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In a press release, Nintendo has announced that we can expect to see Wii 2 in stores in 2012. However, later this year we will be able to get a taste of the new console, because Nintendo will showcase a prototype at E3 gaming trade show, which kicks off in June Los Angeles.

The original Wii has been a huge success for Nintendo that while plans for the replacement also has unveiled the total sales to dealers, and lies at a staggering 86 million units of the popular console.

Nintendo has not come up with specifications on the console, these ones we must wait until E3 to get, but we would venture a guess that not even the new Wii will be revolutionary in terms of pure hardware, they will yet again bet on innovation. However, we might well expect that the new console will give Nintendo fans gaming in HD.

For the summer a new performance class of smartphones are taking center stage, with dual-core CPUs. LG Optimus is already available on the market, and HTC has just announced its counterpart “Sensation” for June. Accordingly, Apple will feel compelled to take action for the company to maintain a leading role in the smartphone industry

It is no wonder that the rumor surrounding the fifth iPhone are much hyped. At the heart of the new iPhone5 we should therefore expect a dual-core A5 architecture working with a 1GHz processor, which compatibility with and speed on par with the iPad2.

The optics of the previous iPhone 4 will remain more or less the same but with changes to the sensor. The new Apple iPhone design is said to include an 8-megapixel camera, giving your photos some more quality. A new antenna design is also a must to eliminate one of the biggest criticisms of the predecessor.

It could be presented already on the of 6 to 10 June forthcoming Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco. The production will not start before September. It will therefore still be a while before the iPhone5 hits the stores, and then you will probably have to stand in line for weeks.

Hitachi is presenting two new external hard drive series: Touro Mobile Pro Portable Drive and Touro Desk Pro External Drive are the names of the two new series. What makes the two new series special is not just the fact that they have support for USB 3.0. With them Hitachi also offers free storage in the cloud. Your most important documents can be backed up with Hitachi’s cloud services. 3GB is free and an upgrade to the 250GB is relatively inexpensive.

The Portable series will have the capacities 500GB and 750GB, while the desktop series will be launched in June in capacities 1TB, 2TB and 3TB.

Engadget claim to have very reliable sources that can confirm that Sony has a PlayStation-certified tablet on the way. The upcoming product called S1 inside Sony’s walls, comes equipped with a 9.4″ screen with a resolution of 1280 x 800. The screen shows the user a greatly altered version of the Android Honeycomb. Sony is said to put much energy into creating a good interface with the product. The tablet is said to be powered by a Tegra-2 chip.

Sony S1 has, says the reliable sources, come up with at least two major focus points: Qriocity – Sony’s music-streaming service – and PlayStation. Qriocity will be a big part of the product. There’s also a focus on the PlayStation funcitonality; the product should have a PlayStation certification. The product will no doubt receive support for PlayStation Suite and thus PS1 games.

Sony is said to have passed around a couple of launch dates. In the current situation, however, S1 is supposed to be launched in September, says Engadget’s sources. The product is said to be meant to cost approximately 0 – which sounds a bit high considering that Motorola Xoom who has (we think) at least as good specifications S1, will be launched shortly with the same price. However, it is possible that Sony successfully justify the price. The product could differ from the flock of Honeycomb tablets by their frequent inclusion of Qriocity and PlayStation, and the interesting design.

Sony has not confirmed any plans for the launch of an Android tablet.

Sony PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2 lived for six years before they were replaced by new game consoles. When Sony launched the PlayStation 3 in 2006 they promised that the new console would have a lifespan of 10 years. Now – five years after the launch of PlayStation 3 – Sony CEO Kaz Hirai says that Sony has not changed in their plans. Hirai pointed out that the PlayStation 3 will not be replaced by a new console than in 2016.

In Australia, virtual worlds like World of Warcraft and Farmville are apparently being used for money laundering. The police in the Australian New South Wales have observed a new trend; money and other, shall we say, irregular income can be used to purchase virtual items in these game worlds and be re-sold to launder the money The Sydney Morning Herald says that the Police of New South Wales are on to this new venue for gangsters.

During an address to the Cards and Payments Australasia Conference in Sydney, Dyson added that crooks will increasingly use online worlds to communicate with each other and to move large sums of money. He would not elaborate on the exact details, as not to reveal a step-by-step guide to make it even easier for active offenders.

The High Tech Crime Center at The Australian Federal Police, was a little more concrete. They said a typical approach is to buy large amounts of game currency and rare items in World of Warcraft in order to then sell them off again. Compared to the traditional money laundering operations such as casinos, race tracks or by way of tax havens, this new method makes up a tiny fraction of the transactions, but the phenomenon seems to be growing.

Nintendo has had time for countless new varieties of the same game console and it is only now, with 3DS, that you could say that a proper sequel has arrived. The 3D effects are really cool but the rest of the graphics and the games themselves are not that impressive, as it turns out.

In appearance the 3DS is a lot like its various predecessors. As before, the console is equipped with dual screens where one screen is touch sensitive and used to control the games in different ways. The really big news with the console’s first 3D display that uses technology to enable it to display 3D content without having to wear a pair of special 3D glasses. The 3D effect works better than expected, even if you have to hold it at a perfect angle for it to work properly.

