IBLOG SPACE

It looks like Sprint's head start in the 4G service race may not be quite as big as the carrier would like. According to the Wall Street Journal , HTC EVO 4G handset shortages are mitigating whatever advantage the company should have, being first out of the gate with the technology. "The early move to 4G has benefited Sprint from a marketing perspective, but it hasn't really proven out in a major way in subscriber growth," said Dan Hays, an analyst for PRTM. Good news, perhaps, for both AT&T and Verizon, who looks to take its first, tentative steps into some markets later this year. In other news, Sprint has announced a handful of 4G rollouts, including such far-flung locales as Rochester and Syracuse, New York; Merced and Visalia, California; Eugene, Oregon; Tri-Cities and Yakima, Washington. Hopefully HTC can start providing the necessary handsets! PR after the break.

There have been rumors that the first volley of BlackBerry 6 -powered devices could launch as early as last month-- but seeing how we're still empty-handed, we may as well enjoy more high production value video pimping the biggest new features, right? RIM has published another official YouTube spot on BlackBerry 6 today showing off goodies likes aggregated social network integration, universal search, and -- of course -- the all-new WebKit-based browser coming out of last year's purchase of Torch Mobile. Interestingly, this latest video continues RIM's trend of showing 6 running only on full touchscreen phones; we can't fathom that they'd abandon the form factor that made them famous, of course, but it's becoming more and more obvious by the day that we're going to see this launch on the rumored 9800

Sony Ericsson's Xperia X10 has been out and about for some time, facing off against the competition and predictably getting ripped to shreds. Now it has reached the next natural step of its evolution: receiving the root treatment by a bloke at xda-developers . User Bin4ry over there has posted step-by-step instructions on how to locate your device ID, re-flash your phone, and then enable superuser abilities. It all looks particularly straightforward, as far as these things go, and so if you're looking for a bit more control this weekend don't hesitate to click on through.

Is this the honest-to-goodness iPhone 4 jailbreak we've been waiting for, or just another userland JB? It's hard to say from here... but either way, don't expect Geohot to release it into the wild. In a mildly jaded blog post, the original iPhone hacker makes it clear that whatever he did here was for his own amusement, and judging by the title of that entry ("Meh") the whole breaking-and-entering bit isn't giving him quite the same chuckles it used to. That's a shame, but we hear the iPhone Dev Team is making progress apace, so let's leave Geohot to tackle one of his other promised hacks, mmmkay?

Even though we've seen evidence of a hack that circumvents it, we've been able to corroborate a story over at AndroidGuys this week that the HTC EVO 4G 's 30fps cap on screen output is a terminal condition -- so says HTC, anyhow. The official story is that the cap was necessitated by the phone's support for HDMI-out, and there's no way the company could craft a software update to nix the limitation. Of course, as usual, we have every faith that the xda-developers community is going to magically take care of this in a way that's easy enough for at least power users to install -- but until then, you'll just need to deal with a frame rate that's just barely perceptible to the human eye. We suspect you'll manage.

All that we’re missing at this point, is an official statement from Microsoft about how much their motion-based gaming peripheral is going to cost. Yeah, that’s right. We’ve got pricing from just about everyone else by this point, but Microsoft has still yet to “announce” anything. And that’s even after their very own Microsoft Store listed the Kinect at $149.99. And considering everywhere seems to be boasting the same price, we’d be pretty surprised if that wasn’t the final decision. But, if you are thinking about getting a bundle, Walmart’s already got you covered. If you plan on getting the Kinect, then going with the bundle from Walmart may not seem like a bad idea. You’ll be getting the Kinect (obviously), which is probably going to cost $149.99. And then you get a game, one of the launch titles (which includes: Kinectimals, Kinect Sports, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One, Joy Ride, Dance Central, and Kinect Adventures ) which will run you $59.99, and a $30 eGiftca

