As we reported yesterday, the Sony Xperia S has been rumored to possibly receive Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean and it looks like that rumor has now become a reality as Sony has announced they will start rolling out an official Android Jelly Bean update for the device.

As of now, only Sony France has confirmed the Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean update, but we’re sure other countries will be making their announcements soon enough. Whether or not Sony decides other Android-powered smartphones it has manufactured are ready for an update to Jelly Bean, like its Xperia Ion, is yet to be seen, but its update of the Xperia S is certainly a step in the right direction.

If you happen to be a Sony Xperia S user in France, then you should be receiving an update notification soon as you can initiate the update either through the Sony PC Companion or over-the-air. For the rest of you outside of France, the rollout of Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean shouldn’t take to hit your devices.

We’ve seen Google roll out some new features to Gmail over the past few weeks including quick action buttons and allowing users to search their calendar and Drive accounts directly in Gmail. It looks those weren’t the only improvements Google had planned for Gmail as a redesign was leaked during I/O.

During a Google I/O session called “Structure in Android App Design,” an image of new design for Gmail leaked. The leaked image shows the new Gmail will have a revamped navigation drawer and will possibly lack an action bar on the bottom of the screen. Those actions that are normally located at the bottom of the screen have been moved up to streamline the inbox’s vertical structure.

The new navigation drawer makes looks to make it easier to access your Gmail account’s priority inbox and individual labels without having to open an additional screen, which is how you would access them in the current Gmail app. When exactly Google is planning to roll out the redesign for its Gmail app is yet unknown, but hopefully it’ll be soon now that it’s officially been leaked.

Logitech’s Ultimate Ears brand has created a number of notable wireless speakers, but their newest speaker may take the bluetooth wireless speaker world in a completely new direction with its UE BOOM.

The UE BOOM is being dubbed the first-ever social music player as its the first stereo speaker to offer 360-degrees of sound in a battery-powered device, which features a 15-hour rechargeable battery. The UE BOOM is completely versatile as it’s shaped and wrapped in an acoustic skin that is both water and stain resistant, and is also made for connecting with others. Party goers who have more than one UE BOOM available will be able to connect them together through the free UE BOOM app available on iOS and Android. The UE BOOM app allows two speakers to play in either stereo-to-stereo mode or in the traditional left/right stereo mode.

The UE BOOM will be made available in the U.S. and Europe starting in May 2013 for a suggested retail price of $199.99. Just in time to take advantage of all of the summer parties you’re totally going to be attending this year.

Microsoft unveiled its Xbox One just a few days ago, although soon after its unveiling, more questions came up than answers such as when it’ll be released, and what exactly is going to happen if you play a used game. With so many questions circulating Microsoft’s next-generation Xbox, certainty is something we’re sure we all need at this point.

If you decide you’re going to be picking up the Xbox One later this year, you’re going to need to know what its game box will look like, or you could find yourself staring at Xbox 360 game boxes wondering where the Xbox One games are. The box design for Xbox One titles has been confirmed today by Major Nelson, who published an box-art mage of the newly announced Forza Motorsport 5.

The Xbox One game box deisng is similar to the Xbox 360′s, but the Xbox One logo is now centered above the game’s box art and the side of the box has a grey strip along with the game’s logo. We’re not sure if all Xbox One games will have the same grey strip for all of its games as the Xbox 360 game box design has the Xbox 360 logo at the top, with the rest of the side used to promote the game’s own box art.

If there’s one thing we know we all could certainly agree on, it’s the fact that our laptops could certainly use more power. Sure – 7 hours of battery life is good, but we look forward to the days where it’s been years since we charged our computer. We might not get to that point any time in the near future, but Intel is claiming it will be able to extend the battery life of your laptop by 50 percent.

Intel’s Architecture Group vice president Rani Borkar says laptops powered by the company’s new Haswell chip will result in it being able to squeeze out 50 percent more runtime out of its battery, and will also provide 20 times longer battery life when its in standby mode. Best of all – this increase in a laptop’s battery life won’t come at a cost in its ability to perform.

Borkar claims the way Intel is able to provide this substantial increase in laptop battery life is due to lower power requirements as well as an additional power management chip that helps reduce its energy draw. It certainly is an impressive claim and one we’re sure you can’t wait to see implemented in upcoming laptops.

