Posted 03/20/10 at 10:00:14 PM by Justin Kerr

HP has been working on flexible displays for some time now, but it appears as though they may be a bit further along than we originally thought. The technology is still pretty far from ever being commercialized, but a recent presentation captured by the guys over at Hardware.info shows off one of the early working prototypes being touted around by top execs. They didn't actually show it in action, but the simple fact that you can roll it up gives it some serious geek cred.

HP claims that despite it's inherent flexibility, the future of the technology lies in making screens smaller and lighter than they are today. Anyone who has ever shoved a phone in their pocket would probably agree that a screen the consistency of paper is probably a bad idea, and we can't wait until more details are announced. Until then you'll just have to amuse yourself with the picture above, and the short video hosted on You Tube which you can check out after the jump.

Sure you can't dunk it in water, but it's the closest we've seen to the real deal in a flexible display.

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Posted 03/20/10 at 09:12:57 PM by Justin Kerr

Opera has always had a tough time taking on the big guys in the desktop browser market, but anyone who has given Opera Mini a try on their smart phone platform of choice would probably be pleasantly surprised. Rather than simply spitting out web pages just like everyone else, the "Mini" version of the browser will actually relay messages through the company's compression servers, vastly reducing both load time and data usage on the device. This feature makes it one of the fastest mobile browsers available for any of the open smart phone platforms, which up until now, included just about everything short of the iPhone.

Well according to Opera's Jon von Tetzschner the company is not just working on an iPhone version of its browser, but that it doesn't anticipate Apple having any problem with it either. "Our expectation is that Apple will allow it," von Tetzschner said. "Why will they block ours?" My response to this would be simply, why wouldn't they block it? Apple has a pretty strict policy when it comes to app's that duplicate native phone functionality, but I suppose only time will tell.

Maybe Apple wants to get ahead of the anti-trust wrecking ball then inevitably hunts down anyone who tries to shoehorn web browsers into monopolistic markets, but I wouldn't count on it. Expect to see a release notice, or angry blog posting from Opera within the next few weeks.

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Posted 03/20/10 at 07:10:39 PM by Justin Kerr

Blackberry users love email, and those who don't probably wish they had an iPhone. RIM's primary advantage over the years has been dynamite push email services, but as any Gmail user will tell you, support for Google's free email service has been somewhat lacking. Push support allowed users to retrieve Gmail messages, but when they got home to check their inboxes the old fashion way, anything read on the Blackberry was still marked as un-read even with IMAP enabled. Gmail users simply had no way to label or organize messages on the go. This was a frustrating limitation, but luckily for Blackberry Gmail users, this is all set to change.

RIM has confirmed plans to upgrade its North American BIS servers from 2.8 to 3.0 on Sunday March 28th, and along with a slew of other compatibility updates, support for 2-way Gmail sync as well as labels will be added. The BIS servers are the secret sauce hosted by RIM which allows up to 10 email accounts to be pushed to a single device. This allows mobile users to drastically reduce the amount of data the phone needs to transmit in order to conduct common tasks such as forwarding and opening email attachments. 

Blackberry push email service will be disrupted between 2AM and 6AM EST as a result of the upgrade, but if you're a Gmail user on a Blackberry, it's a small price to pay. 

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Posted 03/20/10 at 01:28:40 AM by Nathan Grayson

Battlefield Bad Company 2 may have suffered from one of the rockiest starts in recent memory, but that didn’t stop gamers from flocking to DICE’s latest frag-fest in droves. In fact, the overwhelming weight of millions of players is what crushed Bad Company 2’s servers to begin with.

"In the first 48 hours we had such a tremendous rush to multiplayer gameplay that our servers experienced overwhelming demand," said executive producer Karl Magnus Troedsson. "This is a testament to the massive response players have had worldwide for the extraordinary action experienced in the Battlefield sandbox." 

Better still, if you’ve been waiting on the sidelines to dive in, the coast is now officially clear.

“DICE and EA have brought more servers online," he explained. "We now have enough capacity to handle all BFBC2 connections seamlessly and we continue to monitor online play daily."

Since its release on March 2, Bad Company 2 has moved more than 2.3 million units. And while that’s not quite the “biggest launch in entertainment history,” we think it’s still reason enough for Modern Warfare 2 to start sweating a bit.  

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Posted 03/20/10 at 12:55:46 AM by Nathan Grayson

If it’s not one thing, it’s another, they say. But in this case, it’s both one thing and another. First, we found out that we won’t be able to take Splinter Cell Conviction for a test run on the PC, and now comes word that the PC version of Ubisoft’s latest grizzled stealth-shooter needs a couple extra weeks on the grill.

Originally set to launch on April 13, the game will now drop on April 27. Amazon.com originally broke the news, and a Ubisoft rep confirmed its veracity with Big Download. Sorry folks – this one’s set in stone.

As for why Conviction was delayed, Ubisoft wouldn’t say. Generally, these little release hiccups are due to hang-ups in the certification process, so we’re gonna guess it’s just something mundane like that. Sorry, conspiracy theorists, no dice here. Besides, don’t you already have enough evidence to justify that tinfoil hat?

