IBLOG SPACE

Apple’s refreshed MacBook Air has been rumored for several weeks now. Constrained supplies from global retailers and most recently low availability at Best Buy suggest that the new version of the popular ultraportable laptop would be hitting very very soon. Some reports predicted a June launch while others tipped that Apple may wait to ship the new MacBook Airs with OS X Lion. Now, new insider sources offer a more pinpointed time frame. 9to5 Mac was told directly by an insider source that the MacBook Air would launch in mid-July. They also confirmed that the exterior of the revamped MacBook Air would look almost identical to the previous version except for the new Thunderbolt logo over what used to be the mini-display port. It’s believed that the update will include not only the new Apple proprietary connector port that promises 10Gbps transfer speeds, but also Intel’s latest Sandy Bridge chips. The MacBook Air will also come with OS X Lion preloaded. OS X Lion was announced at WWDC 20

I’m going to tell you absolutely nothing about myself that should matter to you. I am a male human. I was born with XY chromosomes, and my body parts hew to the genetic norms of a human male. I am heterosexual. My ex-wife was a female human, and I will seek out new partners who are also female humans (‘how romantic,’ I know). I prefer female humans to male humans when it comes to love and its various accoutrements. I am mostly masculine, though I do have some decidedly feminine qualities about me. In the traditional ideas of masculinity, I fit into some norms, though I also like some traditionally feminine colors and design aesthetics, I participate in many activities that are considered more feminine than masculine, and I reject certain masculine traits as unappealing. Like I said, this tells you nothing about me. Based on these characteristics, you would not be able to pick me out of a crowd. My friends and co-workers have learned nothing about be me in the above paragraph that would

Today is a special day for the iPhone. The “original” iPhone first went on sale June 29, 2007 making today its fourth birthday. And guess who camped out for 5 days back in 2007 to become one of the very first owners of that iPhone? It’s SlashGear’s Vincent Nguyen, who had his victory photo seen around the world. His iPhone gripping fist thrust proudly into the air a la Rocky Balboa style embodied the triumph and “revolution” that was to be Apple’s first phone and the world’s first truly smart and easy to use smartphone. Apple’s original iPhone was truly a game-changer for the mobile phone industry. At the time, the majority of phones were typical “feature phones” while so called “smartphones” were difficult to use and afflicted with tiny screens and way too many buttons and keys. The iPhone introduced a huge touchscreen with only one button and a very intuitive interface. The price tag was a whopping $500, which at the time Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer laughed at for being way over-price

I’m back today with my lucky hands on another mid-rage device from Samsung that will be on T-Mobile. We have the “cute” Samsung Gravity Smart Android Slider for you all to check out today. While the Gravity Smart wont replace the Sidekick it is a nice little phone for those that love to text, or just love hardware keyboards on their phone. It is a sleek design with nicely rounded edges, the build quality is decent but the back cover leaves something to be desired. It’s no Galaxy S 4G but then again this device is not the most expensive on T-Mobile either. Just like its sibling the Samsung Exhibit 4G I opened up yesterday the Gravity Smart also comes with some decent apps pre-loaded, things you wont just want to delete like Bejeweled 2 and UNO. Yup remember UNO? Well now you can play it on your Gravity Smart because it comes pre-installed for your convenience. It does come with the Swype Keyboard as well but that seems odd since I’m assuming most will use the hardware keyboard but more

Or so they say. While we’ve written about our fair share of SD cards in the past, it’s the SDXC cards we’ve got our eyes on now. Last card we reported on with the kind of size and speed this Delkin card is reporting on was the Lexar set, one of them at 128GB and the other at 64GB. Why in the world would I want this newer Delkin ELITE633 card with less than the most storage in the world on it? Because it’s the fastest! This card is able to record at speeds up to 45 megabytes per second and read at speeds up to 95 megabytes per second. That’s fast. That’s really really fast. But get this: the card costs $540. You know how many cards you could get for that much that aren’t quite as fast? It doesn’t matter! This is the fastest! What Delkin has here is a card that you’re going to want to be using for HD video, 3D video, and all sorts of other high-speed-required sort of situations. That said, I’m gonna need one for the San Diego Comic Con, so fork one over! On this card you’ll be able to co

