This camera is able to be set up in 60 seconds, it connecting to your wi-fi network to stream video anywhere you want it – through mobile or your browser window from any internet connected device. You can watch all night long with night vision, this feature turning on automatically, and you can zoom at any time on whatever you like inside the devices field of vision. There’s a mic inside as well as a speaker which then allows you to have two-way conversations with whoever’s in the room.

Have a peek at the video here of our hands-on look and check the images above and below to get your own closer look. Note that this device is available today for a mere $149 and can be found at Dropcam.com – this is in addition to whatever plan you choose for connectivity. You can do the Basic plan for free – this will give you real-time viewing at any time with motion alerts via email or text. That’s a pretty good deal, but if you’d like more features you certainly can pay for them. Plus and Pro cost $9.99 and $29.99 a month respectively. Plus will being you all the basic features and will give you cloud storage amounting to seven days of DVR recording – Pro has all of that but with 30 days of full-motion HD video as well.

Also note that the group is no longer affiliated with its partners of old, now working more independently than ever on this newest bit of hardware. Exciting times are ahead! This isn’t the last we’ll hear about this device, you can bet.

The first thing you’ll notice when handling the ENVY 15 is its heft: a largely metal construction makes for a big, heavy unit, even for the relatively mainstream 15-inch screen size. That weight isn’t wasted, however. The premium feel of the ENVY line is present in full force, with minimal seams and laser etching everywhere. The front of the laptop is bare, save for stereo Beats speakers. On the right you’ll find the SD card slot, Kensington lock port, a single USB port, Display Port, full-sized HDMI, a stylish Beats manual analog volume controller, an Ethernet port and the power jack. Switch to the left side and you get the optical drive, two more USB ports, a pair of headphone ports and a microphone in jack.

Lift the matte black lid and you’re greeted with the standard ENVY interior, plus a few surprises. The keyboard steps inside the body via a stylish red ring that matches the Beats audio dial, a nice tough that adds just enough flair to set it apart from the Macbook line (which, let’s face it, early ENVY models aped pretty shamelessly.) Black backlit chicklet keys are comfortable, if not as springy as the ones found on Lenovo’s ThinkPads. The power button, volume dial and a mute switch are the only extra controls on the unit.

The screen is gorgeous, thanks to both HP’s Radiance LED display. A full 1920×1080 resolution is a treat on a 15-inch panel, though the standard base model has only the more common 1366×768 resolution. A relatively thin bezel combined with edge-to-edge plastic (not glass) makes for a well-defined if glossy viewing experience. Flip the laptop over and you’ll see minimum legalese and just one access point for the battery, which HP figures good for 9 hours. The body is considerably thicker than the same-sized Macbook Pro, but not to an extreme degree.

Previous ENVY models had trouble with the Apple-style clickable touchpad. For the most part these seem to be resolved, thanks in part to a small rubber strip that give a separation of the main navigation area and the “buttons”. Two-finger scrolling is unfortunately still iffy – I’ve yet to see a PC notebook that nails the multitouch gestures as well as a Macbook. More’s the pity. The analog volume dial emblazoned with the Beats logo is a nice touch, and allows for quick, tactile changes in sound.

Our ENVY 15 came with Windows 7 Home Premium, in the 64-bit flavor to take advantage of 6GB of DDR3 RAM. Combined with a 2.4Ghz Intel Core i5 processor, a speedy traditional 500GB 7200 RPM hard drive and a 1GB AMD Radeon 7690M, this laptop should fly through high-end applications and the latest games – we’ll be sure to put it through its paces. Looking through the included software, I’m happy to see full versions of Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 and Premiere Elements 9, useful tools for any would-be media dabbler. I’m less pleased to see the predictable inclusion of Microsoft Office trial versions, as well as HP and Bing-branded bloatware. It’s by no means the worst that I’ve seen, but a clean Windows experience is always preferable. There are no OS discs included in the package to allow for manual re-installation.

As for the packaging itself, it’s the high-quality stuff we’ve seen on previous ENVY models. The laptop itself gets a free cloth baggie/shammy (necessary, considering how fast that black top accrues fingerprints) and another baggie for the large 3-prong AC adapter. The standard documentation and a few marketing flyers round out the extras. As configure this ENVY 15 would cost $1249, with the base model starting at $1099.

Take a look for yourself in our unboxing video below:

We’ll be going over the HP ENVY 15 for our in-depth review later this week.

The newly added video services for the Xbox 360 console can be downloaded now via the Apps Marketplace in Xbox Live. Verizon FiOS TV is available to users in the US, while Rogers on Demand is available for those in Canada. Other entertainment services include iHeartRadio and MSNBC.com for US users only, while TMZ is available in both US and Canada.

There are also video services available now for users outside of North America, including SBS On Demand for Australia, Blinkbox for the UK, RTVE for Spain, and MUZU TV for several European countries. Other services expected to roll out include Comcast and HBO Go, but they’ll likely turn up in late December or early 2012.

[via Engadget]

RightsFlow, which already has a 30-million-song database, has been at the forefront in handling the complex licensing business to ensure proper copyrighting and payment to artists and labels. With this acquisition, Google will have a dedicated team to help accelerate the growth of its own licensing and premium content offerings.

Google has had to fight copyright infringement claims in the past for unauthorized content distributed through YouTube and has also had difficulty securing licensing deals for its Google Music service, reportedly due to labels’ concerns over Google’s ability to control piracy. With RightsFlow in-house, momentum should be strong for Google music and video content going forward.

[via PCMag]

There’s also a focus on discovering new content, with a Trending section that brings new stories to the fore.  Each hour, Google Currents builds a set of editions tracking the most recent trending stories across various categories, including world, entertainment, sports, and science. Each trending story includes related articles, videos and pictures.

As you’d expect, there’s comprehensive social networking integration, with the ability to share out your favorite stories, photos and videos via Google+, Twitter, email and other methods. If you have multiple devices logged in with the same Google account all your subscriptions are synchronized across devices. Check out our hands-on for both iPad here on SlashGear and Android over at Android Community.

Google Currents is available as a free download in the US. You can find it in the Android Market here and in the Apple App Store here. Content producers can find information on how to get involved here.

The LG Nitro HD, better known as the Optimus LTE was recently revealed to be headed to AT&T earlier this month and was officially announced this week. The LG Nitro HD will hit AT&T stores starting this Sunday on December 4th so if she looks good to you, I’d get ready to throw down about $249. While I run down the specs in my video below lets go over it one more time before you enjoy some photos. The Nitro is powered by Android 2.3 Gingerbread and comes equipped with a 4.5″ H-IPS NOVA display that offers a full HD 1280 x 720p resolution. The NOVA display is said to be one of the brightest and best screens around and my initial impressions are very favorable.

The Nitro also offers an 8 megapixel camera around back with LED flash and 1.3 mp front camera for video chat. Under the hood the magic is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 dual-core 1.5 GHz processor. We have 1GB of RAM, 4GB of internal storage as well as a 16GB micro-SD card included in the box — giving users plenty of space for all their needs. LG’s gave us an 1830 mAh battery that should last through hours of gaming on that bright and vivid 4.5″ HD panel too.

I don’t want to spoil all of the fun and instead will save the rest of the details for our full review coming early next week. While we do have some bloatware I’m actually excited to try the new Zynga Poker HD that comes pre-loaded and will take advantage of the 720p HD screen. The specs claim its around 10mm thin but it most definitely feels sleek and thin while in your hands.

For now enjoy our hands-on and unboxing video and gallery of pictures, then stay tuned for our review shortly. If you have any specific questions or comparisons throw your ideas in the comments below.

LG Nitro HD with 4G LTE hands-on

I’m almost unsure of where to start I’m enjoying this phone so much. The Samsung Galaxy S II really is a pretty awesome smartphone. It has it all from a simple design that is sleek, thin and lightweight — while being extremely powerful and fast at the same time. For all the details you’ll need check out my hands-on and unboxing. We’ll start with the video hands-on overview below and then get into all the details shortly.

AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II hands-on

Hardware

The hardware we all know plenty about — plus was laid out in the video above but just in case here are a few more details. We have Android 2.3 Gingerbread, a 1.2 GHz Samsung Exynos processor, 1GB of RAM, and 16GB of internal storage under the hood. Optional micro-SD support for extra storage, 8 megapixel camera around the rear with LED flash and a 2 MP front shooter for video chatting and more. All of that neatly packed into an ultra lightweight and thin design.

On the front we have a 4.3″ Super AMOLED Plus display with a 480 x 800 resolution. The screen is bright, vibrant, and extremely clear and really just looks better than anything else on the market thus far although the qHD displays are looking better and better. Shown in the images below you can see the AT&T branding, 2MP front camera, earpiece, as well as the four dedicated capacitive touch buttons.

Moving along to the left, right, and top of the device we have a very clean and simple design. No bright aluminum buttons or volume rockers, no weird textures on them either, just a plane jane black style. Many might like the aluminum accents some smartphones offer and I do too, but the Galaxy S II just has a simple and clean elegance to it. The only bezels present are the aluminum around the camera and the 3.5mm headphone jack up top.

