Toshiba's Excite Honeycomb tablet confirmed for Canadian launch in January

We've already heard a fair bit about Toshiba's forthcoming 10.1-inch Honeycomb tablet, but the company has only now finally confirmed a name -- Excite, previously seen in a trademark filing -- and a launch date (or month, anyway) for the tablet outside of Europe. You can look for it to roll out for an as yet unspecified price sometime in January -- in Canada, at least (though we'd presume a US launch will be around the same time). It will come in both 16GB and 32GB versions, each of which pack a 1.2GHz dual-core OMAP 4430 processor, a 2 megapixel front-facing camera, a 5 megapixel cam 'round back, and a microSD card slot and a micro HDMI port. Toshiba also boasts that it's the "world's thinnest, lightest tablet," with it measuring just 7.7 mm thick and weighing in at 558 grams (or 1.23 pounds).

SPHERE 2 mouse turns the premium dial up to platinum, can hide in perfumeries

You can't have enough premium spherical mice, can you? OreObject is hoping not, trumpeting its "environmentally sensitive" sequel to the SPHEREtouch. Sure, the SPHERE 2 still packs all sorts of curves, but it's now been crafted from "surgical grade" stainless steel, with four-way navigation chops and a detachable, tangle-free USB cord thrown into the mix. It's the curious scroll wheel at the apex of the sphere that now furnishes the orb with four-way scrolling, and the peripheral will be available in three different finishes: titanium ($185), gold ($290) and platinum ($320). The one percent among us can sniff out the preorder form at the source link below. Or get the butler to do it

AT&T's 4G LTE network is live in San Francisco

New York City by the end of 2011? How's about San Francisco by the end of December 8th? We can't say for certain that it's lit up for good ("testing," you know), but at least for now it's absolutely screaming on our LTE-equipped AT&T handsets in downtown SF. Seeing similar? Let us know how it's going for you in comments below, and feel free to stick your tongue out in the general direction of the Big Apple.

Smart to unveil tiny For-US electric pickup at North American International Auto Show

Do you dig the size and efficiency of the Smart Fortwo, but need something a little more manly than that snub-nosed hatchback? Well, it looks like your prayers will be answered at January's North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Reports have it that will be where the For-US, Smart's plug-in pickup, will have its official unveiling. At about 12 feet long the "truck" is almost 50-percent larger than its sub-compact counterpart, but that extra room is put to good use. The bed in the back is home to a pair docking stations for the company's Ebikes. It's a pretty interesting concept, but we're wondering how lugging two heavy electric cycles will affect the range of 17.7kW/h lithium ion battery. Head on past the break for one more image, and hit up the source for even more sketches of the upcoming mini EV pickup.

Spotify Radio feature turns into an app, offers Pandora-like stations with unlimited skips

While Spotify has had little trouble cranking up its subscriber base so far, one feature that has notably been lacking is its radio / auto playlist feature. Today (tied in with an appearance by CEO Daniel Ek at LeWeb 2011) that's been upgraded, as the freshest preview builds move the Radio section down among the new Spotify Apps, where it now lets you drop in any song from your library for it to automatically create a radio station of similar music around. Subscribers not interested in upgrading yet can find similar functionality tied to Spotify's library with the EchoFi tool, but this venture represents the service's debut of an "all-new intelligent recommendation engine" meant to dig the tracks you want out of its millions-deep library. Advertising "unlimited skips" is a clear jab at Pandora, but it's not immediately clear if you'll still need a premium paid-up account for truly unlimited listening (well,maybe not). Hit the source link to grab a Radio-enabled preview build and see if some algorithm can defeat even the mightiest Yacht Rock playlist crafted by our own Brian Heater.

AMD Radeon HD 6000 cards receive VESA DisplayPort 1.2 certification, merit badges

When the certifications come in, you wipe a tear from your eye and ponder how proud you are. On Thursday, the Video Electronics Standards Association announced that AMD's Radeon HD 6000 series graphics cards, including the high-end Radeon HD 6990, are the first to receive DisplayPort Version 1.2 certification. That means the cards are rated to support DisplayPort's 5.4Gbps HBR2 data link speed and also feature increased display resolution, color depths and refresh rates, plus improved support for Full HD 3D stereoscopic displays. For the multiple monitor die-hards, there's also better support for multiple monitors connected to a single DisplayPort receptacle to make your lives easier. Full technical details are in the PR below, but it's good to see a capable card series grow up a bit / become a man.

Coby to intro five Ice Cream Sandwich slates at CES, satiate your budget tablet cravings

Not prepared to pony up for the ICS-ready Transformer Prime? No worries, Coby has five alternative flavors, each offering its own helping of Android 4.0. The quintet of tablets bear the same model number format as the outfit's Kyros tablets, and all share the same 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 CPU. Coby plans to debut the slates at CES 2012, making them available to consumers within the first quarter. The slabs range between seven and ten inches, and will offer up to 1GB of RAM with up to 32GB of expandable memory -- WiFi radio and HDMI-out come standard. Want to see the official details? Hit the break, we've got a good 'ol fashion press release just waiting for your peepers.

