IBLOG SPACE

Samsung has tweaked Android 4.0′s Face Unlock system to boost it’s security credentials, addressing criticisms that the facial-recognition system can be fooled by a photograph. In a custom version of Ice Cream Sandwich for the Galaxy S among other devices, Samsung added blink-recognition to Face Unlock the company has revealed. One of the more attention-catching features of Android 4.0, Face Unlock learns the user’s face and only subsequently unlocks the device if it recognizes them with the front-facing camera. However, Google quickly admitted that the lock-screen alternative was more gimmick than true biometric security, conceding that it could be fooled with a snapshot of the registered user. Samsung’s modified system, however, adds in the requirement that the user must blink while they’re being observed by Face Unlock, thus going some way to prove that they are a real person rather than a still photograph. The security is still unlikely to be foolproof, though it does make it a lit

It’s not clear if Sony intends to reveal a new PlayStation at E3 this year, but new details have emerged regarding the console, including what it could potentially be called. Kotaku has learned that the current working codename for the next PlayStation is “Orbis”. The console is also being planned for a 2013 release during the holiday season. The Latin name “Orbis” means “circle”, or “ring”. Combined with Sony’s portable PlayStation Vita, you could be looking at a Latin play on words: “circle of life.” Specs for the console aren’t finalized, but Sony is said to be working with an AMD x64 CPU and an AMD Southern Islands GPU right now. The Orbis’ GPU will be capable of displaying a 4096×2160 resolution, and playing 3D games at 1080p. Kotaku also reports that “select developers” have been courted to work on the console, receiving development kits at the start of the year. Finalised beta versions of the console will be sent out towards the end of this year. That will give developers tim

If ever company deserved millions in startup funding, this is it. The company is called Sh*tter. That name alone would wrangle venture capital out of my wallet. Sure, the company may not make it, but at least if someone asks how investments are going I can say straight down the sh*tter and truly mean it. I particularly like the company tagline, “social media has never been so disposable.” What the company does is take your twitter feed along with $35 and turn it into four rolls of toilet paper. I think this would be the perfect holiday gift for the angry RIM exec that wants nothing more than to wipe his bum with all the haters on twitter. I wonder if it single ply or dual ply paper. It appears that you can read the twitter feed clearly on the roll paper while you take care of business. Sure $35 is a lot of money for four rolls of toilet paper, but the gag gift value is monstrously high. The idea sprang from a four person developer collective that call themselves Collector’s Edition.

When we ran across this new Metro UI theme for the Galaxy Tab 10.1 Android tablet, we couldn’t decide if Android users would be excited or outraged. I suspect there’ll be a bit of both. If you’re one of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 users who happens to appreciate the style of Microsoft’s Metro UI theme, you can now install the theme to your Android tablet. The mod comes to you courtesy of a geek over on XDA Developers going by BroBot175. The mod gives you the look and feel of Windows 8 on the Galaxy Tab 10.1. The theme is flashable to your device using ClockworkMod recovery. It’s worth noting that the theme is in beta, but there is a website with instructions for installing the mod. Apparently, the mod will also work on the Asus Transformer tablet as well. The beta release supports tablets running Android 4.0 and there are widgets under development just for the mod. If you don’t own either of the two tablets specified for support right now, another theme is coming that will support more tablets

After losing the iPhone chokehold, AT&T is looking for another device that will have customers lining up at the doors. Oddly, AT&T appears to be eyeing the Nokia Lumia 900 Windows Phone as the device to bring customers back in. With the sagging popularity of Windows Phone and the Nokia brand, it’s only natural to have doubts about the device. AT&T is promising to go big with the launch of the Lumia 900 though saying that this will be its biggest launch ever. AT&T’s Jeff Bradley has promised that the product launch will be a “notch above anything we’ve ever done.” Considering the insane sales and fanfare for the launch of the iPhone while AT&T had the device as an exclusive, AT&T is making a bold claim for the Nokia Lumia 900 launch. The massive marketing push for the Lumia 900 is expected to kickoff around April 8 when the device launches. There will be a massive TV marketing campaign and the smartphone will become the centerpiece at AT&T stores with big sig

