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iPad 2 resellers, BlackBerry PlayBook email client, Wii 2: US Update
Apple televisions will sport hybrid laser projection displays?
More details emerge on the Nintendo Wii 2 (Wii HD)
RIM Co-CEO Jim Balsillie: native email and apps coming in 60 days
HTC Sense 3.0 unofficially hits the HTC Desire HD
iPad 2 resellers cash in while solving China’s iPad 2 shortage
Obama annoyed White House tech is ’30 years behind’. Someone get Jony Ive on the phone…
Nike+ SportWatch GPS review: is this the ultimate fitness gadget?
From the brink of disaster to a billion-dollar success story: The secrets behind the extraordinary rise of HTC
Sites We Like: cute cats, cute kids and um…Jay Z?!

iPad 2 resellers, BlackBerry PlayBook email client, Wii 2: US Update

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 06:52 PM PDT

It's time to wrap up your week in tech news with a Saturday edition of your morning US Update. Headlining today's news is an amazing story of just how much money you can make reselling the iPad 2 in China. We get the scoop on the native email client coming to the BlackBerry PlayBook and even score some specs headed to the Wii 2 (Wii HD). This and more on today's US Update.

Looking for a new career? How does $400 a day reselling iPad 2s sound? Take a look at just how good the life of an iPad 2 reseller can be, here. Our friends at xda-developers have managed to do what HTC couldn't — bring Sense 3.0 to the Desire HD. If you want to take it for a spin, for free, check out the full scoop.

RIM's co-CEO Jim Balsillie has confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that native email will come to the BlackBerry PlayBook "in 60 days". He's also re-confirmed the Android app player will launch this summer, opening the new Tablet OS to over a hundred thousand apps. The second-generation Nintendo Wii, dubbed the Wii 2 or Wii HD, will be unveiled at E3 this summer. We've got the scoop on the new processor and some shocking details on the controllers.

Last in this morning is a patent filing by Apple for a laser projection solution which may be features on its self-branded TV sets. Ready to turn your HDTV into a projector? That wraps up your morning edition of the US Update. As always I'm Nick Marshall and I'll see you again on Monday.

Apple televisions will sport hybrid laser projection displays?

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 06:38 PM PDT

This is not the first we've heard of an Apple-branded television, and by all accounts, we don't imagine it'll be the last. However, today's news has an added twist by way of a patent filing which indicates the possibility of a hybrid laser projection display coming to the purported sets. Who else is ready for an Apple TV which doubles as a high definition projector?

Packed deep within the US Patent and Trademark Office database under the code 20110075055 is a filing entitled "Display system having coherent and incoherent light sources". Contained within is a description of a hybrid laser projection technology which is cheaper than traditional light projectors while also immune to the speckle issue that leads to a grainy image on some laser projectors. If you're not familiar with the speckle issue it's simply the result of the laser striking a rough surface — take our word, it's not a pretty sight.

Now for the rub. The filing mentions "rear projection applications such as television" which we believe hints at an Apple-branded television. There are certainly other possible applications such as laptops and even smartphones (think MacBook Pro, iPhone, iPod touch), but our interest is certainly in a television set. If the purported Apple TV does come to fruition, anyone care to offer up guess at how Apple may pitch the product? Keeping in mind that everything Apple does is revolutionary, of course.

via 9to5Mac

More details emerge on the Nintendo Wii 2 (Wii HD)

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 06:19 PM PDT

Depending on who you ask Nintendo's follow up to the Wii will be called either the Wii 2 or Wii HD. One aspect most, if not all, will agree on is that the second-generation Wii will be unveiled at this year's E3 Expo. With E3 rapidly approaching you can rest assure a fire storm of details and rumors will be headed our way. Let's take a look at the latest on the Wii 2 (Wii HD).

Today's Wii 2 (Wii HD) report is brought to you by our friends at geeky-gadgets. According to the report, a three-core IBM PowerPC CPU (codenamed Project Cafe) similar to the Xbox 360's chip will be under the hood. Also confirmed are six-inch single-input touchscreens and front-mounted cameras embedded in the controllers.

