The Asus Transformer Prime was the great, grey hope for many Android lovers – until they realized that the bootloader was locked it was impossible to upgrade or install a new bit of firmware onto the device. Asus has finally relented, allowing folks to download an unlocked bootloader and install it over the “official” Asus bootloader.

The best part?

Blam. Want your device to work as advertised? Go for it, cowboy, but don’t expect Asus to hold your hand and consider this thing junk, babies, because no warranty will cover it.

Back during the heyday of CrunchGear (now known as TechCrunch/Gadgets), we couldn’t get enough of Borderlands. The game masterfully combined the game play of a FPS with the best elements of an RPG. In a scene full of Call of Duty clones Borderlands is completely novel. Gearbox just released the launch trailer for the second installment and it promises more of the same big gun, big monster madness. The game launches on September 18th. Hey Erick, I’m going to be sick that day, m’kay?

UltraViolet might sound too good to be true, but the service is growing. More Blu-ray titles are featuring the digital media option and consumers are at least trying the movie industry’s alternative to, well, piracy. iSupply just announced that there are now more than 800,000 household accounts, up from 750,000 at the beginning of 2012. But so far it seems most of those accounts are just testing the waters, as iSupply notes that the average account has 1.25 titles. That results in over 1 million digital films for UltraViolet but also paints a picture that consumers aren’t too sure about the service.

“One million may not sound like much compared to the 504 million movie discs sold in 2011,” noted Tom Adams, principal analyst and director, U.S. media, for IHS stated in today’s announcement. “However, we have projected that only 19 million digital film files were sold during the entire year of 2011 by electronic sell-through (EST) vendors like iTunes, Xbox Live and Vudu. This suggests that if UV can continue to gain momentum this year, it could encourage consumers to buy more movies. Movie purchasing represents an important priority for movie studios, which have seen their film sales dwindle in the face of growing physical and digital rentals and streaming services like Netflix.”

UltraViolet is the movie industry’s first major push into digital media. Rather than relying on a 3rd party like Netflix, UltraViolet is run by the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), a consortium of major Hollywood studios, CE makers, retailers and DRM vendors. These companies came together in 2008 and proposed the digital locker service now called UltraViolet that lets consumers store and share digital media. Originally these movie titles were only to be bundled with physical media but Paramount started selling UltraViolet titles seperatly late last month. With UltraViolet, consumers can watch media on up to 12 devices and share between six members of the household. Content can either be downloaded or streamed from the cloud.

So far the UltraViolet selection is still very limited. Paramount has about 60 titles from their online store. UVVU.com keeps a running list of new UltraViolet releases. But in order for people to ditch Netflix (and illegal downloads) UltraViolet needs to have content. Once again, content is king.

Now that UltraViolet has a growing user base, the next milestone should involve seeing the average amount of titles in the digital lockers increase. Sign-ups are easy (and free), retention is hard.

We interviewed DECE’s president Mitch Singer at CES where he explained UltraViolet in detail. Watch the interview below.

I’ve enjoyed the PS Vita for a couple of weeks now. It’s a fun device, but as John describes in our review, it feels like the last of its kind. Single function devices are no longer relevant and as much as Sony tried, the Vita is still pretty much a dedicated gaming handheld.

The company launched an app store for the Vita today, which folds Facebook, Netflix, Twitter, and Flickr apps into the Vita’s ecosystem. With these apps, along with the powerful hardware and 3G connectivity, the $249 Vita could be a good alternative to a traditional tablet. The only thing it’s missing is a proper web browser.

The apps work as expected. The Netflix app uses the same interface as the company’s Android and iOS apps. The app does not support streaming via a 3G network, though. Flickr is downright gorgeous on the Vita. The interface takes full advantage of the Vita’s widescreen OLED screen displaying the image on the left with the details on the right. This app works on 3G. For some reason Facebook is only available to European Vitas. U.S. owners will need to wait a bit longer.

These apps finally make the Vita slightly more than just a gaming device. They’re key to the Vita’s success, really. Today’s consumers expect a multifunction device, which, as I can attest, the Vita was not until these apps hit. In fact I was getting a tad bored with the Vita, tending to instead to pick up my iPad for a few minutes of gaming followed by some Facebooking.