Memorial Day weekend is nearly upon us, which means a large number of U.S. retailers will try their best to get you to spend time in their stores rather than enjoying a good barbecue, spending the day at the beach, or sitting in your air-conditioned bedroom playing Skyrim until you can no longer feel your eyeballs. Best Buy is one of those retailers who would like you to keep their employees company during the holiday and will be knocking $50 off the iPhone starting this Sunday.

When Best Buy says “iPhone,” this promotion is good for the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 when purchased on a two-year contract on AT&T, Sprint or Verizon. If you can’t make it to your local Best Buy this weekend due to your Memorial Day already being filled with fun and hijinks, there’s no rush as they’ll be running the promotion for four weeks.

The promotion comes at a time where rumors regarding the iPhone 5S have been intensifying, which could very well be the reason why Best Buy would like to get rid of some of its stock of iPhones in order to plan the rumored fall launch of the next iPhone.

We’re sure by now you have decided which cloud-storage service you want to trust all of your files, photos and other miscellaneous documents with, but Verizon is throwing their cloud into the ring as they have just launched its cleverly named Verizon Cloud for iOS and some Android devices.

Verizon Cloud is available only to Verizon subscribers on supported handsets, including all iOS products and most Android devices, including the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC DROID DNA. Verizon customers can have access to 500MB of free cloud storage, but will allow additional storage on a tiered price scale. An additional $2.99 a month will get you 25GB of storage, $5.99 per month gets you 75GB of storage, while spending $9.99 per month will get you 125GB of storage.

Verizon Cloud won’t only store your everyday files, such as photos, music and documents, but the service will also store text messages, call logs and contacts in an attempt to make transitioning between devices a little bit easier by seamlessly transferring information.

We’ve seen some incredible LEGO creations over the years, but we don’t see many record breakers these days, which is exactly what you’re staring at now that this 1:1 scale model of an X-Wing fighter has now been unveiled.

The X-Wing fighter uses a total of 5,335,200 bricks and accurately reproduces LEGO’s official 9493 X-Wing Fighter. A total of 32 people spent 17,000 hours building the 43-foot long, 45,980-pound fighter inside of the LEGO Model Shop in Kladno, Czech Republic. Once assembled, it was shipped to New York City, where it’s currently on display in the middle of Times Square.

Creating a world-breaking LEGO X-Wing fighter wasn’t the company’s only reason for building this amazing piece as it’s also being used to promote a new three-part animated series headed to Cartoon Network called Lego Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles. New Yorkers won’t be the only ones who can marvel at the glory that is the LEGO X-Wing fighter as it’ll be making its way out to the West Coast and will stay there until the end of 2013.

A 3D printed pizza may seem like the ultimate couch potato’s dream, but we can’t deny when a 3D printed is used to save a life, especially a baby’s life, we’ll happily wait our turn with a 3D printer if that’s what it’s being used for.

Bryan and April Gionfriddo have a 6-month-old baby, Kaiba, who suddenly couldn’t breathe due to his bronchus suddenly collapsing. The baby’s parents took him to the emergency room where it was determined Kaiba would require a splint being inserted in order to hold open his bronchial tube, to hopefully allow the tissue to grow and heal around it properly. Doctors decided to use a 3D printer to create the splint as time was of the essence in order to Kaiba to survive his ordeal.

Kaiba was first imaged in order for technicians to get accurate dimensions to then have those measurements used to create a computer model, which acted as the blueprint. With that information, the 3D printer was able to print out the custom splint doctors needed in about a day.

The ongoing drama in regards to the Xbox One’s questionable methods of handling used game sales is one that is still going quite strong even days after Microsoft flip flopped on the issue mere moments after the console was debuted. Today, we’re hearing a new rumor from a source outside of Microsoft that may finally shed some light on how the Xbox One will handle used games.

According to a number of retail sources, Microsoft spent some time this week to brief a number of key retail partners on how the company plans to take their cut, as well as give a cut to a game’s respective publisher, when a used game is sold. When an authorized retailer has sold a used game, Microsoft’s cloud-based Azure pre-owned system will kick in to mark that title as being sold. This will result in the game’s original owner to have the title completely wiped from their hard drive.
Read full post →Xbox One Used Game Sales Fees May Profit Microsoft, Publishers [Rumor] [Update]