If you’re an international customer (not in the United States), then you won’t have to do much to get your hands on an unlocked iPhone 4 . They come like that across the pond. So, as is usual ’round these parts, devs had to crack down on their social lives to get the new iPhone, running iOS4, unlocked. It involved rewriting the entire ultrasn0w software, which meant previous versions couldn’t be used, thanks to the new baseband that Apple installed in the iPhone 4. But, PlanetBeing and MuscleNerd of the iPhone Dev Team have managed to get an iPhone 4, running iOS4, unlocked. Thanks to a tweet from PB , he now has a soft-unlocked iPhone 4 up in Canada (which means it’s probably the only one up there in that state, if they were doing their testing on only one device). And, while text from one of the devs is good enough for us, we know that pictures speak louder than words, so those are included too. One of which shows the application Cydia open and running. So, at this point, the iPhon

We’d have to say that there’s definitely some hackers out there that have that Loki mentality. Where their actions are all just a big joke, no matter the consequences. For example, if you’re a fan of NZXT , and you’re someone who gets their corporate newsletter, then you probably received a letter stating that the company was shutting their doors, saying that financial hardship was the cause. Truth be told, it’s a very well written letter, and we can see why so many folks out there truly believed NZXT was on the way out. But, it looks like that’s not the case at all. Co-Founder and Product Manager at NZXT, Johnny Hou, sent out a letter today explaining the situation to its loyal customers. According to the letter, yesterday evening the NZXT site was infiltrated illegally, and those responsible basically went to town on the website. Not only did they send out the initial letter, but they also changed device warranty information, as well as deleted plenty of home page and product banners

Perhaps unlike the KIN, Microsoft has a lot of faith in their reboot to the Windows Mobile Operating System lineage. They’re putting a lot of effort, on both the software side of things, as well as enforcing the hardware side of things, to make sure that the mobile OS they launch later this year is the best they believe it can be. And while relying on the Operating System itself for the majority of feature-driven aspects to attract customers is good in of itself, it’s also the extra features that’s going to draw in plenty of more folks to your platform. Andy Lees, Senior Vice President for Microsoft’s Mobile Communications Business, announced some of those extra features at the Worldwide Partner Conference in Washington, D.C. Having extra services accessible by your device is one thing, but creating a universe where those features are an integral part by showcasing the inherent connections from those services to your phone, or vice versa, is another. That’s why Microsoft believes they

Every iPhone I have owned since the original came out in 2007 has needed some help with its battery life at one time or another. All of the smartphones have had cases on the market that have a battery inside to extend the runtime. The new iPhone 4 also needs a case to help prevent the antenna from being blocked. A company called Exogear has announced a new Exolife case for the iPhone 4. The case has an internal battery for longer runtime. The battery is 1500mAh and promises an extra seven hours of talk time per charge. The case is made from polycarbonate and leaves the antenna exposed and prevents your hand from covering it accidentally. The case exposes all the ports and controls for the iPhone except the charge and sync port. The black version of the Exolife case ships on July 30 with the white version coming on September 30. You can preorder now for $89.95.

There are lots and lots of people who have jobs that don’t come with an office. These types of jobs are professional occupations that have the worker in the field all day making sales calls and giving presentations to make sales and drum up business. For this type of worker, staying in touch with the office is important and conference calls often come with the territory. Konftel has announced a new mobile 3G conference phone just for this type of worker. The device is called the Konftel 300M. It is the first conference phone to use a SIM card. The device has the same features that the company puts into its fixed line conference phones for the home office. The device can record the call to a memory card, offers text messaging, and has multi-party dialing. The device can also connect to a computer via USB. Pricing and availability on the conference phone is unknown.

