Switched On: Big kicks, not all for starters

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

The end of last week's Switched On left doubt for the future of dedicated devices that tread on the turf of smartphones. After all, funding is key to every major new product initiative and, despite the vast fortunes of many Silicon Valley engineers that have been accumulated via IPOs and acquisitions, few wish to take on the risk of fronting a new consumer device themselves.(In 2007, the handheld FlipStart PC was hatched from FlipStart Labs, funded by Vulcan Ventures, the investment arm of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.)

Most venture capitalists abhor the device business; it is a rare device that makes it to the spotlight of startup debutante balls such as DEMO, TechCrunch Disrupt, or Launch. Even most of the 94 companies at CES' Eureka Park were not developing end-user devices Where, then, can a device entrepreneur go for funding and pick up some publicity in the process?

Continue reading Switched On: Big kicks, not all for starters

Switched On: Big kicks, not all for starters originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 29 Apr 2012 17:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Video: New details on bin Laden death (cbsnews)

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GameStop to offer Android tablet and smartphone trade-ins, give you another excuse to upgrade

If you've been looking for a reason to replace your aging device with something a tad more contemporary, your local pawnshop GameStop is happy to oblige. According to Gadget Experts, the games retailer is looking to bolster its Android offerings with Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Nexus S and Samsung Infuse 4G trade-ins at select GameStops this summer, expanding to all locations by the end of the year. Have a device that's not on this short list? Don't worry, Gadget Experts says the firm plans to fill out its touchable trade-in inventory with more devices in the future. So, what's a Galaxy Tab worth to gaming's favorite pawn star? We'll let you know when GameStop drops the official details.

GameStop to offer Android tablet and smartphone trade-ins, give you another excuse to upgrade originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 29 Apr 2012 04:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Waka Flocka Ready To 'Smash' Drake's Club Paradise Tour

'Why not put us all together? I salute him for that,' Flocka tells MTV News of Drizzy tapping new all-stars like French Montana and 2 Chainz.
By Rob Markman, with reporting by Michael Primo

Waka Flocka Flame
Photo: MTV News

Waka Flocka Flame is ready to hit the club.

On May 7, Waka, J. Cole, Meek Mill, 2 Chainz and French Montana will hit the road with Drake on the next leg of the Toronto rapper's ever-evolving Club Paradise tour.

"You know, the kings of the club gotta go to the club," Flocka told MTV News earlier this week at a Brooklyn, New York photo shoot. "They told me Club Paradise is the most popping-iest club in the United States right now."

The 27-city run will kick off in Concord, California, and move through amphitheatres in Las Vegas, Houston, Chicago and New York.

"I want to go out on tour with the most exciting artists right now, and I want to make sure that I have songs with all of them," Drizzy said during a conference call for the press on Tuesday. "If we start getting into it and we start really vibing, maybe the last few nights, it's a collaboration show; maybe we do all of our songs onstage together."

Right now, there are few rap artists more exciting than the energetic Waka Flocka, whose latest single, "Round of Applause," has become a strip-club staple. "He's like, 'We the new era, we the new faces of rap, we the new generation,' " the Atlanta riot-starter said of a conversation he and Drake had. "So why not put us all together? I salute him for that. You know I'm about to smash that."

Though he's the headliner, Drake doesn't look at his tourmates as opening acts. Instead, he'll treat Club Paradise as if it were an all-star music experience similar to the popular Coachella or Bamboozle festivals.

"On this tour, I encourage people to get there early, because it's more [of] a festival vibe, if anything," he said. "It's one of those days that's it's going to start during the sunlight and the sun's going to drop, it's outdoors, it's summertime ... I want people to make it a day."

Aside from Drake, who are you most excited to see on the next leg of the Club Paradise Tour? Tell us in the comments!

Related Artists

• Waka Flocka Flame
• Drake

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Crackdown On Download Bots Meant Installs For Top iOS Apps Took A Dive In March

Downloads for the top 200 free apps in the U.S. iTunes app store took a 30 percent dive in March, according to Fiksu, a Charles River Ventures-backed company that helps mobile developers find users cheaply. The culprit? Two things. One is that we're just coming out of the very lucrative holiday season, when downloads spike and people get new phones that they're eager to experiment with through trying tons of apps. The other may be Apple's crackdown on download bots, or automated programs that downloads apps tens of thousands of times to help them break into the top of the charts. Fiksu says that the top 200 free U.S. iPhone apps saw 4.45 million downloads per day in March, down from 6.35 million per day in February. Apple issued a warning to developers during the first week of February, telling them not to use services that explicitly manipulate the charts.

