Google Opens First Google Store (Chromezone) In London.

Apple has a strong retail presence. Microsoft began following in the last couple of years. And now Google is beginning to get into the game too with their new “Chromezone”. The first Chromezone officially “opened” their sudo doors this morning in London’s Tottenham Court Road PC World. Arvind Desikan, head of consumer marketing for Google UK said the Chromezone will help in getting people playing with and figuring out Chromebooks and Google’s ChromeOS. Hands-on experience is key according to Desikan:

“We found anecdotally that when people tried the device and played with it, that made a huge difference to their understanding of what the Chromebook is all about. People will be able to go in and have a play with the devices. We want to see whether people understand what this device is all about and monitor their reaction when they try it out.”

Another Chromezone will go live October 7th in Essex. We’re still waiting on word as to when we can expect this same “Googly Experience” here in the states.

iOS 5 Begins Appearing In Cellbrite Systems Ahead Of “Let’s Talk iPhone” Event.

As we count down to the final hours before Apple’s revealing of the iPhone 5 and final build of iOS 5, we’ll have to fight our way through an explosion of last minute rumors and “leaks”. Speaking of which, this screenshot showing “iOS 5″ in Sprint’s Cellbrite system is rather intriguing considering Apple hasn’t seeded the GM build of iOS 5 to developers yet. Would carriers get first first dibs before devs? It’s plausible.

While some would classify this as “not news”, we think it is. So there.

We Hope The Nexus Prime Looks Like This.

Whatever the rumored Samsung Galaxy Nexus/Nexus Prime ends up looking like, we hope it’s similar to this beautiful rendering put together by Ciccarese Design. We have just a hair under two weeks before Samsung’s Unpacked Event where the company is rumored to be unveiling the next-gen Nexus device and possibly in conjunction with Google, the world’s first *official* look at Android 2.4/4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

What do you think?

AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II Has Major Lockscreen Security Flaw.

AT&T customers planning on picking up a new Samsung Galaxy S II come October 2nd will want to keep a close eye on their precious data — there’s a huge security flaw. Apparently the lockscreen security pin or pattern lock on the AT&T Galaxy S II can be bypassed by simply waking up the phone, locking it, and re-awaking it again. Note: The phone has to have been unlocked at least once after turning on.

A pretty big oversight wouldn’t you say? Samsung and AT&T haven’t responded to Gadgetsteria’s requests for comments outside of “they’re looking into it”. Expect a small security patch to drop for new Galaxy S II users shortly after the device launches on October 2nd.

Video of the (non)-action after the break…

Amazon To Reveal Secret 10″ Tablet Just In Time For Holiday Season?

If a 7″ tablet is good, increasing the screen size to 10″ must be better, right? While such a question is actually multi-faceted and quite complex, we’re pretty sure Amazon would have a hit on their hands if new rumors claiming Amazon will release a 10″ tablet just in time for the holidays proves true, especially if Amazon can launch such a device for $299-$349. Part of the new Fire’s draw is its rather robust feature set and low $199 price point.

Toss in other rumors that started surfacing today saying Amazon is in serious talks to buy HP’s foiled webOS mobile operating system and you’ve got plenty of new, juicy material to keep the rumor mills chugging away for at least another month.

Don’t Blink: Firefox 8 Beta Now Available.

At first we thought Google was pretty slick by moving to a brisk 6-week release schedule for major Chrome revisions. Mozilla follows a similarly spaced schedule of their own. However, we don’t know what to think after discovering that the Firefox 8 beta is already available for download.

What’s new you ask?

• Ability to use Twitter as the default search engine.

• More options for tab restoring on start-up.

• Increased user control over add-ons.

• HTML 5 (for developers) improvements.

We’re sure a few other features will get added before Firefox 8 goes live, not to mention continuing tweaks to speed and performance. Considering Chrome has been gaining a bit of bloat as of late, is anyone looking at possibly jumping ship back to their old favorite?

Thrustmaster’s Ferrai F150 Italia F1 Replica Wheel Is The Last Wheel You’ll Ever Need.

We’re not the biggest F1 fans. Though we’re sure we could learn to love it if we had an extra $800 lying around the office so we could snag Thrustmaster’s T500 RS simulator ($600) and this spiffy Ferrai F1 wheel ($200) modeled after the Ferrari F150 Italia F1. Considering the alternative — the real wheel is upwards of $40,000 — we’d say this is a steal.

Available now for PlayStation 3 and PC.