IBLOG SPACE

Google’s upcoming major unifying platform release for Android, dubbed Ice Cream Sandwich, has been confirmed to launch during the October-November time frame. However, the news doesn’t come as an official announcement from Google. Instead, it’s Google Chairman and former CEO, Eric Schmidt, that spilled the beans during a Dreamforce conference in San Francisco. Ice Cream Sandwich is expected to unite the separate smartphone and tablet versions of the platform into one, making it easier to develop for and streamline the Android ecosystem. Currently, Android Gingerbread runs on smartphones and some smaller tablets, while Android Honeycomb is the official tablet version. Hence, the goal with Ice Cream Sandwich, is that it would run on both while bringing some of the new Honeycomb features to smartphones. The major update was first announced during Google I/O earlier this year and thus far, Google has only confirmed that the update would launch sometime in Q4. And although rumors have been

Lenovo’s IdeaPad U300S Ultrabook has just passed through the FCC today in preparation for a launch next month. The super-slim laptop, first unveiled at IFA 2011 last week, is eager to take on the MacBook Air with a thinner and lighter physique while still packing in powerful performance. We got a bit of hands-on time with the Lenovo IdeaPad U300S and it is looking rather nice with an all-aluminum chassis, weighing just 2.2 pounds and measuring 0.6-inches thin. It has a 13.3-inch 16:9 widescreen display along with full-sized ports, including USB 3.0 and HDMI, and a large ventilation grille to work with Intel’s Advanced Cooling Technology. Inside, it boasts Intel’s latest Core i7 processor, 4GB DDR3 RAM, and up to 256GB SSD. Additionally, the U300S features a battery life of up to 8 hours with the ability to charge up to 50% in only 30 minutes. And it touts a cold boot-up in just 10 seconds. The laptop is expected to be available in two colors of Graphite Gray and Clementine Orange and i

It’s time to get your conspiracy hats on, ladies and gentlemen, because the next big hero phone from Google is right around the corner, the name once again being confirmed today by none other than Samsung. This device has been said to be the first device to be coming out with Android’s next generation “Ice Cream Sandwich”, a single operating system to combine the abilities of smartphone and tablet-based Android versions of the past. What we’ve got today is a quick look at a Samsung-hosted webpage whose title and code appears to guarantee both the name and a couple of innocuous specs from the future device. The file of which we speak appears on Samsung webpage nexusprime.xml and lets us know, through this user agent profile (UAProf), that the device, also code-named GT-I9250, will have a rather surprisingly small 480 x 800 pixel WVGA resolution display. One thing we can count on is the ability of manufacturers (especially one so sneaky and aware of publishers wandering eyes as Samsung)

Google Offers Beta is expanding to five new markets, with the first daily deals in those markets redeemable starting tomorrow. The service was first launched back in June in Portland, the Bay Area, and New York City. Now it will be adding Austin, Boston, Washington D.C., Denver, and Seattle. To give you an idea of what Google Offers has to offer, the first deal in Austin will be a $5 voucher for $10 worth of food and drink at a popular local Mexican restaurant, Juan in a Million. In Boston it’s gourmet ice cream from Toscanini’s Ice Cream, again a $5 for $10 deal. Washington D.C. deal seekers get a $3 for $6 offer on Falafels from Amsterdam Falafelshop. And in Denver, users can get $20 worth of merchandise for $5 at three retail locations of the Tattered Cover Book Store, while Seattle users can pay only $9.50 for a $19 one-day admission to the Seattle Aquarium. The Offers service is Google’s answer to Groupon after the search giant’s plans to acquire the daily deal site for $6 billion

I wonder if the latest photos to come in from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) will be enough to convince the conspiracy nuts that we really did go to the moon back in the 60′s. I sort of doubt it since they will just assume that the photos were doctored. As for me, I know we actually went to the moon and these are some of the clearest photos of the landing sites of those moon voyages ever taken. The LRO snapped the pics that show the landing sites of the astronauts along with tracks from the moon buggy, the LRV parking spot, and the site of other equipment left on the moon. The big photo here is of the Apollo 17 landing site. NASA moved the LRO to a lower orbit to capture the clear photos. NASA also notes that the images don’t line up perfectly. This is due to the differences in angle when the shot was taken and in lighting. It’s so cool to see the tracks from the moon buggy there on the surface just as they were left years and years ago. You can also see the descent stage that

