Can 'Nightmare on Elm Street' turn around the box office ahead of 'Iron Man'?

Everyone knows that the official start of the summer movie-going season begins next weekend with the debut of Iron Man 2. But this weekend’s A Nightmare on Elm Street opening just might prime the pump for what’s sure to be a huge box office bonanza in the months to come. And that would be good news for a business that, in the last weekend, fell beneath $100 million for the first time all year.

It helps that a horror film hasn’t hit theaters since February. And with Iron Man hot on the Nightmare reboot’s tail, Freddy Krueger needs to slash through as much box office coin as he can this weekend since there ain’t gonna be anything to share next weekend. Also bowing this frame is the Brendan Fraser-starrer Furry Vengeance, which is unlikely to help quell the box office downturn that began last weekend. In fact, How to Train Your Dragon, which will be entering its sixth weekend of release, is destined to open higher then this PG-rated flick. Read on for my predictions.

Cheryl Cole smoulders in glamorous photoshoot

She has maintained a dignified silence since announcing her separation from her errant husband two months ago.


Instead, it seems Cheryl Cole has chosen to let her image do the talking.

In the new issue of fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar, the 26-year-old pop star smoulders as she adorns the front cover.

Discussing the future, Mrs Cole admits she has no set plans and is planning to 'go with the flow'.

Inside, the singer is featured in a selection of revealing couture outfits looking every inch the classical beauty.

Microsoft Courier Not Heading Into Production

Here’s some remarkably bad news. It seems that the Microsoft Courier, the dual-screen digital journal with Tegra 2 inside, has been scrapped. According to the report from The Wall Street Journal, it seems that Microsoft executives informed the internal team working on the Courier that the project was no longer supported by Microsoft, and that it’s been removed from future production. Of course, Microsoft had never officially come forward and publicly announced the Courier, but we know it existed.


The Courier first broke cover at the end of last year, and since then it’s caught the love of tablet fans all over the place. The second time we got a real good look at the concept of the tablet, our interest was piqued considerably. It made it all worse when rumors broke that the dual-screen digital journal would be using Tegra 2 under the hood. Simply put, the Courier was one of the best conceptual ideas to come out of Redmond in a long time, and we’re sad to see it go.

HP Windows 7 Tablet Gets Canceled, We Hope for webOS Tablet Instead

Apparently tonight is not a good night for tablet devices. Though, if you were to ask a few people, it may still continue to be a very good couple of days for Hewlett-Packard. After the announcement that HP had bought Palm, suggestions of an HP Slate with webOS started coming left and right. It doesn’t help when HP is telling the world that tablets are definitely on the agenda. And now, word is that HP has killed the Windows 7 tablet project, better known as the HP Slate (which debuted at CES this year). Coincidence?


According to a report coming out of TechCrunch tonight, a source that’s been briefed with the matter says that HP has canceled the entire project. The source also mentions that HP as a whole isn’t happy with Windows 7, at least not when it’s on a tablet device. And, considering an early review, that may be far more accurate than anyone could have guessed. However, this also may mean that HP is abandoning Intel-based tablets, due to their power-mongering ways. Again, this would rule out Windows 7 as a tablet OS.

Ronald Cheng and Ah Sa No Oppose To Play A Couple On-screen

Although they couldn't be husband and wive, Ronald Cheng and Charlene Choi (Ah Sa) are still friends. Lately there's a report from Mainland saying a director planned to make martial arts novel '萍擪俠影錄' into a TV series. He wanted to invite couples or husband and wife in the showbiz to act. It was reported the team once invited Ronald and Ah Sa, who didn't file for divorce yet. But they didn't want to be in the same series together and scared off the team with a demand of 8 million pay.

