Samsung: Galaxy Tab 10.1, Galaxy Tab 8.9 coming this summer

Samsung has officially announced two additions to its family of Galaxy Tabs: the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the Galaxy Tab 8.9. The WiFi version of the 10.1 will arrive on June 8, 2011 in 16GB ($500) and 32GB ($600) flavors while the 8.9 will also be available in 16GB ($470) and 32GB ($570) versions. They join the original 7-inch Galaxy Tab, which has already been quite a success for the company.
The hardware giant is touting the duo as the world's thinnest mobile tablets, at just 8.6 millimeters thick. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 weighs 595 grams while the Galaxy Tab 8.9 weighs 470 grams. Both support HSPA+ network speeds of up to 21Mbps, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n connectivity. They also feature a 3 megapixel rear camera and a 2 megapixel front camera, providing seamless 1080p HD video. The two devices are powered by a 1GHz dual core application processor, but for more detailed specs check out the following images:

What the specs don't mention is that the two devices are preloaded with Readers Hub and Music Hub giving consumers instant access to more than 2.2 million books, 2,000 newspaper (49 languages), 2,300 magazines (22 languages), and 13 million songs. The devices are also designed with Samsung's Social Hub, which will aggregate email, instant messaging, contacts, calendar, and social network connections into a single interface.
Both devices feature Samsung's own TouchWiz user interface, which sits on top of Android 3.0 (codenamed Honeycomb). A Live Panel menu allows users to customize a variety of content on the home screen including digital pictures, favorite websites, and social network feeds. There's also a Mini Apps Tray for commonly used features such as task manager, calendar, and music player which can be launched while other major applications are also in use, including large file downloads and document editing.
"The Galaxy Tab 10.1 and 8.9 are remarkable examples of Samsung's constant innovation and show our dedication to designing premium tablets that fit the unique needs of consumers around the world," JK Shin, President and Head of Samsung's Mobile Communications Business, said in a statement. "By combining Samsung's innovations in design and display with our exciting new user experience, we've created a new class of products that will lead the tablet market."

Verizon preps LTE deployment in 59 more US cities

Verizon plans to expand its 4G LTE service to 59 more cities by the end of 2011, including Tallahassee, Little Rock, Charleston, Honolulu, and Milwaukee. The mobile broadband network launched last December in 39 markets and Verizon announced 49 more during January's Consumer Electronics Show. In all, the carrier should have at least 147 US cities covered by LTE this year (complete list here).

The list is largely comprised of major cities, but there are a handful of smaller areas such as Decatur, Alabama, and Fort Smith, Arkansas. Verizon says those markets represent its "commitment to reach deep into medium-sized cities and smaller communities by the end of 2011." The carrier vowed to fill its 3G footprint with LTE by 2013, covering 200 million people. We assume this deployment is still on track.


This announcement follows roughly one week after Verizon unveiled its first 4G LTE smartphone, the HTC Thunderbolt. The device runs Android 2.2 Froyo and features a 4.3-inch WVGA display, a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, HD video recording, an 8-megapixel rear camera and 1.3-megapixel front camera, and wireless DLNA support. Pricing starts at $249.99 with a two-year service contract.

Four lines of code to hop over The New York Times paywall

Dave Eurica, a Canadian reader of the online version of The New York Times, was rather annoyed to find that the website was blocking him from reading a lot of articles. He looked into the matter and found that the "paywall" erected by the publication was written in JavaScript. This means the blocked articles are actually being loaded up in the HTML in the back.
Eurica wrote a bookmarklet that you can put on your bookmarks toolbar to get around the block. Anytime nytimes.com blocks you on a page, all you have to do is click it to show the usual content (it does nothing on any other website). The solution was written in just four lines of code, one of which is a comment:

//Prototype is already installed on NYTimes pages, so I'll use that:
$('overlay').hide();
$('gatewayCreative').hide();
$(document.body).setStyle( { overflow:'scroll' } );

The New York Times subscription plan was officially announced last week. Readers who view more than 20 articles will have to pay $15 a month to access NYTimes.com and the paper's mobile app, $20 for the site and its iPad app, or $35 for all three platforms. Subscribers to the physical paper will receive unlimited access across all digital platforms except e-readers.
The block hasn't yet started for everyone: that's going to happen on March 28, 2011. The 20-article cap was first applied to Canada, however, as the site needed time to find unresolved bugs before the feature is slammed by US visitors. Apparently Canadians are just as interested in climbing over virtual walls as their American counterparts are.

