Your once daily stop for tech news! If it's important we've got it covered!
Our focus is on mobile devices such as phones and tablets, but anything goes!
But today Huawei have taken to their Facebook page today to promote the device and the images above and below are what they posted and they offered little commentaries along with them. The guys said:
"#Ascend P6 Story# We do everything to the fullest. The Huawei Ascend P6 challenges all phones to be the thinnest, smallest, and one of the most compact smart phones with a screen that can rival it's competitors. Care to guess how large the screen to body ratio is? Well on June 18th, Huawei will unleash an intimate experience to consumers."
They also added:
"#Ascend P6 Story# We believe that upcoming release of the flagship Huawei Ascend P6 will WOW all consumers. Huawei used the best materials and components, did amounts of reliability testing and invested a lot into the Huawei Ascend P6. Consumers often can't imagine the amount of time and work it goes into creating such a phone. We never really had a chance to explain to the consumers that we are the best, but in fact let the phone sell itself."
Obviously Huawei are proud of what they're doing with the P6 and it's something which they're hoping to make a little story out of!
Microsoft have software, hardware in the form of their Surface tablets, the power to change the direction of the computing industry, they even have their own ad platform. The one thing which they're desperate to make a mark in is the internet search arena, where Bing is the relative newcomer seeking to challenge Google's dominance!
There's one thing which Microsoft are hoping will help them change the fortunes of their search engine and that's Facebook integration. The new feature essentially lets users like and comment on things which their Facebook pals have said which are related to their searches.
The way that this will all work is that after you log in with your Microsoft account you have the option to add your Facebook account to Bing. After that you have access to comments on Facebook posts in your search engine sidebar. After you see that you have the ability to offer your 'likes and comments' without the need to navigate to Facebook. Depending on what you search for Bing will offer up relevant Facebook comments and posts from your friends and the plan is slightly flawed because the relevance isn't determined by the age of the posts, so things from a few years back may well pop up.
The main thinking is that if you search for Black Eyed Peas tickets on Bing, the Facebook bar on the side will show you that one of your friends already has tickets and has one going spare if you want it. Obviously that's the ideal world scenario, but we're not sure if it will prove to be as useful as that in reality!
This is what things will look like!
It seems that at the moment Facebook and Microsoft are drawing ever closer. Some of you might remember that Microsoft will be powering Facebook's 'Graph Search' when that hits everyone's profiles at some point in the future. The real point here is whether or not Bing's new feature is actually what users want, we're not convinced, but what about you guys? Do you think Bing's Social Sidebar is a good enough feature to differentiate from Google and do you use the Facebook, Twitter, Klout and Foursquare integration at all? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below! Bing Via PCWorld.
Call of Duty: Ghosts has gone straight to the top of the most popular chart on Amazon despite the game only being a pre-order! It seems that CoD hasn't quite lost its appeal just yet ! Via Slashgear.
According to rumours today there's meant to be a whole host of new Windows Phones coming out this summer. Phones from Huawei, Nokia, Samsung and HTC are rumoured, while we don't doubt that this is possible, we want something more concrete than Reddit before we report this in a big way, if you're interested check out the source link below! Via PhoneArena.
iOS 6.1.4 is landing on iPhone 5's at the moment, the update features an updated audio profile for the speakerphone, it appears to only be rolling out on that device and there was no beta test period, so we can assume that it will only be affecting iPhone 5's! Via MacRumors.
The guys at Modaco have found a helpful use for that Wii Fit balance board which you haven't used quite as much as you planned to! Well it turns out that if you download an Android app and follow the steps on their website you can have some handy internet connected scales in no time! It's pretty sweet, head here to check it out!
Talking of Nintendo kit, a group of hackers claimed to have manipulated the Wii U system sufficiently to allow for games to be played for a USB stick or hard disk drive. Nintendo deny the claims at the moment, we'll have to wait and see which way this one goes! Via PocketLint.
Facebook has been awarded nearly $2.8 million because numerous groups have taken urls which are misspellings of their facebook.com domain name. Basically because it's such an easy thing to misspell certain sites the US government stopped people using addresses which attract traffic from misspellings in a bit to make money off of them. The ruling punished the owners of over 100 domain names, things such as fadebook.com, rfacebook.com and wwwfaceboobs.com were all found guilty. Via TheVerge.
Dreamworks have splashed a cool $33 million on a YouTube channel called AwesomenessTV. The channels has over 14 million subscribers and has had 800 million views so far! Is this the first high profile buyout of a YouTube channel? Via Slashgear.
And finally, we're not sure if you've seen this before but Paul O'Brian tweeted about the Nexus 4 wired headset! We'd never seen it before, but it looks pretty sweet! If you're interested head over to Google Play to check it out!
