Sony’s Android Tablets: One’s a Wedge, One Folds Up

When you jump into the teeming Android tablet business, you choose to use an operating system that’s also used by a bunch of manufacturers. And there’s only so much you can do to differentiate the hardware–almost every tablet is basically a skinny slab with a great big touchscreen.

Sony, however, just announced two Android 3.0 Honeycomb tablets with hardware that’s not the same ol’ same ol’. They’re not shipping until this fall, and are known at the moment only by the codenames S1 and S2.

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Lenovo To Release an Android Tablet This Summer

The ThinkPad brand–one of the most iconic names from the world of PCs–is coming to tablets. This is My New’s Joanna Stern reports that she’s obtained a PowerPoint presentation from Lenovo dealing with the planned launch of a Android 3.0 Honeycomb-based tablet this summer apparently aimed at business users. And it doesn’t look too shabby.

Stern expects the device to sport a 10.1-inch display and front and rear facing cameras, and to come in 16, 32, and 64GB versions. Pretty average for today’s tablets. Lenovo also plans to include a stylus for input and offer a folio case with included keyboard (no word on whether that case would include ThinkPad’s famous red pointing stick).

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New Nintendo Console Confirmed

The rumors were spot on. Nintendo confirmed in its latest earnings report that it’ll launch a new home video game system in 2012, and will show it off at this year’s E3 trade show.

As for details, there are none. But according to Bloomberg, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata suggested that the new console won’t simply be a more powerful piece of hardware than the Wii. “We would like to propose a new approach to home video game consoles,” he said. Iwata added that it’s “difficult to make 3-D images a key feature, because 3-D televisions haven’t obtained wide acceptance yet.” Cryptic.

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Hands on With the Nook Color’s New Software: It’s the Netbook of Tablets!

I’ve been trying the 1.2 Nook Color software upgrade that gives Barnes & Noble’s e-reader access to third-party apps, as well as adding e-mail, Flash, and other features. (The update must be sideloaded at the moment, but it’s a pretty easy install–you download it to a computer, then drag it onto the Nook over USB.)

Some initial impressions after the jump.

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Nook Color’s New App Market, Software Emphasize the “Tablet” in “Reader’s Tablet”

A little over a week ago, I wondered whether the world needed tablets that were significantly less costly and significantly less fancy than the iPad and its most prominent rivals. A couple of commenters said that such a beast already existed: Barnes & Noble’s Nook Color e-reader. They had a point. At $249, B&N’s Android-based tablet is half the price of the cheapest iPad. Its 7″ color screen and industrial design are quite nice, but it doesn’t have a 1-GHz dual-core processor or  cameras or gobs of storage (it has a merely adequate 8GB) or 3G or other features which are becoming de facto accouterments on higher-end models.

Of course, Barnes & Noble has never pitched the Nook Color as an iPad killer. It calls it a “reader’s tablet,” and it gave the device a modified version of Android that doesn’t have the standard Android interface or access to the Android Marketplace. It’s Amazon.com’s cheaper, E-Ink-sporting Kindle that’s been in B&N’s crosshairs.

But when the company released the Nook Color last year, it did say it was working on an app marketplace of its own–a move that would make the Nook Color a little less of a dedicated e-reader and a little more of a general-purpose device. (Already, some geeky buyers had rooted their Nooks to turn them into standard Android tablets.) Today, B&N is launching that marketplace–which is a new section in the shopping area where it already sells books and magazines–as part of the Nook Color’s version 1.2 upgrade. And while it’s sticking with the “reader’s tablet” idea and saying it’ll focus on reading materials and complementary items, it’s also saying that it’s listened to consumers who think that a $249 Nook Color has a place as an alternative to pricier, more powerful tablets.

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Internet Outages: They’re a Tradition!

Like all blogs, Technologizer is a place where most stories scroll off the homepage and into the past in shor order. Some stories may merit revisiting, though–especially when they relate in one way or another to new developments. We’re going to start pointing towards some of these forgotten articles in a feature I’m calling Technologizer’s Vault.

As I followed the news about the humongous outages at Amazon and Sony’s PlayStation Network, I thought back to major outages of years past–which reminded me that I wrote a story called “A Brief History of Internet Outages” back in August of 2008, early in Technologizer’s storied history. It covered crippling glitches at AOL, Skype, Windows Update, and elsewhere–and if I were writing it all over again, the new Amazon and Sony downtimes might have headed the list. Here’s the story again.

Playstation Network Still Down as Sony Rebuilds

The Playstation Network outage that began last Wednesday has continued through the weekend, as Sony rebuilds the network in the wake of a security breach.

Sony is no longer estimating when PSN will be back online. On Thursday, the company only expected the outage to last a day or two.

Sony confirmed on Friday that the network was hacked, or in spokesman Patrick Seybold’s words, affected by an “external intrusion.” This caused Sony to shut down PSN entirely, along with the Qriocity service. Now, Seybold says the company is working around the clock to restore access.

“Our efforts to resolve this matter involve re-building our system to further strengthen our network infrastructure,” Seybold wrote on the official Playstation Blog. “Though this task is time-consuming, we decided it was worth the time necessary to provide the system with additional security.”

Hacking group Anonymous claims that it wasn’t involved in the attack, but didn’t rule out the possibility that individual members acted alone. The group, which has a vendetta against Sony for suing PS3 hacker George Hotz, has previously attacked Sony websites.

