Author: Kat Hannaford

Announced at CES, the GPS-enabled EX-10HG from Casio has been a bit of a mystery so far, but has just been given full launch details, with the price expected to be in the region of $400 when it hits in October.

That’s a good 10-month long wait, and it’s not like the EX-10HG is the first camera with geotagging—though Casio uses three-axis accelerometers and an orientation sensor for gauging the correct GPS position, which can sometimes become unclear when indoors. This 12.1-megapixel model has a 10x zoom lens and records video at 720p, so it’s not like it’s just a basic point and shoot with a GPS sensor rammed in as an afterthought.

Alternatively, the Eye-Fi Geo SD card adds geotagging to your photos, and doesn’t have a 10-month wait. [Photography Bay via Gadget Venue via Geeky-Gadgets

Image Credit: DC Watch

The iPhone 3G may be the most popular phone in the US, but Gartner’s annual phone sales tally still puts Symbian as being the most-used smartphone OS worldwide. Snapping at its heels, BlackBerry’s OS has less than half the sales.

And the iPhone? They may have 14.4 per cent market share worldwide (a nice rise from 2008’s 8.2 per cent share), but they’re still a far way off from Symbian’s 46.9 per cent. Android’s done very nicely for itself, rising from 0.5 per cent market share in 2008 to 3.9 per cent in 2009. Windows Mobile unsurprisingly fell from 11.8 to 8.7 per cent in the last 12 months.

Symbian sales may’ve dropped 5.5 per cent between 2008 and 2009, but Nokia’s doing a bit better, with only a 2.2 per cent fall. They’re still top of the list for worldwide sales, though (on paper) need to be watching out for Samsung and LG, who increased their sales by 3.2 per cent and 1.7 per cent each.

The full scorecards of stats are included here for your perusing, but it’s worth noting that next year’s Gartner report is bound to show some major shaking-up. Windows Mobile should be on the rise with the launch of Windows Phone 7, and Motorola, buoyed by Droid sales and whatever else they have in store for us this year, should hopefully be seeing an increase in market share, not a decrease like they’ve seen in the last year. [Gartner via Hexus]

Street Fighter IV is almost here for the iPhone, and Capcom is tantalizingly drip-feeding us with details about the coolest thumb-masher to hit the App Store. It’ll cost a rather large $9.99, and will have eight playable characters, including Ryu.

Gamepro got an early hands-on with the iPhone and iPod Touch version, and while they haven’t published their first impressions yet, they were able to confirm with Capcom that it’s due to hit the App Store next month—and film the below video showing the game in action. It looks like the game control still blocks out the characters (your thumbs are literally on top of them), so it’d make more sense if Capcom had more ground and less air in the gameplay. [Gamepro via Kotaku]

Image credit: IGN

Apple claims they removed those 5,000 boobie apps because women were complaining over the “degrading” and “objectionable” content. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the removal of the SuicideGirls’ app—which actually empowers women—seems most questionable.

Sure, the free app features nudity. If you count nudity as being of the bras ‘n knickers kind. But when the site was set up by a woman, and populated entirely by women, it just means Apple really does have to define what criteria an app has to meet before it’s pulled down. Tarring all titillating apps with the same brush, yet allowing some cases such as Sports Illustrated’s app to remain on the App Store will end up backfiring on Apple—and I’m sure this won’t be the last time we hear about the SuicideGirls’ app, with the community being very, very vocal. The app actually had over 5 million downloads before it was pulled this week.

SuicideGirls co-founder Missy Suicide is going on G4’s Attack of the Show to discuss the removal of the free SuicideGirls: Flip Strip app today at 7pm EST, which used the iPhone’s accelerometer to remove the girls’ clothes when the phone is tilted. Without straying too much on Jezebel’s turf, Phil Schiller‘s comments about Sports Illustrated’s app allowed to remain in the store because it’s “a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format” shows he’s never acquainted himself with the many SuicideGirls books available. [SuicideGirls]

Your unibody aluminum collection, composed of a MacBook Pro, and HTC Legend pre-order confirmation email needs this toothbrush holder—which might’ve been enough to convince Howard Hughes to brush his teeth with. [Dominic Wilcox via InteriorDesignRoom via Oh!Gizmo]

Last Friday’s situation at the Mexican Foxconn factory (they supply components and products to Apple) where enraged employees burnt the place down over being forced to work unpaid overtime will be receiving extra pay, according to Foxconn.

Nothing like a bit of exposure on the tech blogs to force the Juarez arm of the Chinese company into doing the right thing by its workerbees. Apparently, the “ringleader” was someone who actually left Foxconn last year, and will be the one punished by the heavy arm of the law—not the hundreds of other workers who joined in on the arson.

