Samsung rolls out Ultra High Speed microSD cards destined for LTE phones and tablets

While so far the Ultra High Speed Class 1 memory card designation has been reserved for SDXC and SDHC cards, Samsung just announced new microSD cards that support the faster interface as well. Currently being produced in 16GB sizes, they have maximum sequential read speeds of up to 80 MB/s, four times that of the high speed cards it introduced last year. There's no word on the write speeds but Samsung is already busy calling its next shot, planning to offer cards with even more storage in the future. Of course, you'll need compatible devices to make these new cards worth it, we wonder what kind of Advanced LTE smartphones with 3D gaming and HD video capabilities might be in store from Samsung soon...

Atmel's XSense promises curvy touchscreens that'll ruin your shirt line

Touchscreen gurus Atmel may not be the most famous name around, but you'll find its gear inside devices like the Galaxy Note and the Galaxy Tab. Now it has pulled the dust-sheets from the latest innovation to emerge from its Californian headquarters: XSense. It's a flexible, super-thin, film-based touch sensor that can be curved and contorted any which way you choose while retaining accuracy. It'll also enable smartphone makers to create "edgeless" touchscreens without bezels, or have them cascade around the sides of the device. Now all we have to do is wonder if we really want a notably concave phone jabbing into our thighs,

Royal Canadian Mint aims to kickstart digital currency with MintChip developer challenge

Bitcoin may not have yet grown much beyond a relatively small base of enthusiasts, but it looks like the Royal Canadian Mint is hoping that its backing will help its own new digital currency catch on in a bigger way. While less decentralized and different than BitCoin in a number of other respects, it is similarly an all-digital currency, and one that requires no personal data to be shared during transactions. Those transactions can be both large and very small (with an emphasis on the latter), and handled in a variety of ways, including over the web or directly between two devices with the necessary hardware (a MintChip-enabled microSD card is one proposed option). While a more formal unveiling is apparently coming later this month, the Mint has already kicked off a challenge where it's inviting developers to create applications that use MintChip technology -- something that, for the near future, will only be available to said developers

Welp, that didn't take long. Just weeks after US Cellular's first LTE device hit the shops (yeah, the Galaxy Tab 10.1), in flies the carrier's first 4G LTE smartphone. It's the Samsung Galaxy S Aviator -- otherwise known as the Droid Charge -- taking the crown, shipping today with a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus touchpanel, front-facing camera, Android 2.3.6 (Gingerbread), an eight-megapixel rear-facing camera, an HDMI output and access to Google Play (despite the deceased 'Market' logo shown on the press imagery above). The bulk of you will be asked to pony up $199.99 on a two-year contract (and after a $100 mail-in rebate), but "select" LTE cities will be selling it for $100 less; as for LTE service, we're told that portions of Iowa, Maine, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas and Wisconsin are being served now, while coverage is expected to expand to Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oregon, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia in the latter half of the year.

There's a first for everything, including Engadget stories about software updates for thermostats. If we're going to suddenly start getting granular in our coverage of home automation products, though, we may as well start with the Nest, a device slick enough to make us use "thermostat" and "sexy' in the same sentence. Now that it's been out on the market for about five months, the company's issuing a software update that introduces a couple new features.

For starters, particularly fastidious users can now access a detailed 10-day history, showing precisely when and for how long their heating and cooling systems kicked in, as well as the reason for that shift (e.g., you manually changed the temperature, were away). Though you can't view all that data on the device's small, circular screen, you can look it up online or through Nest's iOS and Android apps. Next up is Airwave, a feature that uses your fan to distribute chilled air through the home after your air conditioner has turned off (you know, instead of letting one room get intensely, unnecessarily cold). According to Nest, that feature turns on automatically when the temperature is high and the humidity low, though we're hazy on the algorithm being used there. Rounding out the list, Nest has made certain settings easier to access, and the hardware itself will ship with redesigned connectors that purport to work well even without wall anchors. Save for that last bit, current owners can enjoy all these tweaks via a free software update -- fully automated, 'o course.

US Cellular ships first LTE smartphone: Samsung Galaxy S Aviator

Welp, that didn't take long. Just weeks after US Cellular's first LTE device hit the shops (yeah, theGalaxy Tab 10.1), in flies the carrier's first 4G LTE smartphone. It's the Samsung Galaxy S Aviator -- otherwise known as the Droid Charge -- taking the crown, shipping today with a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus touchpanel, front-facing camera, Android 2.3.6 (Gingerbread), an eight-megapixel rear-facing camera, an HDMI output and access to Google Play (despite the deceased 'Market' logo shown on the press imagery above). The bulk of you will be asked to pony up $199.99 on a two-year contract (and after a $100 mail-in rebate), but "select" LTE cities will be selling it for $100 less; as for LTE service, we're told that portions of Iowa, Maine, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas and Wisconsin are being served now, while coverage is expected to expand to Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oregon, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia in the latter half of the year.

