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Imagine a SIM card so small it could easily be swallowed. Now get your mouth ready, because the new nano-SIM card was recently announced, and it is easily the smallest SIM card on the market. This SIM card is much smaller than the regular mini-SIM cards that are currently is use, and those are already very small. The tiny device also brings high performance and may change things in the SIM market. Many people think the SIM card only deals with bringing connectivity to your phone, when in fact its evolution will prove to be vital moving forward into this mobile internet era. 30% Smaller Than the Smallest SIM Just how small is the nano-SIM card? It’s a whopping (or miniscule) 12mm by 9mm. Looking at the size of a regular SIM card and the nano-SIM, the nano is about 60% smaller. When compared with the mini-SIM, nano is about 30% smaller. This is a huge size difference, and you can be sure that nano-SIM will easily become a standard in the future when its production is ramped up. For

Lenovo confirmed today that it has plans to release a Windows Phone device during the second half of 2012. It’s not too surprising since rumors had persisted about a Lenovo Windows Phone and an image had leaked last month purported to be of such a device. The authenticity of the leaked image was confirmed today by Lenovo’s LePhone Product Manager, Yue Chen, during an interview with iMobile. Chen revealed that Lenovo already has a clear release schedule for the device and that it’s set for the second half of 2012. This revelation follows reports that Microsoft is seeking to launch Chinese Windows Phones in early 2012 through a partnership with Chinese retailer Suning, which operates more than 700 stores throughout China. The Lenovo Windows Phone device revealed in the leaked image resembled the company’s LePhone S2 Android smartphone but was shown running the latest Windows Phone 7.5 Mango platform. It could be an early prototype of what the company has planned and a lot could change in

Honda has unveiled its futuristic-looking electric concept roadster called the EV-STER just a few days ahead of the 2011 Tokyo Motor Show set to take place from December 3 through December 11. We’ve seen some very Tron-inspired renderings of the vehicle earlier this month, but now we get photos of the real thing along with a few more details on the specs. The EV-STER concept vehicle is certainly attractive, featuring an open top and a small footprint with an aerodynamic wedge-shaped body made from carbon fiber for reduced weight. The drivers side is on the right and features two joysticks instead of a steering wheel. It’s a two-seater similar to the Tesla Roadster, but unfortunately with a lot less power and speed. Although Honda didn’t get too specific, they did mention that the EV-STER takes about 5 seconds to go from 0 to 60km/hr (37mph) and maxes out at about 99mph. The vehicle is powered by a 10-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery that Honda claims can store enough charge to take yo

When you’ve got a device so monumentally important to the operating system it runs that people are hunting through the webpage code for the carrier it’ll be carried on to find press images of it even though the only change their sure to see is the branding on the back of said phone, you know you’ve got a winner – and that’s just what’s happened today with the Verizon Galaxy Nexus. This device carried by Verizon is the first official taste of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich we’ll be getting here in the United States, and with the release in both the UK and Japan already in place, we’ve been feeling a bit left out of the party. Images found today by intrepid Phandroid Forum member Ytram have proven the wait to WE HOPE be over soon. What you’re seeing is the slightly different chassis of the Galaxy Nexus as it will exist here in the United States carried by Verizon on their 4G LTE network. This means that the phone will only go faster in one place, namely Japan, as they’ve got such fast ne

A new rumor has sprouted that RIM’s next-gen BBX-based BlackBerry smartphone could be named the “Surfboard.” We’ve seen leaked images of this device before with the codename “London,” featuring an unusual design that’s quite a departure from RIM’s traditional BlackBerry styling, be that for better or worse. Although the speculation and name sound doubtful, it’s not completely without merit. RIM had previously filed for the trademark “BlackBerry Surfboard” in the Canadian Intellectual Property Office back in July of 2010. The company then filed to extend the unused trademark this past May, possibly to get it ready for use on this new device. But since the BlackBerry London or Surfboard isn’t set to launch until mid-2012, plenty could change in terms of branding in the meantime. The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet was originally rumored to be called the “Surfbook,” for which RIM has also filed a trademark. And we know for a fact that didn’t pan out.

