It looks like Panasonic isn’t the only smartphone manufacturer to announce a waterproof device as Kyocera is making a splash by introducing its new Hydro XTRM.

The Kyocera Hydro XTRM has a Military Standard 810G certification to withstand drops, can survive 3.28 feet of water for up to 30 minutes and has IP57 dust resistance. The Hydro XTRM also includes Kyocera’s proprietary Smart Sonic Receiver, which is a technology that replaces a phone’s peaked with a ceramic actuator, turning sounds into vibrations that travel through the body directly to a person’s eardrum. As for its specs, the Kyocera Hydro XTRM comes with a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, a 4-inch impact-resistant touchscreen display, a 5MP rear-facing camera, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and 4G LTE.

U.S. Cellular will begin selling the Kyocera Hydro XTRM starting today online and in its retail stores on May 24 for $29.99 after an instant rebate. Not a bad deal for an Android 4.1 Jelly Bean smartphone that can survive drops, dust storms and being submerged into water, don’t you think?

Ubisoft has been regularly updating Splinter Cell fans with new information on their upcoming Splinter Cell: Blacklist, such as highlights of the Wii U version of the game, Blacklist’s multiple play styles and the triumphant return of its popular multiplayer mode, Spies vs. Mercs. Today, Ubisoft is revealing Splinter Cell: Blacklist’s co-op mode.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist’s co-op mode allows two players to play as either Sam or Briggs through 14 different maps that feature missions that directly tie into the game’s main campaign. The 14 maps feature 4 different mission styles, although players will need to adapt to multiple play styles in order to survive each mission. Not only will Blacklist players be able to play its co-op mode online, but a local split-screen mode will also be made available.

It seems this time around, Ubisoft is definitely pushing its online offerings in Splinter Cell: Blacklist hard, which is certainly a good thing as it will help keep the replay value of the game high. Including both Spies vs. Mercs and a full co-op mode is something fans of the series have been wanting for a long time.

We caught a glimpse of the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active yesterday which is rumored to have a slower processor than the original Galaxy S4. Today, the device has shown up in a short video that briefly highlights the Galaxy S4 Active.

The ruggedized variant of the Samsung Galaxy S4 sports physical buttons, a 1080p HD display and is powered by a Snapdragon S4 Plus CPU, although it contradicts the information made available with its leaked image as it was originally believed to have a quad-core 1.9GHz CPU along with an Adreno 320 GPU. An 8MP rear-facing camera is also mentioned in the brief video.

Even though the video of the Galaxy S4 Active is relatively short, we’re able to see it’s running the latest version of Samsung’s TouchWiz UI and the surroundings seem to match up with yesterday’s leaked image. Hopefully Samsung won’t wait too long to announce the Galaxy S4 Active as we’re sure there are many of you out there who want the Galaxy S4, but would prefer it to be able to keep up with your active life.

We’ve seen some impressive uses for 3D printing over the past couple of months, one of which really blew us away as it used human DNA found in public places to deliver a 3D printed portrait of the person. But one thing we’re sure you’ve been waiting for was the use of 3D printing to move onto food, potentially making it possible for you to print your own dinner.

NASA is planning to conduct some research into 3D printing of food, which will begin with 3D printed pizza, that they hope will evolve the future of food for not only its astronauts, but for the rest of the pizza lovers here on Earth. As of now, the concept wouldn’t actually print a full pizza as we’re sure you were thinking, but instead, to print out basic ingredients such as oils, water and carbohydrate powders. The cartridges that house the ingredients would have a shelf life of decades, which should give you more than enough time to actually learn how to cook a pizza.

As for as for the taste, we’re sure it’ll be terrible at first, but hey – it’s 3D printed pizza!

We’re sure you, just like us, are anxiously awaiting Microsoft’s next-generation Xbox reveal event, which should be taking place later today at 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET. As of now, the Internet is running rampant with speculation on what exactly Microsoft will show us today, and more importantly, how it will compete with what Sony showed us with its PlayStation 4 earlier this year. But there’s one thing we’re hearing is Microsoft is already making moves to make its next Xbox available by the end of the year.

DigiTimes is reporting Microsoft has already started the production of its next Xbox in “small volumes,” but has already placed orders for mass shipments of the console to start in Q3 2013, to then reach its full peak in Q4. DigiTimes is citing sources familiar with Microsoft’s supply chain.

