Verizon ditching iPhone 4 accessories to make way for iPhone 5 launch

It looks like people are gearing up for the highly anticipated launch of the iPhone 5, (or as some believe it may be the iPhone 4G/4S). Rumor is that Verizon is one of those awaiting its’ arrival, by clearing out iPhone 4 accessories to make way for shelf space consumed by iPhone 5 accessories when it launches. A sort of ‘Summer’ cleaning if you will. That launch of course is expected to be in September, where Steve Jobs will make his usual speech and amaze us all at how truly revolutionary the next iPhone will be over its formerly great and not too old iPhone 4.

The clearance will be more likely to a sale on iPhone 4 accessories as opposed to a removal of them at stores, since the iPhone 4 is still hugely popular for Verizon, I mean, why would they want to get rid of sales right? We’ll soon see.

Samsung Galaxy Skin concept device may make it’s way to store shelves as Samsung “Flexy”

It looks as though Samsung may actually be doing something with the technology we saw at CES 2011 earlier this year with their flexible AMOLED display screens, as Yanko Designs seems to have put a good effort to create a concept design for a device currently known as the Android ‘Flexy’, which utilizes the Samsung Galaxy Skin AMOLED screen. The technology running the display is Electro Activity Polymer (EAP) that sends electronic signals to the display to perform a physical action. Crazy!
The concept shows off a 4inch Super AMOLED flexible display, capable of transforming into a ‘smart watch’ for your wrist, a ‘smart projector’ and obviously, a smartphone running Android OS. It details an 8 megapixel camera and shoots 720p video as well. The size of the device is 221x67x8mm. Thats a long slender, but very thin device. The Samsung Galaxy S II, thinnest smartphone around, is only 8.9mm thick for comparison.

Acer Iconia A100 Android tablet launch in August – only $300 for Honeycomb

The Acer Iconia A100 tablet, running Android 3.0 Honeycomb, will be available finally in August (next month) according to an email sent out to Acer retail stores, saying it will be ready ‘early August’ with a price tag of around $300 US. We saw this tablet in Mid-February, where there was to be a May launch, which was held back due to problems with Honeycomb running on this tablet in particular.
Now, fast forward to today, the Acer Iconia A100 is the 7 inch version of the bigger Iconia A500 tablet also running Honeycomb, which has been out for a couple months, and doing very well in sales. The Iconia A100 also runs Nvidia Tegra 2 processors, and shows that it will be upgradable to Android 3.2 in September.
Other specs;

• 470g
• 600×1024 pixels (7 inches)
• Acer UI over Honeycomb
• 8GB internal storage, expandable to 32GB MicroSD
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, hotspot capable
• Bluetooth 2.1, EDR
• 5 megapixel camera on back with autofocus and LED flash
• 2 megapixel camera on the front for video chat
• 1530 mAh battery
• HDMI out, Micro USB out

Acer Iconia A100 Android tablet launch in August – only $300 for Honeycomb

The Acer Iconia A100 tablet, running Android 3.0 Honeycomb, will be available finally in August (next month) according to an email sent out to Acer retail stores, saying it will be ready ‘early August’ with a price tag of around $300 US. We saw this tablet in Mid-February, where there was to be a May launch, which was held back due to problems with Honeycomb running on this tablet in particular.
Now, fast forward to today, the Acer Iconia A100 is the 7 inch version of the bigger Iconia A500 tablet also running Honeycomb, which has been out for a couple months, and doing very well in sales. The Iconia A100 also runs Nvidia Tegra 2 processors, and shows that it will be upgradable to Android 3.2 in September.
Other specs;

• 470g
• 600×1024 pixels (7 inches)
• Acer UI over Honeycomb
• 8GB internal storage, expandable to 32GB MicroSD
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, hotspot capable
• Bluetooth 2.1, EDR
• 5 megapixel camera on back with autofocus and LED flash
• 2 megapixel camera on the front for video chat
• 1530 mAh battery
• HDMI out, Micro USB out

Rogers launches Canada’s first LTE network – true 4G, not 3G+ renamed

True 4G/LTE has finally launched in Canada via Rogers. We had first heard of this back in February this year, and were very excited to see that Canada wasn’t going to be left in the dust for wireless technology. Although it is only in Ottawa right now, Rogers has plans to launch in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal this year, as well as 21 more markets across Canada in 2012.
Rogers will first launch with the Sierra LTE enabled USB Rocketstick, followed by HTC and Samsung LTE smartphones later this year. Sweet! Would this mean that we get the HTC Thunderbolt? Or even the Samsung Nexus 4G, or even the HTC EVO 4G

Android Still first in OS usage, iPhone top device, Windows Phone 7 largest impressions gain – report

So not surprisingly, Android is still the top dog when it comes to overall mobile OS market Share with for the 7th straight month now at 54%, with Apple’s iOS behind it at 26%. Of special not however is that although Nokia and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 didn’t have a strong presence in the mobile OS mix, WP7 has the largest impressions quarter over quarter at 31%, RIM is second with 29%, where Android grew by 18% and iOS by 11%. That growth shows that WP7 and RIM still have share potential, and could make a comeback, but it would be a long one.
The Apple iPhone is still the most used device at 16.19%, followed second by RIM’s BlackBerry Curve at 5.57%, then the Motorola Droid at 2.95%. Out of the top 20 devices as seen below, Android devices total 22.6% over the iPhone, but this does not take into account tablet devices where the Apple iPad rules the roost substantially.

