In Other News: 20/02/2013.

• Analysts have started revising the success of Blackberry's Z10 launch. BGR have reported that Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley has revised his estimated from 1.75 million units shifted this quarter to a mere 300,000! This was after he supposedly looked at data from Canada and the UK and concluded that there had been limited initial stock and 'softer than expected demand'!

• BGR have also reported that analyst Benedict Evans did a little bit of math and worked out that somewhere between 4.5 million to 4.6 million units of the Nexus 7 have been sold, which is pretty darn good going, even if it's not on the same levels as Kindle Fire or iPad sales!

• Digitimes believe that Apple has lined up AU Optronics to produce the new screens in their next generation iPad minis! That's literally all the rumour says although we would hope to see an improved resolution, but we think that's unlikely because the iPad Mini isn't ready to take the next step up to Retina resolution until the cost of the panels comes down dramatically!
  Via HotHardware.

• Russia's YotaPhone has a future after the creators inked a deal with Hi-P international from Singapore to manufacture the device. Don't worry Hi-P are famed for making Apple, Blackberry and Amazon's eReaders so they're a trustworthy bunch! The device should be with us in the second half of the year and YotaPhone are opening an R&D centre in Singapore for future generations of the device!
  Via Engadget.

• HMV have closed yet more stores today. The company will close 37 shops and 464 jobs will go. Those affected are people working or living in: Ashford, Basildon, Bolton, Cheltenham, East Kilbride, Enfield, Folkestone, Glasgow Argyle, Gloucester, Grimsby, Hatfield Galleria, Heathrow T5 Departure Level, Heathrow Terminal 1, Heathrow Terminal 3, Heathrow Terminal 4, Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Isle of Wight, Lancaster, Leadenhall, Mansfield, Middlesbrough, Newbury, Newcastle Silverlink, Newport, Nuneaton, Redditch, Salisbury, Scarborough, Southport, Stafford, Staines, Stockport, Swindon, Taunton, Torquay and Woking!
  Via WhatHifi.

• The BBC have now released their Sport app for Android devices with screens smaller than 7"! You can get the app here, but apparently some features still use the mobile websites, things such as Twitter and Facebook sharing do, which is a shame, but it's better than nothing!
  Via Eurodroid.

• The iPhone 5 overtook the Samsung Galaxy S3 to take the title of best selling smartphone for Q4 2012! When you combine sales of the iPhone 5 and the iPhone 4S, Apple sold 20.6% of the world's smartphones in the quarter!
  Via StrategyAnalytics.

• Nokia will supposedly wait a little bit longer to show off a tablet device, so don't get your hopes up for seeing one at MWC!
  Via MobileToday.

• Yesterday Samsung quietly announced a Wifi-only version of their Galaxy Camera! Pretty much everything is the same as before and you can get all the details here!

• For those of you who have missed HTC's 'trade-up' offer to help you get the HTC One into you hands then you can find full details here! (Unfortunately it's only for US users at the moment, but we're hoping they'll extend the offer).

And finally, what can $79.99 by you these days? Well a fair bit actually, especially if you spend it on Kyocera's brand new Event smartphone on Virgin Mobile. The device will be all yours for that price, without a contract and it runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and there's a HVGA, that's 480 x 320p IPS display measuring 3.5 inches, a 3.2-megapixel camera, and a 1GHz processor. That's nothing mind blowing there, but it is a great back up phone or a really good first smartphone!

Via AndroidGuys.

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Innovations from CES 2013: The future of notifications?

   In the flood of devices, some good, some bad and some incredibly bizarre but kind of cool, there were a couple of things which we thought really stood out from the crowd. Unsurprisingly, both of these are somewhat futuristic and we're not really sure which one we think will be the future. But, we have no doubt that the first of these will be showing up on a smartphone near you at some point in the next couple of years and this is....

The flexible OLED screens from Samsung!

   One of the things which got us most excited was Samsung's demonstration of their flexible screens, which we have been promised for so long. It certainly looks like the wait will be well worth it if Samsung's CES demo is anything to go by! 

   If you have a quick look at the video above then this next little bit will make more sense!

   One of our favourite things from the video above was the idea of the wrap around notification area! If we could get our way with that bit of tech we would extend its uses far past simple notifications! For example we would see that that area was able to control music playback and perhaps we could even squeeze a little keypad in sideways, for a quick call home or even a little Google Now button for when you're driving!

   The other obvious plus here is that these screens will be a lot more durable than the current crop of screens! This is a massive plus and with a bit of luck it will mean that it'll be considerably harder to wreck your phone when the next generation drops! 

   We'd love to hear what you're thinking the area could be used for! So let us know in the comments below!

The Yotaphone!

   We've actually heard about Russia's Yotaphone before. It's a device which offers you two screens. The front screen is a normal screen you would expect to see on your smartphone, but the back isn't what we would call conventional.

    Instead of metal or some sort of plastic, what we actually have is an e-ink display! The main use of this is meant to:

 "Lets users watch videos, play games and perform other functions best suited on the LCD, but adds an electronic paper display for content that requires longer reading time, like reading a book or magazine. It also keeps important information visible without draining the battery. Boarding passes, maps, tickets and other important information are displayed even if the battery dies."

     Another interesting idea is that the screen can be used as a notification area when your phone is face down on your desk! The rear screen can essentially be your personal organiser, while the phone will only need to be turned on for the functions that can't be accessed from the e-ink display!

   We're not sure which one of these will become the standard but we have a feeling that Samsung's idea will undoubtedly become widely implemented, whereas it would've been nice to see Yota's idea in the Nexus 4 or similar glass backed devices!

   You can see a demo of the YotaPhone from AndroidPolice embedded below!

The full press release for the YotaPhone is available here!

So which would you like to have in your hands if you could have one right now for free? We know which one we're looking forward to the most!

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

HTC and UEFA agree a sponsorship deal.

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

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

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

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

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

O2 in trouble with ASA and possibly with you!

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

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

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

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

In other news:

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

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

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

Via AndroidPolice.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Via Engadget.

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