Amazon launches Kindle eBook store en Español, over 33,000 libros to choose from

Buenas noticias para todos los amantes de los libros que viven en Estados Unidos. Amazon acaba de anunciar una nueva tienda llamada eBooks Kindle en Español. El nuevo servicio dará acceso a más de 33,000 libros que se podrán leer en los diferentes dispositivos Kindle. Esta biblioteca virtual incluirá una lista con los títulos más vendidos de Nielsen, autores mexicanos como José Emilio Pacheco y Sergio Pitol, libros para niños como Dora la Exploradora y Go Diego Go, mientras que también habrá traducciones de Hunger Games, The Help y la biografía de Steve Jobs. Todos aquellos autores independientes que también estén interesados podrán publicar sus libros usando el sitio KDP de Amazon. Si quieres conocer más detalles, puedes echar un vistazo a la nota de prensa o incluso hacer clic en la fuente para realizar el tour completo por la tienda.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 LTE gets teardown, gives literal best viewing angles

We have waxed lyrical about the Galaxy Tab 7.7's Super AMOLED Plus delights -- twice. Color us not entirely shocked, then, to see that Samsung's proudly tore apart the Korean LTE variant for component-obsessed fans. Some Korea-only features include a DMB TV antenna just below the 1280 x 800 display, while a magnesium cover above that keeps the thickness and weight down. Conversely, however, the border of the rear cover was increased by 0.1mm to defend the touchpanel against scratches and ensure that the rear camera doesn't stick out too much. The layer-by-layer walkthrough is on show at the source below, just remember to look with your eyes, not with your hands.

Viacom wins appeal against YouTube, gets another chance to prove copyright infringement

It's been almost two years since YouTube's triumph in its copyright infringement case against Viacom. As is the way of things, Viacom appealed the decision, and now the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has decided to breathe new life into Viacom's case. Apparently, the appeals judge didn't see eye to eye with the District Court's ruling that no reasonable jury could have found that YouTube had actual knowledge or awareness of infringement on its site.

You see, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) requires such awareness for service providers like YouTube to be guilty of copyright infringement, and that safe harbor provision was the grounds for YouTube's victory on summary judgment. Furthermore, to succeed on summary judgment, YouTube had to prove that no reasonable jury could find that it knew of any infringing activity. While the lower court felt that YouTube carried that burden, the appeals judge disagreed, and has remanded the case back down for the District Court to determine if YouTube knew about or willfully ignored the infringement. What does this mean? All we can say for sure is that it'll expend more judicial resources and make more money for the attorneys involved. The result could very well end up, once again, in YouTube's favor, but we'll have to wait and see.

GSM Galaxy Nexus seeing signal issues after Android 4.0.4 update?

Sometimes, updates aren't as sweet as they initially sound. Such is the case with Android 4.0.4, which recently rolled out to owners of the GSM Galaxy Nexus. According to an increasingly vocal swath of members at xda-developers (and confirmed by a listing on Google's own Support page), there are mysterious signal issues now troubling the device. For many users, there's an inexplicable loss of signal -- a complete inability to make or receive calls and text messages -- after applying the v4.0.4 update, though it's beginning to look like Sleep is the issue. For some, preventing the phone from going to into a deep sleep mode has solved the dilemma, but it has also created a life where a nearby AC outlet is more of a necessity than usual. Hit up the source link to submit a bug report if you're experiencing precisely 

Caption Contest: HTC's down-to-earth photo shoot

With the Android handset market as jam-packed as it is, it can be tough to distinguish your device from the maddening crowd. We've seen some bizarre and sublime attempts to do so over the years, but few have reached the terminal velocity of HTC's skydiving fashion photoshoot aimed at promoting its newOne line of phones. Has the company hit the bullseye here, or is it and its accompanying light-headed skydivers destined to splatter all over the advertising landscape? It just might take a caption contest to find out for certain.

Webcam programmed to capture your face while playing Xbox: gauges your excitement, graphs ennui

Sometimes, those Modern Warfare sessions really take their toll. Now, there is a way to measure the emotional rollercoaster you're subjecting yourself to when you login for those regular gaming stints. Dale Lane decided to hook up the webcam above his main TV to grab a shot of his face every 15 seconds. This then wings its way to the Face.com API, which calculates all sorts of information about the image and sends it back to Dale, who uses a Python script to cook it into these graphs. This one measures his early evening session playing Blur on Xbox Live. Yeah, red means angry.

Tech tools for your passive-aggressive side

 In the old days, being passive-aggressive took effort. An annoyance -- like, say, a neighbor who has elected to make the stairwell his own personal broom closet -- would fester and fester until one was finally forced into action.

IE, leaving a note to the effect of: "Hi! I tripped over a bucket of liquid in the hallway and turned my ankle. Therefore, I elected to remove your garbage from our common area -- for the sake of everyone's safety. Thanks! :D 3B. P.S. Everyone can hear you have sex through the wall."

Now, it's all too easy to vent your frustrations via Twitter, Facebook and various and sundry meme machines, cluttering the newsfeeds of friends and "Facebook friends" with your petty, petty gripes.

We get it: Sometimes you just need to scream silently into your pillow, and since one does not always have a pillow on hand (unless one rolls like that), the Web is often the closest substitute.

Still, it is vital to realize that you are not, in fact, bellowing into the ether about your co-worker's apparent lack of breathing-through-the-nose skills -- no, you are recording these grievances for all to see, laugh at and possibly garner a book deal via passive-aggressive notes.

Thankfully, the Web (and its outlying regions) is an innovative place, and now it's possible to get passive-aggressive (and even outrightaggressive) without spreading your lack of sunshine to the rest of your social network.