Hasta La Gadget!

This week the folks at Rovio have teased the next expansion for the Angry Birds Star Wars series with a trip to a city in the clouds – carbonite-frozen Han Skwawking Solo included! This is the next in a long series of updates to the massively expansive Star Wars / Angry Birds crossover gaming experience, with Hoth having come before it, and several episodes in the A New Hope universe coming before that! Now it’s time to face off against Bounty Hunters galore!

If you’re an ultra-nerd like some of the writers here at SlashGear, you know good and well that the Star Wars Collectable Card Game’s release schedule appears to have been a real simple directions list for Rovio in releasing bits and pieces to the Star Wars Angry Birds game. With the first release we saw several levels inside the original Star Wars movie’s environments. Next we saw one expansion inside that first movie, then another starting with The Empire Strikes Back.

Hoth came first in this set along with a tease for Dagobah, the planet where Yoda resides and Luke Skywalker does his Jedi Training. You were able to access that level with a bit of cash or some extremely powerful Jedi skill in all-three-star winnings of the rest of the levels throughout the game. Now we see Cloud City coming up next. And if we continue to follow this lineup, we can expect not only some fantastically heaven-like environments, but bounty hunters too!

They’ve got to get here some time, and what better place to arrive than at the home of everyone’s favorite scoundrel, Lando Calsquawkington! Have a peek at the teaser video above and let us know if you’ve beaten Hoth and Dagobah so you’re prepared for this next push!

Angry Birds Star Wars Cloud City expansion coming up quick! is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If you’ve been waiting for a smartwatch ever since Apple released the super-cute iPod that fit perfectly on a wristwatch strap, you may be in luck – Google is reportedly making one running Android. But then there’ve been reports of Apple making a smartwatch too. And LG is making one as well, and Samsung, and who knows which other companies – smartwatches from every angle, I tell you! But today’s report about Google comes from the Financial Times where they’ve got an inside contact, so it’s best we listen.

If you see what the Financial Times notes, they’ve got a “person briefed on the project” who says that though larger projects like Glass are being created in the Google X laboratories, this supposed Google smartwatch is being developed for by the Google Android unit. What we must assume here is that, if the watch were real, it’d be created by one of Google’s hardware partners – perhaps Motorola? Meanwhile the Google developers on-staff creating Android would be taming a version of Android tailored specifically for an ultra-tiny display.

“While Glass is being created in its X Lab, home to experimental “moonshot” projects such as the self-driving car, Google’s smart watch is being developed by its Android unit, according to a person briefed on the project, to act as an extension to the smartphones using that operating system. The project is separate from Samsung’s efforts, the source said, although there is no indication of when it might launch.” – FT

It’s not as if it doesn’t make sense for everyone and their grandmother to be creating a smartwatch at the same time with essentially no warning and no pre-cursor or need, but what if? What if Apple and Google decided, separately, that they’d both create a wearable computer that wrapped around your wrist at once?

That once-utilized watch-loving arm will once again be home to a timepiece, only this time, you’ll be able to do a whole lot more than you were able in the past. Then it’s time again to get rid of the cellphone and the smartphone, right? Seems only logical!

Of course, then again, there’s always that Google Smartwatch patent.

Google Smartwatch is latest in essentially baseless claims of wearables is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This morning HTC has sent out a blast on the soon-approaching availability of the HTC One in several countries around the world. For the United States and across Europe, the HTC One is now set for “before the end of April.” That means most of the major carriers will be releasing the HTC One at that same time, we must expect, here in the United States.

Meanwhile we’re still not sure on the release of the Verizon version of the HTC One, especially since we’ve heard several conflicting reports of its existence. Across the rest of Europe as well as across North America and the Asia-Pacific area we have indeed heard from HTC that the HTC One will be available before the end of April. In the UK, Germany, and Taiwan, the HTC One will be arriving next week – that’s quick!