Apple may be preparing for an LTE-based iPad 3 to launch by summer of next year and an LTE-based iPhone 5 to arrive by fall, if a new report from Nikkei Business is to accurate. The story claims that Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo has reached an agreement with Apple to distribute the next-gen devices on this schedule, which suggests that device would arrive worldwide on a similar time frame. According to the report, NTT DoCoMo’s president Kiyoyuki Tsujimura and VP Takashi Yamada met with Apple CEO Tim Cook earlier this month to work out the deal. The execs had reportedly reached agreeable terms, although previous reports from the WSJ suggested that Apple’s demand for a large sales volume commitment and its refusal to allow the carrier to add its own apps to the device had stalled the discussions. Although the largest carrier in Japan, NTT DoCoMo has not had a previous distribution agreement with Apple, which has instead been selling its handsets through rival carrier Softbank. However, So

Evernote has updated the Windows Phone 7 version of its popular note-taking app to version 2.1, introducing several new features and improvements that are uniquely designed for Microsoft’s Metro interface. They include the ability to pin any note to the homescreen, use note templates, and new language support. Users can now pin Evernote notes and notebooks directly to Microsoft’s unique LiveTiles Start Page. Shortcuts to opening a new specific type of note, such as text note, snapshot note, or audio note, can also be pinned to the homescreen. Tapping them from the homescreen then takes you directly to a new note of the corresponding type. Note templates can now be created for both basic text-only notes or for a set of note-taking actions. An example of the latter option would be to create a template that launches the camera and then attaches the snapshot and certain pre-defined texts to the note, which could be a good method for capturing expenses or business cards. The app also now su

Samsung showed off what makes it special this morning, with the new Exynos 5250 mobile chipset getting official ahead of its debut in next-gen smartphones and tablets next year. A 2GHz dual-core – with what Samsung reckons is twice the overall grunt of the company’s current 1.5GHz dual-cores and four times the 3D graphics prowess – the Exynos 5250 is also interesting because, unlike NVIDIA, Samsung has opted for a pair of ARM Cortex A15 cores, rather than four A9 cores as in the Tegra 3. That’s going to raise plenty of questions about comparative performance, heat output and power frugality, but perhaps most importantly – in the marketplace, at least – it’s going to prompt an interesting marketing challenge for every company pushing a tablet or phone. When consumers predominantly look at a tick-list of specs, generally with the mindset that “more = better”, how do you get past the immediate assumption that four cores in one phone or tablet are automatically better than two cores in ano

When it’s time to get hooked up with the billionth iPad station you’ve owned in a week, you know you’re going to want something unique – and with what MIC Gadgets has up for sale in the iStation, you’ll be more than ready to impress your Apple fanboy friends and family with woodgrain exteriors and a fully functional take-out keyboard. What this device is meant to replicate is the look and feel of the original built-it-yourself Apple I, the one you may have seen stuck in a fully wooden chassis in the classic photo you see before you. This new dock connects to your iPad and the wireless keyboard included in the box via Bluetooth – just a few taps and you’ll be on your way! This device works with not only the iPad and the iPad 2, but the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S as well, and though it does have a teaser ad that shows the iPad running the original Apple software, you’ll still be able to work with the newest version of iOS. That might be bad news for those of you looking to convert your b

What you’re about to see may send you into a fireball of fury, but before you have a triple heart attack, know this: though this app you might never have heard of is likely currently logging every keystroke you make, they’re almost certainly not using your information for anything ill-willed. Of course that’s no consolation for the idea that a number of HTC, Samsung, Nokia, and RIM (BlackBerry) phones have this software embedded in them, this perhaps proving the late Steve Jobs right when he said Android keeps track of everything you do — and what is the response on the part of the Carrier IQ crew? They’ve tried to sue the fellow who exposed how their application works. This developer who revealed the information we’re speaking about today goes by the name T.Eckhard and showed his findings off first in the XDA Developer Forums. Once his first findings were found by Carrier IQ (again, an app that runs in the background that you may never have known is on your device right this second),

