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Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment

Late in August, we got wind of an elusive Aurea II HDTV that was in development from Philips. Now, we’re looking at the official result of that labor. The 42-inch Philips Aurea II (or 42PFL9903D, if you’d prefer) packs a 1080p panel, the latest version of the Perfect Pixel HD engine, a dynamic contrast ratio of 30,000:1 and a wicked fast two-millisecond response time. Reportedly, the main differences between this set and the original Aurea is a thinner frame, more curvaceous corners and an ever-so-slightly updated design. For those with the cash to blow, it’ll be available for a stiff £2,499 ($3,967) this month.

Philips intros 42PFL9903D Aurea II LCD HDTV originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Nov 2008 09:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The next-generation USB specification is slated to be introduced later this month.

On November 17 the SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0) Developers Conference, hosted by the USB Implementers Forum in San Jose, Calif., will unveil the USB 3.0 specification to the industry, according to a statement Wednesday from the …

Originally posted at Nanotech - The Circuits Blog

pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/gcal_gmail.jpg” height=”150″ width=”179″ /Gmail has added support for sidebar gadgets to its experimental Labs section, allowing users to add an agenda view of Google Calendar, a short list of recent Google Docs files, and any web-based gadgets using a href=”http://incubator.apache.org/shindig/#tab-home”Apache’s Shindig standard/a to the left-hand sidebar. As the developers themselves note, adding outside gadgets isn’t exactly user-friendly, but then again, adding too many gadgets could lead to some page-loading slowdown. You can enable the GCal, Docs, and external gadget support in the beaker-icon Labs menu of Gmail. While you’re in there, here’s a few ways to make Gmail gadgets more convenient./p pullistrongMove Labels and Chat to the right-hand side:/strong Enable the “Right-side labels” and “Right-side chat” features in the Labs section to move those sometimes lengthy boxes over and make room for your new gadgets./lilistrongManually re-order your left sidebar:/strong Turn on “Navbar drag and drop” in Labs, and you can drag any of your widgets up and down in your left-hand sidebar. Combined with the right-side options above, you can place your gadgets pretty much anywhere you’d like. You’ll likely want to turn off this feature when you’re done, though, both for JavaScript speed and to prevent accidental re-ordering./lilistrongTurn off secure (https) access, if needed:/strong The developers say that some external widgets might not work so hot if you’re accessing Gmail through a secure connection, the kind that puts httpstrongs/strong: in your address bar. That might be a deal-breaker for some, but Google’s own widgets seemed to work fine in our own test./lilistrongFind and share your Shindig gadgets:/strong Enable “Add any gadget by URL” in Labs, and your Settings section gets a new “Gadgets” header with a simple URL entry box. Google has only shared one that definitely worksmdash;a version of their YouTube scroller, available by pasting in codehttp://www.google.com/ig/modules/youtube_videos.xml/codemdash;but says you can add more by “pasting in the URL of (a gadget’s) XML spec file.” Any of our readers savvy with extensible markup language are welcome to post their own gadget findings in the comments./li/ul/p div class=”related”a href=”http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-in-labs-calendar-and-docs-gadgets.html”New in Labs: Calendar and Docs gadgets/a [Official Gmail Blog]/div br style=”clear: both;”/
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a href=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=LHAaM”img src=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=LHAaM” border=”0″/img/a a href=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=fkQ7M”img src=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=fkQ7M” border=”0″/img/a a href=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=f6xgm”img src=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=f6xgm” border=”0″/img/a a href=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=QI4Zm”img src=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=QI4Zm” border=”0″/img/a
/divimg src=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~4/434658156″ height=”1″ width=”1″/

pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/gcal_gmail.jpg” height=”150″ width=”179″ /Gmail has added support for sidebar gadgets to its experimental Labs section, allowing users to add an agenda view of Google Calendar, a short list of recent Google Docs files, and any web-based gadgets using a href=”http://incubator.apache.org/shindig/#tab-home”Apache’s Shindig standard/a to the left-hand sidebar. As the developers themselves note, adding outside gadgets isn’t exactly user-friendly, but then again, adding too many gadgets could lead to some page-loading slowdown. You can enable the GCal, Docs, and external gadget support in the beaker-icon Labs menu of Gmail. While you’re in there, here’s a few ways to make Gmail gadgets more convenient./p pullistrongMove Labels and Chat to the right-hand side:/strong Enable the “Right-side labels” and “Right-side chat” features in the Labs section to move those sometimes lengthy boxes over and make room for your new gadgets./lilistrongManually re-order your left sidebar:/strong Turn on “Navbar drag and drop” in Labs, and you can drag any of your widgets up and down in your left-hand sidebar. Combined with the right-side options above, you can place your gadgets pretty much anywhere you’d like. You’ll likely want to turn off this feature when you’re done, though, both for JavaScript speed and to prevent accidental re-ordering./lilistrongTurn off secure (https) access, if needed:/strong The developers say that some external widgets might not work so hot if you’re accessing Gmail through a secure connection, the kind that puts httpstrongs/strong: in your address bar. That might be a deal-breaker for some, but Google’s own widgets seemed to work fine in our own test./lilistrongFind and share your Shindig gadgets:/strong Enable “Add any gadget by URL” in Labs, and your Settings section gets a new “Gadgets” header with a simple URL entry box. Google has only shared one that definitely worksmdash;a version of their YouTube scroller, available by pasting in codehttp://www.google.com/ig/modules/youtube_videos.xml/codemdash;but says you can add more by “pasting in the URL of (a gadget’s) XML spec file.” Any of our readers savvy with extensible markup language are welcome to post their own gadget findings in the comments./li/ul/p div class=”related”a href=”http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-in-labs-calendar-and-docs-gadgets.html”New in Labs: Calendar and Docs gadgets/a [Official Gmail Blog]/div br style=”clear: both;”/
img alt=”" style=”border: 0; height:1px; width:1px;” border=”0″ src=”http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?i=413515c0ba4596611a837ebcc145e377″ height=”1″ width=”1″/
img src=”http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=413515c0ba4596611a837ebcc145e377″ style=”display: none;” border=”0″ height=”1″ width=”1″ alt=”"/
pa href=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~a/lifehacker/full?a=IPVHjK”img src=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~a/lifehacker/full?i=IPVHjK” border=”0″/img/a/pdiv class=”feedflare”
a href=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=LHAaM”img src=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=LHAaM” border=”0″/img/a a href=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=fkQ7M”img src=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=fkQ7M” border=”0″/img/a a href=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=f6xgm”img src=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=f6xgm” border=”0″/img/a a href=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=QI4Zm”img src=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=QI4Zm” border=”0″/img/a
/divimg src=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~4/434658156″ height=”1″ width=”1″/

pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/gcal_gmail.jpg” height=”150″ width=”179″ /Gmail has added support for sidebar gadgets to its experimental Labs section, allowing users to add an agenda view of Google Calendar, a short list of recent Google Docs files, and any web-based gadgets using a href=”http://incubator.apache.org/shindig/#tab-home”Apache’s Shindig standard/a to the left-hand sidebar. As the developers themselves note, adding outside gadgets isn’t exactly user-friendly, but then again, adding too many gadgets could lead to some page-loading slowdown. You can enable the GCal, Docs, and external gadget support in the beaker-icon Labs menu of Gmail. While you’re in there, here’s a few ways to make Gmail gadgets more convenient./p pullistrongMove Labels and Chat to the right-hand side:/strong Enable the “Right-side labels” and “Right-side chat” features in the Labs section to move those sometimes lengthy boxes over and make room for your new gadgets./lilistrongManually re-order your left sidebar:/strong Turn on “Navbar drag and drop” in Labs, and you can drag any of your widgets up and down in your left-hand sidebar. Combined with the right-side options above, you can place your gadgets pretty much anywhere you’d like. You’ll likely want to turn off this feature when you’re done, though, both for JavaScript speed and to prevent accidental re-ordering./lilistrongTurn off secure (https) access, if needed:/strong The developers say that some external widgets might not work so hot if you’re accessing Gmail through a secure connection, the kind that puts httpstrongs/strong: in your address bar. That might be a deal-breaker for some, but Google’s own widgets seemed to work fine in our own test./lilistrongFind and share your Shindig gadgets:/strong Enable “Add any gadget by URL” in Labs, and your Settings section gets a new “Gadgets” header with a simple URL entry box. Google has only shared one that definitely worksmdash;a version of their YouTube scroller, available by pasting in codehttp://www.google.com/ig/modules/youtube_videos.xml/codemdash;but says you can add more by “pasting in the URL of (a gadget’s) XML spec file.” Any of our readers savvy with extensible markup language are welcome to post their own gadget findings in the comments./li/ul/p div class=”related”a href=”http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-in-labs-calendar-and-docs-gadgets.html”New in Labs: Calendar and Docs gadgets/a [Official Gmail Blog]/div br style=”clear: both;”/
img alt=”" style=”border: 0; height:1px; width:1px;” border=”0″ src=”http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?i=413515c0ba4596611a837ebcc145e377″ height=”1″ width=”1″/
img src=”http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=413515c0ba4596611a837ebcc145e377″ style=”display: none;” border=”0″ height=”1″ width=”1″ alt=”"/
pa href=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~a/lifehacker/full?a=IPVHjK”img src=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~a/lifehacker/full?i=IPVHjK” border=”0″/img/a/pdiv class=”feedflare”
a href=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=LHAaM”img src=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=LHAaM” border=”0″/img/a a href=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=fkQ7M”img src=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=fkQ7M” border=”0″/img/a a href=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=f6xgm”img src=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=f6xgm” border=”0″/img/a a href=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=QI4Zm”img src=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=QI4Zm” border=”0″/img/a
/divimg src=”http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~4/434658156″ height=”1″ width=”1″/

