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Showing posts from November 6, 2011

"Bhare Naina: Ra One" I ShahRukh Khan I Kareena Kapoor

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Ra One new song Bhare Naina is out now. Watch its video song promo here & share your views with us. It is one of the best soulful song in recent time.

Galaxy Nexus uses same NXP NFC solution as Nexus S

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This week it was revealed by none other than NXP that they were the ones that have been in the Nexus S from Samsung powering its NFC component and will also be in the Galaxy Nexus, they therefore providing the NFC for both Google hero devices. This isn’t a gigantic deal for those of you that just want your devices to work, not caring about what’s deeply embedded in the devices to make them work so spectacularly, but for the Android need-to-know crowd out there, you’ll need to know this: the same NXP PN65N solution used in the Nexus S will now be used on the Galaxy Nexus. Take heed, Android lovers, because not only will this component be working with you for NFC (aka Near Field Communication) for your Google Wallet, but with the brand new Ice Cream Sandwich feature known as Android Beam. You can find out more about Google Wallet in our hands-on look of the application that came out for Nexus S a few weeks ago and Android Beam in two separate places. We first found out about Android B

Belkin readying an iPhone camera remote and stand

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It looks like Belkin has a handy gadget for iPhone users on the way that will really let you take advantage of the upgraded 8-megapixel optics on that shiny new iPhone 4S for group photos and self-portraits. The device is called the Belkin LiveAction Camera Remote and it has just made a visit to the FCC. The Belkin LiveAction Camera Remote lets you take both photos and videos with your iPhone remotely, featuring a dedicated button for each function. It also packs a small stand that you can detach to prop up your iPhone to just the right angle, but it’s hard to tell how secure it would be given its small size. The device connects to your iPhone via Bluetooth and works with Belkin’s LiveAction camera app, which you can download from iTunes for free. Pictures of the device showed up at the FCC today, but there’s no word on pricing or availability just yet.

iPod Touch vs Galaxy Player 5.0

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Let’s be real here: the Samsung Galaxy Player is the first real competition for the iPod Touch since its inception, and although smartphones have far surpassed the specifications of either device, they’re here to battle one another, not anything else. What you’ve got here is a device, on the Samsung side, that’s not quite as large as the Galaxy Note, a device that’s still got a data connection, and isn’t nearly as small as the iPod Touch, which only comes in one size – that being a 3.5-inch display. So what will we compare? Sound quality? Pixel density? How about the ability to put the device in your pocket?

AT&T’s 4G LTE coming soon to New York City

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AT&T’s fledgling 4G LTE network has launched in just five major cities so far, and it looks like the next big market will be New York City. During Mashable’s Media Summit today, AT&T’s SVP of communications let it slip that the company’s LTE network will be blanketing NYC very soon, although he did not give a more specific time frame. The five major cities currently covered by AT&T’s 4G LTE network include Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, Houston, Atlanta, and Chicago. The company is expecting to roll out its LTE network in Boston, Washington D.C., Baltimore, and Athens this Sunday, November 6, when it will also launch its first LTE smartphones, the HTC Vivid and the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket. Despite being far behind Verizon, which has already met its year-end target of 175 markets, AT&T is playing it slow and steady, aiming for only 15 markets by the end of the year. With these initial markets, AT&T expects to cover more than 70 million customers with the

Microsoft may ban Xbox Live accounts playing Modern Warfare 3 too early

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Much excitement surrounds Activision’s Call of Duty game franchise with the upcoming Modern Warfare 3 title set to be released on November 8. But somehow, in the hustle and bustle, some retail stores, including Kmart, have accidentally sold the discs early, with one ending up on eBay for more than $1,700. Although purchased legitimately, playing these discs before the release date could get your Xbox Live account banned. Microsoft is warning users to not play the Modern Warfare 3 game before the release date. Xbox Live Director of Policy and Enforcement Stephen Toulouse had initially sent out a tweet yesterday giving everyone the “OK” to play these legit copies that were accidentally released early, but after double-checking with Activision, Toulouse tweeted another message, warning against doing so. “clarification: dblchk’d with Activision. Mw3 pre-release play not authorized. So pls be patient. Playing early may impact your account!” But besides the tweets, it’s not clear how

