PSP2 Will Be Bigger, Out Fall 2011, Currently Overheating

Around the time of the Tokyo Game Show, Sony held a private meeting at its offices in Tokyo's Aoyama. The purpose was to show off the PSP2.

Several sources have confirmed to Kotaku that the PSP2 does have a previously rumoredtouch panel on the back of the hardware. The touch panel was described as looking like a big mouse trackpad. When Sony showed the PSP2, it did not provide concrete details regarding how the trackpad will be implemented in games and instead is leaving that to the discretion of game developers.

The screen itself is not only sharper than the current PSP's, but about an inch larger. The larger screen means that the PSP2 will be larger as well. In the private meetings, Sony is touting the screen as "HD".

A larger PSP should not be that big of an issue for Sony — especially in a mobile environment with large tablets like the iPad. It also shows that Sony realizes it is no longer simply competing with Nintendo, but also Apple.

It is unclear whether this is the same handheld described by the Wall Street Journal. According to the the paper, Sony is working on a device that mixes a game player, an e-book reader and a netbook computer. In late September, there were also reports that the PSP2 hardware was in the hands of "numerous" developers.

Currently, the PSP2's hardware is not finalized, and Sony is having problems balancing battery, power and heat. There are apparently overheating issues, but Sony is, of course, aiming to have those issues corrected by the time the hardware is publicly shown.

Sony set the PSP2's goals, but is still tinkering with the portable's innards. The PSP2's tech specs are expected to change. Sources tell Kotaku that the PSP2's release window is fall 2011. Sony is not yet talking openly about the PSP2.

Sony did not offer a comment in time for publication.

Brand Logos, Simplified

The images in the picture may just look like circles and dots but they're really simplified logos of famous brands. It's amazing how the strongest brands can be seen even through basic shapes. How many brands do you recognize?

Google, Target, and NBC are pretty easy. Dunkin Donuts and Subway too. If you want to test yourself, you can find all of the simplified logos at Unevolved Brands.

How To Unlock All The Stages In Angry Birds Android & iPhone Game

In the Android version of Angry Birds, you can unlock the different worlds of the game without having to beat each level. And since some of those pigs are impossible to smash, you'll probably end up doing this.

Here's how to do it:

1. Go to a World Select Screen
2. Center a locked world on your screen
3. Hit the back button on your Android phone until you exit Angry Birds
4. Load Angry Birds back up
5. When you see the 'Play' button, tap the button repeatedly
6. You're now inside a locked world

You still need to beat each level to advance in the world but with this method you can start new worlds without finishing the old ones. Howeva be warned! You might not feel the same accomplishment the rest of us honest, hard working folks feel.

The Asteroids Closest to Killing Us, Visualized

You can call them "near Earth objects" if you want to. I'll stick with "asteroids hellbent on obliterating our planet and all we hold dear." Here's the lineup of the space rocks closest to killing us, and where they are.

As a bonus, designer Zachary Vabolis has taken the liberty of listing the recorded objects that have or will come closest to impact. And these are just the 1,000m diameter or wider crowd. So, hey, it's been real everybody! I just hope when we get got, it's a meteor with a cool name that does it.

People Spend 927 Million Hours Per Month Playing Facebook Games

This is truly crazy data: 290 million people play Farmville and other Facebook games—five of the top 10 are by Zynga—every month. Combined, that's 4,406 years worth of play time—or 105,878 man-years milking virtual cows.

Cabinet-Mounted iPad Docks Are Cheaper Than Plasmas, I Suppose

What luxury to have cabinet-mounted iPads! What luxury to have an iPad at all, really. At $70 (plus the cost of an iPad) lazy recipe-readers could have one under every cupboard in the kitchen. Sign me up for 10.

Griffin's cabinet mount dock is probably not intended for holding an iPad permanently, but I like to imagine people will have one in the kitchen, the garage and even the bathroom. Stuff prising it out of the brackets every time you want to use it, right? Amirite?

The mount's arm rotates by 360-degrees, and the whole 'pad can move 90-degrees so it aligns flush under a cupboard, and then can be pulled out when in use. In the US it's $70, and in the UK it's £50, available now.

