Samsung Confirms Ice Cream Sandwich Update For UK Galaxy S II.

Considering the Galaxy S II is still one of the most powerful Android devices on the market, we’d expect Samsung to take care of said owners rather generously with a nice, official Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update. And so they shall.

Samsung UK announced (Twitter) that they will in fact be updating their (still for a couple more weeks) flagship device to the latest and greatest Android OS. With that said, Samsung didn’t give any clues as to when the update would be released. With TouchWiz on board, UI tweaks will need to be made. As such, don’t expect any (official) ICS action on your Galaxy S II until early 2012. As for us Americans…keep waiting.

Is This The Grand Theft Auto V Map? (Release Coming June 2012?)

Battlefield 3 was fun and all — ditto for Modern Warfare 3 — but the gaming news that really gets my inner geek excited is anything and everything concerning the upcoming Grand Theft Auto V. I’m a “live without borders” type of guy, so the free-roaming nature and ability to literally do whatever I want has always drawn me towards the GTA series. Rockstar games hasn’t revealed anything more than a short teaser/trailer video showing the world that there is in fact a new GTA coming, but crucial details such as what the full map looks like as well as when we can go on crazy drug dealer missions dressed as hookers have yet to be revealed — until (maybe) now.

Lazy Gamer has posted a couple of screenshots which they claim depict the full map for GTA V. Being based in the same city of Los Santos, we notice the alleged GTA 5 map features a lot of countryside. That was one of the best features of San Andreas in my book — urban sprawl + mountains to go off-roading with a scooter.

Even better, Walmart.com just so happens to have GTA 5 up on their site available for pre-order with a blurb that says (Walmart.com search – “GTA 5″):

“item should ship on 6/1/2012″

The date could very likely be nothing more than a placeholder date, though we’d assume retailers are beginning to get at the very least, a rough estimate of when to expect the title in stores.

Who’s saving their pennies for the next GTA?

AOL Releases Updated AIM App – 15 Year Olds Everywhere Ask What Aim Is!

AOL got saucy today and updated their once crazily popular messaging app – AOL Instant Messanger. If you remember back in the day when you would turn your computer on and then hear that archaic fax noise? After being alerted you had Mail you would troll the chat rooms looking for n00ds and to meet some people? Yeah, well around that time you were able to communicate via application in immediate on the spot chatting. It was almost like using a phone, but you didn’t have to be annoyed with voices – minus the ones of your mom yelling at you to come eat or go to bed.

Anyways… AOL released one snazzy looking update today in all realms. The update comes to pretty much anyone with some sort of device. AIM for the iPhone, Mac OS X, Windows, Android as well as the web app all received the polishing, breathing new life into the fading application. Tons of new features and an entire new design give AIM the much needed push to get people to dust off their AIM username and see who is still on their Buddies list. I personally haven’t used an actual AIM client in probably 10 years. Of course I’ve used iChat which utilizes my AIM username, but still, I honestly wasn’t aware AOL was still rocking it hard.

Hop on in for a list of updates and features, as well as some more sexy photos!

Google Announces Google Music.

Well, it is official with the Google press event wrapping up we know Google Music is official. With the online search giant dropping the beta tag and expanding its tendrils into the music industry by netting deals with major labels like EMI and Sony, it is shaping up to into quite the iTunes competitor.

Google Music will allow users to upload up to 20,000 songs and stream them in 320 Kbps quality from pretty much any device that has a web browser. Best of all, all of this new found Google Music action will remain free!

In addition to music labels being added to Google Music, some integration with Google+ was announced as well. Google+ users can share songs and entire albums with other Goolge+ users whom in turn are given one full free play.

Not to veer too far from the topic — Google+ is shaping up to be a very robust social medium. We like what we have seen so far and are looking forward to the months ahead to see what additions Google+ and Google Music will receive.

The new service is officially live at music.google.com as is the official Google Music Android app.

Well be giving Google Music a thorough testing over the weekend. Look for our Google Music “review” early next week.

In the meantime…Let us know your thoughts in the comments!

Minecraft Makes Its Way To Mobile (Again). iPhone App Released.

Want all the Minecraft action on the go? Keep looking, then. The newly released (New Zealand today, U.S. tomorrow) Minecraft iOS game is but a small piece of the desktop juggernaut. Some of the things you miss out on using the mobile app include zombie creeper guys, lack of any health bar, no vast wondering/survival mode, and you’re limited to 36 blocks.

Despite all the negatives, it shows that Minecraft can make the move to mobile — the space many would say is the next frontier of gaming, especially since iOS blew the doors open on “casual gameplay”.

Minecraft for iOS is available now in the New Zealand App Store for $9.99 NZ. By the time the Minecraft for iOS makes its way across the pond to U.S. residents tomorrow, expect the price to get rounded down to $6.99 USD.

Minecraft for iOS joins a previously released Android app and will soon be joined by an official Windows/Mac app on November 18th.

Diehard Minecraft fanatics: Are the various missing aspects and limitations of the mobile so great that it’s not worth playing on the go?

GMail For iPhone Back In App Store.

“If you already have the Gmail app 1.0.1 released on 2 Nov, you will need to uninstall or log out of the old app prior to installing the new app.”

Let’s hope that version 1.0.2 is a tad more stable, or at the very least, doesn’t throw up a nasty error as soon as you launch the app.

• Gmail for iOS (iTunes Link)

iOS 5.0.2 To Fix What 5.0.1 Didn’t. iOS 5.1 To Bring New Functionality To Siri.

iOS 5.0.1 was supposed to fix several glaring problems with iOS 5, most importantly, rampant battery drain. Well, we’re here on iOS 5.0.1 and a-ok. Many other people, however, are not. As soon as 5.0.1 began penetrating the masses, reports of unaffected battery drain, and even battery drain that became worse started going around. Exhibit B: iOS 5.0.2.

Apple is reportedly working on a second minor update, iOS 5.0.2, that will further address the battery drain problems as well as several other small things here or there. But what’s more interesting is what’s coming to Siri in iOS 5′s first major update.

According to Macerkopf.de, iOS 5.1 will add new functionality to Siri — things such as the ability to take a picture, capture video, and even toggle on/off WiFI, Bluetooth, and more. The latter bit is an awesome possibility and would instantly make Siri more useful in our book. It makes perfect sense. Why clutter you screen with toggles for system functions when you can do it with Siri?