That developer is one Romaine Guy, an Android framework engineer, and his big revelation today is actually two-part: Donut will not support multitouch, and it is not Android 2.0.

Sad, but the information is still a bit ambiguous, being one line in a Google Groups discussion. We also don't have any additional word on the other features we told you about yesterday, including universal search, text-to-speech, automated backups, a new camera app, supposedly better performance, and CDMA support (ammo for an imminent Sprint launch). [Google Android Group via Engadget]

Mmm hmm...yeah, tell me how that works out ladies. It costs $20, but if you have the guts to try this out you could probably hit up the hardware store for a cheaper solution. [Skymall via RGS]

Location:
Northstar's Basque Room. Located adjacent to TC's Pub and directly across the walk way from Earthly Delights. For exact location please refer to Northstar's Village map [LINK] and search Basque or refer to the blue image on the map below.
For driving directions to Northstar-at-Tahoe please refer Northstar's site. [LINK]

When:
Saturday April 4th. Event room opens to the public at 8:30 am and closes at 4 pm.

The Price: $5

Transportation: We recommend you drive or carpool. The official Gizmodo carpool thread is here.

The Ticket and Housing Discounts: Huge Dealzmodo Lift tickets discounts at $57 (vs $79) for commenters; 30% off housing if you want to come the night before and have a drink with me in the village, or stay the following night at 10% off. (You'll have to call to RSVP for housing. Check out the options on Northstar's website. Northstar is providing 10% off lodging booked for Friday 4/3 or Saturday 4/4, and for Sunday 4/5 lodging is 30% off. Here's how to receive the discount:
Just call Northstar at 1.800.GO.NORTH (466.6784) and use our coupon code GI0404 when booking your reservation.

Lift Tickets:
All Snowmodo attendees are eligible for discounted Northstar lift tickets. To receive these discounts you must first pay the $5 attendance fee at our event room to receive a wristband. Once you have a wristband you will be able to purchase a discounted lift ticket form Northstar's Season Pass Office and Copper Lane Ticketing Office. Ticket information will be available at the event.

Raffle:
Upon paying the $5 attendance fee you will receive one raffle ticket, which will be valid for our event prize raffle held later in the day. More information regarding the raffle will be available at the event.
Once your attendance fee is paid you are eligible to buy more raffle tickets at $5 per additional ticket and there is no limit on the amount of tickets you can buy.

Product Demos:
The companies in attendance will be offering various product demos that you can take out on the mountain for testing. You will be required to leave some form of ID or Credit Card in return for a demoed product. More information regarding product demos will be available at the event.

Friday Night Drinks:
We have not yet decided on where or when we'll be sitting down for drinks on Friday night. We'll be announcing details on Friday, so please check back then.

Fun stuff anyone can do: Ski, Snowboard, Showshoe, take ski/board lessons for first timers, ice skate, tube/sledding, geocache scavenger hunt, cross country ski, borrow and test out gadgets, win prizes, drink beer, eat food, shop. Northstar has a huge village and every snow activity you can think of, except double flipping snowmobiles. We'll have more details on the fun stuff we're going to do together with the companies and gadgets, later.

Zune Party Details:
Where: TC's Pub in Northstar's Village. The pub is located right next our event room. For location details please refer to Northstar's site. [LINK]
When: Party starts at 3 pm with Morgan Page starting his set around 3:30 pm.
How To Get In: Only Snowmodo attendees who have Snowmodo wristbands will be allowed in. That means you'll have to stop by our event room at-least once during the day to pay the $5 admission fee and receive a wristband and raffle tickets.

