The Apple Maps fiasco has been a thorn in the side of Cupertino ever since Google Maps was given the boot earlier this year when iOS 6 launched. Its faults and shortcomings have been thoroughly documented and aside from some general frustration from most users, nobody has really been any worse for wear – or so we thought.

A new report from Down Under reveals that Apple Maps has been responsible for a lot more than just casual frustration. In fact, police in Mildura are urging motorists to proceed with caution as the software has led a number of travelers into dangerous territory in recent weeks.

Local police have reportedly been called to assist distressed motorists that were led into the Murray-Sunset National Park and became lost due to incorrect directions. Authorities have conducted their own tests on the software and found it shows Mildura is located in the middle of the national park. In reality, the city is located some 70km away.

You may not think that being stranded in a national park would pose much of a threat but that’s probably before you factor in that there is no water supply and temperatures can reach nearly 50 Celsius during the summer months. As a result, police say a few drivers were stranded for over 24 hours without food or water. Others walked long distances over rough terrain in order to gain cell phone reception.

Mildura police have reportedly contacted Apple in hopes of getting the error fixed in a timely manner.

After revealing Premium Suite features included in the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update for the Galaxy Note 10.1 late last month, Samsung is now giving a peek at what Galaxy S III users can expect when their update finally arrives.

On Monday, the Samsung Tomorrow blog posted part two of its video detailing an additional seven features coming soon with its Premium Suite upgrade for the company's Galaxy S III.

The first video posted last week offered a peek at half of the features coming soon to Samsung's flagship smartphone, including Page Buddy, Contextual Menu and Facebook Lock Ticker.

In total, the Premium Suite upgrade for the Samsung Galaxy S III will introduce 14 major new features as well as bug fixes and other improvements.

What's coming

With part two, Samsung primarily focused on Paper Artist for spicing up images, Low Light Shot for taking pictures in dark places and Best Face, which uses content from five different shots to create a single, blink-free photo.

Accessibility options such as Easy Mode will make transitioning from a feature phone to a smartphone painless for novices, while Sound Balance allows users to favor one audio channel over another when using earphones.

Samsung made it clear that availability and timing of the Premium Suite upgrade varies by country and mobile carrier so for now, Galaxy S III users will have to exercise patience until their turn arrives.

There have been several hints that Valve is working on its own hardware over the last few months. There’s the Steam’s TV-centric Big Picture mode, which recently came out of beta, work on a Linux port that could power "open hardware platforms" and flip-flopping references to a console-like gaming box. But now Gabe Newell is making no secret about the fact that the company will start selling PCs for the living room next year.

How far along they are on the project is unclear. Valve's CEO and co-founder offered no specific details on the hardware but said it would be a “very controlled environment” in order to provide a consistent user experience. “If you want more flexibility, you can always buy a more general purpose PC. For people who want a more turnkey solution, that’s what some people are really gonna want for their living room,” he said.

Newell also said that Valve probably won't be the only vendor. Other companies should start selling PC packages for living rooms next year, designed to run Steam right out of the box and compete with current and next-generation consoles from Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony.

I think in general that most customers and most developers are gonna find that [the PC is] a better environment for them, because they won't have to split the world into thinking about 'why are my friends in the living room, why are my video sources in the living room different from everyone else?' So in a sense we hopefully are gonna unify those environments.

Source: Kotaku

Earlier this year it was rumored that Valve was working on a PC gaming console dubbed the Steam Box. The system was expected to ship with a proprietary controller with swappable components in addition to being compatible with a range of existing USB peripherals and even with rival gaming services. Under the hood it was believed to include an Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB of system RAM and an Nvidia GPU.

Update: A spokesperson from HTC has been in touch, and told us: "As far as we know there are no plans to bring it [the HTC Butterfly] to the UK." So it's a bit of a head-scratcher. We've contacted Expansys and will update again when we hear back.

The HTC Butterfly is up for pre-order here in the UK.

Head to Expansys to put your order in now. There's no release date given though, or a price, so we could be in for a bit of a wait.

The handset was previously pegged as not coming to Europe. At least, not under its global name of the HTC Deluxe. Things get more complicated, as in the US the phone is known as the Droid DNA, while in Japan it's called the HTC J Butterfly.

Note 2 challenger

The Butterfly is quite a beast. It boasts a 5-inch, 1080p screen, with an 8-megapixel camera on the back. Inside, a 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 processor powers things, so it should give the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 a run for its money.

There's no word which version of Android it'll come with, but expect it to be Ice Cream Sandwich at the very least, if not Jelly Bean.

There's no risk if you put in your order now, as Expansys won't charge you until the handset is in stock and you confirm you still want to go ahead.

Via Omio