Gingerbread update for Samsung Galaxy S goes live across parts of Europe

Great news for all Samsung Galaxy S owners out there! Looks like the smartphone's official update to Android 2.3 Gingerbread is already rolling out in some parts of Europe, which brings hope that its release across the U.S. may happen in the near future. News broke out this weekend when the update was reportedly made available in several Nordic countries, the Netherlands, Germany, and the U.K., with the rest of Europe expected to follow pretty soon.

The update to Android 2.3 comes within the expected time frame and brings a long list of improvements, among which an overhauled on-screen keyobard, a sleeker user interface, and optimized power management. Installing Gingerbread onto your Galaxy S requires connecting it to a computer and running Samsung's KIES application where an update notification should pop up straight away. As far as when the update will go live for Galaxy S owners across the Atlantic, well, no exact date has been given yet, but it cannot be too far away. Until then, the geekier ones of our readers might want to try a leaked unofficial ROM instead.

source: Electricpig

Samsung may be already working on a 2 GHz dual-core Exynos processor

If you think that the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S II will be one beast of a smartphone, just wait until you see what may be coming down the road in the near future. According to a high-ranked company executive, Samsung is already developing a dual-core processor for smartphones that will run at the astonishing 2 GHz and will even rival today's desktop-grade PCs in terms of raw power. If such a chip becomes reality and does eventually land inside of a handset, it will definitely pack enough computing power to easily outrun every single smartphone processor that we know today. Demanding tasks such as 1080p video recording and rendering complex graphics may be handled with ease by Samsung's future processor.

The same Samsung official also mentioned that the said 2 GHz processor is expected to debut in one of the company's future smartphones by the end of 2012 and will most probably join the Exynos family of mobile CPUs. What is also worth noting is that Samsung might sell the chip to other manufacturers as well, though a wholesale price is probably too early to announce at this time. However, it is still too early to get excited about all this since Samsung's 2 GHz processor is nothing more than a blueprint for now. There are probably a ton of issues such as heat dissipation and battery life that will need to be tackled before using the chip in a smartphone becomes feasible.

source: Maeli via Samsung Hub

Maestro C 10" tablet offers 10 hours run with Windows 7, and 16 on Android, has a cool kickstand

We learned about the Maestro tablet line of the indie Australian company Evolve III at CES in January, when they briefly demoed their next generation tablet, which ran all three Windows 7 Home Premium, Android and MeeGo. The previous tablet in that lineup was powered by Intel's Pinetrail chipset, which is known for providing very short battery life, 2-4 hours at best, when running Windows.

With the Oak Trail platform that Intel announced last week, the company plans to get back in the mobile game, since it is done with a 45nm manufacturing process, meaning less heat, and more hours of work. Intel is also working with Google to run Honeycomb on the Arom chipset family. It's precisely that 1.5GHz Atom Z670 platform that is in Evolve III's new Maestro C tablet, and the manufacturer's specs claim 10+ hours of battery life, while running Windows 7 Home Premium, and the astounding 16+ hours in Android mode. The company has been working closely with Microsoft on the Windows 7 interface, which will have a touch-friendly overlay for the most used functions.

We can already see ourselves surfing with the Android browser, and switching over to Windows 7 for the inevitable scenario when you just need Windows. The 10" tablet is not spec-shy either - 1024x600 pixels is not great, but Maestro C sports 32GB of internal memory, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, HDMI port, and two USB 2.0 ports - oh, the joy of USB support. The slate is actually a nice example of about 50 devices which Intel promised to run Oak Trail by year-end.

Moreover, the slate comes with an intriguing swivel that covers the ports, and can turn into a kickstand for the tablet, plus Evolve III has made a magnetic cover for it, that doubles as a built-in keyboard, sold separately. Maestro C weighs alright for a 10" Win7 tablet, at 1.74 pounds (790 grams), but the thickness with the keyboard snapped on is the significant 1.02" (24 mm).

