Ever since Samsung decided to come up with the Samsung Galaxy S3 mini to keep company its previous flagship, the Samsung Galaxy S3, and making some success out of the situation, I guess the folks over at Samsung were more than encouraged to roll out more variants of the Samsung Galaxy S4 such as the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active and the Samsung Galaxy S4 mini, where neither have officially hit the market just yet, although where the latter is concerned, we have already seen images of it leaked for some time now. Here we are with leaked benchmark results of the device, and it so happens that the new result points toward a Qualcomm chipset instead of the expected Exynos 5 which made its rounds in earlier whispers.

Obviously, it cannot be released with both chipsets at the end of the day, so one of the rumors are obviously fake. There is, however, a possibility that Samsung could very well have a sudden change of heart and roll out a pair of different versions. The leaked benchmark points to 960 x 540 pixel display, with a 1.7GHz dual-core Krait processor and an Adreno 305 GPU to keep it going, running on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean as the operating system of choice alongside Bluetooth 4.0, GPS support and dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11n connectivity.

How many of you would love to own a self-driving car? Well, some of us might put up our hands, while others could very well figure out that a self-driving car is not something they would look forward to, sitting in one as a passenger, since they would pretty much prefer to have things in their own hands. Thing is, this enterprising 19-year-old high-school student from Romania has managed to work on an artificial intelligence system for self-driving cars which could cut down on the cost of such technology, and he even went away with the top gong of a scholarship amounting to $75,000 scholarship last Friday at an international science and engineering fair.

Ionut Budisteanu did explain the situation surrounding his system, “The most expensive thing from the Google self-driving car is the high resolution 3-D radar, so I was thinking how I could remove it.” His solution? By relying on processing webcam imagery using artificial intelligence technology in order to select curbs, lane markers, and even soccer balls which happen to roll across the road. When this is merged with data from a low-resolution 3-D radar that is capable of recognizing “big” objects such as other cars, houses, and trees, you’ve got a winner here. Compare his $4,000 system to Google’s $75,000 system and you can see where he intends to go with this.

This is a record that is 9 years in the making – after a whopping 9 years of roving around, Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Opportunity has finally breached the previous limit that was set 40 years ago where extraterrestrial travels on the ground is concerned. Last Thursday marked the moment when the tenacious six-wheeled robot drove 80 meters (263 feet), which so happened to increase the total distance traveled on its odometer since landing on Mars way back in 2004 to 35.760 kilometers (22.220 miles). The previous record holder were NASA’s Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt when, in December 1972, they managed to drive their Lunar Roving Vehicle 35.744 kilometers (22.210 miles) over the lunar surface (and realizing that there were no Transformers spacecraft that crash landed there along the way)..

Of course, this might be NASA’s record-breaking ride at the moment, but it is still relatively far away from the international extraterrestrial land-distance record, falling short by a number of kilometers. In fact, it was in 1973 that the Soviet Union’s Lunokhod 2 remote-controlled moon rover roved around for 37 kilometers (23 miles) across the lunar surface, making it the long time, undisputed champion of distance driving on an extraterrestrial surface.

Earlier this morning, we talked about how the MacBook Air supply has fallen short before WWDC 2013 kicks off, and this has led to some analysts predicting that there could very well be a new model of the MacBook Air that is ready to be unveiled at WWDC 2013. After all, history does repeat itself when it comes to technology, and a shortage of supplies of the current MacBook Air stock at major US retailers could very well point to an upcoming revamped model.

In fact, selected models of the 11-inch and 13-inch MacBook Air have begun to show up as “Not available”, not to mention the same also applies to majority of the other retailers such as Amazon and Best Buy. Could it be that the folks at Best Buy are plain hopeless at managing inventory? I think that MacBook Air fans would want to think otherwise. To put things into perspective, it has been nearly a year since the MacBook Air last received an update, which is relatively long, so a new MacBook Air model in the pipeline is not too far off the mark.

In February earlier this year, Verizon launched a new set of prepaid plans primarily focused towards customers on a budget. The carrier offered two plans, unlimited talk and texts with 500MB of data for $60 per month. The same talk and text but with 2GB of data for $70 per month. These new 3G prepaid plans are available for 3G smartphones as such compatible BlackBerry, Android and iPhones.

Verizon has now quietly increased the data cap of these prepaid plans without raising the prices, which no doubt is a good thing. The $60 plan now comes with 2GB and the $70 plan now comes with 4GB of mobile data respectively, unlimited talk and texts are present as before. The change in these data caps is effective immediately for all existing customers, whereas new customers will have to wait until June 6th to be able to get these allowances. It goes without saying that these plans are limited to Verizon’s 3G service, there’s no telling when or if at all the carrier will be bringing LTE support for these prepaid plans some time in the near future.

