Category: Gadgets

The smartphones platforms are legitimated by KIRF manufacturers tenacity to rip them off, and then Windows Phone 7 has truly arrived. We are looking at a larger than life HTC-branded knock-off of the Omnia 7, replete with 800*480, 4.8 inch display with capacitive touchscreen and 1GHz Snapdragon Processor. Given the massive size of this phone, there is plenty of room for features, it some of the specs are Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS connectivity, 5MP camera, dual-SIM and two microSD slots (can store up to 32GB). The device comes saddled with Windows Mobile 6.5 which has been heavily modified to resemble WP7s tile interface. There is no word yet in pricing.

The electronic giant teased a couple of interesting VAIO laptops. First one is Freestyle Hybrid PC that slides between tablet mode and laptop mode like Samsung Sliding PC, but with a seemingly slimmer bottom-half sans trackpad. No word on specs, prices or availability here, but you may recall our proven tipster mentioning a 9.4-inch screen and a $799 launch price.

The report expectedly remains confidential, but HP was at least kind enough to repeatedly mention TouchPad in its latest FCC filling, which saves us a bit of digging, and it means that the webOS tablet remains on track for a US launch soon sometime in June. It may get some cloud-based additions before then? HP will have more to say its Veer-focused event that is already scheduled for May 2nd, we already told about that

Windows Phone and BlackBerry Mobiles struggle to attract the developers attention. It applies to only the users of cross-platform Appcelerator Titanium development entertainment, but it appears what Windows Phone 7 is facing an increasingly uphill battle for mobile mind-share. Only 29 percent of devs responded to the companys quarterly survey they were very interested in putting their waves on WP7, a fall of 7 points from last quarter and far less than market leaders Android and iOS. News is even worse for RIM, it saw a fall of 11 points in developers interest for BlackBerry, and now trails the folks from Redmond. The survey is based on only 2,760 developers using a particular product. As you see the charts, you can see the struggle of both WP7 and RIM.

The official announcement has come; Casios macho GzOne Commando is coming to Verizon on April 28th for the price of $200 on-contract. In addition to meeting 810G military specifications for water, dust, shock, vibration, salt fog, solar radiation, and temperature extremes, it runs Android 2.2(Froyo) and features 3.6-inch (480*800) display, 5MP camera with autofocus, microSD slot, Wi-Fi, Stereo Bluetooth, and a hotspot for sharing 3G with up to five devices. It got bundles of apps for outdoorsy types, compass, pedometer, star gazer and thermometer. For more details read the press release.

The US had to wait for its Eee Pad Transformer launch little longer than rest of the world, but its finally got its wish today. Amazons order page for the $400 Honeycomb tablet appears to have gone from in stock to out of stock within mere minutes, while target the supplier fulfilling orders on behalf of Amazon also lists the Transformer as presently unavailable. ASUSs own Where To Buy page lead us to a bunch of dead ends as well, while Best Buy being the only retailer we can currently find with stock in US. If you want yours click on the source links down and get it.

Sonys hosts a press event in Tokyo, their its announcement is a pair of Android Tablets, two Honeycomb slates, first one is 9.4-inch S1 media tablet with curved top much like folded magazine and both front and rear facing cameras. Some of the S1 specs are Tegra 2 SoC and customized Quick and Smooth touch panel UI with Swift web browser. It can also be used as remote for Sony gear.

IntoNow launched its iPhone app that can identify what TV show you are watching by audio Shazam-style and then share it with others over Facebook or Twitter, pull in additional information or add the DVD to your Netfilx queue. Yahoo has purchased the company now. It wants to integrate its SoundPrint tech with its existing services including connected TV platform. As NewTeeVee suggests, this can tie in nicely with its existing plans to use audio watermarks to identify advertisements and display additional info on screen or work with a companion app. For more details read the press release.

This is my next reports that in PC-maker has a 7-inch Honeycomb slate features a high resolution1280*800 display and ARM dual-core processor. The slides also indicate the presence of Lenovo Family UI, likely means Le OS. Release is likely to be in Q4, but given the presence of a placeholder image and fact that these slides are at least a month old, most of this may change. Lenovo takes its own time to make customizations on Honeycomb, since its differentiating touches makes all the difference in burgeoning sea of screen centric devices.

A pair of 10-inch Dell tablets, one of them running Windows 7 on those new Oak Trail chips from Intel and other one is running Android3.0 with Tegra T25. We got some specs and release dates of these devices. The Wintel powered Latitude ST features a resolution of 1366*768, 2GB of RAM, up to 12GB SSD, GPS, an accelerometer, both front and rear facing cameras, 8-hour removable battery, and a 1080p video, which we assume means HDMI out.

Europeans can pre-order their HTC Flyer for months, and now curious Yanks are about to get their chance. The tablet will be available for pre-order on April 24th for $499 with the Best Buy as exclusive seller. While it got the 3G version, the one about to come is Wi-Fi version. The Flyer is makers first tablet, features a 7-inch with 1024*600 display, aluminium body, 1.5GHz Qualcomm chip, and a version of companys Sense UI that was tweaked with the slates. It got Android 2.3 Gingerbread edition, but HTC promises to upgrade the version to Android 3.0 Honeycomb edition. For more details read the press release

The latest firmware update to the robotic camera mount brings more exposures per position, a dedicated mirror lock-up for bulky lenses, and a time display that get you how long it will take its panoramic magic. The update also includes a set of new aspect ratios and the ability to take time lapse panoramas. If you already got GigaPan Epic Pro, you can download the firmware update from the download link given below for free a new one will cost $900. For more details read the press release