Google have updated their search app for iOS to include Google Now! The update offers most of the functionality it does on the Android with some exceptions, but for the most part this is the same in appearance and usage! Google have reiterated that the integration will be much better on a Google phone than on the iPhone though because of the restrictions which they're faced with. Either way this is a great addition to Apple's ecosystem and you can download the update here! Via TheVerge.
According to reports Facebook seem to be losing users in countries in Europe and North America at the moment! The full report of the findings is available over at the Guardian, but it'd be interesting to find out if people are choosing other services instead of Facebook or whether Facebook is being supplemented by other social networks! It seems that this has prompted Mark to take a bit of a pay cut, right down to $1 in fact! Via Guardian and CNet.
A new study which was commissioned by the Financial Times has found that chat apps such as WhatsApp, ChatON, iMessage and BBM actually had more messages sent across them than SMS' were sent right at the end of 2012! It seems like carriers will need to invest in that data infrastructure a fair bit more! Via TheVerge.
According to rumours over on SamMobile Samsung are poised to bring a new set of devices to the market which include an amoled equipped Galaxy Tab 8.0, Galaxy Tab 11 and the successor to the Nexus 10, which is set to be the Google Nexus 11, which is still waiting for approval from Google before Sammy push ahead with that!
Gameloft is reportedly busy optimising 13 titles for Samsung's Galaxy S4! The list includes Asphalt 7, Modern Combat 4 and Dungeon Hunter 4 and ultimately Samsung are hoping this will give an 'unrivalled gaming experience' on their new flagship! Via AndroidCommunity.
O2 has signed a deal with BT in the UK for the latter to manage the new 4G network which the former is planning to build out. At the moment there's no suggestion that O2 will be using BT's spectrum. Via V3.
HTC are rolling out a new update to their HTC One flagship, which is live in the UK! The update is 229MB in size and is said to bring numerous fixes and improvements, with a special focus on the camera quality this time! Via AndroidBeat.
There's a new personal assistant out for Android and this one is called Sherpa! The idea is that you can say things like 'Should I take an umbrella to work tomorrow' and you'll get a sensible answer instead of the Google Search which Google Now would typically return! This is also a great solution if you don't have a version of Android which supports Google Now because this app is compatible with everything back to Android 2.2! If you're interested in giving it a test run then remember it's a beta, but you can get it here! Via PocketLint.
Calling all WebOS fans! Some of you might remember that OpenMobile were working on an App Compatibility Layer for the platform which would allow Android apps to run! Well it seems as though OpenMobile have teamed up with Pheonix to get the layer working and the pair have launched a KickStarter campaign to get the job done. Their initial target, assuming their funded, is to get everything done by July this year! You can check out the Kickstarter here! Via Engadget.
Huawei are said to be working at taking back the world's thinnest title from Alcatel! The Huawei P6 has supposedly been leaked by the Chinese certification body and the device is said to be a tiny 6.18mm thick! We don't understand this race to be super thin, but it's pretty sweet to look at nonetheless!
Google have been in the news a fair bit today! It seems as though they might have something being organised with Samsung in the OLED arena, but the guys have also revealed the processor and internals of their Google Glass headset as well as updating their terms and conditions on the Play Store to make sure that people can't update their apps without going through their marketplace!
We'll start with the internals of Google's Glass, which haven't really been confirmed as much as they've been discovered by an enterprising owner who managed to get them to boot up on ADB! His investigations led him to find that Android 4.0.4 ICS is powering the device, with a dual-core OMAP 4430 processor being back up, by what we assume is 1GB of RAM because 682MB was available while the Glasses were running! We already know that there's 16GB of internal storage and a 5MP camera, which when all is said and done, makes this a solid mid-range Android device, but there's nothing too spectacular here except for the form factor of course.
Secondly, it seems as though Google is none too happy that Facebook has been going behind their back and updating their apps without using Google Play to provide the updates. As a result Google have updated their terms and conditions to try to make sure that this doesn't happen any more!
When Facebook used the tactic it wasn't against Google's Terms of Service, but they've now been updated to read:
“An app downloaded from Google Play may not modify, replace or update its own APK binary code using any method other than Google Play’s update mechanism” Google Play Developer Content Policy
This change has been made to Google's 'Dangerous Product' section of their policy, which is totally understandable because it'd be easy for people to 'spike' an app on Google Play that way. Google for their part reiterated that, "Google Play is a trusted source for Android application downloads, and we are committed to providing a secure and consistent experience" and that's what they had to do in this situation really. There's been no word from Facebook on the changes, but then again there's not much which they can say any more! Via TheVerge and Slashgear.
