Apple has revealed a little bit more on what’s going down in San Francisco next month. The big keynote has been penned for June 11th, at 10am PT (1pm ET), but if you’re likely to forget that, Apple’s already prepared an app to keep you clued in. Too busy for these midday conferences? Then be assured that we’ll be there to unfurl everything Mr. Cook has to offer next month. For now, you can download the app and consult the full schedule at the source links below.

SOURCE via Apple

When it rains, it pours — after a tiny drizzle of tall iPod touch leaks, we’re suddenly faced with a deluge of photos of what might just be the next iPhone’s back plating. If that’s what we’re looking at through photos supplied by a historically reliable uBreakiFix, talk of bigger iPhone screens might just pan out, as it looks decidedly taller than the iPhone 4S we use today.

Apple may likewise be going all old-school iPhone on us, with a modern twist: we could be reverting to aluminum back with more receptive materials (likely glass) at the ends, just in a much thinner form that keeps the steel antenna band. Perhaps the most intriguing bit is at the bottom, where rumors of a much smaller dock connector may have been validated along with a shift of place for the headphone jack.

A handful of extra photos have surfaced at 9to5 that show a bit of the front, as well as better views of the back. It’s looking like the new model won’t quite be as skinny as some photos suggest, and we’re digging the different-hued, two-tone design a bit more now that it’s not being subjected to Mr. Blurrycam.

SOURCE via 9to5mac

There’s still a chance we’re looking at an elaborate KIRF or an early engineering prototype that could change, but given that 9to5 Mac just got very similar images with black trim, there’s a real possibility that we’ve just been given a sneak peek of what to expect from Apple later this year.

Those of you who’ve played paintball know the game rarely turns out how you imagined it. The weapons fire a .68 caliber blob using compressed air, and as such, they have all the accuracy of a pool noodle fired from a howitzer. That doesn’t make it any less fun to track your friends down through the woods and paint them dayglow pink, though.

One filmmaker has decided to show off exactly what the game looks like in the imaginations of 12-year-old boys everywhere by throwing in unsanctioned weaponry like full-on Nitro Circus Baja trucks, airfoils, ATVs, motocross bikes, Jeep Wrangler troop carriers and plenty of dirt jumps. There’s even a cameo by an older doorless Grand Cherokee.

It’s paintball armegeddon. Still, we feel it’s our duty to warn anyone who’s still reading not try these sorts of shenanigans at home – battle between foot soldier and moving vehicle rarely works out in the former’s favor. Check out the melee for yourself by scrolling below.

Read more…

We’re seeing rear cameras on smartphones and tablets get better all the time; what about at the front? OmniVision might have that side tackled through the OV2722, a 1080p-native CMOS camera sensor. It won’t allow for magnum opuses of photography like the company’s own 16-megapixel behemoth, but it’s just big enough and thin enough (at 3mm deep) to give a serious upgrade to the 720p-or-lower front cameras that prevail today, including webcams on Ultrabooks. The new sensor is both thinner and better in low light than an earlier iteration, so we’ll hopefully see fewer instances of blurrycam self-portraits and video calls. The OV2722 is in mass production now for unnamed clients, although we’re worried that the resolution jump will show us a little too much detail in that chat with Aunt Mildred.

SOURCE via OVT

Microsoft has patented an online personal appearance adviser for those of us without a hotline straight through to Put This On’s Jesse Thorn. Simply upload a pair of pictures of yourself in different hair, makeup and clothing choices and let the denizens of the internet vote on which one makes you look the best. Sounding similar to HotorNot and FaceMash, this patent purports to shift the emphasis to help the style-challenged choose a suitable wardrobe. We just hope the company built in some snark-protection — or else we might see plenty of ingenues with ruined self-esteem arrive at the opera in a dinosaur costume.

SOURCE via USPTO

Google continues to keep our friends down at the US Patents and Trademark Office busy with its latest filing, involving augmented reality and a pair of relatively staid (at least by these sketches) pair of glasses. The patent outlines a system where a view-finder could identify what we’re gawking at, adding in extra factual details and also outlining new points of interest — including those that aren’t necessarily within the view of our own eyes. The glasses would then be able to notify us with a medley of visual indicators and cues (including the slightly awkward notion of light-up frames), guiding our gaze to something we’d hopefully want to take a look at.

There’s more to Google’s latest idea than simple tourist-centric finger-pointing though, also looking to augment how we read. The device would detect when someone is reading from a digital display and even feel out the rest of the information currently out of view. It would then direct readers to points of interest; possibly pictures, possibly those important factual nuggets — the patent still plays loose with the specifics. But if you’re into such vague and fanciful product description, you can take a look at the full filing at the source below.

SOURCE via USPTO

France typically hasn’t been kind to Google. Today, though, it’s cutting some important slack. A court has ruled that the search firm can’t be held liable when YouTube members upload clips of their favorite football matches or movies from local network TF1. As in a case involving Dailymotion last year, the judge saw YouTube as just the host for others’ videos rather than having any hand in producing the content itself. Not only does the decision let Google off the hook for a possible €141 million ($177 million) fine, it prevents the company from having to pre-screen every video that might be visible in France — a difficult challenge for a company that takes 72 hours of new video every minute. Google is still facing less-than-cordial attitudes towards its copyright enforcement in other countries, including a zombie Viacom lawsuit in the US, but it now has some extra ammunition if it wants to cite a precedent.

SOURCE via Reuters