Isaiah's Tech

Kim Titus kicked things off and mentioned how awesome Google and Samsung are together. He introduced JK Shin, the Samsung president, and said that the next big product is going to be announced. I wonder what it'll be... Anyways, he brought out Andy Rubin. He mentioned that Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" is set to be easy to use, beautiful, and wants to go beyond what current smartphones do. They showed off quite a sexy video of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus - making it official!

Kevin Packingham showed up on stage to tell us that Samsung has been doing great lately with the Galaxy S, the Nexus, and the Tab Series. The Galaxy Nexus will, obviously, be the first LTE smartphone running Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich".

Complete specs of the device: a 4.65-inch Super AMOLED HD Contour display with a 1,280 x 720 resolution, 1GB of RAM, a dual-core 1.2GHz CPU, 16GB / 32GB of internal storage, a front-facing 1.3MP camera, a 5MP AF camera with an LED flash and 1080p video recording, a 1,750mAh battery, WiFi a/b/g/n / Bluetooth 3.0 support, NFC, accelerometer / gyroscope / barometer, LTE / HSPA+ connectivity depending on where you are, an 8.94mm thin and slightly curved body, and Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich". Sadly, they decided to go with this TI OMAP CPU instead of their own Exynos dual-core 1.5GHz and a 5MP camera instead of an 8MP one. Oh well. Anyways, this will be available this November in the USA, Europe, and Asia. Japan will be getting it via NTT DoCoMo and there was no word on a Canadian launch but hopefully it'll also be available in November along with the US.

Getting to the software, ICS has 3 design principles which I mentioned earlier. ICS has a new typeface called Roboto which you'll find all over Android now. The buttons are on-screen which you should already know by now. The Android app and widget screen are finally scrolling the same way that the homescreen does or like the iPhone does which is great. The favourites tray is now customizable which is also great. Like Honeycomb, there's a recent app button which shows you large thumbnails of your most recent apps. Notifications are also even better than before! The virtual keyboard is also much improved and looks a whole lot better than before - the text to talk feature also got better. Face Unlock is exactly what it sounds like but didn't work when they tried to demo it on stage.

The Gmail app is revamped and has 2-line e-mail preview which you will love. The new Calendar app is also looking very sexy. In the Settings, there's a data usage which will be great for those data hogs out there or for those who don't want to pay more for extra data. Of course, the lockscreen can put you right into the Camera app and you'll be able to share it instantly to a bunch of different services (Flickr, Twitter, Google+, etc.). You'll also be able to photo-edit your photos using the Gallery app right on the spot - there's Instagram-like photo filters and other great stuff. In the Camera, there's also a Panorama mode which is just awesome. The Contacts app is also redesigned and looks great - it appears to take design cues from Windows Phone 7. Android Beam uses NFC and you'll be able to touch your phones together to share information. It's a lot like webOS's Tap to Share feature. The Android ICS SDK is available right now for developers which is also awesome! Kim Titus ended up wrapping things up quick so look out for every website to get their hands-on with these very shortly.

[This Is My Next]

Google has just officially teased the next version of Android, 2.3 "Gingerbread", for everyone to see in their latest video. The video is below and is intended to be a tutorial for Google's voice search which is also pretty significant. This video is coming from Google Hong Kong and appears that it's being demoed on a Nexus One which definitely makes a lot of sense. Not much is revealed by this video but it's better than videos with a blurry camera - that's for sure.

A new Brew-based handset has just trickled out, dubbed the Motorola EX300. This handset reportedly features a 2.8-inch QVGA touchscreen display, GPS / Bluetooth support, a 3.1MP camera, a microSD card slot, tri-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE connectivity (900/1800/1900 MHz), and 3G (900/2100 MHz) support. If you're interested in picking this one up then you can find it on a Russian website (here) where they're taking pre-orders for around €175 ($225 USD). There's also a page up on Motorola Taiwan and Hong Kong - the launch is imminent.

[Unwired View]

Well, it looks like the Nokia C7 that we heard about in early June is definitely real. A Hong Kong magazine, Hi-Tech, got a hands on with this smartphone and the specs are slightly different from the rumoured ones - if you want to believe them. The C7's confirmed specs seem to be a 3.3-inch capacitive nHD touchscreen display (360 x 640 resolution), an 8MP AF camera with a dual-LED flash and 720p HD video recording, a microUSB port, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and the Symbian^3 OS. The rumours stated that the display measured 3.5-inches but apparently it's a bit smaller. This smartphone will reportedly be announced soon because it's in the final stages of development.

[Fone Arena]

Motorola Milestone owners in Hong Kong and Macau looks like they're slowly starting to get the Android 2.1 update which is good news. By the end of this month, Europe will be getting it as well. DROID owners? Well, we still don't know, but we're hoping that it'll be the end of this month or early next month... Of course, you can also do it yourself.

[Engadget]

We don't know exactly when the PS3 Slim will launch worldwide, but I'm pretty sure it's on September 1st. Thanks to the timezones, Hong Kong will be getting the PS3 first worldwide. Hong Kong will be hosting a launch party for the almighty PS3 Slim at midnight on September 1st. The event will start on August 31st at 6:00 p.m. at the Causeway Bay shopping district.

[Joystiq - PlayStation]

Samsung has just launched a new special edition to their Ultra S S7350 handset. The new Samsung Ultra S S7350H Elegant Edition is now debuting in "Sakura pink." It's got the same specs as the original model of the handset, which is: a 2.6-inch WQVGA display, 3G, GPS, a 5MP camera, and a microSDHC card slot (support for up to 16GB). This edition will have a "romantic mobile theme" and cute flowery wallpaper. The price for this handset has not been mentioned yet, but we should know that information soon.

[Unwired View]