T-Mobile on Wednesday sent out invitations to a special event that will allow attendees to “be amongst the first to experience the HTC One S,” suggesting the carrier will soon launch its flagship Android phone for the first half of 2012. The event is scheduled for Wednesday, April 18th, about a week before the handset is rumored to launch on April 25th. HTC unveiled the One S alongside the One X at the Mobile World Congress trade show in February. The device features a 4.3-inch qHD Super LCD display, a dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor clocked at 1.5GHz, 16GB of internal storage, the same stunning 8-megapixel camera found on the One X and Sense 4.0 atop Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Microsoft on Wednesday began sending out invitations to the press for the company’s Windows Phone 7.5 Refresh launch event in China. According to Liveside, the event will be held in Beijing on March 21st. While the invitation doesn’t mention any specific handsets, HTC recently launched the Titan — becoming the first manufacturer to release a Window Phone device in China. Nokia CEO and president Stephen Elop will also reportedly host a separate event on March 28th. The company is expected to launch three Lumia devices, most likely running the refreshed Windows Phone 7.5 operating system. As of the fourth quarter of 2011, Nokia controls 16.1% of the Chinese mobile market, second only to Samsung.

Read

The search giant sent out invitations to an event for November 16. The invite states that "These Go To Eleven," a reference to the Spinal Tap joke and a clue that it'll be talking about its Google Music service. More »

The search giant sent out invitations to an event for November 16. The invite states that "These Go To Eleven," a reference to the Spinal Tap joke and a clue that it'll be talking about its Google Music service. More »

Barnes & Noble sent out invitations on Monday to a press conference that will be held on November 3rd in New York City. The event will focus on the company’s Nook eReader devices, although it is unclear what will be announced. We suspect Barnes & Noble will unveil the Nook Color 2, an Android tablet that reportedly offers a 7-inch display. The Nook Color 2 will likely go head-to-head with the Amazon Kindle Fire this holiday season and it may be in Barnes & Noble’s best interest to drop the price of its Android-powered eReader from $249 to match the Fire’s $199 price point. All of this will be cleared up in a week, and BGR will be reporting live from the event.

If you’re just waiting to blast some Beats audio-laden tunes from HTC’s latest and greatest, November 3rd will probably be a good day for you. That’s the date on the invitations HTC just sent out to the media, and we’re expecting the company to announce the HTC Rezound, also known by the code-name “HTC Vigor” for Verizon Wireless. The device should feature a 4.3-inch 720p HD display, a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, an 8-megapixel camera and, of course, Beats audio. No word on whether or not Lady Gaga Beats headphones will ship with the device, though. We’ll be reporting live from the event next Thursday so stay tuned.

Samsung just sent out invitations to a product launch on October 11 coinciding with CTIA. It's certainly going to mean a new Android phone from Samsung, probably the Nexus Prime. More »

The HP Veer might not be the webOS smartphone we’re most anxious to see launch, but there’s no question this petite phone packs a punch — and according to an event invitation revealed by webOS enthusiast blog PreCentral, the Veer will finally touch down in early May. HP is sending out invitations to a launch party for the Veer on May 2nd in California, and launch parties are typically accompanied by… launches. What’s more, those those who sent in an affirmative RSVP supposedly received instructions via email to bring an ID badge or a business card from AT&T or Best Buy in order to gain entry to the event. As such, an AT&T launch is likely a pretty safe bet. We took a hands-on look at the Veer back in February and the solid build of this tiny smartphone definitely impressed us, but we weren’t sure the tiny 2.6-inch touchscreen display had a place in the age of supersized smartphones. As an aside, it looks like that narrowed gap HP CEO Leo Apotheker claimed we would see between HP’s product announcements and launches isn’t so narrow after all. Apotheker said we should expect webOS devices to launch “within weeks” of HP’s February event, however — though we suppose the 12-weeks between HP’s Veer announcement and launch is, technically, within weeks.