To Do Before Coming: There's a few things we recommend to make your Snowmodo experience that much better.
• If you have an iPhone, download the Motion-x gps app, and you'll be able to track your travels, speed and other cool stuff which we'll be able to share with all our attendees.
• Check out the Official Snowmodo Soundtrack. [LINK] Giz's own musicphile Adrian Covert has compiled an Official Snowmodo Soundtrack filled with three different playlists of riding music. Most of these songs will be pre-loaded on the demo Zunes available at our event. So if you don't want to load up our playlists on your own player, stop by the Zune table at Snowmodo, grab a demo Zune and go hit the mountain.
• Subscribe to the snowmodo twitter feed so you can keep track of updates when you're on the mountain, like what lifts the Gizmodo guys are on, and when we're eating lunch. You know, updates.
Gadgets to Borrow and See Demos:
• Zune
• Ardica, maker of heated jackets.
• Lib-tech, makers of awesome snowboards.
• Nokia
• Vudu
• Smith Optics
• Go Pro Hero helmet/snowboard/bicycle/surfboard/racecar/whatever wide angle sports cameras
• Fullpower Motion X GPS
• Casio and their Slow Motion cameras
• Otterbox
• Griffin

Prizes in the raffle:
• Zune: Zune Players.
• AKG: AKG hooded sweaters. AKG earbuds and the demoed AKG headphones.
• Nokia: Three Nokia N96s.
• North Face: 10 Flyweight Rucksack packs. 10 Khumbu Jackets.
• OtterBox: Five OtterBox Defender Series for iPhone 3G cases.
• Vudu: VUDU box.
• Ardica: Mountain Hardwear jacket with an Ardica Moshi system.
• Nixon: Headphones.
• Griffin: 25 AeroSport armband for Zune. 25 Streamline armband for iPhone. 20 AeroSport armband for iPod classic. 20 AeroSport armband for iPod nano.96 TuneBuds.
• GoPro: 2 GoPro Helmet HERO Wide camera kits.
• LibTech: Mystery Item.
• Casio: EXILIM EX-FH20 Camera.

P.S, here's a video shot on a RED camera from last year. I don't know who those people are, because none of us ride like this, but it was a great day.

P.P.S. This is a random sampling of a few people who showed up last year, and who weren't afraid to hike to the backside.

Zune is throwing an epic party for our Snowmodo event on Saturday April 4th at Northstar. They've lined up Grammy nominated Morgan Page to play some music and there will also be food and drinks available for all of our attendees. Zune has also made custom Snowmodo Zunes just for our event , which we'll be giving out as prizes in our raffle!

Zune Party Details
Where: TC's Pub in Northstar's Village. The pub is located right next our event room. For location details please refer to Northstar's site. [LINK]
When: Party starts at 3 pm with Morgan Page starting his set around 3:30 pm.
How To Get In: Only Snowmodo attendees who have Snowmodo wristbands will be allowed in. That means you'll have to stop by our event room at-least once during the day to pay the $5 admission fee and receive a wristband and raffle tickets.

On a music related note, Giz's own musicphile Adrian Covert has compiled an Official Snowmodo Soundtrack filled with three different playlists of riding music. Most of these songs will be pre-loaded on the demo Zunes available at our event. So if you don't want to load up our playlists on your own player, stop by the Zune table at Snowmodo, grab a demo Zune and go hit the mountain. I personally suggest Pheonix - 1901, need I say more...

Night Runs - Uptempo - Hip Hop

• Black Star - Respiration [amazon] [zune]
• Camp Lo - Luchini (This Is It) [amazon] [zune]
• Clipse - Keys Open Doors [amazon] [zune]
• Busy Signal - These Are The Days [amazon] [zune]
• Benga and Coki - Night [amazon] [zune]
• The Bug - Poison Dart [amazon] [zune]
• Souls of Mischief - 93 til Infinity [amazon] [zune]
• Wu-Tang Clan - C.R.E.A.M. [amazon] [zune]
• Outkast - B.O.B. [amazon] [zune]
• The Knux - F!re [amazon] [zune]
• J Dilla - Two Can Win [amazon] [zune]
• The Cool Kids - One Two [amazon] [zune
• The Streets - Blinded By The Lights [amazon] [zune]
• Madvillain - America's Most Blunted [amazon] [zune]
• Cypress Hill - I ain't goin out like that [amazon] [zune]
• JayLib - Raw Shit [amazon] [zune] [zune]
• Pharoahe Monch - Simon Says [amazon] [zune
• El-P - Delorean [amazon] [zune
• Company Flow - Lune TNS [amazon] [zune
• Beastie Boys - Sabotage [amazon] [zune] [zune]
• Cannibal Ox - Iron Galaxy [amazon] {zune]
• Zion I - Critical [amazon] [zune]
• Dilated Peoples - Worst Comes to Worst [amazon] [zune]
• Talib Kweli - The Blast [amazon] [zune
• Ghostface Killah - Run [amazon] [zune