First up was Facebooks, Cory Ondrejka, who's the head of mobile engineering at the company. He confirmed that the new Android launcher, Facebook Home, will be receiving its first update during "the second week of May." We're not sure if you remember, but at the launch event the guys confirmed that they would be revising the new mobile apps every month, so that first update will arrive right on schedule! Unfortunately Ondrejka didn't say whether this update will apply to just the Facebook phone, the HTC First, or whether it would be on the Play Store too, we assume it'll be both!
It was also confirmed that those of us outside of America will be able to download Facebook Home if we have a compatible device, because the app will be rolling out around the world from today! If you've got a couple of spare minutes then the guys over at TheVerge have got a great article about when they got to spend some time at Facebook's campus! If you head over and have a look it's definitely worth checking out the video, which suggests that ChatHeads are coming to iOS, but we doubt that they'll integrate with SMS messages because iOS doesn't have the same openness as Android!
The second part of this article concerns Facebook on your computer. You all know and love the site as it is at the moment, but now that Facebook is listed on the stock exchange the guys need to start making a little bit more money off of the vast user base which they've established. With that in mind a rumour from Ad Age becomes a little bit disconcerting. According to the rumour, Facebook is preparing to launch advertising space which on the left and right of the news feed, as well as planning four 15-second automatically starting video ads. These ads will supposedly be split down into four groups that'll target; women over 30, women under 30, men over 30, and men under 30. With ads which give such good access to so many people it's a great way for Facebook to increase revenue and they're reportedly ask for about $1 million per day par age category! That potentially gives Facebook $4 million a day in income, which over the space of a year works out to being $1,460,000,000, so very nearly $1.5 billion!
Facebook declined to comment on the rumour, but it wouldn't surprise if something like this happened in the future, but there will naturally be a user backlash! What do you think though? Is this a good idea or not? Let us know in the comments below!
In a recent blog post Microsoft are seemingly not all that impressed by Facebook's brand new 'Home' launcher for Android which was announced yesterday. Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President of Corporate Communications, Frank Shaw said that when he saw the Facebook Home event yesterday he couldn't be sure if it “was still April Fools Day... [or] if it was somehow still 2011.”
Frank Shaw had this to say about how the team which built Windows Phone went about making everything:
"So, we got to work and built a phone that asked and answered questions like these:
Instead of rows and rows of apps, why not have a screen full of the people that matter most to you, and start with them?
Instead of having to launch an app to see what’s behind that notification icon, why not just bring the content to the home screen?
Instead of having SMS and Facebook Messaging as separate chat threads, why not bring them together in one conversation?
Instead of having separate address books for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Skype, why not bring those together in one place?
Instead of having photos on your phone and photos in Facebook, why not bring those photos together in one place?
Instead of having to launch an app just to check in, why not just tap your own face and do it directly?"
According to the blog post this means that, 'as Android owners know, that platform is complicated enough without adding another skin built around another metaphor, on top of what is already a custom variant of the OS. So, while we applaud Facebook for working to give some Android owners a taste of what a “people-centric” phone can be like, we’d humbly like to suggest that you get the real thing, and simply upgrade to a Windows Phone.' Obviously this is a self-promotional post, but we can understand why he's a little peeved because what Facebook said does sound remarkably similar to this advert.
Today Facebook have launched their brand new Facebook Home platform. There was a huge range of stuff shown off at the announcement so lets get into it!
Mark Zuckerberg said that, 'We spend our live sharing and connecting. How can we make this easier? Instead of our phones being designed around apps first, what if we flip that around? What if our phones were designed around people first?" That's why they want to bring Facebook home to us, it makes the whole OS about the people you use your phone to interact with the centre of attention and it relegates apps to an additional feature of your phone. It's actually quite a nice concept!
What is Facebook Home?
The guys were keen to remind us that this is not a single phone or operating system they are building, this is just a launcher built on top of Android!
The exact words which they used were,
"we're not building an OS -- we're building an experience that's
deeper than any other app... You don't need to fork Android to do this". Something which Facebook reiterated was a perk of Google's operating system. They perhaps even suggested that because they can do this Google's operating system can be dominated by another company. So theoretically this is what Google wants with their open source OS, but we doubt that the private thoughts of Android chiefs is so positive.
When and where will it be available?
"We want to bring the experience of having a Home right to you, and deliver it to as many people as possible." That means that it will be available on the Play Store and on the HTC First from the 12th of April!
To get the launcher you will get an invite on the 12th of April to download the app from the Play Store if you already have Facebook Messenger and the standard Facebook app installed, if not you can manually download it from the store. It will initially be compatible with these phones:
Features: Coverfeed:
This is essentially your lock screen. It utilises people's cover photos to give you pretty backgrounds to their status updates. You have the ability to long press to zoom on the photos or you can double tap to like. There will be a little comment icon in the bottom right to leave your opinions on the photo.
Notifications:
Notifications pop up on your screen: click on them and you go the facebook app swiping down returns you to the home screen.
