Confirmed: Nintendo Wii U out for Christmas

Nintendo has announced a rough release date for the Nintendo Wii U, reigning in the launch to this side of 2013. But can a holiday launch tip the balance in Ninty’s accountants’ favour?

The Nintendo Wii U has been floating around looking for something resembling a release date ever since it debuted last year at the E3 gaming expo. Now, thanks to Nintendo Japan CEO Satoru Iwata, it has one.

At an earnings conference in Osaka, Japan, Iwata revealed that the Wii U will ship in time for the holidays this year in all major territories, including the UK. The launch is primed to soak up the majority of this year’s Christmas console sales and to help Nintendo return to profitability, after a year that’s seen them dip into the red for the first time ever.

If the Wii U can sell in equally monstrous numbers as the original Nintendo Wii, then the gaming behemoth should be fine… Even if efforts from Sony and Microsoft are just around the corner.

Article: RSS via Electricpig

Tags: Gaming, Gaming Console, Nintendo, Video, Wii U

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A Gaming tablet for the extremists

Razer have shown off a concept at CES that will easily excite a few PC gaming fanatics out there. Call Project Fiona, this is the first gaming tablet. Despite the fact that Project Fiona is a concept, Razer does plan to release the product. Reports suggest that it is targeting a Q4 2012 launch, priced under $1,000 (£650). Razer said that other gaming tablets are suitable for casual titles, but the limited navigation and control capabilities make them “impossible for hardcore PC gaming”.

“Adapted from a full featured PC gamepad, Project Fiona’s integrated dual controllers coupled with its advanced multi-touch screen are designed to make complex game navigation ergonomic and intuitive without compromising on the portability of the tablet,” said the firm on its website.

“You’ll be able to carry out headshots and command troops in-game with ease. This first-of-its-kind PC gaming tablet with integrated dual controllers is definitely not for playing casual games about unhappy birds or zombie-killing flora.”

Check out the videos below:

Article: RSS via Tracy and Matt

Tags: CES 2012, Gaming, Project Fiona, Razer, Tablet PC's, Video

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Sony Xperia S official

CES 2012: See-thru

There have been plenty of rumours as to what Sony Ericsson, or, more accurately, Sony Mobile Communications, would or would not launch at CES in Las Vegas at the start of 2012, and now it is official.

The much rumoured Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc HD is actually to be called the Sony Xperia S.

The official news from Sony, announced at the company’s CES press conference on Monday, matches the leaked prototype, the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc HD, we saw last week.

Called the Sony Xperia S, the new device will come with a 4.3-inch 1280 x 720 resolution touchscreen, run Android 2.3 and come with a 12-megapixel Sony Exmor R sensor capable of shooting 1080p and 720p video (via the additional front facing camera).

Inside, users will get a 1.5GHz dual-core processor from Qualcomm and 32GB of storage space.

The phone, sadly, only comes with Android 2.3 at launch, however Sony has already promised an upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich due in the 2nd half of 2012. The handset itself will be coming to the UK in March. Three has already confirmed that it will be stocking it.

And yes, that is a see-thru ribbon at the bottom of the phone.

We will, of course, be bringing you more on the Xperia S, so stay tuned.

Article: RSS via Pocket-lint

Tags: 12 Megapixel Camera, 720p, Android, CES 2012, Dual-Core, HD, Smartphones, Sony, Sony Ericsson, Video, Xperia S

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Samsung Galaxy S II gets new ICS ROM, offers Kies to the kingdom (video)

New year, new you ROMs. Yep, the Galaxy S II is getting even more attention, with a duo of Ice Cream Sandwich versions landing on that capacious 4.3-inch screen. They consist of an early Android 4.0.1 build made on December 20th and version 4.0.3 crafted just ten days later. The interesting part is that, according to YouMobile, both of these will arrive through Kies, Samsung’s Android connectivity software. The mobile news site also suspects that these are close (but still buggy) approximations of what we’ll see on our as-yet un-tinkered Galaxy S IIs in the very near future. These Kies-capable builds also have a few cosmetic differences to the build leaked earlier, like a distinct lack of Tron hues adorning the notification bar at the top. While we await a release through the official channels, you can check out a swift run-through right after the break.

