Sony unveiled their next PSP2, codenamed NGP, earlier this year in January. They showed off its quad-core ability to us, but never told us when it’ll reach our sweaty paws. Word on the street back then was that at least one territory would see the device on shelves before the year was out, as Sony won’t want to miss out on the Christmas bonanza sales season would they.

Many expect the Sony NGP to be on sale in Japan before 2011 closes its door, but now rumours are flying around that information from third-party licensees suggest European gamers may get their hands on the NGP by the fall.

MCVUK cites sources that say development deadlines have been set to ensure key Western releases are completed before the end of the summer for deployment in the fall. There’s also a murmuring of a November 11 release. A launch date of 11/11/11 from Sony? Now that’s interesting. It’s the holiday season sales too, so it’s a good time for Sony to cash in for their next PSP2.

SOURCE via MCV UK

Prepare to face some ‘Made in Japan’ shortage as Japan faces one of the most powerful and disastrous earthquake in its history that brought along a tsunami that toppled Sendai coast on Friday. Death toll and damage report are still unknown and racking up as companies with factories affected by the natural disaster are starting damage assessments and a number of companies have opted to shut down operations as a result of the destruction.

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The earthquake that caused a huge tsunami that consumed the coasts of Sendai has made thousands of lives lost, possibly reaching tens of thousands. Currently there are about 100 thousand people missing in Sendai as rescue workers work day and night to find trapped victims under the rubbles. Due to the massive earthquake, main facilities like electricity, telco services, and Internet, are cut off at a few cities affected, to reduce power load of Japan.

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Coming out in the nick of time, EVGA announced its first dual-Fermi GPU video card, the GeForce GTX 460 2Win. As usual, the company goes with very funky and enthusiast oriented naming, just like their top end cards having the tag “FTW”. This is essentially a dual-GPU card with two GeForce GTX 460 chips, though I wonder why they didn’t go for GTX 560 instead.

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It just launched few hours ago, and already the iFixit crew has got their evil paws on Apple’s latest magical product, the iPad 2. So, as usual, everything needs to fall apart. According to iFixit, there’s no way to get in to the iPad 2 without removing the screen panel, and there’s no clip holding the screen, only glue, so you’ll need a heat gun. Removing the screen panel seem to be a tricky thing, as iFixit stated that there’s a chance of cracking the glass and the front panel shattering if not handled with good hands. The operation also reveals that the iPad 2 has a 512MB ram, and uses almost identical battery on the original iPad, so if you manage to score a very lasting battery lifespan, then it’s because of the hardware changes and iOS optimization, not because of a new battery. Check out the full detail over at the source.

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Adobe has just announced that their Flash Player 10.2 for Android will be ready for download from the Android Market on March 18th. This update however will only support newer version of Android, that is Android 2.2 (Froyo) and Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). No love for older ones it seemed. However, there’s a beta version for Android 3.0.1 (Honeycomb) at release, which means your Motorola Xoom will indeed be able to play Flash objects, though it’s still in beta mode. Froyo devices won’t get the full battery-friendly Stage Video rendering pipeline and deep browser integration like their Honeycomb tablet brethren, but dual-core phones will reportedly see a performance improvement nonetheless and there’s a new tweak that’ll let Flash web apps pull up a virtual keyboard if needed for full functionality.

SOURCE via Adobe

Despite Nokia heading to the Windows Phone 7 camp, its dying platform Symbian seem to have not reached its graveyard, yet. Of course, the first Nokia phone sporting Windows Phone 7 might not show up until 2012, and there are still millions of S^ phones waiting faithfully out there for a promised update. Thank goodness that Marc Driessen, Nokia Benelux product manager, mentioned that we’ll be expecting a few Symbian updates coming in 2011.

There won’t be any Symbian^4 coming from Nokia, but there are some scheduled UI updates moved from the fourth into the third. According to Driessen, Nokia is targeting a major UI overhaul in the fall, an update rumored to include a dedicated pull-down status bar up top; new iconography; new flexible widgets; a simplified navigation bar below; and better menus throughout that don’t require a scuba suit to navigate.

While Nokia HQ did not specifically mention a date, the fall timeline does match with what Dutch site ‘All About Phones’ is also reporting, that a smaller update for N8 and E7 users might come as early as this summer.

SOURCE via All About Phones

We’ve heard about it for so long, and then we’re previewed by Sony about its awesomeness and the Gingerbread and the new PlayStation feature, and we even see its Havok-engine support. Now, the peeps at UK rejoice and mark your calendar for March 31st. That’s the end of the month and falls in nicely with the “late March” word we’d heard for elsewhere in the world, though that is awfully late. The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play will hit UK on the last day of March. That is, if you can’t wait for the Sony PlayStation NGP with its awesome quad-core nuclear reactor power.

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Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) was held last weekend, and Nvidia somehow went quite aggressive in this event. Unlike the gigantic E3 event that’s industry-insiders only, PAX is directed more towards end-users, and it’s gaining more popular among manufacturers. Nvidia didn’t only bring their Tegra 2 products for demo during PAX 2011, but they also launched their much awaited dual-GPU Fermi card, the GeForce GTX 590. Sadly, that’s the only information that we have at the moment, as Nvidia has yet to disclose the specification and price.

One important thing about the GTX 590 is that it’s going to be limited to just two vendors in US, and that is Asus and EVGA. Other manufacturers will be making GTX590 products but those will only be available outside of the U.S. When being asked by Tom’s Hardware why it’s limited to only two vendors, they’re given a rather dull answer that is “it was planned this way.” Probably a very low yield, and besides, this card has a very small market anyway.

We’ll be waiting for Nvidia’s official statement about this, so stay tune.

SOURCE via Tom’s Hardware