It appears that Amazon is increasing their in-store locker reach with a new look into UK shopping centers as locations where customers can pick up purchased goods. Just this week we reported that in the USA, 7-Eleven locations will begin their trial run with similar lockers that Amazon.com customers can use in place of having goods delivered straight to their home. This will add a competitive edge to Amazon where before they had no comparable service to, for example, Best Buy’s in-store collection of online orders. Several London shopping centers will be the first set of locations where lockers will be in place quite soon. This project will be done after an agreement was reached this month between Amazon and UK shopping center owner Land Securities. The image you see above was photographed by Retail Week and is already up and nearly running at One New Change in the City. At the moment the display shows the phone number of Amazon customer services in the USA – they’ll let you know that

Today the fine folks at AMD have announced availability of their brand new AMD A-Series APUs, the A4-330 and A4-3400 desktop processors in a move that brings the entry-level desktop APU price down to an unbelievable $70 (U.S. suggested retail price.) This will allow custom home desktop builders to bring what AMD describes as “brilliant HD graphics, advanced performance, and fast application and connectivity speeds” to their masterpiece machines for rock bottom prices. These APUs offer competitive power and graphics supporting Steady Video, Dual Graphics, USB 3.0, and AMD VISION Engine Software, amongst many other features right out of the box. Both the AMD A4-3300 and A4-3400 desktop APUs combine the power of two x86 CPU cores with 160 Radeon cores, these enabling DirectX 11-capable discrete-level graphics as well as dedicated HD video processing on one single chip. In addition to basic functions, AMD A4-3300 and A4-3400 desktop APUs support the following features: AMD Steady Video ma

It may look like a tempting plate of uni, hirame and other sushi delights, but this photo may actually be the first publicly-spotted photo taken by the iPhone 5. Caught on Flickr, although the description suggests it’s the product of an iPhone 4, the EXIF data says different. Cropped down to roughly 5-megapixels from its original 3264 x 2448 – or roughly 8-megapixels, the expected resolution of the iPhone 5 camera – the location data suggests it was taken by an Apple engineer eating lunch in the campus canteen. If this really is the product of an iPhone 5 prototype, then photographers have some fun incoming. According to the EXIF, the camera that shot the image has a 4.3mm f/2.4 lens, a considerable step up from the 3.85mm f/2.8 of the existing iPhone 4. That should add up to improved low-light performance and less noise. Now, falsifying EXIF data is an easy thing to do, and the iPhone 5 has no shortage of rumors attached to it. However, the stack of evidence – including the location w

We have mentioned the AT&T Impulse 4G smartphone before, but that was the Samsung true LTE device not the one I am talking about here. The smartphone here is the Huawei Impulse 4G, I won’t blame you for being confused. AT&T has gone official with two important tidbits today, the price and availability of the Huawei Impulse 4G. The Impulse 4G will hit on September 18 and it will cost only $29.99 with a 2-year contract. As the name implies the phone supports the current AT&T 4G network. The smartphone will operate at up to 14.4Mbps on Quad Band GSM/Tri Band UMTS/Edge networks. The phone measures 120mm x 65mm x 11.6mm and runs the Android 2.2 operating system. The phone has a MSM7230 chipset and a Scorpion 800MHz processor inside along with 512MB of internal storage. That isn’t much internal storage but the Impulse 4G has a micro SD card slot good for 32GB more storage. The phone has a 3.8-inch 800×480 resolution screen. The rear camera is 5MP with autofocus and flash integrat

Last we heard of Velocity Micro it was coughing up licensing fees to Microsoft for its Android range, so it makes sense that the company should have a few new products to make the most of that spend. The Velocity MicroCruz T408 and Cruz T410 fall decidedly on the budget end of the spectrum, priced at $239.99 and $299.99 respectively when they drop at the end of the month, with the T408 having an 8-inch 800 x 600 4:3 capacitive touchscreen, and the T410 having a 10-inch 1024 x 600 16:9 capacitive touchscreen. Unfortunately, there are some compromises to be made along the way. Biggest is the OS: both these Android slates run 2.3 Gingerbread, not Honeycomb (though judging by the screenshots, VM has dressed them up with some Honeycomb-style UI customizations), which means they’re not eligible for the Android Market. Instead, Velocity Micro preloads the Amazon Appstore for Android on there, along with the Kindle app, Angry Birds Rio and QuickOffice. These run on a single-core 1GHz Cortex A8

