Thursday, 15 September 2011

Ooma intros Telo Air wireless adapter, liberates Bluetooth solution to the masses

Heads up, Ooma fans: the equipment that you know and love for free local and long distance calls is now more flexible than ever, thanks to the Telo Air wireless adapter, which adds WiFi capabilities to the Ooma Telo. While the system previously relied on an Ethernet connection for quality calls, the adaptive redundancy of this $50 add-on is said to overcome any performance degradation that you might otherwise experience. Additionally, the Bluetooth adapter -- once available only to Premiere subscribers -- is now available for $30 to anyone who wishes to integrate their mobile phone or wireless headset with Ooma. Of course, you'll need to remain within 30 feet of the Telo (due to Bluetooth's technical limitation), but if you're undeterred by the short leash, it could be a fine alternative to the company's handset. The Bluetooth adapter is available today, and the Telo Air is expected to ship on October 1st.

McAfee and Intel partner up to put anti-theft tech in Ultrabooks

Intel Anti-Theft
Intel has long provided hardware-level anti-theft technology, primarily for its enterprise customers. But, as users become increasingly mobile, the need to extend those protections to average consumers has become more and more apparent. McAfee is teaming up with Chipzilla to create a consumer-friendly software package that will interact with the chip-level anti-theft tech that will be packed into every Ultrabook. Details about the software are pretty slim for the moment, but we know it'll feature remote lock, remote wipe and location tracking to help you recover you precious lappy and keep your personal data out of the hands of ne'er-do-wells.

New Thunderbolt chips, dubbed Cactus Ridge, coming in 2012

Cactus Ridge
Thunderbolt is certainly taking its sweet time catching on, but Intel isn't about to give up yet. In 2012 the company will be rolling out Cactus Ridge, a replacement for it's current Light Ridge and Eagle Ridge solutions. There will be two versions: a quad Thunderbolt channel, dual DisplayPort model (replacing the similarly speced Light Ridge); and a dual T-bolt, single DisplayPort edition (taking over for Eagle Ridge). Exactly when they'll land next year or how much it'll cost OEMs to shoehorn the controllers into their machines is still a mystery, but we're holding out hope that this time next year the 10Gbps jacks will be in every Dell, Acer and Apple.

Firefox for Honeycomb nightly builds now available for the brave beta testing few

"Boot to Gecko" this is not, but it's still a tasty morsel for the beta testing hordes. Mozilla's mobile group, which has been hard at working translating its popular browser to Android slates, appears ready to dole out the first downloads of its UI-in-progress. The team's begun reaching out to its user community, offering up nightly builds of the tablet-based Fennec and soliciting feedback testing. If you're the type to get your hands dirty coding, you can even sign-up to help the crew debug the early stage browser and speed up its official release. Feel like taking a crack at Firefox for Honeycomb? Then hit up the source below to preview the in-development goods.

Line 6 Mobile In app turns your iPad or iPhone into a multi-effect amp -- party on, Wayne

No word yet on if the volume peaks at 11, but what Line 6's new Mobile In offerings will do is turn your iPad or iPhone into a pro modeling amp, with a sick range of amplifiers, guitar cabinets, stompboxes, tones and rack effects. The setup comes in two separate parts: the free mobile Pod app and the Mobile In adaptor, which lets aspiring metalheads (or Fleeting Foxes) connect their guitars to an iOS device using the 30-pin connector. Line 6 says this connection blows similar jack-based apps out of the water, and it's throwing in 24-bit/48kHz digital sound for good measure. Although you'll get a killer 110dB of dynamic range for guitar, you can still achieve 98dBs when you plug in another mono or stereo-line level -- that old keytar, perhaps? With that kind of combo you'll be thankful to know that it records and works with other CoreAudio apps like GarageBand -- perfect for jamming out with your keyboard toutin' buddies without the back-breaking work of carrying a heavy amp. Have your lighters ready for when the $79.99

OCZ announces slimmer 7.5mm SSD, confirms one resides in LG's P220 ultraportable

LG's P220 ultraportable has been making the rounds since Computex in June, but OCZ has only just now confirmed that it's using a fairly special new 2.5-inch SSD from the company. Unlike traditional 2.5-inch laptop drives that measure 9.5mm thick, this new "custom designed" drive measures just 7.5mm in height, which makes it about 25 percent slimmer. So far only the 128GB variety included in the P220 has been confirmed, but OCZ indicates that it's just the first of more LG laptops to use the new drives.

