techgeek: September 2011

Friday, September 30, 2011

Report: Amazon forefront to buy Palm from HP

Amazon appears to be the front-runner amongst a number of companies that are in talks with HP over buying Palm and it struggling webOS business, after acquiring the company in April 2010, according to a report published last night.

MIT create an artificial leaf that can split water, power fuel cells

A research team at MIT has managed to create a self-contained artificial leaf that can split water into oxygen and hydrogen using solar power. The artificial leaf can be seen to work just by dropping it into a glass of water and placing it in direct sunlight. The solar cells the leaf contains go to [...]

Researchers study tweets to reveal global mood swings

There’s no question that many of us are in better moods during the summer months when the days are longer and there’s more sunlight. Also, those few extra hours of sleep on the weekends really do seem to make a difference in our moods during those days. This isn’t anything new to researchers who have [...]

Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle adds its first bonus game, Trauma

The Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle, the awkwardly named latest Humble Indie Bundle, just got a little bit better. The already solid — and quite affordable — bundle just added indie hit Trauma in for free. Like many of the other HIB games, Trauma is critically acclaimed (an IGF finalist) and isn’t particularly old either, having [...]

Microsoft Security Essentials accidentally marks Google Chrome as a Trojan

Having an anti-malware program installed on your computer is a must. Unfortunately, the folks who push the definition updates that power those programs are human — and every now and then a minor oversight can make a big difference. The biggest screw-up in recent memory happened when McAfee accidentally removed critical boot files from corporate Windows [...]

VoIP company Messagenet begs EU to consider Microsoft-Skype antitrust concerns

No one really thought that Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype would be smooth as silk. Skype is, after all, an entirely different beast than some of the independent app and game development shops Microsoft has gobbled up before. It’s a massive, global voice and video calling service with more than 170 million users. Skype had already [...]

Plastic flying carpet is kept afloat by ripple power

A Princeton grad student named Noah Jafferis has invented a flying carpet, of sorts. Rather than a magic lamp (or one’s imagination) this flying carpet is kept afloat using ripple power, something similar to how a skate or ray travels through the water. As a movement system the flying carpet design is interesting because it [...]

Sharp demos 4K television, march towards next HD resolution standard continues

As you’ve probably heard, the next step in high definition is 4K. 1080p was fine in 2005 but it’s getting to be time for a step up, and it’s not 21:9. The next major shift in display (and video capture) technology is 4K, or 4000 pixels of horizontal resolution. It means more information is shown [...]

Ubuntu One cloud storage service gets a Windows client

Canonical has been pushing out regular releases of its own flavor of a Linux distribution Ubuntu as an alternative to paying for and using Windows. But that doesn’t mean the organization won’t embrace its rival’s operating system when it benefits users, and that’s exactly what has happened with regards to Ubuntu One. If you look [...]

Samsung unveils Galaxy Tab 7 Plus with HSPA and Android 3.2

Samsung has pretty much all screen sizes covered when it comes to Android devices, from 4-inch phones to its 5-inch phoneblet, right up to the 7.7, 8.9, and 10.1-inch Galaxy Tab models. Not wanting the world to think it had given up on the original Galaxy Tab’s 7-inch design, Samsung has officially outed a successor [...]

AT&T mobile data throttling rules kick in tomorrow

You’ve known it was coming for quite some time, and now the dreaded day is finally upon you. If you’re among AT&T‘s most data-hungry cellular users, you’re about to feel the pinch. Back in July, the company announced that it would begin throttling the top 5% of its wireless data users in an effort to [...]

Energy storage membrane set to revolutionize rechargeable batteries

If you want a rechargeable battery in a power-hungry device today, the only real choice is a lithium-ion battery. They are heavy, quite large depending on how much charge you need, and volatile. They also have a high cost and limited life span. A replacement for lithium-ion has long been sought after, and recently there [...]

This Galaxy Tab 10.1 bike mount is a really bad idea

Whenever a manufacturer releases a new device, there’s the mandatory selection of accessories made available to compliment it. In the case of a tablet, these accessories usually include cases, stands, and cables. For the Galaxy Tab 10.1, Samsung has gone one step further and teamed up to produce a bike mount. Created in partnership with [...]

