HTC put their history of innovating into a three minute video: Needs to look forward more!

   We all know HTC make great phones. The HTC One this year, the HTC One X the year before, the HTC G1 and there's been great little phones like the HTC Desire and the Wildfire in amongst those too.

   HTC have selected their own highlights of what the company's achieved so far and put them into this little mundane video down below. It shows things all the way through from the Compaq iPAQ pocket PC right up to Beats Audio, which they're mighty proud of, and it concludes with the HTC One. It's a nice little video, but it feels a little downbeat and there's some glaring omissions like the Nexus One, but we just feel that the company should portray themselves as vibrant and exciting, but instead we're told that:

"We've come a long way, but one thing hasn't changed – it's people like you that inspire us to create the most innovative products in a world that becomes more connected every day."

   What we want HTC is for you to look to the future with more excitement of what's to come! The company has said they want to drop the 'quietly brilliant' tagline, but this ad seems to reinforce it all over again!
Via AndroidPolice.

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Sony's yearly report is in: Here's the plan department by department!

   Sony's annual report which shows us the state of affairs within the company has been released today! In recent years things haven't been too great, but for once there's a few little hints here and there that things might be starting to turn around!

   The good news for Sony was that the company is profitable again! This was mainly down to the film and financial services departments of the company as well as lots of asset sales! Sony still seem to be struggling with consumer electronics, but we'll go into that in a bit more detail now!

The Sony Xperia Z!

   In the smartphone and tablet department things have been going well and the company is looking to build on their solid position with, 'accelerate the speed with which it develops and rapidly delivers compelling products to customers,' so essentially Sony want to cut down their development time to get products to market sooner, which is a solid thing to do given that the flagships for this year are rocking Qualcomm's older Snapdragon S4 Pro processors instead of the new Snapdragon 600's which everyone else is deploying!

   The story is somewhat similar when it comes to computers, but the real focus will be on a new realignment which will see the company prioritizing profitability over increasing sales, which makes sense because Sony's laptops tend to target the higher end at the moment any way!

   Imaging has always been a particular strength of Sony and the company seem to know it. There are plans in place to 'reinforce the professional camera line-up centring on 4K-compatible cameras, as well as cameras for cinematography.' The Japanese company are also looking at new revenue streams with things such as security, sports and medicine being the starting point for this. On a more mundane level consumers can expect compact cameras with 'enhance image quality... reduced size and weight, and higher-powered zoom,' all of which sounds pretty good to us!

   Gaming is an interesting topic at the moment too, especially with yesterday's reveal of the Xbox One, the ball is firmly back in Sony's court to see what they do with the PS4! There's not too much detail in this report, but the guys do say that it will arrive in time for the holidays this year and the aim is to offer 'a quality gaming experience only possible through a dedicated gaming system, and will also enable smartphone and tablet users to share in the enjoyment of PS4, even without owning one themselves.'

The battle will be over the next generation of consoles as Sony focus
on gaming and Microsoft go after living room domination!

   The PS Vita will tie in quite closely with the PS4 and owners of both will be rewarded with exclusive content and there will be some interesting price reductions on the Vita, as well as some
more compelling games coming in the near future, especially focused around software downloads instead of physical game sales! The PS3 will be supported for a few more years, but there's not really much doing there now as the focus is shifting to the PS4!
 
   And finally, when it comes to the TV business, things aren't looking great, but the company is pledging to continue to work on their 'Full HD TV models, while also expanding its 4K LCD TV line-up'. There will be a renewed focus on emerging markets because that's where the growth is at the moment with the hope that cost saving can bring this department back into profitability over the next few years!

   If you're interested in checking the report out in more details then head over to Sony's website here and let us know what you think about Sony's future in the comments below!
Via Engadget.

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In Other News: 21/05/2013.

• The image above is of an upcoming phone for Sprint. It's the LG Optimus F3 a smartphone with a 4.0-inch 480 x 800p WVGA display, a dual-core processor and Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean all of which is powered by a 2,460mAh battery.
  Via PhoneArena.

• Finland are about to get the coolest postage stamps ever! The country has announced that they are planning on offering Angry Birds stamps! Check it out in the image to the right.
  Itella Via Stefan Constantine.

• Samsung have launched a new wallet app in Korea and the US! The app is basically a merger of Google's Wallet solution and Apple's Passbook!
  Via Engadget.

• According to the guys over SamMobile Samsung are planning to add fingerprint software into their upcoming smartphones if a torn down APK gives anything away!

• HTC's flagship the One is looking set to get Android 4.2.2 in the coming weeks according to some tweets which AndroidGuys have noticed from one of HTC's developers.

• Anonymous have supposedly taken action over hunger strikes at Guantanamo Bay by prisoners who have had indefinite imprisonment without trial. As a result Anonymous threatened to take Guantanamo's computer systems down, this had led Guantanamo to shut down its wireless Internet network.
  Via Slashgear.

• According to Digitimes 10% of the notebooks shipped during Q1 had touchscreens on them!
  Via Slashgear.

• Huawei are supposedly planning to create a 6.5" smartphone, which would dwarf their 6.1" Ascend Mate.
  Digitimes Via AndroidBeat.

• Opera for Android has exited Beta and is now ready for mass consumption and it can be had here!
  Via TechCrunch.

