Intel's Otellini insists company is committed to MeeGo, says he 'understood' why Nokia moved to Microsoft

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/16/intels-otellini-insists-company-is-committed-to-meego-says-he/

We've already seen some evidence that Intel was still pushing strongly ahead with MeeGo despite Nokia's deal with Microsoft, and now CEO Paul Otellini has chimed in on the matter to reassure folks that the company is still committed to the mobile OS. Speaking with Bloomberg at Mobile World Congress this week, Otellini said that he doesn't see that "Nokia changing its strategy changes the industry strategy," and added that "operators still look for an open, operator-friendly operating system." Otellini further went on to say on a panel discussion that he "understood" why Nokia made the decision it did, and even said that if he were in the same position he would have made "the same or a similar call." That doesn't mean he wasn't disappointed by it though -- in fact, he revealed that he used a word that Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz "has often used" when he first received the news from Stephen Elop himself (we'll let you look that up if you don't know it).

Intel's Otellini insists company is committed to MeeGo, says he 'understood' why Nokia moved to Microsoft originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Feb 2011 13:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Huawei IDEOS S7 Pro tablet sneaks out, coming this spring

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/16/huawei-ideos-s7-pro-tablet-sneaks-out-coming-this-spring/

Can you handle one more Android tablet? Let's find out. That one up there is Huawei's IDEOS S7 Pro, which is not to be confused with its new IDEOS S7 Slim. The Pro didn't get a formal introduction here at MWC 2011, but it was lounging around the Huawei booth with a placard revealing its specs. Unfortunately, this one won't be launching with Honeycomb -- it packs a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, Android 2.3, HSPA+, WiFi 802.11bgn, and two cameras. The metal model on display seemed to be just a mockup, and despite the LED buttons lighting up, it wouldn't actually boot. We overheard a company representative say that it would be launching this spring and our comrades at Engadget Spanish have also heard that it will launch at 10-inch version later in the year. You know what that means? Yep, even more Android tablets!

Gallery: Huawei IDEOS S7 Pro hands-on

Huawei IDEOS S7 Pro tablet sneaks out, coming this spring originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Feb 2011 13:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sleep as an Droid Wakes You Up Gently at Your Best Time [Downloads]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/#!5760593/sleep-as-a-droid-wakes-you-up-gently-at-your-best-time

Android: You're the mayor of New York, you have super powers, this donut tastes incredible, and then, then—the terrible, awful digital rooster sound. Wake up easier, and with better timing, with this clever customized Android alarm app.

Sleep as an Droid ("Sleep as an Android"—get it?) this app has soothing sounds to wake up to, that can fade in gradually—a nice feature, in itself. But the real benefit of Sleep as an Droid is keeping it on your mattress, so it can measure your movements and get a sense of your sleep cycles. It also logs your sleeping hours, so you can see just how far you're falling behind in the quest for a good night's rest.

With that movement analysis in place, the Sleep app suggests better wake-up times from the data it collects. This might not work for everyone, but you've got 14 days to try it out for free, before you'd need to pony up a small $1.34 (currently) for the unlocked version.

Sleep as an Droid [Android Market via Droid Life]

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SearchReviews Lets You Read Tons of Product Reviews by Scanning Barcodes with Your Phone [Downloads]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/#!5761411/searchreviews-lets-you-read-tons-of-product-reviews-by-scanning-barcodes-with-your-phone

iPhone/Android/web: There's no shortage of product review aggregators on the net, but new service SearchReviews adds a convenient feature to the formula: Now you can just scan a product's barcode with your phone to read reviews from all around the web.

Search Reviews is an incredibly simple app: just open it up, search for a product, or scan a product's bar code with your phone, and it will return to you a very long list of product reviews. It doesn't give you a ton of control over where you grab those reviews, nor how you sort them, but its beauty is in its simplicity. If you neglected to do your product research before visiting the store (or didn't foresee the options you'd have once you got there), it's a really nice, quick way to see if a specific product has any popular issues or unhappy customers.

Search reviews is a free service on the web, as well as a free download for iOS and Android devices.

SearchReviews [via TechCrunch]

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You can contact Whitson Gordon, the author of this post, at whitson@lifehacker.com. You can also follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
 

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Be Aware of the "Unit Effect" to Avoid Marketing Tricks [Mind Hacks]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/#!5761667/be-aware-of-the-unit-effect-to-avoid-marketing-tricks

We've shown you one way in which numbers can play tricks with our heads, and researchers have just found another, that shows we prefer larger numbers—even when they're equal to a smaller number of a different unit.

The "unit effect", as it's called, says that even if you're aware of the units in a measurement, your mind will still put more emphasis on the size of a number, rather than the value it carries:

Consumers will readily attach weight to completely fictitious product statistics, preferring items with the most bogomips, even if they have no idea of what the significance of that figure is. That may be disappointing, but apparently it's even worse than that-even when they do know what the units are, people tend to prefer a bigger number. As a newly released study shows, people would rather pay for expedited service to get things in 31 days than they would to get it in one month.

Of course its counter-intuitive, but if you aren't actively converting that measurement to other units, you aren't aware of your biases. Of course, as soon as you become aware of these biases, the unit effect goes away—so the next time you're told something will, say, ship in 31 days, do a quick check in your brain to see if that fits another familiar unit that casts a different light on the result. You may find you escape some marketing tricks by doing so. Hit the link to read more. Photo by Biking Nikon OGG.

The "Unit Effect" Makes 31 Days Seem Better Than a Month [Ars Technica]

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You can contact Whitson Gordon, the author of this post, at whitson@lifehacker.com. You can also follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
 

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