Short Runs - Agressive - Rock

Cursive - Red Handed Slight of Hand [amazon] [zune]
• K-Os - Born to Run [amazon] []
• RJD2 - The Horror [amazon] [zune]
• M83 - America [amazon] [zune]
• Bloc Party - Banquet [amazon] [zune
• Birdy Nam Nam - Trans Boulogne Express [amazon] [zune]
• Phoenix - 1901 [amazon] [zune]
• Peter, Bjorn and John - Lay It Down [amazon] [zune]
• Wavves - Beach Demon [amazon] [zune]
• The Walkmen - The Rat [amazon] []
• Digitalism - Pogo [amazon] [zune]
• Studio - Self Service [amazon] []
• The Faint - In Concert [amazon] []
• Black Flag - Rise Above [amazon] [zune]
• Bad Brains - Sacred Love [amazon] [zune]
• Sex Pistols - Holidays in the Sun [amazon] [zune
• DFA 1979 - 1979 [zune]
• Red Hot Chili Peppers - Give it Away/Under The Bridge [amazon1 amazon 2] [zune]
• Nirvana - In Bloom [amazon] [zune]
• TV on the Radio - Wolf Like Me [amazon] [zune

Longer Runs - Mellow - Electronic

• Skream - Summer Dreams [amazon] [zune
• Daft Punk - Voyager [amazon] [zune]
• Burial - Raver [amazon] [zune]
• CFCF - Arctic [amazon] [zune]
• Kanye West - Coldest Winter [amazon] [zune]
• Junior Boys - Double Shadow [amazon] [zune]
• Dan Deacon - Of the Mountains [amazon] [zune]
• LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great [amazon] [zune]
• Cut Copy - Out There on the Ice [amazon] [zune]
• M83 - Run into Flowers [amazon] [zune]
• Royksopp - Eple [amazon] [zune
• Animal Collective - My Girls [amazon] [zune]
• The Zombies - Beechwood Park [amazon] [zune
• Boards of Canada - Roygbiv [amazon] [zune
• Ellen Allien and Apparat - Way Out [amazon] [zune
• Black Moth Super Rainbow - Don't You Wanna Be in a Cult? [amazon] [zune]
• Zomby - U Are My Fantasy (Street Fighter II Theme Remix) [amazon] [zune]
• Booka Shade - Night Moves [amazon] [zune
• The Avalanches - Since I Met You [amazon]

For complete Snowmodo event details please head over to our Snowmodo Event Information post.

This may sound strange unbelievable to you, but it is real and it is true.

Snowmodo Event Information Below!

Location:
Northstar's Basque Room. Located adjacent to TC's Pub and directly across the walk way from Earthly Delights. For exact location please refer to Northstar's Village map [LINK] and search Basque or refer to the blue image on the map below.
For driving directions to Northstar-at-Tahoe please refer Northstar's site. [LINK]

When:
Saturday April 4th. Event room opens to the public at 8:30 am and closes at 4 pm.

Zune Party:
Party will start at 4pm, all information will be available at the event.

Instructions:
Upon arriving at Northstar, please head over to our event room to pay the $5 attendance fee. In return for your $5 you will receive a wristband and a raffle ticket. You're wristband will not only show you paid the attendance fee but will also grant you discounted lift tickets at Northstar's Season Pass Office and Copper Lane Ticketing Office.