I just mentioned the new 3D gaming notebook from iBUYPOWER. The company has also unveiled a pair of new gaming desktops based on the NVIDIA GTX 460 video card that was unveiled recently. The new systems include the Paladin E370 and the Paladin F860 machines. Both of the new desktops use a standard clocked GTX 460 video card offering decent performance without breaking the bank. The E370 also has a liquid cooled Intel Core i5-750 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, and 500GB of storage. The machine is packed inside a cool PSI Cyclone X gaming case with prices starting at $834. The Paladin F860 has the same GTX 460 video card and uses an Intel Core i7-930 CPU, an Asus P6T SE mainboard, 6GB of DDR3 RAM, and has a 8x Blu-ray drive and 1TB of storage. The F860 sells for $1849.

iBUYPOWER has been busy launching lots of new computer systems over the last few months. The company has announced a new 3D gaming notebook called the Battalion 101 W860CU-3D . The notebook supports stereoscopic 3D gaming and 3D Blu-ray movies. The machine uses the Intel Core i5-520M mobile processor and has 4GB of DDR3 RAM, a Blu-ray optical drive, NVIDIA GTX285M graphics, and a widescreen LCD with a 120Hz refresh rate and a resolution of 1366 x 768. The machine uses the NVIDIA 3D Vision active glasses. The notebook runs Windows 7 Home Premium and has a 320GB 5400 RPM HDD. The Blu-ray drive will burn CDs and DVDs and the MSRP for the 3D gaming notebook is $1749.

OCZ is a memory, PSU, and SSD maker extraordinaire. The company has a huge amount of hardware that it offers for all sorts of computer users from the standard issue type to the hard-core overclocker. OCZ has announced a new range of 4GB memory modules that are speedy. The company is now offering 4GB memory modules for users who need lots of RAM with only a few available memory slots. The new high capacity RAM modules operate at up to 2133MHz making them fast and offering good performance. The new modules are being offered in several product lines including the Flex EX, Reaper HPC, and Platinum series. The Platinum series is an entry-level line with the other two series being aimed at overclockers and high-end PC users. The kits will be offered in 8GB dual channel or 12GB triple-channel kits at up to 2133MHz.

In today’s world, everyone has their favorite whatever. Whether it’s video game console, beer manufacturer, or mobile Operating System, there’s always reasons why (and why not) you should pick one over the other. For Symbian , the OS made famous by Nokia, it looks like that time in the limelight is starting to decline, and at an accelerated rate. That is, if Nick Jones of Gartner is to be believed. Jones, who wrote a quick research note on his blog, seems to go out of his way to make sure that the bleak picture about Symbian’s current state of affairs, and what’s still to come, is clear as day. As it stands right now, it seems that Symbian is still the head of the pack, but it’s quickly losing its footing. While competitors likeAndroid and iOS continue to gain market share, Symbian is falling. And it’s getting worse before it gets better, as the rate of decline is growing. Jones points out that features that Nokia are planning on introducing, like audio policy packages, and other featu

There’s been all sorts of speculation out there ever since HP acquired Palm. While plenty of folks out there would just be happy getting some new smartphones, there’s even more who would love to see webOS on other things. Yes, tablets included. And while HP has said they’re committed to exploring all of those options (smartphones included, thankfully), their own Research & Development department is obviously looking at other things as well. For example, while Phil McKinney of HP was on stage at MobileBeat 2010, he showcased something else HP is hard at work on: flexible displays. We’ve seen all sorts of different variations of flexible display s over the years, but HP’s is a bit different. Printed on Mylar, it’s similar to E-Ink, has a low-power profile, and can be made into pretty much any size you want. All the way down to a 3.5-inch handset display, even. It’s full color, as well, so we won’t be seeing the future of (HP) smartphones in black and white, thankfully. There was noth

Able Planet have carved something of a niche for themselves, with a range of headphones that mix together active noise cancellation you’d usually see on high-end travel headphones and prices you’d expect from the highstreet. Their latest are the Extreme XNC230W headphones , an entry-level pair that promise more portability while still cutting out background audio. Check out the full review after the cut. In the box there are the Extreme XNC230W headphones themselves, together with a detachable audio cable (with a 3.5mm plug), a 1/4-inch headphones adapter for use with home stereo equipment, a battery and a soft carrying case. The headphones fold down at multiple points to a reasonably small, flat package; smaller, in fact, than the Able Planet NC300B’s we reviewed back in December 2009. On, they’re reasonably comfortable thanks to plenty of ear-cup and headband padding, though we’re not sure how well they’d hold up to jogging or other active exercise.

