IBLOG SPACE

The official countdown page for the much anticipated Nokia N9 MeeGo handset is now live. Showing 49 days left, the clock confirms a mid-September launch, although that date may only be for its release in some European markets. A US release has still not been confirmed. The European carrier, Orange, has confirmed previously that the N9 would launch in Switzerland on September 19, and that lines right up with the countdown. It may then be followed by Sweden, which is reported to receive the handset on September 23. But oddly, other major European markets such as the UK, Germany, and France have yet to get confirmed dates. Pricing has also not been revealed, although it’s said to be quite affordable with an attached service plan. The N9 features a slick 3.9-inch touchscreen display covered by Gorilla Glass on a pillow-shaped body with an 8-megapixel camera equipped with Carl Zeiss optics. Nokia’s first Windows Phone, codenamed the Sea Ray, is almost identical in form and may make its debu

Before we begin, I must note that this is not an article from The Onion. This is real. As real as it gets, as they say, as a mister Richard Handl this week has both attempted to find out if his favorite hobby was legal and found himself in the possession of local police soon after. It was for the past few months that Handl had been trying out some of his own scientific tests in his oven that included a small nuclear meltdown amongst other less frightening sounding experiments. All this ended late July / early August 2011 as police descended on Handl’s southern Sweden apartment. It was this week that Handl, 31, found it pertinent to call local authorities and ask if his favorite hobby was legal. When asked what his intentions were for this entire ordeal, Handl let the world know that his plan was nothing malicious. “I have always been interested in physics and chemistry,” Handl noted, saying that he’d simply always wanted to “see if it’s possible to split atoms at home.” Sounds reasonab

Earlier this week, Apple made the surprising decision to allow users to buy television shows from the Apple TV. Upon doing so, users can have on-demand access to the shows by streaming them over the Web to their set-top box. In addition, Apple added Vimeo support to the device. It’s an interesting choice for Apple. When the Apple TV first launched in September, Apple tried to make the case that renting content and streaming it over the Web to the Apple TV was the best option, which is why purchasing was no longer supported. But Apple has apparently had a change of heart, and for television buffs, the company is delivering a far more appealing option. But the changes have caused me to start thinking: if Apple is willing to change course on that key feature, what else might the iPhone maker do with its set-top box? And perhaps most importantly, what are Apple’s true plans for the device? At this point, your guess is as good as mine. For months, the Apple TV was left alone by Apple, and t

The days of using your jailbroken iPhone as a hotspot for free tethering without consequence will soon end. AT&T has been sending out warnings to customers about unauthorized tethering, threatening to revoke unlimited data plans for those in violation. Back in April, AT&T had already begun messaging customers regarding unofficial tethering, but had only warned of an extra $25 fee. Now, the carrier is informing customers that if they are using unauthorized tethering apps that their unlimited data plans will be revoked and replaced with a 2GB tethering plan that costs $45 a month. Major data congestion is anticipated for the months of September and October, when several new data-hungry smartphones will be introduced, including the rumored iPhone 5. AT&T has already announced data throttling for unlimited data plan customers, so it’s no surprise that the new consequence for unauthorized tethering is to eliminate these plans for those that are still grandfathered in. One custom

That hefty price you paid for the 3D HDTV may finally be justified. If you’ve been struggling to find good 3D programming, then you’ll only have to wait until the 2012 London Olympics. According to a broadcast equipment manufacturer, the special event may get 3D camera coverage for at least 10 venues. Luc Doneux, who heads major events at the EVS broadcast equipment company, reveals that, “Although 3D is still marginal in relation to the larger audience there will be a few of the main events (at the 2012 Olympics) in 3D with feeds from 10 venues being discussed.” However, no official announcements have been made yet and the Olympic Broadcast Service has yet to comment. But other major sports events, such as the Wimbledon and the FIFA World Cup, have already gotten 3D coverage, which were even been broadcasted to cinemas. There are currently about 40 3DTV channels available around the globe, with the 2012 Olympics rights holders having also broadcasted 3D content before. The likelihood

