Hasta La Gadget!

This week the Facebook Phone has been revealed. Unofficially, of course, but in a run-down of the software that comes within the device more in-depth than we’d otherwise be skeptical about. What we’ve got here is a midrange smartphone from HTC that runs the big news: Facebook Home. This software is at once a simple app for Android AND a user interface that takes over Android fully. The HTC smartphone hardware is almost like an afterthought.

We had a quick look at what Android Police discovered today, HTC Facebook phone should have you covered for all the gruesome details. If you’re all about the hardware, however, all you need to know is this:

1. 4.3-inch 720p Display
2. AT&T 4G LTE
3. 5-megapixel back-facing camera
4. Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor (same as Galaxy S III)
5. Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean

This device’s pricing structure will be very, very interesting. If Facebook has enough clout to create a smartphone without a need for voice and text messaging service, they may very well be creating a whole new segment in the mobile smart device industry. If they release this device for something more like $50 USD with a 2-year contract with AT&T, they’ll be better off not releasing the device at all.

Or perhaps an inexpensive not-the-best-but-decent smartphone is exactly what Facebook needs to start their smartphone party off right? This release will certainly center around the software experience first and foremost – maybe the marketing for this release will be successful with just talk of how this will be the one true Facebook Phone?

Based on what we know – or what we think we know – about the software experience being presented by Facebook this week, this device will need to be all about the hype.

Would you buy the smartphone outlined above if it were packing the Facebook Home user interface over Android? Let us know! Then join us later this week as SlashGear covers the Facebook event live and in-person! That’s Thursday, April 4th at 10AM PST, don’t miss it – stick close to the Facebook tag portal right up and through that time!

Does the HTC Facebook Phone belong in your pocket? is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

When the original Facebook phone was introduced, it was created by HTC, and it certainly didn’t do very well on the market. With both the HTC Salsa and the HTC ChaCha having been released and selling so few units that they didn’t warrant a follow-up in the many, many quarters that followed, it doesn’t seem very logical that the social network and the manufacturer would want to create such an amalgamation again. And it’s not as if HTC is swimming in cash at the moment, either.

But here it is, courtesy of a couple of tipsters speaking with the New York Times about a Facebook phone to be revealed at next weeks’ Facebook event. Here the suggestion is that both a Facebook employee and “another person” who shall remain nameless were briefed on a project coming up – a so-called “special version of Google’s Android software system”. With the wording the NYT uses, it would appear that this software could appear on a new phone OR a phone that’s already coming on quick to the market – perhaps the HTC One?

“The software will debut on a handset made by HTC, according to a Facebook employee and another person who were briefed on the announcement.” – New York Times

Facebook has repeatedly denied that they’d be making a smartphone – but there’s never really been a denial of the possibility of a smartphone with major Facebook integration. Now that Facebook’s level of involvement with the iPhone is so base, might it be time that the social network gets big on Android?

With the launch of the HTC One here in the United States so very close (we hope), we can’t help but wonder if these two events might coincide. Keep your eyes tuned to two tag portals, both Facebook and HTC will be running hot next week – and we’ll more than likely see some manner of leak happening before then. More than we already have, that is.

And don’t miss the big event – 10AM PST on April 4th right here on SlashGear!

HTC “Facebook phone” Android software integration tipped is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Facebook has sent out invitations to an event on April 4 at its place in Menlo Park, California. What’s it about? We don’t know exactly, but the invite says “Come see our new home on Android,” and so the two most likely options seem to be either a new Facebook app or a Facebook-related Android operating system.

If the last prospect gets you excited, take heart: some sources have come forward to say a Facebook Phone is on the horizon. The invite is a simple tease – vague title, location, date and time – giving us just enough information to spend the next week guessing. Some sources have surfaced, however, saying that we should expect an operating system.

According to the folks over at TechCrunch, a source who previously advised them to be on the lookout for an April Facebook event has said that Facebook is going to announce an operating system. Specifically, this will be a modified Android operating system that has Facebook functionality woven throughout it, making it a one-stop-shop sort of deal for Facebook loyalists.

And, of course, what is an operating system without some hardware? The sources said that Facebook will likely be pairing its modified Android operating system with an HTC handset, model unknown. Both of those things are rumors at this point, the by-product of unnamed sources, and so don’t take it without a grain of salt. Stay tuned, and we’ll update you next week!

Facebook April 4 event invite teases Android-related announcement is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Microsoft’s BUILD developer conference was held in October last year, but it looks like the company is moving the event to accomodate the warmer weather. Microsoft has announced that BUILD 2013 will take place June 26-28 in San Francisco, California. If you’re a developer interested in attending, mark your calendars now.

We attended Microsoft’s BUILD 2012 conference and the company announced a lot of great stuff, including the official launch of Windows Phone 8. Microsoft also took that time to announce a handful of big new apps that came to Windows 8. Of course, tons of new apps have released since then, but this was back when Windows 8 came right off the assembly line.

Registration for BUILD 2013 will open on April 2, so be sure to mark your calendars for that day as well, since tickets will go quickly. Specifically, last year’s conference sold out in about an hour, so be sure to get your clicking reflexes up to shape before signing up — Microsoft’s expecting a large crowd for this one.

As for what we’ll see from Microsoft during the conference, they say that they’ll be showing off some new things that they’ve been working on for Windows, as well as Azure, Visual Studio, and lots more. We may even hear more about Windows Blue that we’ve been hearing so much about as of late.

Microsoft BUILD 2013 set for June 26-28 in San Francisco is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Jen-Hsun Huang stepped on stage this week at GTC 2013 with words on the GPU, the graphics processing engine that NVIDIA uses to push the envelope in many, many more ways than one. Five features were announced as coming on through the conference: breakthroughs in computer graphics, updates on development, a roadmap update for NVIDIA, an update on remote graphics, and a brand new product announcement. While we’re expecting this conference to hold quite a bit of news on computing outside the mobile world with Tegra, there’s certainly going to be some amazing Android-based excellence coming on too.

Wave Works

Beginning this show with TITAN – the GeForce GTX GPU we’re about to have hands-on time with in the very near future here on SlashGear – some interactive ocean experimentation was shown. Straight away we saw a ship shown on a large screen, real-time water being pushed up against the craft as heavy waves came up and crashed against it. With 20,000 sensors in-place (virtually), this demonstration showed how with NVIDIA GPU power, we’ll be able to test the ability of ships in the future to withstand a beat-down.

If we didn’t know better, we’d have to guess that this demonstration of the ship was real – this demonstration was called Wave Works, and was a Beaufort-Scale Real-Time Ocean rendering. Absolutely gorgeous.

Face Works

Also included was a show of what the company calls Kepler Dawn. This lovely fairy was the work of many, many years of work on the creation of a very real human form. Attempting to escape the so-called “Uncanny Valley”, Huang let us know that they were close, but weren’t quite there yet with this first show. The “Uncanny Valley” is a place where realistic animations get creepy – incase you didn’t know – this happening between an obviously animated creature and a real human being.

A new technology called Face Works was introduced, letting a system that before NVIDIA got to it was 32GB to be pushed into 400 MB. Here we’ve seen NVIDIA’s Titan GPU turning an animated face look real. For those of you that aren’t able to see this face move in real-time yet, hear this: it’s impossibly realistic. If Star Wars is going to feature Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and Mark Hammil, they’ll use Face Works to make it work.

Stick out the full conference with us here on SlashGear as we cover the entirety of the show, front to back. Have a look at our GTC 2013 tag portal for more information and stay tuned for more amazing rendering beastliness!

NVIDIA’s GTC kicks off with stunning real-time rendering is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.