Ah Sa attended to izzue fashion show yesterday and she expressed she never heard anyone inviting her and Ronald to film as a couple, so she felt the report is quite humorous. Company didn't notify her? She said: "Shouldn't be. If if there is an offer, still have to look at the scripts first. But I'll go Beijing to film '翡翠明珠.' Soon I'll film '財神客棧' with Nicolas Tse and Barbie Hsu. Jobs are arranged till November." If scripts are suitable, paid is high, will she work with her ex-husband again? Ah Sa said: "Might try it if I'm free. I don't oppose. How much pay will make me say yes? I only like to film, company will decide the amount of money."

Siobhan Magnus: "I’m Not Going to Change for Other People"

Just call Fox the inner-beauty network.

On the heels of Tuesday's emotional, "I am beautiful" episode of Glee, Siobhan Magnus—who was just booted off of American Idol last night—is rallying the cause against exterior judgments. "I get letters from younger girls who've said, 'I get made fun of at school because I'm different, but watching you has helped me accept the fact [that] that's a good thing to be who I am,'" Siobhan just told us.

We'll pause while you grab your hanky.

Siobhan's exit interview today was inspirational and enlightening, including a certain truth that Lee Dewyze's BFF Andrew Garcia might not like so well (we kid)…

Where do you get your confidence?
It's definitely something that's been important to me, from the beginning, to show people that's something I care about and take seriously. I've always been an independent person and a different person, but I'm very stubborn and strong-willed and it's important for me to get that across, that I'm not going to change for other people. I do what I do because it rests well on my heart and who I am. The feedback that I've received from fans was tremendous. I've achieved something that meant so much to me for so long, to influence the lives of young girls in a positive way and it shows them that who you are on the inside is a beautiful thing.

When American Idol Meets The Twilight Saga...

We were shocked to see Siobhan Magnus go home last night.

But that actually wasn't the strangest development on the American Idol results show.

During their weekly Ford commercial, the remaining six finalists made like Robert Pattinson, Kellan Lutz and company, baring fangs and pretending to be vampires... while Michael Lynche fought them off with a garlic pizza.

It was a strange sight all around, though Casey James and Crystal Bowersox actually pull off the look well, don't they? Watch the commercial below now, before Fox yanks it off YouTube:


What do you think of the commercial? Very cool, or very WTF?!?

Adobe's CEO: Jobs' Flash letter is a 'smokescreen' for 'cumbersome' restrictions

There's no official transcript yet, but the Wall Street Journal just live-blogged an interview with Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, in which he responded to the Steve Jobs "Thoughts on Flash" letter posted this morning. Substantively, Narayen didn't offer much we haven't heard Adobe say before, but his frustration with Apple is palpable even in summary form: he called Jobs' points a "smokescreen," said Flash is an "open specification," and further said Apple's restrictions are "cumbersome" to developers and have "nothing to do with technology." What's more, he also said Jobs' claims about Flash affecting battery life are "patently false," and suggested that any Flash-related crashes on OS X have more to do with Apple's operating system than Adobe's software.

Perhaps most importantly, Narayen reiterated that Adobe is fundamentally about making it easier for devs to write multiplatform tools -- a stance Jobs specifically took issue with in his letter, saying multiplatform tools lead to bad user experiences. Apple and Adobe and the rest of us can argue about battery life and performance all night, but that's clearly the central philosophical difference between these two companies, and we doubt it's ever going to change. That is, unless Adobe absolutely kills it with Flash 10.1 on Android 2.2 -- and given our experiences with Flash on smartphones and netbooks thus far, we'll be honest when we say that's going to be a major challenge. We'll link over to the full transcript when it goes up, but for now, hit the source link for the liveblog.

f(x) 1st minialbum title song ‘NU ABO’ unveiled!


f(x) 1st minialbum title song has finally been unveiled.

SM Entertainment revealed, “Coming 3rd May at 10am, the title song from f(x) 1st minialbum ‘NU 예삐오’(NU ABO) will be revealed on various music sites.”

‘NU 예삐오’(NU ABO) is a reverse beat dance song, written by hit maker Yoo YeongJin who also made BoA ‘Eat You Up’ and SHINee ‘Juliette’. As for the name of the song, it is made to sound similar to English word ‘New’ with the word ‘Nu’ and is joined with the word ‘Abo’.