The Motorola Droid 3 is the latest successor in a line of powerful handsets that have helped define Android smartphones. Like its predecessors, the Droid 3 takes on an angular physique but with thinner profile and a larger footprint. It launched on Verizon in recent weeks and although it does not support 4G LTE, it does have the advantage of being a world phone with SIM card included. Hardware The Droid 3 features a larger 4-inch (960 x 540) qHD display and a five-row slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Inside, it runs on a 1GHz TI OMAP 4430 dual-core processor with PowerVR SGX540, which is rated to be twice as fast as the previous SGX530 GPU. RAM remains at 512MB, while internal storage is now bumped up to 16GB, expandable with up to 32GB microSD. External ports include the usual micro-HDMI, micro-USB, and 3.5mm headphone jack. It has the physical power button centered on top, volume rocker on the side, and the standard four capacitive touch buttons of Android devices. Camera specs have been b

All of you waiting for the right moment to grab HP’s first big tablet effort in the HP TouchPad online, this might be that time. This is the 16GB version of the TouchPad, only the 16GB version mind you, not the 32GB version, that’ll be getting a full $100 discount from it’s full $499.99 price. This price drop will be taking place between the 5th and the 7th of this month, August 2011, and will afterward jump back up to full price. This combined with this week’s webOS 3.0.2 update for tablet and it may be a deal you just HAVE to take advantage of. Of course, this discount is besides (and perhaps unable to be combined with) the $60 price cut we saw earlier this week as well. Then there’s ANOTHER discount at Staples, this one for either the 16GB OR the 32GB version of the tablet, valid through the 7th of August and only, again, at Staples. One way or another you’re gonna get this tablet for a discounted price. The discount at Staples is only available with coupon, that being the same coup

Today the fine folks at Chainfire (Android developers) have released their first Beta of an app by the name of DSLR Controller. This app will allow you full control over your Canon EOS DSLR camera from your Android phone or tablet connected via USB. At the moment this is the only application that can do such a thing, and no computer, laptop, or any other hardware is required other than the camera itself, the correct USB cable and adapter, and your Android device with said app. The release we’re looking at today is a BETA version meaning it almost certainly WILL have bugs, but is released on the Android market at this very moment for $8.51 if you’re feeling adventurous. Those purchasing this early version will be upgraded to the final version for free, while the full v1.0 will cost more than this $8.51 price spot. Before we go any further, it’s important to note the following requirements of this application: you must have an Android device with USB host support – this is not just ANY A

Were you holding your breath for Pandigital’s promised “flagship” tablet, due in September? We do hope not, because all signs point to it being not quite as exciting as the name might suggest. According to The Digital Reader‘s sources, in fact the fourth model is the Pandigital SuperNova, an 8-inch 800 x 600 slate running Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Specifications of the tablet were confirmed when it crossed through the FCC last week, so we know it has pretty much the same hardware as this morning’s Nova. That means 4GB of flash storage and a microSD card slot to augment it, twin cameras – 3-megapixels on the back and 0.3-megapixels on the front – and WiFi b/g/n. Other connectivity includes an HDMI output and USB Host support for memory sticks and peripherals. What’s still unclear is pricing, with Pandigital yet to confirm exactly how much the SuperNova might cost. Still, with the three tablets from earlier today each coming in at under $190, we’re guesstimating that the SuperNova will be

Last month we heard that the iPhone next year could get inductive charging. The patent app for an inductive charger has now surfaced that was field by Apple. The app was published today apparently and shows different methods of inductive charging that Apple might take. The first one is an odd tower that appears to charge by wrapping the headphone cables around it. The second charging method is more like the other inductive chargers that we have seen in the past with and acoustic charging mechanism and no charging tower. The second charger would be able to charge all sorts of devices. It would be great to sit your iPad and iPhone down and have them charge automatically with no wires. Another illustration in the application shows the charging via a metal mesh in the earphones. The acoustic charger would use acoustic output to charge a device by causing part of the earphones to vibrate and create energy. The vibrations would not be in the range of hearing so the device would appear silent

