Sony's PlayStation Vita hasn't exactly sold like hotcakes over in Japan, so the company has sweetened the pot for the portable's potential Stateside buyers. Those who placed pre-orders will get a couple of extra goodies for their $350. To go with the previously promised limited edition case, 4GB memory card and copy of Little Deviants, you'll also receive 250MB of data from AT&T and a PlayStation Network game gratis as soon as you activate 3G on the device. Furthermore, folks buying a Vita on launch day can look forward to the same free data and PSN game, plus an 8GB memory card in exchange for their $300. So, that enough to get you on the handheld's bandwagon? Sound off in the comments below.Sony reveals new 3G/WiFi PS Vita bundles: free data, PSN games and memory cards for everyone originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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We're here at Apple's education-themed event at the Guggenheim museum in New York City, and the company's just followed up its long-awaited textbook announcement with something unexpected: iBooks Author, a free OS X program for creating books. The intent is really for teachers and other educators to produce educational materials, but Apple says the format can apply to any genre. Aside from the free part, the real story here is ease of use, with the ability to drag and drop photos, videos and even Microsoft Word files into various templates. If you use Apple's own suite of office apps, in particular, you can drag and drop a Keynote presentation into the doc, and it'll live on as an interactive widget. (You can whip up other widgets, too, though you'll need to know Javascript or HTML.)
The fact that French ISP Free just began offering its own cellular service is pretty nice, but the realization that it did so by building its very own prepaid network -- rather than simply hopping on a dedicated cellular provider's towers -- is a noteworthy feat. Even more impressive, Free is offering the service, appropriately called Free Mobile, to subscribers at a price that matches the name of the company. Sure, you're not getting a ton of minutes with the basic free plan (60 minutes and 60 SMS / MMS messages), but you can get a load more (unlimited calls and texts, 3GB of data and unlimited access to the ISP's WiFi hotspots) for €15.99. If you're not a subscriber, fear not: you can grab the basic plan for €2 / month or the advanced option for €20. Free Mobile is still in the process of building out the network, which means that customers may find themselves occasionally roaming on Orange for a while. But hey, you can't go wrong with free, eh? Check out the source to see the selection of phones available for purchase.
The leaders at China Unicom are placing their bets on the iPhone 4S in a very big way. With a new promotion that begins January 13th, the nation's second largest mobile carrier will offer both the 32GB and 16GB versions of Apple's latest iPhone free on-contract. To score the high-end model, consumers must sign a three-year agreement with a minimum monthly cost of 286 yuan ($45). Alternately, those looking to avoid the long-term commitment may pick up the 16GB version on a two-year contract with a minimum price of 386 yuan ($61) per month. With the obvious price differential, one thing is for certain -- China Unicom definitely wants its customers to stick around.
Heading to join us at CES in Las Vegas? Delta is prepared to hook you up with 30 minutes of free in-flight WiFi on all of its flights to and from LAS beginning today. If you're flying in from the West Coast, that should have you covered for most of the trip. Otherwise, it's at least long enough to download your email or check to see if that farmland below is in Kansas or Nebraska. And if you opt to use social media during your flight, go ahead and throw in the #EngadgetCES as you rave about being able to tweet from the sky.
Sure there will be plenty of good news for gadget fans at CES next week, but here's a bit of a downer for early software adopters in the US -- that free unlimited Spotify account that you signed up for six months ago will be drawing to an end. Yep, it's time to either break out the old credit card number or learn to start rationing your listening. When the trial period ends next week, those who signed up at launch will be limited to 10 hours a month of listening and five plays a track. So, how many of those free account holders will be willing to drop the $5 or $10 a month for a premium account? The lure of apps may be too strong to resist.
Not content to provide us with ClockworkMod Recovery and other fine hacks, Koush just made a free USB tethering app available for Android aptly called ClockworkMod Tether Alpha. While it's not the first app to bypass paid tethering plans, it supports unrooted phones and works with Linux, Mac and Windows computers. Just enable USB debugging on your phone, download the appropriate installer for your desktop OS of choice, then connect both devices via USB and you're all set. The installation process creates a virtual network adapter on your computer and pushes a matching APK to your phone. A proxy is used to avoid detection by the carriers.
The fount of free stuff to give away overfloweth -- and we want to keep the holiday spirit alive -- so we've taken the opportunity to offer up two more huge contests before CES approaches this coming weekend. Through tomorrow you'll have the chance to win a BlackBerry Bold 9900 and a full year's worth of top-notch voice turn-by-turn navigation, all courtesy of TeleNav! The Bold will be locked to T-Mobile's network, so you'll need to have a T-Mo SIM card to be right as rain. The normal rules apply, so make sure you read through them thoroughly and leave a comment below. Good luck!
Those kind folk at Skype already served up plenty of glorious WiFi waves across US airports this Christmas, and now it's New York City's turn. From noon on the 31st until January 1st, if you spy a "Skype WiFi" network, those tasty bytes are yours for the taking. The VoIP don has teamed up with WiFi provider Towerstream for the give-away, and recommends you load-up on the latest version of its famous software to make sure you don't miss out. If you pack an iDevice, then it's the Skype WiFi app you'll be wanting updated in the lead up to midnight. Just make sure you don't miss that kiss, just for a festive freebie.
