MeeGo OS, the bastard love child of Intel and Nokia, isn’t dead yet. The operating system is being re-packaged as “Tizen,” as Intel and Samsung shack up with a host of partner companies on the mobile OS front.

Tizen is based on Linux and will be an open-source operating system hosted by the Linux Foundation. Also backed by Samsung, the OS will place a heavy emphasis on HTML5 development and web apps, as opposed to a native app emphasis like iOS and Android have. Tizen will support a variety of devices such as handsets, tablets and connected TVs.

Why the switch to Tizen? Five words, one abbreviation: HTML5. Imad Sousou, director of Intel’s Open Source Technology Center, believes HTML5-based apps are the future, and a simple upgrade to the MeeGo OS just won’t cut it. “Shifting to HTML5 doesn’t just mean slapping a web runtime on an existing Linux,” said Sousou in a recent blog post. This would mean that APIs not visible to HTML5 programmers could be more flexible, allowing them to “evolve with platform technology” and vary from market to market.

MeeGo was originally a combination of Nokia’s Maemo and Intel’s Moblin operating systems. Nokia dropped the platform in favor of Windows Phone earlier this year and Intel reportedly halted development of the platform in early September. Currently, there aren’t too many devices that run MeeGo with the exception of the Nokia N9 smartphone and an Asus Eee PC netbook.

It’s interesting that Tizen is an effort endorsed by Samsung, as Samsung has its own mobile operating system called Bada (its SDK was recently released to developers). But the move actually makes sense: software giant Microsoft teamed up with hardware manufacturer Nokia. Software giant Google teamed up with hardware manufacturer Motorola. Teaming up with an open-source software platform like Tizen could give Samsung — which endorses a number of platforms including Android, Windows Phone and Bada — additional control over its mobile future.

Intel is pushing Tizen for developers, endorsing the OS with its AppUp developer program and HTML 5-based developer framework. The new OS will “incorporate the same principles and open source philosophies” as MeeGo.

Tizen will also support the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) web development environment for cross-platform applications. Web-based apps can run on any phone, and as more are developed, could potentially break down “platform wars” barriers by letting more native apps run on the current major mobile platforms. Services like Appcelerator’s Titanium Studio are also bucking the native app trend by providing tools for developers to publish cross-platform web apps.

Intel plans to make the transition to Tizen over the next few months and aims to make the transition to Tizen as easy as possible for devs. Code already contributed to the MeeGo project will be ported over to and compatible with Tizen.

A release date for the Tizen OS is set for early 2012, with Tizen-running devices arriving mid-year.

Image: The MeeGo phone browser (Steve Paine/Flickr)

All Photos: Victor J. Blue/Wired.com

The ultimate JamBox mount: An entire bike

Yves Behar, the designer of JawBone’s JamBox speaker, has obviously heard that I’m looking for a JamBox bike mount. Only instead of just designing a mount, he’s gone and built a whole bike to hold the thing.

That’s not strictly true, of course. While the Local, as it is called, does indeed hold a JamBox, it is designed to do a whole lot more. The Local is “the bike version of the practical pick-up truck.” To this end it does everything other cargo trikes can do, and more.

The Local will carry luggage and kids on its low front platform, and with a strap it will even carry a surfboard. Lights are built into the frame, there’s a tether to stop anyone snatching your bag off the front shelf and the bike features the first integrated lock that looks like it would work.

The D part of a d-lock is integrated into the frame at the front, and a bar locks across its ends. Remove the cylinder, drive the bike so its front swallows a pole and re-lock. You’re done.

Finally, a Shimano Alfine 11 hub and disk brakes front and rear will start and stop you easily.

The idea is that you can use this bike to do anything a car could do in your neighborhood. I like it a lot, and especially the light, bright colors that make it less like the serious cargo-carriers my local fruit shop uses to deliver its goods.

Behar makes no mention of price or availability, but if any concept deserves to make it into the real world then this is it.

