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US Update: Skyfire, Xperia x-Wave, Windows Phone 7, HTC
HTC 2011 Mobile World Congress line up leaked?
Google TV adding Android Market soon?
Microsoft can’t stop the Windows Phone 7 jailbreak
Sony Xperia x-Wave packs 1.5 GHz processor
Skyfire for iPad tops 200,000 downloads in first three weeks
Teatime Tech: New Angry Birds game, Duke Nukem Forever dated, more Apple icon secrets and LA Noire in depth preview
Apple icon secrets: we just uncovered a lot more!
LA Noire preview
Angry Birds: Valentine’s Day pink edition on 14 February confirmed, plus screenshots

US Update: Skyfire, Xperia x-Wave, Windows Phone 7, HTC

Posted: 21 Jan 2011 07:00 PM PST

The weekend is upon us, but the world of tech news never sleeps. In today's US Update we lay out the latest numbers for Skyfire on iPad, look at the latest Sony Ericsson concept phone, look at the new Windows Phone 7 jailbreak and more.

Skyfire for iPad has been downloaded more than 200,000 times since launching just three weeks ago. Following in the success of the iPhone and Android versions, Skyfire for iPad looks to be a must-have application for the Cupertino tablet. The Sony Ericsson Xperia x-Wave is the latest in the 2011 Sony Ericsson concept renders. The phone packs a punch with a 1.5 GHz processor, 4.4 inch display powered by the Bravia Engine Reality Display and more.

Microsoft now has a new threat as a second Windows Phone 7 jailbreak tool has been announced. Dubbed "Windows Phone 7 Device Manager", the app will make side loading a breeze and does not suffer from the hiccup causing ChevronWP7 to be re-locked. Google TV will be adding the Android Market very soon, possibly within the next month. UK developer, Al Sutton, announced via Twitter that Android Market servers seem to have received a Google TV related update.

Last up this morning is a leak on the HTC 2011 Mobile World Congress handset line up. We've got images of the new HTC smartphones, even the 2011 flagship device, set to take the Android world by storm.

That wraps up things this fine morning from the states. Thanks for spending your morning with us as we break the headlines fresh off the press from our side of the world. Until Monday, this is Nick saying over and out.

HTC 2011 Mobile World Congress line up leaked?

Posted: 21 Jan 2011 06:00 PM PST

We're less than a month away from Mobile World Congress, set to take place February 14th to 17th in Barcelona, and we've just been handed what appears to be HTC's 2011 mobile line up. That's right, we've got all the details on HTC's upcoming flagship smartphone and several other handsets set to debut next month in Spain.

The second largest city in Spain will play host to the world of mobile tech next month. HTC will be on hand to show off their 2011 line up, but rather than make you wait – we've got the scoop on what the Taiwan-based manufacturer plans to unveil.

First up is a button-less HTC smartphone which has appeared with both HTC and Verizon branding. There's little known about the device, other than what can be seen in the artwork. Both Pocketnow and Phandroid believe the phone will be unveiled at MWC.

The next image is HTC's 2011 flagship device according to pocketnow.com. The device appears to mimic the styling of the Desire HD, but the screen appears to be smaller — possibly 3.8 or 4.0 inches. With rounded corners, it appears HTC is bringing back the styling first scene on the Nexus One.

Inspired by the HTC HD2, the next handset is destined for China with the same swirl logo in the upper right seen on the HTC Oboe. Like the other three devices, there is little know about the specifications — but our hands-on and MWC should fix that.

As we approach Mobile World Congress, we'll certainly see more HTC handsets leaked. For now we have a good idea on the designs HTC plans to use this year and we're certainly thrilled to get some hands-on time. Stay tuned as we bring you the latest on HTC's 2011 smartphone line up.

via Pocketnow

Google TV adding Android Market soon?

Posted: 21 Jan 2011 05:00 PM PST

A welcomed addition to the Google TV platform is set to debut in the next few months. Android Market will be coming to Google TV, delivering hundreds of thousands of apps to your living room. Confirmed by UK developer, Al Sutton, Android Market could be the missing piece in the puzzle keeping Google TV from mainstream acceptance.

Since launching last year, Google TV has not seen the smoothest launch. In fact, some reports suggest manufacturers have been told to hold off on hardware releases. Further evidence of this claim could be seen at CES 2011 where Google TV presence was notably absent. Regardless of the cause for the hiccup, it seems Google TV will be adding the Android Market very soon.

The first evidence came from Al Sutton, who noticed the Android Market servers received a Google TV related update and "publishers are now warned that 'touchscreen' is a filtering feature".