You see, my gaming attention span is not what it used to be. There was a time when I played Link’s Awakening by flashlight under my bed sheets for hours. Not anymore. I can only handle a few minutes at a time before I get bored and need to move onto something else. I know I cannot be alone. The $249 Vita (or $300 for the 3G version) was a hard sell for me. But now that there are apps, it could potentially fulfill the need of a similar person who wants a gaming device but can’t give up the features of a modern tablet. The Vita already had a Google Maps app, text and voice messaging, and a photo app. If only the Vita had a quality web browser it would be nearly perfect for this demographic.

The Vita’s web browser still needs work. It renders web sites like IE 6 (read: poorly). It doesn’t support even Flash 9 and scrolling is painful because of how slow it renders. But it works in a pinch.

The Vita is a powerful little thing. It rocks a custom ARM Cortex A9 quad-core CPU, 512MB of RAM, and packs the same amount of connectivity options as an iPad. The 5-inch screen is an OLED capacitive touchscreen and then there’s a massive rear capacitive touchpad for additional controls. There’s dual analog sticks, a directional pad and traditional PlayStation controls. The Vita really is the most impressive gaming device ever made. But even with good launch titles in my opinion it was still missing something: apps.

The Vita is launching in a tough market. No other gaming device including Nintendo’s 3DS had to deal with so many competitors. The Vita must combat smartphones, tablets, the 3DS and in the coming weeks, the iPad 3, which will no doubt launch with the force of a mighty backdraft. But Sony seems to know this. The Vita’s hardware and accessories are pricey, hinting that Sony isn’t selling them at a loss. Sony probably knows the Vita won’t outsell the iPad. It doesn’t have to in order to be considered a success. As long as the Vita gets quality games, apps and new features at a steady rate, Sony will continue to make gamers happy. And that’s what it’s all about.

Here are some recent stories on TechCrunch Gadgets:

Googlighting, Microsoft’s Latest Viral Attack On Google Docs [Video]

Samsung Galaxy Note Review: Who Do You Think You Are? Mr. Big Stuff?

Tokyoflash Releases The (Readable) Kisai Stencil Watch

This Kit Lets You Print Out The Internet

This Twin-Lens Reflex Camera Is Built Out Of LEGO

When Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom and several others in the organization were arrested in raids a month ago, it was noted by prosecutors that Dotcom’s rather wild lifestyle and propensity for spontaneous international travel, combined with his vast wealth, constituted a serious flight risk. He was denied bail at the time, at least until Feb. 22, when the US was to turn in its extradition paperwork.

And today in New Zealand, or rather tomorrow (it’s the 22nd in NZ), Dotcom was released under a number of conditions: he will have no Internet access, will not travel 80km from his home except in emergencies, and no helicopters would be permitted to fly to his property.

[image: Elliot Kember]

The reason for his being granted bail appears to be that investigators found he did not in fact have the resources to flee New Zealand. They say he is “highly disorganized” in money matters, and his main resources had been seized. It seems hard to believe that a person running a site the size of Megaupload, living in a $30 million house and with contacts all over the world, wouldn’t have any kind of backup plan in case of exactly this event (he is not entirely without foresight: there was a shotgun in the room where he was arrested). But the burden of proof is on the police to show that he does have those resources, and they could not do so.

Dotcom was released to a swarm of reporters, who asked him all manner of questions; he responded only that he was happy to be returning to his wife and kids, that he planned to fight his extradition, and that the way the cops treated him “felt a little bit like an audition to American Idol.”

On the legal front, the U.S. now has until March 2 to get its extradition paperwork in, but the extradition hearing for the four arrested will not be until August. Last week U.S. prosecutors added wire fraud to the heap of charges, and noted that not only were Megaupload’s user counts inflated, but less than one out of ten of those users had actually uploaded a file. Dotcom’s lawyers, on the other hand, insist this is at best a civil case and that the U.S. was overplaying its hand. The charges, they say, don’t merit extradition.

The fate of the site, meanwhile, is still hanging in the balance. It’s a simple matter of fact that whatever illegal activities in which the site may have been engaged, there were also perfectly legal files on there, access to which was abruptly cut. One hopes that a solution will be presented that allows, perhaps, one day’s access of users to their own files, but the U.S. Government doesn’t appear to be very concerned with this particular kind of collateral damage.

Moral ambiguity, thy name is advertising. How are we to parse this advertising campaign in London in which an intelligent bus stop billboard only displays its content to women? You read correctly: the billboard has a camera that scans passersby and if one stops to look, it determines their sex and shows them a 40-second video if they are female. Males only get a link to the advertiser’s website.