While IR emitters aren’t exactly new, neither have they traditionally been either discrete or attractively designed. Sewell’s InjectIR kit isn’t exactly pretty, but – by squirting an IR repeater signal down the generally unused CEC channel of your HDMI cable – it’s easily hidden, meaning wall-mounted HDTV installations can be cleaner than ever. Basically, the IR receiver dongle plugs into an adapter at the end of your HDMI cable, and shuttles the signal down to the IR blaster at the other end. Your stack of A/V equipment – whether cable or satellite TV boxes, TiVo or other DVRs, HTPC or Blu-ray players – can remain hidden in a cupboard or a “node zero” style central termination point, far away from line-of-sight with your remotes, and you don’t need to rewire to carry the IR signal separately. CEC (Consumer Electronics Control) is used by certain A/V companies to allow for remote control signals to be passed between the TV and other components, and generally gets branded by OEMs: Sony

Smartphone addiction is spreading through the UK at a phenomenal rate, regulator Ofcom claims, with increasing numbers of users turning to their handsets while at the dining table, in cinemas and in the bathroom. According to the new research, 47-percent of UK teens and 27-percent of UK adults now have a smartphone, with 81-percent keeping their handset on all the time and 47-percent of teens (22-percent of adults) admitting to stall-surfing. Perhaps more insidious, smartphone users are far more likely to struggle with boundaries between work and home, the report suggests. 70-percent of owners say they’ve done work on their handset while on holiday – 24-percent doing so regularly – compared to 16-percent of those with regular phones. It’s not all good news for employers, however; 30-percent of smartphone users also turn to their device for personal use while at work, compared to 23-percent of regular phone owners. Unsurprisingly, 60-percent of teenagers admit to being “addicted” to the

The number of mysteries in our solar system is staggering and a new mystery very close to home has a new possible solution. Scientists and astronomers have long wondered why the two sides of our moon are so different. The side of the moon that faces the earth is vastly different than the side of the moon often called the dark side that we never see. The dark or far side of the moon is made up of tall mountains while the near side of the moon is covered with plains of volcanic rock called maria. The far side of the moon has few maria plains. The near side also has topography mostly low and flat whereas the far side is on average 1.2 miles higher than the near side. New computer simulations are now hinting that our moon may be the result of a collision with a smaller moon at some point early in the life of our solar system. The simulations suggest that a second much smaller moon orbited the earth and collided with the moon we see today. The second moon is thought to have been only 4% of

Android‘s much-vaunted “open source” credentials do not mean the OS is “open”, researchers have suggested, finding that Google’s platform is actually severely lacking in comparison to other open-source software. Google’s refusal to release a public roadmap, unilinear development decisions and “closed contributions process model” all leave it behind rivals like MeeGo and Symbian, VisionMobile concludes, with Android’s success being attributed more to Google’s deep pockets and a general fear of Apple dominance than anything else. VisionMobile looked at Android, Qt, Symbian, MeeGo, Mozilla, WebKit, Linux and Eclipse, ranking the eight projects on a so-called Open Governance Index. Google’s platform scored just 23-percent, less than half what Qt – in seventh position – managed. At the top end, Eclipse scored 84-percent, being praised for its transparency in decision making and corporate structure, among other factors. 1. Access: availability of the latest source code, developer support mec

Android‘s much-vaunted “open source” credentials do not mean the OS is “open”, researchers have suggested, finding that Google’s platform is actually severely lacking in comparison to other open-source software. Google’s refusal to release a public roadmap, unilinear development decisions and “closed contributions process model” all leave it behind rivals like MeeGo and Symbian, VisionMobile concludes, with Android’s success being attributed more to Google’s deep pockets and a general fear of Apple dominance than anything else. VisionMobile looked at Android, Qt, Symbian, MeeGo, Mozilla, WebKit, Linux and Eclipse, ranking the eight projects on a so-called Open Governance Index. Google’s platform scored just 23-percent, less than half what Qt – in seventh position – managed. At the top end, Eclipse scored 84-percent, being praised for its transparency in decision making and corporate structure, among other factors. 1. Access: availability of the latest source code, developer support mec

