Hasta La Gadget!

Here’s the Android 3.0 Honeycomb homescreen for tablets. It’s slightly different from Android’s phone-interface to take advantage of the larger tablet-sized screen, which means there’s even better multitasking and widgets. Updating. More »

We’re holed up in Building 43 of the Googleplex here in lovely Mountain View, California for today’s event promising an “in-depth look at Honeycomb, Android ecosystem news, and hands-on demos” — and if you ask us, that sounds like a trifecta of potential awesome. We’ll be liveblogging all of the action and hopefully following up with some hands-ons, so keep it locked right here for all the little green robots (and — just maybe — large black tablets) that you can handle.

Continue reading Live from Google’s Android event!

Live from Google’s Android event! originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Feb 2011 12:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Though it was technically announced back at CES, T-Mobile just barely talked about the LG G-Slate there, spending more time chatting up Dell’s Streak 7 and letting Motorola’s Xoom get virtually all of the Honeycomb attention. Well, that’s changed today with a handful of official new details: turns out the G-Slate features a 1GHz dual-core Tegra 2 processor, 32GB of internal storage, both a gyroscope and accelerometer, and — this is key — stereoscopic rear-facing video cameras capable of 1080p 3D capture, one of which doubles as a 5 megapixel still camera with LED flash. There’s also a third 2 megapixel camera up front for video chat over T-Mobile’s HSPA+ network or WiFi. Going back to that 3D business for a moment, you’ll need glasses (it’s unclear if they’re active or passive) to enjoy recorded or downloaded 3D content on the G-Slate’s 8.9-inch display — but you’ll also be able to output 1080p video over HDMI to the external display of your choice. Pricing is still an open question, but the companies are now comfortable enough to say that we can expect it “this spring,” so go ahead and start thinking about all the blooming springtime plant life you’ll be filming in three glorious dimensions. Follow the break for the full press release.

Update: While T-Mobile hedges its bets with a “spring” launch, LG says that it’ll be hitting US soil in March as one of the first Honeycomb tablets. The honor of being first will almost certainly go to the Motorola Xoom — Google’s in-house “dogfooding” tablet.

Continue reading LG G-Slate fully detailed by T-Mobile: 3D viewing and recording, available March (updated)

LG G-Slate fully detailed by T-Mobile: 3D viewing and recording, available March (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Feb 2011 00:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google’s last Android-centric event, Google I/O in the middle of last year, treated us to a pair of delectable demos that may now finally be turning into mobile realities. One was a web client for the Android Market with OTA installations — you just browse to an app you want to install while on your desktop and choose to push it to your Android device — and the other was a cloud-based music backup and streaming service. The latter has since picked up the moniker of Google Music in subsequent rumors, and today both are receiving some speculative support for a launch at tomorrow’s Honeycomb event. Android and Me has an insider source claiming the web-based Android Market is finally ready to roll out, whereas BusinessWeek reports Andy Rubin is heading up Google’s digital music team and also has software ready for release, potentially at some point this month. Given the importance of both new additions, it’s highly logical for Google to at least announce and show them off once more tomorrow. Then we can get back to waiting for the next Android update.

Google Music and web-based Android Market could be announced tomorrow originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Feb 2011 15:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Motorola Xoom’s release is close, very close. How do we know that? Well, Moto has just handed one to Chad Ochocinco — one of the NFL’s most recklessly loquacious players — and you don’t do that with an unfinished product. For his part, Chad’s finding the Honeycomb tablet to be “pretty awesome” and regretfully informs Motorola that it “won’t be getting this back.” Tracking Chad’s tweets reveals that he’s just landed in Dallas, site of this year’s Super Bowl, where he’s received the Android-driven hardware. Something tells us neither he nor Motorola’s tablet will spend the next week hiding in the shadows — look for a lot more screen time for both in the buildup to the big game (and Moto’s big halftime ad). One last note? Chad’s image above was taken using an iPhone 4. Guess he’s holding out for the Atrix 4G.

[Thanks, Zizo]

Motorola Xoom lands in Chad Ochocinco’s safe hands, is ‘pretty awesome’ originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Feb 2011 03:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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