Now, does it change things if the advertiser is Plan UK, a non-profit organization trying to raise money toward the education of girls in third-world countries? And they don’t show men because they wanted to give them “a glimpse of what it’s like to have basic choices taken away”? Whether you find this commendable or reprehensible, you have to admit that the technology and implications are more than a little interesting.

TechCrunch isn’t really the venue for the discussion of gender politics, so we’ll abstract this one level and look at the campaign from another angle. First, the installation costs £30,000 for a two-week placement, so it’s not like these are going to start appearing on every street corner. And the system claims a 90 percent accuracy rate, a figure that is perhaps optimistic. The 10 percent of people mistaken for the opposite sex will be somewhat unhappy.

Incidentally, here’s the video that 90 percent of females and 10 percent of males will see:

But think about the possibilities if you aren’t using some sensitive information as your content arbiter. What if you load up a hundred videos of people in different outfits, and then match that to whatever the person viewing the ad is wearing? “Nice red blazer. But we like this one better. Only $25 at H&M.” Or perhaps an advertisement aimed at people with children or holding babies.

In this case, the ad’s form of tailoring the experience is to exclude people. Useful for making a statement, but not so much for driving sales or donations.

One thing is sure: this particular campaign is going to raise hell, and the companies behind it are going to be answering calls and emails for months. Plan UK’s CEO, Marie Staunton, says:

Millions of girls across the globe are being denied the right and choice to have an education. This ad is a deliberate attempt to raise public debate on this issue. Although we’re not giving men and boys the choice to see the full ad on this occasion – so we get a glimpse of what it’s like to have basic choices taken away – boys and men play a vital role in helping girls to be all they can be.

It may also raise public debate on the nature of advertising. That’s probably a good thing, considering ads have been more or less the same since they first gained traction in the 19th century. Sometimes a controversy like this is a powerful way of moving things forward.

You can learn more about the campaign here and donate if you like — or give the organization some feedback.

[via PSFK]

This complete project kit made by Adafruit allows you to print out things from the Internet. Want to print all your Tweets onto receipt paper? You got it. Want to print out your Facebook wall? Why the heck not! The kit uses an Arduino board and thermal printer and offers the opportunity for weekend hackers to pop together a cool little printer thinger and learn Arduino and Twitter programming.

The plans are completely open and you can either buy the full kit for $89 or just get the parts for yourself. The kit doesn’t include the Arduino board or Ethernet kit, so that adds another $60 or so to the price or just get a Arduino Uno Ethernet with built-in Ethernet.

The kit is available now. I’m going to build one to print out Texts From Bennett.

Product Page

Are you enough of a photo geek to build your own camera? Maybe. But are you enough of one to build it out of LEGO and some spare bits you had lying around the house? Probably not. But Carl-Frederic Salicath over in Norway is. And he did. He calls it the Legoflex B1.

The body of the camera is entirely LEGO: normal bricks for the outside, and some Technic pieces built to hold the 120mm roll film the camera uses. It even has a rewind lock so the film doesn’t unravel or turn the wrong direction. The lenses are from a pair of binoculars (optically the same) and the aperture is a single Technic piece that has a hole in the middle.

Twin-lens cameras like the famous Rolleiflex have two identical lenses one about the other, with one bouncing off a mirror so you can compose, and another exposing the film. The design is made to minimize moving parts; the focus is adjusted by moving the lens back and forth, and in this case the exposure is achieved by sliding a one-brick-wide plate with a slot in it across the path of the light. Obviously getting a correct exposure is something of a challenge. But it works, as his sample shots show.

When you think about it, cameras can be fairly simple. Pinhole photography and things like solargraphs are as simple as it gets and work by basic principles of optics. It’s when you start adding things like autofocus, adjustable aperture, and restricting the depth of the camera that things get complicated — and expensive.

Head over to this blog entry for detailed info on how the camera was built.

[via PetaPixel]

Suite anticipation, said The Daily. The News Corp iPad mag broke the news this morning that Microsoft was about to submit its productivity suite to Apple for review. They even had a photo of the app running on an iPad to back up their claim — which they triple watermarked for some reason. The outlet specluated that the app could launch in the “coming weeks.” But then Microsoft responded, telling ZDNet that “The Daily’s story is not a picture of a real Microsoft software product.”

