IBLOG SPACE

First unveiled back in September, the HTC Titan is one of Microsoft’s most anticipated Windows Phone 7.5 Mango handsets and has now finally gotten an official launch date for November 20. The device will be heading to AT&T stores priced at $199 with a new two-year service agreement. The HTC Titan runs Microsoft’s latest platform revamp but has overall modest specs. It features a 1.5GHz single-core processor, 512MB of RAM, and 16GB of onboard storage. It also has a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera and an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera. So what makes the HTC Titan really stand out is its sheer size as it boasts a massive 4.7-inch display. For more details, make sure to check out our hands-on and full review of the device. The device will be among the first batch of new Windows Phone 7.5 Mango handsets getting ready to launch in November, including the HTC Radar, Samsung Focus S, and the Samsung Focus Flash. Microsoft has kicked off a series of events earlier this week with a six-sto

Get ready with your notepads and your pencils, parents against violence in video games, because you’re about to have a field day with this one: there’s a video game by the name of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 being released this week that’s inspired a fellow at a Best Buy to threaten to set off a bomb at the business. This is no joke, and whether or not the fellow knew that he was bat-pee crazy or not for doing what he did is still up to debate, but what IS known is that this guy definitely isn’t the playing the game right this second. But don’t worry, it’s not his first time. This game has created more than a little hotness in the minds of gamers looking to take part in one of the most played game series in the history of first-person shooters, and its release this week has been tipped as a new world record for sales. What this meant to 31-year old mister Lomorin Sar of Aurora, Colorado was that he had to get his hands on a copy as early as everyone else, but lo and behold, Best Buy

Though Corning’s Gorilla Glass has all but dominated the review circuit when it comes to must-have features on mobile devices over the past year, it appears that Samsung and Google have opted for a different solution for their next hero device, the Galaxy Nexus. This device will play host to Google’s next-generation mobile OS Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and is set to have a host of powerful features that make it a force to be reckoned with. Corning has assured the public that lo, and alas, the Galaxy Nexus does not have Gorilla Glass sitting on its front. When you hit the search button on the term Gorilla here in our archives on SlashGear, you’ll find that Corning’s ultra-strong glass formula appears as recently as the upcoming most powerful Android device on earth, the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime, a tablet toting NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core chipset. What we must assume here is that either Samsung and Google had a special deal going on with a separate company for the glass, or they

This week Uhm Kyu Ho, head of sales and marketing for Samsung’s PC business noted that there certainly will be Windows PC computers from the manufacturer inside 2012, touchscreen PCs, and they’d likely take on a shape similar to the Series 7 line. This talk happened inside Seoul where Ho also noted that the computer line would have touchscreens and wireless keyboards, Windows 8 coming standard. While the Series 7 line was and is targeted at business users, Windows 8 may well open a whole new door for the existing line as well. In the same instance, Nam Seong Woo, head of the PC business for Samsung noted that Windows 7 is able to run applications for personal computers, and that it’s made to also appeal to users on devices as portable as the iPad and the whole Android array of mobile products. What Windows 8 will do, then, is offer up a new door to users of the Series 7 set of PCs as Samsung plans on giving user the option of updating to the new OS when it becomes available — this OS i

It was announced this week that Google will officially stop support for the native Gmail app for BlackBerrydevices starting on November 22nd, this move effectively telling RIM that it’ll have to rely on its in-browser iteration if it plans on getting any kind of future support officially. Does this mean that Google has given up on trying to reach people through BlackBerry? I’d say yes, but Google seems to be announcing the change carefully so as not to upset those who’ve already got the app working on their devices – Google, do you see BlackBerry’s end of life in your scopes? The announcement came aside assurances that Google has for the past year been concentrating on a great mobile browser experience for Gmail and that they’ll continue investing in the web-based iteration of the service. On November 22nd though, all support, and that means updates, questions and answers from staff, and bug fixes, will be cut from Google funding. The app itself as it rests at that point will still con