Assuming these are the only major changes in the second-generation Wii, do you think Nintendo has the chops to contend with even the current crop of high-end gaming consoles? Let us know where you stand on the Wii 2 (Wii HD).

Coming Soon | Nintendo [via geeky-gadgets]

RIM Co-CEO Jim Balsillie: native email and apps coming in 60 days

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 05:54 PM PDT

We feel for RIM, honestly we do. First, the company records record smartphone shipments yet their stock price slides and now early reviews of their BlackBerry PlayBook, by large, are less than favorable. Co-CEO Jim Balsillie, while speaking to the Wall Street Journal, dropped details on standalone email support – a move which should silence most critics.

60. That's how many days you'll need to wait before the BlackBerry PlayBook lands its own "native" email client. Until then, you'll need to embrace the slate's healthy co-dependence which requires you own a BlackBerry smartphone in order to enjoy its full capabilities when it goes on sale next week in North America.

If you've been following the BlackBerry PlayBook launch, and we imagine you have, you know Android app support is a huge win for RIM. Both in terms of attracting potential buyers to the PlayBook, but also for developers currently coding apps for Android. The costs of hiring new in-house developers, strictly for the BlackBerry Tablet OS, might be out of the reach for smaller firms – this bridges the gap.

RIM's Jim Balsillie re-confirmed earlier reports which announced a Summer 2011 release for the Android app player. Now that we've heard the good word from Mr. Balsillie, it's time to sound off. Is 60 days too long in this rapidly evolving mobile world?

WSJ [via crackberry]

HTC Sense 3.0 unofficially hits the HTC Desire HD

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 05:30 PM PDT

Love it or hate it, the will of a group of xda-developers can overpower even the most daunting task. Yesterday, HTC confirmed the HTC Desire HD would not support the Sense 3.0 UI, at least not in any official capacity. Say hello to your unofficial Sense 3.0 support my friends.

Here's the story: xda-developers member capychimp used a recent ROM dump of the upcoming HTC Sensation to piece together a custom ROM for the HTC Desire HD. This ROM is based on Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread and includes Sense 3.0. This begs the question: is the hardware in the Desire HD (and other Desire series devices) actually underpowered for the UI? It may be as simple as allocating company resources to support newer devices and for that we can't fault the manufacturer.

Now back to the custom ROM. As with most custom ROMs, the bug list is extensive (for now). If you are new to the game we'd recommend sitting on the sidelines for a while — at least until the major issues can be ironed out. For the adventurous folks, head right on over to the xda-developers thread below and take Sense 3.0 for a spin on your Desire HD, enjoy.

Out Now | xda-developers | Free [via coolsmartphone]

iPad 2 resellers cash in while solving China’s iPad 2 shortage

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 05:14 PM PDT

Just when you thought the iPad 2 craze was winding to a close, a story in the New York Times sheds light on what's really going with Cupertino's newest slate. Apparently, iPad 2 resellers in New York City are still spending nights in the cold, waiting to pick up as many units as Apple's SoHo store is willing to sell. With a feeding frenzy for iPad 2s in China, resellers are cashing in as much as $400 a day shipping units overseas.

Who would have thought that you could make a living spending your nights outside an Apple Store over a month after the iPad 2 was released? With an insatiable appetite for the highly coveted tablet in China, long lines outside of Apple's SoHo store have become breeding grounds for sizable profits. Nick Bilton from the New York Times scoped out the situation first hand and even spoke to a man waiting in line who said he could make "up to $400 a day by purchasing and reselling the iPad 2."