Raffle:
Upon paying the $5 attendance fee you will receive one raffle ticket, which will be valid for our event prize raffle held later in the day. More information regarding the raffle will be available at the event.
Once your attendance fee is paid you are eligible to buy more raffle tickets at $5 per additional ticket and there is no limit on the amount of tickets you can buy.

Product Demos:
The companies in attendance will be offering various product demos that you can take out on the mountain for testing. You will be required to leave some form of ID or Credit Card in return for a demoed product. More information regarding product demos will be available at the event.

Lift Tickets:
All Snowmodo attendees are eligible for discounted Northstar lift tickets. To receive these discounts you must first pay the $5 attendance fee at our event room to receive a wristband. Once you have a wristband you will be able to purchase a discounted lift ticket form Northstar's Season Pass Office and Copper Lane Ticketing Office. Ticket information will be available at the event.

Friday Night Drinks:
We have not yet decided on where or when we'll be sitting down for drinks on Friday night. We'll be announcing details on Friday, so please check back then.

Appreciation for investment will return high yield, just sending fully insured money order to vacation residence in Gabon. I hope to hear from you in no distant time through the email address below.
jjsos@amerivas.tur.br

Thanks to all the companies that are participating in Snowmodo we are able to offer all this stuff, and then some, to our readers who attend.

Want to see exactly what you could win, well here you go:

Zune: Zune Players.
AKG: AKG hooded sweaters. AKG earbuds and the demoed AKG headphones.
Nokia: Three Nokia N96s.
North Face: 10 Flyweight Rucksack packs. 10 Khumbu Jackets.
OtterBox: Five OtterBox Defender Series for iPhone 3G cases.
Vudu: VUDU box.
Ardica: Mountain Hardwear jacket with an Ardica Moshi system.
Nixon: Headphones.
Griffin: 25 AeroSport armband for Zune. 25 Streamline armband for iPhone. 20 AeroSport armband for iPod classic. 20 AeroSport armband for iPod nano.96 TuneBuds.
GoPro: 2 GoPro Helmet HERO Wide camera kits.
LibTech: Mystery Item.
Casio: EXILIM EX-FH20 Camera.

For more information regarding our Snowmodo event you can check here. If you're planning on attending and haven't already illed out the RSVP form below, please do. Thanks!

Our Snowmodo Event on April 4th is packed with fun things to do, including the Zune party. But before the event starts on Saturday, the Giz crew and a few friends will be getting drinks somewhere in the Northstar Village Friday night. Since everyone is welcomed to come and we'll probably be out late both Friday and Saturday night, we've arranged discount lodging just for you guys.

Northstar is providing 10% off lodging booked for Friday 4/3 or Saturday 4/4, and for Sunday 4/5 lodging is 30% off. Here's how to receive the discount:

Just call Northstar at 1.800.GO.NORTH (466.6784) and use our coupon code GI0404 when booking your reservation.

Be sure to check back this week as we'll be posting Snowmodo updates and if you haven't already please filled out the RSVP form below. Thanks!

Our Snowmodo Event is really shaping up to be a top notch gathering. We've already lined up company attendance from Zune, Ardica, Lib-tech, Nokia, Vudo, Smith, Go Pro, Motion X, Casio, Otterbox, Giffin and next we'll be revealing a few extra companies which should truly make our Snowmodo event one you won't want to miss.

For more information regarding Snowmodo please see our original announcement here.

Be sure to check back next week as we'll be posting Snowmodo updates and if you haven't already please filled out the RSVP form below. Thanks!

Our second annual Snowmodo event is going to be an amazing amount of fun, so if you are anywhere near the Tahoe area we really suggested you stop by and take part in the festivities. Even if you aren't a skier or snowboarder, we still encourage you to join. Northstar has activities like ice skating, tubing, sledding, scavenger hunts, shopping, amazing food, even better bars and more. If the extra activities weren't enough, Zune will also be throwing a party just for our Snowmodo event complete with drinks, snacks and music.

Carpool:
For those of you who want to carpool, we would suggest that you turn the comment's section of this post into a carpool thread. For those who have space available in the car and are willing to give a ride to those who need it, please feel free to post a comment stating your availability. We're hoping you guys will be able to work this out amongst yourselves. So, good luck!

