Acer's Windows-powered Iconia W500 up for pre-order for $549, ships April 15th

Acer already announced UK pricing for the Windows 7 and Android Honeycomb versions of its Iconia Tab, and now it's ready to take both stateside. Days after Best Buy started taking pre-orders for the Android 3.0-powered Iconia Tab A500, the Windows-based W500 has shown up on B&H's site for $549. Like its cousin, the W500 has a 10.1-inch (1280 x 800) display, HDMI-out and dual cameras, though it steps up to 2GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, AMD Radeon HD 6250 graphics, and a 1GHz Ontario (C-50) AMD Fusion APU. It also comes with a keyboard dock, putting it in the same price range as ASUS's Android-based Eee Transformer, which costs less but doesn't include its similar-looking keyboard. Acer rates the W500's three-cell battery at up to six hours -- a far cry from the iPad's promised 10-hours and, perhaps, a good reason to wait for slates featuring that lower-power Fusion APU AMD's been shopping around to tablet makers. B&H says it'll ship starting April 15th, but head on over to its website if you're psyched enough to place an order now. Or you can keep saving your pennies for Acer's other Iconia.

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Google announces new ways to discover apps on Android Market, more tools for developers

Android Market may have a lot going for it, but most would surely agree that it could use some improvement when it comes to discovering apps that you aren't specifically looking for. Thankfully, it seems Google has indeed been aware of those concerns, and it's now announced five new features that should go so some way towards improving things. Those include some newly revamped top app charts that promise to be "fresher" and country specific, a brand new Editors' Choice section that highlights apps chosen by Google, a new Top Developers feature that places a special icon next to the name of developers that make the grade (currently more than 150), improved related apps on individual app pages and, last but not least, a new trending apps section that shows the apps growing fastest in terms of daily installs. What's more, while all of those features are currently exclusive to the web-based version, Google says they're also "coming soon" to the Andr...

Scientist cooks up adjustable strength metals

As you may know, crafting a katana is a delicate process that involves carefully constructing a razor-sharp high-carbon edge around a soft shock-absorbent core. One day though, smiths and forging fires could be replaced by electrode-wielding mad-scientists, with the technology to selectively harden and soften metal at will. At least that's what we envisioned when we read about Jörg Weißmüller's breakthrough research in the field of nanomaterials. The German scientist discovered that by placing precious metals in acid he could create tiny ducts through corrosion. Once those channels are flooded with a conductive liquid, electrical currents can be used to harden the material and, if you change your mind about the brittle results, the effect can easily be reversed to make it soft again. The tech could eventually lead to self-healing vehicle armor or scratch-resistant cellphones -- but, really, we just want to zap our way to a high-quality samurai sword. Physorg

LG adds 'Tweet-TV' enabled Android phone to its list of Mobile DTV prototypes

Whenever mobile digital television broadcasts finally take off LG will be ready and its latest concept design -- following the autostereoscopic 3D screen shown at CES -- is the Tweet-TV pictured above. At the National Association of Broadcasters show this week it's demonstrating the prototype Android phone with a Harris MDTV antenna that also pulls in relevant tweets and displays them over the broadcast being watched. Whether or not a dose of social networking will help MDTV succeed where others have failed remains to be seen but first we'll see if it manages to reach 40% of the US population later this year. The press release and a bigger picture follow after the break. LG ELECTRONICS SHOWS EXPANSIVE CAPABILITIES OF MOBILE DIGITAL TV, DEMONSTRATING 'TWEET-TV' SOCIAL NETWORKING, ELECTRONIC COUPONS, 'GLASSES FREE' 3D Prototype displays, Smartphones highlight flexibility of mobile DTV standard LAS VEGAS -- Apr 08, 2011 / (http://www.myprgenie....

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