I reached out to The Daily’s Apps & Tech Editor Peter Ha for confirmation. Having personally worked with him for a couple of years here at TechCrunch, I knew he was not one to run a story of this magnitude without plenty of fact checking. Sure enough, they did their homework and Ha stands by the story and pic.

We’ve been chasing this story down for weeks. We did not fabricate the image and Microsoft isn’t denying the existence of Office for iPad. All this fuss over a photo is nonsense. The story is real.

We also got confirmation from local sources in Seattle, who assure us that the software is real and being developed in-house. However, as the build in the picture is far from final, Microsoft can deny (in its overly specific way) that it’s not a real product.

“Wait, you want us to be your lab rats?” “Pioneers”

If you need more proof that Microsoft and Google hate each other, just watch the video above. It’s a direct message from Microsoft to businesses everywhere. And it raises some very valid points.

Change is hard for everyone. Switching from Office to Google Docs isn’t an easy switch. Many features are still missing from Google’s productivity suite. It’s not a direct replacement. Typing in the cloud is fantastic but so is a reliable auto-spell check and fool-proof offline editing. Microsoft Office might be disappearing from some shops but others rely on it as much as the office’s coffeepot.

Google will no doubt fire back with its own quirky advert. You can always count on Microsoft and Google’s marketing department for a good show.

Mountain Lion, Apple’s latest version of OS X, is currently in beta. However, it is in a stable enough form that some journalists were given sneak peeks over the past few days. I’ve been working with the OS for most of the last week and weekend and, as a public service announcement, I’d like to state that while Mountain Lion is a compelling upgrade to OS X it’s not currently ready for prime time.

To be fair, the worst version of OS X I ever used was an early build of Lion. This build essentially rendered my machine useless and made me cry uncontrollably when my Time Machine backups failed. Never, as they say, again.

However, being a glutton for punishment, I gave Mountain Lion a spin.

Mountain Lion installed without a hitch on a 2010 vintage MacBook Air although it refused to install on a 2006 Mac Pro – a disappointment that still burns a little. I know this old workhorse is six years old and more than capable. I’m sure there will be a fix down the line but right now there is no way to get it to install.

The OS has “grey screened” once and my install was marred by a system failure that required, literally, about 24 hours to fix. I didn’t have to sit there the whole time to fix it, but apparently one install froze, the machine locked up, and the secondary install process required a massive download. This took most of a day and night.

The most interesting improvement is the Notifications system. Not unlike Growl, Notifications sit unobtrusively in the corner for a moment and then disappear. There is a new icon in the upper right corner, next to the search glass, that allows you to see recent notifications. Growl still works fine as do most of my apps. I only noticed that QuicKeys, a text macro app, failed for the first few hours of use and then magically started up when I reset the machine.

Messages is arguably abysmal, with two odd UIs clashing with each other wildly. When you look at messages, you mostly see the huge message window. However, there is also a smaller buddy window that is a clone of iChat. I’ve also had trouble syncing my conversations across devices. I would love to be able to receive, for example, iMessages that appear on my phone on the desktop and reply from either device. As it stands, the service is focused around an iMessage email address. I’d love it to work with phone numbers as well.

Mail is improved slightly as well, with a new “star” system for important messages and a VIP system for important senders. For example, you can set Mom or the significant other to a VIP and then only receive a notification when a VIP emails. MacWorld has a wildly complete look at Mail, but there’s not much different that anyone would notice except that the new Mail does not support RSS feeds.

Twitter integration worked quite well as did page sharing in Safari.

As for behind the scenes I noticed that Mountain Lion was as stable as Lion and, barring the rare catastrophic shutdown, I’m working as quickly and as efficiently on ML as I was on Lion. I never experienced Gatekeeper’s security system during my time with the OS.

Would I recommend that non-devs upgrade right now, just to “kick the tires?” Assuming you have access to a beta – for whatever reason – I’d say no. I’ve seen a number of bloggers and other tech-types mentioning they we’re upgrading but generally it’s not worth the potential headache and the agony of waiting 24 hours to see if your MBA was totally hosed thanks to an install error was enough to make me want to revert to Lion. However, Apple sent this out as a pre-release for a reason. It works quite well and the new features are actually mostly apps rather then baked-in improvements. Don’t pull the trigger yet. It’s fun to experiment but it’s also fun to have a computer that works.