Over 7,000 People Tagged in One Facebook Photo Wins a Guinness World Record

36 ultra hi-res photos taken with two Hasselblad cameras at this year's Glastonbury Festivalin England were stitched together to create a 1.3-gigapixel image. Of the 70,000 people captured, over 7,000 dirty revellers have tagged themselves on Facebook.

This has awarded the pictured, created by mobile network Orange, a Guinness World Record for most people ever tagged in an online photo. No idea what the previous record-holder for this would've been, but I imagine this is a new entry to the book.

The two Hasselblad H4D-50 cameras used cost around $30,000 each, and have 50MP sensors which resulted in the 36 photos taken in under a minute flat, and later stitched together for a photo hi-res enough for people to zoom in on every single individual, to search for themselves and friends. I wonder how many girlfriends discovered their boyfriends copping off with someone in a cider-fuelled frenzy behind their back from this photo?

This Is the Oldest Space Object Ever Found

This is the oldest object we've found yet in space. It's a galaxy whose light traveled more than 13 billion light-years before it was visible to Hubble. And it's only 600 million years younger than the universe itself.

What you're looking at above is an artist's rendering of UDFy-38135539, the most ancient space object we've been able to locate to date.

It's about 160 million years older than the previous oldest galaxy, which was found back in 2006. The most exciting part? Astronomers speculate that the oldest galaxies formed as early as 200 million years after the Big Bang, meaning we've got a whole lot of discovering still ahead of us.

Flip Phones Made Cool: Japan's Transparent X-Ray Phone

See-through things are cool. Anyone who ever pined for a transparent Game Boy (or was lucky enough to own one) knows that. Even if flippers are unfashionable, I still want to hotfoot it over to Japan to scoop this up.

Japanese designer Tokujin Yoshioka's x-ray phone is actually going on sale in Japan under the KDDI brand's iida range, where it's made from polycarbonate with glass fiber to give it that retro-futuristic transparent look. The 7 x 102 dot-matrix LED strip just heightens the dorky coolness of the phone, with caller ID flashing up along with new messages and the time.

It may look like something from the '80s, but there's an 8MP camera strapped on, 1-Seg TV tuner and is also NFC-payment compatible. I've no idea how much it's going to sell for in Japan, but I do know that I want an Android version pronto.

These Awesome Tron Watches Will Only Exist If You Want Them Enough

When there are so many actual Tron accessories that demand contempt, is it so much to ask for these kickass concept watches to become real? Fortunately, this time it's within our power to make these happen. Solidarity, people. Here's how.

Thse LED watches, designed by Scott Galloway, are currently up for vote over at Tokyo Flash, known proprietors of ridiculous timepieces. But this one's not even that ridiculous! In addition to looking badder than badass, they're also remarkably easy to read: the outer ring tells the minutes, the inner ring the hours. Simple.

So please, do your patriotic duty to make these happen in time for the holidays. I've got a few stockings to stuff, and I'd much rather do it with Tron watches than desk calendars.

New MacBook Airs: Faster, Lighter, Instant On, 30 Day Standby Power

It's been two years since the last MacBook Air refresh, but Apple's made up for lost time: the redesigned MacBook Air comes in 13.3 and 11.6-inch flavors with complete unibody construction. And a storage secret.

The smaller Air won't have an SSD or an HDD. Instead, it's got an SSD card that a bit like a stick of RAM. Why's that important for you? Instant on. Because the Air relies on flash memory, the boot times are near zero. Other guts? Intel Core2Duo processors inside along with Nvidia GeForce 320M graphics. Apple's also done the right thing by adding an SD card reader and a second USB port.

The MacBook Airs will come with a FaceTime camera—notably not an iSight camera—along with a full-size keyboard and multitouch trackpad. The 11-incher has a 1366x768 display, while the 13-inch rocks 1440x900. They weigh just 2.3 and 2.9 pounds, respectively, and both thankfully include stereo speakers.

The battery life is a huge story here as well: the 13.3-incher will last 7 hours with active use, and a full month on standby. The 11.6-inch gets 5 hours and that same 30 day standby time. The batteries are said to be good for 1,000 charges, and can be replaced for $129.

