In Other News: 31/05/2013.

• O2 have confirmed that their customers will lose access to BT's Wireless Hotspots come the end of June, as O2 look to build out their own WiFi network which currently has 8,000 hotspots in it.
  Via AndroidCentral.

• As you can see in the tweet below, Sky's app are back on Google Play!

Good spot! RT @lennyuk: Sky apps are back in the play store! play.google.com/store/apps/dev…..
— Paul O'Brien (@PaulOBrien) May 31, 2013

• Spotify have updated their Android app and it now features landscape support amongst a couple of other things!

We've updated our #Android app - now with landscape mode. Get it here: spoti.fi/Andro1d twitter.com/Spotify/status…
— Spotify (@Spotify) May 31, 2013

•  EE have now rolled out their 4G network in Ashton-under-Lyne, Chatham, Gillingham, High Wycombe, Merthyr Tydfil, Oldham, Oxford, Rochester, Runcorn, Sale, Stafford and Wigan! The coverage now reaches more than half the population and the guys are aiming for 98% coverage by the end of the year!
  Via AndroidCentral

• Virgin are readying their second SuperHub which is said to offer the fastest connections of any home broadband hub from the providers at the moment. The hub can manage maximum 5GHz speeds of 450Mbps and it's about 150Mbps faster than BT's upcoming Home Hub 4.
  Via PocketLint.

• EA have started cutting back their 'Online Pass' system which required players of second hand games to pay extra to us the game online. The reason is because players have responded so negatively to the payments and the update will cover all consoles!
  Via Slashgear.

And finally, Talk Talk have confirmed that they have scrapped traffic shaping on their network and their broadband is now 'totally unlimited. They guys said:

 "Last year we scrapped download limits on Essentials and as of May 13, have made our network totally unlimited by removing the limited traffic management policy that we had in place. This means that our customers will never be slowed down, even at peak times, and is part of our ongoing investment in our network. TalkTalk customers can now enjoy the UK's best value totally unlimited broadband."

Via Recombu.

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Samsung's budget Galaxy Young set to land in the UK this weekend!

    A year ago Samsung released their first Galaxy Y, it was a budget handset which was aimed at children just entering their teenage years who wanted something which could play Angry Birds and which wasn't going to break the piggy bank if it was dropped and thrown about a bit. That device did a relatively good job and so Samsung are back with an updated version, which is this time called the Samsung Galaxy Young!

   It's a 3.3-inch smartphone which will be landing in the UK as early as this weekend! This time the screen gets a resolution bump from last years 320 x 240p screen to something which is a bit more acceptable and so there will be 480 x 320 pixels this time around. On that screen you'll be able to get to grips with Samsung's Touchwizzed version of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, which will be kept ticking over by a 1GHz processor. Samsung chose not to declare how many cores it has so it's fair to assume it has one and that's paired with 768MB of RAM, which to be honest isn't too shabby at all!

   This time too Samsung realised how crippling the internal storage was on the last model and this time it has been increased by a couple of powers and there's 4GB this time, which still isn't the biggest allowance, but for this sort of phone it should be great. Not to worry though as there's an SD Card slot which supports cards up to 64GB!

   The camera won't be filling up much of that storage though, with the 3MP sensor only giving you pictures with maximum resolutions of 640 x 480, which is actually pretty dire. On the plus side though this phone won't run out of juice during a normal day's usage with the 1,300mAh battery probably good enough to push two days of normal usage.

   At the moment there's no word on price, but it will be available from the Carphone Warehouse and O2 from this weekend!

Via CNet.

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Calling all football fans: Manchester City announce sweet WiFi services for their stadium as EA renew their Fifa deal until 2023!

   Sports and sporting arenas are becoming more and more involved in technology at the moment. Football, or soccer, fans in England will be treated to the joys of goal-line technology in the English Premier League next season and today the first Premiership team has announced that their stadium will be bathed in WiFi for fans to make the most of during matches!

   That club will be Manchester City and their Etihad stadium will be the first connected stadium!  The work on the new infrastructure will being in the next few weeks and it will be installed before the beginning of the new season in August. The connection will be provided by Cisco and their Connected Stadium Wi-Fi which offers fans fast internet which will allow them to share the atmosphere and their pictures and recordings on their social networks as the match happens!