ChatHead:
These are an extension of your notifications. No matter where you are if you get a Facebook message or an SMS from a contact a little 'ChatHead' will pop up in the top right of the screen. You can have multiple heads pop up which then stack themselves. If they're in the way the move the around the screen so they're out of the way! (SMS' appear in green text bubbles when the conversation is opened).
Messages:
When you tap your ChatHead it opens a pop up window in front of any app you're running. This means you don't have to close the app every single time someone wants to talk to you!
App Launcher: To get to your apps you touch your ChatHead on the Coverfeed. This will give you three options:
go to most recent app, app drawer or go to the Facebook Messenger app. Everything is designed to give you access to people faster!
Versions of the app for other platforms:There will be a version for Android tablets coming within several months of the phone launcher.
Other platforms are out of the question because of the limited customisations of those platforms.
HTC First!
As part of the Facebook Home program the first device will be the HTC First! It's a solid little device which will be an exclusive to AT&T. There's built in LTE, but other than that it's a mid-range phone with dual-core Snapdragon 400 processor, 1GB of RAM, a 5MP rear-camera, there's a front one too, but we don't know how good that is yet, there's also Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and a 4.3-inch 720p display.
We're not sure we'd recommend this phone over a Galaxy S3 which will be offered at the same price, but some people want a 'Facebook Phone', but we can't justify that ourselves! The device is available for pre-order today!
Facebook also confirmed that the device is coming to EE and Orange over the next few months.
Facebook Home Programme:
There will be more devices with this launcher built into them right off the bat in the future! There are a list of partners who are also committed to the project embedded below!
And finally, here is the official promo video for Facebook Home!
For a long time now Facebook have been rumoured to be working on something a bit more expansive for mobile phones. Initially there were rumours of a Facebook phone, then we saw the HTC Salsa and ChaCha (Or Status on the US side of the pond) and now there will be a 'new home on Android'.
According to some rumours the event is set to feature an HTC smartphone with a custom-made Facebook-centric version of Android. This means Facebook don't have the responsibility of creating hardware themselves, but they can manage the software pretty well. According to the rumours Facebook integration will be the key; there will be the Facebook homescreen as the main screen and Facebook's camera and messaging apps will supposedly replace the standard Android options!
The best thing to compare the supposed plan here is by looking at what Amazon and their Kindle Fires have done with Android, it's conceivable Facebook have something similar up their sleeve!
What do you think would this interest you? We'll have much more on the 4th of April! Via Engadget.
U.S. District Judge, Denise Cote, has granted the request to make Apple CEO, Tim Cook, testify in a four hour slot regarding accusations against Apple of conspiring to artificially inflate e-book prices! Via Reuters.
French law enforcers are giving tech companies a hard time at the moment, today a Paris court banned seven Apple Stores from making employees work night shifts! This was a response to national labour union requests. Apple are also obliged to pay €10,000 in damages to the unions and there will be €50,000 fines for any future violations of this ruling! Via TheVerge.
Samsung supposedly spend $401 million on advertising their devices in the US last year! This was about $70 million more than Apple who only spent $333 million, it's no surprise then that HTC is getting left behind! Via WSJ.
Vevo-TV is now live! This is essentially a new music TV channel which you can watch on a variety of devices so long as they have the Vevo app or website! Check AndroidPolice here for more details!
Amazon are now offering their Kindle Fire 8.9 HD in the UK! The device will set you back £229 for the 16GB model or £259 if you want 32GB! The device is now available throughout Europe and Japan too! If you're a US customer the price has now been reduced to $269 and you can buy it here! Via AndroidGuys.
Netflix have announced a new feature which will let their 27 million American subscribers share the video and TV shows that they've been watching via their Facebook pages! Via Reuters.
Samsung supposedly expect to shift 10 million Galaxy S4's in the first month that the device is on sale! We'll find out the full details tomorrow! Via SamMobile.
HTC have announced that a developer version of the HTC One will be landing on US shores with 64GB of storage and fully unlocked! It will cost $649 and will otherwise remain unchanged! You can find more details direct from HTC here! Via Slashgear.
And finally, The Times has published a list of the 10 most annoying things which you can do on your social networks! Check the full list out here!
GSMA have today released their latest list of Mobile excellency. It's rather long so to save you some trouble here is a brief overview of the best of the best!
Samsung ran away with prizes for 'Device manufacturer of the year', 'Best phone of the year' for the Galaxy S3, 'Best mobile enabled consumer device' for their Galaxy Camera and they won the prixe for 'Outstanding overall mobile technology'!
On the app front Facebook and Evernote were voted the best for both consumer and enterprises respectively and Nokia scooped the award for the best feature-phone with the Asha 305!
