SlashGear Week In Review - Week 21 2010
It's that time again for a new edition of the SlashGear Week in Review. Steve Jobs was confirmed as delivering the keynote at WWDC 2010. This clears the way for that long rumored new iPhone to come out of his pocket. Seagate dropped a new Momentus XT hybrid HDD on us early in the week. The drive offers performance very close to that of a SSD at a price of a HDD.
Rumors are still swirling that the iPhone will land on carriers other than AT&T this year. The latest is that Sprint will get a new iPhone in September. Intel has some new CPUs that are going to find their way into ultraportable machines this summer. The new CPUs are 32nm ULV Core i3, i5, and i7 parts.
AT&T has decided to allow all of the handsets it offers to be unlocked except the most popular smartphone the company offers — the iPhone. The unlock move comes on the heels of a class action suit against AT&T. We reviewed the HTC EVO 4G smartphone early in the week. In the end, we only wish there was more 4G coverage for the device to enjoy, the handset is one of the most capable on the market.
A gym worker found an unreleased version of the Motorola Droid Shadow at a Verizon corporate gym. Pics were leaked online, but later in the week, the person who found the device was fired. Rumors popped up early in the week that NVIDIA might be getting ready to kill off the GTX 470 after only a few months on the market. NVIDIA later said those rumors were untrue and the GTX 470 would continue on.
Canon announced that it has stopped developing SED TVs for the home market. The company will continue to develop SEDs for other markets like medical devices. VIA is set to get into the tablet hardware market. Tablets running Android and VIA hardware are expected in 2H 2010.
A new NVIDIA GPU for notebooks surfaced called the GTX 480M. The new GPU will surface first in a line of Clevo notebooks, but will end up in high-end machines everywhere. Sony showed off a sweet rollable OLED display mid-week. The display could be rolled to 4mm in diameter while showing moving images.
Project Natal pricing was rumored to be $149 for the camera alone this week. The Natal camera is also said to be coming in a bundle with an Xbox 360 for $299. Rumors surfaced later in the week that Steve Ballmer would be on-stage at WWDC 2010. Those rumors were later proven to be false, as if we didn't know that was highly unlikely already.
AT&T has announced a new insurance plan for the iPhone called MobileProtect for $13.99 monthly. It's not much of an insurance plan though and lets you buy a new handset at close to the rate you get them with a new contract. The last bit of iPhone rumor fluff this week claims that Verizon will have the device by November. That would mean the iPhone will land on the Sprint network in September, then Verizon in November if those rumors are true.