THIS PHONE IS REAL.  So I’ve been following Gizmodo’s Liveblog of the android press event right now and they’ve finally gotten to the details I desperately wanted to hear about.  The phone ships TODAY. It seems like the rumors of the prices were true.  $530 dollars for the phone unlocked, and $180 for T-mobile.  The website has gone live, so you can see it now at google.com/phone.

A pleasant surprise though – Vodaphone and Verizon are jumping onboard with the Nexus one and will have plans available sometime spring 2010.  AWESOME.  <3 google.  Also, with Vodaphone – it seems pretty obvious that they’re planning on taking their market globally.

Some other awesome tidbits:

• Does have snapdragon 1 ghz
• Coming with google earth app
• voice recognition for every text field on the phone
• Sync with picasa
• You get all the recognized droid apps with it
• Comes with droid 2.1
• and more…

Follow the live blogging to find out more!

[Content via Gizmodo Liveblog]
[Google Nexus One]

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So I’ve been seeing a lot of commercials for Verizon’s DROIDDOES recently.  Taking a look at it, it looks like the rumors of the Motorola Sholes going to Verizon were very true. 

This and HTC’s Droid Eris phone for Verizon will be the first Android phones that Verizon will release on November 6th.  HTC’s Droid Eris looks almost exactly like their Hero with similar specs as well.  It also does not have Android 2.0 running on it, so I’m starting to wonder why Verizon is even bothering to release it with the Motorola.  In any case though, I’m extremely glad that Verizon has finally decided to release some Android phones.  Their regular phone software sucks and quite frankly, the selection of phones was pretty terrible.  Now I might actually want to shell out a few hundred bucks for a phone in the near future depending how these fair.

[Content via Engadget Mobile]

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I’m sure everyone already knows about, but the event is so big that I’m going to post it here anyway.  Windows 7 has finally officially been released today for the general public!  That means anyone can now purchase Windows 7 and begin using the glorified savior of the MS operating systems.  We all know that Vista was a flop and XP is over a decade old, so now we can finally celebrate the new!  Hooray!

And I bring to you Nanami Madobe – the character who is featured in the first 7777 copies of Windows 7 Ultimate DSP edition in Japan.  The first OS-tan marketed by the company themselves.

And for all of you college students out there (like me), you can go get yourself a copy of a $29.99 windows 7 home premium or windows 7 professional upgrade.  You can pretty much use this upgrade as long as you have some sort of windows on your computer already, so don’t sweat the small details (or just check out the requirements for upgrade over buying the full retail – I personally am upgrading from Windows 7 RC).

[$29.99 Upgarde]

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Apple are now attempting to halt jailbreaking for the time being.  Latest 3GS models are now loaded with a new booting firmware update, iBoot-359.3.2 which fixes the popular 24kpwn exploit.

Another exploit will have to be found in order to jailbreak future iPhones, but fear not there will always be a way around this.

In other jailbreaking news, jailbreaking for the 3GS 3.1.2 is now available.  The PwnageTool coming from Dev-Team and blackra1n coming frmo Geo-Hot.

I went the PwnageTool way and was successful. Creating an custom IPSW was easy and restoring it to my 3.0 Jailbreak worked perfectly.  However PwnageTool is mac only at the moment.  Geo-Hot’s blackra1n however only works on 3.1.2 stock phones, which means you will lose the ability to unlock with this tool.  Nevertheless blackra1n does its job well and fast.  Whichever method you go, you won’t go wrong unless you need the unlock.

Latest iPhones Block Jailbreaking [via Lifehacker]

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So omg!ubuntu! has decided to give us a small peek on the current ChromeOS build from google.  A few things about ChromeOS that you may like to note are that it is debian-based and will be an OS that seamlessly stitches together the web-browser and OS.

From a brief look at the article, you can sort of get a feel of the basic features of the OS.  And in case you are an Ubuntu user and you want to try it out, omg!ubuntu! cordially provides some links which I have reproduced here:

• Dev channel (for 32-bit systems): google-chrome-unstable_current_i386.deb
• Dev channel (for 64-bit systems): google-chrome-unstable_current_amd64.deb

[Contents and Image via omg!ubuntu!]

