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Samsung’s PSP, Apple earnings, BlackBerry Storm 3: US Update
Playstation 4 is still several years away: will Nintendo Wii HD dominate 2012?
BlackBerry Storm 3 caught on video: pure touchscreen goodness
Apple second quarter results crush expectations, iPad sales withstanding
Skype for Android updated: 3G calling for all, security issues resolved
How would the PSP look if it was made by Samsung [photos]?
Win a Nintendo 3DS: The best entries so far
Gadget codenames: 10 secret identities revealed
Everything you need to know about the Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo
Asus Eee Pad Transformer review: A new Honeycomb champion

Samsung’s PSP, Apple earnings, BlackBerry Storm 3: US Update

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 06:05 PM PDT

Breaking tech news and taking names, it's that time for your US Update. We kick things off this morning with a look at a fresh render of a Samsung portable gaming console that could challenge Sony's NGP. We recap Apple's second quarter earning and then show off the latest BlackBerry Storm 3 hands-on video. Ready, set, go.

Ever wonder what the PSP would look like if Samsung had crafted the portable gaming console? Take a look at the Samsung Consolor HD3. After the Skype security issues for Android were exposed this week, Skype has fixed the glitch and even added 3G voice calling to all carriers, worldwide.

Apple posted record second quarter revenue of $24.67 billion and record second quarter net profit of $5.99 billion, or $6.40 per diluted share. How you like them apples Wall Street? A video of the BlackBerry Storm 3 gives us a glimpse at what OS 6.1 might be like while cruising at a crisp 1.2 GHz.

Last up this morning is an update on the fourth-generation Playstation, dubbed the PS4. It looks like we will not see a replacement from Sony until 2013, opening the door for Nintendo's Wii 2/Wii HD, set to be unveiled at this year's E3 Expo. That wraps up the best in tech news. As always I'm Nick Marshall and I'll see you again tomorrow.

Playstation 4 is still several years away: will Nintendo Wii HD dominate 2012?

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 05:29 PM PDT

The PSP Go might have been nixed, but Sony's flagship console is still alive and kicking, with a fourth generation Playstation planned for 2014. The Playstation 4 or PS4, looks to be several years away, but with games just beginning to tap into its 3D capabilities, is anyone waiting to upgrade their PS3?

In the world of Blu-ray players, the PS3 stands alone as a swiss army knife of media, gaming and entertainment. Whether you're looking to stream downloaded movies, play the latest games or simply hoping to watch a Blu-ray disc, this console is your one-stop-shop. According to insiders speaking to gaming blog Kotaku, "both MS and Sony are telegraphing to each other that they're delaying, to milk the current [generation] and fill in previous craters better".

What this means is that the next generation Playstation and Xbox will not be announced at E3 either this year or next. Instead the Xbox 360 will bank on Kinect while the PS3 focuses on hardcore titles — your guess is as good as mine as far as the future of Move is concerned. The real winner with today's news could be Nintendo. Since we fully expect the Nintendo Wii HD to be unveiled at this year's E3 Expo, the door is open for the gaming giant to make up ground in the high-end market.

Will 2011 and 2012 be the year of Nintendo Wii HD?

via geeky-gadgets

BlackBerry Storm 3 caught on video: pure touchscreen goodness

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 05:13 PM PDT

The BlackBerry die-hards over at driphter.com have managed to lock down a video of the upcoming Storm 3 running OS 6.1 beta. The purported handset is believe to sport a 1.2 GHz processor, but judging by the video it looks like the software still needs a touch of optimization.

The third-generation Storm is suffering from a bit of an identity crisis. Codenamed Monaco or Monza, the Storm 3 also carries a second title, the BlackBerry Touch 9860. Once official, were not sure which way RIM will play its cards — on one hand using the Storm prefix adds a level of credibility, but it also potentially rehashes any bad blood for original Storm owners.

In any event, the Storm 3 packs 768MB of RAM, 4GB of internal storage, a microSD card slot (32GB max) and a high-resolution WVGA 3.7-inch display. A 5-megapixel rear-facing shooter capable of recording HD video, Bluetooth 2.1,

It sure would be nice to see QNX on the next wave of RIM's handsets, but one can only hope. It's also worth noting that a second video, released earlier this week provided additional details, but that video has since been removed by YouTube. In case the user does decide to upload a second video, keep your eyes peeled here.

via YouTube

Apple second quarter results crush expectations, iPad sales withstanding

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 04:52 PM PDT

When you're ontop the only place to go is down, that is unless you're a tech outfit from Cupertino, California, better known as Apple Inc. With analysts forecasting $5.37 earnings per share and $23.4 billion in revenue, yesterday's leaked iOS device sales had odds favoring the analysts. This afternoon Apple pulled a hail mary.

