Ask Engadget: best robot platform for under $400?

We know you’ve got questions, and if you’re brave enough to ask the world for answers, here’s the outlet to do so. This week’s Ask Engadget question is coming to us from Ryan, who reckons it’s about time he stopped playing with Lego blocks and began playing with a real man’s robot platform. Just kidding about the Lego bit.

$35 tablet from India looks to be worth every paisa (video)

We’ve seen some janky tablets over the years, and to be honest this latest one out of India hardly looks posh. But, for the price, it could be pretty amazing: $35. That’s what India’s Human Resource Development Minister, Kapil Sibal, is saying this device will cost at retail

Sharp intros first 100GB BDXL discs, Japan gets first dibs on July 30

It took a little while after the BDXL specification was finalized , but here’s Sharp busting down the door to expanded storage with the first official products adhering to said spec. The new VR-100BR1 discs will use triple-layer fairy dust to squish 100GB of data inside, and Akihabara News reports that they’ll be swiftly followed by quad-layer 128GB variants as well.

Boeing Phantom Eye unmanned spy plane stays aloft four days, sort of bums us out

Sometimes, in the seat of our despair (which almost always corresponds with a viewing of The Real Housewives of New Jersey ), we reflect on the sorry state of the world and note that the one thing we don’t have to doubt is that history is marching us towards a mechanized slaughter that will make World War I look like Burning Man (the rave, not the actual burning people). Sure, it never occurred to anyone to maybe figure out how to cap an undersea oil well , but at least we are making headway in our development of autonomous , long range aircraft (you know, for shooting people and eavesdropping and whatnot). Our latest example of a world gone mad comes courtesy of Boeing , and it’s called Phantom Eye

Windows Phone Live to offer remote wipe, location, and sync for your Windows Phone 7 device

See, Android owners don’t ever lose their phones, so that’s why they don’t need this capability… right?

Tesla planting electric engines into two Toyota prototype bodies

Word on the street had it that Tesla’s $50 million deal with Toyota wasn’t formal back in late May, but evidently things have made positive progress since.

Sharp’s LR388G9 LCD controller suggests more products with dual screens

While we’ll let competitors tell us whether the chip’s “an industry first,” Sharp’s certainly serious about devices with twin screens — this new LR388G9 controller chip pumps pixels simultaneously to each of two 1,024 x 480 LCDs. Sure, that resolution may sound pathetic compared to your Cinema Display, but this silicon’s intended for the likes of e-readers and phones, where a single image that size is desirable and a pair would be most welcome.

Apple: white iPhone 4 not available until second half of July, ‘more challenging to manufacture than expected’

Well, it looks like you can put those conspiracy theories to rest… or can you? Apple has just put out an official statement on the nowhere to be found white iPhone 4 , which it now says will not be available until the “second half of July.” What’s the holdup?

NVIDIA Ion 2-based Acer Aspire 532g netbook canceled

Acer may have announced a handful of new netbooks this morning, but we’ve been waiting and waiting on the NVIDIA Ion 2-powered Acer Aspire One 532g . And we hate to be the bearer of this bad news, but it turns out we could be waiting forever on the 10-inch, 1080p-playing netbook. Blogeee is reporting that bugger has been canceled in France due to technical issues with NVIDIA and Acer drivers, and when we followed up with our Acer contact here in the US, we were told that the 532g would not be launched in the “upcoming back-to-school cycle.” It’s truly not looking good for the little laptop, not to mention it’s extremely disappointing not to see any other Ion 2 netbooks on the market almost five months after its launch .

iPad Pulse Reader app goes from keynote hero to App Store zero thanks to NYT

Pulse News Reader — a news aggregating app for the iPad — got itself the ultimate stamp of approval yesterday by being featured in Steve Jobs’ keynote speech. A few hours later, however, Apple had removed the application from its App Store, following a complaint by the New York Times that it was infringing on its rights. Although Pulse collates publicly available RSS feeds, the fact it costs $4 a pop is being interpreted as a “commercial use” of those feeds, and therefore a violation of the New York Times and Boston Globe ’s Terms of Use.

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