If you’ve ever watched Star Trek be it the old series or some of the newer series, you’ve seen the characters using tricorders. The tricorder is a little medical diagnostic device that is widely used in the Star Trek universe. People have been working to make the tricorder real and there is even a tricorder X prize for the first researchers to make a functional device. A researcher named Dr. Peter Jansen has developed a new handheld mobile computing device that is crammed full of sensors modeled after the tricorder. Jansen has been working on the project since 2007 and has designed it to be easy for other users to replicate. The doc has made complete schematics for two of the four models available under the terms of the TAPR non-commercial licensing agreement. The different tricorders all use Linux software that’s available under the GPL license. One of the tricorder model schematics available is called the Mark 2 tricorder, and it is more the sophisticated of the models available. It

The news that Dell is pulling out of the US smartphone market will fall on mostly deaf ears. Dell has been very far from a player in the smartphone industry in the United States and the devices are not popular. That means Dell’s recent announcement that it is pulling out of the US smartphone business will affect very few people. If you happen to be a fan of Dells Venue or Venue Pro smartphones, this may be bad news to you. PC World reports that a Dell spokesman simply said the smartphones had run their course. The spokesman is quoted as saying, “mobility products of shorter lifecycles and laptops and desktops.” The spokesman also noted that Dell will be bringing more mobile products to the US later this year, but it’s unknown if smartphones will be part of that product rollout. I suspect we won’t see any smartphones and the mobile products referred to will be tablets rocking Windows 8. Dell is continuing to sell those smartphones outside the US with the Venue Pro being offered in India

Beleaguered gaming retailer GAME will face a speedy exit from administration, it’s reported, with leaks tipping an RBS-led deal that could yank the ailing chain from the financial precipice as early as March 30. A Royal Bank of Scotland consortium is wading in, MCV‘s sources tell them, with the bank already being one of GAME’s main lenders and currently owed around £45m ($72m) by the retailer. A Guardian report earlier this month indicated that GAME had shunned an earlier deal from a rival company, OpCapita, the private equity firm that currently owns European electricals retailer Comet. OpCapita supposedly offered to take over the debt and settle supplier bills; however, RBS and the other lenders involved weren’t apparently convinced. According to that report, Nintendo, Sony and others abandoned GAME after the retailer insisted on significant discounts from suppliers. The feeling was, insiders claimed, that other retailers would give them better deals, and so the big names in gaming t

I know many geeks out there were excited over the thought of having the cheap and tiny Raspberry Pi device to play with. The first batch of those little boards sold out quickly and then a production delay prevented other deliveries to people wanting to get hands on one. The company has announced that its first 2000 boards arrived in the UK this past Monday. However, the company was hit with a bit of a setback last week after two suppliers decided not to distribute the board. Both RS Components and element 14/Premiere both opted not to distribute the Raspberry Pi board until it held the CE mark. The company behind the board maintains that it’s not a finished product and didn’t need the CE mark. Raspberry Pi feels its board should be sold under the same terms as the Beagleboard and other similar products that lack the CE mark. However, since the two main suppliers wouldn’t sell it without that mark, Raspberry Pi took action. The company says it’s working to get the first 2000 boards that

Making a frame of your fingers, peering through it and telling pretty people “yeah baby, yeah, work it for the camera” may one day actually result in photographs rather than odd looks, if researchers at Japan’s Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences get their way. Their Ubi-Camera concept puts the lens onto a finger and uses the wearer’s distance from the finger-frame to control zoom, DigInfo reports, doing away with viewfinders and displays that add a layer of disconnect between you and the subject. A proximity sensor in the lens assembly tracks the distance between the wearer’s face and the frame they make with their fingers. ”When you take a photo with your face close to the camera, you get a wide-angle shot like” the team behind the concept says, “and if you move it further away, you can take a close up shot.” The current prototype is tethered to a nearby computer, which does the heavy crunching for things like zooming, monitoring user position and the like. However, the eve

