We’ve suspected for some time now that post AT&T-Mobile merger, Magenta’s FlexPay plan would be on its way out sooner rather than later. The payment plan was originally discontinued for new customers back in July, but now it appears the company will completely phase out FlexPay as early as December — forcing loyalists from the old regime to choose an alternate plan and clearing the way for postpaid and Monthly 4G alternatives. According to the leaked memo intercepted by TmoNews, customers who migrate to Postpaid plans will be able to keep the same rates, migrate without signing a contract or paying fees — making the switch a little less painful. RIP FlexPay, you’ll be missed.

T-Mobile’s FlexPay plan to be eliminated as soon as December? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 24 Sep 2011 12:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There are already plenty of keyboard and mouse sharing solutions out there, but alas, most are not foolproof nor affordable enough for the average Joe. As such, we fell in love with j5 Create’s Wormhole KM Switch and Wormhole Station at Computex. The former, pictured above, is simply a cable sporting a USB dongle on each end; whereas the latter is an aluminum, externally powered expansion dock rod that comes with an intergrated KM switch, two USB 3.0 ports (which requires a USB 3.0 host for full potential, of course), a power button at the end, and card readers for microSD, SD, and MemoryStick.

After the one-click setup using the built-in installer, you can set your preferred method to toggle the keyboard and mouse switching: either by clicking the middle mouse button, by clicking a user-defined hot area on the screen, or by simply moving the cursor off one side of the screen. As you’ll see in our hands-on video after the break, the switching was seamless, and we had no problem with drag-and-drop or copy-and-paste across the two PCs. If either the Wormhole KM Switch or the Wormhole Station sounds like your kind of gadget, then keep an eye out for them at Fry’s soon for $29.99 (about $10 cheaper than IOGEAR’s USB Laptop KVM Switch) and $129, respectively. Additionally, there’ll also be a Mac-compatible KM Switch available next month for $39.99.

Continue reading j5 Creates a Wormhole, enables keyboard and mouse sharing with just one cable

j5 Creates a Wormhole, enables keyboard and mouse sharing with just one cable originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Jun 2011 13:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Is a robot really a robot if it refuses to act like a robot? That’s the question we were asking ourselves after stumbling upon this DIY machine, which may have just seized the crown for World’s Bitchiest Bot. Every time you flip the on switch, this little gremlin will partially emerge from its box to turn itself off with a vicious, whip-like gesture normally reserved for snooze buttons. Continue to rub it the wrong way and the petulant ingrate will eventually scurry away from you and start spinning around frantically, before completely withdrawing the switch and shutting itself off. After that, it’ll probably spend a few hours sulking and listening to Elliott Smith in its room, but don’t worry — it’s just a phase. Video after the break.

Continue reading DIY robot is the brooding teenager you’ve always wanted to slap (video)

DIY robot is the brooding teenager you’ve always wanted to slap (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 May 2011 00:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Read this article:
Intel Light Peak Connector Tech to Eschew Fiber Optics for Copper in Initial Release

Sure, Verizon’s holding a press conference tomorrow, but unless they’ve got a secret LTE smartphone or tablet (we can only hope) we’ve got a fairly good idea what the company will say. We’re hearing Verizon will flip the switch on its LTE network on December 5th, unveil a pair of hot new USB modems to take advantage of those supposedly stellar speeds, and launch the SIM cards required to make LTE function in the first place. The gadgets include the LG VL600 thumbstick we’ve seen before, but also this marvelous-looking Pantech UML290 key, which has not only a slick swiveling case but another dual-jointed USB port beneath. We doubt we’re going to have any trouble getting this one plugged into even the slimmest of port-abhorring slimline computing machines. See where one of the SIM cards goes in the gallery below.

[Thanks, Anonymous and JT]

Verizon launching LTE on December 5th, two sexy 4G USB modems hitch a wild ride originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 20:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’ve yet to upgrade your iPad to iOS 4.2.1, and you’re head-over-heels with your orientation lock, you’ve got two options: upgrade and lose that functionality altogether, or upgrade / jailbreak and get it back. Naturally, we’d recommend the latter. In what can only be described as “so typically Apple,” the software engineers at Cupertino figured that they’d convert the perfectly acceptable orientation lock switch into a mute switch. We lamented this fact in our review of the update, but rather than Apple creating (non-fiddly) alternatives within its software, we’re left to look for a solution in the jailbreaker’s app store. NoMute has just emerged under the BigBoss repository in Cydia, promising to reclaim the switch you’ve already become accustomed to using. It’s available now for absolutely nothing, but users are encouraged to cast a wicked glare in Steve’s direction as the download ensues.

NoMute reclaims iPad orientation lock in iOS 4.2, but only if you jailbreak originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Nov 2010 09:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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An iPhone bug already seen when Australia switched between Daylight Savings Time and Standard Time a few weeks ago has now hit Europe. Twitter is alight with reports of recurring iPhone alarms going off an hour later than usual. So even though the iOS clock changed correctly over the weekend, the alarm is still locked to Daylight Savings Time. Thing is, according to a ZDNet Australia report from more than three weeks ago, Apple acknowledged the bug with a promise to fix it with a software update. So why wasn’t it rolled out in time to avoid this mess in Europe? Let’s see if Apple fixes it when North America makes the switch on November 7th.

[Thanks, David O.]

iPhone DST bug causing alarms to fail across Europe originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Nov 2010 02:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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