The addition of Android Market is a highly anticipated launch. Most developers have been waiting for the software to hit the set top box since Google's I/O last year. For now, this is simply a good sign, but by no means is it confirmed fact. The back-end preparation appears to be underway and we know Android Market will eventually launch on Google TV, and this is a sign the software may launch very soon.

If Google TV adds the Android Market in the next few months will this be enough for you to make the switch? What features do you want to see on the Google TV in 2011? Sound off.

via AndroidGuys

Microsoft can’t stop the Windows Phone 7 jailbreak

Posted: 21 Jan 2011 04:00 PM PST

Another Windows Phone 7 jailbreak tool is on the horizon. Developer Julien Schapman has outlined his plans to release Windows Phone 7 Device Manager which will allow side-load applications, custom ringtones and even file system exploring. Now, with a second high-profile Windows Phone 7 jailbreak, will Microsoft be able to ward off the threat?

ChevronWP7, released in late November, was the first Windows Phone 7 jailbreaking solution. If Julien Schapman's goal is realized, his Windows Phone 7 Device Manager would be the second successful attempt at a jailbreak. For ChevronWP7, Microsoft quickly took action and the app was pulled within days of launch. Then, just a few weeks ago the team announced that Microsoft planned to close the exploit that the team had been using, as part of a file system software update.

Here's what we know about Julian Schapman's Windows Phone 7 Device Manager. Like ChevronWP7, this jailbreak method also uses a fake registration server, but with a "different and more reliable" method. Also, this method will never allow the phone to "re-lock" since it automatically detects when a Windows Phone 7 device is plugged in to see if it is a registered developer phone, if not it will register "it once and for all".

While jailbreaking a device is often associated with piracy, Schapman does not want to see Windows Phone 7 Device Manager used in that purpose. Schapman went on record to say, "if needed I will work with Microsoft to prevent this" and he plans to remove the unlock feature if Microsoft provides an official, free method. If you're wondering what has motivated Schapman to create the software, he simply wants to use his own apps on any device.

Should Microsoft offer a free solution to avoid dealing with jailbreaking Windows Phone 7? Is Windows Phone 7 Device Manager a legitimate solution which Microsoft could simply enable for all users? Sound off.

via WinRumors

Sony Xperia x-Wave packs 1.5 GHz processor

Posted: 21 Jan 2011 03:00 PM PST

Kicking off the 2011 Sony Ericsson concepts is the Xperia x-Wave, touting a jaw dropping 1.5 GHz processor and a handful of other bells and whistles. Yesterday we reported Sony Ericsson's less than stellar fourth quarter financials, but with concept designs like these — could we be looking at the next Sony Ericsson flagship smartphone?

Designed by Frank Tobias from some-phones.com, the Sony Ericsson Xperia x-Wave built for speed. Powered by a 1.5 GHz processor (fingers crossed, dual core), the x-Wave boasts an eight megapixel camera with HD video recording (1080P please?). Following the lines of the Xperia Arc, the x-Wave will use the Exmor R-sensor and the display will measure 4.4 inches, like the Arc it will use the Bravia Engine Reality Display.

Internally, we'd be looking at 8GB of storage and 512MB of RAM. Standard feature such as WiFi and bluetooth would also be in tow. In terms of worldwide compatibility, quadband 3G support or possibly even a LTE radio for a North American release. Assuming the device ran the latest Android build, version 2.3 Gingerbread, the x-Wave would be a seriously sexy piece of hardware.

We'll continue to follow the 2011 Sony Ericsson concept designs currently underway at esato.com and look forward to seeing what these creative minds can render up for SE. For now, it's time to find out if this is the handset that could bring in the millions of handset shipments the company desperately needs. Any takers?

via Concept-Phones | Esato

Skyfire for iPad tops 200,000 downloads in first three weeks

Posted: 21 Jan 2011 12:59 PM PST

In the three weeks following the December 23rd launch of Skyfire for iPad, the app has quickly become a worldwide sensation. Like Skyfire for iPhone and Skyfire for Android, the iPad variant packs a punch — bringing millions of Flash videos and cloud-enabled social features to our finger tips. Here's the latest on Skyfire for iPad.

Skyfire for iPad was a contender out of the gate, quickly becoming the top-grossing app for iPad in the App Store within 24 hours of launch. Success continued as Skyfire held the number one ranking within the Utility category for both "top grossing" and "top paid" applications. Priced at $4.99 (one-time fee), Skyfire for iPad takes Webkit mobile browser, paired with the cloud-enabled Skybar for the ultimate browsing experience.

