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Samsung's fast wireless charger is available for pre-order, sort of
When Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Note 5 and S6 Edge+, it also revealed a fast wireless charging pad that takes advantage of the smartphones' new, speedier Qi charging spec. Well, you can now pre-order that charging pad... in a manner of speaking. The $70 peripheral is available to purchase on Samsung's website as I write, but dropping it in your cart reveals that it's back-ordered and doesn't have an estimated ship date. You'll be waiting an unspecified number of weeks before this is sitting on your desk, then. If you can afford to wait, however, it could be a good complement to Samsung's latest supersized devices -- you won't have to wait ages to top up your phone just because you hate cables.
Xiaomi launches MIUI for tablets, new Nexus 7 gets first dibs (Update: WiFi version only)
While Xiaomi has yet to launch its very own tablet (the Eden Tab doesn't count), you can now get a first taste of its tablet-friendly MIUI Android ROM, which is available as an open beta for the 2013 edition Nexus 7. According to the company, this isn't merely a scaled up version of MIUI V5, as it has a "brand new architecture" with content -- including native apps, system menus and new screen animations -- optimized for both screen orientations. Interestingly, CEO Lei Jun added that tablet vendors can get in touch if they want to ship their devices with MIUI preloaded, which would be a first for non-Xiaomi hardware. Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean Lei's not making his own tablets in the near future; but as of now, there are no reliable rumors of such plan. If you have a new Nexus 7 lying around and don't mind giving MIUI a go, then head over to MIUI's website to grab the 278MB download. Update: Reader @KellicTiger pointed out that this ROM is only good for the WiFi version of the Nexus 7, as mentioned in the flashing guide. Bummer.
Apple adds a dedicated selfie section to its iOS App Store
A new App Store section. Not the app store section we needed, but the app store section we deserved.
Baby Monitor 3G makes watching your baby much easier with new OS X version
Having a baby requires constant vigilance -- morning and night you are watching over your little one to keep them safe and happy. One indispensable tool for parents is a baby monitor that lets you watch over your child from afar. If you have an old iOS device lying around, then you might want to skip the traditional audio- or camera-based monitors and take a look at Baby Monitor 3G and its new OS X version to see if this software package fits your baby-watching needs. Baby Monitor 3G from TappyTaps works like a standard baby monitor system with an iOS device serving as a monitor in the baby's room and a second device as the parent's listening station. You can use two iOS devices as the baby-parent station pair or add in a Mac now that the latest version of the Baby Monitor 3G software includes an OS X app. The system works best over WiFi, but you can configure it to work over 3G as well. In my case, I set up an old iPhone in the baby's room as the baby station and configured both my iPad and my Mac to be parent stations that let me watch my child while I am downstairs. Setting up the software is a bit more complicated than just install, launch and go. You have to pair your devices before the two can connect as a baby and parent station. Pairing is easy and requires you to enter a code from the baby station into the device that is the parent station. A video within the app shows you how to pair the two devices if you are confused by the setup. Once the devices are paired, you don't have to pair them again unless you uninstall the Baby Monitor software. The OS X version of Baby Monitor 3G serves as a parent station and is very similar to the iOS app. The app launches as a normal-sized window that takes up half the screen on my 13-inch MacBook Pro. It also can be configured to display in a small square that you can place in the corner of your screen. To save battery life, Baby Monitor 3G lets you listen to an audio stream of your baby. Just like the iOS version, the OS X app lets you turn on live video so you can watch your child and make sure he or she is safe. Live video works only on WiFi; you will view a still shot over 3G/4G. If you need additional lighting at night, you can tap the flash button on the parent software and turn on the baby station's camera flash. Be prudent in using the flash as the LED is bright and can startle a half-asleep baby. I found this out the hard way one night at 3 AM. When your baby cries, the monitoring software turns red and you can hear the crying over your speakers or headphones. If you are using your iPhone as the parent station, you can also get a vibration alert. There is no support for notifications, so you do have to listen for your child or keep an eye on the software. The app keeps track of when your baby last cried, so you can glance at it and see that your child cried x number of minutes ago. If you want to soothe your child, you can speak to them using the speaker on the remote device. The only detractor that I found was a pairing limitation that allows the baby station to connect to only one parent station at a time. I could listen to my baby while downstairs on the treadmill, but my husband couldn't connect at the same time on his iPad in the living room down the hall. The connection was just for one baby station and one parent station only. This limitation doesn't dissuade me from using Baby Monitor 3G, but you should keep it in mind when comparing this software with other systems like this audio-only one from Vtech that has one baby station and multiple monitors. Baby Monitor 3G is available for the Mac and costs US$4.99 in the Mac App Store. The iOS version is available for $3.99 in the iOS App Store.