First Star Wars 3D trailer released [Video]

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For those of you not following along with every tiny movement of George Lucas and his never-ending stream of ideas on how to re-present his film collection, it may come as a surprise to you that Star Wars will be re-released in 3D format in theaters starting in 2012 – today’s trailer being final proof. It started as a rumor after George himself hinted at a release of the films in a 3D format after having first seen AVATAR in 3D, saying that the technology had finally caught up with his vision for a 3D presentation of the saga. Now we’ve got the first 3D trailer for a big-screen release. What you’ll see come February 10, 2012 will be the first installment in the full 6-film series, The Phantom Menace. I’m not going to get too far into how these films SHOULD be presented, because we could talk about that all day, all night, and all week long, but know this: everyone who knows anything knows that you’re supposed to watch 4, 5, and 6 before you watch 1, 2, and 3, simply because the secre

Yahoo Livestand revealed

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This week at Yahoo’s annual Product Runway event, they offered up several announcements, one of which was a new digital newsstand for tablets and smartphones called Livestand. This product will come in the form of an application that will work on several device platforms and will bring content from publishers together with Yahoo’s news sites in a magazine format. It’s made with HTML5, and will include over 100 titles right out of the box, this very nearly having a chance at not reminding us that the big news with Yahoo still remains their recent dealings with being sold to a larger company. Inside Livestand, users will be able to search titles and articles from titles such as Forbes, Parenting, Bike, Powder, Surfer, and ABC News. The app contains the ability to watch video and the first version of the app will be released in the first half of 2012 on Android devices. Blake Irving, Yahoo executive vice president and chief product officer, had the following to say about the app: “It

comScore: Android still way ahead, but Apple now grabs 10% US market share

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Research firm comScore has just released a US smartphone market report for the period ending in September 2011, revealing as expected that Android is still way ahead of the pack, but that Apple continues to grow steadily. In fact, one in ten mobile subscribers in the US now own an iPhone and this is even before Apple released the iPhone 4S. Among the top five smartphone manufacturers, Apple ranks fourth with 10.2 percent US market share and has continued to experience growth over the last several months, with a 1.3 point change since June of this year. Rival Samsung takes the lead but its 25.3 percent market share has plateaued while second place LG now at 20.6 percent continues to slide along with third place Motorola at 13.8 percent and last place RIM at 7.1 percent. When it comes to smartphone platforms, Google’s Android continues to surge, now leading at 44.8 percent market share, a 4.6 point change over the last 3-month period. Apple follows in second at 27.4 percent with ste

United and Continental Airlines to get in-flight WiFi starting mid-2012

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If you do much traveling, you’ll be glad to know that there will soon be more airlines offering in-flight WiFi, allowing you to enjoy your wireless gadgets in the skies. United Continental Holdings announced today that more than 300 of its United Airlines and Continental Airlines mainline jets will be getting equipped with WiFi starting in mid-2012 with the complete fleet being equipped by 2015. United Continental Holdings has selected the Global Communications Suite from Panasonic Avionics Corporation for the job. The Panasonic system will be installed on the Airbus 319 and 320 as well as the Boeing 747, 757, 767, 777, and 787 aircrafts. This will allow passengers to connect their wireless devices such as laptops, smartphones, and tablets to the internet via the onboard hotspot. Airlines are really stepping it up now with the connectivity. Japan Airlines recently announced adding in-flight WiFi on its US and European routes, while American Airlines is even replacing in-flight scr

Hello Kitty Zub Zirc Nooka Watch revealed

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If you’re in to strange timepieces and are unaware of the brand Nooka, you’ll be extra surprised by the Hello Kitty Zub Zirc watch you’re about to see. What we’ve got here is Nooka’s first collaboration with international lifestyle brand, fashion brand, and cutest creator of every kind of product under the sun Sanrio and the super wild watchmakers Nooka. This timepiece is both limited edition and contains several of Nooka’s signature above-average clock mechanisms. It’s the unmistakable set of Hello Kitty’s ear bow, ears, and nose, set amongst Nooka’s classic Zub Zirc face. In the upper left-hand corner you’ll find what you’ll easily recognize as an abstraction of a conventional analog clock. Below this you’ll find the minutes of the hour ticking away along a line of digitally-placed marks, along with AM and PM marks to the right of the circle. Control buttons sit around the outer bits of the face, and the whole casing is white outside the printing of the kitty face. This device i

