SAMSUNG GALAXY S ADVANCE OFFICIAL: Android MID-RANGER WITH TWO CPU CORES

Samsung just made the Galaxy S Advance that leaked this morning official, and the specs are quite likeable. Graced with a 4" Super AMOLED display with the obligatory 480x800 pixels resolution, the Galaxy S Advance was rumored to be Samsung's first effort with the 1GHz dual-core NovaThor chipset from ST-Ericsson.

Samsung Galaxy S Advance official: Android mid-ranger with two CPU cores
This raised our suspicion that it is destined for China, as handsets like the HTC Z710t usually have this chipset specifically because it supports China Mobile's TD-SCDMA network. NovaThor iterations also support HSPA+ networks as well, and the Galaxy S Advance is listed with 14.4Mbps HSDPA radio, so we can very well see it in Europe as well.

There is a 5MP rear camera with LED flash and 720p video recording, as well as a 1.3MP front cam - we don't know what's with Samsung, but the Galaxy R also has a dual-core processor, yet record "only" 720p video. ST-Ericsson lists on its site a NovaThor U5500 dual-core chipset, which has a 14.4Mbps modem integrated with up to 720p video recording, so that's what we might have in the Galaxy S Advance.

The rest of the specs are Android 2.3 Gingerbread, 768MB of RAM, 8 or 16GB of internal memory, and DivX/Xvid video codec support right out of the box. Not a bad configuration with a dual-core chipset, but we will spare final judgment until we get our hands on one, and put it through its paces.
Source-Samsung

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MICROSOFT MIGHT BRING SOME OF THE XBOX LIVE MOBILE GOODNESS TO ANDROID AND iOS

Xbox Live integration is one of the huge selling points of Microsoft's Windows Phone, and with the valid right to be so - it integrates with your Xbox 360 experience, and encompasses or will include TV, video streaming, music and social networking.

With all these under the big roof of its gaming division, which brought us success stories like the Kinect, it is no wonder that Microsoft is looking to bring the Xbox experience to more popular mobile platforms as well, and spread the word.

It's a bit tricky, though, since a full-blown port would cannibalize on one of Windows Phone's competitive advantages, while the lack of the Xbox Live experience would hurt name recognition and Xbox 360 owners who would sport other than WP devices. Microsoft has eventually decided to give it a shot by offering some, but not all, of the Xbox Live functionality, similar to what it did with My Xbox Live for iOS, and its much richer Xbox Companion app for Windows Phone:

''While the Xbox Live experiences and games always work best on the Windows platform, we understand that some Xbox fans may be using other types of devices. To satisfy that need, we are working to extend a few of our Xbox experiences and titles to other platforms.''

There you have it, directly from a Microsoft spokesman. Hopefully this means that we'll finally see some of the Xbox Live functionality and games officially in the Android Market.
Source-phonearena

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GOOGLE+ SAYS 'YES' TO NICKNAMES, BUT NO TO ANONYMITY

Google relaxed the strict naming policy for Google+ users and will allow nicknames and pseudonyms on the social network. The new naming policy, announced by Google’s Bradley Horowitz on Google+, will start rolling out this week and allows users to choose alternatives names, be it nicknames or names in non-Romanized languages. But there’s a caveat.

Even if you add a pseudonym to your Google + account, such as "Jedi Master", people will still see your "real name" adjacent to your nickname (see image below). Much to the chagrin of human rights activists, who have argued it should be easier for Google+ users to protect their true identities, Google does not let you with its move Tuesday.

[Click to enlarge] Since its beginnings seven months ago, Google+ took Facebook’s strategy to use real names to the next level. To enforce the use of real names on the social network, Google disabled users accounts that did not use their (purportedly) real identity. At first, Google was criticized for disabling accounts without notice, and later began sending warnings to address the problem to users infringing the naming policy.

But Google found that 60 percent of Google+ users (now more than 90 million) want to be able to add a nickname to their identity, while another 20 percent simply prefer to use a pseudonym or another unconventional name. As with Facebook, Google also found some 20 percent of signups are businesses that try to create a profile instead of a page.

A Google+ nickname or pseudonym does not mean your full name won’t be displayed on the social network anymore. If you choose an alternate name, it will be added to your real name registered with the account. For example, if John Doe wants to use the "DUDE" nickname, the name will be displayed as either; John “DUDE” Doe or John Doe (DUDE). You can’t just have the nickname displayed. To add a nickname, go to Edit profile, select your name and click on More options.

Good News for Prima Donnas

The good news though is that Google will allow established pseudonyms, such as Madonna, as long as users provide proof to confirm their identity. This may include references in news articles or scanned official documentations, such as a driver’s license. Google will also accept as proof an established identity online with a meaningful following, but it’s unclear how sizeable this following would have to be.

“This seems like a reasonable compromise: all the joys of pseudonymity, without any of the unpleasantness that comes with anonymity,” a Google+ user commented on Horrowitz’s announcement, but most users seem to remain unsatisfied with the change.

