Better World has been striving for, erm, a nicer planet with its battery-swapping approach to electric vehicles since as far back as 2008. There’s been a modicum of success, with outlets and swapping stations peppered as far and wide as Denmark, California, Australia and Japan. Now, the Associated Press reports that world’s first nationwide electric car network — this time in Israel — has been given its first test. This only equates to four battery stations at the moment, with a further 40 to follow in the second half of the year. However, the firm maintains, that even with the current infrastructure, users could comfortably drive the entire length of the nation. Renault will sell a version of its Fluence EV customized to work with the battery stations for ,000, with different mileage options on offer. Is this the future of electric motoring? We’re don’t know, but anything that’s this much quicker than overnight charging is fine by us.

Better Place takes its electric vehicle network in Israel for a silent spin originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 May 2012 03:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When you’ve got a marketing budget the size of Nike’s, a few international footballers and a glossy video aren’t really enough. That’s why its latest “My time is now” campaign is an all out interactive spend-fest, complete with a hidden Sega Sonic the Hedgehog mini-game. The standard YouTube version (as seen over the break) isn’t interactive, but head over to Nike’s official channel, and it’s a whole different ball game. Clicking on players slow-mos the action, bringing up player details etc., and there are nine hidden “tunnels’ to find — one of which being the Sonic game. Can you find it? Hint: look for the pitch-side adverts with go faster boot on. Your time is now…

Continue reading Elaborate Nike YouTube video has hidden Sonic Game (video)

Elaborate Nike YouTube video has hidden Sonic Game (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 May 2012 01:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yesterday at Maker Faire Bay Area 2012 we visited the Electric Imp booth to chat with the startup’s founders and get some hands-on time with the tiny wireless computer. What is the Electric Imp? It’s a module containing an ARM Cortex M3 SoC with embedded WiFi that’s built into an SD card form factor. While the device looks just like and SD card, it’s not pin-compatible with the standard — the idea is to leverage a reliable and affordable connector for the Electric Imp. The module is not very useful on its own — it only comes to life when inserted into one of several boards, which provide the Electric Imp with power and access to the real world. In turn the device gives these boards a brain and an Internet connection. Eventually the company hopes that appliance manufacturers will incorporate Electric Imp slots into products to make them network aware.

We talked with CEO Hugo Fiennes (formerly with Apple) about the past, present and future of the Electric Imp so hit the break to read more and to watch our hands-on video.

Continue reading Hands-on with the Electric Imp at Maker Faire (video)

Hands-on with the Electric Imp at Maker Faire (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 May 2012 00:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you had any doubts that Samsung’s next Galaxy smartphone was not all that anticipated then perhaps this bit of news might convince you otherwise.  According to Reuters, Samsung has already taken 9 million preorders for the handset, spread across more than 100 wireless carriers.

Samsung typically shoots out press releases touting numbers of sales figures for the Galaxy line of devices and expect nothing less for the Galaxy S III.  We cannot wait for our U.S. versions and figure the sales will be off the chart once it arrives stateside.

Although Samsung has not confirmed these figures we figure we’ll get something more official come launch time.

Samsung has already taken 9 million preorders for Galaxy S III originally appeared on AndroidGuys.

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Native Instruments’ gear is a must-have for those in the beat making world. We put the cheaper, dinkier Maschine Mikro through its paces and found that while we loved the portability, we weren’t so hot on the lack of MIDI ports and absence of knobs for twiddlin’. That said, we weren’t able to hate on the compromises that were made to bring it in under 0 and small enough to stow in a backpack, but how about you guys out there? When you’ve used this gear day in, day out, can you forgive its flaws in exchange for that extra cash in your hand, or do you wish you’d saved up a little more? If you were in NI’s position, what would you have done differently?

How would you change Native Instruments’ Maschine Mikro? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 20 May 2012 22:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just a little over three months after Google got the green light from the US Department of Justice and the European Commission they have finally received the blessing of Chinese regulators to acquire Motorola Mobility.

Google did have to agree to one fairly major stipulation in the process however — Android must remain freely available to other manufacturers for the next five years. Now it seems likely that this is exactly what Google has in mind anyway, but this should assuage any lingering doubts for other manufacturers.

According to WSJs sources the purchase could be finalized within the week. What, if anything, we will see happen once the deal goes through has been a bit of a mystery ever since we first heard of the planned buyout over nine months ago. There’s been no shortage of rumor and news surrounding Motorola’s future with a shake-up at CEO, a potential sale to Huawei, a complete firewall between the two companies and now a potential US importation ban in the coming months. The only seeming guarantee is that it is unlikely to be a boring year where Motorola is concerned.

We’ve asked you before, but now that we are in the home stretch for this purchase it feels like it’s an appropriate time to ask again. What do you think Google should be doing with Motorola? Should they be a full-time Nexus manufacturer? Should Google allow them to continue as a separate entity? Should Google allow them to continue as a separate entity but insist that Blur and any otherwise named permutation of it be killed off? (I’m only slightly kidding.)

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