Five New Nexus Handsets on November Fifth

Google has been recently rumored to plan making some changes to its approach to the release of new Nexus handsets, through having more such phones launched at once from multiple vendors. Nothing has been officially confirmed on the matter for the time being, but additional details on the this have emerged. Apparently, there will be five new Nexus smartphones launched this year, and all of them might arrive on November 5th. According to a recent article on talkandroid, November 5th marks the fifth anniversary of Android, and the new devices should arrive on shelves all at once to celebrate that. The info comes from a “trusted source,” but no specific info on these devices has been provided until now. However,...

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iPhone 5 and iPod touch 5th-Gen Parts Leak Ahead of Refresh

Apple is reportedly planning to refresh both the iPhone and its popular media player, the iPod touch, at an event later this year. Recent hardware leaks indicate that the latter will also be getting a display upgrade, perhaps an even bigger one than the iPhone 5. The parts obtained by BadGizmo Repair support all the recent chatter about Apple’s next iPhone, including the bigger screen, different internals (such as a new flex cable holding the Home button in place), and the camera modules - front and rear. Most importantly, the repair shop claims to have obtained the digitizer panel for the next-generation iPod touch. Unlike the iPhone’s touch panel, which reportedly measures 3.95 inches on the diagonal, the fifth-gen iPod touch’s...

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Asus Australia Confirms PadFone Coming in July

Asus Padfone, the phone/tablet combo that should have been available on the market a few months ago, has just been confirmed for a July release in Australia. Unfortunately, the company had previously confirmed the launch of the device, but the Padfone is only available in a few countries. According to Asus, that has something to do with Qualcomm’s recent Snapdragon S4 shortage, which has affected many players in the smartphone and tablet market. Anyway, Aussie Android fans who wish to give this unusual device a try will have to wait a few more months. The Padfone will come with a few additional accessories, including a dock station, a tablet and even a stylus headset that can take incoming calls. No word on pricing options yet,...

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Kyocera Hydro Stops at FCC En-Route to Sprint

The CDMA-enabled Kyocera Hydro has just been spotted at FCC (Federal Communication Commission), which points to an imminent launch in North America. Given the long time partnership between Sprint and Kyocera, it’s almost certain that the Hydro C5170 will be exclusively available in the US through the former’s retail channels. According to the documents filed at FCC, the Kyocera C5170 has been approved with support for CDMA 1900 MHz, as well as Wi-Fi b/g/n and Bluetooth. Although Kyocera officially confirmed plans to bring top tier handsets in North America, the Hydro is a fail in this regard.  Even though it will be shipped with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system out of the box, and comes with a waterproof...

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HTC One XL Arriving in Germany in Early June for 659 EUR (835 USD) Outright

Vodafone Germany and HTC have teamed up once again to offer customers the One XL Android phone. The companies have a long history together, see the launch of the HTC Velocity 4G. The carrier confirmed that only the black version of HTC One XL would be available for purchase beginning early June for 699 EUR (885 USD) off-contract. However, it appears that HTC is willing to make a better offer to One XL customers as they will be able to buy it for a slightly lower 659 EUR (835 USD) no-term price. Vodafone is not the only carrier in the country that decided to pick the HTC One XL, so Germans will be able to grab this top-tier Android phone via Deutsche Telekom and O2 as well. No word on other pricing options yet, but the outright...

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POV Intros Triple-Slot GeForce GTX 680 UltraCharged

There is a new video card out and about, one that Point of View made and gave a cooler larger than most seen so far. Sure, the product isn't the first triple-slot card ever announced, but such beasts are still quite unusual. Point of View and TGT chose to name its video board GeForce GTX 680 UltraCharged, where UltraCharged obviously implies factory overclocking. The GPU has a base speed of 1,176 MHz and a GPU Boost frequency of 1,228 MHz. For those who've forgotten, the standard card works at 1,006 MHz / 1,058 MHz. That said, POV's latest creation has some other assets, most notable of which are the High-Performance/ Wide-Bandwidth hardware design and Auto-Overclocking with advanced power management. The retail...

