In Other News: 17/05/2013.

• Over in the United States the carrier Sprint have bought a few sets of spectrum and a few customers from US Cellular. The deal sees Sprint gain 420,00 customers throughout the Midwest and sees them gain 20MHz of spectrum in places such as Chicago, South Bend, Indiana and Champaign, Illinois.
  Via PhoneArena.

• BT have announced that there are now more than 5 million wireless hotspots across the UK and Ireland which are up and running and giving people internet access! It's no wonder they have grand plans for the network!
  Via IntoMobile.

• Vodafone in the UK have announced the latest in their range own self branded mobiles phones. The Vodafone Smart III is another budget handset which this time offers relatively clean Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, a 4-inch WVGA that's 480 x 800p screen, an unnamed 1GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, and there's a nice 5-megapixel rear camera for good measure. This isn't anything revolutionary, but for £95 without a contract you could do worse, it looks solid too as you can to the right! You can get full details here!
  Via AndroidCentral.

• The website of the Financial Times has been hacked by people claiming to be the "Syrian Electronic Army", an infamous hacking and activist group, supposedly supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. the FT's website has had headlines changed to read "Hacked By Syrian Electronic Army" and tweets have been sent from the FT's Twitter account saying "Do you want to know the reality of the Syrian 'Rebels?'" and a link to a video was offered too.
Via Reuters.

• Fitbit have updated their wrist accessory which tracks your activity today to support the Galaxy S4. A lot of people have been complaining about the relatively small amount of devices which the accessory supports but the is another feather in its cap!
  Via Slashgear.

• Kaspersky have teamed up with Qualcomm to offer OEMs a discount if they preinstall their phones with Kaspersky's antivirus solutions for Andorid phones and tablets! This is a great deal for Kaspersky and should see their software on a lot more phones in the future!
  Via IntoMobile.

• There have been updates to both Angry Birds Seasons and Pudding Monsters for Android released today. Both updates bring new levels and challenges!
  Via AndroidCommunity.

And finally, Nvidia have opened up pre-orders of their Shield handheld for everyone who lives in US and Canada! Check out the tweet below if you're looking to pick one of the devices up!

We've opened up our #NVIDIASHIELD preorders across the board. Get yours today: ow.ly/l8H9K
— NVIDIA Tegra (@NVIDIATegra) May 17, 2013

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In Other News: 26/03/2013.

• Google is rolling out an update to their Chrome browser. The update improves spell-checking and it updates the dictionaries for all languages as well as adding support for Albanian, Korean and Tamil! The update will roll out to Windows, Linux and Chrome OS!
  Via Engadget.

• Samsung have updated their Galaxy Chat to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean!
  Via SamMobile.

• HTC have reportedly received 'several hundred thousand' pre-orders of their new HTC One, something which has supposedly far exceeded HTC's initial targets!
  Via AndroidBeat.

• Swiftkey have updated their Android keyboard and there is a full changelog available here!
  Via Swiftkey.

• Texas Instruments have reportedly developed new battery tech which allows for a 50% reduction in charge times and efficiency of above 90%! You can find out more info direct from TI here.
  Via Slashgear.

• Sweden's Language Council has supposedly dropped the term "ungoogleable" from its considerations after Google pressured them to go with something more flattering.
  Via TheVerge.

• Kaspersky have lowered the cost of their mobile solutions, the smartphone version is down to   $14.95 for the premium version and $19.95 for the tablet equivalent! You can see what else the update brings here.
  Via AndroidCommunity.

• Mozilla has announced that they are planning on holding workshops for Firefox OS app development.
  Via Slashgear.

• Were you wondering who that company was which bought a million Blackberry Z10's? Well it turns out that it was Brightstar, a reseller, who are likely to act as an intermediary to the American carriers.
  Via AllThingsD.

• The Verge have supposedly confirmed that the HTC 'Tiara' and the Samsung Ativ S (or a slightly remodelled version of the phone) will be landing on Sprint this summer!
  

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31/01/2013: EE light up 9 more markets, Nexus 4 charging orb popping up and much more!

EE announce 4G is now live in 9 more UK towns.

   EE's LTE expansion continues to march on! The 4GEE champions have now lit up nine more towns around the country. Residents of Amersham, Bolton, Chelmsford, Hemel Hempstead, Southend-on-Sea, Stockport, Sunderland, Sutton Coldfield and Wolverhampton all now have access to 'super-fast 4G'. 

