Razer Blade: hands-on with 17 inches of gaming greatness - by ABY BENEDICT

Something big's been brewing over in Carlsbad, and the time has finally come for it to be revealed to the world: the Razer Blade. The onyx aluminum beaut before you is the culmination of over three years of work by a stealth team of engineers -- many of them absorbed from the former OQO team. Despite being only 0.88 inches thick (thinner than another 17-incher we know...), the svelte number still packs a punch with a 2.8GHz Core i7-2640M CPU and GeForce GT 555M graphics replete with 2GB of GDDR5 video memory. All that graphical horsepower will splay your exploits on a 17.3-inch LED 1920 x 1080 full HD panel with an HD webcam nestled above. Rounding out the package is 8GB of RAM, three USB ports (one of the 3.0 persuasion), HDMI-out and a 60Wh integrated battery. And it could all be yours for $2,799 when it debuts in Q4 of this year.

That's dandy, but we're more stoked on the 480 x 800 LCD trackpad just to the right of the backlit keyboard. It works either as a multitouch-enabled input device or as an additional display for in-game info when the urge to slay demons with an external mouse strikes. North of that hotness lie ten fully customizable buttons, both in appearance (courtesy of a separate LCD) and in function. The keys and trackpad were last seen on a keyboard in a galaxy far, far away, and are running a custom Switchblade UI -- inspired by the company's oh so sexy Switchblade concept that we saw at CES. And just like the concept, Razer's used a custom lighting panel to ensure you can see those keys clearly from an angle -- people don't look straight down at their keyboards, after all. Follow on past the break for more impressions, video and PR.

We got to speak with Razer's CEO, Min-Liang Tan, about the firm's latest offering, and he explained what prompted the shift from peripheral production into PCs. He said the desire to expand beyond mice andheadsets was grounded by a waning interest from other manufacturers in the gaming PC space. Razer packed some serious hardware in its first foray into laptop manufacturing, and the company worked extensively with both Intel and NVIDIA on things like thermal management to get it right. Tan was quick to point out the custom power brick (half the size of its competition), the fully anti-ghosted keyboard and the tailored green innards of the USB 3.0 port (not present in the prototype we laid eyes on) as examples of places where Razer could have compromised but didn't. In short, Razer has clearly done its homework here, and such attention to detail is much appreciated.

Despite only spending brief time with a prototype Blade, we came away mightily impressed with its construction and execution. It's an understated machine with its matte ebony exterior, but the green accents give a hint that this is no ordinary PC. The LCD trackpad and Switchblade keys wowed us once again, but because the Blade was only running a demo loop we couldn't get any impressions of the custom UI. We also can't tell you how deep those tweaks go, but Razer assures us that the soon-to-be-released API allows quite a bit of customization (Engadget key, anyone?). We're looking forward to a more in-depth review once it hits the market, when we'll be able to put it through the ringer. Until then, we can say that while the Blade may not take the fps crown from more potent "portable" gaming laptops, at just seven pounds it can give you some quality gaming cake and let you actually carry it too.

BlackBerry to run Android apps on future QNX devices? By- ABY BENEDICT

One of the biggest gripes from BlackBerry users is the lack of apps, which is why RIM hopes to boost sales by adding Android compatibility in future devices -- DroidBerry, anyone? According to Bloomberg, sources familiar with the matter say RIM may add support for Android apps on future QNX-based devices, enabling access beyond RIM's relatively limited App World. The feature is said to go live in the QNX-powered PlayBook tablet by the end of the year, but there's no word yet whether the 2012 line-up of QNX phones will get a Google-friendly makeover. Rumor has it that anyone who bought the most recent batch of BlackBerrys won't get to have a taste of Gingerbread, Honeycomb or any other mouth-watering Android flavor for that matter. Guess they'll have to settle for plain old vanilla.

New BlackBerry phones to support Android? - By: Aby Benedict

Hit by weakening sales, Research In Motion plans to add Android support to next year's lineup of new BlackBerry smartphones, Bloomberg reported yesterday.

Is RIM adding Android support to next year's BlackBerry phones?
(Credit: RIM)
Citing information from "three people familiar with the plan," Bloomberg said that the new Android-compatible phones will run the company's QNX software and debut in early 2012. A story earlier this month from the blog Boy Genius Report said that RIM will launch its first QNX-powered BlackBerry, code-named Colt, during the first quarter of 2012.
The move toward Android support is designed to enhance the appeal of BlackBerrys and shake up sales, which have taken a dive due to tight competition from the iPhone and Android devices.
A ComScore report from September of last year showed RIM with a leading 39 percent share of the U.S. smartphone market. A more recent ComScore report, released last month, found RIM now in third place behind Google and Apple with just 24 percent of the market.