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So, as many of you know, Google Voice is currently invite only.  Until just recently, the invites had to be requested through Google Voice itself.  Well, if you have a friend who has an account and you were too lazy to sign up and wait for yours, it might not be long before you can hassle them for an invite. 

Today, Google has announced that they are going to start giving invites to people that already have Google Voice!  It won’t happen all at once, but if you remember Gmail at all back in the beta stages, people started out with a few invites and then all of a sudden, it exploded into a hundred.  I assume this will be the same sort of deal – so soon everyone will have a Google Voice account.  Just peachy right?  Now if only AT&T would do something about their stubbornness…

[Content via TechCrunch]

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Are you worried about swine flu in your area (even though you really shouldn’t be)?  Then be worried no longer cause lifehacker has found a nice flutracking web app that gives you an easy to read overview of where there are outbreaks and whatnot.  The more you zoom in, the more details you can get.  You can even get as close as to individual cities.

The map was specifically designed to track the progress of swine using Rhiza Labs and Google (which you can easily identify from the google maps control scheme) using data from various sources.  Anyway, as you can see above, there is a key which identifies what each circle means.  There are also more statistics on the website if you want to check it out.  Apparently Bethlehem, PA (where I am currently situated) is pretty Swine-flu free.  I have heard that there was one case on campus, but nothing beyond that, so woo.  Can’t really say the same of New Jersey though.  Not really too worried about it at the moment though since Swine-flu has been determined to be less lethal than the common flu at the moment, so until that changes, I won’t really be panicking anytime soon.

[Content via Lifehacker]
[FluTracking at RhizaLabs]

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Earlier today, Verizon Wireless and Google announced that they were going to partner up!  Even better news is that before the end of this year, Verizon is planning to release two Android phones!

None of the manufacturers of the said phones were named, but this picture offers some insight on what they could possibly be.

If you check the original picture link here though, you can clearly see an HTC logo on the bottom of the phone that Eric Schmidt (CEO of Google) is holding.  On the right is what I expect to be whatever Motorola phone will be rolling out.  As a Verizon user, I am hugely excited over this news.  It may finally be time to get a new phone!

On a last note, when McAdam was questioned whether or not Google Voice would be allowed on their Android devices, he replied positively.  With this, AT&T is the only major carrier that doesn’t have any Android phones.

[Content via The New York Times]
[Image via Verizon Wireless]

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TechCrunch has noted today that google maps on the iPhone has recently incorporating ads and user-generated content.  I’m not very surprised about the ads, but the user-generated content does seem slightly odd.TechCrunch notes how it’s slightly unusual that the user-generated content is being incorporated since it doesn’t really bring anything to the table. Also, there is no apparent way to turn it off either.  I think I would have to agree that having a feature where random people are pushing unnecessary content onto your maps is pretty useless.  Granted, if you were looking for a random place of interest nearby, it might actually prove useful; but when you’re actually just trying to find something or go somewhere, then there really isn’t a point.

Hopefully Google and Apple won’t keep pushing these updates onto users without warning.  Also, hopefully, but unlikely, there will be a way to disable the ads on google maps as well.  Or at least filter them to useful ones, such as restaurants, hotels, gas, and whatnot.

.

[Content and Image via TechCrunch]

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Google’s Chrome Frame is an open source plugin for Internet Explorers 6, 7, and 8 that essentially replaces the built in rendering engine with WebKit and Chrome’s Javascript VM.

Get it here.

What’s the point? The only reason anyone ever uses IE is to download another browser or view web pages that were foolishly designed for it.

I think we’ll be seeing this pushed in Google Pack or suggested by GMail, YouTube, etc. alongside Chrome. According to the Google Code page,  developers need to do as little as add a single tag to direct IE users to the Chrome Frame download page. If someone’s too reluctant to use Chrome, adding a plugin to Microsoft’s bulky browser might be a little more painless, from the user’s perspective, and it lets Google control exactly how its applications are displayed.

