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It’s no reason to panic just yet, but apparently a good amount of people are having trouble with the external speaker on their Motorola Droid cutting out for no reason. It seems to be software-related, and sometimes a reboot fixes it temporarily, but it’s a scary problem for people relying on the handset as an alarm clock (or, you know, to receive calls), since you never know when it will strike next. For its part it seems that Motorola is replacing handsets that have the issue, though that’s no guarantee of escape from the clutches of silence. Let’s hope Motorola updates us with a software patch or some other serious solution soon — people need to hear that robotic “Droooiiid” alert sound — and meanwhile let us know if you’ve been seeing a similar issue.

[Thanks, Bryan]

You know how we love a good knockoff at Engadget. Well, the PXP 2000 isn’t the greatest KIRF we’ve ever seen — especially considering that it’s a “PSP Go” that plays NES games (and pretty badly at that). It is, however, one of the most caring and detailed unboxings we’ve seen in a really long time. In the nearly 15-minute video (which we’ve included after the break), the young gentleman host proves himself to be a talented and fairly entertaining chap. Be sure to watch the video all the way through — you’ll get to see some Super Mario Brothers action as well as the PXP’s super fantastic iPhone camera icon. Also, someone who we can only describe as Jason Voorhees-esque makes a guest appearance about halfway in. Hit the read link for the whole, wild ride.

ray has finally clawed IBM back from the lead position on the Top500 Supercomputer chip-measuring contest. After just missing out on the title to IBM’s Roadrunner last year, Cray’s XT5 supercomputer (aka, Jaguar) at Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee received an update from quad- to six-core Opteron processors to boast a 2.3 petaflop per second performance peak (theoretical) and 1.75 petaflops as measured by the Linpack benchmark; a feat requiring almost a quarter million AMD cores. IBM’s Roadrunner, the very first supercomputer to race past the petaflop per second threshold, managed just 1.042 petaflops by comparison. Remember, one petaflop per second is equivalent to one quadrillion calculations per second. Of course, chip makers put their own spins on the list by noting that 4 of the top 5 systems depend on AMD for performance while Intel can be found powering 402 of the Top500. Video of the AMD processor upgrade procedure can be found after the break.

We don’t know what it’s like to be blind, but we often suffer from acute blogger’s eye fatigue and would love nothing more to pound out our ramblings in a no-look manner — if only we could read them back afterward without letting all those ultra-harsh light particles and / or waves back into our brains. Well, a Braille display and Braille keyboard obviously solves that problem, and the BrailleNote Apex from HumanWare is purportedly the thinnest and lightest notetaker for the blind yet. It runs Windows CE 6, with a decent variety of accessible software, and is targeted at serious students and professionals, with 8GB of built-in flash storage, an SD card slot, WiFi, Ethernet, Bluetooth, and a trio of USB ports. No word on a price or release date, but it sounds pretty kitted out, and these things typically don’t come cheap.

At this point, there have been so many Sonic games on so many different platforms, that you don’t really need to run an old school Sega Genesis or Sega CD to play with the blue hedgehog. Need, however, is not what this is about. A fellow calling himself Neon (whose real name is presumably Thomas Andersonn) has put together a proof of concept video to show off a custom PSP Go firmware capable of running Sega CD images. Alas, he’s only keen to prove said concept for bragging rights alone, and there are no plans to unleash this unto the retro-loving world, but isn’t it enough to know that you can bring back all those memories of an insecure youth whiled away in a poorly lit room with a 12MHz console pushing about 200 pixels in total? Of course it is, check the video after the break.

People have been trying to turn cellphones into medical and atmospheric scanners for some time now, but when it’s NASA stepping up to the plate with a little device to monitor trace amounts of chemicals in the air, it’s hard to not start thinking we might finally have a use for all those tricorder ringtones. Developed by a team of researchers at the Ames Research Center led by Jing Li, the device is a small chip that plugs into the bottom of an iPhone and uses 16 nanosensors to detect the concentration of gasses like ammonia, chlorine, and methane. To what purpose exactly this device will serve and why the relatively closed iPhone was chosen as a development platform are mysteries we’re simply not capable of answering. Damn it, man, we’re bloggers not scientists!

Update: George Yu, a developer who wrote this implementation for Jing Li, commented to let us know that the choice to go with the iPhone was made because it was “cool,” but he soon realized that choice was a “horrible mistake.” We’re guessing that could have something to do with an apparent lack of wireless coverage at Ames if the above screenshot is anything to go by.

We’d heard last month that this month was the month that Google would finally launch its highly-anticipatedChrome OS, and now we’ve got a “reliable source” over at TechCrunch asserting that the software is gearing up for launch “within a week.” Granted, we can’t ever be too certain when it comes to a rumor such as this, but if the system really does hit the wilds, we probably won’t see it available for every machine on the face of the planet. The presumed Alpha build will likely only support a select few products that Google engineers have had a chance to specifically work with — possibly something such as an Eee PC netbook, which has generally the same specifications regardless of design or model number. Either way, we’d go ahead and prepare ourselves for something new before the end of November — but don’t let it spoil your holidays should things get pushed back a bit, okay?

One lucky Chinese blogger was kind enough to share his Dell Mini 3i unboxing experience beyond the Great Firewall, just a tad before Dell officially announced their first-ever smartphone. What’s interesting is that the China Mobile version comes with a special stylus for the capacitive touchscreen — a very handy tool for writing Chinese — but there’s been no mention of this accessory for the Brazilian 3iX. Dell’s also bundled a 3.5mm adapter for the mini-USB port in case their handsfree isn’t good enough for your audiophilic ears. Yeah, too bad about the missing headphone jack, but don’t let this deter you from checking out the Mini 3i’s full glory after the break.

Now transferring a complete DVD or an entire music between mobile phones will be in seconds. It is possible by Bluetooth 3.0. This powerful technology will be presented by Bluetooth Special Interest Group on April 21st. read more