Ethics and customs issues aside, $400 a day for sitting in line could turn out to be a six-figure profession. That is, assuming you had the ability to camp out 365 days a year. Now that you know the truth, anyone considering a career change?

via NYTimes

Obama annoyed White House tech is ’30 years behind’. Someone get Jony Ive on the phone…

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 11:38 AM PDT

President Obama – the most powerful man in the world – appears to be less than impressed with his BlackBerry. At a fundraiser in Chicago he commented privately that the technology used by the White House was ‘like, 30 years behind’, before going on to bemoan the lack of ‘really cool phones and stuff’. He raged, ‘I’m the President of the United States, where’s the fancy buttons and stuff and the big screen?’ To be fair, the man’s got a point. Read on to find out why…

After all, just over two months ago he was sitting down to dinner with Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo and former Google Chief Exec Eric Schmidt – surely they could sort him out with something? Still, given these comments leaked out because Obama left his radio mic switched on after leaving a press conference, perhaps his aides feel POTAS can’t be trusted with anything too whizz-bang?

Mr President, allow us to respectfully direct you to Electricpig’s Top 5 section, where you will discover the five best smartphones in the world. And guess what? Not one of them is a BlackBerry…

Nike+ SportWatch GPS review: is this the ultimate fitness gadget?

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 09:59 AM PDT

Whether you’re running the London marathon, or watching from the sofa with a bottomless bowl of Skittles, it’s worth checking out Nike’s new GPS watch. The Nike+ SportWatch GPS was one of the surprise stars of this year’s CES show, and it’s now on sale in the UK. But how does it match up to Garmin’s legendary fitness timepieces? Put down that bowl, and read our expert review to find out…

Let’s get this clear from the start: this is for runners only. There are no profiles to cater for cyclists and swimmers. This is as streamlined as GPS watches get – and it’s all the better for it.

Just hold down the yellow button and start running

You’ve got a big screen (that you can even slap to mark laps), a slick neon strap that stays on and stays comfy, and just three buttons. Your functions are limited on the watch itself – you can’t even set the time without hooking it up to your computer, but it’s clear Nike’s thought about every aspect of this, right down to the heart rate monitor compatibility and the cable included incase the USB connector on the watch strap itself is too wide for your laptop. You just hold down the select button on the watch to turn on the GPS and start running.

See where you - and otheres - have run from the comfort of your browser

When you’re done, you simply stop it and enjoy the Nike+ SportWatch proverbially patting you on the back with encouraging messages and important milestones (fastest mile, say). Then you plug it in and sync your data to the cloud via the Nike+ Connect software for PC and Mac, and see where you ran, how far and how fast – even where others around you have been running, via a crowdsourced “heat map”.

That’s when it works, of course – with no cell towers or wireless networks to assist it as you’d get on a smartphone, the GPS can take some time to lock on. We frequently struggled to get a fix in central London, even in an open space.

Even in the open, in London, we struggled to find an initial signal

Eventually the Nike+ SportWatch found us after thirty seconds standing in the middle of Blackfriars Bridge, and once it did, it held on, even through the high rise streets of the City. If you run in wide open areas and parks it’s not an issue, but if you live in a major conurbation, you may want to test out smartphone GPS tracking options first – they may not have you waiting around so long to start with.

Of course, when you do lose reception, you can fall back on the Nike+ sensor that comes in the box, and which can be tied to your laces, or even better, popped comfortably into the slot under your Nike Pegasus’ sole. This links up in seconds, and seems to track your distance very well, but of course you don’t get the benefit of the social aspect GPS tracking allows.

The Nike+ SportWatch is a simplistic fitness tool, but that’s the point, and crucially, it’s well-priced. If you’re after an (ugly) low end Garmin Forerunner for just tarmac treading, go with this instead.

The Nike+ SportWatch is on sale at the UK Nike online store, and will be made available through other retailers in the coming months.

From the brink of disaster to a billion-dollar success story: The secrets behind the extraordinary rise of HTC

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 09:17 AM PDT

Back in 1997, when HTC was a design and manufacturing outfit, it launched what was then a unique product: a PDA. Less than two years later, with the company requiring a large injection of cash, it was clear the product was ahead of its time. As co-founder Cher Wang (daughter of the second richest man in Taiwan) later observed: 'The market just wasn’t ready for a PDA phone that behaved like a minicomputer'.