I think most of us are familiar with Vonage, the VoIP calling provider that has been around for a long time. The company has a new app for the iPhone that is interesting in that it is the first app to allow pay-per-call international dialing to more than 190 countries. The new app is called Time to Call and lets users make 15-minute calls at a lower price than the wireless carrier allows. One of the most interesting parts is that you don’t need to get out a credit card or sign up for service, the billing is done directly through iTunes. The app is officially available as of today in the US iTunes stores for 87 different countries. Billing is completed by choosing the country you want to call, tapping buy now, and then entering iTunes password. The price for calls ranges from 99 cents to $1.99 and some countries range in price up to $9.99. Numbers to the country can be dialed from the address book or by direct entry. Time to Call will work globally on WiFi networks and in the US and Can

Apple’s iPhone 5 could go on sale with China Telecom by the end of October, with local reports of a “preliminary agreement” between the Cupertino company and the carrier for not one but two new handsets. According to analyst Brian White of Ticonderoga Securities, AppleInsider reports, a deal is “imminent” to supply China Telecom with both the fifth-gen iPhone and a “simplified iPhone 4″ that would target the more affordable end of the market. Specifications of the simplified model are unclear, though according to the Chinese reports would be a “more economical version” of the current iPhone 4. That would fit in with previous leaks and rumors around an iPhone 4S, certainly; an apparently plastic-bodied handset was spotted in leaked photos late last month, while various sources have indicated Apple intends to broaden its range so as not to exclude those who can’t necessarily afford the latest and greatest iPhone. While China Telecom is supposedly billing the cheaper model as ideal for de

If you are a big fan of the Xbox 360 and you have a Kinect sensor you want to use but don’t have the space to play with it the Zoom for Kinect made by Nyko may be the answer you need. I have talked about this lens accessory a few times now and it is a very simple and cool way to reduce the room you need to use the Kinect with accuracy. I know I need one of these for my house because the Kinect never works in the room we play it in because of the small space available. The last time I talked about the Zoom was when the official launch date of August 23 was announced by Nyko. Today Nyko has announced that the Zoom for Kinect is now up for pre-order on Amazon and at other retailers. The Zoom will sell for $29.99 on Amazon and it is sold directly by Amazon. Once you get the Zoom installed you will see up to a 40% reduction in the distance you need to stand from the Kinect for it to work. The Zoom will support one or two players and easily clips onto the Kinect. It needs no drivers or tunin

It’s been about a month now since we saw the Sharp Galapagos 7-inch tablet clear the FCC. There are probably some geeks out there wondering when the tablet will hit stores. Sharp has offered a launch date on the tablet for Japan and that date may be when we will see it in the US and other countries as well. The tablet will ship in late August according to the official PR. The Galapagos A01SH 7-inch tablet has a slim LCD screen that measures 7-inches and has a resolution of 1024 x 600. The rear camera on the tablet is a 5MP unit and it has a 2MP front camera for video calling. It also has an internal modem supporting downloads at up to 42Mbps. The operating system for the tablet is Android 3.2 Honeycomb. The little Android tablet has a very attractive design and looks really cool. The processor is a Tegra 2 dual-core from NVIDIA running at 1.2GHz. It also has 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage. Sharp claims the battery inside the tablet is good for about 7.5 hours of use. Pricing is

Streaming video has a huge potential for the movie studios and TV studios that make the content that many of us like to watch. Some of the studios have big plans for streaming video services even and one of the larger studios, Warner Bros, has now unveiled a new streaming video platform that sounds interesting called Flixster Collections. The CEO of Time Warner Jeff Bewkes talked about the service this week during an earnings conference call. The public beta for the new Flixter collections service started yesterday. Right now the beta is on PC and Mac computers only. The new service is trying to be social service more than something along the lines of Hulu or Netflix. Warner wants the service to be a hub that people go to when they are considering a movie to watch or buy. The service is free and it can tie into the users existing accounts on other streaming media services. The tie ins include support for Amazon, iTunes, Hulu, and Netflix accounts. The Flixter service can also look at y