If you've never used Skyfire for iPad, here's what you need to know. When visiting a website with Flash-enabled video, a 'video' icon will appear. Pressing the button will begin a quick conversion process that transforms the otherwise unplayable video, into an iOS friendly .h264 video. Social networking is achieved with Facebook, Google and Twitter QuickViews — one-touch access buttons that bring up windows to share content without leaving your current page.

Other key features include Fireplace, which displays Facebook news feed posts and gives you a quick glance at what your friends are sharing; Popular Content, which analyzes a webpage and shows you which stores your Facebook friends are sharing; and the Unviersal "Like" button, which puts a Facebook 'like' button on any website.

The first three weeks since launch have been tremendously successful for Skyfire on iPad. Anyone else out there currently using Skyfire as their default browser? If so, let us know which feature has made this app a must-have for your Apple tablet.

Out Now | Skyfire | $4.99

Teatime Tech: New Angry Birds game, Duke Nukem Forever dated, more Apple icon secrets and LA Noire in depth preview

Posted: 21 Jan 2011 09:57 AM PST

It’s the end of the working week. Shut down your spreadsheet, stat, and check out of the office, but not before checking out what’s been happening in the world of games and gadgetry this afternoon.

First up, there’s some tasty news for gamers of all tastes today. Duke Nukem Forever at long last got a UK release date, while we revealed that a new Angry Birds game with a Valentine’s Day theme is out on 14 February. We also got a good long look at LA Noire, Rockstar’s next game, well ahead of release so be sure to see what we made of it.

On the Apple side of things meanwhile, a new leak suggests when we might see an iPad 2 launched, and we rounded up a few more of those clever Apple icons and their hidden secrets for your perusal.

Still want more news? Pop on over to the homepage and help yourself to it all as it breaks!

Apple icon secrets: we just uncovered a lot more!

Posted: 21 Jan 2011 09:16 AM PST

This week we spilled the beans on the secret messages hidden within Apple icons across the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Mac. It went down a storm, spreading like wildfire, and thanks to your brilliant feedback we’ve uncovered even more secrets! We’ve updated the original post, and clearly marked the new additions. Put your sleuthing hat on, and take a look!

LA Noire preview

Posted: 21 Jan 2011 08:03 AM PST

LA Noire, the new game from Rockstar Games and developer Team Bondi, will come as shock to long time fans of Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption and their ilk. This is a game that asks you to enjoy pulling out your notebook and rifling through the evidence, and to watch the facial expressions of the LA lowlife you interrogate. Are they lying?

While you might be used to simply shooting them in face to find out, LA Noire asks you to do things a little differently. Will it work? We got an early look at the game to find out.

At a hands off demo this week, we were shown an early build of the PlayStation 3 version of LA Noire, which is due to ship in the Spring. If you’ve seen the trailer above you’ll be as shocked as we were to find out two things about the game: Rockstar readily admits it’s not an open world sandbox game, despite the huge 1940s LA setting, and that the fighting is “rudimentary” at best. And yet despite that, LA Noire looks set to be one of the most noteworthy games of the year.

You see, while there are brief sections of duck and gun shooting you might be used to from playing as Niko Bellic or John Marsten, they’re not the main aspect of the game. In fact, much of the challenge has been removed from them: you get unlimited ammo for your pistol, and your health regenerates after time, a la Uncharted or Call of Duty solo campaigns.

Instead, the focus is on good ol’ fashioned detective work: hitting the streets, quizzing the right people, spotting the right clues and joining all the dots before a killer strikes again. Will it work? From what we’ve seen, it’s certainly far more intriguing than the police work in 2010’s Heavy Rain – which really did feel like work.

You play as Cole Phelps (left), newly promoted to detective in 1947 LA

The mission we were shown is drawn from early in the game, right after the protagonist, a returning GI called Cole Phelps, is promoted to detective (A short stint as a traffic cop serves as a tutorial to the game’s controls) in 1947. Missions are taken from different department desks (Vice, homicide and so forth), and this one, “Fallen Idol”, sees you investigating the circumstances behind a mysterious car crash – two women were drugged and pushed over the edge of a cliff. They survived, but have no memory of what happened – or so they say.

While there’s a noticeable episode feel to the game, like Alan Wake, we’re promised an overarching narrative – and with the Houser brothers’ stamp of approval on the game, we’re expecting a corker. However, Rockstar isn’t giving any info out on that just yet, even cutting the mission short before the concluding cutscene.

But even so, we’re still treated to a rollercoaster ride that involves gangsters, high speed car chases, shootouts, conniving molls, naive teens who’d do anything to be a star, and and a truly gruesome “casting couch”.

