.::REALITYRECALL::.

Uh oh, looks like someone got the wrong date for Samsung’s MWC keynote. The above screenshot is captured by the eagle-eyed folks at Moveplayer, who spotted what appears to be an embargoed article about the Galaxy S 2 (or Galaxy S II) over at Korean news site Paran. While the offending press shot has since been removed, the text remains intact with the following specs: Android 2.3 Gingerbread, 4.3-inch display, 1GHz dual-core processor, HSPA+, Bluetooth 3.0, and 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi. Additionally, Paran says that this new handset weighs 116g (4.09 ounces) and is 8.49mm thick — which is close to, if not the, thinnest smartphone device we’ve heard of yet. (For the record, the Xperia Arc is 8.7mm at its thinnest point.)

The article also mentions that 10.1-inch Honeycomb tablet that we heard of yesterday, confirming it will pack a 1GHz dual-core processor, 8 megapixel camera with “full HD” video recording, and dual surround sound speakers. Sounds promising, but only time will tell whether all this is true or simply a matter of lost in translation.

Update: OK, so we’ve done some spying and can confirm that both devices are very real, and their specs look legit.

Update 2: Oh snap! Samsung Hub managed to get hold of a high res press shot of the Galaxy S 2 before it got pulled off the Korean sites. It sure resembles the Infuse 4G with an extra home button. We’ve posted the pic after the break for your viewing pleasure. [Thanks, Tran Quoc Hop]

Continue reading Samsung Galaxy S 2 and 10.1-inch Honeycomb tablet leaked on Korean website (Update: high res press shot!)

Samsung Galaxy S 2 and 10.1-inch Honeycomb tablet leaked on Korean website (Update: high res press shot!) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 12 Feb 2011 05:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders are praising the courage of pro-democracy protesters who succeeded in the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

CHEATING
Level: expert

According to BGR, HP’s impressive-looking (but sluggish) webOS TouchPad tablet could be on sale this June for $700. While that’ll probably be on par with the Motorola Xoom, come on tablet contenders. Give me a price point I can get excited about, already! Or one that’s at least competitive with your friends in Cupertino. [BGR] More »

So… Walternate is the villain of Fringe, right? Well, you might not think so after watching tonight’s episode. We’ve seen “Immortality,” and it’s another classic Fringe episode. Tonight's episode contains some shocking revelations — but it also will change how you view some of Fringe‘s main characters. More »

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

First Tunisia. Then Egypt. Now Nokia. The twittersphere is again afire with buzz about massive protests. They’re not political this time, but the outcome could be just the same. Can Nokia CEO Stephen Elop survive the revolution?

Nokia employees aren’t responding well to today’s sweeping deal with Microsoft. They’re mad, as they should be. A few hours ago I called the agreement, which swaps Symbian for Windows Phone as Nokia’s primary mobile platform, a “silent takeover…If I were a Nokia employee or investor, I’d stage a revolt.” Apparently employees and shareholders are doing just that.

Investors punished Nokia shares with a 14-percent decline. Meanwhile, about 1,000 employees walked off the job, using flexible work-hour plans to do so, apparently protesting Nokia’s deal with Microsoft. There is plenty of Twitter buzz, unfortunately too much of it in Finnish (Hey, my second language was Latin, and I’m rusty at that). But the reaction I can read is absolutely chilling.

Nebil: “#Nokia RIP. #Microsoft will leach you out of your existence. Nokia bends to pick up the soap.”

Turcu Ciprian: “I think #nokia did a big mistake. No offense #microsoft but Android would of been a better way to go if they wanted a slice of the cheese.”

Rajinder Yadav: “#Nokia just added fuel to their man on a burning raft. They just killed the QT developer ecosystem today for MS and .NET”

Justine Devine: “I should start writing a case study now about how #Nokia put themselves out of business.”

Tom Reestman: “I wonder if Elop thinks his ‘relationship’ w/ #Microsoft will keep him from getting screwed by them down the road?”

Dale Wilson: “Did #Microsoft send #Elop to #Nokia to stage a coup? Hmmm … What do you think?”

Nick Robinson: “Has any other company ever scrapped the OS with the largest market share in favour of one with the smallest?”

Steven Frank: “A 20 year regime comes to an end after populist revolt.”

