You might say the week is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workweek, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Weekly Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past seven days -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
The Mobile Podcast had the pleasure of beating us to chatting about the Lumia 1020, but that didn't deter us. Aside from that taking up half of this week's episode, we'll discuss the new plans from AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile and the HTC One mini. Get to streaming below, because this one's dedicated to Tim Stevens.
Hosts: Peter Rojas, Brian Heater, Terrence O'Brien
Producer: Joe Pollicino (akaTRENT)
Hear the podcast:
Filed under: Podcasts
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
I still remember the comments on my welcome letter when I took over the site on a sunny day in early 2011. It was beautiful outside and here I was sweating bullets in a tiny NYC hotel room, watching the reaction in comments and elsewhere. Needless to say there was more than a little hate, but there was so much warmth and optimism and welcome it really powered me through what ultimately became a very long, very good day. That support carried me past more than two incredibly challenging, hugely rewarding years.
And so it's with heavy heart that I say that I'm stepping away. Those early days in 2011 were an incredible challenge, and if I'm frank it never really got any easier, with the dawn of new competition and an incredible evolution in the quality of tech journalism over the past few years. We've always had our work cut out for us at Engadget, and I'm hugely proud of how our team rose to the challenge, recently winning numerous awards for content, video and design and, most importantly, maintaining the respect of the Engadget brand.
It goes without saying that I had a great opportunity to shape Engadget and I always strove to turn it into a site that everyone, on both sides of the aisle, respected. Respect is the most important thing for me, and those who worked under me at Engadget have earned my eternal respect. I hope you'll give them the same. In the end, I look forward to reading all the comments that this post elicits. I won't be able to reply to them all, but do know that I am so incredibly thankful for your support over the years, even to the haters. Without your hard licks I, and the entire Engadget team, wouldn't have been as driven to exceed as we have always been.As for me? Well, I don't have any specific plans for the moment, but let's just say I'm looking forward to taking a little break before dealing the next hand. The sky's the limit.
You can find me on Twitter as @Tim_Stevens.
Filed under: Announcements
In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news.
Nokia has been teasing a zoomable Windows Phone smartphone for what seems like ages now, and finally it has been revealed. It's the Nokia Lumia 1020, stepping up another 100 over the 920 thanks to the addition of a 41-megapixel, backside-illuminated sensor sitting behind a six-element Zeiss lens. Video capture is 1080p and the cameraphone intriguingly offers full manual control, but it's basically a Lumia 920 beyond that, with a 4.5-inch, 1,280 x 768 display and a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor.
So, naturally, the draw is that camera, and while we've seen some promising early results from stills and videos, we're obviously going to have to spend more time with the thing to see if it's worth the considerable dent it will make in your pocket. Admittedly, it's far more pocketable than Samsung's Galaxy S4 Zoom, but it remains to be seen whether megapixels can really sell phones. We'll find out on July 26th, when the phone will be available at AT&T for $300.
In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news.
This week is Microsoft's time to shine. Its Build conference, typically held later in the year, kicked off on Wednesday and along with it came a lot more about Windows 8.1 -- which we thought we already knew plenty about, honestly. But there was more to learn, including a new milestone for the Windows Store: 100,000 apps. Well, almost 100,000 apps. Steve Ballmer said the store was "approaching" that number and has racked up "hundreds of millions" of downloads. A bit of a far cry from Apple's 50 billion, but hey, it's early days yet.
More interesting to me is the inclusion of native 3D-printing support in Windows 8.1. Good 'ol 2D printers were certainly common before the traditional driver came into standard practice, but that market didn't really take off until they effectively became plug and play. One could say it's perhaps a bit early for that kind of native support to be needed in Windows for a 3D printer, but better too soon than too late.
Filed under: Misc
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news.
It's not too often that we call a tech news story stunning, but that seems like an apt description for our reaction when Microsoft decided to pull an abrupt about-face and nix its controversial rights management for the Xbox One. We learned at the Seattle launch event that the system would have to call home once every 24 hours or every game installed from a disc would be disabled -- even if you had the disc in the drive -- and quickly the rumblings from the gamers started. They grew louder at E3 when Microsoft detailed the system's DRM, a stream of complaints that quickly reached deafening levels on online forums and the like.
Yet, through all that, Microsoft stayed true to the party line, that the advantages of this system (being able to digitally share games, being able to change games without having to swap discs, etc.) outweighed the overwhelmingly negative reaction brewing among online gamers. That corporate message seemed to get bitter at times, weary at others, but never showed a sign of changing. Until, suddenly, a complete about-face this week.
In each issue of Distro, Editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news.
One major press event going on means we need to get our game faces on. Two happening simultaneously? Hoo boy, that raises the stakes. This year we had full teams on the ground in both San Francisco and Los Angeles for the dueling media extravaganzas that were E3 and WWDC. In one, we learned a lot about two incredible new gaming systems and saw dozens of fantastic new games. In the other? Two new important operating systems, one new laptop and a new desktop that even Mac haters will have to admit is quite a thing.
We'll start with WWDC, since I was actually there for that one, and the biggest news of the day was the long-awaited unveiling of iOS 7. Apple reps were merciless in their ire toward the former versions' skeuomorphic tendencies, poking fun at the green velvet, the mock stitching and the faux surfaces that previously played such a big part of the iPhone and iPad experience. Now things are rather simpler -- and a bit more abstract.
In each issue of Distro, Editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news.
There are times when you need to stay strong, ignore the criticism and do what you know is right. Then, there are some times when the masses are right and listening is the smart thing. With Windows 8, Microsoft made many radical changes, not the least of which being the deletion of the fabled Start button. This week we got our first taste of that operating system's first major update, Windows 8.1, and it includes a number of notable upgrades and improvements. Perhaps the most notable? The return of a Start button. Well, sort of.
It's now called a "Start Tip" as it isn't a proper button, but you can click on it and bring up the tiled Start Screen interface. So, the Start button is back, but not the Start menu. That's fine by me, as I don't think hidden, contextual elements make much sense in a keyboard-and-mouse environment. And the other tweaks are nice, including a far more comprehensive Settings section, a functional lock screen and, finally, the ability to adjust the size of applications that you've snapped to either side of your screen. Maybe in Windows 8.2 we'll get fully resizable windows!
Filed under: Cellphones, Misc