   If you were wondering who the internet provider will be then it'll be O2 and they will take the opportunity to improve their mobile phone signal in the stadium too. At the moment there's no word on whether or not the WiFi will be a free or paid service, but we're not sure how much use it would get if it cost you extra money to use, perhaps the club would be better off factoring the cost into the price of tickets.

   We have the feeling that the service will be a paid service as Manchester City are looking to offer a new service called StadiumVision Mobile, which will give you access to live and instant replays of the action, as well as offering stats and info on your device while the match is happening! There will also be additional views of the action from around in the stadium and an area for competitions and games in the service, which will tie in very nicely with the half time entertainment we expect!

   Manchester City's Tom Glick has this to say about the deal:

"As a Club that is passionate about innovation and prides itself on constantly looking for ways to enhance our supporters' experience at the Etihad Stadium, we feel we have found the perfect solution with O2 and Cisco... Live games and concerts are highly enjoyable social events and we are delighted to be able to offer supporters a system that allows them to better utilise their own mobile devices when at the Stadium."

   That's a great way to get involved while you're at the stadium, but for those of you who can't get enough of your footie and want to have a go at management from the comfort of your own bedroom then you'll be pleased to know that EA have renewed their license with Fifa and they will be making the series of games all the way through to Fifa 23 at the very least!
Via PocketLint (1) and (2).

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MWC 2013: All the news from Day 2!

Asus' MeMoPads Priced Up!

    Asus has launched a pair of new slates, there are both 10.1 and 7" options. The larger 10.1 tablet, which goes by the really elegant, ME301T name, and features a Tegra 3 processor, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean tablet, that 1280 x 800p 10.1" IPS display, along with 16GB of internal storage and your choice of midnight blue or other hues, but they'll arrive later! You can pick up the device from Currys, PCWorld, Tesco and Amazon and pre-orders should be live now and you can pick the device up in store on March 7th for £249. 

   The 7" slate will be called the MeMo Pad ME172V and just like its big bro you'll get Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, but this time the internals are decidedly less impressive. There's a 1GHz VIA WM8950 processor, the screen will have a 1024x600p resolution, but you will still get 16GB of on-board storage. But, for £129 noone will be complaining! This device should land some time in April.
Via AndroidCentral.

Huawei Ascend W1 Priced Up too!

   There's been a fairly large Windows Phone 8 presence at MWC this year, admittedly that's mainly been down to Nokia, but lets have Huawei take some of the lime light too! The Huawei Ascend W1, just in case it's slipped your mind, features a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 512MB of RAM and it's sporting a 4" WVGA, that's 800 x 480p display. There's 4GB of on-board storage, a 5-megapixel rear camera and a 1,950 mAH battery. So what will that set you back?

   Not very much it turns out! The package will cost you £119.99 or you can secure one with a contract from O2 from £13.50 per month!
Via ITProportal.

LG show off a Qi-certified wireless charger!

   That diddy little hockey puck lookalike pictured above is actually a compact little wireless charger from LG! We don't actually have too many details on it yet, but we do know that the 'LG Spectrum 2 and Nexus 4 feature built-in support for wireless charging right out of the box' and that the plug is Qi-certified so it should work with a fair few devices, but we'll update you as and when we find out price and availability!
Via AndroidCentral.

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In Other News: 18/02/2013.

• Lately it's been reported that Apple are quite likely to hold a launch event for new iPads in either March or April of this year. First up was Jefferies analyst, Peter Misek, who claimed that his "channel checks" had suggested Apple would hold a developer event in March which would offer new Apple-TV features. The Loop's, Jim Dalrymple, simply replied with "Nope", which was enough to end that claim. That being said Piper Jaffray's, Gene Munster, has argued that Apple are likely to launch a product in the next two months! He said:
  
   "We believe that looking at the history of time between Apple product launch events suggests that the company will introduce something new in March or April... Over the past two years, the Spring event has been iPad updates."
  Via MacWorld.

• For those of you rocking a device running either Blackberry 7 or 7.1 there's some good news! That YouTube problem which you might have been experiencing since Thursday should now be resolved! Woop!
  Via Crackberry.

