For us Canadian’s, the iPhone is available with every major cell provider, and it has been for a while now. Rogers (or GSM provider) has had it ever since the 3G launch, when the 3GS came out Bell picked it up and when the 4G came out Telus joined the club. But as you American’s know it is a different story, and the Verizon iPhone is as elusive as the unicorn.
It all may change very soon though; Verizon is having a bit of a get together in NY on Tuesday, which is odd timing considering there presence at CES this year. Rumours immediately started flying that this could be the big announcement, but why would Verizon do it in NY when news like this is usually revealed by Apple in there own backyard? Shortly after all this, the Wall Street Journal “confirmed” this is exactly what is going to happen.
But is there more proof? Sort of, and I’m going to send you all over to Endgadget where they have a great timeline of the entire story, all the way back to when Verizon said the iPhone wouldn’t take off.
Honeycomb is the soon-to-be latest version of the Android OS built specifically for tablet devices. It will be on the Xoom, the Streak, and virtually every other serious tablet competitor. Check it out, and see what its all about.
The Dell Streak has a 7″ screen, 5mp rear camera, 1.3mp front, the gorgeous Nvidia Tegra 2 graphics processor. It is a 4G tablet, so data of course will be a dream, and as soon as it is available it will be getting Android 3.0 Honeycomb. I’ve played with the smaller 5″ tablet, and I wasn’t too impressed; I doubt the 7″ Streak will excite me very much, however I am excited for the new Honeycomb OS so we will see what comes of this.
This is the stuff of science fiction, something you could imagine a top secret covert ops team wearing (Maybe Sam Fisher? Or Solid Snake?). What we have hear is a pair of snow goggles that can give you your gps map location, speed, altitude, caller ID, current playing song, and whatever else that those crazy Android developers can come up with, since these have a open sdk for the hardware, the sky (or the snow) is the limit. You can buy them here, but there not cheap (over $400).
Wired Magazine has a really nice write up on there hands-on time with the new Blackberry PlayBook. For those that do not now the specs already, it runs on a dual core 1ghz processor, and an entire 1gb of ram. Wired notes how light the tablet is, coming in at .4″ thick and .9lbs it manages to be light, without feeling cheap. This features a 3mp front facing camera, and a 5pm rear which can also capture 1080p video (both of these specs beat out the Motorola Xoom). It also features a micro HDMI out, so you can watch those great movies you recorded as well (I think it would be very awkward to record a movie from a tablet).
Getting into performance the hardware in this make it run very smooth, multitasking works great; the ability to watch a 1080p video and swap through other applications is very nice. The PlayBook not only supports HTML5 video, but Flash as well; Wired did not that running two flash enabled sites caused the videos to be choppy. This performance limitation of Flash on a mobile device is further proof that though it may be nice to have Flash on a mobile system, the Flash player is not even close to being ready.
Wired pointed out that there is still no news on battery life, however one rep has pointed out “more than an hour”; I think he should have kept his mouth shut. Considering the extra power and features in this that the iPad does not have, I doubt it will really come close to the up to 10hrs of battery life Apple has blessed us with. The ability to tether with a existing BlackBerry doesn’t only add 3G data however it adds syncing as well, which is a very nice touch. It is reported that the 4G model will be out in the summer, so lets start holding our breath now.
So the electric Fords won’t be out for a few years, but Ford has partnered with Leviton and Best Buy to make sure you can charge it when you get it. Your looking at $1500 for the 120v charging station that can be hooked up right in your garage; with 120v your looking at a very lengthy 20 hour charge. If you don’t mind the extra expense you can get what they are calling a level two charger that will supposedly charge in three to four hours; the level two of course requires some extra hardware to be installed. Compared to the other brands solutions, this is pretty simple and affordable.
I encourage you to head over to Engadget and check out there pictures.
Earlier this week Microsoft shows us a glimps of the new Surface, something that we are yet to see some real uses for (consumer uses). Engadget has had some hands on time with the, and it looks really sweet. It will be a 40″ 1920×1280 gorilla glass display. Anyways, I’m going to stop talking and just let you watch the video. And make sure to read the article on Engadget.
Universal remotes (or remotes for that matter) are probably one of the best debates of the house hold. Perhaps you have too many remotes, perhaps you just fight over how to use them or who gets to use them; no matter what we all have some issues with them.
The universal remove is not anything new, nor is the concept of using a PDA (or in todays world a smart-phone) for one. I remember long before Logitech came up there remotes using my Palm Pilot (remember they came with IR ports!) to change channels. Speed it up a few years and we can get into the Logitech Harmony, and other more consumer friendly (definitely not budget friendly) remotes. These are great devices, relatively easy to use, and can make watching TV and movies a lot more simpler.
Even more recently, the iPhone (and other smart-phones) have been showing up in virtually every household, selling far better than $100+ remote controls. However since none of these devices have a IR port we are left using a plug in dongle, or other device; which is a fairly clunky and ugly solution. My biggest problem is what to do with the little IR dongle for the phone when I am not using it; I have enough trouble keeping track of my remote. So Griffin has came out with a great new device; the Griffin Beacon takes bluetooth signals from your iOS device (iPhone, iPad) and converts them to IR. This allows you to use some pretty slick looking software on your phone, not worry about another dongle, and have the same experience as a expensive remote, without buying another remote.
Samsung has had some beutiful TV’s before, however with a 0.2″ bezel this is all TV (if you know what I mean). No price announced yet, however the specs are pretty nice as well; 2D and 3D, 240hz, WiFi and the Samsung Touch Control which can stream TV shows to a 3″ LCD screen.
If any of you remember (I know I don’t), at CES08, somebody released a 832GB SSD Drive. This was a physical unit, that though not in mass production, worked. Now, they are releasing (though we haven’t seen it yet) a 1.6TB version. My only question other then when can I kill someone to get this? is, how much will this cost, and what model Porsche can I afford if I choose not to buy this beast?
For us Canadian’s, the iPhone is available with every major cell provider, and it has been for a while now. Rogers (or GSM provider) has had it ever since the 3G launch, when the 3GS came out Bell picked it up and when the 4G came out Telus joined the club. But as you American’s know it is a different story, and the Verizon iPhone is as elusive as the unicorn.
Wired Magazine has a really nice 