Lego bricks meet iPhone with Life of George augmented reality game

Though some may argue that Lego is something only kids should play with, we here at Geek think the magic of Lego bricks should be something people of all ages can enjoy. After raving about such Lego masterpieces as the world’s first fully functional Lego greenhouse, Lego robot hands, and a Lego machine that can [...]

Homebrew iPhone 5 design prototype looks absolutely amazing

We’ve been talking about the iPhone 5 for months now. Most of it has been speculation, and a lot of the talk has been about what we’d want in the iPhone 5. There’s a chance the announced iPhone may just be a slight upgrade. There’s also the possibility that Apple could release an iPhone 5 [...]

WSJ: PlayBook flopped because of executives’ meddling, focused on enterprise users

RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook flopped because its executives constantly meddled in the promotion of the tablet, which appears to be heading fast as one of their flops, according to a report in today’s Wall Street Journal.

Samsung offer Apple deal to settle Australian lawsuit

The tablet that is in the middle of a patent war between Apple and Samsung - The Galaxy Tab 10.1 (Image: Samsung)

Samsung has offered a deal to Apple in order to settle its patent dispute over touch-screen technology that would allow the Korean company to launch the long-awaited Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet in Australia, according to its lawyers.

Leak accidentally reveals Nokia’s second WP7 phone – the Sabre

While Nokia is saying bon voyage to Symbian and MeeGo, it appears that there could be two Windows Phone 7 phones that could come out at the same time. We know about Nokia’s Sea Ray phone (which looks like the Nokia N9), but a leak has revealed the name of the other – the Nokia Sabre.

Amazon may acquire Palm from HP for webOS

To say that HP is in a state of transition at the moment is a bit of an understatement. After paying $1.2 billion for Palm last year the news hasn’t been great for both Palm or HP. A perfect example of that has been the TouchPad tablet, which got canceled soon after launch and signalled [...]

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Sony Ericsson reached out to Android developers, out of desperation or for collaboration?

There seems to be this strange sort of back and forth in the underbelly of the Android ecosystem between the hackers and the manufacturers. When HTC was caught locking bootloaders, the hacker community struck out against them, burning negativity across the social networks in a unified public outcry against the action. Now, months later, HTCDEV.com [...]

Zune Pass heads to Canada, 10 keeper downloads per month get axed

Zune Pass has been on my music services radar for quite some time — but since I live in Canada, I’ve been left out in the cold by Microsoft, so to speak. Now, at long last, that’s going to change…though it’s not going to be quite the same drool-worthy service it once was. See, Zune [...]

Star Trek: The Next Generation coming to Blu-ray in January 2012

Just five years after the Soviet Union launched the first person into space, Star Trek aired for the first time. It’s hard to believe that was 45 years ago. The Star Trek franchise continued on, only gaining more and more fans since its start in 1964. One of the most beloved Star Trek installments, Star Trek: [...]

The life of an Apple rumor explained in infographic form

Not every Apple rumor is a unique snowflake. Almost all of them can fit into one of just a few different categories and then the life of each rumor tends not to be overly different from that of the others. The infographic below runs through the typical Apple rumor, from start to finish, giving us [...]

Kindle Fire and Kindle Touch already topping Amazon’s best selling list

Despite being available for pre-order for less than two days the new Kindles have shot to the top of Amazon’s Best Selling Electronics list. The Kindle Fire, which was announced yesterday, is number one on the list right now, while number two is the $79 Kindle with Special Offers, which was also announced yesterday. Coming [...]

NASA Tweetup: 150 lucky Twitter followers could witness the Mars Rover launch

Listen up, space nerds; there’s a Twitter contest taking place that might actually tickle your fancy. @NASA is holding one of its infamous tweetups. A tweetup isn’t just some event where you meet other space enthusiasts at a local bar and talk about the latest developments at NASA. No, these NASA tweetups actually take place [...]

GOG celebrates 6 million games sold, offers Broken Sword for free

Today, everyone’s favorite digital retro game destination, GOG.com, has reached a milestone by managing to sell 6 million games. That’s an impressive figure, especially considering they’ve only been in business 4 years. GOG provides a pretty unique service for gamers. It takes the old PC classics from many years ago and updates them to work [...]

