IBLOG SPACE

It’s certainly not a good day to be a founder of The Pirate Bay. The legal saga centering on the founders of the file sharing site Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström has been ongoing for several years. So far, the founders of been appealing the court decisions further and further up the Swedish legal ladder, and eventually they made it to the final rung with the Swedish Supreme Court. The three founders were able to get their initial prison terms reduced in length during their legal battle, but the fines and prison terms that have been previously determined will stand. The Swedish Supreme Court announced today that it was denying the trio’s final appeal. The prison terms for the three men will be as follows; Peter Sunde will serve an eight-month term in prison. Fredrik Neij will serve a 10-month prison sentence, and Carl Lundström will spend four months behind bars. The men will all share in paying $6.8 million fine for damages. A fourth co-founder named Gottfrid Svartholm ha

If you are a fan of the Boxee app on your Mac or PC, you had better hold onto your copy the software and be sure to back it up. Boxee has officially killed support for its computer clients and the last version of the software for Windows, Mac, and Linux has been removed from company servers. As of yesterday, the software is no longer available for download on the Boxee website. This shouldn’t be a surprise; we knew as of late last year that this was going to happen. The company has chosen to focus on its hardware box called the Boxee Box rather than computer clients. Boxee’s VP of marketing Andrew Kippen confirmed on Monday the company was going through with its plans to end support for computer clients despite complaints from some of the early adopters of the service. Presumably, the company is hoping that some of these early PC adopters will move to the Boxee Box hardware so they can continue to use the service. I would imagine that many of these people would be looking for alternati

In November of last year, Barnes & Noble called for a US investigation of Microsoft over the use of Android patents. The call for investigation had to do with patent licensing fees for Android and kicked off shortly after Barnes & Noble entered the Android market with the Nook Tablet. Barnes & Noble decided to go at Microsoft with a patent misuse defense. Barnes & Noble didn’t make it to court with that claim, an ITC judge has seemingly thrown those claims out before an evidentiary trial even started. The official ruling is not available, but according to Foss Patents, the headline of the ruling says it all with the title, which reads “Initial Determination Granting Microsoft’s Motion for Summary Determination of Respondents First Affirmative Defense of Patent Misuse.” The ITC commission can review the decision, but apparently, it’s not common for the commission to review this sort of order. This means Barnes & Noble’s suit is dead in the water unless it has other t

Samsung has confirmed that the Galaxy S III will not make its debut at Mobile World Congress 2012 later this month, with Galaxy S II follow-up expected to launch at an independent event sometime in the first half of the year. The later reveal will be “closer to commercial availability of the product” Samsung told TechRadar, fitting in with earlier rumors that despite the company’s intention to bring the smartphone to MWC, that launch had been delayed. “Samsung is looking forward to introducing and demonstrating exciting new mobile products at Mobile World Congress 2012. The successor to the Galaxy S2 smartphone will be unveiled at a separate Samsung-hosted event in the first half of the year, closer to commercial availability of the product. Samsung stays committed to providing the best possible mobile experiences for customers around the world” Samsung statement Samsung has been coy with reasons as to why the Galaxy S III won’t be revealed at the show this month, though there are seve

The 2012 Chicago Auto Show is running right now and at the show, Mopar is showing some modified Dodge and Chrysler vehicles, including the Chrysler 300, a new Dodge Dart, and a special Mopar Jeep Compass. All three of the cool vehicles are modified using factory Mopar parts. There is also a Fiat dubbed the Stinger at the show. First off, is the Mopar 2012 300 that takes the Chrysler 300 sedan and makes it over into a performance sedan to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Mopar. Under the hood of the car, the 363hp 5.7L hemi V-8 engine has fuel saver technology that turns off four of the cylinders when not needed. The car also has a different rear differential with a 3.91 gear ratio for better acceleration that allows the car hit 60 mph in the low 5-second range. The car also has improved suspension, stickier tires, and special performance brakes. Other features include special wheels and a special interior with Mopar blue stitching. At the show, Dodge has its Dart GTS 210 tribute car o