Software

Here we have Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread and the latest Samsung Touch Wiz 4.0 to keep things pretty. With only a few slight changes to the entire Gingerbread look and feel this is a pretty stock device but features some added benefits. Nothing extremely crazy here like Sense UI, just a few added features and small changes. AT&T chose not to overdue it with bloatware either and for that — we thank you. We have a few dedicated AT&T applications and that is about it. The pre-installed apps other than AT&T specific things are Amazon Kindle, Live TV, Memo Pad, My Files, Qik, Quick Office, Words with Friends, and YP (Yellow Pages). Many additional apps such as another email app, video player, calender, file explorer, and a dairy application have been enhanced by Samsung’s Touchwiz to make the most of the 4.3″ display.

Samsung’s Touch Wiz also has a unique new feature with the just announced 4.0 for the Galaxy S II in the US and that is Motion Control. Once enabled, users can move icons on homescreens, zoom on images and webpages and more all by touching the screen and moving or panning the device rather than dragging multiple fingers. It’s quite neat and made moving icons from screen to screen extremely easy.

When first unveiled back in August our man Chris Burns was live at the Samsung event for some hands-on time with the SGSII. Below is a quick video of that coverage as well as a more detailed rundown of the changes to the software and user experience.

Performance

As usual we’ve ran a wide array of benchmarks and speedtests to see how this SGSII fends in the real world compared to other devices. Many other dual-core smartphones score well under 3000 in quadrant, especially stock devices with no tweaks or adjustments. The Samsung Galaxy S II with the in-house Exynos chip performs extremely well across all benchmarks and especially well in Quadrant. We’ve tried a few and were pleased to see the AT&T SGSII scored around 3800 in Quad — completely stock! Impressive if I don’t say so myself and you can really tell during day to day usage. My Sensation 4G gets around 2400 out of the box, big difference right?

Below are a few pictures showing just how well the SGSII also performs in Vellamo, and CF Bench, as well as a few quick tests on AT&T’s 4G HSPA+ network (no 4G LTE here).

I know benchmarks don’t tell the entire story, and many users don’t care to read about them and would just like to know about real world usage. I’m happy to report the Galaxy S II is really one of the quickest, most fluid and easy to use phones I’ve had my hands on to date. I’ve experienced no delays or lag during browsing, gaming, benchmarks, loading multiple images in the gallery or anything. Even downloading about 10 app updates at a time the experience was barely touched and the overall performance was stellar. From adding icons to different pages, to flipping through homescreens and the application tray there is no gitters or choppy moments that I’ve experienced yet. This is truly a great performing smartphone that will meet any users demand.

Battery life and Camera

The AT&T SGSII comes with a 1650 mAh battery under the hood and while every user is different I’ve managed to have better than average battery life. From using this smartphone over the past week or so the battery lasts a bit longer than most. My Sensation 4G has a similarly sized battery and it just doesn’t manage to stay powered as long. Many reviewers of the original SGSII from Europe mentioned similar results where the SGSII battery life seems to outmatch rivaling handsets. This could be in part to changes made by Samsung, and another thing worth mentioning is the highly efficient AMOLED display, it seems to consume less power and really helps. Stand-by time was not fully tested but I left the device untouched for over 3 days and it remained around 25% when I finally plugged her in. While I’ve not done any video loop tests I have however played plenty of Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, used Google+ allll day, and browsed the web off and on throughout daily tasks and the phone holds up extremely well in the battery department. The Galaxy S II battery life is above average and will last most users more than the average work day.

As for the camera we have an 8 megapixel shooter and just like the battery life — the Galaxy S II seems better than the rest in terms of overall camera performance. I’ve snapped a few shots around the house and outside so you can see low light and standard lighting results. Many phones currently offer an 8 MP camera just like the DROID Bionic, but the slow shutter speed and mediocre performance makes the Samsung shooter just that much better. Here are a few pictured taken with the SGSII.

We’ve also tested the 1080p video capture and the Galaxy S II does impress here also. Very smooth and decent in regards to video capture although you must remember this is a phone, but they are getting better and better as they come. Below is a short video demo of the kids (my dogs) playing and messing around just for an idea of real world indoor video capture results. (Isn’t the puppy cute?)

Quick Comparison and Accessories

I’ve quickly snapped a few photos of the AT&T Galaxy S II sitting next to the big bad DROID Bionic by Motorola and Verizon Wireless. While both are comparable regarding specs, the SGSII doesn’t feature LTE but does however have a faster processor. I’ll break down the details later but for now here are a few pictures of the two just for an idea on size and thickness for those that may be wondering.

Also thanks to Chris Burns and our sister site Android Community we have a quick video showing the Galaxy S II accessories that Samsung will be releasing here in the U.S shortly although details on pricing and availability remain unknown. We have a car dock, home dock with additional battery and a desk dock shown in the video below

Galaxy S II accessories hands-on

Wrap-Up

The AT&T Galaxy S II is essentially the same exact SGSII we’ve seen, known, and loved for the past few months. With the same screen size and specs as the international version the only changes are a few to the UI, and the capacitive touch buttons below. Having a winning combination of being thin, light, fast, and affordable the Galaxy S II is a clear winner for the US as well as Europe and outside of the US sales have already passed 10 million globally. With the AT&T version being the closest U.S. Galaxy S II to the original, what more reason do you need to get this amazing smartphone?

Feel free to ask any questions in the comment section below and I’ll be sure to look them over and try to answer them as accurately as possible. More photos of the Galaxy S II can be seen below in the gallery. Look over the pictures, decide if this awesome smartphone is for you, and if so head down to a AT&T store on October 2nd and pick one up for just $199.

This tablet broke cover way back in April then later in August we saw the first press images of the Lenovo produced tablet. Today I’ve gone ahead and unboxed this powerhouse tablet and we’ll start with the video to get you up to speed.

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet hands-on

This isn’t the first time we’ve handled these tablets in our own hands and you can see even more coverage here. This Android 3.1 Honeycomb slate is powered along by a rocking NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage (16 and 64GB versions available), as well as a 10.1″ IPS display that is both bright and vibrant. Lenovo has provided a wide array of ports for all types of accessories, many specifically for business minded individuals. We have a 5MP camera on the rear and a 2MP up front for the video conference users.

Nicely featuring some dedicated Android buttons this is unlike most Honeycomb tablets to date as the OS is all touch friendly and doesn’t require the buttons. Like we mentioned, for power users we have a mini HDMI port, micro-USB, a 30 pin port for docks, keyboard accessories and more. Not only that but Lenovo went a step further and outfitted this tab with a SIM slot for 3G connectivity and then a full-sized SD slot for full storage options.

We wont get into the details too much here as that will come along shortly in our full detailed review next week. Before we let you wonder I do want to mention it has a great feel with the same soft coat matte style many Lenovo laptops have graced us with over the years. Then seen in the images below you’ll be happy to know a full sized USB port will allow users to connect a keyboard or mouse, and many other things should they find the need. It does happen to also come with a stylus for that added control and accuracy as well as for taking notes and things of that nature.

Feel free to look over a few quick photos below in the gallery and check back often as we’ll have the full review for you shortly

The new video editing capability can be found under the “Edit Video” button and already uploaded videos can now be edited and still retain the same address or be saved as a new video. There are a total of 14 filters at the moment, including Black and White, Cross Process, Lomo-ish, Thermal, and Cartoon effects.

Additionally, any changes made to a video are non-destructive, meaning you can easily flip back to the original. Copyrighted videos or videos with over a thousand views can be edited as well, but must be saved as a new video. The feature is expected to roll out globally over the course of this evening.

[via YouTube]

The remote control is basically a sled into which your iPhone or iPod touch slots, hooked up via the headphone socket. That means you could also use it – though not dock it with – your iPad; Griffin has released the remote app as a free download in the App Store. The remote sled asks for four AAA batteries, while the chopper itself recharges via USB; a single charge is good for around eight minutes of flight, and you can save up to three routes via the app so as to repeat them later on.

The Griffin HELO TC is on sale now, and comes complete with spare rotor blades just in case you’re a klutz. Up to three can be flown simultaneously, thanks to support for three different infrared signal sets that won’t confuse everybody else’s helicopter.

What’s going on here is that, in the wake of Netflix raising their prices [like so], and you’ve just got to wonder – did they follow Don Reisinger’s advice? It’s the best possible idea, when you think about it, taking advantage of the massive group of people who may, with no other alternative realistically in sight, just start paying more for the same service they were already paying for in Netflix. But lo! Let us take a look at this deal.

The deals you’re about to see competing are thus: Blockbuster Total Advantage will run you $9.99 for the single-disk deal per month. This includes in-store exchanges, games for Xbox PS3, and Wii, Blu-Ray disks, and all new releases are available to you immediately. Netflix, starting on the first of September, will have a similar $9.99 deal, this one with no in-store exchanges (because it’s through the mail instead,) no video games, Blu-Ray disks, and an up to 28 day release delay for some movies from multiple studios.

And the deal, again, is that Blockbuster is offering this service for free for a month to folks who can prove they’re coming straight from Netflix. Hotness!

Now my question for you is thus: do you even have a Blockbuster around where you live? All the Blockbusters closed here in Minneapolis, never to be seen again. Good luck to you!

NetbookNews and jkkmobile got up close to the stickered ASUS lady (who doesn’t appear to have pulled off the backing plastic from her temporary tattoos) as well as producing the two videos below. Engadget got their eyes near to the slate too, though it seems opportunities to actually play with the prototype were in short supply. It’s worth bearing in mind that ASUS has said the final specs of both sections are not yet finalized, so everything from chipset to screen size and aesthetics could be tweaked prior to launch.