AT&T delays closing date for T-Mobile acquisition

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AT&T’s bid to purchase T-Mobile for $39 billion has been facing plenty of regulatory anti-trust scrutiny and now the target closing date for the acquisition has been pushed further back. Originally expected to complete by the first quarter of 2012, the merger is now estimated to complete sometime in the first half of next year, adding another 3 months to the time table. Announced by AT&T back in March, the $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile would see the fourth-largest carrier in the US get gobbled up and the two main GSM-based networks combine into one, a move that many believe would be anti-competitive. However, only one of the two majof CDMA-based carriers have shown strong opposition to the deal and has taken legal action of its own. Federal regulators and various interest groups have been very vocal against the deal. Back in August, even the Department of Justice, along with seven states, filed an anti-trust complaint, seeking to block the merger. That trial is set t

Apple iOS 5.0.1 BETA 2 seeded to developers today

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It’s time for the update to the next version of Apple’s mobile operating system, but not to you, oh readers, to developers only. Yesterday there was a similar download, and today there is another download still, each of these downloads made much more than likely to alleviate the problems users have been having with their batteries, these issues popping up most often in the iPhone 4S. Of course you could be sneaky and find a way to grab the download for yourself by becoming a developer for iOS, but then you might as well go the full mile and start making apps! This update was posted this morning, today being November 4th, 2011, and should you be a signed-up developer with an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch of many different flavors, you’ll be getting this update over the air. On the other hand, you could head on over to the iOS Developer Center and download it without waiting. This version is identified by codename 9A404, while yesterdays release was 9A402, and more than likely the chang

US Cellular turned down iPhone 4S deal: here’s why

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It should be well known by now that an iPhone on any carrier inside the United States is a big deal for that carrier, but this week we’re to understand that one carrier in particular, US Cellular, turned down the opportunity. The original exclusive carrier of the iPhone was AT&T, and it was only this past year that Verizon was allowed in on the party. With the iPhone 4S, the doors were opened to several carriers including little-known group C-Spire. Another group that doesn’t carry the iPhone and has let known its reasons for doing so is T-Mobile, the last of the four biggest carriers in the United States to not have the device on their network. So what’s the deal with US Cellular that they had the option to carry the iPhone and opted out? Money, that’s the deal, plain and simple, money and risk. Have a peek at this tidbit spoken by US Cellular CEO Mary Dillon to investors on a conference call this Friday: “the terms were unacceptable from a risk and profitability standpoint.”

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 purchase at Best Buy gets you a free HTC mobile

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For all of you in the market for the next big single and multiplayer shooter game as well as a smartphone from HTC, you’re in luck, Best Buy has a deal for you! This deal includes a free smartphone from HTC, amongst those singled out for the sale, just so long as you both purchase Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 as well as agreeing to a 2-year contract for the carriers the smartphones are working with. The handsets available in this deal are the HTC Evo 4G, the HTC Incredible 2, and the HTC Inspire 4G. This is all part of Best Buy’s greater plan to pump up awareness about their wireless department even though their wireless department is easily their most visible set of sections in the store. There’s one gigantic section for their smartphones, another gigantic section for their tablets, and the PCs are pushed back into the aisles. That said, Best Buy has apparently earmarked $25 million USD for marketing this holiday season, with most of the promotions set to pop up in the next few w