If you fear the rise of intelligent, collaborative robots swarming together and gathering human prey for the battery tanks, look away now: the Nano Quadrotors have taken to the skies and they’re terrifyingly adept. The handiwork of researchers in the GRASP Lab at the University of Pennsylvania, the latest-gen Quadrotors can not only handle being tossed, inverted or generally batted around without crashing, but fly in formation. That means you can throw a Quadrotor into the air and have it automatically re-orient itself and hover, useful for deployment in less than stable conditions. However, the real magic – or horror, depending on your willingness to subjugate yourself to our airborne masters – comes when several of the ‘bots work together. The so-called swarms can fly in formation, maintaining perfect distance from each other, but they can also hold transition between orientations in 3D, as well as shift their positions so as to navigate around obsticles. The figure-of-eight pattern

Nikon‘s final three cameras of the morning borrow a little from both the P510 superzoom and the S-series compacts, a mongrel collection of zoomers, rugged snappers and super-simple models each promising HD video recording. The COOLPIX L810, L26 and S30 can each be run on AA batteries, and all come in at under the $280 mark, with Nikon hoping they can lure you away from the temptation of convergence and relying solely on your smartphone camera. The COOLPIX L810 offers a 26x optical zoom with VR image stabilization and a 22.5mm wide angle, along with a fast frame Sports Shooting mode and 720p HD video recording. There’s a 3-inch 921k dot LCD display on the back. The COOLPIX L26 is the “standard” model in Nikon’s Spring 2012 line-up, with a 5x optical zoom and 720p HD video recording. It has a 3-inch display and automatic Scene Modes that Nikon reckons makes it the perfect point-and-shoot. As for the Nikon COOLPIX S30, that’s shockproof for up to 2.6 feet drops and waterproof for up to 9.

Gobfuls of new Nikon compact cameras this morning, with a four-strong update to the COOLPIX range that promises something for everyone, whether you demand GPS tagging, lengthy zooms or sub-$140 pricing. The Nikon COOLPIX S9300 leads the charge, with an 18x optical zoom squeezed into a 1.5-inch thick body with a 16-megapixel backside-illuminated sensor for improved low-light performance. There’s also Full HD 1080p video recording and integrated GPS for geotagging photos while on the move. Next up is the COOLPIX S6300, toting a 10x optical zoom and a 16-megapixel BSI sensor, also capable of 1080p HD video recording. It packs an Easy Panorama mode for creating either 180- or 360-degree landscape shots, along with various onboard effects that can be applied to both stills and video. The Nikon COOLPIX S4300 offers a 3-inch 460k dot touchscreen and 16-megapixel sensor, along with a 6x wide-angle zoom. It has face-priority autofocus, identifying up to 12 faces in the frame, along with Smile S

Nikon has outed a new superzoom, the COOLPIX P510, pairing a 16.2-megapixel backside-illuminated sensor with a whopping great 42x optical zoom. Offering a 24-1,000mm focal range, the P510 uses Vibration Reduction (VR) image stabilization to keep shots steady at the higher-end of zoom, with 5fps burst shooting and integrated GPS. Meanwhile, there’s also the Nikon COOLPIX P310 for those who can make do with a smaller zoom in the name of increased portability. The COOLPIX P310 offers a 16.1-megapixel backside-illuminated CMOS sensor that supports an ISO range up to 3200 (Hi1 6400 equivalent), paired with a fast, wide-angle maximum aperture f/1.8 lens. It packs VR image stabilization too, as well as a number of low-light modes including one which combines multiple shots with different settings to create an HDR-style image. Photographers envious of their DSLR brethren can also make use of manual exposure control (P/S/A/M) on the P310, along with a Zoom Memory function that offers easy acces

