The past week has been full of gadget sales and price drops courtesy of the American holiday of thanksgiving. And although we Filipinos don’t really celebrate thanksgiving and other events related to it such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the technology that is the Internet and online shopping has made it possible for Pinoys to enjoy the lowered prices of a lot of tech goodies offered online.

And in this week’s episode of Tech Tuesdays, we’ll be talking about two very popular products that made the record books for the most number of sales during the weekend sale in the United States. The two devices in question are the recently released Nintendo Wii U and the Samsung Galaxy Note II.

First one up is the Nintendo Wii U which sold around 400,000 units during its first week of sales. The console was first released on November 18 all over the U.S. However, it didn’t fly off immediately as reports from Twitter indicated that although there was a crowd of people at Nintendo’s flagship store in New York, other stores elsewhere were not having the same experience.

Fortunately, Nintendo made a complete turnaround during Black Friday as the company sold over 300,000 Wii U units just for the first week of its release. This was primarily due to the number of Black Friday deals and discounts from retailers that made the price drop close to the $100 price point. Moreover, Nintendo’s handheld consoles – the 3DS and the DS also sold well, having a combined sales figure of over 500,000 units.

Another sales milestone last week was that from Samsung with their Galaxy Note II. After just 2 months of its launch on September 26, 2012; Samsung’s phablet has reached the 5 million mark in terms of worldwide sales. The Note II is available in almost 128 countries, so it’s not surprising that it hit the 2 million quicker than its predecessor, the original Galaxy Note which took more than 5 months to reach 5 million mark. The Galaxy S3 is also doing pretty well with sales reaching into the 30 million plus range.

The Galaxy Note II is already available in the Philippines at prices starting at P31,000 while the Nintendo Wii U is set to arrive on our shores in the coming weeks, maybe even days.

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Hello everyone, last week we held back a little on the tech news and instead featured a roundup of the best gaming accessories and equipment in today’s market. This week, we’re bringing back the news and updates feature to this segment of our blog.

This week, we’ll be talking about Twitter’s changes to its API, a burglary that happened to one very influential man and the launch of a very much anticipated phablet in the US. So, enough with the introductions and let’s get the ball rolling shall we?

TWITTER’s NEW API

Social networking service Twitter has revised its rules for its API (Application Programming Interface). And for third party developers, this doesn’t really sound like a good news. For starters, the new version of the API has more strict rules for developers.

Major changes include the need for authentication and limit on the number of authentication requests. So this means that Twitter is seemingly pulling the plug on pure third-party apps like Twitterific and Tweetbot as the authentication limit will definitely make it hard for these apps to send in data into the network.

Although a lot of developers were already expecting this kind of move from Twitter, as the company has shown interest in cutting off external influences to its network when it disallowed Linkedin and Instagram access to its API a few months ago.

The question that now remains is, will developers still continue to patronize Twitter even though the new API has made it hard for them to freely access the network’s data? Only time will tell.

JOBS’s HOME BURGLARIZED

The home of the late Steve Jobs has been reported burglarized last July 17. According to reports, around $60,000 worth of computers and personal property were stolen from his Palo Alto, California Home.

Fortunately, someone has already been arrested for the crime. 35-year old Kariem McFarlin from Alameda, California has already been arrested and charged with burglary. McFarlin was caught when he tried to connect to the internet using the stolen devices. He is currently still being detained on a $500,000 bail and if proven guilty can face up to 8 years in jail.

GALAXY NOTE 10.1 IS NOW OFFICIAL

The successor to Samsung’s very popular phablet – the Galaxy Note has arrived. The Galaxy Note 10.1 was officially announced in a dedicated event in New York. Unlike its predecessor, the new Note sports a 10.1-inch display with a display resolution 1280x80. It will also feature an Exynos 4 Quad SoC processor clocked at 1.4Ghz.

It will also have 2GB of RAM, Wi-Fi and 3G connections, an internal storage space of up to 32GB, a microSD expansion slot, preloaded apps like Adobe Photoshop Touch, Adobe Ideas, S Memo and S Note which will take advantage of the S Pen.

The 16GB model is expected to cost around $499 while the 32GB is at around $549. Both models will run on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and will have the latest version of Samsung’s TouchWiz UI.

And there you have it, the latest and freshest news in the field of gadgets and technology. If you think we’ve missed anything important in this week’s edition of Tech Tuesdays, please let us know by leaving a comment below. You can also follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook for other great features about fashion, food, travel and everything that has to do with the Philippines.