Samsung Galaxy SII ICS Update Leak

It's happened, the new Android Ice Cream Sandwich OS has been leaked and is available for those adventurous among us. here

Pretty quick and painless a process. I've done it, and I've gotta say, so far, nothing too mind blowing. Understandably, this is because of Samsung's TouchWiz UI is still on top of it, but still I'm a little unimpressed. Aside from a few minor changes to the UI, in the way of lockscreen, and other minor changes, it still looks more or less like the Old Droid/TouchWiz interface we've all had for a while. Although the new multitask management, with thumbnails of the running apps is nice.

Granted, I've only had it on for less than a day here, there may be more to love once I start using it proper. But in the interim, if you've been waiting for AT&T to bring it out, or just want to try a slightly newer OS on your phone, check it out, its easy!

Diablo 3 Pre-Orders are a go

So pretty much one of the hottest games ever has finally gotten itself a sequel. Diablo III. I've got mine on lock, its about time ya'll do too! Best place to get yours is, of course at Amazon!

Diablo III: Standard Edition

$10 Amazon Gift Card for only $5

In case you haven't yet heard. Today only Amazon Local is selling $10 Gift Cards to Amazon.com for only $5. Go Go Go! http://local.amazon.com

Must have iPad Apps for the new owner

Just got yourself a new iPad? Have a gander at my selection of apps to get you started in the fun.

Flipboard - Makes your twitter feed, facebook and tons of other social media look like a magazine format, really really cool. (free)

GoodReader - .Pdf viewer/editor, great for work documents. ($5)

FlickStacker - If you are into Flickr at all, gives you better photo browsing. (free)

Dropbox - ONLY real quick way to share files between the pad and PC. (free)

Evernote - Again work related, but once you have the client on your pc, it makes sharing of emails, and documents really nice.

Credit card/banking apps - Any of your major credit cards have apps to check your balances, do transfers, and payments really easy.

Also the Numbers, Pages, and Keynote apps are kinda mandatory if you want to create Word and Excel type joints.

HBO Go, Showtime Anytime (if you subscribe to those) Full access to EVERY single episode of everyshow they ever had.

Lastly - Dolphin HD web browser, which has a nice incognito, no cookies or history option, for teh *ahems*

Games

Words with friends HD, and Scramble with friends are fast and fun to play.

MadPad HD - is a fun app where you record several video clips of sounds or whatever, and then you basically have like a drum machine to make beats with. ($3)

Skylanders, this generation's Pokemon?

Currently invading the shores of your children's imagination and wish lists everywhere. Skylanders, the new toy/video game from Activision, combines action figures with video-games for an exciting new experience. Skylanders is a toy brand and a video game, where the action figures that you buy, 'come to life' in the video game for you to play.



The whole system works like this, you buy the Starter Pack for your game system of choice, X360, PS3, Wii, or 3DS, which comes with the game, 3 figures, and a 'portal of power'. When you place one of the figures on the portal, it comes up on the video game for you to control. As you play through the game, the figure you use  levels up, gaining new abilities and treasure, which is saved unto the physical toy, which you can then take to play at say your friend's house and play with your exact customized creature. The game is multiplayer, and you and a friend can have your figures on the portal at the same time, and can play through all the levels together. There is a slew of different figures available for you to buy separately and collect, which makes the replay-ability of the game pretty huge.

Sklyanders was released in October of 2011 and went into 'sold-out' status for the Holiday season, and has maintained it even today. I've seen individual figures on Ebay and Amazon for upwards of $80-100, so the demand right now is at a high.

Due to high sales, Activision has already announced additional new figures due out later this year to expand the game even further, so expect your coffers to be emptied by your children's demands.

New iPad

So Apple finally unveils the next iteration of the tablet that changed the world; the new iPad, simply named as such. Many of the expected upgrades held true, while some didn't. Lets quickly run through the new features

• 'Retina' Display, means they've upped the resolution to 2048x1536 from 1024x768. What this means in reality, is that the detail of your pictures and movies will really show. 
• 5MP 'iSight' camera, will now shoot HD movies, and as expected look much better. Why they didn't just up it to the 8MP of the iPhone 4S, who knows?
• Voice dictation, nothing quite spectacular, but handy addition.
• Dual-core CPU, for the inevitable speed increase
• 4G LTE support
• Same 10 hour battery life (very impressive)

Main thing 'missing' would be Siri, but I expect Apple needs to set their exceedingly similar devices apart, to keep interest high, by segregating the feature sets. Either way, its not a big sticking point. So there it is, the main compelling point for those of us that just got the iPad 2 would be the new high res display. I personally use mine a lot of the time to show my photos, and with this upgrade, it would only look so much better.

Who's got their pre-orders in?

iPad 3/HD Announcement expected today

Big news for those antsey Apple-ites out there, you know who you are. Today around midday (EST), at Apple's event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the bloggersphere will explode as is normally the case with a new Apple product announcement.

What we think we know:

• Higher resolution display 2048-x1536 pixels (with the infernal 'Retina' display monniker)
• Slightly thicker build, we'll be losing some of the thinness of the iPad 2
• Probably 1GB of Ram
• Better Camera (iPhone 4s quality)
• LTE support
• Siri along for the ride
• Faster processor (the inevitable incremental upgrade)

All this, and probable release date of a week or two after announcement. Will I be right? Come back later an I'll have the full rundown for you guys!

FREE Motorstorm RC Driving for PlayStation Vita

For those early adopters out there, lets hear a big hurray! As you'll be able to download the new game Motorstorm RC for PlayStation Vita starting tomorrow completely for free, courtesy of Scion, direct from the Playstation Store on your Vita. This is a sweet deal for those of us who jumped on the early Vita train, so get your Vitas ready for some free loving tomorow!

Windows 8 Consumer Preview

So Microsoft released a 'beta' for their newest iteration on Windows earlier this week. I find it interesting in itself their billing of this beta as a 'consumer preview'. This is a move probably designed to bring more awareness to the laymen out there interested in such stuff. The Windows 8 Consumer Preview can be found here.

I've tried the initial developer build and saw the potential, this build is worlds better than the first. A lot more functional apps, and a slightly better tile screen.

The new interface seems interesting, but I've got to ask, who exactly is this built for? The default UI is now a screen of 'tiles' that most certainly geared for the tablet users. But this is now your primary deskop, don't get me wrong, you can still get to the classic looking desktop, but the Start menu is now gone, and when you hit the 'Windows' button on your keyboard, it brings you back to the tile screen. This is all fine and good for tablets, as I can imagine quickly scrolling using your fingers, but for a classic mouse and keyboard user, which I'd dare say, amounts to a large chunk of the Windows user base, this is no good, very hard to scroll around using mouse and keyboard. Also, when you launch an app, say Mail for instance, the usage of screen space is ridiculous, on my 15" laptop screen, because of the layout, I can only see 7 emails at a time, a huge waste of space in my opinion.

Microsoft clearly is trying to stay relevant but at the expense of their bread and butter, as there is no way this will work in a corporate environment. Either way, if you've got a spare laptop or desktop to try it out on, I suggest you check it out yourself, download the iso, and let me know what you think.