Sharp Aquos 104SH with Ice Cream Sandwich announced by Softbank

Google’s got an event lined up for October 11th and they’re going to unveil something — and there’s a darn good chance that something will be Ice Cream Sandwich. The next version of Android is supposed to launch in the next month or two and unify the OS across the varying screen sizes you now [...]

Final Rage gameplay video released to whet your appetite

id Software and Zenimax have today released the 6th and final gameplay preview video for Rage. This one is called Jackal Canyon: Recover the Decrypter and you can watch it below. What this final trailer shows off more than anything is the sheer scale the game is played on. A corridor run-and-gun this certainly is [...]

Samsung announces 1.5GHz Exynos 4212 dual-core mobile chip

Samsung is looking to set the pace in terms of performance on its mobile handsets with the announcement of a new dual-core processor based on the ARM Cortex A9. The latest Exynos chip is called the 4212, and will be manufactured using a 32nm process, meaning it’s faster while drawing less power. Samsung is actually [...]

Mozilla mulls blocking Java plug-in to thwart dangerous SSL attacks

Recently, security researchers revealed a rather frightening browser exploit that allowed them to decrypt data that had been secured using SSL. Dubbed BEAST, the attack was demonstrated using a Java applet to bypass browser safeguards and lay intercepted encrypted communications bare. Since it was a Java shortcoming that allowed the browser to be compromised, Mozilla [...]

Reader’s Survey: We want your opinion on us! Yes, really.

TECHGEEK.com.au will be approaching five years online in 2012 – a very big achievement. However, we want to hear from you, our readers, on where we should be covering and focusing on in this Reader’s Survey.

Zotac launches PCI DirectX 11 graphics card for legacy systems

Zotac has seemingly decided to throw a lifeline to anyone with an ageing PC sitting at home by offering them a brand new graphics card. The Zotac GeForce GT 520 has one feature you don’t see on 99% of the graphics cards released today: a PCI connector. Your typical motherboard still has a PCI slot [...]

Kindle Touch fallout: Kindle Keyboard get price cut, new models pricier in the UK

At Amazon’s Kindle Fire Tablet event today, CEO Jeff Bezos announced three new Kindles. We were impressed by the pricing of the new e-readers: $149 for the Kindle Touch 3G, $99 for the Kindle Touch, and $79 for the new Kindle. Bezos glossed over the fact that the ads seen in the Kindle with Special [...]

City of Heroes is now free to play

Of all the MMOs I have played, City of Heroes remains one of the most enjoyable. Released in 2004 it was very popular due to the fact you could create your very own superhero. So good were the options for creating and developing your character that Marvel took offence and sued both publisher NCSoft and [...]

Toshiba’s wipe-clean Satellite L735D laptop for kids

As an adult, when deciding to purchase a new laptop my major concerns are what the performance is like, how long can it last on a single charge, and is it light enough to not cause me injury carrying it around all day? When it comes to buying a laptop for a child, most of [...]

Reader’s Survey: We want your opinion on us! Yes, really.

Toshiba to bring new 7-inch Android tablet – Tegra 2, Android 3.2 included

Maybe it was the wrong time to announce another 7-inch tablet, given the Amazon announcement, but Toshiba persevered. The company has announced that they will be releasing a 7-inch tablet, known as the Toshiba Tablet (AT1S0) and will run on the latest update to Honeycomb, Android 3.2.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light coming to Android on the Xperia Play

Sony Ericsson’s hit-and-miss Xperia Play will be getting another exclusive game this November, adding to the 150 games currently optimised for the phone including Minecraft:Pocket Edition.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light was released on iOS, PS3 and Xbox 360 in August and will make it’s Android debut exclusively on the Xperia Play in November. The exclusivity is timed, so the game will eventually come to regular Android phones, but the deals length is unknown.

Eyes-on the Kindle Fire and three new Kindle readers

Having attended Amazon’s NYC event today I had a chance to get up close and personal with the new Kindles. Amazon wasn’t letting anyone go hands-on with the Kindle Fire, but we got to see it in action, in addition to seeing the Kindle Touch models get demoed. Below there is a full gallery of [...]

Toshiba Thrive 7-inch tablet launching in time for the holidays

So far this year, the flood of Android tablets coming to market have mostly been of the larger-screen variety. Recently, however, manufacturers have begun following up their initial 10-inch offerings with scaled-down tablets in the 7 to 8-inch range. You can now add Toshiba to that list, as they’ve just unveiled a 7-inch Thrive. It’s [...]