Best Mobile Health Product or Service
MIPsoft for BlindSquare
Best Mobile Education or Learning Product or Service
Mobilink for SMS Based Literacy program
Best Mobile Product or Service for Automotive
BMW i, MINI, Sixt and Vodafone Group for DriveNow Premium Car Sharing
Best NFC /Mobile Money Product or Service
Etisalat for Flous – The Etisalat Commerce Programme Best Mobile Publishing Product or Service
Ver Se Innovation for NewsHunt
Best Mobile Innovation for ‘Smart Cities’
Streetline for Parker
Best Mobile Enabled Consumer Electronics Device
Samsung Electronics for Samsung GALAXY Camera
Best Enterprise Mobile Service
Mobilelron for Enterprise Version 5 Complete Person
Best Consumer Mobile Service
Comviva for Mahindra Comviva’s mobiquity™ MFS platform powering mTicketing service for Bangladesh Railways
Best Advertising or Marketing on Mobile
McCann Worldgroup (Hong Kong) for Chok! Chok! Chok!
Best Network Product or Solution for Serving Customers
NTT DOCOMO for Hanashite Hon’yaku, world’s first automatic voice translation service
Best Product, Initiative or Service in Emerging Markets
Ericsson for Amazon Connection– a digital inclusion program in the Amazon
GSMA mWomen Best Mobile Product or Service for Women in Emerging Markets
Asiacell for Almas Line
Best Use of Mobile in Emergency or Humanitarian Situations
Vodafone Foundation for Vodafone Instant Network
The Green Mobile Award
Indus Towers for Green Sites Project
Best Mobile App for Consumers
Facebook
Best Mobile App for Enterprise
Evernote email
Judges Choice – Best Overall Mobile App
Waze
Most Innovative Mobile App
McCann Worldgroup (Hong Kong) for Chok! Chok! Chok!
Smartphone Application Challenge
AT&T for Application Resource Optimizer (ARO)
Best Application using Network APIs
Bharti Airtel Limited for my airtel app Best Smartphone
Samsung Galaxy S3 Best Feature phone or entry level phone
Nokia Asha 305
Device Manufacturer of the Year
Samsung
Best Mobile Tablet
Google & Asus for Nexus 7
Best Mobile Infrastructure
Samsung Electronics for Smart LTE Networks
Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough
Accuris Networks for AccuROAM Wi-Fi: Making Wi-Fi a carrier driven extension of GSM for Offload and Roaming Best Cloud Based Technology for Mobile
Jasper Wireless cloud-based connected devices platform for machine-to-machine (M2M) and consumer electronics
Best Mobile Safeguard & Security Products and Services
AdaptiveMobile and Syniverse for Messaging Trust
Outstanding LTE Contribution
SK Telecom for 4G LTE with PETA Solution
Outstanding Overall Mobile Technology – The CTO’s choice
Samsung Electronics for Smart LTE Networks
A rumour from SamMobiles has suggested that Samsung's Project J is much more than simply one device. The suggestion now is that Project J can be broken down into three separate things. They are the Altius, the Project J Mini Serrano and the Project J Active Fortius. The Altius is now expected to be the Samsung Galaxy S4, the Serrano is hinted at being the Galaxy S4 Mini and finally the Active Fotius is meant to be some sort of wearable smartwatch! Each of these will have a host of accessories which can be seen at the source link below!Via SamMobiles.
Nokia have sold their Oulu Campus for €30.5 million. They will do the same thing they did with their Espoo headquarters and rent it back as they continue to use it! Via TechCrunch.
Facebook is facing legal action over their 'like' button from a patent-holding company acting on behalf of a dead Dutch programmer called Joannes Jozef Everardus van Der Meer. The suers seem quite confident that they'll be successful in any litigation, but we'll have to wait and see! Via BBC.
Sony France have confirmed that they will be launching the Xperia V in the country in March. It's an interesting decision to take at this point, but perhaps the company just wants to offer consumers something a bit smaller than the 5" Xperia Z flagship! Via XperiaBlog.
Bluestacks have officially announced their app player for the Surface Pro today and assuming you could Android emulation as fully-fledged apps then the amount of apps available for the Surface Pro has been bumped up from around 30,000 to 750,000 now! Via LittleGreenRobot.
Microsoft have announced that they have now shipped 76 million Xbox 360's and sold more than 24 million Kinects! The company also confirmed that they have more than 46 million paying Xbox Live subscribers. That makes the company's Xbox 360 the fourth best-selling home video game console of all time behind Nintendo’s Wii, Sony’s PlayStation One and PlayStation Two consoles which come in third, second and first in the all time rankings! Via BGR.
And finally, Vertu have shown off their newest smartphone, the Vertu Ti. As you would expect with a super-luxury smartphone you get a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to specs and software. In this particular example though there's a 3.7-inch Sapphire crystal screen, dual-core 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, 64GB of internal storage, NFC, a 1.3 megapixel front and an 8 megapixel rear-facing camera and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.