More iPhone prototypes revealed to disprove Sony design influence
Samsung and Apple face off in court this week when jury selection in their big patent infringement trial begins in the US. As the two gear up for their legal battle, tech journalists are still pulling out prototype images, emails and other information from the briefs that reveal a side of Apple we hardly ever see. The Verge pulled out another iPhone prototype called "Purple" that pre-dates the "Sony-Inspired" designs we saw last week. Purple was added by Apple to show that the company had the design for the iPhone several months before the Sony designs were created. The Sony and Jony designs were nothing more than a fun side-project based on a concept Apple was already refining. AllThingsD also has a slideshow, 100 images long, of early iPad and iPhone designs. Some of the images are CAD diagrams, while others are photographs of models that Apple manufactured. The designs include rounded and squared-cornered iPads, and an iPhone that looks just like the iPod. The latest filings also contain emails, that along with the designs, give us a brief glimpse into Apple's design process. [Via Engadget] #next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }
1Mpad is Malaysia's first branded tablet, delivers 7 inches of Gingerbread for $315
So you've decided that it's time to make a tablet part of your life, but a lack of star-spangled slabs has prompted you to defer the purchase. Malaysians now face no such dilemma, due in no small part to the 1Malasyia Pad -- the country's first branded tab. The 1Mpad will reportedly soon be marketed to students (1.4 million of them, in fact), but 5,000 of the 7-inch Gingerbread devices are now being offered up to deep-pocketed locals, priced online at a rather-ambitious 999 Malaysian ringgits (about $315). Manufactured by MalTechPro Sdn Bhd, the 1Mpad will be offered to students at a to-be-determined discounted rate, making it the first such device to be available using a student discount card. At its current high list price, the tablet doesn't appear to be a fantastic deal, shipping with 3G broadband and the 1Malaysia Messenger application, which will serve as an IM service of sorts for sending text, pictures, video and voice recording to other 1Mpad owners. Still, if you have the cash to spare for an early taste of what Malaysian students may some day be using to surf the web, you can hit up the source link after the break for a bit more info. [Thanks, Joe]
Nintendo 3DS SlidePad coming to the US under the name Circle Pad Pro?
Last month, Nintendo quietly unveiled the SlidePad -- a battery-powered "extended slide pad" for the 3DS, slated to hit the Japanese market on December 10th. At the time, there was no indication that the add-on would be coming to North America anytime soon, but according to Capcom, it's on its way. Speaking at New York Comic Con last week, Capcom's Ryan McDougall confirmed that the attachment will indeed arrive Stateside by February 7th, alongside the company's new 3DS game, "Resident Evil: Revelations." It's not clear whether the add-on will arrive for other games released before February, but it may very well have a different name by the time it does. According to Siliconera, Nintendo has already filed a Japanese trademark for the name Circle Pad Pro, which could be the moniker we'll be seeing in the West. Nintendo, it should be noted, has yet to confirm any of this, nor has it mentioned anything about US pricing, but we'll let you know as soon as we hear more.
HP tempts webOS early adopters to buy a TouchPad with $50 rebate
WebOS hopefuls -- especially owners of a Palm Pre, Pixi or their Plus variants -- you there? HP's TouchPad launch is a few days away, and the company's seeking to entice loyalists with a $50 mail-in-rebate on the new slate in the US and Canada. You've got until July 31st to make good on the deal, and all it'll take is proof that you own one of the aforesaid phones. Still need help deciding? We've heard that a visit to Walmart might score you some hands-on time while you're stocking up on bulk toilet paper. Hit that source link below for the full details straight from Ruby and Co.
HP TouchPad veers into stores early, flaunts its webOS moves (video)
Dying to get your hands on HP's TouchPad before it's available on July 1st? According to Pre Central, a visit to either Best Buy or Walmart may afford you the opportunity. During the past few days, the stores have apparently begun quietly displaying demo-loaded versions of the slate. The device went up for pre-order about a week ago, but for webOS hopefuls still contemplating whether to take the Palm-rooted plunge, a pre-release impression may not be a bad grab between socks and motor oil. Don't feel like taking a trip to Wally World, you say? You'll find a video overview past the break; although the box to the left has us wondering if now's a good time for getting lucky...
Sony tablet teaser video is breathtaking, not overly informative
Woosh. Plonk. Snap. Like a highly atmospheric scene from your favorite film noir, Sony's teaser video for the S1 and S2 tablets starts off with isolated sounds and a bit of quick motion before settling into a sumptuous, deliberately paced feast for your eyeballs. You might say it's high art posing as a consumer electronics promo, particularly if you compare it to ASUS or Huawei's efforts in the field. There's sadly little in the way of new information, all we really get to witness are the reassuring Android Honeycomb software keys on the larger S1, but this "first impression" clip is the start of a series of ads revolving around a pair of alabaster figurines and their tablet-assisted love affair. Give the play button a bash for your recommended daily dose of awesome.