“None of us wear ID tags in real life as we walk the streets. We don't show our ID card to the cashier when we shop for groceries,” another Google+ user argued. “But we do write letters to the editor for the local newspaper under a signature of our choice and we have nice and polite conversations to strangers we meet at the public library or on the bus without giving up our identity. Truth is we simply don't need to reveal our identity to each and everyone who happen to look our way (unless maybe we have a very big ego and/or are trying to "brand" our name or something), it works just great anyway.”
Source-pcworld

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WINDOWS 8 TABLETS: STILL HIDING

Considering that 2012 will be the year of Microsoft's dramatic upgrade to Windows 8, one might have thought the floor of the Consumer Electronics Show last week would be filled with prospective hardware platforms for the new Windows operating system. it might have seemed logical to expect that to hear lots about tablets with Windows 8. But news on that front was surprisingly...quiet.

While CEO Steve Ballmer talked Windows 8 at his keynote and showed a Qualcomm prototype tablet running Windows 8, Intel's Paul Otellini briefly showed a and Lenovo unveiled its innovative IdeaPad Yoga, a Windows 8-primed convertible notebook whose screen can twist around to turn into a tablet, little chatter was heard on the Windows tablet front.

The same three companies that showed off Windows 8 on ARM processors at BUILD were in the mix once more. Nvidia got things started by having a Microsoft rep do a five-minute demo of Windows 8 running smoothly on an Nvidia reference platform at its press conference. Then, just hours thereafter, Ballmer was on stage showing the Qualcomm tablet already seen at BUILD. And in private briefings off the show floor, Texas Instruments displayed a Windows 8 reference platform.
Running 7, Testing 8

A few Chinese tablet makers displayed tablets of distinctly generic design running Windows 7, but only one spoke specifically to Windows 8 plans. One tablet maker, Kupa, showed off its X11, a Windows 7 tablet available now that runs an Intel Atom Z670 processor; Kupa exhibited the tablet running the Windows 8 Developer's Preview, and billed it as Windows 8-ready thanks to its 1366-by-768-pixel, 16:9 aspect ratio display -- which matches to Microsoft's optimized target for Windows 8; and to the specs of Samsung's Series 7 tablet, distributed to Microsoft BUILD attendees last fall with the Windows 8 preview preinstalled.

But beyond the Yoga -- an inventive concept that's perfect for making noise at a big event like CES -- none of the tablet makers were ready to talk about Windows 8 on a tablet, and what we might expect to see in that form factor. Samsung had nothing to discuss at the show on the Windows 8 tablet front.

Fujitsu's Paul Moore, senior director of product development, hinted that Microsoft is encouraging a clean look on tablets that will run the new OS, but “they've been a bit vague so far.” Fujitsu, which already has the Stylistic Q550 on the market running an Intel Atom CPU, is looking at least one, maybe two updates to that model's specs by midyear. The company is looking at boosting performance for better video playback. “That seems to be the biggest challenge on Atom,” Moore says. “And that's the noticeable complaint customers have: The video is a little choppy.”
Windows 8: The CPU Question

The Windows 8 interface is clearly optimized for touch, but what remains unclear is what, if any, advantage Windows 8 will have when it comes to the tablet market. That's in part because Microsoft hasn't yet clarified if and how exist Windows apps will work on the Windows 8 version destined for use on ARM processors. ARM tablets will have a distinct weight, power, and likely price advantage over tablets with x86 processors, which makes the ARM tablet space an intriguing one to watch.

Meanwhile, Intel is readying a dual-pronged approached to tablets to compete with the coming ARM onslaught. Its single-core Medfield platform, launched at CES and due in the second quarter, is designed for Android; and its Clover Trail platform, due in the second half of this year, is built from the ground up for Windows 8. Clover Trail will replace the current Atom chips being used in most of the Windows 7 tablets available today, from companies like Fujitsu, Kupa, and Viewsonic; only Samsung, with its Core i5-based Series 7, has released a Windows tablet that uses the beefier CPU common to laptops.

What should users expect from ARM devices? In a private demo, Qualcomm showed off the second public Windows 8 build of its reference system, this time showing that the connected standby feature was enabled, even for connectivity like AT&T 4G LTE. Connected standby, a new state that powers down the system in a way that you can resume immediately, will enable 4G Windows 8 tablets to save power and extend battery life, for example.

“Microsoft has discussed this new [to its OS] concept of always on, always connected. We see this as a marriage of smartphone functionality and computing,” says Qualcomm's Steve Horton, director of software and product management. “The content you care about will be active, and you will be able to program it, and it will be able to be fed.”

While tablet makers were mum when asked how ARM platforms will influence their tablet designs, the use of ARM will no doubt keep things interesting. In a previous conversation at BUILD, Horton noted that with ARM chips, there's no restriction on form factor beyond the fact that Microsoft is asking hardware OEMs to stick to displays with 16:9 aspect ratio to match the optimal screen size for the new Windows 8 Metro interface.