Facebook has just unleashed their brand new feature, which they're touting as the next big thing, Graph Search, to the world! The idea is that this search will not be a conventional web search, instead it will offer you much more specific results which are centred around your Facebook friends and what they've chosen to like and discuss!
So to get more specific about what Graph Search actually is, it will give you a new, ultra-specific way of searching Facebook for things related to your Facebook friends, finding new people with shared interests and it will give you answers to super specific questions! Graph Search can answer things like“Which of my friends live in Surrey?”, it can find you the music that your friends have been tuning in to and it will find you restaurants, movies and TV shows which your friends have been viewing.
Facebook says that the first version of Graph Search will concentrate on these four main areas; people, photos, places, and interests. There's some examples of the things you can search for embedded below:
People: “friends who live in my city,” “people from my hometown who like hiking,” “friends of friends who have been to Yosemite National Park,” “software engineers who live in San Francisco and like skiing," "people who like things I like," "people who like tennis and live nearby" Photos: “photos I like,” “photos of my family,” “photos of my friends before 1999,” "photos of my friends taken in New York," “photos of the Eiffel Tower” Places: “restaurants in San Francisco,” “cities visited by my family,” "Indian restaurants liked by my friends from India," “tourist attractions in Italy visited by my friends,” “restaurants in New York liked by chefs," "countries my friends have visited" Interests: “music my friends like,” “movies liked by people who like movies I like,” "languages my friends speak," “strategy games played by friends of my friends,” "movies liked by people who are film directors," "books read by CEOs"
Graph Search example: "Photos from before 1999".
Now this update could potentially be a huge problem for those of you who are, rightly, concerned about your privacy. But, Facebook have confirmed that this search will be 'privacy aware' and will only return results based on yours and your friends privacy policies.
If you're wondering when this will be coming to your Facebook, then there is a beta version of Graph Search available today, but nothing will happen very quickly because there is a lot of indexing for Facebook to do. The idea is that as more information becomes indexed and naturally your searches will be a lot better! At the moment Facebook haven't offered any details about what the time frame for availability will be, but we'll have to wait and see! Bearing in mind that there are 1 billion Facebook users, 240 billion photos, and right around 1 trillion connections that will be implemented into Social Graph this will not be a quick progress!
Oh and just to tide you over the web based results will be tied in with a deal from Microsoft's Bing, just in case your search isn't answered from Facebook's results. The Bing connection will kick in when things like local weather updates are the order of the day and Mark Zuckerberg has reiterated that he will not be using his company to become the next web search company, instead they just want to “provide good search results in Graph Search.”
Just as an aside there isn't any API's available, but Mark Zuckerberg didn't rule that out as a potential for the future!
You can find out full details in the press release here!
Nokia continues their verbal war. Says their offering is 'a step above'.
Today Nokia's CEO, Stephen Elop, has refuted claims that HTC has eked out an advantage in the Windows Phone market by securing the deal with Microsoft for the 'signature Windows Phone' brand on their new handsets.
Android; the world's most popular smartphone operating system and quite probably the world's most frustrating when it comes to updates. They seem to take absolutely forever to arrive and when they do manufacturers have issues ironing out the bugs.
At the moment the news isn't so good; yes there are over 1.3million daily Android activations, but not all of them ship with an up to date OS. Instead it seems like it's only Nexus devices that're rocking Jelly Bean at the moment with slightly more than 1/100 devices are running Jelly Bean.
It's worth remembering that most devices are still on Gingerbread and most of these probably will stay there until their owners upgrade. It's a frustrating situation all round but hopefully we'll see a lot more users rocking Jelly bean when Samsung gets round to updating the Galaxy S2 and S3!
In other news:
Facebook has officially completed the Instagram buy-out today, completing the $1 billion deal.
Nokia's Windows Phone 8 devices will reportedly be constructed in house buy Nokia and the company will be dropping the price of the Lumia 800 and 900 by $150 in a bid to shift them and make way for the newer models.
If you're holding out for a new TV from Apple you may very well be waiting a while because their talks with TV companies have reportedly been stalling of late.
Samsung has updated us on the amount of Galaxy S3's shipped and so far in 100 days of the phones availability they've sold 20million of the phones!
Is HTC planning a wholesale price cut to regain market share?!
Everyone knows that HTC prides themselves on high quality, well made devices! It was this belief that made HTC one of the most popular Android manufacturers up until the last year. Something happened then, no one really knows why though. Perhaps it was good devices that weren't particularly inspiring or perhaps Samsung and Apple have just been a completely relentless march!
Either way today's rumours have suggested there will be a fightback from HTC! And what better way to get some mind share and some more market share back too than a price cut! That's exactly what the Chinese rumour mill has blurted out today! Apparently these cuts will run deep too; all of their current One Series devices will reportedly get discounted, as will the upcoming Windows Phone 8 devices.
