Google said to be preparing NFC checkout trials for San Francisco and New York City Now

Google does not sell hardware, Eric Schmidt told us as much, but the company has few qualms about buying the stuff up. Bloomberg is reporting, on the authority of a pair of well informed sources, that the Mountain View team is about to buy up "thousands" of VeriFone's NFC payment terminals, with a view to installing them in stores across San Francisco and New York City. Those two technophile cities represent the most receptive audience NFC is likely to get in the US, and Google will be hoping that users there will be able to appreciate the convenience of being able to swipe their Nexus S (or other similarly equipped handset) to complete payments. We already know that Schmidt and co. consider the concept of "mobile money" a priority and there have been rumblings of Google setting up its own payment system, which together make this hookup with VeriFone appear highly credible. Bloomberg expects the trials to commence within the next four months, just in time to make iPhone 5 users green with envy.

Sprint now announcing Nexus S 4G, EVO 3D, and EVO View tablet at CTIA?

The media -- yours truly included -- has been trying to figure out why Sprint has booked an insane two-and-a-half hour slot at CTIA later this month. That's not the kind of event you throw together just to rehash the devices you've introduced over the last half year -- something's up, and if our source is correct, they're up to something big.

First, we're hearing that the carrier will launch the Nexus S 4G from Samsung, and judging from the name, the phone should be something akin to a Nexus S with WiMAX. It seems this one could be either the SPH-D600 or SPH-D720, both of which have recently received certification from the Wi-Fi Alliance, though the SPH-D720 is more likely; the D600 shows WPS support, which is available in TouchWiz-skinned devices but not in stock Gingerbread. You might recall that Sprint came very, very close to launching its own version of the Nexus One before dropping it in favor of the EVO 4G last year, so maybe they're ready to do the deed this time.

Next, a couple that we don't have much detail on: the EVO 3D, which is... well, a 3D-capable EVO of some sort. 2011 is certainly shaping up to be the year of 3D phones and tablets, so that wouldn't be much of a surprise. The other unit in the mix is the EVO View, a tablet that we're guessing will shape up to be something of a CDMA-powered Flyer. If this all pans out, it's looking like Sprint could own this show. CES was a bit of a dud for them, you might recall -- the EVO Shift 4G was the only handset announcement there -- so they're overdue.

Comparision : Imagination Technologies' PowerVR SGX543MP2 really is faster, better, stronger

You may have heard of the PowerVR SGX543MP -- you know, the GPU behind Sony's NGP and possibly on its way to the iPad 2 and iPhone 5 -- but chances are, you've yet to see it working up close. Well, feast your graphics-hungry eyes on this: that's Futuremark's Tai Chi benchmark running on a tellingly sheathed device at GDC 2011, working the MP2 (dual-core) iteration of the processor, and that fine smartphone to its right is the Nexus S, sporting the PowerVR SGX540 you've come to know and love. As you can tell, Imagination Technologies' promises of 4X the performance aren't just baseless boasts -- the lady on the left moves with grace and fluidity, while her counterpart on the right is all sorts of herky-jerky. Think that's fast? Check out what the GPU can do with two more cores.

Nexus S 2.3.3 updating adjusts screen's color temperature, we go eyes-on

We've been hearing reports about Nexus S' Android 2.3.3 update adding a yellow tint to the screen and even washing out its colors, but according to Google's Ry Guy, said patch is indeed intended to tweak the display's color temperature. Here's the full quote from Google's support forum:

"With your new OTA complete, you may notice a slight difference in the way colors are displayed on your Nexus S. For Nexus S, we have adjusted the color temperature settings to more accurately reflect darker colors at all brightness levels. The Gingerbread UI being darker, we found that the colors were not as accurate when the device was being used at lower brightness levels. For example, some users reported that the initial color temperature was too high leading to some darker greys having a reddish tone; with the new color temperature this is no longer the case."

So while this display tweak is well-intentioned, it looks like many commenters on both the forum andXDA-Developers aren't too happy with this. Being curious geeks that we are, we went ahead andmanually updated our own Nexus S (and by the way, be sure to match your build number with the appropriate patch). As you can see in our comparison photos (shot with the same manual camera settings and medium screen brightness), the new overall color temperature is no doubt subtly warmer, although the dimmer brightness settings no longer suffer from the aforementioned red tone. Interestingly, we actually approve this change, and the Super AMOLED display certainly doesn't look washed out to us, nor do we see any noisy dithering that some have reported. Surely we can't be alone. Well, there's only one way to help solve this mystery: if you happen to be a fellow Nexus S owner who's applied this update, why not chime in below?

Official Android 2.3.3 updating for Nexus One and Nexus S unearthed, available to the impatient

Waiting sucks, doesn't it? Yes, yes it does -- which is why we're delighted to see that direct links to theofficial, final updates to Android 2.3.3 for the Nexus One and Nexus S have both been turned loose. This is especially exciting news for Nexus One owners who've stayed on the straight and narrow and haven't moved to a cooked Gingerbread ROM already, since they're still on Froyo -- but it's also good news for developers working on NFC apps with the Nexus S and Android's freshly-baked NFC API, since it means they'll have real-world devices to start playing with. So go on, get to it -- we know you're not going to wait for the over-the-air notification anyway.

Samsung Nexus S Review and Information - By ShoppingKoo

Samsung Nexus S

Reviewer Rating: 

Review Summary:

Despite some issues with voice quality, the Nexus S is an outstanding smartphone for those looking for a cutting-edge device.

Pros

• Latest version of the Android OS
• Excellent screen
• Responsive device

Cons

• Extremely low voice quality
• No memory car slot
• No zoom on the camera

Description

This Samsung smartphone has much in common with this company's Galaxy S series models, including a tablet shape with a 4-inch, WVGA (800 x 480), Super AM-OLED touchscreen. The latest model, however, has a display that curves to fit against the user's face.

The Nexus S runs Android OS 2.3 (Gingerbread) on a 1 GHz Samsung processor. It has 512 MB of RAM, and 16 GB of internal storage.

The Nexus S includes a front-facing video camera for video conferencing, as well as a 5 megapixel rear-facing camera.

In addition to support for T-Mobile's 3G (HSPA) service, this Samsung device includes Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 and A-GPS.

Quick Specs

Operating System: Google Android OS 2.3
Screen Resolution: 800 x 480 pixels (WVGA) and 96 x 480
Screen Size: 4 inch
Keyboard Type: On-screen
Communications: Bluetooth, GPRS, GSM, EDGE, HSDPA, Wi-Fi, HSUPA
Camera Resolution: 5.0 megapixels
GPS: Yes
Release Date: 12/16/2010