.::REALITYRECALL::.

The HP TouchPad received its first price drop yesterday, a stunning $70 off the original price. This basically represents a 13.5% savings before it’s even available on Friday. Today, other retailers have followed suit and slashed the price too: Future Shop, London Drugs and Staples. However, if you feel like giving HP some dough you can still buy the TouchPad at the full retail price at their online store ($519.99 for the 16GB and $619.99 for the 32GB version).

We’ll be putting our review up shortly.
Who’s buying?

Related posts:

1. HP TouchPad to be priced at $499.99?
2. Best Buy price drops HP TouchPad by $70 before launch
3. HP TouchPad officially available for pre-order

What is the best way to protect our homes and families from fire?

Here’s a handy quick reference with common things you should know about Google+, like how to prevent a post from being shared and hotkeys for more quickly navigating conversation streams. More »

Photo: Carlos Gutierrez with Reuters

Lightning flashes around the ash plume at above the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcano chain near Entrelagos. The volcano in the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle chain, dormant for decades, erupted last month in south-central Chile, belching ash more than 6 miles into the sky. Winds fanned it toward neighboring Argentina, prompting the government to evacuate several thousand residents, authorities said.

It’s amazing to see how a baby immediately starts making contact with its mother, just after being born. It’s among the most beautiful things I ever witnessed on this planet.

Canada Post says it expects to have a backlog of mail in its major centres caused by the recent lockout of employees cleared by the end of the week.

As Canadians patiently wait for Motorola to upgrade the XOOM to OS 3.1 (other countries are already getting 3.2), new users will benefit from a $100 price drop. The XOOM with Wi-Fi was released on April 6th for a high $599.99 but now a couple months later it’s been reduced to the average tablet price of $499.99. This now meets the iPad 2, PlayBook and will also be on par with the upcoming HP TouchPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Via: Future Shop

Related posts:

1. Motorola XOOM Wi-Fi now has an “estimated release date” of April 6th
2. TELUS releasing Motorola Xoom with Wi-Fi April 19th
3. Motorola XOOM Wi-Fi available in April and “XOOM 3G will also be available in Canada mid-year”

The IdeaPad K1’s long, crazy journey of near-availability looks to finally be at an end. Lenovo’s ethereal Honeycomb tablet has been popping up in online retail sites since May, teasing us with availability in June, and finally offering the promise of pre-order earlier this month. It seems that the plucky 10.1 inch Tegra 2 slate has taken the final step separating itself from the hands of consumers: getting sent out for shipment. One tipster passed along shipping confirmation from Office Depot that has the device lined up for delivery today — assuming, of course that the recipient is there to answer the door in the eight and a half hour delivery window provided.

[Thanks, Dan]

Lenovo IdeaPad K1 begins shipment odyssey, courtesy of Office Depot originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Jul 2011 09:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A Southern California woman is in jail after her estranged husband was allegedly drugged and tied to a bed, and his penis was cut off before it was put through a garbage disposal.

Science can do some wonderful, heartstring-tugging things. Take this for example: surgeons have triumphantly performed the first ever synthetic organ transplant. Cancer-stricken Andemariam Teklesenbet Beyene was the grateful recipient of this life-saving surgical breakthrough, performed by Prof. Paolo Macchiarini at Karolinska University Hospital in Sweden. The revolutionary operation comes with a zero rejection rate and requires no donor — a huge relief for those stuck on lengthy waiting lists. Using a 3D scan of Beyene’s windpipe, scientists at University College London crafted a highly-porous nanocomposite tracheal scaffold replica and covered it in stem cells harvested from his bone marrow. Within two days, the stem cells had worked their magic, weaving a brand new transplantable facsimile that is “indistinguishable from a normal healthy one.” And since the procedure uses no foreign-born tissues, patients can look forward to a full-recovery sans mandatory immunosuppressive drugs, a major plus for post-op quality of life. With the surgery a success, Prof. Macchiarini’s moving on to the next patient in need — this time, a nine-month-old Korean baby with a malformed trachea. Doctors — saving lives and warming hearts. Press release of the medically wondrous kind after the break.

Continue reading First synthetic organ transplant paves way for post-op, immunosuppresive drug-free future

First synthetic organ transplant paves way for post-op, immunosuppresive drug-free future originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Jul 2011 01:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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An episode of the reality show Family Jewels includes a visit to Saskatoon.

Last month there were more than a few rumors circulating around regarding EA potentially buying PopCap for upwards of one billion dollars. Official news hit today that not only is EA acquiring PopCap, but they're potentially paying as much as $1.3b for them. That $1.3b includes $650m in cash (hopefully delivered in gym bags full of $100 bills), $100m in stock, and a multi-year earn out where PopCap can potentially get another $550m if they meet certain earnings benchmarks over the next few years.

Why fork out this kind of cash for the creators of Peggle? Well, if the writing on the wall wasn't clear enough already, EA is serious about the digital arena. PopCap games are ridiculously good, and are known and loved by people worldwide.