When it comes to taking music to a new level with video on a grand scale, there’s such examples as The Who’s Tommy, Daft Punk’s Interstella 5555, and Michael Jackson’s Ghosts – but while the longest video thus far is indeed the latter of that list at 39 minutes, Girl Talk’s newest video for his mixed-up musical album-long track All Day is set to be a massive 71 minutes! This week a preview for the epic soon to be released music video cum docudrama dance fest has been released and you can get a taste of it right here. The plot follows a lovely dancer as she drops out of ballet class, moves to New York City, and is stalked by an evil man, all of this leading up to a grand spectacular finale in which the whole city dances. Perhaps the most interesting bit about this whole situation is that it was funded through a Kickstarter project page, the director, Jacob Krupnick, getting all the funds he needed to get the video off the ground from an assortment of excited donors. This video’s release

Sky has trialled its own cable installations, the company has confirmed, experimenting with the possibility of bypassing BT in the UK and operating its own broadband network over which it would have full control. Another possibility – though only rumored at this stage – is using a huge expansion of The Cloud, a UK WiFi hotspot service, Electricpig reports, to bring high-speed communal wireless internet access directly to subscribers’ homes. In the UK, government-run turned private telecoms company British Telecom runs the so-called “last mile” of telephone networks. This final connection between the local exchange and users’ homes are what can cause a bottleneck for other DSL broadband providers, like Sky: if they want to do any work on new connections or maintenance, they must contract it out to BT’s engineers rather than do it themselves. Installing a new cable network – or building out a huge wireless system – would obviously involve considerable investment on Sky’s part, but the up

This week Spotify was revealed by CEO Daniel Ek as being ready to expand with what they call a brand newMusic Platform, and with this came a set of new apps made by developers ready to work with Spotify right out of the gate. What Ek had to show off was Spotify working with the first set of apps developed with their streaming music service integrated including LastFM, TuneWiki, and SongKick. What we’re finding here is that while these applications are connected with Spotify to stream music, they retain their original abilities to work with music in a variety of ways. Also included in this expansion was Spotify’s addition of “Favorite Friends” to your friends list on the right of your display so that after you’ve collected thousands of pals, you can sum up the best of the best up at the top. Interestingly enough, one of Ek’s best friends had the most popular Prodigy track on earth in his favorite list which Ek then played for the audience. Very simple stuff for the original setup. As fo

This week Spotify stepped out from the streaming music business into the greater world of the music industry as a platform – third party developers streaming in to work with Spotify to continue to change the world from one where piracy is king to one where people’s options to get to that music easily reigns supreme. Daniel Ek, CEO and founder of Spotify stepped to the stage with a plan to outline Spotify’s backround and mission, their move into social, and their big announcement for the day. What his and Spotify’s mission was and is, Ek said, was to find the best solution outside of piracy for getting music to people’s ears in as “good for everybody” a way as possible. In the time since Spotify started up, Sweden adopted it on a major scale – 33% of the country uses the service! What’s more impressive is that in that time music piracy fell 25% in the country – there’s no denying that there MUST be some sort of a connection. Ek went through this and a collection of other impressive numb

HBO has warned cord-cutters looking to escape the tyranny of cable not to ever expect to see its shows on streaming services like Netflix and Hulu, with the company having no plans to offer its HBO Go app to non-subscribers. HBO co-president Eric Kessler reiterated that the company would continue to offer its programming solely as an upgrade to traditional cable and satellite subscribers, mocoNews reports, arguing that the trend of canceling such services would turn around when the economy improves. Hulu and Netflix are competitors, Kessler suggested, and it wasn’t in HBO’s best interest to license its content. That’s partly because piggy-backing on cable and satellite providers means the company can avoid investing in things like billing systems. Although that means the potential subscription base is smaller than if HBO offered HBO Go access as a standalone product, Kessler believes that the company’s programming strengths will be sufficient to maintain demand. Still, although many ha

