Samsung may be keeping the Galaxy S III on the hush hush, but that hasn’t stopped the press images from leaking all over the web. While it is entirely debatable that the majority of these leaks are indeed fakes, the latest one has caught our attention, with the signs suggesting that this particular leak may be the real deal after all.

The recent image spotted courtesy of a Reddit user who uploaded it recently. The image itself shows what appears to be Samsung’s new flagship Android smartphone, with the suggestion that it will be announced during a Samsung Unpacked event in London, England on May 22nd.

Samsung has been unusually coy over its latest handset. After receiving flak for the delay between announcement and US release of the Galaxy S II, Samsung is preferring to take the Apple approach of only announcing the product when it is ready to ship in mass. This has led to an unusual vacuum of information, and one which has been filled by countless rumors.

One tidbit that lends credence to this photo more than others is the inclusion of the name of a PR firm, Weber Shandwick, on the images. Weber Shandwick is a firm that Samsung has used in the past, and it was the firm behind the CES 2010 Samsung press event. If this image is indeed a fake, someone has gone to a lot of trouble to add a little authenticity.

Still, it wouldn’t be the first time now, would it? Stay tuned for more information by following us on Facebook, Twitter, and/or subscribing to our RSS feed.

Rumor mill has it that Microsoft is in talks with record labels on creating a new music service that caters to Xbox and Windows Phone 7. The software giant is planning on creating a delivery service that would supply music service to Xbox as well as the upcoming Windows based phones, according to an exclusive report on CNet.

Considering that the company already possesses music licenses, there’s no mention as to how this service will differ from Microsoft’s Zune Music Pass, which is the music service currently available to Xbox subscribers. It’s still unclear whether Microsoft must acquire new licenses for its service and that will depend on how Microsoft wants to do with the new music service.

According the post, “Negotiations are still in a preliminary stage and the two sides have yet to drill down into all the specifics“. Microsoft has roughly outlined a service that could launch sometime this year and include streaming music as well as downloads.

A spokeswoman for the company said, “Microsoft does not comment on rumors and speculation.“

Google did much the same thing with Google Music and its Android operating system. In addition to Google, many of the top phone makers like HTC and Research In Motion are trying to break into the field.

As for Microsoft, we’ll keep you posted on the company’s music aspirations, stay tuned for more news and info on this topic by following us on Facebook, Twitter, and/or subscribing to our RSS feed.

A recent report from Digitimes claims that the Android’s new OS dubbed “Jelly Bean” is scheduled to launch at some pint in the second quarter.The publication feels confident enough to quote a number of Taiwanese suppliers claiming that we will see a range of tablet devices and notebooks which are capable of running dual operating systems.

The publication also claims that vendors will be able to add Android 5.0 to a Windows 8-based tablet or notebook, allowing users to switch between the operating systems without a reboot.

Google could be looking at Android 5.0 Jelly Bean as a way to resurrect its notebook/netbook ambitions. Google already has a netbook OS, called Chrome, but it has failed to really grab any share. It is available in a handful of inexpensive netbooks from manufacturers such as Samsung.

The latest version of the Android operating system, known as Ice Cream Sandwich, was announced in May of last year before being showcased on the Galaxy Nexus smartphone later in October. Four months down the line and it seems that only approximately 1% of Android devices are running versions of Android 4.0, bring about big concerns and showing that the adoption of the latest OS has been a lot slower than expected.

With Microsoft getting set to release its brand new Windows 8 operating system in the third quarter of 2012, the speculation suggests that Google are looking for an end of quarter two release for Jelly Bean to provide competition for Windows 8.

Considering that the hardware requirements for Windows 8 would prevent users from installing a second OS on ARM-based PCs due to a locked Secure Boot system. What’s not known is if Microsoft’s manufacturing partners would have permission to ignore that when designing machines. What’s also interesting is that no mention of smartphones is made with respect to Android 5.0. Google specifically designed Android 4.0 to combine the best features of Android 3.2 with Android 2.3 and create a master platform that works equally well on smartphones and tablets. So far, only one Android 4.0 smartphone is available, though Android 4.0 tablets are expected to arrive soon. Android 4.0 has barely had a chance to get a foothold in the market.

Google also pushed its I/O developers conference back by six weeks, to the end of June rather than the middle of May. Does Google need this extra six weeks to finish work on products that will be announced at I/O?

Stay tuned for more news and info on this topic by following us on Facebook, Twitter, and/or subscribing to our RSS feed.

