ASUS Eee PC X101 MeeGo netbook hands-on

Cameron Wilmot | Mobile Devices | May 30, 2011 2:58 AM CDT

COMPUTEX Taipei 2011 - We got an early hands-on with the Eee PC X101 here at the ASUS press conference on Day 0 at Computex.

The X101 is a brand new netbook being announced today that runs MeeGo. As far as the other specs go, it runs an Intel Atom N455 processor that brings with it 1GB of DDR3 memory. The system is "Instant On" and as you can see in the video above, it boots (and also shuts down) very quickly.

There will also be the X101H that comes with Windows 7 Starter and either a HDD or SSD depending on how much money you have to spend.

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Lady Gaga & Polaroid Release First Product, Sadly Not A Disco Stick

Trak Lord | Mobile Devices | May 27, 2011 3:58 PM CDT

Brought to in conjunction with Haus of Gaga (if that doesn't sound like a brothel for babies, I don't know what does), Polaroid has announced for June the first in their Gaga-designed "Grey Label" (GL) product line: the Polaroid GL10 Instant Mobile Printer. The device utilizes Polaroid's "Zink" technology (zero-ink) to instantly print high quality 3"x4" pictures straight from your mobile device. If there were any doubt about Gaga's involvement, note the marketing speak in the press release:

...frees digital images trapped on hard drives and cell phones.

The GL10 retails for $170, available now through pre-order. Next up, hopefully we see Polaroid/Gaga's photo-snapping glasses originally spoken of at the most recent Consumer Electronics Show that will surely pair quite nicely with this printer. See below for product specs, or hit the site above to preorder.

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Google unveils Wallet, super-secure NFC tech made useful

Anthony Garreffa | Mobile Devices | May 27, 2011 1:19 AM CDT

Google's Wallet has finally been unveiled, with Google saying "Your phone will be your wallet". This is what Google Wallet and Google offers will be capable of, by combining payments and deals into one package. It's the future of paying for things, really. Google Wallet is not a single thing, it's a cake mix of multiple products rolled into a single thing. It's an Android app, it's a way of paying for things with credit or debit cards by using your phone.

It's a coupon collector and loyalty card system, it's another way for merchants to let you pay and offer up deals. It has tentacles into other Google services such as Shopper and Google Offers. The core technology uses wireless NFC and more specifically, MasterCards's PayPass system, so you'll be able to use it anywhere that offers PayPass.

At the moment, Citi's the sole banking partner with Sprint as the carrier partner. At the moment, you're limited to a single phone and credit card for the full Google Wallet experience. Only a Nexus S 4G and Citi MasterCard will give you the "full" experience, although you can fill up the Google pre-paid card that comes with every wallet using any credit or debit card. Google are saying that GoogleWallet is "more secure than your wallet", well I don't know about that, my wallet gets my ass-time than my chair.

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Sony Offer Identity Protection For Online Clients

Trak Lord | Gaming | May 26, 2011 9:41 PM CDT

Following up on the reboot of the PlayStation Network, Sony is covering all of its asses bases. PSN and Qrocity users, pending they had an account before April 20, 2011 (like anybody was lining up to sign up to either after that date) can enroll in AllClear ID PLUS Identity Theft protection program. See the blog post below for more info, but hey, not a bad start on the road to reparations.

Starting today, PlayStation Network and Qriocity account holders in the United States can begin the enrollment process for the identity theft protection program by visiting https://us.playstation.com/news/consumeralerts/identity-theft-protection/. We are also notifying customers of the enrollment landing page via email, which you will receive in your inbox this week.

As previously announced, Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Network Entertainment have made arrangements with Debix to offer the AllClear ID PLUS identity theft protection program to PlayStation Network and Qriocity customers who are concerned about identity theft following the criminal cyber attack on the network. AllClear ID PLUS is a premium identity protection service that uses advanced technology to deliver alerts to help protect you from identity theft.

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Imaginary Phone Concept Takes The Screen Out Of Touchscreen

Trak Lord | Mobile Devices | May 26, 2011 7:08 PM CDT

As confusing as that headline may sound, it's not a joke: Researchers Sean Gustafson, Christian Holz and Patrick Baudisch of the Hasso-Plattner Institute have created a working prototype of a touch interface that literally you can hold in is the palm of your hand.

A wearable depth camera tracks the user's movements on the surface of the palm of his or hand, corresponding to specific commands for an iPhone or other touchscreen phone, such as sliding to unlock and time settings. I just recently returned from the Augmented Reality Event in Santa Clara, of which author Vernor Vinge was one of the keynote speakers. His 2006 novel, Rainbows End, is one of the key ideological foundations of the AR industry, and in that book he features characters that can manipulate electronics and the internet by a set of clothes he describes as "wearables".

The future is now, kiddos. Phase 1: Imaginary Interfaces. Phase 2: interacting with the internet by shrugging your shoulders. Anybody else giddy?

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Apple's iOS 4, 256-bit hardware encryption has been cracked

Anthony Garreffa | Mobile Devices | May 25, 2011 8:28 PM CDT

ElcomSoft, a Russian-based company is claiming they have cracked the 256-bit hardware encryption Apple use to protect the data on iOS 4 devices, but not only that, they are also offering the software that will allow anyone to do it. ElcomSoft is a well-known corporate security and IT audit company, which works with law enforcement agencies, the military and intelligence agencies to recover data and perform forensics on devices.