When asked about Windows 8 tablets using ARM, for example, Senior Designer Junghwan Hong and Principal Designer Sangwon Yoon, the Samsung designers involved in creating the gorgeous, lightweight Series 9 laptop, shied away from specifics, but admitted that the prospect of ARM presents a new design opportunity and challenge.

“As designers, we are studying ARM,” Yoon says. “ We have a lot of different form factors for ARM devices. ARM has no fans, so for designers, that's a good feature.” One logistical challenge: ARM tablets will likely carry relatively low prices, which “means we cannot use fancy materials. But they have to look good. That's a challenge.”

And it's likely not the only challenge for Windows 8 tablets. Even without any solid teasers at CES, 2012 promises to shape into an interesting year for tablets running Microsoft's next operating system refresh.
Source-pcworld

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ABSINTHE UNTETHERED A5 JAILBREAK TOOL FOR APPLE iPHONE 4S AND iPAD 2 MADE EASY ON BOTH WINDOWS AND MAC

Now that the Dev Team got around Apple's built-in A5 chip defenses, it released a software for untethered jailbreak of your iPhone 4S and iPad 2. The crew has made it a very simplified process, which rewards you with access to Cydia and all the goodies of jailbroken apps, that make the iPhone and iPad that much more functional.

The tool is called Absinthe (GreenPois0n, we get it), and offers one-click jailbreaking for both Mac, as well as Windows now. If you have been itching to do this, and get access to some of the cool things developers are doing with jailbroken Siri, get the respective Absinthe file for your OS from the source link, and check the instructional video below.

Bear in mind that Absinthe is not an unlocking tool, so if you need to be unlocked, stick with iOS 5.0, this is only for jailbreaking iOS 5.0.1 devices, and you can't come back to iOS 5.0, once you've updated, at least for the time being. Also, don't upgrade to iOS 5.0.2 once it's released, since you will lose the jailbreak.
Source-phonearena

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iBOOKS 2 APP CONTAINS HIGH RESOLUTION GRAPHICS,POSSIBLY FOR iPAD 3'S DISPLAY

You didn't think that iOS developers would simply let the new iBooks 2 app get away without getting dissected, did you? Well, you might be interested in knowing what they found while digging through its insides. The software contains high-resolution graphics that are believed to be meant for use on the iPad 3's screen. As denoted with a “@2x” in their file name, the graphics have twice the resolution than the ones that are currently in use.

That the iPad 3, or whatever it is called, will have an improved display is something that we have heard many times from a number of sources. It is speculated that it will boast a resolution of 2048 by 1536 pixels effectively delivering twice the pixel density when compared to its predecessor, assuming that its physical size remains unchanged, of course.

Interestingly, that is pretty much what happened when the iPhone 4 was released – at 640 by 960 pixels, the so-called Retina display had twice as much pixels per inch than the iPhones before it. And that was a smart move that made developers' lives much easier. While native apps could make use of all those extra pixels, legacy applications could run easily by simply having their pixels doubled to fill the entire screen. 

Of course, do not forget that the above is just a speculation. After all, high-resolution graphics were discovered in Apple iBooks software prior to the iPad 2's release, yet we didn't get to see an upgraded display. On the other hand, an iPad 3 with a Retina display would not come as that much of a surprise given the amount of rumors that we've heard so far pointing at that direction. And with all those high-resolution tablet displays that we saw at CES 2012, we are definitely sure that the technology needed for achieving such pixel counts is already available.
Source-phonearena

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iTUNES MATCH LAUNCHES IN 19 ADDITIONAL COUNTRIES

Apple has updated the company’s iTunes Match service to include 19 additional countries. The list includes Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, Guatemala, Honduras, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela, bringing iTunes Match availability to 37 markets in total. Apple debuted the iTunes Match service late last year. For an annual charge, customers can scan and match tracks from their iTunes libraries and replace them with tracks in the iTunes Store and store them in iCloud. Apple lets customers download up to 25,000 tracks without DRM restrictions, with the ability to match any track in a supported audio file format.
Source-bgr

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Motorola DEFY+ JCB LIMITED EDITION LANDS IN THE U.K.

What is black, tough, and carriers a JCB logo on its back? No, it is not a piece of heavy machinery that we are dealing with here. We are talking about the limited edition Motorola DEFY+, which just got announced.

What makes the Motorola DEFY+ limited edition different from the standard model is that it is coated with an extra layer of armor making it even more suitable for people working in the construction and engineering sector. The patented visco-elastic protective sleeve from JCB is there to protect the device from drops, spills, and other accidents that might occur in extreme environments. What further complements the experience is the list of software that comes pre-installed on the device: a spirit level, theodolite, decibel meter and recorder, torch, unit converter, calculator, and DIY store locator. Last but not least, a car charger with an extra long cable comes bundled too.