Yesterday Ford unveiled a new Explorer model that brings back the Sport nameplate. Years ago, the Explorer Sport could be had as a two-door version but this time out it appears the Sport is a four-door only. The big difference between the normal Explorer and the Explorer Sport is the engine. Ford is fitting the Sport model with a 3.5-liter V6 twin turbo EcoBoost power plant. That engine produces at least 350 hp and has a Terrain Management System with enhanced on road dynamics. Ford also promises that the car has sporty design cues inside and out. The Explorer Sport promises up to 16 mpg in city driving and 22 mpg on the highway, giving better economy than other SUVs in its category. It has a paddle shift six-speed SelectShift transmission that has unique 3.16 to 1 final drive ratio to help acceleration. The car also has solid mounted electric power assisted steering with a faster steering ratio for more responsiveness on and off-road. It also has larger brakes for better performance d

Samsung has borrowed a leaf out of Apple’s retail guidebook, announcing a deal with UK handset merchantsPhones 4u to put a special Samsung-branded store inside its flagship London location. The new concession will open on Friday this week, and offer what’s promised to be the largest range of working Samsung demo hardware available to the public. Meanwhile, Samsung and Phones 4u have apparently been coaching staff to levels of Samsung enthusiasm that presumably match Apple retail fervor. The store-in-a-store will have three demo tables with the latest smartphones and tablets from Samsung, along with a demonstration area for some of the trickier to explain ideas, like AllShare. Dedicated displays will be used to demo the DLNA streaming, among other things. In fact, all of Samsung’s range of handsets – from the highest-end contract device to the lowliest prepay phone – will supposedly be on-hand and functional. Phones 4u has also inked a deal with Samsung to hold future launch events at t

The near-magical update for the Nokia Lumia 800, tipped to hugely increase battery life for the Windows Phone, has been officially released. The new firmware “shows significant improvements” in the Lumia 800′s runtime, Nokia says, along with improvements to audio quality and some other tweaks. However, there’s still no WiFi tethering, and not every Lumia 800 user will get the new firmware immediately. Bringing the firmware version to 1600.2487.8107.12070, the new release will be staggered over a four week period. The first updates – delivered via the Zune app on Windows or the Mac Windows Phone 7 Connector – will go out today, with new batches promised on April 4, April 11 and April 18. There’s an interactive map to see exactly which phase your country and carrier is in. Nokia isn’t saying exactly how long the Lumia 800′s battery will now last, but anecdotal evidence from leaked versions of the firmware suggested as much as a threefold increase in runtime. “Internal testing also showed

LG Display has launched a new, 6-inch flexible epaper display that the company expects to show up in bendable products by the beginning of next month. The panel, a 1024 x 768 monochrome sheet, can be bent up to 40-degrees without breaking; in addition, because LG Display has used a flexible plastic substrate rather than the more traditional glass, it’s less than half the weight of a traditional epaper panel. That means lighter gadgets that are actually more durable since the panels should be more resilient to drops or bumps. They can also be thinner, too: the plastic panel is a third slimmer than glass equivalents, at just 0.7mm thick. LG Display says it can drop its new screen from 1.5m – the average height a device is held when it’s being used for reading, apparently – without any resulting damage. The company also hit the screen with a plastic hammer, leaving no scratches or breaks, ETNews reports. LG isn’t the only company to be working on flexible screens this year. Samsung has al

Google has released the latest update of Ice Cream Sandwich for UMTS/GSM devices, pushing out Android 4.0.4 for the HSPA+ version of the Galaxy Nexus sold in Europe, among other models. The current Nexus flagship, along with its predecessor, the Nexus S, and the Motorola XOOM WiFi all get the updated version of the platform, headed out as an OTA upgrade. That means you may have to wait for a while before you actually see it pop up on your phone. We’ve just checked for the update on a UK Galaxy Nexus – currently running 4.0.2 – and there’s no sign of 4.0.4 being ready. For the Galaxy Nexus, there are apparently stability improvements in this tweaked Ice Cream Sandwich version, along with improvements to the camera performance. Google also says users should see smoother screen rotation along with improved phone number recognition. However, the full list of tweaks apparently extends to around 100 items. The Galaxy Nexus LTE, meanwhile, is apparently due to get Android 4.0.5 within the ne

