Saturday, March 15, 2014

Finally! A date! Google Chromecast UK release date set for March 19

Finally! A date! Google Chromecast UK release date set for March 19
We just had Ash Wednesday, now it's time for Cast Wednesday

After months of waiting and procrastinating, the long-awaited Google Chromecast streaming dongle will finally go on sale in the UK this coming Wednesday 19 March, according to leaked retail inventory.

Hours after a retail source told TechRadar the HDMI stick would be going on sale "very soon," a leaked screenshot, purportedly from Dixons' internal systems, emerged showing the actual launch date.

The screenshot obtained by Android Police explains how stock of the device is showing up at retail locations, but "must not go on sale before 9am on Wednesday."

Just yesterday, a Twitter user posted an NDA-smashing photo of "a box of Chromecasts," apparently from a Curry's or PC World store. Unsurprisingly, the picture has since been deleted.

Google recently updated the Chromecast Android app with support for over 50 languages, seemingly signalling that the international roll-out is imminent.

Worth the wait?

The update comes after the retail source strongly hinted the device would be on sale for £30. It costs $35 (around £21) in the United States. Brits will seemingly have to pay a little more for the privilege of owning a Chromecast dongle.

Will you be snapping up Google's streaming stick this week? Is it worth the wait? Let us know in the comments section below?


Source : http://www.techradar.com/news/portable-devices/finally-a-date-google-chromecast-uk-release-date-set-for-march-19-1234225

The inevitable Samsung Galaxy S5 Zoom may have a hexa-core chip and huge display

The inevitable Samsung Galaxy S5 Zoom may have a hexa-core chip and huge display
So far the Zoom series has failed to entice phone or camera fans

The Samsung Galaxy S5 is yet to hit shelves, but there's already talk of the inevitable flock of variants that are sure to follow later this year.

On this occasion, it's the Samsung Galaxy S5 Zoom, the likely next instalment in the company's rather strange part phone, part fully-fledged digital camera device that's the subject of speculation.

Benchmarking tests of the model SM-C115, which boasts a way-too-big-for-a camera-sounding 4.8-inch screen, 8GB of storage, 2GB RAM, Android 4.4.2 KitKat and, interestingly, Samsung's Exynos 5 Hexa chip.

According to the tests, uncovered by Italian site Webtrek.it, the rear-facing camera will be a whopping 20-megapixels, while the front of the device will feature a 2-megapixel camera sensor.

Surely this device can only be the S5 Zoom?

Gap in the market?

The Galaxy Zoom range, despite photographer-friendly specs and full access to the Google Play store has failed to gain much critical and commercial traction to this point.

The Galaxy S4 Zoom, the second in the series, came with a more reasonable 4.3-inch display, dual-core display, 10 x optical zoom and a 16-megapixel sensor, earned a 3.5 star review from TechRadar in 2013.

"We really want to like the Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom but we're just not sure there's a gap in the market for it. If the camera or phone part was better or the price tag was lower then it would make sense, but right now it's a poor compact married to a mid-range phone at a high end price tag," our reviewer wrote.

Can the Galaxy S5 Zoom buck the trend and be a hit? Do you really want a camera with a near 5-inch screen? Is a hexacore processor really that necessary for a snapper? Let us know your thoughts.


Source : http://www.techradar.com/news/photography-video-capture/cameras/the-inevitable-samsung-galaxy-s5-zoom-may-have-a-hexa-core-chip-and-huge-display-1234217

New Samsung Galaxy Beam spotted at Tenaa

Samsung’s Beam phones with built-in pico projectors never really caught on, but the company has another one in the works. The Samsung SM-G3858 builds on its predecessor while staying in the mid-range.

The phone was certified by Tenaa, which is where the info comes from. The next Beam features a 4.66” LCD with only WVGA resolution and is powered by a quad-core processor at 1.2GHz with 1GB RAM. It runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean.


Samsung G3858, the new Galaxy Beam

Unfortunately, there’s no info on the projector itself but the bump is visible at the top of the device. You can also see the projector button above the Power key. Previous Beams used nHD projectors (640 x 360).

Additional specs include a 5MP / 1080p camera, 3G connectivity (including TD-SCDMA) and a microSD card slot. The new Galaxy Beam measures 134.5 x 70 x 11.7mm and weighs 165.5g.

The device bears the China Mobile logo on its back, but that doesn’t preclude the possibility of an international version.