Other than that, however, the handset is practically identical to the standard Motorola DEFY+. It comes with the same 1GHz processor and 3.7-inch display with 480 by 854 pixels of resolution. A 5-megapixel camera is located on its back, and a 7.2Mbps 3G radio gets you hooked up to the internet while on the go. In terms of software, you get Android 2.3 Gingerbread out of the box.

The Motorola DEFY+ JCB limited edition is now available for purchase in the U.K. for a price of £259.99 ($400).
Source-phonearena

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THE BEST LAPTOP FROM SONY

Sony’s VAIO SB series, as configured in our review unit (model VPCSB1BGX), offers the best overall performance of any ultraportable laptop we’ve yet tested. It’s light, thin, and a pleasure to use despite a few minor annoyances. Pity, then, that this configuration costs $2500. The base model starts at only $900 (as of August 12, 2011), but that configuration wouldn’t dominate our benchmarks as our review model does.

The VAIO SB is a 13.3-inch ultra portable that weighs a modest 3.7 pounds, perhaps a touch less for lower-end configurations. The high-end model we tested may cost $2500, but you get some pretty impressive hardware for that price. Start with a Core i7-2620M processor, a dual-core CPU with hyper threading that runs at a base clock speed of 2.7GHz. In addition to that very capable processor, toss in 8GB of RAM, switchable graphics (an Intel integrated chip plus a Radeon HD 6630M with 1GB of graphics RAM), and a fast 256GB solid-state drive. Not enough? How about dual-band 802.11n networking, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, a combination BD-ROM and DVD burner, and support for Intel’s WiDi wireless display technology? How Sony crammed all that good stuff into a sub-4-pound, 1-inch-thick 13-inch laptop is beyond me.

All that hardware was enough to deliver a WorldBench 6 score of 144, higher than any mark we've seen from other laptops of this size and weight. Does all that power destroy the battery life? Far from it. In our rundown test the VAIO SB's battery lasted an impressive 7 hours, 19 minutes. A physical switch above the F3 key allows you to change between 'stamina' (integrated graphics) and 'speed' (discrete graphics). We ran our battery-life tests with the switch on the 'stamina' setting; enabling the Radeon discrete graphics will cut battery time in half or worse. We also tested the optional slice battery that fits neatly across the bottom of the laptop and makes the machine a third of an inch thicker and almost a pound heavier. This optional accessory adds about 5 hours of maximum battery life.

There’s a lot to like about the design of the VAIO SB series. The matte display has a resolution of only 1366 by 768, but that’s typical for a 13.3-inch screen. Color, contrast, and brightness are pretty good, and horizontal viewing angles are better than on most laptops I’ve seen. Vertical viewing angles are predictably poor, though: The screen will either get washed out or too dark if you open the lid too far, or not enough. The island Chiclet-style keyboard is quite good. Key travel is a bit on the short side, but spacing is nice and the keys have a good, tactile, clicky feel. The touch pad is similarly good. It tracks smoothly and accurately, with two distinct buttons on which it’s hard to accidentally register clicks. It supports a fairly wide variety of multitouch gestures, though two-finger scrolling is not on the menu.

The left side of the system is sparse, featuring only the BD-ROM and DVD-burning combination optical drive. All the action is along the right edge, which has a Memory Stick slot, an SD Card slot, VGA and HDMI outputs, one USB 3.0 port, two USB 2.0 ports, gigabit ethernet, and the power jack. Those who like having a physical switch to disable Wi-Fi will be happy to know that the VAIO SB series offers one at the front edge.

As usual, Sony loads down its system with a little too much software for my tastes. I’m not a fan of the pop-out dock at the top of the screen, or of the way Norton Internet Security constantly nags me to pay up once the 30-day trial is over. It’s great that Sony bundles Photoshop Elements 8, Premiere Elements 8, and PowerDVD, though. Also included are ArcSoft webcam software, Sony’s media gallery, and Microsoft Office Starter 2010. If you’re like me and you prefer your laptop a little more lean and mean, it’s easy enough to remove most of this stuff.

It’s a little disappointing that the VAIO SB's fit and finish aren’t quite up to the standards we’d expect from a $2500 laptop. It just doesn’t have the perfectly clean lines and premium build materials we usually find in systems this expensive. In this case, it’s because our test unit is at the very upper end of a line that is meant to start at $900--and at that price, the overall design is about average. In other words, I’m really impressed by the outstanding performance and usability of this very expensive ultra portable laptop, but oddly enough I'm a little underwhelmed by Sony’s sense of style.
Source-pcworld

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FIRST CLOUD FOR PHONES:APPLE

Apple has built a search engine for apps. It’s called iCloud – or more technically, it’s one aspect of the overall iCloud service. Using it, you can search through every app you have installed on your iOS device or have ever purchased in the past. And it’s available on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch right now.