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Panasonic teams up with NHK on 145-inch 8K Super Hi-Vision plasma TV

We thought the 8K 85-inch Super Hi-Vision LCD we saw during CES was impressive, but Japanese broadcaster NHK is already looking to surpass that by going even bigger. To that end it worked with Panasonic (above: that's Panasonic's Keishi Kubota on the left, Yoshio Ito of NHK on the right) to create this 145-inch prototype plasma, unveiled today as an example of the kind of displays we can expect to see once broadcasts jump to the higher resolution some day. The world's first self-illuminating Super Hi-Vision TV, it features every pixel of its expected 8K resolution -- 7,680 x 4,320. After working for months on smaller (only 85- or 103-inch) 4K plasmas, the two companies had to come up with an entirely new drive method for the display that works by scanning the pixels vertically to achieve a uniform picture quality. The NHK plans to show off the new display at its open house in May, although we're a bit more interested to see if we can watch the Olympics on it this summer. Check the gallery below for a few more pictures from DigInfo.TV's Ryo Osuga, or hit the more coverage link for a breakdown of the difficulties encountered in building a high resolution display that's this massive.

Gallery: Panasonic 145-inch Super Hi-Vision plasma

[Image Credit: Ryo Osuga, DigInfo.TV]

Panasonic teams up with NHK on 145-inch 8K Super Hi-Vision plasma TV originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Apr 2012 08:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Twilio?s European March Continues With Its First Full-Time Hire Outside The U.S. [And Telefonica Loses One]

Twilio, developer of a VoIP API that is used by companies like eBay, Airbnb and Hulu to add voice services into their consumer apps, has been adding support for European countries as part of its expansion strategy, first the UK and then Austria, Denmark, France, Ireland and Poland. Now Twilio is giving that effort a bit more muscle with the appointment of its first full-time, permanent employee outside the U.S. James Parton is joining the company as its new European marketing director. His hiring is also effectively a jab at the carrier market that Twilio very much has the chance to really disrupt: Parton has been poached from Telefonica, the Spanish mobile powerhouse, where he has most recently been running developer marketing for Telefonica's multi-regional API effort BlueVia, and before that for BlueVia's more local precursor, Litmus at O2 UK.

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Sony Xperia U gets torn to pieces, FCC destroys something beautiful

There's not much we don't already know about Sony's Xperia U (formerly the Kumquat), the entry-level Gingerbread handset for the company's revamped mobile offerings. Fortunately, those brave boys down in the FCC's underground bunker decided to dissect the handset and delve into its internals, where we can still see some of that Ericsson branding -- presumably it doesn't see any harm in using up some of its old parts if they're hidden from view. Old-timey livery issues aside, the appearance of the handset bodes that all is on schedule for arrival in the second quarter of the year.

Gallery: Sony Xperia U internal gallery

Sony Xperia U gets torn to pieces, FCC destroys something beautiful originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Apr 2012 10:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Boehner calls Obama's travel plans 'pathetic' (Los Angeles Times)

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Clueless Joe Biden strikes again (Powerlineblog)

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Lindsay Lohan Brushes Off Rosie O'Donnell Bashing

Lindsay Lohan is said to be in shock that Rosie O'Donnell bashed her on live TV yesterday, believing she always had a great relationship with the talk show host.

She's not exactly Donald Trump, in other words.

Sources in LiLo's camp say was never any bad blood between the two, and that Lohan and O'Donnell were always on great terms ... or so she thought anyway.

Lindsay always had a special fondness for Rosie, even. One of Lindsay's first ever talk show appearances, at age 12, was on Rosie's old show back in 1998.

But, though she's surprised, Lindsay isn't upset that Rosie slammed her and her upcoming Liz Taylor role ... it just adds more fuel to the comeback fire!

Why waste time worrying about the haters, right? As far as Lohan's concerned, Rosie's just another doubter she's gotta prove wrong. Her rep concurs.

Reacting to the tirade, Lohan's publicist told E! News Tuesday: "I think Rosie should focus on her own career and stop worrying about everyone else's."

Bam.

[Photos: Pacific Coast News]

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