Curiosity’s day 3 on the Gale Crater, Mars. All systems are running as expected. There is no sign of sailors fighting in the dance hall, cavemen or any freaky show, and here’s the first natural 360-degree color panorama image to prove it. More »
Adam Steltzner spent nine years working to turn seven minutes of terror into NASA’s finest hour since the landing of Apollo 11 on the Sea of Tranquility. His is a fascinating insider’s view of one of the most amazing space exploration feats in the history of humankind. More »
We’ve officially reached the middle of the week, folks – only two more days to go and then the weekend is here once again. Today we didn’t have too many stories about the ongoing trial between Apple and Samsung, but what we did get was huge. A rather damning 132-page report surfaced in court today, which shows Samsung attempting to differentiate the original Galaxy S from the iPhone specifically, and we looked at the difference between competitive analysis and flat out copying as a result of the report. On the lighter side of things, Conan O’ Brien had a bit of fun with the trial on last night’s show, so be sure to give that a look.
It was a pretty big day for NASA’s Curiosity rover, as it lifted its head for the first time and sent back new images of the surface of Mars. It appears that the Galaxy Note II – which is expected to be announced at the end of this month, remember – will come complete with a flexible display that makes it more resilient than typical smartphone displays. Speaking of the Galaxy Note, T-Mobile finally received the phablet today (along with the myTouch and myTouch Q), so if you’re a T-Mobile user, you might want to check that out.
Starbucks made a multi-million dollar investment in Square today, and we tell you all you need to know about using Square to pay for your coffee. Tickets for Microsoft Build 2012 went on sale today, but don’t expect to get any now, as they sold out just one hour later. Between the two of them, Android and iOS now make up 85% of the smartphone market, with Android taking 68.1% market share for itself. Apple did a couple of things to boost security today, temporarily freezing over-the-phone password resets and announcing that it will soon bulk up identity verification measures for iCloud.
Today OUYA announced that it is in talks with Namco Bandai as its Kickstarter winds down, it was revealed that Google voice search will soon land on the iPhone, and we caught wind of a rumor that claims the new iPhone will be 7.6mm thick. RIM’s stock enjoyed a little jump after one analyst claimed that Samsung was considering buying the company, and Valve revealed today that Steam will soon begin offering non-game software, complete with support for Steam Cloud. Finally, Warner is thinking about holding limited showings of The Hobbit at 48 frames per second, which has us excited since we have a tendency to go nuts whenever The Hobbit is mentioned.
That wraps up the news, but be sure to check out our interview with Kate Beckinsale of Total Recall fame, and also spend some time with our review of the HP ENVY 4 Ultrabook. Enjoy the rest of your evening, everyone!
SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: August 8, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Great news keep coming from the red planet. Curiosity has opened her eyes for the first time. She took a good look around her and decided that life is good in Mars—albeit a bit lonely. More »
Welcome to Tuesday evening, folks. Apple and Samsung’s patent suit is still going on, but today we didn’t get too much news about it. Samsung said that the high return rates of the Galaxy Tab had to with the devices malfunctioning, and not because customers were confusing it for the iPad like Apple claimed Apple’s expert witness, Peter Bressler, said today that the iPhone brought on a “crisis of design” over at Samsung headquarters, and we found out just how much Mr. Bressler is getting paid to sit on the stand and testify for Apple. Spoiler alert: it’s a lot of money, and now we’re on the lookout for “expert witness” job openings.
Just as Acer told Microsoft that launching Surface was a bad idea, we caught wind of some Microsoft job listings that point to next generation Surface devices. We also received reports that Windows 8 can’t boot directly to the desktop, which is going to be annoying for those who were hoping to bypass the tile-based start screen entirely. More bad news for HTC today, as it reported that July revenues dropped 45%, and Motorola has started teasing a new 4G LTE capable smartphone, so be sure to keep an eye out for that one.
Some developers are thinking that we might be getting an increased screen resolution with the next iPhone, and it looks like Apple is at least somewhat partially stuck in 2008, as it decided to Rickroll developers in the iOS 6 beta 4 changelog. Apple has also opted to pull its Genius ads, so if you liked the exploits of the Apple Genius as he tried to turn consumers into Apple fans, you’re going to have to resort to YouTube to watch. Facebook has rolled out real-money gambling games in the UK, and Amazon has apparently fixed the security hole that led to a massive breach for one unfortunate journalist.
We’ve got quite a bit of gaming news today, as OUYA gave us some new renders of the Android-based console and announced a partnership with the team behind the open source XBMC media player. ArmA 2 mod DayZ is getting a full release soon, and today Activision and Treyarch gave us our first look at Call of Duty: Black Ops II multiplayer. NASA has revealed the Curiosity rover’s landing video and let loose some more pictures from the surface of Mars, and if you’re the mood for a show this weekend, you might want to look to the Northeast sky after the Sun sets on Saturday – it’s there that you’ll see the Perseid meteor shower at its peak.
That does it for the news, but we’ve also got a couple SlashGear originals you should have a peek at. With the Nexus 7 still selling like hotcakes, we ask if Android has it’s first tablet hit in the 7-inch slate, and Chris Burns has a review of the Olympus LS-100 Sound Recorder. Enjoy the rest of your evening!
SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: August 7, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
The Mars Rover Curiosity has been a huge success thus far, inducing cheers and high kicks across the nation. Jon Stewart is just as excited. More »
I’m going to interview Adam Steltzner in 30 minutes. You probably know his unmistakable rocker face from the past few days: he’s the lead engineer of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover entry, descent and landing phase. More »
A lot of people are wondering why the first color image from the Mars Curiosity Rover looks so murky. Or why the black and white pictures look so low-resolution and out of focus in some areas. Calm yourselves. They will look absolutely amazing soon, perfect and in high-def. More »
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