In the photo above, by jkk, you can see the two side-mounted ports for microUSB and microHDMI, that the PadFone tablet section hooks up to for power, display, internet access and data. There are two official ASUS videos to go with the PadFone launch, including one with an accidental IE8 gaffe. Seen any other hands-on reports? Let us know in the comments below.

ASUS PadFone announcement:

ASUS PadFone: Make the Switch:

ASUS PadFone: Behind the Scenes:

jkkmobile Hands-On:

Jump forward to around the 1:08 mark in the video below, and you can see the PadFone tablet section using the PC browser. Of course, this could be an impromptu demo of the same Eee Pad PC Suite remote access app as on the Transformer, allowing you to log into your home computer and use it as if you were there.

Still, we can’t mock too much, not when ASUS CEO Johnny Shih is so darn enthusiastic about his new toy. “Have the best of both devices with an ASUS PadFone” he suggests, and – when the tablet finally does make it to market in Q4 2011 this year – we reckon plenty will at least consider it.

Rams, however, disagreed with Starck, telling his fellow designer that “I don’t feel so, and for me it’s a compliment.” “It’s a compliment that they use the basic thinking about what design can be, and how to use new technologies” Rams suggested, “and that is what I tried also, especially with my main work for the company Braun.”

Ives apparently invited Rams to a clandestine visit of the Apple design studios, though he doesn’t reveal what, exactly he saw during his time there. The impact of his work has certainly been felt by Ives, who is quoted in the foreword of an upcoming book on the designer, Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible. “So profoundly good is his design of music players, cameras and kitchen tools” Ives says, “that it somehow transcends their technical capability.”

There’s plenty more video over at Co.Design and it’s well worth watching if you’re at all interested in industrial design.

Footage can be reviewed instantly on the PND itself, or copied over to a computer for archiving. As well as GPS position there’s speed and direction data, which could be handy if you’re in an accident. Garmin has also packed in its usual feature set, so you get text-to-speech, Bluetooth use as a handsfree kit, speed camera warnings, optional real-time traffic updates, various preloaded POIs and space for up to 100 saved routes and 1,000 user POIs.

Right now the Garmin nuvi 2565RT is only available in Taiwan, but the plan is to roll it out in Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia. If it’s a sales success there, it’ll get a US and European release. No word on pricing at this stage.

In the demo, Microsoft shows how a Mango device can recognize a barcode on the back of a book and instantly pull in reviews and other information. That data can be passed over to an app running on the phone, for instance taking you to Amazon to buy the physical copy of a book or a CD, or to the Kindle app to buy the ebook.

Microsoft may have been late to the market with Windows Phone, but the company is obviously looking to catch up on some of the third-party software shortfall by integrating common functionality directly into the platform itself rather than waiting for other developers to deliver it. In a similar way, WP7.1 Mango will also include Twitter and LinkedIn integration.

We’ll have to wait until we see the multitasking APIs to know for sure how Microsoft is handling the combination of switching and freezing. We’re expecting an Apple-like system where certain key APIs allow apps to stay minimally active, while otherwise their state is frozen into the phone’s flash storage.

You can see the multitasking demonstrated in the video below; jump ahead to around the 5:11 mark to see Joe Belfiore, corporate VP in Windows Phone, demonstrate switching between Fruit Ninja and other apps. We’ll have more demos later on today.

Greg Sullivan explains multitasking in Windows Phone Mango

“We are very excited about our strategic partnership with Microsoft, and Mango is a great milestone for the first Nokia with Windows Phone devices,” Jo Harlow, WVP for Smart Devices at Nokia reckons. “We believe Mango offers developers opportunities to create new mobile experiences leveraging both companies complementary assets while providing consumers with a new choice in mobile.”

According to the Nokia developer forum there’s help for would-be developers at the Community Wiki while the Projects site is already being populated.

“Rather than simply create one high-end device, Nokia plans to develop and release a portfolio of products that address as many of our audiences and markets as possible. Knowing that Windows Phone represents Nokia’s primary smartphone strategy, all of Nokia’s smartphone engineering resources are being prioritised to make the best hardware for the forthcoming Nokia with Windows Phone devices.  Nokia will work closely with Microsoft to differentiate its devices with Mango by featuring its iconic hardware and services, while applying consistent design principles for a unique look and feel.” Nokia

Leaving the Dublin Embassy today, Obama’s car – known as “The Beast” or “Cadillac One” – got stuck when trying to leave the gates. In the video below – complete with well-timed sound effects from the crowd of Irish onlookers – you can hear the lead car first scrape its underbelly on the hump, and then shortly after The Beast get beached altogether.

President Obama and the First Lady eventually abandoned the car for a second vehicle to continue their tour of Ireland. No word on how heavy The Beast actually is, though each reinforced door is apparently the same weight as a Boeing 757 airplane cabin door.

[via Twitter]

In Sony’s demonstration, an XPERIA Arc recognized a magazine and offered 3D interaction with it; however, the more ambitious demos overlaid complex UIs on top of maps (as in the screenshot above) as well as providing human identification. According to Sony, the probability matching technology is actually surprisingly CPU-light, which means even portable devices can quickly spot and identify what different objects are.

It’s all built on AR and pattern recognition experiments Sony has been carrying out since the days of AIBO and all the way back to 1994 and 2D barcode recognition on VAIO notebooks. No word on when we could expect to see this show up in portable devices at retail, but we would be very surprised if the company wasn’t looking at ways to slot the tech into the incoming Sony NGP.

[via Twitter]

Physically, while the Samsung’s wafer-thin chassis is great in the pocket, the HTC feels better in the hand. Tapering edges, a neatly curved display and high-quality metal and soft-touch plastic make for a device that feels more expensive than the Galaxy S II can manage. It’s thicker – 11.3mm versus 8.49mm and just under a millimeter longer, but slightly narrower too. The more rounded corners belie those measurements, however, making the Sensation feel like the smaller phone.

Both companies make plenty of their display technology, and it basically comes down to a choice between resolution or quality. HTC has used a qHD 960 x 540 resolution LCD panel on the Sensation, whereas the Galaxy S II has a lower-resolution, WVGA 800 x 480 screen, but uses Samsung’s own Super AMOLED Plus panel. The extra pixels are most noticeable in the browser and in lists, where the Sensation can fit more on the screen at any one time and, perhaps more importantly, offer more readable text at minimum zoom. In the browser, viewing the SlashGear homepage, we could read the articles on the Sensation with no zooming necessary, something which proved trickier on the GSII.

HTC Sensation vs Samsung Galaxy S II video:

[Note: I accidentally say the Sensation has 1GB of RAM in the video, whereas it actually has 768MB]

The HTC panel seems to offer brighter whites, but the contrast and colors don’t pop like the Samsung screen. Blacks are noticeably inkier on the Galaxy S II, colors more saturated. It’s clear in the benchmarking comparison shot below, where the colored bars on the Samsung are richer than the subdued-in-comparison HTC. It’s worth remembering, though, that viewed in isolation the Sensation does have a great panel; a streaming trailer in HTC Watch proved particularly viewable, with lots of detail in the picture. Outdoor visibility was easier on the Samsung, with the screen visible even in direct sunlight.

In terms of performance, the Galaxy S II keeps its crown at this early stage. We ran benchmarking tool Quadrant Advanced, and the Samsung scored 3504 overall, with 7119 in the CPU category. In contrast, the HTC managed 2245 overall, with 5918 in the CPU category. I/O is also low, at half the score that the GSII manages. Bear in mind, though, that raw benchmarks generally don’t tell the whole story, and depending on how HTC (and Samsung) throttles its processor, results will vary widely (you can see that in the video above, where both phones get different in a different run of Quadrant; the CPU appears to be so new that Quadrant can’t identify it, either, in the System Info pane).

It’s too early to say whether the Sensation offers enough to take the Galaxy S II’s spot at the top of our Android leaderboard, that will have to wait for the full review. Its display holds up surprisingly well to Samsung’s Super AMOLED Plus, though we’ll have to see whether it can match the GSII’s impressively lengthy battery life. Let us know what else you’d like to know about the two phones in the comments below, and we’ll try to answer as many questions as we can about these coveted devices.

Early feedback suggests “more than 10 fire engines, 10 ambulances, [and] many police cars” are in attendance, with press warned to keep clear of the A05 production building because more explosions could take place. “Super light dust” has been blamed for the incident.

Foxconn is yet to respond to requests for information. We’ll update as we hear more.

Update: New reports suggest that at least two employees are dead and sixteen injured, of which three are apparently seriously so. Preliminary investigations have supposedly ruled out human-caused factors for the explosion.

[via Cult of Mac]

In the box there’s the usual sparse selection of accessories: a USB AC adapter, USB to microUSB cable and a wired stereo headset with in-line controls. We’d like to have seen the MHL-to-HDMI adapter bundled too, like AT&T sensibly did with the Infuse 4G, but that’s still an optional accessory; you do get DLNA streaming support over WiFi b/g/n, though. HTC will offer a charging dock – you can set the Sensation to automatically boot into Dock Mode, with weather and Facebook updates shown, and even optionally turn on the Mobile Hotspot functionality – though right now it’s not on sale.

HTC Sensation unboxing & hands-on:

Construction is solid, with a sheet of toughened glass up front that rises to a slight lip at the edges of the screen. That serves double purpose: keeping the display raised slightly off the table when placed face-down, and also giving some tactile feedback as to when your thumb is swiping toward the very edge. Responsiveness is good, and the whole thing is creak-free. Unlike the somewhat fiddly slide-off doors of recent HTC devices – the Flyer was a particular chore to open up – the Sensation pulls out of its rear chassis entirely, revealing the microSD slot and SIM slot.

Android and Sense moves swiftly on the dual-core chip; the jerkiness we spotted when pulling shortcut buttons down to the launcher ring on the Flyer’s lock screen is non-existent on the Sensation. The 3D animations on the homescreen are smooth and menus open without delay. Similarly, the browser renders even heavy pages quickly, and thanks to the qHD resolution you can read, say, SlashGear homepage articles without having to zoom in from the full page width view. Just to whet your appetite, we ran benchmarking tool Quadrant Advanced and the Sensation scored 2245 overall, with 5918 in the CPU category.

We’ll be putting the HTC Sensation through its paces over the next few days in time for the full SlashGear review, but for now let’s just say this: the Samsung Galaxy S II has got some serious competition.

Playlists are automatically synchronized between Napster’s desktop and mobile clients, and there’s access to the company’s recommendations, official music charts, top 100 charts and Automix. Streaming over WiFi or 3G is supported, though it’s probably a good idea to have an unlimited data plan if you intend to use the latter.

There’s also a £5/month home entertainment streaming-only package, which allows you Napster catalog access on your smart TV, Sonos or other streaming audio system. Both Android and iOS apps are available to download now; more details in the videos below.

Press Release:

Napster extends music streaming service to mobile devices

Instant unlimited access to over 15 million tracks through your mobile

LONDON – 19 May, 2011 Napster, the pioneer of digital music, announced today the launch of its new mobile music streaming service, Napster Unlimited plus Mobile. The new service will give users instant access to the full Napster catalogue of over 15 million tracks through their mobile device.

Available today, the new £10 per month subscription plan provides unlimited access to the Napster service on mobile platforms including iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad and Android devices. The subscription service allows users to combine mobile on demand streaming from Napster’s music catalogue, one of the largest collections of music available and the ability to save music to play offline. Members will also have access to all of Napster’s great music discovery features, including playlists, radio stations and recommendations from the Napster music team.

Napster Unlimited plus Mobile allows subscribers to widen their access to the music they love with auto synchronisation across multiple platforms and devices. A range of tiered subscription plans are available:

For £10 per month members will receive:
Unlimited mobile streaming over both Wi-Fi and 2.5/3G.
Intuitive and easy to use navigation enabling instant music playback on mobile devices
Mobile access to Napster’s rich feature set including new releases, recommendations, official music charts, Napster’s top 100 charts, and Automix
Offline mobile access to the last 100 played tracks and saved playlists, albums and artists so music is always available even without a mobile connection
Web-based access from any computer, without having to download any software
Automatic synchronisation of playlists on PC, web, mobile and integrated audio devices, with instant and automatic update of changes

There is also a £5 per month home entertainment streaming-only subscription option, allowing users to gain access to the entire online catalogue via PCs, internet connected TVs and wireless home audio devices.

Thorsten Schliesche, Napster’s Vice President Sales and Marketing Europe, comments: “Napster strives to offer music lovers the opportunity to listen to music without barriers and with complete freedom, empowering users to take the music they love and discover on the move and access via multiple platforms. We are also committed to expanding freedom of access to streaming devices around the home and entertainment systems by integrating Napster services with devices such as internet connected TVs and wireless home audio systems.

“Napster Unlimited plus Mobile is the culmination of listening to our members’ feedback and providing what they have asked us for. We are proud that Napster’s music catalogue of 15 million tracks is one of the largest available and can now truly be accessed anywhere — complete with the tools to make it easy and fun to navigate such a large and diverse catalogue of continually expanding music.”

The mobile application is available for download in the Apple App Store and Android Market. For further information please visit the website at http://www.napster.co.uk/

About Napster

Napster (www.napster.co.uk), the pioneer of digital music, offers the ultimate in interactive music experiences, creating better ways to discover, share, acquire and enjoy the universe of music – anytime, anywhere. The Napster service is the easiest way to find, discover and enjoy the universe of music online, on the go and around the home. With unlimited, on-demand access to music from a computer, mobile and home entertainment device, Napster lets you enjoy music your way anytime, anywhere. The service is available at www.napster.co.uk in the UK and is also available in the US, Canada and Germany. A wholly owned subsidiary of Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY), Napster is headquartered in Los Angeles.

What isn’t quite clear is how much you’ll get paid. “There will be some variability” in rewards, the company advises:

“In principle you will be eligible for an award if we apply for a patent based on your invention. You may be eligible for a further award depending on the success of the product and the level of award you choose at the patent application stage.” Nokia

Frankly, we’ve never thought Nokia was short on good ideas: the company’s patent portfolio has some real gems, like the dual-display 3D Communicator spotted earlier this month. The stumbling block has always been the speed at which Nokia gets its gadgets to market, and the apparent layers of conservative management which seemingly strips promising devices of their spark. With Nokia shifting its R&D budget – freshly bloated from Microsoft’s cash injection – around, though, maybe Invent With Nokia will help bypass some of that.

• Ideas related to mobile phones
• Ideas related to mobile phone applications/services (e.g., for an applications store)
• Wireless standards (cellular, wlan, etc)
• Mobile device features (user interfaces, sensing applications etc)
• Mobile device concepts (mechanics, displays, cameras, etc)
• Mobile applications/software applications/services (e.g., maps, navigation, social networking, music, games, email, etc.)
• Mobile services infrastructure/Mobile service provider (e.g., for an applications store)
• Mobile software/Operating systems

At the very beginning of the video clip, the Wii 2 controller is shown. As expected, it has a display – believed to be a touchscreen – built into it, along with analog pads and the normal buttons. Nintendo is believed to be readying a system whereby individual camera angles or status displays could be wirelessly beamed to each controller.

Toward the end of the clip, there’s what looks to be a docking cradle and recharging station for the controller – part obscured by a member of the audience’s head. This could all well be fake, of course, but Nintendo has confirmed that the Wii’s replacement will arrive in 2012 and that the company will preview it at E3 2011 next month.

There are also Carl Zeiss optics on the rear camera, which going by the half-cropped text is a 12-megapixel unit with autofocus; it has a twin LED flash too. The UI uses much the same rounded iconography as Symbian^3 “Anna”, though with a different status bar and other elements.

In all, it’s another glimpse of what looks to be a slickly put-together smartphone, though to be fair we’ve been saying that ever since first catching sight of the N9 last year. “Our Next Sense” says the Nokia tagline, but what role exactly MeeGo can hope to have in the company’s Windows Phone future remains to be seen.

The app creates an ad-hoc network – or uses a mobile hotspot – between a host “director” device and up to four iPhone 4, 3GS or iPod touch 3G, pulling in video from each and allowing the various feeds to be cut together in real-time. Silent on-screen directions – like pans, close-ups and more – can be sent out to each operator.

“Video clips are recorded to the cameras and are transferred, compiled and saved to the director in the background as you go. When you end the production and save your session, the final clips are transferred from the cameras to you in a matter of minutes.”

If each camera operator saves their name or Twitter username, CollabraCam can automatically generate a credits page with that information. It’s also possible to export the project – including all the raw footage, which is gathered onto the director device at the end of the shoot – into a regular video editing app, like iMovie on the Mac. The developers have even used AirPrint so as to wirelessly print off a hard copy of the bundled user guide.

Impressive stuff, and while you’ll need a copy of CollabraCam for each device – at $6 a pop – the time you could save in post-processing and editing makes that seem a small price to pay. More details in the video below.

[via Gizmodo]

Hardware

The Flyer’s HTC heritage is clear, looking at first glance like an oversized Desire S with its unibody-style aluminum and white plastic insert-sections. It’s 7.7 x 4.8 x 0.52 inch chassis is a little longer and thicker than that of the original Samsung Galaxy Tab, and it’s heavier as well at 14.82oz. Still, that’s because of the metal used in the construction, and the upside is a far sturdier, more expensive feeling slate.

It’s certainly not too large to hold in one hand, and in portrait orientation we could easily grip the edges; alternatively, the screen bezel is just the right width to hold the Flyer like a book without accidentally tapping the screen. Physical controls are limited to the power/lock button on the top edge (which also has a nifty integrated status light) and a volume rocker on the right edge; you also get a 3.5mm headphones socket on the top, and a microUSB port on the bottom. The latter can be used with the unusually-shaped plug on HTC’s included AC adapter, or with a regular microUSB cable; the Flyer will charge from both, though faster with the former.

On the back there’s a 5-megapixel autofocus camera (which lacks an LED flash) together with stereo speakers. The lower plastic section pulls off to reveal the SIM slot for the triband HSPA/WCDMA (and quadband GSM/EDGE) modem in our 3G review unit, as well as the microSD card slot. Internal storage is 32GB, though the WiFi-only Flyer has half that, at 16GB. Both pack WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, GPS, an ambient light sensor, g-sensor and digital compass, as well as a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera for video calls.

HTC Flyer Unboxing & First-Impressions:

Unlike the bigger Android tablets we’ve seen in recent months, HTC has avoided dual-core processors and instead opted for a single-core, 1.5GHz chip for the Flyer. Qualcomm’s MSM8255, it’s paired with 1GB of RAM. It’s worth noting that the Flyer can’t be used as a phone, with its 3G radio only for data connectivity.