   All in all this makes the total number of towns/cities which have the new connectivity to 27! This has led EE to proclaim that they are now ahead of their projected roll-out time plan. 

   Interestingly the network now covers nearly half of the UK population, 45% to be exact! If everything continues to go to plan the network will have 35 markets by March!

   If you're on another network then you'll have to wait until this 4G auction is completed and hopefully we'll start to see other companies offering 4G contracts in the not too distant future!
Via AndroidCentral.

The Nexus 4's charging orb starts popping up all over the place!

    Google's Nexus range of devices are all meant to have docks. Unfortunately their docks are very, very elusive! We've seen a couple of leaks of the dock for the Nexus 7 here and there, but we still don't have it for order anywhere. 

   So when it comes to the Nexus 4 dock, we knew how it would look when Google launched the Nexus 4, but we knew nothing of a release date or pricing or anything! There's a few websites around the internet which has started listing the wireless charging orb! Unfortunately, they're all out of stock at the moment, but they do offer us the model number WCP400 and it'll have a price of $59.99, which doesn't seem to be too expensive!

   We hope these listings mean that the dock will be on it's way to consumers soon, but we'll have to wait and see!
PureMobile, CesiumOnline Via DroigDog.

In other news:

• Temple Run 2 has broken records and smashes through 50 million downloads already!
  Via AndroidCommunity.

• Sprint and HTC are rolling out an update for the Evo 4G LTE, the OTA will bring the ability to stream audio/video to anyt device once you've connected a MHL cable. There's also a number of fixes and improvements which will affect WiFi, Bluetooth compatibility, and the proximity sensor while listening to voicemail.
  Via AndroidPolice.

• Grand Theft Auto V will be coming to an Xbox or PlayStation near you from September 17th this year! Anyone excited?
  Via TheVerge.

• Samsung has pretty much reaffirmed their commitment to Wacom displays because they've bought a 5% stack in the latter company!
  Via PhoneArena.

And finally, Google has erected a new statue in their grounds! We've been reassured that Google won't be merging Android and Chrome, but nonetheless this is a pretty sweet statue.
Via DroidLife.

Hi guys, if you've made it this far then thank you and sorry this is quite a short post, it's my birthday today so hopefully you can forgive this shortened post for today! I'll be back on it tomorrow!

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28/12/2012: Motorola to create a Razr M HD? More Galaxy S4 rumours and BB10 features leak! The HTC HD2 refuses to die and much more!

Motorola to unleash a Razr M HD?

   Earlier this year Motorola's super thin Droid Razr and Droid Razr Maxx got HD buddies, an according to one of PhoneArena's anonymous sources the Razr M will soon have a HD brother too! It would seem fitting that the Razr M's refresh would maintain a mid-range price and so the suggested spec sheet does seem to fit in with that.

   Apparently the device will launch with Android 4.1, which will be updatable to Android 4.2 at some point after launch and on the spec front there will supposedly be a dual-core Snapdragon S4 Plus processor running the show on a 720p 4.5" screen, at that resolution the screen will have a Retina display matching 326ppi. To round the device off there will also supposedly be 1GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage which is MicroSD expandable and a 3300MaH battery, although there was no mention of any camera specifications. 

   Would you be interested in a device like this? If it could come in at a reasonable price point it could prove to be a very popular device, especially with the very good battery size! If you would like to see the full spec sheet given to PhoneArena then hit up the source link below!

Via PhoneArena.

More Galaxy S4 rumours arrive suggesting an April launch date!

   Hot on the heels of the best render of the Galaxy S4, which we published yesterday and that is embedded above, we got wind today that there is another set of juicy rumours from Korea regarding Samsung's upcoming Galaxy S4. 

   Today's rumours suggest that the device will be launching in April, which is to be expected given Samsung had to delay the launch of the S3 because of the discolouration of their blue cases last year. But, that's the mundane part of this rumour. The juicy bit is that the rumours suggest that the Galaxy S4 will come with an S-Pen and a 5" 1080p AMOLED display. The S-Pen rumour is the intriguing part because it suggests that this could be a merger of the Galaxy Note and the Galaxy S series. We find this hard to believe because the separation of sizes in the different ranges gives users exactly what they want depending on their preferences and a 'happy medium' might be enough to discourage both camps.

