Samsung is now the leading mobile phone vendor in the US, according to research by Strategy Analytics, and it’s assumption of the top slot has pushed Motorola into second place. In the last quarter, Samsung pushed its sales up 6.2 percent over the previous year’s results to 47.4 million handsets.
It only took Google about three days to recognise, examine and fix the vulnerability that allowed Android phones to be ‘jailbroken’, and users should see the fix (update RC30) pushed to their phones over the air during the next few days. From the mouth of the Google:
As a chick who’s incredibly into both gaming and tech stuff, one of my biggest pet peeves EVER is the pinkification of girl stuff. Want to make me automatically hate something? Make it a shade of dusted coral. So despite these Aly & AJ-designed Rock Band and Guitar Hero-compatible controllers being in somewhat interesting shapes and relatively stylish (if you’re 16) patterns… my first reaction is to want to puke all over them. Still, just because I can’t stand pink doesn’t mean there aren’t gamer girls out there who actually do like the whole cutesy-wootsey ultra-femme look–if you know one, you can pick up one of these for $US70 at Daisy Rock Girl Guitars. Oh god, just the name of that store makes me nauseous. [Daisy Rock via Popgadget]
While energy issues tend to get a lot more media play, a perhaps even bigger challenge we’ll need to collectively deal with soon is the problem of potable water. Israeli company EWA is hoping to help nations with less fresh water resources get it inexpensively by turning humidity in the air into drinkable fluids. EWA, which stands for Extraction of Water from Air, uses a heat-based absorption system and a special energy saving condenser to suck moisture from the atmosphere and into reservoirs cleanly and efficiently.
There’s only two weeks left for you to enter our Gizmo-grow competition, so this weekend would be the perfect opportunity to work out how you intend to spread the good word of Giz. A few more entries have started rolling in this week, but I’m going to hold off sharing them with the rest of you until next week – hopefully we’ll see some inspiring individual efforts in our inbox on Monday.
Remember, to enter you need to email competitions@gizmodo.com.au with a photo or video link showcasing your efforts. For a full rundown on the comp, check the original post here, which also contains a hi-res logo and a link to the Ts and Cs…
Hey Jason, I have this ongoing irrational feeling that no one reads us. Which is why when I meet a geek who tells me they spend all day at work wasting time on Gizmodo, it makes me super happy. I had that happen last night at Lucky 13 hanging out with Xeni and the guy from Telstar Logistics.
60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley went to Guiyi, China to document the lives of Chinese e-waste workers there. He was able to get footage of what these pits, which process much of the toxic electronic scrap we in the West throw away, look like–despite being jumped by angry e-waste lot owners and nearly having his camera confiscated.
Unofficial Giz Poll: If you went out and bought an Asus Eee PC after watching this ad, would you be disappointed if it didn’t give you a full 8-hour battery life? Or would you just plug in the power cable and watch the ad again? And again?
There’s no right or wrong answer to that question, folks…
In case you need a projector for your business, or just want the biggest, awesomest home theatre on the block, Sanyo’s new offering is a pretty good bet. The LP-XTC50 uses dual lamps, which gives you a pretty impressive 6,000 hours in alternate lamp mode, and up to 3,000 hours in regular single-lamp mode. It has also updated its brightness settings, at 5,000 ANSI lumens, and offers a hi-def resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels. Other features include horizontal and vertical lens shift, keystone correction, workable projection at any 360-degree angle and 10 auto-switching filters. This monster of a projection machine will be available on Jan. 9, 2008 for roughly $US10,730. [Crunchgear]
Among all the election hoopla this past Tuesday, California voters passed a proposition giving the state $US10 billion to begin building a high-speed rail between Northern and Southern California. The Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act, or Proposition 1A, opens up a possibility that Californians may see a bullet train traversing between the two regions as early as 2020 among an 1250km stretch. Hold on, does this train mean I can flee to Disneyland (only the happiest place on earth) from the bums that accost me in San Francisco more often?! Hit the jump for more information.
