In Other News: 23/05/2013.

• HTC have explained why there's no MicroSD card support in the 'normal' versions of the HTC One but there is in the Chinese version. It's all down to those pesky LTE radios which take up the extra space. Seeing as they don't need as many radios in the Chinese version there's the room in the chassis for the SD Card slot, so it's all quite logical really!
  Via TechRadar.

• BB10.2 is being worked on at the moment and Blackberry's Michael Clewley, has revealed that the update will add support for unicode emojis, multiple alarms and level 1 notifications for emails. The SDK will be out in June and it will land on devices later in the year!
  Crackberry Via Engadget.

• Mediatek's General Manager confirmed to ITProportal that the company will release a 'global LTE offering' later this year. Hold your hats guys budget devices are going to be seeing a lot more LTE!

• Infinity Ward have confirmed that Call of Duty Ghosts will be coming to both the PlayStation 4 and the PlayStation 3! Yay for the current generation support!
  Via Slashgear. 

• Twitter have started rolling out two-step verification to stop those hacks which we've been hearing so much about lately! If you're in the UK you can make use of the service assuming you have a phone on all major networks except for EE and T-Mobile, but you're good if you're on Orange! Full details on how to set it up are on Twitter's blog here!
  Via Slashgear.

• Sky and Virgin Media have inked a £49 million deal which will see the latter help the former with its network infrastructure over the coming 5 years!
  Via TheNextWeb.

• Rumours have surfaced today that Samsung will supply Google with high-end oled screens for Google Glass! Check out the Korean Times' article here!
  Via AndroidBeat.

• HP have raised their earnings outlook for the year after positive results which have been credited to the new input of CEO Meg Whitman. When she took over she promised more quality products and you can check out some of her results in consumer devices here, here and here!
  Via Reuters.

• Google Play magazines has been updated with a lovely new UI!
  Via Android Central.

And finally, Pheonix Devices have officially successfully funded their Kickstarter campaign to get Android apps on the WebOS powered HP Touchpad! The guys raised a total of $45,533 which was about $10,000 more than they wanted originally! The best way to announce the news is the way Pheonix did on Twitter! Full details on their plans can be found on KickStarter here.

GOOAAALLLLLL!!!!
— Phoenix I.C. (@phxdevices) May 23, 2013

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LG said to be working on OLED phone screens and a Nexus 5 as they draw closer to Google!

  Things are starting to look up for LG lately; yes their phones are a bit like Samsung's, but they're also very good. Take a look at that Nexus 4, it's certainly not the case that LG don't know how to design a good looking phone. It seems like the guys want to take their phone business a bit further and today there's been a fair few rumours about upcoming phones as well as a shift in their technology plans.

   First and foremost the Korean Times is reporting that LG have said, via their spokesperson, Frank Lee that:

“LG Display will produce an ‘unbreakable OLED display’, the first phase of flexible displays, at our AP2 line of the 4.5th-generation plant in Paju, Gyeonggi Province. The move is aimed at taking a lead over rivals in the race for next-generation displays.”

   This obviously marks a shift towards OLED displays and suggests that LG think they're the future too. The unbreakable bit just refers to the way that the pixels are glued to plastic instead of the glass like they are at the moment. The plastic is meant to make everything more flexible and in theory meaning that they won't break if they're dropped.

   Secondly, another report from the Korean Times suggests that LG and Google are set to work together on a successor to the Nexus 4, as well as the pair drawing closer on TV's, powered by Google and things like the Glass headset which Google are also working on at the moment. According to 'sources' the two companies:

“They exchanged views about the latest mega trend in the global information technology (IT) industry. They also discussed how to form an alliance in futuristic projects as part of the big picture.”

   One of the reasons for this drawing together is said to be the 'novel' way which LG has developed for using head-mounted displays, with web connected TV's, but we aren't given any details of what they are.

   The key thing to draw from this is, as the Korean Time's sources rightly point out, that, “LG needs help from Google to continue its business momentum in smartphones and TVs. That’s why Koo met Page.”

   What do you think? Do LG need Google or can they grow without their help? Or do you want a LG Nexus 5? Let us know in the comments below!

Via AndroidBeat and TechCrunch.

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Is there some sort of Google and Samsung OLED team-up in the wings?

    Samsung and Google have a habit of getting together to make great products. That Nexus 10 pictured above is the best example of their recent collaborations, but the Nexus S and the Galaxy Nexus, weren't too shabby either and the two companies are close in relation to a lot of big businesses out there. The pair rely on each other for the success of their mobile devices and their smartphone OS respectively, but that doesn't necessarily mean that their cooperation should end there. 

   In an interesting report from the Korean Times it seems as though Samsung are giving their best to try to get Google to partner in their OLED business! According to the report a recent meeting between Samsung Electronic's Vice Chairman, Lee Jay-yong, and Google's Larry Page resulted in the latter 'showing much interest' in the former's OLED operations and there's the suggestion that the two companies could team up. 

   Page supposedly met with Samsung execs and shared a spot of lunch after taking a tour of one of Samsung's OLED factories, supposedly Page was interested in some sort of deal in the future. Which led to Samsung saying that, ''We don't rule out the possibility to enter a new business partnership with Google in OLEDs. But more time will be needed for further details.'

   There could be any number of reasons for Google being interested in OLED displays, AndroidBeat suggested that this could be Samsung asking for a gesture of goodwill and as a way to keep them interested in Android, as they acknowledged though this could be for any number of reasons and then again we could be completely wrong! What do you think this is all about? Have you got any theories? Let us know in the comments below!
Via AndroidBeat.

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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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