Source (in Chinese) | Via


Source : http://www.gsmarena.com/new_samsung_galaxy_beam_spotted_at_tenaa-news-8039.php

Alleged screenshots from the LG G3 have QHD resolution

A User Agent profile revealed the LG D850 will have a QHD screen (1,440 x 2,560), which are the same claims about the LG G3 and its 5.5” screen. We’re wary of QHD rumors (as many didn’t pan out), but now there are screenshots for proof.

The screenshots show an instantly recognizable Optimus UI and indeed have QHD resolution. However, there’s no shot of the About screen to confirm that this is indeed the LG D850.


Alleged screenshots from the LG G3

There’s not much that can be gleaned from the shots themselves, other than that the floating Q Slide window for text messaging has been polished since the LG G Pro 2.

Note that we downscaled the screenshots above to make them easier to view - 1,440 x 2,560 is too much for most screens. Here are links for the full resolution screenshots: Shot 1Shot 2

The LG G3 is supposed to be unveiled on May 17, according to rumors.

Source (in Dutch) | Via


Source : http://www.gsmarena.com/alleged_screenshots_from_the_lg_g3_have_qhd_resolution-news-8040.php

Counterclockwise: HTC HD2, Galaxy S4, Xperia Play

Welcome to this week's edition of Counterclockwise – our weekly article that looks back in time at what happened in the last few years. Updates are a big issue this week, but we'll also look back at a true legend and scratch our heads at Sony's failure to rule the Android game market.



Rumor has it...

Mid-March 2013 was a busy time – Samsung had decided to launch its Galaxy S4 flagship then and our news section from then is littered with leaks about the phone. There was even a full review up before the S4 went official the following day.



But before Samsung lifted the curtains, Phil Schiller (then SVP of marketing at Apple) took a few swipes at the Samsung flagship saying it will run "a year-old version of the operating system". He turned out to be wrong, Android 4.2 was the current version and that's what the Galaxy S4 came out with, but he did touch on the subject of OS updates which is still a hot issue for Android.

We'll be back to that in a minute as there are other interesting rumors from that week. Back then everyone was looking for a mysterious Motorola X Phone – a Google-sanctioned powerhouse. This one wasn't it, but it turned out to be the Moto X, which it's heralded as one of the best Android experiences out there all the while sidestepping the cult to specs.



Meanwhile, leaks suggested Nokia was planning to go back to aluminum bodies and xenon flashes with the Lumia 928. That proved to be partially false though – the Lumia 928 for Verizon did indeed have xenon, but it was the GSM Lumia 925 that had an aluminum frame (but no xenon).



Updates available

Updates are handled differently by the different platforms. Apple controls iOS with an iron fist and updates roll out on schedule, sometimes even ahead of schedule – in mid-March 2011, Apple released iOS 4.3 two days earlier than planned.



It doesn't always go smoothly even for Apple - a year later, Apple was on the next major version and was rolling out iOS 5.1. This update overwhelmed Apple's servers with demand initially, but eventually everyone got to download it.

Android is much more dependent on carriers and the multiple versions of the same device complicate things further. The start was simpler though, in March 2009 the first Android phone, the T-Mobile G1, was receiving Cupcake – the first major update.

It enabled an on-screen keyboard, which is what made the next phone in line, the HTC Magic, possible.



Three years later in 2012, phones were moving on to Android 4.0 – the Samsung Galaxy S II got it and HTC put out a long list of phones that will get it. Android 4.0 introduced Holo – the new look and feel of Android. The 4.x branch is still the current major version of Android but we've had four 0.1 updates since then.

It feels like things have accelerated for Android – the three Jelly Beans and now KitKat brought plenty of important updates.

Windows Phone has picked up even more speed. To put things in perspective, March 2012 was when we first heard of WP7.5. That branch was eventually discontinued in favor of Windows Phone 8, which is closing in on Android in terms of hardware support.

High resolution screens and fast chipsets are already available, while the upcoming WP8.1 update will add dual-SIM support too (very important for the entry-level where Windows Phone is the strongest). The 8.1 update is also supposed to bring an action center (notification area with toggles) and a digital virtual assistant (Cortana).

Surprisingly, Symbian was still getting updates in March 2013. The Nokia 808 PureView and 701 received a minor fix for telephony issues that some users were experiencing. The once king of smartphones was still alive just a year ago, but it's already fading from memory.