Apple's press release read as follows: "The Company posted record second quarter revenue of $24.67 billion and record second quarter net profit of $5.99 billion, or $6.40 per diluted share". So how exactly did Apple manage to hit record second quarter revenue when iPad sales fell short? The combination of 3.76 million Macs, 18.65 million iPhones, and 9.02 million iPods did the trick. iPad sales for the quarter were 4.69 million, notably distant from the 7 million+ expected.

Following the second quarter earnings call, Apple shares rose three percent in extended trading. It should be noted the iPad 2 launched on March 11, just weeks before the end of its second fiscal quarter. We'll have to wait until the next earnings call before we really see what type of impact iPad 2 sales have had so far.

via Apple

Skype for Android updated: 3G calling for all, security issues resolved

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 04:15 PM PDT

As luck would have it, the day I installed Skype for Android on the Motorola Xoom, a security breach was discovered. Today, I'm happy to report Skype has done us a solid, updating the security of the app thereby restoring peace and unity to Android. For US users, Skype voice calling now supports 3G regardless of carrier, effectively ending Verizon's reign of terror over free VoIP.

Unsecured personal information is a no-no, especially in the world of apps. Skype for Android learned the hard way when it was discovered last week unauthorized users might be privy to such data. We haven't been given much insight on how the issue was resolved, but Skype assures us the security threat is more. As an added bonus, Skype voice calls are no longer restricted to WiFi networks – yes, even in the US.

Now the real question — how important is 3G voice calling via Skype? Personally, I rely on the feature quite often since a Skype voice calls sound pristine — head over heels better than the quality I can achieve on either mobile or landlines. By a show of hands, how many Android users found today's news game changing?

Out Now | Skype | Free

How would the PSP look if it was made by Samsung [photos]?

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 02:40 PM PDT

One could argue that Samsung has already entered the portable gaming console arena based on the millions of Galaxy S smartphones currently in the hands of Android users around the globe. In this concept design, created by Joseph Dumary, we take a look at what the PSP would be if left in the hands of Korean manufacturer.

Dubbed the Samsung Consolor HD3, this next-generation portable gaming device packs a feature set that would rival even Sony's upcoming NGP. The 16:9 AMOLED aspect ratio display supports multi-touch, a HD stereo speaker system kicks out the tunes and there's even fingerprint recognition, keeping your personal data safe and sound.

Speaking of data, inside the HD3 is 250GB of storage, more than enough to capacity to hold a library of games, HD videos and photos. You'll certainly need the storage when you take a look at the dual 12-megapixel rear-facing cameras for 2D and 3D capture and even the front-facing 8-megapixel shooter, best used for video calling. In order to really tap into the mobile market, the HD3 is well equipped in the connectivity department.

WiMax 4G support comes standard, along with Bluetooth 2.1, and DLNA for 3D full HD streaming straight to your TV. Specs are nice, but what about content and games? As a Galaxy S device, the Consolor HD3 will run Android, providing access to thousands of games in the Market, turning the HD3 into a console/phone/tablet hybrid of sorts.

What would you change on the Samsung Consolor HD3?

via concept-phones

Win a Nintendo 3DS: The best entries so far

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 09:51 AM PDT

We’ve been snowed under with weird and wonderful entries into our Nintendo 3DS giveaway, courtesy of Gamesbasement.co.uk, but if you’ve not got your name in the draw yet, don’t worry. You’ve still got a few more days to enter, and all you have to do is come up with a crazy accessory for Ninty’s new handheld – and check out the terms and conditions of course. With that in mind, we’ve pulled together a gallery of our favourite ideas so far – read on and get inspired.

Just click the picture above to peruse through the gallery of insane ideas. Would you buy any of these?

Click to enter

Gadget codenames: 10 secret identities revealed

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 07:52 AM PDT

What’s in a name? With rumours flying around the launch of a new Nintendo console, we’ve trawled the archives for some of the finest, most evocative and downright entertaining codenames gadgets have been christened with before launch. Read on to meet them and their secret identities.

Microsoft Xenon
While Xenon is the name of the IBM processor inside the Xbox 360, it was also the codename Microsofties used to talk about their second generation home console. The company even had an internal document known as “The Book of Xenon” outlining the company’s strategy for it.

Apple M68
Apple goes in for much more mundane codenames than its competitors, sticking to a series of three or four character alter egos that bear no logical connection to product type, to keep gadget hounds off the scent. The M68 is perhaps the most significant of them all however: it’s the original 2007 iPhone, which helped usher in a new era of smartphone hegemony, and turned the company in to arguably the biggest mobile devices manufacturer in the world.