AT&T’s Captivate is the first of Samsung’s Galaxy S series smartphones to reach the US, and our review unit has just dropped onto the test bench. Packing a 4-inch Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 1GHz Samsung Hummingbird processor and 16GB of onboard storage, AT&T’s latest Android device marks a reasonably significant style departure from the original European Galaxy S, though you still get Android 2.1 and TouchWiz 3.0. Check out the unboxing and our first impressions of the AT&T Samsung Captivate after the cut. We’ve already got a pretty decent idea of how the Captivate will perform: inside the new casing it’s basically the same as the Samsung Galaxy S we reviewed a few weeks back. Unfortunately while the style may be different, the less-then-impressive hand-feel is unchanged. In comparison to rival flagships like the iPhone 4 and Motorola DROID X (read our review), the Captivate feels plasticky, though at least it’s lightweight and the plastics are of decent qual

LG already has a pair of 3D active shutter glasses out there in the world, but up until just recently they were pretty much nowhere else to be found in the 3D market. But it looks like they’re changing their strategies, as they’re about to strengthen the market with their own products here in the near future. Bolstering what they’ve already released. Not too long ago, LG launched the LX6500 and LX9500 LED HDTV s. Spanning 47-inches and 55-inches respectively, they are the company’s first 3D-ready sets out there. So, with the pair of TVs out there, their active shutter glasses, and the fact that 3D-capable Blu-ray players are set to launch here in the coming weeks, there should be no surprise that they want you to go ahead and buy all your 3D-capable shiny gadgets from them. They’ve even got incentives for you to do just that. If you buy one of the sets, at least two pairs of 3D glasses, and a 3D Blu-ray player, LG will go ahead and discount the whole thing by $100. Oh, and you’ll get

At the moment, Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE Arcade is one of the best ways to get your nostalgia-rich gaming on, as it features quite a few “oldie-but-goodie” titles tucked away inside. The trouble is, in its current iteration it’s not the easiest digital interface to navigate through. Like Microsoft of yesteryear, lists play a big part of finding that next great game. As we reported last week, Microsoft is looking to change that up with Destination Arcade, a whole new way to find what you’re looking for, plus a lot more. But it’s not coming out on the 14th anymore, as the upgrade has been pushed back. At its core, Destination Arcade is a “recommendation engine & visual browser app.” Basically, instead of going through those endless lists (once you get past the nice cover flow-like UI, of course), you’ll be able to navigate the internal catalogue of Arcade with a very ornate, attractive and sleek User Interface. Other features wise, you’ll be able to use that recommendation engine to you

Barnes & Noble are pushing to get their nook dual-screen ereader into schools, with the announcement of NOOKstudy. A new, free digital content management app, NOOKstudy promises to take ebooks, digital class materials, textbooks and notes, and keep everything packaged neatly in one place. The app doesn’t actually require a nook to be functional – though obviously B&N would rather you did buy one – since you can buy, download and read eTextbooks on the PC or Mac client itself. That’s because it’s all tightly integrated with Barnes & Noble’s own ebook store, which currently has a claimed “over 1 million ebooks and etextbooks”. These can be tagged, highlighted and annotated, and then searched through at a later date; you can also view two pages (from two different ebooks) on-screen at any one time. Currently NOOKstudy isn’t available to download; there’s only a sign-up form for more information once B&N push it out the door. That’s expected to happen in fall 2010, in

Consumer Reports have been playing with the iPhone 4, and the judgement is clear: while the fourth-gen Apple handset scores high enough to sit at the top of their smartphone tree, it loses out on a coveted “Recommended” rating because of the antenna issue . The independent testers also cast doubt on Apple’s open-letter to iPhone 4 owners, in which they blame incorrect signal meter calibration, and say that “AT&T’s network might not be the primary suspect” for the smartphone’s patchy performance. “We reached this conclusion after testing all three of our iPhone 4s (purchased at three separate retailers in the New York area) in the controlled environment of CU’s radio frequency (RF) isolation chamber. In this room, which is impervious to outside radio signals, our test engineers connected the phones to our base-station emulator, a device that simulates carrier cell towers. We also tested several other AT&T phones the same way, including the iPhone 3G S and the Palm Pre. None of