A legend is born

The HTC HD2 was unveiled in late 2009 and in March 2010 it arrived on T-Mobile USA. The carrier called it "Larger than life entertainment powerhouse" and back then it was. The HD2 followed in the footsteps of the Toshiba TG01 with a large 4.3" screen and fast 1GHz processor. It was also a very compact phone for its screen size.



The phone launched with Windows Mobile 6.5 but since the modding community took over, it has run Windows Phone 7, Android (there are KitKat ROMs available) and even Ubuntu (there were sweet triple-boot setups available too).

The community is still very active and someone ported the Nokia X software to the phone. There are even Jolla and Firefox OS ROMs too. At this point it's easier to list the OSes that aren't available for the HTC HD2. Just so we're clear, Windows RT would not be on that list.

Android, the game platform?

Sony has a long list of products that have become household names and PlayStation is one of the most famous. The company did make an attempt to translate this success to its new darling, Android. The Xperia Play was getting ready to launch in Spain back in 2011 and looking at the price tag we almost choked.



Price wasn’t the only reason the Xperia Play went the way of the Nokia N-Gage. The slide-out controller was nice, but the single-core, first-generation Snapdragon just wasn’t up to the task of 3D gaming. Dual-cores with newer Adrenos were coming out and Bluetooth controllers were already a thing.

When that didn’t work out, Sony tried doing PlayStation in software – any Xperia with enough oomph under the hood could run bespoke games. In 2012, Sony added the PlayStation store to its then flagship, the Xperia S.



Android is picking up as a game platform with several consoles, the most famous of which is the Ouya, but NVIDIA (the well-known GPU maker) has one too. Google might (might) be working on one too (the company bought controller-maker Green Throttle Games) and it's all happening without Sony.


Source : http://www.gsmarena.com/counterclockwise_updates_are_hard_and_so_is_mobile_gaming-news-8036.php

Friday, March 14, 2014

Samsung's latest accessories include ultrasonic cover, print-reading stand

Samsung's latest accessories include ultrasonic cover, print-reading stand
The Core gets more Advanced

Samsung is introducing three new accessibility-oriented accessories for the Galaxy Core Advance made specifically to help the disabled or visually impaired.

The first, and perhaps most impressive, of the three is an Ultrasonic Cover that uses sound waves to detect people and objects ahead of the user.

It's nowhere near a bat(man)'s echolocation, but it can send out obstruction-sensing sound waves up to two-meters away.

After detecting an object, the cover will inform visually impaired users if they're getting close through vibration and spoken alerts.

Glove
Ultrasonic detection to help the blind

Smartphone, tell me a story

Another accessory Samsung announced for its low cost smartphone was the Optical Scan Stand. It's essentially a scanner set on a stand that reads any printed materials passing in front of its sensor.

Once the user taps the Optical Scan application on the Core Advance, the device will automatically recognize and read the text out loud.

Samsung, Optical Scan Stand, Optical Scan Stand, Ultrasonic Cover, smartphone accessories, Newstrack
The Optical Scan Stand was defintiely made for home use

Samsung's last little helper is called the Voice Label, which allows the user to identify objects with their phone and make notes or tag voice labels to them.

Voice labeling works with all NFC-enabled electronics and it's meant to help the visually impaired with distinguishing their devices and recording a short explanation on how to use them.

The new Galaxy Core Advance accessories are already available and Samsung noted it has plans to expand the accessibility to its other Galaxy devices in the future.

  • Samsung's new flagship smartphone is here; see our hands on with the Galaxy S5

Source : http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/samsung-adds-an-ultrasonic-cover-to-the-galaxy-core-advance-1234097

OnePlus One design sketches suggest aluminum unibody

OnePlus One just can't stay away from the public ahead of its announcement. The upcoming flagship is a regular in our news section both via officially shared information and various leaks.

Today's leak spills the beans on the One's design and build materials. According to the sketches the OnePlus One will be using a unibody aluminum shell. You can check its alleged design below.


The leaked OnePlus One sketches (click to expand)

The OnePlus newborn company is composed primarily of former Oppo employees. It is designing a top-notch smartphone with a 5.5" 1080p display with some of the thinnest bezels we've seen so far - a previous leak suggested the OnePlus One can disappear completely behind the 5" Xperia Z1. The One will run on the snappy Snapdragon 800 chipset and will cost less than $400.

The OnePlus One should go official on March 16, so we'll know everything very soon.

Source | Via


Source : http://www.gsmarena.com/oneplus_one_design_sketches_suggest_aluminum_unibody-news-8038.php