Google I/O: A few things we haven't covered yet!

Google Maps:

   Google have updated their Mapping platform and the whole idea is to make the platform much more tailored and engaging for you, the customer. You can see the whole list of changes beautifully summarised by the BBC here. There's also three new api's which will help with phone positioning without draining battery and there will be specific tools to establish how people are moving be it in the car, on a bike or on foot!

Google Hangouts:

   This is effectively taking over from Google Talk! The service has Google+ compatibility as well as being built into your Gmail already! The video below shows you how everything will look and work!

Gaming:

   Google have announced a new set of gaming options including Google Play leader boards and new multiplayer features which let you play against friends on games! It's a sweet edition, it's just a
shame the demo of RipTide didn't work yesterday at the event! This feature will also be landing on iOS and the web so it's not an Android exclusive!

Other bits and bobs:

• Google have launched a new service for developers which lets you commission professional translations for you app right from the developer console!
• There will soon be synchronised notifications across your devices! So if you dismiss an email on your phone it will dismiss it on your tablet too!
• Google Play Music will be new an improved and will cost $9.99 per month for 'all access' and you can create your own radio stations based on artists or you can upload 20,000 of your own songs or you can look through Google's catalogue!

Don't worry guys, we know we haven't touched on things such as Chrome and the Android stats just yet, but don't worry we promise that they'll arrive through today, tomorrow and possibly the weekend, as and when we hear more details from Google's sessions!

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29/01/2013: Apple announce 128GB iPads to compete with the Surface Pro, BB10 in polls and the ZTE Blade C! Plus much more!

Apple announce the iPad will be available in 128GB models!

   Apple has only traditionally offered their devices in 16, 32 and 64GB versions, until today! Today the guys from Cupertino revealed that a new larger capacity iPad, with the same specs as the current fourth generation devices!

   It's interesting that Apple has chosen to bump up the storage offerings at this exact moment. It may well have something to do with those 128GB Surface Pro's which are right around the corner, but we doubt Apple would ever admit to that. We're not entirely sure those are head-to-head devices either, iOS isn't quite OSX and the Surface Pro tablets offer fully fledged Windows. Not to mention the Surface Pro tablets make the smaller storage options for iPads look relatively cheap too!

   But, nonetheless people always ask for extra storage and now we have it! You can get the 128GbB Wifi-only iPad for $799 (£639) or the 3G one can be yours for $929 (£739). Are you interested? Let us know in the comments below!

   

The press release is available here.

BB10 looks good according to poll.

   Everyone's looking forward to seeing exactly what RIM will be showing off tomorrow and if a poll of American's from YouGov and Bite Interactive is a representative one then quite a fair few other people are looking forward to the release of the operating system too!

   According to a poll of 1,127 adults who were told about the known features of the upcoming BB10 handsets nearly half of the participants found at least one of the improvements compelling and a total of one in eight said they would happily consider buying a BB10 device. With this last stat we're not sure whether it's a good or bad one really, but one in one hundred people polled said they have firm intentions to pick up a BB10 device right from the off. 

   The main issue people are concerned with here is that consumers are already invested in either iOS or Android and Microsoft already know how hard it is to get people to change their OS after attempts to push BB10. What about you? Are you interested in picking a BB10 phone up or will you try to pick up a cheap Playbook to get your BB10 fix?
Via PhoneArena.

In other news:

• Samsung has today acquired NeuroLogica! They're a company that specializes in medical imaging! Things such as manufacturing portable computed tomography (CT) scanners and other medical instruments! This investment is part of Samsung's plan to become one of the world’s leading medical equipment companies by 2020!
  Via Slashgear.

• HTC have called a press conference at 3pm on Tuesday 19 February! This means that the guys from Taiwan are going to try to get a little jump start over the rest of the competition who will be demoing phones during MWC itself! The event will take place simultaneously in New York, but we're not currently sure who will be where!

• The Nexus 4 is in stock in select stores around the world at the moment. Germany, America and Canada have them and the bumpers in stock, we can't imagine that'll last too long though! Get going!
  Via PhoneArena.

• YouTube may soon be charging you to watch certain channels and shows on the website. According to Adage, Google are going to trial it on around about 25 channels! A Google spokesperson said, "we have long maintained that different content requires different types of payment models. The important thing is that, regardless of the model, our creators succeed on the platform."
  Via TheVerge.