Sony Ericsson has announced – and then temporarily backtracked from – a partnership with cloud company Box.net, first revealing that buyers of its Android smartphones would get 50GB free storage before clarifying that the offer wasn’t ready for primetime. According to a hastily yanked post on the Sony Ericsson blog, simply by downloading the Box.net app smartphone users would get 50GB of space to store video, music, documents and other files. However, Sony Ericsson followed up with a clarification that the deal wasn’t quite ready, and admitted that the announcement post had gone up mistakenly. “While we’re really excited about working with Box down the road, this offer is not active today” the company wrote today. “We are in the midst of finalising the details of this promotion and are working to provide this offer very soon to all Xperia customers.” The deal echoes – or at least will echo, when Sony Ericsson re-launches it – a previous offer Box.net arranged with HP, giving TouchPad b

Trendnet has unveiled a new powerline networking adapter that is smaller and more compact than its predecessor. The new adapter is called the TPL-307E and it is the replacement with the TPL-304E adapter that also had an extra plug on the outside. The extra plug allows the adapter to be plugged in and you can still use the outlet to plug in other devices. The 304E was a bulkier solution and the new device has a more compact housing making it easier to place in a crowded outlet. The device has a 200Mbps max speed and will work with the power lines in your home. The adapters also use a secure network automatically with no configuration needed of the network. The encryption the adapters use is AES and a single press of the sync button shares the encryption key for the network. The adapter is shipping right now for $129.99 in a pair and for $69 for single adapters. Powerline networking is a great way to network your home if WiFi doesn’t work in all areas. Back in September I mentioned the T

A US judge has granted Chanel a massive win in a case where the luxury goods company was trying to put sites selling counterfeit products out of business. There are some issues with the court ruling though that some people will find disturbing. The judge granted Chanel the right to seize and transfer access of domains from counterfeit sellers to GoDaddy into Chanel’s name. The court ruling even goes so far as to order search engines like Google and others to remove listings to the sites from search results and has ordered social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to remove any references to the sites as well. The big problem with the ruling to me is that the courts have apparently allowed Chanel to conduct the investigation. The courts also allegedly gave the sites using the seized domains no chance to dispute the claims made by Chanel before the domains were seized. Apparently, an investigator Chanel hired conducted the investigation and 228 sites were named in the initial rou

HP  will announce a decision regarding the future of webOS within the next two weeks, CEO Meg Whitman has confirmed, as the company attempts to hold off Apple and readies its first Windows 8 tablet. Apple could well overtake HP in 2012, Whitman said in interview with French paper Le Figaro, though the chief exec said the products she has introduced into the pipeline should make the company more competitive when they arrive in 2013. Many have been waiting on HP’s official position on webOS, with rumors swirling that the company is still looking to offload the platform it acquired as part of the Palm buy several years back. “This is not an easy decision, because we have a team of 600 people which is in limbo” Whitman suggested. “We need to have another operating system.” It’s unclear if Whitman meant that HP itself needed another operating system, or if she felt the tech industry as a whole needed the extra competition webOS could bring. According to recent leaks, the only thing HP has w

Qualcomm purchased the networking company formerly called Bigfoot Networks a while back. Bigfoot made all sorts of networking hardware and chips that were aimed at improving the networking speed of gaming computers to make online gaming more fun. Qualcomm has announced that it is cramming the Qualcomm Atheros Killer E2100 game networking platform into some new mainboards including some from Gigabyte. The E2100 chipset will be inside the Gigabyte G1.Assassin 2 mainboards that use the Intel X79 chipset. The E2100 is a high performance Gigabit Ethernet controller that handles game networking traffic and handles networking for all traffic types, not just gaming traffic. The chipset has advanced stream detect, visual bandwidth control, and application priority. The stream detect technology is one of the key bits and gives the chipset its ability to identify online gaming and video transmissions and give them network priority. The visual bandwidth control portion allows the user to see what

