So there's really no telling what's up with Helio as an MVNO, but there's plenty going on with the Ocean 2 handset. Just yesterday we noticed a spy shot of the elusive mobile, but unfortunately, the video in which it was captured from had been conveniently removed. Today, however, a whole host of new vids have surfaced over at HelioCity, one of which actually shows the unit while gaming. Check 'em out while you still can in the read link below.

[Via phonemag]

Sure, Helio is going through a bit of a rough patch right now, what with those retail outlet closings and nasty Virgin merger takeover, but as far as we can tell, the company is moving forward with the Ocean 2. As you can see by the above shot -- nabbed from a YouTube video -- the slider looks eerily similar to its predecessor, though we know it's getting spec bumps all around. Apparently the source material has been wiped out of existence, and if things keep moving in the same direction for the MVNO, this might as close as you get to one of these babies. Enjoy!

It may not be the largest photograph you've ever seen, but unless you work for Helio or Pantech, we'd be willing to wager a few pennies that it's the largest shot of the Ocean 2 you've ever seen. Dual sliders always get the blood pumping, so head on over to Mobile for a few leaked details of the phone that'll end up sitting atop Helio's lineup -- eventually, anyway!

We've seen autonomous ocean gliders before, but the team at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute has just completed the first successful run of a glider that doesn't require its own power -- instead, it uses the heat difference between the warm upper layers of the ocean and the colder depths to propel itself. Not needing an internal power source let the glider traverse the Virgin Islands Basin between St. Thomas and St. Croix at depths of 13,000 feet over 20 times when it was launched in December, and the team estimates that it could run for another six months if necessary. The ocean's heat differential is a "virtually unlimited energy source," according to one Woods Hole researcher -- hmm, beach-charger, anyone?

[Thanks, Charlie]

Helio's warm embrace of YouTube's wide world of entertainment is nothing new, but it's getting a whole heck of a lot warmer today with the release of an all-new YouTube app for the Ocean dual slider. Basically, if you can do it from YouTube's desktop website, you can now do it through the Ocean -- instant uploading, ratings, video replies, it's all here. Check out the full gallery over at Engadget Mobile, or if you're lucky enough to have an Ocean of your very own, go hook your bad self up, why don't you?

The iPhone isn't the only handset whose software innards are getting lovingly torn apart in the name of science this week. It turns out some intrepid users of the Helio Ocean (a device occasionally compared to the iPhone, coincidentally) have been slaving away on a method for adding extra applications outside of the carrier's walled garden. Their first success is a doozy, too: Opera Mini 3, one of the most prized jewels in the world of mobile software. The developers aren't claiming it's bug-free -- landscape mode and the QWERTY keyboard don't work, for example -- but it's a huge step in the right direction and they're continuing to work out the kinks. More custom apps are said to be on the way, and don't worry, Drift and Heat users -- support's said to be on the way for you guys, too.

In an interesting turn of events, it seems like the winner of Volvo's lucrative treasure hunt won't be unearthing the $50,000 treasure anytime soon, as the automaker's hunt partner (Odyssey Marine Exploration) has happened upon an actual $500 million treasure instead. The reported fortune is located somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean -- in a secretive area known only as Black Swan -- but reports are claiming that a court in the Spanish coastal town of La Linea has "issued an order for the Spanish Guardia Civil to detain any Odyssey vessel should it leave the port of Gibraltar," which has brought about an abrupt halt to Volvo's retrieval plans. Thankfully, it sounds like the Russian winner will still be awarded the dough and a new XC70 to boot, but there's no telling how long it'll be before Odyssey is able to put aside its bigger worries and dig up the (comparatively) paltry $50k.

[Via CarTechMag]

After the recent streak of robotic failures that we've seen, it's refreshing to see yet another success story come our way. Just as it did in February, the two-meter wide DepthX (Deep Phreatic Thermal Explorer) robotic submarine successfully mapped out a massive sinkhole in Mexico, but this time was quite a bit more rewarding. The cavern that it ventured into was the El Zacatón Cenote, which is better known as the world's deepest water-filled sinkhole, and the machine was able to delve some 270-meters down to "create the first map of the giant cavity." The hole itself is large enough to "swallow New York's Chrysler Building," and while the endeavor was indeed a success, researchers are hoping to get it back down there in the near future to better analyze a mysterious slope that it wasn't quite able to probe. Godspeed, DepthX.

[Via Slashdot]

We told you we were giving away lots of phones at Engadget Mobile to celebrate our relaunch, and here's the first of many, many devices: a shiny new Helio Ocean. Want one? Head over to Mobile to find out how to take this sucka home.