Fujitsu Toshiba launches first Windows Phone 7 Mango smartphone – au IS12T

Enter a new dawn of  technologically advanced smartphones and hardware, the Fujitsu Toshiba au IS12T Windows Phone 7.5 Mango device. It’s the first of its kind in more ways than just being the first to run WP7 Mango, it’s also the first to pair massive hardware specs into a smartphone. The au IS12T has 32GB onboard storage (HUGE!), along with a 13.2 megapixel rear camera with autofocus, and it’s waterproof! Has Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n. This device is a monster! I can’t wait for this to get to North America, alas, we don’t know exactly when that’s going to be just yet, or how much it’ll cost. But we’ll find out soon enough!

Firefox 6 breaks out ahead of schedule, gets official August 16th

It looks like the sly fox is ready to make its worldwide debut a few days early. In typical Mozilla fashion, a complete build of Firefox 6 is now unofficially available for your downloading pleasure, three days ahead of schedule. If you're looking for a major facelift to the desktop edition, you won't find one here -- most of the new features aren't cosmetic. Perhaps most visibly, you'll find the domain name of the page you're parked on highlighted in the address bar. On the Android side, version 6 makes much bigger promises, like a "fresh visual style in Chrome Gingerbread," enhanced image scaling, and, perhaps most importantly, it's "faster and uses less memory." We've downloaded the desktop version of the browser ourselves, and we've found the release quite snappy. If you're not afraid of a little pre-release downloading, you can catch the (desktop) fox at the source links below. And as per usual, please let us know how it's treating you.

Swarm robots attack your bookshelf, win AAAI Oscar

What's more frightening than a swarm of robots? An award-winning swarm of robots trained to raid your library -- that's what. This SciFi-worthy outfit of mechanized literature swindlers, known as the "Swarmanoid," landed themselves the Best Video Award at this week's AAAI (Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence) conference in San Francisco. The video in question features the mixed bag of eye-bots, hand-bots and foot-bots in an Oceans 11-style bookcase heist. Of course, there are probably easier ways to reach the top shelf (e.g. a ladder), but none that get us thinking about the end times quite like this

Google acquiring Motorola Mobility

Happy Monday to you, and happy Monday to Motorola Mobility, which Google has announced is about to become its next acquisition. This comes hot on the heels of a $56 million Q2 net loss for Moto -- and CEO Sanjay Jha's less than subtle hints about going fishing for Android-related patent royalties. Now, at a price of $40 per share for a total of about $12.5 billion, Big G will be making Moto a "dedicated Android partner" to "supercharge the Android ecosystem" and "enhance competition in mobile computing."

Larry Page had this to say about the deal:

Motorola Mobility's total commitment to Android has created a natural fit for our two companies. Together, we will create amazing user experiences that supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers. I look forward to welcoming Motorolans to our family of Googlers.

What happens next? While this will of course strengthen the ties between hardware and software, Google is pledging to continue offering Android as an open platform -- Moto will license it and others will be able to as ever. Additionally, Google will continue to operate its new toy as a separate business and not morph it into an in-house hardware wing. But, one has to wonder what this means for companies like Samsung, which partnered closely with Google on the Nexus S, and of course HTC, which released the Nexus One and the iconic G1. And then there's the big question: just where does Moto Blur fit into this equation?

How would you change T-Mobile's G-Slate?

Splurged on a T-Mobile G-Slate, did you? Here's your opportunity to voice your opinion to LG (and anyone else who'll listen). Sporting an unorthodox aspect ratio and an affinity for a carrier that may not exist on its own by this time next year, it's certainly one of the odder slate options on the market. Combine that with the inability to buy a WiFi-only model, and you've got yourself firmly into niche territory. That said, we're confident that LG moved quite a few of these, and chances are that some of those buyers are reading these words right now. If that's you, we're interested to hear how you'd do things differently the next go 'round. Are you a fan of the form factor? Pining for a matte panel? Would you have preferred a WWAN-less variant? Is the UI everything you'd hoped for... and more? Go on and drop your thoughts in comments below -- mama always encouraged the art of getting things off your chest.

Gingerbread Build For Evo4G Now Rooted

A few weeks back the Sprint Evo4G received the update to themuch anticipated Gingerbread build. This update brought devices up to Google’slatest software, but also re-locked rooted devices. This new lock was notrootable till today. The Revolutionary team managed to add devices using thenew Hboot 2.16.0001 system to their unlocking software.
For any Evo4G users out there wanting to get their phonesback to the rooted world of bliss, follow the source link and read thedirections.