transformer

Yes, I'm a huge Mortal Kombat fan. This should be evident to anyone after watching the video above. However, I can't take credit for the whole tournament idea. That was the brainchild of my producer, Jamie Yee (she's actually a hidden Easter egg in the video, if you watch closely). Jamie's a huge sports nut (or at least, an San Francisco Giants nut) and apparently thinks only in terms of brackets and tournaments.

Anyway, last week was a fairly busy week for the CNET tablet reviews team. Donald Bell and I received three new tablets in the span of only a few days.

With all that glamorous reviewing we were doing, I didn't really have the bandwidth to conduct any official speed tests, until now.

As I alluded to before, we split the tests into two rounds. The first round, featuring the Acer Iconia Tab A500, T-Mobile G-Slate, and the Asus Eee Pad Transformer, would determine which tablet would take on the Xoom and iPad 2 in the final round.

So yeah, it's a two-round tournament. We thought about extending it, but decided that doing so would involve too much repetition in the video.

Check out the results below (or above if you prefer your results in talkies form).… Read more

When it comes to tablets, we're not really ready for software keyboards, are we? Or maybe the developers of software keyboards aren't yet ready for us.

This week, we received the Asus Eee Pad Transformer tablet. Like with most new tablets that enter this building, it was immediately pounced on by a pack of ravenous wolves group of my coworkers.

What made the Transformer's debut more exciting than most was its primary claim to fame and origin of its namesake: the keyboard/dock accessory.

If not for the keyboard/dock, most would have mistaken it for one … Read more

It seems Best Buy has completed the first two parts of its tablet magic trick. According to a post at Engadget today, Asus' EE Pad Transformer appeared on BestBuy.com for $400 and was subsequently pulled from the site a short time later.

Back at CES 2011 in January, Asus announced that the Android 3.0-enabled EE Pad Transformer would debut some time in the spring for a price ranging from $400 to $700, depending on the storage capacity of the version purchased.

If this price holds true, this would place the Transformer a full $100 cheaper than the iPad 2 … Read more

It used to be that movie merchandise and memorabilia meant posters, clothing, and toys, but now we even have things like the Hasbro Transformers Cine-Mask 3D glasses.

Available in either Optimus Prime or Bumblebee versions, these kid-size 3D goggles cost $10 each and are supposedly compatible with most 3D cinemas featuring RealD 3D technology. Could this be the beginning of an era of funky 3D masks? Looks like Hasbro and Hollywood have just found a new cash cow to milk moviegoers.

(Source: Crave Asia via Engadget HD)

This week, your regular Cravers are joined by special guest Brian Seitz, senior marketing manager for Windows Phone. Despite what that implies, we're largely up to our regular shenanigans. Namely, giant robots, anthropomorphized gadgets, and artery-clogging edibles. If that's not enough to pique your curiosity, we're hoping that Optimus Prime, an emoticon keypad, and a Jedi mind-trick of an iPhone accessory will draw you in. Plus, Jasmine actually ate this week's fat-worthy item.

Subscribe in iTunes SD Video | Subscribe in RSS SD Video… Read more

A short battery life is bad news for any consumer electronics device, and tablets are no different. Unless we've been recently burned, battery life is that one thing we usually take for granted when looking at device specs, but it's always there, waiting to bite us in the rear when we least expect it.

Now a 16-hour battery life isn't ideal, but it would get most of us through our day with room to spare. For its Transformer tablet, Asus claims up to 16 hours of battery life; however, this figure is based on beta hardware and … Read more

IBM has been tapped by NATO to build a new cloud-based computing system designed to help the 28 member nations better use and share data.

Selected for the project by NATO's Allied Command Transformation (ACT), Big Blue will be called upon to design and demonstrate a cloud-computing environment that would help the North Atlantic Treaty Organization plan and implement critical tasks, such as intelligence gathering, surveillance, and reconnaissance.

The goal is to see if NATO members can use a collaborative cloud to access data faster and make decisions more quickly.

Though NATO's 28 countries share common goals, they … Read more

"Transformers" fans, I've just run into something at Chevy Mall that probably won't get you Megan Fox but will likely make your nerdy friends envious, nonetheless. It's a personal computer that's a replica of the hot Chevy Camaro.

The computer starts at around $1,240 and comes in a variety of colors, including the same color as the car used in the movie: bright yellow. The machine is relatively loaded, with two USB ports on the grille of the car, a slot-load DVD drive at the front bumper, and two more USB ports on … Read more