Or, as EA CEO John Riccitiello put it, “PopCap’s great studio talent and powerful IP add to EA’s momentum and accelerate our drive towards a $1 billion digital business. EA’s global studio and publishing network will help PopCap rapidly expand their business to more digital devices, more countries, and more channels.”

So, congratulations are in order for PopCap. It's incredible to see an 11 year old company that makes (admittedly awesome) casual games selling for so much money.

[via TechCrunch]

Recently, we’ve been hard at work improving Android Market to give you new ways to find great applications and games, purchase books, and rent movies. Today, we’re releasing a new version of Android Market which makes all of these available on phones (Android 2.2 and higher).

In the U.S., you’ll be able to rent thousands of movies, starting at $1.99, right from Android Market on your phone. With the Videos app, available in Android Market, there’s no more waiting for downloads, syncing, or worrying about storage space. Simply sign into Android Market with your Google account, and you can rent movies from anywhere – the web, or your Android phone or tablet – and start watching instantly. You can also download movies to your device so they’re available for viewing when you don’t have an internet connection.

Also in the U.S., you can now purchase books from Android Market on your phone. Like movie rentals, books are linked to your Google account, so they’re instantly available across all of your devices – computer, phone, or tablet – without the need for wires or downloads.

You’ll be delighted to find we’ve overhauled Android Market to make it faster, easier, and more fun to discover great apps, movies, and books. We’ve created more space to feature some of the most interesting content of the week on the home page. We’ve added more top charts, with newer, more relevant items, and we’ve made it easy to swipe through these charts as you browse the store. We’ve also introduced new collections of great content, like staff picks and Editors’ Choice apps.

The new Android Market will be rolling out in the coming weeks to Android 2.2 and higher phones around the world. You don’t need to do anything – the update is automatic on supported phones. If you’re in the U.S., you’ll also be able to download the Videos app, rent movies, and buy books once you receive the new Android Market.

Your phone is about to get a lot more interesting! Enjoy the new Android Market.

Posted by Paul Montoy-Wilson, Product Manager

The RCMP in Yorkton, Sask., have charged a local man with kidnapping an 11-year-old girl, following an incident at the city’s summer fair last week.

Performers from the Bare Essentials burlesque show spent Monday’s lunch hour petitioning people about Saskatchewan’s stripping laws.

Gather around the iPad Trekkies, have we got a treat for you — CBS Interactive has just unleashed the Star Trek PADD App. At its core is a deep database of information about the shows and movies, including cast and character data, details about planets that populate the universe, and an episode guide. Best of all, the whole experience is presented in the classic LCARS interface that should be familiar to any fan of The Next Generation (or TNG as the cool kids are calling it). In addition to serving as a reference for all things Trek, the app pulls in feeds from the official Facebook and Twitter pages. You can get grab it, in all its black and pastel-colored glory, for $5 at the source link and check out the gallery below.

Star Trek PADD App is a LCARS-sporting Trekkie’s reference bible for the iPad originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 12 Jul 2011 14:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Previously mentioned note-taker Evernote just pumped up its Android app with a number of handy features, most notably rich text entry. Now you can create notes with styles like bold and italics, bullet points, numbered lists, and even checkboxes (grocery lists, anyone?). There’s also a new, larger widget that shows recent notes, speed improvements, and a great new tablet interface (shown above). Hit the link to read more, or head straight to the Android Market to download it. [Evernote Blog] More »

Recently we opened our Product Ideas page to gather your feedback about what you’d like to see next in Google Docs. Over a two-week period, nearly 4,000 of you participated, submitting close to 2,000 ideas and casting over 50,000 votes.

Our request for feedback was designed to help us better prioritize the features you want most in Google Docs. We’ll be sure to let you know as we roll out new features based on your valuable input. Here are just a few of the top ideas that we’re prioritizing:

RIM officially launched the BlackBerry App World back on April 1st 2009 and have announced some growing stats today. Some developers have decided to stop supporting BlackBerry devices, but RIM stated on their company blog that “BlackBerry App World is now in over 100 countries, seeing an average of 3 million downloads per day, and we recently crossed the 1 billion app download milestone!”

Comparing to other popular app stores the BlackBerry App World  is clearly not the biggest by any stretch. RIM has always stated they’re looking for higher quality apps that will help their 68 million+ BlackBerry users be more productive (their apps are also priced a bit higher too). Apple’s App Store just passed over the 15 billion download milestone and has over 425,000 apps. As for Google’s Android Market, they just reached 4.5 billion app downloads last month and have 200,000 available apps.

Congrats RIM!

Source: BlackBerry

Related posts:

1. Apple App Store to hit the 10 billion download mark
2. AppStore sails past the 3 billion mark with “no signs of the competition catching up anytime soon”
3. BlackBerry App World seeing “3 Million downloads a day”

The Saskatoon SPCA is wrestling with the fate of seven dogs rescued from a rural home near Yorkton after the animals ate the remains of their deceased owners.