Awesome flowchart helps you pick through NPR’s Top 100 Sci-Fi and Fantasy books

Back during the dog days of summer, we told you about a list of the Top 100 Science-Fiction, Fantasy Books according to National Public Radio readers. Over 5,000 books were nominated and 60,000 people voted. There were definitely some upsets in the mix; not only were some books ranked much lower than fans would like, [...]

This little porter robot will follow you around and carry your belongings

In an idealistic world, we’d never have to carry heavy bags around. Instead, we’d have a robot to follow us around, toting our belongings everywhere we go. It appears that idea may not be too farfetched. A research group from the Tokyo Institute of Technology has actually built a robot that will follow its owners [...]

Google sets aside $75 million to put solar panels on your roof

Google is increasingly taking a stake in the renewable energy market, and now wants to offer you free solar panels in return for a monthly subscription. It’s a bit more complicated than that from the installation point of view, but for the U.S. consumer it means no more dirty energy bills, just a solar panel [...]

Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle: pay what you want for 6 indie games

The Humble Indie Bundle has had a refresh today, and with it the opportunity to pay what you want for six games and in the process donate to charity. The latest bundle is a little different from the last offering. It is called the Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle and lets you pay whatever you want [...]

Geek deals: $315 off the Alienware M11x gaming laptop

Alienware’s gaming laptops started their notoriety with expensive, boutique machines that few could afford and everyone wanted. With Dell’s purchase of the extraterrestrial PC maker, the price and exotic-ness came down, though not so far that you would consider them a budget machine. Any well loaded Alienware laptop will generally run you a grand or [...]

JavaScript Sudoku solver fits in a tweet

Sudoku is a logic-based puzzle game that sees you trying to figure out the remainder of the 1-9 digits on a 9×9 board. Depending on the difficult of the board and your math skills, they can take you from several minutes to hours to solve. A puzzle always begs a general solution, though, and Sudoku [...]

RECAP: Amazon revamps its Kindle lineup, announces US$199 tablet

RECAP: Amazon earlier in the night announced a revamp of its Amazon Kindle lineup with significant price drops and the launch of a US$199 tablet that has positioned it as a serious competitor towards the Apple iPad.

Amazon brings out the Kindle Touch – touch interface and only US$99

Amazon has expanded the Kindle lineup with the new Kindle Touch for US$99 with advertising or for $139 without advertising. The new Touch adds multi-touch functions to its E-Ink display, in addition with new text-to-speech.

REVIEW: El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron

Never heard of El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron? Well, that means you been living under a rock for the last couple of months. The latest game from little known developer Ignition and distributed by Konami is out in Australia, after being first released in America and Japan. But is this game actually any good?

Apple iPhone 5 event happening October 5th (AEST)

Set your alarm clocks everyone. Apple’s finally decided to hold their iPhone 5 event. The conference, which usually occurs in June, will instead be happening next Wednesday at 4AM AEST on October 5. And no, that isn’t a typo. 4AM in the morning.

Yahoo’s Jerry Yang leaked memo confirms Yahoo is for sale?

The troubles in Yahoo don’t end. Jerry Yang, who told its employees that it will not sell Yahoo after firing its then-CEO Carol Bartz, has confirmed in a memo that the company has looked to advisors to help facilitate a deal to buyout the fledgling company.

RUMOUR MILL: Is Apple discontinuing the iPod Classic and Shuffle?

Ah rumours, you’ve got the internet hyped up again. Another Apple rumour has emerged and it could see a major revamp of the iPod lineup with claims that the Cupertino-based company will be axing its iPod Classic and iPod Shuffle products.

WP7.5 Mango update rolled out to Telstra, Optus, Vodafone customers

Windows Phone 7 users – like Stewart – will be pleased to find out that the latest update, Mango, will hit their phone sometime soon after Microsoft has confirmed that it has been sent to Telstra, Optus and Vodafone today.

HP new CEO could shelve plans of PC spinoff – Palm might have a chance

Palm's hardware and software is on life support (Image: Palm)

A rumour is now circulating that HP could now cancel its planned PC spin-off after former eBay CEO Meg Whitman has now been announced as the new CEO of the company. This could also mean that Palm has a chance to continue to live on, if Whitman doesn’t decide to spin or axe webOS’ hardware division.