It’s time to come back to the most awesome film effect in modern history, bullet time, originated in name by John Gaeta in The Matrix now applied most recently in several fantastically captured advertisements for surfing trunks. While the concept of bullet time in its most basic state, that being setting up a row of cameras and firing them all off one by one in rapid succession, dates back to before video was invented – Eadweard Muybridge caught a horse running on a track to prove that yes, indeed, they can have all four hooves off the ground at once. Since then several other groups have used similar techniques to attain a similar effect, and here you’ll get to see how far the art of capturing a moment in time from all directions has come. Before we move on to the surfboard videos that are rapidly becoming rather popular on the web here in this past week, I encourage you to view another great example of where the modern idea for running a camera around an object while it remains relati

What you’re about to see is a device by the name of Swivl that does two things: first, it holds your smartphone or small video camera – two, it stands in place and turns its head back and forth, up and down, all depending on where you are with the sensor it’s trained to follow. Not only this, but you can take awesome comfort in knowing that this device is crowdfunded, meaning it was not one investor, but large handful of persons from the public sector that decided the design should become a reality. It’s every industrial designer’s dream! In the past, this design was known as IndyGoGo, and today marks the official start of the final product and name [Swivl] combination going live as well as the first time real video of the device that’ll actually be going on sale are released. The website for this page, swivl.com has a whole new batch of information (which you can essentially find here in this post as well) and the product will officially be available starting in early 2012 in North Am

RIM’s BBX- based  next gen smartphones will squeeze PlayBook resolution displays into pocket-scale form factors, the company has confirmed, promising 1024 x 600, 16:9 handsets. RIM VP of developer relations and ecosystem development Alec Saunders told PCMag that developers who produced apps for the BlackBerry PlayBook could also be confident that it would run on the company’s first BBX smartphones, expected in the new year. However, there are suggestions that alternative screen sizes and resolutions are also in the pipeline. “Look, if you build [an app] for the PlayBook, then it will run on BBX” Saunders confirmed. “We have maintained aspect ratios, BBX also has the ability to upload multiple dimension graphics … [and the standard resolutions] are the same as PlayBook.” The VP’s reference to “multiple dimension graphics” has led to suggestions that while initial BBX models may be akin to mini-PlayBooks, later versions could drift back toward the traditional BlackBerry handset design. A

If you are an iPhone user that travels, you have probably wished that the peon were a world phone at some point. If you want to upgrade your iPhone 4 or 4S to work with more than one SIM card you can do that thanks to a new device called the Vooma Peel PG92. The only catch is that you will have to jailbreak your iPhone for the dual SIM case to work. Other than just adding in a spot for a second SIM card, the case is also a secondary battery for your smartphone to help keep it charged and running longer. The second SIM works with the Vooma app that can be downloaded for the web. The case is said to work very well and uses a dialer that looks a lot like the native iPhone dialer. That copy of the native dialer may land the manufacturer in some hot water though. This sounds like a pretty cool case for those that don’t mind jailbreaking. It will let you use a second SIM and will also keep you juiced up for longer. Pricing and availability are unknown.

If you are flying around Australia and you fly on Jetstar airlines you will have the option of renting an iPad to use during the trip on some flights. As of today the airline is rolling out the rentals of iPad on flights on the Australian domestic, trans Tasman, and short haul flights from Australia and New Zealand. The iPad will be offered on flights over two hours. The rate for the iPad rental will depend on the flight length and will vary from $10 to $15 per flight. To start Jetstar will put 3,000 iPad on its flights and then will increase that number of iPads when it rolls the rental service out to its Asian network. Jetstar says that it is the first airline to offer iPad rentals. The people that rent the iPads will be able to watch movies, TV shows, and listen to music. There are also games available on the devices along with digital books and magazines. The devices will also have content for kids including movies, games, and books.