Helge Reikeras: “#Nokia you are officially dead to me now.”

Purnateja: “Why Did Stephen Elop decide to Elope with Microsoft?”

The questions now to ask:

• Has Elop gone too far to survive the wrath of Nokia employees, investors, customers, developers and partners?
• Does he still own Microsoft stock (I haven’t had time to yet check), which could raise reasonable questions about conflict of interest?
• Was this all along a plan between Elop and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to gut Nokia’s platform in exchange for Windows Phone?

Remember, Elop only went to Nokia in September, surprisingly giving up his cozy position as president of Microsoft’s Business division. He’s not only new chief executive but a foreigner — a Canadian, giving an American company huge influence of one of Europe’s oldest industrialists. These are all marks against Elop when tallying up the benefits (none that I see) from today’s Microsoft deal.

Elop may have thought he was starting a revolution, by making so much dramatic change to Nokia. In the end, he may be the victim of a counter-revolution staged by Nokia employees, investors and loyalists. At the least there should be some official investigation into the ties that bind Nokia and Microsoft: A major Microsoft executive becoming Nokia CEO and then cutting a deal six months later that is hugely beneficial to his old company. Something stinks in Finland and also Washington state.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010

Samsung’s MWC 2011 presentation is this Sunday, at 6PM Central European Time (midday for those on the American east coast). We already know it will feature a dual-core evolution to the Galaxy S smartphone and we know for a fact there’ll be at least one new tablet on show. Pocket-lint is today filling in some details about said Tab successor by identifying it as a 10.1-inch Android 3.0 device. That means Samsung is stepping right up to Motorola, whose Xoom still looks likely to be the first Honeycomb tablet to ship, and saying it can do better. It might just be able to do it, too, as the new and unnamed Tab is said to be physically smaller than Apple’s iPad in spite of having a slightly larger display. Somewhat less believable is the mention of a dual-core Qualcomm processor as the thing to power Samsung’s new tablet — can you really see Samsung undermining the future success of its Orion / Exynos chip by using a competitor’s hardware? Then again, weirder things have happened.

Samsung preparing a 10.1-inch Galaxy Tab 2 with Honeycomb for this Sunday? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Feb 2011 10:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Detroit Mayor David Bing recently shut down a movement to build a Robocop statue in his fair city. Which, well, that’s just crazy. Fortunately, some concerned citizens have taken it on themselves to raise enough funds to commission the statue themselves. If you love America, you can contribute here. [Kickstarter] More »

Bloomberg just sourced three people that said RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook will be able to have access to the Android Marketplace, which in turn means it will run Android apps. It’s not a new idea, having surfaced as a rumor back in September 2010, but it’s still a weird one. More »

Good news have arrived for SaskTel customers – they have updated their site to show the Apple iPhone 4 is coming soon. Unfortunately no other details are given. Hopefully it arrives before June when the iPhone 5 arrives. More here at SaskTel (Thanks to everyone who sent this in!) Related posts:microSIM cards coming to SaskTel […]

Related posts:

1. microSIM cards coming to SaskTel soon… so will the iPhone 4?
2. SaskTel now saying network launch is “mid- 2010″ and only in talks with Apple about iPhone
3. Apple sells 1.7 million iPhone 4s… coming to Canada “by the end of July”

Corporate interest in Saskatchewan’s oil patch remains strong, the provincial government says, following 2011’s first sale of oil and gas rights.

Technology titans Google and Facebook are kicking the tires on social media site Twitter and considering a bid for the company, a report in the Wall Street Journal said Thursday.

The Internet Explorer 9 beta pleasantly surprised us with Microsoft’s renewed competitiveness in the web browser wars, and the pinnable, hardware-accelerated experience is getting even better today — you can download the IE9 release candidate right now, which streamlines and beautifies the tabbed browsing layout considerably, adds those previously promised, fully customizable tracking protection lists for privacy and freely toggled ActiveX filters, as well as an updated Javascript engine, geolocation support via HTML5, the ability to pin web apps to the taskbar, and a host of assorted speed and functionality improvements. Find the files you need at our source link below, and let us know if the Beauty of the Web captivates you this time around.

