InCircuit

After Microsoft stated a week ago that it would look into reports of Windows 7 causing premature battery degradation, we've been staying up late at night with our frazzled lithium ion cells, reading them stories about Battery Heaven and generally trying to keep an upbeat tone around the Engadget HQ. Well, it turns out not everything is rosy in batteryville, but Microsoft says Windows 7 isn't the one to blame. According to the company's testing, the new tool, which reports when a battery is down to 40% of its designed capacity and suggests replacement, hasn't reported a single false positive. Additionally, the tool uses read-only data from the battery, and is in fact incapable of tweaking the battery's life span or internal data -- it merely reports the data it receives, and stacks the theoretical design capacity up against the current full charge capacity. Microsoft attributes the reports of the tool dooming batteries to an early grave to the mere fact that many people might not have noticed the degradation already taking place in their batteries -- most batteries start to degrade noticeably within a year. Of course, not everybody's going to just take Microsoft's word for it, and Microsoft itself will continue to look into the issue, but for now this sounds like a bit of a non-issue. The part about Windows 7 being less conservative with power use is a whole 'nother issue, of course.

Facebook has just started rolling out a new homepage design to a small number of users, and will be deploying it on a wide scale in the near future. The design takes the navigational elements that have previously been tucked under the “Applications” menu and returns them to the left sidebar of the page (which is actually where they were a long time ago).

The design also includes some UI enhancements, like the ability to send messages direct from your homepage using a pop-over window, rather than having to visit a separate page. There’s also a new emphasis on search — note how much larger the search box is, and its more centered placement on the page.

It also looks like the News Feed filters and friends lists have been removed (or at least no longer take up the entire left side bar). And the naming of the two different homepage streams — Live Feed and News Feed — have changed: they’re both part of the News Feed now, with the live updates under a “Most Recent” tab and the highlights under “Top News”.

The new design isn’t a huge surprise — Facebook has been testing out variations of the design for some time. And they announced back in October that they would be moving many of the navigation elements over to the left side of the screen. Although I would actually like it if they could just find a good one and stick to it now.

I haven’t gotten to try out the design for myself yet, but I’m liking it a lot. It looks cleaner and easier to use than the old design (I’ve never been a fan of the ‘Applications’ menu concept). Also note the way it handles submenus, keeping navigation elements consistently in the left panel as opposed to arbitrarily scattered in each app. One slightly odd change though: it looks like videos are now actually part of the Photo application.

Twitter u...

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Apple released version 3.1.3 of the iPhone operating system (OS) on Tuesday, much to jailbreakers dismay. The update, which is available now via iTunes, fixes a number of known bugs, patches known security issues, and improves various iPhone features. However, despite the good news for the majority of regular iPhone owners, the upgrade has posed something of a problem for those who have taken the notorious jailbreaking route.

Popular jailbreaking tools Redsn0w, Blackra1n, and PwnageTool are currently not compatible with version 3.1.3. The jailbreaking community was quick to warn jailbreak users not to update to the most recent iPhone OS release, especially if your device is the 3G or 3GS model. This forewarning comes just one day after the Redsn0w tool received an upgrade that made it work with iPhone OS 3.1.2.

The jailbreaking community is advising users to not update their devices, and recommend that jailbreakers play the patience game until their tools of choice are all up to speed.

What has your experience been like if you have a jailbroken iPhone?Let us know in the comments.

Intel and Micron have a history of pushing the state-of-the-art in flash storage -- their joint venture IMFT was responsible for the first sub-40nm NAND flash and bringing it to production -- and it looks they've done it again: IMFT is now sampling two-bits-per-cell 25nm NAND, which will eventually push prices down and capacities up when volume production begins in Q2. We'll have to see how pricing works out -- 25nm is something like twice the storage density per dollar, so we're hopeful -- but at the very least Intel's third-gen X25-M will come in 160GB, 320GB, and 600GB sizes when it launches in Q4 using these new chips. Yeah, we're going to want one. AnandTech has the full breakdown, hit the read link for more.

Tips have been coming in left and right — it seems there is an issue with T-Mobile’s data service paired with the Google Nexus One device at the moment. How’s it going for you out there?

Update: working fine for me on T-Mobile…

Update 2: now it doesn’t. So sad.

Phones that require a messaging plan at time of purchase include: Pantech Reveal, Pantech Impact, Motorola Karma, Samsung Flight, Samsung Impression, Samsung Magnet, Samsung Solstice, Samsung Mythic, Samsung Propel, LG Xenon, LG Neon, and the LG Vu.
It looks like the minimum monthly cost when buying a “Quick Messaging” phone is around $20. That’s a $5 200 SMS/MMS plan and a $15/month unlimited data plan. It doesn’t look like you can walk out of the door without paying less than $20/mo in features in addition to your voice plan.
There are slightly different requirements if you have a family plan, so check those out in detail with your AT&T liaison.
If you have an existing “Quick Messaging” device, you don’t have to do a thing. But, if you want to ever upgrade to a new device, you’d then be hit with the messaging feature requirement.