I have talked a bunch about some of the cool DIY stuff that I have seen around the web that geeks use Arduino to build. My favorite DIY stuff that people build using Arduino are robots like the Android mascot I mentioned a few weeks back. Microsoft Research has unveiled a new project that was created by the Sensors and Devices team called .NET Gadgeteer. The project was started after some of the folks inside the research area started looking for a faster way to come up with new products. The research gang spent two man-years developing the SenseCam. After coming up with the .NET Gadgeteer they were able to develop a similar product in a matter of hours. The .NET Gadgeteer platform is a combination of flexible hardware and .NET-based software that allows users to create small gadgets in a few hours or less. The gang behind the project thinks it has great potential for fast device prototyping and it will be offered as a retail product. The .NET Gadgeteer software is available as a downlo

Twitter has begun embedding Amazon and iTunes content links into tweets (for example), in an extension of its existing preview feature. Visible on the Twitter site, the retail links work in a similar fashion to previews of YouTube and certain image sharing services, offering review excepts of Amazon listings (along with a “Learn more or buy” button) and screenshots of iTunes items. Twitter’s approach to monetization has long been a lingering question around the short-message social network, and it’s not clear if the site gains referral payments for each purchase made via a tweeted link. So far there’s no similar functionality in the official mobile clients, though we’re guessing that could well be on the cards. The service announced at the top of this month that it had secured a new round of funding and was seeing 200m tweets sent each day. That money will be used for “international expansion,” though the exact nature of that expansion is yet to be revealed.

Tesla gained fame when the company launched the cool high-performance Tesla Roadster years ago. Tesla has stopped building the roadster for now to focus on its new and much cheaper model called the Tesla Model S. The Model S is a much larger car that can carry four adults and has a longer driving range than the Roadster could muster. The Roadster promised about 200 miles per charge and the Model S claims 300 miles per charge. Tesla has started what it calls Alpha production on the Model S. The Alpha cars are for testing and showing media schleps that the cars are all about. Tesla too three of its alpha Model S cars to a test track and let them drive around. The cars look really good and it never ceases to amaze me at the catch that with EVs you only hear the sound of the tires humming along. Tesla was nice enough to catch the test session on video for us to enjoy and you can check it out below.

Skype has issued an update for its Android app that was updated with video calling capability on a few handsets back in June. The updated app landed today and there aren’t many changes to the app other than the official addition of more smartphones with video calling support. The new version of the app is 2.1.0.46. When the Skype app launched for Android in June it supported the Samsung Google Nexus S, Sony Ericsson Xperia neo, Sony Ericsson Xperia pro, and HTC Desire S to start. The official supported handset list is much larger now and even includes a tablet. New official devices include all the original devices and the Samsung Galaxy S II, Samsung Galaxy S, Samsung Droid Charge – Verizon, Samsung Galaxy Tab, HTC Desire (2.2), HTC Thunderbolt – Verizon, HTC Sensation, HTC Evo 4G, HTC Evo 3D, HTC Incredible S, HTC Desire HD, HTC Flyer, LG Revolution – Verizon (2.2), Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY, Sony Ericsson Xperia ray, Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro, and the Acer A5. That is a bunch of

Sony has confirmed that the PlayStation Vita launch will miss the 2011 holiday season in the US and Europe, with the new handheld instead arriving “early next year.” According to Sony VP Kazuo Hirai, only Japan will see the Vita arrive in time for Christmas, with the rest of the “phased global rollout” taking place in early 2012. Rather than a delay, Hirai said the scheduling was intended to give Sony time to prepare “solid” game offerings. Still, the news will come as a disappointment to many, who had hoped the Vita – which has an OLED touchscreen up front, and a clever touchpad controller surface on the rear – would manage to hit the US and Europe in time for holiday sales. Only yesterday, the Vita was spotted passing through the FCC, which led to suggestions that a fall US release could be on the cards. As for Nintendo’s recent price cut for the 3DS, Hirai denied that the adjustment should have any impact on Sony’s previously announced pricing for the Vita. “We packed so much into t