RIM has been trying to segue from its standard and aging BlackBerry mobile OS toward QNX since it acquired the open-source operating system last year. The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet is currently its only QNX-based device, but the company sees its investment in the new OS as something that could propel it over the next 10 years.
The PlayBook tablet was supposed to be capable of running Android apps by now, but the tablet's support for Google's OS has reportedly been delayed until this fall, according to Engadget. Two of Bloomberg's sources said that a PlayBook upgrade for Android may not come until later in the year.
The Android app player to be added to the new BlackBerry phones is the same one designed for the PlayBook, according to one of Bloomberg's sources, but it will naturally be modified to fit the different screen sizes and resolutions of the phones. RIM is looking to have the Android player up and running on the QNX phones as soon as they go on sale, added the source, hoping to avoid the delay for Android support that has hindered the PlayBook.

10 Things You Need To Know About Steve Jobs’ Successor At Apple - by Aby Benedict

Everyone knows that Steve Jobs has resigned yesterday as Apple’s CEO and Tim Cook replaced him as a CEO. The 50-year old man is now the most loved one for Apple users. Tim Cook, you have to know these 10 things about Steve Jobs’ successor at Apple Inc.



1. He spent a decade working his way up the ladder at IBM after graduating from Auburn University in Alabama.

2. He joined Apple in 1998 from Compaq. At the time, Compaq was the world’s top PC manufacturer and Apple was going down the pan.

3. Apple boss Steve jobs took to him immediately, and despite friends saying he was mad to work for a failing firm, his intuition told him the Cupertino company was the future.

4. His arrival sparked a major upturn in fortunes at Apple. The firm reported a $1bn loss in 1997, but moved into profit the next year.

5. Cook is a fitness fanatic and enjoys hiking, cycling, and going to the gym. He is known to send emails at 4:30am and holds Sunday night staff meetings by phone to prepare for the week

6. In contrast to Steve Jobs’ explosive temper, people who know him say Cook is much more down to earth and softly spoken.

7. Cook is credited with revolutionising Apple’s supply chain, closing redundant warehouses and improving stock handling.

8. He already has experience of running the company, and has stepped in for Jobs on three previous occasions while the 56-year-old recovered from cancer.

9. He’s already well paid – last year alone he took home an $800,000 (£500,000) salary, a bonus of $5m (£3.1m) and stock options worth more than $50m (£31m).

10. He takes the helm of a company worth around $220bn (£134bn), which made $7bn (£4.2bn) profit in the last financial quarter.

Apple CEO Tim Cook’s Letter To Apple Employees: “Our Best Years Lie Ahead Of Us”

Yesterday, both investors and the Apple community was taken by shock when Steve Jobs unexpectedly announced that he would be stepping down from Apple after 14 straight years as CEO. Tim Cook, who was previously the company’s Chief Operating Officer, took his place. His first order of business? Send all Apple employees an email promising not to change Apple’s current philosophy.

In his email, Cook acknowledged Jobs’ great success at turning the company into what it is today: a multi-billion dollar business that has made several products, most of which are successful, such as the iPod and iPhone, which are known popular icons of 21st century culture. Tim Cook also calls Jobs a mentor, giving him credit for much of his experience he has acquired managing Apple for the last 13 years. Indeed, Tom Cook promises that Apple will stay ‘Apple’, keeping the same philosophy of releasing great products and maintaining the same culture that has made the company succeed. If you were hoping for a cheap $400-MacBook Air made out of plastic, Tim Cook likely won’t be your best friend.
Cook is confident that by sticking to Jobs’ vision, Apple will continue to be hugely successful; he goes as far as saying that Apple’s best days are yet to come. Indeed, there’s no reason to believe they aren’t; while Steve Jobs will no longer be on permanent duty at the company, many talented people he brought in will. There’s no reason to believe that Apple’s innovative talent will simply fade way just because the head honcho is no longer there. Yet, Cook will likely be tested by both the media and investors on whether he’s just as creative and charismatic as Steve Jobs.
Tim Cook is no outsider, in fact, he has overseen the company’s daily operations for quite a long time, under his previous role of Chief Operating Officer. More recently, Apple began transferring more and more power to Cook as Jobs has become increasingly absent due to his state of health. More likely than not, Cook was more of a CEO than Jobs for the last few years, despite the fact that this change has only become official now. Furthermore, Steve Jobs’ insight will still be provided, since he will remain as Chairman of the Board of Directors. Under this role, he’ll be able to have a say on all major decisions made by the company and even overrule those that might displease him.
Read Tim Cook’s full letter below:

Team:
I am looking forward to the amazing opportunity of serving as CEO of the most innovative company in the world. Joining Apple was the best decision I’ve ever made and it’s been the privilege of a lifetime to work for Apple and Steve for over 13 years. I share Steve’s optimism for Apple’s bright future.
Steve has been an incredible leader and mentor to me, as well as to the entire executive team and our amazing employees. We are really looking forward to Steve’s ongoing guidance and inspiration as our Chairman.
I want you to be confident that Apple is not going to change. I cherish and celebrate Apple’s unique principles and values. Steve built a company and culture that is unlike any other in the world and we are going to stay true to that—it is in our DNA. We are going to continue to make the best products in the world that delight our customers and make our employees incredibly proud of what they do.
I love Apple and I am looking forward to diving into my new role. All of the incredible support from the Board, the executive team and many of you has been inspiring. I am confident our best years lie ahead of us and that together we will continue to make Apple the magical place that it is.
Tim

Use Multitouch Gestures To Unlock Your iPhone Or iPad With This Jailbreak Tweak

If you feel like you lack in style and your image needs a bit of a re-jig, it sounds as though you could be missing an app which allows you to unlock your iPhone with style, thus gaining some street credibility.

Enter StyleUnlock, one in a growing list of Cydia tweaks which allow you to change the way you unlock your iDevice. Jokes aside, this is probably the best app to date in its field, living up to its name and while it’s not exactly James Bond-esque, it provides yet another good alternative to the tiresome Slide To Unlock.
Many developers for these sorts of apps tend to deviate from the primary function by overloading them with additional features rather than concentrating on the reason for the app in the first place. Thankfully, StyleUnlock doesn’t follow this motif, and only includes the functions you will need –hide the slider, which is optional, and the gestures themselves.



Of course, there are some gestures available in Activator which enable you to unlock your device, but this app, which might I add is free over at the BigBoss repo, takes it to the next level – adding pinch, two finger swipe, tap & hold as well as many others. In total there are 13, and after testing the app out, the gestures seem pretty responsive and work as advertised.
If you already have style in abundance, and you’re looking for something a little more practical, you could always try out LockGestures, which we featured over the weekend. With this app, you can use multitouch gestures to launch Springboard apps from the comfort of your lockscreen, as well as adjust brightness, change power options and control the iPod.app.
Heres’ a little video demo of StyleUnlock in action, courtesy of our friends at iDownloadBlog:

The iPad 2 Runs webOS Twice As Fast As HP’s TouchPad

As we recover from yesterday’s complete demise of webOS, new information is reaching the public on how the company employees actually felt the about its products, more specifically the TouchPad, HP’s 9.7-inch webOS tablet. At least judging by this report, employees never felt too confident about the device’s hardware in the first place.

When a product is discontinued, information often tends to leak on possible reasons for its demise. An inside source at HP has confirmed that the HP TouchPad, which will now be phased out, had actually been built by HP long before it acquired Palm last year. Essentially, the TouchPad, which only became available earlier this year, is actually a 2-year-old device that Palm later tweaked to make it compatible with webOS.
Not surprisingly, its hardware is incredibly outdated, which can be problematic in today’s competitive landscape where most modern tablets feature dual-core processors and 1GB of RAM. To top it off, it now seems that the HP staff itself had attempted to run webOS on one of the TouchPad’s main competitors, the iPad 2, where it allegedly ran roughly twice as fast. Yet, instead of attempting to improve the hardware, HP management has allegedly stopped webOS developers to innovate past certain points in order to keep the system running relatively smoothly on the company’s hardware, which predictably resulted in a lackluster experience for users.
The demise of webOS hardware was a sad turn of event for those hoping Palm would come back from a decade of struggle, but given the circumstances, even the staff itself wanted the devices gone. As we speculated yesterday, HP will now look into licensing webOS out to third-party makers, such as HTC, in hopes of creating a compelling device capable of running webOS. Yet, if this effort fails, which it might given the system’s lack of user and developer appeal, as well as the little advantage it provides over competitors such as Android and iOS, the whole division might be on the chopping block sooner rather than later.
The move to end all webOS hardware was announced by HP yesterday at its quarterly results conference. This announcement is part of HP’s largest refocusing effort in a decade which will move it off building hardware, including traditional computers, and shift its focus to software services. As part of this process, the company is looking into spinning off its PC division completely.

iOS 5 Coming On September 30th (EXCLUSIVE)

We have been informed by a reliable source that iOS 5 should be available on September 30th at 10 AM PST just the same time as previous update releases.

Back in June, iOS 5 was introduced during the WWDC 2011. iOS 5 comes with features as OTA updates, a perfect notifications system, Newsstand, Twitter integration, the Reminder Up, PC-Free feature, the iMessage, Speech-To-Text feature and even more features unveiled in the releasedbetas of iOS 5.

