Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Your 2 hourly digest for Engadget

Engadget
Engadget
Skytex announces Gemini and Protos: ICS tablets that sound like X-Men
Jul 3rd 2012, 10:58

Skytext announces Gemini and Protos ICS tablets with names like XMen

Last time we saw Skytex, it was serving up a warm slice of Windows 7 on its tablets. Now, it's back with a pair of Androids, one under each arm. The Skypad Protos ($279) is 9.7 inches of Ice Cream Sandwich, while the Skypad Gemini ($179) measures in at just 7. Both slates run on 1.2GHz Cortex A8 silicon, shacked-up with a Mali 400 GPU. Other internals include 8GB storage, and 1GB or RAM, HDMI and a microSD card slot for expansion (up to 32GB). The larger Protos has an IPS screen, and a pair of cameras (5- and 2-megapixels) while the smaller Gemini just has the one (2-megapixel). It's not all about what's inside those box these days, as both also come with 5GB of cloud storage, showing these slates know what's on trend right now. With competition getting intense at the cheaper end of the scale, though, is there enough to get your credit card out when they start shipping this month?

Continue reading Skytex announces Gemini and Protos: ICS tablets that sound like X-Men

Skytex announces Gemini and Protos: ICS tablets that sound like X-Men originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 Jul 2012 06:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Cisco backs down over right to see your internet history
Jul 3rd 2012, 10:27

Cisco backs down over right to see your internet history

Got any spare sympathy for Cisco? The company just can't catch a break with its various hardware schemes, and now it's getting aggro from an unexpected direction: users of its generally reliable Linksys routers. Owners of E2700, E3500 and E4500 models recently discovered that their router login credentials stopped working following an automatic firmware update, and instead they were asked to sign up to the new Cisco Connect Cloud platform to regain access. If they sought to avoid this by rebooting the router, they reportedly lost control over their advanced settings, which led to a sense of being cajoled.

To make matters worse, the Connect Cloud service came with a supplemental privacy policy that explicitly allowed Cisco to peek at a user's "internet history," "traffic" and "other related information." If Cisco discovered you had used your router for "pornographic or offensive purposes" or to violate "intellectual property rights," it reserved the right to shut down your cloud account and effectively cut you off from your router. Now, much as the world needs moral stalwarts, in this instance Cisco appears to have backed down and removed the offending paragraph, but not before alienating a bunch of loyal Linksys customers like ExtremeTech's Joel Hruska at the source link below.

Cisco backs down over right to see your internet history originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 Jul 2012 06:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Slashdot  |  sourceExtremeTech  | Email this | Comments

Google Places for iOS becomes Google+ Local, adds voice search in the process
Jul 3rd 2012, 09:53

Google Places for iOS becomes Google Local, gets voice search in the bargain

It was only a matter of time before Google+ Local started spreading to the mobile space, and iOS looks to be its first landing spot through a rebadge of the Google Places app. Apart from achieving harmony with Google's rapidly swelling social universe and letting us check Zagat ratings for nearby establishments, the update slips in the same voice search that Google has had in its primary Google Search app: we won't have to search for the best Vietnamese cuisine with that archaic keyboard. The refresh makes it similarly easy to find locations that aren't directly close by, and there's a tighter login process to keep that bar search history away from prying eyes. If you're a social adventurer with an iPhone or iPod touch, Google just gave your expeditions a shot in the arm.

[Thanks, Bono]

Google Places for iOS becomes Google+ Local, adds voice search in the process originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 Jul 2012 05:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceApp Store  | Email this | Comments

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.

If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions