Evan Blass
Articles by Evan Blass
Sprint announces massive layoffs, store closings amid subscriber defection
New Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse appears to have inherited a company bleeding subscribers by the thousands, and will now officially be dropping the ax on 4,000 employees and 125 retail locations. Amid the loss of 639,000 postpaid customers in the fourth quarter, Sprint will be cutting a total of 6.7% of its work force (following the 5,000 layoffs last year) and 8% of company-owned brick-and-mortar stores, while remaining mute on other rumors that it will consolidate its headquarters in Kansas. Sprint Nextel shares are down $2.89, or nearly 25%, at the time of this writing.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Sprint announces massive layoffs, store closings amid subscriber defection
New Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse appears to have inherited a company bleeding subscribers by the thousands, and will now officially be dropping the ax on 4,000 employees and 125 retail locations. Amid the loss of 639,000 postpaid customers in the fourth quarter, Sprint will be cutting a total of 6.7% of its work force (following the 5,000 layoffs last year) and 8% of company-owned brick-and-mortar stores, while remaining mute on other rumors that it will consolidate its headquarters in Kansas. Sprint Nextel shares are down $2.89, or nearly 25%, at the time of this writing.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Wii used to hone surgeons' fine motor skills
Proving that children and the elderly are not the only groups seeing benefits from Nintendo's Wii, a study on a small group of surgeons who had practiced gaming with a modified controller showed them to achieve significantly more improvement on a standard simulator procedure than did a corresponding group of control subjects. Study author Kanav Kahol worked with Dr. Marshall Smith of the Banner Health hospital chain to build a special Wiimote attachment (read: broken golf club add on + laparoscopic probe) that eight surgical residents used to play Marble Mania and the full suite of Wii Play games. The gamers were then pitted against eight of their less-fortunate colleagues in a computer-simulated laparoscopic procedure, and managed to attain 48% higher scores, on average, than the non-gamers. Unfortunately, games involving broader motions such as tennis or boxing are said to be less suitable for this sort of training, make a total liar out of your doctor the next time you catch him "honing up on the latest techniques" by playing Wii Golf.[Image courtesy of The Wall Street Journal]
Dell Latitude XT tablet unboxing
Since some of you have apparently been waiting on Dell to make a tablet PC for well over three years now, we imagine that the first unboxing of the company's Latitude XT convertible will be welcome eye-candy to the true believers. With dual input methods (finger or pen), integrated 802.11n, and optional SSD and WWAN, this model definitely delivers on a number of fronts, though the relatively low resolution and high price may be too much for some to bear. Check out another shot after the break, and then hit up the Read link for the full ritual over at I Started Something.
Michelin's ViaMichelin to exit the PND market
French paper La Tribune is reporting that Michelin subsidiary ViaMichelin will stop producing personal navigation devices, after capturing only 14% of its domestic market in the face of stiff competition from Dutch rival TomTom and others. Sixty of the firm's 170 employees will reportedly be laid off as a result of the shuttering, although warranties will apparently still be honored for products already on the market. [Warning: subscription link][Via Bikes in the Fast Lane]
Meet the Disintegrator: 24 barrels of rubber band minigun madness
You've gotta admire folks who bring their trade to a whole new level, even if that does mean escalating the international arms race between builders of automated, wooden, rubber band miniguns. The 24-barrel, tripod-mountable monster you see above, lovingly known as the Disintegrator, was rather amazingly hand-carved and assembled by Anthony Smith of the UK, who spent four months on the ambitious build. Unlike your dinky little six-shooter, this model boasts a 288-band capacity and 40-round-per-second firing capability, making it one of the most dangerous weapons to remain unbanned by the TSA. To see this wonder in its full operational glory, you simply have to check out the video after the break.[Via TechDigest, image courtesy of Disintegrator.co.uk]
BenQ's emaciated 8 megapixel DSC X800: just barely three-dimensional
It may not be the biggest name in consumer electronics, but when it comes to stuffing megapixels into ridiculously-skinny packages, there aren't many out there who do it better than BenQ. Case in point is the new eight megapixel DSC X800, which, at just 9.8 millimeters at its thinnest point (14mm at its fattest), is not only slimmer than the recently-announced DC X835, it even gives the company's trimmest seven megapixel shooter, the 12.5-millimeter DC X725, a run for its money. Besides its pocketability, however, this model doesn't offer much in the way of high-end features: 3x optical zoom, 3-inch LCD, digital image stabilization, VGA movie mode, and a rather non-standard microSD slot are par for the course here. Keep reading after the break for another angle / color combo of the as-yet-unpriced shooter, which should be shipping sometime this quarter.[Via Slashgear]
Rock Band Stage Kit with lights, smoke leaked by GameStop
As if playing Rock Band wasn't one of the greatest group gaming experiences to come along in years, it appears that a new accessory is set to amp up the fun even more by bringing an "interactive light and smoke stage show" to your already thrashing performances. Apparently you can already pre-order this so-called Rock Band Stage Kit from GameStop for 100 bucks, although they've since pulled the box image from the product page, so you'll have to rely on the screencap above to see what you're paying all that money for. Ships on June 23rd, according to the retailer's site, giving us plenty of time to install a proper stage and stadium seating in our game room.[Via Technabob]
OLPC America will bring XO to the US
Proving once again that he's still got love for the home team, Nick Negroponte has announced the impending launch of OLPC America, a division of the organization with its own director and chairman that will bring low-cost laptops to US students. According to an IDG interview with Negroponte, distributing the XO stateside has always been in the plans, arguing that "to have the United States be the only country that's not in the OLPC agenda would be kind of ridiculous." Besides helping out kids at home, NickNeg anticipates that a domestic deployment will accelerate the project to critical mass in terms of adoption, software, and developer support. OLPC America will reportedly work with individual state governments to handle the details of the disbursement, although specifics of the plan will remain under wraps until the official launch later this year.[Via Slashdot]
Teen hacks tram system, derails trains
In yet another "innocent prank" that turned out to have very real-world effects, a 14-year-old Polish boy has admitted to modifying a TV remote in order to manipulate the junction-switching devices on the Lodz tram system, resulting in four derailed trains and 12 injuries. According to reports, the teenager snuck onto tracks to study the switching mechanisms, and used the resulting knowledge to re-direct trains "like any other schoolboy might a giant train set," as a police spokesman put it. The young man now faces charges in juvenile court for endangering public safety.
Microsoft sez no OLPC dual-boot, still committed to XP on XO
Those of you who participated in OLPC's "Give One, Get One" program will probably be disappointed to learn that, despite earlier reports to the contrary, Microsoft has no intention of developing dual-boot Windows / Linux support for the XO laptop. According to a statement sent to BetaNews, Redmond flat out denied any work on such a project, instead claiming that it "plans to publish formal design guidelines early this year that will assist [any] flash-based device manufacturers in designing machines that enable a high-quality Windows experience." The blurb goes on to say that the company will be conducting limited XP-on-XO field tests later this month, although BetaNews notes that notebook's hardware limitations have proven problematic for the software giant, which may be forced to offer the OS on an SD card -- a move that would require a new BIOS for the XO to enable booting from removable storage.[Via Slashdot]
CES 2008 ultimate swag bag giveaway: like a Xmas stocking in January
As you're probably well aware, CES is ground zero for free stuff -- most of which is crappy swag. But there's some good stuff to be had as well, and this year we're proud to present you with the ultimate CES swag bag. Literally bursting at the seams, this bag contains every single free item we've collected throughout the entire show. All in all over 100 items stuffed inside a courtesy HD DVD press backpack (which itself may be a collector's item some day soon), including a Jawbone Bluetooth headset, CoPilot Navigator 9, Spider-Man 3 Blu-ray disc, Tooth Tunes toothbrush, and an iriver Mplayer.All you have to do to throw your hat into the ring is to leave a comment in this post listing your favorite new product introduced in the past few days. Since we want to ship this thing out before we take off tomorrow, entires for this contest will be closed at exactly 12:00PM PT (noon, Pacific) on Friday, January 11th. Make sure you read all the points below before entering, 'cause we'd hate to disqualify anyone from winning this one-of-a-kind CES 2008 souvenir. Leave a comment below. Tell us your favorite new CES gadget. You may only enter this specific giveaway once. If you enter this giveaway more than once you'll be automatically disqualified, etc. (Yes, we have robots that thoroughly check to ensure fairness.) If you enter more than once, only activate one comment. This is pretty self explanatory. Just be careful and you'll be fine. Contest is open to anyone in the 50 States, 18 or older! Sorry, we don't make this rule (we hate excluding anyone), so be mad at our lawyers and contest laws if you have to be mad. Winner will be chosen randomly. That winner will get a bag full of stuff whose value is impossible to determine, but which we doubt is more than $300. Entries can be submitted until Friday, January 11th, 12:00PM PT. Good luck! Full rules can be found here.
Vonage updating V-Phone with Mac support, Bluetooth?
Embattled VoIP provider Vonage continues to push forward with plans for the future, first announcing the LCD-equipped V-Portal router, and soon -- if the company's booth reps know what they're talking about -- an update to the V-Phone USB dongle that will allegedly bring both Bluetooth and Mac support. Blogger Michael Puhala reportedly approached a Vonage employee on the show floor to inquire about the future of this VoIP-on-a-stick product, where he was informed that an OS X-friendly version would be introduced in Q2 -- surely good news for customers accustomed to using Boot Camp for getting their telephony on. Make sure to hit up the Read link for more info and a few additional claims.
