Welcome to this week’s On the Radar where we delve into all corners of the entertainment, tech and geek Internets for news, views and whatnot that may have escaped our regular coverage this week. Let is know if we missed something interesting. Otherwise, on to the links!

• Are you a Star Wars nerd? Do we need to ask? Here’s 19 Things You Didn’t Know about Star Wars.

• Here’s the opening to Transformers 3. Yeah, not impressed either.

• The Betty White conquest of Hollywood continues. Next stop: Community.

• Thinking about a DROID X? Here’s some first impressions on the device.

• See, Peter Jackson was just like you and made movies when he was a kid. Of course, his were way better.

• In case you missed it, the Harvey Award nominees were announced.

• Like hot chicks in leather with guns? Obviously, director Zack Snyder does.

• Here’s some photos from the vampire movie Priest. It doesn’t look all that great but at least there’s no Rpat.

• Like Star Wars? How about Princess Leia? How about hot models pretending to be Princess Leia in a modernized “Slave Leia” outfit? Yep.

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Hot on the heels of Verizon’s Twitter campaign (follow @DroidLanding for details), as well as our own coverage of the Droid X here at The Flickcast, the wireless company has now released a sneak peek of a 60-second trailer for their hot new Android-based smartphone.

The video as well as the Twitter campaign have really served to build the hype in advance of the official Motorola Droid X launch, which begins today at Verizon retail stores nationwide. Since June 21st, Team Droid X has been tweeting tantalizing details concerning the whereabouts of  twenty of their so-called ‘Droid Designates’.

Advanced copies of the massive smartphones hidden in various states across the U.S. As the weeks rolled on, the hints became more and more specific, eventually culminating in a GPS coordinate that could be entered into Google Maps to learn an exact location.

Obligatory twitpics of the winners of the Droid X scavenger hunt began popping up late last week. One-by-one, the beaming faces of Droid X owners holding up their new smartphones really had me thinking that Verizon knows how to run a successful viral twitter campaign. And clearly, getting advanced copies of a hot new phone out in the wild only stokes the interest all the more.

Hit the jump for all of the launch-day details as well as the sneak-peek video!

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A new report from comScore on U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share reveals some interesting statistics for both domestic cell- and smart-phone users. For fans of Google’s open-source Android Platform, the good news is that Android is continuing to grab ever-larger shares of the U.S. smartphone market. With the sheer number of outrageously great Android-based smartphones being released in 2010, it makes sense that devices based on Google’s OS would jump a healthy 4.0% over the previous period.

Over 234 million Americans age 13 and older are currently using mobile devices and comScore’s report ranked mobile equipment manufacturers (OEMs), smartphone operating system (OS) platforms in the U.S. according to their share of current mobile subscribers, and finally mobile content usage (how mobile device owners used their devices).

In terms of top manufacturers of mobile devices, manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 22.4 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, up one percentage point from the preceding three month period. LG ranked second with 21.5 percent share, followed by Motorola (21.2 percent share), RIM (8.7 percent share, up 0.5 percentage point) and Nokia (8.1 percent share).

Of all mobile device users, 49.1 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in May, up 8.1 percent from the corresponding February period. RIM, with their business-friendly Blackberry phones was the leading mobile smartphone platform in the U.S. with 41.7 percent share of U.S. smartphone subscribers, followed by Apple with 24.4 percent share and Microsoft with 13.2 percent.

Google saw significant growth during the period, up 4.0 percentage points to capture 13.0 percent of smartphone subscribers, while Palm rounded out the top five with 4.8 percent. Despite losing share to Google Android, most smartphone platforms continue to gain subscribers as the smartphone market overall continues to grow.

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Are you a user of the the awesome and, well, incredible HTC Droid Incredible? Are you a little jealous of your iPhone 4 using friends who get to record video in 720p or of other smartphone users who can create hotspots with their devices? If so, time to forget those concerns and get happy.

HTC has confirmed an OTA update is on the way for the Droid Incredible that will not only fix a few security and grounding issues it will also, if the following pic is be believed, enable the device to create mobile hotspots and, wait for it, unlock the capability to record video in 720p HD, just like the upcoming DROID X. The update will also reportedly change the boot screen to the new Droid eye, as seen in the video we’ve got for you.

If the update actually unlocks these features, it’s not that surprising. HTC wants to make sure it can compete with the iPhone 4 and DROID X, so having this functionality up it’s sleeve and able to be unlocked via an update at an opportune time goes a long way to ensuring that.

