Spotify welcomes new apps from Warner, Def Jam, Matador, more

So, now that Rdio's got itself a fancy redesign, it's time for Spotify to fire back, right? The Swedish streaming service announced a new round of third-party apps, including selections from some big industry names, like Warner, Def Jam, Domino and Matador Records. The list also includes Classify, an app designed to help users discover classical music on the service, The Complete Collection, which offers up supplementary images, lyrics and liner notes and Fitr, which lets you build playlists based on Facebook friends. Also new is Hot or Not, which offers a song-based take on the internet voting site and [PIAS], which provides some curated playlists. In all, the site is rolling out a dozen new apps.

Zync unveils budget-friendly Z990, says it's India's first ICS tablet

India's undoubtedly seen its fair share of cheap slabs, but if folks are willing to shell out a bit more than2,000 or 2,900 rupees, they can end up snagging a better-specced piece of hardware. Priced at a modest 8,900 rupees (around $180), Zync's launching its Z990 7-inch slate, which claims to be the first to hit the Indian market with Android four-dot-oh on board. Alongside Big G's fresh treat are a TFT, 800 x 480 display, 1.2GHz CPU with 1GB of RAM, plus HDMI and microUSB ports. Naturally, and perhaps most importantly, the Z990 has the credentials to let you get all your favorite content via Google Play. Zync's got the tab up for grabs, and you can pop one in your cart now by heading over to the Letsbuy shop, linked down below to make it easier for you.

Acer Iconia Tab A510 with Tegra 3, Android 4.0 arriving in the US and Canada for $450

The curious thing about the Acer Iconia Tab A510 is that it's been out in the open for months -- we've even handled it -- but for whatever reason, Acer's never publicly acknowledged it as the successor to last year's A500. When we got hands-on at CES, for example, it wasn't at Acer's suite, but NVIDIA's booth (this is Acer's first Tegra 3 tablet, don'tcha know). Well, the company's finally ready to come out and say, "Yes, we made this thing." The A510 is up for pre-order today in the US and Canada, with a price of $450. Though you can get it in black or white, it's available in one 32GB configuration for now. To recap, this is a quad-core slate with 1GB of RAM, a 10.1-inch (1280 x 800) display, 5-megapixel auto-focusing rear camera and a single-megapixel shooter up front. And though it loses the USB 2.0 port that made the A500 fairly distinctive, it gains a battery rated for 12 hours of video playback -- a good thing, since it'll have stiff competition from ASUS, Apple and Samsung in the endurance department. Acer also confirmed the tablet will ship with Android 4.0, with the company's usual light OS tweaks in tow. Still no word on when, exactly, it'll ship, but if you want to get a feel for it in the meantime be sure to hit up ourhands-on from CES if you missed it the first time around.

LaCie 2big Thunderbolt series external HDD review

We've already seen what Thunderbolt's capable of when it's used in conjunction with a couple of high performance SSDs, but not everyone needs NAND to meet their external storage requirements. What many do deem essential, however, is a ton of room for system backups and multimedia, and Thunderbolt's ability to transfer bits and bytes in the blink of an eye makes it an alluring alternative to other connections. If you find yourself among those desiring such a solution, let us introduce you to LaCie's 2big Thunderbolt series external HDD. The 2big packs dual 3TB spinners on the inside for a grand total of 6TB, and comes from the factory in a software RAID 0 configuration to take full advantage of Thunderbolt's considerable capabilities. This aluminum desktop behemoth has a price to match its name and stature ($799), so we figured we'd put the 2big through its paces to let you know what kind of performance you'll be getting in return for all that cash.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 review round-up: see ya later, AMD

We've already been hands-on with NVIDIA's first Kepler GPU, but all those fancy features count for nuthin' if the benchmarks don't back them up. So do they? Huh? Do they? NVIDIA told us to expect a 10 to 40 percent performance boost from the $499 GTX 680, versus AMD's pricier Radeon HD 7970, and it appears that was no exaggeration. If you've bought yourself a high-end 28nm AMD card recently, try to hold back those tears until you've glanced over the reviews after the break. Let's just hope for a fairer fight when NVIDIA's mainstream and low-end cards come out to tackle AMD's 7800- and 7700-series -- and hey, some timely price drops could help to balance things too.

