Is it a sports car? Is it a Blackberry? Maybe, it’s Vertu’s Ferrari-inspired new luxury phone.

The Constellation Quest Ferrari by Vertu derives its inspiration from the sharp curves of the Italian sports car manufacturer’s ‘458 Italia’ car. And yes, it comes with the iconic Ferrari logo too, the prancing horse. Ferrari cars come with custom-made plush leather interiors. Vertu’s Constellation Quest Ferrari doesn’t fall short in that category either: the front portion of the handset has leather exteriors with the Cavellino Rampante logo embossed on it. And it needn’t be said that the leather is the same hand-made Italian calf ones used by Ferrari in its cars.

The luxury smartphone is made from polished stainless steel which makes it sturdy. Vertu has even included a titanium battery cover for the handset: Super cool, isn’t it?   To add to it, polished sapphire crystal and polished black ceramic are also used in crafting the handset. But the speedometer and tachometer are missing!

Aha! Vertu has found an answer for that too. The Constellation Quest Ferrari, which is handmade by a single craftsman, has a new analogue clock which is inspired by the rev-counter on the ‘458 Italia’. This is the second time that Vertu has collaborated with Ferrari in bringing out a luxury handset. Their first courtship resulted in the Ascent Ferrari GT, a much sexier looking outcome than Blackberry and Porsche had with their ugly P’9981 offspring.  We can only image what the price of this one will ring in at.

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From controlling a TV to helping us park our cars, smartphones these days are capable of doing a lot of things that make our lives a whole lot easier. And now you can add the Ikea SPOKA lamp to the list. The image above is not from the set of a new sci-fi movie, it’s a Spoka night lamp from Ikea being hacked  for Android automation.

The Spoka lamp includes an ATtiny2313 and an RS232 Bluetooth module, which will allow the lamp itself to be controlled with a standard Android-running smartphone.

What’s the big deal in coming up with such a hack, you ask? Well, the lamp originally features two modes which you can select with a switch at the top. Either you can select the slow change between blue, red and orange colors while dimming the intensity or you can keep the same colour and intensity. The hack will allow you to customize the patterns of light that the lamp can display. And later on you can also have it synchronize to music playback.

Maybe in the not too distant future, you can set your lamp to start flashing when someone pokes you on Facebook or have different colors indicate different things. Check out the video and you can leave your thoughts below.

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On the AT&T side of the equation, they’ve formally announced a launch date of February 19th for the phone/tablet and it’ll sell for the expected $299.99 with a qualifying two year contract. They’re starting pre-orders this weekend with the first batch of deliveries starting on February 17th. You’ll have your choice of carbon blue and ceramic white.

For Canadians, Rogers isn’t being quite as specific, merely saying that the Galaxy Note will come to Rogers “in February.” The Rogers Reservation System has the Note listed, so you can add yourself to the pack and wait for the LTE-equipped smartphone that way. Best Buy has apparently narrowed it down to the February 14th launch date, not only for Rogers, but for Bell and Telus too. We’re hearing a $250 price point with a 3-year contract is likely.

Happy Valentine’s Day?

While mortals get to look at S III in a month or so when it gets unveiled at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Murtazin is apparently taking the newbie from Samsung through its paces. Of course, you guys will have to wait till you get to taste the Ice Cream Sandwich-run S III, signs suggesting that the smartphone will be launched first in the US, but not before April this year.

Mutazin’s tweet says the S III will have a 12MP camera and not a 16MP one as rumored earlier. It is not clear at the moment whether Samsung would stick with its tendency to stretch the screen (going by the size of Nexus and Note). Most probably the HD interface of the S III will be slightly bigger than S II, but not exactly in the range of Note, which should make it a fun device to have.

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It has been revealed that Huawei will be launching its Diamond Series of Android phones at Mobile World Congress, which takes place next month in Barcelona. This is meant to be a decidedly higher end range, competing directly against top tier devices like the HTC Edge and Galaxy S3.

Huawei already made its intentions clear with the unveiling of the Ascend P1 S at CES earlier this month. That phone boasted a 1.5GHz TI OMAP 4460 processor, Ice Cream Sandwich, 8MP rear camera, 1GB of RAM, 4GB internal memory, and 6.68mm thin profile. The assumption is that the Diamond Series will transcend those specs and features even further.

While it is unlikely that Huawei will gain the same kind of market share of Samsung or HTC, it is demonstrating that the company isn’t just about selling a bunch of cheap, low-spec’d merchandise.

Ahnood’s system uses solar cells in the screens to harness some of this lost energy. This system currently has only about an 11% efficiency, far from what is needed to make this technology worthy of helping expand battery life, but it is a start.

