Tech Peek Base

Bluetooth connectivity between phones and SYNC-equipped Fords is nothing new, but the problem is that a good number of handsets out there in the wild don’t support phonebook download (seriously, check the compatibility chart) which means you can’t dial names by voice — and what’s the fun in calling anyone if there isn’t at least a small chance of your car confusing “Dad” for “Vlad”? That’s where Ford’s all-new SYNCMyRide comes into play, an app for Windows and Mac machines that’ll take the names and numbers (up to 2,000) off your lame vintage handset and stick ‘em on a USB drive; from there, you just plug the drive into your SYNC’s port and kick off an upload. It’s compatible with every SYNC-equipped car on the road today, so we’ve hooked you up with a link to go grab it — but only begrudgingly, since we’d obviously love to see you upgrade to a better phone instead.

The honeymoon period with my Droid has worn off, and I still love it. But it’s far from perfect. One of the biggest gripes I’ve had has been with app support. In particular, the native Facebook app ? by far one of my most commonly used apps and one that actually came preinstalled on the phone ? has sort of sucked until now. Yes, you could read your News Feed, but many of the app’s functions actually kicked you into a separate browser window and weren’t done in the native app. Today, that changes.

A new version of Facebook for Android is now live on Android Market, and it’s a big improvement. I’m still playing around with it to find the various changes, but the app’s description points out two big ones: you can browse your friend’s profiles and photo albums natively. Given how core both of those features are to the Facebook experience, it’s surprising that they weren’t there to begin with. Suffice to say, this is a big leap forward for the app, and users are already expressing their delight on Twitter and the Market’s integrated reviews.

File syncing and storage startup Zumodrive has raised $1.5 million in funding led by Sherpalo Ventures with Tandem Entrepreneurs and VeriFone CEO Douglas Bergeron participating. We initially reviewed Zumodrive here.

While there are a plethora of syncing and storage services available to users, Zumodrive, which spawned from Y Combinator startup Zecter, has a different take on file syncing. Similar to other services, Zumodrive creates a drive on your device that is synced to the cloud. But service has a different twist-the service tricks the file system into thinking those cloud-stored files are local, and streams them from the cloud when you open or access them.

We’ve already seen Seagate tout the speed advantages of its SATA 6Gbps hard drive, but it’s the 6Gbps SSD that we’re really curious about. PC Perspective managed to snag itself a Marvell prototype drive, and even though they could only test the read capabilities of it, the results are nothing short of titillating. Reviewers pitted the Marvell drive against Intel’s well-respected X25-M G2, and their (admittedly limited) testing led them to discover a 33 percent increase in burst performance over one of the quickest SSDs on the market today. In case you’re still not impressed, you should know that they also saw a 27 percent uptick in sustained read performance (compared to the X25-M G2) and a 175 percent increase over the aforementioned SATA 6Gbps Seagate HDD. Obviously it’s still too early to tell whether the 6Gbps SSD really is the best thing since the vacuum tube, but if these ultra-early results are any indication of what’s to come, we suggest you start packing those pennies away right now to finance your next storage upgrade.

Not wanting to feel left out of the festival of updates for GPS apps, AT&T has given AT&T Navigator [iTunes link] some new features that are sure to please people who use the app.

Here’s what’s new:

Each Winter, the United States Congress adjourns through the end of the year. Before that recess occurs, there’s usually a flurry of legislative activity happening to squeeze it in before the break, during which time nothing gets done. This week, there has been a curious amount of activity coming out of Google at a time when many companies are in holiday mode. And guess what? It’s the same idea.

Okay, not exactly the same, people at Google are still working, but apparently Google has a “code freeze” policy that goes in place sometime in December. If you don’t get your product/service out the door by then, it gets pushed til when the freeze is lifted, likely sometime in the new year. A few Googlers confirmed this policy off-the-record, but all seemed concerned about publicly acknowledging it. Perhaps they’re worried about the competition working overtime to take advantage of Google taking its foot off the gas.

Relaxed, a stealth startup centered around Apache CouchDB has raised $2 million from Redpoint Ventures according to an SEC filing which was confirmed by CEO Damien Katz. Three original authors of Apache CouchDB–Damien Katz, J. Chris Anderson, and Jan Lehnardt–are listed as Executive Officers of the company.

For those who are unfamiliar, CouchDB is a free open source indexable document database server which uses Javascript as a query language. CouchDB is designed for the reporting and storage of large amounts of semi-structured, document oriented data, unlike SQL databases which store and report on very structured and correlated data.

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 James, who needs more geotagging in his life for reasons that are far too personal to share. That said, we have to confess that we’re curious…

“I am looking for the best geotagging camera currently available. The most important feature for me is the accuracy of the GPS module, so any hard specs on satellite receiver would be really useful. Thanks for your time!”

Google search got a real-time upgrade and started to integrate Tweets from Twitter in real-time into search results. So its makes sense for Google’s Search Appliance (GSA) to now include tweets from Twitter next within enterprise’s internal Search Appliance results.

Google offers businesses its GSA product, a yellow box that resembles a slice of Swiss cheese, that can index any enterprise data generated by Oracle databases, SAP systems, Documentum, SharePoint, Salesforce.com, HR systems, intranets, wikis, and more, and presents it to employees in a familiar Google-like interface. Based on a standard Dell server and powered by Xeon 5500 Series processors from Intel, the latest version can index 30 million documents.

There’s an interesting article at The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) today (subscription required) suggesting that Apple’s recent acquisition of LaLa could mean a web-streaming model for a future version of iTunes. The speculation began last week, and today more information has emerged.

Quoting a source “…who has been briefed on Apple’s plans,” the WSJ reports that LaLa executives have been given key roles at Apple, and that members of the existing iTunes team will report to them. The article also reiterates the $85 million price tag, which TechCrunch recently disputed.