Short Version

When I went to meet with Samsung to pick up the Galaxy Note, I was told something that I kept in mind throughout my last week or so with the phone. “People freak out and say it’s too big until they play with it — then they love it.” I was also told that the S-Pen is way more than just a stylus, and I generally felt excited to be playing with something different from your average Android phone. So what do I think now of the giant 5.3-inch S-Pen-packing Galaxy Note?

To put it plainly, I think they were wrong.

Features:

• 5.3-inch 1280×800 HD Super AMOLED display
• AT&T 4G LTE
• Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread
• 1.5GHz dual-core processor
• 8MP rear camera (1080p video capture)
• 2MP front camera (720p video capture)
• S-Pen
• MSRP: $299.99 on-contract

Pros:

• The display is downright gorgeous
• Thin and light
• Solid battery life

Cons:

• A bit laggy all around
• Doesn’t take prints well
• Way, way too big

Long Version

Hardware/Design:

Clearly the first thing we need to chat about here is size, and to be honest I think it may exclude quite a few people. It’s just too damn big. Now, many of you will cry foul because I’m a girl but here’s what I say to that: first, I have rather large hands for a girl, and secondly my male counterparts have confirmed that the Note is, in fact, too big to be comfortable.

Truth is, you just can’t perform one-handed actions with comfort and security. I felt like I was always slipping, almost dropping it, or simply working too hard to do what I needed to do. If you’re using the S-Pen that problem goes away a little bit, as you hold firmly with one hand and doodle with the other. But many of us only have one hand free to do what we need to on our phones, and that’s where the Note fails.

In terms of materials and build quality, I find this superphone quite handsome. It looks a lot like a Galaxy S II, and has this stitch-style texture on the battery door. It’s nice and light at at 6.28 ounces, and measures just .38 inches thick. The microUSB is square at the bottom of the phone with the S-Pen slot just to its right, while the volume rocker is on the upper left edge, and the lock button on the upper right.

I honestly don’t have much to complain about here except for the size. Everything feels solid, premium, and looks good too. I just can’t enjoy it because I don’t have XXL hands.

S-Pen:

I figured many of you would scroll to this section anyways, so I thought I’d save you some trouble and put it closer to the beginning. The S-Pen is great, but it’s not enough to justify the phone on its own.

It’s fun, sure. You have a paintbrush, marker, pencil and highlighter; complete control over color and thickness, and can add text. You can drop in photos, crop, take screen grabs, and share everything. Plus, the S-Pen is pressure-sensitive, so it can even pick up light and dark strokes. It’s also got a little button that helps you perform shortcut commands like taking a screen grab (hold button, hold tap screen) or opening the S-Memo app (hold button, double tap).

I had a fine time tooling around and doodling all over pictures of my bosses, but even after a week I couldn’t really integrate the S-Pen into my daily life in any useful way. Mind you, Siri sets at least five reminders for me a day and sends at least two or three texts.

It takes two hands to use it, which takes it out of the equation a large amount of the time, and it always seems like it takes longer to get it out and start using it than it does to just take care of it with touch.

Now, I’m not the most artistic person and I will say that my more creative friends have spent more dedicated time drawing than I have, and the products have been pretty impressive. However, the Wacom-style S-Pen can’t replace a real Wacom pen and/or tablet, or so says my graphic artist/animator friend.

So that really leaves it in a sort of middle ground: you can’t do real work with it, and you can’t make it useful in any other, daily-life kind of way. So basically it’s just for fun.

Software:

The Galaxy Note runs Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread under Samsung’s custom TouchWiz UI. The UI is tweaked a bit to make the most of the extra screen real estate, offering five virtual home buttons along the bottom and a 5×5 grid of apps/icons.

I’ve noticed with Samsung devices that both Android and TouchWiz slow things up. Samsung’s $50 Focus Flash runs like a champ on Windows Phone compared to this, and it has to come down to software. The good news is that TouchWiz actually adds some usability rather than just a heavy, custom look.

Resizeable widgets actually allow for a little differentiation which is nice, but TouchWiz has a lot more subtle features that make it a bit more intuitive than other overlays. For example, when you scroll down the letters along the right side of your address book, you can swipe a bit to the left to move on to the next letter in the name. So if you have two dozen J names in your contacts, you can narrow it down to ‘Jo’ or ‘Ja’ or whatever.

Another plus is that Samsung’s HD Super AMOLED display is basically off wherever it’s black. The UI just so happens to be mostly black in all the menus and most apps can be configured to display light text over a black background, so that tends to help on the battery front.

