aMail App To Bring Native Email To The PlayBook Before RIM.

It’s no secret that the PlayBook has thus far garnered mediocre views around the industry, with the chief concern being email for non-BlackBerry users. We mentioned in our review how despite good hardware and new software, the lack of native email was a serious omission. Shortly after the negative reviews started pouring in, RIM announced that they were in fact working on a native email app for the PlayBook, though declined to share any specific release date other than “soon”.

RIM may be beaten to the punch, however, as a third party app developed by UK-based AiFlex and going by the name of “aMail” looks to hit the market before RIM’s in-house offering. aMail supports IMAP, POP, and up to 10 accounts simultaneously without having to be tethered to a BlackBerry via Bridge or other means.

The app itself is pretty straight forward allowing all the functions you’d expect in an email app. We’d even say that aMail looks rather nice to boot with clean lines, nice gradients, and some subtle animations. But we’ll let you judge that last part for yourselves. Video after the break…

Scosche Releases freeKEY: Flexible Bluetooth Waterproof Keyboard.

What’s better than a flexible keyboard that you can tote around everywhere? How about a flexible, Bluetooth, waterproof keyboard? Today, Scosche released such a device called the “freeKEY” that they hope you’ll make your laptop/tablet’s next companion. It’s not the cheapest of keyboards at $59.99, but then again it is rather resilient to the elements and hard abuse.

If you’re into pain and tortue, hop inside to see a freeKEY put through its paces…

Verizon Wireless LTE Network Comes Back From The Dead. DROID Charge Still Delayed.

The great LTE outage of 2010 has run its course. Reports from around the country are pouring in all telling the same tale — 4G/LTE is now accessible once again via phones and mobile data cards. The timing of the outage couldn’t come at a worse time — just one day before a VZW spokesperson was proclaiming how the LTE rollout has gone without any major problems and faster than expected. Add to that a delay in releasing the Samsung DROID Charge which is to be one of Verizon’s high-end Android handsets. Speaking of which, Verizon hasn’t publicly acknowledged the “delay” of the Charge nor the reasoning behind it other than “last minute problems”. But for all intents and purposes it is likely because of the LTE outage. Also unknown at this point is the exact cause of the outage.

Keep checkin’ back with GS for the latest on the VZW LTE outage and delayed Samsung DROID Charge.

Atrix 4.1.83 Update To Officially Unlock HSUPA Uploads.

Since the Atrix was released, consumers (more tech minded ones mind you) have been relentless on AT&T’s practice of artificially capping this 4G phone with less than 4G speeds, particularly upload speeds. The only “fix” thus far has been rooting the device and flashing a kernel ported over from the Telstra Atrix 4G.

For those of you who aren’t too keen on the whole rooting scene, however, won’t have to wait much longer. Atrix firmware version 4.1.83 officially unlocks the crippled HSUPA upload speeds and has apparently already passed carrier testing — this according to Motorola themselves. Current rumors put a public release at “any day now”. And judging by Motorola’s official acknowledgement, we don’t see why that can’t happen. Keep hittin’ the refresh button for the latest updates.

Atrix owners: Are you ready to finally upload content at less than 300k?

XOOM Update Rollout In Progress. How’s It Going For You?

Yesterday, Verizon Wireless began pushing out a rather important update for the Motorola XOOM which included Bluetooth support on Google Talk and for a mouse, proxy support, SSL, WPA pre-shared keys, POP3 emails will now fully display, and a new picture transfer protocol. What wasn’t fixed, however, was the gaping hole on the side of the device (aka: SD card slot) meaning users looking to make use of portable media will have to turn to the rooting community still.

We haven’t heard of any widespread major issues yet but that doesn’t mean they’re not out there. If you’ve had any problems with the latest 28MB update from Verizon and Motorola, be sure to drop us a line.

Toshiba Announces “Write Once” SD Cards.

Business looking for the ultimate security in digital media (and needlessly wasting planetary resources) should take a look at Toshiba’s recently announced “Write-once” SD cards. The cards (as the name suggests) can only be written to once. After the card is filled you can neither erase/re-write or reformat it. Pricing is said to be “open”.

Toshiba hopes the new uber secure card will appeal to governmental and other security-minded corporations. We on the other hand see this as an unnecessary waste of resources. To each his own…

2011 Intel SSD Roadmap Leaks Out.

The article posted last night concerning some leaked Intel Larsens Creek SSDs compliments of motherboard manufacturer ASRock gets a much warranted boost in scope this morning. Engadget has snagged Intel’s entire 2011 roadmap detailing not only the Larson Creek SSDs we saw last night, but a total of five new SSD lines coming this year. Everything from SLC PCI cards (Ramsdale/720 series) to even faster MLC SATA drives (Cherryville/520 series) in capacities ranging from 64GB to 480GB are on order.

The SLC PCI cards will no doubt blow all of the SATA drives out of the water, though said speed comes at a hefty price. As for SATA-based drives, Intel has both SATA 3.0Gbps (Lyndonville/Paint Creek/Larsen Creek) and SATA 6.0Gbps (Cherryville) planned in a wide range of capacities to suit everyone’s needs.

The action starts in Q3 of this year.