In Other News: 22/03/2013.

• For UK residents the Carphone Warehouse are offering a pretty cool deal where if you buy a Nokia Lumia 620 for £129.95 get a free Windows 8 Professional! You'll have to get the phone in either black or white and pay the £10 top-up charge. You can get the deal here.
  Via MoDaCo.

• Samsung is looking to sell Dutch subsidiary Liquavista to Amazon, as the latter looks to bolster their e-Ink screen production for cheaper Kindle's.
  Bloomberg Via Engadget.
    
• Angry Birds Star Wars is set to get another new world soon with Rovio teasing 'Cloud City's' arrival!
  Via Slashgear.

• The Financial Times is reporting that Google is working on a smartwatch, just like everyone else at the moment.
  Via TheVerge.

• Sony Xperia Z owners in Europe are getting their first software update to version 10.1.A.1.434 through the Sony PC companion. We think the update fixes app bugs and it's too early to say whether this fixes Sleep of Death issues.
  Via AndroidCentral.

• Samsung chief product officer Kevin Packingham said that Google's And Rubin was very difficult to "get... to deviate from that position." Instead his recent comments are much more positive saying that Android's new head Sundar is "a super-nice person... [who is] very collaborative" and he reaffirmed that the Samsung -"Google relationship is super-important".
  Via SFGate.

• SamMobile have supposedly got hold of a Galaxy S4 mini. The guys have pegged the device for a summer launch, so that's June or July. The device is supposedly set to launch with a qHD, that's 960 x 540p, Super AMOLED display and a 1.6GHz Dual-Core CPU.
  Via SamMobile.

• Gemini have shown off a new JoyTab which goes by the name of the JoyTab Duo 9.7 and the key features include; a dual-core processor, a 9.7"1024x768p screen, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, 16GB of internal storage which is MicroSD expandable and this tablet will come in your choice of Silver, Chic Pink and Blue! Check it out here! 

And finally, have you ever wondered what a water and dust-proof tablet looks like when it's disassembled? Well if you have then you're in luck today! The video below shows a Sony Xperia Tablet Z being carefully taken apart by a Sony-certified engineer(?). Anyways check out the video below to see how it's done!

Via AndroidCentral.

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08/11/2012: Verizon and their Windows Phones on the way, a new Humble Bundle and much more!

Verizon and Windows Phones on the way!

   The dawn of Windows Phone 8 is nearly upon us and HTC, Nokia and Samsung will have their offerings available for pre-order on Verizon from tomorrow! This will mean the HTC Windows Phone 8X, Nokia Lumia 822, and Samsung ATIV Odyssey will get the new OS off to a solid start!

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30/10/2012: Matuas Duarte answers Nexus questions on Google+, BBC iPlayer is now officially on Sky+, Rovio teases Angry Birds Star Wars and more!

Matias Duarte answers some of the nagging questions the community had!

   There was a couple of key complaints which Google has faced in the recent versions of Android and today Matias Duarte has stepped forward on Google+ to help explain Google's thinking!

   The issues Matias tackled were SD card slots, or rather the lack of them on Google's Nexus devices and secondly the decision to drop the split navigation and notification bar which tablets with ICS or Honeycomb were blessed with. 

   Firstly, with regard to SD card slots and reluctantly we can actually see where he's coming from especially as Google is trying their best to work on usability for the average consumer, he said:

"Everybody likes the idea of having an SD card, but in reality it's just confusing for users. If you’re saving photos, videos or music, where does it go? Is it on your phone? Or on your card? Should there be a setting? Prompt everytime? What happens to the experience when you swap out the card? It’s just too complicated."

    The second thing he brought up was the new navigation buttons which will grace the bottom of every tablet running Android 4.2, like Google and Samsung's new Nexus 10. The new navigation bar won't be split between notifications and navigation like the Motorola Xoom's was, instead the bar will be very much like the Nexus 7's and the status bar will be added to the top of the screen, so you'll have to pull down to see notifications!

"This new configuration is based on usability research we did on all of the different form factors and screen sizes that Android runs on. What mattered most of all was muscle memory - keeping the buttons where you expect them, no matter how you hold the device."

   And just for your extra information, there's a good overview from The Verge which gives you a good amount of information about the creation of the new range of Nexus devices!

 

Via Android Community.

In other news:

• Google's Android has caught up with Apple's iOffering in terms of apps; there's now 700,000 apps on the Play Store!

• Microsoft have faced criticism on the performance of Office 2013 on their new Surface RT tablets. The company went on to say that the “issue is known,” and “an update is forthcoming.” Apparently, the best way to 'fix the problem' is to update to the latest versions of all software which you have! Other users have said that has made everything better! So stay up to date!

• The 4th generation iPad has been benchmarked and this one is a lot more powerful and it's packing a 1.4 GHz A6X chipset with 1GB of RAM!

• The mobile phone makers Pantech have announced that they have partnered with Mocana to secure their next-gen Android smartphones and tablets! The company plans to use Mocana's VeloDAR solution which offers FIPS 140-2 certified encryption!

• EE has today launched their 4G network and their new Fibre Optic home and business broadband service!

• BBC iPlayer is now officially available for Sky+ viewers straight from your Sky Box!

• ZTE has now officially overtaken HTC to become the world's 4th biggest smartphone manufacturer!

And finally, Rovio has offered their first video teaser of their upcoming Angry Birds Star Wars game! There's some game play in there too and it's looking pretty good! The full teaser is just below!

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08/10/2012

A 32GB version of the Nexus 7 looks increasingly likely!

   Google's Nexus 7 is one of the most popular tablets going at the moment; it offers the best of great specs and bargain price point! One of the only issues reviewers have found with the tablet has been the lack of expandable storage and the very limiting confines of 8 or 16GB's of storage.

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