Thankfully, Foxconn has also confirmed that nothing was severely damaged by the fire, so they can get back to work polishing those nice aluminum iPhone 4s we’ve been expecting. [Digitimes]

How to get people using Office for Mac, after admitting only four people “love it”? I know! Paint a MacBook with Office for Mac colors, load it with a copy of Office 2008, and give it away on Twitter!

You have to either be following @officeformac on Twitter, or retweet @officeformac, including the hashtag #officeformac. Only two MacBook Pros (2.53Ghz 15″ models) will be given away, which considering it’s Microsoft, isn’t nearly as generous as some absurdly-named website no-one had ever heard of, giving away 10 of the laptops last year.

It’s only open to the US and Canada, and ends in two days time, at 11:59pm PST. Really, you’d be doing them a favor entering—perhaps they could claim to have six people who “love Office for Mac.” [TUAW]

To watch this transparent cube build a ceramic bowl must be like watching magic. The nozzle shoots clay out, designing sculptures layer by layer, until the finished object is ready to be fired in a kiln.

Below you can see some of the creations made from the powder clay mixing with water in the printer’s tubes. If ever the movie Ghost is remade and updated with 21st century technology, Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore’s replacements should be straddling one of these 3D ceramic printers instead. Now there’s a film I’d pay money to watch. [Unfold via Designboom]

Ultra-trendy fashion designer Henry Holland held his London Fashion Week show on Saturday, where the BlackBerry-using front row sitters could buy the clothes straight from the catwalk using the House of Holland app.

It’s the first time a fashion designer’s allowed their clothes to be purchased from an app during a show—in the UK that is, but in Japan they’ve been doing this kind of thing for a while on their cellphones—with the slogan t-shirts painted with internet acronyms like FFS, CTFO and HML. Don’t ask me to explain what they mean, otherwise I’ll tell you to KMT.

Here’s me attempting to blend some knowledge of fashion with slightly more knowledge of tech: maybe “next season” Henry Holland will be offering an augmented reality app where the camera will recognize each “piece” and let you purchase them on the spot with your credit card, using the inevitable Square BlackBerry peripheral?

The app is a free download, and available now, where you can still buy the (overpriced) t-shirts for £55 / $85. [House of Holland BlackBerry App]

I’d be more excited if this special limited edition color was a never-seen-before color, but alas Pentax thinks the camera world can still get excited about silver. Or maybe silver is rare in Japan, where this model is launching?

The K-7 has been around since last summer, but only 1,000 of these limited edition model exist. If the new silver color, a reinforced LCD screen and new firmware and image processing software is making your fingers itch at the thought of flying out to Japan to scoop one up, it’s on sale March 13th for the equivalent of $1,420.

Apart from those minor changes, it’s still the same old 14.6-megapixel, 720-p-shooting camera which can be picked up for as low as $1,000 on Amazon. [CrunchGear]

I’ve knitted a few scarves in my lifetime, and have a cupboard full of cables, so I’m thinking of whipping up a few winter-warmers like Japanese fashion designer Kosuke Tsumura. Though it doesn’t look nearly as soft as merino wool…

He used anything from iPods to LAN cables, power boards and fabrics to create sculptures for his ‘MODE less CODE’ exhibition at the Nanzuka gallery in Shirokane, Tokyo. But can he do the Kitchener Stitch? [Japan Trends via Katiesol]

Looking like an English hedgehog with over 60,000 7.5m-long transparent acrylic rods shooting out of the building, the United Kingdom Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo is costing the equivalent of $38.6m to construct. [MSN]

It failed to materialize on the 15th, but now PreCentral’s claiming the 25th will see the webOS 1.4 update come good. This is a firmware update worth writing in your diary about, bringing video recording and Flash 10.1 compatibility.

It’ll also make the Pre and Pixi slightly faster, and have a few other minor changes not worth explaining. Here’s hoping you’ve got something interesting to film come Thursday, even if it’s just of an iPhone user struggling with their meager non-flash 3.0-megapixel camera. [PreCentral]

There’s a million and one Twitter apps available for the iPhone, but do any let you do a poo on tweets you dislike? Surprisingly, yes—and here I was thinking teenage roughnecks couldn’t afford an iPhone contract.

Bird Turd turns Twitter into a game, with the official bio of the app explaining

“In Bird Turd, YOU are the bird. And when you see a tweet you don‘t like, YOU CAN POOP RIGHT ON IT.”