Huawei MediaPad debuts in weird, confusing video ad
There's a fine balance to be struck when you want to drum up interest in a device but not release too much information before its official launch. Huawei did that very nicely with its first MediaPad teaser image last week, showing us only the tablet lounging casually atop the desk of a surely sophisticated businessman. Today we've come across a followup video that also lets us peek the pad's rear -- which looks just about identical to the one on the company's Ideos S7 Pro -- but also confuses the hell out of us with its, erm, narrative. You'll have to just jump beyond the break and be befuddled with us. The MediaPad should get its proper launch in just under a week, on June 20th, though Huawei's Facebook page already shows an Android Honeycomb screenshot on it and our rough estimation from the video places the screen size at 7 inches. Not that we ever get to see it, cursed uninformative teasers!
Samsung Galaxy Tab spreads wings, flies to premium seats on American Airlines
Move on over, Delta. The 200 iPads at your JFK terminal may entertain some folks waiting to board, but before the year's out American Airlines will start switching out 6,000 in-flight entertainment systems with Samsung 10.1-inch Galaxy Tabs. Sammy will be customizing the Honeycomb slates with flight related "features" including AA's streaming service mentioned last month, and possibly even adding "expanded memory" for the devices -- no word on how, though. Panasonic's console has some competition it seems. It's notable that these will only be available in "premium cabins" on a handful of long-distance routes, and unless you're flying in a 767-200, WiFi access -- a separate purchase, by the way -- may not be available. We've embedded some PR with the details for all you jet-setting tablet enthusiasts after the break.
Climbing robot can scale walls on a supersonic stream of air, won't leave fingerprints behind
There are plenty of wall climbing robots roaming the Earth, but few can scale heights as gracefully as this little guy can. Developed by researchers at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, this bot can wind its way across any glass, metal or cloth terrain, without even touching its pods to the surface. The secret lies in Bernoulli's Principle, which states that as the speed of a fluid increases, its pressure decreases. This phenomenon also applies to streams of air, which, when moving at high speeds around of a circular gripper, can create a vacuum strong enough to hold things without actually touching them. In this case, air shoots out of the robot's feet at more than 2,000 miles per hour, creating enough pressure to lift the craft, while holding it close to the wall. The technology isn't new, but rarely can it support the weight of an entire device -- let alone the extra cargo that this climber's non-contact adhesive pads can hold. Researchers say the supersonic grippers will be available in "some months" and will probably cost "a few hundred dollars." As for the bot itself, Canterbury's engineers envision it being used for industrial inspections -- though the more we think about it, the more we realize just how dirty our windows are. Video after the break.
LG Optimus Pad coming to Rogers May 17th
It's already made its rounds of the European continent, and now LG's Optimus Pad seems poised to make its North American retail debut via Rogers in Canada. A helpful tipster sent us the above screenshot that reveals Rogers will be the exclusive career of the Honeycomb tablet (known as the G-Slate in the US), with a $700 starting price. With a data plan, the price ranges from $450 for a three-year contract to $650 on a month-to-month contract. Users seeking a one-year deal will shell out $600, while a two-year contract comes with a $530 asking price. The 8.9-inch slab should land up north May 17th, so plan your life accordingly. [Thanks, Anon]
Motorola Xoom vs. Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 vs. LG G-Slate -- battle of the Tegra 2 Honeycomb tablets
Hello, Moto -- no wait, Samsung... or is it LG? Three of the world's biggest smartphone makers have leapt at the opportunity to serve up Google's brand new Honeycomb build of Android, however their selection of menu items looks to be somewhat lacking in diversity. Motorola's Xoom matches Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 in both screen size and resolution (1280 x 800), while LG's Optimus Pad / G-Slate offers only marginally smaller measurements with an 8.9-inch display spanning 1280 x 768. More than that, all three tablets run the bone-stock Honeycomb UI and are built around NVIDIA's 1GHz Tegra 2 system-on-chip, leaving little room for differentiation on the basis of user experience or internal performance (LG would have you believe its 3D camcorder is a big advantage for its slate, but we're not so sure). Most choices between the three, then, will come to things like brand loyalty, ergonomics and pure, basic aesthetic appeal. To help you judge the latter of those three points, we've prepared an exhaustive barrage of side-by-side photos below -- we expect you to view every last one of 'em... at least twice. %Gallery-116882% %Gallery-116881% %Gallery-116879%
LG Optimus Pad first hands-on! (video)