Getting its next Xbox mass produced early will certainly help get the new console into the hands of those that wish to purchase it. I can tell you from personal experience issues Microsoft had with getting enough Xbox 360 consoles into stores shortly after it was released was extremely annoying. Hopefully Microsoft has learned from their past launch mistakes and not only will make enough Xbox’s available, but will also make sure a high percentage of them don’t fail.

It looks like Google is going bonkers with its spring cleaning this year as they have already announced they’re ending its Google Reader and Google+ Games this year, but it looks like the search giant isn’t done sweeping some of its services under their rug as now, Google Checkout will be getting the axe.

Google Checkout is expected to be retired on November 20 as part of the company’s transition to fully support its multi-platform payment system, Google Wallet. In a blog post published yesterday, Google says merchants will be able to accept payments through Checkout until its retired on November 20. After that date, they’ll need to transition to another payment processing service, which Google has partnered with Brantree, Shopify and Freshbooks to make the process a little bit easier.

Google developers will automatically be transitioned to the Google Wallet Merchant Center within the next few weeks if they happen to be selling through additional Google properties, such as Google Play or Google’s Chrome Web Store. A Google Wallet button will also be available for shoppers for making purchases on merchant apps and sites, as well as Google properties.

When it comes to advertisements, it’s always better to get the approval of the artist whose music you’re “borrowing” rather than end up in a publicized lawsuit, which is exactly what’s happening between Eminem’s music publisher and Facebook as the company is suing both the social network and its advertising agency, claiming they infringed the rapper’s copyright.

The complaint contends a Facebook ad which was broadcast online on April 4 copied music from Eminem’s song, Under The Influence. The ad, which was called “Airplane,” was used in Facebook’s webcast during the company’s announcement of Facebook Home. Eight Mile Style, which is the company in charge of overseeing the rights and licensing of Eminem’s song catalog, claims Facebook’s ad agency copied the song “in an effort to curry favor with Facebook by catering to Zuckerberg’s personal likes and interests, and/or to invoke the same irreverent theme” as Eminem’s song.

After listening to both the Facebook Home Airplane commercial and Eminem’s Under The Influence (NSFW), we certainly see there are some similarities, but certainly not enough where the song played during the commercial could be considered a complete copy of the original track. What do you think?

We reported on an issue Google Voice users have been experiencing if they chose to give Hangouts a spin within their Gmail account. The problem users were reporting was their inability to make or receive calls from within Gmail. It’s a problem we’re sure Google was not aware of prior to Hangouts’ launch, but one of Google’s product managers has confirmed a fix is on the way.

Nikhyl Sinhal revealed the upcoming update in a Google+ post by first confirming the problem saying “Today’s version of Hangouts doesn’t yet support outbound calls on the web and in the Chrome extension, but we do support inbound calls to your Google Voice number.” Sinhal goes on to say Google is working on supporting both with outbound / inbound calls becoming available soon and recommends those users who are affected should continue to use Google Talk in Gmail.

Sinhal ends his post by confirming Hangouts is “designed to be the future of Google Voice.” Google plans on having the process of making and receiving calls be seamlessly integrated in its Hangouts.

At CTIA 2013, NVIDIA is demonstrating its 4G LTE modem capability of the Tegra 4i processor with integrated modem and the i500 stand-alone modem. You may recall that NVIDIA did a similar demonstration at Mobile World Congress when they showed a CAT3 100Mbps LTE link , but this time, the chip-maker has pushed the envelope by connecting their modems to a CAT4 150Mbps LTE link.
Read full post →Tegra 4i Integrated LTE Modem Tops 150Mbps

Considering that your Skype messages are being sent through a server before reaching the person on the other end, would you be utterly surprised if you found that your Skype messages are actually being read by the company that owns the software? While we guess it’s nice to think that the folks at Skype/Microsoft aren’t reading our messages, it turns out that maybe they are. This is according to a report by the folks at Ars Technica who teamed up with security researcher, Ashkan Soltani who discovered that links being sent across Skype were access by a machine whose IP address belonged to Microsoft.
Read full post →Skype Messages Found To Be Not As Private As You Might Think