Anything that lets me express some rage against the “SEO gurus” who follow me wins my vote, and 99 cents is a lot cheaper than a therapy session. Sold! [Bird Turd on the App Store via Mobile-Ent]

I’m sure someone at Apple has scars on their hands from the major wrist-slapping that’s occurred over their video cock-up of the iPad running Flash—but how could they make the same mistake again?

When Apple announced the iPad, you may remember some of their promotional videos showed the tablet running Flash on the NY Times website. They quickly rectified the problem—which was never explained fully, so we still don’t know if they were filming a prototype that did actually have Flash, or if they deliberately added it in to stir hype—but according to a Macrumors reader, the video showing Flash has returned. The original video caused the FTC to receive complaints about the false advertising, which isn’t the first time they’ve been hit with that criticism.

Watching the video now, it’s reverted back to the non-Flash enabled version, which just shows broken plug-in icons on the NY Times site. I wouldn’t suggest reading anything into this video, but it’s pretty surprising they could somehow accidentally switch the videos around again. What’s going on, Apple? And how can I get my eight minutes back, spent re-watching that bloody promo video again? [Macrumors]

Google may be aware they should’ve spent longer testing Buzz, but according to their VP of product management, it doesn’t pose a threat to Twitter and Facebook. Instead, “it’s filling a niche, which is not currently met in the market.”

Bradley Horowitz from Google told eWeek that in addition to not wanting to replace Twitter or Facebook, they’re also pretty chuffed with how many people have been using Buzz since the launch in early February. Apparently “tens of millions” people made over 9 million posts and comments on Buzz, with 200 posts a minute being made on their phones.

How many of those are from Google employees trying to keep the momentum going, though? [eWeek via TechRadar]

Answering the age-old question of what to buy a Mac fanboy who has everything, eBay user heylookitskibbe has put a stolen, broken step from the 5th Avenue Apple store up for sale with a buy-it-now price of $2,500.

The eBay seller says:

“They replaced it with a new one after a customer dropped a snapple bottle on it and cracked it. I picked it up before it could be thrown out over a year ago, figuring it’s a collectible.

When these are new, they cost 10K to buy from the German glass-makers. So, since it’s cracked I figure it’s worth at least $2500, considering the steps are all custom ordered.

You could use it as a coffee table on top of some cinder blocks, or just keep it for the sake of keeping it.

Unfortunately, I can’t deliver it. You’ll need to come pick it up in Brooklyn, NY, and I recommend you bring a car and a friend or two. It weighs about 250 lbs. It’s about 10 layers of very thick glass.

If you’re a collector of Apple memorabilia, you’ve got to have this. I know for a fact that only three of them exist outside of the retail stores’ circulation, and this is one of them. So, needless to say, it’s rare. I doubt it if you’ll ever see something like this again.”

Two thousand and five hundred dollars. Needless to say, the opening bid stands at $700 with no takers yet. Or, now you know it takes a fallen Snapple bottle to bring down the mighty stairs of Apple. [eBay via 9 to 5 Mac]

Inject some cool ’50s style into your home’s veins, with the Arne Jacobsen reissue of the AJ wall light. First designed in 1956, it was part of the Louis Poulsen range which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

The light yellow green color is a new shade for the lamp, but based on the original colors the Danish designer used. It’s a design classic with its asymmetrical shape and tiltable head, perhaps not as well known as the Anglepoise, but should impress any design buffs. Rather pricey at £357 ($552), sadly. [Panik-Design via Retro To Go]

Still mashing your thumbs on the original PS3, after the PS3 Slim failed to ignite your fire? Yeah, me too—but unfortunately Sony’s not going to give us love anytime soon, looking at these FCC documents.

The two documents don’t detail any of the changes, though it looks like they’re physically similar to the current Slims available today. Bluetooth 2.0 and 802.11b/g Wi-Fi are both ever-present, but as for the other components? Start revving your Photoshop’s engine to send some “leaks” spiraling onto the gadget blogs. [FCC via PS3 News via Engadget]

Don’t try and hide that Leksvik table from me, I can recognize Swedish wood from a hundred miles away. We all own Ikea furniture, it’s as certain as death and taxes. But not everyone makes a projector from a lamp.

Instructables member Derte84 cobbled together his projector using just the Isbrytare lamp from Ikea, tape and a couple of photo slides. Very simple, as you can tell. This particular model of lamp has a lens, which is necessary to make the image beam onto a wall, and is what Derte84 attached the photo slide to—though not too close to the light, as otherwise it’d burn.

Then, you can bore friends and family to death with holiday photos the old fashioned way—in Sweden, at least. [Instructables]