Patrick Tse: Lucas Will Step Into The Showbiz

Although Nicloas is back to Hong Kong, but he still has to voice for a movie, he was asked: "Did Cecilia pick an auspicious hour to deliver through c-section?" He said: "No, still quite early. (How does your wife feel and does she have a good apetite?) Of course she's all good, I'll be with her in the delivery room."

NDDaily interviewed Patrick Tse lately and he praised greatly of his daughter-in-law: "I never thought she would stop during her golden period of her career, and get married and have kids. I've been in the showbiz for this long, there was never a girl like that. In the past, she would play mahjong and go to sing karaoke with friends, now she won't go anymore, only stay at home or visit her grandma and mother-in-law, or take care of kids and shop, she is a very optimistic and strong woman."

Microsoft to get $20 to $40 from every HTC Android phone sold?

We’ve reported about the HTC – Microsoft agreement according to which HTC has agreed to pay royalties to Microsoft, because it turned out that the Taiwanese company’s Android phones use some technology patented by the Redmond giant.


While HTC and Microsoft have not disclosed the financial aspects of the agreement, it looks like HTC may have to pay serious cash to Microsoft.

A Bloomberg article has it that analyst Rob Enderle estimates that HTC, as well as other unnamed phone makers, may have to pay Microsoft $20 to $40 for each Android handset sold. Of course, analyst predictions can be (and often are) wrong. $40 per phone is way too much.

The people involved in sale of lost iPhone revealed

The saga of the lost prototype iPhone started with a 21-year-old Silicon Valley resident who says he regrets not trying harder to find its real owner, according to a published report.

Brian J. Hogan, a 21-year-old resident of Redwood City, Calif., is the person who found the iPhone and was paid by Gizmodo, according to a story published on Thursday by Wired.com.

Hogan's lawyer issued a statement to Wired and said Hogan was in the bar with friends when another patron handed him the phone after finding it on a nearby stool, asked around if anyone owned it, and then left the bar with his friend and the prototype.

Hogan, however, had help in finding a buyer for the phone. CNET has learned that Sage Robert Wallower, a 27-year-old University of California at Berkeley student, contacted technology sites about what is believed to be Apple's next-generation iPhone. The device was lost by an Apple engineer last month. Police in San Mateo County have said they are investigating the lost phone as a possible theft.

Britney Spears has some support for a change as she heads to lawyer's office in flattering pink vest top

Britney Spears was all business as she headed to her lawyers today.


Dressed in a pink vest top, smart black jeans and high heeled boots, she looked ready for a serious discussion.

Britney remains under the conservatorship of her father, Jamie Spears, after her widely publicised breakdown three years ago. He controls much of her life, from her finances to her clothing.

Would You Do...an X-Rated Xtina?


If Christina Aguilera's recent pit stop at the Puppetry of the Penis gave us a sneak peak of how down and dirty the mommy could get, well, we still weren't prepared for the new look she's rocking in her "Not Myself Tonight" video.

The video is set to debut tonight at midnight, but Xtina's official website spent the week riling fans by releasing teases from the video. They show the pop star licking a riding crop, straddling a bondage babe and crawling on her hands and knees toward a bowl of milk.

Skyfire 2.0 beta for Android video preview!


We just spent a few minutes playing with the beta version of Skyfire 2.0 for Android that was released today, and we'll cut to the chase: this is easily the best browser we've used on the platform. Clearly we'll need to spend more time with it to make sure it can handle all the typical sites you'd want to visit while you're on the road -- but loading the desktop version of Engadget is always a great barometer for this sort of thing, and this browser rocked it. Rendering is about as reasonably fast as you can expect it to be (on our Snapdragon-powered Nexus One, anyhow), and everything we saw displayed spot-on perfect (save for embedded Flash, of course), but if you're in a situation where you don't need to see the full page or it looks screwy, you can toggle it to send an Android user agent right from the app's toolbar below the URL field. It works just about as well as Steel and the built-in browser on a G1 we tested, and Flash videos work just fine there as well.