   Other than that it's expected that there will be Android Jelly Bean on board which will be powered by a quad-core Exynos 5440 chip which will be made using a 28nm process which uses high-K metal gate technology. There's mumblings of a using ARM's big.LITTLE process, but because that's very much still in it's infancy we don't think that one is very likely either. Just to conclude the rumours there is also mean to be a 13-megapixel rear auto-focus camera and the body of the phone is expected to be 9.2mm thick to house that S-Pen!

   We think the screen size and quality are quite likely as is the camera spec, but other than that we find it hard to believe Samsung would merge the Note and S series and we're not convinced the S-Pen is ready for the big time either! What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!
Via PhoneArena.

In other news:

• There's been some controversy on YouTube view numbers on music videos being cut today. At the moment there's some ambiguity whether the drop in numbers is down to Google cutting the figures because they were artificially inflated by record labels or because songs have been transferred between accounts. We'll let you know what's going on when everything becomes clearer in the next few days!
  Via TheVerge.

• There's also suggestions that Instagram lost a quarter of their users after last weeks Terms of Service scandal. We're not sure exactly whether this is true or whether data has been affected by the Christmas holidays, but again The Verge have offered some insight on the matter.

• Sony has announced that they are discontinuing the Playstation 2 in Japan, but don't worry Sony isn't going to cut off your PS3 yet, as they pledged they would support it through to 2015. The PS3 launched in Japan in November of 2006 so that would mean the device would have been supported for nine years, which given Sony's record with updates for their Android devices looks positively stellar!
  Via Slashgear.

• According to Reuters China has unveiled tighter Internet controls which now make it legal to delete posts or pages "which are deemed to contain "illegal" information and requiring service providers to hand over such information to the authorities for punishment." Given China's reputation for the 'Great Firewall of China' it's not surprising that the country is cracking down on this and the use of VPN's to bypass their extensive censorship programme!
  Reuters via Slashgear.

• Sprint is currently offering you a $100 off a new tablet from them if you take a phone contract. You can redeem your voucher on an iPad Mini, standard iPad, Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 or a Motorola Xoom! You can check out the full details here!
  Via IntoMobile.

• RIM's upcoming BB10 features seem to be leaking left, right and centre at the moment. We've heard about Blackberry Remember which will act as a task app, BBM video for face to face video calls and  that would go very nicely with BBM Voice which is already out in the wild! Are you excited for BB10? We certainly can't wait to see what Canada's finest come up with!
  Via IntoMobile.

• Fijitsu CEO, Masami Yamamoto, confirmed that the company would be bringing the Raku-Raku Smartphone, an easy to use device targeted at the older population, to the U.S. and Europe in the near future. Although at the moment there's no word on how much it'll cost, but the device is available in Japan at the moment with a 4-inch 800x480 display, 1.4GHz Snapdragon S2 processor and a modified version of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.
  Via PhoneDog.

• It turns out that RIM's undisclosed first payment to Nokia came in at a whopping $65 million or 50 million Euros! We're not currently sure what the ongoing payments will be but analysts expect it to be somewhere between $2 and $5!
  Via AllThingsD.

• Apple has received a slap on the wrists from China which ran to the tune of $165,000 because they allegedly published books from Chinese authors without their copyright permissions! We're not sure of the details of this case because it was in China and it is all rather hush-hush, but if there's any more details we will let you know!
  Via Slashgear.

And finally, it seems HTC's eternal HD2 now has the ability to run Windows RT! A post on Twitter from CotullaCode shows the software up and running! The image and tweet are embedded below for your viewing pleasure!

myself shocked :O twitter.com/CotullaCode/st…
— Ctll (@CotullaCode) December 27, 2012

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13/11/2012: Nexus 4 and 10 sell out in minutes! HTC Droid DNA for Verizon, Sinofsky quits Microsoft, Nokia launches their mapping brand 'Here' and much more!

Nexus 4 and 10 hit shelves today and they sell out in minutes!

   Google's Nexus 4 and 10 went on sale today and across the world they sold out within minutes. Unfortunately, it seems that only a lucky few were able to order their devices, amid the numerous issues and errors Google's Play stores threw up under the pressure across the world. If you missed out today then we expect Google will have some more stock in soon; the the devices are now marked as 'Coming soon' in the UK, the USA and Australia.