JetStreamHD starts shipping, leaves iPad media streaming vapor trails in its wake

With Pogoplug Video out of the picture, Nuvyyo's JetStreamHD is ready to become your default iPad media streamer. The tower plugs into your router and delivers streaming content like hi-def videos, music and photos from your home network to your Apple tablet. And the free JetSteamHD iPad app makes it easier to sort through your content, while promising the best available resolution for seamless entertainment streaming. The device is shipping now, for a suggested price of $199.

PlayStation Vita's Torne app pulls in live TV streams served up from a PS3

Need another reason to be interested in the PlayStation Vita? Sony announced during tonight's press conference that it will tie in with the only-available-in-Japan Torne DVR adapter (PlayTV in Europe and nonexistent in NA) for the PlayStation 3. Once synced up, it allows users to remotely tune into live TV streams Slingbox-style, browse listings and remotely schedule recordings via an app on the portable device. It should be ready to go at launch, while the ability to export recorded shows to the Vita like one of Monsoon's boxes will be added later.

Sprint begins iPhone briefings, exact model number remains questionable


Are you a Sprint subscriber? Super stoked about possibly getting your hands on an iPhone? It seems as though you're finally about to be in business. After a chat with a freshly-briefed, forthcoming sales associate, TUAW is reporting that the carrier will start offering an Apple device of some sort next month alongside existing data plans -- providing some confirmation for the recent Wall Street Journal report. Things get a bit cloudy after that in regards to exactly which handset the carrier will obtain, but the sales force is currently getting familiar with the iPhone 4. Regardless of which iPhone Sprint ends up procuring, it's getting fairly impossible to shake the (seemingly) obvious.

Google loads up on IP again, buys 1,000 more patents from IBM

Seems like we've heard this story before -- Google buys a bunch of patents to protect its cute little green baby from all the big, bad patent lawsuits. Only this time, instead of buying a hardware manufacturer to expand its patent warchest, team Mountain View merely purchased 1,023 bits of IP from IBM. Covering everything from a method for filling holes in printed wiring boards to a method for file system management, Google seems to have grabbed quite the eclectic collection -- one we're sure Big G will put to work for itself and its buddies in no time.

TomTom announces Z.E. Live navigation system to measure EV battery juice, keeps you truckin'

There's nothing worse than going for a late-night chili dog run only to find your EV sucked dry in a 7-11 parking lot. To reduce so-called "range-anxiety," there's the Carminat TomTom Z.E. Live, an in-dash navigation system that not only keeps drivers from getting lost, but also offers a visual cue to how much power's left. Sticking with the green theme, the device provides the most eco-friendly and efficient routes (with nearby charging stations) -- leaving drivers feeling good about putting the pedal to the metal. The nav will come pre-baked in all future Renault Fluence Z.E.s -- but we wouldn't be surprised to see other EV manufacturers implement similar add-ons in the future.

Sharp to discontinue original Galapagos e-readers, 7-inch species survives

We're raising our glasses to the original Galapagos e-reader this morning, because Sharp has decided to discontinue it. Today, the manufacture announced that it will stop taking orders for its 5.5- and 10.8-inch Android tablets on September 30th, just nine months after they first launched. A company spokeswoman, however, confirmed that Sharp isn't leaving the market altogether, as it plans to continue churning out the 7-inch A01SH that launched last month. The Japan-based firm is confident that "the market for electronic books will continue to expand," but decided to terminate its older slates because they've already "fulfilled the purposes that they were designed for." Sharp declined to disclose sales figures for the doomed devices, though local media outlets are reporting that they may have been squeezed out of the Japanese market by the iPad -- a decidedly Darwinian explanation