RIM has pushed out another video teaser, following up their initial BlackBerry OS 6 sneak-peak with a second showing – among other things – the new browser and social feeds app. Set to debut later in 2010, the new BB OS can pull together Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and BlackBerry Messenger updates into a single stream, and allow you to post to one or more of them simultaneously. There’s also universal search, an enhanced media interface, redesigned homescreen and more, including the WebKit based browser that BlackBerry users have been waiting for. The latter gets pinch-zooming on touchscreen RIM handsets. Of course, since RIM first unveiled BlackBerry OS 6 we’ve seen early versions of it running on as-yet-unannounced devices like the BlackBerry 9670 and 9800. The new software version should arrive sometime this summer.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has confirmed that ASUS, Dell, Samsung, Toshiba and Sony will all be launching Windows 7 based slate form-factor tablets this year. Speaking at the Worldwide Partner Conference today, Ballmer declined to mention specific models or specifications, but did say that various form-factors and functionality would be on offer, including slates with keyboards, touchscreen-only models, some dockable and others able to handle digital ink. While Ballmer didn’t mention the iPad by name, it takes no small stretch of the imagination to assume that’s the key rival Microsoft has in mind. Some of the firms listed have already tipped their tablet hand, at least partially: ASUS revealed its Eee Pad models at Computex, while Toshiba has shown the unusual dual-display Libretto W100. Still, we’re yet to see Sony, Samsung or Dell’s attempts. Notably absent from the list of companies Ballmer listed was HP, a stark contrast from when Steve Balmer took the company’s Windows 7 bas

More iPhone class-action suit excitement this week, but this time it’s nothing so measly as dodgy reception. Instead, a federal judge has ruled that a monopoly abuse suit against Apple and their US carrier partner AT&Tcan go ahead, covering anybody who bought an AT&T iPhone (with two-year agreement) since the first-gen model’s release in 2007. According to the suit, because of Apple’s long-term – quoted at five years – exclusivity agreement with AT&T, buyers were in fact locked into five year rather than two year relationships with the carrier. However the judge also dismissed claims that Apple had bricked devices in the process of issuing software updates. The class-action lawsuit is looking for an injunction against locked iPhone sales in the US together with more flexibility as to which apps owners can install to their handsets. In Europe, meanwhile, Apple has already switched to offering unlocked iPhones, selling contract-free, unsubsidized units through their own

Apple has conceded a fault with select models of their Time Capsule wireless backup drives , whereby the low-profile NAS powers down and then refuses to restart. According to a new Knowledge Base article, Apple will repair or replace those units, including transferring data from the old Time Capsule to any new model supplied. Models covered by the new repair/replacement agreement will have been sold between February and June 2008, and has to have a serial number that falls in the region between XX807XXXXXX and XX814XXXXXX. Assuming that fits, the next step is to get in touch with Apple Care or make an appointment with your nearest Genius Bar; Apple will either fix it in-person at their stores or via mail. If you’ve already paid to have your Time Capsule fixed then Apple’s advice is to contact the customer care team to arrange a refund.

Streaming music service Spotify has launched a Linux version of their software, now allowing open-source aficionados access to their catalog. Following Spotify’s Windows and Mac clients – and their various mobile apps – the early build still lacks some of the more advanced functionality of its siblings, including cached local storage for offline listening. Most limiting, though, is the fact that it’s only available for Spotify Premium subscribers. That’s because, the Spotify team say, they’re yet to find “a reliable way to display ads yet”, meaning they’re unable to offer the Linux version for ad-supported free users. That could change, though, as the team there work on enhancing the software; you can download it here.

