Hasta La Gadget!

We’re back to Monday folks, but thankfully this particular Monday provided us with a lot of interesting news. Of course, Apple and Samsung’s court battle is still raging on, with Samsung today claiming that Apple pressured 3G experts to change evidence. Apple detailed the icons it accuses Samsung of ripping off, while Samsung made a case for the uniqueness of its handsets up on the stand. Samsung was looking pretty decent there for a while, until an expert Apple witness took the stand to say that the iPhone and the original Galaxy S were “substantially the same.” Ouch.

But enough about boring old courtroom drama, because today Apple and Samsung’s lawsuit was eclipsed by another event: NASA’s Curiosity rover touched down successfully on the surface of Mars today. It was a huge event, and we’ve got plenty of related posts for you to read through. If you missed the live stream, you can watch this video of the Curiosity team as they react to the rover’s landing. There are also a few images from the surface of Mars to check out: after sending back the first image from the landing, NASA received even more images from the surface of Mars. There was also this shot of the descent taken by NASA’s Mars orbiter, which we have to say is pretty awesome. Did you know that Curiosity will be leaving behind tags as it travels across Mars? It is, and it’s doing so in Morse code.

In other news, Samsung has announced that the Galaxy Note 10.1 will indeed be hitting shelves this month. That announcement was accompanied by a new promo video for the Galaxy Note 10.1, and after watching it, we wonder if Android users care more about functionality than they do about specs. We also caught a glimpse of what appears to be Samsung’s plan for Jelly Bean updates on various Galaxy devices, so you may want to give that a look. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak gave some warnings about becoming too reliant on the cloud, and it turns out that Steve Jobs actually liked the idea of an iPad Mini. Speaking of Apple, it appears that the company’s entire mobile line is going to get new dock connectors, and YouTube has been banished from iOS 6, but we tell you why that may not necessarily be a bad thing.

Get ready ultrabook enthusiasts, because Lenovo’s new ThinkPad X1 Carbon will be launching by the end of the month. Demonoid has been shut down by Ukrainian authorities, much like MegaUpload was by the US earlier this year. Finally, the PS3 is getting a bunch of collections at the end of this month, with Sony announcing today that the God of War Saga and the inFamous Collection will be launching alongside the Ratchet & Clank Collection on August 28.

That about does it for the evening wrap-up, so now that you’re all caught up on the news from the day, head out and enjoy the rest of your Monday evening!

SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: August 6, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Want the latest version of Android on your device? Sure, we all do, and despite HP having put the TouchPad out to pasture long ago, the modder community isn’t giving up hope. One brave soul over at Xda Developers who goes by the handle Jscullins can (and should) be thanked for bringing bargain tablet lovers a dose of CyanogenMod 10. It’s still a preview build lacking, among other things, sound and video acceleration, but if you absolutely have to get a buttery smooth UI on your tablet right now hit up the source link for the download. Or, you could just check out the video of it in action after the break courtesy of Liliputing. It’s probably safer.

Continue reading TouchPad gets an early taste of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean courtesy of CyanogenMod 10 (video)

Filed under: Tablet PCs, Software

TouchPad gets an early taste of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean courtesy of CyanogenMod 10 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Aug 2012 14:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Android tablets bar the Nexus 7 may be waiting on Jelly Bean, but that hasn’t stopped the HP TouchPad from grabbing Android 4.1 already. HP’s webOS tablet failed to set the world alight prior to its sudden discontinuation last year, but regular Android ports (and an alluring $99 sticker price to clear stock) have given it a second lease of life.

This particular Jelly Bean install on the TouchPad is an unofficial port of CyanogenMod 10 by Jcsullins, though it’s very early days and there are still plenty of gaps in functionality. Although things look reasonably smooth in Liliputing‘s video below, the to-do list is plenty long.

Hardware video and graphics acceleration aren’t functional, and neither is audio. The front-facing camera doesn’t work, and neither does the microphone. In short, if you’re hoping for some (silent) web browsing and email from your Jelly Bean slate, the TouchPad port should suit; everyone else might want to wait until that list gets pared back.

Installation is reasonably straightforward, with instructions here and here, though it’s worth noting that some TouchPad owners are reporting issues with recharging while running the new ROM. That’s not universal, however, so you may find you get on fine.

HP TouchPad gets JellyBean is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Well folks, the end of Thursday is nearly upon us, which means we’ll be kicking off the weekend soon. Today brought quite a bit more news about the Apple vs. Samsung trial than yesterday did, with Samsung’s lawyer fighting back against allegations made by Apple’s counsel. Things aren’t looking too good for Samsung though, as it appears that Judge Lucy Koh has thrown out quite a bit of the company’s evidence, and now Apple is requesting sanctions that uphold its patents based on yesterday’s evidence leak. The upside to all of this, however, is that we got another peek at an early iPhone prototype today, so be sure to check that one out.

Use of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is on the rise, while some XDA developers have discovered that Android 4.1 Jelly Bean has at least partially implemented support for multiple user accounts. Speaking of Android, the CyanogenMod team announced today that they will be dropping support for the Qualcomm Snapdragon S1 with CyanogenMod 9, so you S1 users may want to start looking for a different custom ROM. Samsung started sending out invites today for its “Pushing Boundaries” press conference at the end of the month, and we have a feeling that a new Galaxy Note device will be revealed there.

Sadly, we’ve got some bad news about Nokia, as new reports say that it has shuttered its Qt offices in Australia and laid off staff. SHIELD, a new bill that has been introduced in the US House of Representatives, looks to stop patent trolls in their tracks, and it turns out that around 83 million of Facebook’s users are fake profiles. With Facebook quickly approaching the 1 billion user mark, this means that about 9% of the profiles on the site are fake. AT&T announced its planned acquisition of NextWave Wireless today, a purchase which should help it boost its 4G LTE service.

Astronomers have taken a very clear picture of a spiral galaxy that has produced two supernovas in the past 30 years, so be sure to have a look at that one. Apparently Prometheus 2 is a thing now (raise your hand if you knew that was coming), and we talk to the director of Total Recall about a certain strange-looking dollar bill that appears in the movie. As far as video games go, today Gameloft began teasing its first game made with the Unreal engine, and we tried our best to guess what it is. Assassin’s Creed III got a new trailer today, but this particular trailer takes a closer look at what players can expect with Ubisoft’s new AnvilNext engine. Needless to say, it looks very… snowy.

That’s about it for the news, but there are also a couple reviews we suggest you check out. First up is Vincent Nguyen with a review of the 2013 Cadillac ATS, and Chris Burns has a review of Total Recall. Is Colin Farrell a good replacement for Arnold Schwarzenegger? You’ll just have to read the review to find out. Enjoy the rest of your Thursday evening everyone!

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

CDMA variants are, invariably, the redheaded stepchildren of the Nexus line. That is to say, those units nearly always trail behind their GSM counterparts where updates and official support are concerned. But it appears Google’s picking up the pace, having just released the latest Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean (JRO03H) binaries for Verizon-branded handsets three weeks after welcoming Toro devices back into AOSP. What does this mean for the average user? Not much, since there’s no real way to gauge whether or not this signals an imminent carrier-sanctioned OTA rollout, although it does bode well for those prospects. But for rooted users, the new addition is a boon, as it should pave the way for devs to cook up even more stable ROMs for your flashing enjoyment. So, that’s the good news. The bad? Well, if you’re on the Sprint side of the LTE Nexus divide, your handset’s still not invited back to the party — indefinitely.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software

Updated Verizon Galaxy Nexus Jelly Bean binaries added to AOSP originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Aug 2012 14:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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