Hasta La Gadget!

Are you one who loves practical designs that are also pleasing to the eye at the same time? If you answered in the affirmative, then chances are pretty good you are a huge Ikea fan, not to mention having fallen in love with the Exovolt Plus battery from Exogear. What makes the Exovolt Plus so special from other battery packs? For starters, it is the world’s first stackable battery pack of its kind, carrying 5,200 mAh of juice within, and if that is not enough you can always pair it up (via stacking, of course) alongside a “Sub Battery” unit so that you end up with what some might dub as the ultimate portable charging station on earth.

Cost might prove to be the ultimate prohibitive entry point, especially when each extra stack will not come free but sold separately for nearly $50 a pop. Just make sure that you are able to afford the near $90 Exovolt Plus battery pack in the first place when it finally arrives in the market. Do you think that it will ever get as popular as pancakes for breakfast? [Product Page]

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Nikon 1 J2 announced officially, Nikon Coolpix L610 offers an entry level shooter,

It’s time to get dangerous as the folks at Mimoco bring the most classic iteration of Bruce Lee to the world of fabulous USB sticks. This Legends of MIMOBOT addition is available in up to 64GB sizes and is officially licensed with Bruce Lee Enterprises – hot stuff! Just like the rest of the Legends series, this USB contains icons, avatars, wallpapers, and mimoByte sound software pre-loaded inside for your pleasure!

Be water, my friend – shapeless and formless. That’s what you’ve got here with the next addition to Mimoco’s unending collection of fabulous looking sticks of space. You can put whatever you like inside the container of digital goodness you’ve been given, but watch your back – this stick has the power of Jeet Kun Do, of course!

You’ve got the master’s yellow track suit, tiger claw cuts, and matching nunchucks from Game of Death – one of the most well-known costumes in the history of film! This USB stick is available at Mimoco now along with their whole collection of fabulous sticks, most of them in limited editions, all of them worth it! Now for those of you that’ve never seen Lee fight in Game of Death, it’s time for the funniest of the series – battle your way up the tower, old master!

Tap tap tap! Having used Mimoco USB sticks ourselves both for fun and at major tech events for quick transfer of data between computers, I can personally guarantee you’ll be getting your money’s worth here. The ink doesn’t break away, the plastic is strong, and the transfer is as quick as USB 2.0 will allow. Grab Lee now!

Mimoco continues Legends MIMOBOT USB stick series with Bruce Lee is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Now here is something for all of you who do wonder whether there is life left in the legs of the Nokia N9 – it seems that Nokia Suite 3.5 Beta has just arrived for Windows as it sports N9 support, now how about that? Not only that, Nokia Suite 3.5 Beta will also be useful enough to perform a wide range of tasks, where they will include (but are not limited to) the ability to back up your contacts to the PC, saving the slew of text messages, being able to transfer multimedia items like music, photos and video, to and from the PC, in addition to being able to download important software updates to your handset.

Since this particular update hails from Nokia Beta Labs, the name itself gives the game away, so do not be disappointed if you stumble over some minor bugs after installation. If you do, just inform the folks over at Nokia Beta Labs so that they are informed of what’s going on and are able to make some remedial steps in the process. Have you given Nokia Suite 3.5 Beta for Windows a go yet, and how do you find the experience so far?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Nokia Lumia X Windows Phone smartphone with optical zoom on its way?, Nokia Lumia family to receive Update 8779,

Samsung’s 2010 “Relative Evaluation Report” has dunked the company into hot water, but the 132-page comparison between iPhone and Galaxy S raises new questions on device differentiation and buyer benefit. Submitted as evidence of Samsung’s copyist ways by Apple’s legal team in the ongoing San Jose jury trial, the document is a comprehensive and blunt critique of the original Galaxy smartphone by Samsung’s own team, nitpicking its way through UI and “fun factor” in a way that leaves Cupertino with no doubts that its wares have been replicated.

Apple’s own executives have previously described how the impetus behind the development of the iPhone project was a sense of dissatisfaction with their existing phones. It’s not hard to imagine that frustration leading to a wholesale evaluation of the current state of play in the mobile market; Apple would no doubt refer to this as competitive analysis.

Samsung’s evaluation lacks subtlety, but taken in isolation it’s difficult to know if such a style of analysis was unique to Apple’s phones or commonplace for the Korean firm. Apple’s evidence hints at the former; we’d need to see other documents from inside Samsung’s test labs, performing deep-dive assessments on phones from, say, HTC and LG, to contradict that, and Samsung is unlikely to show us those.

For end-users, though, the difference is less loaded. Talk to someone who has just signed up to a two-year agreement on a new phone, and they’re more likely to be concerned with how the device they just bought performs, not where the manufacturer got its inspiration from. Unless they’re significantly invested in their platform of preference – whether that be financially, emotionally, or in terms of an existing hardware/software ecosystem – users generally just want the best performance, period.

That, combined with a general lack of understanding of the nature of competitive analysis, has led to a sense of frustration among tech enthusiasts. On the face of it, one interpretation of the ongoing legal battle is that one company wants to cripple the phones and tablets of another; yes, it’s undoubtedly more complex than that, and Apple has the right to protect what it has invested unique R&D in (just as we’d like to think that it recognizes a responsibility to acknowledge what technology is commonplace), but patent interpretation is leagues away from sifting through a selection of handsets in a phone store.

In short, Samsung’s piecemeal dissection of what makes the iPhone special is neither blatant cribbing nor competitive best-practice: it’s likely somewhere in-between. If it’s lucky, the company will convince the jury – and the marketplace as a whole – that it’s part of a more holistic evaluation that tracked the trends of the mobile market as a whole, rather than just one high-profile and dangerous rival. Apple is out for blood, however, and Samsung has a battle on its hands to prove that the Galaxy range is distinguished, not derivative.

When is Competitive Analysis just copying (and do consumers care?) is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Last week we heard word that an improved version of the HTC One X was heading to T-Mobile USA, returning to the NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor from Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 chip and pairing it with Jelly Bean. Now word comes from Stuff.tv that HTC is planning something similar with the international version of the device, with the updated model codenamed “Endeavour C2.” The HTC One X originally carried the Endeavour codename, with details of this new device suggesting it will be a small refresh of the popular handset.

The improved version of the HTC One X is expected to retain its NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor, but it will receive a bump in clock speed to 1.7Ghz. The battery will also be improved – we’re assuming HTC will increase the capacity – and a new color option will be on offer, which should please those looking for something other than white or grey.

The handset will be bundled with Beats headphones just like the HTC One X and other HTC phones, with Stuff also hearing word that current HTC accessories will continue to work without any trouble with the refreshed model, suggesting that the design of the handset won’t be radically different. Meanwhile, HTC will add ClearVoice to “improve call quality”, which sounds similar to HD Voice offered on certain carriers’ handsets.

Finally, HTC Watch 2, an improved version of the company’s video streaming service, will be bundled with the new handset. Pricing hasn’t been finalized, but Stuff believes UK carriers will offer the refreshed model on tariffs £5 more expensive than the current HTC One X. The handset is expected to be released around October 1st, just in time to go toe-to-toe with the Galaxy Note II and the next iPhone.

HTC Endeavour C2 points to potential One X refresh is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.