Like the Galaxy Tab, the Flyer has a 7-inch 1024 x 700 capacitive touchscreen. This uses an LCD panel, and comes through bright, clear and with decent colors. The Flyer doesn’t get the rotating button icons of the Incredible S, but it does pack a second set of the touch-sensitive keys: hold the tablet in landscape orientation and you get backlit home, menu, back and “stylus” buttons underneath the short edge of the display; rotate it into landscape orientation and you get the same buttons underneath the long edge. It’s all very clever, though ironically considering how we found ourselves holding the Flyer, we wished we could choose which set of keys were active since often it would’ve been easier to reach the alternate set.

The mention of the “stylus” button should have given it away – if you’ve not been following the Flyer’s gestation – but HTC offers a “Magic Pen” with the tablet for text entry, annotation and sketching. Using N-Trig’s active digitizer technology, that allows for far greater accuracy (as well as pressure sensitivity) when writing on the screen. It also automatically shuts off the regular, multitouch capacitive touch panel when the pen’s nib is near, so that you can rest your palm on the display without accidentally triggering anything. In Europe, the Magic Pen will be bundled with the Flyer; in the US, it will be a roughly $80 accessory.

If your mouth has already puckering with distaste at the thought of a stylus, don’t be so quick to judge. The Flyer’s pen is leagues away from the nasty plastic toothpicks of old-style resistive touchscreen devices. Its smooth nib glides nicely across the Gorilla Glass of the Flyer’s display, accurate and lag free. HTC took responsibility for adding digital pen functionality to Android, and they’ve done a solid job; we’ll cover exactly how they’ve integrated them in the software section.

What HTC hasn’t accommodated is the stylus itself. Unlike tablet PCs and resistive touchscreen phones, there’s no slot or silo for the Flyer’s digital pen to hide in; instead, HTC bundles a leather slip case with a magnetic flap and a tightly-fitting loop into which the pen can tuck. While we like the idea of a bundled case, it’s not entirely ideal. For a start, the white finish – although matching the Flyer’s color scheme – seems to invite scuffs and blemishes; leaving the pen on the outside and, for the most part, unprotected also feels risky. Finally, although reasonably close-fitting, it still adds some bulk. That can make the difference when it comes to pocketability: bare, you can easily slot the Flyer into an inside jacket pocket or even the back pocket of your jeans, something that can be trickier or even impossible when the case gets involved.

Software and Performance

The Flyer is smaller than the other recent Android tablets, and it runs older software, too. Rather than Android 3.x Honeycomb, as on the XOOM, G-Slate and Galaxy Tab 10.1, HTC has opted for Android 2.3 Gingerbread, the latest version intended for smartphones. They’ve not left it untouched, of course; HTC Sense makes its usual appearance, though here with some significant modifications to the familiar UI to take into consideration the tablet form factor.

Unlike HTC phones, the Android homescreen now works in both portrait and landscape orientation. Both get a carousel-style interface, with endless rotation; flick the homescreen fast, and the perspective pulls back to show the eight panes spinning. A pinch-zoom gesture shows all eight thumbnailed. It’s slick and swift, the 1.5GHz processor showing its grunt. Pull down the notification bar and there are shortcuts to the last ten apps used as well as settings shortcuts and alerts; in portrait orientation the latter are on different tabs, while in landscape they’re all visible at once.

Along the bottom of the display there’s the app menu button, then shortcuts for HTC’s new Notes app, HTC Reader and HTC Watch, which we’ll cover separately later. There’s also the usual Customize button, which allows you to change the wallpaper, add icons, shortcuts and widgets – both the standard Google fare and HTC’s own – and, for the first time, tweak the lock-screen. That, as we saw on the HTC Sensation, can now show the weather along with four app shortcuts – user assignable, of course. To unlock the Flyer normally, you drag up the large ring at the bottom of the screen; to instantly unlock and load an app, you drag that icon down to the ring. It works well, though we did spot some glitchiness in the animation before the apps loaded.

The usual HTC array of software is preloaded, so you get FriendStream with Facebook and Twitter feeds, the Media Control app for handling DLNA streaming, and the heavily-animated Weather app complete with homescreen widget. There’s also Amazon’s MP3 store app, HTC Hub for wallpaper, ringtone and other downloads, HTC Likes with suggestions, Locations, the Teeter game, a Task Manager app and WiFi Hotspot, for sharing the 3G connection with up to eight WiFi-tethered clients.

Some of the standard Android software comes into its own on the Flyer. The Car Panel, which offers chunky, finger-friendly shortcuts to navigation and multimedia for use while driving is particularly suited to the tablet’s 7-inch display. HTC also throws in Dock Mode, which shows weather, recent FriendStream activity and some app shortcuts (plus has a backlight dim button so that you can use the Flyer as a bedside clock). It can be set to automatically load when you drop the slate in the (optional) dock – which we didn’t have to review – as well as optionally turn on WiFi Hotspot sharing as well.

In addition to the standard camera and camcorder apps, there’s Snapbooth, a somewhat gimmicky app that uses the front-facing camera to take vanity shots that can be mangled with various special effects. It’s good for a few minutes fun, at least. HTC’s online Sense suite also gets an outing, offering remote access, tracking and locking of the Flyer. Unfortunately, you can only have a Sense account active on one HTC device at a time – signing in on the Flyer prompted us to unlike the account from the HTC phone it was currently being used with. Considering the Flyer lacks phone functionality on its own, that means the HTC-faithful will have to pick whether they want to use their Sense account with the tablet or their smartphone, rather than having it on both.

HTC Flyer Highlights:

Most of the time, HTC’s extensive reskin means that the absence of Honeycomb isn’t felt. Still, that’s not always the case. Like Samsung did on the Galaxy Tab, HTC has reworked its Mail and Calendar apps to suit the greater screen real-estate on offer, with a two-column email view when the Flyer is held in landscape orientation, and various day, week, month and year views in the calendar. Both support multiple accounts and are far more usable than their phone cousins. The gallery, too, uses the same two-column layout, with albums on the left and previews – with sharing buttons – on the right. Similarly, the browser has a tab preview bar along the top, showing live thumbnails of all your open pages.

Unfortunately, you don’t get Google’s own tablet-version of Gmail, instead the regular smartphone app. That’s fine on a phone, but is stretched and wasteful with space on the Flyer’s 1024 x 600 panel. Similarly Google Talk is the basic phone version. 7-inch displays are often ideally-scaled to type on with both thumbs, and the Flyer is no different. HTC’s custom keyboard doesn’t stretch to a dedicated number row, but does have navigation keys, sensible auto-predictions like @ and .com in email text boxes, and simple access to Android’s voice recognition. The auto-suggestions are also accurate, with prompted words popping up with no lag or delay.

Performance overall was mixed, depending on quite how much we stressed the Flyer with multiple-running apps. In Quadrant Standard, the tablet scored 1817, while in Quadrant Advanced it managed 2166. Linpack Pro came in at 55.009 MFLOPS. That puts it in the same ballpark as what we’ve seen from Tegra 2 based Honeycomb tablets.

Magic Pen

Say stylus and most people immediately think of the fiddly toothpick that came with Windows Mobile phones. The Flyer has more in common with Windows tablets, though again, don’t let that put you off. Basically, rather than a resistive touchscreen that simply responds to pressure, or a capacitive stylus that pretends to be a blunt fingertip so that the screens used by the iPad, XOOM and other recent slates are tricked into recognizing them, the Flyer uses a special battery powered “Magic Pen” that communicates with a second layer sandwiched with the regular, finger-friendly touchscreen. That second layer knows not only where the pen nib is, but also how hard you’re pressing: that way, lines on-screen are thin when you press lightly, or thick when you press harder.

The pen itself matches the Flyer’s brushed aluminum, and has a pair of buttons on its side. One puts the stylus into highlighter mode, the other text selection. It runs on an AAAA battery – HTC reckons you should get a few months use out of it. Places where the pen can be used are flagged up by the stylus button turning green; tap that, and a radial menu of pens, tools and colors pops up in the lower left-hand corner of the screen.

In most places, the pen is used to grab screenshots or “Scribbles”, triggered by tapping the pen once on the display. The resulting image can be doodled on and annotated and then instantly shared – using the normal Android options – or pasted into a new Notes document (more on which later).

It all works, but it’s not perfect. While the Flyer uses a similar active digitizer to what you’d find in a Windows 7 tablet PC, it doesn’t feel as accurate. That usually means making your handwriting slightly larger, which is frustrating on a 7-inch display. Meanwhile, although HTC claim a couple hundred levels of pressure sensitivity, there’s little visible difference between the two extremes. There’s also no handwriting recognition, and you can’t handwrite emails or jot into text-entry boxes.

More frustrating, though, is the confusion between finger-touch and pen-touch. 99-percent of the interface is intended for finger control, but even if you’d prefer to use the Magic Pen, the Flyer won’t allow you – instead, it just takes a Scribble shot of the screen you’re looking at. When you’re actually in that screenshot, however, and you want to either paste it into Notes, share it or delete it, you can’t tap the buttons with the pen – instead you have to use your finger.

It doesn’t sound like much, but it means lots of flipping between the two, finger and stylus. Even after hours of use, we still found ourselves taking accidental screenshots when we wanted to open menus, simply because the pen seemed the obvious tool as it was the one we were using at that moment. We’ve a feeling HTC took this somewhat draconian attitude in an attempt to prevent commenters from saying the Flyer was a pen-tablet, one of the old-school. In their haste, however, they’ve made it more infuriating to use.