The browser touts compatibility with Flash videos, too, so we headed over to YouTube to try our hand at it; it immediately detected the presence of a video and popped up the so-called "SkyBar" at the bottom of the screen, where you can press the Video button to load the video in a new window. It doesn't work embedded in the page, but considering how small your phone's screen is, that's really for the best -- you get the full-screen experience, and in our testing, it looked fantastic. One downside is that you don't seem to be able to scrub videos while they're playing, but maybe this is something these guys can get patched up for the final release. Follow the break for our full video!

TVB fires "Stephen Party" Producer; A greater loss to TVB than the Producer



Referred as part of the "Stephen Party", TVB producer (Poon Yue Kai) earlier left the company with TVB's reason being "nothing for him to do". Yesterday TVB "takes out the knife" again and fired Producer (Tang Yuen Mei) who produced the programme "On The Road". TVB's spokesperson (Tsang Sing Ming) expressed that the decision was made because of the new combination of production crew, she will not be meeting the future production needs and this does not rule out the chances for another collaboration opportunity in the future. He also stressed that this has nothing to do with Stephen Chan. Yesterday Ms. Tang admitted to the fact: "TVB gave me two options. One was I leave myself or two I get fired. I told TVB to fire me because I did nothing wrong. ("Stephen Party" getting fired?) I don't even know if I'm considered in the "Stephen Party". I just feel a programme that received good ratings, many awards, good feedback and had a good production team gets fired, I don't understand what TVB uses as their standards. I know that this is more of a loss to TVB than it is a loss to me."

Eminem Is 'Back' On 'Not Afraid,' Fans Say

'THAT is the eminem I like hearing,' one fan tweets about the lead Recovery single.

Eminem's "Not Afraid" has been the talk of blogs, message boards and social-media networks on Thursday (April 29), as the rapper detoured from his normal route of celebrity-bashing numbers and instead delivered an honest take on his life and career, even calling last year's Relapse "ehh."

Fans have mostly been supportive, with many noting his departure from zanier fare.

"Very different than his usual 1st singles, but I like it," kevi-B wrote on MTV.com.

The Detroit rapper's last album, Relapse, was among 2009's highest sellers, but fans complained that it didn't show off the MC's skills. The album was Eminem's first in five years, after suffering from drug dependency and the loss of his close friend, D12 rapper Proof. In interviews, Em noted that the album helped him work his way through writer's block, and he returned to his Slim Shady persona for aid.

More Lindsay Lohan: Strapped, Ready For Cinemax

The ridiculous things Lindsay Lohan Tweets don't even cause us to bat an eye most of the time, but given recent events in her life, this one has us concerned.


Posting links to her "artistic" recent photo shoot with Tyler Shields, Lindsay looks like she's trying out for a Cinemax late night movie. Seriously. What a mess.

Someone whose friends already think will die soon probably shouldn't be packing heat, no matter what "art" form inspires her. And the lingerie shots ... wow.

Heidi and Spencer Pratt Named Time's Least Influential People

This'll give Spencer Pratt something new to rant about on Twitter.

He and wife, Heidi, have been named to the Time's Least Influential list -- the "moron" category, to be precise.

Snipes the mag about Heidi, 23, "You used to be famous for being famous. Then you were famous for getting lots of plastic surgery and selling only 658 copies of your album in its first week. Now you're not famous. That was fast."

Their criticism for Spencer, 26, was even more biting.

"Montag fired him as her manager," Time writes. "It's like we need a whole other list of the uninfluential to the uninfluential."

The new issue of Us Weekly reports the couple are in "panic mode" about falling out of the spotlight when the The Hills goes off the air after this season.

Time also mocks Joaquin Phoenix , Nadya "Octomom" Suleman, Paula Abdul and former American Idol host Brian Dunkleman.

Lady Gaga was named the Most Influential artist.