• O2 has confirmed that Sony's budget Xperia E handset will be arriving on their network in March! The device was first shown off back in December last year, more details about the phone are available here, but this should fill a little hole at the more budget end of O2's range!
  Via TheInquirer.

• Samsung is reportedly rolling out the Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean update to original Galaxy Notes around the world. Devices are reportedly being updated in Germany, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The upgrade brings with it the new Nature UX as well as Multi-view, Pop up and play and other enhancements to S-Pen apps!
  Via Softpedia.

And finally, it looks as though Nokia will be launching a few more phones in the near future. WMPowerUser reportedly confirmed some of the specifications of the devices in question too. They have said that the "Lumia 720 will have 4.3inch CBD, 1Ghz Dual-core, 512Mb RAM, 8GB storage, HSPA+, WP8, microSD, 6MP camera and 2MP front camera, while the Lumia 520 will have 4 inch  Super Sensitive screen, 1Ghz Dual-core, 512Mb RAM, 8GB storage, microSD, WP8, 5MP with no front camera." We'll have to wait and see where these guys pop up though!
Via WMPowerUser.

I see Nokia RM-914 (Lumia 520), RM-885 (Lumia 720), RM-887(?) and RM-860(?) on Verizon in our logs. 3-4 new phones at #MWC13? cc @tomwarren
— Alan Mendelevich (@ailon) February 16, 2013

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OFCOM opens consultation over price rises during the life of your phone contract.

   During the last few months those of us who live in the UK will most likely have been subjected to price rises for our phone contracts. The reason for this is that in the small print of our terms and conditions, which no one ever reads, there is a sentence which allows the carrier to raise the cost of your contract by a small percentage of it's cost if the network deems it necessary, this would probably be enacted, as it has recently, to keep the cost of your contract in line with inflation.

   It seems OFCOM doesn't think this is entirely fair, after all you sign up for a contract at a certain price and you don't normally expect it to change during the life of the contract. That's why OFCOM has opened a consultation on how to manage changes to phone tariffs during the lifetime of the initial contract. Ofcom wants to implement an approach where you will be allowed to duck out of your contract without paying any penalties if your service provider introduces any price increase during the life of the contract.

   Carriers themselves would be obliged to be clear and upfront about any potential changes in the cost of contracts from the off and they would have to state your right to cancel the contract in the event of any price increase. The idea behind this is that it would remove the unfair price hikes which can ad have been used lately and it would remove the issues of people complaining to OFCOM because they had to pay the extra money without knowing it was in the contract. Indeed, Claudio Pollack, Ofcom’s Consumer Group Director, said: “Many consumers have complained to us that they are not made aware of the potential for price rises in what they believe to be fixed contracts."

   Other than this there are a few other options for OFCOM which include; tackling the current lack of transparency around the potential for price increases, cosidering whether consumers should have the choice to “opt-in” to contract with a variable price, which like credit cards offer. Or finally, OFCOM could issue a carpet ban on price rises contracts, which would seem to be the most logical step if they wish to avoid confusion and keep consumers happy and protected.

   We'll find the findings of OFCOM's consultation on March the 14th and OFCOM thinks they'll be ready to publish their findings some time in June.

[UPDATE]

Vodafone are the first company to comment on the OFCOM proposal and the main points of their statement are outlined below:

"We support Ofcom's desire to give consumers reassurance about the prices that they will pay during their contract, but the regulator's proposals risk generating significant confusion and potentially increasing the cost of getting a mobile phone contract for millions of people. As such they could damage what Ofcom's own research shows is the best value mobile phone market for consumers anywhere in Europe.
“We believe there is work to be done to ensure that customers understand the need for long-term contracts and to ensure they are protected during that time, but Ofcom first needs to understand the difference between the prices that are set by mobile phone companies and those which are not.... We simply do not control many of the charges faced by consumers. They are set by third parties and mobile phone companies have to pass those costs on or they will be subsidising other companies. Prices set by third parties such as BT, include those for directory enquiry services, premium rate and 08 numbers. Yet Ofcom appears resolved to introduce measures that would effectively prevent any rises in these prices being recouped while customers are still in contract." Statement via KYM.

   Vodafone argues this will mean carriers try to second guess what price increases third parties will attempt to introduce and as such the initial cost of contracts will increase and given their argument we can almost sympathise with them.