• XBMC have released version 12 of their media center software. The update now means that there is full support for Android and the Raspberry Pi so you can get this running on any of those new USB Android computers. There's a tonne of new features as well! You can get check out the full details on XBMC's website here!
  Via Slashgear.

• Google now have a few details about North Korea's road on Google Maps. We're not sure if this has something to do with Eric Schmidt's recent visit to the country, but there's still no Street View and we'll be surprised if we see that any time soon!
  Via Hothardware.

And finally, ZTE will soon be releasing their new Blade C on the world. This will be the third in the series which you might know better for being called the Orange San Francisco's! According to UnwiredView the device will arrive with a 4 inch WVGA display, 3G, 3MP rear camera, Bluetooth 4.0, a dual-core 1 GHz MediaTek MTK 6577 processor, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of internal memory, and a 1,600 mAh battery. This isn't a bad set of specs for a phone which will cost somewhere in the range of $112 off contract (That's €84 or around about £72).

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02/01/2013: The Galaxy S3's 'sudden death' issue may be nearing a fix! The GameStick hits KickStarter, iOS Jailbreaking updates and much more!

The Galaxy S3's 'sudden death': Fix coming soon!

   A couple of weeks ago we reported that Samsung Galaxy S3's were randomly dying; there is a thread over on XDA which details the problem and where people with the same issues have been discussing their issues. 

   It seems that Sammobile stumbled upon a post from Samsung Benelux to Tweakers.net which explains how Samsung is busily working to fix the ”sudden death” problem which a select number of the 16GB variant have been suffering from. 

   Samsung again advises you to locate your nearest Samsung Care Point if you've had this issue and they will make everything as good as new! Hopefully we'll have more details on the fix soon!

Tweakers.net Via Sammobile.

There's a new KickStarter option for Android gamers!

   In the middle of last year a little Android powered games console came to the market called the OUYA! It was insanely popular and smashed through it's backing target! Fast forward to the first week of 2013 and Kickstarter proudly presents to you the GameStick!

   This is a tiny HDMI dongle-based game console that is designed to offer perfect portability and freedom while also offering a wide variety of games which we will come to in a minute! The whole device centres around the 'plug in and play' attitude and ease of access also extends to games as well. The creators have roughly 200 titles optimised from the Google Play store already and they're currently working with another 250 developers from places like Madfinger, Hutch, and Disney. Because you get the games direct from the Play Store GameStick are saying you won't be spending any unnecessary extra money on the games if you've already paid for them for your phone and/or tablet.

   You can currently back this project as an early-bird for $69 which will earn you a device and a controller, or if you aren't so lucky you may have to cough up an extra $10 to secure your pre-order. You can check out all the options here andHDMI dongle and a prototype controller embedded below. 

Via Slashgear.

In other news:

• Earlier in the week the iOS jailbreaking duo of Installous and Hackulous announced that they would be closing their doors because of their 'stagnant' forums and the challenges of moderating big forums. That doesn't seem to be too much of an issue though because of the emergence of Zeusmos and Kuaiyong, both of which offer one-click installs of pirated apps which don't require your device to be jailbroken.
  Via TheNextWeb.

• Google has teamed up with Kia to offer Google Maps and Google Places in your shiny new car! The deal includes Kia's UVO system which will be updated to allow users to send directions from their smartphone or computer to the in car system. The Google Places feature comes in useful if you need to find your nearest dealership and you'll keep the current assortment of music, hands-free and voice recognition features which should give you a comprehensive in car experience!
  Kia Via Engadget.

• A supposedly new smartphone by the name of the Sony C530X (C5303) or HuaShan, has been caught showing its stuff on the GLBenchmark. The tests showed up a 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro MSM8960T chipset with Adreno 320 graphics.The smartphone will also supposedly have a 720 x 1280 display with onscreen navigation buttons and Android 4.1.2 if the benchmarks proves to be accurate. We're not sure whether we'll see this device in daylight at CES, but it will most likely be here by the time MWC has finished in Barcelona this February!
  Via XperiaBlog.

• Nokia is planning to lock down their firmware site Navifirm. The news is not surprising as it's been slightly strange that Nokia has let anyone waltz in and take the pre-release software they wanted anyway! If you want your Windows Phone 7.8 action earlier we suggest you head over to the download site and yet the programme and the firmware you need before the end of January when the site gets locked down!
  Via WMPowerUser.