Update: We spoke to Microsoft IE9 privacy guru Andy Ziegler, and learned to our dismay that tracking protection lists won’t actually be included in the browser per se; rather, the company’s created a feature where you can generate your own lists or download ready-made one from providers like TRUSTe. The thing is, IE9 won’t suggest one for you, or even curate a group of them when you install — you’ll need to put on your power user hat and do the legwork there yourself.

Internet Explorer 9 RC now available to download, tracking protection in tow (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Feb 2011 13:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog and the Google Photos Blog

For many, your wedding day is one of the biggest, most momentous days of your life. The perfect dress, the right tuxedo, the proper shade of blue, the three-tier cake with chocolate fondant, and all of your closest family and friends—these are just a few of the many things you might think about for your special day. Although there’s much to consider and a lot of work to do, the payoff is great: it’s one of the happiest days of your life.

To help you plan this important day we’ve created wedding-specific templates in Google Sites, Google Docs and Picnik, and gathered tips and tricks for using these and other Google products at google.com/weddings. From wedding websites to save-the-date cards, these tools simplify wedding planning, letting you focus your time on the fun things—like tasting cakes!

We teamed up with renowned wedding planner Michelle Rago, who provided her insight and creativity to guide the designs you’ll find on this new site. Michelle also shared her experience to provide tips and advice to keep your guests comfortable and you sane.

We’re also hosting a wedding sweepstakes, so if you’re getting married in the next year you can enter for a chance to win $25,000 towards your dream wedding (see Official Rules). Plus, Michelle Rago and her team will advise the winning couple on location, flowers, food and other design elements to create a day that is uniquely their own.

Visit google.com/weddings to start planning, or share the site with your favorite betrothed couple and help them on their way to wedded bliss.

Posted by: Lisa Conquergood, Senior Product Marketing Manager

Google just launched two-step verification for all Google accounts, a system which makes your Google/Gmail account—the account possibly containing the lion's share of your private communication online—considerably more secure. In fact, we'd encourage everyone who uses Gmail (the @gmail version or your Google Apps version) as their primary email provider to start using this feature as soon as possible. Here's why, and then how. More »

Augmented reality (AR) company Metaio will show a demo at next week’s Mobile World Congress in which AR on your mobile phone shows you how to change a printer toner cartridge.

Augmented reality overlays digital information over your view of the physical world in a mobile device’s camera view

The printer demo is significant for a couple of reasons: the application of mobile AR to a service and maintenance scenario, and the sophisticated technology used.

Metaio has a division which works with industrial clients like the car company Volkswagen. For example, a 3D model of a new vehicle can be superimposed over a digital photo of the actual factory environment to help with plan the assembly room layout. This kind of application requires very precise 3D modeling and overlay of the AR image over the real-world image.

For the printer demo, Metaio’s software creates a virtual 3D point cloud (see the video) from the image of the printer in the mobile phone’s camera view. This point cloud defines the structure of the printer. The cloud is then compared to a markerless tracking reference (a sort of “signature” created from 3D CAD models of the printer) so the software can recognize the correct printer model. The software then renders AR objects over the camera view of the printer in real time and with the correct scale in order to instruct the user on how to change the cartridge.

Most mobile AR applications so far have been simple, sometimes gimmicky and according to some commentators not even real AR. Now that the initial novelty has worn off, Metaio is convinced that AR users are looking for more useful applications and, in areas like games and media, higher production values. Replacing the service manual certainly falls into the category of useful.

Improving AR graphics for applications like games is made difficult by the already high processing and battery power required by AR. Metaio worked with ST-Ericsson’s latest dual-core smartphone platform, the U8500, to optimize its AR software to run on that chip set (the printer demo can be seen in the in the ST-Ericsson partner zone at Mobile World Congress).

This increased the frames per second of the AR image rendering from about 18 frames/second on an off-the-shelf smartphone to 30 frames/second on ST Ericsson’s platform, resulting in a much smoother and more accurate AR experience.The company thinks that such partnerships between hardware and AR software vendors are essential to push mobile AR technology forward.

Although the functionality shown in the printer demo is not yet available in Metaio’s mobile AR browser Junaio, the company has been busy adding other interesting features like image recognition and visual search (similar to Google Goggles) including face recognition.

Metaio is based in Munich, Germany, was founded in 2003 and has around 65 employees. It is privately funded.

Tags: AR, augmented reality, mobile, printer

Companies: Metaio, St Ericsson, Volkswagon