With winter almost here, there are some in colder climates that are already getting snow and ready to hit the slopes for some winter sports. If you are a skier or snowboarder, you may want to check this out. The MOD and MOD Live micro displays are now available and they are the first microdisplays to be compatible with alpine ski goggles. The coolest of the offerings is the MOD Live set that runs Android and comes with four new apps that can be viewed on the little screen. The apps include buddy tracking, smartphone connectivity, and a navigation app with a database of trails. The Live version also has a POV app for use with future POV cams. The MOD version also has the GPS navigation capability and both models show speed, jump analytics, vertical, altitude, location, distance, and temp among other things. The MOD set sells for $299 and the MOD Live sells for $399. If you have an eye dominance problem, just fix it Tommy Lee Jones style with a periscope and a pair of panties on your hea

Another upcoming HTC smartphone has apparently been revealed, the HTV Ville, a 4.3-inch qHD handset running Android 4.0  Ice Cream Sandwich  on a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 chipset. The Ville, according to  BGR ‘s sources, will also include HTC Sense 4.0, the company’s refreshed UI, and include an 8-megapixel camera with a backside-illuminated sensor and support for up to 1080p HD video recording. There’s also said to be HSPA+ and Beats Audio, along with a 1,650 mAh battery. That’s all inside a chassis tipped to be less than 8mm thick, though there’s apparently no NFC support because of HTC’s decision to use an all-metal casing. Of particular note, of course, is the absence of any physical or touch-sensitive buttons under the display, since Ice Cream Sandwich shifts those controls onto the touchscreen itself. That’s in contrast with the leaked image of the  HTC Edge , which still show dedicated controls; that could indicate an older render, and indeed the design of either

If you are an iOS user, we have another new universal remote that you can choose from for controlling your gear. This new offering is from Zero1.tv, the same folks that make the VooMote One we have talked about in the past. The new device is called the VooMote Zapper and it is a better looking device than the older offering. The Zapper is up for pre-order as of right now and you can get free shipping with that. It will ship by the middle of the month and it will be in retail stores as well. The Zapper plugs into the 30-pin connector on the iOS device. The Zapper is said to be as small as a paperclip. It works with an app that you download to give you control over hundreds of thousands of devices. The photo has many different colors, but initially only black or white versions will be available. This appears to be a more basic universal remote app with no mention of a guide like other devices offer.

Packard Bell has been out of the US for years now, but the brand is still very strong in the UK. The company has rolled out a new AIO computer today that is hailed as the thinnest AIO ever. The new computer is 65% slimmer than the previous version offered by Packard Bell. The thin new oneTwo has all the features that made the original a success. The new machine will start shipping this month and is lightweight enough to be toted around the house according to PB. The machine has second-generation Core processors from Intel. It will come in versions with NVIDIA, AMD, or Intel graphics. There is a 21.5-inch screen version and a 23-inch screen version of the AIO. The features are the same aside from the screen size. Both displays have a resolution of 1920 x 1080. Audio is 5.1 capable using Creative THX TruStudio Pc sound and the machine has two 2.5W stereo speakers. It has four USB 2.0 ports, and two USB 3.0 ports. The 21.5-inch version will sell for £599 with the 23-inch version for £699.

Amazon has confirmed its initial line-up of Kindle Fire apps, ahead of the Android-based ereader/tablet’s arrival next week. Among the promoted titles will be Facebook, Pandora, Netflix and Rhapsody, along with games such as Words With Friends and Plants vs. Zombies. Amazon is also pushing its 1-Click payment system for paid apps. Titles bought on the Kindle Fire through the Amazon Appstore for Android will also be available to download on other Android-based devices with the store installed. As has been the case since the Amazon Appstore’s launch on phones, the retailer will be offering a premium app for free download each day to Kindle Fire owners. Amazon will be testing each app to make sure it plays nicely with its custom interface and the underlying Gingerbread OS. The Weather Channel, Allrecipes, Bloomberg, Cut the Rope, Doodle Fit, Doodle Jump, Fruit Ninja, Jenga, LinkedIn, Zillow, Airport Mania, Battleheart, Pulse, The Cat in the Hat, Quickoffice Pro, Jamie’s 20-Minute Meals, I