Update: Although it’s written on the download page, it’s important to note Chrome Frame is for “Windows Vista and XP SP2.” I’ve tried it on both Windows 7 and Windows XP SP3, and it didn’t work in both cases (Windows simply used Trident, even after a reboot, despite Chrome Frame being active in the plugins manager).

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Wireless ISPs like Verizon and AT&T are up in arms against the FCC’s new Net Neutrality rules. The FCC plans to formally adopt six principles – the first four generally enforced since 2005, plus two additional rules:

1. Consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice.

2. Consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement.

3. Consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network.

4. Consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers.

5. Broadband providers cannot block or degrade lawful traffic over their networks, favor certain content or applications over others and cannot “disfavor an Internet service just because it competes with a similar service offered by that broadband provider.”

6.Broadband providers must be transparent about the service they are providing and how they are running their networks.

Apparently the second two rules stifle innovation. How? Well, for one it provides an equal footing for all internet services, regardless of the bandwidth it wants to use in relation to competing services. It lets a service develop without any hindrance from the ISP. It also means ISPs can’t put off upgrading infrastructure by bottlenecking services at their discretion, instead having to fill the demand for faster bandwidth lest their competitors do it first. Oh wait… these things aren’t stifling innovation. They spur innovation.

Their argument is fairly simple. There might not be enough bandwidth to go around. Users can move from node to node on the network very quickly. An area that was serving very few can suddenly be serving very many. If there’s an event, concert, emergency, etc., there would be an unforeseen increase in network load on a node which might have usually served few customers. To handle this you would do one of two things – cap every person’s network speed equally (which causes a slowdown for everybody) or bottleneck the guy who’s downloading a game on Steam, so the user who’s trying to access school email doesn’t notice a slowdown. That makes sense, right? After all, it would be terrible if you couldn’t access a mission-critical service because someone who paid the exact same amount of money for the exact same service in the exact same area can use said service to for something recreational.

When you reach a certain number of users and it’s too expensive to profitably upgrade your infrastructure, and there’s not enough bandwidth to handle all of those users, what would be the logical thing to do? The above? I don’t think so. Either cap the bandwidth evenly for all users and all services, so each user can use the system equally, or increase the price of all users’ plans evenly, so you can afford to upgrade your network and handle higher speeds.

Is this not basic supply vs. demand? Am I missing something? If there’s not enough bandwidth to go around, I pay more. Sure.

However, what is not okay is for the dumb pipe to tell me I can only use (100-N)% of the bandwidth I paid M dollars for because I’m using a service they deem less important, while my neighbor can use 100% of the bandwidth he paid M dollars for because he’s using a service they deem more important.

What does it mean to cap each user equally? If a wireless tower serves out X Mb/s, and Y people connect, then each person is capped to X/Y. However generally someone would only use a fraction of X/Y, and each time they do, there’s some unused bandwidth, (1-P)(X/Y) per person where P is the percentage of bandwidth they’re using that’s not being allocated to a service.
There is a certain amount of bandwidth, S, wasted:

.            Y
. S   =    Σ    (X-XPi)/Y
.           i=1

The amount of wasted bandwidth is the sum of the unused bandwidth of each user, so long as the bandwidth is capped evenly among all users.

To keep this bandwidth from being wasted, you would allocate it among the users who are currently capped at the physical maximum, X/Y. If there are Q users capped, then their total cap would now be X/Y+S/Q. Eventually one user exists who is capped at a very high speed, or more than one user are using the same amount of network, capped at the same speed.
Isn’t this giving the heavy users priority over the lighter users? No. Why? Because, theoretically, all users now have a theoretical cap of X/Y+S/Q. This is because as a lighter user increases his network utilization, P, the sum of wasted bandwidth, S, goes down, and so does therefore the additional bandwidth granted to all capped users. As less network is used (fewer or lighter services are being run) then the network will be faster for all users, if all users are using more (let’s say close to 100%) of their network speed, each user gets closer to that X/Y. However it is important to note that no user would experience less than that even distribution of X/Y. No service is arbitrarily deemed less important than another.