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Sony to Update Xperia S Straight to Android 4.0.4

Sony is preparing the release of Ice Cream Sandwich for its Xperia S smartphone, and might have it running directly under the Android 4.0.4 flavor of the platform, rumor has it.  Recently, the company confirmed that the update would be pushed to this device in late Q2, but it did not offer info on why it is now arriving faster. Apparently, the handset vendor had a good reason for that, as it planned on skipping the Android 4.0.3 OS version initially expected for the device, and going straight for the latest flavor of the platform. A recently leaked Ice Cream Sandwich ROM for Xperia NX (SO-02D) – the Japanese version of Xperia S – shows that the handset runs under Android 4.0.4 with an updated 3.0.8 kernel.  The...

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Motorola DROID Fighter for Verizon Spotted in China with Android 4.0 ICS

Rumors on the unannounced Motorola DROID RAZR HD have come and gone, but we still don’t have any official word on its release. Several leaked information pointed to a possible launch at Verizon Wireless as DROID Fighter, though we don’t have any other details available at this moment. So far, we’ve only been able to learn that the smartphone will be released globally as Motorola RAZR HD, but it will be known as DROID RAZR HD in the US. Today, the folks over at Droid-Life have spotted the DROID RAZR HD or DROID Fighter in China. In fact Chinese site Mobile.163 published several pictures showing three different versions of the earlier leaked Motorola DROID Fighter. Apparently, each handset has been picked by a major carrier,...

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Microsoft Offers a Quick Look at Service Bus Samples for Windows 8

Windows 8 is set to become commercially available only sometime in fall, but Microsoft is already making sure that its platform will be able to provide users with new, appealing applications built in line with the new Metro interface. Thus, the company released as part of its Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows 8 a sample library for developers interested in accessing Service Bus from Windows 8 metro style applications, along with a sample application that offers info on what basic Service Bus functionality is all about. Through this sample application – Service Bus Sample Browser for Windows 8 – developers can learn more on the functionality of the service bus, while also offering info on the code. The application comes with...

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OmniVision Shows Off 16 MP, 4K-Recording Phone Sensor

Cameras, whether they are part of other consumer electronics or not, are only as powerful as their image sensors. OmniVision reportedly decided to really go out of its way this time, having released the OV16820 and OV16825. They not only manage 16 megapixel images, but they can shoot 1080p video and even 4K content at 60 fps. 4K2K (3840 x 2160) and QFHD (3840 x 2160 -Quad Full HD) are what we're talking about here. As if this quality wasn't enough, the sensors can handle 4,608 x 3,456 resolutions too, although the frame rate will go from 60 to 30 fps. No way to know when phones equipped with either of these things will become available, but we suspect we'll have to wait until a dedicated video encoder that is capable...

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6-Minute Preview of “The Amazing Spider-Man” Drops with “Men in Black 3”

If you feel you still haven't had enough of Spider-Man and can't wait for the release of “The Amazing Spider-Man” without seeing more footage from it, make sure you catch “Men in Black 3” in 3D IMAX theaters. A new, 6-minute preview of the new Spidey film will run ahead of screenings of “MIB 3,” the film's director announces on the official Facebook page. “See an exclusive 6-minute sneak peek of The Amazing Spider-Man when you experience Men In Black in IMAX 3D starting Thursday at Midnight!” Marc Webb writes. Whether this new extended trailer will be different from the 4-minute preview that premiered not long ago, we do not know – and Webb doesn't say. “The Amazing Spider-Man,” with Andrew Garfield as the titular character,...

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News App in Windows 8 Release Preview Gets Detailed

Microsoft is getting ready for the release of a new version of its Windows 8 operating system, one that should arrive in early June as Windows 8 Release Preview with various changes announcing the final flavor of the platform. Some of these would include the addition of new Metro applications from Microsoft, along with updated versions of the applications that were already packed inside the Windows 8 Consumer Preview release. Among these, there will be a News App built in the new Metro fashion, meant to deliver up-to-date information to user’s screens at all times. Microsoft hasn’t unveiled specific info on the software until now, but a recent leak that emerged over at win8china shows a few details on what the application...

