Unsafe at any speed: Corvair, Motorola’s new Tablet remote control gets pictured

Seth Weintraub | Nov 5 2011 - 6:25 pm PT

You have to wonder if someone is playing a a joke on the Verge. Someone sent in a box cover that purports to hide a 6-inch Android 2.3 tablet that does double time as a remote control for your cable box. If this isn’t a Punk’d-ing, the device is with cable company testers right now and will be used to control the cable box, GoogleTV be damned.

The box calls it a “dedicated controller,” but it also seems to show the tablet wirelessly displaying its entire UI on the TV, so we’re guessing it can be used to watch and stream content in addition to serving as a remote control for one of Motorola’s cable boxes. (That would also explain the hardware power and volume buttons next to the display.)

We don’t know much specs-wise, but the box says the design is “optimized for low cost,” so we wouldn’t expect anything high-end inside. It also looks like it says something “OS” in the upper left, so it seems like a fairly custom version of Android. There’s also IR control and RF4CE, which is a ZigBee-based RF control protocol, as well as a high-capacity 4,000mAH battery

Of course “Corvair” is also a car that Chevy built in the early 60s that makes every “worst car ever” list and was the subject of the Ralph Nadar book, Unsafe at Any Speed. We’re hoping that Motorola’s naming/branding department is playing a joke on us in this case.

Also, as Motorola gets folded into Google, this will likely get folded into GoogleTV, which is to say, cancelled…just like its namesake.