There’s no shortage of new features in Ice Cream Sandwich, but one sure to attract a lot of attention is Face Unlock. That, as you can probably surmise, lets you unlock your phone through facial recognition instead of a password — hardly a new idea, but a first for Google. Unfortunately, the demo didn’t go quite as planned during the keynote — locking out Google’s Matias Duarte — but we’ll be sure to give it a go ourselves and report back.

Android Ice Cream Sandwich adds Face Unlock feature originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Oct 2011 22:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Today, Windows Division prexy Steven Sinofsky treated Build 2011 attendees to a walkthrough of the various tweaks, subtle or otherwise, Microsoft’s made to Windows 8. Staying true to its roots, the new OS implements the familiar keyboard commands users have become accustomed to over the years — you know, like CMD and Ctrl+F. And as for its update to Internet Explorer, MS has imbued its tenth iteration with the ability to switch between the much-hyped Metro-style UI and plain old desktop view — all according to your whimsy. Of course, Redmond’s instituted other sweeping changes across the platform, and you can check some of the highlights after the break.

Continue reading Windows 8 details: new features, UI enhancements and everything in between

Windows 8 details: new features, UI enhancements and everything in between originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Sep 2011 15:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony may have yet to officially announce its upcoming Alpha A77 camera, but thanks to a nomination page ahead of this month’s Good Design Expo, we can finally get a glimpse of what this imager will pack internally. Indeed, the A77 will come with a 24 megapixel Exmor CMOS sensor, along with a translucent mirror that enables full-time continuous autofocus. Additionally, with the help of its new BIONZ engine, we have a “world’s fastest” burst rate of 12 frames per second, which goes nicely alongside the camera’s 60p and 24p video recording modes (presumably in AVCHD). What also caught our eyes was this “world’s first” XGA OLED electronic viewfinder, while the A55 and A35 come with just LCD versions. Well, only time will tell whether this camera lives up to expectations — by the sound of it, we’ll probably be able to play with one within a few weeks from now.

[Thanks, pontsuku.]

Unreleased Sony Alpha A77 already nominated for Good Design Award, reveals several new features originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Aug 2011 05:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Okay, it’s not as titillating as the time Microsoft added conversation view to Hotmail, but the outfit did just freshen up its email service with a handful of helpful tweaks. Topping the list is an assortment of shortcuts, including the ability to right click a message to reply, reply all, or forward (you could already do this for other things, like marking something as unread). Hotmail also now responds to some additional Gmail- and Yahoo Mail-specific keyboard shortcuts, such as “#” for deleting messages — a Gmail trick. And the company is none too subtle about admitting it wants the service to be user-friendly for folks if — or when — they switch from Google or Yahoo. Rounding out the batch of improvements, you get an easy way to recover deleted emails, an improved back button, HTML5-fueled speed improvements, and the option of changing your default font signature — something we can’t believe Hotmail has been missing until now. Hit the source link for the full spill, and find a short demo video after the break.

Continue reading Microsoft updates Hotmail with more signature options, Gmail and Yahoo Mail keyboard shortcuts

Microsoft updates Hotmail with more signature options, Gmail and Yahoo Mail keyboard shortcuts originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Jun 2011 11:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Six months ago, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek couldn’t tell us when his subscription streaming music service might launch in the United States, and that won’t change today, but apparently there’s not much left keeping $10 unlimited monthly music away. All Things D reports that Spotify has signed Universal Music Group to a US distribution deal, the third of the four largest labels to agree, and anonymous sources say the last remaining holdout, Warner Music, may also soon cave. Mind you, one of Spotify’s most intriguing new features just got shown up by iTunes in the Cloud, but when it comes to extra competition and consumer choice, we won’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

Spotify signs UMG, only Warner stands in the way of US invasion? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 12 Jun 2011 09:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft has some Mango-flavored updates in store for its Windows Phone operating system, and we’re going to be there live to see whether they’re really ripe. Really juicy. Steve Ballmer has promised over 500 new features in this next major release of the OS and we can’t wait to hear him list them all out. One by one. In excruciating detail. Bookmark this page right here and come on back tomorrow at the times below to join in the fun.

04:00 – Hawaii
07:00 – Pacific
08:00 – Mountain
09:00 – Central
10:00 – Eastern
15:00 – London
16:00 – Paris
18:00 – Moscow
22:00 – Perth
22:00 – Shenzhen
23:00 – Tokyo
00:00 – Sydney (May 25th)

Microsoft’s Windows Phone VIP preview happens tomorrow, liveblog happens here! originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 May 2011 20:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple announced Mac OS X Lion with considerable fanfare at its Back to the Mac event last October, and now it’s dropped the first developer preview on the world — giving us a chance to sample some of the big cat’s new features and UI concepts. We installed the dev build on one of our MacBook Pros and used it over the weekend, and while we won’t be able to see any huge changes in day-to-day workflow until our favorite apps are updated to take advantage of Lion, we did see plenty of interesting system-level features and additions — and yes, iOS’s influence is all over the place. Read on for a full breakdown of what’s new!

Continue reading Mac OS X Lion hands-on preview

Mac OS X Lion hands-on preview originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Feb 2011 19:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple just dropped iOS 4.3 beta 2 on world, and with it a big sad bomb: those nifty iPad multitasking gestures we discovered in beta 1 won’t be enabled when 4.3 ships to customers. Instead, Cupertino says it’s “providing this preview to gather input on how these gestures work with your apps,” Oh well — there’s always 4.4, or even iOS 5, we suppose. We’re on the lookout for other new features, but for now let us know what else you spot in comments, okay?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

iOS 4.3 beta 2 released, iPad multitasking gestures just a developer preview originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Jan 2011 17:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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See the article here:
BlackBerry Desktop Manager for Mac touches version 2.0.0

Details of Palm’s Enyo framework have surfaced, confirming that it will replace Mojo and is built to support different designs beyond the usual touchscreen and physical keyboard devices that we’ve seen, meaning that it will support fully-touchscreen phones and tablets, possibly the PalmPad. Aside from that, the JavaScript code underneath should be able to run faster and will be more modular to accelerate to response to bugs and add in new features faster. The design is also built to work closer with Ares, Palm’s web-based development tool. With rumors of the Palm Mansion, which is either a large smartphone or a small tablet, going around, this is welcome news.

Read the original post:
Palm’s Enyo Framework To Spur Tablet And High-end Phone App Development