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From a gadgeteer's point of view, one of the best things about the Olympics is its tendency to bring in new technologies to the hosting city. Take the 2012 games, for example: not only are the London Underground stations getting WiFi hotspots, but news has it that Samsung and Visa are holding hands to deliver NFC mobile payment solutions to the city. In fact, more than 60,000 locations in London are already geared up with contactless payment systems, and right now Visa is negotiating with banks to get its contactless cards and mobile phones approved. For the latter, one such device will be Samsung's Olympic and Paralympic Games mobile handset that comes with a Visa-enabled SIM card, and it'll be made available to sponsored athletes as well as various retailers. Furthermore, this alliance will continue after the Olympics, and Visa is rolling out its mobile payment system in many other countries as we speak, so it shouldn't be long before we hear more Visa h

Skype 5 for Mac leaves something to be desired -- we know it, you know it, and looks like Skype knows it too. That's why our fav VoIP app is soliciting the help of you, the people, to improve its UI. Skype's running a competition to find the one chat style to rule them all, and it starts taking custom CSS submissions April 8th. The contest has three rounds, with one judges' and one people's choice in each, followed by the selection of a grand prize winner from the six finalists. People's champs get an Apple TV and those picked by the judges snag a WiFi iPad 2, and all the winners get a copy of CSS3 for Web Designers and a year's subscription to Skype Unlimited World Extra. The grand prize is an eleven-inch MacBook Air, an iPad2, and the ego boost that comes with knowing your chat style forged in the flames of competition will be included in a coming release of Skype. Up to the challenge? Hit the source link for the full details.

It may sound patently obvious at this point, but there's still cause to celebrate -- Sony's streaming subscription music service, Music Unlimited, is headed to both the PlayStation Portable and its pair of divergent spiritual successors the Next Generation Portable and Sony Ericsson's Xperia Play. Eurogamer sat down with Sony Network Entertainment VP Shawn Layden, who spread the news readily, confirming that the service would be activated (at least in the UK) on PlayStation Portable "in a matter of weeks." Meanwhile, Android phones including the infamous PlayStation handset will get Music Unlimited "this year," and SNE "will make it happen" on the NGP as well, presumably sometime after the company reveals when its beast of a portable game station will actually come out. All in the name of taking your tunes with you wherever you happen to travel -- a concept that's getting rather popular right now.

A few weeks ago, it looked like robots would play a relatively small role in recovery efforts following the earthquake and subsequent nuclear crisis in Japan, but as concern grows over radiation leaks, robotics companies are positioning their mechanical offspring to do jobs deemed unsafe for humans. We've already heard of Aldebaran's plans for a fleet of rescue bots, and now QinetiQ and iRobot are lending automated assistance to the cause. QinetiQ plans to send in a set of Robotic Applique Kits -- used to convert Bobcat loaders into unmanned vehicles -- along with sensor machines like the TALON and Dragon. Meanwhile, iRobot's enlisted two each of its PackBots and Warriors to help aid in recovery -- the former is used by the US military for bomb disposal. Both companies have already deployed teams to Japan for training. Gizmag , Technology Review QinetiQ

While T-Mobile's staying coy about the Sidekick 4G's availability, RadioShack went ahead and gave us the final piece of the puzzle: according to one of its latest tweets, said Android phone is heading to the Shack on April 20th. Oh yes, this just so happens to be the rumored date for the G-Slate and G2X as well. Coincidence? Only time will tell, and let's hope that this doesn't end up being an April Fool's joke -- well, at least the Shack would have something to blame if it actually misheard the information over the phone. Android Community @RadioShack (Twitter)

Like killing elephants, paper airplane construction is a skill passed from father to son generation after generation -- at least until the robots take over. Dr. James Porter knows this and has done us the service of putting together a video showing him manipulating a da Vinci surgical robot to deftly fold a tiny paper airplane. So why not call in the kid and click through the break for all the go-action, daddy. It's not quite as impressive as robotic prostate surgery but hey, at least it's not prostate surgery. DVICE Swedishseattle (YouTube)

The details behind the rift that saw Acer's CEO Gianfranco Lanci (pictured) suddenly resign yesterday are now starting to emerge. Simply put, Acer's board wants the Taiwanese company to be more like Apple and HTC, according to Bloomberg , raking in big profits on fat margins. Lanci's approach, however, was to aggressively increase volumes and use its scale to negotiate cheaper prices from suppliers in a race to steal market share from Dell and HP. According to data compiled by Bloomberg , Acer's profit margin in the last fiscal year was just 2.3 percent compared to Apple's 21.5 percent. Daunting, to say the least. With Lanci gone, JT Wang, Acer's chairman and temporary CEO, plans to put more effort into expanding its smartphone and tablet business while broadening efforts around enterprise sales. For Wang, Lanci's departure marks a break with the past, saying, "Recently the iPad [tablet computer] and other new form factors have had a very bi

