SlashGear Week in Review- Week 3 2011

Welcome to this week's edition of the SlashGear Week in Review. CES is over, but one of the biggest announcements in a long time was made this week and I bet you can figure out what it is, read along to find out. That sweet Motorola XOOM WiFi tablet that we saw at CES will reportedly ship in April. The tablet is expected to ship about 800,000 units.

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Alienware outted the cool looking and powerful M18x notebook computer. It can be packed with dual NVIDIA or AMD GPUs and will have a price to match the impressive specs. The Notion Ink Adam hit a bit of a snag this week after the FCC was backed up and had a delay in issuing the labels the devices needs to ship. The backlog was expected to be cleared the same week.

Kevin Rose of Digg fame announced this week that the iPad 2 was coming soon according to sources that spilled the beans to him. Rose was told that the new tablet would launch in the "next few weeks." That PlayStation phone that we keep hearing about showed up on video this week running PS1 ROMs. The phone looks really cool and I hope the thing doesn't suck when it finally lands.

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On Monday Verizon Tweeted from the Twitter for iPhone app as CES. We all knew the iPhone was coming at this point so few were surprised I think. AMD kicked its CEO, Dirk Meyer, out of office last week and the chip giant is looking for a new CEO. As of now, there is no word on a replacement.

Intel agreed to pay NVIDIA $1.5 billion in licensing fees this week. The deal marks a 6-year cross-licensing agreement between the two firms and allows both firms to drop the legal proceedings between the two. Pioneer showed off a new prototype cycling computer powered by Android. The little thing is cool and proves Android really is heading everywhere.

We wondered this week if the iPhone that hit Verizon would hurt Android device sales. Consider that AT&T has 15 iPhone users for every Android device user it's a valid question. I think Verizon will still sell lots of Android devices. Once the Verizon iPhone surfaced on Tuesday, we learned that the buttons are slightly different from the AT&T iPhone thanks to the CDMA nature of Verizon's device. That means that some cases for AT&T iPhones won't fit the Verizon offering, but some will.

We went hands on with the Verizon iPhone Tuesday and it's the AT&T device with button and antenna tweaks. The biggest improvement is that the Verizon network isn't a crappy in most areas as the AT&T network. A really cool case for the iPad surfaced this week called the US+U Swivel Pro with a rotating handle. Each of the cases also gets a 3% donation to one of the charities the company supports.

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All iPhones no matter the carrier will get personal hotspot feature in the iOS 4.3 update. That is assuming AT&T doesn't block it as they always have blocked tethering. A cool guitar tuner was unveiled this week called the Capo tuner from OnBoard Research. The turner has a big screen and makes tuning your guitar easy.

We spend some hands on time with the Eee Slate EP121 tablet. The tablet is a 12.1-inch machine that has more notebook DNA than iPad inside. Sprint has announced a big event for February 7 and is promising another industry first. The event will have the Sprint CEO on hand an illusionist David Blaine.

Verizon axed its New Every Two program right before the iPhone launched. The move was undoubtedly to help keep some iPhone users from upgrading so quickly since subsidies are going to eat up billions for the company. A cool wireless video card surfaced from KFA2. The card sends the video from your computer out wirelessly to your screen using a receiver and five antennas on the back. The video card is an NVIDIA GTX 460.

HorodronHD-01 concept Watch surfaced and it's really cool. The thing has an E-ink screen and is easy to read unlike other designer watches with high-tech designs. A geek took a Kinect, Wii controllers, and a PC version of Black Ops and hacked the works to operate together. The Wii controllers handled movement, aim and firing while the Kinect recognized gestures for other commands.

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Analysts are reporting that since the iPhone launched Apple may have sold as many as 90 million iPhones. Considering the device was only on one carrier in many places for a lot of that time the number is very impressive. BAE Systems is working on an e-ink system of camo for tanks. The system uses sensors to project the landscape around the tank onto the surface of the tank to hide it Predator style.

A new line of Angry Birds plush toys surfaced at Firebox. Some of the stuffed toys make noises and they will all ship in March. Liquid Image has a new set of goggles for the off-road rider that wants to record their antics. It can record in 1080p 30 fps or 720p 60 fps and stores to microSD cards.

Korg outted a new nanoSERIES2 USB controller this week. The thing comes in black or white colors and gets power and connectivity from the USB port. Apple has announced that the App Store is nearing the 10 billion download mark. The person who downloads the 10 billionth app will get a $10,000 gift card.

Some leaked iPad 2 cases have surfaced that show what the new tablet might look like. The things have the case shows the same square design as the current iPad with a larger speaker and more. A few rumors have been floating around on the specs of the iPad 2. The rumors point to a higher resolution screen, SD card slot, and more . I just don't see Apple offering a SD card slot on anything, but I would love to be wrong on that. Thanks for reading this week's edition!

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