Meanwhile, there are plenty of pre-loaded apps like Amazon Kindle, Qik Lite, Crayon phsyics and How To Draw (clearly for the S-Pen), and a host of AT&T apps. When I went into the Android Market to try out some games and such, a Gameloft title (NFL Pro 2012) was “not compatible with my device.” Bummer. Precision apps, on the other hand, like Where’s My Water and Fruit Ninja are much easier with the S-Pen. After a few tries I was getting some of my highest scores ever on Fruit Ninja. Good times.

Camera:

The Note’s 8-megapixel camera takes great pictures, no doubt. And if you have two hands to take the picture with then you’re in great shape, but otherwise good luck. I seriously had the most difficult time trying to hold the Note in one hand to take a picture of something in the other hand… it was a joke.

And it doesn’t seem like there’s a physical shutter button anywhere either, which means you have to find a way to get that thumb free and tap the little soft shutter. The good news is that the pictures are great, with really nice color reproduction and light sensitivity. The shutter is really fast and snaps the picture upon release.

The video quality is also really great, though it does take some time to switch between low light settings and outdoor light. But I found that the Note does this gracefully, a slow transition but at least it doesn’t seem really obvious during playback — a steady shift.

If you have the hands (the size of catchers’ mits) to handle it, the Note camera will treat you really well.

Comparison shot between the Galaxy Note (left) and the iPhone 4S (right):

Display:

You’ve got to hand it to Samsung. They know displays. This 5.3-inch HD Super AMOLED is just about as good as it gets, except for the fact that I wish there was more of it. I wish it was a tablet, and the whole stylus thing could be seen as a great accessory (maybe for kids) and that no one would ever, ever have to hold one of these things up to their face ever again.

Watching movies was awesome, and everything from pictures to the clock widget looks crisp, bright and beautiful. But again, all this real estate makes for more than a few issues during any regular usage scenario. I’m going to type text messages way more often than I’m going to grab a bag of popcorn and watch Inception on this thing, and if I can’t send a simple “Hey, sorry… I just got this text now…” to one of my dearest friends then what’s the point?

Performance:

There’s not really much to complain about here when talking about performance. The Note is pretty snappy, even with TouchWiz along for the ride, and things should get ever better once ICS makes its way onto the device. The biggest beef I had with the Note was during web browsing. Every time I scrolled or zoomed in on some text, the Note took an extra half a second to do what I’d asked. This is pretty common on Android, but worth noting.

Benchmark testing went well for the Note, too. The superphone scored a 2703 on Quadrant, which tests everything with a focus on graphics. Browsermark, on the other hand, gave the Note a 48,610. As far as AT&T’s network goes, I was surprised with just how great call quality was.

In the data department I was seeing an average speed of 24Mbps down and .8Mbps up.

Battery:

If there’s one thing that really exceeded my expectations about the Note, it would be battery life. That massive HD Super AMOLED display and 4G LTE radio would lead you to believe that this thing wouldn’t make it past breakfast, but that wasn’t the case.

In real-world usage scenarios, the Note hung with me all day long. That’s not to say I could take it partying into the wee hours of the morning with me, but it’ll get you past dinner time. But I don’t know how you use your phone, so let me share with you some numbers.

When we did the official battery test, we found that the Note lasts a little under six hours. We test this by really pushing the phone, running a continuous image search within the browser. At any time, I can come in and play a game or check something else out for testing, and then continue running the program. But at no point, whatsoever, is the phone resting.

To give you a little context, the Droid 4 only hung in there for three hours and forty-five minutes while the Droid RAZR Maxx (Motorola’s battery beast) stayed with me for a staggering eight hours and fifteen minutes.

Head-To-Head With The Galaxy Nexus And Streak 5:

Check out our thoughts on this match-up here.

Hands-On Video: Initial Impressions

Conclusion

Here’s the deal.

I applaud Samsung for thinking outside of the box on this one, but the issue with this type of exo-box-thinking is that I think it’s headed in the wrong direction. I understand that people are increasingly enjoying larger screens, as mobile video and gaming take over, but there has to be a line. Unfortunately, I think the Galaxy Note crosses it.

No matter how beautiful the display is or how fun (/useless) the S-Pen is, this thing is just too damn big to enjoy. I can’t tell you how frustrated I was doing even the simplest things like taking a picture, gaming, or even writing a text or search inquiry. And don’t even get me started on the kinds of looks I got holding this thing up to my face.

