According to The Inquirer the new flagship smartphone of the Samsung line-up is doing great in UK. Both Carphone Warehouse retailer and Vodafone officials have announced that Samsung Galaxy S3 have gunned down any other pre-order record.

Vodafone UK went even further with their declarations: “With over a week to go until launch, it’s [Samsung Galaxy S III] already the most pre-ordered Android device we’ve brought into our smartphone line-up to date.” Anyway, no exact pre-order numbers have been unveiled, but these are definitely good news for the South Korean company.

Samsung Galaxy S3 was highly anticipated by the Android enthusiasts, and a lot of buzz was created around the release of the South Korean flagship smartphone. The smartphone comes to replace the popular Samsung Galaxy S2 and most of the tech publications are already seeing it as a sure candidate for the smartphone of the year award.

The flagship smartphone was introduced earlier this month at Samsung Unpacked event in London and it will become the official Olympic phone after The Games kick start in the capital city of England.

Samsung Galaxy S III sports a 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED display protected by Gorilla Glass coating, a quad-core 1.4 GHz Exynos 4 Quad chipset, 1 GB of RAM and 16/32/64 GB of internal flash storage. It has an 8 megapixel camera with autofocus, LED flash and 1080p video recording capabilities, while the front-facing 1.9 megapixel camera is ideal for video calls.

The Android-powered device also comes with 50 GB of free Dropbox storage for two years and many other goodies like Smart Stay, Direct Call, S-Voice, S-Beam and Pop-up-Play.

It looks like the South Korea-based company have found the recipe to take away the title from Apple. It was reported that 9 million Samsung Galaxy S3 units were already pre-order, while Apple’s iPhone 4S only did 4 million last year. Will the yet-unannounced iPhone 5 be able to steal the crown from Samsung high-end Android smartphone?

We all anticipated this, no one was caught unprepared, all we wanted was to see the official reports – Diablo 3 have set a new record for the fastest selling PC game in history, as not less than 3.5 million units were shipped in the first 24 hours after the official debut.

If 3.5 million sounds like madness, you would like to know that this figure doesn’t include the users that received the game as par of the World of Warcraft Annual Pass offer. We are talking about 1.2 million extra units. The previous record, for a PC game, belonged to another Blizzard title – World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.

Now Blizzard can boast that they launched the fastest selling PC game in the history (for the second time in a row). 3.5 million Diablo 3 copies were sold in the first 24 hours, and the figure includes both the commercial version and Battle.net downloads, writes Engaget.

Diablo 3 continued to add up more and more fans and after the first week since it went on sale, 6.3 million units were shipped. The game has a price of $59.99 in US, so you do the math. Blizzard are filthy rich now and the best is yet to come, as the real-money Auction House will help them earn even more.

“We’re definitely thrilled that so many people around the world were excited to pick up their copy of Diablo III and jump in the moment it went live. We also regret that our preparations were not enough to ensure everyone had a seamless experience when they did so,” said Mike Morhaime, Blizzard CEO.

But what are the next steps for Blizzard and what the millions of Diablo 3 players should expect in the near future? Well, first up we should be able to see the real-money Auction House in action soon, probably a PvP mode later on, lots of updates that will fix bugs and in the not-so-distant-future an expansion pack which will hopefully be at least as good as Lord of Destruction for Diablo II.

For the time being, the game is in the hands of about 6.3 million gamers after only one week since the launch, and it will definitely be sold in more than 10 million copies by the end of the year.

After the Windows 8′s Metro-style Internet Explorer 10 have been criticized, as it initially came without Adobe Flash support, Microsoft got the wheel and tried to correct this issue, teaming-up with Adobe to integrate all the required components in the next version, Windows 8 Release Preview, expected to drop in June.

Because there will be two versions of Internet Explorer 10 in Windows 8, the desktop one and the Metro-style browser (without extensions support), Microsoft decided to ship their web browser with Adobe Flash in the Metro version, available for websites like YouTube, Hulu and Vimeo, writes ArsTechnica.

Apparently, by integrating the Adobe Flash plugin-in with Metro and non-Metro Internet Explorer 10 versions, Microsoft broke their own rules, as the Redmond giant announced that the Metro-style web browser won’t come with support for plug-in components.

