These brevity reviews are all about quick and short evaluations of gadgets. So to begin swiftly, the Nhill Heist by Crumpler is a sleek backpack designed for urban ninjas, smart people, myself, corporate dudes, and the Gizmodo guys. During my tests of the Nhill Heist throughout Manhattan (and school), I found the back to be incredibly slim, light and brilliant.
There’s not much to see here: the Incredible 4G looks just as usual in terms of aesthetics to all the other DROID Incredible smartphones. The only differences here should be that the Incredible 4G is being upgraded to modern-day specs. What the Incredible 4G seems to be sporting is a 4-inch qHD display, a dual-core Snapdragon processor clocked at 1.2GHz, 1GB of RAM, an 8-megapixel rear camera with zero shutter lag, a microSD slot and run Sense 4.0 atop Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, including an NFC chip, Beats Audio, and 4G LTE support. It should launch sometimes during this ornext quarter.
Via: AndroidPolice
Crysis. The series literally invented to bring all computers down to their knees, nearly burning out and crashing GPUs and CPUs (that may be hyperbole, but it has happened). While you may have to an awesome rig to play any Crysis game at top-notch settings, it doesn’t stop it from being one of the most popular PC gaming franchises, and in a recent leak on EA’s digital download service, Origin, some art for Crysis 3 was leaked. And it seems like our nanosuit hero, Alcatraz from Crysis 2, is holding a very high-tech bow and arrow. Hmm?
This wasn’t exactly in the cards, but it happened without hesitation on part of the United States government. Six major e-book publishers: Apple, Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillian, Penguin and Simon & Schuster are being sued over alleged price rigging of e-books. Specifically that the agency pricing scheme — where the vendor takes a 40% cut of sales for example — contrasts highly against the usual book store pricing scheme; that is a wholesale model. If the DoJ wins the case, then major sellers like Amazon and the famous Barnes and Noble will have to sell best-selling books at a loss, something no one exactly wants to do in this economy.
Via: Bloomberg, Department of Justice filing (In PDF)
Oh, lookie here! The press have been invited to attend a briefing for the HTC One S, along with the usual musical performances and festivities associated with launching a new lead device on a top-tier American network, this coming Wednesday, the 18th. This definitively falls in line with the rumor stating the One S would launch later on in the month. So, are you guys ready for a micro-arc oxidation phone?
This is the new Google+. Geared at keeping the design dead simple while keeping it packed with features and information, it seems as if this design should be the inspiration for many other social networks out there. This morning, the update being sent out by Google, gradually to all Google+ users, includes revamped navigation, drag-and-drop elements and actions that appear when you hover over each item, the introduction of new features geared at making it easier to discover conversations to join, new profile pages, a dedicated page for Google+ Hangouts (Google+’s multi-person video chat service), and also centering the entire design to your screen, making it look very, very uniform.
While I have not had access to the update via my Google+ page, there is the entire post at the Google Blog showing what exactly has changed.
This is the new line of tablets by Toshiba. No longer plagued by the failure that was the Thrive series, the Excite line of tablets all use a vanilla/stock version of Android 4.0, NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 quad-core SoC, and textured aluminum backs with thing profiles. The Excite 7.7 and 10 both have a 1280 x 800 AMOLED display, while the massive Excite 13, which as per the name suggests, contains a 13.3-inch display, steps it up to 1600 x 900 resolution. Additionally, there are full-sized SD card slots on the 10 and 13 models.
Did I mention that the Excite 13 looks like it means business? And it weighs a hefty 2.2 pounds.
Now, here where the object of money comes into play: you’d need to pay $650 for the 32GB Excite 13 when it goes on sale June 10th, which is well above the baseline tablet price. Next is a 64GB storage option for $750 (!), the Excite 7.7 for $500 on June 10th for 16GB and $580 for the 32GB configuration. However, to try and rush things, Toshia is making the 10-inch early to the market, arriving May 6th starting for $500 and 16GB of built-in storage space.
It’s all very complicated with Toshiba, and there mistake with gadgets is usually launching many at once, or making complicated launch plans. Or even worse, not ensuring the experience is comfortable for the user, but hopefully the Excite series is an exception. PR after the break.
Something leaked to TmoNews suggests that the HTC One S will launch very soon — Wednesday, April 25th. Why? Well, according to an internal T-Mobile training document sent to the site, most plans are to be set in stone by the 16th, then the One S will take the flagship position at its stores, online advertising, and TV until mid-June, as well as a push for the Beats Solo headset, as Beats Audio-enhanced HTC devices no longer come with the headphones required for the full experience.
Annoying? Yes. Making the HTC One series less exciting? No.
Via: TmoNews
OK, then. Stealing would be too harsh of a word, but Google Chrome OS has just seen the Aura UI update, which adds several features to the development channel (the least stable build). To be very specific, version 19.0.1048.17 adds Google’s hardware-accelerated Aura UI, window manager, desktop, overlapping windows, a Windows-style taskbar, and a Launchpad-esque app launcher. It’s almost the best of both worlds, but the sad part is that the very first Chrome OS device, the Cr-48, won’t get access to the update (at least, for now?), but rather the newer and branded Acer AC700 and Samsung Series 5 Chromebooks.
Otherwise, there a are few other incremental changes, like additional file support (tar, gz, and bzip2), updates to Chrome OS’ local audio and video player, and new modes for multiple monitor handling. Very nice.
Via: Google Chrome Releases, Aura Chromium Page, Google Operating System
Last week was all about changes. See? Well, except the first link below; that’s for this week.
Instagram bought by Facebook. (And launched on Android last week.)
AT&T now unlocking off-contract iPhones and HTC has pitiful Q1 earnings
Plus, we redesigned the entire site with young internet entrepreneur Dustin Snider and his team of ninjas! It looks very chic yet just shy minimalism, if we do say so ourselves.
Have you ever experienced a 3D TV like you get at the cinema? Lightweight glasses, cool effects and a great picture experience? LG 3D televisions bring it right into your home.