TweetDeck gets updated with improved list management, inline media and more

You'll still have to wait a bit longer for a major update to the mobile apps, but Twitter has today rolled out some big changes to TweetDeck for Mac, Windows and Chrome. That includes some added options for lists (including the ability to create and edit lists from within the application), new activity and interactions columns, inline media previews, and a new "Edit & RT" feature in place of the previous "Quote" option. You can get a quick preview of all that in the video after the break, or simply try it out yourself by downloading or updating the application for your platform of choice (it of course remains completely free).

US Cellular's first LTE device ships, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 claims the honor

Just under two months after being officially unveiled, US Cellular's first LTE device is now shipping. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's a tablet taking the first journey out on the carrier's 4G superhighway, with Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 on sale today online and in stores for... well, entirely too much. Despite being nearly a year old, USCC's Tab 10.1 will sell for a staggering $499.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate, though customers residing in one of its LTE markets will be able to grab it for a Benjamin less. Oh, and did we mention that a two-year agreement (with data plan) is still required? Yeah. Pardon us while we fire up the gravedigger -- we've seen this one before.

Facebook updates photo viewer with high-res images and full-screen mode

No more than 24 hours after introducing you to Acquaintances, Facebook is rolling out a couple of new features for its photo viewer. The social network's fresh bits will let you get a resolutionary look at allthose images shared by your friends, displaying shots "up to four times" bigger than before and at the highest resolution possible. Additionally, now you'll be able to check out those hi-res photos in full-screen mode, though you'll need to be on the most recent version of Firefox or Chrome to do so (sorry, Safari). Best of all, there's some extra Face-uh-oh-book goodies waiting for you after the break.

Shocker: Windows 8 will be 'retina' display friendly

We suppose Microsoft didn't have to make Windows 8 play nice with the new rash of extremely pixel-dense displays. But, that would be tantamount to OS suicide. So, we're not particularly surprised to hear that the latest and greatest Windows will support resolutions up to 2560 x 1440 on screens as small as 10.1 inches. That's a pretty impressive 291 pixels per inch. Of course, it's not quite as simple as it sounds. While in an ideal world, every UI element would be resolution independent, that's simply not the case and the infrastructure isn't there to support it. Instead graphical elements, including text, must be scaled to fill the available pixels. Microsoft's scheme will use 100 percent for standard density displays, 140 for HD and 180 for quad-XGA panels. Thankfully, the company was smart enough to include support for SVG files as UI elements, meaning that density and resolution independent future is at least one step closer.

Joystiq: Your mother-in-law is going to love Angry Birds Space

Rovio's furious fowl have fought menacing swine on traditional battlefields, foreign fronts and even through seasonal holidays -- outer space was obviously the next logical step. In case you somehowhaven't heard, Angry Birds Space sees casual gaming's most perturbed feathered heroes escaping terra firma to, as always, reclaim their stolen eggs. Joystiq describes the title as a tweaked, but familiar affair with a new twist that literally changes the gravity of the situation -- challenging players with inventive stages built around planetoids that divert and redirect the birds' trajectories. Sure, it might not resurrect a dead horse, but the new mechanic, they said, is probably enough to keep your in-laws entertained.

Leica's M9-P to be offered in unicorn-guise, $31,770 and Japan-only

Currently drowning in more cash than sense? Do you also call the land of the rising sun home? Excellent, as we've found the perfect camera just for you: the elusive white variant of Leica's M9-P. Restricted to only 50 units, the unicorn shooter will go on sale come June for a cool 2,620,000 yen (or around $31,770) -- a hefty premium over the regular (read: black and chrome) permutations which cost $7,995. Granted those pedestrian versions don't come wielding an insane f/0.95 50mm lens out of the box. And if this ridiculous combo is priced out of your league, you could always go after its cheaper, yet also delectable white predecessor -- although we'll hazard you're going to need more than just luck finding it.

Distro Issue 33 takes on Apple's new iPad -- Now in HD!

Late last week, Apple unleashed its new iPad on the world, and in this issue of Distro we'll let our review of the high-res tablet loose on you. While the iPad may be out in front in terms of sales today, our Weekly Stat shows that the army of Android competitors may surpass it by 2016. We'll give one of those soldiers, the Acer Iconia Tab A200, the review treatment in this issue, as well as Wacom's latest tablet of another sort, the Intuos5 Touch, and Samsung's rugged handset, the Rugby Smart. Also on offer in our 33rd edition are a host of regular exclusives: Recommended Reading, Switched On, a Q&A with Tekzilla's Patrick Norton and the comic stylings of Box Brown. So grab the tablet of your choosing and hit the appropriate download link below, but make sure to update your app if you're sporting Apple's latest slate -- we've optimized Distro for high-res viewing.