Pandigital may be better known on these fair pages for their Novel tablet-ereader, but they also make scanners. Latest on the scene is the cumbersomely named Pandigital Personal Photo Scanner/Converter, capable of taking in shots up to 8.5 x 11 inches and storing them straight to a memory card. Pandigital throw an SD card of unspecified size in the box, but the scanner will happily work with SD, MS, MS Pro, MMS and XD cards. Files are saved as JPEGs with up to 600dpi 3,800 x 7,200 resolution; if you’d rather use it with a PC or Mac there’s a miniUSB port to hook it up and use it more traditionally. In fact, the only thing missing is a battery, which would have allowed you to whip out the Pandigital and scan things quicker while mobile than you can say its name out loud. Available now, the Pandigital Personal Photo Scanner/Converter has an MRSP of $149.99.

The Nokia/mobile-review controversy continues, with Russian journalist Eldar Murtazin making an official statement on what he describes as “a witch hunt” designed to discredit him. After finding last week that Nokia had called in the Russian authorities to retrieve any prototype devices from Murtazin, something which Nokia then claimed was in response to ignored official requests for their return, the mobile-review editor now says that he never actually had an N8 in his possession; in actual fact, he merely spent periodic hands-on time with someone else’s prototype. Therefore, he insists, there’s nothing left to hand over. In fact, Murtazin suggests, Nokia are “feeding blatantly false information through their official blog and interviews with the media” to undermine his credibility, including attempting to position him as a “blogger” rather than a “journalist” so as, he believes, “to remove any legal rights I have as a journalist in protecting my sources.” Meanwhile he blames Noki

Years ago, Dell found that one of the ways to succeed in the computer market was to allow the consumer to customize their own machine. For Dell that first meant hardware customization and then the company went on to offer a number of colors and other designs in many of its notebook lines to choose from. Sony has a new website that lets the user build their own custom color combinations for the Vaio E notebook . The color options allow you to choose your mouse, notebook, keyboard skin and sleeve combination. There are eight color choices for the mouse that you can choose from. Sony is offering a free keyboard skin to change the color of the keyboard for anyone who buys a custom built Vaio EB, EA, or EC notebook by July 17. Buyers can view the custom colors for the protective sleeves too. I guess this is a good thing since you can see what your chosen color combo will look like rather than waiting to get it and just hoping it looks as good as you thought it would.

There are legions of gamers out there who cut their gaming teeth on the SNES game consoles . These same gamers are often interested in playing some of those old school games again and need an emulator setup to do so. A four-step process will let anyone turn their iPad into a SNES emulator that uses a Wii remote for control. The project requires an iPad, a Wii remote, sync cable, and a computer. The iPad first has to be jail broken using Spirit Jailbreak. After the jailbreak, you need to grab the snes4iPhone app for $6. After that you will need to install the ROMs for the games you want to play. The final step is to sync the Wii remote with your game. The snes4iPhone has an option for using the Wii Remote making that an easy step.

We’re suckers for a good concept design here at SlashGear, and so we’re hoping HTC are paying attention toAndrew Kim. His concept for the so-called HTC 1 is a premium Android phone that would be clearly differentiated from the company’s mainstream models and better harmonize physical and software design. To that end, he’s come up with a slick slab of minimalist machined brass with a rather striking interpretation of HTC Sense. That breaks down the artificial division of homescreen and widget, and instead gives you full-screen widgets for things like news, social networking and more. There’s also a new media player and cross-platform instant messaging/communications app. Kim obviously reckons oleophobic displays aren’t good enough for keeping smartphones clean, and has instead decided on a UV light hidden behind the glass touchscreen that can zap bugs while the HTC 1 is charging. Throw in a flip-down stand, stereo speakers (one at each end) and inspiration taken from Leica cameras,

NVIDIA has just gone official with its new Fermi-based GTX 460 video card. This is one of the cheaper of the new video cards on the market making it appealing to gamers looking for performance on a budget. Maingear has announced that the new GTX 460 is now available in its line of gaming PCs. The GTX 460 will be offered in the Shift, F131, Vybe, and X-Cube lines of desktop PCs. The GTX 460 used by Maingear has 336 CUDA cores and has a core clocked at 675MHz. The video card is also SLI capable for future expansion. Maingear is mum on the final pricing for machines using the new video card, but the systems should be some of the lower priced systems since the new card is a mid-range option. The machines should be available to order now.