Facebook announces “Timeline” – new profile design even if you don’t like it

Facebook has announced its brand new profile redesign, and it isn’t that bad. Dubbed “Timeline“, the new profile design aims to merge applications, photos, life events, status updates and your activities in a much better visual display.

HTC announces the Rhyme – smartphone that combines features with design

HTC has announced the Rhyme, its brand new smartphone that promise to rival Nokia in being a multimedia powerhouse with advanced features and a sleek design with a feminine twist compared to many other manly Android phones.

Amazon updates the Kindle, ditches the keyboard and drops price to US$79/$109

Amazon has announced an update to its popular Kindle eBook reader that will see it smaller and slimmer. In addition, the new Kindle has had a price reduction of either US$79 or US$109 depending if you choose it with its “Special Offers” program.

Review: Motorola XOOM

The Motorola XOOM came out at CES this year as one of the hyped tablets of the year, especially since it was seen as the Honeycomb tablet that could compete with the iPad hardware wise. Now its rival Android makers also getting their tablets out, does the Motorola XOOM stand out from the crowd of many Android tablets? The most important question, however, should be: is this an iPad competitor or not?

Facebook makes some cosmetic changes, get ready for some uproar

Facebook has turned on the switch for its brand new homepage design, and get ready for the exorbitant amount of rage from Facebook users who just don’t really get why Facebook needs to change. I’ll give you a hint – it has a + and comes with Google. Here’s a rundown of the new changes you can expect to see.

Telstra launches Australia’s first 4G network using LTE

Telstra has announced that it will start offering products under its new 4G LTE service, that will see speeds ten times faster than those on 3G. The public offering comes after months of trialling the service with a small number of customers.

Kindle Fire revealed as $199 7-inch Android tablet

Right about now Amazon is showing off the Kindle Fire to eager onlookers at West 37th Street in New York. But as is usually the case at such product launches, details have leaked just before the official unveiling. The Kindle Fire is a 7-inch Android tablet, and Amazon has decided to go super aggressive on [...]

Minecraft Pocket Edition coming to Android this week, iOS “eventually”

Want to play Minecraft on your phone, but don’t own an Xperia Play? Well, if you own an Android phone you’re in luck! This week on Friday 30th (AEST), Minecraft will be available for any Android device. The game will, like all mobile games, use on screen touch controls, unlike the physical controls of the Xperia Play, and presumably be available for the same price of $6.54.

Samsung takes the lead with open source Tizen OS, born from MeeGo

Samsung might have already announced that it had absolutely zero interest in webOS, but the exact reason why has now been made abundantly clear. It turns out that Samsung had been batting its eyes furtively at someone else: MeeGo. Technically, it’s not quite MeeGo, but a re-born OS called Tizen — which is also absorbing [...]

Telstra to launch first 4G smartphone from HTC in 2012

On the heels of its 4G network roll out, Telstra has announced a brand new phone that will be able to use the very new network it launched. No, its not the iPhone. It’s a phone made by its rivals, HTC, and is coming out in the first half of next year.

Samsung strikes back – asks Dutch court to ban iPhone, iPad over patent infringement

Image: Pedro Eugenio Antunes/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Samsung’s plan to ban the iPhone and iPad has officially started with the Korean company asking a Dutch court to ban the products made by rival Apple over infringing on patents relating to 3G technologies it holds in Europe.

TECHGEEK Weekly 62: When does your timeline ends?

Facebook wants to collect more data from you, Google wants to collect more data from you, and Samsung wants to ban the iPhone in Europe. Yes, it’s an interesting week of news, and all that and more are discussed in this week’s TECHGEEK Weekly.

Review: iStorytime – Transformers and Smurfs

Apple’s iOS devices such as the iPhone and the iPad have been a great place for education tools and resources. Meet iStoryTime, whose aim is to make interactive story books for younger readers at school.

Amazon Silk brings super fast, cloud-powered web browsing to Kindle Fire

Now that Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet has been fully revealed, it’s abundantly clear that it’s a content consumption device first and foremost. There’s no camera or GPS as you’d expect to find on a full-featured tablet, but there are strong ties to Amazon’s many media offerings — including Kindle eBooks, the MP3 store, and Amazon [...]