HTC Pyramid
HTC loves a codename that conjures up an air of mystique (HTC Passion, Supersonic, Huangshan to name but a few), and the HTC Pyramid was the most tantalising of them all – with a name like that, it had to be epic. And it is: it’s the HTC Sensation, the first phone from the company with a dual core processor and pin sharp qHD screen.

HTC Sensation: Everything you need to know

BlackBerry Talladega
RIM loves dreaming up catchy codenames for its emailers – there’s not a lot to do in Waterloo of an evening, see. As well as the BlackBerry Driftwood, Onyx and Magnum, last year saw the heavy leaking of the awesomely named BlackBerry Talladega. What a touchscreen sliding smartphone with a portrait QWERTY keyboard has to do with a city in Alabama, we don’t know, but it’s catchy, no? Shame about the BlackBerry Torch itself.

HP Topaz
A topaz is a precious stone, which is probably quite an apt way to describe the HP TouchPad itself and its beautiful pebble design. Word of the shiny codename for the 9.7-inch webOS tablet first broke in December 2010, before HP smothered Palm’s branding in February at the official launch of the slate. It’s still not on sale, sadly, but it’s still one of the most promising devices coming this year.

Check out our best gadgets of 2011 right here

Nintendo Revolution
While mobile manufacturers rarely release the internal codenames of their smartphones, console makers are happy to have their codenames bandied around in the press for years. The Nintendo Wii was known publicly as the Revolution for a full year after its launch at E3 in May 2005. In the case of the Wii, we’d say the codename has a much better ring to it than the final name.

Project Natal
Likewise, Microsoft was happy to give its motion sensing camera peripheral for the the Xbox 360 a placeholder name while it tossed around ideas. Kinect was known as Project Natal between June 2009 and 2010, named after the Brazilian birthplace of the gadget’s pioneer, Alex Klipman.

Microsoft Project Pink
Microsoft snaffled up Sidekick creator Danger in early 2008, and for years afterwards, rumours of a “Project Pink” phone flew around. Was it a Windows Mobile overhaul? Nope: it was two phones aimed at tweens, the Kin One and Kin Two. It wasn’t exactly the best of codenames to start with, and the products themselves bombed spectacularly, with Microsoft pulling support and cancelling a European rollout just months after launch.

Sega Katana
Love it or hate it, Sega’s last console had a bad ass codename when it was first revealed way back in 1997. It actually wasn’t the only one however: Sega briefed two teams to come up with a Sega Saturn follow up, with the other competing model going under the name Black Belt.

Samsung Seine
Question: what does a river running through the French capital have to do with a South Korean dual-core smartphone? Answer: we have no idea, but when the phone in question is the Samsung Galaxy S 2, does it really matter? Just be grateful that they didn’t hamper it with an awful launch name like the Samsung Preston. Poor Preston.

Everything you need to know about the Samsung Galaxy S 2

And three codenames still to be cracked…

HP Stingray
A touchscreen only webOS phone has long been rumoured, and appears to exist under the codename of HP Stingray. When we’ll see it on sale is another matter entirely.

Sony NGP
Well, we know what it looks like, and that NGP stands for next generation portable. As to the moniker the “PSP 2″ will actually sport when it goes on sale before Christmas, only Sony knows right now.

Nintendo Project Cafe
Recent reports have pegged Nintendo’s next home console for a big unveiling at E3 in June, and word on the web/street is that it’s a HD machine under the codename Project Cafe – potentially, with touchscreen tablet controllers.

Everything you need to know about the Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 06:00 AM PDT

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo stands apart as one of the most entertainment-friendly Android handsets around – featuring the ability to store thousands of songs, sync with your TV and more to make it as tooled up as Batman’s utility belt. Read on for everything you need to know about the Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo.

Sony Erisson Xperia Neo’s secret entertainment lair
The Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo is a born entertainer, with up to 32GB of storage to fit in more than 10,000 high quality songs, the ability to browse ebooks via the free Amazon Kindle app, the ability to stream live TV and help you discover new music.

Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo: Built-in email utility belt to beat inbox overflow
The Xperia Neo is also a dab hand at email, messaging and social-networking. Sony Ericsson Sync will back up all your most important info, combined with the LiveView accessory, the Xperia Neo lets you peep all your social-network accounts, missed calls and texts at will.

Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo: Super hearing powers to survive city life
It’s no softy when it comes to coping with city life. It features noise Shield to block out those city noises to make your calls appear clearer. A speakerphone that doesn’t make you sound as if you’re being kidnapped also helps. To help you unwind fire up TrackID – it’ll let you identify any tune to help you discover more music.

Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo: AV overlord upgrades your TV set-up!
Because being able to view video on your handset isn’t enough, the Xperia Neo is able to send high-definition video from phone to television.

