Well it looks like Netflix’s rumored UK launch was a lot more than just a rumor. Today, the company announced that it will indeed expand to the UK and Ireland “in early 2012,” promising to offer unlimited streaming on PCs, tablets and mobile devices at a “low monthly subscription price.” The company didn’t say what that price would be, nor did it offer any details on available content or supported devices, though more details will be announced closer to its launch. We’re also expecting to hear more from Netflix during its Q3 earnings conference call later today, when we should find out about the impact of its recent price hike and Qwikster turnaround. Whether or not its foray into the UK can loosen Lovefilm‘s grip on the domestic market, however, remains to be seen. Full PR after the break.

Continue reading Netflix to expand to UK, Ireland in ‘early 2012,’ looks to challenge Lovefilm

Netflix to expand to UK, Ireland in ‘early 2012,’ looks to challenge Lovefilm originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Oct 2011 03:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 WiFi hits the FCC in tabtastic glory

Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 WiFi hits the FCC in tabtastic glory originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 26 Sep 2011 20:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Voice recognition. Or, more specifically, speech recognition. It’s one of those technological wonders that we all seem to take for granted, while simultaneously throwing laughter its way for not being nearly sophisticated enough. Anyone that’s used an early generation Ford SYNC system — or pretty much any vehicular voice command system — knows exactly what we’re getting at. While processing speeds and user interfaces have made great strides in the past handful of years, voice recognition has managed to continually disappoint. It’s not that things aren’t improving, it’s just that they aren’t improving at the same rate as the hardware and software surrounding them. Even today, most new automobiles have to be spoken to loudly, pointedly and directly, and even then it’s a crapshoot as to whether or not your command will be recognized and acted upon.

For as much as we complain, we totally get it. Teaching a computer program how to recognize, understand and act upon the movement of human vocal chords is a Herculean task. Throw in nearly unlimited amounts of dialect and regional variation with even a single language, and it’s a wonder that programs such as Nuance’s Dragon Dictate even exist. Teaching a vehicle how to route calls, adjust volume and tweak a radio station is one thing, but having a program that turns actual speech into presentable documents requires a heightened level of accuracy. The newest build of Dragon Dictate for Mac (v2.5) allows users to seamlessly combine dictation with mouse and keyboard input in Microsoft Word 2011; it also gives yappers the ability to more finely control how Dragon formats text such as dates, times, numbers and addresses, while a free iOS app turns your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch into a wireless microphone. We recently pushed our preconceived notions about this stuff aside in order to spend a solid week relying on our voice instead of our fingertips — read on to see how it turned on.

Continue reading Nuance Dragon Dictate 2.5 for Mac review

Nuance Dragon Dictate 2.5 for Mac review originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Sep 2011 16:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hulu may not have a new owner yet, but it does have an international presence now that it launched a subscription service in Japan today. Hulu.jp brings “hundreds of premium feature films and thousands of episodes of popular TV shows” to bear, for

Apple’s facing yet another patent infringement lawsuit — this time, in Florida, where a company called Operating Systems Solutions (OSS) is taking aim at OS X’s fast booting operation. According to court documents, the plaintiff alleges that Cupertino’s function (most prominently displayed on this year’s MacBook Air refresh) violates at least one protected claim, which details a four-step method for speedy booting, and involves files like config.sys and autoexec.bat (seriously). Interestingly enough, the patent in question was originally granted to LG Electronics, back in 2002, but is currently owned by the little-known OSS. It’s still unclear whether or not LG has any involvement with the suit, but we’ll bring you the details as soon as they emerge. In the meantime, you can hit the coverage link below to dig in to the full complaint.

[Thanks, Lucian]

Apple faces infringement lawsuit over fast booting patent once owned by LG originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Aug 2011 10:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sure, it’s not unusual for gadgets to miss their shipping targets, suffering months-long delays as they jump through the varies hoops necessary before a release. Fortunately, ASUS can now check FCC approval off the Eee Pad Slider’s to do list, with the Honeycomb QWERTY tablet receiving a green light from the feds late last week. ASUS has already confirmed August availability in the UK (after previously promising a May ship date), so we can only hope that the same timeframe applies stateside as well. We’re also curious to see whether or not ASUS was able to use this unexpected delay to beef up supplies, so the Slide doesn’t suffer a hangup similar to that of its Transformer cousin. The company has yet to confirm Slider pricing in the U.S., though we imagine those details will be revealed along with a shipping date within the next few weeks.

ASUS Eee Pad SL101 slides through the FCC, still misses promised May release originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jul 2011 13:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There’s something bittersweet about watching a Symbian phone march through the FCC knowing that Nokia is slowly thinning the herd. This particular model, the N5, made its requisite Mr. Blurrycam debut last month and now we’ve got some details about what the glossy white exterior is hiding. You’ll find Bluetooth and WiFi radios inside, which isn’t surprising, as well as NFC for all the contactless purchasing your Finland-loving heart can handle. On the mobile broadband side of things, there’s support for the 850MHz, 1700MHz, and 1900MHz bands, which means it’ll work with either T-Mobile or AT&T. Besides price and release date, the big question on our minds is whether or not anyone will buy a Symbian phone knowing the platform is destined for extinction?

Nokia’s N5 makes Symbian-powered procession through the FCC originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Jul 2011 19:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sure, pills that survey the wild and nauseating gastric landscape have been done before — but how about one that can “swim” to input from a doctor-controlled joystick? A team of Japanese researchers have successfully achieved just that, with a newer, smaller, creepier version of a device they call “Mermaid.” Ariel jokes aside, the tadpole-shaped accessory has successfully self-propelled itself around different parts of its host’s digestive tract, all while dutifully phoning home with what we presume are pictures only a licensed physician could stomach. Whether or not the entire shindig was in high definition wasn’t specified, but let’s pretend your brain didn’t just wonder precisely that.

Japanese researchers develop ‘swimming’ endoscope, we suggest being nicer to your doctor originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Jun 2011 22:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Whether or not D-Wave has actually built a quantum computer is still a matter of debate (though, a study authored by the company and published in Nature claims to prove its success) but, whatever it is these crafty Canadians have created, you can order one now and start crunching qubits with abandon. The D-Wave One is the first commercially available quantum computer and, while its 128-qubit processor can only handle very specific tasks and is easily outperformed by traditional CPUs, it could represent a revolution in the field of supercomputing. As D-Wave scales up to thousands or tens-of-thousands of qubits, complex number theory problems and advanced cryptographic systems could crumble before the mighty power of quantum annealing… or at least give us faster Google searches. Just out of curiosity, we contacted D-Wave to see how much we’d have to cough up for a quantum desktop of our own, but we’ve yet to hear back.

D-Wave One claims mantle of first commercial quantum computer originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 May 2011 16:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola’s Atrix 4G may have some serious competition from a performance standpoint, but it’s still got one thing going for it over all of the other Android superphones hitting the streets these days: an optional laptop dock. ‘Course, it’s debatable whether or not said accessory is truly worth paying for, but the phone itself has certainly done its fair share of impressing. You’ve read our take on Motorola’s latest Android whizkid, and now it’s your turn to vent. If you had the power necessary to overhaul the Atrix 4G, how would you go about doing so? Would you nix Motoblur altogether? Toss the latest build on Android onboard? Make it available on more carriers? Handle the laptop dock differently? All (sane) opinions are welcome, and comments are open below.

How would you change Motorola’s Atrix 4G? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 30 Apr 2011 22:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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