IBLOG SPACE

Gateway has begun shipping its first Android tablet today, called the Gateway TP Series A60. But, the tablet isn’t really all that new. In fact, it appears to be a rebranded version of the Acer Iconia Tab A500, which we’vereviewed in the past. After all, Acer is now the parent company of Gateway. Much like the Iconia Tab A500, the A60 features a 10.1-inch touchscreen display with 1280 x 800 resolution, 1GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 5-megapixel rear-facing auto-focus camera, 2-megapixel front-facing camera, and 16GB of internal storage expandable with built-in SD card slot. It will come running Android 3.1 Honeycomb out of the box and features your usual WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, and two USB ports. It’s 6520mAh battery is rated for up to 8 hours. All sounds good, but the tablet is set for Canada with a a $400 CAD price tag, equivalent to about $404 USD, and it’s available now at Future Shop.

Baidu, China’s version of Google, has announced today that it will be offering its own mobile OS based on Android. The new OS, called Baidu Yi, will fork off of a version of Android and will strip all Google apps and services to be replaced with ones branded under Baidu. The plans were announced today at the company’s annual Baidu World event in Beijing. Along with the new Baidu Yi OS, the company revealed that it plans to deliver its own Maps service to compete with Google Places, an ebook reader similar to Apple’s iBooks, as well as a music player. Current Baidu apps that ship on Chinese Android devices will also be rolled into the new OS. Baidu intends to compete directly against Google’s Android distribution in China, other Android variants, and the mobile OS from Alibaba that isn’t based on Android but aims to run Android apps. Although we first reported back in March that Baidu had plans for its own mobile OS, the only details we had then was that it would be very lightweight wit

Baidu, China’s version of Google, has announced today that it will be offering its own mobile OS based on Android. The new OS, called Baidu Yi, will fork off of a version of Android and will strip all Google apps and services to be replaced with ones branded under Baidu. The plans were announced today at the company’s annual Baidu World event in Beijing. Along with the new Baidu Yi OS, the company revealed that it plans to deliver its own Maps service to compete with Google Places, an ebook reader similar to Apple’s iBooks, as well as a music player. Current Baidu apps that ship on Chinese Android devices will also be rolled into the new OS. Baidu intends to compete directly against Google’s Android distribution in China, other Android variants, and the mobile OS from Alibaba that isn’t based on Android but aims to run Android apps. Although we first reported back in March that Baidu had plans for its own mobile OS, the only details we had then was that it would be very lightweight wit

LG has hinted at plans for a follow-up to their glasses-free 3D smartphone, the LG Optimus 3D. The main improvement on this new 3D-capable phone, besides upgraded specs to keep in line with competitors next year is a much slimmer chassis. The company hopes to have this new “LG Optimus 3D 2″ ready for sometime in 2012. In an interview with Pocket-lint, one of the developers of the LG Optimus 3D, Dr. Henry Noh, explains that the LG Optimus 3D in its current form isn’t the “slimmest and sexiest phone on the street.” The goal then is to make the next iteration much slimmer and almost as thin as the thinnest phones set to launch next year so that 3D technology won’t be associated with bulkiness. Noh also says that all the phones next year will look pretty much the same. The standard 4.3-inch display this year will get larger next year as profiles get slimmer. But everyone phone will sport about the same size screen, same thinness, same camera, and same OS. “It’s so boring.” Hence, Noh views

Just a month following Honda’s massive recall of 2.5 million cars due to bearing problems, the Japanese auto-maker has announced today that it will be recalling another 962,000 cars worldwide for two separate concerns. No serious injuries or fatal accidents have been reported in relation to the problems involved in the recall. The concerns that initiated this recall have to do with repair problems with power windows and computer equipment. The recall will involve 936,000 Fit compacts, CR-V, and City models worldwide, including in the US, Europe, Japan, and China. Another 26,000 CR-Z hybrid models will also be recalled in the US, Canada, Japan, and other markets dues to defective programming of the electronic units. The cost of the recall in Japan alone is expected to be around 1.29 billion yen or $16.8 million. Total cost estimates for the recall worldwide have not been revealed. Defective power-window switches, however, sound much less hazardous than Honda’s previous recall where issu

As it appeared that a group of hackers had successfully stolen a set of over 500 SSL certificates from a group by the name of DigiNotar, Mozilla, Google, and Microsoft see threat as too great and set in motion the permanent blocking of all digital certificates issued by DigiNotar. For those of you who have no idea what these security certificates do, just know that the holders of said certificates could, in one instance, set of a scam in which they appear to have a legitimate site (such as Gmail, for example), but once you’ve entered your name and password, they’ve intercepted it and have full access. It is this amongst many other plausible malicious situations that Google, Mozilla, and Microsoft are now guarding against. Dutch company DigiNotar is at the center of this controversy, having had what appears to be over 500 digital certificates stolen from them since July, these including certificates for official sites for the CIA, Israel’s Mossad, and the UK’s MI6. The number set at 531

Apple’s first official retail store in Hong Kong will be opening on September 24. The new flagship Apple retail center is being constructed inside Hong Kong’s high-profile International Finance Center (IFC), which is a waterfront commercial development with a four-story shopping center of more than 200 premium brand stores. We first heard of the new location back in February with construction startng in June. The two-story Apple Store will offer 20,000 square feet of retail space and will employ 300 employees to serve roughly 40,000 customers a day. This figure is four times the volume of your typical Apple Store in the US. Apple’s business in Asia has seen dramatic growth with last quarter’s revenue in China having multiplied six times when compared to the same quarter in the previous year, reaching $3.8 billion. High demand for Apple’s brand can be seen in the plethora of fake Apple Stores throughout China, where there’s only four official Apple Stores at the moment. This new Hong Ko

Microsoft has issued a new statement denying the recent accusations that its Windows Phone 7 cameras track location data without a user’s consent. Last week, a lawsuit was filed in Seattle alleging that the location tracking feature existed in the Windows Phone camera software, making it a problem on all Windows Phone 7 handsets regardless of manufacturer. The lawsuit claimed that the camera software tracks and transmits location data to Microsoft even if the owner has opted out of sharing information. According to a unnamed security researcher, analysis shows that the Windows Phone 7 sends user location data to Microsoft’s inference.location.live.net even if a user has denied permission when prompted by the operating system. Microsoft is of course adamantly denying the accusations and is now investigating the claims. A Microsoft spokesperson has released a statement today, insisting that the company does not store unique identifiers with any data transmitted and therefore would not be

HTC just can’t catch a break with its US tablet plans. The HTC Flyer, when it launched as the EVO View 4G in the US, came with its most obvious component – the digital stylus that differentiated it from all the other Android tablets on the market – as an optional accessory. Now, AT&T has released the HTC Jetstream, a 10-inch Honeycomb model, and it’s time for another face-smack moment. The carrier is asking $699.99, and that’s with a two-year data agreement. It’s almost like AT&T doesn’t want the Jetstream to succeed. If, like many, you’d prefer to go contract-free and perhaps use a pre-paid SIM with your tablet, AT&T’s unsubsidized price for the 4G slate is $849.99. In contrast, the iPad 2 WiFi + 3G – with 32GB of storage, just like the Jetstream – is $729 with no data commitment. Over the course of the Jetstream’s two-year contract, then, it’ll cost you $1,539.99. Lack of competition is part of the problem. AT&T is offering the Jetstream exclusively in the US, which m

The Sony’s first Android tablet, now officially called the Tablet S, is ready for pre-orders. The Tablet S is available on Sony’s own site and on Amazon, listed at $499.99 for the 16GB model and $599.99 for the 32GB model with a promised ship date of September 16. The device is also available on Best Buy and Future Shop in Canada at the same pricing, but with a later September 23 ship date. The Tablet S is one of the first two Android tablets from Sony, the other one being the Tablet P. Codenamed theS1 and S2, respectively, the slates have been rumored for the past several months. The Tablet S, which we’ve already got our hands on for a full review, is a 9.4-inch tablet that features a unique design reminiscent of a folded back magazine. The wedge-shaped profile provides a more comfortable grip, but also adds some less desirable bulk. Another interesting feature is the integrated IR blaster, similar to what we’ve seen on the Vizio Tablet, that turns the Tablet S into a giant universal

Although no official details have been revealed on the iPhone 5, the abundance of rumors and assumptions made on the logical progression of the next-gen iPhone make it fairly certain that the device will be sporting an upgraded 8-megapixel camera. A new report today from Taiwan Economic News further confirms this, claiming that two manufacturers have been contracted to supply the 8-megapixel optics for the iPhone 5. The two companies named are the Taiwanese-based manufacturers Largan Precision and Genius Electronic Optical. Both companies were previously responsible for supplying the 5-megapixel lens modules found in the iPhone 4. Securing the iPhone 5 contract is said to be a huge boost for the two companies and sets the pace for Taiwanese optical makers to dominate this market, thanks largely to the popularity of Apple’s iPhones. Last year, Apple sold about 47 million iPhones, which had optics supplied by Largan and Genius. This year iPhone sales have capped at 55 million units in th