Bad news if you picked up a Laptop Dock for the Motorola ATRIX and hoped you could use it with the brand newDROID BIONIC: we can confirm that neither peripheral is interchangeable with the other smartphone. Although the original Laptop Dock and new BIONIC Lapdock are the same in theory – an 11.6-inch display, full keyboard and trackpad, to turn the Android smartphone into a notebook replacement – the change in dock design means that there’s neither backward or forward compatibility. In short, if you have the original Laptop Dock, you’ll still need to buy the Lapdock if you upgrade to the DROID BIONIC. It’s a disappointment, because neither version of the peripheral comes cheap: the original was $299.99, while the new Lapdock is $299.97, though it doesn’t demand a tethering fee as charged for the ATRIX 4G. We can’t help but see Motorola’s decision as a snub to existing users, whereas investing in accessories could have been the hook that encouraged them to upgrade to another Moto device

Nokia is working hard to get some of the market share back that it has lost in the smartphone world. The company has a long road to go since it has fallen significantly behind in the smartphone realm. One of the smartphones that has been rumored in the past is called the Nokia 801 or the Nokia N8-01 smartphone. Previously the phone had been tipped as the N9, but the phone in these photos doesn’t look like the phone said to be the N9 or N8-02 we spied back in July. The phone in these shots looks nice with an edge-to-edge qHD screen. The phone apparently shows up in the video at the end of this story showing off NFC. PhoneArena admits that the phone could simply be a concept to show off NFC. However, the company has plenty of NFC enabled devices so it wouldn’t need to show off a concept if NFC is all it wants to show. The phone appears to have Symbian Belle onboard. The video teaser with the 801 used was in the list of promo videos found on a Nokia 700 smartphone at IFA. In short, the vi

HP shopped its PC business around to Samsung, LG and others late last year, it’s been alleged, pushing the idea that the PSG (Personal Systems Group) would compliment other consumer electronics offerings of rival firms. While HP only publicly revealed its plans to spin off the PSG last month, a CNET source claims that the company was canvassing potential Korean suitors months in advance. However, it seems HP’s sales skills fell short. “PCs would, in theory, complement other portions of the target companies’ business” the source revealed, though given HP still has the PSG we can only assume it failed to convince Samsung, LG and others of that particular benefit. Instead, HP recently confirmed that it plans to spin off the PSG as a standalone business that would focus on hardware like all-in-one PCs and tablets; it’s not clear whether it would license webOS from HP itself. webOS, meanwhile, looks to be splitting up too, with the software side of the business being pushed over to the Offi

There have been some disturbing hacks on new vehicles recently with hackers finding a way to unlock your car via text message. McAfee is a security firm most known for protecting computers. The company has just issued a report (PDF) on the state of security in the automotive sector. This is the first report of its type and it examines the security of electrical systems that are common in the cars of today. Cars use embedded computer systems in airbags, radios, power seats, and anti-lock brakes. The stability control, cruise control, and communications systems are also powered by embedded systems. It has been proven that parts of the automotive system can be hacked. One group of researchers found that by tracking RFID tags using long distance readers that privacy of a driver can be compromised from 40 meters away. The report looks at security risks by criminal activity including the ability to unlock and start a car via cell phone, the ability to disable a car remotely, tracking a locat

Qualcomm’s future Snapdragon mobile chipsets could offer far more polished multimedia crunching abilities, with the news that it has bought various video processing systems and intends to integrate them into future smartphones, tablets and other devices. The silicon company has announced that it is acquiring IDT’s Hollywood Quality Video (HQV) and Frame Rate Conversion (FRC) Video Processing technologies, which support HD deinterlacing, noise reduction and more. “Hollywood Quality Video is a well-recognized, award-winning technology that provides Qualcomm with a leadership position in the video processing space,” Steve Mollenkopf, executive vice president and group president of Qualcomm claims. “Media consumption continues to cross device boundaries and create growing expectations for high-quality viewing experiences.” The exact nature of Qualcomm’s intended implementation of the IDT tech is unknown at this stage. Given, however, that smartphones and tablets are increasingly being posi

