TomTom is offering to send five groups on all-expenses-paid trips to various tropical islands, paying them €10,000 each for the privilege. The catch? They’ll be “employed” to drive around in cars fitted with mapping equipment so that TomTom can collect usable data. This will apparently take anything from one day to the full fortnight depending on how diligent the recruits turn out to be, but either way it sounds like nice work if you can get it.

Those of you in need of cash and a holiday can fill out the application form right here — all you have to do is explain why you’d be perfect for the “job.” We’re not convinced publicity stunts like this are the best way for TomTom to spend its money following heavy layoffs and restructuring,…

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IKEA is gearing up to launch its Uppleva range in Europe, and has just posted a video showing how the TV/furniture hybrid went down at its first public showing in Italy last month. The video features designer Francis Cayouette talking about the inspiration for the idea and the advantages of the integrated concept, which he believes will help make IKEA’s products more attractive next to traditionally-styled TVs.

We also get to see the minimal interface, which will include apps from video content partners such as YouTube and Vimeo, and the similarly simple remote that features a slide-out design to access less commonly used buttons. We’re almost sold on the concept — we just need to know exactly how it’ll be assembled.

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Sony has announced that a YouTube app will come to the PS Vita next month. It’ll feature standard features like comments and favorites, and is set to be released by the end of June. It follows the recent release of Skype, Facebook, and other non-gaming apps for Sony’s latest handheld, and should be useful for anyone interested in watching mobile video on the device — in our review, we noted that the Vita’s browser doesn’t even support HTML5, let alone Flash. There aren’t many details or any screenshots yet, but chances are we’ll get to see the app shown off at E3 next week.

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Bloomberg is reporting that several companies will use next week’s Computex show in Taipei to reveal their Windows 8 tablets. According to the site’s sources, we’ll see an Intel-based tablet from Acer and a Toshiba tablet using a Texas Instruments ARM processor, along with Intel and ARM Windows 8 products from Asus. The Asus ARM tablet will reportedly be using a Tegra chip from Nvidia and use the same detachable keyboard form factor seen in the company’s Transformer Android devices. Bloomberg also expects Qualcomm to demonstrate Windows 8 running on a Snapdragon processor.

Asus has been whirring the fans of speculation itself by releasing a couple of teaser videos ahead of Computex that hint at the company’s plans. The running theme…

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It’s not like RIM is short of problems to deal with, but a fairly longstanding thorn in its side has been removed today. It’s finally won a legal case brought by analytics company BBM Canada, formerly known as the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement, over the right to use the BBM initialism with its BlackBerry Messenger service. The Globe and Mail reports that despite BBM Canada owning the trademark, the court found in favor of RIM because the two companies aren’t in the same industry.

The decision means RIM is now free to continue using one of the strongest brands it has left — we’ve already seen evidence that it may show up in a future 4G iteration of the PlayBook. However, with rumors mounting of major layoffs and new CEO Thorsten Heins…

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A federal judge in New York has given the go-ahead for thousands of authors to bring a class action lawsuit against Google over the company’s scanning of copyrighted books. Judge Denny Chin denied Google its motion to remove the Authors Guild and other groups from the case, saying that a class action would be “more efficient and effective” than forcing authors to sue individually.

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FiftyThree’s excellent drawing app Paper just got a little bit better. The update to version 1.0.23 isn’t a huge overhaul, but comes with a couple of tweaks to improve both the creation and sharing of your pictures. The first addition is the ability to export multi-page PDFs of your sketchbooks to other applications or email. This works much like the sharing functionality built into Android, giving you a simple list of compatible apps that can open PDF files — on our iPad, the feature worked with iBooks, Kindle, CloudReaders, and Dropbox. That last app in particular should make it a lot easier to show off your penmanship. Sharing individual pictures, however, remains limited to email, various social networks, and saving to your camera…

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Reddit now seems like an integral part of the internet’s fabric, from making accidental Hollywood movies to spearheading the online drive against SOPA. Co-founder Alexis Ohanian has taken to Inc.com to give his own account of how the site came into being, and it’ll likely be a pretty compelling read for anyone who’s ever considered starting a multi-million dollar website. Unbelievably, Ohanian reveals that there was friction over whether or not to include comments from the start — it’s hard to imagine the site without them today, but it just goes to show that ideas don’t always present themselves immediately.

We built Reddit in three weeks. It was just Web links and text submitted by users, with Interesting or Uninteresting buttons…

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Controversial TV streaming startup Aereo is in court this week after being sued by broadcasters including Comcast, Fox, CBS, and others. The plaintiffs claim that Aereo, which “captures” broadcast TV transmissions and transmits them to subscribers with proprietary antennas, doesn’t have the right to redistribute their content. However, the Wall Street Journal reports that Aereo’s lawyers are arguing the startup is operating within the boundaries of the same laws that permit viewing recorded content via DVRs.

“The Aereo system operates just like DVRs in the marketplace. That’s not the live retransmission of TV.”

Since each Aereo subscriber uses an individual antenna, the argument goes that retransmissions don’t constitute public…

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Google has updated its Translate app for Android to version 2.4. It’s largely a visual overhaul, with a new simplified icon and Holo theme replacing the previous web-style color scheme. The interface has been redesigned, too, with larger buttons to activate handwriting and voice input now appearing at the bottom of the screen. Elsewhere, speech translation now works with a total of 17 languages, and for the first time on mobile there’s Esperanto support for the more neutrally-inclined. From using it briefly, it looks like a pretty clear improvement all around — the app is both more attractive and simpler to navigate. Of course, Google’s machine translation itself isn’t without its issues, but it’s good to see improvements to the…

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Pioneer is attempting to make the dream of driving like RoboCop a reality this July with its Carrozzeria Cybernavi heads-up display system. The HUD consists of a roof-mounted laser array that projects information onto a visor that clips above your windshield. Pioneer is showing off the technology in its Ginza showroom, and says it’s been a big hit with passers-by — with a summer launch scheduled, we thought we’d take a look for ourselves.

