Sony Xperia ion to get Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update next week

There is nothing quite like a snippet from a Twitter account to end the week on the right note, especially if you are a Sony Xperia ion owner who has long been waiting for the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update. Yes sir, a tweet from Rogers, one of the wireless carriers in Canada, have revealed that the Xperia ion is indeed on the receiving end of the Ice Cream Sandwich update which is tipped to arrive sometime next week, although there is no word on the actual release date.

Just to recap, the Sony Xperia ion was released worldwide in June where it came with a 12-megapixel camera that does 1080p recording, allowing it to even shoot a whole music video in the process. Apart from that, you get 13.2GB of internal memory, a 4.6″ LED display at 720 x 1280 resolution, and a Snapdragon S3 1.5GHz dual-core chipset. Are you looking forward to this delicious operating system update?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Sony Xperia V gets Clear Phase feature, Sony Xperia ion used to shoot an entire music video,

NASA Needs This Fantastic Spationery in Its Gift Shop [Wish You Were Here]

Since it’s totally pre-occupied with its latest rover roaming the surface of Mars, we figured we’d give NASA a hand, specifically when it comes to restocking its gift shop. Unfortunately, South Korean designer Jeongmi Lee’s lovely space-themed Spacionery office accessories don’t exist yet. But NASA put a man on the moon and a robot on Mars—it can certainly make this happen. More »

iPhone 5 pre-order sells out, breaks previous record

I guess most folks have gone past the “denial” stage of the iPhone 5 and have adopted a “Shut up and take my money already” attitude, considering how the iPhone 5 pre-orders have sold out a few hours ago, making it 20 times faster compared to its predecessors, the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S. To put things in their proper perspective, the iPhone 4S required 22 hours to sell out its pre-order, launch day stock, while the iPhone 4 held the previous record of 20 hours. As for the iPhone 5, it took all of 60 minutes, resulting in shipping expectations being shifted by a fortnight.

The record breaking demand also resulted in issues on Apple’s website in addition to other wireless carriers who offered the smartphone, where many folks late to the game were shown error messages during their attempt for a new iPhone 5 pre-order. There is one very huge factor to take into consideration though, is the iPhone 5 sold out in record time simply because the available stock at launch was far less than that of the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S? Perhaps so, as something this underwhelming appearing to be so “in demand” does smell somewhat suspicious. What do you think?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Samsung blows iPhone 5 away in newspaper ad, iPhone 5 A6 chip probably has custom core design,

Paul Ryan Accuses Barack Obama Of Treating Israel With Near-Contempt

WASHINGTON — GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan accused the Obama administration Friday of treating Israel with “indifference bordering on contempt,” the latest in a series of jabs on the president’s foreign policy after attacks on U.S. embassies abroad this week.

“Look across that region today, and what do we see?” he said at the Values Voters Summit, an annual gathering of 2,000 social conservatives, at the Omni Shoreham hotel in Washington. “The slaughter of brave dissidents in Syria. Mobs storming American embassies and consulates. Iran four years closer to gaining a nuclear weapon. Israel, our best ally in the region, treated with indifference bordering on contempt by the Obama administration. Amid all these threats and dangers, what we do not see is steady, consistent American leadership.”

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and Ryan have responded to attacks on the U.S. embassies in Egypt and Libya, where an ambassador and three other staffers were killed, with a critique on what they say is President Barack Obama’s weakness. Ryan said earlier this week that “adversaries … tempted to test us need to know that America is strong militarily.”

Read More…
More on Paul Ryan


Harold Hamm, Romney Adviser, Demands More Tax Breaks For His Low-Tax Corporation

One of Mitt Romney’s advisers thinks a tax rate of about 2 percent is just a little too damn high.

Harold Hamm, the CEO of Continental Resources, asked lawmakers to keep tax breaks for oil and gas companies in place during a hearing Thursday. Romney’s chief energy adviser claimed that his company pays taxes at a rate of about 38 percent. The only problem: Continental Resources’ effective tax rate has been more like 2.2 percent over the past five years, according to an analysis from the left-leaning Citizens for Tax Justice (h/t ThinkProgress).