It looks like Box is the first to truly tackle the issue that we all know is the current problem with cloud-based storage services – an unnecessary emphasis on proprietary platforms and a lack of universal access. The innovative cloud provider Box wants saving something to the Internet as easy as, well, clicking the “save” button. Enter OneCloud, a product that is not a new cloud platform, but an entire cloud infrastructure. Think of it this way. Right now, if you want to save, say, a Word document to the cloud for friends and colleagues to access, you first create and modify the document in Word, then you have to save it, and then you have to log into your Box, or Dropbox, or Amazon Cloud Drive account, and then find the file on your computer, and then wait for it to be uploaded. But what if when you saved the document in the first place, you could instantly push it to the cloud? Now you have the basic understanding of OneCloud, or at least what it could some day become. For the examp

The addition of the new, uniquely addicting Mickey Mouse video game franchise to Nintendo’s glasses-free 3D device will bring back memories of a bygone era of gaming. The new game, Epic Mickey: The Power of Illusion, is set to be a direct sequel of the Sega Genesis game Castle of Illusion. Anyone who played the game is no doubt getting flashbacks of it at this very moment. If you haven’t played it, you’re missing out. Epic Mickey: The Power of Illusion will be hitting a new segment of gamers – the handheld segment. The 3DS version of the game was announced earlier this month, and is being developed by Dreamrift, but other than that not much is known about this new title. It hasn’t even been officially announced by the companies that are working on it but details were revealed in the latest edition of Nintendo Power. It was previously reported that the 3DS version would be completely different from the console sequel to Epic Mickey. According to the article, the game is a 2D side scroll

General Motors has rolled out a new addition to its already-successful OnStar platform. Called Family Link, the new service lets users track other family members who have access to your car, allowing you to sign up for text messages and e-mail alerts when the vehicle arrives at a specific location or to let you know where it is at a specific time. Yeah, it’s a double-edged sword, but it’s a feature that customers want. Family Link had previously been tested by a group of 4,500 existing OnStar customers. The feedback was resoundingly positive, with OnStar VP of subscriber services Joanne Finnom saying the testers “told us it provides them peace of mind by staying connected to their family when they’re on the road.” The service is of course designed with the altruistic intention of making sure family members are safe. But of course, there are also concerns that it could be used for less salient purposes. Suspicious spouses could use it to spy on one another, or parents of adult kids coul

Atlus, the publisher best known for its quirky and perhaps even too-far-off-the-wall role-playing games, has announced that it is decreasing the prices of all its downloadable PSP games that are currently available on the PlayStation Store. The discounts range from $5 to $20 off what the previous prices were, with many titles getting 50% discounts or more. The company is calling it the “ReVITAlized” sales event, encouraging sales of the PSP classics on Sony’s new Vita handheld system. Only a handful of downloadable PSP games have made their way to the new system, but Atlus is one of the rare publishers with a full stock of titles available. The price drops are also effective for PSP owners who connect to the PlayStation Store from that system. Amid the biggest sales are the three Persona titles, which used to each be $40 and are now between $20 and $30. Other titles include Riviera: The Promised land, discounted from $15 to $10, Yggdra Union from $15 to $10, and Knights in the Nightmar

If you’re a streaming-only Netflix customer, the way you interact with the site is becoming increasingly different than those who have both instant and DVD-by-mail services on their account. Perhaps it’s a good thing if you have no intentions of ever adding DVD support to your account, but then again, it looks like the site is trying to slowly weed out that side of its business altogether. The first major change that users are noticing is that if you have a streaming-only subscription for Netflix, if you search for a movie and the site doesn’t have streaming rights but does have DVDs available, that movie will simply not show up in your search results. Okay, that sort of makes sense, although for legacy users, it was nice to know that Netflix recognized your search, and you could get affirmation that it was in the site’s database but just not available for streaming. The bigger issue for customers is that Netflix is now splitting reviews for individual titles based on the account type.

