Microsoft worked with Vodafone late last year to deploy Surfaces to a few dozen stores in several European countries (much as AT&T has done in the US), and one of those units happens to be set up at the carrier’s IFA booth this week.
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Vodafone’s Microsoft Surface: like Go Fish for phones
Boy, we’ve gone from rumor to hands-on experience in just a couple of days with this thing. Microsoft’s November 9 -bound Xbox 360 controller refresh couldn’t escape the clutches of Joystiq , who have put together a neat photo gallery and video overview. That chrometastic new D-pad is clearly the headliner here, and the early feedback is that it works well — it takes a bit of effort to transform from a flat button to the elevated four-way navigator you see above, but that’s apparently a good thing as it means you’ll never flip modes by accident in the middle of a hot and heavy gaming session
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Xbox 360’s transforming D-pad controller gets handled on video
You may not want to be seen rocking one of these at your next gig, but if you’ve been trying to juggle your phone and guitar while using some of the endless number of apps out there, you might just want to consider this so-called Guitar Sidekick from Castiv. As you can see, there’s not a whole lot to it — just a bracket that attaches to the neck of your guitar, and an adjustable mechanism that will accommodate just about any smartphone (or even a PSP). No word on an iPad version just yet, but you can grab this one right now for $30
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Guitar Sidekick brings your phone to your guitar, while your guitar gently weeps
Maybe we’re a bunch of idiots, but while the Flip and its ultra-simple camcorder ilk have certainly made shooting video simpler and more accessible for the masses, we still find many of these cameras surprisingly unintuitive or just “blah” at doing what they do (Kodak’s otherwise excellent Zi8 and PlaySport cameras come to mind) when it comes to UI. After playing with the horrendous Flip Slide HD , we were almost sure touchscreens would act as another obstacle to using these things, but of all people, Sony has come to the rescue. We found the original Bloggie line very unimpressive, but this new Bloggie Touch crop is exactly as easy to use as you’d imagine a one button device would be.
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Sony Bloggie Touch preview: an actually simple ’simple camcorder’
As beta testing programs go, Microsoft’s Kinect venture has been kind of… leaky . No surprises, therefore, that we’ve now received our first in-the-plastic pictures of the motion-tracking camera peripheral, replete with a few select shots of its packaging.
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Microsoft Kinect starts making home deliveries to beta testers
Samsung may be one of the big players that Microsoft is pinning its hopes on for Windows Phone 7 , but you wouldn’t know that from listening to the company at IFA. Speaking to Reuters at the show, Samsung’s head of marketing for its mobile division, YH Lee, said flatly that “we are prioritizing our Android platform,” adding that, “Android is very open and flexible, and there is a consumer demand for it.” Lee further went on to note that the company will continue to focus on its own Bada platform (at least outside of North America), but seemingly downplayed Windows Phone 7 when asked about it, saying only that ” there is still some professional, specialized demand there.” Ouch
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Samsung: ‘we are prioritizing our Android platform’
The Zune HD continues to rank among our all-time favorites in terms of industrial design, so it’s good to hear that Microsoft isn’t entirely abandoning the PMP sector for its new Windows Phone 7 hotness. Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet has consulted her tea leaves (and in-the-know tipsters) and emerged with the strong feeling that some new Zune hardware is brewing up in Redmond
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Zune HD could have all-new model in the works
If you’ve been holding yourself back during these early rounds of the smartphone wars in anticipation of Windows Phone 7 , your wait just got a tiny bit shorter. Today Microsoft is announcing that its fancy new mobile operating system has been released to manufacturing, making the idea of you holding an actual WP7 device in your hands that much closer to reality. The finished product is now rolling out to partners around the world where it will be getting carrier and manufacturer tweaks and additions, and going through the kind of pre-launch testing you would expect for a release of this scale
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Windows Phone 7 goes gold master, begins rolling out to partners for final launch preparations
Remember Sony’s Bloggie line of pocket camcorders announced back at CES? While those may have been a bit forgettable, the company’s just-announced Bloggie Touch video camcorder makes a considerably stronger first impression (if you can get past the name).
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Sony announces Bloggie Touch pocket video camera
After the overt teasing , leaking , and then more leaking , Microsoft’s finally ready to spit out the details on its Arc Touch Mouse , which at the end of the day is really just…
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Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse seriously, finally, officially announced, doesn’t ship until December