9to5mac earlier this week reported that Apple’s next-generation iPhone will be available in stores starting on Friday, October 7th. The report also included that pre-orders of the iPhone 5 will be available from Friday, September 30th. So the date of iOS 5 release is most likely true as Apple traditionally releases a new update to the public couple of days before the release of new iPhone hardware.

Microsoft lists 'App Store' as a Windows 8 feature

An app store is officially among the features Microsoft is working to include in Windows 8, much like Apple's App Store for OS X.

The revelation, which confirmed months of rumors, came today from Microsoft President Steven Sinofsky in a Building Windows 8 blog titled "Introducing the team." Among a list of teams associated with building the forthcoming operating system was "App Store."

Sinofsky said that work on the new OS is organized by feature teams, of which there are about 35, each containing 25 to 40 developers.

"Many of the teams listed below describe features or areas that you are familiar with or that you can probably figure out based on the name," he said. "As we post more, team members will identify themselves as part of these teams."

Microsoft representatives did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.

Rumors that Microsoft was developing an app store for Windows have been around for more than a year. Based on a series of Windows 8 documents leaked June 2010, Microsoft has reportedly been eager to match Apple at its own game by offering its own dedicated app store.

An app store appeared in a demonstration of Windows 8 that Sinofsky gave at the All Things Digital D9 conference in late June. Included in the start-up menu tiles was a direct link to a Microsoft Store, suggesting that Microsoft was working it own version of an online application store, similar to Apple's App Store.

The company has also been working hard to keep Apple from winning a U.S. trademark for the phrase App Store. Microsoft argues the phrase is too generic to register and would restrict competitors' ability to use of the term to describe their own services.

Microsoft has not officially announced when the new OS would be released, but CEO Steve Ballmer said in May that the new OS would reach consumers in 2012, although the company later said Ballmer misspoke. In June, Vice President Dan'l Lewin hinted that Windows 8 would launch during the fall of 2012.

Review - Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

 The good: As thin as the iPad 2 and even lighter, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is the sexiest Honeycomb tablet we've seen. Also, it has a 3-megapixel back camera and a 2-megapixel front camera, and powerful dual speakers.


The bad: The lack of ports on the tablet will be a problem for some and the plastic back leaves it feeling less solid than the iPad 2.

Design and features
The first thing that struck us upon taking the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 out of its box was its slim profile. In fact, when it's lying next to the iPad 2 we honestly can't tell which tablet is thicker and unfortunately we don't have a micrometer handy to get down into the business of microns. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 weighs 1.24 pounds, compared with the iPad 2's 1.32 pounds.

Rather than several paragraphs filled with confusing numbers, I thought a chart would be much more appropriate. Here's a handy chart to illustrate the size differences between the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and other recent tablets.

	Asus Eee Pad Transformer	Acer Iconia Tab A500	Motorola Xoom	Apple iPad 2	T-Mobile G-Slate	Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1
Weight in pounds	1.52	1.66	1.62	1.34	1.38	1.24
Width in inches (landscape)	10.7	10.2	9.8	9.5	9.6	10.1
Height in inches	6.9	6.9	6.6	7.3	5.8	6.9
Depth in inches	0.51	0.51	0.5	0.34	0.49	0.34
Side bezel width in inches (landscape)	1.1	0.8	0.6	0.8	0.9	0.8

Taking another page from the iPad 2's school of sexy tablet building, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 has one of the cleanest designs we've seen in a tablet. From the front, its 10.1-inch screen is surrounded by its 0.8-inch black bezel and a silver aluminum outline at the edge. In the top middle sits its 2-megapixel front-facing camera.

On the top edge from left to right are the power/sleep button, volume rocker, and headphone jack. A speaker adorns the right and left sides and the universal connection port is found on the bottom edge, right beside a microphone pinhole.

There are no USB or HDMI ports. And, try as we might, we couldn't find ports for either SD cards or SIM cards. We're hoping Samsung's final release version will make finding the ports a lot easier.

The back of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 sports a 3-megapixel camera at the top and a plain white back. It's the feel of the plastic back that is the most disappointing aspect of the Tab 10.1's design. It doesn't feel as solid as the iPad 2, and as a result, doesn't feel as comfortable in our hands. Still, despite its 10.1-inch screen, the tablet never felt the least bit bulky.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is a Google Experience tablet, meaning it uses the base version of Honeycomb 3.1, with no customizations to its interface; however, Samsung does include its Samsung Apps, um, app. Samsung Apps gives you access to the company's own application store.

Performance
This is Samsung's first tablet with a 10.1-inch screen, and it looks fantastic. The Super PLS-based display, with its 1,280x800-pixel resolution, produces a clear, crisp image, with a wide viewing angle that looks great when Web surfing or browsing the app store.