SlashGear Week In Review - Week 30 2011
Another week has come and gone in the geek world and it's time to round up some of the biggest and most important stories of the week. MySpace's founder warned Google+ to fear the filter early in the week. Tom Anderson cautioned against relying too greatly on algorithmic filtering. AMD tipped that the Xbox 720 will have Avatar levels of detail when it launches. That would make for some truly awesome video games.
The continuing Android legal assault is reportedly seeing some smartphone firms looking for other operating systems. The legal assault is said to be sending phone makers to Windows Phone and MeeGo. LinkedIn's CEO has said that Google+ can't coexist with Facebook and Twitter. Jeff Weiner has claimed that Google+ makes demands on time that users don't have.
Eric Schmidt has said that Apple's lawsuits are prompted by jealousy and a lack of innovation. He said that the Android suits are "inspired by our successes." An early version of Google+ iOS app was released by accident this week. Thousands of users were able to download the app before it was pulled leading to issues for some that had use the app.
A company in China has faked a complete Apple Store and it looks almost just like the real thing. Apparently, the fake Apple Store was selling real Apple gear though. Vince went hands on with the IdeaPad K1 and the ThinkPad Tablet this week. Vince liked the ThinkPad Tablet, but thinks the K1 will struggle.
Apple is hinting that the iPhone 5 will come in September. CFO Peter Oppenheimer mentioned the company would undergo a "future product transition" in September. Apple refreshed the Mac mini desktop computer this week. The main changes were new Sandy Bridge processors and a dual-drive server version along with Thunderbolt.
The MacBook Air was also refreshed along with the mini this week. The refresh brought new Sandy Bridge processors and Thunderbolt. The Senate Antitrust Subcommittee chairman is opposing the AT&T and T-Mobile merger. The chairman says that the merger could cause substantial harm to competition and consumers.
The Space Shuttle Atlantis touched down last week and ended 26 years of space flight aboard the shuttle fleet. It will be four years before the US has a replacement for the Shuttle. Some really funny mock T-Mobile commercials have turned up that make fun of the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile. If you haven't seen them, they are worth a watch.
Toyota showed off some cool concept tech this week with a window for a car that lets the user zoom in on things that are far off. The odds of this sort of tech coming to market are slim. Some official pics of the Droid Bionic surfaced this week at Amazon when the listings for some accessories turned up on the site. The accessories were a desk dock and a car dock.
Google+ has grown to 20M unique visitors already. While the growth is massive Google has admitted that its brand strategy was a mistake on the project. A special edition Star Wars Kinect bundle is coming that has the console in R2D2 livery and the controller is designed to look like C3PO. The console will land in time for the holidays at undisclosed pricing.
We put up our review of Mac OS X Lion late last week. Burns really liked the OS and said that it would be the OS he uses for the foreseeable future. Gerber unveiled a new multitool called the Steady that has a camera tripod built in. The tool will land next year for about $65 and will be great for photo shooting hikers.
Rue posted up a review of the Toshiba Thrive tablet. She figures if you are willing to go with the fatter design you better really want the full size USB port. The tablet is also cheap but those seem to be its only big selling points. Vince also posted up his review of the new 13-inch core i5 MacBook Air. The new Air has portability and performance with the only lacking point being no integrated 3G. Thanks for reading this week's edition!