Their latest tech allows them to open up the data stored on any iOS 4-based device by circumventing the hardware encryption chip Apple use to protect it. ElcomSoft's software allows full access to what is stored on the iOS 4 device, such as geolocation data, browsing history, call history, text messages and emails, usernames and passwords, it even provides access to recover data that the user has deleted from the device.

ElcomSoft have effectively created a toolkit that allows for the extraction of the encryption keys from iOS 4 devices, with these keys it is possible to decrypt an image taken from an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. Once that process is complete a forensic tool such as FTK or Guidance EnCase can be used to look at the data in great detail. Another shining star of this software is that it does not take long to access the data on the device.

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YouTube turns six, sees 3 billion views per day

Anthony Garreffa | Internet & Websites | May 25, 2011 8:11 PM CDT

It's hard to believe but YouTube are celebrating their sixth birthday today and announced they receive more than 3 billion page views per day, a 50-percent increase over last year. Another impressive feat is that 48 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, a 37-percent increase over the last six months and a 100-percent increase from last year. YouTube are congratulating the improvements to these numbers to their job of making the processing of uploads faster, increasing video length limitations, tweaking the homepage, etc.

YouTube was founded on Valentines Day (Feb 14), 2005 and by May 2005 they had launched YouTube.com. Since then the site has gone through various news headline grabbing problems, with intellectual property infringements and even after the impressive numbers, has yet to make a profit for Google since they acquired YouTube in 2006.

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Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 to ship with Android 3.1

Anthony Garreffa | Mobile Devices | May 25, 2011 7:49 PM CDT

Originally, Samsung's upcoming Galaxy Tab 10.1 was meant to ship with Android 3.0 but plans have changed. Instead of receiving the Android 3.0 and having to upgrade the Galaxy Tab 10.1 to Android 3.1 when you get it, it will now ship with Android 3.1 by default.

The Wi-Fi only version of the 10.1 will ship on June 8 in 16GB and 32GB sizes, with prices of $500 and $600 respectively. There's also an 8.9-inch version which will come in both 16GB and 32GB units, priced at $470 and $570 respectively. Samsung is quite proud of their new devices, touting them as the world's thinnest mobile tablets at just 8.6mm thick. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 weights just 595 grams while the Galaxy Tab 8.9 weighs in at 470 grams.

Both the 10.1 and 8.9-inch tablets pack quite the hardware punch, including support for HSPA+ network speeds of up to 21Mbps, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n. Also included is a 3-megapixel rear facing camera and a 2-megapixel front facing camera, providing seamless 1080p HD video. Both Tab's are powered by a 1GHz dual-core application processor and both tablets feature a 1280x800 resolution WXGA display.

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Twitter Officially Acquires TweetDeck

Trak Lord | Mobile Devices | May 25, 2011 5:06 PM CDT

Twitter has officially won the race with Ubermedia to acquire TweetDeck, the third-party Twitter aggregator. I'm still curious how this is going to play out, as a 3rd-party Twitter app would undoubtedly compete with Twitter's official apps on desktop and mobile, as well as unique views of their social network- but hey, both parties seem pretty psyched about it. We'll start with Twitter's, followed by that of Iain. See the official announcements here and here.

In early 2008, a London-based programmer named Iain Dodsworth began thinking about how to organize everything happening on Twitter. His answer was TweetDeck, a groundbreaking dashboard for monitoring what people are saying in real-time. Today, we're pleased to announce that the TweetDeck team has joined Twitter.This acquisition is an important step forward for us. TweetDeck provides brands, publishers, marketers and others with a powerful platform to track all the real-time conversations they care about. In order to support this important constituency, we will continue to invest in the TweetDeck that users know and love.TweetDeck is a great example of a third-party developer that designed tools for the incredibly important audience of Twitter power-users and, in turn, created value for the network as a whole. As Iain's journey suggests, there is significant opportunity for developers who deliver insights that foster a more engaged Twitter user base. For TweetDeck's perspective on today's news, check out their blog here.

Now from Tweetdeck:

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Microsoft Unveils App Marketplace For Mango

Trak Lord | Mobile Devices | May 25, 2011 4:43 PM CDT

Not entirely sure why Microsoft didn't announce this when they announced Mango, but hey, today it's confirmed: Microsoft Mango will have a Windows Phone Marketplace, just like Apple or Android.

Once again, I don't know what it is with tech firms and naming their operating systems after edible items, but the Mango update should bring a lot of new features and functionality to what has been a fairly silent contender in the mobile front. Check out the press release below for more info.

Yesterday at events all around the world, Microsoft unveiled the key features of the next version of Windows Phone, code named Mango. The demonstrations focused on Mango's ability to make it easier to connect and share with friends and family, take the Web beyond the browser and what we think is a smarter approach to apps. Matt Bencke blogged about the new beta developer tools for Mango and announced that we'd be adding a Web-based Windows Phone Marketplace with Mango. As promised, I'm providing some more detail. Also, if you're interested in taking a closer look at some of the new Mango features from a developer perspective, check out the new Channel 9 videos we're posting today featuring Andrew Clinick discussing the application platform, Ian Todd on communications and Jared Brown talking Search.

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