“VIacom CEO and President Philippe Dauman has confirmed that Harmonix is working on Rock Band 3, for release Holiday 2010! WOOO!” are the words which John Drake (Action hero name) the Communications Manager of Harmonix has told the twitterverse about the newest Rock Band. Assuming that he is telling the truth this should rock and band. He has also confirmed that it will be “AWESOME”. Also, if there is a retweet about EA distributing, but I kinda figured that already.

Thank you twitter for making all our journalistic lives easy.

All of this is almost exciting as Lady Gaga’s DLC. But, not for me. I love Lady Gaga and will challenge all that oppose me.

If you’ve ever fancied yourself an electric sports car you can’t go far wrong with a Telsa. Practically the only downside of owning a Tesla is the $111,005 you have to plunk down to take one out of the show room. Well Tesla now has an answer for all those people who just aren’t sure they have $111,005 to spend, lease to buy a Roadster or Roadster Sport. What the essentially means is spreading the cost over several years, but in effect means you can drive one away with $12,453 down and 36 monthly payments of just $1,658 plus tax.

Yes, that wheel could be yours for $1658 a month

OK, just $1,658 may not sound like a great deal, but we are talking about one of the most exotic sports cars money can buy here. Once you’re 3 years leasing is up you can either chose to buy your Tesla paying the remainder or return it and go jump in a gas-guzzler.

[Autoblog Via Engadget]

Another week, another tech story and there’s plenty of them to choose from this week so let’s get cracking OK?

First up for your gadget gorging pleasure is the world’s first 4G netbook which the folks over at CNET UK got their mitts on. The Samsung N150 packs your usual netbook fair, nothing really to shake a stick at apart from the LTE modem (that’s LongTermEvolution for those keeping track). Boasting potential speeds of 100Mbps down/50Mbps up, real world tests showed Sammy managing roughly 28Mbps, which to be fair is faster than my home broadband. A lot to get excited about then. (more…)

Google announced today the previously rumored social networking features in Gmail with a new product called Google Buzz. It’s obvious that Buzz is a direct answer to Twitter and Facebook. What makes Google an immediate threat to twitter is the leveraging Gmail for the content types allowed and user base it should spread like wild fire. Check out the introduction video after the break. (more…)

OK, so everyone knows that Apple has a tablet coming, and yes I still hate the name. But Apple isn’t the only player in this fledgling market, and some manufacturers are doing things that are a lot more interesting, hardware wise, than Apple’s proposition. (more…)

Today’s iPad announcements earned a few jeers from me toward my Apple fan-boy acquaintances. Where there was the potential for awesome developments in mobile computing, they get a oversized cell phone… minus the phone calls. Nelson had intended for me to write this post from a Windows user’s perspective, but I felt that pigeon-holed me a bit too much. I currently use Windows 7 and run a virtual Debian Linux system. If I could get the Mac OSX to run on my hardware I would have that as well but that is an argument for another post.

I instead will write from the perspective of a user who currently is Not Dealing with Apple’s Shit. I am not, to say, anti-Apple. I just had pointless half-ass innovation and the rabid fan-folk that follow. Yes, I admit that its big and shiny and has cool features; it could have been so much more. Apple, do you even know what people are willing to do for a real tablet with a powerful desktop-grade OS?

What I do feel this device will attain some success at is mangling the Kindle and its proprietary e-book formats. I am a big fan of the ePub format and use it on my G1 to read all sorts of open license and web-published works. Yes, I admit the iPad does things really pretty-like. But, it is just one MORE platform for app developers to buy more licenses that only run on more Apple hardware. Business: 1, rest of us: 0.

I have already been berated by some that I am not open minded about the technological marvels that Apple is bestowing upon us lowly masses. Hey if you buy it for me, I’ll be sure to use it… until then, I’ll pick my own toys.

Nokia let fly it’s free Ovi Maps turn-by-turn navigation software today at a press event in London, UK. Joining the likes of Google’s Android operating system, all GPS capable Nokia handsets in 74 countries (that’s 73 more than Google) will be able to download and either use over-the-air map streaming or on-board storage. Ovi Maps is powered by the Nokia owned Navteq’s digital mapping and allows for free drive and walk navigation. Map updates, events, Lonely Planet and Michelin guides plus the potential for any number of map overlays will be available over the air. Depending on whether developers get on board with Ovi Maps we could see quite a few 3rd party extensions and apps making Ovi Maps more of a platform than the likes of TomTom or Navigon.

It’s available now for the following phones: X6, N97 Mini, E72, E55, E52, 6730 Classic, 6710 Navigator, 5800 XpressMusic, 5800 Navigation Edition and the 5230 with more to be added at a later date. So if you’ve got a Nokia GPS smartphone and fancy a bit of free turn-by-turn then head on over to Nokia’s download portal.

Another nail in the coffin for TomTom, a shot at Google with wider distribution and a shot across the bow of Apple, who at this point must be prepping something along the lines of Ovi Maps/Google Maps Navigation surely?

[Via Nokia Conversations]

Hit the jump for some videos demonstrating the Ovi Maps software. (more…)

Well here’s an interesting development, Apple has invited a couple of gaming news organisations like Kotaku to it’s January 27th event in San Francisco. Now we already know from their tagline that it’s something new, which most people presume to mean the Apple tablet. We also know that Apple has been making larger and larger strides into the gaming market with the iPod touch and iPhone with the help of big name developers and indie studios alike. Does the inclusion of gaming press mean that Apple is going to aim it’s ‘Latest creation’ with much more of a gaming bent?

Without the confines of the smaller for factor of the iPod touch, many will be expecting more umph and processing power in any tablet that Apple may or may not ship. Perhaps we’ll see some decent graphics hardware in there too. After all, the Nvidia Ion (9400M) is already in the MacBook Pro line, so inclusion in the tablet isn’t as far as stretch as you might think, even if the rumours ring true about an ARM processor powering the device. Of course the Apple tablet might just end up being a massive iPod touch, which I don’t know about you but I would be extremely disappointed about.At this stage though, the fact that we’re even talking about a tablet device is just down to rumour and speculation. Who knows, Apple might have pulled a fast one on us with all this tablet subterfuge and in reality has a games console under development. The Apple TV on steroids perhaps. All we know is that until Steve busts it out at the event it could be anything, so we’ll have to just wait and see.

The long rumoured, often talked about date is now official. Apple has sent out invites to the great and the good inviting them to be at an Apple event held on the 27th of January in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco at 10AM PT, that’s 6PM GMT for those of us not in the US. Apple always has taglines for these events and this one is a real rumour fan: ‘Come see our latest creation’. Now I’m always one to look at things with extreme skepticism (one of the virtues of being British), but if that doesn’t scream out Apple Tablet, I don’t know what does.

So browsers at the ready for all you Apple fanboys and iTablet/iSlate fanciers, this one is going to be interesting!

[Via Engadget]