Maingear offered up the small and low price Vybe gaming computers back in April for the first time. The company has now announced that it is updating the line with some new hardware and features. One of the new features is a new chassis design and units that are pre-configured with certain specifications to make the turnaround time faster. The machines also have a 30-day no-fail guarantee and a trade-in program to get new machines when they launch. The new chassis holds full ATX mainboards and can hold the latest and most powerful hardware on the market. That gives gamers the option NVIDIA video cards in single or SLI arrangements. There are three models pre-configured and one of them can ship the same day the machine is ordered. The pre-configured machines can be fitted with more memory, faster processors, larger storage drives, and different CPUs. The machine available for same day shipping uses a Core i5-2310 CPU that is overclocked to 3.3GHz, 4GB of RAM, GTS 450 graphics, 1TB of st

Back in May I mentioned the really cool supercar concept that Jaguar was working on called the C-X75 with the hybrid powertrain under the hood. Jag is back with another concept that shares a familial resemblance to the C-X75 called the C-X16. The car is intended to explore the future of performance hybrid autos. The car has a supercharged 3-liter V6 engine with 375 hp and 322 lb-ft of torque. The C-X16 also has a hybrid per system that is able to add 94 hp and 173 lb-ft of torque to the V6 engine. The top speed of the concept is listed at 186mph and it will do 0-62mph in 4.4 seconds. The hybrid system gives the car an on demand performance boost with a button on the steering wheel labeled “Push to Pass.” The car is made with copious amounts of aluminum and is a two seater on the inside. It uses an 8-speed ZF automatic transmission and has integrated start stop tech to improve fuel economy. The switches inside use OLED screens and it has an advanced climate control system. Since the car

If you outlets around the home are anything like mine they are jammed full with all sorts of gadgets and home theater gear there may not be room for a big normal size power line networking adapter. I know I don’t have the space behind my entertainment system for a standard size one that blocks an outlet. Trendnet has a new compact power line adapter that might do the trick though. The adapter is called the TPL-306E and it can connect any device to the internet in your home using your router and a power line. The adapter will connect automatically to other adapters around the home. The network is secure and needs no drivers to install. You just hook the router to your network side and then to the device you want connectivity for. The adapter has lights on the front to show power and connectivity. It also has tech inside to reduce power consumption when not in use by 70%. The adapter is capable of 200Mbps speeds. The full official name is the 200Mbps Compact Powerline AV Adapter TPL-306E

HP may be looking to spin off its hardware business but it looks like the PC team wants to go out with a bang: a full five new all-in-ones for home users, along with a further two new models for businesses. The HP Omni series kick things off, with the 20-inch Omni 120 and 21.5-inch Omni 220 priced from $399.99 and $799.99 respectively, but there’s also the HP TouchSmart range with the 20-inch HP TouchSmart 320, 21.5-inch HP TouchSmart 420 and the 23-inch HP TouchSmart 520 priced from $599.99, $699.99 and $899.99 respectively. Inside the two Omni machines there’s a choice of AMD or Intel processors and up to 750GB of storage. Some models include Beats Audio, too. HP’s LinkUp app is also preloaded, allowing Omni users to access files stored on their HP laptops and work on them remotely, all changes being saved on the original laptop version rather than creating confusing duplicates spread around machines. As for the TouchSmarts, they also get LinkUp and Beats Audio, together with an opti

We’ve been waiting for the DROID BIONIC by Motorola for some time, now. Verizon has had 4G LTE Android smartphones before, of course, but they’ve always come with a compromise: so far, if you’ve wanted LTE then you’ve also had to make do with a single-core processor. The DROID BIONIC changes that, packing not only high-speed wireless connectivity but a dual-core 1GHz CPU as well, putting the speedy Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread experience on a 4.3-inch qHD anti-reflective touchscreen. That’s plenty of boxes ticked from the off; read on for all our first-impressions. Aesthetically it’s in keeping with the squared-off Motorola DROIDs we’ve seen recently, fronted by a bright and colorful 960 x 540 LCD panel. It’s a big display, the same as you’ll find on the HTC Sensation 4G for instance, though the extra pixels can leave the on-screen keyboard smaller what with everything Motorola has squeezed into it. 4.5-inches seems like a sweeter size considering our fingers. Still, we can’t really fault

