!!!....Electronics world....!!!

Earlier this morning, MetroPCS regaled us with a tale of two new 4G LTE phones, which is saying a lot for a company that has only released three LTE phones on a year-old network. The  Galaxy Attain 4G  is easily the more humble of the two. However, MetroPCS' strategy seems to be topping up a Samsung phone that's already in its lineup: the Samsung Galaxy Indulge that's stuck in Froyo-land and has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Even though it's got less steam than the Connect 4G in the features department, I actually prefer its physical design, with its silvery, patterned backing and physical buttons below the screen. The $200 price range may seem steep for those who are unfamiliar with the off-contract model, but I think MetroPCS die-hards will be pleased with the total package.

Making good on its promise to  sell streaming players internationally  by the beginning of 2012, California-based Roku announced today that both the Roku LT and Roku 2 XS are for sale in the U.K. and Ireland. Roku LT and Roku 2 XS streaming players are now available for sale in the U.K. and Ireland. This comes hot on the heels of  Netflix's expansion of video streaming  in those same countries. "Roku launched the first ever streaming player to deliver Netflix to consumers in the U.S. and now we are among the first to bring Netflix to residents of the U.K. and Ireland," said Clive Hudson, Roku's vice president and general manager for Europe, in a statement. "In addition to Netflix, we are launching with a variety of entertainment channels and look forward to expanding our content selection in the same way that we have in the U.S. where we have more than 400 channels today." In the U.S., Roku's channels include Amazon Instant Video, Crackle, Hulu Plus, ...

AS VEGAS--Texas Instruments is offering one of the most revealing demos of Windows 8 on  ARM  yet at CES .                           That's not saying a lot, though, as demos of Microsoft's next operating system on ARM processors have been extremely restrictive, if nonexistent to date in public (Nvidia's untouchable, relatively static CES demo is behind closed glass). But TI pushed the boundaries a bit in a demo for CNET at CES. The demo  tapped TI's freshly minted OMAP4470 ARM processor , according to Bill Crean, an OMAP product marketing manager. Needless to say, I was not permitted to take video. But TI's Crean demonstrated live scrolling with Windows 8 Explorer on the CNN news site. Scrolling was fluid and I didn't see the jerkiness that I do get, by the way, with my Verizon-Motorola XyBoard  tablet  on  Android  3.2. Again, that's not revealing a lot, but Windows 8 on ARM is a...

Nintendo Wii U Nintendo held a few behind-closed-door meetings with an up close and personal demo of the  Wii  U at  CES  2012. While the vast majority of demos and presentations was mostly stuff I had heard before, I was able to put together what playing a Zelda game on the Wii U might look and play like. I had seen this quick Zelda on Wii U teaser video before, but through some generous imagination, I was able to carefully piece together how it could potentially work. The Wii U's  tablet  controller's screen is very impressive, and would be the perfect platform for something like item management and selection. Nintendo suggested that such a setup would allow for a HUD-less TV experience, which would certainly be a nice change of pace compared with what overcrowded Zelda games have historically featured. In this scenario, all of Link's health, rupees, and items could be displayed on the tablet instead of on the screen. During my hands-on time with the...

Three Musketeers: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, and AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega proudly show off the Nokia Lumia 900 at CES 2012. 2012 may mark Microsoft's  last major CES keynote and presence , but with two successful Windows Phone announcements, it's going out with a bang.  CNET named both the  HTC Titan II  and the  Nokia Lumia 900  finalists for the  Best of CES award  in the smartphone category, both supporting 4G LTE. Out of four total candidates, the Lumia 900 took the prize. Much has changed in a year. Last  CES , the newly minted Windows Phone operating system had just launched, completely overhauling the convoluted, bloated Windows Mobile operating system that proved incapable of surviving in a post-iPhone world. Although the community of mobile press journalists widely appreciated Windows Phone's simple, straightforward interface and unique design, the first wave of hardware mostly underwhelmed. Soft...

It's a rare  CES  for which most of the digital ink spilled is about computers and hardware, rather than giant televisions. But 2012 was just such a year, thanks to the never-ending drumbeat of Intel's ultrabook platform. Yes, ultrabooks again It seems like you couldn't walk more than a hundred steps across the velvety carpet of the CES show floor without running into a giant ULTRABOOK or WINDOWS 8 sign. The first official ultrabook-designated laptops (it's an Intel marketing term) arrived during the 2011 holiday season, but CES 2012 was a coming-out party for a host of new designs from nearly all manufacturers. Mooly Eden, the head of Intel's PC unit, shows off a concept ultrabook that has both a touch screen and keyboard at a press conference at CES. The laptops ranged from the diminutive (the  Acer Aspire S5 ) to the large and bold (the  HP Envy 14 Spectre ), and to the copycat (the MacBook-Air-alike  Dell XPS 13 ). And  14- and 15-inch models ,...