The corntop lives: Fujitsu showing off mostly-biodegradable notebook
We're not exactly sure what became of that biodegradable laptop being touted by NEC all the way back in 2004, but the concept of corn-based notebook casings is far from dead, with Fujitsu showing off just such a machine at this year's CES. According to Inhabitat, "the main component is polylactic acid, also known as PLA, a resin that comes from the fermentation of the raw biomass from plants," although a small amount of nasty fossil fuels must still be mixed in to create a housing with the proper structural integrity. Fortunately, once the rig is ready for the great gadget heaven in the sky, the plastic can be separated from the PLA so that the latter material can be left to safely biodegrade. No word yet on when we'll see these edible inedible lappies hit the market, so for now we'll have to continue kicking Mother Nature's ass with our biannual tech upgrades.[Via, and image courtesy of, Inhabitat]
Asus EeePC spotted running SplashTop instant-on OS
You probably remember the SplashTop instant-on, Linux-based OS from past posts or perhaps developer DeviceVM's demo at last October's reader meetup in San Francisco. It's well known that this embedded feature will ship standard on select ASUS motherboards, but as we were cruising around the PC manufacturer's booth today, we happened to catch a rather unexpected application for SplashTop: running on the EeePC. Neither ASUS nor DeviceVM has made any announcements with regard to porting the software onto the popular ultra-portable laptop, but unless our eyes were deceiving us, this Eee was all ready to run Pidgin, Skype, or a browser without booting into the main OS. We'll keep our eye on this one, as the merger of these two technologies would certainly create quite the compelling user experience.
Hands-on with HP's Computerlicious designer laptops
In honor of PC Mag's 25th anniversary, HP commissioned ten well-known designers to spruce up one of four different laptop models (the Pavilions tx1000z, dv6500t, dv9500z, and HDX 9000 -- a.k.a. The Dragon). These one-of-a-kind machines made their debut last night at the magazine's rockin' quarter-century celebration hosted at the MGM Grand's Tabu Ultra Lounge -- well, almost all of them did: apparently Applebottoms by Nelly wasn't able to ship its unit out in time. The other nine notebooks from such names as James De La Vega and Paul Frank -- which will be auctioned off after making a short PR tour -- run the gamet from glitzy to understated to politically-minded. You can scope out the entire lineup in the gallery below, and catch the full listing of contributors by clicking the Read link.%Gallery-13220%
Audiovox's CES 2008 booth tour
Just in case you didn't get your fill of Audiovox from our liveblog of Monday's press conference, we've got a full booth tour for your to feast your eyes on, featuring new products from the 'Vox along with family members Jensen, RCA, TERK, and Acoustic Research. Sure, these companies might not produce the flashiest or most popular devices on the market, but what they lack in panache they make up for in affordability -- and in a few cases, as we noticed during our tour, unique functionality. Hit the link below for the full walkthrough, including a shot of a special Engadget fan.
Live from the Intel / Sprint / Asus XOHM WiMax press event
1:59PM PST - Here we are at the XOHM press event, being jointly held by Intel, Asus, and of course, Sprint. We're expecting to hear about some specific deployment plans, and hopefully learn about some devices that will run on Sprint's 4G network. Stay tuned for all the details once this latest presser gets started.2.01PM - Chairman of ASUS, Jonney Shih takes the stage. Invites us to join a new world of mobile internet. As usual, going through the company's accomplishments and sales figures; takeaway: ASUS is pretty happy with its international standing. They plan to be one of the top 5 notebook manufacturers in 3 years, and the top three by 2013.Keep reading after the break for the rest of the action.
Hands-on with Dell's XPS 630i desktop and 16-inch concept laptop
Once we heard that Dell was showing off the XPS 630i "compact" desktop and 16-inch, 16:9 XPS laptop concept at its booth / lounge, we headed right over the moment that the show floor opened. Unfortunately the notebook was locked behind a glass case, precluding any real face time with the prototype widescreen system, but luckily we were able to get right up in the grille of the 630i to check out all the angles. Of course, you'd rather peep some pictures then hear us drone on about our impressions, so check out the gallery below for the full package.%Gallery-12914%
Live coverage from Audiovox's press event
8:00AM - We're front row for Audiovox's 2008 CES press conference, ready to bring you all the exciting news from the world of the 'Vox and friends (Jensen and RCA). Stay tuned as we wait for presenters to take the podium.8:08AM - Ok, we're getting started. Tom Malone, President of Audiovox, is on stage, talking about the RCA A/V Group acquisition. Gets into the eight CES Innovations awards that the company's products have won.Keep reading after the break for the rest of the liveblog...