The full press release from OFCOM can be found here.

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Ofcom report names and shames the most complained about UK service providers!

   

Broadband complaints.

Ofcom released their 7th quarterly report today showing the number of complaints the regulator received about each service provider for a number of industries from Phone and broadband to television services! In some cases you may be surprised, but if you live in the UK the results were mainly what we expected to see!

   There was a surprising change in the broadband category as TalkTalk was finally knocked off the top spot by Orange who saw their complaints double to 0.5 in every 1000 customers. TalkTalk don't have too much to be proud of though as Ofcom told them their complaints remained "well above the industry average" and they secured the title of "Most complained about landline provider" category. Sky, on the other hand, did best with a mere 0.09 per 1,000 customers.

   In the mobile stakes T-Mobile were voted worst for pay monthly with 0.17 per 1.000 customers and ironically Ofcom says the problem was in part down to the complaints handling procedure. 3UK, Orange and Vodafone also received higher than average volumes of complaints, while O2 was considered the best in numbers of complaints, by quite a large margin! On the whole though mobile networks did relatively well!

   In the paid TV services category, BT Vision came off worst yet again, based on numbers of complaints. Despite a slight drop they still gained a title for complaints that were "six times greater than the industry average". Virgin Media attracted above industry average complaints at 0.06 complaints per 1,000 customers and Sky excelled again with the lowest number of complaints – 0.02 per 1,000 customers. So Sky came off best, it seems there is a positive little trend with Sky!

Ofcom Via Wired.

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12/12/2012: HTC pen a sponsorship deal with UEFA, O2 set to raise prices and they got into trouble with regulators, Blackberry L-Series devices caught on video and much more!

HTC and UEFA agree a sponsorship deal.

   At the moment HTC is having a bit of a hard time of it. They're One series has become diluted, despite the company saying they would focus on a core set of devices, but they seem to have a few tricks up their sleeve to make it all smiles again. Today they have announced that they will have a three-year deal with UEFA, which is Europe's Footballing authority.

   This will mean that HTC will have their logo plastered across match tickets, broadcast credits and match photographers' jackets. We expect HTC will have some pitchside adverts too! The Taiwanese company also promised to give customers access to match footage and archive broadcasts.

   Peter Chou, who's HTC's CEO, said: 'Football elicits so much passion around the world and we are excited to partner with one of the leading sporting brands in the world. We’ll be working closely with UEFA to offer football experiences to all fans in addition to providing a richer overall mobile experience.' We would like to see some dedicated apps which are exclusive to HTC devices, but that might be a push too far!

   UEFA's general secretary, Gianni Infantino, said: 'I am pleased to welcome HTC to the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Europa League family. Through this partnership UEFA and HTC will promote European club football to a worldwide audience and bring new opportunities for our fans to engage with the competitions. We value the support and commitment of HTC and anticipate their involvement with these competitions will increase the profile of their brand on a global scale.

   This seems like a worthwhile investment from HTC and this will definitely get them a lot of brand exposure in European countries at the very least!
Via MobileToday.

O2 in trouble with ASA and possibly with you!

   UK carrier O2 has found themselves in a spot of hot water today after their misleading claim that prospective iPhone 5 buyers get their 'pre-order [to O2] before 4pm the day before launch, we'll get it to you on launch day'. What they didn't make clear is that there was a limited amount of stock and once those 'pre-orders' were exhausted it was a 'standard order' and so you would have to wait up to three weeks to receive your phone.

   The Advertising Standards Authority thinks O2 was a little out of line here and they've "ordered that the claim must not again appear in its current form and that the distinction between pre-orders and standard orders must be clarified" for next time.

   If you weren't affected by the first issue above, then every O2 customer is about to be affected by this second announcement. "From 28 February 2013, your line rental will go up by 3.2 [percent]. That's in line with the current rate of inflation as at December 2012 when we made the announcement."

   It's never popular when carriers utilise this small print in people's contracts. But, this will mean that if your contract is currently £15.50 a month contract then it'll soon be £16 and your £31 tariff will shoot up to a penny short of £32. O2 has calculator on its website so you can find out the damage!
Via ITProportal and TheInquirer.