   

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11/10/2012

Samsung Galaxy SIII Mini finally official.

   This lovely little device, ladies and gentlemen, is the Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini. It became officially official in Germany today after tonnes and tonnes of leaks in the past week. Which, incidentally  turned out to be totally correct!

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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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27/09/2012

Qualcomm introduces some cheap quad-core processors for 2013's mid-range!

   Today Qualcomm has announced they have three new reference designs for future mobile phones. Each of them includes new processors which we can expect to see in consumer products next year.

   The new processors have the memorable names MSM8225Q and MSM8625Q! Each of these will have four CPU cores each and will support LPDDR2 memory. The chips will also have dual-SIM support, enough bus bandwidth for 720p video encoding and decoding and they'll play nice with 720p displays.

   The processors have slightly different radio compatibilities; the MSM8225Q has an integrated UMTS modem, while the MSM8625Q works with Qualcomm’s own integrated multimode UMTS/CDMA modem. Both of them will work with FM radio, Bluetooth 4.0, wi-fi connectivity, and Qualcomm Atheros AR6005 and WCN2243 chips.

   The final processor that's being worked on is going to be called the Snapdragon S4 Plus MSM8930. It's made specifically to support all China operators with UMTS, CDMA and TD-SCDMA. This processor was first announced way back in February 2011 and should be with us by the end of the year, but it won't turn up inside your next device until the first quarter of 2013. This processor is dual-core and has support for 4G LTE. So it'll work with LTE-TDD and TD-SCDMA in China!

In other news:

• Happy birthday Google!!! The company is celebrating their 14th birthday today!

• Rovio's new Bad Piggies is officially available in your app store of choice!!!... Assuming it's Google's Play store or Apple's App store.

• Google's Eric Schmidt came out today and all but called Apple a patent troll. This is what he had to say;

“Literally patent wars prevent choice, prevent innovation and I think that is very bad. We are obviously working through that and trying to make sure we stay on the right side of these issues. So ultimately Google stands for innovation as opposed to patent wars …I think one of the worst things that happened in the last few years has been the belief that somehow there are so many patents in the mobile phone world, an estimated 200,000 patent that are overlapping and complicated and so forth, that one vendor can stop the sale of another vendor’s phones or devices.”

• LG has filed a patent suit against Samsung in Korea, with the former accusing the latter of stealing some of the OLED technology. The most that's at stake here is $6million, so it hardly seems worth it to us!

• It turns out that the real reason Apple decided to ditch Google maps was because Google was unwilling to offer iOS users turn-by-turn navigation. Google instead wanted to reserve that particular right for their Android users! 

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25/09/2012

The news in brief:

• RIM has announced that carrier testing for their BB10 devices will begin in approximately A months time. So the company is on for a 2013 release! The company has also announced that they will have native support for Twitter, Facebook, Four square and many more social platforms from launch!

• Google has announced that any work on a version of iOS6 maps until they get a special invite from Apple to do the work. Eric Schmidt said it was up to Apple whether the iPhone 5 and other devices would get Google maps. Schmidt said that Google would "welcome" Apple's cooperation but said that "we have not done anything yet" to prepare a new version, so looks like you'll have to make do with iOS maps guys.

• Apple A6 teardown reveals the chip has a dual-core CPU and a tri-core GPU configuration.

• Apple have also announced today that scratches on their aluminium backed iPhone 5 are 'normal' and should be expected. Are you going to let Apple sell this excuse to you as a sign of uniqueness?

• Today some of Samsung's Galaxy series of phones, particularly ones which had been 'Touchwiz-ed' were found to be vulnerable to a simply html code which would automatically reset the phone. The issue currently affects the Galaxy Beam, S Advance, Galaxy Ace, and Galaxy S II. However, the Samsung-made Galaxy Nexus, which runs stock Android, is not susceptible. Neither is Samsung's latest beast, the Galaxy S3. “The USSD code issue in the SGS3 is patched, and has been for some time” TeamAndIRC said. “Current i747 [AT&T Galaxy S III] and i9300 [European Galaxy S III] firmware are not vulnerable.”
  
  Samsung has yet to comment on 'dialer-gate' but good things come to those who wait! We'll keep you updated.

• The Samsung Galaxy Note II is launching in the UK on October 1st.

And finally, here's a lovely little video from RIM explaining why they love their devs! It's kinda catchy!

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