Video : Google Chrome OS gets detailed, first laptops from Acer and Samsung coming mid-2011

Google demoed Chrome OS running on a piece of reference hardware at its event in San Fransisco. It just takes four steps and less than a minute to set up a brand-new Chrome OS machine -- it pulls all your Chrome themes and settings from the cloud, so it's ready to go almost right away, and changes can propagate in less than a second in some cases. The reference machine demoed was able to come back up from sleep almost instantly -- Google says the limiting factor is actually how fast the user can move their hand. Hit read more for the complete article.

Video : BMW UNVEILS 1 SERIES M COUPE

BMW won’t officially spill the beans about its upcoming 1 Series M Coupe until later tonight, but the automaker has released one final, detailed video showing the high-performance two-door on the road and fully undisguised.

Samsung first undecided, Now ready for Gingerbread updates on the Galaxy S line!

We all know the Nexus S is basically a Galaxy S in Gingerbread disguise, you'd think Samsung would be bursting at the seams to offer a software upgrade for all the phones it's already sold from that family. Well, Pocket-lint prodded Samsung on just that point and managed to finagle the following response from a local UK contact presumably speaking on behalf of the mothership:

"In case a new version of Android operating system is publicly announced and released, Samsung will review the possibility of implementation of such new version to the existing Samsung products with Android operating system ("Update").

Such a review will be based on various factors including, without limitation, the overall effect of such Update to Samsung products, the system requirements, the structural limitations, and the level of cooperation from the component suppliers and the software licensors".

Hit read more for the complete post. 

Android Growth: 300.000 Activations Per Day

Android's growth has been on the up for a while now, indeed that's a pretty big understatement given just how fast it's moving. Andy Rubin, Android's head chef, has provided the world with another impressive figure concerning the little green robot that could ... 300,000 activations a day.

Hit read more for details.

LG: Optimus Might Get Gingerbread After All

It was just yesterday that LG were saying the Optimus line would not be receiving an upgrade to Gingerbread and that was that. The seemingly underpowered processor of the Optimus line just couldn't handle Gingerbread's awesomeness according to LG.

Today is a new day and LG has a different story. Hit read more for details

2011 HYUNDAI ELANTRA

The Elantra uses a new, er Nu(think Greek) 1.8-liter inline four cylinder that is 74 lbs. lighter than the Beta 2.0-liter engine it replaces. Now featuring an aluminum head and block, the new mill produces 148 horsepower at 6,500 rpm, which is 7 percent better than before, and peaks out at 131 lb-ft. of torque at 4,700 rpm. EPA fuel economy for the 2,661-pound four-door is 29 city/40 highway for both manual and automatic transmission models. From full to empty, an Elantra can travel 512 miles on a single tank.

A six-speed manual and six-speed automatic transmission will be available (manual in the GLS only) at launch. A beautiful looking car with at a good price. This sub-Corolla, Yaris competitor would be more than welcomed in Pakistan.

Meet Cloud Picker, Google’s Stealthy New Storage Product

What is Google Cloud Picker? According to these Blogger Forums, Sites Forums, and others, Google has been testing a new online storage tool called, you guessed it, Cloud Picker.

From these accounts, it appears that the tool is connected somehow to Google Apps, Docs, and Sites, and was presented to users when they tried to insert a file or image into a Google site. When they tried to embed the file, a “Google Cloud Picker” window opened and asked users to log-in to their Google Accounts. Hit read more for details.

Google Acquires Phonetic Arts To Make Robo-Voices Sound Human

Google has a small, though very interesting acquisition to announce: it’s just acquired Phonetic Arts, a company based in the UK that works on speech synthesis in games.

Phonetic Arts makes technology that can convert lines of recorded dialog into a ‘speech library’ — feed it a few hundred lines of recordings using your voice, and it can then piece together those sounds to generate new sentences that sound surprisingly realistic. Up until now Phonetic Arts has primarily been focused on using this technology for games, but Google intends to use it more broadly to make its own automated voices sound more fluid and human. Hit more for details.

Google +1 the Facebook killer?