The big unanswered question now, aside from when PSN will be back up, is whether any user information or credit card numbers were exposed during the breach.  Answering that question, I’d argue, should be the top priority.

[UPDATE: An unnamed Sony source told Playstation Universe that PSN's Japanese servers may be restored on Monday, and that U.S. and Europe servers would follow on Tuesday. So far, this information is unconfirmed.]

[UPDATE 2: Sony told PC World that it doesn't yet know whether credit card numbers were stolen.]

[UPDATE 3: Sony now says all users' personal information was compromised, and credit cards may have been compromised as well. More details here.]

Need a Book on the Timex ZX81? Here’s Where to Go

I’d managed to visit San Rafael, California more times than I can count without visiting Electronics Plus in the city’s downtown shopping district. That changed yesterday, when I stumbled across the store and wandered in.

It’s an amazing place–a kindred spirit of Sunnyvale’s Weird Stuff Warehouse–that reminds me of the parts-oriented Radio Shacks of my youth, only a whole lot larger, and even geekier. My favorite section was the book department, which felt a bit like a time capsule. Some of the tomes are a bit worn, but I think that’s because they’ve been baking in the Marin sun for years, not because they’re used–there were multiple copies of some of them in stock. (Electronics Plus has been in the same location since 1970, long before any of these volumes were published.)

If you’re ever in San Rafael, stop into Electronics Plus–and for now, check out the fuzzy iPhone photos I snapped as I enjoyed browsing the books.

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Sony Disables PlayStation Network After Security Breach

Sites and services go down all the time. Just ask Amazon. And all their customers. But they weren’t the only ones to suffer a massive outage this week, as Sony’s PlayStation Network (PSN) has been offline for several days now. After a long period of silence, Sony has finally provided some situational insight:

An external intrusion on our system has affected our PlayStation Network and Qriocity services. In order to conduct a thorough investigation and to verify the smooth and secure operation of our network services going forward, we turned off PlayStation Network & Qriocity services on the evening of Wednesday, April 20th.

Of course what they’re saying is that they’ve been hacked. And until Sony figures out what’s going on and how to stop it, they’ve pulled the network plug. So the forensics team has probably been doing their thing, maybe law enforcement too, as the engineers bolster PlayStation Network defenses.

Unfortunately, Sony hasn’t provided an ETA for PSN service restoration. And I know several of my work buddies with PS3s are suffering from Call of Duty, Black Ops withdrawal. But I’m not sure they appreciated my repeated mocking suggestions to join me on the superior Xbox Live.

(This post republished from Zatz Not Funny.)

Windows 7-Per-Second

After 18 months, Windows 7 is keeping its sales pace of slightly more than seven copies per second–which is way better than Harry Potter, not as fast as Coke.

Android About to Enlist in the US Army?

The US Army wants to equip every soldier with a smartphone in the battlefield, and it appears as if Google’s Android could be the solution. According to Wired’s Spencer Ackerman, the military has been working over the past year to realize that goal. What’s behind its choice? Likely the fact that the operating system can run across a range of third-party devices, unlike the iPhone.

Officials haven’t settled on Android just yet it seems, but it seems like it certainly has a leg up on other solutions due to its “open” nature.

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iLike This iPhone 5

Is this iPhone 5 going to be slightly different iPhone 4–in other words, an “iPhone 4s?” Not if it’s anything like the one Josh Topolsky is theorizing about (which is fictional, but based on actual reports).

Goodbye, DS Lite? Goodbye, Game Boy Advance.

After five years on the market, Nintendo may be putting the DS Lite to bed and focusing on its three newer portables, the DSi, DSi XL and 3DS.

The rumor, based on a leaked Gamestop memo, originates from a link that is now defunct, but Engadget has since confirmed the news with a Gamestop employee. The memo tells store associates to remove their DS Lite display boxes once all the current stock is sold, because they won’t be getting any more shipments. Nintendo has given its standard dismissal, saying that it “doesn’t comment on rumor and speculation.”

It’s no surprise that Nintendo would phase out older DS models as it introduces new ones — the original Nintendo DS was discontinued long ago — but as Matthew Green points out over at Press the Buttons, the DS Lite is the last model to support Game Boy Advance games. The Nintendo DSi removed the secondary cartridge slot that allowed this backwards compatibility. Incidentally, Gamestop held a big liquidation of Game Boy Advance games last week, and the store no longer accepts Game Boy Advance systems or games for trade-in.

In other words, this story is more about the end of Game Boy Advance than it is about the Nintendo DS. Thanks to backwards compatibility, DS games will live on through the DSi, DSi XL and 3DS — at least until Nintendo moves on to new generations of hardware and we do this whole thing all over again.

A Brief Moment of Self-Promotion

Pardon me while I quickly toot my own horn: I’m honored to be on The Business Insider’s list of the 25 Top Tech and Gadget Gurus You Should Follow on Twitter and to have gotten a nice write-up in Folio’s Folio:40 list. (There, I’m done!)

The PSP Lives On For Yankees

That story about the PSP Go being discontinued? It’s true for Asia and Europe, but production will continue in North America.

Gas Saving Tips (‘Cause the Prices are Killing Us)

Planning a road trip? Maybe you’ve heard about the new gas pricing scheme used by many gas stations. And with gas at over $4 a gallon, I’ve retrofitted the gas gauge in my ancient, 13-mpg Roadtrek camper van. This week: Internet resources to help me (and maybe you) get the best deal on gasoline — and better mileage.

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