• Twitter have been granted a pull to refresh patent, but the company has promised that they will only use it defensively! There's much more commentary on this at the source link below!
  Via TheVerge.

• Archos' 50 Platinum smartphone is now up for pre-order from their site here!
  Via Facebook.

And finally, the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active which popped up yesterday appears to have landed on YouTube too courtesy of the guys at MobileTechReview. Check out the video below for full details!
Via PhoneArena. 

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People now spend more on smartphone gaming then dedicated portable consoles!

Image Credit: Mashable.

   The guys over at AllThingsD have been able to get their hands on a report before it was published which indicates that for the first quarter of this year mobile gaming had more money spent on it than the dedicated handheld console, which consists of devices like the Nintendo DS and PS Vita,  market did.

    To be fair this comparison in Q1 is a little deceiving. The sales on portable handhelds like the PS Vita are very cyclical and they tend to focus very heavily on the Christmas period, whereas mobile gaming has a consistent stream of high quality games coming to the market throughout the year so it's not just a one off, as you can see in the bar charts below.

   The thing is that with mobile games getting ever better and your mobile phone and tablet becoming ever more powerful, people find it hard to justify the extra outlay on devices which offer comparable experiences. Lets face it, if we could play Angry Birds on our phone and only have it ad-supported, instead of dropping $30 on it for a console game, we think we'd probably opt for the free version. This price gap definitely has some sort of impact because people are more inclined to spend little amounts more often on mobile games then make more substantial purchases on dedicated games.

   The interesting thing to see now will be what direction this market goes in the future. Will everything be on your phone or do mobile games  consoles still have a place? Let us know your thoughts in the comment below!
Via AllThingsD.

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in Other News: 18/03/2013.

• Motorola Droid 4 users on Verizon you can expect Android 4.1 Jelly Bean to be heading your way soon! Verizon has updated the support page to reflect the enhancements from the update which you can see here. Otherwise it's Jelly Bean as you would expect complete with Google Now and that Project Butter smoothness!
  Via AndroidCommunity.

• ST-Ericsson lost their CEO the other day and now they have announced that the venture will not be going much further. Around 1,600 jobs will be lost and you can find a lot more details at the source link below!
  Via Engadget.

• Sometimes it's good to follow the polls on other sites and PhoneArena's 'Do you care about viewing angles?' is a very good debate! So the guys found that 51% of respondents didn't care about the viewing angles on their phone, whereas only 48% said it was an indicator of superior technology and they want good angles. Where do you stand in that debate?
  Via PhoneArena.

• EA's CEO John Riccitiello has stepped down citing his personal accountability as the reason for his company missing operational targets.
  Via Reuters.

• Talking of EA, for those of you who have been affected by the shoddy SimCity launch you can have your choice of: Battlefield 3, Bejeweled 3, Dead Space 3, Mass Effect 3, Medal of Honor Warfighter, Need for Speed Most Wanted, Plants vs. Zombies, and SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition as part of EA's apology!
  Via TheVerge.

• Digitimes is reporting that Asus will produce a new phone with a screen between  and 5.5" which will be powered by one of Intel's brand new dual-core chips! On top of that there's also rumours of a Nexus 7 refresh!
  Via AndroidCommunity.

• Gmail for Android has been updated to include the 'archive' and 'reply' features direct from the notification bar! Head to the Play Store on device and demand that immediate update!
  Via AndroidCommunity.

And finally, have you got a Windows Phone 7.8 or 8 phone? Well you might be pleased to know that your phones are guaranteed for 18 months of updates, which is Microsoft's promise! Ironically though Windows Phone 8 started its life on December 14th 2012and so official support ends on August 7th 2014. Whereas Windows Phone 7.8 launched on February 9th 2013 and so ironically it will be supported longer, into September 2014.

Via Engadget.

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Sony gun for third in the world smartphone table as we hear rumours of a summer device!

   Sony have said that they are gunning for the third place in the smartphone wars! The position just behind Apple and Samsung would mean Sony beat out China's Huawei and ZTE, both of whom have similar aims for the forthcoming year!

   Naturally this position could only be achieved through a broad portfolio of products and to that extent Sony will 'alter smartphone development for each market' according to the head of their mobile business, Kunimasa Suzuki. That means that the guys from Japan will have to offer cheaper devices for developing countries, which may help explain why Sony are going to develop Firefox OS devices.

   The latest IDC report suggest that at the end of 2012 Sony could rank themselves as number four in the smartphone world, sandwiched between Huawei in third and ZTE in fourth. As it stands Sony have 4.5% of the world smartphone market and Huawei and ZTE have 4.9 and 4.3% respectively, so it's not unreasonable for Sony to secure third place if they offer a compelling portfolio of devices this year! Samsung and Apple are streaks ahead at the moment, with the pair boasting more than 50% of the market together!

   With that in mind a post over on the XperiaBlog grabbed our interest. It reports that Sony are working on a new device which goes by the codename C670X. The device is basically a smaller version of the flagship Xperia Z. On board there's rumoured to be a 4.8-inch Full 1080P HD display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 APQ8064T chipset clocked at 1.8GHz quad-core processor which comes with Adreno 320 graphics. There's supposedly 2GB of RAM, 32GB internal storage and a 13MP Exmor RS rear-camera. If they guys have got their stuff right they think  the phone will launch in the middle of the year rocking Android 4.2 Jelly Bean!
Via Reuters and XperiaBlog.

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