Google announced on Tuesday that it has added support for 3D buildings in 13 additional cities on Google Maps, including London, Paris, Barcelona, Stockholm, Singapore, Lisbon, Boulder, and 11 cities in South Africa. Until Tuesday, the feature was available in just a handful of other metropolitan areas, including New York, Milan, and Zurich. To activate 3D buildings in one of the aforementioned locations, simply zoom in close to the city and the application will then show a 3D renders of the city landscape. A software update is not required if you already have the latest version of Google Maps installed on a device running Android 2.0 or newer.

[Via Mobile Burn]

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You may have been following our live blog of Samsung’s “Unpacked: Part I” event at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. If you did you would know that, much to the chagrin of most of the event’s attendants, it sort of dragged; we heard the same things repeated over and over again by various members of Samsung’s team. However, after we’ve had some hands-on time with the star of the show, the Galaxy S II, we think we know why it got such and exhaustive introduction: it’s a really, really great smartphone. Sammy has obviously invested a large amount of time and energy into the next Galaxy S, and you can really feel all that effort and energy when you pick up the device. It’s incredibly light, incredibly thin, and incredibly responsive. The TouchWiz UI has gotten a serious makeover that makes it much more appealing than its previous iteration. Customization options, social networking hook-ins, it’s all there. Not to mention some of those high-end specs: dual-core processor, Wi-Fi direct support, HSPA +21 Mbps radio, 1080p HD recording and playback at 30fps, and hardware accelerated encryption — just to name a few. Oh, and who could forget that 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus screen… you really have to see it to appreciate it. In short: the phone is gorgeous, feels solid, and responds just like you want it to. Will the Galaxy S II make its way to the U.S. in a non carrier-bastardized form? That’s the $1,000,000 question. Sammy is hosting another event tomorrow evening where it may reveal more details about its strategy for the United States — if we’re lucky we may even get a timetable. Until then, hit up our hands-on gallery and let us know what you think!

The Taiwanese rumor mill that is DigiTimes has let go another tablet-based prognostication. In a post today, the blog asserts that HTC will release its 7-inch Scribe tablet at the Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona this February. The report, which also mentions that the Scribe will be running Android 3.0, cites “Taiwan based makers of components” as the source of its information. HTC, who was one of the first major phone manufacturers to jump on the Android bandwagon, has been noticeably absent from the tablet market — an absence that may work in the company’s favor if this rumor turns out to be true. It’s all speculative at this point, but we know HTC won’t be on the tablet-sidelines forever.

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Nokia’s annual conference covering, well, all things Nokia, is set to kick off this coming Tuesday and apparently the Finnish giant has something special in store for us. There is a mysterious countdown timer front and center on Nokia’s dedicated events page, and the clock is ticking down to 9:15 am CET when Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo and Executive VP Anssi Vanjoki are scheduled to begin their keynote speech entitled transforming the way we connect. That title leads us to believe this Nokia World announcement will be service-oriented rather than device oriented, but there is no way to know with any certainty for the time being. The countdown page however, also includes a sharing widget with the text, “it looks like Nokia is planning something big,” to be delivered to any recipient with whom the page is shared. “Big” of course is a relative term, especially where marketing is involved, so we’re not getting overly excited just yet. We do know that Nokia has some departures from its normal offerings coming up in the future – an Nseries touch device, the QWERTY sliding E75, its first SureType-style half-QWERTY “Wahoo” – but Nokia World historically has not been the venue for Nokia’s big handset announcements. Regardless, Nokia fans will certainly be sitting on the edges of their seats wondering what Tuesday has in store and as always, we’ll keep you posted.

[Via Symbian-Guru]

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Samsung used the S60 Summit in Barcelona Spain today to announce a new S60 slider that has the blogosphere talking. With a sexy brushed steel face, a slender physique and RAZR-esque flush keypad, the L870 is bound to turn some heads once released. The specs aren’t too shabby either:

• HSDPA (2100MHz) 3.6Mbps + EDGE/GPRS 900/1800/1900
• 2.4 inch QVGA 16M Color TFT display
• 3 megapixel Camera
• Symbian 9.3 (S60 Feature Pack 2)
• Safari browser (huh?)
• New Thematic UI
• Advanced PIM Applications
• Music Player (MP3, AAC, AAC+, RA, AMR, WMA)
• Video Player (H.263 + AMR, MPEG4, Real One, WMV)
• FM Radio (RDS)
• Bluetooth v.2.0 EDR / USB 2.0 (Full Speed)
• Memory: 100MB internal memory + microSDHC support
• Size: 103.5 x 50.5 x 13.5mm

Of course the L870 lacks US 3G compatibility and GSM 850 MHz so we can’t say we’re overly excited, but this is a sharp handset regardless. Maybe someday Samsung will decide to issue an S60 smartphone with a little US love. Until then, moving along. Oh and we sincerely hope Nokia makes note of the fact that this is an S60 handset sporting USB 2.0…

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