You guys basically have two options. We can either run a carpool system that you guys figure out amongst yourselves in the comments section or we help arrange for a private bus. Working out the carpool option is pretty easy but the bus is little tougher. For those who need a ride to the mountain for our Snowmodo event, please read each option's info and than choose which is best for you.

Also, if you're planning on attending and haven't already filled out an RSVP form please do so below. Thanks!

Carpool:
For those of you who want to carpool, we would suggest that you turn the comment's section of this post into a carpool thread. For those who have space available in the car and are willing to give a ride to those who need it, please feel free to post a comment stating your availability. We're hoping you guys will be able to work this out amongst yourselves. So, good luck!

You guys basically have two options. We can either run a carpool system that you guys figure out amongst yourselves in the comments section or we help arrange for a private bus. Working out the carpool option is pretty easy but the bus is little tougher. For those who need a ride to the mountain for our Snowmodo event, please read each option's info and than choose which is best for you.

Also, if you're planning on attending and haven't already filled out an RSVP form please do so below. Thanks!

Our second annual Snowmodo event is going to be an amazing amount of fun, so if you are anywhere near the Tahoe area we really suggested you stop by and take part in the festivities. Even if you aren't a skier or snowboarder, we still encourage you to join. Northstar has activities like ice skating, tubing, sledding, scavenger hunts, shopping, amazing food, even better bars and more. If the extra activities weren't enough, Zune will also be throwing a party just for our Snowmodo event complete with drinks, snacks and music.

For complete information regarding our April 4th Snowmodo meet up at Northstar at Tahoe please see our Snowmodo post.

Also, if you're planning on attending and haven't already filled out an RSVP form please do so below. Thanks!

If you have any ideas for products or companies you would like see at our Snowmodo meetup, than please leave a comment with your suggestions. Try to keep the suggestions in the range of possibility, so products like TVs or Computers shouldn't be proposed. We want gear that will be useful to someone with an active lifestyle who loves gadgets and technology.

For complete information regarding our April 4th Snowmodo meet up at Northstar at Tahoe please see our Snowmodo post.

Also, if your are planning on attending and haven't already filled out an RSVP form please do so below. Thanks!

The mini-notebook market is heating up, with today bringing stats and shots of the Asus's latest Eee PC with its tiny screen and keys that might work with normal hands. Then later, we get news of a leak about Everex, Asus's competitor in this market, about its next Cloudbooks, including one with a 10.2-inch screen and 3G connectivity, and another with an 8.9-inch screen and WiMax.

No definite word on if they'll be using Intel's Atom processors or competitors from Via, or if they'll be XP or Linux machines, but the makers of the reference design, FIC, would confirm a screen resolution on the 10.2-inch model at 1024x600. It will also feature a 1.3-Megapixel camera, 2GB RAM, card reader, dual USB 2.0 and an express card slot.

Less details are known of the 8.9-inch model, though the specs should be similar, including resolution. The devices might be subsidized by 3G carriers like AT&T or Sprint—if they ever hit the US shores, which there's no promise of.

We liked the Cloudbooks we've seen so far, and we can't wait to see if a slightly larger model will actually be usable for those of us with big, bear-like hands. [PC Advisor, via Slashgear]

Xbox 360 Spring Update Improves VGA Image Quality [Daily Tech]

So for this week's Frankenreview, I've "borrowed" reviews from CNET, PCMag, PCWorld (technically a hands-on), and Mobile Review to find out if for the first time in the history of human existence, Sprint landed an awesome phone before the other carriers.