Local product page [Fuse Project via Design Boom]

See Also:

• Jawbone Makers Dream Big for Tiny Headset
• Pick Up Artist, the Best-Named Cargo Bike Ever
• Home-Made Kid-Carrying Cargo-Bike

The video is a clip from the BBC show The Real Hustle, which is a “factual entertainment series about scams and cons” (and sounds pretty awesome). The perpetrator of the scam is Paul Wilson, a presenter of the show and scam expert.

Apparently this trick is one being used for real on city streets. It would work perfectly in Barcelona, which is full of camera and map-toting tourists. I wonder how you could defend against it?

My usual practice is to cover my bag with my hand whenever any stranger talks to me (I don’t really care if the honest ones are insulted). But perhaps a cleverer hack might work. Presumably thieves know that they’re targeting Nikons and Canons, and that the lenses mount in different directions (clockwise for Canon, counterclockwise for Nikon). Perhaps putting a Canon sticker on your Nikon and vice versa would do the trick?

Anyhow, watch out. The best way to avoid being a mark is to stay alert, and suspect everyone. Or carry a compact camera.

The Real Hustle [BBC]

Lens thieves ruin the day [Pixiq via PetaPixel]

See Also:

• 'Stop Thief' Chair Keeps Valuables Where Nature Intended
• Adios 3GSM: Stolen Wallets and Traffic Meltdown

An optional set of wireless dongles cuts the cord. They’re not as big as they appear in the photo

Wacom has just revamped its Bamboo tablet lineup, replacing the current Touch, Pen and Pen & Touch models with the Bamboos Connect, Capture and Create.

These new names will take a little more explaining than the old ones.

The entry level Connect ($80) is a pen-only model, a little larger than an iPad, and with a smaller bezel and thinner body than the previous Bamboos.

The Capture is the same size, but adds multitouch and the option to go wireless. This is done with an add-on set of dongles (one for the tablet, one for the computer) and a battery pack. This pack costs another $40 on the $100 price of the Capture.

The $200 Create is essentially a bigger version of the Capture, with multi-touch, wireless option and a large 8.5 x 5.4-inch touch area (and a 13.8 x 8.2-inch).

I used to use Wacom tablets all the time, back in another life as a graphic designer. I have the now-previous generation Pen & Touch, but almost never use it thanks to my dual Magic Trackpad setup. For editing photos and drawing on the computer, though, there’s really nothing like a proper tablet, and Wacom’s are still the best. Aside from their horrible driver software, that is.

All three tablets are available now.

Bamboos Tablets [Wacom via Electronista]

See Also:

• Wacom Bamboo Tablet To Make Mincemeat of Mice?
• Wacom Stylus for iPad Is Not What You're Hoping For
• Wacom Inkling Brings Ctrl-Z to Paper Drawings

Every time I use the new Instagram, I feel like a cruel trick is being played on me

Ever since Instagram’s 2.0 update, I have had a feeling that something wasn’t quite right. While the viewing section has been left well alone, the picture-taking and processing section has been dickered with and — frankly — ruined.

The headline features for this new release are real-time filters, allowing you to see the effects applied as you shoot, and high-res images. What isn’t mentioned is the abortion that is the new UI, or the watering down of the filters themselves.

Owen Billcliffe over at My Glass Eye has done an exhaustive comparison of the updated filters, and it’s easy to see that along with the rewrite to make them faster and full-res, the heart has been ripped out of them. The Lord Kelvin filter, now just Kelvin, is utterly different, whereas my favorite — XPro II — has become wishy washy. And many filters, including most of the new ones (of which there are four) look almost exactly the same as each other.

Worse. Some filters are gone completely, replaced by these new one. Gotham, the hight contrast, gritty B&W filter, is dead. Billcliffe also points out that the tilt-shift effect no longer allows control of the speed of the transition of the blur, or feathering. Thankfully, v2.1 will put this back in.

Those of you interested should go read Billcliffe’s post right now. It really is comprehensive, and shows you just how bad things are.

