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There are already plenty of fish in the sea when it comes to VoIP picture-frame phones, and only a few have succeeded in arousing us, but this well-guarded fella here at MSI ’s CeBIT booth seems to have some potential with its unusually large touchscreen. According to the label, the MS-9A31 landline-VoIP hybrid phone will support DECT , video conference call and instant messaging, all courtesy of Android . A quick glance around the phone also reveals two LAN ports, a USB port and a card reader — the latter two presumably for stuffing multimedia files. No word on price or availability, but if MSI’s prominence can win over Skype ’s heart then we might have a winner here (and ASUS better watch out ). We gathered some shots, but there’s also a video walkthrough after the break. Gallery: MSI Android VoIP Phone [Thanks, Andy ] Continue reading MSI caught showing off VoIP video conferencing phone running Android MSI caught showing off VoIP video conferencing phone running Android originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 06 Mar 2010 23:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

Point: As my fellow Jalopnik readers would agree, the thought of an au-to-MO-bile running on some coffee beans is equally laughable and insulting. Counterpoint: As my fellow coffee drinkers would agree, this is an utter disgrace to our holy bean. Countercounterpoint: Carpuccino? Really? A while ago we read that coffee-based biofuels were feasible. Knowing the internet as we do, we figured it was only a matter of time before somebody took that novel possibility and turned it into an absurd reality. We were right! The Carpuccino, a 1988 Volkswagen Scirocco modified to run on ground coffee, will drive 210 miles between Manchester and London in the coming weeks. The trip will require over 150 pounds of coffee, with the car getting a mileage of roughly 1.4 miles per pound. The vehicle can hit speeds of 60mph, though the trip could take as long as ten hours, as the car has to stop every 60 miles to clean out its coffee filters (seriously). The joke on wheels was built by the BBC1 show Bang Goes The Theory as a reminder that unconventional fuels can power vehicles. Sidebar: the Carpuccino’s trip will cost up to 50 times as much as it would if it were running on gas. All that being said, I think we can agree to set aside whatever qualms we may have with the Carpuccino in light of its similarities, aesthetic and otherwise, to Doc Brown’s Mr. Fusion-equipped DeLorean from Back to the Future II. Espresso? Where we’re going we don’t need espresso. [ Daily Mail via Green Diary ]

Here’s the latest thought from those self-proclaimed champions of moderation and inter-faith harmony, the Islamic Forum of Europe – the people, let’s not forget, who have according to a minister infiltrated the Labour Party, and who exercise growing control over a London borough council. This is Azad Ali, the IFE’s community affairs co-ordinator, on the organisation’s

Once you’ve lost the “it” factor, it’s impossible to get “it” back. Here’s my news story about the membership shenanigans at New York’s Soho House… Soho House was born out of reaction to the pomposity of the traditional private members club – a place where creative types could let down their hair down. But somewhere along the

First, an insincere apology in the best New Labour manner. I apologise to any readers suffering the fifth month of a grim British winter for the fact that I am blogging from a beautiful sunny day in the Bahamas. I am staying here with friends. How come a whingeing Lefty Grub Street hack has friends

The news that 100 traditional Anglican parishes in America are joining the Ordinariate is yet another indication that Pope Benedict’s scheme is beginning to take off, and it led me to a recent speech by Bishop Peter Elliott, Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne, who helped persuade the Australian branch of Forward in Faith to vote to

You can tell it’s Oscar season at Vanity Fair’s offices because you begin to overhear members of staff having the following telephone conversation as you wander down the main corridor: “Who? Oh my God! How the hell are you? I haven’t heard from you in, like, 10 years, man.” Pause. “Gee, I’d love to help but there’s really

A weekend edition of Crush Links, our daily roundup of the day’s most talked-about celebrity news: Jenna Elfman and her husband welcomed a baby boy on Tuesday, the actress tweeted yesterday. [ People ] More details on Conan O’Brien ’s live tour: It will begin in April, and the comedian will visit mostly West coast cities with possible dates in New York City. [ The Wrap ] Precious took home five prizes at last night’s Independent Spirit Awards, including ones for Gabourey Sidibe , Mo’nique , and Lee Daniels . [ Variety ] The couple involved in Ronnie ’s Jersey Shore boardwalk fight sued MTV, saying Sammi started it and the channel edited the fight to show otherwise. [ RadarOnline ] Post from: Crushable

Sure, the PSP is still a mighty attractive piece of hardware. “Handsome,” you might say, but that heart-pounding allure is all but gone these days. While we wait a few more years for Sony to rectify that with a PSP 2, we can drool over another mod by ” f00 f00 .” This time he’s managed to squeeze a working VU Meter onto the back of the ever-moddable machine. Sure, it’s not a revolution in the world of PSP hacking, but it’s impressive and somehow comforting in its own we-guess-the-PSP-is-still-pretty-cool sort of way. Video is after the break. Continue reading VU Meter finagled into a PSP, reminds us of a time when the PSP was sexy VU Meter finagled into a PSP, reminds us of a time when the PSP was sexy originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 06 Mar 2010 20:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

Nvidia posted a preview video of the GTX 480, their eyeball-popping, face-melting Fermi graphics card that is set for release “very, very soon.” It bests ATI’s HD 5870 in a benchmark, though maybe not by as much as you’d hope. As Tom Petersen, Nvidia’s director of technical management, explains in the video, the GTX 480 shines when it’s tessellation time. During the tessellation-intensive parts of the benchmark, Nvidia’s card outpaces ATI’s considerably, though at other points they’re neck and neck. It seems obvious that Nvidia would choose something that really played to the GTX 480’s strengths for its video debut, so we’re hoping that the card lives up to our expectations for insane speeds when it shows up in the wild and people start running their own tests. [ YouTube - Thanks Doug ]

We’ve come across plenty of robots that were controlled by phones before, but usually those phones were being controlled by human hands. Some California hackers, however, are building bots that put Android to work for their robo-brainpower. Their first creation, the TruckBot, uses a HTC G1 as a brain and has a chassis that they made for $30 in parts. It’s not too advanced yet—it can use the phone’s compass to head in a particular direction—but they’re working on incorporating the bot more fully with the phone and the Android software. Some ideas they’re kicking around that wouldn’t be possible with a dinky Arduino brain: face and voice recognition and location awareness. If you’re interested in putting together a Cellbot of your own—can you even conceive of a cooler dock for your Android phone? Or a better use for your G1?—the team’s development blog has some more information. The possibilities here are manifold; mad scientists, feel free to share your Android-bot schemes in the comments. [ Wired ] Image credit Miran Pavic / Wired.com