next-generation

Soon there will be more than just one way to contact 911.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski announced today that the four largest wireless carriers in the U.S. have agreed to fast track a service that will let people text the emergency 911 line.

AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and T-Mobile have all signed on and major deployments are planned to roll out in 2013 and the service should be fully available nationwide by May 15, 2014.

"Access to 911 must catch up with how consumers communicate in the 21st century -- and today, we are … Read more

Apple announced the 0.7-inch-thick "next-generation MacBook Pro" this morning. And its marquee feature is a Retina Display, making this the first MacBook to get one.

Resolution: The display boasts a staggering pixel density of 2,880 by 1,800. That's 220 pixels per inch and a total 5.18 million pixels. And that beats the 2048-by-1536 resolution on the third-generation iPad.

Apple's Phil Schiller said it's the world's highest-resolution notebook display. He's certainly right if he's talking about 15-inch laptops.

Screen: Higher contrast ratios, better viewing angles via IPS technology, and … Read more

There's always at least one person on your holiday shopping list you put off as long as possible because he or she is such a pain to find something for.

You know these kinds of people. The insufferable wiseacre who insists he's easy to shop for when he's constantly looking for weird movies no one has heard of (more accurately, ones no one wants to watch), or talks about how he needs to add to his collection of '70s and '80s TV commercials. They're like gift hipsters. It would be too easy to just get them something readily available.

These are the people for whom gift cards were created.

Ah, but it doesn't have to be that way. With a minimum of fuss, you can get something unusual for that precious snowflake in your life without having to leave the house. Here, in no particular order, are five Crave-worthy ideas that don't involve your online shopping history being inexorably linked to movies with titles like "Blood Freak" or "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies." … Read more

Apple is looking to get into the business of unique device identification, Patently Apple reports, filing a patent that details plans for a "digital handshake" using next-generation cameras capable of reading specially coated, invisible ink.

The technology would be used for enterprise, social networking, and gaming applications.

While technology already exists that can transfer information between two devices quickly and securely (such as Bump and PayPal), Apple plans on revolutionizing the process and the media used to create a more robust, yet simpler transfer method.… Read more

Amazon has quietly dropped the price for its refurbished Kindles, with the Wi-Fi-only, ad-free Kindle now at $99 while the 3G ad-free version is down to $129.99.

Big deal, you say. The Wi-Fi-only Kindle with Special Offers is $114. But as the blog Beyond Black Friday points out, the last time Amazon dropped the price on the refurbished versions of its e-readers the Kindle 3 (the current model) arrived soon afterward in late August. To put it more bluntly, Amazon appears to be clearing inventory in advance of a launch.

As reported by CNET News, Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), who represents parts of Silicon Valley, has introduced the "Next Generation Wireless Disclosure Act," which would require cellular carriers that offer 4G data services to provide consumers with accurate information about the minimum speed and reliability of the service.

In an interview, she said "consumers are really confused about what 4G really is," adding that "wireless companies right now throw around terms like 'lightning fast' and 'supercharged,' but their claims when examined closely don't always match up with reality." She said that the bill … Read more

Sri Peruvemba, vice president of global sales and marketing at E Ink, recently stopped by our New York offices and talked displays and reminded us just how thin the e-ink screen for the Kindle and other e-readers is.

While he was showing off a "Triton" color e-ink prototype that's been making the rounds and piqued the interest of textbook publishers, we were more interested in what's up next for monochrome e-ink. Peruvemba couldn't speak about any new e-readers from Amazon or Barnes & Noble, but he did say that the company's latest and greatest e-ink display, which goes by the name Pearl and was released last year (it's in the Kindle and Sony Readers but not the Nook), would be it for now; we shouldn't expect anything new in 2011.

"We're generally on a two-year cycle with our e-ink technology," he said. "It takes some time to develop and test the next generation." … Read more

Some people were disappointed when Apple chose to shrink the iPod Nano, give it a smaller 1.5-inch multitouch display, and lose the built-in video camera. Well, if this photo from the Taiwanese Mac Blog Apple.pro--which has been fairly reliable with Apple "spy" pics in the past--is any indication, Apple may be bringing the camera back while retaining the current-generation Nano's tiny form factor.

It would be interesting to speculate how you'd shoot with such a small camera, but one obvious method would be to clip it on lapel-style, turning the Nano into sort … Read more

I won't name names, but we have an editor here in the office, who, every time a new Apple product comes out, says he isn't going to get it. He had the iPhone 3GS and said he was going to wait for the iPhone 5 and not get the iPhone 4. Two weeks later, he had the iPhone 4 and had given his 3GS to his wife.

I said, "Dude, where's your discipline?"

"I know, I know," he replied sheepishly. "But I wanted it. I couldn't resist."

He's got an iPad, the original. I know he's going to get an iPad 2, even though he says he isn't. How do I know? Because the moment Steve Jobs got up on stage and showed his first slide, he said, "Gee, that looks pretty nice." He had him at hello.

The iPad 2 didn't look any different from what we expected it to look like--and it didn't look all that different from the original iPad. But suddenly there on stage in the flesh it had taken on a new, irresistible sheen. Not the Charlie kind of Sheen. Just the Apple kind. … Read more