This is actually a fantastic plan from the company, people will be swayed away from Samsung phones and hopefully people will get HTC-envy again!
In other news:
Samsung has announced that work on Bada will now end and Tizen phones will be pushed back into 2013! There's no official line on why yet but the company may just prefer to focus on securing Android market share!
Facebook has announced that their data grows by 500 Terabytes daily! That is a lot of new servers that they'll be buying!
Not too long ago Twitter cut Instagram off from the friend finding service and now a second major service has been cut off by twitter. Blogging platform Tumblr has had its friend finding privileges ended by twitter.
Sony Mobile announced today that it would be restructuring operations and development sites in Tokyo, Japan, Lund, Sweden, and Beijing, China. That includes lay offs of up to a thousand people in Sweden!
Qualcomm have announced that they'll be collaborating with LG as they gear up to release their Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processor. This "global device" that the pair are working on will include an Adreno 320 GPU along with support for "higher HD resolution displays".The whole thing will rock 4G LTE connectivity and will be showing up in Korea in September to begin with before coming to the rest of the world thereafter.
Everyone knows game piracy on PC is a big issue but according to outspoken Ubisoft the piracy rate on their games is somewhere in the region of 93-95% of the games users!
And finally, for the first time in 25 years Microsoft has updated their company's logo. The fruits of the 25 years of work looks like this!
Sony's Tablet S was a relatively successful product for the company, they manage to shift a few and it seems this has spurred them on to create a successor.
This time Sony has kept the 'folded over' side from the tablets predecessor, but with a slimmed down chassis, so that it’s less of a taper and more consistent. Interestingly, if these renders are accurate, the tablet appears to borrow the “cosmic flow” wallpaper from the Xperia smartphones something that suggests Sony is trying to better integrate their smartphone and tablet arms.
And the vital specifications are expected to run something like this; Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, 9.4" 1280 x 800 pixel screen, up to 64GB of storage, WiFi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0 and 3G, along with GPS, an SD card slot and an 8-megapixel camera. A front-facing 1-megapixel camera, 10hr battery and the usual roster of sensors. It's been reported that Sony will offer various accessories including an HDMI dongle, multimedia dock and a QWERTY keyboard case. This could be one tablet to be reckoned with!
In other news:
Facebook has asked users to forward them phishing emails that claim to be from the big internet companies like paypal, ebay and facebook themselves. So if you want to help out check your spam folder and send the email to phish@fb.com and hopefully we'll all be safer!
Vringo, a technology company that develops and licenses mobile patents, has today announced that it will be acquiring 500 patents from Nokia for around $22 million. Some patents relate to 2G, 3G and 4G mobile standards so this one could get interesting.
As well as this, Nokia has today announced they will be selling off their app development programme Qt. Some may rue Nokia's abandonment, Digia, the new buyers has big plans for Qt, including enabling it on Android, iOS and Windows 8 platforms.
If you missed the OUYA kickstarter project fear not because the company is accepting pre-orders for April 2013 now. The website is at ouya.tv so feel free to head over to the slightly bare website and get yours if you haven't already!
Earlier in the week Facebook was challenged over a small start up claiming that there was a 5:1 ratio of bot advert clicks to real user clicks on their analytics. Facebook unsurprisingly has struggled to recreated the same data, that'll take a couple more dollars off the stock price!
Apple vs Samsung continues and now Apple are scared. Not of losing the case, instead they are very concerned that Samsung will leak 'sensitive' information regarding iDevices sales numbers, profits and customer feedback. Apple has asked the Judge to ensure the information stays confidential. We'll let you know how this one turns out. But, Apple's past claims for Samsung to be punished for leaking their banned evidence the other day resulted in no discipline yet and the court action will continue!
HTC have issued a warning today; you should expect up to 23% dive in revenue in Q3 if you're a shareholder. The company is still finding it difficult to compete with Apple and Samsung and HTC have been withdrawing from loss-making markets such as Brazil and South Korea, fingers crossed fortunes will change soon!
The world's most famous Custom ROM, CyanogenMod has announced that they won't be supporting devices with Snapdragon S1 processors, such as the HTC Nexus One. The reasons are not to do with the processor but more the internal storage, or rather the lack of it in this bunch of devices so unfortunately you guys will be stuck with Android 2.3.7 through CyanogenMod 7.2.
A couple of days ago Samsung posted some 'banned evidence' to numerous media outlets around the world. Both Apple and Judge Koh were not amused but Samsung argued, very well in fact, that they had every right to publish their evidence because it was independent and didn't affect the courts ruling in any way.