[Via PreCentral]

Read

Apple will announce its next-generation iPad tablet at a special media event on March 2nd, The Wall Street Journal reports. The report, found on The Journal’s BoomTown blog, cites multiple sources with its claim and further supports an earlier report that the iPad 2 release will not be delayed. Apple will hold the event in San Francisco to announce its new tablet, as usual, and it is unclear whether or not Apple CEO Steve Jobs will be on hand to unveil the device. Jobs is currently on medical leave, so it stands to reason that he will not be in attendance. In that case, Tim Cook will likely run the show as he did during Jobs’ last medical leave. Press has not begun receiving invitations for the event yet, though they should begin arriving soon if The Journal’s report is accurate.

Read

Ever wonder just how many transactions social networking site Facebook handles in 20 minutes? No? Us either. However, a recently published report from analytics company Democracy UK — that describes exactly what happens in the aforementioned period of time on the site — has piqued our interest. On average:

1 million links are shared, 1.32 million photos are tagged, 1.48 million event invitations are sent out, 1.59 million wall posts are published, 1.85 million status updates are posted, 2.72 million photos are uploaded, 4.63 million messages are sent, and 10.21 million comments hit the site.

All of that, and more, happens every twenty minutes. Yikes. The published report also mentioned that Lady Gaga was the most Liked celebrity — Justin Bieber ranked an anemic 9th, just below the 8th place celebrity… Lil Wayne?

Read

Rumor has it that Apple will be scheduling its annual iPod event for mid-September, which is a little bit later than in years past. This contradicts rumors from just last week that the event would be held in mid-August. Apple has held these iPod events every year since 2005. Last year, they announced their September 9 “Let’s Rockâ€� event on August 31. With only a few days of shelf life left for this rumor, we’d expect invitations to start going out in the next few weeks.

However, as a rumor recap, whenever the event takes place, there’s strong evidence to suggest that we’ll see an iPod Touch refresh. It is likely that we’ll see a high-resolution Retina Display, along with front and rear facing cameras (just like the iPhone 4). The iPod Nano is also expected to get the refresh treatment, and some are wondering if it receive tiny touch screens as well. You might remember those. There may even be some iTunes announcements as well (cloud-based music streaming, anyone?), even though there are whispers that Apple is scaling back its ambitions in that arena, for the time being. In any event, let’s hope this shindig happens sooner than later — we’re counting the days.

[Via MacRumors]

Read

Uh oh… Apple just sent out invitations for press to get a sneak peak at their next generation iPhone OS, 4.0. We can’t wait for April 8th.

Shortly after the iPhone SDK 3.2 beta was released, users began spelunking around the code to see what, if anything, they could find. Earlier this month we reported on the discovery of several UI buttons to accept and reject video chat invitations, and today, MacRumors is reporting on the discovery of more evidence confirming a front-facing camera inclusion in the SDK. Several lines of code in the file PLCameraController.h indicate the presence of a camera with a flash, the ability to zoom, and the possibility that this camera is front-facing.

We have to be honest: a front-facing camera with the ability to make video calls would be great, and a camera with a flash and zoom anywhere on the iPhone or iPad would also be appreciated. The fact that this code is included in Apple’s SDK seems very promising, but unless Apple’s holding a lot back (which isn’t out of the question), we’ll just have to see how far this gets us. 

Read

We've started a no-so-secret society here at Gizmodo: The Mile High Club. It's full of people testing out in-flight Wi-Fi speeds while taking silly pictures of themselves and you're invited to join. Here's how.

A goofy picture isn't mandatory to gain membership to Gizmodo's Mile High Club, but you do need to run a Speed Test while using in-flight Wi-Fi and send us the results. So either take a screenshot or copy the data and email it to me (along with any in-flight webcam pictures) under the subject line "Mile High Club." Please make sure that you also include the name of the airline you're flying (and, if possible, the cities you're flying to and from).

In exchange for your email, you'll get no membership cards, no tshirts, no cookies, and no invitations to member-only events, but you will receive a "thank you" from me and be able to count yourself as part of our little club. And yes, Brian Lam is our founding member.