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

Originally posted here:
Microsoft says Windows 7 battery ‘issue’ isn’t one

We knew Android 2.1 was coming for the Droid , but we’ll confess — we didn’t expect it to come this soon. Motorola is now reporting via its official Facebook page that it’s “happy to relay the 2.1 upgrade to Droid will start to roll out this week,” going on to tease that it “will have more information to share on other device upgrades later.” There’s no detail on what the Droid update will entail or whether it’ll roll out to every user this week (we doubt it), but by all indications, this is a promising sign that Moto’s keeping the pedal to the metal, we’d say. [Thanks, andrewcweaver] Motorola: Droid update to Android 2.1 ‘will start to roll out this week’ originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:14:00 EST.

Originally posted here:
Motorola: Droid update to Android 2.1 ‘will start to roll out this week’

So the good news here is that Google appears to have heard the cries for help, having taken a chainsaw to its brutal $350 “equipment recovery fee” that had been lumped on top of T-Mobile’s $200 ETF for subsidized Nexus One contracts canceled in the first 120 days. The bad news, though, is that it still exists at all — a hairy precedent for an industry being watched with eagle eyes by the FCC right now. The company has knocked $200 off the fee, bringing it down to $150; in other words, if you break your contract, you’ll pay the same ETF that Verizon now charges on its “advanced devices.” Whether that was a deliberate move to let ‘em say that they’re no more expensive than Verizon is unclear, but let’s be honest: $350 is extreme, $550 was highway robbery.

See original here:
Google’s Nexus One ‘equipment recovery fee’ slashed to $150, still a pain

There’s just no two ways about it: the integrated self-timer is easily one of the most amazing technologies to ever be invented. Yeah, we said it. Unfortunately, beeping for ten seconds while a shooter races to get in position isn’t always ideal or fun, and that’s where isharq comes in.

See the article here:
DIY photog creates laser trigger for remote DSLR snapping

Sorry if we’re the sort of folks to look a gift SD card reader in the mouth, but while we’re oh-so-happy that Apple finally opened up application-enabled hardware development in iPhone OS 3.0 , we really wish an accessory like this had been available for the iPhone right from the start. The new zoomIt SD card reader from zoomMediaPlus adds a bit of external, swappable memory to the iPhone and iPod touch at long last, giving you the ability to store your iPhone’s pictures on the card, or pull stuff off it onto your handset using the free zoomIt app.

Link:
zoomMediaPlus’ zoomIt is the iPhone’s long overdue SD card reader

We don’t typically do a lot of coverage of music gear here at Engadget because, by and large, it’s an entire world unto itself — a universe of specialty products that require unique knowledge (and often, talent) to use, let alone review — and ultimately, we’re only writing for a limited subset of our readership.

Originally posted here:
Native Instruments Kontrol X1 impressions

From a pure specification standpoint, it’s hard to knock HTC’s HD2 . Scratch that — it’s impossible to knock the HD2. A 1GHz Snapdragon CPU is just the tip of the iceberg, with the icing on the cake being the 800 x 480 resolution display, 5 megapixel camera, GPS and a downright stunning overall design.

More here:
How would you change HTC’s HD2?

Chances are we’re missing something incredibly awesome being said in this foreign-language video, but we can probably guess what Mobile-review Sergey Kuzmin is saying: “I’ve got the Sony Ericsson Aspen and you don’t.

Read this article:
Sony Ericsson Aspen caught on video, loving life with WinMo 6.5.3

The Week in Green is a new item from our friends at Inhabitat , recapping the week’s most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us. This week at Inhabitat we saw several hot advances in solar technology that stand to shape how our buildings are built and how we power the electronics in our lives. CASE in point: this beautiful glass photovoltaic system can be affixed to windows and actually magnifies the available sunlight inside into tiny solar chips to create electricity

See the original post:
Inhabitat’s Week in Green: photovoltaics, footballs, and Greener Gadgets

Though Sony’s overall bottom line is back in black , what held it back from an even bigger celebration cake was its core electronics brand, and no stranger to that sector is the PlayStation group.

See the rest here:
PlayStation 3 still a loss leader, ’six cents for every dollar’ of hardware sold