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ASUS TF700 Infinity Tablet Gets July Launch

ASUS TF700 tablet might be known by more people as the Transformer Pad Infinity. Apparently, we now know when the company is going to start shipping this thing, and it won't be as soon as we'd hoped. After seeing the FCC filing just hours ago, we thought it wouldn't be more than a week or two before the official release. Alas, the ASUS Australia Facebook page mentioned July, so more waiting awaits.  “Thanks for your interest, TF700 is expected to arrive around July time frame, we’ll keep everyone update when more information becomes available, stay tuned.” The TF700 will have a display with a native resolution of 1,920 x 1,200 pixels at 224ppi. In other words, that Tegra 3 chip will be able to work at its...

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Nokia Kills Carla Name, Now Refers to It as Belle FP1

Bad news for Symbian fans as Nokia quietly confirmed there wouldn’t be any Belle Carla update in the future. Although it has been rumored that the Finnish company plans to release a major re-haul of the Symbian OS sometime this year, which was to be called Nokia Carla, it looks like it has been cancelled. In fact, Nokia Carla is said to be embedded into upcoming Nokia 808 PureView, but we all know that the smartphone has been confirmed to run Belle FP1. The information has been recently confirmed by Mattia Fiorin, product manager at Nokia Italy, who told Nokialino that Carla was no longer the name the company used for the promised update. According to him, “FP1 is pretty much what was once called Carla.” Unfortunately, we...

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HP Pavilion G6 with AMD Trinity Selling for $570 USD

World’s biggest computer manufacturer, American company HP is reportedly selling the HP Pavilion G6 notebook powered by AMD Trinity in Taiwan for just 570 USD. In European currency that’s just 446 EUR, and the laptop is indeed delivered all around the world so, if any European Trinity fans want one, they can grab it from the Taiwan retailer PC Home. At this price, the HP Pavilion G6 is clearly not a high-end model, so we shouldn’t be too disappointed with its 2.5 Kg weight. That’s 5.51 pounds in imperial and it’s acceptable for a 15.6” notebook. HP Pavilion G6 is not trying to compete with any UltraBook, but when performance is concerned, especially in 3D graphics applications, it will most likely trounce most of Intel’s...

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NVIDIA Kai: $199 Quad-Core Android Tablet

NVIDIA's Tegra mobile platform has become quite famous on the tablet market, so it is natural for the Santa Clara, California-based company to want to build on that prestige. NVIDIA held its annual meeting with stockholders just a short time ago and, during it, it revealed a new tablet project called Kai. If one wishes to listen to the entire event, this link leads right to the recording. It isn't perfectly clear if Kai is a commercial product or just a reference design that NVIDIA's OEMs are going to base their own products on. There is also no law stating that it can't be both. Basically, Kai is NVIDIA's plan to create tablets that are better than the Amazon Kindle Fire, while costing just as much: $199 / 157 Euro. We're...

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Nokia N8 Getting Belle FP1 and FP2 Updates Soon, Includes Minor CPU Overclock

It looks like Belle FP1 and FP2 major updates will come to Nokia N8 as well. For the time being, Nokia 808 PureView is the only smartphone that comes with Belle FP1 out of the box. However, the update is expected to be pushed to all Nokia N8 units pretty soon. During the official launch of Nokia 808 PureView and Lumia 900 in Italy, the company’s Product Manager Mattia Fiorin told Nokialino that FP1 would soon be available for the N8. According to Nokia’s official, FP1 will bring the latest Nokia Browser 8.2, along with a new version of Social app. Moreover, it is said that the update will be specially tailored to match Nokia N8’s requirements, which means it will be smaller than the standard FP1. That’s because Nokia N8’s...

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RIM Updating the BlackBerry App World Ahead of BlackBerry 10

Canadian mobile phone maker Research In Motion is gearing up for the release of a new major flavor of its mobile operating system, namely the BlackBerry 10 platform, and it is also making changes to some of the services that will be available for it. The BlackBerry App World, the one place where those who use RIM’s smartphones can find and download apps and games, is suffering some modifications as well. According to the latest reports on the matter, RIM has already sent out notice to developers to inform them on these changes, yet an official public announcement hasn’t been made yet. Some of the main changes that the app portal will suffer include the addition of a new Music Creation category, along with some new categories...