Miffy is a cartoon rabbit that my daughter has watched from time to time on TV. She even has a couple storybooks with Miffy in them. I’m not particularly surprised to learn that Miffy is somewhat of a pop icon in Japan. After all, this is the same country where you can find Hello Kitty plastered on all manner of things. Onkyo has announced a new netbook with Miffy featured prominently. The netbook is the Onkyo C4 and sports a Miffy UI setting it apart a bit from the other netbooks. The machine also has a Miffy cover and logo on it. Hardware includes an Atom N450 CPU, 1GB of RAM, 160GB HDD, a 10.1-inch LED backlit LCD, WiFi, and more. The machine will be offered in Japan with Windows 7 Starter or XP Home.

Palit has announced the launch of its latest video card called the GeForce GTX 460 Sonic Platinum . The new video card has 1024MB of GDDR5 RAM and the card is overclocked from the factory. Palit promises that the new card offers 5 times the DirectX 11 tessellation performance of other video cards. Plait has overclocked the video card from the factory with 17.5% faster than default performance speed. The card is SLI ready and supports NVIDIA 3D Vision technology. The card also has a HDMI 1.4a output. The dual slot card connects to a computer via the PCI-E 2.0 slot and supports CUDA and more. The card requires at least a 450W PSU to operate. Availability and pricing are unknown.

RIM’s rumored BlackBerry tablet – aka the “BlackTab” or “ BlackPad ” – is once again doing the rounds, with Rodman & Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar pushing out a new report regarding the so-called companion slate. Details are in short supply and most are recycled from Kumar’s early May report; he’s expecting a 7-inch screen, Marvell processor and 3G baseband, with “a marginal point of differentiation being the front- and back-facing cameras for videoconferencing.” Kumar also says RIM are hoping to pull forward the BlackBerry tablet’s release from early 2011 to late 2010. That certainly fits with other rumors we’ve seen, though differs in some of the key specifications: those sources had said the tablet would have a larger, 8.9-inch touchscreen display and no onboard 3G, using WiFi or Bluetooth to connect either via a wireless hotspot or tethered to a nearby BlackBerry phone.

Callpod has announced a pair of new Bluetooth headsets called the Onyx and the Vetro. Both of the headsets offer a 2-way walkie-talkie feature that lets the headsets communicate directly over a space of up to 84,000 square feet. The Bluetooth range for the headsets is 164 feet allowing you to walk around your home or office without keeping your phone in your hand or pocket. The Onyx and Vetro both use Callpod Gummy Gel ear buds for comfort and a good fit. Other features include dual noise cancelling mics and a battery that is good for up to five hours of talk and 120 hours on standby. The headsets charge via USB and a full charge takes about 3 hours. The only difference in the two is the design and price. The Onyx sells for about $70 and the Vetro sells for $99.95.

At the MobileBeat conference today, Samsung’s CSO Omar Khan talked about what he calls “the year of the superphone.” Since the iPhone made its debut in 2007, we’ve seen incredible strides in mobile hardware and software. It’s getting to the point that we hesitate to call these micro-computers “phones.” Their capabilities now go far beyond what we’d expect from simple telephony, and are beginning to touch the horizon of “the future” — that mystical era in which technology will solve all our problems. Of course, Khan was eager to talk about the Galaxy S, a new Android device Samsung is bringing to market, but he also got into some of the general qualifications that distinguish the superphone from the smartphone. A smartphone, of course, has hardware features such as a touchscreen and some kind of QWERTY keyboard. It has native applications and web browsing; most have and make innovative use of cameras, both still and video. What, then, makes a smartphone a superphone? Google coined the