The stuff of science fiction for decades has been the thought of humans colonizing another world. NASA has been studying microscopic worms originally taken from a garbage dump on earth called Caenorhadbitis elegans or C elegans on the ISS since 2006. The worms were shot into space and studied on the ISS as a project to determine if humans could survive and reproduce on long space flights lasting many years to colonize other worlds. The reason these worms are being used in this sort of study is that genetically they are very similar to humans. Scientists on the project note that the worms were able to reproduce and develop from egg to adult in space just as well as they do on earth. The worms have been on orbit for 12 generations now and were returned on one of the last space shuttle missions. C elegans is a cost effective way to study the effects of deep space missions including the potential for radiation damage and musculoskeletal deterioration of the muscle from the lack of gravity.

3Dconnexion has been around for a long time making pointing devices that are much different from the typical mouse most of us use. Most of these 3D mice that the company makes are aimed at the professional user that designs things with CAD or CAM software. The latest mouse for the firm has now surfaced and it is called theSpaceMouse Pro. This mouse has a ton of features that like it ideal for the pro user needing lots of functionality. The SpaceMouse Pro has a full size hand rest that is coated in a soft material. It sports 15 buttons that are programmable. Those programmable buttons can be linked to commands in applications, standard views, and all sorts of other unions. The SpaceMouse Pro also has an on-screen display. The main feature is the wheel that allows for full 3D navigation with 6-degrees of freedom. The mouse also has keyboard modifier buttons with shift, esc, cntrl, and alt right on the ergonomic mouse surface. The SpaceMouse Pro will only work on Windows computers. You ca

There are a lot of people out there that are fans of the Beats by Dre headphone line that is on the market today. For a limited time shoppers can get the high end Beats The Studio headphones in several colors that will brighten up the headphones from the normal white or black shades offered. The headphones that come in colors are the popular  The Studio  offerings that have been around for a while. These are far from budget headphones with a price of $349.95. They are offered in red, blue, green, orange, pink, purple, and silver in addition to the normal black and white versions already on the market. The large over the ear headphones promise comfort and high-end studio quality sound. The headphones will have the same features as the standard colors. The features include the 1/8″ to 1/4″ adapter, Monster iSoniTalk cable for the iPhone, Blackberry, and other music phones. The headphones have powered sound isolation tech that runs off a pair of AAA batteries. The headphones also come wit

Sony has updated its smart TV range with new social networking integration, high-definition YouTube video support and remote control from VAIO or other computers. The new firmware for the 2011 BRAVIA line-up brings Facebook galleries, messages, status updates and links to the internet-connected HDTVs, while a new Twitter ticker scrolls updates across the bottom of the screen. Meanwhile, it’s possible to share Track ID results – Sony’s song identifying technology – on Twitter too. YouTube has been available on BRAVIA smart TVs for some time now, but this new update boosts quality support to HD where available. Sony’s existing image processing tech is also retained, further massaging footage. Meanwhile, the company has released a version of its Remote Keyboard Lite app for non-Sony laptops, allowing them to be used to enter URLs in the Opera-based browser, search for streaming content and navigate through the menus. You’ll need a Windows 7 computer, however, which means those with older

The hacking attacks continue to happen online around the world with some of the attacks resulting in serious data loss for the government and private companies. Hacker group TeaMp0isioN has hacked the UN and taken their stolen email addresses, usernames, and passwords and out them up on Paste Bin. Apparently, the hacker group thinks the UN is corrupt. The posted data in the leak has over a hundred usernames, email addresses, and passwords that are from people working in the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), UNICEF, and the World Health Organization. It seems that some of the email account holders made it easy for hackers with some usernames apparently having blank passwords. Some think that the hackers used vulnerability on the website of the UNDP to extract the stolen details. This same group of hackers has been busy with the defacing of websites including the RIM Blackberry blog and others. The hacker group do