If the filters are bad, then the new UI is even worse. First, to apply the real-time filters, the live-view seems to have been downsized to a low-res feed. This is especially bad on the iPad, with its already awful camera. This view is kept as you apply filters. Only when you hit “done” do you see the proper results — up until then all diagonal lines have aliased jaggies, for example.

Application of filters is now frustrating. Instead of a neat row of icons along the bottom, the new icons overlap the bottom edge of the photo (they can be sent away, but then you can’t use them). Worse, when you touch one icon to apply the filter, the whole strips moves. So if I want to apply XPro II (as I usually do) I have to scroll around to find it instead of just hitting the second icon from the right as I used to.

This continuous scrolling means that the position of anything is never fixed. Worse is the scrolling itself, which combines two frustrations into one. First, you can’t just scroll. Dragging the strip of icons will apply whatever effect you touch, even if all you want to do is scroll. Previously you could scroll without affecting the image, which let you do quick before-and-after comparisons of filters at either end of the strip. This is contrary to almost every other iOS app.

Second, you touch a filter button and it not only jumps (bad enough) but jumps unpredictably. Touch a filter at the far edge of the screen and the strip jumps two spaces over. Touch one anywhere else and it only jumps one space. Terrible.

There is good news: You can revert to an old version by deleting the app and then reinstalling it from your computer. This assumes you didn’t sync your iPhone with your computer since installing the new version. It also means you’ll never again be able to hit “update all” on your iPhone, lest the better version is replaced again.

There’s another alternative: Try Instaplus, an app that lets you snap pictures, apply filters and send the results to Instagram. It’s great, and costs just $2.

Instagram 2.0 review: Insta-grumble [My Glass Eye]

See Also:

• Instagram for iPhone, Like a Lomo-Twitter for Your Photos
• Instagram Hacks: How to Get More Out of (and Into) the Electronic …
• Postagram Prints, Mails Instagram Photos

The FlyKly electric scooter, coming to a bike lane near you

What would you say if I told you that the scooter you see above will soon be shooting around your town or city, nipping in and out of bike lanes, piloted by untrained, unlicensed drivers? If it makes you angry, prepare to get angrier still, because what I just told you is the truth.

The scooter, called the FlyKly, is a rechargeable electric motorbike with vestigial pedals. Because it can reach just 20mph and has a motor of less than 750W, it qualifies under Federal electric bicycle law as a pushbike. 20mph (or 32km/h) isn’t fast enough to ride in traffic, but is fast enough to be a danger to cyclists.

The FlyKly comes in two models, both costing $1,900. The “Modern” looks like a regular gas scooter, and the “Vintage” has less fairing and more chrome. Both weigh 125 pounds (57kg), both have a range of 40 miles on a charge, and both will carry 500 pounds (227kg).

The Modern has disk brake at the rear (for effortlessly skidding out of control) and drum brake at the front. The Vintage has a pair of drums.

The FlyKly folks claim that, at five cents per charge, you can go 1,000 miles for a dollar. To charge, just plug the bike into the charger, or lug the battery pack inside and hook it up for 4-5 hours.

If it could go a little faster, it would be just about perfect, would require training and a license to use, and would be kept out of bike lines. As it is, it just looks annoying and dangerous: Consider that, here in Spain, it is legal for bikes to ride on the sidewalk.

On the other hand, it’s way better than a car.

The Modern is available for pre-order (ships October) and the Vintage can be had now through UrbanDaddy through some tedious membership program.

FlyKly product page [FlyKly. Thanks, Eric!]

See Also:

• Volkswagen Electric Scooter Charges in Your Trunk
• 'The Beast' Electric Bike: 50mph, $33500
• Monstrous Grace Pro E-Bike Defies Description
• A2B Electric Bike Thinks It's a Scooter

What’s the best thing about Toshiba’s 7-inch tablet? Turn it over and you’ve got every other 7-inch tablet, ever

Are non-Apple tablets the new netbooks? Let’s look at the evidence:

Same OS across the board? Check. (Windows XP on netbooks with a few early Linux boxes; Android everywhere plus BlackBerry’s Playbook).