Both are available today starting at $1000. That'll get you the smaller Air with a 1.4GHz Core2Duo and 64GB of storage, while for $1200 you can upgrade to 128GB with the same processor. The 13.3-inch MBA starts off at a 1.86GHz processor and 128GB of storage for $1300, and opting for 256GB bumps the price to $1600. The base models start at 2GB of RAM but are upgradeable to 4GB and it looks as though they provide you with a USB stick with the OS.

Mac OS X Lion: The Best Features

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion is here. It's a beautiful evolution of the previous version, with a more elegant interface. Here's everything you need to learn about it, a visual guide to its best features.

Mac OS X is going in the same direction as the iPad. Mac OS X Lion is another step in the road to a new—or better said, renewed—computer interface paradigm: Modal computing. And along the way, they are taking some of the most successful parts of iOS, like the App Store—with automatic installation of applications—and the springboard—rechristened launchpad in Lion. They are also introducing new user interface elements, like Mission Control.

All apps would be able to have Full Screen mode integrated. That doesn't mean windows are disappearing (yet), but this is clearly enabling the way to full modal computing—which is clearly indicated by the user interface in iLife'11.

HTC Goes Off-Piste With Forest Green Gratia Android Phone

Have you ever seen an Android like this before? Unfortunately it's only destined for Europe, and while the specs aren't quite as high as HTC's recent Androids, it's running Froyo and comes in three delicious colors.

Really, it's no contest though—that forest green is just too nice for words. I'd love to see them roll that colorway out across some of their other models, like the Desire range, if possible.

The Gratia has a 3.2-inch 320 x 480 display, and will include a 600Mhz processor, 512MB ROM and 384MB RAM, and has a 5MP camera on the back, with a VGA cam lurking on the front there. It's got all the usual features too, such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, a g-sensor, digital compass, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, and microSD card slot. It weighs 115 grams, and measures 103.8 x 57.7 x 11.7 mm. It'll be on sale in November, across Europe.

This Is the Largest SATA Drive In the World

It just looks like any other, but this WD Caviar Green is three terabytes, using 750GB-per-platter. At just $240, it comes just in time to upgrade my backup storage unit.


WD® Now Shipping the World's Largest Capacity SATA Hard Drives

WD Caviar® Green™ 3 TB Hard Drives Support the Continuing Demand for Increased Capacity in External Storage and Advanced PC Applications

LAKE FOREST, Calif., Oct. 19 /PRNewswire/ — WD® (NYSE: WDC) today announced that the company is shipping the world's largest capacity SATA hard drive. As the latest addition to its WD Caviar® Green™ family of SATA hard drives (photo), the new hard drives deliver up to a massive 3 terabytes (TB) of storage capacity on a single drive. WD is leading the industry in capacity for SATA hard drives by utilizing 750 GB-per-platter areal density and Advanced Format (AF) technology.

WD Caviar Green drives are an eco-friendly storage solution with WD GreenPower Technology™, which reduces power consumption by enabling lower operating temperatures for increased reliability and decreases acoustical noise for quiet operation. The WD Caviar Green 2.5 TB and 3 TB hard drives are designed for use as secondary external storage and next-generation PC storage in 64-bit-based systems.

Drives with capacities in excess of 2.19 TB currently present barriers for PC hardware, firmware and software. To satisfy the new set of requirements of which users must be aware to successfully integrate larger capacity drives, WD is bundling its WD Caviar Green 2.5 and 3 TB hard drives with an Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI)-compliant Host Bus Adapter (HBA), which will enable the operating system to use a known driver with correct support for large capacity drives. For more information on solving the 2.19 TB drive barrier, please see the WD information sheet at http://products.wdc.com/largecapacitydrives.

"WD remains a leader of hard drive capacity and low power innovation. With our WD Caviar Green drives, we enable energy-conscious customers to build systems with the highest capacities that deliver the optimal balance of system performance, ensured reliability and energy conservation," said Jim Morris, executive vice president and general manager of WD's client systems storage group. "Customers will be able to take advantage of this breakthrough capacity point now for secondary external storage in legacy 32-bit systems that run on Microsoft® Vista® or Windows® 7 platforms."

