Apple opens up repair program for some MacBook hard drives

This one goes back a few years, but Apple has now finally, officially confirmed a hard drive problem that has plagued some MacBooks, and it’s announced a repair program that will allow you to get your hard drive replaced even if the MacBook is out of warranty. The specific models covered are both black and white MacBooks from 2006 and 2007 with 1.83GHz, 2GHz, or 2.16GHz processors, and either 60GB, 80GB, 100GB, 120GB, or 160GB hard drives. As you may recall, the hard drive issue in question is a pretty nasty one that can leave your data unrecoverable, but it seems like Apple will only replace your drive once you’re stuck with the flashing question mark on boot-up — it’s just recommending that people backup their data in the meantime. Hit up the link below for the complete details.

Apple opens up repair program for some MacBook hard drives originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kingston’s latest SSDNow V+ reviewed in 128GB flavor

Kingston’s SSDNow V+ series is hitting the streets, and bit-tech.net has put it, and its new Toshiba controller, through the ringer. That new silicon offers TRIM support in Windows 7, intended to remove any lingering fears of performance degradation, and this drive has been graced with 128MB of internal cache to conquer random read and write performance. In general the review finds that the controller does its job and TRIM’d deletes don’t have a major affect on performance, but there still was some degradation after 1TB worth of writes and deletes. Beyond that the included cache didn’t seem to help random I/O performance, and in general the drive doesn’t exactly dominate the benchmarks. So, if you’ve recently upgraded to something else and were feeling a bit of buyers’ remorse, you’re safe — for now.

Kingston’s latest SSDNow V+ reviewed in 128GB flavor originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gobandit GPS HD action camcorder captures your exploits, top speed (video)

Regardless of how sharp the footage captured from your most recent extreme endeavor looks, chances are it won’t seem as fast as it felt at the time. Soon, though, you’ll have some hard proof to back up your tall tales with the waterproof gobandit GPS HD. It has an integrated GPS module that logs your position as you film with it, enabling you to view your course on a map and, most interestingly, apply some overlays to the resulting footage, showing your current speed, top speed, and altitude. Video is captured at a maximum of 720p30, though 5 megapixel stills can be grabbed automatically at two or five second intervals. 2GB of memory is built into the cam, but SDHC support means up to 32GB of footage from the side of your lid. Thrill-seekers can get their pre-order on now ahead of an April release, but with an MSRP of £299.99 ($470) we’ll probably stick with our GoPros, our ContourHDs, and our wild claims about triple-digit speeds. Extreme teaser video after the break.

[Thanks, Tobias]

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Gobandit GPS HD action camcorder captures your exploits, top speed (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 21:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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UK police drone grounded for flying without a license

UK police drone grounded for flying without a license originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Analog Tweet-O-Meter shows city-specific Twitter activity the old fashioned way

Never mind keeping track of how many gold medals Bermuda, Cayman Islands and Monaco rack up during the Winter Olympics; the real nerds are watching to see exactly how many tweets are being pushed out per minute from a smattering of cities around the world. CASA’s Tweet-O-Meter has been running on a webpage for awhile now, but frankly, the novelty tends to wear quickly. These, however, are far more tempting to the retinas. What you’re looking at above are a few analog Tweet-O-Meters, which do exactly what you think they do: showcase the amount of tweets that are leaving New York, London and Paris at any given time by moving a needle within a conventional gauge. Head on past the break for a video, and be sure to express your reaction on your favorite up-and-coming social networking site.

[Thanks, Dr. Andrew]

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Analog Tweet-O-Meter shows city-specific Twitter activity the old fashioned way originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 04:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SPB Mobile Shell 5.0 debuts with Android, Symbian support

We’d already caught a glimpse of it on Toshiba’s new TG02 handset, but SPB Software has now gotten fully official with SPB Mobile Shell 5.0, which will be available to consumers and OEMs alike. The big news with this one is that SPB has added support for both Android and Symbian in addition to Windows Mobile, all of which will be able to take advantage of a spiffy new 3D engine and a new “natural interaction engine” that apparently has full multitouch support. Other additions include some 3D widgets, and an array of tightly integrated social networking features, including Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. Still no indication of a price or release date for the consumer version, unfortunately, nor is there any official word on any other phones that will come with it pre-installed.

[Thanks, Srle]

SPB Mobile Shell 5.0 debuts with Android, Symbian support originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fisher-Price iXL is a tweener that no kid needs convincing of

“But mommy…it’s like your Kindle and Daddy’s iPod Touch! I want one NOW!” Yep, that’s how the discovery of Fisher Price’s iXL is going to go down in the Toys R US aisle, like it or not. In what we can only compare to a shrunken Entourage Edge, the $80 clamshell device is meant for 3-to-6 year olds that are just learning to read and write, and it packs a color, resistive touchscreen and a plastic stylus. While some tots may complain about the not-very-finger-friendly display or the rather chunky and heavy design, Fisher gets that it’s all about the software. In addition to the “app based” home screen (which we were told was modeled after the iPhone or iPad), the iXL comes preloaded with games, an animated story book and other applications — additional children’s e-books will be available for download from its online store when the device goes on sale this summer. Using a Mac or a PC, parents can also sideload those illustrated titles, as well as pictures and MP3s using the onboard USB port. Well, you heard the kids… they want it now!

Fisher-Price iXL is a tweener that no kid needs convincing of originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 10:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Twenty-four telecom operators unite to form Wholesale Applications Community

Big doings over in Barcelona today. Twenty-four telecom operators, with the support of the GSMA and three major hardware manufacturers, have formally announced they will come together to form the Wholesale Applications Community. Essentially, the goal of the alliance will be to create a viable, cohesive and open industry platform for mobile app developers. Members of the Community will include AT&T, China Mobile, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, NTT DoCoMo, Orange, TeliaSonera, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, and Vodafone among others, and they’ll be supported in their endeavors by LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson. The total customers of the group is about 3 billion, giving WAC (our name) some considerable — albeit theoretical for the moment — power. The group plans to work on coming up with a standard for working across platforms over the next twelve months. WAC’s website just went live a bit ago — there’s a link to it below — and the full press release is after the break.

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Twenty-four telecom operators unite to form Wholesale Applications Community originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 05:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Barbie’s slides into the cubical, becomes a computer software engineer

It only took 126 careers — the first one being a soulless teen model — for Barbie to land a job as a computer software engineer. All we know now is she has a dual monitor set up and a picture of Ken at her cubicle. Oh, and she uses Linux on the world’s smallest netbook.

Barbie’s slides into the cubical, becomes a computer software engineer originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 14 Feb 2010 23:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sir Howard Stringer and friends show off Sony Ericsson’s new handsets

A gaggle of higher-ups from Sony Ericsson stuck around after the conclusion of today’s event to show off the X10 mini, X10 mini pro, and Vivaz pro in person, and we seriously can’t stress this enough: the mini twins are small. Well, either that, or the men holding them were gigantic — but we’re pretty sure it’s the former since we got around to spending some quality time with the mini pro and continued to be blown away by its diminutive stature. Rikko Sakaguchi (pictured left) had two colors of the mini plus a Vivaz pro, while Lennard Hoornik was rockin’ the original X10 plus a mini pro. We’ll be honest: the company’s platform strategy is as meandering and muddled as ever, but with designs like this in the pipeline, they’ll definitely be demanding their fair share of attention over the next few months. See a bunch more shots of the execs handling the phones in the gallery below.

Sir Howard Stringer and friends show off Sony Ericsson’s new handsets originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 14 Feb 2010 16:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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