It’s easy to forget about the TG01 nowadays, but bear in mind that Toshiba’s WinMo beast from last year was the first production phone in the world to use Qualcomm Snapdragon silicon. Oh, and it was under 10mm thick and featured a 4.1-inch WVGA display at a time when such specs were basically science fiction — so you’ve got to give credit where credit’s due. Anyhow, the phone’s far from obsolete — apart from that little WinMo issue, that is, so the good folks on xda-developers have started the time-honored tradition of transplanting Android onto it. Important stuff still isn’t working (the lack of calling capability is a big one for us, personally) but we’re guessing it’s just a matter of time before we see a solid, usable build in the wild now. HD2, watch your back!

Toshiba TG01 slowly, surely gets hacked to run Android originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 27 Nov 2010 03:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Original post by Chris Ziegler

3.5mm auxiliary inputs and stereo Bluetooth used to be good enough — but that was before Apple announced AirPlay a few months ago. Now, everything else sounds like someone is stabbing you in the ears; the world looks black and white, and food no longer has any taste. AirPlay, save us! Taiwanese firm PhotoFast is playing the superhero role here today with the AP1000, a little black module with WiFi that accepts incoming AirPlay streams and routes them through to your car’s stereo. From the demo video, it’s obvious that you’re probably going to want to get a professional car audio installer involved to make this happen — and before you ask, no, it won’t do video — but if you’ve got an Apple logo sticker on your rear window, we bet this is exactly how you want to roll. Follow the break to see the AP1000 get surgically implanted in a Mercedes.

Continue reading PhotoFast’s AP1000 takes AirPlay support to your car

PhotoFast’s AP1000 takes AirPlay support to your car originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Nov 2010 23:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Original post by Chris Ziegler

Hot on the heels of the release of a utility for bypassing the Windows Marketplace and sideloading your own apps, Microsoft has released a brief statement on the state of the Windows Phone 7 hacking community… and we wouldn’t exactly say they’re too worked up about it:

“We anticipated that people would attempt to unlock the phones and explore the underlying operating system. We encourage people to use their Windows Phone as supplied by the manufacturer to ensure the best possible user experience. Attempting to unlock a device could void the warranty, disable phone functionality, interrupt access to Windows Phone 7 services or render the phone permanently unusable.”

So yeah, we’d say this is more or less a boilerplate quote: “we figured you’d hack this thing, we’d prefer it if you didn’t, and here’s a laundry list of things that could (but probably won’t) happen if you fail to heed our meek warning.” Over the long term, we wouldn’t be surprised if Redmond ended up playing an Apple-style cat-and-mouse game with these folks, breaking hacks with firmware updates only to have them re-hacked within a few days’ time. Considering the lack of spitfire in the statement here, we don’t see them coming down too hard unless legitimate, card-carrying, fee-paying developers throw a fit — and granted, ChevronWP7 could be a step on the road to piracy, so that could very well happen.

Microsoft: we figured people would hack Windows Phone 7, would suggest that they don’t originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Nov 2010 16:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Original post by Chris Ziegler

Firstly, let’s be absolutely clear that we don’t know this is Nokia’s X7, but given the polished, entertainment-centric design (it has four speakers, apparently), we’re inclined to believe that it’s the real deal. Its screen looks to be the same 4-inch affair as on Nokia’s E7, it’s running the latest Symbian OS (formerly known as Symbian^3), and pictures of its rear reveal an 8 megapixel camera. The last detail of import, naturally, is the reassurance that comes from knowing that this supposed X7 can crunch through Need for Speed quite nicely. Jump past the break to see it on video.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Update: The video’s been thrown into private mode pretty quickly. Let us know if you find any copies of it floating about the interwebs.

Update 2: Thanks to the lightning-fast gang at Mobile Bulgaria, we’ve got a new copy of the video up past the break. We’ve also spotted that this handset has four homescreens rather than the three available on currently released Symbian handsets. A newer version of the software? Might well be.

Continue reading Nokia X7-00 spotted feeding its Need for Speed in the wild (video)

Nokia X7-00 spotted feeding its Need for Speed in the wild (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Nov 2010 08:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Original post by Vlad Savov

NTT DoCoMo recently launched the Samsung Galaxy S in the Japanese market and now we’ve come to discover that it’s chosen a very forceful personality to represent the product to its discerning audience. Darth “roundabound” Vader has been starring in the carrier’s latest round of “always with you” ads, wherein he serves as a (sort of) human representation of the phone, thus lending some anthropomorphic qualities to the cold slab of technology awaiting you in the shops. This whole outlandish idea really shouldn’t work, but somehow it does — we want a little Vader in our lives too now. Video after the break.

Continue reading Luke, I am your smartphone (video)

Luke, I am your smartphone (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Nov 2010 07:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Original post by Vlad Savov

Want a GSM Droid 2? Or how about a Droid 2 Global without CDMA and a slower processor? However you want to look at it, Motorola’s Milestone 2 QWERTY slider is now shipping SIM-free in the UK — and that’s pretty much the only way you’re going to get it, because at this point, none of the UK’s major carriers are offering it directly. Expansys is retailing it for £379.99 ($599), which isn’t a particularly stellar deal when you consider a Droid 2 Global is $559.99 off-contract from Verizon… but then again, not too many Verizon stores around London, if you know what we mean.

Motorola Milestone 2 starts shipping in UK originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Fri, 26 Nov 2010 04:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Original post by Chris Ziegler

Hey guys, have you ever heard of Black Friday? It’s the day after Thanksgiving where everybody gets up at the crack of dawn to go stand in line at big box retailers so they can get the cheapest deals in town. Like it or not, it’s one of the greatest things about living in the United States of America, where making a competitive sport out of purchasing Christmas gifts for your loved ones is only better in reality than it would be on reality television (producers, you know where to find us). Anyway, we’re rounding up some of the best deals we can find, and we’re going to put them all, right here, in this one, glorious post. We’ll keep updating this bad boy as long as you’re here to read about the delicious deals. Because, as you know, we love you. Feel free to suggest other sales in the comments, and join us after the break for all the deals.

Continue reading Black Friday 2010 deals roundup: ultimate mega edition (updated regularly)

Black Friday 2010 deals roundup: ultimate mega edition (updated regularly) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Nov 2010 02:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Original post by Laura June

Researchers from security firm SecTheory have described a handful of flaws in webOS, saying that the platform — by its very nature — is more prone to these sorts of things than its major competitors because Palm puts web technologies like JavaScript closer to webOS’ core where system functions are readily accessible. At least one of the flaws, involving a data field in the Contacts app that can be exploited to run arbitrary code, has already been fixed in webOS 2.0 — but the others are apparently still open, including a cross-site scripting problem, some sort of floating-point overflow issue, and a denial-of-service vector. We imagine Palm will get these all patched up sooner or later, but as SecTheory’s guys point out, how long is it until mobile malware becomes a PC-sized problem?

Security experts unearth unpleasant flaws in webOS originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Nov 2010 01:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Original post by Chris Ziegler