   IntoMobile said that the devices sold out within 50 minutes in the UK and within 24 in the USA! People have taken to Twitter to say it was even faster than that in Australia!

Apparently the Nexus 4 sold out in 5 *minutes* in Australia. facebook.com/groups/1333178… Methinks someone at Google didn't order enough.....
— Steve Litchfield (@stevelitchfield) November 13, 2012

 At the moment it's hard to know quite how well the device has sold; we're not sure if Google had limited stock or whether there was just huge demand. Hopefully Google will be able to get some more stock in soon and shed some light on issues we had today! Did you manage to get one or did you have errors when you tried to order? Let us know and we'll update the post with your experiences!

Sources embedded in the post.

HTC and Verizon announce the Droid DNA! The 5" Full HD monster.

   HTC and Verison have today announced the Droid DNA and this is certainly a powerhouse! Before we get into specs you should know that this is not a 'phablet' according to HTC and it will set you back $200 on a two-year contract!

   Now for the important stuff, there's: 

• 5" 1080p S-LCD3 display (1920x1080, 440DPI)
• 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor
• 2GB RAM 
• 16GB internal storage, no micro-SD slot.
• Android 4.1 with Sense 4+
• 8MP rear camera / 2.1MP ultra-wide angle front facing camera
• 2020mAh battery (yikes)
• Wireless charging

   There's two things which make us slightly worried about the phone and they're the small 2020mAh battery, but hopefully HTC can make it last and the lack of expandable storage, especially given there's no SD slot! If you're interested in picking one of these up then you can get one from November 21st! You can find more information about it on Verizon's website here.

Via Android Police.

Steven Sinofsky quits Microsoft!

   Steven Sinofsky, the President of Windows and one of the key orchestrators of Microsoft's new Windows 8 has announced his resignation from the company. At the moment we are unsure of the reasons for his departure and where he intends to work next.

   Although, it was seem as though Sinofsky departed on good terms though with Ballmer saying that:

   “I am grateful for the many years of work that Steven has contributed to the company... The products and services we have delivered to the market in the past few months mark the launch of a new era at Microsoft. We’ve built an incredible foundation with new releases of Microsoft Office, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, Microsoft Surface, Windows Server 2012 and ‘Halo 4,’ and great integration of services such as Bing, Skype and Xbox across all our products.

   Sinofsky was also very complementary saying: "It is impossible to count the blessings I have received over my years at Microsoft. I am humbled by the professionalism and generosity of everyone I have had the good fortune to work with at this awesome company." 

Via Hothardware.

Nokia launches 'Here', the company's new mapping brand set to debut on Firefox OS next year!

   Nokia has launched their new mapping solution called 'Here'. The 'Here' brand will essentially be an umbrella name for all of Nokia's mapping and location solutions. Stephen Elop has said that with this announcement Nokia wants to offer "everyone with any type of device the ability to use this, the best location platform in the industry." He also believes that availability across platforms and the general "openness is what sets Here apart" from all the other mapping services.

   The company even took to Twitter to show emphasise how committed they are to offering great location solutions:

With our location heritage and mapping expertise we can do more than great maps on great Nokia phones (via @selop) #HERE
— Nokia (@nokia) November 13, 2012

   It seems the first people to benefit from this will be those of you who pick up a device running Mozilla's upcoming Firefox OS. This is a deal which Nokia considers 'a strategic partnership with Mozilla to bring new location experiences to the Firefox OS. Nokia plans to debut a mobile Web version of HERE Maps for the new Firefox OS next year. The companies are working together to give people the best mapping experience on Firefox OS.' This would seem like a logical partnership given the HTML 5 standard Mozilla is using on their web-based platform and will give a solid alternative to Google Maps.

   Nokia also demonstrated an Android OS-based reference application and there are currently plans for the availability of a HERE SDK for Android to arrive in early 2013. Nokia said this 'is aimed at enabling partners to create location-based applications for Android devices with Nokia's leading content.'

   At the moment we're not entirely sure what this will mean for the naming of Nokia Maps, Pulse and Transit and personally we don't know if those names should be changed now that they are starting to develop a good reputation. If we hear more on naming schemes and how this will all tie in we'll let you know. In the mean time you can have a look at the online maps 'here'!

Via ZDNet and Nokia Press Centre.

