Go and looks to be a step in the right direction for the ailing Sony.

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The Engineer Guy Explains What Really Goes On Inside Hard Drives

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Ever wondered how a hard drive works? I mean, we know it has something to do with frikkin’ magnets, but how do they work? Luckily, the Engineer Guy is here to explain, and also to help you spend five minutes not working on a Friday afternoon. Learn about arms, actuators, heads and Lorentz forces. And […]

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Everything That Matters in This World by The Internetz, Feat. Queen [Video]

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Have you ever wondered what it would be like to see everything worth seeing on YouTube in one video? Well thanks to Bill Doty, we can all experience that feeling, and it is glorious. More »

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Wi-Fi Sync developer says he was 'fairly shocked' by Apple's similar Wi-Fi Sync feature

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Wirelessly syncing a smartphone is hardly a new idea, but the developer of the Wi-Fi Sync app for iOS devices apparently thinks Apple’s similar new feature in iOS 5 — also called Wi-Fi Sync —is just a little too close to his for comfort. As you may recall, Greg Hughes submitted his “Wi-Fi Sync” app to Apple for App Store approval back in May of 2010 and was ultimately rejected, although not before he says he was told that Apple’s engineers were “impressed” by his effort — he then made the app available in the Cydia store, where it’s been downloaded more than 50,000 times at $10 a pop. That was apparently working out just fine for him until this week, when he says he was “fairly shocked” to see Apple announce a Wi-Fi Sync feature of its own in iOS 5, complete with a familiar looking icon. Hughes went on to tell The Register that he was “surprised” by the similarities, but he hasn’t offered any indication that he plans to push the issue any further. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Wi-Fi Sync developer says he was ‘fairly shocked’ by Apple’s similar Wi-Fi Sync feature originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Jun 2011 22:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Groupon Was ?The Single Worst Decision I Have Ever Made As A Business Owner?

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“How much is your average sale here?” “It’s about five dollars.” That one question told me Jessie Burke had been sold an unsuitable product. Her average sale was $5 and her Groupon rep had convinced her to run a Groupon for $13. I already knew how the story ended. Jessie had posted about her experience running a Groupon for Posies Cafe on her blog. She calls running a Groupon “the single worst decision I have ever made as a business owner thus far.” You can read the story in Jessie’s own words. I wanted to drill deeper and get at the why. I sat with her for an extended conversation. This is only one business owner’s experience, but it is a story worth retelling.

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Apple gives in to publishers, changes policy on in-app subscription prices

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It looks like Apple has decided to make some pretty major changes to its App Store Review Guidelines — and, in particular, to its controversial in-app subscription policy. Under the new guidelines, publishers will be able to offer subscriptions to content outside of the App Store, as long as their apps don’t include a “buy” button that directs users away from Apple’s marketplace. Under the previous version of the policy, which was set to go into effect at the end of this month, app owners offering subscriptions outside of App Store were required to sell equivalent, in-app services at the “same price or less than it is offered outside the app,” while giving a 30 percent cut to Cupertino. Now, however, they can price these in-app subscriptions as they see fit, or circumvent the system altogether, by exclusively selling them outside of their apps. Apple will still receive 30 percent of the revenue generated from in-app subscriptions, but won’t get any money from purchases made outside of its domain. Theoretically, then, publishers would be able to offer in-app subscriptions at higher prices, in order to offset Apple’s share. This is how the new rules are worded:

11.13 Apps that link to external mechanisms for purchases or subscriptions to be used in the app, such as a “buy” button that goes to a web site to purchase a digital book, will be rejected 11.14 Apps can read or play approved content (specifically magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, and video) that is subscribed to or purchased outside of the app, as long as there is no button or external link in the app to purchase the approved content. Apple will not receive any portion of the revenues for approved content that is subscribed to or purchased outside of the app.

It’s important to note, though, that Apple hasn’t made any changes to its policy on sharing user information. Publishers had been lobbying to gain access to subscribers’ credit card data and other personal information, which they see as critical to applying a TV Everywhere model to online publishing. With today’s concessions, though, these demands may become less insistent.

Apple gives in to publishers, changes policy on in-app subscription prices originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Jun 2011 08:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google Maps Navigation to get offline mode? Garmin and TomTom on notice

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Dutch tech site All About Phones claims that Google Maps Navigation will get a true offline mode later this summer. In December the Android app received an update that cached routes and the surrounding areas, but without a data connection you still couldn’t enter a new destination. A source inside the Dutch telco industry said that Goog would removing the requirement for coverage — an obvious next step for the nav tool, especially with Ovi Maps bringing its turn-by-turn prowess to WP7. The move is also bound to be another thorn in the side of standalone GPS makers like Garmin and TomTom. After all, it’s tough to compete with free.