According to a new report, the Galaxy S4 “Nexus” edition smartphone announced at I/O 2013, might be the T-Mobile variant of this smartphone that simply has modified software. Said to best meet the hardware criteria, T-Mobile’s S4 variant was chosen to be made Nexus edition Galaxy S4 that touts the stock version of Android OS. Starting June 26th, Google will begin selling this smartphone through Play Store unlocked for $649.

Apart from running a stock version of Android OS, the device will have its bootloader unlocked, which would make it easier for those who wish to flash custom Android ROMs. This smartphone will be able to support both AT&T and T-Mobile LTE networks. Google has also said that the Galaxy S4 Nexus edition will receive software updates promptly like other Nexus smartphones do. The best thing about stock Android OS is that it doesn’t have all the bloatware that carriers ship smartphones with or the skins that manufacturers bake on top on the core Android OS, such as Samsung’s TouchWiz UI. Though this is obviously not confirmed yet, the device actually needs to be released first before it can be said for sure exactly which variant it is similar to.

Verizon has certainly been late to the Galaxy S4 party. Other major carriers in the U.S. have rolled out Samsung’s latest Android flagship smartphone to their customers, whereas Verizon subscribers wait patiently for the new device. Just a fortnight ago the carrier announced that it will begin rolling out the device from 23rd May. It is now being reported that Verizon is actually pushing out the devices well ahead of time, with some customers allegedly receiving their units as early as last week.

A number of Verizon subscribers who pre-ordered their units are now claiming that their devices have been shipped ahead of the May 23rd release date. If this is indeed the case, then obviously no one would be complaining about actually receiving the device they’ve been waiting patiently for all this time a bit earlier. There’s also an upside to the roll out beginning soon, the Galaxy S4 bootloader unlock wasn’t being released because it is deemed to be compatible with Verizon’s S4 and wasn’t released before Verizon rolled out the device. As the device begins being shipped, we can only hope that the unlock also arrives soon. [Image via CNET]

Google Offers is a nifty little service that informs users whenever a nearby business if offering a limited time deal, through email or an app. The service has now been integrated with Google+ so that users are able to save as well as share such deals with their friends. The Google Offers service was launched back in 2011 with standalone apps released for both iOS and Android devices. The apps show users offers nearby, based on the location information obtained through their devices.

For now, a limited number of businesses have been allowed to share their offers through their official Google+ accounts, these include Adafruit Industries, Nook, Hello Kitty and more. Zagat, one of the most widely used services for restaurant ratings, is also an early adopter of this new integrated service. Google has been putting a lot of work in to building Google+ as a solid competitor against Facebook and Twitter. Recently at I/O 2013 it revealed a number of new Google+ features, and with this integration of Google Offers, its giving users and businesses yet another reason to hold on to its nascent social network.

Back in March Google announced that YouTube One Channel was being opened up for any and all who wanted to opt in to it. YouTube One Channel is a new look for the video streaming website’s channels, the idea behind it is to make channels more visually appealing, regardless of the browser it is being accessed through. The new look has been designed with goal of converting visitors in to subscribers, while retaining the slot for channel trailer. Some 100 million channels around the world opted in, and starting June 5th, every YouTube channel will be updated to this, making the transition mandatory for all of its users.

Those who are ready to make the move right now can opt in to YouTube One Channel, those who don’t will automatically and permanently be moved over to the new look on the aforementioned date. YouTube says that channels who opted in are getting some 20% more page views as clicks from YouTube guide now take visitors directly to a channel’s page rather than its activity feed. It doesn’t really make sense to hold on to the old look now, if you’ve got a channel on YouTube, best that you make the switch. It’ll only take a couple of minutes.

The Lenovo K900 smartphone was first unveiled at CES 2013 and it quite surprisingly smoked every other competitor. This due to the fact that it is powered by Intel’s next generation Clover Trail+ smartphone processor. The Lenovo K900 has now gone on sale in China, despite that it is not known for sure when it will come stateside, the company says international launch in unspecified markets is due this summer.

Lenovo K900 certainly packs a mean punch, touting a 2GHz dualcore Atom Z2580 processor, Gorilla Glass 2 full HD 1080p 5.5-inch display, 13 megapixel camera and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. Despite having all this on-board, the K900 us just 6.9 millimeters and weighs just 162 grams. In China this smartphone is now retailing for RMB 3,299 which is roughly $530. There’s no word as yet from the company on international pricing or availability. The smartphone has a stainless steel frame with the unibody chassis providing the slim and sleek look. Lenovo believes that its new smartphone is the perfect choice for high-end smartphone buyers. It certainly touts internal hardware that would give many smartphones currently available in the market a run for their money.