CPSignal has posted the first pics of the upcoming T-Mobile G2 alongside its specs, which should easily make it the carrier's latest Android flagship.

The G2 is T-Mobile's first HSPA+ phone, offering users 4G-speeds of up to 14.4Mbps.

T-Mobile's next device, which is expected to launch at the end of September, will run Android 2.2 with the HTC Sense UI.

The smartphone will have a 3.7-inch OLED display, run on a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, include a full slide-out QWERTY keypad and a 5MP camera.

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Amazon is in quiet talks with the major media companies in an effort to start a subscription TV and movie service.

The service would offer unlimited views of older TV episodes and movies online.

Amazon has spoken with Viacom, Time Warner and Sony already.

The talks are still young, and the companies seem to be focusing on shows and movies that have already been available on DVD or Blu-ray. Amazon is still in the game, but far behind market leader Apple.

Apple has been in negotiations with Disney, Fox and News Corp. to offer rentals of current TV shows for $0.99, a 50 percent drop from current prices. The shows can be watched for up to 48 hours after purchase.

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T-Mobile has announced today that it has expanded its HSPA+ data network to nine new cities, making it available to over 100 million Americans.

The new markets are: Boston, Mass.; Erie, Penn.; Fresno, Palm Springs and San Diego, Calif.; Miami, Fla.; Richmond, Va.; Spokane, Wash.; and Topeka, Kan.

Furthermore, the carrier will double the theoretical peak speeds to 42 Mbps in 2011, a 100 percent jump from the current 21 Mbps max speeds.

The T-Mobile G2 will be the first handset to support HSPA+ when it launches in September.

That device has a theoretical peak speed of 14.4 Mbps, faster than Sprint's 4G network.

To check if you have HSPA+ available in your area, check here: T-Mobile HSPA+ Coverage areas

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Small cap company Microvision has seen their stock price jump today after anonymous sources claimed that the upcoming Apple iPod Touch will include a Pico projector from the company.

The Pico projector, used in some phones and digital cameras, allows for owners to display their pictures on walls and other surfaces right from the device.

Sources claim the the addition of Pico projectors to the next-generation devices has been confirmed by channel checks in Taiwan.

Please be reminded this all speculation for the time being, but Microvision's stock has jumped 19 percent so far on the rumor.

Apple is holding their annual September Media Event tomorrow.

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Microsoft has announced today that they will be releasing a special edition updated Xbox 360 controller, with a "transforming D-Pad."

The updated D-pad design will transform for different uses. Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb explains and shows off the controller in the video below.

When gamers twist the D-pad, it pops up, revealing a raised plus sign.

Says Microsoft: "Select the traditional plus for distinct cardinal direction movement in games like "Halo: Reach" to change weapons and perform complicated combinations and deadly finishing moves in "Street Fighter" games, or rotate the D-pad to the disc format for sweeping motions in games such as "Pro Evolution Soccer 2011." Choose your favorite controller set-up and experience unrivaled precision for all Xbox 360 games."

The control comes bundled with a Play and Charge Kit and will sell for $65 when it hits on November 9th.

(Pic via Joystiq)

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Google has renewed its news content licensing deal with the AP this week, following months of negotiations.

The deal will allow Google to post full-text articles from the AP on Google News.

"We look forward to future collaborations, including on ways Google and AP can work together to create a better user experience and new revenue opportunities," says Josh Cohen, a Google senior business product manager.

Says the AP: "Under the agreement, AP and Google will also work together in a number of new areas, such as ways to improve discovery and distribution of news."

There was no word on the financials of the deal.

In January, after a negotiation dispute, Google stopped publishing AP stories. They began running them again in February.

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Google has rolled out the beta version of their Gmail Priority Inbox today, a feature that will automatically rearrange messages in a user's inbox so the most important ones show up at the top.

For now, the feature is "experimental" and may never go fully live.

Reuters says "the motivation behind Priority Inbox is Google's conviction that the problem of e-mail overload continues getting worse, forcing people to spend much time and effort managing their inbox both for personal and work-related matters."

Priority Inbox is optional and users can switch it on or off at their choosing.

If you enable it, Gmail will divide the inbox into three sections; the "priority" box for important messages, the middle box for "starred" and "flagged" messages and the final box for everything else.

Adds Matthew Glotzbach, director of product management in Google's Enterprise unit: "If you're in meetings and you come back to your e-mail and you have five minutes between appointments and you have 50 e-mails, which five messages do you spend your time on in that window of time?"