Amazon’s website may soon be getting a complete face lift. The site seems to have been around for ages, but has remained relatively the same. That’s about to change, as the company has admitted that it is currently testing a redesign to bring a more updated look to its marketplace. Many believe that the new layout is designed to make navigating the site on a tablet easier, signaling that Amazon’s rumored first tablet is indeed fast approaching. The current Amazon.com design is a dash of blue, some orange, light blue, and generally filled up with all sorts of things in every square pixel. A screenshot of the new design shows that the company will be pairing down the color scheme to simple gray tones, while throwing in lots more white space. It looks almost too bland and sophisticated when compared to the Amazon we’re used to. The screenshots were first leaked about a week ago, but Amazon has finally confirmed today with the WSJ, that there is indeed a new revamped site coming soon. Some

LEGO is cool and one of the geekier building materials out there. I like to see people build giant things out of the little bricks and marvel at the geek factor and time it took them to complete. The hardest thing I ever made form LEGO was a Technica racecar, this 10-foot tall replica of the Trump International Hotel and Tower isn’t something I’d want to mess with. The tower is 10-feet tall as I said, and it has 65,000 pieces. One of the coolest touches on the building is that it has some colored brick on the side to make a pattern that looks like reflected skyline of the city. This mimics the shiny glass of the real building. The finished effect is really cool. I can only imagine how long it took the artist, Sean Kenney, to build this thing. The building is on permanent display at the Chicago LEGO Store. You have to check out the artist’s website and see some of the things he has made from LEGO. The LEGO busts and photos are awesome. Apparently the build time was a full month at full-

The Acer Aspire Ethos 5951G is the 15.6-inch little brother in this top of the line entertainment and multimedia laptop series that also includes a super-sized 18.4-inch Aspire Ethos 8951G, which we reviewed previously. If you liked the performance along with the sleek and sophisticated styling of that one but need a more portable size, then this is it. Continue after the cut for our full review. Hardware The Aspire Ethos 5951G sports a black metal lid with subtle striations for a finish that’s sleek and sophisticated. Opening it up, you’ll find the same material used as the bed for the chiclet style keyboard. The black isolated keys are backlit and have a very reassuring resistance about them that provides a solid and comfortable typing experience. The palm rest area is all black as well but is a matted surface that seems fingerprint-proof, which will keep it looking nice and grease-free. There’s a fingerprint reader located at the right side of this area, but what really stands out i

The Lenovo IdeaPad Z370 is an all-purpose 13.3-inch budget-friendly laptop that’s intriguing on the eyes and easy on the wallet. It comes in either a muted dark brown or a flashy aqua blue, both with a holographic matrix design on the lid and a stylish brushed metallic interior. The Z370 configuration we got to test packs an Intel Core i5 processor at a price of $622. Continue after the cut for our full review. Hardware The Charcoal Brown Z370 model we have sports a dark glossy top lid with a subtle holographic pattern and a silver Lenovo logo. The act of lifting open the lid is surprisingly pleasant. Perhaps it’s the combination of good hinges and a very thin lid in contrast to a hefty bottom. Whatever it is, it opens smoothly and closes just as nicely, snapping down by itself towards the end. The keyboard and palm rest areas are a continuous surface with a brushed gunmetal material with a slight purple hue. The surface sinks down slightly for the chiclet style keyboard, but these are

Samsung is tipped to be considering taking the lead on MeeGo development, stepping into the shoes vacated by Nokia. No official announcement has been made, but both MeeGo Experts and NetbookNews claim numerous insiders have confirmed to them that the Korean firm – which is known to be placing extra emphasis on software acquisitions and mergers in an attempt to boost its “competitiveness” – is a strong candidate for working with Intel on the open-source platform. The rumors follow reports last week that Intel was backing off of MeeGo development, with the platform said to be put on the back burner in the face of underwhelming interest from smartphone and tablet developers. Although MeeGo was originally the brainchild of Intel and Nokia, the Finnish firm has since backed away from the software; only one Nokia device will launch this year running the OS, the N9, and the company has said it will primarily be used as a test platform for future smartphone development. Samsung, meanwhile, is