It’s time for a new software update for your PS3 to land. According to the Official Playstation Blog, the PS3 will be updated to software version 4.0 this week. Exactly what day that update will land isn’t offered, but it has to be in the next couple days. Sony says that the update is to prepare for the launch of the PS Vita in Japan. One of the big features for the Japanese gamers that will be getting the PS Vita is that with the update applied the player will be able to use the PS3 as a content management device. The user will be allowed to transfer digital content like games, music, photos, and videos between the Vita and the PS3 console. PS Vita games will also be able to backup to the PS3. The update will also allow the updating of the Vita software via the PS3. There are also a number of other changes the new software update will make including game patches and system software updates. The PS3 will also get game and video recommendations and sync trophy information. New settings

DigiTimes and its mysterious sources are at it again with a new tip that Ultrabooks will get a bit cheaper early next year. The publication cites industry sources claiming that the price of an Ultrabook will fall by 5-10% in Q1 2012. That would put most of the Ultrabooks at the sub-$1000 range that they were originally promised at. Some of the machines on the market in the Ultrabook segment are already at that under $1000 price range. The price cut isn’t coming from cheaper hardware or anything like that; it’s coming from a subsidy offered by Intel. Apparently, the Ultrabook hasn’t been as popular as Intel had hoped. Intel will offer a $100 marketing subsidy starting in the Q1 period. The tip about the marketing subsidy comes from sources in the Taiwan supply chain. The finger is still being pointed at the high cost of processors, SSDs, and other components as the reason many of the machines are not below $1000 in price yet. The CPU alone costs $175 to $200, the SSD $140 to $150, and t

If this sounds a bit like something out of a horror novel, it’s because this sounds a lot like what starts the evens of the horror classic from Stephen King called The Stand. Apparently, researchers working on bird flu have created a strain of the bird flu virus that is lethal and easily spread through the air. Some fear that the mutated strain might be used as a bio weapon. Researchers studying bird flu using ferrets have manufactured a strain of the bird flu virus known as H5N1 and over five mutations the researchers found a very virulent strain of the bug. All of the ferrets that had that fifth strain of the virus died. Ferrets are used in testing because viruses multiply in the animals in a way similar to humans. The scientists have determined that it is possible for the virus to change into a form that can infect humans easily and the mutation to infect people is easier than they thought it would be. Even more disturbing is that while the scientists could create a strain of the vi

This interesting study has been conducted on 97 different university students. The study sought to determine if creative thinkers were more likely to cheat than those that were less creative. The reason for the creative types to be more likely to cheat according to those that ran the study is simply because the more creative participants were able to justify their actions. The study took the 97 participants and had them take standardized psychological tests to determine creativity and then take five different experiments. The experiments were to determine how creative people are more likely to cheat under circumstances where they can justify dishonest behavior. One of the experiments had participants looking at a drawing that had dots on each side of a line to determine which side had more dots. The catch was that it was virtually impossible to tell which side had the most dots. The students were told that for each right side answer they would receive ten times as much money as left si

Samsung has supposedly begun pushing out the OTA firmware update designed to address the volume bug on the Galaxy Nexus. The staggered distribution begins today, UK retailer Clove reports, with batches of handsets receiving the new software this week. However, contrary to previous expectations, the latest consignment of Galaxy Nexus units from Samsung have not been pre-flashed with the update. Instead, the retailer has been informed from its distributor, new buyers will be prompted to install the update shortly after powering on the Ice Cream Sandwich smartphone. Samsung and Google’s timescale for actually getting all Galaxy Nexus units in the wild patched hasn’t been revealed, so it’s unclear when, exactly, the volume bug will be forgotten. We’ve just tested one device in the UK, and ICS’ update tool claims no new software is available. The volume bug was spotted shortly after the first Galaxy Nexus units hit consumers’ hands, occurring when the smartphone was connected to a 2G 900MHz

