We’d kinda gotten used to the cold, hard reality of being teased with the promise of a Cupcake build on our retail G1s out in some distant, nondeterministic future that we may or may not be a part of — but all of a sudden, it looks like we might’ve vaulted right past Cupcake. We’ve now received multiple tips this evening suggesting that T-Mobile may have started distributing Android 1.5 as an over-the-air update to G1 owners, which would bring customizable widgets, messaging enhancements, virtual keyboards, and UI tweaks (among many other goodies) to an eager public. Anyone out there seeing this?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

P.S. – No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you: these are little green pastries baked by T-Mobile. “We heard people wanted cupcakes,” one representative told us.

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Android 1.5 already hitting T-Mobile G1s? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Apr 2009 02:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Original post by Chris Ziegler

Filed under: Handsets, Palm, webOS

As if we didn’t have enough Pre rumors to sort through, along comes TechCrunch and Mikey A. with some hard hitting stuff. According to the TC honcho, one of his “better sources” claims that Palm is “very far along” on a second webOS device which is smaller and slimmer than the Pre and may or may not have a physical keyboard. Apparently, this won’t be the iPhone 3G to the first-gen iPhone, rather a device which addresses “a different part of the market.” Details are still sketchy, but Arrington claims that the “Mini-Pre” (his name) will land sometime this year — possibly as soon as the Fall. This is all complete rumor right now, but Palm has previously said that there would be more than one webOS device, so the idea of another model in the oven doesn’t exactly come as a surprise. Stay tuned for further updates as we get them.

Palm launching smaller Pre-like device later this year says rumor-mill originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Wed, 29 Apr 2009 22:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Original post by Joshua Topolsky

Filed under: Handsets, Nokia, Symbian, GSM, EDGE, HSDPA, UMTS

The remainder of the N97′s juicy technical details have now been spilled on Nokia’s dev-oriented Forum Nokia site — previously, only cursory data had been posted here — and there are a couple notable bits that might be of concern to developers and would-be buyers alike. First off, the processor turns out to be a single-core ARM 11 putting along at 434MHz, just 65MHz faster than the 5800′s. It’s an improvement, yes, but when you consider that the competing i8910 from Samsung runs a higher-performance 600MHz ARM Cortex-A8, it throws a wet towel on the whole thing. Seeing how this is designed to be Nokia’s premier device for 2009, couldn’t they have gone for broke with the silicon? Secondly — this is something we already knew, but the spec sheet reminded (and delighted) us — the N97 supports charging via micro-USB, which the 5800 does not. Life’s about tradeoffs, isn’t it?

[Thanks, M.]

Nokia N97 specs fully revealed originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Wed, 29 Apr 2009 22:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Original post by Chris Ziegler

Filed under: Multimedia, ATT

There’s an awful lot of hubbub going around today about “new” terms in AT&T’s wireless contract agreement that seemingly forbid streaming video from your television to your PC or your phone — in other words, using a Slingbox — which would seem to be a rewrite of language added and pulled a few weeks ago. Here’s the problem: the terms aren’t new, and they don’t forbid video streaming. One of our editors has a month-old hard copy of AT&T’s terms that were mailed to him after agreeing to a new contract, and they’re exactly the same — word for word.

Furthermore, the language in question is this: “This means, by way of example only, that checking email, surfing the Internet, downloading legally acquired songs, and/or visiting corporate intranets is permitted, but downloading movies using P2P file sharing services, redirecting television signals for viewing on Personal Computers…” but the problem is that the examples given here are referring to earlier language. In that language, we see that AT&T is more concerned about “server devices or host computer applications” — that’s subsection (i), if you’re interested. In other words, AT&T’s trying to stop you from uploading a television stream using its connection, not downloading — and frankly, that sounds like the most painful operation ever conceived by man anyway, so we don’t think we’re going to get too many violators here.

In other words, rest easy; we still don’t know whether the now-overdue SlingPlayer for iPhone will ultimately be approved, but if it’s not, it shouldn’t be because of this.

[Thanks, Mike and Tieguy]

AT&T’s “new” video streaming terms are a non-issue originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Original post by Chris Ziegler

A crafty Guitar Hero DIY-er has built a little project with possibly startling implications. The includes ambient light sensors in front of the television which are triggered by the light of the notes on screen during Guitar Hero gameplay. The sensors trigger an Arduino to turn on LEDS on a nearby setup. In the video (which is after the break) you can see the entire thing in action — which maker Joe says can eventually lead to a rig which plays the game for you. The horror!