Find Our Latest Video Reviews on YouTube!
If you want to stay on top of all of our video reviews of the latest tech, be sure to check out and subscribe to the Gear Live YouTube channel, hosted by Andru Edwards! It’s free!
HTC Sensation 4G for T-Mobile: Hands On
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Features, Handhelds,
HTC's beautiful new smartphone for T-Mobile, the HTC Sensation 4G, has a great-looking case, a super-sharp screen, a dual-core processor, and the latest version of Android, dressed up with some terrific HTC enhancements. It's all enough that you can overlook the one big thing it doesn't have: 4G.
As we mentioned earlier, the Sensation is HTC's follow-up to the excellent MyTouch 4G, and it looks like a more professional model than the somewhat cute-and-cuddly MyTouch. It's a gray slab phone with a gray, cosmetic stripe up the middle of the back. The Sensation is comfortable to hold, and it's similar in size to Verizon's HTC Thunderbolt, although it's thinner.
All of the Sensation's specs have been boosted from the previous model, except one. The phone has a super-sharp, super 4.3-inch 960-by-540 LCD screen and a Qualcomm dual-core 1.2-Ghz Snapdragon processor. It runs Android Gingerbread 2.4, and has an 8-megapixel camera on the back capable of recording 1920-by-1080 video at 30 frames per second. There's a VGA front-facing camera for video chat, an HDMI output port, 1GB of built-in storage along with a MicroSD card slot, and a very strong 1520 mAh battery keeping it all running. It will be very interesting to compare this to the somewhat similar LG G2x, another high-end, dual-core Android phone arriving on T-Mobile soon.
Click to continue reading HTC Sensation 4G for T-Mobile: Hands On
Hack uses front-facing camera adds 3D display to iPad 2
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Handhelds, Mods / Hacks,
No, it's not an iPad 3 rumor. Rather, some innovative people from the Engineering Human-Computer Interaction Research Group have rigged the 2D display of the Apple iPad 2 for a glasses-free 3D perspective.
Using a feed from the front-facing camera coupled with some clever software hacks, the group was able to create what it calls the Head-Coupled Perspective (HCP).
"It is based on [an] efficient head-tracker that uses the front-facing camera of the device," said a description on the group's Web site. "We use an off-axis projection in order to adapt the perspective of the 3D scene according to the head's position of the user. Such spatially-aware mobile display [is able] to improve the possibilities of interaction."
Click to continue reading Hack uses front-facing camera adds 3D display to iPad 2
Advertisement
HTC Sensation 4G: 1.2 GHz dual-core SnapDragon, qHD display
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Handhelds,
This morning HTC announced the Sensation 4G smartphone. This one sports a 4.3-inch Super LCD display, dual-core 1.2 GHz Snapdragon processor, and ships with Android 2.3 Gingerbread with the HTC Sense 3.0 UI. It's very similar to the HTC EVO 3D, but usurps it with an 8 megapixel rear camera, dual LED flash, and records video at 1080p at 30 frames per second. This is an HSPA+ device that will be coming to T-Mobile, sporting download speeds up to 14.4 Mbps. We'll have hands-on impressions in a few.
Latest Gear Live Videos
Amazon is stealing Android from Google
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Editorial, Features, Google, Software,
I have been watching Amazon's recent moves involving Android with great fascination. Two weeks ago, it launched the Amazon Appstore that focuses on Android apps, and last week it announced a cloud-based music service with a special version just for Android. Although Google has its own Android Marketplace, Amazon is bringing a more structured store to Android with room for users comments and reviews—a key step to vetting the apps it carries.
This is a very strategic move by Amazon, and it could actually bring some sanity and consistency to the Android development community and all Android users. At the moment, Google's approach to creating Android is scattered. There are so many versions of this OS floating around that the OEMs who license Android are increasingly frustrated with Google's lack of discipline in laying out a consistent roadmap for Android that they can follow.
At first, Google said it would have one version of Android for smartphones and another for tablets. Now it says that it will merge both versions into a product codenamed Ice Cream and that it most likely will be the same OS used on Google TVs in the future as well. Initially, vendors could only use one version for devices with up to 7 inch screens and another one for screens larger then 7 inches but less then 11 inches.
Click to continue reading Amazon is stealing Android from Google
Two entries appear for MLB 2K11’s million-dollar “Perfect Game” challenge
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Culture, PlayStation 3, Sports, Take2, Xbox 360,
Were only all console games so generous as to award a player $1 million for accomplishing a difficult feat of gaming.
Two entrants have surfaced on YouTube for Take-Two Interactive's million-dollar contest, a challenge that tasks players with throwing a perfect game in the recently released Major League Baseball 2K11 title for the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3—the only two consoles allowed to participate in the challenge, we should note.
So what does it take to win a million bucks? In last year's similarly themed contest, 24-year-old Wade McGilberry was able to take home the prize on his sixth attempt—the same day the game was released, mind you. It's taken a little while longer for gamers to accomplish the same feat in MLB 2K11: The game was released on March 8 of this year, but the contest itself didn't start until April 1, and the two YouTube videos in question were posted on April 7 and 8.