TiVo is one of the most popular DVR options for consumers, and it’s about to make its viewing experience even more convenient. The TiVo Premiere DVR set-top box connects directly to your cable service, replacing your cable box. And not only can it record TV shows to its HDD for viewing later, it also adds on-demand video and other web entertainment to your TV. But one feature it lacked was a more streamlined way of transferring recorded content to other TiVos in your house. Previously, in order to play a TV show recorded from another TiVo set-top box in your house, you had to copy and transfer the file before you could watch it on the second TV. With the TiVo Premiere set-top box and the latest software update, you will no longer need to do this. Instead of transferring to watch, you can now stream the content from one TiVo to another. The original method of copying and transferring made sense when home networks were much slower. Now, as more and more content are getting streamed, it s

Cisco is getting ready to release their very first Android tablet. But instead of attempting suicide by going head to head with the juggernaut that is the Apple iPad, Cisco has decided to stick to the enterprise crowd. The Cisco Cius tablet will take on a form factor optimized for voice and video collaboration and will get access to custom enterprise apps. Unlike the majority of tablets on the market aimed at consumers for media consumption, entertainment, and light productivity, the Cisco Cius will be all business. Instead of just putting up an app store for the device like Apple’s iTunes, Cisco intends to create an online service called AppHQ where companies can get custom apps tailored for their enterprises. Companies will also be able to setup custom-branded app “storefronts” for employees to download apps for the Cius. Initial partners and interested parties include medical institutions where custom apps and enterprise level security is important for handling confidential patient

It’s official. According to an exclusive through AllThingsDigital, the once popular but now ailing social network, MySpace, has been sold. Yesterday, news came that News Corp. was looking to close a deal before the end of this week with low bids coming in between $20 to $30 million. It seems they managed to up the final sale price to $35 million with Specific Media being the “lucky” winner. Sources familiar with the situation say that the deal is to be completed today, although nothing has been officially signed yet. The sale will let News Corp. hold onto a very small stake in MySapace of less than 5 percent. The sales price of $35 million certainly falls short of the $100 million that News Corp was hoping for and is pitiful compared to the original almost $600 million paid for MySpace back in 2005. Specific Media is a lesser known advertising network and it intends to keep MySpace a social platform focused on music and entertainment. Other bids included those from original co-founders

Google’s been unleashing a lot of goodies lately. Just yesterday, the search giant released a new attempt at a social network with the Google+ project and then later offered through Google Labs an experimental Flash to HTML 5 converter called Swiffy . And now they’ve released a new mobile website building tool through Google Sites that targets small to medium sized businesses and is, as usual, completely free. Google Sites has been offering solutions that allow anyone to easily create a professional, template-driven webpage. The new mobile webpage builder tool now makes it easy for anyone to build a professional mobile landing page. The tool offers several pre-built templates for restaurants, local business, lead generation, eCommerce, and one called “Social” that lets customers engage with your business via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or other social media services. There is also a template called “custom.” However, there isn’t a lot of customization that you can do other than adding

Apple has been taking a lot of heat for its recently released video editing software update, Final Cut Pro X. What was initially excitement for the update quickly turned to anger and frustration as loyal users discovered a lack of backwards compatibility as well as many missing pro features. Today, Apple gives an official response to all the criticism with a new FAQ page and a rough timeline for upcoming fixes. The new FAQ page groups the questions into the categories of importing, editing, media management, exporting, and purchasing. There’s surely plenty of sugar coating, but there’s also plenty of “no, not yet, but we’re working on it” responses as well as flat out no’s. Two of the major missing features, exporting to XML and multi-cam editing, will both get put back in with updates coming sometime this summer. However, any hopes for backwards compatibility with Final Cut Pro 7 has been crushed. Apple recommends users to continue to use Final Cut Pro 7 if they must work on previous

Perhaps you’ve heard of the cool, fresh, and QWERTY toting HTC device known as the ChaCha, aka the Facebook phone whose close cousin is the no-keys HTC Salsa, another device we expect to be coming to the states soon? We’ve heard of it too, and in fact my associate Chris Davies over there in the Euro side of the world has had a real good look at it in a full review. Well guess what? HTC’s now got this device coming out on AT&T for real, USA style, in a style that’s dedicated to Facebook in more ways than one. Check out that physical Facebook button and head in for the changes. What you’re going to get here is one touch to share, that being the Facebook button’s ability to instantly share essentially whatever you’ve got on your screen at the time to your Facebook wall. There’s also the ability to “instantly” share photos as you’re taking them, a long-press of the button checks you in with Facebook Places (GPS-style,) and of course you’ve got the latest version of HTC’s own custom use

HP is currently in talks over licensing the webOS mobile operating system, CEO Leo Apotheker has confirmed, and while there’s no official word on which companies may be interested, sources suggest Samsung has been present at the negotiating table. Apotheker revealed that “a number of companies have expressed interest” in an interview in Beijing, Bloomberg reports, but insisted that despite HP recently slashing its sales forecast by a whopping $1bn “there is no time pressure to do this.” The talk of Samsung being interested in using webOS was apparently confirmed by three unnamed sources, though neither Apotheker nor a Samsung spokesperson would comment on the speculation. The Korean company’s motivation, however, is said to be wariness over Google’s increasing restrictions as to how Android can be modified on smartphones and tablets, though it’s unclear what degree of customization HP might allow with webOS. Those limits have been again denied by Google, and a Samsung spokesperson woul

Apple’s entry-level white MacBook, which kicks off at $999, could be in line for an imminent refresh according to reseller sources, who have reported constrained stocks similar to those affecting the MacBook Air. Amazon, MacConnection, On Sale and J&R are all supposedly out of stock of the plastic-cased notebook, AppleInsiderclaims, while further retailers are down to minimal stock levels. The shortage apparently includes resellers in the US and in Europe, with one of the largest distributors supposedly out of stock and with no ETA for further units. Availability on Apple’s own online store is still listed at 24hrs from the point of ordering, however. It’s unclear what might happen to the white MacBook, especially since it currently has in-house competition from the identically-priced $999 MacBook Air. Apple’s last refresh was back in May 2010, when the notebook was upgraded to a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo processor and NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics. In the meantime, Apple has shifted its GP

Microsoft has announced an early access program for Windows Phone developers, giving them a taste of juicyMango ahead of everyone else. According to the Windows Team Blog, as of today the first invites to test Mango are going out, with full distribution expected to be up and running in the next couple of weeks. “This build of Mango should also be viewed as beta quality,” Microsoft warns, “so there are still consumer features missing.” However, it should still be enough for prepping apps and ensuring compatibility, though the tools update including the all important go-live license needed to actually publish Mango apps to the Windows Phone Marketplace won’t arrive for another few months year. The countries which will be specifically supported for the early-access program include: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland

Game of Thrones  season 2 is apparently going to have an even bigger scope than the first season did. Casting for the HBO fantasy drama is looking for a lot of extras from Northern Ireland, where the show's second season is being filmed. Reportedly sought after are "men with beards and long hair, blacksmiths, archers, farmhands, swordfighters and anyone with military or combat experience." An open casting day for all interested will be held on July 4. Filming is slated to begin July 25. Game of Thrones: Tudors Star Natalie Dormer Joins the Cast for Season 2 Since we'll be seeing a variety of new locations in the second season, it's not surprising that they're seeking extras. It seems to me that these extras will most likely fill Harrenhall (a city that Arya will visit in season 2), but some could also become part of Stannis or Renly's armies. Stannis, for those who have forgotten, it's the late King Robert's brother, who has declared himself king