21 Oct 09 Verizon says trackball issue is 'addressed' on Tour, no longer a problem

Sprint had told us in a statement that its BlackBerry Tours only had trackball issues on "early production" units, and now Verizon is telling us pretty much the same thing:

Early on there was an issue with the trackball that affected a small percentage [of] the early production units -- far less than industry norms. The issue was detected early, addressed immediately and is no longer an issue. Returns on this device are some of the lowest among any of our smart phones.

In other words, it sounds like new buyers (and anyone who's taken the plunge recently) should be fine, and Verizon's actually taking it to another level by boasting that the handset's now one of its most return-proof smartphones. That doesn't change the fact that the trackball's a little too recessed for our liking -- but at least it should stay functional.

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Verizon says trackball issue is 'addressed' on Tour, no longer a problem originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Sep 2009 22:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tagi: industry norms, phes, veriz, fri, liking, unge, ly, handset, blackberry, sprint, proof, ing, verizon

18 Dec 09 Lake On Titan Winks From a Billion Kilometers Away

The Bad Astronomer writes "NASA's Cassini spacecraft took an image of Saturn's giant moon Titan earlier this year that serendipitously provides proof of liquid (probably methane) on its surface. The picture shows a glint of reflected sunlight off of a monster lake called Kraken Mare (larger than the Caspian Sea!). Scientists have been getting better and better evidence of liquid methane on Titan, but this is the first direct proof."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tagi: cassini spacecraft, liquid methane, astromer, slashdot, mster, kraken, caspian sea, glint, nasa, winks, kilometers, titan, saturn, mare, sunlight, proof, giant

24 Jan 10 Android dual-boot could make Nokia N900 jack of two trades

Maemo's already pretty open as open platforms go, but what's better than a single open platform on your open phone? Two open platforms, of course, creating a vortex of pure, unadulterated openness the likes of which the world has never seen. Hacking is par for the course with Nokia's N900, so it comes as no surprise to see that a motivated individual has managed to get his unit set up in a trick dual-boot configuration with Maemo on internal storage and Android on a separate partition loaded from the microSD card. He says it's "proof of concept" for the moment -- but to steal his words, "its [sic] real and it could be spectacular." We couldn't agree more, and as much as Nokia loves its own code, we can't help but think this precisely the sort of tinkering the N900 was made for. Check video of the magical boot after the break.

Continue reading Android dual-boot could make Nokia N900 jack of two trades

Android dual-boot could make Nokia N900 jack of two trades originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 Jan 2010 18:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tagi: nokia n900, maemo, slashgear, internal storage, dual boot, phe, openness, vortex, microsd card, nbsp, trades, nokia, proof

06 Feb 10 Dell Mini 5 earns FCC approval, AT&T 3G coverage assured

Remember those rumors back in the day that Dell's Android-powered Streak MID -- the device that would later be revealed as the Mini 5 -- would be manufactured by Qisda? Well, we've got some pretty solid proof of that now that it's hit the FCC under Qisda's name. What you see on the left is the label submitted in today's filing for a device called the Qisda M01M; on the right, you have a shot from that pictorial of a device in Shenzhen of the same name. Look pretty much identical? Yeah, we've definitely got the Mini 5 here, and it's described in the RF test reports as a "mobile internet device" with support for WiFi plus full HSPA on WCDMA bands II and V (that's the coverage needed by AT&T, Rogers, Bell, and Telus, by the way) plus EDGE on the same frequencies. We're sure that this version's got a few more bands for user outside North America, too, but seeing how the FCC generally doesn't care about them, Qisda's gone light on the details. Anyhow, this works out nicely for a release later this year, doesn't it?

Dell Mini 5 earns FCC approval, AT&T 3G coverage assured originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tagi: fcc approval, rf test, qda, those rumors, fri, test reports, internet device, shenzhen, mobile internet, fcc, telus, 3g, amp, rogers, dell, proof, nbsp, north america

18 Jun 10 Deformable Liquid Mirrors For Adaptive Optics

eldavojohn writes "Want to make a great concave mirror for your telescope? Put a drop of mercury in a bowl and spin the bowl. The mercury will spread out to a concave reflective surface smoother than anything we can make with plain old glass right now. The key problem in this situation is that the bowl will always have to point straight up. MIT's Technology Review is analyzing a team's success in combating problems with bringing liquid mirrors into the practical applications of astronomy. To fight the gravity requirement, the team used a ferromagnetic liquid coated with a metal-like film and very strong magnetic fields to distort the surface of that liquid as they needed. But this introduces new non-linear problems of control when trying to sync up several of these mirrors similar to how traditional glass telescopes use multiple hexagonal mirrors mounted on actuators. The team has fought past so many of these problems plaguing liquid mirrors that they produced a proof of concept liquid mirror just five centimeters across with 91 actuators cycling at one kilohertz and the ability to linearize the response of the liquid. And with that, liquid mirrors take a giant leap closer to practicality."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tagi: astromy, adaptive optics, liquid mirror, giant leap, linear problems, old glass, reflective surface, kilohertz, magnetic fields, centimeters, practicality, telescopes, gravity, telescope, mercury, sync, proof