Commodity hardware, with the only variations being minor differences in CPU, camera sizes and ports? Check.

Race-to-the-bottom prices? Check check check!

In fact, the only real differences seem to be that people actually bought netbooks in decent numbers, and that Apple has some skin in the game. And this time, Apple is the cheap option, as well as the only option anyone actually wants. Meanwhile, netbooks totally died and Apple just made its cheapest MacBook thinner.

Which brings us to Toshiba’s Thrive, a 7-inch me-too tablet running Android 3.2. It has an NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core processor, 5MP and 2MP cameras (plus an LED flash), USB, HDMI and microSD slots, and will ship in 16GB and 32GB versions. The ports are all hidden under the same kind of annoying flap that I tear off my smartphones in rage.

Pretty much the only thing you can’t find elsewhere is the knobbly, rubberized back (like the one on the bigger Thrive, only non-removable). And the price? A cagey “less than $400.” Should you wish to ignore the Thrive and buy an iPad instead, you’ll have to wait until November to do so.

Thrive 7-inch tablet [Toshiba. Thanks, Yulimar!]

See Also:

• It's Too Soon to Count Out Netbooks
• Epson's Spotlight Turns to Netbooks
• Five (Useful) Things to Do With a Netbook

Finally, the Windows Phone 7 operating system is starting to catch up.

Microsoft’s web-based Windows Phone Marketplace goes live today, years after competitors Apple and Google launched their own. The app store launch is in conjunction with the rollout of Microsoft’s latest iteration of the Windows Phone 7 operating system (Mango).

The version 7.5 update will roll out to existing Windows Phone owners slowly to ensure there are no issues for users, according to the company. Mango adds over 500 tweaks and features to the Windows Phone 7 platform.

The Windows Phone Marketplace web portal launches with over 30,000 apps in tow, an admirable enough number (though still far behind its competitors). Apps are organized into one of 16 categories, and on the main page you can also browse by featured, free, top or new. Games are a separate tab from apps, and they’re organized into one of 14 different categories. On an app or game page, you’ve got what you’ve come to expect from a web-based app market: the app icon, price, a rating, description, screenshots and reviews. After purchasing an app from the web store, the app can be automatically downloaded over-the-air, without an SMS or e-mail link, to your Windows Phone 7.5 device¹.

The update to Mango is free and completely optional, but we got a chance to check it out ahead of time and honestly, there’s little reason not to upgrade. In particular, the OS adds some seriously cool social media integration to your contacts list, which is referred to as the People Hub. It also adds Wi-Fi sharing abilities and a Yelp-like built-in app called Local Scout to the homescreen.

If you’re a Samsung Focus, Dell Venue Pro or other Windows Phone 7 owner, you’ll receive an alert delivered OTA to your device when the update is prepped and ready to download. To check the status of your potential update, you can visit the “Where’s My Update” site, which is available starting today. You do, however, need PC or Mac connector software to install the update, but they’re available for free online (details are available on the Windows Phone Blog).

A number of Windows Phone Mango-specific devices will also be released later this fall.

Note 1. The original version of this story incorrectly stated that apps purchased from the Marketplace could be downloaded through e-mail or text message.

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Apple will be unveiling its next iPhone Oct. 4 at its Cupertino headquarters

It’s about time.

Apple is hosting its next iPhone event at its Cupertino, California headquarters on Oct. 4. Press invites landed in media inboxes first thing this morning, with a very enticing tag line: “Let’s Talk iPhone.”

Tim Cook is expected to be master of ceremonies at the event now that he is Apple’s CEO. The media event is taking place at Apple’s 1 Infinite Loop HQ, out of the norm from past iPhone events held in the city of San Francisco.

At the event, we’ll find out once and for all if we’re getting an iPhone 5 or an additional budget iPhone 4S. The iPhone 5 is reported to have a larger, possibly edge-to-edge display, a thinner silhouette and an elongated home button. It’s also expected to house an A5 processor, like that of the iPad 2.

We’ll be there Oct. 4 to share the news.