Price and Availability

WD Caviar Green 2.5 TB hard drives (model number WD25EZRSDTL) and 3 TB hard drives (model number WD30EZRSDTL) are available now in the U.S. at select resellers and distributors. MSRP for the WD Caviar Green 2.5 TB hard drive is $189.00 USD and the 3 TB hard drive is $239.00 USD. WD Caviar Green hard drives are covered by a three-year limited warranty. More information about WD Caviar Green hard drives may be found on the company's website here!

The Most Popular Phone in the World

Nokia has problems. Smartphone problems. Software problems. American problems. But to fully understand what's wrong, we've got to understand what's been right, or to put in another way, what's distracted Nokia. Meet the most popular phone in the world.

It has been said that more of the world's population has access to a cellphone than to a sanitary toilet. But of the planet's estimated 5 billion cellphone users, a privileged minority have smartphones; a paltry few, iPhones.

If you spend hours thumbing through pages of apps, scoffing at less-than-perfect software upgrades and grousing about screen resolution and pixel density, it's easy to forget that the very concept of a mobile phone is a miracle. It's a device that shrinks your day to day world into a single point, making you simultaneously accessible to and able to access nearly everyone you know, instantly and everywhere.

The Instant Coffee Straw

The Open It! instant-coffee-in-a-straw kind of makes me hurt inside. But it is very clever!

BlackBerry Style 9670 Clamshell

Running on OS 6.0, the flipper has two screens—one 2.7-inch QVGA on the inside, and on the outside there's a 2-inch QVGA. New messages and caller info is displayed on the outer, with the inner being the screen you'd mostly use. Sadly RIM hasn't used the Torch's touchscreen tech on the Style, but considering this phone is going to be firmly aimed at the young'uns, I imagine that was a sensible pricing decision.

There's a 5MP camera with flash, GPS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, and comes with an 8GB microSD card. On sale October 31st at Sprint, it'll cost $100 after a $100 mail-in rebate.

Happy 25th Birthday, Nintendo Entertainment System!

It's not just Super Mario Bros. turning 25 this year. Today, October 18, marks the 25th anniversary of the Nintendo Entertainment System going on sale in the United States.

While a widespread release of the console wouldn't take place until 1986 (the same year it was released in Europe), it was in late 1985 at the FAO Schwarz in Manhattan, New York (as part of an advance market test) that the first of millions of the machines would pass over the counter of an American retailer.

The first games available were, in hindsight, some of the strongest launch titles in console history, including classics like Excitebike, Ice Climber, Duck Hunt and Baseball. The first consoles, meanwhile, were built by nice ladies.

Interestingly, according to 1UP, Nintendo's advertising boss at the time Gail Tilden reckons that first console was sold not to an American consumer, but to a representative of a "Japanese competitor".

The venerable old machine lasted ten years on the US market, with Nintendo ceasing production of the NES in 1995. In that decade it gave birth to many of gaming's most cherished franchises and characters, from Super Mario Bros to The Legend of Zelda to Metroid.

Metal iPhone 4 Cover Protects Your iPhone 4 Without the Bulk of a Case

The iPhone 4's glass backing is remarkably fragile—even more so than the other iPhone models. If you'd like to keep it protected without making the phone bulky with a case, consider replacing the back with this metal back cover instead.

For a mere $12, you can save your iPhone from accidents by replacing the back cover with this nice, beveled metal one. It still wouldn't be too casual about dropping your iPhone, but if you're prone to accidents and don't like big cases, this is another great way to go.

Inexpensive Solar Power Comes to Lego Mindstorms NXT

For $90 Dexter Industries will sell you a solar panel that provides enough juice to power an NXT control brick and one servo. Surely, Lego Mindstorms Mars missions aren't far behind.

The 9V/250mA panel seems to sync up with your Mindstorms kit easily enough, and if you want expand beyond that the company also offers a bunch of NXT-compatible capacitor packs, battery packs and a connector that lets builders daisy chain up to three panels on a single build.