"We see this as an ongoing evolution of the focus of Gmail, which has always been around addressing this problem of information overload," Glotzbach noted.

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Despite the massive influx of 3D films, summer movie attendance has fallen to its lowest level since 1997.

On the other hand, however, 3D, IMAX and standard ticket price hikes have all led to record revenue for the studios and theater chains.

Tickets sold from May through Labor Day are expected to drop 2.6 percent to 552 million, almost as low as 1997's 540.3 million tickets sold.

"The movies just didn't excite people the way they needed to," says Paul Dergarabedian, president of Hollywood.com Box-Office. "When you raise prices and perceive that quality goes down, you have a major problem."

Revenue will set a record at $4.35 billion, a 2.4 percent jump from last year. The average ticket price will increase 5.1 percent from $7.50 to $7.88, thanks mainly to 3D and IMAX showings which cost $3 more, on average.

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The BBC launched the iPlayer to much fanfare in 2007, and the service has been largely successful on the PC, smartphones and even game consoles.

However, the iPlayer was only available in the UK. That may be changing soon, says BBC Director-General Mark Thompson.

Speaking during the Edinburgh International Television Festival, Thompson says an international rollout is planned within the year.

Different than the UK version, the international variant will be "a commercial venture," although it is unclear whether the service will cost money to the end-user or be supported by ads.

There is always the chance that the business model will be something we have not yet seen for a streaming video service.

We will keep you updated.

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US video rental giant Blockbuster just announced the Onkyo BD-SP808 Blu-ray player, set to ship to retailers in September, features a client for their online video service, Blockbuster On Demand.

Blockbuster On Demand is already supported on a handful of players from Phillips, Samsung & Toshiba, as well as a range of other devices including TiVo DVRs and the Archos 605 portable media player. There is also a client for Windows.

Unlike the Netflix Watch Instantly service, which offers unlimited viewing of mostly catalog titles and TV shows, Blockbuster On Demand rents and sells individual titles, including many new releases.

Blockbuster is favored with support from movie studios in the form of earlier access to new releases because this is sees as a tool to keep Netflix and Redbox from dominating the home video landscape. But Blockbuster's failure to compete with either company has led them to bankruptcy.

Blockbuster's plans for success in the on demand rental space may also be in trouble if rumors about Apple expanding their iTunes rental operation are true.

Their online offering has neither the brand name recognition of Netflix nor the base of TV-connected clients. From game consoles to Blu-ray players to HDTVs themselves, Netflix clients are everywhere.

Not to mention this year's introduction of iPad, iPhone & iPod Touch clients. An Android app is also coming at some point in the future.

The widespread availability of the client, especially connected to TVs, has become arguably the biggest driver of recent growth for Netflix.

Blockbuster's client install base is significantly smaller and they have a bigger hurdle to overcome in convincing consumers they should use Blockbuster On Demand.

While every Netflix customer already has the Watch Instantly service available for no extra charge, even trying out Blockbuster's service will cost you. Even though it's not a lot of money, this likely this translates to a smaller percentage of potential customers trying it out.

There's also competition from cable and satellite providers' VOD offerings. Not only do they feature a similar selection to Blockbuster On Demand, they are also a more familiar technology to most of their subscribers.

Blockbuster needs to improve both their brick and mortar and online businesses. Slowly rolling out kiosks and slowly getting clients connected to TVs seems like a failing strategy. Especially when the key point of differentiation for both operations appears to be trading on the somewhat tarnished Blockbuster name.

But the lack of clients may be the least of their problems online. If they managed to make online VOD (not bundled with another service) even half as successful as Netflix, they would be the first to do so.

To be sure, they're taking small steps. But to where?

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Apparently Facebook has hit the user limit and crashed. Or it might be some other issue but currently millions and millions of Farmville addicts are cursing as Facebook seems to be down in its entirety.

According to Downrightnow.com, Facebook has been offline for couple hours and the hundreds of millions of users around the world are missing their hourly dosage.

The downtime not only affects the site itself but a lot of its partners and sites that use Facebook to spread their word -- such as your beloved AfterDawn.com. There has been no confirmation from Facebook why the site is inaccessible but it definitely is no intended maintenance break. Hopefully, Facebook will be able to straighten out their problems soon.

For now, liking things is on hold.

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