Touchscreen gaming's like cheese pizza -- a generally tasty treat, but significantly improved by an addition or two. Good thing Donya's got some new toppings for your touchy-feely display: a set of physical buttons and D-pads. Available in Japan for ¥999 (about twelve bucks) you get single, dual, and triple button stickers along with two D-pads to bring some much needed physicality to your handheld experience without sacrificing pocketability. We're not sure what marvel of modern science makes these tactile additions cling to your screen, but we do know they make firing off a few Hadoukens quite a bit easier. That plus a few Hurricane Kicks after the break. Technabob Donya

Try as we might, we've never been able to get too worked up over DAB radio -- dab , just saying it rids the body of consciousness. But then we perked up after seeing the image above for Sony's retro-nouveau XDR-S16DBP micro -- a temporary burst of adrenaline nearly stifled by the more mundane XDR‑C706DBP clock radio found after the break. Both are compatible with the DAB+ digital broadcasting standard rolling out across Europe and offer ten DAB/DAB+ presets with an additional ten for FM. The £79 XDR-S16DBP portable brings a pair of 0.8W stereo speakers, a 16x2 character LCD display, sleep timer, and headphone jack while the compact XDR‑C706DBP is a more traditional DAB+/DAB/FM alarm clock with 0.4W speaker and 4 alarm presets. Both are available now.     Sony introduces first DAB+ radios Retro-styled XDR-S16DBP portable radio and XDR‑C706DBP clock radio XDR-S16DBP portable radio with superb stereo sound and natural wood cabinet XDR-C706DBP clock radio with l

Ah, April 1st. It's that time of the year again when the internet is rife with odd news and pranks. As before, news sites like us end up with a healthy stream of tips throughout April Fools' Day (thanks, by the way), so let us round up some of the best findings for your comedic appetite. Contenders include the usual suspects like Google and ThinkGeek, the former of which dominating the gigglesphere this year with some new "features." We also have some interesting submissions from Hulu, a font company, and probably plenty more to come as the day progresses, so keep watching this space as we add new entries to this post. Right, let the fun commence after the break. First up, we have several new features from Google, starting with Gmail Motion and Docs Motion which offer "intuitive, ergonomic" gesture control to replace your outdated keyboard-and-mouse combo. But if you're more of a Google Voice person, then you might find the Voice-alyzer

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee -- in this case "we" being the Xperia Arc imaging flagship and Xperia Play gaming handset. We knew this day was coming, but it now looks like Sony Ericsson's hottest new pair of Android smartphones will be available from Rogers "late April" for $99. Of course, you'll have to commit to one of those insane 3-year contracts with a minimum $45 voice and data plan for the privilege, but the Gingerbread toting Xperia Arc and Xperia Play could be yours as soon as April 19-21, which is when the devices are expected to ship to stores. While there's no indication when pre-orders will be starting, folks who pre-order could win a trip to sunny Florida. Just promise to send us pictures of Shamu taken with your new phone if you win, OK? MobileSyrup

This particular "journey" may not involve any humans descending into the Earth, but that doesn't mean it isn't still plenty ambitious -- a pair of scientists are now proposing to drill to the Earth's mantle and bring back some samples, effectively picking up where the first attempt to do so left off some fifty years ago. Of course, the key word here is "proposing," but the scientists, Damon Teagle and Benoît Ildefonse, say that we now have the technology and knowledge necessary to do so, and that drilling could begin by 2020 if everything goes as planned. They're looking to get things underway well before that, however, and are already planning an expedition in the Pacific as soon as next month where they say they will "bore further into the oceanic crust than ever before." CNET Nature

In the future, our flying robot overlords won't just navigate terrain autonomously, they'll also report back to base with detailed 3D maps of everything they've seen -- or at least that's what this homebuilt UAV does in a video released this week. In a nutshell, MIT's combined its room-mapping Roomba with the Kinect quadrocopter radar developed at UC Berkeley, resulting in a flying contraption sure to be the envy of topographers everywhere. We're not sure that the world's robot incumbents will be too happy, though -- perhaps MIT should invest in some laser protection next. Slashdot , sUAS News MIT Robust Robotics Group

The world's most adored across-the-pond mobile retailer has just received its first batch of LG superphones, a gem by the name of Optimus 2X. As you well know by now, the company's playing this up as the planet's first dual-core smartphone, and while we'd hoped that the Tegra 2-based device would be everywhere by now, at least it's sticking to its scheduled release date over in Europe. Those interested in picking one up can get a SIM-free version headed their way for £449.99, while a free-on-contract affair can be had with T-Mobile, Vodafone and a host of others. Your credit card's been awful naughty of late -- dish out a little punishment by visiting the source link below.