The average smartphone user has 64 mobile apps installed on their mobile device. I’m ahead of the curve. I have around 400. It’s pushing nearly 7 GB of storage. Granted, many of these apps were installed for testing purposes only – they aren’t used daily by any means. But my real problem is that I’m not inclined to remove apps I don’t use. They just sit there on the phone, abandoned, languishing on the back screens. I could delete them, but I don’t. You know…just in case.

But the promise of iCloud, as I see it, is that these apps can disappear from the iPhone’s homescreen, but never have to fully disappear from reach. They can be recalled through a simple search.

Note to Android users: This whole post is about Apple’s iCloud. Android has cool ideas, too. I love my Nexus S. But Android is not being addressed in today’s article.

That search mechanism already exists. For now, it’s tucked away under a couple of screens within the iPhone’s App Store app. It’s neither an everyday necessity for the average user or functional enough for a power user’s needs. But it’s there, and somewhere at Apple HQ, it’s being improved.

Today, it’s easier to flip through your screens to find your apps, especially if you only have 64 of them (or less). Worst case scenario: you can’t remember which folder you tucked the app in, so you flip to the left side of the homescreen and use Spotlight Search to find the app in question instead.

But let’s extrapolate out to a few years into the future. A few years of downloading and abandoning apps on our backscreens. A few years of iPhone upgrades, with hundreds of leftover apps syncing to new devices. Why not delete the unused apps? Why not perform regular app cleanups? Because users are lazy. I’m lazy. I don’t want to. I have better things to do. So does everyone. And so the apps continue to sync from one device to the next, forgotten.

We need a new metaphor for search. Homescreens, app folders and Spotlight Search will not be enough. We need a cloud-hosted index of searchable apps.

A number of companies are working towards this end. (See: Chomp, Quixey, Do@t, Xyologic, Appolocious, AppsFire, Kinetik, and Crosswa.lk, for example). There are a lot baby steps being taken here, and the occasional leap. Build a search engine like Google, but for apps! Include rankings and user reviews! Use keywords from app descriptions! Make it social! All good ideas. But not enough.

And anyone who’s just building an app search engine app without some other larger business behind it, could easily get trounced on by Apple in the coming months.

To see what I mean, check out the bare-bones iCloud app search engine that’s on your iOS device right now (assuming you’re on the latest version of iOS):

        Launch the App Store app.
        Tap “Updates.”
        Tap “Purchased” (at the top).
        Drag the screen down so you can see the search box.
        Enter in a keyword (try something common, e.g. “photo.”).
        Tap “Search.”

Look at your results. There, all your apps matching your keywords. Ranked by – how? – I’m not 100% sure, but it looks like time of installation. It’s certainly not update date or alphabetically.

This iCloud app search engine is only partial functional, though. Like Spotlight, it only looks at the app’s titles, not descriptions, for keywords. It doesn’t know how much you’ve used an app or how you’ve rated it. Sometimes, it would show me which apps were installed versus which are available on the cloud. Sometimes it got buggy and showed all apps as having the iCloud download button, even if they were installed on the device.

But it’s there. And it’s only a matter of time before iCloud search is integrated with Spotlight Search and Siri, via APIs. We’ll soon be calling up our preferred apps using natural language, both in typed-in queries and in spoken ones. We won’t need to know whether the app is currently on our phone. iCloud will know. Siri will know. We may not even need to initiate the download ourselves. Our phone will do that for us.

In addition, our homescreen clutter will be gone. Apps will delete themselves after periods of non-use unless you configure them as “locked.” Maybe there will be an “auto organize” option for our homescreens, which arranges apps based on usage.

With the exponential growth of the mobile application ecosystem, this is one of the only possible ways to manage the entirety of a user’s app archive in the months ahead. Many of today’s apps are cloud-enabled, but this will be a cloud-enabled phone.

Maybe I’m dreaming? But if Apple can’t get it done, someone should. (Android? Windows Phone? An app developer? A startup?) The mobile ecosystem is still young enough to be entirely disrupted by someone with a new idea for parsing the new web of apps. Today, I believe it’s Apple that’s the closest to implementation, given the glimpse it’s given us with iCloud. But who knows? We could still be surprised.

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iPAD 3 COMPLETES CHEAKLIST

The iPad 3 will run on the next-generation wireless networks called long-term evolution, or LTE, according to a report by Bloomberg. This lets Apple’s iPad keep the marketing edge against Android tablets.

Some manufacturers of Google’s Android-based tablets are hitting the market first with LTE. But overall, if the iPad gets LTE support by March, as expected according to these reports, Apple will have completed a checklist of extremely compelling features for the device — at least if you believe the reports leaking out in recent months. The iPad reportedly will sport an amazingly enhanced high-definition screen produced by Sharp (it will be a 2048-by-1536-pixel resolution, according to one rumor). This lets Apple’s iPad keep up with higher resolutions manufacturers are producing for Android tablets. The iPad will also run on a faster quad-core A6 processor that lets users jump faster between applications, and will have better front and rear cameras, according to the reports.