If you have been waiting for the next version of the popular TiVo DVR to debut, it is here. The new DVR is called the Premiere Elite and it has some impressive specs. The DVR has 2TB of storage space inside and quad tuners. That is enough room for 300 hours of HD programming. That much storage space with four tuners opens lots of doors for TV fans. Four tuners means you can record four different shows at the same time and watch a fifth. Apparently, the DVR need to get an analog tuner waver from the FCC, which is expected to be granted. Once that is given, it will hit stores for $500. The DVR is also broadband connected. That means that it can stream all sorts of content from Netflix, Pandora, and Hulu Plus. The big downside to this TiVo DVR and any other TiVo for that matter is the monthly TiVo fees on top of your cable plan. TiVo will charge you an extra $20 monthly for service or $500 for a lifetime. The DVR is THX certified for sound quality. There is no indication if users will get

If the camera in the photo below looks complicated, it is because the camera is complicated. The specifications for this professional cinema recording camera are mind boggling. The camera is clearly aimed at the Hollywood studios looking fro one of the best and highest resolution cameras they can get hands on for making movies and more. Sony says that the F65 camera starts at “just” $65,000 with the viewfinder included. The F65 has a true 4K resolution at the point of image capture making it higher quality than full HD by a long shot. The resolution is 4096 x 2160 for four times the resolution of 1080p cameras. The image sensor is an 8K unit with about 20MP total giving the F65 more image fidelity than any other camera on the market. Output from the camera is 16-bit Linear RAW allowing for end-to-end 4K file-based mastering for the film. Other features of the F65 camera include 14 stops HDR with a wide color gamut, WiFi operation to allow remote control form a tablet like the Sony Tabl

I always think of the old west when I hear the term ghost town. We are all familiar with the phrase meaning a town where the buildings are still there, but no one is around. A technology company from Washington D.C. has an interesting idea for testing all sorts of new technology in a realistic setting. The company is called Pegasus Global Holdings and the project will cost $200 million to complete. The town will be constructed with old and new buildings in New Mexico. The town will be modeled after the typical American city with 35,000 residents and has been dubbed The Center reports the Washington Post. The Center will have buildings, homes, highways and roads as well as commercial buildings. The goal is to be able to test things like new wireless networks with next generation tech, smart-grid cyber security, and a lot more. The location will be offered for use to scientists, universities, federal labs, and the military. The mix of building types would allow for experiments such as us

Trendnet is typically showing off new home networking gear when we talk about them. Today the company has unveiled a new security camera designed to be mounted outdoors to keep an eye on what is going on around the home and office. The camera is called the SecurView Outdoor PoE Megapixel day/night camera. It carries model number TV-IP322P and has an impressive night vision range. The camera can see in complete darkness up to 66-feet away. The camera is rated IP66 weather proof and has a vandal resistant enclosure. It ships with a bracket for all or ceiling mounting of the camera and has sun visor as well for optimum image quality in the daytime. The camera needs no power outlet to operate. It gets the power and connectivity it needs via an Ethernet cable using Power over Ethernet tech. The camera has HD resolution at 1280 x 1024 and uses H.264 image compression. The Trendnet software used with the camera allows the user to monitor up to 32 different cameras at one time the camera also

The Microsoft Kinect for the Xbox 360 has found itself being used for all sorts of things outside of gaming on the Xbox 360 console. That has led other firms to try to get in on the motion control action using their own motion control systems and so far no one has managed to be successful. Asus is trying its hand at motion control for the PC with the WAVI Xtion that was first shown off back in January. Asus is now looking at launching the Wavi device for computers in October according to a report. Asus hopes to ship 100,000 of the devices in October according to Kent Chien, GM of multimedia business at Asus. The Asus system includes a wireless receiver dubbed WAVI that Asus created and a body sensing device. That body sensor is called the Xtion Pro and is based on a chip developed by PrimeSense. The first target market for the sensors will be China where the import of gaming consoles like the Xbox 360 is banned. That means the Kinect isn’t offered in China. The WAVI Xtion is supposed t