Not exactly the best news for those looking to keep their wireless bill pretty low (and straight forward). Catherine Zeta Jones, where you at?

Thanks, to all our connects that broke this down for us!

Video Here @ Engadget

My apologies for not having the video physically posted here.

If you were following this morning’s Apple announcement, it may have been quite overwhelming and your head could be spinning in confusion. We’re here to clear things up and give you additional details over what we posted this morning. What we know so far is that the device itself, in terms of hardware and software, doesn’t disappoint. Out of the box, it can support every single application available in the iTunes App Store right now. There is a new version of iWork available for the iPad — with each application going for $9.99 (which means $30 for the whole kaboodle). The Wi-Fi only version will be available in 60 days, and the 3G and Wi-Fi versions in 90 days. Hit the break as we break it down for you!

First, Connectivity and the Internet

The iPad comes with Wi-Fi — duh. What everyone was waiting for is a 3G version with carrier support. For better or worse, most of you will think the latter, the iPad will be on AT&T in the U.S. Data plan pricing, however, is respectable: $14.99 for 250MB per month, or $29.99 for all-you-can-hoard data. However, Steve Jobs did mention that the iPad is unlocked and supports micro-SIMS – this means if your carrier supports micro-SIMS, there’s no real reason for the inability to connect to the Internet.
Different Strokes For Different Folks
If you thought there was only going to be one version of this device, perhaps you haven’t been keeping up! There will be three different storage capacity options in one of two possible categories: Wi-Fi only and Wi-Fi + 3G. As we mentioned earlier, there will be 16GB, 32GB and 64GB versions to choose from depending on your needs.

The Price Is Right

Most analysts were throwing around high numbers for iPad pricing, usually starting around $1,000 and working their way up. However, when Steve Jobs said, ...

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Okay, we obviously can't confirm this, but we just got two very interesting images of what certainly looks like a prototype Apple tablet, or what could be the tablet bolted down to a table. It's big -- really big -- and it's running what clearly looks like an iPhone app, although we've never seen an iPhone app with that interface or at that resolution before. We also see a WiFi icon and a cell service indicator, although tragically there's no carrier listed. As far as fakes go, this is as convincing as it gets, so either this is the real deal or someone deserves a hearty congratulations.

On a totally separate note, we also received a tip claiming to have some specs -- we can't verify any of this either, but we're told that the device will have a 10-inch screen and look like a larger iPhone with a MacBook-like aluminum back, and that pricing will run $800 on contract with Verizon and $1000 without when it arrives in March. We're also told that the official name remains a secret and that Apple employees are still calling it by the codename of "K48" -- a name we last heard in May from the same source that pegged the iPhone 3GS exactly. This source also tells us that the iPhone will be coming to Verizon as well and that we'll see iLife '10 tomorrow, but there won't be any MacBook updates. A relatively safe set of predictions -- which is why we sort of believe them.

Just 13 hours to go -- we'll find out if any of this is the real deal soon enough.

Update: Based on some rough measurements, that screen does appear to be between 9- and 10-inches diagonal. Additionally, it looks as though there could be a front-facing camera on the opposite side of the home button (up top in these photos) due to that cutout section, though the images are really too grainy to know for certain.

Update 2: Our ...

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Jetpacks ya right forget those failed experiments and say hello and not good bye to NASA very owned planed flight suit. Ya i know I was like @_@ say what now!! Whats called the "Puffin" is 12 feet in length, with a total wingspan of 14 and a half feet; it would weigh in at 300 pounds (without a pilot) thats desingned to act as such as to the Marine Osprey (a cargo plane that can take off horizontal) release date is unknow how were alive in time to see our lives take off like the Jetsons. well thats my 2 bits. Oh and also here is a link if you would like to know more and to see a video that NASA released to show how the flight will work. check me out

Uh oh. More Apple tablet-related news? It would appear so, as we have just been briefed on what could be a solid Apple / Verizon connection.
One of our connects just told us that Verizon Wireless has a “kick off” event in the beginning of every quarter that covers and goes over new things that are in the pipeline like devices, products, services, etc. for store managers. Except, this kick off is coincidentally on this coming Wednesday, and additionally, we’ve been informed there will be a “live webcast” that everyone attending will be viewing around 1PM ET. Use your imaginations and let them run wild in the comments — we’ll see if this turns out to be related to any sort of Apple product/s pretty soon!

Source: BGR