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Posted 03/19/10 at 09:19:14 PM by Pulkit Chandna

It now appears that most of the civilized world may have underestimated the intricacy of modern shutter glass technology. Shutter glass technology is such a technological labyrinth that only a handful of men know the correct way to use 3D glasses. Thankfully enough, though, they are willing to let others partake from their well of esoteric wisdom for around $150.

But  Best Buy's Geek Squad can unravel the mystery of syncing 3D glasses with a 3DTV for free as long as you are willing to buy a 3DTV. Yes, a new Best Buy promotional offer might lead some absolute tech greenhorns to believe that 3D glasses actually have to be synced: “Geek Squad will set up your TV and Blu-ray player, connect them to your wireless network and sync your 3D glasses for amazing experiences.”

The news first appeared on the blog HD Guru. These guys even contacted not one but three different Best Buy stores. But Best Buy employees remained brazed in their defense and went as far as concocting 3D shutter glasses with IP addresses. According to Best Buy employees that HD Guru talked with, the 3D glasses need to be synced with the Blu-ray player either wirelessly - the IP address has a significant role - or using the “USB port” on them.

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Posted 03/19/10 at 08:08:43 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Announced last year by Mozilla and the Khronos Group, WebGL (Web Graphics Library) is triggered at the development of web apps and pages with hardware-accelerated 3D graphics. But for it to become a favorite with developers, WebGL must circumnavigate the biggest impediment in its path: lack of vendor support for OpenGL as compared to Microsoft's Direct3D graphics API.

Since WebGL depends on the OpenGL graphics API, it is better suited to Linux and OS X as compared to Windows. But Google has just announced a new initiative called Almost Native Graphics Layer Engine, or ANGLE, to “layer WebGL's subset of the OpenGL ES 2.0 API over DirectX 9.0c API calls.” For those not comfortable with the technical argot, ANGLE will help execute WebGL on Windows  systems using DirectX 9.0, and “without having to rely on OpenGL drivers.”

According to Henry Bridge, a product manager at Google, ANGLE will also prove to be useful for those developing applications for mobile and embedded devices. “ANGLE should make it simpler to prototype these applications on Windows, and also gives developers new options for deploying production versions of their code to the desktop,” he wrote on the Chromium Blog.

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Posted 03/19/10 at 08:07:26 PM by Ryan Whitwam

It’s often said that HTML5 will take over the web and push out the current mishmash of standards. Microsoft and Adobe would like to respectfully disagree with that. At the recent Open Source Business Conference executives from both companies said they believe the future of the web will include their proprietary formats, Flash and Silverlight.

Microsoft did have nice things to say about HTML5 though. They plan to use the standard in conjunction with their own plug-ins. Adobe too said they’d utilize HTML5, pointing to their web tools space. Of open source in general, both execs agreed that it could be an efficient way to distribute software.

The battle for multimedia delivery is still just getting under way, but plug-in (especially Flash) have a big head start. Do you think HTML5 will come out on top, or are we looking at a mixture of standards?

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Posted 03/19/10 at 06:15:32 PM by Ryan Whitwam

More details may have leaked out regarding the upcoming HP Slate. Spanish site Clipset appears to have gotten pricing information from HP itself pointing to a €400 price. That converts to $546, but direct conversions rarely hold up. In fact, it is possible the HP Slate may come in under the price of the entry level iPad.

The HP Slate is expected to be and Atom-based device running Windows 7. As such, there will be Flash support, a memory card reader, a web cam, and USB connectivity. It is basically has all the things people wanted the iPad to have; we’ll have to see how successful that combination really is. The official launch should happen sometime in June, with retail availability by late summer in Europe. Hopefully that means an earlier launch in the US.

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Posted 03/19/10 at 06:01:48 PM by Pulkit Chandna

With applications becoming increasingly vital to a mobile platform's success, it makes perfect sense to lure developers to your platform early in its development cycle. It is something Microsoft is trying to accomplish using the Windows Phone 7 Series emulator, which was released earlier this week at its Mix10 event.

The emulator presents a fantastic opportunity to developers looking to learn more about developing apps for the upcoming platform. There is one caveat, though: The emulator only provides limited access to the mobile operating system's features. With hackers not shy to take apart expensive gadgets to get past any exasperating limits, it was always going to be a matter of time before an ingenious developer unfettered this free emulator.

A developer named Don Ardelean announced today that he has successfully “unlocked the ROM image in the emulator CTP.” The task only snatched 6 hours from his life. Ardelean was quick to publish an unlocked version of the emulator, which he later pulled down in as much haste. “I have decided to take down the link because Microsoft could get upset and I don't really want that (if someone at Microsoft will tell me that it doesn't bother them I will put it back),” he wrote on his blog. Besides unlocking all features demoed by Microsoft, Ardelean's hard work also yielded the first glimpse of the Office Apps for Windows Phone 7 Series.

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