The timing is an important distinction, as Michael Manna—otherwise known as professional wrestler Stevie Richards—already uploaded a video to YouTube of the perfect game he threw on the game's release day. But don't assume that throwing a perfect game is just that easy. Not only did he not fall within the correct timeframe to win the prize, but he also allegedly didn't have the game on the correct settings (like All-Star difficulty) to even qualify for the million-dollar award.
Click to continue reading Two entries appear for MLB 2K11’s million-dollar “Perfect Game” challenge
There are many unauthorized biographies of Steve Jobs and even a TV movie (below), but the Apple chief has agreed to team up with Walter Isaacson for an authorized biography that will hit bookstores (and presumably, iBooks) next year.
Simon & Schuster will publish the book, humbly titled "iSteve: The Book of Jobs," in early 2012, the publisher said in a Sunday statement. It will draw from three years of "exclusive and unprecedented" interviews Isaacson has conducted with Jobs. Isaacson has also interviewed Jobs's family members, colleagues, and Apple competitors.
"This is the perfect match of subject and author, and it is certain to be a landmark book about one of the world's greatest innovators," Jonathan Karp, publisher of Simon & Schuster, said in a statement. "Just as he did with Einstein and Benjamin Franklin, Walter Isaacson is telling a unique story of revolutionary genius."
The news was first reported by the AP.
Click to continue reading iSteve, official Steve Jobs biography coming in 2012
Mozilla Firefox switched to 18-week dev cycle; Firefox 5 coming June 21
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Corporate News, Internet, Software,
No, you aren't crazy, Firefox 4 did just launch a week ago.
Mozilla is borrowing a page from Google Chrome and speeding up the development cycle for Firefox releases, setting new iterations of the browser for fixed time periods and bulldozing over features that just aren't ready to make it into a new browser release.
And if Mozilla sticks by its newly proposed plan, that means that we'll be seeing Firefox 5 on June 21—following a shortened 13-week development cycle instead of the proposed 18-week cycle for all future Firefox builds.
Within this 18-week cycle comes a new development stage that adds on to Mozilla's three previous update channels: Nightly, or builds created from the mozilla-central-repository that are highly unstable, but incorporate the latest texts and fixes; Beta, which ups the quality demands of features and tweaks added via the nightly builds; and Release, which becomes the version of Firefox that most consumers are used to using.
Mozilla's new stage, Aurora, will be a nightly update that splits the difference between the chaos of the company's Mozilla-central build (or Nightly build), and its Beta build.
Click to continue reading Mozilla Firefox switched to 18-week dev cycle; Firefox 5 coming June 21
CheckingFinder finds high-interest free checking - we’re giving away one $150 account!
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Features, Internet,
With checking fees and interest rates being below 1%, we know that it feels like your bank makes more money from you than you do from them in the current economic climate.
We can all use a little more money, and CheckingFinder aims to help by finding free checking accounts that pay interest rates like it's 1992 – I'm talking about 4% or more in some cases. In fact, a friend of mine in Austin was able to get a free checking account with 4.11% interest rate -- that is more than 4 times greater than you'd get at Wells Fargo or Bank of America.
CheckingFinder focuses its efforts on the best checking accounts from smaller, regional banks. Since these free, online accounts are a big part of their business, these banks make it easy for anyone with basic computer skills to deposit, withdraw or use the bank as if it were next door.
We are going to be giving away one $150 starter account to one of our readers. All you need to do to enter is head on over to the Gear Live Facebook page, Like us, and leave a comment on our wall. You've gotta be in the US to win, and we will pick a winner on April 15th.
So, there has to be a catch right?
Attention Great Britain!
If you're going to be around what you folks call a telly on Monday evening April 11, you might want to check out a TV series called Leonardo that's airing on CBBC at 5:15pm (17:15).
The first episode is called "Anything Goes." UK's Telegraph has already given the show a thumbs up, saying it "has its roots in traditional adventure drama. And thoroughly engaging it is too."
Click to continue reading Leonardo On CBBC
Weekend Reading: Maberry, Wes Craven, Tamara Drewe and Dave Dorman
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: DVD, Editorials, Marvel Comics,
Everyone who’s anyone in the indie comics scene is currently at MoCCA Fest 2011 in New York. But me? I’m just linking to stuff.
Write: Comic book retailer and blogger Mike Sterling is part of a group that runs Fake AP Stylebook. They’ve got a book out, Write More Good, and for those of us who love to laugh, it’s a must-have. Back away from the DC and Marvel relaunches and put your money to a better use. Here's a taste from the book: "While it's tempting to call them baristi because of the Italian roots, the plural of barista is journalism majors."
It even got a nice review in The New Yorker. “Write More Good, like the account from which it grew, is a tongue-in-cheek takedown of an industry already on shaky ground.”
Maberry: Marvel Comics writer Jonathan Maberry is also a novelist. SF Signal breaks down his latest Joe Ledger novel and gives it thumbs up. “Great conspiracy thinking with large events; misdirection; interesting, complex criminals who don't like each other; a great dog and destruction of one of Maberry's favorite writing places!”
Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Maberry, Wes Craven, Tamara Drewe and Dave Dorman