Seagate has rolled out a new and very high capacity external HDD called the 4TB GoFlex Desk Drive. This drive claims to be the highest capacity HDD in the industry. The big 4TB HDD has a new black industrial design that will be rolled out to the entire line of GoFlex drives in the coming weeks. A Mac version of the drive will be offered via Apple Stores in the coming weeks as well. The MSRP for the 4TB GoFlex is $249.99. Connectivity for the drive includes a USB 3.0 adapter and Firewire. The drive comes loaded with software for automatic, continuous backups with encryption for all the files. The drive also has an illuminated display that shows how much space is left on the GoFlex at a glance. The new GoFlex has the same modular interface design as the line has always had and new interfaces will be coming for things like Thunderbolt and others. The GoFlex can also be used with a home interface to make the drive a network drive. Inside the case of the external HDD hides 3.5-inch standard

Earlier this week I mentioned a report that was making the rounds claiming if the T-Mobile purchase by AT&T fell through due to regulatory objections or concessions that proved too costly AT&T might not have to pay the billions in breakup fees. Today T-Mobile parent company Deutsche Telekom is saying that is incorrect. Apparently the breakup fee, or at least part of it will still be due. Apparently even if the regulators fail to approve the deal or if the deal takes too long or concessions valued at more than $7.8 billion are required for the deal to go through AT&T may still have to pay T-Mobile a lofty fee. That fee is said to be $3 billion in cash along with the giveaway wireless spectrum not needed for LTE rollout, and AT&T would be forced to enter into a roaming agreement with T-Mobile USA. The roaming agreement is said to be subject to terms agreeable to both companies. That means T-Mobile would pay for the roaming. Right now it still looks like the merger may not

Yahoo! is “open to selling itself” a company insider has confirmed, suggesting the beleaguered search and email giant isn’t relying solely on “industry-leading innovation,” as board chairman Roy Bostock claimed, to reverse the decline. As well as sacking CEO Carol Bartz, Yahoo! is now in effect putting itself up for sale, an insider tells the WSJ. “Independent directors did a study of Yahoo’s assets and performance in the past two weeks and concluded the company wasn’t performing as well as it could” another source told the newspaper. The board had been discussing Yahoo!’s slump for twelve months, but the decision to fire Bartz – which was done over the phone, a leaked email to staff revealed – still came as a surprise to the ousted CEO. Although no official comment about being up for sale has been made, the suggestion of being “open to selling itself to the right bidder” is being interpreted as a clear message that the Yahoo! board is looking for a relatively easy out. Meanwhile, a st

NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang was on hand at an investors conference this week and he said that revenue for the company for fiscal 2013 would beat Wall Street expectations. Analysts had predicted $4.45 billion for NVIDIA and the company is expected to post figures in the $4.7 billion to $5 billion range. Huang also expects the gross margin at NVIDIA to remain flat at 51% to 53% with growth across the entire range of NVIDIA graphics and mobile processor lines. The news was good for investors and sent stock prices up 5.5% in after hours trading reports the WSJ. Huang had stated previously that mobile growth would be flat for Q3. The CEO also noted that NVIDIA is too new to the mobile market to be able to provide detailed forecasts for sales. Huang also noted that some of the conservative outlook was based on unknowns that are caused by the bevy of patent litigations between tablet makers. Looking into the future Huang also noted that new devices running the quad-core NVIDIA chips should hit

I would wager that none of the hard-core tech guys and gals were surprised that the HP TouchPad with webOS failed. I think most of us knew that would happen when we first heard that webOS was coming to a tablet. I never understood why HP though with the WebOS smartphones not doing well that a tablet would do well. If you are the owner of a TouchPad, there is a lot of work on getting the tablet to run Android underway. Early ports like theCyanogenMod could boot, but the touchscreen didn’t function. Thankfully, that massive and glaring omission has now been fixed and we have the video proof below. Team-TouchDrioid has successfully activated ten-point multitouch on the TouchPad. In the video you can see that the touch control works and things appear to be working quickly too. Before you get too excited, you do need to know that the project for the port is still not 100%. Still, the project is moving along. It’s great to see that people who bought the TouchPad will get to continue using th