ASUS Transformer Prime sets massive benchmark pre-release

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Over the past few weeks we’ve been seeing glimpses of the next big tablet release from ASUS, one that’s all but guaranteed to carry the NVIDIA Kal-El quad-core processor, and today according to AnTuTu benchmarking system, we see that not only does this pair exist, it’s a powerhouse! What you’re seeing here in this post is a stack of benchmarks that’ve been recorded by AnTuTu (an app which tests synthetically several innards of an Android device including CPU, graphics, and more) and right up on top you’ll see nothing less than the ASUS Transformer Prime, complete with a quad-core processor running at 1.4GHz! Below that you’ll see another couple of hero devices from Samsung, (including the Galaxy S II from AT&T) but take note: they’ve only got two cores, half the power! It was the folks over at Tech2 that saw this first, they having tested their original ASUS Eee Pad Transformer out on the system, it showing up a bit lower on the list (see image below), with the same top runners

Nintendo patent outlines Wii Remote touchpad accessory

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I like it when patents surface from places like Apple, Nintendo and others that show off what we will probably see in the future from the country. The latest patent to surface is from Nintendo and it shows an accessory that appears to show a way to turn the Wii Remote into a touchpad. The patent app line art shows a device that slips onto the Remote. The patent also appears to show some sort device connecting to the Wii as well. It seems that the touchpad accessory amplifies the LED using mirrors that are on the remote and interprets that as positional data when you touch the pad. It’s a pretty ingenious way to make the controller into a touchpad really. There is no indication of when it will come to market or if it will come to market. A lot of the patents we see from companies will never see a store shelf. This would be an interesting accessory to make it though.

Kinect for Windows SDK hits beta 2

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The Microsoft Kinect has spawned some very interesting uses that are not at all what most of us first envisioned when the controller landed for the Xbox 360 and gamers. I mentioned a few days ago that Microsoft would be offering a SDK for businesses to make apps that would use Kinect for things in the business world. The Kinect for Windows SDK has now hit beta 2 and you can download it right now to play with. The SDK still supports the Kinect on machines running Windows 7. It offers APIs for raw sensor streams and human motion tracking. The SDK allows devs using C++, C#, and Visual Basic via Visual Studio 2012 to access the capabilities of the Kinect. The SDK allows raw sensor streams to be accessed that are generated by the Kinect sensor. The SDK supports skeletal tracking, advanced audio capability, and it comes with sample code and documents. The SDK installer is under 100MB and easy to install. The official website for Kinect for Windows will go live here, the link is not live

US points the finger at China and Russia for cybercrime

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The US is pointing the finger directly at China and Russia when it comes to cybercrime and hacking. Intelligence officials pointed the finger at the two countries and accused them of stealing sensitive high-tech data for their own economic gain. The accusation is the most upfront call out that the US has done so far despite the repeated attacks that have been conducted against the US and companies operating in the US. The officials called the continued hacking attempts a “persistent threat to the US economic security.” There was little offered in what to do to stop the attacks though. Washington has urged private corporations to better protect their data. Business Week notes that the intelligence officials reports is meant to highlight the risks of cyber attacks against both the government and private firms. The US officials are claiming that China and Russia’s intelligence services and companies inside the two countries and those related to the governments are responsible for som

AT&T 4G LTE speed report: HTC Vivid and Samsung Skyrocket

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At the moment, AT&T’s LTE network is only a fraction of the size of its “4G” HSPA+ network, though it’s scheduled to do some growing up on November 6th. Right now only San Antonio, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Atlanta and Chicago have AT&T LTE access, and come Sunday, the network goes live in Boston, Washington D.C., Baltimore and Athens, Georgia will also be supported. That’s the day that the very first AT&T LTE smartphones also go on sale, namely the HTC Vivid and Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket. Since yours truly is only an hour away from the DFW area and I’ve so recently been blessed with review units for both phones, I took a short roadtrip to get some real-world tests. The following speed tests were performed at exactly the same time corresponding to each other, on the western side of Fort Worth. The time was roughly 9:30 at night, and combined with the fact that only hotspot-style devices and the odd tablet currently use the system, you can believe that the LTE network

