SlashGear Week In Review - Week 30 2010
Welcome to this week's better late than never edition of the Week in Review! Monday we learned that HTC was planning to move from the hard to get Super AMOLED screen for its Desire and Nexus One smartphones to a Super LCD. The catch is that both screens will be used and apparently, there will be no way for the buyer to tell what screen they are getting.
Acer's Stream smartphone has been graced with an official launch date for the UK. The Stream will launch on August 9 and pack a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU and a 5MP camera. The handset will cost the equivalent of $615 in the UK. A sweet new camera app was unveiled Monday that takes photos people shoot at the same angle as historical photos and superimposes the historical photos over the top. The software was invented at MIT.
LG announced this week that it can't meet the demand from Apple for screens of the iPad and iPhone. Despite that fact, LG is apparently thinking about making production cutbacks and says meeting demand won't happen until 2011. The DMCA was updated early in the week and ruled that jailbreaking and unlocking of smartphones like the iPhone was legal under fair use. This may bring the unlocking firms that are underground into the limelight.
Apple says that the DMCA might say jailbreaking is legal, but if you do so you will lose your warranty. Apple stays says users shouldn't jailbreak their devices. A video of the HTC smartphones comparing the AMOLED screen and Super LCD screens turned up Tuesday. The displays are said to be consistent with each other.
The Apple Magic Trackpad was unveiled Tuesday. The device had been rumored for a while and is a gesture supporting Bluetooth trackpad for desktop computers. Apple also unveiled a new AA battery charger. Apple claims that the charger has the lowest amount of "vampire draw" of any charger at only 30 milliwatts.
Apple added a new 27-inch LED backlit Cinema Display to its lineup. The screen will ship in August for $999. Along with the new display Apple also updated the Mac Pro desktop computer. The machine gets dual 6-core Xeon X5670 CPUs.
Intel announced that it has made a breakthrough in Photonics. The breakthrough let Intel Labs reach data transfer speeds of 50Gbps using light to send the signals. Panasonic announced that it would be offering a 3D lens for its line of Lumix G cameras. The lens puts two lens elements into one lens body and uses software to make the two images into a 3D image.
Panasonic went official with its HDC-SDT750 3D camcorder. The camcorder is the first consumer 3D camcorder and will ship in October for $1400. A geek has come up with his own wearable computer DIY style. The wearable machine is very geeky and uses a Beagleboard and wireless keyboard with a display mounted on a pair of glasses.
Wednesday we posted up our review of the Apple Magic Trackpad. Vince found a lot to like with the thing and recommends it highly. A crazy 125-piece puzzle turned up that hides parts for a fully functioning firearm. Some of the parts go together to build a strange looking single shot pistol.
Thursday Parrot announced a ship date and price of its long anticipated AR.Drone flying machine. The AR.Drone will ship on September 3 for $299 and can be pre-ordered right now. iFixit did its teardown thing with the Apple Magic Trackpad Thursday. There were surprisingly few parts inside the thin trackpad.
The HTC Evo 4G is set to get an update to Android 2.2. The updates will start rolling out on August 3.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has vowed that iPad competitors are coming. The competitors will undoubtedly be Widows 7 though lots of Android tablets are on the horizon too. The Motorola Droid is getting an Android update to version 2.2. The update should go out OTA next week. Thanks for reading this week's edition!