Apple Re-Invents Wheel – This Time The Keyless Keyboard – A La iPad

In a world of constant advances to technology, Apple holds one of the top ranking spots. With it’s domination into the mp3 player market; the smarthphone competition constantly trying to copy; the tablet pc market struggling to keep up; and of course all of the sexiness flowing out of the Cupertino Magic Factory™. The iPad revolutionized the way we compute. From the slick operating system made popular by the iPhone to the amazing gaming fun brought to us by the built in accelerometer. But when it comes to typing we are left with an environment lacking in ease. Yes, for the quick email, Tweet or Facepunch – it might work. But for those that really want to get down on dirty with their freshly installed Pages.app (Apples version of Word knuckle heads), we were left wanting more.

Recent Patent Applications show Apple moving in that direction for all of their computing marvels. I trust in Apple with all my heart(yeah, I said it), but I’m skeptical on how this will work. I pride myself in being a speedy typer – ever since the ripe young age of 8 – I’ve been able to crush the cars I was racing against in my ‘learn to type game’ on my old Mac SE. I’ve tried to rage through a lengthy e-mail or txt on my iPhone with almost no misses but it’s hard – very hard.

The flat keyless keyboard can be constructed out of many different solid materials. Whether it be plastic, metal or glass. From the looks of things, the latter will be the choice here at the GS headquarters. Being that we like to stay up late at night, with nothing but the glow of our monitors, having the keys provided as graphics on a display located under the glass surface with small LED sensors on the edge of the keyboard to light our digital fingersteps sounds incredible!

Do you think Apple can create the perfect set of flat Home Row keys?

Avatar Kinect Finally Graces Xbox Live – Nerds Can Now Be Virtually Inept

Microsoft first debuted it’s snazzy live group video chatting service back at CES 2011 – which we covered. And here we are, a mere 7 months later and we can finally see the dimples come to life! Avatar Kinect is a free download to any Xbox Live Gold member, as well as a limited time trial offer for those of you still rocking the free account for the next month and a half.

Avatar Kinect, available today, lets you – or rather your personalized avatar – interact with or hang out with up to seven other friends in 24 virtual stages ranging from a late-night talk show set to outer space to a sports tailgate party. To make the cyber socializing more real, Kinect’s camera tracks gestures and facial expressions – eyebrow raises, smiles, belly laughs and all.

We’ve known this was coming for a long time and us here at GS are kinda stoked to see if finally drop. We’ve been waiting to get our Avatar’s hands on some virtual party beers for a while now. The Kinect Fun Labs creation allows you to ‘chillin out max’ with around 7 of your closest internet buddies(or alone in my case) in a whopping 24 different virtual stages. Don’t worry though, this is Microsoft – so cash will be handed over. Those of you that will want the ability to draw sparkling lines with your real virtual fingers using Kinect Fun Labs ‘Kinect Sparkle‘ will be forced to fork over 240 virtual dollars this Thursday.

Late Night Snack: BlackBerry Hardware Leaks Abound.

RIM has been teasing new hardware and software — BlackBerry OS 7 — that was to be announced tomorrow. And on the eve of said announcement comes a flurry of information and even a few leaked images to boot.

For startres, a “secret agent” of the Examiner apparently spilled the beans concerning RIM’s next-gen platform and claiming that each of the big four carriers would have something to market and sell at launch.

• Sprint: BlackBerry PlayBook 94G/WiMAX) and 9900 (Full touchscreen — possible August 5th or 6th).

• AT&T: BlackBerry 9810 (Torch 2) and 9900

• Verizon: Bold 9900, 9860 (keyboard-less Torch variation) and PlayBook (4g?LTE)

• T-Mobile: 9900

We’re really digging the 9900 hardware and new look of OS 7. Though at the same time we can see how it all looks like yet more lipstick on a pig. (When will we get QNX super phones, RIM?) On that note, we’ll reserve final judgement until we have some hands-on time.

In other news: RIM’s 9860 (BlackBerry Monza) has stepped out for the world to see a bit ahead of schedule. This unofficial photo (above) shows off the keyboard-less figure powered by 1.2 GHz processor that is similar to the VZW Storm of past years. Thankfully, however, the Monza is light years ahead of the Storm (and Torch for that matter) in both software and hardware — no more SurePress nonsense to deal with. Release date for the Monza on AT&T and/or T-Mobile is unknown at this point, as is pricing.

Despite RIM’s rather meager outlook, the latter half of 2011 will at least be a winner thanks to devices like the newest 9900 hardware. Think it’s enough?

MacBook Air SSDs Not Created Equal: 11″ Faster Than 13″.

It appears not all SSDs are created equal — at least not the SSDs Apple used in their 11″ and 13″ MacBook Pros. Jonathan of TLD Today ran a series of tests on both MacBook Air sizes and found that the upgraded 128 GB SSD option on the 11″ MacBook Air was faster than the entry level 13″ MacBook Air’s. As it runs out, the former makes use of an apparently faster — does that equal better? — Samsung-made SSD while the latter uses a Toshiba-sourced piece. Johnathon’s tests resulted in read/write speeds of 264/246 MB/s for the Sammy SSD while the Toshiba struggled to mustered 203/184 MB/s respectively — pretty alarming if you ask us. Engadget, meanwhile, followed up with their own tests using a previous-gen MacBook Air equipped with a Samsung-made 256 GB SSD and found similar results — 251/214 MB/s (read/write) for the previous-gen 13″ Air while the newest 13″ Air scored 203/184 MB/s (read/write).

New entry level 13″ MacBook Air owners: Do you feel short changed by Apple’s decision of SSD vendor for your laptop? We’ve got a new 13″ Air in-house and must say, it is fast. Still, despite the fact we’d likely not notice the apparent performance difference in day-to-day operations, we’re feeling a bit burned. Why not use the same SSD manufacturer for all models of MacBook Air, especially if one is inferior to the other — taking into account pricing of MacBook Air hardware to begin with.

We’ve reached out to Apple for comment and will report back if/when we hear anything. For now, if you’d like to know which drive is tucked away inside your Air, simply hit the Apple icon top left and click “About This Mac” > “More Info” > “System Report”. Look for “Serial-ATA”. The Toshiba SSD features “TS128C” verbiage while the Sammy is labeled with “SM128C”.

Hop past the break for the video showing TLD Today’s Jonathon running through the performance discrepancies between the 11″ and 13″ MacBook Airs…

Apple Pushes Out 10.6.8 Snow Leopard Update.

In an effort to appease the OS X users unable or unwilling to update to the latest OS X Lion update, Apple has readied and released a separate update for Snow Leopard users today. The 10.6.8 update includes several bug fixes relating to network printers and certain issues with system audio when HDMI or optical outs are used. The new update also aims to fix several issues users could experience when transitioning files and settings from Snow Leopard to Lion using the official file transfer utility and tools.

Mac users need only open up Software Update and let it do its thing.

HTC’s Chief Innovation Officer Officially Out.

HTC’s future devices and technologies could receive a new flare in the coming months and years as current CIO (Chief Innovation Officer), Horace Luke, has officially left the company, leaving his successor a chance to redefine HTC and continue their innovation into the next decade.

While the actual “leaving” took place back on April 30th, the company is just now getting around to announcing the news for whatever reason — Luke himself cites “personal reasons” for leaving. We’ve come to grow quite fond of HTC hardware under Luke’s reign, so we’re hoping that HTC can push their design savvy even farther under the helm of their new design captain. Speaking of which — in Luke’s place will be current Vice President of Design, Scott Croyle.

We wish Horace Luke the best of luck on his new ventures while also welcoming Croyle into his new position.

Facebook Now Blocking Leaked iPad App.

Remember that snazzy iOS Facebook app we mentioned earlier? Turns out Facebook isn’t all too happy as the app is now being actively blocked. Users finally mustering up the courage to make the small info.plst change will be sad to know their efforts are too little too late. While the app itself launches just fine, logging in and using said app isn’t working. The people who saw the earlier post and did manage to get the app up and running are still able to do so now. Though some users are reporting issues with notifications — understandable given the apps unreleased, potentially beta status as well as Facebook’s unwillingness to let anymore people spoil their surprise.

Anyone manage to unlock the unofficial official Facebook app before they got all block-happy?