But since Microsoft is working closely with Adobe, this move allowed the two companies to integrate the source code responsible with Flash technology in the Internet Explorer 10 heart, thus the user won’t have to install a different plug-in. According to Microsoft, this is the best way to reach their security, performance and compatibly goals they set for Windows 8.

The somewhat surprising decision comes after years when Microsoft claimed that the future is in the hands of HTML 5. Contrary to the company’s prediction, a lot of video content is still distributed on the web using Adobe Flash, forcing Microsoft to add support for the multimedia platform in their browser.

Adobe adopted Microsoft Secure Developement Lifecycle strategy for Flash Player, and Microsoft has the last word when it comes to the code used by Adobe, as they are planning to eliminate any vulnerability and to reduce the battery consumption on the devices equipped with touch screen. Thus, the security updates for Adobe will be rolled out as IE 10 patches.

There’s no doubt that the Adobe Flash support will considerably improve the way the users are looking at the Metro-style Internet Explorer 10, taking away their doubts regarding the browser’s compatibility with various forms of multimedia content delivered on the web.

We’ve seen the HTC One XL for the first time at MWC 2012 event in Barcelona and the smartphone sports a 4.7-inch Super LCD2 display, protected by Gorilla Glass technology with a resolution of 720 x 1,280 pixels. Under the 8.9 mm thick body of One XL there’s a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, clocked at 1.5 GHz.

On the back of the case you will find an 8 megapixel camera, with BSI sensor (BackSide Illuminated) and a group of lens with F2.0 aperture. The primary camera can record videos at Full HD resolution and take stills without interrupting the video recording. The burst shot feature is there, too, which will help you get pictures in lightning-fast succession, on a single press of the shutter “button.”

HTC One XL’s camera also features video stabilization, which should limit the rapid movement in the moment of the recording. On the front of the device you will find the secondary camera, with 1.3 megapixel resolution, which is useful when it comes to making video calls or using the Face Unlock feature, implemented in Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich for the Lock Screen.

Next to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, One XL delights us with the Sense 4.0 user interface, customized by HTC to improve the user’s experience with the 4.7-inch HD display.

As any high-end smartphone does, HTC One XL comes with a policarbonate case with unibody design, just like it’s quad-core brother HTC One X. The features list can continue with MHL-HDMI port, Beats Audio certified sound system, NFC connectivity, Bluetooth 3.0, 3G, WiFi N dual-band (2.4 and 5 GHz), the latter one used for DLNA connections with compatible devices and, of course, 4G LTE chip.

Since Germany is one of the few Europeans countries with LTE infrastructure, the Germans will be the first to get their hands on HTC One XL.

HTC One XL sports a 1,800 mAh Li-Polymer batter and micr-SIM slot. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a the microSD card sold, thus the users will have to limit to the 32 GB of internal flash storage.

As I mentioned above, HTC One XL will become available for purchase in Germany and the release date was set for early June. The white model will cost as much as €699, while the black One XL will have price tag of €659.

Google had to make some modifications and that’s why the launch of the tablet was delayed till July. Google’s hopes for its new device are very high and people expect that the shipments will reach 2.5 million units by the end of the year. Rumor has it that Google’s will be packed with NVIDIA’s quad-core Tegra 3 CPU and could have a very small price, of $199. Most rumors say that the device will be unveiled on June 27th when Google’s annual I/O conference will take place.

It looks like everyone is following Amazon’s steps and want to produce cheaper tablets as Google Nexus is meant to be a direct rival for Kindle Fire in both size and price. Also, it is rumored that Apple will release a tablet around 7.85 inches called iPad Mini. Plus, there is also the 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab, so the affordable 7-inch market will be very crowded. There will come a time when almost everybody will own one of these devices, even more than one.

Probably, the Google Nexus Tab will feature Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. However, it seems that the operating system will be upgraded this year (probably in November), so Google can sell its tablet with Android 5.0

I will be an intense competition between several major players on the tablet market as ASUS, and Acer and getting ready to release new 7-inch tablets too. The second half of 2012 is going to be very interesting.

Lets take the tablets, for instance. The market is filled up with low-cost devices that are powered by the same Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich as the rest. At first glance, there aren’t many differences between a low-cost device and a high-end one. However, the secret lies in the components the Chinese use. There are a few important compromises such as the display which basically has a low resolution, the RAM is generally 512MB, the cameras are poor (in case the tablet actually features one), and the CPUs are usually single core, or, in the happiest situation, 1 Ghz dual-core processors). The tablet makers have to make these compromises, otherwise they would not be able to release the products at prices ranging between $100 and $250.

And people seem to like the tablets because they cost less money than the “standard” ones, and lets face it, not everybody can afford to buy a device having a price that starts from $600. The other option is to purchase a tablet built by companies like Samsung, Apple, etc. A “toy” with a resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels is much more appealing, and the 1.5 Ghz quad-core processor makes it irresistible. The only inconvenient is the price tag.

Apparently, there is a way to obtain decent devices, but which don’t cot much. At least, that’s what NVIDIA claims. Recently, there was a meeting between the shareholders of NVIDIA where Rob Csonger, the company’s vice-president, revealed a new project named “Kai”.

The company will try to produce quad-core tablets. Till now nothing spectacular so far, but the intriguing thing is that it would cost only $199. That what the Kai tablet project is about, to produce quad-core units powered by Android Ice Cream Sandwich and release them on the market at the $199 price point. Rob Csonger explained that the project is doable thanks to NVIDIA’s latest innovation to reduce the power used by the display, and use components that don’t cost too much.

The news is not very clarifying as we don’t really know if the design of the Kai will be a reference used by the firms, with which NVIDIA collaborates, to produce ambitious low-cost devices, or it’s a final product by itself. Could be both, but Kai will a real success if NVIDIA manages to get things done right. The tablet featured in the image looks similar to the popular ASUS MeMo 370T. The device was unveiled at CES 2012 for the first time. It was supposed to be a quad-core 7-inch tablet at a price of only $250, but people were very disappointed when hearing the news that it has been cancelled.

Now it appears like something quite similar will hit the market, the Kai project. We only hope that this one won’t be cancelled like the ASUS tablet. The Google I/O will take place in June, when Google is expected to offer information about its new Nexus tablet.

If we consider the fact that when Amazon launched its Kindle Fire, people were crazy about the tablet because it was cheaper than those of the competitors, the success of the Kai is certain (Kindle Fire has the same price point). And if we add the fact that Kai will feature a quad-core processor (better than Kindle Fire’s dual-core), the demands for NVIDIA’s device could be limitless and sales of the high-end tablets will considerably drop.

Yahoo’s Axis aims to eliminate one of the steps of the standard web searching. Usually you are typing a search query, see the results and access the web page you want. Well, Axis wants to help its users to jump from typing the search term to accessing the web site, jumping over the link surfing step. This doesn’t mean you will no longer be able to choose from the links in search results, but that the efficiency of the way you end up on the web page have increased.

The guys at CENT have already tested Yahoo’s web browser and they said that it is working well and that it has the looks of an aggressive product, which will help Yahoo get out of the shadow of the other big companies.

The famous Yahoo company, was one of the most successful in the online climate for years in a row. Now with an uncertain future ahead of it, the US-based company is struggling to stay relevant on this market segment.

Even so, Yahoo’s search engine is still generating over $1 billion in revenue per year. You should know that Axis blocks the ads, and the search results will be displayed as an horizontal arrangement of thumbnails for web pages. Basically, what Yahoo did was to integrate the search results in to the web experienced in order to make it look better. Of course, the ads will soon arrive on Axis, but only if the product is successful enough to get a commercial release.

Will Axis become new Chrome? Yahoo hoes that Axis will become a successful web browser, and the 700 million people using Yahoo’s services are a huge market to advertise a new product on. What’s even more important is that Yahoo has Apple’s support, which might help Axis grow…

Microsoft will soon restrict the access to Marketplace app store for the smartphones that are running the first version of the Windows Phone operating system. In order to buy new apps or update the already-installed ones the smartphone you are using must run on Windows Phone 7.5 Mango.

According to Microsoft officials, most of the Windows Phone users have updated their firmware to 7.5 Mango. The ones who haven’t updated their devices already, will now be forced to do it using Zune for PC or Windows Phone 7 Connector for Mac.

Summing up, from now on you must have your smartphone updated to Windows Phone 7.5 Mango in order to be able to buy, download, update or review the applications in Markeptlace. This change will apply for the users who download apps directly from their smarphone, but also for the ones who use the web browser version of Windows Phone’s app store.