Kia's really been cranking out the cute little concepts lately, and they unveiled another one today at the Seoul Motor Show. Dubbed the Naimo, this four suicide-door EV is trimmed to the nines with tech, including an "air wiper" -- a powerful air jet at the base of the windshield -- instead of regular squeegees, mini cameras in the A-pillar instead of sideview mirrors, and a transparent OLED instrument panel. Get up and go is provided by an 80kW motor and a 27 kWh Lithium ion polymer battery pack, a combo that hustles you up to 93mph and gets you 124 miles on a charge thanks to some fancy low-drag alloy dubs -- though we're pretty sure it can't do both at the same time. We like the looks of this slick little four-seater, but time will tell if the Naimo ever actually hits the streets. Check the gallery below, and press release after the break. Kia Naimo at Seoul Auto Show 2011     Kia Naimo electric concept stars in Seoul Striking all-electric concept

Oh, sure, it was easy to pick on Apple for all those frustrating App Store rejections over the years, but Google's had its own run-ins with apps being pulled under unfortunate circumstances, and now it's time for WP7 users to get a taste. Microsoft has pulled is thinking about pulling Imagewind from the Windows Phone Marketplace, an app that basically pulls random images en masse from the Twitter-stream, splaying them all over your touchscreen. MS indicated that, without some sort of filter to weed out seedy images, the app has to go. Somewhat curiously it's actually been chilling in the Marketplace since March 3rd, and it was only upon reviewing a recent update that someone in Redmond said "Hey, waitaminute!" Imagewind is now gone and honestly we can't say that its rejection is completely arbitrary -- displaying all images the all the time is not necessarily a good thing for sensitive eyes -- but it still stings, doesn't it? Update : We got a

Tired of Intel's Core i5 taking a beating on your X-Slim X360's battery life? Join the crowd. For those less concerned with playing Crysis 2 and more concerned with a solid overall machine, MSI's new X370 looks to strike a lovely balance. The 13.4-inch ultraportable gets a 1366 x 768 resolution display, AMD's hot-off-of-the-presses Zacate E-350 APU, Radeon HD 6310 graphics, HDMI / VGA outputs, a pair of USB 2.0 ports, an internal card reader, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, gigabit Ethernet, a 1.3 megapixel camera and (nearly) as much DDR3 memory as you can stuff into it. You'll also get a 320/500/640GB hard drive, a 4- or 8-cell battery and a chassis that weighs 3.08 pounds with the smaller of the two cells. Naturally, Windows 7 (64-bit) is the OS of choice, but the company's stopping short of providing a hard price or release date -- here's hoping it falls somewhere between "cheap" and "price mistake."

Cisco's doing it in the boardroom, and soon, your children may be taking notes from kiddos situated in a different continent. Skype in the Classroom is a new online platform that aims to make it easier for teachers to find other teachers who are utilizing Skype within their classes, and already there are 3,900+ taking advantage. The goal here is to enable professors to easily reach out and find like-minded individuals who are covering complementary topics, and with a quick email, the two could be cooking up joint lesson plans a dozen time zones apart. As of now, 99 countries have teachers that are signed on, and we're guessing it's only a matter of time before a couple more join and push that into triple digits. Next step? Logging into first period from home. Or Fiji. Skype Connects Teachers and Classrooms across the Globe LUXEMBOURG, March 30th, 2011 - School teachers and students everywhere now have an easy way to find each other for collaborative projec

In a nice rebound from last week, Netflix is expanding its non-exclusive agreement with Fox for content, bringing older shows Ally McBeal and The Wonder Years to Watch Instantly for the first time. Also arriving are the first season of Glee and the first two seasons of Sons of Anarchy from FX with additional seasons to be added annually, as well as "a number of library movies" after their premium pay-tv windows subside. It's not exactly the cable TV competing type of deal that it just locked up with Paramount in Canada, but fans of those shows have a few more reasons to hang on to the service. Beyond the announcement a slew of new content popped up on the service today including the just-aired premiere episode of Body of Proof , BBC stuff like Top Gear and Luther , a few James Bond flicks and anime like Inuyasha and Bleach , so even if you're not a gleek (and disappointed because if Netflix and Fox are talking, the only topics of discussion should be commis

It's a term (and a technology) that has been bandied about for around four years now, but after waiting far too long for the next next best thing, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers has just given its oh-so-coveted stamp of approval to 802.16m. For those unfamiliar with such a term, that's the standard for next generation WiMAX, which may end up being capable of handling downstream rates of over 300Mbps. 'Course, those that were around during CEATEC last year know that Samsung already hit that in testing, but we're starting to feel as if that 1Gbps theoretical maximum that we were teased with in 2007 (and again last year) won't ever breach reality. It's tough to say what this approval means on the consumer front -- over the past four years, a tremendous amount of carriers have switched their allegiance to LTE, and even if WiMAX 2.0 finds itself ready for public consumption in the near future, it'll take a serious operato

When a product takes well over a full year to go from introduction to release, it's natural for consumer expectations to amp themselves up a notch or two. Such is the case with Razer's Chimaera, an Xbox 360-centric wireless gaming headset that was initially teased at CES 2010, and just started shipping to end users early this year. The company's been in the gaming headset business for some time now -- if you'll recall, we thoroughly enjoyed our time with the (wired) Carcharias headset right around two years back. This 2.1 system promises to give Xbox Live yappers exactly what they've been waiting for, but is it really worth the $129.99 entry fee? Head on past the break for our take. Razer Chimaera wireless Xbox 360 headset hands-on For all intents and purposes, the Chimaera is a pretty simple product. There's a wireless base station with a 3.5mm audio input jack, a 3.5mm microphone output port, a sync button (not unlike the Wiimote situation you de