IFA 2011 has come and gone, and there’s been no shortage of shiny new tech to play with. With the iPad still dominating consumer and industry mindshare, tablets unsurprisingly were a focus points for many, but there were big screens to marvel at in other segments, too. We won’t see many of the new toys hit store shelves for months, but that’s not going to stop us from lusting in advance. Head on past the cut for all the best devices from the show! Disclosure: IFA contributed to SlashGear’s travel/accommodation costs. However, as always, there was no editorial control over what we covered, how we covered it, or which companies we met with. Tablets Samsung stole IFA 2010 with the original 7-inch Galaxy Tab, and the company brought along its successor to this year’s show. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 answers most of our complaints about the original: the slightly larger screen uses the company’s own Super AMOLED Plus technology, runs at a higher 1280 x 800 resolution, is thinner, lighter an

A Dutch company that sells SSL certificates to hundreds of major companies around the world was hacked recently. The result of the hack was that 500 different SSL certificates for legitimate companies were stolen. That means that a nefarious page could use the stolen SSL certificates and bypass some security lending to possible infection of the computer reviewing the website. Among the SSL certificates stolen were some owned by the CIA, MI6, and Mossad according to a Mozilla developer. The official count for fraudulently issued SSL certificates is 531 right now. A Mozilla developer that is part of the team has been working to modify Firefox to block all sites signed with these certificates. There are many other companies affected as well. Other major companies affected include Yahoo, Skype, Facebook, Twitter and the Microsoft Windows Update Service. DigiNotar only admitted last week that its network had been hacked in July. That certainly gave the hackers time to get nefarious sites up

ASUS hasn’t even got its UX21 ultrabook onto the market yet, but that hasn’t stopped CEO Jerry Chen from talking about the ultraportables that will come after it. While the UX21 will be one of 5-6 notebooks ASUS expects to release in October this year, April 2012 will see $600 to $900 Ivy Bridge ultrabooks follow on, DigiTimes reports. The initial batch will be targeted at the mid- to high-end of the notebook market, Chen suggests, and it’ll be Q2 2012 before the entry-level gets some Ivy Bridge ultrabook love. That could well be a side-effect of what’s tipped to be significantly high component pricing, already believed to have forced manufacturers to give their first-gen models higher prices – or accept lower profit margins – than they initially expected. In fact, the initial ASUS ultrabooks will be $899 upwards, Chen now says, higher than recent reports of $799+. Ivy Bridge will bring 22nm production processes to the Sandy Bridge line-up, with an innovative 3D Tri-Gate design that, I

Jarre Technologies has unveiled a gigantic media player that has a massive amount of power. The device is called the AeroDream One and it has a dock up on top of the spire that supports the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. You have to climb up the tower by connecting the shiny metal ladder to the hoop around the top. The ladder is included with the purchase of the AeroDream One. The power output is as impressive as the size of the tower. It has a total power output of 10,000W and a five-channel amp inside. The bottom-mounted subwoofer has 4,000W of power alone. It has a pair of mid-range speakers with 1,600W of power. The two high range speakers pack in 1,400W. Talk about room filling sound. The AeroDream One comes in chrome, black, or white colors and is custom made. It looks more like some sort of core for a warp drive than a media player to me. You can order one right now if you have the money, the beast is € 399,000 and takes 6-months to build. It also comes with two tickets to a Jean Miche

You may be able to gander at the closest supernova to Earth that astronomers have discovered in the last 25-years from your own backyard tonight. All you need to get your eyes on the new supernova is a small telescope or even binoculars. The coolest thing about this supernova is that it is very young. Astronomers think that they may have found the supernova within hours of its initial explosion on August 24. The team that discovered the supernova was from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and University of California, Berkeley and they used a specialized survey telescope at the Palomar Observatory in southern California. The supernova is the closest to us in many years, but it is still very far from Earth. Apparently, the star is only 21 million light years away from us, whereas most supernovas that are detected are around 1 billion light years away. The close proximity to us means you can see it with basic tools. The supernova is in the Pinwheel Galaxy and you can see it within th

