Microsoft reports that the next-generation Surface “touch-based table computer” is now available for pre-order through Samsung resellers in 23 countries worldwide. Commercial businesses that have a spare $8,400 in their wallet can head here to find a local representative and establish their place in line when the unit begins to ship in early 2012.

Called the Samsung SUR40, the device features PixelSense technology which gives LCD panels the ability to see without the use of cameras. It recognizes up to 50 points of simultaneous touch — including fingers, hands and other objects placed on the screen — thanks to 2 million sensors that have been built into the panel to pick up visible or infrared light.

In addition to the new touch technology, the second-generation Surface sports a more powerful processor and new system software. As seen ten months ago back at CES 2011, it can also be used horizontally or vertically given that it no longer needs projector cameras (like the first-gen model). It’s also cheaper than its predecessor which cost a hefty $12,500 back in 2008.

“This pre-order phase brings us one step closer to getting the highly anticipated Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft Surface into the hands of our customers,” said Charles Park, vice president at Samsung Electronics. “The Samsung SUR40 delivers a unique interactive experience that will significantly change the way companies engage with their customers.”

For more information about the next-generation Surface device, head here. Software developers interested in creating solutions for the Samsung SUR40 can get started immediately by visiting the Surface Developer Center. Product availability in additional markets is expected in the coming months.

SOURCE via Microsoft

Wednesday Seagate Chief Executive Officer Stephen J. Luczo said that Wall Street analysts are talking nonsense when they say that hard drive production will be back to pre-flood levels by next summer. In fact, he’s predicting a difficult road ahead for the industry given that many of Seagate’s own 130 or so suppliers are still under three feet of water.

“This is going to take a lot longer than people are assuming, until the end of 2012 at least,” he admitted. “And by then, demand will have gone up.”

The flooding in Thailand is currently affecting an infrastructure that produces around 40-percent of the world’s hard drives sold by Seagate, Western Digital and Toshiba, thus pushing average hard drive prices up by 20-percent. That said, industry production this quarter is expected to be 50 million drives shy of the 180 million target.

“It’s going to be very interesting to see who gets drives and who doesn’t,” Luczo said, adding that customers are suddenly eager to stockpile some of Seagate’s load of drives already manufactured even though they sport higher prices.

“Some have offered $250 million upfront,” he told Bloomberg.

But there may be a positive side to the story… at least for hard drive manufacturers. Luczo indicated that the flood has seemingly made the industry a bit more appreciative of hard drive manufacturers. The floods have even given Luczo more leverage on prices, but he’s willing to settle on a 20-percent hike for those who commit to one- to three-year contracts rather than raise prices 40-percent across the board.

“People are going to appreciate the complexity of this business,” he said.

SOURCE via Bloomberg

When the Samsung Galaxy Nexus was announced, we were a bit taken aback by the fact that USB mass storage wasn’t supported on the device, leading us to believe that it was a flaw in Android 4.0. Android engineer Dan Morrill took to the ‘net to sort out the confusion, explaining that Ice Cream Sandwich does indeed support the feature, but only on devices that offer removable storage cards — which explains why we weren’t able to use it on the Nexus. Here’s why, according to Dan:

It isn’t physically possible to support UMS on devices that don’t have a dedicated partition for storage (like a removable SD card, or a separate partition like Nexus S.) This is because UMS is a block-level protocol that gives the host PC direct access to the physical blocks on the storage, so that Android cannot have it mounted at the same time.

With the unified storage model we introduced in Honeycomb, we share your full 32GB (or 16GB or whatever) between app data and media data. That is, no more staring sadly at your 5GB free on Nexus S when your internal app data partition has filled up — it’s all one big happy volume.

However the cost is that Android can no longer ever yield up the storage for the host PC to molest directly over USB. Instead we use MTP. On Windows (which the majority of users use), it has built-in MTP support in Explorer that makes it look exactly like a disk. On Linux and Mac it’s sadly not as easy, but I have confidence that we’ll see some work to make this better.

Mystery solved. To check out the full transcript of his comments, you can head over to the More Coverage link, where Android Police has done a nifty job of putting it together into an easy-to-read format.