A recent investigation into Google‘s public records has hinted that the company is planning large expansions that would accommodate the multitude of secret projects that are in the works. Apple, Microsoft, and others that design their own hardware already have their own similar facilities.

According to Mercury News Google was spending over $ 120 million in construction around its Mountain View headquarters for both public and private work, secret projects like Android @home wireless audio device and Google’s well-known but still secretive Project X labs.

The highlighted 120,000 square foot Experience Center would be used to court as many as 900 executives and other special guests to collaborate with and brief them on work. Most of what would happen at the center would be confidential and not meant for the public eye, although its layout would behave like that of a constantly changing “museum.”

Google is known to be testing mystery communication devices and may even be working on HUD-equipped glasses that might pair with a smartphone. Combined with the facility expansion, the factors point to Google becoming increasingly concerned with hardware and possibly venturing into its own, completely self-designed devices. Previously, it has almost always worked with another company and has mostly influenced rather than dictated the path of a given product.

Stay tuned for more information by following us on Facebook, Twitter, and/or subscribing to our RSS feed.

A recent post from Digitimes suggests that Windows Phone 7 Tango update would go live in March or April, based on Microsoft’s roadmap for Windows Phone outlined in a rumor.

The largest update, Apollo or possibly Windows Phone 8, was slated for its expected late 2012 release. However, a “large volume” of devices based on it would ship in the initial half of 2013.

The Tango updates are believed to be adding support for true native apps, more languages, lower memory requirements, and support for lower resolutions to cater to a primarily Asian demand for cheaper models. WP8/Apollo would fundamentally change the architecture to bring in similarities to Windows 8 without sacrificing app compatibility. It would get some Skype integration and support for considerably more modern hardware, such as multi-core chips, microSD storage, and HD displays.

Early supporters of Windows Phone 8 weren’t definite and appeared to be more speculation than definite fact. Dell and HP were floated as possible candidates for a comeback with Acer making a sequel. HTC, LG, and Samsung were put in some doubt after having been burned by low sales, although it’s doubtful they will drop Windows Phone given the likely discounts on Android device royalties they get for making a token amount of Windows Phones.

Stay tuned for more information by following us on Facebook, Twitter, and/or subscribing to our RSS feed.

Apple may be planning to put a quad-core A6 chip inside its next iPad or iPhone, according to recent references of Quad Core CPU’s discovered in iOS 5.1 Beta.

In this hidden panel, single-core A4s are referred to as “/cores/core.0″ while dual-core A5s are “/cores/core.1.” Now a new listing, “/cores/core.3,” is popping up which, if you start counting with zero, indicates a CPU packing four cores. This doesn’t mean that Apple even has this up and running on test hardware yet, though, merely that software support for quad-core chips is in the works.

Of course just from this discovery we can not conclude that Apple’s next-generation iPad and iPhone will include a quad-core chip, but it seems reasonable based on Apple starting with a single core chip in 2010 and moving to dual-core in 2011.

Stay tuned for more information as it surfaces by following us on Facebook, Twitter, and/or subscribing to our RSS feed.

[Source: 9to5Mac]

It seems to be one of the hottest topics being talked about right now but nobody seems to know the real answer to one of the most important questions: Where exactly is the hack that will get Siri working on an iPhone 4?

Thanks to Steve Troughton-Smith and Grant Paul, we have seen videos of it working but the pair has been reluctant to make the hack available, at least the non-paying public. In a recent blog post, @chpwn has cleared things up by explaining why the port hasn’t been made publicly available, and as we suspected, it all comes down to copyright.

As of right now, in order to get Siri to work on the iPhone 4, the files required need to be extracted from an iPhone 4S or its firmware. The issue here is pretty obvious. If you already own an iPhone 4S, then the chances are that you won’t mind making it work with your older firmware. If you don’t own one though, you’re left looking around for an IPSW file that Apple provides, which isn’t as easy as it may seem.

Apple’s IPSWs are usually encrypted and as of right now, hackers don’t have the decryption keys required to pull out all of the necessary Siri “goodness.” This is where things start to become illegal as hackers cannot share Siri’s code with people that do not own an iPhone 4S without breaking the copyright law.

..the firmware files are distributed encrypted, and we do not yet have the decryption key to access the Siri files inside of the iPhone 4S firmware file.

Just from that, you currently must already own an iPhone 4S to install Siri on it without a blatant copyright violation. But even that’s not all: if you do all of that, there’s still a few more reasons why Siri won’t just work.

