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This was the QVC edition of the Engadget Mobile Podcast, featuring full-on hand modeling by Brad and some really nice close-ups of the new halo devices of CES 2012. A forklift also abducted Myriam. You won’t see that in the audio-only podcast, so use your best fan fiction imagination this time or shoot the video to your media streaming device of choice. All that, plus the triumphant return of the newly Fu Manchu’d Sean Cooper. Zing! Video after the break. Hosts: Myriam Joire ( tnkgrl ), Brad Molen Guest: Sean Cooper Producer: Trent Wolbe Music: Telephone 00:06:00 – AT&T Pantech Element hands-on at CES 2012 (video) 00:06:10 – AT&T Pantech Burst hands-on at CES 2012 (video) 00:07:17 – Huawei Ascend P1 S and P1 hands-on (updated: video) 00:11:55 – Motorola RAZR MAXX 00:12:05 – Live from the Engadget CES Stage: an interview with Motorola’s Melissa Gardner 00:12:15 – The Engadget Interview: Nokia CEO Stephen Elop at CES 2012 (video) 00:13:30 – Verizon launches BlackBerry Curve 9370 00:13:45 – BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 hands-on (video) 00:14:05 – Live from the…

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We never thought we’d say this, but here goes: someone noticed an online petition. Namco Bandai threw down the gauntlet, tasking a masochistic PC audience with drumming up signatures for a potential PC port of Dark Souls. Over 64,000 of them responded . Namco Bandai community manager Tony Shoupinou dropped into the forums to say that his bosses approached him after the news broke. “If you wanted to have the attention of Namco Bandai Games, now you have it,” he wrote in a post. “The future is in your hands, and I hope you will keep supporting this. I make a personal objective to make sure every relevant people in Namco Bandai Games is in touch with this formidable effort.” It’s hardly confirmation that a port is incoming, but at least you’ve gotten Namco-Bandai’s attention — and knowing is half the battle .

[CES 2012] When it comes to automobile technology at CES, you can be sure that there will be new and old players alike each year, trying to outdo each other with their latest releases. Research In Motion’s Porsche Carrera concept car proved to be quite the attention seeker, where the vehicle showed off a slew of innovations which ran on RIM’s QNX platform. What makes this so special? Well, QNX is also the springboard for the Canadian’s firm’s next-generation mobile operating system. RIM picked up QNX a couple of years ago, and it is nice to see the fruit from that acquisition finally appear. Making sure the Porsche’s in-car infotainment system will work as intended, the real-time OS also powers the dashboard’s instrument clusters in addition to acoustic processing systems that deliver hands-free voice in many other vehicles. (more…) RIM QNX in Porsche concept , By Ubergizmo . Top Stories : Asus Transformer Prime Review ,

Saving money is one of the more popular spurs to quit smoking, but with nicotine patches and gum lumped into pricey kick-the-habit programs (hell, they even have hypnotism these days), the quitting can be pretty expensive itself. As it turns out, nicotine patches don’t actually help smokers much at all, and quitting cold turkey is just as effective.

Social networks could one day revolutionize how we get shopping recommendations, but not yet. Instead, tablets are causing the biggest shakeup in ecommerce. 80.2% of 1000 holiday shoppers said no, personal connections on Facebook or other social networks did not influence their shopping decisions. Other findings of Baynote ‘s study include that 48.6% of tablet owners made a purchase through that mobile device, and that email had the most useful promotions. Amazon’s Price Check app recently stoked fears about “show rooming” — the practice of trying out a product in a brick & mortar store but then purchasing it online, which can hurt local merchants. However, Baynote found the opposite is usually the case with 93% of surveyed consumers having researched a product online and then purchased in a physical store. Retailers on and offline that want to reach consumers with promotions should focus on email. 62.5% of respondents said email was the most useful way to receive promotions, trouncing direct mail (16.7%), search engine results (11.8%), and daily deals (4.9%). Only 2.5% said Facebook was the most useful promotion channel. This …

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This slider was still lacking its most important spec when we went hands-on , but a carrier document outed over at Droid-life fills in the blank: it lists a “minimum advertised price” of $249 on 24-month bond to VZW. Of course, we’re still waiting on the second most important spec — the release date, which hopefully won’t be as futuristic as the handset’s appearance.