True, it may be a little silly to compare the iPad with Google’s tablets, as if this was really apples to apples. It’s not. Many consumers have essentially made their mind up. For example, even though Google’s Android-based tablets are hitting market first with LTE, and may offer this or that little additional bell or whistle, there are a ton of Apple fanatics who simply don’t care about Android.  There are just too many Apple features they’re already in love with, and they’re hooked by Apple’s focus on delightful design and user experience. And vice-versa. There are Android fans, who just don’t want to buy into Apple’s slightly more closed ecosystem, and will buy an Android tablet over the iPad any day. So really, no one is going to win this battle over a slight technology edge.

Those religious differences aside, if you’re looking as simply a technology comparison, the latest LTE move gives the iPad an edge overall. If the iPad can boast at least a close match to any given Android tablet in the main spec areas (screen resolution, speed of processor, speed of network, app offering, etc), it wins, simply because it doesn’t suffer Android’s big “fragmentation” problem. Each manufacturer of an Android tablet can come close to matching an iPad’s offerings, but each one of them use a different version of Android’s OS, a different chip manufacturer, a different network configuration, and a different set of agreements with carriers about its deck, different marketing campaigns. It just creates confusion around branding. Each manufacturer dilutes attention from the other. Cheaper, poorly performing versions of Android tablets detract from its allure. Overall, Apple is left sitting there able to boast that it consistently offers best in class with its iPad.

That’s why the move to LTE is so important for Apple’s iPad. Of course, the questions are now focusing on the iPhone, and when Apple will support LTE for that device. Carriers such as Verizon Wireless and ATT are rolling out LTE networks to give users faster access to data, and so the networks are there. But Apple is bringing LTE to the iPad before the iPhone because the tablet has a bigger battery and can better support the power requirements of the newer technology, the Bloomberg report said.

According to the Bloomberg report, Apple’s manufacturing partners in Asia started ramping up production of the iPad 3 this month and plan to reach full volumes by February.
Source-venturebeat

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INFOBAR C01: JAPAN’S NEWEST ANDROID PHONE

Japan’s mobile landscape is currently in the midst of an Android revolution, and today KDDI au (the country’s second biggest carrier) announced another 5 smartphones with that OS on board for the local market. The most interesting model in the new line-up is the so-called INFOBAR C01 [JP], a candy bar coming with a heavily customized UI (based on Android 2.3).

KDDI au introduced a similar model back in May last year, the INFOBAR A01 (both handsets are part of KDDI’s designer sub-brand iida).

The fresh model, which is more compact and weighs a little less, features the following specs:

    3.2-inch screen with 854×480 resolution
    8MP CMOS camera
    e-wallet function
    digital TV tuner
    infrared
    USB, microSDHC ports
    Bluetooth 3.0+EDR
    Wi-Fi
    CDMA/GSM/GPRS compatibility
    size: 130×52×12.3mm, weight: 106g

One of the biggest selling points (apart from the unusual design)  is the redesigned iida UI, which you can see in the video embedded below (Japanese narration).

KDDI au plans to start offering the INFOBAR CO1 next month.
Source-techcrunch

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VERIZON'S SMART ENERGY BUNDLES ARE LIVE, COMPANY LOOKING TO EXPAND THEM

After the launch of the trial version in December 2010, Verizon’s Smart Energy home project finally went live a couple of months ago allowing customers to remotely lock doors, manage lighting and heating, and even spy what’s happening at their homes over the installed cameras. The company is also planning on expanding their offers through more smart home devices in the months to come. With the option to control your home smartly via your smartphone, the home automation tools seem like a thing many homes would have in the near future.

When it comes to the Smart Energy product sales up until now, the company’s bundles that have proven more popular than the stand-alone solutions, Verizon’s Director of product development, Home Monitoring and Control, Ann Shaub, said.

Interestingly, the company is not marketing its home energy bundles as energy-saving solutions, so that’s one thing to also take into account.

Verizon partners with Ingersoll Rand for its security portfolio, and Aeon Labs for thermostats and energy readers, but as the offers expand more companies may join the partnership. What we know, though, is despite the lack of hard sales figures Verizon confirmed that the Smart Home division is here for good.
Source-phonearena

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SKYPE FOR WINDOWS PHONE

Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype promised to be a marriage made in an integration heaven — especially for Windows Phones owners — but so far it’s been all talk and no action.

A Skype for Windows Phone application, however, will soon make its debut, Skype vice president of products Rick Osterloh asserted in a recent interview taped at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas.

“We’re … working on a Windows Phone product that will be coming out soon,” he said.

When Microsoft purchased the video-conferencing company for $8.5 billion in June 2011 (the deal closed in October), it talked up an unrivaled Windows Phone Skype offering that would include deep integration between the voice over IP service and its mobile operating system. But the merger still has Windows Phone owners waiting for platform integration, let alone a basic application on par with what’s already offered on iPhone, Android and BlackBerry.