Yet just last week, HTC announced some extraordinary news. Record profits for the first three months of the year had hit £313m, triple that of the same period last year – and in terms of market value, it had overtaken Nokia. It seems HTC hasn’t just captured your imagination – it’s captured your wallet, too.

Read on to reveal the secrets behind its success!

Designers rule, not accountants…
The secret: Like Apple, HTC focuses on every microscopic detail of its designs. San Francisco design agency Once & Co, which it acquired in 2008, has been responsible for the aesthetics of every handset since the HTC Diamond. It pioneered unibody metal design in mobiles, and thus helped the company stand out from a crowd of creaking plastic.

The best Android skin – bar none…
The secret: You might not even have realised that your HTC Desire’s ring volume lowers as you pick it up, or that it tells you if it’s the birthday of the person who’s calling. But compare that level of intuitiveness to Orange‘s unsuccessful attempts to make its phones stand out, or Sony Ericsson‘s bid to squeeze more money from its customers by funnelling them into a proprietary apps store. It’s not hard to see why people are switching to HTC when they come to upgrade.

Gadget fans get what they want – not what HQ thinks they want…
The secret: Just because something is popular in Japan doesn’t mean it’ll work in the UK – but try telling that to your manager in Japan over a conference call. HTC stays lean by giving each region room for manoeuvre, and tailoring products to their specific audiences. It doesn’t parachute in execs who don’t speak the native tongue, and is more than happy to meet US demand by providing 4G phones as well as handsets unique to Europe (the HTC Legend, for instance), based on what gadgets fans are hungry for.

The cajones to take on iTunes…
The secret: A faster, slimmer slab of metal is all well and good, but HTC is also willing to take on the iPhone with cloud services and multimedia. At first, that amounted to little more than the blending of your phonebook, Twitter account and Facebook friends. These days, HTC Sense includes a whole suite of apps, from a Locations mapping service that – in certain situations – is actually is faster than Google Maps, to a media streaming app and a simple way to track your phone should you lose it.

So there you have it. With Nokia displaced, only Apple and Samsung remain more valuable. How long before HTC takes their scalps too? Can anyone stop it? Sound off with your thoughts in the comments!

Sites We Like: cute cats, cute kids and um…Jay Z?!

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 08:45 AM PDT

There’s 15 minutes left of the working week giving us just enough time to kick out this week’s Sites We Like.

Our four selections this week are cuteness heavy from the kid who dances in the Apple Store to cats covered in random items and a special cuteness randomiser. Luckily Jay-Z is in there too to toughen things up. Click through to see this week’s most fun sites…

iTrevor

iTrevor is a Californian kid who dances to pop songs in his local Apple Store and slaps those performances up on YouTube. He’s a strange combination of incredibly endearing and teeth-grindingly irritating. The best bit of any of the videos is when Apple Store employees start dancing behind him. Appropriately we’ve embedded his take on Friday by Rebecca Black above this paragraph.

Stuff On My Cat

We love a literal URL, and they don’t get much more obvious than this. It’s simply a blog featuring a range of unusual inanimate objects carefully placed and balanced on readers’ felines, and it’s very funny – a more mature I Can Haz Cheezburger, if you will. No cute cats were harmed in the making of Stuff On My Cat…we assume.

Cute Roulette

If Stuff On My Cat wasn’t enough for you, here’s Cute Roulette which serves up a new cute video whenever you push the button. Yes, you can haz cute animals at the push of a button. We’ve spent a few hours with Cute Roulette running in the background to counter balance the horror of every day life.

Life + Times

A new magazine website isn’t usually enough to get on the radar for Sites We Like but this one is edited by Jay-Z and features Jigga talking to Gwyneth Paltrow and bizarrely an excellent chat with RIM’s head of design on the process of creating a new Blackberry product.

Seen a great website we should all be checking out? Let us know in the comments…