Before you call Martha Stewart boring and out of touch with today’s young, hip generation, check this out – the queen of home decor is making a special guest appearance in one of the most popular social games from Zynga, CastleVille. The game boasts 26 million active monthly users, and this is the first time it has received a celebrity endorsement. Not exactly the kind of celebrity you’d expect to carry that title. While it may not have the same kind of viral impact as Alec Baldwin being so obsessed with Words With Friends that he got kicked off a flight, and this celebrity news most likely required cash to change hands, it’s still a resounding voice for how successful Zynga has become in such a short time. The Martha Stewart connection means users now have access to a Martha Stewart avatar in the game, which gives the exclusive in-game rewards. In addition, there’s a virtual kingdom that was designed to replicate Stewart’s home in Bedford, Connecticut. It is the largest building const

Sony has decided to pull a couple of downloadable PSP games from the PlayStation Vita version of the PlayStation Store because hackers have managed to exploit code contained within. The affected games has vulnerablilities that allowed the hackers to run homebrew applications on the Vita, something Sony has been extremely vocal about banning. So as expected, company bigwigs were not happy about this. The issue first arose with the digital download version of the PSP game Motorstorm: Arctic Edge contained code that could be exploited by a third party when executed on the Vita. The third party that discovered this was the website Wololo.net. Sony hoped to avoid a big media firestorm over this and quietly yanked the game from the digital download Playstation Store platform. Unfortunately for Sony, the story doesn’t end there. Wololo hackers have come back with another title, Everybody’s Tennis, that has the same issue. As expected, Sony has since yanked Everybody’s Tennis from the online s

This week the developers at Imangi Studios have come under fire after releasing their cult-classic iOS hit Temple Run for Android because it does not work with older devices. The problem actually lies specifically in a couple of processor sets created for Android over two years ago: Arm v6 and Arm v7 – so what will owners of these low-end devices do if they want to play the greatest grave-robbing game on mobile? They’ve got to head to the links we’ve got here, of course, over to the XDA Developers, the folks who fix all your offbeat Android ails! A group of rather industrious folks over at XDA Developers Forums have taken the Temple Run game, released just this week, and have retro-fit it for older Android devices that at first were not able to run it. Though the developers of this app have already made it capable of running on over 700 Android devices (yes, there’s more than that!), you can now work with the game on a brand new set of devices that weren’t able to keep up! Have a peek

Facebook may be ready to hold its initial public offering in May, according to a source familiar with the matter. The company recently asked firms to stop the trading of its privately held shares in the secondary market, a sign that it’s trying to eliminate any valuation churns that might complicate its IPO. Facebook reported a $1 billion profit in 2011 on $3.71 billion in revenue. The social network has 845 million users worldwide. It could raise as much as $10 billion for its IPO with a company valuation of $100 billion. This is the largest IPO of any internet-related company in Silicon Valley. In contrast, Google raised $1.7 billion in its IPO back in 2004. Facebook made its initial filing back in February but has since had to revise its prospectus three times. If its last amendment gets approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission then its IPO should be able to take place in May. However, its not clear which week of May the company is shooting for.

This week the developers are really coming in hot with the Retina Display-ready applications and games for the new iPad, all of them having had plenty of time to upgrade their wares in the first couple of weeks since the device was released. Though a handful of developers had apps ready and waiting for the dropping of the iPad with its powerful new display, some second-wave heroes, like Rovio in this case, are bringing the fury with intensely well-selling games like Angry Birds: Space HD. Have a peek at this best of the best list and forever hold your pixels! These apps are in no particular order – this is a “count down”, so to speak, but not because one is better than the last. We’re counting down from five to one, the one being a surprise if ever you’d think to see one. We’ll start out with the non-surprise: Angry Birds: Space HD Just like the rest of the Angry Birds series, your goal is to launch a collection of circular bird-like characters at your enemy in a side-scrolling puzzle