Sony has announced that Kazuo Hirai has been named CEO and President, with previous chief exec Sir Howard Stringer taking the role of Chairman of the Sony board. Previously tipped as a done-deal in early January, and rumored for months beforehand, Hirai – who until now has been Executive Deputy President at Sony – will take the new position from April 1 2012, while Stringer will make the leap to the chairmanship in June. “Kaz is a globally focused executive for whom technology and the cloud are familiar territory, content is highly valued, and digital transformation is second nature” Stringer said of his replacement. “I believe his tough-mindedness and leadership skills will be of great benefit to the company and its customers in the months and years ahead.” Stringer and the Sony board had begun the search for replacement leaders back in 2009, and Hirai had been an early standout candidate. Hirai has been leading Sony’s Consumer Products & Services Group, encompassing the firm’s TV

Anyone with an iPhone can apply for a free Square credit card reader. But now the process is easier than ever, as T-Mobile will begin offering the revolutionary small business solution at the point of purchase to customers who sign up for a business plan. It’s a move that will increase awareness not only for Square but also for T-Mobile’s new push to attract enterprise users. What exactly comes with a T-Mobile business plan? The carrier offers service rates as low as $60 per month for two lines, as well as special bundles of apps that are designed for business customers (e.g., DropBox, Evernote, and LinkedIn). The carrier wants to be defined as the best option for those customers. For Square, it means finally having a brick-and-mortar retail presence. Square has been a cataclysmic help for small business owners who are out hitting the pavement and may be able to pick up sales that would have been lost if they were only able to accept cash. Said one Nikki Halgren, a small business owner

She’s been dubbed “Britain’s oldest gamer” but Kit Connell she doesn’t “feel a day over 80.” Part of the strategy to her youthful spirit and sharp mind? She plays her Nintendo DS a few hours a day. And she’s pretty active with it too, owning around a dozen games that she regularly rotates between. There are probably DS owners half her age (hell, even one-tenth her age) who probably can’t compete. For most people, scoring an age of 64 on the DS’s Brain Training game would seem like an insult. To Connell, it’s proof that video games help keep her 100-year-old brain cells in full working order. “I much prefer to be using my brain. And I find I am very forgetful, I can’t remember things the next day. So I try to do these and it really is helping,” she said in an interview with the UK publication The Telegraph. A corresponding video interview with Connell has received praise from around the Web. Comments on YouTube praise her spirit, with users saying, “I wish that lady were my grandma” and

There is no shortage of ways for YouTube to monetize its site right now. It has sponsored videos, ad-supported content, and pay-per-click overlay ads. But that might not be enough, as the head of the viral video site has suggested there might be premium content on its way to YouTube, effectively ending the great legacy of 100% no-barrier, free-to-watch videos that made the site what it is today. YouTube CEO Salar Kamangar was at the D:Dive Into Media conference and was quoted as saying it is possible that the site might start allowing copyright holders to offer channels that require users to pay a monthly fee. “We’re a media platform want to be biz model than media partners demand,” he said. Kamangar rolled off some statistics about the video industry as a whole, including online and offline content. He said 20% of revenue comes from the actual sale or rental of a specific title, while 40% comes from advertising and another 40% comes from subscription fees. Clearly YouTube is only enga

Want to double, triple, even quadruple the battery life of your laptop? Want to swap out the stale Windows software with a more flexible operating system known as Android? That’s the promise of an impending product from niche tech company CUPP Computing. Called the PunkThis board, it is easily installed into any laptop and brings a fully functional Android interface to the machine. The PCB measures in at 2.5 inches and contains a complete minicomputer, including a 1 GHz ARM processor, 512 MB of RAM, a WiFi radio, mSata slot, and two microSD card ports. But what’s cool about it is the way it interacts with the other components that are already in your laptop, so you still have full access to USB ports, keyboard/mouse HDMI output, and all the other neat functionality that Android tablets don’t necessarily have. Switching between your built-in Windows and the custom Android UI is easy as pie, or more specifically, a hotkey. So, in other words, it’s pretty darn cool. When can people actual

Coming face-to-face with a box full of cockroaches, dressing up in camo gear, and trudging through mud-filled obstacle courses. That’s what it takes to be a game tester at Sony Computer Entertainment America. Yes, the reality show with the worst prize in all reality shows is back, and Sony is giving a preview of what to expect in season number three. The Tester, which is released in weekly installments through the PlayStation Network’s video store, pits self-proclaimed PlayStation fanatics in a series of wacky and outrageous stunts until only one is left standing. The winner gets a $5,000 cash prize and the opportunity to become a full-time entry-level game tester. The show has been maligned from the beginning for its terrible prize and for the ridiculous way it tries to tie in the show’s obstacles into actual responsibilities of being a game tester (having cockroaches running up and down your face shows that you’re good under pressure, which is a trait of all good game testers. Yeah,

Don’t believe all the hype you hear on TV – next Sunday isn’t about Eli Manning or a rematch of 2008′s big game or even about football at all. The real excitement will be when Samsung makes its debut in the biggest commercial time slot of the year. The game itself will be boring – we all know the Giants are gonna win anyway. Did I mention I’m a New Yorker? Seriously, though, Samsung will air a Super Bowl ad for the first time in the company’s history. And the product that will mark this flagship occasion – the Galaxy Note. The Android-powered jumbo phone has gained a lot of attention for its 5.3-inch display and a stylus, making it look more like a tablet than a phone. The ad was directed by Bobby Farrelly, whose credits include Dumb and Dumber and There’s Something About Mary. That’s all we know about the actual commercial, though given those referenced film titles we can probably assume it’ll be a very humorous ad. The spot was also reportedly filmed with the Galaxy Note’s 1080p HD c

If you’ve ever been to a political rally and thought, “This is cool but I wish there was some way for me to make a donation right now with my credit card,” then Mitt Romney is the Republican candidate for you. Or if you happen to play for the other team, Obama’s re-election campaign has also begun accepting mobile payments at its fundraising events. It’s all possible thanks to the ubiquitous and revolutionary Square card-accepting platform. It’s nice to see two bitter political rivals come together on this issue. Each thinks that having iPhones equipped with the Square dongle, allowing instant credit and debit card payments to be accepted through a proprietary app, is a great way to earn money on the trail. “We’re going to be testing it in Florida tomorrow night to see how it works and then hope to roll it out to the rest of the country,” Romney campaign spokesperson Zac Moffatt told the New York Times. On the Obama side, there’s actually work underway on a special Obama-themed Square

Do you occasionally use your phone while you’re doing your business? If you said “yes,” then statistically you are more likely to own an Android phone than a Blackberry or iPhone. That is, at least, if you believe a new report that was just released from marketing agency 11mark. The results are anything but a wash. Oh, so many puns, so little time. The, shall we say unique, survey asked respondents whether or not they have tended to take their handsets out of the pocket while on the john. Surprisingly, there was no real gender gap. 74% of men and 76% of women said they had. But when the results were broken into smartphone brand, the data were a bit more conclusive. Android was the clear “winner.” 87% of survey takers with an Android phone admitted to using their phone while on the can, compared to 84% of Blackberry users. And as for the ever classy iPhone users, only 77% admitted to the same habit. As far as what they’re doing on the phone during that time, 75% of Blackberry users said

Yep, it’s that time of year. For the tech heads out there, the Super Bowl means it’s time to look for HDTV sales, get excited about geek-oriented Super Bowl ads…and see what team was predicted to win by the most sophisticated football video game in the industry. According to an official Madden NFL 12 simulation, the New York Giants will be the victors in Sunday’s big match but it will be one heck of a close race. The Madden-sponsored Super Bowl replication, something that has become an annual tradition, showed the Giants ahead by 24-10 in the third quarter, when all of the sudden the New England Patriots make a comeback to tie it up at 24-24. Just when it looked like the match might end up in overtime, the Giants make a last-second, game-winning field goal, bringing the final score to 27-24, giving the Giants their second Super Bowl victory against the Patriots in the last five years. Since 2004, the official Madden simulations have correctly predicted the winning team in the Super Bow

The next RIM vision of a BlackBerry smartphone, or Superphone as they’re calling it at the source for this leak, is a fully touch-sensitive candybar-style device. This device comes from CrackBerry and appears to either be code-named London or will be released in London sometime soon. This image also shows off how the device will be thin, will have a single flash and camera on the back, another camera on the front with a sensor or two, and one gigantic display on the front as well. The user interface looks rather simple, right in line with what we’ve seen of BlackBerry 10 thus far, while the hardware is what they say it is – “elegant, understated, precise, solid, and slim.” The user interface is a “dramatic shift” from what we’ve seen in BlackBerry so far, and the image notes that the device will be rich in both power and efficiency. This device is said to be very possibly running a Texas Instruments OMAP5 or a Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC under the hood, and that it’ll be out this year – ma

One of the most famous musicians of all time, Neil Young, spoke this week with Peter Kafka and Walt Mossberg of AllThingsD about the future of digital music, and how he’d be continuing Steve Jobs legacy in pioneering for it. A device which allows you to download music with the highest possible resolution is what Young aims to create. This device will allow ultra high-fidelity audio downloads, and because of Young’s talks with Jobs on the matter before he died, Young wasted no time invoking his name to spread the word about it. Being a pioneer of music in the digital realm was what Young hoped to let us all know he’d be carrying on via Jobs spirit. The first and probably largest hurdle for this particular device right out of the box (or before the box exists, rather), is the idea that each song will be taking 30 minutes to download due to its gigantic size. In addition to bringing high-fidelity back to the world of music, as he sees it, Young hopes to do so while he makes legally downlo

The long overdue BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 update may finally be arriving in February, if RIM follows through on its latest promise. According to a post today by RIM’s Developer Relations team, the update will be available next month, packing the BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps feature that allows Android apps to run on the PlayBook tablet. The BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps is perhaps the most anticipated feature of the update other than native email, contacts, and calendar support. To ensure that the update launches with PlayBook-ready Android apps in the BlackBerry App World storefront, RIM is setting a deadline of February 6 for developers to submit their Android apps. RIM has posted a set of guidelines for submitting apps, which include removing the word “Android” from all parts of the app, removing all links to Android Market, selecting BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 as the minimum platform requirement, and ensuring that the app is code signed. The BlackBerry Plug-in for AD

When I think back over the years, I can remember countless technology-focused brick-and-mortar stores I enjoyed shopping at. From CompUSA to Circuit City to the ridiculous number of other stores that came and went, there was a time when a large portion of my life was spent shopping in the brick-and-mortar. [Image credit: Trey Ratcliff] Nowadays, there’s only one brick-and-mortar electronics store I visit on a regular basis: the Apple Store. As for Best Buy? Well, I see no reason to go there, and judging by the company’s recent disappointing quarters, it appears many folks agree. But I’ll take it one step further. At some point in the next several years, Best Buy will fail just as the many companies that came before it have. And Apple Stores will be the only electronics store left standing. Now, I’m sure there are some of you who will say that retailers like Best Buy need to exist. You might reason that many folks still need to head to retail stores to research products or get accessori

In this chapter of our “I’m switching to iPhone 4S for a week” experiment, we’ll be taking an up close look at the hardware that makes up the iPhone 4S. When I say up close, I mean macro photography close – so close you can see the tiny specs of dust and micro-grooves in the metal close. What you’re about to see will prove to you, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the iPhone 4S is not just another smartphone, not just another hunk of plastic, metal, and glass that so many manufacturers toss out on what seems to almost be a weekly basis – the iPhone 4S is a precision built gadget masterpiece. This smartphone came into my hands more than once before this week began, the iPhone 4 model being essentially the same I can safely say that I’ve seen and played around with this particular iPhone iteration in the past. This week represents your humble narrator’s first real extended hands-on look at the iPhone 4S. Here we’re looking at the device so close that the human eye wouldn’t likely have p

NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft has been studying what lies outside our solar system and today researchers revealed that this space matter is quite different from what lies within. This interstellar material is considered to be what stars, planets, and people are made from and hence the importance to understand its composition. IBEX has observed four separate types of interstellar atoms—hydrogen, oxygen, neon, and helium—which fill the space between stars. They blow across the galaxy as interstellar wind of flowing charged and neutral particles. Researchers discovered that this interstellar wind has much less oxygen atoms relative to neon atoms. The ratio is 74 oxygen atoms to every 20 neon atoms, whereas that ratio is 111 oxygen atoms to 20 neon atoms inside our solar system. This could mean that our solar system developed in a part of the galaxy that was much more oxygen-rich than where it currently resides or that a lot of oxygen is trapped in interstellar du

While normally reporting on government programs that have to do with low-income families wouldn’t be within the realm of news that we report, our environment containing gadgets, technology, and the like, this particular service fits right in: telephone service. It’s never a bad time to remember that not everyone in our vast human community has the same ability to enjoy the technology a lot of us take for granted, the news of the day centering around this “mobile” world we live in while many across the United States have trouble affording even a landline. What the FCC is doing this week is reforming and modernizing a service by the name of Lifeline, one that aims to keep low-income families connected to jobs, family, and 911 emergency services. The Federal Communications Commission approved today a full overhaul of its universal service program which over the past 25 years has helped “tens of millions” of low-income American afford a most basic service: the telephone. In 1985 when the p

Symantec has released a security patch for its pcAnywhere application, declaring it now safe to use again. The patch follows Symantec’s warning last week for all users to disable the product after the company discovered that the source code had been stolen back in 2006, meaning users were at greater risk of being hacked. According to Symantec, the software is safe to use again as long as customers apply all the latest updates and security patches. A patch was released last week for pcAnywhere 12.5 followed by patches for versions 12.0 and 12.1. You can download the patches here or you can contact Symantec at pcanywhere@symantic.com for more information. The security risk was exposed after a hacker by the name YamaTough released the source code of Symantec’s Norton Utilities PC software and threatened to publish the source code for the company’s anti-virus programs as well. Symantec then admitted that the source code for its Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition, Norton internet Security,

Last week we let you in on a few bits of functionality that sat inside the mobile version of the gaming giant Steam – this week the beta period for testing of that app is done and everyone is allowed to join at will. This application may have mobile-based games in the future, but for now acts as a companion application for the browser-based interface for PC and Mac computers. You are able to purchase items for future playing from this mobile application, and community engagement is currently the biggest selling point for Steam fans. You can grab the application from the Android Market right this moment for free and will be able to sign in with your regular Steam account. From here you’re going to be exploring the same world of friendly or not so friendly gamers you know and love and will be able to check out gaming information galore on the go. The reason Steam has this application set up is to keep their friendly customers at home in the same community wherever they go, even if they’r

Nokia’s design chief Marko Ahtisaari discussed the direction of future Lumia Windows Phones in an interview with The Guardian, hinting at NFC and wireless charging. Ahtisaari has been at the helm of Nokia’s design team since 2009, during which the company developed the Nokia N9, Nokia Lumia 800, and the Nokia Lumia 900. Ahtisaari has been alluding to NFC in Lumia devices for some time now and it certainly won’t be any surprise since a few Nokia devices, such as the MeeGo N9, already support NFC. Nokia will have to wait until the Windows Phone platform is ready to support NFC, which Microsoft had confirmed previously would be ready in 2012. Additionally, future Lumia designs will strive to be even more minimalist, eliminating as much as possible any moveable parts, such as the flip-up plastic tab that’s currently covering the micro-USB charging port for the devices. Ahtisaari hinted at having no ports whatsoever on the device, suggesting the possible integration of wireless charging in

Apple’s iPhone push in China continues to buoy the telecoms market, with further talk of a second carrier in the Chinese market to offer the iOS smartphone. After analysts predicted China Telecom would follow China Unicom in offering the iPhone 4S, as part of a 40m unit sales push by 2013, the China Daily now claims the carrier could launch the handset on its CDMA network as soon as February 2012. The move follows comments by Apple CEO Tim Cook suggesting that the company sees China as its next significant growth market. Currently, China Unicom has an exclusive on the iPhone 4S; however, the potential for market penetration is believed to be significantly higher if China Telecom is brought in on the action. According to Morgan Stanley, China Telecom has the vast majority of high-end smartphone users on its network, the ideal target market for a device like the iPhone. The Chinese paper reported that the iPhone 4S – which uses a dual-mode chipset for use on both GSM and CDMA networks –