We can be honest in that webcams are really rather boring. They all do pretty much the same thing. This newwebcam from Genius is interesting though because it comes with a little singe ear headset. The headset looks like a Bluetooth headset that you would use for your smartphone. The headset will let those of you who like to video chat will have very good audio quality. The sensor in the camera is a 3MP unit good for shooting video in 1280 x 720 resolution at up to 30fps. The camera has fixed focus on the lens and has sharper images that are always in focus. It connects to a Mac or PC with a single USB port. Naturally, the bandwidth of your web connection will determine if you can stream HD video. The camera hooks to your computer via a universal clip and is adjustable. The camera can angle up or down though a range of 130 degrees. The universal clips can attach the camera to a notebook, larger desktop LCD and can be used to make the webcam freestanding. The camera uses interpolation t

Adobe has announced that it will no longer develop Flash Player for mobile devices, confirming rumors that it is shifting to HTML5 as its mobile platform of choice. “HTML5 [is] the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms” Adobe VP Danny Winokur said on the company’s official blog, and the firm will work “with key players in the HTML community, including Google, Apple, Microsoft and RIM” to drive the standard further. “Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores.  We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations (chipset, browser, OS version, etc.) following the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook.  We will of course continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates for existing device configurations.  We will also allo

VIA is a company that many geeks are familiar with. The firm makes all sorts of chips that find their way into different products we use every day. The company also makes a range of its own power-sipping processors for different uses. Today the company has unveiled its latest mainboard in the Pico-ITX form factor. This little EPIA-P900 board is very small and packs in a dual-core CIA Eden X2 processor. The board also has a VIA VX900H media system processor. Combined the two chips allow machines based on the EPIA-P900 mainboard to process smooth video in 1080p resolution. This new version of the mainboard has 4GB of DDR3 RAM, HD audio, HDMI output, VGA, and LVDS connectivity. The board uses the ChromotionHD 2.0 engine and has advanced filtering and post-processing. Other features include pin headers for five USB 2.0 ports, a LPC connector, PS/2 support, and a lot more. The board will support two SATA devices. This is the industry’s first Pico-ITX mainboard that has dual core processing.

The WIMM One has a worthy ambition: shifting information from your smartphone screen to your wrist, and allowing you to get on with life rather than pulling your phone from your pocket every thirty seconds. To do that,WIMM‘s smart watch harnesses Android, a high-tech display and more sensors than you’d expect from the standard Rolex or Omega. The company also has its eye on smart watch world domination, with enthusiastic plans for third-party developers and hardware manufacturers. The WIMM One Developer Kit is the first step in that journey; check out the full SlashGear review after the cut.

With the home backup and media server market heating up, a box full of drives and a link to your router is no longer enough. Netgear‘s ReadyNAS Duo v2 takes the dual-drive shell of its first-gen predecessor and then makes upgrades to processor, software and more, arriving at an affordable backup station that also offers media streaming, remote access with smartphone apps and more. Read on for the full SlashGear review. Hardware Netgear’s chassis is sober but sturdy, with a blocky metal casing that’s larger than some rivals thanks to its use of regular 3.5-inch desktop hard-drives rather than smaller – generally more expensive and lower capacity – 2.5-inch mobile drives. Up front there’s a USB 2.0 port with a dedicated “backup” button that pulls the content of any removable storage plugged in off and to a preset folder, along with a power button, activity and drive lights. As the Duo name suggests, this particular ReadyNAS supports a pair of HDDs which are hot-swappable. Storage can be

Netgear has revealed its latest two home network-attached-storage devices, the ReadyNAS Duo v2 and ReadyNAS NV+ v2, offering two or four bays of redundant storage, backup and media streaming. Building on the original ReadyNAS models, but packing 1.6GHz processors and 256MB of RAM for what Netgear reckons is twice the performance, the two units will be available as diskless chassis or with up to 4TB of preloaded storage. Each accepts 3.5-inch desktop hard-drives, and comes with a front USB 2.0 port (with a dedicated copy button) along with two USB 3.0 ports on the rear for adding extra external storage. Although most home users are unlikely to have the network bandwidth to take advantage of USB 3.0 versus USB 2.0 data rates, Netgear tells us the new NAS should be its entry-level options for at least 12-18 months, and expects home networking speeds to catch up somewhat in that period. A single gigabit ethernet port hooks the ReadyNAS to your router. Netgear has refreshed its setup wizard