Check out our Best PS3 games Top 5 now

You start the mission heading over to the crime scene – conveniently right across the road from the station (You can fast travel to locations in the city for later missions by having your partner on a case drive). There, Phelps finds that one of the women is being treated for a minor injury, and is able to question here and inspect the crime scene.

Interrogation and scouring the scene of the crime is the real meat of the game. The latter works surprisingly well considering you’re essentially playing a game of hot and cold. Fitting jazz music pipes in when you need to start investigating, and piano chimes kick in when you find an object of note – you can inspect the objects too for details on them.

Much of the game has you scouring crime scenes for clues

When you find one, a record of it automatically goes in your notebook, and you can use this evidence when questioning suspects. When you’re questioning, you can use three approaches, triggered by different buttons: believe/coax, doubt/force and disbelieve/accuse. The idea is to judge a person’s facial expressions and replies, and then choose the correct approach – for instance, if you accuse someone, you’d better have evidence to back it up in your notebook.

The chimes ring to suggest correct routes, but Rockstar is keen to point out that LA Noire won’t stonewall you at all: wrong responses might result in you being given only some of the information, meaning you’ll have to visit more locations to find the next clue. Eventually, you’ll always get there, but don’t worry if it sounds too easy: you can always be shot, fail the case or fall to your death.

See our best Xbox games Top 5 here

Rockstar has made a huge deal out of its new Motion Scan technology, which creates eerily realistic renders of actors, and is integral to this interrogation gameplay. Certainly, Aaron Staton (Not the only actor from Man Men who pops up in this mission) is instantly recognisable as Phelps, and there’s no sense of being stuck in the uncanny valley.

So many human inflections and gestures seem to have been included – it’s far more subtle than we expected. People don’t telegraph when they’re lying in the same way: one will roll their eyes from side to side, while another suspect will gulp, almost imperceptibly. We missed the signs on more than one occasion, until a Rockstar rep pointed them out. Certainly after playing this you’ll ever wonder why you put up with the wonky facial animations in Fallout.

LA is rendered beautifully

Visually the rest of the game looks stunning: even on an early PS3 build (Rockstar’s last game, Red Dead Redemption, had noticeably superior graphics on Xbox 360), the empty lots and parched and faded art deco streets of Hollywood look mesmerising. Light bounces off the curved bonnets of cars, and the heat shimmer of tarmac in the distance gives the game a distinct feel – this is Chinatown, kid.

While no one could ever accuse Rockstar of failing to mix it up when it comes to genres (This is a company that put out a game entirely devoted to table tennis), there’s no doubt LA Noire represents a new type of game entirely. A bold, and impressive one – but one we fear might have little replay value. After all, once you’ve solved the case, you’ve sold the case, right? And no one’s ever made a game where you actively enjoy looking in a notebook before.

A Rockstar representative was keen to assure us this was not the case, pointing that missions can play out differently each time you play them – for instance, in this one, while we intercepted a pair of goons snooping around and handcuffed them after some fisticuffs, arrive too late and the henchmen you meant to cut off will already have been and gone, lifting the evidence.

Even if this isn’t enough to tempt you to play it through again, from what we’ve seen so far it looks like LA Noire could easily justify its price for one fascinating playthrough. We’re promised a hands on session with a newer build of the game in the coming weeks, so stay tuned and we’ll be sure to update you on how the game is progressing.

LA Noire is out this Spring for Xbox 360 and Sony PS3.

Angry Birds: Valentine’s Day pink edition on 14 February confirmed, plus screenshots

Posted: 21 Jan 2011 07:58 AM PST

A rumour surfaced at the end of last year that Angry Birds developer Rovio would be releasing a Valentine’s day update for the game. Now we’ve got confirmation, and a couple of screenshots of the next Angry Birds special edition too. Click through for more photos and the video where the pink Angry Birds is revealed!

In the depths of this clunky German/English learning TV package about mobile gaming (“it’s the adventure of simply drawn characters”, and listen out for the German underneath the dubbing: “smartphone ist top!”) there’s an official confirmation about the next iteration of Angry Birds.

Skip to 4mins 20secs, and we’re told: “The designers at Rovio are currently working on new versions of their game, like this update in pink, due to come on the market on 14 February: Valentine’s day.”

From the look of the pink Angry Birds screenshots, it looks like it won’t just be the Angry Birds background that goes pink, the birds will be turned pink too, and the pigs will be building heart shaped defences. So romantic!

Is the pink edition of Angry Birds the perfect Valentine’s Day gift? Would your other half love it or loathe it? Shout out in the comments!

Here’s the video in full: