Yesterday we attended at the Samsung event in NYC, which saw the landing of three new Galaxy devices on the US shores. The Galaxy Tab 8.9 wasn’t particularly interesting to us as we have already previewed it, but that was our first encounter with the Galaxy Player 5.0 and Galaxy Player 4.0 Android-running PMPs.

So here we are bringing you a batch of live photos of the two along with some quick impressions of them. Read more »

Recently, there were rumors that Google+ is starting to lose its inertia and that users are leaving the social network rather than joining it. As it turns out, those were hugely exaggerated as the Google social network now has over 50 million users.

That’s 50 million people that registered in the 88 days since the network launched. A really impressive achievement, considering that Google+ was invite-only since last week. To put things in perspective, Facebook took almost four year to get that many users, while Twitter achieved it in three years.

And not only isn’t the growth slowing down, but it’s actually speeding up. Since registration was opened to everyone, there are 2 million new registrations per day. At that rate Google+ members will double in the next month and a half.

To celebrate the milestone Google+ introduced a new game to its users. Zynga’s CityVille is a huge success on Facebook and now its developers hope to replicate the success on the Google network.

Source | Via

Don’t you just love the simple and easy to remember names that manufacturers give to their Japan-only products? Take the Asus Tough ETBW11AA Android Honeycomb tablet, which was just announced, for example.

The 7″ Android 3.2 tablet with a screen resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels and WiMax connectivity comes with IP54 certification. This means that the slate is capable of surviving water jets for 3 minutes and should be sealed against any particle larger than 1mm. It should also live through drops on concrete from up to 76 cm, which is not a lot, but still impressive for a tablet. Read more »

We already knew that Samsung are about to release an Android 2.3.5 update for the original Galaxy S, so the fact that its successor is getting the same treatment is not exactly shocking news. What you might be more excited to know is that one of the Samsung-made Android 2.3.5-based ROMs has escaped the security at their R&D centers and is, available to everyone that would like to give it a try right now.

We are not quite sure if it’s worth voiding your warranty, though, as Android 2.3.5 isn’t such a major update. We don’t have an official changelog for it, but from what we’ve seen so far, the improvements brought by it are focused in the Gmail app. Read more »

After the fire sale that HP had to mark the end of webOS as we know it, the TouchPad suddenly became a very important device. A lot of people took the $100 offer and are now hoping to get as much bang for their buck as possible. Something that the abandoned webOS won’t deliver, but an Android port might just provide.

And the good news, brought by its developers themselves, are that the said port has moved another step closer to its official release. The Cyanogen team released a new video demonstrating the 3D gaming capabilities of their Android-running TouchPad. Read more »

Despite all the Windows 8 demo videos that we saw over the past few days there still seem to be major features in the new OS that we don’t know about. Like telephony, for example. Yeap, Microsoft’s shiny new platform is likely going to support voice calls, which will make it suitable for voice-enabled tablets.

The information comes from the screenshot above, which features a missed calls pane in its Metro UI. And that could be used for some VoIP services, so you shouldn’t get all too enthusiastic about it just yet. Read more »

The long wait is almost over, then. Samsung’s sweet-looking Galaxy Tab 8.9 Honeycomb tablet will be going on sale in select BestBuy stores this Thursday. Reportedly, shipments have already arrived in the US and now we are just waiting for them to be distributed to stores around the country.

According to BestBuy some stores will have to wait until 25th to get their retail units, but the company didn’t specify which ones. The Galaxy Tab 8.9 is currently listed at $399 on the seller’s official website, which sound like a great deal for the Tegra chipset and the 1280 x 800 PLS TFT screen. Read more »

If you have been waiting for the two latest Archos G9 slates to hit the shelves so you can finally jump on Honeycomb bandwagon, we are afraid we have some bad news for you. The French manufacturer confirmed that only the Archos 80 G9 will be meeting its promised September release schedule for the Archos 80 G9, while the Archos 101 G9 has been delayed to October.

The TI OMAP4-based 8″ Archos 80 G9 and 0.1″ Archos 101 G9 prices will be starting at $299 and $399, respectively and they will both have HDD versions for those in need of high storage capacities. Read more »

As you probably know, Internet Explorer 10, the version of the world’s most popular browser that will ship with the Windows 8, will come in two different flavors – Desktop and Metro. Now the desktop is a pretty standard affair, but we found some interesting bits about the Metro version.

Apparently, the Metro IE 10 won’t support any plug-ins and that includes the famous Adobe Flash Player. According to Microsoft getting rid of plug-ins will lead to improved battery life as well as security, reliability, and privacy for consumers, so the company chose to do an Apple and put performance over functionality. Read more »

With Microsoft’s latest operating system looking like a great fit for tablets and Apple’s iOS still the one to beat, there this will be a choice a lot of people will be making in a few months. “What should I choose – a Windows 8 slate or an iPad?”.

Of course, the hardware and the available third-party apps will play a large part in this choice, but the underlying OS is ultimately what can make or break the user experience. So here we give you a 10-minute video showdown of the iOS 5 and Windows 8 for you to enjoy. Read more »

Samsung announced yet another exclusive service for their Android smartphones. The Korean company has launched Premium Samsung Apps, which is the second Samsung app store for Android.

However, unlike the regular Samsung Apps repository, Premium Samsung Apps will also offer paid applications. So far, Samsung Apps only offered a small number of free applications (though admittedly their quality was usually good), but now that Samsung is also offering paid apps things will change and more variety should be available. Read more »

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 pre-orders in the US have begun, as BestBuy started listing two versions of the Android 3.1 Honeycomb slate. The 16GB Wi-Fi-only version of the 8.9″ droid goes for $470, while the units with 32GB of storage cost $570.

The estimated arrival time of your orders is listed as September 25th to September 26th , so the tablets are probably already on their way to BestBuy stores around the US. Unfortunately the 3G-enabled version is nowhere to be seen at this stage, but it should come up eventually. Read more »

Ever wanted to have the OS X experience on your iPhone 4? We are afraid we are still some way off from having the real thing, but this latest iOS mod that we found is one great start. Dubbed Ultimatum and naturally only available to jailbroken iPhones, it mimics the Lion OS X quite successfully.

Customizations run really deep here and the mod even introduces new features including Launchpad, Finder menus, stacks etc. Read more »

Today Canon introduced two exciting new additions to its lineup of cameras – the S100 enthusiast compact and the SX40 HS superzoom. Successor of the extremely popular Canon S95, the S100 aims to deliver image class-leading image quality, while remaining really pocket-friendly, while the SX40 HS impresses with its 35x zoom lens (yeap, you read that right).

Canon PowerShot S100, as goes the full name of the compact, is built around a large 1/1.7″ sensor of 12 megapixel resolution. It also packs ultra-wide (24mm in 35mm equivalent) and ultra-bright (F/2.0) lens, which is capable of zooming in 5 times to 120mm. Read more »

The number of PlayBooks sold in the first full quarter of the tablet on the market was just revealed and things aren’t looking particularly good for RIM. Only 490,000 PlayBook units found their new owners over the past three months, which less than what everybody expected.

Despite the cool QNX platform, the PlayBook doesn’t sell as well as its manufacturer hoped and it appears that it won’t be making its sales targets. Market analysts have decreased their estimates for the total PlayBook shipments in the first full year of the slate to an average of 2.2 million. Read more »