This alone seems to leave us at a stalemate pretty much. Until the decryption keys are found for Apple’s IPSW files, Siri won’t be made available to the public. Even if it does happen, there are still technical reasons of why Siri won’t just work on the iPhone 4. Neither @stroughtonsmith or @chpwn are willing to delve further into the situation.

What it means for now is ultimately if you want Siri, you are going to have to purchase an iPhone 4S or stick to it until further notice.

Source: chpwn (blog)

While the Samsung Galaxy S II continues to roll out in the United States, it seems that there already seems to be details for the device’s successor emerging. The folks over at Phandroid were recently tipped off with what seems to be a slide from an internal Samsung Mobile deck, listing the Samsung Galaxy III due to be released in 2012. According to the information that is revealed, the third-generation Smasung Galaxy phone will feature a 1.8 GHz dual-core Exynos 4212 processor, 2 GB of RAM, a 4.6-inch Super AMOLED Plus HD display, and a 12-megapixel camera. Those are some pretty beefy stats for a smartphone, especially when compared to the phones that are out in the market now or are scheduled to be released in the near future, including the iPhone 4S.

Furthermore, the anonymous source who sent in the slide claims that the device is going to be thinner than Samsung’s current Galaxy S II models and will include 4G LTE support AND an NFC chip. The folks over at Phandroid are questioning the authenticity of the slide, taking note that the Galaxy S is listed as having shipped with an Exynos processor, though it actually included a 1 GHz Hummingbird CPU. Usually, errors like this are not uncommon in internal documents though, at least according to what has been surfaced in the past. For now, all we can do is wait to see how much of it is true.

Stay tuned for more news and info on the topic by following us on Facebook, Twitter, and/or subscribing to our RSS feed.

Amazon was previously known to be holding a press event in New York City this upcoming Wednesday where it was said that they would unveil Android-based tablet. The folks over at TechCrunch were able to get more information regarding the tablet. It is now known that the Android-powered tablet is going to be known as “Kindle Fire” in order to differentiate itself from the previous e-ink tablets. The Kingle Fire will begin to ship during the second week of November with a similar-sized 7-inch screen. Furthermore, the device is said to look much like BlackBerry’s PlayBook according to reports.

GDGT explained that the device was built by Quanta, the same manufacturer that built the PlayBook, and the firm played a big role in also designing of the tablet. While the recent leaks are creating a lot of buzz about the tablet, it is suggested that the tablet might not be as exciting as everyone is making it out to be. Reportedly the Kindle Fire is “pretty poor” and was just rushed out the door so that Amazon had a product on store shelves for the holiday season. TechCrunch argued that the Kindle Fire will still be better than the BlackBerry PlayBook, due to Amazon’s content and a “custom version of Android.” The Kindle Fire will be powered by a TI dual-core OMAP chip but the processor speed is still unclear. Amazon is expected to price the device between $250 and $300.

As usual, stay tuned for more info on the topic by following us on Facebook, Twitter, and/or subscribing to our RSS feed.

Amazon, the retail giant sent out invitation for a New York Press event on Friday, September 23, 2011. The invitation said the following: “Please join us for an Amazon.com press conference.” What the invitations seemed to leave out was an explanation of what to expect, leaving much to speculation. Is Amazon about to announce its long-rumored tablet on Wednesday?

In July, reports began to arise of people familiar with the company’s hardware ambitions  expecting Amazon to release a tablet computer by October. The tablet, according to sources, is expected to have a roughly nine-inch screen and will run on Google’s Android platform. A tablet from Amazon will face tough competition from Apple’s iPad, projected by research firm Gartner to account for 74% of world-wide tablet sales in 2011. Apple’s market dominance is mainly contributed to Hewlett Packard’s recent decision to cancel its tablet, the TouchPad, just weeks after it entered the market.

On another note though, Amazon may be better positioned to go against Apple. Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst at Forrester, told the WSJ that the ipad benefits from Apples App Store, any tablet by Amazon will be backed by the company’s significant experience in selling digital content. Amazon already has an android apps tore and sells MP3 downloads as well as digital videos. Analysts are also expected Amazon to update its Kindle e-reader ahead of the holiday season. Amazon has used previous New York City events to unveil new versions of its Kindle e-book readers. Wednesday’s event is scheduled for 10:00 AM EDT.

Would you possibly be interested in buying an Amazon tablet rather than an iPad? Let us know in the comments below!