Lady Gaga, Sarah Palin Top Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People List

This year's Time 100 brings an array of artists, leaders, heroes and thinkers who are considered the 100 most influential people in the world -- as assembled by Time Magazine. So whose ideas, innovations and actions are shaping our world? Lady Gaga, Sarah Palin and Taylor Swift -- just to name a few.

While there's no denying Gaga's impact on our culture, the cover speaks for itself, with the pop songstress standing next to former President Bill Clinton and professional footballer Didier Drogba. Other notables making the list: President Barack Obama, 'Twilight' star Robert Pattinson and 'Glee' actress Lea Michele.

Inside the issue, Grammy Award-winning pop singer Cyndi Lauper admits, "I first heard the name Lady Gaga through a mutual friend. He couldn't stop talking about her. Then I heard her music, and I thought, 'Wow, I love this kid.'"

Cheryl Cole holds on to her crown as Sexiest Woman In The World for second year

Her private life may be suffering, but Cheryl Cole has been given a boost after being named the Sexiest Woman In The World for the second year in a row.


The X Factor judge, 26, came top in a poll of the 100 sexiest women by male readers of FHM magazine, narrowly beating Hollywood actress Megan Fox and bikini model Marisa Miller.

Cole's new accolade comes after a rollercoaster year for the Geordie star, which has seen her taste success as a solo artist, but split from her husband Ashley Cole.

Steve Jobs on Flash: Adobe should focus on the future, not criticize Apple


Steve Jobs just posted an open letter of sorts explaining Apple's position on Flash, going back to his company's long history with Adobe and expounding upon six main points of why he thinks Flash is wrong for mobile devices. HTML5 naturally comes up, along with a few reasons you might not expect. Here's the breakdown:

HTC DROID Incredible sold out, new orders ship May 4th


In the real world, the early bird catches the worm..and in the world of mobile technology, the early bird gets the phone. Such is the case with the highly anticipated HTC DROID Incredible, which debuted early this morning on Verizon Wireless’ website, and sold out within two hours. We don’t know how many units Verizon Wireless had on hand, but the initial inventory is long gone, and all new orders will not ship until May 4th. If you absolutely must have Android’s latest and greatest handset, you will have to try your luck at your local Verizon Wireless store. Happy hunting!

Jay Chou latest single "Fireworks Cool Easily" exposed, Chinese style gains recognition once again

Jay Chou's look in his new album "The Era" has been exposed! His cool looking face turns into a "vampire prince", making the theme of his new album prominent, he said: "I hope my music is like a vampire, never aging!"

It's been well over 1 year since his last album, Jay Chou's 10th big piece is finally ready, he turns himself into a vampire from medieval ages, he wears a suit with a feathered cape inside a gorgeous old castle, so handsome. Even though 9 years ago Jay Chou already wrote a vampire song "William's Castle", but he guaranteed that there'll definitely be a breakthrough this time, he hopes his music can be like vampires "spanning across era after era". "The Era" album will be up for pre-order on the 28th of April at all major record shops and 7-Eleven.

Hot on the heels of the first broadcast of Jay Chou's new album main plugged song "Superman Can't Fly" on radio yesterday, another of Jay Chou's new song "Fireworks Cool Easily" is exposed, compared to "Superman Can't Fly", "Fireworks Cool Easily" is a song full of Chinese style, the melody is sweet and elegant, the lyrics are deep, it's an excellent piece that is great to listen to.

Cecilia Cheung to give birth in May

Second time mother-to-be Cecilia Cheung is resting at home in preparation for the arrival of her second child with husband, Nicholas Tse, who has currently halted all work projects to be with her. The couple has picked an auspicious date to welcome their little one in early May.

The pair's first child, Lucas Tse, is all geared-up to welcome his younger sibling. He is particularly "energetic" at the thought of becoming an older brother.

Apart from praising Cecilia for being a good daughter-in-law, Lucas's grandfather Patrick Tse expressed that young Lucas is showing a keen interest for showbiz, "Its 100% showbiz for him."