Asus Eee Pad Transformer review: A new Honeycomb champion

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 05:08 AM PDT

When we first saw the Asus Eee Pad Transformer back at CES in January, we never anticipated that Asus would get it on sale so quickly. We expected it to be just another of Asus’ harebrained schemes that never really quite came off, and yet here we are, three months on, and we’re holding not just the cheapest Android Honeycomb tablet, but the best one too.

Build

It’s what’s in the Asus Eee Pad Transformer that counts, not the look of it. When laid flat on a surface it looks like your average 10.1-inch tablet, but the underside is a bronze mess. It’s sporting the same mottled design that we’ve seen on many an Eee PC, but this time, it’s pure metal.

That results in a sturdy finish – it certainly feels more premium than the more expensive Xoom, but it is however, a chunkster at 680g. Compared to the waif like iPad 2, there’s no competition. It sounds vain, but we urge you to at least handle one of Apple’s babies before ordering either way – those extra millimetres really do make a discernible difference.

Asus has positioned the lock button on the side, a much more sensible spot than the back of the tablet (Yes we mean you Motorola), but loses a lot of goodwill for using a proprietary port for connecting via USB and charging. You’ll also find a mini HDMI port on the side for screen mirroring on your telly – that requires a different cable than the micro HDMI port on other new phones and tablets, but in our experience it’s one that’s a bit easier to come by. You don’t get one in the box, but it’s not a key feature by any means.

Screen

We’ve got to hand it to Asus here: this is the best capacitive touchscreen we’ve ever seen on a tablet priced to undercut the iPad. It’s far brighter than the display on the first Honeycomb tablet, the Motorola Xoom, with broad viewing angles – hardly surprising when you consider the panel uses IPS tech, just like an iPad.

Buy the Asus Eee Pad Transformer now

We’ve had the privilege of being able to test a lot of tablets, and we have to admit we do think Apple’s made the correct compromise with its more square screen ratio. The 1280×800 resolution on Honeycomb tablets we’ve seen so far results in a slate that’s just far too wide, and top heavy when held in portrait mode since it’s so long. But it’s a matter of personal preference, and you won’t be disappointed by the colour at any rate.

Android Honeycomb

For a while, it looked like Google had managed to keep tablet makers from messing with the vanilla Android 3.0 experience. That’s quite evidently not the case with the Asus Eee Pad Transformer however, which sports a custom look and exclusive apps all of its own. But you know what? Asus has pulled off the rare feat of actually improving on Android.

Check out our best Android tablet Top 5 now

The homescreen weather widget and redesigned navigation icons are of no particular interest, but we’re really quite taken with the keyboard. Asus and Asus alone has apparently realised that on a tablet there’s actually enough space to include a separate line for numbers as well as one for word prediction – the result is an extremely fast typing experience for a slate of this size.

The custom apps are also welcome, including a DLNA media streaming app, cloud storage and remote desktop access. But our issues with Honeycomb itself still apply. Apps designed for Android on mobile work with varying degrees of success – Flash works fine but the BBC iPlayer app, which uses Flash, does not – and the number of Honeycomb tablet apps is meagre.

It’s still a complete guessing game as to where the options and settings buttons on an app are going to appear, the browser can still conk out on you and there’s the odd delay swiping through screens, tapping on text fields and loading up apps which can frustrate on occasion. In other words, this is a rewarding and powerful tablet OS, but one that will require some patience. If you don’t have that, get an iPad.

Performance and battery life

Honeycomb tablets continue to impress us with their longevity: you can get a solid eight hours of use out of the Asus Eee Pad Transformer with brightness high, Wi-Fi on and email syncing away in the background. Left on overnight with email whirring away still it tends to lose about 10 percent of its battery life – switch account syncing to manual and it’ll go for much more.

Best Android apps of all time: Top 100

It’s more of a mixed bag when it comes to hardware – this is another dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 tablet that doesn’t quite feel like it’s living up to its hardware potential, except when it’s playing back HD video. Why on earth is there lag, ever, just moving across homescreens?

Now, about the transforming part

In case you missed the hype at launch, and are still wondering why it’s called a Transformer, take a look. You can plug it into a separate keyboard dock and use it as a netbook, complete with on screen cursor, USB ports, and extended battery life.

We’ve gone into much more detail about it here. It’s certainly a nice idea, and the best attempt yet at it, but truth be told, we still don’t see ourselves using this accessory enough to make it worth the outlay and expense on your shoulders of having to carry the damn thing around – it is very heavy. But at just £50 more for the bundle, it’s still remarkable value.

Verdict

Asus has been trying to break into the mobile category for a long time, and rarely with much critical success. We’d say that with the Asus Eee Pad Transformer, it’s finally cracked it, and at a superb asking price. It still suffers from the fate of looking fugly next to an iPad 2, but if you know you don’t want iOS, it’s still the next best thing. We can take or leave the keyboard dock though.