Hasta La Gadget!

Welcome to Friday evening everyone – the weekend is here at last, but before we dive in, it’s time to recap the news. Today we heard that Microsoft might be testing out a smartphone of its own, which doesn’t really surprise us considering that it just recently entered the tablet market. Apple’s freshly rephrased “apology” to Samsung went live in UK newspapers today, and one analyst is expecting the iPad mini to top 1.5 million sales this weekend. Speaking of the iPad mini, we saw a drop test featuring the tiny slate today, and the tablet launched to shorter-than-normal lines for an Apple product.

The HTC DROID DNA suffered another leak today, this one saying that it’ll be available at Verizon starting in early December, and we learned that Jelly Bean installs are on the rise, but at a pretty slow rate. A new iPad fourth-gen teardown gives us a look at more of the same, and Apple says that it’s willing to pay Motorola just one dollar per iPhone in patent fees. Smartphone market share in the US has remained more or less the same, and we got a closer look at the iPad fourth-gen’s GPU today.

A new Android vulnerability has been discovered, opening up users to SMS phishing, while one clever do-it-yourselfer has already managed to fit the iPad mini into the dashboard of his car. Apple has lost the right to sell the iPhone in Mexico, and Moshi showed off its new line of iPad mini accessories today. We learned today that we’ve had humans living on the International Space Station for 12 consecutive years, and one unfortunate BitTorrent sharer has been hit with a hefty $1.5 million fine. Verizon told us that its cell sites are improving in areas that have been hit hard by Hurricane Sandy, Overhaul Games actually bumped the release date of Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition up by a couple of days, and the Mars Curiosity rover took a very cool picture of itself.

Finally today, we have a brand new column and two pretty big reviews for you to check out. Chris Burns tells us why we’re in the age of the smartphone ecosystem rather than the age of smartphone specs, while Vincent Nguyen gives us his reviews of the highly-anticipated Samsung Nexus 10 and LG Nexus 4. That does it for tonight ladies and gentlemen, we hope you have a great weekend!

SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: November 2, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Today is a pretty big day for the folks at SpaceX and NASA, as the Dragon capsule has detached from the International Space Station and will soon begin plummet toward the surface of Earth. Engineers on the ground remotely controlled the station’s robotic arm as it removed the Dragon capsule from the ISS earlier today, pointing it in the right director for its return trip. To get back to Earth, Dragon will use a set a pre-programmed commands to perform a series a burns, with the final one happening in just about an hour (2:28 PM Eastern) to slow the capsule down and prepare it for re-entry.

Then, at about 3:20 PM Eastern this afternoon, Dragon will splash down in the Pacific ocean, 250 miles off the coast of Baja California. The capsule carried 882 pounds of supplies with it to the space station, but it will be returning with even more. When Dragon reaches Earth, it will be packed with 1,673 pounds of stuff, which includes “163 pounds of crew supplies, 866 pounds of scientific research, and 518 pounds of vehicle hardware and other hardware.”

Those 866 pounds of scientific research include things like urine and blood samples taken aboard the International Space Station, and they’ll need be returned to NASA within 48 hours of Dragon’s splashdown for testing. The hardware that’s being returned to NASA include defective parts from the Space Station, which will need to be examined by scientists here on the ground. Make no mistake, Dragon has a lot of important stuff on board, so here’s hoping that everything goes as planned this afternoon.

The SpaceX Dragon capsule has been attached to the International Space Station since October 10. There were a couple hiccups with the launch, but Dragon made it to ISS intact – though those hiccups did have some unintended consequences for a satellite carried into space on the back of the Falcon 9 rocket. Be sure to check out our story timeline below for more on the SpaceX Dragon!

[via NASA]

SpaceX Dragon capsule leaves ISS, returning to Earth today is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It’s time to begin counting down to the weekend once again, because we’ve hit Wednesday evening. Today we heard that the iPad Mini could launch on November 2, which makes sense considering that date is just over a week after Apple’s October 23 press event. Later in the day, more sources were mentioning a November 2 release date for the iPad Mini, as well as spilling a few more details about the long-rumored device. The Isis NFC mobile payment system will apparently be launching on October 22, and Microsoft said that Internet Explorer 10 will be coming to Windows 7 in mid-November.