The green beatniks at Greenpeace have been putting together the rankings of the greenest firms in the tech world. It’s obvious from the latest rankings that there are no major tech firms that are anywhere near as green asGreenpeace wants. The highest ranking firm is HP at 5.9 on the 10-point scale. That 5.9 is a three spot gain for HP making it the greenest around. Dell is second with a score of 5.1, a rise of eight places, but Dell still scores poorly on green products. Nokia is at 4.9, down two places from its previous top spot. Apple ranks at 4.6. Philips takes fifth with a 4.5, Sony Ericsson is sixth at 4.2, and Samsung takes the seventh sport at 4.1. Rounding out the top ten are eight place Lenovo at 3.8, Panasonic at ninth with 3.6 and Sony at tenth with 3.6. It’s not clear how with the same score Greenpeace decided which of those two landed at what spot. The lowest scoring firm on the Greenpeace list is RIM at only 1.6 in the 15th spot. Apparently, RIMs poor placement has to do

That blurry blob you see in the photo below that looks sort of like a not quite spherical orange is actually the first photo of the YU55 asteroid that I mentioned not too long ago. This asteroid will streak by the earth below the orbit of the moon making it very close indeed. NASA still maintains there is no danger to the earth… unless the asteroid starts to slow down and intelligent robots pop out. The asteroid is 1,300 feet wide and it will come within 201,700 miles of the Earth. NASA has had plenty of advanced warning to get scientists, astronomers and telescopes ready to check out the asteroid as it makes its fly by. YU55 is still far away right now, but when it gets closer the resolution of the photos will increase greatly to 13-feet. The pick you see here was shot by astronomers at the Keck Observatory. One reason the image you see is so blurry is that it is an infrared image of the asteroid. The raw data captured by the Keck observatory will take “days” to process according to t

Late last month I mentioned that there was a new video calling app that would be coming to Mango smartphones ahead of Microsoft’s own Skype platform. That video calling app is called Tango and it is a cross platform app that will let users on different mobile operating systems share conversations. As of now, Tango is available for Mango smartphones. The app is available for the iPhone, Windows Phone, Android, and PC users. It allows video chatting using webcams and compatible mobile phone cameras. The big catch to this for Mango users is that some of the smartphones, especially Nokia devices, will lack the front facing camera with the new relaxed hardware specifications Microsoft has offered. That will mean that on some handsets from Nokia and others the app will do no good. The Skype app for Mango devices is expected to ship soon and will also support video calling. The video below is a demo of Tango. If you download the app, let us know how well it works.

I have used a bunch of different video glasses over the years for reviews and what not. I have never once had a pair of video glasses in my hands that I would remotely consider wearing in public. A geek has his limits after all. The new Moverio BT-100 video glasses have the same ugly style that most of this sort of gadget offers with some notable differences. The first difference is that on the tiny models skull, the glasses look wider than others on the market do. The real difference though is that Epson is using a new type of transparent lenses that allow you to watch your video content, but allow you to see though the screens at the same time. The idea is that you can keep away of your surroundings. The see through lenses will also allow you to check out the people that are laughing and pointing at you for wearing glasses that look like they came off a Ray Charles caricature. Each of the little see through screens have a resolution of 960 x 540. They are placed close enough to the e