Skype co-founder's latest company signs deal with LightSquared, promises free broadband and voice services

A mysterious startup promising free wireless broadband and voice services to all Americans should rightly prompt a fair bit of skepticism, but FreedomPop isn't quite your average fly-by-night organization (despite appearances). It's backed by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstrom, and it's just signed an agreement with LTE wholesaler LightSquared to provide the backbone for the service. Unfortunately, details remain decidedly light otherwise. The company says that the service will launch sometime in 2012 (LightSquared's network itself is slated to go live in the second half of the year, though it still faces some hurdles), and it will apparently be focused on serving markets most in need of wireless broadband initially, before rolling out across the country. As FierceCable notes, the service brings to mind the many free internet dial-up services of the 1990s, which relied largely on advertising, although it remains to be seen if that's the route FreedomPop has in mind.

Switched On: Next for the nano

For all the grousing about the minimal changes from the iPhone 4 to the iPhone 4S, Apple's fastest smartphone incorporates sweeping shifts compared to what the company did with its iPod line. From keeping the waning iPod classic in the lineup to leaving the still-potent iPod touch untouched save for a blanching and price reduction, the venerable digital media player line seemed all but ignored at a time of year when Apple once primed the holiday pump for MP3 players.

Yet, while the iPod touch may not have received the processor boost or Siri-ousness of the iPhone 4S, it at least continues to remain vibrant via access to Apple's app store. That's not the case for the nano, once the flagship of the line. While Apple's smallest touchscreen device gained new software that enlarged the main icons and brought new clock faces, these improvements are also being offered to owners of the last-generation iPod nano via a software update.

Maingear brings Intel i7-3960X Extreme Edition chip, Epic Audio Engine to desktops, extreme gamers

Looking to add a dash of extremity to your gaming existence? Maingear's got you covered, now that it's added a second generation Intel Core i7 CPU to a handful of its desktop offerings. Today, the company announced yet another upgrade to its SHIFT, Quantum SHIFT and F131 desktops, with the addition of the Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition processor. According to Maingear, this extra horsepower will provide gamers with a 34 percent improvement in performance at normal speeds, while offering similar enhancements in video editing and 3D rendering capabilities. That's all thanks to the fact that the i7-3960X can be overclocked at a handsome 5.2GHz, with a quad-channel memory structure that brings even more bandwidth to the table. On top of that, the company has also added its own EPIC Audio Engine to this troika of rigs, using Aphex's processing technology to offer audio that, according to Maingear, is "more balanced, more articulated, and simply put, better sounding."

Intel's Sandy Bridge E gets rounded up and reviewed, the E is for Excessive

You can guess how this one's gonna go: top marks for performance and a shriek of despair when it comes to value for money. Is there anyone out there who really needs an over-sized six-core CPU that requires its own chubby LGA-2011 socket and tailored X79 chipset before it'll even switch on in the morning? Could people seriously be persuaded to drop a grand on merely incremental improvements in technology, such as 15MB of L3 cache and a bigger 600MHz Turbo Boost for stock clock speeds up to 3.9GHz? Well now, let's not get distracted. Even if there were no market -- which there is -- Intel would probably carry on releasing world-beating desktop chips simply to remind us that its rivals can't, and we'd probably carry on reading about them. So here goes, a bunch of reviews covering both the i7-3960X and i7-3930K variants, which together represent the absurd awesomeness of Sandy Bridge E and are on sale at Newegg for $1,050 and $600 respectively:

AnandTech: bemoans the absence of an on-die GPU, criticizes the X79 chipset, and dislikes the "performance/functionality tradeoffs"
PC Pro: sedately noted that the i7-3960X shows an "improvement" over i7-2600K in real-world benchmarks, and that "AMD must be sweating."
HotHardware: regards the 3960X as an "excellent overclocker" despite its vast power consumption, and says it combines with the X79 chipset to make "the most potent" desktop for gaming, content creation or productivity.
Tom's Hardware: describes the 3960X as a "symbolic king in a crowd full of value," and the 3930K as the processor moneyed enthusiasts should be lusting over.

ExtremeTech: says "the 3960X is a great chip on a solid platform," but cautions that only the most demanding gamers and content creators need this kind of power

Rock-steady Gigabyte G1.Sniper2 Z68 motherboard gets a nod of approval

Not enticed by all that Sandy Bridge E havoc that hit the PC market today? Good for you, because there's still plenty of life left in the first-gen LGA1155 Sandy Bridge processors and Gigabyte has put out another high-end Z68-based motherboard to prove it. The G1.Sniper2 just won itself a HotHardware recommendation, and if you look past the violent branding and color scheme you'll see why: the $360 premium card has the full gamut of ports and connections and delivers rock solid stability even when overclocked right up the limits of an i7-2600K CPU.