In other news:

• RIM's upcoming L-Series device has been shown off on camera today after Tinhte showed off a set of pictures last night! They've made the video below for your viewing pleasure!
  Via Crackberry.
  
  
  
  
  
• Google's Eric Schmidt has today been on stage at The New York Times' Dealbook conference today, and he's made a bit of news concerning the company's big broadband effort, Google Fiber. Schmidt said that Fiber "isn't just an experiment, it's a real business and we're trying to decide where to expand next."
  Via Engadget.

• Google has released an update for their Currents app for Android. There's a lot of new things in this release including:

* Edition sidebar - quickly access your editions within categories such as business, sports, etc.
* Fast scan - Vertical swipe to scan an edition, horizontal swipe advances to next edition
* Edition-section chooser - Choose “Customize” to filter out sections
* Unread marks - Read stories are marked. (Setting to hide)
* Breaking stories - ranked by Google News. Links to full length content.
* Saved stories - star for future reference
* New catalog design
* Widget

Via AndroidPolice.

•  The WSJ has again tipped Apple to make a TV, they've written a hugely detailed report on why they think it's back on the cards! You can check it out here!

• The research firm Informa has tipped budget smartphones to make up 52% of the market by 2017! This demand would be driven by emerging markets and would see phones costing less than $150 becoming the norm. This would be bad news for companies profits as it would turn the market into a more quantity focused affair!
  Via CNet.

• Sky has updated its Sky+ app for iOS with on-demand listings something which will allow your iPad or iPhone to a remotely control film and boxset downloads that get sent to your Sky+HD box. You can scroll through the Sky TV On Demand catalog and queue the things you want to watch while people in the house are playing with the box itself!
  Via Slashgear.

• Acer has released a slightly beefier version of their recent Chromebook. This time they've kept the screen and processor but they've bumped storage up to 500GB's from 320, doubled the battery size to 5,000 mAh pack and they've add $100 to the price tag so this one will set you back $300! You can find full details here!
  Via Slashgear.

• Dell will officially be ceasing smartphone production from today! The company was famous for their huge (at the time) Dell Streak 5! But, from here on out Dell will stay committed to their computers and Windows based tablets. There's still the possibility that Dell is still looking at Android, but don't get your hopes up too much guys!
  Via PhoneArena.

And finally, this is Russia's finest new smartphone called the YotaPhone. It's an interesting new phone it's got a Gorilla Glass 4.3-inch 720 x 1,280 LCD display on the front, a 200dpi E Ink rear display with the same same size and screen protection on the back. There's also a dual-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 processor with 2GB of RAM and there's a minimum of 32GB of non-expandable storage. On top of that there's LTE, a 12-megapixel rear camera and a 720p front-facing camera! This certainly looks like a fantastic device and we love the implementation of the eInk screen, it'd be great for the cheeky notification readings as it's always on!

Via Engadget.

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28/09/2012

Tim Cook does the unthinkable! Suggests using other maps!

   

   The last few weeks since the release of iOS6 have been interesting to say the least. There's been various issues reported by iOS users especially with regard to dropping wifi signal. The other huge complaint has been about Apple's new Maps. The company chose to drop Google maps after Google refused to offer turn-by-turn navigation for Apple's products.

    The new solution has been nowhere near on par with the rest of Apple's historically excellent offerings. Today Tim Cook posted a message on Apple's website apologising to users for the poor performance of the new maps and he even suggested using alternative solutions until the team has had a chance to get them up to scratch! The full comment is just below:

"To our customers,

At Apple, we strive to make world-class products that deliver the best experience possible to our customers. With the launch of our new Maps last week, we fell short on this commitment. We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers and we are doing everything we can to make Maps better.

We launched Maps initially with the first version of iOS. As time progressed, we wanted to provide our customers with even better Maps including features such as turn-by-turn directions, voice integration, Flyover and vector-based maps. In order to do this, we had to create a new version of Maps from the ground up.

There are already more than 100 million iOS devices using the new Apple Maps, with more and more joining us every day. In just over a week, iOS users with the new Maps have already searched for nearly half a billion locations. The more our customers use our Maps the better it will get and we greatly appreciate all of the feedback we have received from you.