Google Maps Navigation to get offline mode? Garmin and TomTom on notice originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Jun 2011 13:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Couldn?t Get A Ticket To The Black Eyed Peas In Central Park? We?ll Be Streaming It Here Live

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On Thursday night, 60,000 people will fill up Central Park to watch the Black Eyed Peas in concert. Tickets are sold out, but you can watch it here streamed live in glorious 360-degree vision at 7PM ET. The Black Eyed Peas first used the 360-degree cameras in their iPhone app that puts you inside a music video, but this will be the first time they will try it live. The concert will be filmed and streamed using 360-degree cameras from Immersive Media. This will be the first time a major music concert is streamed live in 360-degrees. The cameras used are an advanced version of what Google uses to capture its Street View, except this shoots video instead of still photos. They use 11 cameras built into a sphere, shooting simultaneously, and stitching together all the different shots, encoding it, and streaming it with a 2-second latency. Viewers will be able to pan around and control the angle.

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Watching a Robin Williams Movie Makes You Cleverer Than Watching a Quantum Electronics Talk [Science]

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Who would have guessed that watching a washed-up comedian do his thang would encourage more creativity and cleverness than a few minutes of watching something intelligent? That’s the findings from Northwestern University, which studied how people react to a puzzle in different moods. More »

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Apple Thumbs Its Nose at Carriers By Launching iMessage Without Warning [Apple]

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So, it looks like Apple may have unleashed its iMesssage app without telling its carrier partners. If true, Apple just thumbed its nose at AT&T, Verizon and others. You see, the iMessage app lets iOS users send messages to each other without using their SMS plan. If you have enough iOS users in your circle of friends, you can easily ditch your text messaging plan. [Via Daring Fireball and Business Insider] More »

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Find Out if Your Sony Pictures Subscriber Information Was Leaked Right Here [Psa]

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Sony’s been hacked again, with over a million SonyPictures.com accounts lifted, containing vital personal information like home addresses. Is yours included? We’ve got an exclusive, easy database to check. Just enter your email address, and see if you’ve been compromised: More »

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Gigabyte M2432 laptop with GeForce GT 440 graphics card dock hands-on

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Gigabyte’s no stranger in the field of dockable computing devices, and its M2432 laptop shown off at Computex is yet another example proving just this. Let’s focus on the actual machine first: here we have a Core i5-2410M (2.3GHz to 2.9GHz) rig packing a 14-inch 1,366 x 768 LCD, Intel HD Graphics 3000, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, 500GB 7200rpm hard drive, and a DVD burner that can be swapped with a secondary battery. You’ll also find 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, HDMI-out, VGA-out, 1.3 megapixel webcam, an eSATA/USB 2.0 combo port, and two USB 3.0 ports on this Windows 7 Home Premium laptop. All of this weigh 1.8kg (3.97lbs). There’s a bit of a surprise inside the expansion dock: by laying the M2432 on top of it, not only are you adding six extra USB 2.0 ports plus DVI-out and another HDMI-out, but you’re also kicking up its graphics power with the built-in desktop-class NVIDIA GeForce GT 440 with 1GB video RAM. So essentially, the dock doubles as an external graphics card. No word on prices or availability just yet, so stay tuned.

Gigabyte M2432 laptop with GeForce GT 440 graphics card dock hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Jun 2011 03:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Will Time Capsule Pack an A4/A5 Processor and Run iOS? [Unconfirmed]

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It’s been rumored that an updated Time Capsule model will cache and distribute downloads from the app store. Now sources tell Ars Technica that Time Capsule will have an A4 or A5 processor and run iOS, like AppleTV. [Ars Technica] More »

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Why Daily Deals Are Becoming A Raw Deal

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In the wake of Groupon’s IPO filing, it’s worth looking at the fundamentals of the offer. Growth numbers to date have been phenomenal. But is it a business that can last? We love daily deals for a simple reason: the deals have been outstanding. If revenue growth in the first Internet bubble was about selling a dollar for 50 cents, growth in the daily deals business has been about getting other people to sell their dollars for 50 cents and charging them 25 cents for the privilege. The deals have been embarrassingly good. I used the first Google Offers deal at Floyd’s Coffee yesterday. For $3, I got $10 worth of food. Let me tell you, it’s really hard to spend $10 in a coffee shop. I got an order of red beans and rice, a Mexican Coke, a doughnut and a chocolate chip cookie. The total came to $9.95. That’s a great deal for me, but it’s unsustainable for the business.

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