We found out today iOS app size is on the rise, and that the FCC will allow AT&T to take advantage of unused airwaves for mobile broadband. Google is allowing third-party developers to use its plethora of Maps information with a set of new APIs, and Facebook’s new promoted posts feature is undergoing and expansion in Europe. RIM CEO Thorsten Heins had something to say about a recent (and rather negative) write-up about BlackBerry in The New York Times today, and a series of leaked AT&T training videos revealed that the Lumia 920 will be exclusive to the carrier for six months after its release.

Call of Duty Elite won’t be featured in the Wii U version of Black Ops II, and Apple has been granted a patent for an alternative NFC technology. Speaking of Apple, the company will be holding a meeting with the MFI group next month to talk about the future of the Lightning connector, and Foxconn is saying that the iPhone 5 is a difficult device to make, but assures that it’s getting better. Consumers are reporting a decline in overall Internet usage, but Forrester (the company that did the study) has a good explination for that, while V-MODA was busy pulling the veil off its Crossfade M-100 headphones today.

A new video called “Star Trails” shows time-lapse footage captured by the International Space Station, and the Color app that has been gracing Verizon phones lately may be going dark soon. Just a little while ago, Google sent out invites to an Android event that will take place in New York in a couple of weeks, and we got a high-definition look inside the company’s data centers today. The Pirate Bay told us this afternoon that it has switched its servers to the cloud, eBay posted some strong Q3 financial results, and Project Eternity from Obsidian reached its funding goal on Kickstarter (and then some).

Finally tonight, Chris Davies asks why we care about the iPad Mini, and Craig Lloyd brings us his review of the Loop Mummy iPhone case. That does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up, enjoy the rest of your night everyone!

SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: October 17, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Japan’s four-inch FITSAT-1 orbiters were released from Japan’s Kibo laboratory on the ISS last week to (literally) start their world tour, and astronauts aboard the station captured the wee satellites being dwarfed by giant solar arrays and our own blue rock on their way to orbit. Soon they’ll be writing “Hi this is Niwaka Japan” in Morse code using intense flashes of LED light, first to Japan and then across the globe, starting next month. To catch them floating away from the International Space Station’s cozy confines, hit the source.

Filed under: Science, Alt

Visualized: Cubesat micro-orbiters slip into space to flash Earth in Morse code originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Oct 2012 10:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’ve been following the SpaceX mission with the Dragon capsule attaching to the International Space Station for a second time – this time with cargo – you’ll be glad to see a lovely collection of in-person photos. These photos show the SpaceX Dragon attaching to the space station with cargo in-tact and Earth making a lovely pose in the background with a giant smile for the camera. This resupply mission has thus far been a complete success and is expected to return to our planet with another payload from the station itself as well.

This mission unloaded 882 pounds of cargo with the help of Expedition 33 Commander Suni Williams and Flight Engineer Aki Hoshide. It wasn’t only work and transfers that the two astronauts uncovered in the capsule – ice cream was stashed by NASA and SpaceX before the craft took off from Earth and was also discovered today by the team. It’s a rare treat that the team will partake in, this aside the space food they’re generally set to eat – that being prepackaged food that’s able to be kept for many months at a time at room temperature.

This novelty adds to the great joy that’s been felt at the success of this mission thus far, it being the first successful supply mission ever lead to the International Space Station by a privatized group. SpaceX led a test mission earlier this year with similar results.

It’s Michael Interbartolo who shares this transfer of cargo between the Dragon capsule and the ISS – the process set to take place over the course of 18 days, with both loading and unloading occurring. The capsule will be bringing back 1,673 pounds of cargo back to Earth, quite a bit of this being material that’s taken part in studies done on the space station over the past collection of months. Have a peek at the gallery here and get pumped up about the splashdown on the 28th of October!

SpaceX ISS mission HD photos released from space is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.