Live from Amazon’s Kindle event: Kindle Fire $199, lands November 15th

Read the leaked Kindle Fire details… After months of waiting today Amazon unveiled their tablet. The highly-awaited device is the last great hope in the battle against Apple’s iPad, though most rumors prior to the event pointed at a device that was not a direct competitor with Apple’s wonder tablet. Starting off with an Andrew [...]

Amazon announces Kindle Fire tablet – 7 inch display, dual core processor, US$199

It is now official, Amazon is now in the tablet game. Dubbed the Kindle Fire, Amazon is pushing its entire multimedia offerings – Books, Magazines, Movies and TV Shows – onto this new device and hopes that it can become a serious rival to the Apple iPad.

Amazon press conference is happening September 28th AEST, probably for rumoured Kindle tablet

A number of news websites, such as This Is My Next and the Wall Street Journal, have recieved email invitations to an Amazon press conference. While the invite is very non-specific about what’s going to happen at the conference, we’re expecting the announcement of the long awaited Amazon Kindle tablet or just another Kindle.

CALM DOWN! Facebook is not going to start charging you for access

Image: Tom Solari/TECHGEEK.com.au

Have you heard that Facebook is going to start charging you to access their site? It was even on the news, and the only way to prevent it is by copying and pasting this message to people and you’ll get some blue icon to save your profile from being deleted. Guess what, it is not true. It’s just a simple hoax.

Microsoft and Samsung ink Android patent deal

It’s safe to assume that Google makes plenty of money off Android (in one way or another), but Microsoft has done its share of profiting from Android smartphones and tablets as well. How? By striking patent licensing deals with device manufacturers like HTC, Acer, Velocity Micro, and Viewsonic. The HTC deal alone netted Microsoft more [...]

Update: PlayStation Network is back online

Update: 6:56AM: The PlayStation Network is back online.

PSN update: If you encountered issues logging in today, try logging in now. Apologies for the inconvenience!

September 22, 2011 6:56 AM via CoTweet ReplyRetweetFavorite

@PlayStation

PlayStation

Original story: This is not a drill. The PlayStation Network, which was sporadically going offline and online last night, is now completely down.

Just like last time, Sony is expecting the gaming network to be back in two hours. But remember, last time they said a few days it turned into a month.

HTC and Dropbox to offer cloud storage on Sense 3.5 phones

New phones from HTC with Sense 3.5, such as the HTC Rhyme, will now recieve an extra 3GB of space on top of the 2GB default on Dropbox thanks to a partnership between HTC and Dropbox.

Amazon’s three new Kindles: Touch, Touch 3G, and $79 non-touch model

There’s been lots of excitement today centered on Amazon’s announcement of the Amazon Kindle Fire tablet. The price of the $199 tablet wowed us, but also exciting is the addition of three new Kindles to Amazon’s e-reader line. When the Kindle was launched four years ago, Amazon had 90,000 books to offer its readers. Now, [...]

Thought Duke Nukem Forever was crap? The developers want to hear from you

Image: Gearbox

Duke Nukem Forever developer Gearbox has launched a survey asking for feedback asking why the long-awaited (and nobody wanted) game of the past 14 years was such a big flop in both the market and with reviewers.

Facebook stores up to 800 pages of personal data per user account

Facebook consistently reappears in the news with regards to privacy and the data it keeps on each of its users. For example, earlier this week an engineer working for the social network had to explain why Facebook tracks you even when you’re logged out. While Facebook insists it does not share your details with anyone, [...]

Cardboard Radio can be recycled when you’re done with it

Though it looks like something from decades past, the Cardboard Radio is indeed as new as can be. Not only does it play FM radio channels, it also has an MP3 input so that you can play tunes from your iPod while on the go. The radio is made out of recycled cardboard and is [...]

EA and Klei announce Shank 2, adds survival co-op mode

Last year PSN, XBLA and Steam gamers got a treat in the form of the ultra-violent side-scrolling beat-em-up Shank from developer Klei Entertainment. If there’s a better looking game in the same genre we haven’t seen it yet, and now it is getting a sequel. EA Partners announced this week its intention to publish Shank [...]

India attempts to thwart telemarketers, limits cellphone users to 100 text messages a day

Unlimited text messaging is something many of us no longer treat as a luxury. It’s just another thing we add into our monthly bills along with our DVR, Netflix, and premium Spotify account. But what if the government started limiting the number of text messages we could send each day? The telecommunications regulator in India [...]

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Update: PlayStation Network is back online

Update: 6:56AM: The PlayStation Network is back online.PSN update: If you encountered issues logging in today, try logging in now. Apologies for the inconvenience!September 22, 2011 6:56 AM via CoTweetReplyRetweetFavorite

@PlayStationPlayStation

Original story: This is not a drill. The PlayStation Network, which was sporadically going offline and online last night, is now completely down.

Just like last time, Sony is expecting the gaming network to be back in two hours. But remember, last time they said a few days it turned into a month.

RUMOUR MILL: Is Apple discontinuing the iPod Classic and Shuffle?

New Broadcom NFC chips slash power consumption

Now that Google has gotten the major credit card players to get on board with Google Wallet, NFC just might be reaching its tipping point. Wireless chip maker Broadcom certainly hopes so, and it’s got a brand new range of NFC chips that it hopes will pique the interest of phone and tablet OEMs. The [...]

Apple fails to trademark the term Multi-Touch

There’s no denying that Apple has done a lot to push forward the development of smartphones, and single-handedly started the current craze for tablet computing. But with innovation and product development comes the ugly question of “what do we patent and trademark?” As we have witnessed over the last few months, patents in particular cause [...]

ZTE T98 Android 3.2 tablet spotted using quad-core Tegra 3

ZTE isn’t exactly a household name in North America, but the company is looking to make a splash with its new 7-inch T98 Android Honeycomb tablet. What’s so special about the ZTE T98? It’s sporting a quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, making it the first non-reference tablet spotted in the wild running a Kal-El chip. [...]

Geek deals: Core i5 Lenovo IdeaPad Y470 with Blu-ray for $699

So, you say you’re interested in a 14-inch laptop? Well, sir or madam, there are only dozens of those to choose from. The 14-inch laptop market is indeed crowded, well past the point of being saturated. Some manufacturers are able to stand out with a unique, carved-metal chassi’ or great durability/functionality claims, but in the [...]

Robotic snake slithers like the real thing, has great potential for nuclear cleanup

After watching the video from the BBC, I can now add robotic snakes to my list of terrifying things. That’s right–a one-of-a-kind robotic snake is currently being developed by a team of engineers in Bristol. The snake-arm robot has been in the works for the past 10 years. Its flexible body allows it to wriggle [...]

WP7.5 Mango update rolled out to Telstra, Optus, Vodafone customers

Update: PlayStation Network is back online

@PlayStationPlayStation

Original story: This is not a drill. The PlayStation Network, which was sporadically going offline and online last night, is now completely down.

Just like last time, Sony is expecting the gaming network to be back in two hours. But remember, last time they said a few days it turned into a month.

Amazon Kindle Fire tablet rumored to be a retooled BlackBerry PlayBook

Tomorrow, Amazon will be hodling a hotly-anticipated event to announce something. There’s been a lot of speculation about exactly what they’re going to reveal, but a new member (or members) of the Kindle line up are at the top of the list. While that could mean a refreshed e-paper Kindle with multi-touch support, it could [...]

It’s official, iPhone 5 to be unveiled October 4th

Apple has finally made the news official. The next iPhone is going to be introduced on October 4th during one of its typical media events with the location being Apple headquarters at 1 Infinite Loop. The confirmation comes in the form of the official invite being sent out to selected people Apple likes and wants [...]

Origo, the 3D printer aimed at 10 year olds

So many times in my life, I have encountered parents who have said “I barely understand how this works, but my kid is a whiz at it”. Children who are exposed to technology at a young age often fit this profile very nicely. From that exposure, they have a better chance to become more than [...]

Update: PlayStation Network is back online

@PlayStationPlayStation

Original story: This is not a drill. The PlayStation Network, which was sporadically going offline and online last night, is now completely down.

Just like last time, Sony is expecting the gaming network to be back in two hours. But remember, last time they said a few days it turned into a month.

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Friday, September 30, 2011

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