Hey, it's our old pal, the Acer W4. We've heard tell of the device and seen our share of mockups, and this week at IFA, we actually got to play with the thing. The 3.6-inch handset is fairly compact, and pretty slick looking, with its black front and curved white backing. It's not particularly exciting on the spec side, with its 1GHz Qualcomm processor. Nope, what's most exciting here is the inclusion of Mango, which should look rather familiar to Windows Phone 7 owners, while adding some welcomed updates to the mix.


According to Acer, the handset should be arrive some point next month, though the company isn't offering up much in terms of pricing. Check out a hands-on video after the break.

Source: Engadget

Last week Sony Ericsson announced a new version of the Xperia Arc smartphone, the Xperia Arc S, and now it looks like it will be available here in the UK from the 26th of September.

Mobile retailer Clove has announced that they will start selling the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S for £349.99 on the 26th of September, and it will be available in two colors, Pure White and Midnight Blue.

The Xperia Arc S comes with a 4.2 inch display with a resolution of 854 x 480 pixels, processing is provided by a single core 1.4GHz Snapdragon processor (the original Arc had a 1GHz processor), and it also comes with an 8GB microSD card installed.

You can find out more information over at ... Read more »

We know both Sony and Microsoft are working on their next generation consoles, although we have no idea when either company intends to launch their new games consoles.

Now, according to a recent report, Sony may end up launching the new PlayStation 4 within the next 18 months, although Sony have yet to confirm this as yet.

Sony originally had a 10 year plan for the PlayStation 3 which was officially released in Japan back in 2006, so if they stuck to their 10 year plan, we possibly wouldn’t see the PS4 launch until 2016.

Source TFTS

The above image is a PlayStation 4 concept design

In an interview this week Rick Dean senior VP of THX explained that his company was looking at the possibility to start pursuing an THX certification process for smartphones and tablets devices in the future.

Together with applications that would be able to enhance the quality of the sounds from smartphones and tablet devices but, but Dean wouldn’t unveil any specific plans the company had within this area.

Dean explains:

"Five years ago, I said that we should really get into the mobile audio world, but they said, ‘You can’t get a theatrical experience out of that, you’re listening to it with earbuds.’” – "But look at the way that music is consumed today,”.

No timescales has been mentioned for the rollout of the new THX certificate system but it will be interesting to see which are the first devices to ... Read more »

At the IFA in Berlin this week KT Korea’s leading mobile provider has unveiled their new Spider Concept smartphone which is a new and innovative idea built using the Android OS. The KT Spider is the worlds first Android Smartphone that can be converted and combined with other devices says KT.

For instance the Spider can be combined with a number of different devices to provide extra input options or be inserted into the back of a tablet shell to provide the processing power and memory for the tablet or be docked within a controller to create a handheld gaming machine.  To see exactly what the KT Spider can do, watch the video after the jump that takes you through its various different options.

The KT Spider smartphone is equipped with a 4.5 inch wide WXGA 1280 x 800 high-resolution display ... Read more »

Today Xbox, Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games have announced the arrival of a limited edition Modern Warfare 3 Xbox 360 complete with two matching controllers. As well as the obvious graphics on the new MW3 Xbox 360 console, it will also include unmistakable "Call of Duty” sounds when the console is switched on and when the tray is opened.

The limited edition bundle will include a 320GB hard drive, a copy of  Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and one months Xbox LIVE Gold subscription allowing you to jump straight into the online action.

The MW3 Xbox 360 console will be available to purchase from the 8th November in stores but is currently available to pre-order from today for $399.

As well as the console there will also be available a matching MW3 wireless headset and wireless controller that ... Read more »

If you are thinking of pre-ordering Battlefield 3 it might be worth your while using either Game, Gamestation or Origin as all these are offering the Battlefield 3 Physical Warfare Pack as a pre-order bonus on launch.

If you are still undecided, to whet your appetite a little more before the games launch EA has released a new trailer featuring the equipment that will be included in the pre-order bonus. Watch the video after the jump.

The Physical Warfare Pack will contain the DAO-12 semi-automatic shotgun, Type 88 Light Machine Gun, flechette ammo for the DAO-12, and a flash suppressor for the SKS sniper rifle.

But don’t worry if you haven’t pre-ordered through one of the suppliers mentioned above as the Battlefield 3 Physical Warfare Pack will eventually be available as a free to all DLC. If ... Read more »

Traveling in a mega yacht is certainly a delightful experience. However, the real complexity lies in identifying the ship’s layout. To help passengers stay devoid of the confusion, the Electronic Ticket concept has been introduced. It employs interactive technology that helps explain the yacht’s layout as well as distribution of functional zones.

The Electronic Ticket is set with the necessary information when sold and checked while the passenger boards the yacht. The information is then cleared off after recovering the ticket and is recycled. This facility helps the ship’s management to have an eye on all passengers and make certain the secure disembarkation of all.

Its advanced light sensor module helps alter the screen’s brightness according to the environment, enabling the commuter to read the ticket, even ... Read more »

 It wasn't flawless though: overall computing performance was middling compared to rivals; the speakers were shoddy when it came to producing music rather than explosions; and the 17.3-inch Full HD display was slightly wasted on some games that only ran smoothly with high quality settings at 1280x720. Still, all t ... Read more »

Google engineer Ari Gilder decided to propose to his girlfriend Faigy, although he didn’t take the traditional route with a candlelit dinner, instead he devised a unique way to propose using Google Maps and an Android smartphone.

Ari arrange for Faigy’s boss to give her a Nexus One smartphone preloaded with Google Maps, he then sent his girlfriend on a scavenger hunt around New York City, and she had to visit various places around New York, at each one she was asked a new question.

I recently decided to propose to my girlfriend, Faigy. I knew I wanted to do something meaningful and —yes—a little over the top, so I decided to put my software engineering skills to work to create the ultimate romantic scavenger hunt. On the road to "The Big Question,” I wanted Faigy to visit places around New York City that were filled with memories of our relationship. My plan w ... Read more »

Apple starts training its staff on new software and products a few weeks before they are released, and now it would appear that Apple has started training its store staff for its latest version of its mobile software iOS 5, and also Apple’s new iCloud.

This could mean that Apple will be launching iOS 5, iCloud and the iPhone 5 within the next few weeks, which would tie in with the rumors that Apple will launch the iPhone 5 in late September of early October.

There have been a number of rumors that Apple will launch the iPhone 5, iOS 5 and iCloud some time in October, personally I think we will see it launch some time this month and it will be available at the start of October.

The iPhone 5 is rumored to feature a thinner design, larger display and a thinner bezel than the existing iPhone 4, last week we saw so ... Read more »

This week Google has a announced that its will be closing 10 of its experimental services including Aardvark the start-up created by ex-Googlers and acquired by Google back in February 2010. Other services to be closed include Google Desktop which will closing on September 14th and Google Maps API for Flash.

Other closures include Google Fast Flip which was started to help pioneer news content browsing and reading experiences for the web and mobile devices, together with Google Pack, Google Web Security and Google Notebook. You can view a full list of all ten experimental services that Google is closing the doors on over on the Google Blog post.

Google explains that developers working on the projects will be moved over to work on ... Read more »