While we’re improving Maps, you can try alternatives by downloading map apps from the App Store like Bing, MapQuest and Waze, or use Google or Nokia maps by going to their websites and creating an icon on your home screen to their web app.

Everything we do at Apple is aimed at making our products the best in the world. We know that you expect that from us, and we will keep working non-stop until Maps lives up to the same incredibly high standard."

Tim Cook

Apple’s CEO

 In other news:

• Microsoft has been complaining that there are not enough highly-skilled workers coming into the technology world. The company publicly announced that they have had a lack of suitably qualified  applicants and the situation is reaching the point of being a “genuine crisis.” Microsoft has announced they are going to lobby the US government in an attempt to boost applicant numbers in a bit to fill some of the thousands of vacant technology and engineering jobs within the company.
  
  The company also wants to boost the number of visas available for foreign workers with technology skills to fill its vacant positions. On top of this the company is happy to pledge millions of dollars to help get school children into the field! 

• HP has reiterated to their investors that they are going to 'aggressively tackle' the smartphone and tablet market in the near future!

• Sony have invested $640m in Olympus. The deal involves buying 11% of Olympus with the primary aim to acquire new 4K medical camera technology.

And finally, is this picture below the upcoming HTC One X+ for O2? It may very well be and it might be coming without a charger to save on costs too!

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11/09/2012

Everything Everywhere's 4G future.

   Yesterday evening we speculated what would be coming from today's Everything Everywhere event. Turns out we weren't too far off the mark; we were slightly wrong about the speed of the roll out (they'll have 98% coverage by 2014 and 40% coverage by this Christmas) and we didn't hear anything about a 4G iPhone, but then again that'd steal Apple's thunder.

   But, what we did learn today is that EE, which is Everything Everywhere's new name (and will be appearing on your Orange/T-Mobile handset very soon), will have a pretty stellar line up of mifi's and phones to take the brunt of your high speed internet abuse!

   From the picture below you may be able to pick out, from left to right, a little Huawei mifi, the Huawei Ascend P1 LTE, the HTC One XL, the Samsung Galaxy S3 LTE, Nokia Lumia 920 and the 820 too! (both of which are EE exclusives) and a nice little dongle too!

   At the moment we don't know whether or not we'll be seeing an iPhone 5, but tomorrow will reveal all!

   Aside from that EE has promised to light up 40% of the country before Christmas with Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Derby, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Hull, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Nottingham, Newcastle, Sheffield and Southampton being the first spots to get the fast mobile internet!

   On a slightly unrelated note, the company also said they will start offering fibre optic broadband to customers, but we don't have any information on when this will be happening! Ohhh and so you now EE is cleverly calling their new network 4GEE... See what they did there!!! Yeah, I wasn't impressed either!

In other news:

• Analysts are predicted Apple will be able to ship 10 million of their new iPhone's to willing buyers before the end of September! Remember the announcement is tomorrow!!!

• If you're a GiffGaff customer then you may well want to read this! The company is having to reconsider it's £10 giftbag because they can't offer unlimited data for that price any more. So today is the start of a consultation period which ends on the 20th of September and there are 3 possible outcomes, so before you see them make sure you head over to their site to voice your opinion! Your choices are;

• Increase the price of the current £10 Goodybag to £13

• Keep the £10 Goodybag but limit data to 750mb

• Offer a £10 Goodybag with 750mb or a £13 Goodybag with unlimited data

• Apparently GoDaddy was taken offline by Anonymous last night!

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03/09/2012

Is this the new Nokia 'charging pad' and are those NFC headphones?

   Last week we saw two leaked devices from a Twitter account called Evleaks and it seems that the Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 weren't all the account creators have got their grubby mitts on! The photo above is supposedly a picture of the upcoming wireless charging stone that will grace Nokia's new Windows Phone 8 devices.

   On thing that's quite noteworthy is that the image above features both the Lumia 820 and the 920, so it would seem that Nokia has made a smart move here and created an accessory that'll work with more than one of it's line-up! Another bonus is that this technology complies with the Qi standard so just in case the Nokia accessory is extortionate, there might be an influx of viable alternatives soon!

   Wireless charging was one of the most popular components of the Palm/HP phone line before that got the axe last year and we are certainly hoping that Nokia will be able to make this stick this time!