Displays
"The 65,000-color TFT display on the phone side also was a mixed bag. First off, it's tiny at just 1.4 inches diagonally (176x65 pixels). Normally we'd be up in arms about such a small screen, but we understand Samsung's motive—a bigger screen would have made for a bigger phone. It manages to cram in the date, the time, signal strength, battery life, and even photo caller ID, but the tiny dialing and message text may be too small for some users. (1)




The majority of [player side's] real estate is taken up by the large, 2.1-inch (176x220 pixels) TFT display. With support for 262,000 colors, it's bright, vivid, and easy on the eyes. It's perfect for browsing through the complete set of user-friendly menus and for taking photos (1)

Flip Sides
...this split-personality approach gets big points for innovation. It's also quite the looker and should evoke oohs and aahs from even the most jaded gadget enthusiasts. (1)

...every time you encounter something where you need to enter a letter or a number, you have to flip the phone over, enter the data on the keypad, and flip it back.... For instance, to enter a username and password on a Web form, here's what you do: Navigate to the entry box. Flip. Type in your username. Flip. Navigate. Flip. Type in your password. Flip. Navigate. (Are you getting dizzy yet?) (2)

I was a little confused the first time I encountered a text-input box on the music side, since no alphanumeric keys and no software keyboard appeared. But the device is smart enough to recognize the need to use the phone side, and I noticed that "Flip" had appeared on screen as a soft-key option.... When I used it and began entering text from the phone keypad (T9 text input mode is a welcome option here), "Save/Flip" also appeared as a soft-key option to return me seamlessly to the multimedia side. (4)

Controls
The four-way capacitive touchpad on the music side has a central, mechanical play button that took some getting used to. The excellent ...warns against trying to swipe it in a circle the way you would an iPod's control wheel, but the temptation is hard to resist. (4)

Compared with the iPod, the UpStage makes very poor use of the touchpad to move through long lists. A "sweep" of your finger down the whole touchpad skips only two options on a list. Holding your finger down at the end of the sweep steps through the list very slowly. Compared with, say, a quick twirl of the iPod click wheel, this makes moving to the end of 300 songs an ordeal. (2)

Music
In syncing mode, you can transfer music from a PC to a Micro-SD card.... Before syncing, however, you must install and run the included Sprint Music Manager desktop application and connect the phone to your PC using the included USB cable.... you simply drag and drop tunes (or albums) from the desktop app's left-hand pane to a lower-right pane.... You can create playlists on the phone itself. (4)

Sound quality through wired headphones...is very good. And the included adapter means that you can use standard music-player headphones. The built-in mono speaker is loud but tinny when playing music, and podcasts over the speaker are inaudible. (2)

Battery
...they left out a detachable battery—this thing is now literally built in the casing, not enabling the user to replace it on his/her own. (3)

We should note that this handset lasts for one day at 2-3 hours of music playback and radio, up to 1 hour of calls and few SMS. Should you be calling up the phone and music modes back and forth too often, the battery won't be happy with that either. Power users are likely to end up with less than one day of life time on their hands, while the rest of the audience should be aiming at one day of operation only. (3)

Another of the UpStage's innovative features: A stylish flip case with an embedded battery (Samsung calls the case a wallet).... The phone slides into the wallet and fits into a rigid cradle at the hinge. The included charging cable charges both the phone's battery and the wallet's battery. When stored in the wallet, the phone recharges itself from the wallet's battery. Sprint and Samsung's fact sheet says the phone's battery will support 2.5 hours of continuous talk time, which rises to 6.3 hours with the help of the battery wallet. (4)"

We didn't do a graph this week since only 2/4 of the reviews scored numerically (CNET 80, PCMag 60). But it sounds like if you aren't restricted to a DRM playlist and you can tolerate potentially excessive flipping, the UpStage is a decent music phone at a very reasonable $149 w/contract. – Mark Wilson

Spring Colors for Shuffles? [Josh Spear]

Hasbro's Spring Activated Force Action Lightsaber complete with sound effects pops up when you press the button, giving you an authentic experience that even tops the joy of hearing "oh my god the glass is in my eyes". – Jason Chen

Product Page [Entertainment Earth via Acquire Mag]

"The 4G network will be four times faster than today's EV-DO network. And at these speeds, it's all about lighting up new devices. Imagine accessing YouTube.com and MySpace.com literally on the fly."

Sprint bets $3bn on 4G WiMax network [Silicon.com]