Check out the video and pic after the jump. We’ll keep you informed on this update and also let us know if you get it and if it really adds this functionality.

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It’s no secret to any Android fan that the HTC Droid Incredible is one awesome piece of technology. This explains why, over two months after the phone’s release, it is almost impossible to get your hands on one. This is due largely to the fact that Samsung, who manufactures the AMOLED screens that HTC uses for the phone, cannot keep up with the incessant demand for the device.

While most people are ordering their phones and patiently waiting, Verizon is offering another option to those who’ve ordered the Incredible but just can’t seem to wait: the Droid X. Announced last week by Verizon, the Droid X has some impressive specs. With a 1 GHZ processor, a 4.3″ display, 8 MP camera with 720p video capabilities, and a multitouch keyboard, the phone certainly rivals both the HTC EVO 4G and iPhone 4.

Verizon will be releasing the Droid X on July 15th, while if you order the Incredible today it won’t be shipped until at least July 27th. Verizon is now allowing those who’ve ordered the Droid Incredible online to switch their order to the Droid X in order to get an Android device in their hands as soon as possible.

It’s definitely nice that Verizon is offering this to customers, especially those who jumped on the Incredible and realized they’d rather have the latest and greatest Droid X when it was announced a few days ago. But speaking from my experience with the Droid Incredible, it’s the best Android device I’ve ever used and is more than worth waiting a few weeks for.

Regardless, with the change from AMOLED to LCD and the release of the Droid X, the strain on HTC will helpfully be alleviated and those who are waiting for the Droid Incredible will finally be able to get one.

UPDATE: We were contacted by Verizon and they sent us this official statement regarding Incredible pre-orders:

“The Droid Incredible by HTC, as you know, definitely lives up to its name and is a fantastic device. It has proven to be very, very popular with our customers. Should a customer who has ordered a Droid Incredible decide that the Droid X (or any other device) better meets his/her needs, he/she can take advantage of the Verizon Wireless Worry Free Guarantee and choose the Droid X when it goes on sale July 15. Customers cannot pre-order the Droid X with us.”

There you have it. Does that jive with your experiences? Let us know in the comments.

Even though as a recent convert to Verizon and a happy HTC Droid Incredible owner I’m reluctant to see any new phone that makes mine obsolete or diminishes it in some way, it is nice to see that Verizon and Motorola keep trying to raise the bar with newer and more feature-rich smartphones. Case in point is the announcement late yesterday of the actual specs, release date and pricing for the next generation of Motorola DROID, better known as the DROID X.

Here’s the summary of specs for the device in a nice, easy to read list.

• Texas Instrument 1GHz Processor
• 4.3″ display with 854 x480 resolution, 400,000 pixels
• 8GB internal storage• 16 GB microSD card expansion (expandable to 32GB)
• 8 MP camera with dual flash, HD camcorder
• Integrated Multitouch keyboard, optional Swype keyboard
• 3G Mobile hotspot functionality with support for up to 5 devices, 2GB cap, $20 monthly fee
• GPS
• Bluetooth
• Wi-Fi
• Support for Exchange and Gmail for Business
• Adobe Flash Player 10.1 ready
• Android 2.1 with a “toned down” version of Motoblur

Yes, there’s no “out of the box” Flash support and no you don’t get Android 2.1 (aka Froyo) but Verizon does say they will be releasing an upgrade for both “issues” in the latter half of the Summer. So, you got that going for you if you end up getting the device, which is nice.

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With Sprint’s new, shiny and huge HTC EVO 4G and the upcoming iPhone 4 hogging the smartphone spotlight, the focus is off of Verizon and their lineup of Android phones. But not for long.

Next week on June 23rd, a day before the iPhone 4 is released, Verizon, Motorola, and Adobe will be holding a press conference. That press conference, we hear, will be to introduce the world to their two newest Android devices, the Droid X (formerly known as the Droid Shadow) and the Droid 2.

The Droid X seems to be the closest competitor to the HTC EVO 4G, with a 4.4 inch screen, an 8 MP camera capable of shooting 720p video, and a 1GHz ARMv7 processor. It also comes packed with a built-in HDMI port, 8GB of storage, a multi-touch keyboard, and Android 2.1 with some form of Motoblur, Motorola’s social networking software.

The familiar touch sensitive shortcut buttons from the original Droid have also been replaced with real buttons. The device looks monstrous next to the iPhone and HTC EVO, but is also said to be rather skinny  From everything we’ve heard, this phone is going to be snappy, snazzy, and sweet, and a top player in the smartphone battle for dominance.

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