Hamm, an Oklahoma oil billionaire, isn’t only Romney’s advisor, though. He’s also a major donor. His total political contributions to campaigns, parties and political action committees exceed the legal limit by 41 percent, according to Reuters.

Read More…
More on Video


Ming Dynasty Vase Sells For $1.3 Million (PHOTO)

NEW YORK — A rare Ming Dynasty vase that had been used as a doorstop in a New York home has sold for $1.3 million at auction.

The blue and white moon flask was auctioned Wednesday at Sotheby’s sale of Chinese works of art. Its presale estimate was $600,000 to $900,000.

The piece had been in the same family collection for decades. The auction house said the family decided to sell it after seeing a similar piece in a Sotheby’s advertisement.

Read More…


Laser injection is less painful than regular needles

You might be the resident macho man around your home, but does this mean your pain tolerance when it comes to needles and pin pricks are able to live up to the rest of your legend? For those who have an extreme phobia of needles, you might be interested to hear of the latest medical development that involves laser injections, touted to be less painful when compared to standard issue needles. Whenever the microjet is fired from the laser, the liquid will be sent out at speeds of 30m per second, and this wonderful invention is courtesy of South Korean scientists. I would suppose that if this system were to be tested successfully, it would eventually make the traditional needle obsolete, where a jab is similar to being hit with a puff of air.

At point of publishing, this laser already sees action in aesthetic skin treatments, where the ultimate aim is to churn out low-cost injectors for clinical use. The laser itself is called “erbium-doped yttrium aluminium garnet”, or Er:YAG for short, with the jet of air being a wee bit larger than the width of a human hair.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Brain implant restores decision-making process in monkeys, Nose-like sensor array to combat cancer?,

Black Mesa released: Half Life is reborn

Black Mesa, the eight-year project to revive Half Life, has been released, a free download bringing the classic game up to speed with Valve’s own Source engine. Including roughly 10hrs of gameplay, this first release completely rebuilds graphics and gameplay with the familiar cast of the original, and includes new maps, media files and more.

The Black Mesa team announced its first ship date earlier this month, focusing on play “all the way up to Lambda Core.” A second part is still in the pipeline, however. “We are still working hard on Xen and BMDM” the team said, “but instead of making you wait we are giving you Black Mesa as soon as it’s ready.”

It’s not the first time we’ve seen Half Life running in a new Source format. Valve itself rebuilt the game – originally using the older GoldSrc engine – in 2004, shortly after Source was developed. However, the gaming community failed to be overjoyed by the end result, criticizing the advances in graphics and gameplay as underwhelming in comparison to what Source is actually capable of.

Black Mesa trailer:

Black Mesa is the fan-driven replacement, pitting the player – as Doctor Gordon Freeman – back into the Half Life world. You can download Black Mesa for free – it’s a 3.8GB file – though the site itself has had some struggles keeping up under demand today, so you might need to keep trying.

Alternatively, there’s an official torrent, the tracker file for which you can find here. You won’t need a copy of Half-Life: Source to play it, just a copy of any Source Engine game installed on Steam.


Black Mesa released: Half Life is reborn is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.


Mac Battery Life Looks Like It’s About to Get a Massive Upgrade [Battery Life]

Battery life in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion kind of sucks. A lot. It’s very very bad, and was only made a little better with the 10.8.1 update a few weeks ago. But it looks like help is on the way. More »

The Engadget Mobile Podcast iPhone 5 edition, live at 1pm ET!

The Engadget Mobile Podcast, iPhone 5 edition, live at 1pm ET!

This special edition of the Engadget Mobile Podcast comes but once a year, which means it’s right up there with birthdays and holidays in specialness. Warning: the Apple-to-not-Apple ratio will be rather high in this episode as Myriam and Brad discuss their thoughts, feelings and emotions about the iPhone 5 (if you’re looking for extensive Android and Windows Phone coverage, might we recommend an excellent vintage Episode 152?). We’ll talk about the good, the bad and the ugly, so tune in as we dive straight in!

Filed under: ,

The Engadget Mobile Podcast iPhone 5 edition, live at 1pm ET! originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Sep 2012 12:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments