Hardware of the week - Acer Iconia A100 Tablet

Acer Iconia

The first 7-inch Honeycomb tablet has finally hit stores in the form of Acer's Iconia A100. Its been a long, long time since we first clapped eyes on the A100. Acer unveiled the slate last fall, at a special event in NYC, and showed it off again at CES. It was scheduled for launch in May but delayed due to compatibility issues with Honeycomb. Acer has been largely quiet regarding the launch since then. However, just a couple of weeks ago, the rumor mill churned out a little tidbit that said an email had been sent out to Acer retail partners informing them the tablet would launch in August. 

Sure enough, the smaller brother to the A500 and W500 is here. The A100 boasts Nvidia's Tegra 2 chipset, a 7-inch 1024x600 display, 512MB RAM, 8GB/16GB of internal storage, a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 2-megapixel lens up front, and Google's Android 3.0 (aka Honeycomb) OS. It's priced at $330 (8GB) or 350GB (16GB). The 10.1-inch A500 currently retails for $400 on Newegg.

How to fool your friend with phone?

Let’s shift to the phone for a bit. First, a service that never gets old: PrankDial.com. Just surf over and enter a friend’s phone number. You can pick from a bunch of different voices and styles, then enter any message you want, and it’ll call them and say it aloud. You can pull three of these pranks every day at no charge, which ought to leave you plenty of obnoxious options.

Two other sites bring a different twist to telephone troubles. TeleSpoof.com and SpoofCard.com let you call anyone and have whatever number you want show up in CallerID. See how confused your girlfriend gets when you call her cell phone…from her cell phone. Each service only lets you make three calls per phone number before they make you pay, but that’s enough to give you ample amusement. Oh, and it’s still legal, though that might change — so get on this while you can.

Hardware of the week - Canon PowerShot ELPH 500 HS

Canon PowerShot ELPH 500 HS

12.10 Megapixels	4.40x zoom	3.2 inch LCD

Basic Specifications
Resolution:	12.10 Megapixels
Lens:	4.40x zoom (24-105mm eq.)
Viewfinder:	LCD
LCD Size:	3.2 inch
ISO:	100-3200
Shutter:	15-1/1600
Max Aperture:	2.0
Dimensions:	4.0 x 2.2 x 1.0 in. (101 x 55 x 25 mm)
Weight:	6.6 oz (186 g) includes batteries
MSRP:	$300
Availability:	03/2011