We know you’ve got questions, and if you’re brave enough to ask the world for answers, here’s the outlet to do so. This week’s Ask Engadget question is coming to us from Ryan, who reckons it’s about time he stopped playing with Lego blocks and began playing with a real man’s robot platform. Just kidding about the Lego bit. If you’re looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.

“I am an aspiring roboticist who has been using Lego Mindstorms NXT for a few years and I am looking for the next step up. I have a budget of about $400. I am looking for something that has more motors, more sensors, and a way to have it live feed video back to a computer. I would also like a platform that has a large amount of building that can be done on top of it, such as adding an arm or another array of sensors, or a different drive base. I’m new to the world of robotics outside of the NXT, so any tips would be appreciated as well. Thanks!”

Come on over, robot lovers. Toss those gloves and goggles aside for a moment and throw this guy some advice. What platform keeps you up in the garage at night?

Ask Engadget: best robot platform for under $400? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s really no surprise that Redbox is going nationwide with its $1.50 Blu-ray rentals, at every step along the way of its Hollwood dealmaking, the company has pointed out its aim towards procuring a supply of high definition movies, and now the day is finally here. The high definition disc packing kiosks currently number 13,300, and the plan is to have Blu-ray in all 26,000 locations by the fall. While we spotted plenty of Blu-ray enabled locations with a San Francisco zip code, other areas in the Midwest and East Coast weren’t so lucky. The site points out a few of the movies on offer, including Green Zone, Book of Eli and Bounty Hunter, but there’s no way to check which movies are in stock at each box. Of course, at this price, we might be willing to take our chances until Redbox gets things straightened out, or starts offering an online competitor to Netflix.

Continue reading Redbox rolling out $1.50 Blu-ray rentals at 13,000-plus kiosks, nationwide by fall

Redbox rolling out $1.50 Blu-ray rentals at 13,000-plus kiosks, nationwide by fall originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Jul 2010 22:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You might remember that an LTE modem for Verizon passed FCC muster not long ago — now, it seems we’re getting our first glimpse of it. As is usually the case with these early devices on next-gen networks, this USB stick doesn’t look quite as svelte as we’d probably like it to be, but we have little doubt that they’ll get progressively thinner and sexier over the course of a year or three. And hey, in the meantime, far be it from us to steer clear of faster download speeds just because the modem’s a little chubby, you know?

LG VL600 LTE / CDMA modem for Verizon in the wild? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Jul 2010 21:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s one thing to expect in-flight WiFi on a commercial flight serving two or three hundred addicted peons, but how on Earth has it taken until now for NetJets to hop onboard this bandwagon? For those unaware, NetJets hosts the world’s largest fractional fleet of business-oriented aircraft, and those that lay claim to portions of its herd are amongst the most wealthy this world has to offer. Currently, the outfit has just over 800 planes, and starting next month over 250 of them (in the midsize and large-cabin categories) will be equipped with Aircell’s high speed internet service. In time, NetJets is planning to have “all future fleet aircraft, including light cabin models, delivered from the factory with high speed internet,” and we’re guessing that the jetsetters who drop the Benjamins to have their own plane are as anxious as ever for the future to be now. After all, who wouldn’t want to tweet images of filet mignon from 35,000 feet?

Continue reading NetJets begins Aircell in-flight WiFi installations, won’t stop anytime soon

NetJets begins Aircell in-flight WiFi installations, won’t stop anytime soon originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Jul 2010 20:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A conciliatory end? Looks like we spoke too soon. Yes, Google and China seem to be on a collision course yet again, with the company’s “Mainland China service availability page” showing that web search and ads have once again been fully blocked. Additionally, image and news search have been downgraded from “fully accessible” yesterday to “partially blocked” today. YouTube, Picasa, and other services already blocked remain as such. Looks like the saga continues.

Update: TechCrunch reports hearing back from Google, who now say this is all much ado about nothing — or rather, it’s a false alarm. Apparently there was “relatively small blockage” last night, but it has since returned to normal.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Google search blocked in China, again; other services partially blocked (update: false alarm, says Google) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Jul 2010 19:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It seems like a no-brainer, but at this point Microsoft has yet to confirm a separate 250GB HDD for its new Xbox 360 consoles — and really, if you’re picking up the 4GB model next month, that might come in handy. Newer press shots show a different side of the packaging, however, and if you get a high-res snapshot, you can see that it’s touting the various accessories you can buy to enhance your new Xbox 360 4GB experience: wireless controllers, Kinect, and… a 250GB HDD. Now, it could very well be misleading advertising — such a disc drive already exists, but you have to buy the current slimmed-down model or Halo Reach special edition bundle to get it. Somehow, though, we get the feeling this HDD is destined to be wrapped in separate packaging all by its lonesome — Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg even insinuated as much not two weeks ago. Only question is, when and for how much?