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Nippon Housou Kyoukai, better known as NHK, is much more than Japan’s public service broadcaster — it’s a national institution that seeks to push forward major advances in televisual technology worldwide. This month the NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories is exhibiting prototype examples of the innovations it expects to see in our living rooms in the 2020s, 30s, and beyond, ranging from impossible leaps in screen size and resolution to breathtaking breakthroughs in 3D imagery. It’s a head-spinning display of the presently unattainable that leaves us decidedly unimpressed with our own 1080p 3D sets. Read on to find out exactly how you’ll be watching TV in the future.

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O2 Germany has confirmed that its version of the Nokia Lumia 900 will come with 32GB of internal storage. The bump over the 16GB unit was first revealed via the carrier’s product page for the device, making us wonder if it was a typo, but an O2 representative has said via Twitter that the information is indeed correct. Like the UK model, the German Lumia 900 will be offered in white from the start. There’s no word on whether or not the expanded storage will be making its way to the US or elsewhere, but between this and the UK’s limited Batman edition it looks like Europe is getting all the Lumia fun right now.

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SoftBank’s recently-launched AXGP 4G network is capable of speeds up to 110Mbps, but so far we’ve only seen the release of a 76Mbps mobile router. That’s set to change at some point after September courtesy of the Ultra Wi-Fi 102HW, a Huawei-made router that SoftBank is calling the “fastest ever.” It’ll allow for theoretical maximum download speeds of 110Mbps and uploads of 10Mbps, and has a 3,000 mAh battery.

Somewhat oddly, SoftBank seems to be content with restricting its new network to mobile routers for now. At today’s event announcing the carrier’s summer lineup of phones, CEO Masayoshi Son elected to emphasize the recent acquisition of 900Mhz “platinum band” spectrum with which all upcoming devices will be compatible. SoftBank…

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If you’re still pining over the loss of the Pioneer Kuro, Panasonic might have something for you in the coming weeks. Its new ZT5 plasma TVs come in both 65-inch and 50-inch varieties and are said to have greatly improved black levels. The ZT5 TVs will be released in Japan next month, but it’s unclear if these TVs are regional variations of models in the lineup we saw at CES. They sound pretty similar to the high-end VT50 series, though, with a priority on black levels and a sleek design that pairs a single pane of glass with a tiny metal bezel.

The sets also feature Wi-Fi and DLNA streaming support along with Skype and various other smart TV features. At ¥650,000 (about $8,171) for the 65-inch model and ¥410,000 ($5,154) for the…

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SoftBank’s Pantone 5 107SH will make headlines in the global press for one reason and one reason only — it’s the first phone in the world to come with a built-in radiation detector — but it’d be a big deal in Japan even without that headline feature. Indeed, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son introduced the Pantone 5 onstage today without even letting the audience know what that color-matched button was for, and showed off a new commercial that makes no mention of the functionality at all. The carrier’s colorful range of Pantone phones has long been a hit in its home market, and a first smartphone entry for the series running Android 4.0 is almost guaranteed to make a splash.

The Pantone 5 is a fairly middling device on paper, with an…

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Ubi Interactive (no relation to Ubisoft) is a startup from Munich currently working with Microsoft in Seattle as part of the Kinect Accelerator program. Their idea is a simple one that looks to be pretty effective — a system that uses a projector in combination with a Kinect sensor to create a virtual touchscreen that can be cast onto just about any surface. Ars Technica visited the team to test it all out and came away fairly glowing with praise, noting the system’s responsiveness as well as the way it plugs directly into Windows and can use the bespoke touchscreen gestures.

It’s not a totally new idea, as we’ve seen similar implementations such as OmniTouch, but Ubi’s work has clearly impressed Redmond. The team sees it being used in…

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Days after Samsung confirmed to us that it was restricting use of its S Voice app on handsets other than the Galaxy S III, the service appears to be working again. At least on our Sharp Aquos Phone that we’ve been testing S Voice on from the beginning, normal service has been resumed and the app is performing as well as it ever did. After Samsung initially blocked the service, some enterprising modders managed to alter the APK to get it back up and running again, but we haven’t done anything other than install the file that originally leaked.

This could be an error on Samsung’s part, or it could be related to tomorrow’s European launch of the Galaxy S III. We’ve reached out to Samsung for comment, but it’s a national holiday in South…

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We’re often told not to judge a book by its cover, but that’s getting more and more difficult in a time where our Kindles automatically start us off at the first chapter. Craig Mod, formerly of Flipboard, has posted an essay that acknowledges the cover’s demise while pointing to the way ahead for digital design. Mod ultimately argues that the design, typography, and art of covers should permeate through the entire product in a way that traditionally hasn’t been done with print.

The cover as we know it really is – gasp – ‘dead.’ But it’s dead because the way we touch digital books is different than the way we touch physical books. And once you acknowledge that, useful corollaries emerge.

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Panasonic is the latest camera manufacturer to get in on the Wi-Fi app game — it’s just launched Lumix Remote for iOS and Android. The app only works with the FX90 compact camera for now, which will need a firmware upgrade in order to talk to Lumix Remote, but once that’s done you’ll have a few more ways to use the camera’s Wi-Fi chip. Your phone’s screen can be used as both a zooming viewfinder and a shutter release, and there’s a separate mode designed to help you take a self portrait.

There’s no way to transfer files, somewhat oddly, but you can always do so via the extant Lumix Link app that launched alongside the camera last year. Overall Lumix Remote looks like a pretty useful app, and we’re definitely hoping it gets more robust…

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