Hasta La Gadget!

We knew it was coming, but this afternoon Samsung has formally unveiled their second generation Note device, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet. This will be their new flagship tablet, and takes a few hints from the extremely popular Galaxy S III and original 5.3-inch Galaxy Note and blend them into one neat product. Start your journey by checking out our Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 full review or by having a peek at some pointed specs right here in the post you’re already in!

Earlier this month Samsung reintroduced their Note 10.1 tablet after a few delays and hardware improvements. We got our first look during Mobile World Congress of the tablet, but Samsung later opted to hold off while they beefed it up with their own Exynos quad-core processor running at 1.4 GHz, 2GB of RAM, and offering it in 16GB-64GB storage options.

We’ve seen countless leaks, and Samsung’s already released a few commercials showing the true business, creativity, and multitasking functions of this tablet — so this is all nothing new. Today however during their live event showing off the new slate, they’ve announced the Galaxy Note 10.1 will be available in 16, 32, and 64GB flavors, as well as have micro-SD support for added storage. All variants will be WiFi, with 4G LTE options coming later this year.

One of the biggest parts of the tablet isn’t the quad-core processor or Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, instead it’s the software pre-installed. Samsung’s added what they are calling live panels for true multi-tasking. You can have multiple windows or apps open and on screen at any given time. Browse emails while watching videos, or jot down notes while reading an email. That along with their exceptional WACOM digitizer and S-Pen stylus for ultimate precision you can draw, take notes, play games and more. Everything we loved about the Galaxy Note [see our review] is here, only bigger, better, and faster.

This device will be available starting tomorrow (the 16th of August) for $499 USD in its 16GB internal storage iteration or $549 for 32GB.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet unveiled for USA is written by Cory Gunther & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week it’s been revealed that Apple is planning on having the new iPhone (aka iPhone 5) shipped by September 21st, 2012, with pre-orders beginning September 12th, the same day we’ve heard the Apple event for the device will take place. With the iPhone 5 hot on everyone’s mind with a possible announcement date being just a few weeks away, every detail counts, especially one that also notes that a second round of shipments – that being the regular orders for the device, starting on October 5th.

This tip comes from sources speaking with iMore, sources they say have been accurate about Apple iPhone release dates in the past. This same informant has let it be known that the “second wave” will also be the one to hit international markets. At the moment the precise international markets this wave will be coming to is not known.

Compared to the best-selling iPhone 4S, these ship dates would be even more intense than they’ve been in the past. While the iPhone 4S was announced on October 4th of last year, pre-orders didn’t come until the 7th of that month. The first round of releases was then October 14th and the second was the 28th, all of these still in October. With the iPhone 5 – or The New iPhone if you like – Apple will bring the device on so quick you wont have time to decide if you actually want it or not – you’ll have to buy it!

As iMore mentions as well, if the company also does announce an iPad mini as well as a refreshed iPad (full size) with new docking ports, this will indeed be one of the most intense schedules Apple will have ever undertaken. You might want to start saving up your lunch money now, ladies and gentlemen, it’s very potentially about to get very intense out there in gadgetland!

iPhone 5 pre-orders tipped for September 12 is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The next game-changer in tablets could come from Samsung, not Apple, as a perfect storm of processor, screen and platform coalesces to make the Korean firm an innovator not a copycat. Samsung has already demonstrated its abilities in processors – even Apple would have to agree with that, having co-developed the A4 chipset powering the original iPad with its Korean rival – but the new Exynos 5 Dual raises the bar significantly; according to the rumors, meanwhile, that will find its way into the Samsung “P10″, a new uber-tablet packing a display that squarely challenges Apple’s Retina tech.

The P10, it’s believed, will arrive sometime in 2012, with an 11.8-inch WQXGA screen. If you’ve not been keeping up to speed with your acronyms, that means 2560 x 1600 resolution for a pixel density of 256ppi; in contrast, Apple’s new iPad has a 9.7-inch screen with a 264ppi pixel density. At those sort of levels, a handful of pixels either way probably isn’t going to swing it, meaning both tablets will likely be as easy on the eye when it comes to graphics.

The 2560 x 1600 number is interesting, because it’s the figure Samsung has been shouting about with relation to the Exynos 5 Dual, the latest SoC (system-on-chip) off the Korean firm’s semiconductor lines. Although only a dualcore, rather than the quadcores we’ve seen from NVIDIA and others, Samsung steps up to an altogether more advanced type of processor, the Cortex-A15, which means that – on paper at least – the Exynos 5 Dual will be more potent than any of the chipsets currently on the market. In fact, Samsung says one A15 core is between 1.5x and 2x faster than the A9 NVIDIA is currently using.

So, Samsung has a pixel-dense display – one we have high hopes for, too, given the company’s track record in panel technology – and the processor to drive it, but that’s not the extent of the new Exynos’ abilities. In fact, running such a screen is really just the baseline. The Exynos 5 Dual is able to overlay a live UI onto a 1080p HD video, while simultaneously processing a live camera preview feed, encoding video in the background, and driving a separate display via HDMI output. Most users will never require that exact mixture of tasks, but it does suggest that the new Exynos will be smooth as melted butter in everyday use.