Fifth Ave Apple Store’s fancy new cube unveiled

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The flagship Apple Store has been getting a revamped glass cube up top that we saw in renderings back in August. The new cube is much better looking than the old cube and has less visible hardware thanks to a reduction in the number of panes of glass the cube uses. The original glass cube used 90 panes of glass and the new one uses only 15. The cube has been getting the install for a while now and the 5th Ave Apple Store is set to open today at 10am. However, the crew that was working in the store has finished their work and the first pics of the cube in the flesh have now turned up thanks to a reader at MacRumors. The new cube looks really cool. Other than the reduction in the number of panes of glass used, the new cube also has no seams and almost all the hardware holding the panes is gone. Along with the new glass cube, Apple made a few other improvements with new drains for the plaza and some new pavers around the cube. If you end up at the store today shoot some pics for us t

Apple enforces Sandboxing on all Mac App Store submissions starting next March

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If you have been around the tech world and following Apple news this year, you know that the number of viruses and malware that are targeting the Apple Mac OS have greatly increased. There were two recent Mac focused attacks with one being a Trojan that turned off OS X malware protection. The other was a PDF attack that would upload screen shots to the attacker. Apple is very serious about keeping the amount of malware, viruses and other attacks on the Mac machines as low as possible. With the new Mac App Store, the chances of a nefarious user opening up a users Mac to attacks using apps thought to be legitimate are increasing. To help prevent attacks Apple is set to start forcing all devs submitting apps to the Mac App Store to use Sandboxing. Devs have some time to get used the idea and work it into their creations. All Mac App Store submissions have to implement Sandboxing by March 1, 2012. Sandboxing the app will limit the resources the app has access to and makes it more diff

BMW recalls 32,000 eight and 12 cylinder vehicles for fire risk

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BMW makes some of the most popular luxury cars out there along with SUVs as well. The company uses a variety of engines, a recall has now been issued on some cars, and SUVs that use the firms turbocharged eight cylinder and 12 cylinder engines under the hood. The reason for the recall is a reported risk of fire in the engine bay of the vehicles. The vehicles covered in the recall are 2008-2011 8 and 12 cylinder cars in the 5 Series, 5 Series Gran Turismo, 7 Series, X5, and X6 model lines. According to the recall, a circuit board in the engine bay that controls an ancillary electric water pump can overheat and lead to a risk of fire. BMW notes that the overheating can cause the pump to smolder. There have been 102 reported cases of this issue and according to BMW in two of the incidences, there were engine compartment fires. The recall will replace the water pump causing the fire risk free of charge on all of the vehicles and the recall notices will be going out to owners of all 32

EC investigates Samsung over alleged abuse of FRAND patent standards to beat Apple

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The European Commission has called for an investigation into Samsung with allegations that Samsung has used FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) licensing of patents against Apple. If Samsung loses the case, this could potentially force the completely withdrawal of all complaints it has against Apple. According to FOSS Patents, the FRAND patent holder can ask for reasonable compensation but the patent holder isn’t allowed to overcharge or try to kill products as long as the user is willing to sign an agreement. Apple has filed many countersuits against Samsung and some of those are FRAND related. The European Commission investigation into Samsung was confirmed today. The investigation is looking into patents that Samsung holds that are “essential to wireless communications.” Samsung says that it will cooperate fully with the investigation. A representative for the EC points out that the investigation is standard procedure and not something special in this instance. App

Apple TV deal failed because of ad share tips CBS CEO

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Rumors have swirled for a long time now that Apple was working on a deal to stream a cable-like TV network that would fight cable and satellite providers. That never came to be even though it sounded like something that would be interesting. In fact, there was never confirmation made by Apple or anyone else that the plan was ever anything more than a rumor, until now. CBS CEO Les Moonves was on a conference call talking about earnings this week and he let drop the tidbit that Apple had in fact worked on making the Apple TV streaming deal come to market. Moonves said that CBS had passed on the potential deal because it was based on an ad split system. The insinuation is that CBS might have taken the deal if not for the as split. The rumors had pointed to the Apple TV streaming deal being a service that aggregated content from all networks. The lack of network support is the reason why it never came to market. CBS traditionally expects any content syndication deal to be paid entirel

Panasonic unveils new reference series BT300 2D and 3D screens

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Panasonic has unveiled a new line of professional series reference monitors that come in two sizes and support both 3D and 2D content. Both of the screens are large and use plasma technology. TH-42BT300U and TH-50BT300U are 42-inches and 50-inches respectively and are aimed at use in post-production environments. They are made to have high color accuracy and 3D rendering capability. These screens can be used for all sorts of things from checking into signals in pre-production to performing precision color correction. The screens are large enough to get two images for display at one time allowing for simultaneous color correction of left and right 3D images. Anytime you see reference and professional in one sentence things are going to be expensive. The 42-inch plasma screen is $3,720 and the 50-inch version is $5,215. The screens are full HD 3D ready and have slot card inputs for left and right 3D images. They have overscanning and underscanning modes and a lot more.

Cricket ZTE AC3781 wireless modem breaks cover

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Cricket Wireless has unveiled a new mobile broadband modem that plugs into the USB port of your computer. The new modem is called the ZTE AC3781 the new modem is designed to be affordable and uses the Cricket no contract mobile broadband plans. The device will allow the user to access the web, email, text, and supports apps needing connectivity. The little modem is pretty nice looking with black and green design and it has a swiveling USB port so it can be aimed in the direction needed for your space and to get the best connectivity. Cricket says the modem will work with PC and Mac computers. The modem can also be used as a flash drive to store data. The modem has a microSD card slot that supports up to 32GB of storage. That will allow you to store your documents, photos, and files for sharing. The modem will sell for $99.99 and broadband plans for the modem cost $45 to $65 monthly with speeds up to 1.4 Mbps.

Sony unveils tiny 0.7-inch display with 720p resolution

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In the DSLR world, we often get optical viewfinders that actually look through the lens to see what you are shooting. In the micro four thirds and similar range of cameras, you don’t get an optical viewfinder; instead, you get a little LCD in the viewfinder window if you get a viewfinder at all. Many just use Live View on the rear LCD. Sony has a new tiny screen that will be used inside some of its cameras like the NEX series and possibly inside DSLR cameras. The tiny little OLED screen is only 0.7-inches wide and is called the ECX322A. The coolest part about the screen is the serious resolution it offers with 1280 x 720 allowing the viewfinder to offer 720p HD resolution. The little screen offers 87% of the NSTC color gamut and has a 0.01ms response time and 200 cd/m2 brightness. The new display uses the same OLED and color filter architecture that Sony has been using in the older and lower res half-inch XGA ECX331A display already in its DSLR and NEX line.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus November 17 launch confirmed

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A leaked marketing sheet for Samsung turned up yesterday and that marketing sheet said that the Galaxy Nexus launch date would be pushed a bit to November 17. Samsung has come back today and gone official with the confirmation that the November 17 date is correct. November 17 is a Thursday, so if you want one of these smartphones you better be keeping an eye out. I suspect there will be shortages. Sadly, for those of us outside the UK, that launch date was only confirmed for UK fans of Android 4.0 ICS. We have talked about the features of the smartphone, but they bear repeating. The device is packing a 4.65-inch 720p resolution HD Super AMOLED screen. The rear camera on the smartphone is a 5MP unit and the front camera is a 1.3MP device. The smartphone can be unlocked using Face Unlock and it is only 8.94mm thick with a 4.29mm thick screen bezel. Other features include NFC support, WiFi hotspot, Google+ and lots more. The Nexus uses a 1.2GHz dual core processor and can connect to

Google eyeballs pay TV offering

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You can bet if there is a place that Google can reap some ad money it wants to be in there. Google already has ads online and in several other places. The biggest ad market that Google isn’t into so far is TV ads. The TV industry generates over $150 billion each year according to the WSJ and you can bet Google wants a chunk of that money. To grab its share Google is looking at an interesting play that might be something many people are interested in. Google is said to be considering a new pay TV project. Google installed the high-speed web network as a project in Kansas City, Mo and in Kansas City, Kansas already. Google is now said to be looking at rolling out a pay TV service out on those two high-speed networks and is said to be in early talks with TV studios. The studios specifically named include Walt Disney Co, Time Warner, and Discovery Communications. Google is serious enough about the TV ambition to have hired a cable TV exec to handle the talks with the cable networks. T