Ironically, it’s an issue many Windows 7 tablets address, and in a perfectly reasonable way. Models with dual-mode pen and finger touchscreens allow either input method, shutting off the finger-control when the stylus is active. The Flyer already knows whether the pen nib is near, so it wouldn’t take much to flip between the two methods accordingly. We’re hoping HTC at least offers the flexibility with a settings option in the future.

HTC Notes

Notes is where the Flyer’s Magic Pen comes into its own, and is arguably the center-point of the whole tablet. As we said, HTC took it on itself to add active stylus support to Android, and Notes is where that energy pays off. On the face of it, it looks like any other memo app: a place for a title then room for notes. However, on the Flyer those notes can either be thumbed in using the on-screen keyboard, or written in using the Magic Pen. The same radial menu of pen types, colors and other tools – offering highlighters, pencils, felt-tips and more – pops up, and you can sketch or scribble away to your heart’s content.

There’s also audio recording, which is indexed according to your note-taking. As you scribble, the Flyer automatically creates bookmarks through the recording that match text with audio: you can either see a thumbnail of the relevant note as the audio plays back, or skip to the relevant section of the audio by tapping on the note. It works, but it lacks granularity: a Livescribe pen, for instance, goes directly to the point of the audio recording, while the Flyer is a little less aggressive with its timestamping. Finally, there’s a shortcut to the camera so that you can shoot an image, have it instantly pasted into a new note, and then annotate it as you see fit.

HTC’s masterstroke, however, is partnering with Evernote, the online digital notetaking service, to manage the jottings created in Notes and allow them to be accessed from other platforms. Evernote is a free service – there are paid subscriptions if you’re a heavy user – with apps for Android, iOS, PC and Mac, among others, allowing for multiple digital notebooks, note tagging, audio clips and more.

There’s also comprehensive search, not only of regular text but of handwritten notes and of text included in images. Once synchronized with Evernote’s servers – where the OCR is done – you can search for, say, “recipe” and see all notes where that’s been typed in, scrawled on or included in a photo. Evernote treats handwritten notes from the Flyer as images – that means you can’t open them up and edit them in, say, the OS X version of the Evernote software – and so can include them in searches. You can also easily review them on other platforms.

HTC Reader

If you’re a Kindle, NOOK or other ereader platform user, you can obviously load up your app of choice on the Flyer from the Android Market. HTC, though, would rather you use its Reader app, offering a variety of titles – both free public domain ebooks and newer, paid ones – for download direct to the slate.

Reader is also the second app in which the Flyer’s Magic Pen gets a proper outing. You can annotate and sketch, either keeping neatly to the margins or scrawling all over the place, as well as highlight passages. Reader automatically slots in a bookmark on any page you write on, so that you can more easily find your notes later.

HTC Watch

Tablets are generally used for browsing and for multimedia consumption, and so HTC Watch is the company’s attempt to make some money off the latter. Basically a movie and TV episode store, it offers both rentals and purchases – depending on title – with prices ranging from £7.99 to £9.99 to buy 720p movies in the UK or £2.49 to £3.49 to rent them. TV episodes come in at £1.49.

Previews can be streamed over 3G or WiFi connections – there’s about 5-10 seconds of buffering before they play – but purchases can only be downloaded over WiFi. Unfortunately once you’ve bought something you can only watch it on an HTC device; there’s no way to transfer it to your laptop, for instance, or even another Android gadget. Rentals can only be viewed on the device they’re bought on.

OnLive

Streaming gaming service OnLive is currently only available in the US, and so we were unable to test it on our UK Flyer. When the US version of the tablet goes on sale, it will offer the chance to play full games – the sort you’d normally need a beefy PC or a proper console – on your slate while on the move. We’ll revisit OnLive on the Flyer when the service is operational.

Camera and Multimedia

The Flyer’s main camera may pack 5-megapixels, but we can’t help but suspect some of them have flown the coop. Camera performance is plain disappointing, falling well short of what HTC’s current crop of 5-megapixel smartphones can manage. Stills are fuzzy, lack definition and have uninspiring, muted colors, while video is somehow even worse. HTC claims the Flyer is shooting 720p HD, but as you can see in our sample clip below it hardly looks that way.

Although that would usually be enough to give any gadget the kiss of death, the Flyer does have one saving grace. Close-ups of text – such as grabbing a snapshot of a magazine article – come out reasonably well; that’s handy when you then import that shot into Notes, and sync it over to Evernote for OCR. Treat the Flyer’s camera as another aspect of the notetaking experience and its flaws are easier to stomach.

Media playback is another mixed bag. HTC says the Flyer will work with AAC, AMR, OGG, M4A, MID, MP3, WAV and WMA audio files along with 3GP, 3G2, MP3, WMV, AVI and Xvid video files, up to 720p, and indeed we had no problems with those. Trying more ambitious files, however, and the Flyer’s processor began to struggle. The stereo speakers lack voice, sounding insipid and reedy; better to plug in headphones or use an A2DP pair.

Unlike Tegra 2 based tablets we’ve seen, the Flyer lacks a dedicated HDMI output. However, like the Samsung Galaxy S II, its USB port apparently supports MHL, the new standard which – with the right adapter – allows you to plug into an HDTV or projector via HDMI. MHL-compliant sets should be able to control the Flyer’s playback using their own remotes; right now, though, the Flyer’s media adapter is in short supply, and we were unable to test it for this review. If you have HTC’s MediaLink DLNA box, you can of course use that instead.

Battery

The Flyer’s 4,000 mAh battery is non-user-replaceable, and HTC reckons users should see up to four hours of video playback or between 820 and 1470 hours of standby. Bear in mind there are no voice calls being made, though of course there’s plenty of background updates being pulled in for Gmail, Facebook and other services over the 3G network.

In practice, we found that with a mixture of push email turned on, various social network apps updating, and a fair amount of GPS mapping, browsing, music and video playback and some camera use, the Flyer made it comfortably through to the end of the day. With lighter, more sporadic use – as is perhaps common for tablets – would probably see it run for a couple of days on a single charge. HTC has thrown in some sensible power management options, including the ability to turn off email checks overnight (something we remember fondly from Windows Mobile) when you’re unlikely to need the very latest messages.

Wrap-Up

All too often we criticize new tablets for trying to take on the iPad by photocopying its specs. Apple’s slate has undoubtedly changed – and dominated – the consumer touch device market, but it seems that sales success has blinkered many rivals to the possibility that there are other ways in which tablets can find a role in our lives.

It’s a criticism you can’t level at HTC, and whether you believe the Flyer’s “Magic Pen” is a boon or a blunder, at least the company is trying something different. In its first iteration, what the software delivers doesn’t quite live up to the hardware’s promise, but we like the direction in which HTC looks to be taking it. Although many tableteers are content using their fingers, there are plenty of others who would like the flexibility to use an on-screen keyboard when that makes sense and then a digital pen when it feels more appropriate.

Yes, there are some frustrations: the camera is an embarrassment, the speakers underwhelming, and the single-core processor does give us a little pause for thought when we consider the sort of demanding apps likely to be coming down the pipeline for Android slates. Still, HTC obviously believe it’s potent enough for Honeycomb, since an update to the tablet-centric OS is expected in reasonably short order.

What will really make the difference is HTC’s commitment to Magic Pen functionality. Sensibly, the company has decided not to keep its pen magic all to itself, and to instead open up the APIs the Flyer uses to third-party developers. That will hopefully mean more apps that take advantage of it, broadening the Flyer’s appeal beyond mere note-taking. Before that will happen, though, developers will want to see that there’s a market worth their time: that will probably take more just the Flyer alone. HTC needs to be clear that dual finger and pen interfaces are integral into its vision of tablets. Users will only stomach the added cost and bulk of the digitizers – pushing the 32GB 3G Flyer in the UK to a heady £599.99, while the 16GB WiFi-only model comes in at £479.99 – if they’re confident that HTC won’t abandon the idea down the line.

Even as it stands, though, there’s a lot to like about the Flyer. The 7-inch size fits just as nicely between smartphones and 10-inch tablets in terms of functionality as it does in the hand, and the stylus adds a new layer of possibilities of which HTC Notes only scratches the surface. It’s likely to remain a niche model for the moment, but those who find the iPad’s interface more like finger-painting than fine-art will find plenty of appeal in the HTC Flyer.

You can see both keynotes below, while all the session videos are available here. Topics include API good practice, Android Market strategies and 3G graphics.

Unfortunately watching the sessions and keynotes online doesn’t get you a free Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Limited Edition to download. Still, you can potentially win one in our new Epic Unboxing Giveaway!

Google I/O 2011 Day One Keynote:

Google I/O 2011 Day Two Keynote:

[via Android Community]

There have been no shortage of pundits proclaiming the stylus dead and the finger-paradigm its successor, and a quick glance at the iPad dominated market might suggest they’re right. Still, after the near-identical Honeycomb tablets we’ve seen of late, the Flyer is enough to have us intrigued. Based on the phone version of Android, Gingerbread (though a Honeycomb upgrade is in the works), it runs the risk of following in the footsteps of the premature Samsung Galaxy Tab, perhaps.