Samsung has been taking a pasting in the courtrooms of late, Apple turning the company’s own design research against it as it sets up a case of design theft. Performance in the marketplace is also questionable, with Samsung’s healthy shipment figures potentially masking altogether more pedestrian sales of devices like its Galaxy tablets.

Yet it’s not all bad news: the new Galaxy Note 10.1 looks set to build on the perhaps surprising degree of interest around the original Galaxy Note, and Samsung’s promotional campaign for the pen-enabled tablet suggests that the company might finally have got the message that functionality in context is just as important, if not more so, than how well-packed your spec-sheet is.

Samsung’s big challenge, then, is not to get sidetracked by the pure specifications of its new slate behemoth. The company needs to tell us why we need tech that previously it might simply have hoped to hypnotize us with.

Much of that will depend on the platform the tablet runs. So far, the rumors haven’t pinned down OS, though there are two key possibilities: Windows 8 (or, more accurately, the ARM-specific breed, Windows RT) or Android. With Jelly Bean, building on the solid groundwork of Ice Cream Sandwich, Google’s platform is finally feeling up to speed for tablets; our experience with the Nexus 7, which runs Android 4.1, suggests that Android has – after the abortive mess of Honeycomb – eventually come of age on larger displays.

Samsung has woken up to context. It is either realizing or being forced to comprehend that delivering products that look like they’ve been borrowed from Apple’s alternate-ideas pile isn’t good for business: customers don’t want copycats, and if they want something that looks like an iPad (either in hardware or software, or both) then they’ll probably just buy an iPad. Yet the tablet market is still relatively immature and, like Microsoft’s emphasis on content creation with Surface, there’s more than one way to skin the proverbial cat.

With Jelly Bean, Android finally feels as smooth in operation as it needs to be. With the Exynos 5 Dual, Samsung has a chipset that can translate that smoothness to a tablet. With a 2560 x 1600 display, it can compete on shelf-appeal, rather than being the pixelated also-ran behind the new iPad. As long as it tells us why we really need it, Samsung could have the next big tablet hit on its hands.

Samsung is moments away from a true iPad alternative is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It’s time for Google to stand up to illegitimate sources of content, or so they say, with a new rankings system based on the number of valid copyright removable notices they receive. It’s not long now that pirates of all types will be having a much harder time finding that torrent of the newest blockbuster film they’ve been wanting to see since it came out a day ago. Today’s announcement from Google is just one more update to their copyright removal initiative re-booted just over two years ago.

This new system will take into account every one of the Copyright Removal Requests they receive that turn out to be valid. You can see the TOTAL number of requests at Google’s Transparency Report website in the Copyright Removal Requests Overview. At the moment they’re at 4,308,618 over the past month alone. Sites with a higher number of removal requests levied against them will be appearing lower in search results via Google.

Google is currently receiving and processing more copyright removal notices each and every day than they did through the entirety of the year 2009. Google had the following to say on their process in today’s announcement:

“Only copyright holders know if something is authorized, and only courts can decide if a copyright has been infringed; Google cannot determine whether a particular webpage does or does not violate copyright law. So while this new signal will influence the ranking of some search results, we won’t be removing any pages from search results unless we receive a valid copyright removal notice from the rights owner. And we’ll continue to provide “counter-notice” tools so that those who believe their content has been wrongly removed can get it reinstated. We’ll also continue to be transparent about copyright removals.” – Amit Singhal, SVP, Engineering, Google

Stay tuned as Google continues to make their search results more perfectly tuned according to the whims of the society we all live in. Sound alright to you?

[via Google]

Google proclaims war on piracy is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

NASA‘s run of good luck has seen an unfortunate blip today, with a test flight of the experimental Morpheus moon lander suffering a hardware failure and crashing into flames. The so-called “green” lander was undergoing its first free-flight testing today, but managed just a few seconds off the ground before it toppled, Space reports. Nobody was injured, NASA has confirmed, but the incident is an embarrassing and frustrating set-back to the project that hopes to return the space agency to the moon. Check out the video of the crash after the cut.

Unlike traditional landers, which use a complex and potentially unstable mixture of fuels, Morpheus relies on liquid oxygen and methane propellants. They’re still highly flammable – as the flames at the Kennedy Space Center this this afternoon contest to – but are also safer and less expensive than the traditional option. They’re also more suited to longer periods of storage in space.

Roughly 2.5yrs in development, at a cost of around $7m according to unofficial figures, Morpheus is roughly the size of a large car and uses a complex laser-guided navigation system to avoid ground obstacles. In short, imagine a far bigger Parrot AR.Drone capable of delivering a 1,100 pound payload to the moon, though NASA also hopes to use Morpheus to run extended refueling missions to deep-space probes.

Exact causes of the accident today have not been detailed. “During today’s free-flight test of the Project Morpheus vehicle, it lifted off the ground and then experienced a hardware component failure, which prevented it from maintaining stable flight,” NASA said in a statement this afternoon. “No one was injured, and the resulting fire was extinguished by KSC fire personnel. ”Engineers are looking into the incident, and the agency will release information as it becomes available.”

Even with Morpheus’ failure, NASA has plenty to be proud of in recent weeks. The landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars has been a triumph of engineering, robotics and programming, and has already begun sending back impressive images from the Martian surface.

NASA Morpheus moon lander explodes in flight testing is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.