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Samsung Officially Confirms Blocking Leaked S-Voice App, Says It’s a Test Version

The S-Voice saga continues with a new episode. This time it’s Samsung that comes forward with an official statement admitting it has blocked leaked S-Voice app due to the fact that this was just a “test version.” S-Voice is part of Galaxy S III’s software and has been leaked last weekend, along with the first official Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich ROM, which is supposed to run on Samsung’s Android flagship smartphone. However, Samsung claims that the Galaxy S III ROM leaked several days ago contains an earlier build of S-Voice app and not the final version. The folks at The Verge have reached out to Samsung for an explanation and the South Korean company issued the following reply:  “An initial test version of...

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Intel Core i5-3365M Mobile CPU Set for Q3 Launch

Intel may have decided to hold off on the launch of some of its CPUs, but that doesn't mean it has succeeded in completely hiding the information regarding them.  Whether through controlled or unintentional information leaks, data about both desktop and laptop Ivy Bridge CPUs has been trickling to the net. The chip now falling under the magnifying glass, so to speak, is the Core i5-3365M. It will be a successor, of sorts, to the Core i5-3360M, which has not been released yet either, having been slapped with a June launch (2012). The Core i5-3365M will come forward in the third quarter and, like the one above, will have two cores and the HD 4000 integrated graphics. The clock speed is of 2.8 GHz, but can...

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ASUS Offers a Bootloader Unlock for the Transformer Pad 300

Giant motherboard manufacturer, Taiwanese company ASUS has just released a bootloader unlock for the new Transformer Pad 300, on its official website. This will most certainly void your warranty, but that’s better for ASUS, as it practically reduces their warranty costs overall. When ASUS released the first Transformer tablet, we were amazed by its quality and performance. Many reviewers were asking for “perfect” features with a combined quality and economy to rival the Apple iPad. That kind of quality was only to come with the second generation, called the Transformer Prime. Not only did the Transformer Prime bring a considerable performance improvement, but it also brought the much-desired quality. Take the metallic...

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Windows 8’s Fast Boot Experience and Boot Options Menu

The fast boot is one of the main features that the new Windows 8 platform arrives with, but it can also be seen as one of its greatest weaknesses from a certain point of view.  Windows 8 can boot faster than any previous versions of the platform, that’s a fact. With help from devices that have been designed specifically for it, Windows 8 can boot up in about 7 seconds, as the video embedded at the bottom of this article shows. Microsoft designed Windows 8 to be that fast, but it appears that it actually made it too fast to allow for any actions to interrupt the boot sequence. On new hardware, the first 2-3 seconds are those when the various individual portions that comprise the boot sequence are loaded, while the next seconds are destined to get users to Windows...

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QuadCore-Powered Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Gets a Pen Slot

Korean giant electronics company Samsung has reportedly thoroughly redesigned its up-and-coming Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 device, which now comes with a special S pen slot. We were caught by surprise when Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 test scores were briefly revealed earlier this month. The main assumption is that, if the results are genuine, they are proof of the manufacturer's upgrade of the Galaxy Note 10.1 main processor. Another thing that has changed about the Galaxy Note 10.1 is the fact that the producer added an S pen holder to the newest design of the mobile device. It was very strange to see that the Galaxy Note had no pen holder, back at MWC. We’re eager to test Samsung’s new toy when it is finally launched,...

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Brazos 2.0 E1-1200 APU-Based HP Laptop Selling Early

Even though AMD's Brazos 2.0 accelerated processing units have yet to be launched, machines based on them are making their presence felt.  The product whose specifications surfaced this time around is called pavilion dm1-4210au and is a laptop made by HP. With hardware based around the E1-1200 Brazos 2.0 APU, it is bound to start shipping next month (June 2012), as soon as the Brazos 2.0 line itself is released. Speaking of which, there will be another Brazos 2.0 processor, called E2-1800, which is faster in both processing (1.7 GHz) and graphics, while sticking to the same thermal envelope (18 W). That's neither here nor there though, so we'll go ahead and provide the specs of the Pavilion dm1-4210au now.  The...

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