Members of both the Danish Presidency of the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament have agreed this week to create lowered price caps on mobile data roaming charges. This will have an adverse affect on how willing business users will be to using their mobile phones when traveling from state to state and country to country, and may very well tip international governments to look into similar price-fixing for mobile carriers in their jurisdictions as well. New rules will be put into effect for the whole of the European Union once Parliament as a whole approves the deal, this expected soon with implementation set for July 1st. Draft Legislation is reported to the press by Angelika Niebler of Germany, who noted that this “tackle” of high prices will include not just voice rates, but SMS messaging and mobile data as well. This move should provide more “consumer protection” and prevent bill shocks, Niebler noted. Niebler went on to say: “The proposed price caps ensure a sufficient

Verizon announced today that it will be launching a new 4G LTE mobile hotspot on April 12. The device is called the Verizon Jetpack 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot MiFi 4620L and will be available through Verizon’s website and stores as well as through Best Buy for $49.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate and a new two-year service agreement. Developed by Novatel Wireless, the Verizon Jetpack 4G LTE MiFi 4620L was first introduced at CES earlier this year. With the Jetpack mobile hotspot you can enjoy blazing fast 4G LTE data speeds and connect up to 10 WiFi-enabled devices simultaneously. It also works well for business travelers that frequent abroad, providing internet access in 205 countries, including 125 with 3G speeds. The Verizon Jetpack features a multicolor LED status indicator and an interactive OLED display that lets you scroll through menu options, security settings, battery life status, and data usage alerts. Data packages for the mobile hotspot start at $50 per month for 5GB of data.

Despite talks of tough economic times, Apple’s products, which usually come with premium price tags, continue to be popular in American households. According to a CNBC survey, half of the households in the US own at least one Apple product, be that an iPod shuffle or a full blown Mac desktop computer. This ratio translates to about 55 million homes. The American households that currently own at least one Apple product, own an average of three. The overall average is 1.6 Apple products per household with nearly one-quarter of them planning to purchase at least one more in the next year. Of those who currently do not own an Apple product, one in ten plan to purchase one within the next year. Although the survey shows that Apple buyers tend to be male, college-educated, and younger, the age gap isn’t as dramatic as one might think. About 63 percent of Americans between the ages 18 and 34 consider themselves Apple users and that same percentage can be applied to those between ages 35 to 49

Gadget bloggers tend to share a few key traits, and one of those is an inability to resist high-end hardware. Super-fast processors, hi-res screens and next generation features get our blood rising. But we sometimes get blinded by our desire for specs, and all too often we ignore the high price that these features come with. Let’s take a step back and examine the need, or lack thereof, for some of the capabilities of the latest round of smartphones. In the last few months I’ve reviewed a lot of smartphones, at all different price points. And while I still love flagship phones and cutting-edge features (I carry a Samsung Galaxy Nexus, for the sake of disclosure) I’ve reached the conclusion that a lot of people are paying for features they don’t need, even if they want them. I’m not saying you shouldn’t spend a lot on a cool new device, or get excited for top-of-the-line specs. Heck, my job pretty much depends on your excitement. But there’s a lot of features that aren’t nearly as import

Epic Games has revealed that it is licensing its Unreal Engine 3 to the FBI, the Army, and other government agencies. This is the same engine behind popular massive multiplayer games, such as Gears of War and Mass Effect. It will be put to use for developing training games that involve medical, decision-making, and crime scene simulations. The Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3 was licensed through reseller Virtual Heroes via the Unreal Government Network (UGN) that sponsors gaming projects for government partners. Through UGN, the FBI will use the Unreal Engine to develop multiplayer crime scene simulation games to train agents and recruits. Virtual Heroes also has a partnership with the IARPA, which would mean more widespread use of the Unreal Engine 3 for intelligence agency training through IARPA’s Sirius program. The Sirius program develops “serious games” that train decision-making by intelligence personnel. The Army has already been using the Unreal Engine 3 for soldier training, but i