Perhaps if you have giant hands and can’t get enough doodle in your life, the Note might be right for you. But for anyone else, I’d recommend either waiting for the Galaxy S III (which is sure to be freaking awesome), or holding out for this rumored Galaxy Note 10.1 we’ve been hearing about. The Note makes much more sense as a cool tablet than it does a giant phone.

Check out all of our Galaxy Note review posts here.

Thank heavens: finally a Tokyoflash that you can read immediately without depending on a manual or detailed instructions. The Stencil is a fan design that uses for LCD blocks to display the current time and date in a very “bubble letter” sort of way.

Designer Heather Sable wrote:

The watch looks surprisingly big and comes in multiple colors and styles, including a hot mirrored LCD design that adds a little bling to what would be considered standard digital watch. The watch is available now for $99.

Product Page

Netflix streaming just got a bit more classy. The Weinstein Company is releasing “a diverse slate” of its titles exclusively to Netflix streaming. These titles will hit the service within a year of their theatrical release and will include foreign language films, documentaries and other hits from TWC. This is the first deal between TWC and Netflix.

Netflix subs should expect several critically acclaimed titles. 2012 Academy Award Nominee The Artist will hit Netflix prior to pay TV on traditional premium cable. Other titles like French-language World War II drama Sarah’s Key and The Intouchables, Bully, and Coriolanus will hit Netflix streaming in the future as well.

“We couldn’t be happier to be working again with Harvey and Bob, who have an unmatched track record of creating critically acclaimed and commercially successful movies,” said Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos stated in today’s announcement.

This was a big win for Netflix. It was the first deal between the media company and Netflix and adds a fair selection of high-profile releases even if there is a long wait until they’re available. But Netflix needs more similar deals. Netflix streaming is facing tough competition from Amazon and others. Content is king.

Terms of the deal wasn’t released.

While initial reports pointed at a launch on February 22, Barnes & Noble has just taken to the wires to officially announce the release of the new 8GB Nook Tablet. As expected the new Nook variant has a price tag to match its reduced memory capacity, and with both now selling for $199 the battle between the Nook Tablet and the Kindle Fire seems ready to heat up once more.

BN is clearly trying to capture some of the marketshare that the less-expensive Kindle Fire has laid claim to in recent months, but their efforts aren’t without a few casualties. In addition to the dip in memory — not much of a problem thanks to the Nook Tablet’s microSD card slot — the new Nook Tablet only sports half the RAM of the original version.

With only 512MB of RAM on board (a fact they conveniently left out of their press release), buyers ultimately end up with a device that just isn’t quite as robust as the original. Still, desperate times call for desperate measures.

Amazon recently announced tremendous year-over-year growth in Kindle sales, and BN had to react before the market they created with the original Nook Color was completely wrested from them. To bolster their position there the Nook Color’s price has been slashed to $169, so frugal customers looking for an above-average (and easily hackable) eReader/tablet hybrid a respectable choice.

Amazon still owns the bottom of the eReader space with its $79 ad-supported Kindle (even though it’s a pain in the ass to use), but BN’s revamped product portfolio now offers up some stiffer competition. With the still-solid Nook Color wedged in between the $100 and $200 price points, BN arguably has the more compelling lineup, but we’ll soon see how consumers react to the Nook shakeup.

We heard all the way back in November that Microsoft would launch an Office app for the iPad, and it would seem that the big day draws even closer. According to an unverified image captured by The Daily, a version of Microsoft Office for iPad was caught running on one of Apple’s tablets.

Now, we still don’t have an official launch date but the report claims that Redmond is about ready to submit this thing for approval from Apple. The image seems to reveal what we’ve been expecting — a metro-style UI that should fit in swimmingly with all the other metro UIs MS is sending out into the world, like Windows Phone, its other iPad apps like MSN and Bing, Xbox 360 and the forthcoming Windows 8 OS.

As you can see, there are tiles for Word, Excel and PowerPoint, along with a button to create a new document. You’ll also notice, if you look close enough, that there are search and Messenger icons, which will presumably send you to Bing and Windows Live Messenger respectively.

There’s no word on an Android version of the Suite, but the Daily reports that MS’s OneNote iOS app will get a revamp to reflect Microsoft’s decidedly metro direction.

