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Usually when we hear the phrase “contract-free developer phone” the words “unlocked” and “GSM” follow shortly thereafter, but apparently Palm didn’t get the memo — it just announced discounted hardware prices for its devices, but they’re carrier-locked to Verizon and Sprint. Yeah, that’s a big sad face out of us — it’s not like Verizon’s going to give you a cheaper plan if you show up with a contract-free device. In fact, you might be better off picking up a $79 Pre on a Sprint contract from Amazon and just canceling after a year or so — the ETF will have been prorated to $120 by then, putting you way ahead of Palm’s $439 price tag. So much for that dream — at least we still have our fantasy of driving to Mexico for an illicit Telcel Pre smuggling run.

Palm offering discounted contract-free phones to developers — too bad they’re carrier locked originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 20:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Engadget Podcast, live… now! originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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How do we know we’re years away from a final resolution to the Nokia / Apple patent lawsuit? It’s been six months since Nokia first filed its complaint, and the two parties are just now starting to argue about which specific substantive claims they’re eventually going to argue about. Let’s do a quick refresh: at the heart of the lawsuit is a conflict over Nokia’s wireless patents, some of which are almost certainly essential to how cell data and WiFi operate. As a member of the ETSI and the IEEE licensing groups which oversee GSM and WiFi, Nokia’s required to license its patents to anyone who asks on fair terms, but those terms aren’t set in stone — Nokia can negotiate separate licenses as it sees fit, and it apparently wanted Apple to cross-license its touchscreen patents as part of the deal. Apple said no, and now we’re all in court, with both sides alleging patent infringement in three different lawsuits (one of which is on hold) and Apple claiming that Nokia is also liable for breach of contract, because it promised fair licensing terms and didn’t deliver. Got all that? Right.

So that brings us to yesterday, when Nokia asked the court to dismiss all of Apple’s contract-related claims, saying that they’re simply a distraction from the real issue, which is patents, and that its license offers aren’t unfair simply because Apple doesn’t like them. In short: Apple and Nokia’s patent lawsuit is currently not really about patents at all, but about whether or not it should also be a fight about contract terms in addition to a fight about patents, and that question won’t be resolved for months. And that’s why vigilante justice is the future of America’s tarnished civilization something like 90 percent of patent cases eventually settle out of court.

P.S. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, today Reuters reported that the first trial date isn’t expected until 2012. So, yeah.

Nokia asks court to dismiss part of Apple patent lawsuit originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve always said AMD should go after the gaping hole between netbooks and thin-and-lights by releasing a low-power platform with solid graphics abilities, and it looks like the company’s finally coming around — AMD’s John Taylor just told us that the chipmaker will be releasing a netbook-class Fusion CPU / GPU hybrid codenamed “Ontario” with integrated DX11 graphics sometime next year. If Ontario sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve seen it leaked in the past — it’s a part of the “Brazos” platform built around the low-power Bobcat core. Of course, AMD has been promising Fusion chips of all stripes for years now without a single shipping part, so saying that a Fusion chip will get it into the netbook game in 2011 is mildly amusing — while AMD’s definitely turned things around, it’s still incredibly late to the low-end party, and Intel’s solidly beaten it to the hybrid CPU / GPU punch with the Core 2010 and Pine Trail Atom chips. Add in the fact that NVIDIA’s Optimus-based Ion 2 chipset seemingly offers the extended battery life of Atom with the performance of a discrete GPU, and we’d say the market niche Ontario is designed to fill may not actually be so niche when it finally arrives. We’ll see what happens — a year is a long, long time.

[Image via OCWorkbench]

AMD to finally take on netbook space with new Fusion chip… next year originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We knew iPad pre-orders were starting tomorrow, but now we know exactly when all you lovable crazies have to stumble out of bed and transmit your credit card numbers to Steve’s brain: 8:30AM ET, or 5:30AM on the West Coast. We generally recommend a bed shaker alarm clock, but hey, let’s not pretend we haven’t all turned a few long nights into tomorrow with our old friends Jackie D and Mistakes. See you on the other side, chochachos.

iPad orders start at 8:30AM tomorrow morning originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you needed any more proof that Apple’s lame cat-and-mouse game with the iPhone jailbreak community has only served to increase the scene’s resourcefulness and creativity, look no further than the iDongle, a slick piece of hacker-made hardware that can jailbreak and activate an iPhone 3GS or iPod touch running OS 3.1.2 just by plugging it into the dock connector. What’s more, it allows a jailbroken iPhone to be rebooted away from a computer, which is currently a problem for on-the-go hackers — just stick this guy in your bag and you’ll be good to go. There’s only a dozen prototypes right now, but pre-orders are being accepted to raise funds for production — we’ve got a feeling quite a few people are going to be interested. Video after the break.

Continue reading iDongle hardware iPhone jailbreak tool makes hacker life a little simpler

iDongle hardware iPhone jailbreak tool makes hacker life a little simpler originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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