Since most of the smartphones powered by Microsoft’s mobile operating system are already running on Windows Phone 7.5, so this won’t be a big problem, but there are still are some users who weren’t prompt enough to upgrade their devices. If a smartphone doesn’t respect this requirement and the user accesses Marketplace, an error message will appear on the screen.

A couple of more days will pass until this Microsoft’s new rule is applied, thus you will still be able to use the Marketplace from your WP7 device for at least 24 hours. Of course, it’s much easier to update your device to Windows Phone 7.6 Mango if you own a smartphone like LG Optimus 7, Samsung Omnia 7, HTC HD7 or others of their generation.

Even though you aren’t using Marketplace, I recommend you to upgrade your device, as the new firmware brings hundreds of improvements.

The update to Windows Phone 7.5 might be complicated for a regular user. You will need to clear some the smartphone’s memory and you will also need space on the PC’s HDD to back-up the files. Moreover, Microsoft advises you to have a lot of patience in order to perform the update.

Therefore, reports indicate that the tablet shipments over the first quarter of the year increased 124%.

Apple iPad shipments grew 162% in the first quarter of 2012, compared to the same time frame of the last year. The figures are provided by a study conducted by NPD Display Search, and the report also indicates that Apple also shipped 13.6 million iPad units in the first three months of the year, enough to control 62.8% of the global tablets market.

Meanwhile, Amazon and their Kindle Fire have lost the second place, as Samsung overtook the world’s biggest online retailer, now biting 7.5% of the market share pie. The South Korean-based company shipped 1.6 million tablets in Q1 2012.

Amazon has a market share of 4% and 900,000 Kindle Fire tablets are on their way to retailers/customers between January and March. Both RIM and Asus are fighting for the forth place, as BlackBerry PlayBook become pretty popular, due to it’s low price tag of only $200.

Both tablet manufacturers have a market share of 2.3% and Asus registered high demand for the quad-core Transformer Prime, but also for their older Eee Pad Transformer.

Apple’s tablet shipment reports doesn’t match with the figures provided by NPD’s study. The Cupertino-based company announced that 11.8 million iPad units were shipped in Q1 2012, an increase of 151% compared to 2011. According to NPD’s study 4 out of 5 shipped tablet PC units are iPads.

Rumor has it that Google plans to launch an affordable tablet soon, unofficially dubbed Nexus Tablet, that will come with a price tag of only $150, in an attempt to steal some of Apple’s success on the segment.

Other sources indicate that Apple is also working on a smaller, more affordable iOS tablet. Rumor has it that the iPad Mini will have a 7.85-inch display and that it will have a price of $250.

The Microsoft CEO announced that the company’s analysts are estimating that more than 350 million PC systems equipped with Windows 7 will be shipped until the end of this year. Steve Ballmer also unveiled the predictions for its successor, Windows 8.

Microsoft plans to launch the new version of their operating system before 2012 ends and it is estimated that up to 500 million persons will use a PC or tablet running on Windows 8 in the first year after the platform hits the market.

In his speech, Ballmer also talked about “the rebirth of Microsoft Windows,” in a world where the tablet PCs and other mobile devices are threatening the popularity of desktop PCs and traditional laptops.

With the same occasion, Microsoft CEO also unveiled that a Skype client for Windows 8 is on the work table and that it might be introduced in the Windows 8 Release Preview edition, expected to debut in early June.

As about the new cloud computing industry, Ballmer estimates that in a few years there will be only a couple of companies left to dominate the whole segment – and Microsoft will definitely be one of them. The next step is that the software developers will focus their efforts on these platforms, divided depending on the ecosystem they are created for: Windows, Apple, or various forms of Linux.

Besides Microsoft’s traditional partners, Intel and AMD, Windows 8 will also be available on devices based on ARM architecture, dubbed Windows RT. Even though the x86 chipsets are more powerful than the ARM ones, the latter ones are known for their performance when it comes to battery consumption.

Despite Redmond-based company’s optimism, rumor has it that Microsoft will charge Windows RT OEMs around $10 per device to licence the operating system, thus the Windows 8 tablet manufacturers are concerned that they will not be able to develop tablets with prices capable of fighting on a market segment already full of more affordable solutions.