Yet the Flyer’s pen wants to prove it can be more than a relic from resistive touchscreen days, and our first impressions are that it has some promise. The digital ink flows smoothly, despite HTC opting for a 1.5GHz single-core Snapdragon processor rather than the dual-core chips we’re seeing in high-end phones and tablets of late, and the slate is full of neat touches like the twin set of fascia buttons – rotating automatically to suit portrait or landscape orientation – the Evernote integration with its handwriting recognition, and the sturdy, paperback-scale chassis.

It’s not all perfect, mind. For a tablet with such a resolute focus on the pen, the fact that there’s no place – bar the bundled slip-case – to store the stylus is faintly ridiculous. The absence of broad app support for it is also frustrating: you can shoot screenshots by tapping the display just about anywhere in the system, but only a couple of apps will actually allow you to ink into them.

We’ll be putting the Flyer through its paces properly for the full SlashGear review, so until then enjoy the unboxing and hands-on video!

While there have been so-called time-coded vinyl (TCV) systems in the past, they have all required specially-marked records and hardware to track their movement. MOPHO DJ differs in that it simply requires an accelerometer or gyroscope-equipped device, like an iPhone or iPod touch, and uses that motion tracking to do the same thing. That makes it cheaper and easier to implement; Bryan uses a disc of perspex with a rubber mat mounted to seat the iPhone, but you could feasibly use a regular record.

Because the direct movement of the turntable is being tracked, you can still use all its manual controls – such as pitch-adjustment – while the iPhone’s display shows the real-time waveform of the audio currently playing. Even if you don’t have a turntable you’ll still be able to use MOPHO DJ in the “untethered performance” mode, simply moving the phone in mid-air so as to scratch records.

Bryan details MOPHO DJ in his paper [pdf link] and intends to release the iPhone app and accompanying computer software in the near future.

[via Geek]

While it would be easy to slap some wheels onto a dock and call it a day, Hasbro has gone further than that. Each robot has feet rather than wheels, and they use object-recognition via the Nexus S’ front-facing camera, as well as other sensors in the phone, to react to their environment. Shots are sent to Google’s cloud servers where they’re processed in real-time; the robot then knows whether to get curious or to run (slowly) away.

Shake them and, thanks to the accelerometer, they get dizzy; rub the touchscreen and they’ll cheer up. Right now they’re just prototypes, but we’re guessing Hasbro is at least considering a commercial launch. More details in the video below.

[via Android Community]

In a spec-sheet war, Samsung edges ahead of LG with its overclocked 1.2GHz processor; the Optimus Big makes do with the 1GHz dual-core Tegra 2 instead. As we’ve seen from the Optimus 2X, NVIDIA’s chip is certainly capable of some power, but our time with the Galaxy S II suggests it edges ahead. Samsung’s battery optimization and clever automatic CPU throttling also does wonders, stretching a single charge out to two days of regular use in our experience. LG’s frugality, however, comes in its NOVA display, with a claimed 50-percent reduction in battery demand. We’ll have to wait for review units to know whether its 1,500 mAh battery is capable of Samsung-style magic.

Display technology comes high on the agenda for both the Optimus Big and the Galaxy S II. We’ve already waxed lyrical about Super AMOLED Plus and its vivid colors, sharp contrast and – thanks to a surfeit of pixels – detail that belies the WVGA resolution. In comparison, LG’s NOVA lacks some of the instant eye-appeal, with colors that are a smudge less saturated, though the whites are paper-bright. Still, the semi-matte finish is a welcome differentiator on the Optimus Big, making it less susceptible to reflections in strong light: while you may be able to see the Galaxy S II’s display outdoors, some poorly angled sunlight and the reflections scupper even Super AMOLED Plus’ abilities.

LG has Samsung beat on connectivity options, too, with a separate HDMI and microUSB port versus the Galaxy S II’s combined MHL/USB port. Both offer WiFi Direct along with the usual 3G and Bluetooth. Samsung gets points for launching with Android 2.3 Gingerbread, whereas the LG lags behind with 2.2 Froyo; both have some reasonably significant reskinning, which may introduce delays in future OS upgrades.

Physically, despite having the same size screen, the Optimus Big is longer and thicker (10.1mm versus 8.49mm) than the Galaxy S II; it’s heavier, too, at 151g versus 116g. LG owners will have to make do with a 5-megapixel camera instead of the Samsung’s 8-megapixels, too, though both will shoot 1080p Full HD video (and the LG makes it easier to share it with its dedicated HDMI output).

The Galaxy S II’s waifish build, faster chip and Super AMOLED Plus display leave us leaning toward it, but we’ll wait until we have a LG Optimus Big review unit before making our final judgement. No word on North American or European release dates at this stage.

For more on the Samsung Galaxy S II, check out our full review!

Face-on it’s an obvious GSII rival, the WVGA display and almost identical buttons matching the Samsung though in a slightly longer, thicker chassis. By the earpiece is a front-facing camera, and there’s a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus and a flash on the back. Like the Optimus 2X an HDMI port is up top next to the 3.5mm headphone jack, with a microUSB port on the bottom.

Samsung has Super AMOLED Plus and LG has NOVA, a new display technology that promises 700 nits of brightness along with purer whites and blacks, fewer reflections and half the battery demands as regular LCDs. Eyes-on and it’s certainly a beautiful display, the glass a welcome semi-matte finish that’s a pleasure to use after the high-gloss of most smartphones today. LG has reskinned the Android 2.2.2 Froyo OS with its own interface, similar in feel to TouchWiz, including network, GPS and sound toggles in the notification bar, and a new set of desktop widgets.

The text-entry options are also changed, which – thanks to our ignorance of Korean! – scuppered attempts to load any benchmarking tools from the Android Market. Still, we’re expecting performance roughly on a par with the Optimus 2X, with both handsets having a 1GHz dual-core processor. Certainly, the phone was no slouch in moving between homescreen panes and loading/switching apps.

Of course, 4.3-inches is no longer the biggest screen on a smartphone; AT&T’s Samsung Infuse 4G has a whopping 4.5-inch display and Acer’s Iconia Smart nudges MID territory with its super-broad 4.8-inch panel. Still, 4.3-inches is the size sweet-spot for many, and LG’s NOVA technology certainly lifts the Optimus Big out of the crowd. Already available in Korea, there’s no confirmed launch date for the LG Optimus Big in North America or Europe.

When you’re active and attentive, the ears perk up; when you’re feeling tired and sluggish, they lie flat. Get enthusiastic – and, frankly, who wouldn’t be permanently enthusiastic wearing a set of robotic cat ears? – and they wiggle and twitch. It’s seemingly controlled by an Android app running a Samsung Galaxy Tab.

According to Neurowear, “Necomimi is the new communication tool that augments [a] human’s body and ability” and is the first step in better communicating how we’re feeling and reacting to the world beyond words and facial expressions. It’s going to be very, very popular with furries.

[via BoingBoing]

They’re obviously small – and that compact 3-inch fascia does leave them feeling on the plump side, too – but despite the plastic construction they don’t feel cheap. The XPERIA mini pro snicks open with a reassuring, spring-loaded click, and the keypad itself is nicely sprung and reasonably responsive. Sony Ericsson may be constrained by size, but the company reckons its auto-correction software is more than a match for casual typos.

As for the displays, they’re short on pixels in comparison to the latest and greatest in Android devices. 320 x 480 may be the biggest factor holding the mini and mini pro back, certainly as apps become more graphically rich and demand higher resolutions, though the same can’t be said for the processor. Unlike the meager 600MHz chip of the first-gen mini, the second-gen phones have a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon chip, and they seem to move through their menus and apps with the swiftness we’ve come to expect from the single-core. Of course it won’t keep up with a modern dual-core, but Sony Ericsson’s target audience isn’t chasing speed but balanced convenience.

The updated “4X4″ menu – which turns each corner shortcut on the homescreen into a pop-open four icon launcher – makes so much sense we wonder why Sony Ericsson didn’t do it from the start. The much-vaunted Facebook integration certainly works in Sony Ericsson’s demonstration, though whether users will find it to their taste will have to wait until the handsets reach the market.

We’ll have more video with the XPERIA mini and mini pro shortly, but for now enjoy the initial hands-on and gallery (including a couple of just-because-it-looks-funny comparison shots with the Samsung Galaxy S II).

Update: We’ve just spent more time with the XPERIA mini’s Facebook integration, and the system is actually surprisingly well put together. Rather than make a completely new app, as some companies have done, Sony Ericsson has based its system on the existing Facebook for Android app – that means a single login, rather than having two simultaneous apps trying to do similar things – and then extended functionality through Gingerbread.

In the gallery, then, you get not only the local photos and video, but albums pulled down from your Facebook profile and those you’re tagged in. The usual Android sharing feature can be used to add shots to an album that you’ve taken with each phone’s 5-megapixel camera. There’s also contacts and calendar sync, with contact entries having tabbed views of their likes, interests, recent wall activity and photos/videos.

In the music player, a Like button allows you to instantly share what track you’re listening to on your wall. There’s also a media discovery app which pulls in content recently shared on your friends’ Facebook walls, with any comments that have been left. Sony Ericsson says the new Facebook integration will be available for the XPERIA Arc and XPERIA Play in a few weeks time.

