SlashGear Week In Review - Week 49 2010
Welcome to this week's edition of the SlashGear Week in Review! As always, there was a lot going on this week so let's jump right in. Verizon announced the first cities that will be getting LTE service. Many folks have been waiting for the blazing fast 4G LTE service and if you are lucky enough to live in one of the initial areas, you can get your 4G fix now.
We spotted the world's largest floating Christmas tree early in the week that is on display in Rio de Janeiro. The giant tree has 105km of lights on it and stands 85 meters tall. Early in the week Radio shack announced with discounts and trade-in you could get a new iPhone 4 for $25. If this is the first time you are hearing about the deal, you are too late to take advantage.
Analysts announced that they believe Verizon might pay Apple to block other carriers from getting the iPhone. That will really suck if it's true, a bunch of iPhone fans have been waiting for the thing to hit all carriers in the US as it has in the UK. Google officially announced the Nexus S smartphone this week. The thing has some nice specs like a 4-inch screen 1GHz processor, 16GB of storage and a lot more.
Thanko offered up a crazy office chair that might get you fired called the AnyChair. The chair looks normal enough, but folds flat to make a bed for taking some naps on company time. A crazy custom iPhone 4 surfaced this week hat has diamonds and a T-Rex tooth on it. The price of the special iPhone 4 was $62,700.
Macy's is moving 85 of its locations around the country to green LED lighting. The move is expected to save the company millions over the coming years. Insiders are hinting that the iPad 2 will ship in April of 2011. According to the rumor, Foxconn is making the new iPad and 400,000 to 600,000 units are said to be in the initial shipment.
Scientists have announced that the famous sonic screwdriver used by Dr. Who may in fact be possible to make. Engineers think that it is possible to move small objects using ultrasonic waves. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 launched this week with a MSRP of $349. The video card has 480 CUDA cores, 732MHz graphics clock, and a 1464MHz memory clock.
Google announced the chrome OS officially this week and along with it revealed the chrome notebook program as well. The first of the notebooks is the CR-48 and Google has partnered with Verizon, Samsung, Acer, and Intel to bring notebooks to market. We spent some hands-on time with the Google Nexus S smartphone this week. We think from our time with the device that it has a lot of cool to it, but right now the smartphone is a bit hard to judge.
I always wondered what they do with all those old movie posters at the theater. One geek is taking them and making some really cool iPad sleeves out of them. The Notion Ink Adam Android tablet hit pre-order on December 9. If you have been waiting for the cool Android tablet to land you might want to order yours up right now.
Monster has created a special edition Daft Punk Tron Legacy headphone set. The headphones are white with glowing blue LEDs and look really cool even if they are expensive at about $350. Insiders are pegging the launch of the PlayStation Phone to start in March of 2011. The device is still pegged to be seen officially for the first time at MWC.
Google's Andy Rubin bragged via Twitter that there are over 300,000 Android phones activated each day. That is a lot of Android phones in consumer hands. Apple has finally fixed the MacBook Air screen glitch. The fix is part of the MacBook Air EFI Firmware update v2.0 that can be downloaded right now.
Apple is reportedly testing Sandy Bridge parts from Intel tipping a big CPU and GPU refresh for Mac fans. If you have your eye on a new Mac, you might want to wait a few months lest you be stuck with hardware that will soon be replaced by better stuff. Intel is expecting 35 Android tablets to land in 2011. At the same time Dell's Android tablet plans were offered up making 2011 a good year for Android tablet fans.
A dude named Andrew Chase has built a really cool mechanical steampunk horse that gallops. The thing looks like the Trojan horse to me. When the Notion Ink Adam tablet hit pre-order this week the price was lower than expected. The entry-level tablet with WiFi landed at $375.33 rather than the expected $399 with the 3G version going for $425.33.
A software engineer from Apple built an awesome creation from Lego this week. The guy reproduced a working model of the Greek Antikythera Mechanism with 1500 different Lego pieces. What may be the world's coolest coffee table surfaced called the Rock Paper Robot Float. The tablet can be purchased for a cool $2000 and uses magnets to make the individual blocks float.
A cool 3D printer called the Thing-O-Matic surfaced that can create 3D objects by carving the from a block of MakerBot ABS plastic. You can get your own for $1225. That's all for this week's edition, have a great week and Happy Holidays!