Apple has subsequdntly demanded that its design patents be considered valid and considered infringed as a suitably harsh punishment for Samsung’s evidence leak yesterday. They went as dar as telling the court that ruling in the Cupertino firm’s favor is the only message Samsung will understand. “Apple requests that the Court issue sanctions granting judgment that Apple’s asserted phone design patent claims are valid and infringed by Samsung” the company wrote in its response, effectively asking that the outcome of the trial be decided because of Samsung's “strategy of delay.”
This from the outside is seemingly ridiculous. It seems that both the Judge and Apple are going all out to spite Samsung when there is very little evidence to nail Samsung's coffin with. In fact the opposite is true; Apple are suggesting that to punish Samsung the evidence which refers to Apple 'copying' Sony designs be removed from the case. To my understanding the whole thing is a farce and I personally hope Samsung get a good outcome from this case!
In other news:
Facebook have today announced that they have about 83 million fake users (spam accounts and pet accounts?!). That's a lot of fakes about 9% of the company's user base in fact, that probably won't help the stock price!
Over the weekend Thorsten Heins, RIM CEO, met with the Times newspaper here in the UK. One of the details the company mentioned was that they are "investigating" the possibility of licensing the upcoming new platform, saying that "we're working with the financial advisers to see if we do this where it would take the company." It'd be interesting to see if anyone would take RIM up on the offer if they did commit to this strategy!
Samsung’s developed speedy new SD cards that'll supercharge smartphone storage in the near future.
Sharp has confirmed that the first shipments of the iPhone 5's screens will start in this month!
Nokia has been having a tough ride lately. An unfortunate consequence of this is more layoffs. This time the bad news is happening down under; Aussie Qt staff are facing the chop and the company is looking to sell off assets.
Sony has had another terrible quarter; Q1 2012 saw income down 77% as gaming, mobile and TVs sales have dived.
Mobiflip has today outed a new Sony Xperia Tablet. The picture above shows that the device is essentially a Tablet S refresh; sporting exactly the same iconic wedge design of the Tablet S.
Looks like Microsoft's Surface tablets has a bit of an influence too!
This time, however, the tablet is set to be slimline and splashproof, complete with Tegra 3 and a 9.4-inch 1280 x 800 display. The new tablet will be 11.85mm at its thickest point according to mobiFlip‘s premature documentation. This would overall add up to a 42-percent trim down, Sony claims, and this one will be made of aluminum rather than plastic!
On the camera front there's an 8-megapixel main camera which is paired with a 1-megapixel front facing camera, and there’s also a docking stand with three USB ports and an HDMI connection. Sony also throws in a clever Guest Mode, which allows for a separate interface – with limited access to apps and other data – for visitor use of the tablet, while keeping full Ice Cream Sandwich functionality locked away.
Interestingly the presentation also includes projected pricing; $449.99 for the 16GB model, rising to $549.99 for the $32GB, and $649.99 for the 64GB. The carrying cover will be $59.99 ($20 more for the leather version) and the keyboard cover will be $99.99.
As for docks, the Dock Speaker will be $119.99, the Docking Stand $99.99, and the Cradle $39.99. A Simple Stand – propping the tablet up at a choice of three angles – will be $24.99. The HDMI cable will be $29.99 and the USB Host cable $19.99.
When this device launches we'll see if it's possible to get a review to compare with the Tablet S and see if it's a worthy successor!
Sony's update saga.
Sony, Sony, Sony... What're we going to do with you eyy?
Today we've been told not to rule out Jelly Bean updates coming to any of their current devices. This news has come after they said their 2011 line up, which includes the Arc S and Mini Pro, would not be getting the update! Apparently we shouldn't rule out the possibility of these devices getting Jelly Bean just yet; the company said;
“We are actively investigating Android OS upgrades for all devices, but in the meantime, our Ice Cream Sandwich rollout for Xperia S and 2011 Xperia smartphones continues as planned.”
So there we have it. Don't give up hope just yet! The only thing we know for certain at the moment is that Sony don't know what they're doing just yet! The company is still in the midst of their ICS rollout so you can't blame them for not being entirely sure yet! We do expect their most recent crop of NXT devices will be getting updates, but probably early next year!
In other news:
Nintendo needed their 3DS XL to do a good job on the sales front. Initial tips look good with the device reportedly shipping 200,000 units in the first 24 hours after it's launch!
RIM are reportedly cutting 3000 jobs on August 13th, sorry guys, the company just can't stop the rot.
Microsoft has integrated Facebook tagging into Bing search results.
Samsung is reportedly working on a new 11.8″ 2560×1600 tablet.
Samsung‘s product lead has lashed out at Apple‘s design patent case, describing the jury trial as “fighting over rectangles” and "defying common sense" and to be honest we have to agree!
And finally, Microsoft has launched Outlook.com as a Gmail competitor! It looks eerily familiar!
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