That wait is likely to continue. The first Windows Phone product, according to The Verge, could be released as soon as the Mobile World Congress in February, but it won’t be the much-ballyhooed operating system-wide offering originally touted by the companies. Windows Phone owners may have to wait for this rich Skype integration until the Apollo software release, which, according to a leaked roadmap, won’t happen until the fourth quarter of 2012.

“We understand, from our own sources, that the initial release of Skype will not feature deep Windows Phone integration, and that Microsoft is planning this for “Apollo” and beyond,” The Verge is reporting. “Microsoft’s first Windows Phone Skype application will largely be seen as an interim release until Windows Phone ‘Apollo’ is made available.”

But Microsoft and Skype would like you to know that integrations are coming — eventually. “We’re working with a lot of different Microsoft product groups to create direct integrations,” Osterloh said. “Right now, we’re working on Windows Phone, we’ll be working on Windows 8, Xbox, Lync. So a whole range of different Microsoft users will get access to Skype and have a great experience.”

Skype, Osterloh said, now has more than 200 million monthly users.
Source-venturebeat  

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WINDOWS PHONE

Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform managed to gather some buzz coming out of this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, largely on the strength of Nokia’s Lumia 900, which made its debut in the context of the event.

According to a document posted on the Nokia Developer Website, the Lumia 900 will appear in the United States in March. It features a 4.3-inch display and a 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, and runs Windows Phone’s latest software update (“Mango”). Some analysts regard it as a flagship device for the newly minted Nokia Windows Phone brand.

HTC also announced its own new Windows Phone device at CES, the Titan II. It features a 4.7-inch WVGA screen, a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, and a 16-megapixel rear camera.

Those devices will obviously target the higher end of the smartphone market. In addition, Nokia is marketing a midmarket smartphone, the Lumia 710, which T-Mobile prices at $49 with a two-year contract. Samsung’s Focus Flash on AT&T also costs $49 with a two-year contract, and makes a similar claim for more budget-conscious consumers.

Can Microsoft succeed with this new generation of Windows Phone devices? Reports suggest that a massive marketing campaign is in the works for 2012. In a Jan. 10 interview with eWEEK, Greg Sullivan, senior product manager for Windows Phone, suggested that the Mango upgrade made Windows Phone “an incrementally more appealing sale” for both carriers and manufacturers.

Throughout the next year, he added, Microsoft will work on developing new market segments. “We’re going to continue to have that range,” he said, referring to both the high-end and more midmarket price points. “Top to bottom, we’ll have the best story.”

Microsoft faces something of an uphill battle if it wants to wrest large portions of the market away from the likes of Apple’s iPhone and Google Android. Sullivan suggested that Microsoft’s dip in market share throughout 2011 had been anticipated by the company, a consequence both of the antiquated Windows Mobile platform falling from favor and Windows Phone ramping up only gradually. “We knew this was not a one-year plan,” he said.

Throughout its history, Microsoft has demonstrated an ability to play for the longer term. Its Xbox initiative, for example, took years to become a viable, profitable enterprise. If it treats Windows Phone the same way, given the turbulence and shifting fortunes of the smartphone market, then in theory there’s no reason why Microsoft can’t eventually rise to far greater prominence. But as with any initiative, it’s all in the execution: Microsoft will need its partners (and retailers) onboard with its strategy, its Windows Phone devices to review well, and maybe even a little luck.
Source-eWeek

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THE BEST ANDROID PHONES

It's hard to believe that it's been just three years since Google's open-source Android mobile operating system hit the scene. When the first Android phone, the T-Mobile G1, was released, the mobile landscape looked very different. Most people carried simple handsets that focused on making calls. If you were lucky, you could listen to music or play games on your mobile phone. Back then, you didn't have to have a smartphone that ran thousands of apps to let you, in the palm of your hand, do many of the things your computer could do. Apps weren't even a thing yet. Apple had only released the iPhone 3G and launched its groundbreaking App Store a couple of months earlier.

It was the introduction of Android that helped propel the app-based smartphone to what it is today. The thing Android offered, which Apple's iPhone couldn't, was choice. Since it was an open-source platform, several hardware manufacturers could use the OS on their handsets, and a variety of wireless carriers could offer those phones—and they did.

A year after Android was released, in the U.S. there was a single Apple iPhone on a single carrier, but there were eight different Android handsets with varying form factors available on three of the four major carriers. Today, you can find a variety of Android phones on AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless. According to Comscore, Android enjoys 45 percent of the U.S. smartphone market.

That's a lot of phones to choose from. To come up with our list, we've chosen two winners for each of the four major carriers, and if you're contract-phobic, the best unlocked handset. If you've settled on Android as your mobile platform, these phones are your best bets—for now, that is. At this rate of growth, we can assure you that there's another great 'Droid right around the corner.
Source-Pcmag

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VUZIX SMART GLASSES BRING AUGMENTED REALITY INTO FOCUS AT CES

Vuzix Corporation came to CES 2012 armed with a video eyewear technology that, as they put it in the press release, "breaks the boundaries of conventional optics and display solutions". SMART Glasses Technology is based on integrated HD display engines and waveguide optics, as opposed to refractive and/or reflective optics used so far. What does that actually mean and is this technology really going to make Head Mounted Displays lose their association with bulkiness and strange looks? Read on for a report straight from the CES 2012 floor.