Yahoo! has fired little-loved CEO Carol Bartz, temporarily replacing the former exec with CFO Timothy Morse. While board chairman Roy Bostock thanks Bartz “for her service to Yahoo! during a critical time of transition in the Company’s history,” an email the ousted CEO sent to her former staff, leaked to AllThingsD, reveals that she was “fired over the phone.” To all, I am very sad to tell you that I’ve just been fired over the phone by Yahoo’s Chairman of the Board. It has been my pleasure to work with all of you and I wish you only the best going forward. Carol While it may have been Bartz “pleasure to work” with the Yahoo! team, it seems employees themselves weren’t so keen. In a survey by Glassdoor, Bartz’s approval rating by Yahoo! staff has been generally on the decline since midway through 2009. Based on reports from almost 300 staff, the rating has dived to 33-percent most recently, but was as low as 24-percent in Q1 this year. A comment by an unnamed Yahoo! Technical employee

Nintendo’s new 3DS analog pad adapter – which will add a second joystick to the glasses-free 3D handheld – has been leaked, revealing the gadget to be a cradle into which the 3DS slots. Images of the ”Kakuchou Slide Pad” – or “Expansion Slide Pad” – were published in the Japanese Famitsu gaming magazine, Siliconera reports, showing a smaller second stick that can be used with Monster Hunter 3G. In addition to the joystick, the cradle also looks to add R2 and L2 buttons to the rear of the 3DS. It’s unclear, at present, whether games other than Monster Hunter 3G will make use of the new accessory: title supervisor Ryozo Tsujimoto describes it as the game’s ”secret weapon,” Andriasang reports, and suggests that it will allow gamers to experience the same feeling as if playing Monster Hunter 3 on the Wii. Pricing and availability for the Kakuchou Slide Pad have not been revealed, though it’s possible that it could be bundled with Monster Hunter 3G if the game demands it. It’s not exactly

The Sony PS Vita – the company’s replacement to the PSP – has gone up for pre-order at Amazon, with the retailer suggesting a December 31 2011 ship date in the US. Both Amazon’s US and UK sites are offering the Vita, each having the WiFi-only and WiFi + 3G versions up for grabs. Pricing starts at $249.99 in the US and£229.99 in the UK. That gets you the WiFi-only models; if you want integrated 3G, you’re looking at $299.99 in the US or £279.99 in the UK. In the US you’ll need to sign up to an AT&T data agreement in order to actually use that 3G connectivity, and Sony – or Amazon – is yet to confirm which carrier(s) the UK version of the handheld will be offered with. Otherwise, it’s the same 5-inch 960 x 544 OLED touchscreen, capacitive rear touchpad, GPS, WiFi b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, along with dual analog sticks, a pair of digital cameras and various motion sensors. The Vita will be able to play PSP titles, minis, PS one classics, video and comics from the PlayStation Store,

Apple’s Thunderbolt Display will finally be shipping to retail stores this week. The revamped 27-inch Apple LED Cinema Display was first unveiled back in July alongside the refreshed MacBook Air, both touting a new high-speed 10Gbps Thunderbolt connector port. But, the display hasn’t made any progress to store shelves until now. According to MacRumors, the Thunderbolt Display should ship to both Apple Stores and resellers sometime this week with customer orders fulfilled soon thereafter. The new display is expected to work like a docking station, where a Thunderbolt-equipped Mac notebook can easily connect to the display via a single Thunderbolt cable that also supplies power to become a desktop workstation. It will also feature a built-in FaceTime HD camera, 2.1 speaker system, three USB ports, a Firewire 800 port, and a Gigabit Ethernet port. And thanks to a second Thunderbolt port, the display will allow for daisy chaining. For instance, if you needed to run two displays, you can do

There could be some good news for Windows Phone developers that are frustrated with the platform’s current penetration of less than 2% of the smartphone market. Windows Phone apps may be able to run on Windows 8, which would mean that the time spent on developing apps for the meager platform hasn’t gone to waste. Instead, the same apps may suddenly find a whole new market with the most popular computing platform in the world. Microsoft has been hinting that its tablets, phones, PCs, and TVs would eventually run on one single platform for a unified and streamlined ecosystem. Back in July, during the WPC event, Microsoft exec Andy Lees had further emphasized this vision, which led to predictions that the convergence could happen as soon as 2015—right at the junction where the Xbox 360′s 10-year life cycle and the Windows 8 3-year life cycle meetup for a full revamp. And now in an interview with CNET, chipmaker NVIDIA’s CEO seems to further confirm this development, saying that he believe