In other news:

• Google has released Android 4.2 to the AOSP today. The only issue is that the Nexus 7 3G isn't yet supported by AOSP because of licensing issues, the Nexus 4 isn't yet functional with the release and there's no Android 4.2 support for the Nexus S or Motorola Xoom yet. But, on the plus side if you're a lucky owner of the "takju" variant Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4, Nexus 7 or Nexus 10 then you can find the factory images here.
  Via Android Central.

• Samsung is reportedly considering updates to Android 4.2 for it's Galaxy range of handsets. ZDNet got a statement from Samsung which read, "We will announce rollout plans for Android 4.2 to our Galaxy portfolio of devices in due course." That seems as good as a confirmation to us!

• Talking of Android updates HTC has released a Q&A website about Android 4.1 Jelly Bean updates. The main things on there are the issues with updating phones with 512MB of RAM, that means One V and Desire C owners won't be getting an update. HTC does make a point though that they will continue to support those devices with security updates, patches and enhancements through their life cycle. We do find it slightly strange though that Samsung's Nexus S has the same amount of RAM and has no issue running the software. We'll have to take HTC's word for it!
  HTC Q&A Via Android Central.

• AT&T is reported to have a big push to draw in Sprint's Nextel customers as they close down that service! AT&T have been promoting their push-to-talk phones which can use their LTE network, devices such as Samsung's Rugby Pro.
  
  The company's senior vice president, Chris Hill, said in a statement:
  “For workers in industries like construction, manufacturing and public safety, mobile devices that can withstand harsh conditions are essential... We’re offering AT&T Enhanced PTT on a variety of rugged devices to give our customers the performance and durability they need to get in touch quickly on the job — no matter what conditions they face.”
  Via AllThingsD.

And finally, Sprint have today announced a new budget phone with a great set of specs called the Sprint Flash. There's Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, a 4.5-inch HD display, 12MP rear and 1MP front cameras, a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 8GB of storage, a rather small 1,730mAh battery, NFC and Bluetooth 4.0 amongst other things! For $129 on contract we can think of worse ways to spend your money! But, you can pick it up for $99 at Wirefly!
Source: Sprint via Phone Dog.

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12/10/2012

Amazon has confirmed they sell their devices at cost!

   Amazon has today confirmed that they sell their tablet and eReader hardware at cost. Their CEO, Jeff Bezos said to the BBC ""We sell the hardware at our cost, so it is break-even on the hardware." 

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Samsung Galaxy S3 heading Stateside!

   The Galaxy S3 is finally coming to the Land of Stars and Strips!!! Samsung have announced the phone for the five major mobile carriers over in the United States in one sweep. The device will start on the top four carriers for $199 on-contract, the likes of Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint and AT&T will be joined by U.S. Wireless as carriers. 

   This is great news for U.S. Wireless and it's customers because they can genuinely compete with the big boys now! We expect their version to be carrying 4G LTE, just like Verizon and AT&T’s versions, but T-Mobile's will get HSPA+ 42!

   Samsung has announced that the phones will arrive through June in the USA, each individual network will announce their own individual release date. This device is slightly different from the international version. The international version has an Exynos quad-core processor, this one however has the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor clocked at  1.5 GHz, as well as rocking a huge 2GB of internal RAM.

   Other than that everything is the same; Gorilla Glass 2.0, removable 2100 mAh battery, both 16GB and 32GB internal storage variants, as well as the same 8 megapixel camera with 1080p video capabilities that we’ve seen on the original Galaxy S III. Exciting stuff!

Announced release dates:

Verizon: Pre-orders start June 6, no word on general availability. (16GB $199.99, 32GB $249.99 with 2 year contracts.)

AT&T: No word yet, check back for updates! Pre-orders start June 6, same pricing as Verizon and an exclusive Red variant to complement the White and Blue ones everyone else is getting.

Sprint:  No word yet, check back for updates! Sprint were so quick off the mark we missed them! Pre-orders started today (5th June) and they expect devices to ship on June 21, again same pricing structure as the two above, it's looking like that's what Samsung's enforcing on the Galaxy S3.

T-Mobile: Pre-order 'shortly' and general availability June 21. (No official pricing, but it's rumoured to be the same as Big Red's)

U.S. Cellular:   Pre-orders from June 12, in-store and online availability sometime in July. (No Pricing).

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