As a reward for its growth and successful product launches, Huawei now finds itself on the grim radar of Redmond’s patent fee hunters, who claim that Android-based hardware impinges on their intellectual property. “Microsoft has come to us,” said the Chinese manufacturer’s chief marketing officer at an event in London last night, confirming that “negotiations are in progress” and hinting that Huawei could soon be another head on Steve Ballmer’s wall — which is already crowded with trophies.

SOURCE via The Guardian

Honda does a whole lot more than just cars. They do motorbikes, ATVs, power equipment, outboard marine engines, personal watercraft, business jets… and yes, even robots. In fact its ASIMO humanoid robot (parodied in a rather disturbingly hilarious episode of South Park) is one of the most advanced in the field of robotics, and it’s only getting more so as the Japanese industrial giant has just unveiled its latest iteration.

While ASIMO may look more-or-less the same as he/she/it always has, the new model encompasses several advancements. For starters, ASIMO longer needs to be controlled by a human – it can walk about and do stuff all on its own, taking in its surroundings and making spatial decisions accordingly. Its new arm and hand mechanisms also allow it to perform delicate and intricate tasks like opening a bottle of water and pouring it into a paper cup without crushing it under the might of its own technological superiority.

The long and short of it is that ASIMO – now under the newly-formed Honda Robotics division – will soon be able to do everything a human can, only better. So start stocking the bomb shelter again. Or better yet, let ASIMO do that for you. You’ve had a long day.

Click past the jump to let ASIMO pour you a drink and show off some of its newfound skills.

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A new video has unearthed the deceptively named Humanform. Fortunately not shaped like a dolly, this teardrop device cooked up Nokia’s in-house labs supposedly uses some as-yet unexplained nanotechnology, with a bendable transparent display and a fully touch sensitive casing. The segmented design also channels some Wiimote-esque gesture features and twist controls seen on the phone behemoth’s Kinetic Device. An inert Humanform shell was also on show alongside it last month, although it didn’t do much aside from bending. See if you agree with Nokia’s vision of the mobile future after the break.

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In 2012, AMD will introduce its AMD 1090FX and 1070 Chipsets, as replacements to its current 990X and 970. The most interesting part is the new chipsets still will not support PCI-Express 3.0.

The 1090FX will be the top tier 10-series chipset, replacing the 990FX. The 1090FX northbridge will support two PCI-Express X16 links and up to four graphics cards. The 1070 provides one PCI-Express link for two graphics cards. The “Chipset Competitive Landscape” slide shows the new 10-series set to go against Intel’s new Ivy Bridge chipset. AMD breaks down what it sees as advantages (more SATA connectivity and 2X16 XF) and disadvantages (PCIE 3.0 and SRT) against the Ivy Bridge. The 10-series chipset will be compatible with current processors, which adds to AM3+’s longevity.

The 10-series chipset most surprisingly will not support PCI-Express 3.0. This is a disappointment to this writer, with Intel already gearing up PCI-Express 3.0 support for the Ivy Bridge release. What is still to be seen is how this will affect AMD’s Radeon HD 7000 series graphics cards supporting PCI-Express 3.0. This question should be answered by in the end of the year, as the Radeon HD 7000 expected to release around the holidays.

The new SB1060 southbridge does provide an improvement over current gen motherboards. The SB1060 will support an eight SATA 6 Gb/s RAID controller, all ports running at 6 Gb/s. This outpaces Intel’s 7-series in terms of SATA 6 Gb/s ports. The SB1060 will offer for the first time a native USB 3.0 SuperSpeed controller. Currently, 990FX & 970 don’t natively support USB 3.0 but is offered through a third-party controller.

As far as assistants go, Siri can be rather demanding. In fact, she apparently requires that your iPhone 4S’s proximity sensor be on whenever the handset’s screen is activated. That’s the conclusion iFixit arrived at, upon discovering that, unlike previous generations which flip on the sensor upon firing up a phone call or Skype conversation, the 4S kicks on the infrared detectors whenever the screen turns on. The change would allow Siri to detect just how close your face is as you speak to her without the handset pressed up against your face.

SOURCE via iFixit

With the launch of Nvidia’s Tegra 3, also known as Kal-El, drawing closer, we’ve been hearing more about upcoming quad-core tablets (such as Asus’ Transformer Prime). However, there’s been less talk about quad-core smartphones. Today, PocketNow upped the ante with what it claims are exclusive photos of HTC’s first quad-core smartphone.

The site lists tentative specifications for the device, citing a reliable but anonymous source that says the Edge will be slightly over ten millimeters thick, boast a 4.7-inch 720p display; 1GB of RAM; an 8-megapixel camera with 28-millimeter and f/2.2 lens; no physical buttons (thanks to Ice Cream Sandwich); 32GB of storage; and the all-important quad-core Nvidia AP30 Tegra 3 processor.

PocketNow’s source wasn’t so wordy when it came to a release date, with the site only saying that it’s expected late in Q1 or early in Q2 of next year. Either way, if this supposedly reliable source is correct, we should see this sexy and powerful phone before the summer.

SOURCE via Pocketnow