The wares proudly displayed in Las Vegas crown years of internal R&D work coupled with a recent licensing deal with Nokia. The SMART Glasses Technology relies on a compact HD display engine churning out images with brightness and contrast good enough for outdoor use. The output passes through a 1.4 mm thick plastic waveguide lens and the resulting image is extended in 2D into the user's eyes.

Since the projected images are merged with the real world information, you can safely watch a movie on the go without bumping into things. But the company sees the technology as much more than just wearable TV. The glasses are meant to work in unison with Internet connected mobile devices, which leaves the door wide open to augmented reality (AR) based applications.

Whatever AR magic the glasses are set to perform, the software will have a lot of hardware to rely upon. SMART Glasses, or at least some varieties of them, will be able to record and transmit everything that the user sees. They will also be capable of recognizing their environment and their position in the real word.

Throw in some integrated head tracking and options for multiple camera technologies that "broaden the users' sensory perception across a greatly expanded light spectrum" and you can see why, apart from the consumer markets, Vuzix is also eyeing the commercial and industrial markets. It's probably with the last two in mind that the company came up with some pretty interesting form factors, like that helmet mounted monocle for example. Consumers can rest assured, however, that all this cutting edge technology nicely fits into an ordinary pair of shades. Finally, making a fashion statement will cease to be a compulsory part of the deal.
Source-iTechee

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iPHONE 5 TO FEATURE SLIMMER DESIGN, MAY OPARATE ON ALL 3G AND 4G LTE NETWORKS

Apple’s next-generation iPhone will be slimmer than its current iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S models according to a new report, and it may feature a quad-mode chipset that will work across all 3G and 4G LTE networks. In a note to clients on Friday, Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty wrote that Apple’s business will continue to grow despite slowing demand high-end smartphone market. Mirroring a small piece of countless reports, Huberty says Apple’s next-generation “iPhone 5″ will feature a new slimmer case. The iPhone 5 will also feature a new quad-mode chip from Qualcomm that could allow it to operate on all 3G and 4G LTE networks, Huberty wrote. Finally, the analyst says Apple will launch the next-generation iPad 3 tablet some time in the first half, at which time it will lower its price on the current iPad 2 tablet to attract a broader range of customers. BGR exclusively reported last month that Apple is preparing to launch a completely redesigned iPhone this fall with an aluminum case and a rubber or plastic bezel that will cover a new wrap-around antenna.
Source-bgr

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THE RELEASE IN THE BRAND NEW FIFTH AGE GROUP iPHONE

The release in the brand new Fifth age group i phone is definitely inevitable and with this specific planned numerous stores have become intensely discounting their latest apple iphone 4 offers as they transfer share to produce room for your brand new phone.

The buzz from the brand new Apple iPhone Five (Köpa iPhone 5) is utterly tremendous, actually generating more interest compared to the launch of the actual iPhone 4 but will customers decide to acquire an apple iphone 5 on this financial state?

With lots of family members battling to pay costs and also tons of employment opportunities at an historical lower will individuals genuinely pay the top asking price in the brand new iPhone Your five discounts if they are actually launched?

A better solution according to a current review seems to be sure, very good with the brand new apple iphone A few far exceeds those of the last The apple company mobile phone launch and it looks cash does not seem to be a problem.

That said, individuals are nonetheless getting iphone4 bargains each day sufficient reason for tumbling range leases who have right now been recently reduced this indicates the newest product could have a battle in their fingers.

Packaging inside more technological innovation plus a brand-new design your i phone Five continues to be likely to launch at a cost marking more than that of the particular Next age group cell phone on the original discharge.

Latest commitment bargains to the iPhone possess get decreased sharply over the past month or so, it had not been which sometime ago that you might not necessarily grab a free apple iphone 4g with no departing using at least £35.00 range hire just about every thirty day period for a 2 year timeframe deal.

These kinds of charges have recently been discounted although and also both the black and white color versions with the latest phone can be utilized for £30 line hire each month.

Much like the prior I phone Device there’s likely to end up more discounting after the release of the most up-to-date style creating the iPhone 4 a far more attractive idea and maybe bringing it’s prices in accordance with fighting mobile phones.

The previously mentioned study says 66% associated with existing iPhone 4 customers will certainly improve for the brand new design right after its launch but more intriguing is it additionally learned that 31% of present neo Apple mackintosh cell phone customers may also be considering the obtain.

Without having precise price tag details exposed confirmed along with the expense of the iPhone 4 falling rapidly the research probably have differing outcomes upon the actual telephones launch.

Source-statsnstones

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