Google’s offices in Seoul have been raided today by the Korean Fair Trade Commission over antitrust concerns relating to Android. Regulators conducted the investigation based on allegations that Google is limiting access to rival search engines on its Android platform, an investigation likely brought on by complaints from other South Korean internet search engine companies as well as Android mobile device makers. Back in April, two Korean internet companies, NHN and Daum Communications, had asked the KFTC to investigate Google’s business practices, alleging that the company was restricting competing search engines from its Android mobile operating system. Other mobile device makers may have also raised concerns on the restrictions Google has in place for using the Android OS. Google has responded that it intends to comply with Korean regulators and has issued the following statement: We will work with the KFTC to address any questions they may have about our business. Android is an ope

It wasn’t a matter of IF it were going to happen, it was much more a matter of WHEN – and that time is now – a single box with two of the top gaming systems in the world running in and out of it, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Reddit user timofiend has found what he considers the perfect combination of two systems and a rather simple encasement for a single gaming unit that stomps out all others. As many commenters on the project have mentioned already: finally there’s a use for this ol’ PC tower I’ve got lying around. Of course those offended by such claims that build-your-own PCs are out will be glad to know that without a doubt the culture is alive and well, not least of all here in this timofiend project. What the developer has reported thus far is no large problems on the software OR hardware front, noting instead that he’s working on an instructions list for those that hope to create the same setup in the near future. Heat, on the other hand, may be an issue for some folks, but timo

The Vizio Tablet has gotten a software update that promises to enhance overall performance. A somewhat laggy interface was a major issue that plagued the otherwise favorable budget-friendly tablet. The update brings the Vizio Internet Apps Plus (VIA Plus) custom interface up to version 1.2, while it continues to run on top of Android 2.3.2 Gingerbread. We reviewed the Vizio Tablet back in August and generally liked the 8-inch size and the unique hardware features, including an integrated IR blaster and three speakers for proper stereo sound in both landscape and portrait orientations. Its customized VIA Plus interface completely disguises the Android underneath, but looks pleasing and is intuitive. However, performance benchmarks were a bummer and the interface was noticeably sluggish at times. The VIA Plus 1.2 update hopes to fix that. It brings a slew of improvements, including better graphics performance, faster navigation and scrolling, longer battery life, and more device compatib

Sony has announced today the hiring of a former official at the Department of Homeland Security to head its efforts to protect Sony’s game networks from future hacker attacks. This move comes just a few months after the high-profile attack on the PlayStation Network (PSN) that brought the platform down for over a month and saw the data of 100 million users compromised. Following the PSN outage, Sony had promised that it would hire a top exec to beef up its security and to reassure customers that such a breach would not repeat itself. The company has recruited Philip Reitinger, a former director of the US National Cyber Security Center, to become senior VP, spearheading its security operations. The PSN breach is said to have cost the company more than $171 million. Sony has recently launched a new online portal called the Sony Entertainment Network, which acts as an umbrella brand for the company’s Video Unlimited, Music Unlimited, and PlayStation Network services, replacing Qriocity.

It is a brand new studio by the name of Camouflaj that creative director Ryan Payton now seeks to expand, leaving Microsoft and the Halo 4 franchise months before the fourth installment in the globally-popular shooter is ready for release. Microsoft owned 343 Industries loses Payton after approximately three years service working on the Halo franchise specifically. Before he worked with Microsoft in the USA, Payton lived in Japan where he was international manager then producer at Kojima Productions, working then in another large role: making sure Metal Gear Solid 4′s controls were at top notch pre-release. In 2008 it was Payton’s family that pulled him in to the USA, his role at Microsoft coming soon after in 2008. Now here in 2011, Payton has been inspired to leave the giant of a project Halo 4 by a mister Jake Kazdal, another developer who, after working with such gigantic projects as Steven Spielberg’s LMNO, left his post at a level-A company to work on his own project Skulls of th