Get ready to spend the weekend mindlessly sliding the Ocean's dual keypads open and closed until you drive friends and family to the brink of insanity (trust us, it's pretty addictive). Yep, that would be this weekend we're talking about -- Helio's new flagship device finally makes its debut on its website and store shelves today for $295, followed by a second wave of availability in a variety of third-party retailers toward the end of this month. Of course, unless you're within driving distance of one of Helio's handful of flagship locations, actually finding one today might be challenging; might we recommend our hands-on to hold you over while you patiently wait for the parcel to make its way to your doorstep?

The last time we got to hang with the Helio Ocean it was still technically a prototype -- albeit a unit obviously near completion. Today we finally snagged the real deal, and let us just say this Ocean runs deep. (Sorry, had to.) The Helio UI feels a lot snappier, screen orientation switching is nearly instantaneous, and our niggles thus far are few (we really wish it wouldn't kick us out of all apps when we're in "default" position). We'll have the full report on this in the near future, but until this thing officially launches (soon, soon) then feast your eyes on our retail unboxing and hands-on.

We've all heard the diehards claiming that the whales are the ones we should save, and thanks to an autonomous glider crafted by Webb Research, they're finally getting their wish. Recently, a trial was pursued in which a radio / satellite phone-equipped Slocum Glider was sent up to 200-meters beneath the depths in order to survey, pinpoint, and record location data for various whale pods swimming about. The device then surfaces and "phones home" the recently gathered information, which can then be disseminated out to ensure nearby vessels don't enter whale-packed territories. Jim Theriault of Defense Research and Development Canada, Dartmouth ran the experiment, and noted that this iteration of whale sensing and reporting improved on previous attempts by being uber-stealthy, featuring a remote data reporting system, and boasting a signal processor capable of tracking even the baleen whale's "lower-frequency call." Currently, the torpedo runs on batteries which last a month or so without needing a recharge, but future renditions are planned to scour the waters for "between five months and a year" by utilizing a special recharging gel. Look for these to hit your nearest ocean later this summer, and try not to be too alarmed when it surfaces beside your craft.

[Via The Raw Feed]

Sure, the Xbox 360 Elite was finally announced, but we've got a fair bit of interesting cellphone news this week, too. Check out Samsung's UpStage, finally launched; or the long-awaited Helio Ocean dual-slider QWERTY featurephone -- not bad eh? And then HTC had a whole slew of gear, too, from their first UMPC to the Advantage's US launch. We won't only be talking about cellphones this week, but if you're not down with mobile gadgets then you might want to snag our enhanced RSS and skip some chapters, because we've got some CTIA stuff to catch up on.

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Hosts: Peter Rojas and Ryan Block

Producer: Trent Wolbe

Music: Solvent - Instructograph (Ghostly International)

Program:
00:50 - Xbox 360 Elite and 120GB drive now official
07:22 - The Helio Ocean
12:31 - Sprint announces Samsung UpStage, 99 cent songs over the air
17:15 - HTC Shift -- the cellphone company finally goes UMPC
19:46 - HTC Advantage coming to US... under the HTC brand
23:29 - HTC 6800 / Titan hands-on
25:36 - HTC S720 vs Vox and TyTn hands-on
26:02 - Hands-on with the Samsung Ubicell
34:15 - How-to: Upgrade the drive in your Apple TV

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Contact the podcast: 1-888-ENGADGET, Engadget (Gizmo Project) or podcast at engadget dawt com

Color us impressed. We got our first shot at Helio's upcoming superphone today, and from the all too brief time we had, we think this thing is gonna pack a punch. The dual slide mechanism was extraordinarily smooth -- one of the smoothest we've ever felt. It's big, but not unreasonably so for a handset of its capability and form factor, and the software build seemed slick and stable (the messaging app was killer, in particular). Click on for the Ocean in all its split-personality glory!

All hail the new king of Helio's lineup: "Ocean." That ain't really hyperbole, either; the Pantech-sourced device first seen in the FCC's claws a few months back easily has enough tricks up its sleeve to put it atop Helio's already impressive stable of featurephones. Most striking, of course, is the dual-slide design with QWERTY in one direction and numeric in the other -- a first, as best we can tell -- that gives users the best of both worlds without compromising much girth (21.8mm to be exact). Other unique goodies (besides the requisite EV-DO and GPS) include a contact list with integrated "presence detection" showing contacts' statuses on a variety of instant messaging services, Exchange Server and ActiveSync integration(!) for the suits out there, geo-tagged photo uploads with Helio UP, multi-client communications app for Yahoo!, AOL, MSN, Gmail, and email, and a click-free web search mechanism -- users simply begin typing from their home screen to seek out sites in its new full-HTML browser. The Ocean also has built-in Google Maps (as did the Heat and Drift), will rock out to PlaysForSure tunes for a claimed 15 hours (pretty frickin' impressive if that figure holds up), offer 200MB of internal storage with microSD expansion, USB mass storage mode, a 2 megapixel cam, and stereo Bluetooth support. Look for it to start showing up on shelves before summer sets in for $295.