If you recall way back in February I mentioned that Gogo was looking at getting into the in-flight movie streaming business as a way to keep you entertained on those long flights. It’s taken longer than I expected for the service to launch but it is finally here. Gogo has announced that the Gogo Vision video streaming service is launching on American Airlines now. The new service will start aboard the American fleet of 767-200 aircraft. American is the first airline in North America to offer Gogo Vision to travelers. The movies and TV shows will stream to WiFi notebooks during the flight according to Gogo. The available movies and TV shows are from major networks and studios and users can watch trailers for the programming before they rent. The rental periods is good during the flight and for 24 hours after on movies and 72 hours after on TV shows. This allows the viewer to finish their flick or show if they land early or just don’t get finished watching on their flight. The streaming

We all knew when Microsoft purchased Skype that we would see the video calling service coming to more Microsoft products, specifically Windows Phone 7 smartphones. Microsoft is gearing up and looking for a new developer to help with the task of porting Skype over to the WP7 platform and to optimize what it is calling the Skype Video Engine. The ad also notes that the new worker will be responsible for working with a small team of testing pros that deliver a new release of the Skype Video Engine every two months. It sounds like a busy job to me. I think we all know that WP7 isn’t the only place we will see Skype integrated. We can expect the video calling service to eventually get integrated into the Xbox and just about anything else that Microsoft can come up with. The photo up above is the actual Skype Careers job posting that is online.

Google’s legal team might be busy blaming Apple for all that is wrong in the patent world, but the Gmail team is far more interested in giving iPhone 4 users a better email experience. In the latest update to the Gmail web-app, the company has added two of the most-requested features: pull-to-refresh support and high-res icons to suit the iPhone’s Retina Display. As we’ve seen on various other apps, pull-to-refresh can make it far easier to check for new updates and messages when navigating with a single hand. Supported on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, as well as on RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook, dragging the message list down triggers a refresh. The icons, meanwhile, have gone from the old, fuzzy versions to higher-quality alternatives that show up better on the 960 x 640 panel than before. Google has also added some new transitions between view-changes, which it says required “a combination of up to eight different CSS3 transitions and Javascript to get things to look just right.” You

If you have an iPhone there is a service to let you find your lost device be it in the hands of a thief or the cushions of your couch where I typically find my when it’s lost. A new service is now online for developers that will offer a similar service for Mac computers. Find My Mac has gone live for developers to beta test the new iCloud service. Find my Mac came to the Mac computer in the Dev preview 4 of Lion. As I said before the service is very much like the Find My iPhone service. Apparently, with the lack of GPS in the Mac lineup it relies on nearby WiFi networks to determine a location. That is assuming the machine is in an area where there are many WiFi networks. If you live in a rural area and get your Mac ripped off, I wonder how much help this will be. If the Find My Mac service locates your MacBook, it will allow you to send a message to the thief if you want. You can also remotely lock the screen or wipe the entire drive. The service will officially launch this fall along

If you are a big Mac fan, you might have more than one Mac that you want to connect to your big Cinema Display at the same time. The problem is that connecting two Macs to one screen isn’t as easy as just using the other input like you might on other brands of screens. Kanex has a new cable that makes it easy to hook two machines to a single Cinema display. The new cable is called the SnapX and it is a two-port switcher for the LED Cinema Display. It will allow you to connect just about any two Macs including the mini or MacBooks to the Apple display. The cable has two MiniDisplay ports and dual USB ports as well. You plug both the computers into the switch with the integrated cables and then the single cable into the display. The switcher allows the users to take advantage of the iSight camera and audio on each computer connected and there is no impact on audio or video quality. The SnapX only has one button to change between the two machines making it easy to use. You can pre-order t