Facebook‘s confession of a “bunch of mistakes” around privacy and the new measures put in to address FTC and public concerns moving forward have been tentatively welcomed by privacy advocates, though the settlement is being seen as a first step rather than a full solution. The social network conceded to 20 years of biannual privacy reviews in order to pacify the FTC, with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg penning a lengthy blog on the various privacy tools and policy blunders that helped enrage identity activists. Consumers Union  were generally positive about Facebook’s agreement, with regulatory counsel Ioana Rusu highlighting the organization’s belief that “companies should not be able to alter privacy settings after the fact, exposing private information to the public at large and to third party marketers.” The settlement with the FTC “sends a strong message to companies that they must live up to the privacy promises made to consumers” she concludes. However, the ACLU was less effusive,

If you want to have kids guys you had better keep that laptop off your nads according to some scientists from Argentina. According to these scientists if you put a laptop in your lap you run the risk of decreasing your sperm count and that might make it hard to reproduce. Before any of you get any ideas, I don’t think strapping a couple netbooks to your legs with WiFi running wide open will prevent pregnancy. The researchers found 29 volunteers that worked hard to make the study come to fruition. The testing involved getting sperm samples from the 29 participants and then placing a drop of the sample on a dish under a laptop running WiFi. The little buggers were left to swim under the WiFi signals for four hours while a control group of samples was left at the same temperature away from WiFi. After the time was up the samples were then placed under a microscope to determine motility. Of the WiFi exposed samples, 25% were found to be not swimming after four hours. In the control group,

Apple’s sales injunction against the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia has been overthrown, with an appeals court dismissing the original block as “clearly wrong” and allowing the Android slate to go on sale this Friday. The Cupertino company secured a short stay until the end of the week so that it could ready an appeal of its own, but was told by the Sydney court that if it wanted to extend the tablet ban – handed down in October when Apple convinced a judge that Samsung had “slavishly copied” its iPad design – it would need to convince the High Court. The three judges sitting on Samsung’s appeal took a critical view of the original judge presiding over Apple’s injunction case. “In our view, her decision was clearly wrong and should be set aside” they wrote of Justice Annabelle Bennett in their closing thoughts, going on to spell out how they believe the judge failed to assess exactly how strong Apple’s case was prior to granting a preliminary injunction. More damningly to Apple’s

Lenovo is the latest company to plan a smart TV push, with the Chinese firm announcing it plans to unveil the first “LeTV” – along with a cloud service for shared multimedia – in Q1 2012. The company declined to detail the LeTV technically, the WSJ reports, leaving questions around whether it will be another win for Google TV or instead run a home-grown OS. Lenovo’s cloud service ambitions extend beyond just serving the LeTV, however. The company expects to give 200GB of remote storage to all its users, used to automatically synchronize data from multiple gadgets – including PCs, laptops, smartphones, tablets and others. The service will also harmonize personal information and social networking credentials, the company says. The cloud system will help support tablets and smartphones such as Lenovo’s recently announced LePad S2005, S2007 and S2010 range, revealed in China earlier this week. The company has not yet detailed exactly where the Lenovo LeTV will go on sale. If it runs Google

Sonos has pushed out a new version of its Sonos Controller app, now catering for Android tablets with a custom UI and new features like social networking integration. The updated app dynamically adjusts to suit the bigger display scale – whether you’re running a 7-incher or a 10.1-incher – and can show a user’s zones, music menu, now playing pane and volume controls at the same time. Fresh to the updated app is the ability to set alarms, waking yourself in the morning (or after a sneaky afternoon nap) with your favorite playlist. There’s also more control over music library management, taking advantage of the extra screen space on offer, along with Twitter support. That allows you to tweet out what you’re currently listening to. Meanwhile, Sonos has thrown in Slacker Radio support for all users (as long as they’re in North America) offering 150 free streaming music channels. There’s also better integration with Spotify, along with AAC+ track support. The Sonos Controller for Android ap