Google gets a ridiculous patent for Google Doodles

After filing for it nearly 10 years ago (in April 2001), Google has been granted US Patent7,912,915, which is titled "Systems and methods for enticing users to access a web site." The patent lists Google co-founder Sergey Brin as the inventor of the feature, which is now known asGoogle Doodles - the custom logos that the company has been putting on its home page to mark special occasions since the year 2000.

Here's the patent's abstract:

A system provides a periodically changing story line and/or a special event company logo to entice users to access a web page. For the story line, the system may receive objects that tell a story according to the story line and successively provide the objects on the web page for predetermined or random amounts of time. For the special event company logo, the system may modify a standard company logo for a special event to create a special event logo, associate one or more search terms with the special event logo, and upload the special event logo to the web page. The system may then receive a user selection of the special event logo and provide search results relating to the special event.

We're having a bit of trouble understanding how Google was granted this patent, but then again the US Patent system is in complete disarray. What is even harder to grasp is how Google will possibly enforce this patent or what it gains from having the IP rights to changing a company logo for special events.

Here are some recent "doodles" as seen on Google's homepage:

 
Thomas Edison's Birthday Doodle

Alienware M11x getting Sandy Bridge in early April

Dell is supposedly preparing to update its pint-sized gaming laptop sometime early next month. If the reports hold up, the Alienware M11x R3 will arrive with Intel's Sandy Bridge processors, quicker RAM and more storage. Processor options will include the Core i5-2537M (1.4GHz base with up to 2.3GHz speeds via Turbo Boost 2.0), i7-2617M (1.5GHz to 2.6GHz) and i7-2657M (1.6GHz to 2.7GHz). 

System memory will include 1GB, 2GB, 4GB and 8GB options but it will operate at 1333MHz DDR3 instead of 800MHz. Mechanical storage will still start at 250GB but the maximum capacity will be increased from 640GB to 750GB. Samsung's 256GB P810 SSD will be offered on the side. The third revision is also expected to receive options for 3G, LTE or WiMax mobile broadband connectivity. 


A few key specifications are still unknown, namely the graphics processor. Being a gaming machine, the chosen GPU could make or break the M11x's appeal. There is some concern that Dell will opt for Sandy Bridge's integrated graphics core instead of providing a discrete solution. The current system ships with a 1GB GeForce GT 335M, a mid-grade chip capable of running demanding tiles, if only on low settings. 

It's also unclear whether the refresh will bring USB 3.0 as the existing model only comes with USB 2.0. The system will come in red, black and "SoftTouch" options, but we assume Dell hasn't made any drastic cosmetic changes. Pricing is unknown, but last year's Core i5-520UM model currently starts at $999 and we've always gotten the impression that Dell wants to keep the M11x reasonably affordable.

Verizon: we have no interest in Sprint

Verizon Wireless CEO Daniel Mead has declared that he has no interest in buying Sprint Nextel. Verizon, a joint venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group, will lose its top position in the US wireless market due to a recently announced decision by AT&T to acquire T-Mobile.

"We're not interested in Sprint. We don't need them," Mead told Reuters ahead of the CTIA Wireless Conference. In regards to the AT&T/T-Mobile deal having to go through US regulatory approval, he said: "Anything can go through if you make enough concessions." The deal will likely be approved if the companies agreed to certain conditions, and AT&T is expected to have to sell some assets.

Late last week, AT&T announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom in a cash-and-stock transaction valued at approximately $39 billion. Interestingly, Mead said he would not oppose AT&T's plans because he does not want his company to be distracted from its goal of being the most profitable US wireless operator.

Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse is a lot more worried about AT&T's decision to acquire T-Mobile than Verizon's CEO appears to be. He said he's concerned that the deal will hurt his company and the industry, as the biggest two players strengthen their dominance. "I do have concerns that it would stifle innovation and too much power would be in the hands of two," Hesse said in a panel discussion at cellphone conference in Orlando, Florida, according to The Associated Press.

Mead's cool stance is very odd. More often than not, companies are up in arms when their competitors join forces against them. It's possible that the Verizon CEO is banking on the merger slowing the two down while his company plows ahead.

LG Super-Multi N2A2 2TB NAS

Over the past few years we've reviewed a handful of NAS (Network Attached Storage) products and while most of them have been very impressive, they all shared one common pitfall: they were extremely pricey. So expensive in fact, that they're little more than a pipe dream for the average user. 

So when LG told us they had a new 2-bay NAS device that costs less than $250 with a pair of 1TB hard drives included, we sat up and took notice. 


As we have repeatedly discovered when dealing with NAS products, there is much more to consider than just storage capacity and price. These devices are highly dependent on the hardware and software that drives them and either can cause the product to be a complete failure. Realizing that, we're extremely eager to find out what makes the LG N2A2tick, let's take a closer look...