Lindsay Lohan Gun Picture Surfaces On Twitter


Uh-oh — LiLo’s in trouble for a gun-totin’ image snapped during her photoshoot with shutterbug Tyler Shields this week. Lindsay has attracted the ire of some of her fellow Twitter junkies — and much of the rest of the blogosphere — after uploading a TwitPic of herself holding a gun to her lips. The photo will appear in Shields’ new coffee table book, The Dirty Side of Glamour (Below).

It’s just one in a series of gory images that show Lohan stripped to a bra, skirt, stockings, and high heels while cavorting in a blood-soaked room.
(As we speak, a press statement from Michael “Will Snitch For Food” Lohan is probably being faxed to Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight, E!, and anyone else who’ll still listen….)

Lady Gaga Go-Go Dancer Pictures [2007]


Before she was singing about telephones and the dangers of the paparazzi to international acclaim, she was just Stefani Germanotta — a girl who liked to swing on poles.

New pics have surfaced of Lady Gaga in her pre-fame years, working as a bikini-clad go-go dancer at a New York club in 2007.

Skyfire 2.0 now ready to set Android ablaze


We've been seeing mobile browsers steadily raising their game lately, so it was inevitable that Skyfire would look to shock and awe us with its first release for the Android platform. Version 2.0 introduces a brand new SkyBar -- which ironically sits at the bottom of the screen -- providing users with a trifecta of new features. Firstly, the Video link serves as a workaround for those pesky "your phone ain't got no Flash" missives by doing server-side conversions of Flash video into universally comprehensible formats like HTML5. If implemented well, this should be a major coup for the company, particularly in light of a potential iPhone release as well. There's also a streamlined sharing feature for social networks, and an Explore function that suggests internet content on the basis of what's currently on display. We'll be testing out the usefulness of these shortly -- for now, hit the source link to get your own Skyfire going.

Nokia N8 gets second preview: far more positive

After the Nokia N8’s first – pretty appalling – preview we’ve been hoping for a second opinion on whether the eye-catching megapixel-toting smartphone really does spectacularly miss the mark. Happily Tweakers have filled that niche; the Netherlands site have put together a multi-page preview of the N8, and their conclusion is a more positive one than we’ve heard before.


They’re not 100-percent convinced by Symbian^3 – to be honest, we’d be suspicious if they were – but they give it kudos for being open-source. It’s still described as feeling “old fashioned”, though an improvement on what you’d find on the Nokia N97, but the hardware gets two thumbs-up.

Audrina Patridge Felt Pressured Into Surgery to Get "Perfect" Body

Good girl Audrina Patridge has at least one thing in common with estranged Hills costar Heidi Pratt: plastic surgery.


Although the 25-year-old has publicly denied it, a pal confirms to Us Weekly that Patridge went under the knife -- and it was just the confidence boost that she needed.

The aspiring actress "feels she has to be perfect to continue her career in TV and film," the pal continues. (After The Hills wraps later this year, Patridge hopes to launch her own reality TV show with producer Mark Burnett).

Sean Kingston Justin Bieber “Eenie Meenie” Music VIDEO Premiere

It’s been nearly three years since Sean Kingston debuted on the music scene with his Summer 2007 smash hit, “Beautiful Girls.” Now the Jamaican-American reggae/hip hop singer is back — and working with cute-as-a-button Canadian heartthrob Justin Bieber. Sean and Justin are putting their voices together on “Eenie Meenie,” the first single off of Kingston’s upcoming third album. The track is also be featured on Justin’s Billboard No. 1 album, My World 2.0.


'Commando' remake in the works: Who should take Arnold Schwarzenegger's role?

Fox is readying to remake Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1985 hit Commando, according to a report from Deadline‘s Mike Fleming. Training Day scribe David Ayer is set to write and direct the update of the classic kill-em-all action pic, in which the future Governator starred as a government agent forced out of retirement to rescue his daughter from an evil dictator.