New Xbox 360 4GB’s packaging shows off 250GB HDD upgrade option originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Jul 2010 19:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re not certain that this date is going to hold — things like this have an uncanny tendency to slip at the last possible moment — but we’re at least hopeful to see some internal Sprint communication that they’re trying to get the EVO 4G updated to Froyo as soon as tomorrow, July 30. It’d be the perfect way to kick off the weekend, wouldn’t it? Turns out this is no mere 2.2 upgrade, though — they’re making a bunch of changes, too, including a host of new preloaded widgets, a flashlight mode for the camera’s LED flash, light-assisted 720p video, and “improvement” to the quality of said video capture (something we specifically complained about in our review). Unfortunately, it looks like the hotspot hack might be sealed off with this update, but that really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. As we said, we’re hopefully the date sticks, because Sprint has identified it as a “high priority for competitive reasons” — in other words, these guys must be feeling the Droid heat — but the PR is apparently going to identify the week of August 1 as the first push, so the devices getting the OTA tomorrow might just be a very small, select group to ensure that nothing spectacularly bad happens. We’re pulling for you, EVO owners.

Update: It’s been made official! Notifications will go out starting August 3, but Sprint’s doing something extremely cool by allowing eager users to opt-in early and grab the download at their choosing. Follow the break for the full press release.

Continue reading EVO 4G’s Android 2.2 update starts trickling out tomorrow, loads of new features and fixes in store? (update: official for August 3rd!)

EVO 4G’s Android 2.2 update starts trickling out tomorrow, loads of new features and fixes in store? (update: official for August 3rd!) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Jul 2010 19:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s hard out there for a prez, you know? Hardly anyone knows better than one Barack Obama, who sat down this morning on ABC’s The View in order to talk smack with a few ladies who undoubtedly helped put him in office. If you’ll recall, Obama fought hard early on for the privilege of maintaining his prized BlackBerry, and while he eventually won out, we learned today that a grand total of ten individuals are authorized to ping it. Yeah, ten. Needless to say, he described that depressing fact as “no fun,” and even the folks that are cleared to make contact with it won’t send over anything juicy. Why? They know that messages sent to it “will probably be subject to the presidential records act,” so those lucky enough to have the digits are also smart enough to divert their ramblings to Texts From Last Night. But hey, at least hanging in there despite the limitations grants you early access to BlackBerry OS 6, right? Right?

Obama says presidential BlackBerry ownership is ‘no fun,’ should’ve gone with the Sectera Edge originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Jul 2010 19:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The iPhone 4 may be launching on all the major Canadian carriers tomorrow, but we’re only just now starting to get the actual details on what they’ll be offering. Rogers is the first out of the gate and, for a change, it looks like folks in the US may just be a tad jealous of their northern neighbors. It’s not only offering the iPhone 4 for a further discounted price — $159 for the 16GB and $269 for the 32GB on a three-year contract (for both new and existing customers eligible for a hardware upgrade) — but it’s bringing back its 6GB data plan for $30 a month as well. On top of that, Rogers is also offering a new iPad sharing plan that will let you share those 6GB between the two devices for an extra $20 a month. Still no official word from the other carriers, but MobileSyrup has turned up a leak that suggests Bell will be offering 6GB for $30 as well, and iPad sharing for just $10 a month — although that’s yet to be confirmed. We’ll keep you posted as more plans are announced.

Update: Bell just flipped the switch, and their numbers are largely the same with one notable exception — iPad data sharing is an additional $10 a month instead of $20, just as had been rumored. Thanks, everyone!

Canadian iPhone 4 launch details emerge: Rogers offers 6GB for $30, iPad sharing for $20 (update: Bell’s iPad deal cheaper) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Poor guy can’t catch a break. Talking to analysts today about the world of tablets, Steve Ballmer put on a brave face about his lack of a strong competitor to the iPad, saying of Windows 7 products in the works with third parties: “They’ll be shipping as soon as they are ready.” Unfortunately, Apple’s iPad looms large, with Ballmer stating that “they’ve sold certainly more than I’d like them to have sold.” Perhaps more revelatory, Steve likened the tablet challenge to the situation Microsoft faced when the netbook started out as a Linux product, mentioning that part of their chore is “tuning Windows 7,” in addition to working with hardware partners. Obviously Microsoft is down, not out, when it comes to tablets, but will a few million iPads be their eventual demise or the impetus they need to succeed? Tune in next week someday for the thrilling conclusion!

Ballmer on iPad: ‘they’ve sold certainly more than I’d like them to have sold’ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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