Samsung has announced its latest mobile chipset, the Samsung Exynos 5250, a 2GHz dual-core intended for next-gen smartphones and tablets. Based around a pair of ARM Cortex-A15 cores, the Exynos 5250 follows Samsung’s wildly successful 4210, the chip at the heart of the best-selling Galaxy S II series of handsets. Raising the game, the new Exynos boosts 3D graphics performance by four times. It’s also capable of driving higher-resolution screens, the sort of pixel-dense panels we can expect to see on next-generation tablets. In fact, up to WQXGA (2560 x 1600) resolution is supported, impressive stuff considering most Android tablets currently run at a mere 1280 x 800. Samsung’s chip could double up that resolution for clearer text, crisper graphics and – with the improved 3D grunt – faster gaming. There’s also native support for stereoscopic 3D. In comparison to 1.5GHz dual-core Cortex A9 chips, the new Exynos 5250 is roughly twice as fast: capable of simultaneously processing at 14,000

We knew that Adobe was on track to roll out Adobe Flash support for Android 4.0 (and in particular, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus) before the end of this year but, at that time, we didn’t know the exact month, whether it’d be either November or December. Now, fast forwarding to today, Adobe has just tied up a couple loose ends and confirmed that Adobe Flash Player 11.1 and Adobe AIR 3.1 will both be heading to the Galaxy Nexus (and thus Android 4.0) at some point next month in December. We think that the timing couldn’t be more perfect for those of you that live stateside and just can’t wait to get your hands on Verizon’s sleek new 4G LTE-powered Galaxy Nexus smartphone, reviewed by us here. Also, we want to remind you this is the last version of Flash that will be headed to Android after Adobe announced that it would be completely ditching the platform for Android and other mobile operating systems. What about other devices besides the Galaxy Nexus? Well, that’s entirely up to the decision

In just the last twelve months, Linux Mint has surpassed Ubuntu as the most popular open source operating system on open source ranking website DistroWatch. Why, you ask? Perhaps because the latter has been looking with a new perspective on the user interface, and begun aiming at mobile platforms instead. However, note that Linux Mint is actually built on Ubuntu, so it has quite a few of Ubuntu’s advantages while doing away with some of its shortcomings, and serving up a plethora of multimedia codecs. Version 12 of the Mint distro, “Lisa” is now available, escorting in with it a new desktop based on Gnome 3 with some Mint-specific improvements and an open source-friendly search engine called DuckDuckGo. Also, the extras from Ubuntu make Linux Mint 12 take up a bit more space than usual , but you get to use a solid desktop interface that isn’t trying to do something crazy. The rudimentary system requirements to run Linux Mint 12 are as follows: x86 processor (Linux Mint 64-bit requires

Search giant Google’s just announced a completely redesigned navigation bar that aligns with the redesigns we’ve already seen for Google Search, Maps, News, Reader, and Gmail. The dark gray on top has finally been removed, the redesigned bar opting for a light gray tone across all Google products for a more consistent user experience. Hovering your mouse pointer over the Google logo drops down a menu with links to Google+, Image Search, Maps, and other products, gone are the static links for Google Calendar or Docs. The Google+ push clearly continues here with a share button integrated across all Google properties (something that Google is seemingly trying to do with every Google product they’ve introduced). We’re now ready for the next stage of our redesign—a new Google bar that will enable you to navigate quickly between our services, as well as share the right stuff with the right people easily on Google+. The official Google+ account notes that the new bar will start rolling out to

The aging Xbox 360 just recorded the biggest sales week in its not-quite-venerable history, moving nearly one million units over the seven day period, specifically selling more than 960,000 consoles in the U.S. during the week of Black Friday. For a console that’s entering the seventh year of its product lifestyle, that’s one very impressive statistic. Of course, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the pivotal factors here, but the numbers themselves are still stellar, to say the very least. According to Microsoft: · Xbox 360 sold more than 960,000 consoles in the U.S. alone, with more than 800,000 sold within a period of 24 hours. · More than 750,000 Kinect for Xbox 360 sensors were sold in the U.S. – standalone and bundled. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 has been the top-selling game console for nearly every month in the last year, mostly driven by the breakout success of the Kinect, the motion-sensing entertainment device that has rekindled interest in Xbox games (those that support the Kinect