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has published an apologetic open letter to Nintendo 3DS early-adopters, who “may feel betrayed” by the company’s decision to slash the handheld’s price to $169.99 mere months after its launch. The letter, available in Japanese on Nintendo’s site and translated by Giant Bomb, blames a situation in the gaming segment that has “changed greatly” even in the short time since the 3DS went on sale. “If the software creators and those on the retail side are not confident that the Nintendo 3DS is a worthy successor to the DS and will achieve a similarly broad (user) base,” Iwata suggests, “it will be impossible for the 3DS to gain popularity, acquire a wide range of software, and eventually create the product cycle necessary for everyone to be satisfied with the system.” In short, without strong initial sales to produce a solid user-base, developers may turn their attentions to rival platforms or smartphone gaming for iOS or Android. A slash in the sticker price

Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 has officially arrived in the UK, with the WiFi-only version of the slate on sale today, while the 3G-enabled variant is due to hit carrier shelves on August 23. Meanwhile, the Galaxy Tab 8.9 has found itself a (tentative) release date, in the UK at least, with online retailers suggesting the 3G version of the slate is expected from August 12. The 10.1-inch tablet’s UK release comes just a day before Samsung has scheduled a TouchWiz update, with an OTA firmware push expected on Friday that will bring a new, custom UI, extra multimedia abilities and more to the slate. The WiFi-only Tab is £399 for the 16GB WiFi version, £479 for the 32GB and £559 for the 64GB, all available in black or white. Meanwhile, the WiFi + 3G model is £499, £579 or £659 for the three capacity variants respectively, all SIM-free. As for the smaller model, the 8.9-inch Honeycomb tablet is being listed for pre-order at several online stores – Expansys has it for £584.99 - but recently an A

BBC motoring show Top Gear has been accused of purposefully sabotaging the performance of Nissan’s Leafelectric car, in an attempt to make the earth-friendly auto look less reliable in a TV segment. While in the road test, outspoken host Jeremy Clarkson was shown running out of power in the Leaf, miles away from a recharging point, Nissan says that subsequent review of the data the car collects indicates that the test was begun with the batteries at just 40-percent and that Top Gear intentionally drove in circles to further reduce that charge. Nissan VP Andy Palmer accused Top Gear of deceiving its viewers, pointing out that the telemetrics in the Leaf had wirelessly updated the car company on the production crew’s actions. They, he suggested, were part of a system of safeguards in place to prevent owners of the car from experiencing flat batteries midway through a journey, something the TV show had failed to highlight. Clarkson, unsurprisingly, remains defiant, arguing that rather tha

Low-cost Android tablets only occasionally turn out to be as cheerful as they are cheap, but Pandigital is spreading its bet with a new trio of Android-powered models that all slip in at under the $190 mark. The Pandigital Planet, Nova and Star all have 7-inch displays, ARM Cortex A9 processors and rear cameras (the Star throws in a front-facing camera too), along with HDMI output support and Barnes & Noble’s eBookstore app preloaded. As you can probably tell from the image above, we’re not looking at Honeycomb here. Instead, Pandigital has thrown various versions of Android for smartphones at the three slates: 2.2 Froyo at the Planet and Star, and 2.3 Gingerbread at the Nova. No Android Market, either, though the GetJar store is preinstalled, along with the U-Player YouTube viewer and the OfficeSuite Viewer. Unfortunately the latter looks to be view-only, which is a shame since thanks to USB On-The-Go support you could plug in a keyboard and mouse and turn each Pandigital tablet

Who is ready for a neat little Android phone on T-Mobile? That is exactly what I have so if you’re interested you should stay tuned. Today I have the HTC Wildfire S that is available starting today on T-Mobile. This is a low to mid-range Android offering from HTC that is actually a pretty great little phone and I’ve unboxed it and have some pictures and video for you to enjoy. We will keep this short and sweet, just like the phone is. The Wildfire S is a 3.2″ 480×320 resolution phone with a Qualcomm 600 Mhz processor, yes only 600 Mhz but it seems to chug along just fine. It packs 512MB of RAM and ROM inside as well as a 5 MP 720p capable camera on the rear with LED flash. It does however come with Android 2.3 Gingerbread and the popular HTC Sense UI we all know and love. When we get into the full review I will go over everything with more details but this is a pretty basic device. It comes with a 2GB MicroSD card and a 1230 mAh battery that should be plenty considering the screen size