   Nokia's second leaked product is a group of NFC connected headphones. So no wires here and they're made by Monster and yes, there is the same collections of insanely bright colours! These will be called Nokia Purity Pro wireless stereo headsets, catchy name eyy?

   This essentially confirms that Nokia will be installing their new WP8 devices with a little NFC chip, which will pair the headphones and phone. Once paired, the Purity Pro headphones use Bluetooth for streaming audio, and also function as a hands-free kit for calls. There’s active noise cancellation on board, which uses a combination of technologies to smooth out not only persistent ambient noise but percussive noise too, such as knocks and bumps.

   Both noise cancellation and Bluetooth are turned on and off by folding and unfolding the headset. These things will go on sale in Q4 and look away if you've got a limited budget as these things are priced at €299 ($376).

Samsung investigates their factory conditions and has some findings for us!

      There's been quite a lot of concern in the tech world lately around device production and the unfair hours, child labour and dangerous conditions for workers. People and the big companies have started to see for themselves the impact their contractors terms of work have had on people.

   Apple was the first to take steps to ensure their contractors workers had better welfare, perhaps spurred into action by an explosion caused by a build up of aluminium dust in one of their iPad producing factories. Tim Cook has since implemented measures that protect workers from working for too long and ensuring that their workplace will be safer.

   Samsung has yet to go under the same microscope, but back in August there were allegations flying around that Sammy's contractors were forcing workers to go about their jobs in harsh conditions. Naturally Samsung dispatched a crack team to get to the bottom of their case.

   Samsung's findings didn't appear to be too bad. What they did find were statutory overtime expectations and the threat of fines for misdemeanors like turning up late, the former shouldn't really be there. On top that there were poor working conditions, and HEG Electronics did not conduct health screenings for employees. But, the China Labor Watch organization claimed to have discovered at least seven people working at the plant who were under the age of 16, Samsung didn't find the same issues on the days it investigated. Which is good news for HEG because Samsung has a very strict rule that they will not employ child labourers and would terminate HEG's contract immediately if they were.

   Samsung has now said they will push on with the inspection of 100 more sites just in case HEG has been moving their child labourers around to dodge Samsung officials. We'll have to see how the comprehensive inspections go! But, it's good to see Samsung are genuinely concerned for their workers!

In other news:

• Nokia's dominated the news today with leaks left, right and centre but their much anticipated Lumia 920 PureView will reportedly only pack an 8MP camera with the PureView tech as a small bonus, which is slightly disappointing if you ask us!

• It's been reported that Asus will be delivering a 3G version of the popular Nexus 7 tablet in the very near future!

• Sony has been widely praised for managing to roll out ICS to their 2011 line up of phones, but unfortunately UK service provider O2 has put the handbrake on the ICS roll out for the Sony Xperia ray, arc and neo! The company claims that the update negatively impacts performance to such an extent that they'd rather see the handsets remain on Gingerbread. What do you think about this unlocked device owners and O2 customers alike?

• Cambodian police have today arrested ThePirateBay co-founder, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, after he failed to report for his year-long jail sentence in Sweden as ruled in February. Cambodia  today confirmed to AFP that there is no extradition treaty in place with Sweden, instead they said "we'll look into our laws and see how we can handle this case."

And finally, have Apple redesigned their headphones for the upcoming iPhone 5 and will they look like this?!?!

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18/07/2012

ZTE announce the Grand X; perhaps not the 'most advanced gaming handset'.

   Zte have just announced what they previously claimed to be the world's most advanced game smartphone. We're not entirely convinced it's exactly that but it is a very appealing little device.

   On board there's Android 4.0.4 so it's a solid build of Ice Cream Sandwich, but the real news here is that it's completely vanilla Android!!!! Thank you ZTE!

   Under the hood things are very mid-range; there's a Dual Core Tegra 2 chipset, a 4.3″ qHD (960×540) screen, 5 Megapixel camera and a 0.3 megapixel front-facing camera. We have already seen this device a couple of months ago at Mobile World Congress. But back then it was known as the Mimosa X. 

   ZTE have also been touting HD Voice and HD video capture, along with Dolby sound and the usual set of sensors and connectivity options. Initially you'll have 4GB of storage but thankfully there's a microSD card for all your baggage.