Some users have already complained of headaches from the screen, but that’s not surpsising after presumably staring for hours on a tiny screen. The strength of the 3D effects are set with a small slider to the right of the screen and you can turn it off completely if you want to.

The menu system on the console is very similar to the Nintendo Wii and have the same annoying music and sound effects. The supplied software to the console gives a small taste of the possibilities that the 3D screen and dual cameras on the back could offer. A bunch of stuff intended for augmented reality applications included, and even if you get tired pretty quickly of the built-in games, it is still impressive how well it works.

Delaying fire-breathing serpents which pop up from your desk while trying to duck from the incoming flames by running like crazy around the table is not just a new way to play on but also looks incredibly stupid from anyone who may witness the display. In addition to augmented reality, applications can also take 3D images with the cameras on the back of the console. Sadly the quality is too poor and the resolution is too low for it to be really useful.

Motorola launched its top model the Atrix 4G at the CES trade show in Las Vegas this January.The Atrix smartphone is one of the most impressive smartphones yet, with an Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, giving ample overall performance to run a Personal computer-like practical experience.For this function alone, Motorola has built an add-on termed the Lapdock that turns the smartphone into a laptop when you attach it to the again of the Lapdock:

The idea right here is that the smartphone has enough performance to act as a notebook and by placing it in the Lapdock you will get exactly this. The thing that actually comes about is that the smartphone fires up up an application called Webtop, that powers the display of the Lapdock. The Lapdock has no separate OS; the Webtop app offers a PC-like FireFox browser including support for Flash.

As a result, you receive a relatively competent laptop that can do about the same stuff as small laptops. It is also possible to enjoy videos and do other stuff you would count on from a normal netbook. It performs as a decent small notebook, albeit not an overly powerful one. The device is fairly big, not drastically smaller sized than the normal netbook or ultraportable. It weighs just over 2lbs and is about 1.4 cm thick. The display is eleven inches and the resolution 1366 x 768 pixels, which seems to be the standard these days. The integrated battery will remain alive for 8 to 10 hrs of use. There are also stereo speakers included plus 2 USB ports.

Its keyboard is backlit and looks like those you see on Sony Vaio notebooks. It provides full size keys and an ergonomically correct operating posture for the Atrix Lapdock. Beneath the keyboard is a standard track pad to manage the mouse pointer on the screen. This one has support for multi touch so you can scroll down websites by dragging two fingers across it. The Wetop GUI looks a great deal like the Mac OS, with animated program icons at the bottom of the screen. It also has regular application windows that you’re used to from a normal computer. Another attribute is that even if the Atrix is attached on the back of the display you can nevertheless use it by way of an application termed mobile view.

This is only the display on your phone but with full accessibility to all functions. The Atrix and Lapdock are not powerful enough to replace your regular computer. However, it’s nonetheless an incredible idea that displays the capabilities of the Motorola Atrix and the Linux-powered Android operating system. Sadly the dock for the Atrix is rather pricey. It will cost far more than the Atrix itself. At some point Motorola will supply all of their best smartphones with the Webtop app, so it seems that the manufacturer has confidence in the idea and will carry on to build on it further.

While Microsoft’s Windows Mobile was a long time leader in operating systems for mobile devices, they have long neglected the current trend towards multi-functional smartphones, They also alienated many manufacturers and users recently when an update broke Samsung’s flagship Windows phone.

Now, Dell joins the fray with its first smartphone containing Windows Phone 7. The device gets a 4.1″ AMOLED display, a 1 GHz processor from Qualcomm, 512MB RAM and a pre-installed SD card that provides 16 GB of memory. The integrated camera takes pictures 5 megapixel quality.

For communication it uses both the GSM and UMTS standards, the latter of which allows up to 7.2 Mb/s transfers. In addition, the device supports Wi-Fi n networks. Bluetooth is also included. One difference in comparison to other Windows Phone 7 smartphones is the pull-down QWERTY keyboard, which makes it easier to work with Microsoft Office documents. Sharing is facilitated by synchronization via SharePoint. Of course, Exchange can also be integrated easily.

This week Microsoft began to distribute a first update for its Smartphone OS Windows Phone 7. The test run seems to have failed. The Samsung Omnia 7 didn’t respond well to being updated.

ArsTechnica reported about the problems, specifically pointing to the problems with Samsung Omnia 7. In the “best” case, the update does not break the phone – it will work again after a restart, albeit with the old firmware. In the worst case, the firmware on the Omnia 7 is corrupted beyond repair. Meanwhile, however, there are initial reports that removing and re-inserting the battery might help, but this has not been confirmed.

Microsoft has had a lot of problems in the Smartphone segment. The veteran Windows Mobile 6.5 had to be buried because it could not keep up with more modern rivals such as iOS, Blackberry OS and Android. Windows Phone 7 has received good reviews from the press, this only partially reflected in sales of devices. Many reviews also missed the basic functions of the new mobile OS. Now it seems that the first update for Windows Phone 7 brings addtional headaches.