Article: RSS via Engadget

Tags: Android, Galaxy S II, Ice Cream Sandwich, ROMs, Samsung, Smartphones, Video

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Video: Santa can’t do his job without Siri, at least according to the latest iPhone 4S commercial

America’s insistence on being politically correct has gutted the once joyous holiday spirit. The new rules say that shouting “Merry Christmas” might offend people of other religions. Instead of acknowledging that America is the beautiful result of what happens when more than two centuries worth of immigration takes place, we’re forced to surrender any sort of individual identity and stick with the generic phrase “Happy Holidays”. But not Apple. No sir, their latest iPhone 4S ad is all about Christmas. In it they depict Santa doing his job, that is delivering presents to all the world’s children, and he’s getting help from his iPhone 4S. Siri, the “intelligent agent” that responds to queries and commands, shows Santa how to find a little boy’s house, reads a message from his wife telling him to cut back on the cookies, and reminds him that he still has half the world’s population to go in terms of delivering gifts.

It’s a great ad that not only shows what the iPhone 4S is capable of, but that Apple knows how to touch people’s hearts. It may not be as funny as the ads that Samsung recently showcased making fun of people who buy the iPhone 4S, but who really cares? If you’re the kind of person who buys a smartphone based solely on how well a company’s marketing division is able to execute, then you’re not really a critical thinker.

While we’re on the topic of ads, the sad reality is that you can’t move hardware unless you’re flooding people’s screens, magazines, and newspapers with commercials. Which is why we’re extremely curious to see what Microsoft and Nokia do in America during 2012. They need to go from essentially 0% market share to becoming a competent platform that you can genuinely say is in third place. Think they’ll be able to pull it off?

Article: RSS via IntoMobile

Tags: Apple, Christmas, iPhone 4S, Siri, Video

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Facebook Timeline goes live worldwide

Facebook Timeline has gone live worldwide, the social networking giant has announced, with all users now being notified that they can activate the life-tracking activity log Mark Zuckerberg announced back in September. A chronicle of your interactions, events, photos and video from your time on the social network, Timeline has been available to beta testers, celebrities and those following sneaky hacks for a few months now.

Since the potential for revealing too much is high, Facebook has built in some extra controls around Timeline. The system will default to a seven day review period initially, giving users time to check everything that appears on their timeline before anyone else can see it. A “View As” button allows the layout to be checked from the perspective of different friends groups and non-friends, so you can ensure those slightly risque photos of you and the office photocopier are saved only for loved-ones.

There’s also an easily-accessed “Hide from Timeline” option that allows you to instantly remove any photo, update or other content from the overall Timeline list. Timeline replaces the traditional profile page, but also adds an Activity Log, private to each user, showing pared down details of full activity.

You can turn on Facebook Timeline by heading here and choosing “Get It Now.” More details on what it includes here, and on why you might want to think twice before activating it here.

Article: RSS via SlashGear

Tags: Facebook, Facebook Timeline, Social Networks, Video

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HTC Desire running Ice Cream Sandwich (video)

Great news HTC Desire owners – it looks like you’ll soon be able to enjoy the all the goodness of the latest version of Android on your aging handset. Developers have been working on an Ice Cream Sandwich port for the phone and it looks like they’ve had a breakthrough recently. The folks over at XDA-developers have announced the beta release of the Ice Cream Sandwich ROM for the phone and have posted it online for the public.

As usual, not every single function of the phone is working (camera, USB tethering etc) but there are quite a number of things that do work i.e. WiFi, SMS, GPS, Sound, Calling, Touchscreen, Stable 3G, Gmail sync + calendar, SD read/write, all sensors, Bluetooth, Hardware acceleration, WiFi tether, Market with paid apps and more so it’s safe to say you can use it as a daily phone (assuming you have no use for the camera or USB tethering).

Judging by the video demonstration, it’s safe to say Ice Cream Sandwich can run pretty well on this 21 month old phone. Sure it’s not as smooth as the Galaxy Nexus, but this definitely gives hope to all the other Android users out there without dual-core phones and looking forward to having Ice Cream Sandwich on their devices. Now, if only phone manufacturers would spend as much effort as the developer community when it comes to updates. Head over to XDA-developers if you’re keen on flashing this custom ROM to your HTC Desire.

Article: RSS via UberGizmo

Tags: Android, Hacks, HTC, HTC Desire, Ice Cream Sandwich, ROMs, Smartphones, Video, xda-developers

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Video: Nokia Lumia 800 Dark Knight Rises Edition shown off in London, only 40 will be made

The next movie in the Batman series, The Dark Knight Rises, is set to be 2012′s ultimate summer blockbuster. When a movie of that caliber comes out, you know brands will do anything to associate themselves with something bound to receive such an ungodly amount of attention. One such brand is Nokia, who will take the Lumia 800 that they already sell, put it in a fancy box with the Batman logo on it, set the default wallpaper to a photo of Bane (the primary antagonist in the film), and best of all they’ll etch a little Batman logo into the back of the device. How many of these limited edition handsets will come out? Just 40. Where are they going to be available? Not sure. How much will they sell for? An arm and a leg. We’re waiting for some additional details from Nokia, but don’t expect this thing to show up at a store near you.

