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Ask Engadget: best consumer / prosumer camcorder out now?
We know you’ve got questions, and if you’re brave enough to ask the world for answers, here’s the outlet to do so. This week’s Ask Engadget question is coming to us from Chris, who just happened upon some cheddar and can’t wait to buy some sort of recording device.
Sony to recall half a million ‘too hot to handle’ VAIO laptops
Well, this isn’t good.
iPhone 4 antenna problems were predicted on June 10 by Danish professor
Well, this must be one of the most epic “I told you so” moments in the history of consumer electronics. Professor Gert Fr?lund Pedersen, an antenna expert over at Denmark’s Aalborg University, managed to get his concerns about the iPhone 4′s external antennae on the record a cool two weeks before the phone was even released. In an interview on June 10, the Danish brainbox explained that he wasn’t impressed by Steve Jobs’ promises of better reception, describing external antennas as “old news,” and suggested that contact with fleshlings could result in undesirable consequences to the handset’s reception: “The human tissue will in any event have an inhibitory effect on the antenna.
HP buys Melodeo, brings Nutsie music streaming service into the fold
Well, it looks like HP’s year of acquisitions isn’t showing any signs of letting up just yet — it’s now reportedly bought Melodeo, the parent company of the Nutsie music streaming service, for between $30 and $35 million. While the service doesn’t exactly have the name recognition of the now Apple-owned Lala , Nutsie’s mobile applications (for iPhone, Android and Blackberry) have reportedly been downloaded more than two million times, and the company already has partnerships with a range of carriers and cellphone companies including Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint. As TechCrunch reports, however, what might be most interesting is what the company has in store for Nutsie 3.0 — it will apparently let you copy your entire iTunes library to the cloud and access any song on demand (it currently offers a more limited service that only offers a shuffle mode).
Chrysler’s Peapod NEV killed in bankruptcy
Chrysler’s Peapod neighborhood electric vehicle always seemed like more of an experiment than a profit-maker, and unfortunately idealism isn’t too popular with creditors — according to Edmunds , the Peapod was canceled in March as part of the company’s bankruptcy proceedings. Apparently adapting the Peapod’s button-cute design to federal safety standards was overly expensive, so Chrysler and new part-owner Fiat will convert the existing Fiat 500 to electric operation. The Peapod design and other assets are up for sale, so there’s a chance someone else will pick up the pieces, and Peapod designer Peter Arnell may yet build a full-speed EV in the future, so we’ll keep our eyes open.
San Francisco passes cellphone radiation law to help, confuse consumers
Oh San Francisco, you and your progressive ways. The city just passed a law — a first in the US — requiring retailers to post the Specific Absorption Rates (aka SAR, the rate at which at which energy is absorbed by the body) in no less than 11-point font right next to any cellphone being sold.