If an ISP wanted to promise, say, 2 Mb/s as the absolute physical minimum, they would have to estimate the maximum number of users, Y, and implement a system that can handle 2Y Mb/s, then create an infrastructure that could handle that. Obviously it’s more complex than that, since you can figure the average amount of wasted bandwidth and try to get the theoretical minimum as close to the promised bandwidth as possible. If they mis-estimate, then they’ll have to upgrade their infrastructure or promise lower speeds. This is still oversimplified. The carrier doesn’t want a lot of wasted bandwidth at night, for instance, but at the same time they don’t want a slow useless network during peak times.

I’ve seen a post proposing bandwidth caps. When you reach a certain amount of bandwidth in a month, your overall speed gets capped. You could have weekly or daily allowances. You can lessen restrictions at night, for instance to encourage users to download large files or use heavy services (the basis of “free night a weekend calling” which has existed since the dawn of time). So long as they are transparent, there could be many reasonable and viable methods of bandwidth management implement.

What I’m trying to get at is this: It’s not outside the realm of reason to say every user can have an equal amount of bandwidth. That’s not the hard part. It’s possible to do this without wasting bandwidth. If during peak times, bandwidth is too low, then advertise it as that low, or find new technologies and implement a faster system and charge more. I don’t mind good clean economics.

AT&T says this:
“On a wireline broadband network, you know where your customer is,” Jim Cicconi, AT&T’s senior vice president of external and legislative affairs, said in a statement, “So you can build capacity to handle the peak demands. But on a wireless network, you have a crowd converge on a site that suddenly has 10 times or 100 times the users competing for the same resources.”

If I move into a crowded area, then there will be more users there. Of course I’m going to have a slowdown. Verizon/AT&T/Whoever can take averages, gauge usership, etc. in many areas, and upgrade the infrastructure there.
If there’s a sudden influx of people anywhere (for example, there’s a large concert that attracts a lot of users of your network in an area where you had a weak infrastructure), there will probably be a slowdown.

However, as I described above, we should all have equal slowdowns. Cap everyone equally. Guess what? The user who is downloading a movie or streaming video will hit a slowdown. The user who is accessing web pages or tweeting or chatting might still be under that X/Y cap, and might not notice a slowdown at all, even when there is one. My own network utilization, for instance, is about 75 KB/s while Thunderbird checks three mail servers, I’m running a DC++ client, an Pidgin IM with 5 services installed and communicating, and Sunbird syncing with Google Calendar. These services don’t use much bandwidth and send/receive data in bursts, like when checking a server or sending or receiving a message.

Let’s say the tower can handle 100 Mb/s and there are 1000 users. Each user’s “cap” will be .1 Mb/s. Seems slow. I’d expect most of those 1000 users to be idle (or close to it) at any given point in time. The unused network bandwidth is applied to whomever’s streaming Pandora, YouTube, or what have you. In the “large concert” example (or “sudden crowd convergence” as AT&T puts it) most users would at most likely be using communication protocols. Very rarely will a “crowd converge” and all try and install a Steam game or stream YouTube HD at once.

What wireless providers, are arguing, I suppose, is this:
Rather than let bandwidth be spread evenly across all users, which would cause slowdowns evenly, since one would have to cap everyone evenly, instead we’ll cap users who we think don’t deserve to use the same percentage of bandwidth as everyone else.

Net neutrality is all about keeping providers  from discriminating against various content or services. This provides an equal and open ground for any service to, without an arbitrary bandwidth restriction, connect to and communicate with its users, and keeps data just that – data – without putting a higher or lower value on those 1s and 0s.

I’d rather have a clear cut Max Bandwidth vs. Users vs. Network Utilization equation spelled right out to my face by my ISP than for them to decide which services, at their discretion, deserve priority over others. We all pay the same price for the same bandwidth. Nothing makes my bits better than anyone else’s bits. They should deliver the amount of bandwidth I paid for. If they can’t, then they should advertise it at a value they’re able to deliver. From there I can, as a member of a free society, make an informed decision on whether or not such a service fits my needs, purchase, and use the service.

Generally AT&T is on top of things, though. Wireless carriers do occasionally listen to their customers, and they do make upgrades. Why, then, must they whine about these net neutrality rules? There’s no reason for it.