“For years we have seen limits to how small transistors can get. This change in the basic structure is a truly revolutionary approach, and one that should allow Moore’s Law, and the historic pace of innovation, to continue” Gordon E. Moore

Intel’s last significant production scale change took place in 2009, when the company shifted to 32nm processes. That was the second-generation of so-called High k Metal gate transistors, which originally debuted in 2007 with 45nm processes (and surplanted the Strained Silicon technology that had been in use since 2003).

The “3D” in the name isn’t just Intel attempting to cash in on the A/V industry’s latest wheeze. In fact, the 3D Tri-Gate transistors form conducting channels on three sides of a “vertical fin structure”; Intel says this system – which it initially announced back in 2002 – results in less heat being given off, longer battery life for mobile devices, and improved performance thanks to the combination of high-k gate insulators and strained silicon.

“Tri-gate fully-depleted substrate transistors have a raised plateau-like gate structure with two vertical walls and a horizontal wall of gate electrode. This three-dimensional structure improves the drive current while the depleted substrate reduces the leakage current when the transistor is in the “off” state. Reducing leakage current not only helps control heat at the circuit level but also translates to increased battery life in mobile devices” Intel

Intel Ivy Bridge will use similar architecture to the existing Sandy Bridge, the basis of the current 2011 Core processor range. There’s expected to be native USB 3.0 and PCIe 3.0 controllers at the processor level, along with an integrated DirectX graphics core with support for the second-generation of QuickSync, Intel’s media encoding/decoding acceleration technology. The first Ivy Bridge chips are expected to reach high-volume production readiness by the end of this year.

Press Release:

Intel Reinvents Transistors Using New 3-D Structure

New Transistors for 22 Nanometer Chips Have an Unprecedented Combination of Power Savings and Performance Gains

NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
Intel announces a major technical breakthrough and historic innovation in microprocessors: the world’s first 3-D transistors, called Tri-Gate, in a production technology.
The transition to 3-D Tri-Gate transistors sustains the pace of technology advancement, fueling Moore’s Law for years to come.
An unprecedented combination of performance improvement and power reduction to enable new innovations across a range of future 22nm-based devices from the smallest handhelds to powerful cloud-based servers.
Intel demonstrates a 22nm microprocessor – codenamed “Ivy Bridge” – that will be the first high-volume chip to use 3-D Tri-Gate transistors.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., May 4, 2011 – Intel Corporation today announced a significant breakthrough in the evolution of the transistor, the microscopic building block of modern electronics. For the first time since the invention of silicon transistors over 50 years ago, transistors using a three-dimensional structure will be put into high-volume manufacturing. Intel will introduce a revolutionary 3-D transistor design called Tri-Gate, first disclosed by Intel in 2002, into high-volume manufacturing at the 22-nanometer (nm) node in an Intel chip codenamed “Ivy Bridge.” A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter.

The three-dimensional Tri-Gate transistors represent a fundamental departure from the two-dimensional planar transistor structure that has powered not only all computers, mobile phones and consumer electronics to-date, but also the electronic controls within cars, spacecraft, household appliances, medical devices and virtually thousands of other everyday devices for decades.

“Intel’s scientists and engineers have once again reinvented the transistor, this time utilizing the third dimension,” said Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini. “Amazing, world-shaping devices will be created from this capability as we advance Moore’s Law into new realms.”

Scientists have long recognized the benefits of a 3-D structure for sustaining the pace of Moore’s Law as device dimensions become so small that physical laws become barriers to advancement. The key to today’s breakthrough is Intel’s ability to deploy its novel 3-D Tri-Gate transistor design into high-volume manufacturing, ushering in the next era of Moore’s Law and opening the door to a new generation of innovations across a broad spectrum of devices.

Moore’s Law is a forecast for the pace of silicon technology development that states that roughly every 2 years transistor density will double, while increasing functionality and performance and decreasing costs. It has become the basic business model for the semiconductor industry for more than 40 years.

Unprecedented Power Savings and Performance Gains
Intel’s 3-D Tri-Gate transistors enable chips to operate at lower voltage with lower leakage, providing an unprecedented combination of improved performance and energy efficiency compared to previous state-of-the-art transistors. The capabilities give chip designers the flexibility to choose transistors targeted for low power or high performance, depending on the application.

The 22nm 3-D Tri-Gate transistors provide up to 37 percent performance increase at low voltage versus Intel’s 32nm planar transistors. This incredible gain means that they are ideal for use in small handheld devices, which operate using less energy to “switch” back and forth. Alternatively, the new transistors consume less than half the power when at the same performance as 2-D planar transistors on 32nm chips.

“The performance gains and power savings of Intel’s unique 3-D Tri-Gate transistors are like nothing we’ve seen before,” said Mark Bohr, Intel Senior Fellow. “This milestone is going further than simply keeping up with Moore’s Law. The low-voltage and low-power benefits far exceed what we typically see from one process generation to the next. It will give product designers the flexibility to make current devices smarter and wholly new ones possible. We believe this breakthrough will extend Intel’s lead even further over the rest of the semiconductor industry.”

Continuing the Pace of Innovation – Moore’s Law
Transistors continue to get smaller, cheaper and more energy efficient in accordance with Moore’s Law – named for Intel co-founder Gordon Moore. Because of this, Intel has been able to innovate and integrate, adding more features and computing cores to each chip, increasing performance, and decreasing manufacturing cost per transistor.

Sustaining the progress of Moore’s Law becomes even more complex with the 22nm generation. Anticipating this, Intel research scientists in 2002 invented what they called a Tri-Gate transistor, named for the three sides of the gate. Today’s announcement follows further years of development in Intel’s highly coordinated research-development-manufacturing pipeline, and marks the implementation of this work for high-volume manufacturing.

The 3-D Tri-Gate transistors are a reinvention of the transistor. The traditional “flat” two-dimensional planar gate is replaced with an incredibly thin three-dimensional silicon fin that rises up vertically from the silicon substrate. Control of current is accomplished by implementing a gate on each of the three sides of the fin – two on each side and one across the top — rather than just one on top, as is the case with the 2-D planar transistor. The additional control enables as much transistor current flowing as possible when the transistor is in the “on” state (for performance), and as close to zero as possible when it is in the “off” state (to minimize power), and enables the transistor to switch very quickly between the two states (again, for performance).

Just as skyscrapers let urban planners optimize available space by building upward, Intel’s 3-D Tri-Gate transistor structure provides a way to manage density. Since these fins are vertical in nature, transistors can be packed closer together, a critical component to the technological and economic benefits of Moore’s Law. For future generations, designers also have the ability to continue growing the height of the fins to get even more performance and energy-efficiency gains.

“For years we have seen limits to how small transistors can get,” said Moore. “This change in the basic structure is a truly revolutionary approach, and one that should allow Moore’s Law, and the historic pace of innovation, to continue.”

World’s First Demonstration of 22nm 3-D Tri-Gate Transistors
The 3-D Tri-Gate transistor will be implemented in the company’s upcoming manufacturing process, called the 22nm node, in reference to the size of individual transistor features. More than 6 million 22nm Tri-Gate transistors could fit in the period at the end of this sentence.

Today, Intel demonstrated the world’s first 22nm microprocessor, codenamed “Ivy Bridge,” working in a laptop, server and desktop computer. Ivy Bridge-based Intel® Core™ family processors will be the first high-volume chips to use 3-D Tri-Gate transistors. Ivy Bridge is slated for high-volume production readiness by the end of this year.

This silicon technology breakthrough will also aid in the delivery of more highly integrated Intel® Atom™ processor-based products that scale the performance, functionality and software compatibility of Intel® architecture while meeting the overall power, cost and size requirements for a range of market segment needs.

The download service – which had previously offered MP3s on a track-by-track basis – now puts more emphasis on playlist purchases. Spotify now allows you to purchase and download an entire playlist with one click, with MP3 bundles that, the company says, push individual track pricing down to as little as 50p ($0.82) per track. You can buy 10 tracks for £7.99/€9.99 (working out to 80p/€1 a track), 15 tracks for £9.99/€12.99 (67p/€0.87 per track), 40 tracks for £25/€30 (63p/€0.75) or 100 tracks for £50/€60 (50p/€0.60).

As for mobile users without premium subscriptions, as of today the Spotify Mobile app for iOS and Android will now allow them to wirelessly sync their MP3 playlists from their computer to their phone. It’ll also work with the iPod touch. They won’t get Spotify streaming support for the whole catalog, mind:

“Free and Open users can use our mobile app for all MP3s they would like to sync, both songs bought in Spotify and songs on their computer that they’ve purchased from before. If you’re missing MP3s in your Spotify playlist that you would like to sync to your iPod you can easily complete it by purchasing missing songs in one easy step in Spotify, before syncing.” Spotify

The update will be rolling out to users from today, and is expected to take a couple of days. Of course it’s also limited to certain European countries, since Spotify hasn’t finalized its US launch. More details in the video below.

In fact, if your primary motivator in tablets is thinness then the Galaxy Tab 8.9 may be the slate for you. At 8.6mm thick it undercuts the iPad 2 and, thanks to the smaller display size, should be a little more bag-friendly than the Apple slate as well.

Having reviewed the T-Mobile G-Slate we know there’s a niche for the 8.9-inch form-factor, and Samsung’s work on the custom UI could prove an interesting differentiator among the growing ranks of Android 3.0 Honeycomb models. What’s still unclear is when, exactly, we’ll actually be able to head out to stores and pick one up ourselves; Samsung has only said “early summer” with pricing set at $469 for the 16GB and $569 for the 32GB.

[via Android Community]