Windows Phone users working with AT&T-connected devices for the past few weeks and months have been in a bit of a pickle as the carrier has not sent out a Microsoft-made software update made available this January. This update fixed several bugs in Windows Phone 7.5 Mango including a “disappearing keyboard” issue – all of this will now instead be fixed by a slightly more grand update instead. AT&T representative Anne Marshall spoke up this week about how AT&T has decided to skip smaller, incremental updates to Windows Phone in the short run and stick with larger updates like Windows Phone Tango, which is up for release next. AT&T will be delivering Windows Phone 7.5 Tango, otherwise known as “Windows Phone 7.5 Refresh” likely some time this summer. They would not give an exact date or time for this update, but did mention that they would indeed be skipping the incremental January update known as 8107. This 7.5 Refresh will instead bring a vast number of updates instead

Apple CEO Tim Cook is in China this week, meeting with the country’s leadership to discuss intellectual property issues and to strengthen ties for greater cooperation, according to a report by the WSJ. Cook met with China Vice Premier Li Keqiang on Tuesday at Zhongnanhai, a location reserved for visiting foreign dignitaries. Li is expected to succeed Wen Jiabao as China’s premier next year in a leadership change that comes only once a decade. His meeting with Cook is a positive indicator of better ties between the gadget maker and China, a relationship that’s been a bit complicated lately. Apple has been facing increasing scrutiny and criticism for poor labor practices in China related to the Foxconn controversies, while its iPad shipments were seized by the government last month after Chinese manufacturer Proview Technology claimed the “iPad” name infringed on their trademark. Futhermore, copycat Apple products are rampant in the country. “China will create a good environment for and

For those of you with Google Maps on your Android device (every single one of you with an Android device), you’re about to get an update to that app, and it’s a big one! The actual file size of the app is not what’s big, its the features you’re going to get now with this update for the most advanced devices on the market. In addition to High Definition support for devices like the Galaxy Nexus, this app also has preferred public transit mode and route options and a new look for Android 4.0+ devices. This newest version of Google Maps has a new look for the new aesthetic of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, as seen above. This version of the app is made with the Galaxy Nexus in mind first, so you’ll see that aspect ratio displayed. This app will of course work with all devices that already run any version of Google Maps – its diverse! Next, after watching the video above and seeing that yes, indeed, this version of Google Maps still does all the awesome stuff it’s always done in addition

This week LG and Verizon have announced a cute little addition to their 4G LTE lineup with the “Lucid by LG”, complete with a lovely 4-inch IPS LCD display and dual-core processor inside. This device fits rather nicely in the hand, is made to be a big competitor in the mid-range for LTE speed on smartphones, and has a 1080p-capable camera on the back. This camera will go well with built-in video editing software by the name of “Video Producer” – included on a smartphone for the first time by LG here today. This device has a hard plastic back, curved angles around the entire device for smooth handheld action, and some unique aesthetics in the sides to make this LG stand out from the rest. Inside you’ll find 1024 MB of RAM, 8GB of built-in memory, and a microSD card slot so you can expand your memory by up to 32GB if you wish. Have a peek at our first hands-on with this device here: The LG Lucid will be available from Verizon starting tomorrow, and we’ll have a full review for you of thi

Here in the first half of 2012, we’re ramping up to use Window 8 after its first consumer preview was released early this Spring, and now Microsoft is delivering Internet Explorer 10 to bring the web to our near-complete experience. Windows 8 offers a new way to work with your computer – or tablet, or odd in-between device – with “Metro” UI. This user interface has “Tiles” not unlike what you may be familiar with in Windows Phone for smartphones – Internet Explorer 10, or IE10 if you prefer, has more than one mode to compensate for this differentiation. When you’re using Windows 8, you’ve got the option of working almost entirely in your classic desktop mode, no Tiles to be found, or you can work with Tiles almost exclusively. It’s all one system, as it really should be, but both modes are there, and apps now have the inclination (and the support from the software) to be either as well. IE10 has two launch modes: desktop and Metro mode. Metro has the application launched full-screen, d