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GoogleSync has already been on iPhone for a while but not in its entirety.  Just until recently, GoogleSync only synced calenders and contacts but now finally mail support has been added with Push support.

Full Story [Google Mobile Blog]

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Today is the day AT&T will finally roll out MMS free of charge to it’s users (about time!).  However, don’t expect things to go smoothly the first day, there are already reports of the network being overloaded and texts not even working today.

Remember that you have to connect your iPhone to iTunes and install a updated carrier file to receive the MMS features.

As millions of iPhone users rush to test the new service, traffic is expected to be as much as 40% higher all day on Friday.

Full Story [The iPhone Blog]

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The founder of the infamous social networking site, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, has released the statistic that Facebook has reached 300 million users worldwide.  And it doesn’t stop at that; they are also cash-flow positive now.

I think the most amazing part of this is the way that Facebook has gained 50 million of its new users between July and September.  That means they grew an enormous 20% in the span of less than 3 months.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised since everyone I know has a Facebook, even if they don’t use it very often.  In my case, it’s only a place where ChenZen updates go.  But I am curious as to what has prompted the rapid growth recently.  The 300 million mark makes Facebook the largest social networking site out there now.  So what comes next?

[Contents via Telegraph.co.uk]

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So apparently LG is going out on their own and has begun to produce the GW620: their very own Android running mobile device!  Unfortunately for us, US dwellers, it is only going to be released in Europe for the time being. 

It does look pretty nifty from the images though.  A nice QWERTY keyboard, a 3.5” touchscreen, and a nice-looking interface makes me excited for what’s to come in the future.  I’m still eagerly awaiting for my Verizon androids, so this move by LG makes me very happy.

[Contents via MobileCrunch]

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As you may have known, school has started for both Jacob and I recently.  For me the first week has just passed and going forward from here, our schedules will be packed pretty tight.

So some things I have been planning to do are videos and LOTS of them.  To accomplish this, I have purchased a Hauppauge HD PVR.  This baby is an external capture card that does all the encoding in the device itself.  This means absolutely no overhead for your CPU as you’re busy playing the game.  Previously, I would use FRAPS to record game footage, while this worked for older titles such as Half-Life, Starcraft, and Quake, new titles won’t cut it.  Fraps would virtually make the game unplayable frame rate wise.  This of course can be avoided with a quad core processor but I don’t have the money for that.

I purchased the HD PVR for 200 dollars (some places have deals for $150) and I can say it was a great purchase.  Not only can it record your game console, it can also record your PC.

Here is a basic overview of the device:

• Built-in hardware H.264 high definition encoder, for high performance, high quality TV recordings
• Component video input from most high definition cable TV and satellite TV receivers. Optical or stereo audio inputs.
• Record high definition video at up to 1080i resolution, 720p or VGA/D1
• Record at datarates from 1Mbs to 13.5Mbs, constant and Variable Bit Rate
• Make Blu-ray format AVCHD recordings, so you can burn your TV recordings onto a standard DVD disk (up to 2 hours of video at 5MBits/sec) and playback on Blu-ray DVD players
• Includes HD software video player, so you can playback recordings to your PC screen
• Audio / Video component video loop through to allow HD recording and viewing at the same time
• High Performance Noise Reduction Function
• NTSC,PAL and SECAM Support
• IR receiver for remote control
• IR Blaster to change the TV channels in your set top box

It fits all my needs of a recording device, recording at 1080i up to 13.5Mbs, is very good in my book.  My Geforce GTX 260 has a HDTV out and with that I have a HDTV to component cable adapter so it is compatible with the HD PVR.

My setup is like this, I have the video card route to the HD PVR, then I have a audio splitter that splits audio from my sound card two ways, in one port I have a stereo to RCA splitter that then routes to the HD PVR audio in. Finally, the USB connection from my HD PVR connects to my MacBook where it stores the video information.

So with this, I am currently recording every game I play, making tutorials on PCSX2 and Dolphin and other things I have not though of yet, the possibilities are endless!

Stay tuned for forthcoming videos and another post about the Sanyo Xacti CG10 I bought as well.