Anhood believes that this efficiency can eventually be increased with further research, to a point that this could improve the average battery life for a smartphone by several hours. He believes the efficiency can be increased significantly, to the point where this system could extend battery life by a few hours. If this technology proves cheap and efficient enough, even thirty or forty more minutes would be a welcome addition for most smart phones out there. And who wouldn’t want a solar cell in their phone?

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As a quick refresher, this device comes with an extra large 5.3-inch WXGA HD Super AMOLED display backed with a 1.5GHz dual core processor.  It runs Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread and Samsung plans to update that to ICS later this quarter. A lot of the marketing asks you whether it’s a phone or a tablet, asserting that it’s really both. Holding the phablet (you like that?) in my hands, I did get the sense that it is a little too big, but I initially felt the same way about phones like the Galaxy S Captivate.

The build quality and industrial design is in line with the Galaxy S II and other phones in the Galaxy S smartphone series. Responsiveness was robust and using the stylus for sketching worked quite well too. I’m still not sold on the idea of a five-inch phone, but I think it’s starting to grow on me.

It’s been officially announced for AT&T in the United States and there was a big marketing campaign here in Las Vegas for the device, plastering on billboards and the sides of buses. The Samsung rep couldn’t officially say which carrier in Canada would get it (first), but he did confirm that it’s on its way to Canada too. My money’s on Bell, since they got the SII before anyone else, as well as the Galaxy Nexus.

That’s where human ingenuity takes over and has given us many breakthrough technologies in the past several decades to help with driver safety such as airbags and even GPS (if you aren’t worried about looking at that old-school map, you are less likely to end up in a wreck, right?)

Now Mobileye has announced a new technology that takes protecting drivers on the road a step further.

This system includes a smart camera, proprietary algorithms, and a microprocessor that work together to detect and alert drivers to unintended lane departures, imminent collisions, pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists on the road.

The system even has the ability to read speed limit signs, intelligently controls hi beams and alerts drivers of the most common forms of accidents, rear-end collisions.

You know what, I already have someone who nags at me if I am going to fast, turn to sharply, or am close to a collision: its called my wife (I pray my wife never reads this post). I don’t consider her brand of back-seat driving to be particularly helpful most of the time, but perhaps if a robotic system was instead the backseat driver I wouldn’t find it so frustrating? Perhaps, if it really is as effective as Mobileye claims it to be, that is.

The new series will include Bluetooth capabilites that allow for Mobileye 5-Series to work in tandem with your smartphone to provide visual alets for critical conditions on the roads.

The Mobileye 5-Series is available now in two models, the 560 ($849) and 550 ($749). Would I pay close to a grand for a backseater, probably not. Still, I think this could certainly have some merit especially in very crowded cities.

Corning is the maker of  ”Gorilla Glass” which is used in many newer generation consumer electronic gadgets such as smartphones and tablets.  Corning plans to show off a new version of its Gorilla Glass next week at the consumer Electronics Show, the new version is super-thin and chemically-strengthened. Not many details have been released about the new version at this point, but the company claimed last year that this is the next big thing in glass and we can expect it to be in the iPhone 5. The company is staying pretty quite about exactly how much lighter or stronger the new glass will be, but not to worry, we will soon find out what Corning has in their hat next week at the annual Consumer electronic Show.

According to Corning, Gorilla Glass is currently used in more than 575 electronic products across 30 major brands totaling a whopping 500 million devices across the globe.

At this time it is unclear if Apple is using Gorilla Glass Displays on the latest iPhone & iPad. Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs notes that Steve Jobs put his “reality distortion field” to get Corning to bring its speciality glass to the market just in time for the first iPhone launch.

Gorilla Glass also aims to be used in other devices that are slightly bigger than a typical tablet or a smartphone. The company is working on an impressive 82-inch touchscreen for the show.  If you are going to this years CES be sure to check out the Gorilla Glass booth, for readers that cannot be at the show, keep your browsers locked onto Mobilemag as we will bring you all the breaking developments right here.

Today’s smartphones are highly capable of high-end video streaming, Internet browsing, and even games that put last-generation home consoles nearly to shame. Of course, the downside to using a phone for such efforts is the small screen involved. This is where tablets come in as highly-mobile alternatives that have larger screens for video and gaming.

Another solution though, is the new QP Optoelectronics “LightPad“. This unique device has a folio-style setup that combines a keyboard with an 11-inch rear projection screen. This makes ideal for productivity, but also gives it a larger screen for watching videos and playing games. The first generation model only sports a 854×480 resolution but the company promises that by the next-gen they should have a working HD 1280×720 resolution device as well.

What’s even cooler is that the unit can flip around to create up to a 60-inch display through its projection technology and will work with any smartphone that has MHL or HDMI ports. The unique projection device will debut officially at the 2012 CES Event.

While the projection screen system seems like a unique way to get things done, it also doesn’t seem like the most portable option. For office and home use though, this could really come in handy. Not to mention performing presentations using your smartphone.