Rumors are afloat that Google’s secret social project, formerly known as “Emerald Sea“, is now being called “Google +1″. Google may be testing an iPhone app for +1, which would presumably launch alongside the web variation of the service. A Google employee’s iPhone has been seen with an app called “Loop” on it. This was apparently Google’s social project in native app form. It looked similar to Facebook and had large portions that were still in development. Hit more for details.

The future of social networking!

Here is an in-depth article on the future of social networking in found on TechCrunch. It is very insightful and I would recommend it to all my readers. The author talks about the natural evolution of technology and how tech companies rise and fall. It talks about the future of Facebook in particular and the whole Social Networking industry as a whole. Its long but worth it!


Social Networking
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Futuristic water bottle uses technology, science to let you know you're thirsty

The future is a scary place, yes -- but one thing we don't need to fear is being unaware that we're thirsty. Research and development firm Cambridge Consultants will be showing off its intriguing "i-dration" concept fitness water bottle at CES in a few weeks, combining a series of sensors on the bottle itself that communicate with an app you've got installed on your smartphone. Hit the read more link for details.

Google Maps for Mobile 5 unveiled, adds dynamic map drawing and offline mode

Why look at static images when you can get a more 3D view of the urban scene? Google's Maps for Mobile 5 just got previewed on stage by Andy Rubin at D: Dive Into Mobile -- with a prototype Motorola Honeycomb tablet, no less! The biggest visual change is dynamic map drawing: vectors instead of flat images that scale without render hiccups and will show the buildings fleshed out for over 100 cities -- we gotta say, it looks great. Even more fun is that you can now use two fingers to tilt and rotate around the map (in addition to moving and pinch-to-zoom, of course). Click the read more link for more details.

Video : Near Field Communications (NFC) on the Nexus S with Gingerbread

NFC is might be the future of wireless money transfer (and death to credit cards) but right now it is taking its first baby steps. Go ahead and watch the new standard in action.

Work, play on a single phone: LG teams up with VMware to deploy Android handsets with virtualization

VMware has been chatting up seamless, sexy virtualization among multiple operating systems on a single smartphone for some time -- and it's finally getting the opportunity to deliver en masse thanks to a new partnership with LG. Targeted at the enterprise, Korea's number two phone maker -- which is going into 2011 with a big Android push -- will be integrating VMware's virtualization technology into some of its models next year, starting with Android but potentially moving to other platforms (Windows Phone 7 comes immediately to mind) if the market demands it. Hit the read more link for more details and a video.

Want a dual core 3 GHz Smartphone? TI's OMAP4440 processor brings two blazing Cortex-A9 cores to the table

Phones and tablets based on TI's first production OMAP4 processor -- the OMAP4430 -- won't even be on the market until early next year, but TI's already planning ahead with the announcement of an upgraded chip that promises a 50 percent boost in overall performance. The new OMAP4440 can send its two Cortex-A9-based cores as high as 1.5GHz, while the 4430 tops out at 1GHz; TI says that means we should expect a 1.25x improvement in graphics performance, a 30 percent decline in webpage load time, and 1080p playback performance that doubles the slowpoke (comparably speaking, anyway) 4430. Click the read more link for more.

LG's Optimus Line will not be ungraded to Gingerbread!

While we can be fairly certain that the high-end phone like the HTC Desire HD and the Desire Z will be getting the latest version of Google's Robot (Android) , it is now clear that for whatever dubious reason, the latest OS will not be avaialable on LG' Optimus line. Click the read more link for more details.

HTC Planning 3D Smartphone For 2011?

TechRadar are reporting that everyone's favourite Taiwanese manufacturer, HTC, are aiming to be market leaders in 3D enabled smartphones. Apparently sources within HTC are saying that the company is looking to get a commercial product product to market before the end of 2011. Hit the read more link for more on this.

Andy Rubin demonstrates Motorola Android Tablet prototype!

Motorola's Andy Rubin shows off the Honeycomb ( Android 3.0) powered tablet!

Nvidia Tegra Dual Core processors explained!

While 1 GHz processors have become commonplace in the smartphone industry, the next step clearly brings dual core processors into the mix. The traditional thinking has been that these processors will be extremely power hungry and thus inefficient for mobile devices. To prove this wrong the CEO of Nvidia has come forward and explained the inner workings on the chips. Click the read more link for an explanation of the picture and a link for the complete document.