Editor-in-chief Josh Topolsky and Managing Editor Nilay Patel have left Endgaget, one of the biggest tech news blogs on Internet. Both Topolsky and Patel don't give any indication that their leaving has to do with AOL's acquisition of the Huffington Post and decision to leave Arianna Huffington in charge of of Engadget, which many felt may somewhat tarnish the quality oft he site. However, there will no doubt be speculation that the pair left Engadget due to--at least in part--AOL, as Paul Miller recently left Engadget as well, putting the blame squarely on AOL, claiming their "way" doesn't promote good journalism or "even good entertainment." Topolsky and Patel mention that they aren't leaving the Internet, however, and have some projects in mind, so fans of the editors won't have to worry that their favorite tech bloggers will be disappearing altogether.

(via All Things Digital)

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The rumored PlayStation phone is real after all, and Engadget has the prototype pictures to prove it. Aside from the PlayStation-inspired triangle, square, circle, and X buttons, the main connection this Sony Ericsson-made smartphone will have to the beloved console line will be "a custom Sony Marketplace which will allow you to purchase and download games designed for the new platform." For more phone-like needs, it'll be built on Android; Engadget surmises that it'll be Android 3.0, a.k.a. Gingerbread. The PlayStation phone's specs: A 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8655 chip, 512MB of RAM, 1GB of ROM, and support for microSD cards, with a screen "in the range of 3.7 to 4.1 inches." No word on a release date, but it'll likely be in 2011. More pics at Engadget.

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When Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced they're primarily a streaming company that happens to offer DVD-by-mail, people speculated that the Canadian streaming-only subscription would be available stateside within the next few months. Surprisingly, the streaming option seems to be available today, only a week after Hastings made the illuminating statement.

However, there seem to be inconsistencies regarding the streaming-only option's availability and pricing. Read on past the jump for the details.

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That takes chops. (And a little bit of obsessiveness.) Engadget associate editor Darren Murph has been recognized by Guinness World Records Ltd. as the professional blogger who has written the most blog posts ever: 17,212 as of July 29th. Engadget puts things into perspective:

That's single posts on Engadget, Engadget HD, and Engadget Mobile, not duplicated work. We obviously couldn't be more proud of Darren and the work he's done (and continues to do) here, and we think this is an amazing feat for one writer. Of course, this is the guy who did 59 posts in a single day at CES 2008. Seriously. To put it in perspective, his current word count is at 3,389,148. That's War and Peace about six times over.

Congrats, Darren! (Wonder how far Andrew Sullivan and the Daily What dude are from catching up?) (via Engadget | Darren Murph's author page)

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A team of researchers has developed a learning algorithm, dubbed ARCHER (Augmented Reward Chained Regression), which allowed the iCub robot to learn archery to the point where it learned to get a bullseye in eight tries from 3.5 meters away.

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Seemingly taking a cue from the video game industry's long-standing practice of selling unlock codes and downloadable content, Intel is experimenting with selling codes for deliberately gimped processors that would unlock their full power one the unlock code is applied.

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During Apple's press conference on Friday, Steve Jobs explained that the company had conducted thorough testing of the iPhone 4's antenna in the company's secret lab. Following the presser, 11 journalists were invited to tour the once-hidden "Infinite Loop labs," which Apple has invested $100 million into for antenna design and testing. The tour was notably led by senior Apple engineer Ruben Caballero, who had reportedly warned Jobs about the antenna problem early in the iPhone 4's development (Jobs called the allegation "total bullshit"). According to Macworld--who were among the lucky few invitees--an Apple PR representative told them, “The existence of this lab used to be secret. Now it’s not.” Indeed, Apple had presented images of its facilities at the conference, and later posted a page about its state-of-the-art testing environment, the implication being that no other facility would yield results as accurate.

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AT&T customer Giorgio Galante was dissatisfied with the new data plan AT&T announced yesterday, which eliminated unlimited data. So he decided to try to get in touch with AT&T's CEO Randall Stephenson, whose email address is not public, but is easily findable online if you Google, say, 'at&t randall stephenson email address.' Galante got a response from AT&T alright, but it was probably not what he was expecting: After thanking him for his feedback, a member of AT&T's "executive response team" phoned him and left a voice mail that thanked him for his feedback, but followed up by saying ""going forward, I need to warn you that if you continue to send emails to Randall Stephenson, a cease-and-desist letter may be sent to you." What sort of email did Galante send to provoke this response?

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Engadget has some "photos which made their way into [their] hands" that look a whole lot like an iPhone that no one's ever seen before. It could, quite possibly, be a prototype or production model for the patiently anticipated iPhone 4G or iPhone HD. They say the phone was found on the floor of a San Jose bar inside an iPhone 3G case. So, uh, that's not sketchy at all. If it turns out to be an unannounced next generation iPhone, I hope the story of how it got there is suitably epic. Anyway, specs on this mysterious device after the jump.

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It may interest you to know that Apple has competition in the tablet market, much in the same way that the Kindle has competition in the ereader market, much in the same way that sharks have remoras. Barnes & Noble has announced a number of updates concerning its ereader the Nook, and Engadget has gotten a hold of some leaked pictures and internal Dell announcement of a tablet computer called the Streak, in 7 and 10 inch sizes.

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Today, gossip and entertainment site Crushable.com launched, under the able guidance of editor Erin Carlson and deputy editor Amanda Ernst. We're happy for them and hope the site will be a success. But our first thought was, "gee, Crushable sounds a lot like Mashable, doesn't it? After all, both names denote the ability of something to be flattened by compression." Crushable might be able to get away with it because its target demographic probably aren't obsessed with social media news, but in the course of our geeky browsing, we've noticed some sites in the (pardon the expression) geekosystem that sound a whole lot like other, better-known sites. Coincidence? Here they are, in increasing order of copycattery:

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So: in one hour, Apple is announcing the release of the Apple Tablet. You may have seen Engadget's photos of what purport to be the Apple Tablet (after the jump); they're blurry, but look convincing enough. Is this the Tablet we've been waiting for? Can the Internet bear to wait and find out?

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