Good news for BlackBerry users and developers! Research In Motion has just announced an applications store! Bad news for BlackBerry users and developers! It’s not going to be available until March 2009. This sure won’t help the fact that the iPhone is outselling the Blackberry and Android is quickly becoming Apple’s major rival in the public’s eye instead of the new #2 seller. No matter how nice the BlackBerry Storm is, the delay is not good.

• The store payment method will be PayPal. Good.
• Companies will be able to control what applications are downloaded by users. Good for companies, bad for users.
• Storefront will allow any price.
• Developers will retain 80% of the revenue.
• Carriers will be able to distribute software themselves.

[Intomobile]

Filed under: Home Entertainment

AT&T’s been cobbling together a voice recognition system for decades, affectionally known as Watson. The good news is that unlike most every other voice recognition system out there, AT&T’s might be useful for, you know, stuff. AT&T’s working on making your plain-language utterances into real-life gadget actions, and has built a voice-operated TV remote to make the idea a reality. Built to operate the U-verse service, AT&T’s new mythical remote lets you ask for whatever comedies might be on, or — in the inexplicable example cited by our source article — search for movies starring Bruce Willis, all using your voice in regular person sentences. AT&T’s also working with other developers to build applications like a yellow pages app for the iPhone. There’s no word on when (or if) AT&T will actually offer up the remote for consumer use, or when other applications are due to hit the mainstream, but we must say we’re ready for the tide to shift in human-computer interaction, where the computer does the heavy lifting. Because we have some Bruce Willis movies to watch.

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Some 500,000 Facebook users who don’t like the site’s new design have found a loophole leading back to the old one. The trick is to sign up as a Facebook application developer — and you don’t have to even write a line of code! Facebook allows developers to use the old Facebook design if they want, because until every last Facebook user has migrated to the new design, these widgetmakers need to maintain two versions of their applications. Here’s how to go undercover and get your old Facebook profile back in three easy steps.

• Step 1. Add the “Facebook Developers” application (available here).
• Step 2. Click “Go to applications” and then close the page.
• Step 3. Follow this link.

Linux and Mac OS X only: Enterprising open source developers have beaten Google to the punch and released a Mac and Linux port of Google Chrome’s open source code base, Chromium. CrossOver Chromium offers a native install for Mac and Linux users, but don’t get too excited—the developers don’t recommend that you use CrossOver as your main browser, and in fact, they call the release “proof of concept” more than anything else. Indeed, my brief testing with Crossover on the Mac was disappointing—it doesn’t have the smooth look and feel (or all the features, if I understand correctly) of the official, Google-released Windows version. Still, for Mac and Linux users dying to give Chrome a test drive, it’s a fine place to start. CrossOver Chromium is a free download for Intel Macs and Linux.