With Barnes & Noble unveiling its latest foray into the Android world recently with the new Nook Tablet, it will soon be hit with more demands to pay Microsoft. Just about every major firm that has fielded an Android device has now signed up with Microsoft to license the Android patents that the software giant holds. Microsoft has already accused B&N of patent infringement on some of the Nook readers B&N sells. It seems Barnes & Noble is trying to get out of having to license those patents and the bookseller is attempting to get out of licensing by urging US regulators to investigate Microsoft on the patents it holds. B&N feels that Microsoft is trying to monopolize the mobile device market by forcing Android using firms to pay patent royalties. B&N says that Microsoft and other firms are using patents as a way to boost the cost of rival devices that use Android and take away from Windows device sales. B&N is also claiming according to Bloomberg that Microso

It’s only been a few week since we heard that the LG Optimus LTE smartphone was heading to Bell Canada. At the time, the smartphone was tipped to be called the Eye on the Canadian network. Today LG has officially announced that the Optimus LTE will in fact be hitting Bell in Canada. The exact launch date hasn’t been offered with LG simply stating that the phone would be hitting “in the coming weeks.” Last time the Optimus LTE was tipped to be called the Eye on the Canadian network. However, the official LG statement never refers to the Optimus LTE as the Eye. The device will operate on the Bell 4G LTE network and the smartphone has a very impressive screen. The screen on the smartphone is a 4.5-inch True HD IPS unit with a resolution of 1280 x 720 supporting native 720p HD content. The screen also offers natural colors and is power efficient for longer battery life. The battery inside is an 1830 mAh unit. The processor is a dual core 1.5 GHz offering, the smartphone supports DLNA, and

ASUS has no initial plans for a 3G version of the new Eee Pad Transformer Prime, the company has confirmed to SlashGear, with the Tegra 3 tablet being WiFi-only when it launches next month. The decision follows similar reticence around 3G on the original Transformer, though that at least was initially announced with both WiFi-only and 3G models in the pipeline; however the 3G version followed several months behind the commercial release. With this second-gen tablet, meanwhile, ASUS is withholding its decision on integrated WWAN support until it sees which way the market falls. “We are only planning on the WiFi only version for now” ASUS told us, “but depending on how the market reacts we may decide to launch a 3G one as well.” Meanwhile ASUS also confirmed UK availability and pricing for the Transformer Prime. The UK will only see the 32GB version, and come bundled with the keyboard, priced at £499 including VAT. However, whereas the US will get the Transformer Prime in December, UK cu

Apple has reportedly cut iPhone 4S and iPad 2 orders for Q4 2012 and Q1 2012, amid lower than expected smartphone sales and key component shortages, according to supply chain leaks. Weak demand for the iPhone 4S in North America and Europe are part of the issue, Chinese paper Commercial Times reports, with suppliers of elements like the complex multi-lens system used in the smartphone told that Apple will not be needing as many as previously suggested. Meanwhile, what’s described as iPad 2 “short-term market saturation” has supposedly led Apple to cut orders of its tablet, too. The recent Taiwanese flooding is also believed to have had an impact on certain components Apple relies on, forcing the company to reduce orders of other iPhone and iPad parts so as to match its potential production. Apple has already reported strong initial demand for the iPhone 4S, with more than 4m of the smartphones selling in the first weekend of availability. However, according to the report, further pre-s

HTC’s recently leaked Edge smartphone is e xpected to drop in March or April 2012 complete with NVIDIA’s freshly confirmed Tegra 3 quadcore chipset, sources have suggested, but the company may be pipped to market by Tegra 3 handsets from Samsung, LG and Motorola. All three rival firms have already committed to using Tegra 3, DigiTimes‘ sources claim, while of course ASUS will use the new chipset in the Eee Pad Transformer Prime. The HTC Edge, so leaks in the past few days have suggested, will include a 4.7-inch display, 8.8mm thick chassis and an 8-megapixel camera with a back-illuminated sensor and 1080p HD video recording support. In addition to Tegra 3, HTC is also believed to be using an advanced S-LCD 2 display panel that relies on optical lamination – where the panel itself is bonded to the fascia glass – for improved visuals. Although currently unconfirmed by HTC – while NVIDIA is also keeping quiet on which partners have signed up for Tegra 3 – if true the deal would be a s