So who’s up for filling Arnie’s shoes, you ask? We’ve got a few nominees: How about Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, star of the upcoming A-Team movie and professional UFC bone-breaker? Or maybe Channing Tatum, if he’s ready to rumble again getting mushy in Dear John? Or maybe you swap “father” for “brother” in the movie’s pitch and cast an up-and-comer like Twilight star Taylor Lautner? Come to think of it, who says it has to be a guy? Something tells us Angelina Jolie could take out a maniacal despot and still make it home in time for Shiloh’s afternoon nap.

Motorola posts surprise profit

Motorola's strategy may be starting to pay off as the company announced a surprise profit and topped forecasts for the first quarter.

On Thursday, the company said it earned $69 million, or 3 cents per share, in the quarter. During the same quarter a year ago, it lost $231 million, or 13 cents per share. Analysts had expected Motorola to lose 1 cent to 3 cents a share in the first quarter.

Revenue was down 6.1 percent to $5.04 billion from a year ago. Analysts expected revenue of about $5.1 billion.

The handset maker has been trying to turn around its business for the past couple of years. Ever since its Razr phone commanded consumer attention, Motorola has had a hard time finding a new hit. The company has been shifting its strategy and has started focusing more on smartphones, such as the Droid, which features the Google Android OS and is sold through Verizon Wireless.

Motorola sold 2.3 million smartphones in the first quarter. Previously, it had said that it would sell fewer than 2 million such phones. The smartphone focus, in addition to stronger sales in non-phone products, helped lift the company to profitability.

LG Innotek supplying iPhone HD 5MP camera as OmniVision shunned?

While the leaked iPhone HD was partially dismantled before being returned to Apple, unfortunately that wasn’t enough to confirm who are supplying them with what’s expected to be a 5-megapixel camera chip. According to a new report this week, contrary to earlier predictions the next-gen iPhone will use an LG Innotek CMOS, rather than an OmniVision version.


OmniVision are Apple’s current camera sensor suppliers for the iPhone 3GS, and a report in December last year suggested that they’d won the contract for the new, higher-resolution chip this time around. That was followed up with OmniVision executives apparently hinting earlier this month that a deal was in place. Whichever supplier is chosen, the 5-megapixel camera is expected to be paired with an LED flash, and have a second – lower resolution – counterpart on the front of the handset for video calls. We’re expecting Apple to announce the iPhone HD at the kick-off of WWDC 2010 on June 7th.

PS3 owner sues Sony over removal of "Install Other OS" feature

A PlayStation 3 owner from California has filed a class-action lawsuit against Sony for the removal of the “Install Other OS” feature.

The suit was filed by Anthony Ventura at the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on April 27th. The suit seeks redress for what is describes as Sony’s “intentional disablement of the valuable functionalities originally advertised as available with the Sony Playstation 3 video game console.” The suit also alleges that Sony has breached the sales contract with its customers, and that this amounts to “an unfair and deceptive business practices perpetrated on millions of unsuspecting customers.”

So far, Sony has apologized to customers for the removal of the feature, but claims that it is a necessary step to prevent piracy. Sony claims that its actions are legal and points disgruntled owners to the EULA (End User License Agreement) which they agreed to the first time they used the games console.

It appears that Amazon in the UK has given one Sony PS3 owner a partial refund for the removal of the feature.

Apple invisible button patent promises secret controls

A newly published Apple patent suggests that the company is looking to rid themselves of one more of the few hardware controls they allow onto their mobile devices. ”Disappearing Button or Slider” describes a system whereby rather than a physical button – such as the home key on the iPad, iPhone or iPad touch, or the power key on a MacBook Pro – could be replaced with a capacitive touch sensor that responds to fingertips but has no visible markings.


That, the patent goes on to describe, might be fashioned from invisible perforations drilled into the aluminum chassis of a MacBook Pro, with light source refraction used to track user contact. The end result could be a hidden cluster of iPod controls in the palmrest of a notebook, or alternatively four virtual home keys for every orientation of the iPad, only one of which works – accelerometer dependent – at any one time.

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