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. While virtual business cards are becoming a viable alternative to paper cards, there is still a huge demand for traditional business cards. When you meet someone, it is very unlikely that they will first ask to bump, DUB or get LinkedIn . Instead, as your meeting comes to an end, you’ll find yourself searching around in your pockets, bag or wallet for your trusty paper business card. While the traditional business card trend is still going strong, you may want to consider optimizing the space on that little piece of paper. A growing number of professionals are finding it useful to include social media links on their business cards. Including social links on your card not only showcases your progressive approach to doing business, but it also gives your business contacts more choices in how they communicate with y

When Facebook announced their “Like” button back in April, we wondered if GetGlue — an app that lets you show affinity and expertise for pages all over the Internet and includes Foursquare-like badges and rewards from major entertainment brands — might be doomed. But we’ve just learned that GetGlue — who recently launched aniPhone app [iTunes link] and is soon coming to Android — is still going strong, just as CEO Alex Iskold predicted. Overall, web and mobile apps included, GetGlue is seeing around 1 million user actions per week. In the past five days, for example: GetGlue had more than 1,000,000 user ratings and checkins Around 150,000 user actions were seen each day Users shared GetGlue items on Facebook and Twitter at a rate of about one share per minute It’s true that these numbers are dwarfed by Facebook’s statistics; a recent pulse check showed that an average of 65 million Facebook users take advantage of the “Like” button on a daily basis. But for a still-young social app,

Update : Brian is, in fact, undertaking this project as part of his internship at BBH. Check out his tweet to me below. (He also likes his capri pants just fine, thankyouverymuch.) What would you do if you were a fresh-faced lad from Wisconsin, new to the Big Apple, with scant few dates under your romantic belt? Why, crowdsource for a ladylove, natch. “Meet Brian. He’s from Wisconsin, has almost no experience dating and just moved to New York City. With more than half of New Yorkers single, the dating scene is just ridiculous,” so begins the intro text on a new social experiment, titled Dating Brian. A joke between friends about crowdsourcing his dating life led Brian to launch the project, during which he will attempt to go on 30 dates in 30 days and take cues from Twitter and Facebook as to how to proceed on each. Now, as we know, this idea is not really new — remember David on Demand and his snazzy new Twitter tats? — but the whole romance aspect does lend a certain Nora Ephron fl

VOiP clients Fring and Skype are engaged in a war of words over video calling and alleged service blocks. Of course, the real losers are the end users. Fring is a relatively small player when compared to Skype , but it has been successful in large part because the service is interoperable with other VOiP services, including GoogleTalk, SIP and Skype. The fact that you can make Fring-to-Skype calls within the Fring app has been a real boon for platforms that either have limited Skype support or for users who want to take advantage of some of Fring’s other features. Last week, Fring introduced two-way video calling support for the iPhone 4 over Wi-Fi or 3G. This was a big hit. It was such a big hit, Fring had to turn off Skype support over the weekend in order to deal with the onslaught of users wanting to make video-to-video calls. The company has now expanded its capacity and says it wants to turn Skype support back on. According to Fring’s official statement, Skype is refusing to let

Remember the days of telephone calls and pre-planned dates and letterman jackets? When the “Dear Abby” column made sense and men asked a father’s permission to initiate courtship? Nope, neither do Jessica Massa and Rebecca Wiegand, the girls behind what could be the world’s first crowd-sourced relationship advice blog, WTF Is Up With My Love Life?! “We don’t think the ‘conventional’ dating literature/self-help literature out there in bookstores and the blogosphere is actually speaking effectively to women now, because for the most part it assumes we’re living in a ‘dating’ world that no longer exists,” says Wiegand, referring to how the digital sphere — among other things — has completely turned the romantic realm on its proverbial head. When folks are breaking up with each other on Facebook, and a text message equates a love letter, it seems that we actually are quite primed for a romantic reboot. That’s what prompted Massa and Wiegand to launch what they call a “multimedia project,”