Update: So, remember when I mentioned how this photo is unverified? Well, apparently CNET has confirmed with Microsoft that The Daily’s image is a fake. Now, things like this can be faked pretty easily, but at the same time I would imagine that Office on the iPad will look quite a bit like what we’re seeing.

Update 2: Turns out The Daily is sticking by their image, and they were nice enough to tell us that. I’m glad they did — this just seemed too legit to be a fake.

The iPad 3 is still weeks away from being announced, but Chinese tech blog M.I.C.gadget managed to snag a back shell for the iPad 3 from “one of our most reliable sources.” As you can see from the pics after the jump the case is slightly thicker than the svelte iPad 2 back panel. The next-gen tablet still has the tapered styling of its predecessor. It just looks like a slightly overweight iPad 2.

The iPad 3 is said to be thicker than the iPad 2. That should be considered as a fact now. Everything from LTE to the high-resolution screen to the predictably larger battery is cited as the cause for the thicker case. But outside of fanboy flame wars, an extra couple of millimeters doesn’t matter. M.I.C.gadget even found several iPad 2 cases still worked with the thicker casing. The addition of the aforementioned specs should more than justify the additional thickness — and that’s coming from a guy that doesn’t want the damn thing.

There is of course a chance that this isn’t the back case of the iPad 3. It’s entirely plausible M.I.C.gadgets is trolling the Internet. But I doubt it. I’ve found the site to be reliable in the past and the timing is about right. If the site had posted this, say, even a month ago, I would have a lot more doubts. But the iPad 3 is said to be launching in the coming weeks. Components are already being made. Case makers already have the specs. Expect more leaks to hit the interwebs prior to the official launch.

M.I.C.gadget also notes that the iPad 3′s back panel has room for a larger camera lens. This is in line with previous rumors that place a higher-resolution camera within the next iPad. But of course these are all rumors. Nothing is 100% confirmed yet. Apple is said to be announcing the next iPad the first week of March, but that’s still a rumor too at this point.

MHL had a huge 2011. The mobile high-definition connectivity standard went from a relativity unknown port to making its way onto more than 50 million devices. More than 90 licensees are on board with MHL and the connectivity option is nearly standard on tablets, smartphones, HDTVs, and is now making inroads on the digital media streamer market with the tiny Roku LT.

“Since the release of our specification in 2010, MHL Consortium membership has grown five-fold, with OEMs designing and releasing new products at a steady pace,” said Tim Wong, president of MHL, LLC stated in today’s announcement. “In 2012, it’s my expectation that consumers will see even more exciting and innovative products that we hope will enrich their lives.”

The MHL Consortium was founded by Nokia, Samsung, Silicon Image, Sony and Toshiba in 2010 after several years of testing and public demos. MHL brings together the high definition standards of HDMI with similar power management tools found in USB. Devices like the Roku LT are directly powered by the connection. MHL-enabled HDTVs and displays can even charge a connected cell phone, ensuring that the media stream isn’t cut off during playback.

MHL should see even larger numbers in 2012. The port is nearly standard on mobile devices and adoption seems to be increasing on HDTVs. Pretty soon it should be as ubiquitous as USB — hopefully.

Apple may have seen $13 billion in sales in China last year, but apparently those numbers could have been higher if they’d had a bit more faith. The iPhone sold in huge quantities in the markets served by China Unicom, which since October of 2009 has been the only carrier over there to offer it.

Adding a second major carrier to the mix should expand the market and the sales, as it has here in the US, and China Telecom has stepped up to bat. It’s the third-largest carrier after China Mobile and China Unicom, though the situation over there is rather different owing to fact that much of the industry is state-owned. Regardless, it represents a major opportunity for everyone involved.

According to a statement by China Telecom, subscribers will be able to get a free 16 GB iPhone 4S with a two-year contract at 389 yuan per month — around $62. Opting for a three year contract brings that monthly cost down to 289 yuan (~$46). Sounds reasonable, but don’t forget that the average income is much lower, though in the urban areas covered by high-speed data services, things are more comparable.

China Telecom has nearly 40 million subscribers getting 3G data, and the intense interest shown by China Unicom’s subscribers suggests that many of those 40 million will want to make the switch — though they too are likely unsure whether they should wait for summer and the perennially forthcoming next model.

Availability is set for March 9th, just after the rumored March 7th announcement date for the iPad 3. It could be seen as either a coincidence or corroboration of those reports.