   The device will be available at the start of August for £190 on pay as you go from both Virgin and Phones4U.

In other news:

• Windows Phone somehow has managed to steal 4% of the US smartphone market, which is surprisingly positive return from Microsoft's dead OS.
• O2 are apologising to their customers for the outage we reported recently. For affected customers they're giving you 10% off your bill and for every customer on O2 they have a £10 voucher to spend in store!
• Sony have announced a little Walkman powered by Android, we recommend considering the Galaxy Player before you look at the Sony device.
• Continuing the Sony news; there have been reports the company is preparing to release the Xperia Z. The device is meant to be top of the range in every respect! We'll let you know when we hear more!
• The Huawei G300 has now got some ICS!
• Jolla and their Meego projects have announced that they plan to lock down the Kernel and prevent custom ROMS on their device when it hits to market. That's a shame as that'll probably put an end to quite a lot of interest, especially from developers.

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07/06/2012

Samsung Galaxy S3 latest to be targeted by Apple's patent gun.

   Yesterday, we reported that Apple had again tried to secure an injunction against HTC in the USA, for the whole of HTC's line-up. But, because Apple don't seem to like any sort of competition and this time the Galaxy S3 is focused squarely in Apple's sights.

   But, this time Samsung aren't going to lay down and accept this hindrance, instead they're planning to “vigorously oppose” any of Apple’s attempts to block the Galaxy S III coming to the US, and they're still aiming to launch the devices on June 21st.

   Samsung has pledged to “demonstrate to the court that the Galaxy S III is innovative and distinctive.” The two patents Apple has issues over are; firstly, the same patent that relates to the use of context menus that HTC's One Series was held at customs for. The other relates to “universal search technology” which is used in Siri, which Apple have accused Samsung of copying in its S-Voice application.

   One does have to question how much longer Apple can keep doing this for without getting a backlash from consumers. They are to all intents and purposes trying to stop competition over menial details. I for one think they're being ridiculous now, it seems clear that Samsung are not copying them in any regard here and I think Apple should try to realise there is a line. Or alternatively they could actually release some competitive devices, because they're standing in the way of progress now.

O2 and Vodafone partner to plan for the future.

   Two of the biggest players in the UK mobile market have announced today that they will be sharing infrastructure to mutually assist each other to speed up LTE rollout.

   The pair plan to continue running independent spectrum and competing services, but they will start sharing maintenance duties for their shared hardware and  they wil decommission unnecessary base-station sites.

  

   “Under the proposals, both companies will have access to a single grid of 18,500 masts representing an increase in sites of more than 40% for each operator” which should very much help if you are lacking signal from your provider in your area. “The joint venture will also be responsible for the building of new sites needed to extend coverage into rural and remote areas. There will be opportunities for the decommissioning of duplicate sites and, as a result, the two companies expect there will be a more than 10% overall reduction in the total number of sites, in the UK, used by the two operators" something which will save both companies money as well as increasing their customers signal, which can only be good for you!

   Telefónica, which is O2 parent company, will having the job of looking after radio equipment and local connections in the East (including Northern Ireland and most of Scotland), Vodafone logically will take care of the duties in the West (including Wales). Each network will continue to work independently, this is just hardware sharing there is no merger here so this is not like T-Mobile/Oranges merger. Everything Everywhere (T-Mo+Orange) actually allow cross-network roaming so you can pick up the others signal, this will NOT happen with Vodafone and O2. 

   Vodafone and O2 expect this to give them 98% population coverage by an LTE network, by 2015, if these proposals get accepted by OFCOM. That is the carrot for OFCOM to approve the deal, so we'll have to wait and see what happens now. So with O2, Vodafone, Orange and T-Mobile having drawn up plans for 4G LTE, that only leaves Three all on their own. 

In other news:

• Angry Birds Space has hit 100million downloads!
• RIM has discontinued the 16GB Playbook, arguing that the 32GB and 64GB models represent better value for money. Is this a money making ploy or is this a sign of a new model? Or maybe RIM is genuinely trying to help consumers make a good choice.
• Facebook has announced carrier billing for their credits system.
• LinkedIN and eHarmony have had huge password leaks in the last few days, so make sure you change your passwords if you have accounts there!

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