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With a superconducting magnet, scientists have been able to generate a field powerful enough to lift the water inside living animals.  The most amazing part is that the field can operate at room temperature!

Researchers have setup a plastic cage that keeps the mice in during levitation.  The results so far seem to be pretty positive, showing that the mice can get used to floating inside their cages quickly.  Short term effects of the magnetic field do not have any negative implications so far, and previous tests of strong magnetic fields on rats for prolonged periods did not show anything as well.

While this might not be the kind of levitation you were hoping for, I have to say that this is pretty impressive and rather ingenious way to make animals float.  Combine this with perpetual motion cats, and we’re well on our way to flying cat and mouse chase games.

[Contents via Gizmodo]
[Original Story via LiveScience]

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So this caught my attention today because, quite frankly, I’ve hungering for a new phone and refuse the iPhone trend.  Not for any particular reason, other than just to satisfy my ego.  I am also highly dissatisfied with the selection of phones Verizon has to offer, but unfortunately I am stuck with this provider until I can fend for my own phone contract.  But anyway, back to news!

This little baby the iida Polaris.  It’s a small touchscreen cell phone that sits inside a little robotic ball.  What makes this little guy so special is that it is supposed to help you maintain a healthy life by keeping records of your diet, activity, etc.  Don’t really have too much information on it, other than that, but here’s a pretty neat video of it in action!

[Contents via CrunchGear]
[iida Polaris]

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So what’s really creating problems for Microsoft right now?  It’s the users who do not want to give up on their dated machines that are still running Windows XP.  With 71.8 percent of the market share still running XP, things look pretty bleak at the moment.  This means 71.8% of all people with computers are still using an OS that was released about 8 years ago.

Fortunately, with Windows 7 around the corner, there is hope!  Recently usage of XP has been dropping in favor Vista and 7.  When Windows 7 does finally get released for the general public on October 22, we’ll see what actually happens though.

[Contents via ComputerWorld Blogs]

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So, Amazon has finally come out and taken a huge step in their fight against the Google Books settlement.  They have filed a brief with the U.S. District Court (of which you can read here).

Now, we all know that Amazon has been scanning books for their Kindle, which makes a few of us ask ourselves “what’s wrong with Google doing the same thing?”  Well, what Google was doing was technically not the same thing as they were scanning books that are now out-of-print without any permission.  Of course, Amazon has not done this, which makes them take up this platform for their opposition.  There were already many others who were against this in the beginning, but I think now that Amazon has formally stated their position on it as well, things are going to get more dicey from here on out.  Apparently there are already more briefs in the making as well from other major companies, including Sony and Microsoft.

I, for one, still thoroughly enjoy reading my manga from physical pages when I can.

[Content via Engadget]
[Amazon’s Brief (PDF)]

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So according to the Telegraph.co.uk, twitter and other social networking sites have been used as a means to add hundreds of new words to the Collins English Dictionary.  They note words such as ‘hmm,’ ‘heh,’ and ‘meh’ as having been added due to the younger generation using them in common speech as well as online.  I think adding these as words as rather questionable since they don’t actually have any real definable meaning, but who am I to say that internet onomatopoeias be banned from the English dictionary?  What I will agree with is words like ‘noob’ and ‘twitter’ being added as legitimate.

In any case though – I disagree on the fact that these words are being added just because of the rise of the social networking sites.  I think that maybe people are just beginning to recognize the internet as something that exists, well, beyond the internet.  That means it can actually extend into the arts, culture, and frankly, even language.

[Contents via Telegraph.co.uk]

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Getting Snow Leopard today?  Then you will probably want to know which applications will work with your fresh OS.  Snow Leopard will automatically move your incompatible applications into a separate folder, as well as prevent incompatible software from launching until they are updated.

There is an official compatibility list here by Apple, however there is a more robust wiki available that catalogues a ton of applications.

[Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Compatibility List] – WikiDot

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People are finding out that the $29 dollar Snow Leopard upgrade actually installs whether you have Leopard or not.  Essentially what you’re getting is a full Snow Leopard disc for $29, a hell of a deal!