The bigger question on our minds is why isn’t stuff like this done more often and to an even greater degree? This Batman flavored Lumia 800 should have been custom 3D printed to look like one of Batman’s weapons. It should also have come preloaded with crazy custom ringtones. And it should have sold for double what a regular Lumia 800 sells for. Such a device would be picked up so fast that Nokia’s payment processing servers would melt. And why stop at Batman? There are plenty of other franchises to latch onto. All in the name of marketing, right?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWhR3fk2bK4

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Tags: Batman, Lumia 800, Nokia, Smartphones, The Dark Knight Rises, Video, Windows Phone

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Ice Cream Sandwich with TouchWiz 4.0 on Galaxy S II spotted

Although we were already promised that the Samsung Galaxy S II would be receiving the Android Ice Cream Sandwich update at some point, we’re still in the dark as to when. Well, it looks like development on the latest version of Android is going along quite well and below is a video of Ice Cream Sandwich playing nice with TouchWiz 4.0.

It wouldn’t be smart to imagine that the likes of Samsung and others would allow the latest version of Android to shine through as much as we would like but TouchWiz does indeed cover up a lot of what we loved about the Ice Cream Sandwich aesthetic. The video shows off only a couple of new features within TouchWiz that would hint that the handset is running Android Ice Cream Sandwich but what we do see is rather nice.

The changes in TouchWiz, like  Android 4.0, begin at the lock screen. TouchWiz has always allowed the user to swipe anywhere on the screen and drag to unlock and it’s no different this time around. However, it looks like when a finger is placed onto the display on the lockscreen the Ice Cream Sandwich circle lock appears. It’s pretty subtle but we supposed it’s a nice touch.

Other tweaks are minimal, as the home screens look almost exactly like any other TouchWiz build you see today. The new method of multitasking in Ice Cream Sandwich is easily accessible by holding down the home button, just as you would on any other Android device. Face Unlock also made an appearance in the settings, though it wasn’t demoed.

If there weren’t so many sweet tweaks on the back-end of Ice Cream Sandwich, it would be a little disappointing to see TouchWiz covering up so much of the new, futuristic look and feel of the latest version of the OS. Luckily, when Android 4.0 peaks through, it looks great and hopefully there’s more Ice Cream Sandwich to be found.

Given that TouchWiz looks to cover up so much of Ice Cream Sandwich, it makes me wonder if you’ll even know you’re on Android 4.0 when HTC releases it with Sense.

Article: RSS via IntoMobile

Tags: Android, Galaxy S II, Ice Cream Sandwich, Samsung, Smartphones, TouchWiz UI, Video

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Huawei Honor with Ice Cream Sandwich hands-on [Video]

Huawei took the relatively unprecedented step of providing a “demo ROM” of Android Ice Cream Sandwich for its Honor smartphone and you just know we had to give it a go. Check out the video below to see the first version of Ice Cream Sandwich running a phone that’s not the Galaxy Nexus.

I want to stress that this build is definitely an early beta, as it’s a buggy mess that’s best suited for hardcore tinkerers and those who just want to see what all the Android 4.0 fuss is about. Installation is quite simple, as you merely download the update file from Huawei, drop it onto your device and then use the “update from SD” slot option in the settings and you’ll have Ice Cream Sandwich in a few minutes (here’s a good step-by-step tutorial). I found the software randomly reboots, crashes, has problems connecting to WiFi, so Huawei has wisely made it easy to roll back to Android Gingerbread.

You should probably re-read our Ice Cream Sandwich review for an idea of what to expect from the latest version of this software, as it includes multiple improvements in nearly every aspect. The user interface paradigm is more cohesive, the fonts have changed and it has become quite friendlier for first-time users while still retaining the power that made many fall in love with Android in the first place.

Now, let’s hope the other handset makers are hard at work getting this update out there. Check out the video below and we’ll have more for you soon.

Article: RSS via IntoMobile

Tags: Android, Huawei, Huawei Honor, Ice Cream Sandwich, ROM, Smartphones, Video

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