It can be had as Wi-Fi only, or the more expensive 4G version, which adds a 21Mbps HSPA+ baseband chip, as well as GPS connectivity. The website of the manufacturer says the Maestro C will start from $880, which is quite steep, but, hey, you've got stereo speakers to soothe the retail pain with gentle music. Moreover, at CES the reps mentioned it should cost about $100 more than the Pinetrail tablet, which at the time was running for $500, so we might see the Maestro C for the more palatable $600 in the US, but knowing Win7 license costs money we don't keep our hopes too high. Here's a video demo below, disregard the S in the title, they are actually showing the Maestro C.

source: EvolveIII via Netbooknews

Angry Birds Seasons: Easter update hits app stores just before the holidays

Weeks after the release of Angry Birds Rio, just in time to feed your game addiction, Angry Birds Seasons: Easter, an update to Angry Birds Seasons, arrives bringing 15 new egg-popping fun levels featuring the familiar set of upset birds facing bunny-clad pigs as the arch-enemy. This update is free for owners of the Angry Birds Seasons edition in both its phone and tablet optimized versions for iDevices, while for Android an ad-sponsored edition of Seasons edition was initially available for free. Three Eastery golden eggs can also be unlocked adding challenge to the fun.

Folks from Rovio are definitely not letting the hype die down - after Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day updates, what could be next?

Download links:

Angry Birds Seasons on Android Market, free

Angry Birds Seasons on iTunes, $0.99

Angry Birds Seasons HD on iTunes (for iPad), $1.99

Here's how you can make your white iPad 2 glow in the dark

Okay, we knew you could stick the iPad2 to your fridge using the smart cover, but what about making it glow in the dark? All it takes is a flashlight and a white version of the iPad 2 to turn your expensive new tablet into a cool looking glowing frame. To squeeze even more of your buck, 9to5Mac has come up with a green glow to the bezel of the white iPad making it look even cooler in a Tron sort of way.

We won't be surprised to see crafty folks out there come up with an attachable light source or even case, but for the time being you'll have to manually light up your bezel. Check out the videos below and don't forget to share how it worked for you in the comments below!

source: 9to5mac

Next-gen iPhone to feature only “slight modifications”, coming in September?

Concord Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo was one of the few reliable sources giving correct estimates about the iPad 2's resolution. It's this track record that makes us value information that he's gathered straight from supply channels about the expected iPhone 5. First off, the new iPhone will only undergo a slight redesign and an improved antenna positioning, focusing more on a flashier iOS 5.0 than on any major changes in the hardware. The analyst remained silent about a possible change in the screen size, but mentioned that it's the 2012 iPhone that will bring more dramatic changes.

In addition, Kuo confirmed that the new iPhone is to come with an A5 dual-core chip and an 8-megapixel rear camera. The analyst noticed that Apple will switch to a Qualcomm-produced baseband chip for both GSM and CDMA handsets. Apple's A5 chip is what's behind the iPad 2 and its noticeably faster performance and graphical oomph, but all of this is also expected on the next generation of the iPhone.

Kuo also confirmed earlier information that mass production of the phone is to start only in September, while trial units are to be produced as early as August. If true, this will break Cupertino's disciplined yearly release schedule and will leave us guessing about what we'll see at June's WWDC where Apple usually debuts new products. A delayed launch of the next-gen iPhone in September or October would allow Apple to ship between 28 and 32 million handsets this year.

Kuo also went on to claim that Japan's devastating tsunami affected seriously Apple supplies to an extent that a new generation of the iPod touch – as unlikely as it sounds – might not be launched this year.

source: AppleInsider

Pre-production HTC Sensation benchmarks leak, Samsung Galaxy S II has the upper hand

Samsung Galaxy S II prototype at 1GHz Smartbench 2011 scores

Smartbench 2011 scores from tested pre-production version of the HTC Sensation (our hands-on here), formerly known as the HTC Pyramid, have been leaked. In the same table, the results from a Samsung Galaxy S II have been displayed for comparison purposes.

Smartbench 2011 is one of the few synthetic benchmark tests that are able to measure multicore performance, so these results are for both CPU cores at work. The Samsung Galaxy S II steadily beats the HTC Pyramid in both the productivity (3732 vs 1898 points), and GPU tests (2431 vs 1426 points).

Bear in mind that the Galaxy S II that the test was run on, seems to be the final version, with the 1.2GHz Exynos chipset, and the HTC Pyramid was the internal name of the HTC Sensation when it was still a prototype, so we'll wait for the retail version to pass judgement on the 1.2Ghz Snapdragon chipset inside.

As you can see on the right, we tried our own preview unit of the Samsung Galaxy S, and scored 3346 on the productivity part of Smartbenchmark 2011, and 2076 on the GPU test, but it is clocked 20% lower than the retail version, at 1GHz for each core.

Thanks for the tip, Philip!

source: TomPDA