So far the reviews from the press have been extremely positive with Snow Leopard numerous under the hood improvements in speed and functionality.

I will give impressions on Snow Leopard when I get my copy for my MacBook.

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So apparently IBM has taken pictures of atomic bonds for the first time ever.  The picture below is an image of an actual molecule with carbon and hydrogen atoms sticking together.  Kind of like something you would see out of an organic chemistry class.

I think this is very exciting news.  We all know that computing and technology is crucial to advancing different fields of science, but we also know that advancement in different sciences will help advance computing and technology as well.  To all the scientists, engineers, and innovators out there in any field, I hope we can all get together and continue to revolutionize this world.  Maybe we should just take all the great minds, get on the voyager, and leave this rotten politics and vanity filled world behind.

[Content via Gizmodo]

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News has just come out from Apple that Snow Leopard, the next iteration of OS X is set to ship August 28th.

Snow Leopard is available for an upgrade for $29 for single user and $49 for 5-user family pack.  The improved OS boasts OpenCL, Grand Central Dispatch (makes even more efficient use of processor), QuckTime X, and a whole bunch of under the hood improvements.

[The iPhone Blog]

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It seems like AT&T are answering the numerous service complaints by rolling out 850 MHz 3G to areas that need it most, in this case Atlanta and in San Francisco.  These improvements according to AT&T will offer more speed capacity and coverage.  Other areas will have 850MHz  at later date.

I own an iPhone myself in New Jersey and I have found the coverage to be pretty reliable.  I get service pretty much everywhere except in the basement of my house, but thats no suprrise (my old t-mobile didn’t get service there either).  I personally can’t wait for AT&T to flip the switch for some 7.2 Mbps action.

Full Story [TiPb]

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So recently at [Pocketables], there were a bunch of images released of an unidentified Android MID (Mobile Internet Device).  So far I haven’t been able to find any information on this device, aside from the pictures, but it looks like it will be pretty awesome.  Maybe this is a response to the [Apple Tablet] that was recently confirmed.

From the images provided, I wasn’t able to pick up any sort of logos or even buttons on the main screen.  The way it’s built though reminds us much of Apple’s style.

Pocketables points out that in this screenshot, you can make out the words “SD Card and Phone Storage.”  This looks very promising.

Frankly I’m quite excited to see who comes forward to claim this as their own.  I want to learn more about what’s inside!  I’ll be keeping an eye out for more updates on this little device.

[Content via Pocketables] [Pocketables 2]

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Sony has announced at GamesCom a PS3 slim that is debuting the first week of September!

The slim will boast a significantly smaller form factor which is over 30 percent smaller, lighter and more power efficient than its old bulky version.  Not only that, but it will include a 120GB hard drive.

This makes a PS3 a very attractive buy for me now, I mean $299 with 120GB hard drive? I am sold.

Here are some pictures of this sexy beast.

Full Story [Joystiq]

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It seems like the iPhone 3GS 32GB model is at the moment the most popular cell phone in Japan. Here is the list of the top cells in the month of July

• Apple iPhone 3GS 32 GB
• Sharp SH-06A
• Panasonic 830P
• Sharp SH-05A
• NEC N-08A
• Sony Ericsson Walkman Phone Premier3
• Sharp SH-02A
• Casio W63CA
• Apple iPhone 3GS 16 GB
• Sharp SH001

I have an iPhone 3GS 32GB myself and I absolutely love it, it does everything I ever needed a phone to do an much more.  It is essentially now my second computer.  I can only wonder how the 3G speeds are in Japan since they have probably the most advanced mobile infrastructure in the world.

The iPhone Blog [via @ MobileCrunch]

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In the last few days I’ve been reading about the gas mileage of the Chevrolet Volt, a hybrid vehicle that can run as an all-electric for a range of 40 miles. My local newspaper and various articles place it at 230 miles per gallon.

Two hundred thirty?

What does this actually mean? When you put 10 gallons into your Volt’s tank, you can travel 2,300 miles? No, not exactly.