Acer plans to go on the attack in 2012 with a strong push in four major product categories, whereas its strategy last year was mainly to defend its position in the market. The company’s Chairman JT Wang announced the strategy shift during the company’s Lunar New Year ceremony, revealing that it would aggressively introduce new ultrabooks, notebooks, tablets, and smartphones. According to Digitimes, Acer plans to focus most aggressively on ultrabooks out of the four major product segments. The company is set to launch four new models in the second and third quarters. While ultrabooks are currently rather pricey, Acer intends to introduce models priced more moderately in the range of $699 to $799. However, the company plans to compete less on price and more on user experience and demand. Acer president Jim Wong noted that the high-end and low-end markets are dominated by Apple and Amazon, respectively. Therefore Acer intends to focus on the mid-range, which has an estimated shipment scal

This week another brand new set of Galaxy devices have been tipped, those being the Samsung Galaxy Note S, the Galaxy S II Plus, and the Galaxy S III – a device we’ve already heard quite a bit about this year. The Galaxy S III has been tipped once again to be having a spring release, specifically Turkey being the place and the release date being the 13th of March – this again may line up well with Mobile World Congress 2012 or could point towards an announcement right after the fact. As Unwired View notes, the Galaxy S II Plus then could represent the same half-step-up that we’ve seen in the Galaxy S Advance this past week. The Galaxy S Advance has a dual-core 1GHz processor and some lovely specifications that don’t quite add up to the Galaxy S II, but scatter the specs of the original Galaxy S by a mile. What we can expect then therefor of the Galaxy S II Plus is pretty much what we hear back in 2011: 1.4GHz dual-core processor, upgraded display, and upgraded TouchWiz. We’re thinking

Over the past month there’s been a gushing of juicy rumors coming forth from the fountain head on the Xbox 720, most of them molding together to create one perfect machine set to dominate the gamine world come 2013. But the most interesting point is the newest: that there will be not one, but two new Xbox units coming down the chute. The first one will be no less than a fully functional monster of gaming, everything we’d ever hoped for in a Microsoft-made green beast of console-based power. The second unit will be a bit more unique – unique to people that’ve not yet experienced the current Xbox TV world, that is. This little unit will cost significantly less than the larger Xbox made for gaming, this little unit made instead to sit on top of your television and work with you via Kinect. This unit will be using Kinect controls, just like you can now with Xbox TV’s Kinect-based set of gestures, and will feature all the great abilities Xbox 360 has right now working with your television t

Mozilla has unleashed Firefox 10, the latest iteration of its popular open-source Web browser for Windows, Mac, and Linux machines. This update comes merely six weeks after Firefox 9 proving the company’s commitment to its new “rapid release” program. Web developers should be particularly happy with this update as it brings a host of new built-in tools to make website creation easier. Firefox 10 will offer smoother delivery of updates by making add-ons compatible by default. New built-in developer tools allow real-time editing of websites within the browser through features such as Page Inspector, which lets developers view a page’s structure and layout without leaving Firefox, and Style Inspector, which gives access to a page’s CSS properties. The update also introduces the Mozilla Full-Screen API that allow developers to create full-screen websites and Web apps. Richer web-based games, video, and multimedia experiences can be created when combined with Mozilla’s WebGL standard and ne

Today the folks at AT&T are doing a little flipping around of heads with several faces now reporting directly to the AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson including John Stankey, Ralph de la Vega, Andy Geisse, and John Donovan. Each of these professionals will be getting a brand new world, with Stephenson expressing his enthusiasm for continued delivery for customers, owners, and communities through executives “focused on the biggest growth opportunities.” First, John Stankey will be now be in the role of the newly announced Group President & Cheif Strategy Officer. This role will have him responsible for developing the roadmap for the future, addressing corporate development, working with long-term wireless-capacity needs, and finding the best paths for low-growth and non-strategic assets. Andy Geisse is now the Senior Executive Vice President of AT&T Business and Home Solutions. Geisse will be responsible for serving the business segment, this including small busin