SOURCE via Android Police

Windows Phone continues to shore up its app and game selection, hitting 40,000 apps in just over a year since its inception. Granted, there’s still plenty of catching up to do before Microsoft’s third way can go toe-to-toe with Android and iOS, but it’s another (substantial) step in the right direction. According to All About Windows Phone, new content is now being added at the heady rate of around 165 apps per day, although it notes that a chunk of previously released apps are now non-existent, subtracting around 5,000 from the scores we have here. However, app devs have cranked it up a gear, adding around the same amount of new apps in only the last month — presumably galvanized by Nokia’s much-publicized WinPho debut and other Mango-powered delights arriving in stores. Will it crack the 50k mark by the end of the year? We’re sure Mr. Ballmer won’t be betting against it.

SOURCE via Microsoft

Late last spring, Asus made some round of winds with its Padfone and its companion dock, but aside from potential form factors and a Christmas release window, details of its glorified guts were scarce. That’s all changed now thanks to GLBenchmark’s public results database, which outs the category-straddling device as having a Krait S4 MSM8960. Yes, the first in a line of uber-performing Qualcomm SoCs will be embedded in the heart of ASUS’ smartphone, bringing support for a global range of frequencies (including blazing HSPA+ and LTE speeds) and an Adreno 225 GPU. What could very well be disheartening is evidence the handset’s running Gingerbread 2.3.5, but we’ll chock that up to early testing and cling tightly to the company’s hard ICS-laden wink. If you’ve been eagerly anticipating this mobile power couple, you shouldn’t have to wait long — that target holiday release is surely creeping up. So, expect to see an official announcement of the dual-core goods any day now.

SOURCE via GL Benchmark

Trudging through Windows 7′s upgrade process drags users through as many as four wizards, 60 windows, and more mouse clicks than anybody at Microsoft cared to count. In a recent study covering PC upgrades, Redmond found this was simply too much of a hassle for many customers. The fix? Consolidate and streamline — according to the outfit’s Building Windows 8 blog, upgrading customers will be able to power through installing Windows 8 using a single wizard in as few as 11 clicks. The new process scans the machine for compatibility, checks for the best version of Windows to install, and prompts the user through the process. Moreover, using Windows 8′s upcoming web delivery method pre-keys the setup image, freeing users from remembering a 25-digit product key. Advanced users will be able to use a new Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit to create customized unattended setup configurations for multi-boot and specialized network installations. Want to read into all the juicy details? Hit the source link below.

SOURCE via MSDN

A minor two-car accident on a German autobahn turned into a 52-car pileup with three deaths and two dozen injuries on Friday night. On a stretch of A31 not far from the Dutch border, two sedans got into a “harmless fender bender” in heavy fog. A German newspaper report said traffic isn’t normally heavy there, so it could have taken a few minutes as 50 more cars plowed into that original incident.

Two of the deaths occurred after two drivers left their cars and perhaps sought safety behind a guardrail; they were found under another car that had flipped the barrier. The final fatality was found in his car that had slid down an incline beside the road.

“Autobahn” describes any German highway and most are speed limited, so this isn’t necessarily about unrestricted speed. Investigators don’t yet know what caused the accident, but another German report claims that police are investigating for potential manslaughter charges. Follow the jump for a video of the aftermath.

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Like floods, wildfires and tsunamis, the Ken Block marketing machine is a force of nature. The exhibition driver has partnered up with Mattel for a special line of Hot Wheels toys that include 1:64-scale die cast versions of Block’s WRC Ford Fiesta in either black or white liveries. As with most Hot Wheels toys, the cars are priced at $1, which means that just about everyone can afford to find one of these in their stocking this year.

Mattel has also unveiled two different remote controlled Ken Block cars, starting with the radio-controlled Nitro Speedsters Ford Fiesta. The pint-sized R/C car is a self-contained controller and racer unit, perfect for stuffing in your pocket. We imagine the tiny wireless car would be ideal for disrupting class or the occasional office meeting. The whole kit will set you back $25.99.

Those of us who demand a slightly larger R/C experience may opt for the Ken Block R/C Fiesta Stunt Car. The toy allows just about anyone to execute either wide or tight drifts with little more than a press of a button, and with a scale speed of 0-80 mph in two seconds, the toy should be plenty of fun for $45.