According to the New York Times, Tony Posawatz, the vehicle line director for the Volt, said miles per gallon is “…probably not the best measure of goodness” for evaluating the Volt.  However, he also mentions that “…it’s what people are accustomed to, [since] m.p.g. calculations have been around since there have been vehicles.” No kidding.

The logic is as follows: Most Americans commute less than 40 miles a day. The Volt travels 40 miles on a single charge. If you drive 20 miles and 20 back (or less) you can get a theoretical “infinite fuel economy.” But there’s no such thing as infinite fuel economy! You’re either paying for gas or electricity. I understand that we don’t often think of electricity as “fuel,” but by that token, we shouldn’t be translating a plug-in electric vehicle’s fuel economy to miles per gallon, especially since most of the time it won’t be using any “gallons.” It’s misleading.

Over at GM-volt.com, they offer an explanation of the mileage calculation. Two additional factors (to speed, intensity of driving, etc.) are how often you charge and how long you drive. It stands to reason that your fuel economy will be infinite when driving with the battery alone, and will only really exist when you actually use gasoline. The number seems almost irrelevant to the regular consumer, especially since he or she may or may not head out on a full charge. This fuel economy rating seems like it will vary too much to give you an accurate estimate of how much gasoline you are actually using.

I’ve gotten a better representation of the vehicle’s fuel economy: miles per charge and miles per gallon in a “charge-sustaining mode”. If I have a 50 mile commute, then I can subtract the 40 miles and calculate the gasoline consumed with the second number. Maybe a third number could be included: kW-hrs per charge, or even the time it takes for a full charge. These numbers are much easier to understand than a highly convoluted “230 miles per gallon” would be, and are certainly more useful.

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[Brian Lam] has recently confirmed the existence of the Apple Tablet.  He had gotten an encrypted message from someone who wanted to give him the scoop on the device.

Brian recounts his whole tale of getting in contact with his source, ‘[redacted],’ and what [redacted] says, but here are the details you probably want to hear the most:

• The Tablet will have a 10″ screen
• Probably gonna look like a giant iPhone/iTouch
• Same black resin back, same home button as iPhone/iTouch
• Two Editions: 1. Webcam 2. Mysterious Education Use
• Device can act as a secondary screen for iMacs/MacBooks
• Cost: $700-$900
• Tentative Release: Holiday Season ’09

My impressions?  This is going to be another overly expensive apple ‘toy’ that will come out for everyone that can afford it.  The cost absolutely irks me, but I guess it’s nothing new from Apple.  Oh well – no Apple products for me still.

[Contents via Gizmodo]

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Microsoft has been ordered to stop selling Microsoft Word, which is its word processor that is included with MS Office.  It was found that the software had violated i4i Inc’s patent on “manipulating a document’s content and architecture separately,” or in other words, the ability to open documents containing custom XML.  In addition to not being able to sell Word any longer, Microsoft also has to pay $240 million dollars in damages to i4i.

Frankly this doesn’t surprise me all that much, I am sure Microsoft still has software that violates many patents but none of course which have been banned from sales.  Microsoft have appealed and a higher court will probably overrule this.

More details about what custom xml here [ZDNet]

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Daynah over at [PHP-Princess] has figured out a neat workaround for getting that 11th+ page to display.  It involves having all 11 pages of iPhone apps and moving one of the stock apps to the last page to boot an icon to the 12th page where it would then appear.  Apparently it doesn’t work every time, but try it if you have more than 180 applications. For the full details and procedure hit up the link!

Full Story: [PHP-Princess]

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So utorrent has released a 2.0 beta with UDP support.  I assume you all already know that utorrent as one of the best bittorrent clients on the web for Windows (along with a mac beta client), so adding this just reinforces their position.  Whether on my PC or hackintosh, I love to use utorrent and their improvements only makes it better.

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Finally push notifications for gmail have come via a third party application which is now available on the App Store.  The application will notify you when a new email has gone through to your gmail account through sounds/vibrate and text pop up alerts.

The application for now has been pulled off the app store due to the developers having problems with their server.  It seems as if they didn’t even know their application got approved, however they are now working on getting their servers back in working shape to be re-released on the app store (no re-approval required).

iTunes Link
Tiverias Apps

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