We've just gotten back from playing around with LG's 8.9-inch, 3D-friendly Optimus Pad (known as the G-Slate in the US). This Android Honeycomb tablets sports a dual-core CPU inside and a dual-camera array outside, giving you both the optical and processing capabilities to produce 3D video. Its screen cannot actually play back glasses-free 3D, but if you really have to have that third dimension on the move, you'll be able to buy a set of glasses to recreate the effect. The Optimus Pad is slim, though we couldn't get a great feel for its ergonomics with all the wiring attached to it, has nicely curved corners, a matte black back cover that's pleasant to the touch and seemingly durable, and an extremely glossy screen up front. We likened the Pad to the Optimus 2X in an earlier post and it carries over a lot of industrial design elements from its smartphone sibling, including the metallic strip down the middle of its rear branded with a "with Google" logo. That's actually meaningful this time -- the Optimus 2X wasn't a stock Android installation, it was subjected to LG's (not entirely successful tweaks), however the Pad looks to be a straight Google Experience Device, in much the same vein as the Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, its nearest and most direct competitors. That being said, the code on the device we handled still wasn't up to scratch on the software front, as evidenced by us managing to crash both the browser and Google Maps within a few minutes of putting down our first fingerprints on the tablet. The 3D camcorder also seems like a memory hog, we weren't able to get it started up initially because of the number of apps that were already open (which at the time was no more than four). Let's remain optimistic, though, this wasn't exactly a slate we snatched off a retail shelf and LG has time to optimize and spruce things up before shipping this thing out. We've got pictures for you below and a press release after the break. Video is incoming at the very fastest speed our wireless connection can carry it. Update: Video is now in, get to the ogling! %Gallery-116522%
LG G-Slate handled on video, looks like a giant Optimus 2X
The wonders you can find on YouTube, eh? LG's G-Slate (to be known as the Optimus Pad outside the US) has made yet another appearance on Google's video repository, this time giving us a whirl to show off its slender body and port and speaker arrangement. The integrated 3D cameras also get a demo, as you can see above, though we're much more excited to be able to churn out 1080p video with this device thanks to the Tegra 2 SOC it's built around. Its smartphone buddy the Optimus 2X delivered some very smooth output and we can't see any reason why the G-Slate should do any worse. Make your way past the break for all the intimate video action. [Thanks, KC]
LG Optimus Pad (aka G-Slate) coming to MWC 2011 with Honeycomb, Tegra 2 and 3D display
The T-Mobile G-Slate may be fully official now, but the rest of the world needs love too, and LG's just announced it intends to deliver said loving at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona a few days from now. The Optimus Pad, as this 8.9-inch tablet will be known outside the US, will offer Android Honeycomb as its OS, along with a 3D-capable 1280 x 768 display, dual-core Tegra 2 processor, a front-facing camera plus a pair of imagers on the back allowing for 3D picture-taking, 32GB of onboard storage, and a 6,400mAh battery. We should be getting to grips with the device at MWC in due course -- look for it to launch alongside or shortly after its US twin hits retail in March.
Apple's 'PC' shipments grow by 241 percent in iPad-inclusive Canalys stats
Canalys is a pretty well respected global stat-keeper and now it seems to be relying on that reputation to push through a pretty controversial message: tablets, such as Apple's iPad and Samsung's Galaxy Tab, are PCs. "Accept new market realities," urges its polemic press release, before laying out global quarterly shipments that peg Apple as the world's third most prolific PC vendor (without tablets, Apple doesn't even break the top 5 according to IDC and Gartner). The company that was laboring with a mere 3.8 percent market share in 2009 has shot up to 10.8 with the aid of its 10-inch touchscreen device. Canalys' stance will inevitably be controversial, but then it's kind of hard to deny that machines like Samsung's Sliding PC and ASUS' Eee Slate make the distinguishing lines between tablets and netbooks look like a particularly technical form of bokeh.
ASUS EP121, EP102, EP101, and EP71 tablets get diagramed in latest teaser
Haven't had enough CES titillation yet? Good. ASUS has apparently been up to some mischief overnight in uploading and then pulling a new version of its teaser video from a week ago, though this time it also included explicit product names attached to some quite informative diagrams. It looks to be the full family of upcoming CES tablets, with the EP121 touting stylus input and a wireless keyboard, the EP102 showing that there will indeed be a slider in ASUS' Pad family, and the EP101 looking like, well, a laptop. There's also a media-centric EP71, whose proportions make it seem likely to be a sort of oversized PMP. Skip past the break for a closer look at them all and don't forget to grace our comments with your theory as to why ASUS feels compelled to have such a segmented product offering.