“HTC has seen unprecedented demand for and interest in the new HTC One, and the care taken to design and build it is evidenced in early reviews. The new HTC One will roll out in the UK, Germany and Taiwan next week and across Europe, North America and most of Asia-Pacific before the end of April. We appreciate our customers’ patience, and believe that once they have the phone in their hands they will agree that it has been worth the wait.” – HTC Representative

If you’d like to know all about the HTC One, we’ve got so much information it’ll make your head spin. This device with it’s 4.7-inch display and Full HD resolution is currently the world record holding densest-display-toting machine available on the market – with a higher Pixels Per Inch than the HTC DROID DNA, the XPERIA Z, and the Samsung GALAXY S 4! Of course when you get to this point in density you’re not seeing a whole lot of difference when it comes down to it, but it’s fun to point it out!

“Stunning. The HTC One makes a compelling argument for being the best-made Android phone we can recall, a design that both looks and feels premium (though photos don’t tend to do it justice, making it look flat and overly simplistic). Last year’s One X was a solid device, with its polycarbonate plastic casing, but the One is leagues ahead. HTC went back to basics – CNC-intensive manufacturing processes; clever rethinking of how to finesse the most out of minimal antennas – with its industrial design, and the end result is a phone that’s creak-free and somehow timeless in the same way that Apple’s MacBook Pro design has gracefully evolved.” – Vincent Nguyen, SlashGear’s HTC One Review

Have a peek at our massive amount of hands-on experiences with the HTC One in the timeline below and our full review of the HTC One as well! Once this device arrives on carriers throughout the USA we’ll be giving you up-to-date looks at each edition as well! Gotta catch em all!

HTC One availability expands: USA before end of April is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

LG isn’t done creating intrigue at the FCC just because the E980 has made the rounds. A second device, the LS720, has popped up at the agency. Don’t expect the same kind of telltale clues that might have given away its AT&T cousin, however — we mostly know that it’s a phone with Sprint-friendly LTE bands, and browser strings suggest that it could ship with Jelly Bean. Is it a sequel to the Optimus Slider (LS700) for Virgin Mobile? A spiritual successor to the Viper 4G LTE? It’s difficult to tell at this stage, although the numbering scheme points to something below LG’s 800- and 900-series devices like the Mach (LS860) and Optimus G (LS970). We’ll keep our eyes peeled.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, LG

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Source: FCC

This week the LG Optimus G Pro appears to have popped its head up with AT&T 4G LTE in mind as the FCC approves with a resounding thumbs up. What we’re seeing here is an FCC approval process posting with what’s said to be the code-name for the LG Optimus G Pro, just a few characters away from the original Optimus G. This device, if indeed coming to AT&T this Spring, will be a competitor for the also-giant Samsung Galaxy Note II (and possibly III) the whole year long.

As it’s been discovered by Engadget, the LG Optimus G Pro phantom is running on the bands that AT&T does indeed use. That’s 4G LTE and all, ready to rock with all the Optimus G Pro excellence we’ve seen come out of this device just this past month internationally. When we had a look at it, we made sure to test out what LG let us know it was very proud of in its photography skills.

The LG Optimus G Pro works with a massive 5.5-inch display that’s sharp as a tack – 1080p and working with the Qualcomm Snadragon 600 quad-core processor. That’s the same beast we’re seeing work some real magic in the HTC One, this time also packing heat with 2GB of RAM and Android 4.1+ Jelly Bean up front. We’ve seen this device in white and in black – and they’re both rather fabulous.

Have a peek at our LG Optimus G Pro tour of Barcelona and let us know if you’d be all about this smartphone if it’d be released by AT&T super, super soon. Or better yet, if you’re thinking about getting a massive smartphone such as this but want to wait to see if IFA 2013 is home to the release of the Samsung Galaxy Note III! Or maybe just a Tab or two.

Have a peek at the LG Optimus G Pro timeline below as well for more up-to-date massively LG action than you can handle!

AT&T LG Optimus G Pro tipped in FCC post is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.