AT&T is still hoping that the purchase of T-Mobile USA that it wants to make will go through. The US government sued recently to block the merger. However, the deal could still go through if AT&T can come up with a plan that will satisfy regulators that the purchase would not create a monopoly or harm competition in the mobile industry. According to reports talks are being held with regulators, T-Mobile and AT&T. One of the things that AT&T had to be worried about was the breakup fee if the deal didn’t go through of roughly $6 billion it would have to pay Deutsche Telekom, the parent company of T-Mobile. Reuters reports that there are outs for AT&T that would prevent the $6 billion payout if the deal fails depending on certain conditions being met according to sources familiar with the contract. One of the conditions is that the deal would have to fail to meet approval within a certain time period. If the deal doesn’t get approval, in whatever the unspecified period

Apple still hasn’t even officially announced the iPhone 5 yet and all we have as far as specs and launch dates for the device are rumors that are unsubstantiated. You might think that carriers would be holding off on offering the iPhone 5 or whatever the next generation iPhone will be called for pre-order, but you would be wrong. The oddest part is that they don’t even know how much the smartphone will cost. Generally, the base offerings on the iPhone are always $199 so that would be a safe bet this time out. Bloomberg reports that Deutsche Telekom AG, which is the parent company for all T-Mobile branches around the world, is taking the pre-orders. By calling out DT rather than T-Mobile UK it would seem that the smartphones will be up for pre-order at all T-Mobile branches. The tip reportedly came by way of DT’s Alexander von Schmettow. Apparently, those that pre-order will be given coupons without providing a name or release details for the smartphone. I wonder if other carries will f

The last time I mentioned Wicked Lasers was back when it was in legal trouble with LucasFilm for making a new laser that looked a lot like a lightsaber. Wicked Lasers is back with another cool laser called the S3 Krypton Series. This laser claims to be the world’s brightest handheld laser with a range of 85-miles! That means that the laser is bright enough to be seen outside our atmosphere. The laser is under review by the Guinness World Records folks to be listed as the world’s brightest in the record books. Since the laser has such a bright beam and such a long range, Wicked Lasers offers the disclaimer that users should not aim the laser at an aircraft or at satellites. Wicked says that the laser could interfere with sensors on the satellites. The laser has 1W of power and produces 86 million lux brightness making it appear to be over 8,000 times brighter than looking at the sun. The laser has five modes of operation and uses an integrated thermopile detector. The sensor detects exc

Acer was at IFA last weekend and one of the coolest products that the company showed off was the Ultrabook Aspire S3 that uses Intel’s new ultra mobile platform to combine portability with performance. There have been rumors swirling for a while that Acer would be offering machines using ARM processors as well to help it be able to produce cheaper notebooks. An ARM processor combined with a lower cost OS would make for an interesting computer indeed. ARMdevices reports that a product strategy manager for Acer said at IFA that Acer would not be offering ARM processors inside notebooks in the short term. The unnamed source claims that ARM processors won’t show up inside Acer gear until Windows 8 launches. Presumably that means the ARM machines won’t come until next year whenever Windows 8 lands. There were rumors circulating before that the ARM chips would land in Acer notebooks anytime now. As rumors go this one is certainly in unconfirmed territory. The product manger reportedly offeri

All the drama going on with the iPhone 5 allegedly getting lost in a bar and the ensuing search of the home owned by the man thought to be in possession of the phone that has been going on over the last week or so has raised more than a few eyebrows. At this point it has been said that the SFPD escorted Apple investigators to the home of the man allegedly having the lost iPhone 5 and that Apple employees then went in to search the home. Apple is apparently tired of using outside sources to investigate lost items and is looking for full time workers to handle the task. Apple has posted two new job listings on its jobs site looking for people that will be responsible for managing risks for Apple’s unreleased products. The job description reads: The candidate will be responsible for overseeing the protection of, and managing risks to, Apple’s unreleased products and related intellectual property. Position will reside in Cupertino, California and will require up to 30% travel (internationa

When I think of Volvo things like economy and safety come to mind much more than performance. Volvo has some cars that have impressive performance, but most of them never make it to the US. Volvo has pledged that it will be building some new 4-cylinder engines that offer the performance of the 6-cylinder engines it previously offered while greatly increasing fuel economy. Volvo will only be using 4-cylinder engines moving forward. There will be both diesel and gasoline engines in the company’s four-cylinder range. The new engines will use what Volvo calls the VEA or Volvo Environmental Architecture with common rail diesel engines and direct injected gasoline engines. The engines will range from models designed for efficiency to models designed for performance with high power and torque. Volvo notes that to meet the customer expectation for performance and driver requirements in certain engines it will use a KERS system that has a flywheel that spins at up to 60,000 revolutions per minu

Last week at IFA 2011 in Berlin, the Jetstream tablet from HTC broke cover. The tablet is an exclusive for AT&T and the pricing listed was surprisingly expensive at $699 with a 2-year contract making it more expensive than the iPad 2 in some forms. As of today, you can order the Jetstream tablet if you want one. We already know the $699.99 commitment pricing and the no commitment price for the tablet is $849.99. With the $699.99 price, you will need to agree to a data plan that will cost $35 monthly. The big feature that the Jetstream has that the iPad 2 lacks is support for 4G connectivity. We already know the hardware specs for the Jetstream including a 10.1-inch screen, 1.5GHz dual-core processor, and the Android 3.1 operating system. The tablet also has an 8MP rear camera and a 1.3MP front camera. The screen resolution is 1280 x 800. Internal storage is 32GB with a microSD card slot for up to 32GB more storage. What do you think about the pricing of the Jetstream? Is it too exp

One of the things that can be difficult for people that are wheelchair bound is getting around in their own home. Depending on the type of injury that has left a person dependent on a wheelchair the simple operation of controls like a joystick can be difficult or impossible. At IFA, a university from Berlin was on hand showing off a very cool automated wheelchair that uses the Microsoft Kinect sensor and a netbook to navigate around the home. The wheelchair works by allowing the user or their caregiver or user to set waypoints around the house. The wheelchair will then automatically navigate to the location, such as a bedroom or kitchen and the sensor will see any obstacles in the way and avoid them. This is a particularly good thing for people that are unable to use their hands and require controls that are used with the mouth like a sip and puff system or a joystick controlled using the tongue. This would mean that a quadriplegic might be able to simply tell the chair where they need

I have always wanted to automate my entire home by installing sensors for various things along with controls for the lights and more. Two things make adding home automation a big issue for existing construction though. The first thing is the cost, home automation sensors and controllers are very expensive. The second thing is the actual installation. Depending on how the walls in your home are made it could well be impossible to add all the sensors and wiring to a home. The Fraunhofer Institute has unveiled a very interesting new sensor for monitoring of windows that opens the doors to all sorts of other sensors for home automation and more uses. The cool thing about the sensor is that it mounts to the handles of the windows rather than the windows themselves. The sensor needs no battery or solar cells to operate. That means that they don’t have to be charged and you don’t have to find a place to stash the solar panel. The sensors developed by Fraunhofer harvests the power needed to op

I think that like most Star Wars fans I have a love/hate relationship with George Lucas. He has been behind the two iconic franchises of my youth with Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Lucas has pimped Star Wars out more than I like in some instances, and he keeps changing things in the films that I thought were already excellent. Still, he is good for something epic every now and again. Take for instance the building that Lucasfilm is creating in Singapore. The building is what you see in the rendering here. It will be the home of Lucasfilm in Singapore and is already under construction and set for completion next year. The building looks like a giant Sandcrawler. I always thought that building would be the scale of a Sandcrawler in the real world. The building will have animation studios and house ILM Singapore and LucasArts Singapore. The building will also have eight floors of retail office space and retail shopping space will be included on the first floor. There will be a public park

With all the stuff going on with IFA last week it was easy to miss out on some interesting developments in the streaming media world. Certainly, the two companies that most of us know in streaming media are Netflix and Hulu. Apparently the sale of Hulu has lost one of the key bidders, and honestly the one I was hoping to see come out on top. DirecTV has dropped out of the bidding after being the lowest bidder in the last round reports VentureBeat. That leaves Amazon, Yahoo, and Dish Network still in the running. Amazon is the company favored to win the bidding war. The bids are thought to be in the $1.5 billion to $2 billion range right now. While Hulu is looking to sell, Netflix made headlines last week with Starz walking away and bringing an end to Starz content on the streaming service as of next February. I was not happy at first, but now the LA Times reports that Netflix offered Starz big money to stay. The word is the offer was $300 million but that wasn’t good enough for Starz.

Google is staging a cull across its services, lining up ten products and features are are getting the chop as the search giant streamlines its experiments. Social search acquisition Aardvark, Google Desktop and Google Web Security are all among the victims in what the company describes as a “spring-clean“; meanwhile, Google Notebook is being torn up and all existing notes automatically sucked into Docs. Elsewhere, it’s Google’s collaborative and social services which are being pared down. Sidewiki – which allowed users to add public notes to webpages that could be read by others, in effect annotating the web – will be discontinued over the coming weeks, with users warned to export their notes before they’re all deleted. Google’s history with social has been a mixed one, with Google Plus finding some favor while previous attempts like Wave did not. Fast Flip, Google’s speedy news system, is also going out, though the company says it will be instilling current and new news products with

Apple’s iPhone 5 launch date could have been telegraphed in a number of leaked retailer memos, suggesting late October installations of mysterious “Apple fixture” hardware as well as imminent training for employees. According to a Best Buy message passed to This is my next, store managers have been told to be on-hand at 6AM on Friday, October 21 so that a large “Apple fixture” can be brought in, something that the tipster says happened last year just before the iPhone 4 launch. Meanwhile, Best Buy Mobile managers apparently have a meeting in their planners for October 10, at which point the tipster says they’ll be talking about “upcoming BIG release dates.” The iPhone 5 is expected to be one of the phones on the schedule. Over at Apple’s own retail stores, however, training has already begun on iOS 5 and iCloud, 9 to 5 Mac‘s sources tell them. That process – which this time around is taking place through a new part of the Apple RetailMe application, an in-store training and comms tool

Google has revealed a new homepage doodle which celebrates the birthday of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, an ambitious multimedia animation that sees the flamboyant entertainer – who would have been 65 this year – navigate the lyrics of his hit “Don’t Stop Me Now.” The 1:39 long piece sees Mercury straddling an 8-bit tiger, blasting alien spaceships with a rainbow Google-ray, and riding a float pulled by mustachioed bears. The doodle – which will be shown internationally today, September 5, and on the 6th in the USA out of deference to Labor Day – apparently took around three months to create, according to lead animator Jennifer Hom. “My obsession with Freddie Mercury affected everyone else around me” Hom told NBC. ”Considering how colorful Freddie’s career was, we wanted to create a doodle that was just as colorful.” Meanwhile, Queen guitarist Brian May has written Google a Mercury birthday piece. If you can’t see the doodle on the homepage, you can watch the full video below.

Apple has secured a new injunction against Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 7.7 in Germany, forcing the company to yank the tablet from IFA 2011 show stands as we saw on Saturday . The courts in Dusseldorf granted Apple’s request for a ban on sales and promotion of the new Android slate, Yonhap News reports; “Samsung respects the court’s decision” spokesperson James Chung told Bloomberg , though went on to criticize the ruling as something that “severely limits consumer choice in Germany.” On Saturday, all Samsung staff manning the IFA stand would say was that the company had “voluntarily” removed all of the Galaxy Tab 7.7 demo units, information and promotional information from the show, pending receipt of the court’s comments. Before that had taken place, however, each Galaxy Tab 7.7 was already marked with a label suggesting that the design was subject to change, and that it would not go on sale in Germany. Samsung appears to have hoped that the sticker would be sufficient to allow the IFA la

Watch the latest video song promo "Khwabon khwabon Khoye khoye " in HD of the upcoming movie Force having John Abraham, Genelia Dsouza in lead roles. This movie is directed by nishant kamat and produced by Fox Star Studios,Sunshine Pictures.

After the huge success of 'Rabba mein toh' song here is the another awsome video song 'Ik tu hi tu hi' from "Mausam" - A love story beyond romance directed by Pankaj Kapoor, this song is sung by the legendary Hans Raj Hans, lyrics are penned by Irshad Kamil and composition by Pritam.

You guys liked the video song 'I love you' of bodyguard. Now its time to see how that video made & efforts putted in to made this lovable video. Watch Salman Khan, Kareena Kapoor in their upcoming movie Bodyguard.

Rab Rakha is the new video song from Zayed Khan, Dia Mirza starrer upcoming movie Love Breakups Zindagi. It also stars Tisca Chopra, Cyrus Sahukar, Pallavi Sharda, Satyadeep Mishra. Umang Jain. Music is composed by Salim-Sulaiman & lyrics are penned by legendary Javed Akhtar.

Watch the all new trailer of Love BreakUps Zindagi starring Zaye Khan, Dia Mirza, Zayed Khan, Cyrus and others.

Watch this years most awaiting and biggest video song 'Chammak Challo' of 'Shah Rukh Khan's' dream movie Ra.One featuring kareena kapoor. This song is sung by international artist Akon.