Facebook Home is currently available right here in Google Play.
The app aims to make Facebook the focal point of your phone, taking over your homescreen and providing you with a feed of your friends' posts, a means to chat with friends, and keep your notifications in a central spot...
Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 platform is chasing third place behind the ever popular Android and iOS. It is a decent option for anyone seeking an alternative to the big two, but it’s not without its flaws. In this roundup, we take a look at common WP8 issues that have been reported by users, and we try to find good workarounds or solutions. If you’ve encountered any of these Windows Phone 8 problems and you know of a good solution that hasn’t been mentioned, then please post a comment and we’ll add it just as soon as we can.
It wasn't too long ago that we didn't need to worry about our cellphones dying at inopportune moments. In fact, the batteries could last us for days without needing a charge.
But now that our smartphones are, well, smarter, and we use them for dozens of functions, their batteries drain a lot faster.
Mobile holograms may soon be popping up everywhere from phones and tablets to billboard advertising.
HP is in the process of developing a 3D mobile display for images and video that can be seen from any angle, which they've just published and described in the journal Nature.
"This would mean you would see something like in 'Star Wars,' with the famous hologram of Princess Leia," study researcher David Fattal, of HP, told New Scientist. "If you were to display a 3D image of planet Earth, by turning around the display, you'd be able to have a view of any country on the globe."
Now the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the HTC One have both been officially announced, the Android rumor mill is turning its attention to the Motorola X Phone, the name given to the first, true hardware collaboration between Motorola and new owners Google. It has not been officially announced yet, but there have been some subtle hints dropped by Google executives concerning its existence, and these are regularly joined by leaked, speculative feature lists.
We start the week with another set, this time provided to PhoneArena. In keeping with previous leaks, the anonymous source states the X Phone may have a 4.8-inch screen and be powered by a 2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor. Following some comments made by Google’s Larry Page, it has been assumed the X Phone will have a tough exterior and a powerful battery. This new rumor suggests the phone will be water resistant and the screen will be covered in sapphire glass, which as we found out during Mobile World Congress, is almost indestructible. Couple this with rubberized corner protection and a carbon fiber rear panel, and you’ll have to be pretty careless to do the handset much damage. Finally, a massive 4000mAh battery could provide the X Phone with all the energy it needs, and Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie may be its operating system.
The fine folks at Tinhte have gotten their mitts on a Motorola-made Android phone that hasn't made its official debut. Right out of the gate, the outlet notes that it's not the rumored "X phone" since it's missing a large, stunning screen that would rival other flagship gear, but the specs still give it a fair amount of horsepower. Behind the device's roughly 4-inch 720p screen hide a Snapdragon S4 Pro (or better), an Adreno 320 GPU, 2GB of RAM and a 2,000mAh battery.
Earlier this year, the Library of Congress allowed an exemption to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act to expire, effectively making it illegal to unlock cellphones purchased after Jan. 26. A group of citizens outraged at the unlocking ban started a petition on the White House’s “We The People” website to fight the new law, garnering more than 114,000 signatures in 30 days.
Today, the White House responded. The verdict? The administration is firmly in support of ending the unlocking ban. Unfortunately, it can't do very much about it on its own.
David Edelmen, senior advisor for the Internet, innovation and privacy at the White House, wrote:
The White House agrees with the 114,000+ of you who believe that consumers should be able to unlock their cell phones without risking criminal or other penalties. In fact, we believe the same principle should also apply to tablets, which are increasingly similar to smart phones. And if you have paid for your mobile device, and aren't bound by a service agreement or other obligation, you should be able to use it on another network. It's common sense, crucial for protecting consumer choice, and important for ensuring we continue to have the vibrant, competitive wireless market that delivers innovative products and solid service to meet consumers' needs.
So, you want to head to bed… time to power down the PC and call it a night. But wait… that download hasn’t finished yet. You could stay up and wait for it to finish, but then you will miss out on sleep. You could leave it running, but that’s a waste of electricity. Or you could do is turn to Shutter, which gives you a couple of alternative options.
This is a free tool that may not look like anything special, but it has a few tricks up its sleeve that make it well worth checking out. Used at its most basic Shutter could be configured to automatically shut down your computer in an hour’s time, or however long you think it’s going to take for your download to complete.
BlackBerry lost its way over the years. You can't argue against that.
Even after the launch of the iPhone, the company buried its head in the sand and refused to admit the future of smartphones was in gorgeous touchscreen hardware with friendly, innovative interfaces.
Consumers started ditching their BlackBerrys for the iPhone and Android phones. First-time smartphone buyers ignored the BlackBerry. The company's dominant smartphone market share dwindled. The stock tanked.
And now, six years after the iPhone was introduced to the world, it seems BlackBerry has finally learned its lesson caught up with the competition with its newest smartphone, the BlackBerry Z10.
Research In Motion Ltd.’s new BlackBerrys are launching in Canada on Tuesday, as Canadian carriers report record preorders of the device and some wireless retailers in the U.K. appear to have sold out of the smartphones.
After a big unveiling event in New York last week where the company unveiled two new devices running brand new software, RIM is rolling out the BlackBerry Z10 touchscreen phone in markets around the world, beginning in the U.K. and hitting Canada and the United Arab Emirates before the devices launch in the U.S., likely in March. The BlackBerry Q10, which has a physical keyboard, is likely going to begin its global launch in April.
The Q10's physical keyboard may be the most notable feature in the new lineup, but the Z10 is BlackBerry's best shot at taking a share of the more prominent (at least for now), touchscreen market. So can the Z10 measure up to some of the its biggest contenders?
Unsurprisingly, there's not a whole lot of variability under the hood of top phones. BlackBerry's playing catchup here, and so while they're hitting all the features we've come to expect in top of the line smartphones (e.g. LTE, 8 megapixel camera, high pixel density, NFC), they're not offering any real standout innovation. Of course, specs aren't going to tell the whole story, but here they are anyway—we're interested to hear what you think.
Get yo' popcorn ready. When your company is announcing the latest and greatest mobile OS, why not seize the opportunity to scrape up a few million bucks to make sure the entire world gets a proper introduction? Research in Motion will be forking out for a Super Bowl spot (which averages $3.8 million this year), as part of an effort to get the word out about BlackBerry 10. Let's just hope it's not shown the exact moment 40 million people head to the fridge. A little presser can be found past the break.
When it comes to communication, humans have always tried to bend the rules in order to create new funnels. If we feel the ways we communicate today are becoming boring, we try to innovate a new way. Look at the ever evolving and morphing Internet. There were probably more ways to communicate on the Internet created over the past few years than what has been available for centuries. And soon, we can add 3D holographic phone calls to that ever expanding list.
First we had bulletin boards where we could communicate with each other, then came all kinds of forums. After that, we had instant messaging and then came social media. Now we have FaceTime and Skype. The natural step is of course 3D holographic phone calls, right? Well, it’s a thought that is intriguing and quite tickling. The thought of being able to walk around freely while seeing the person you’re talking to, even though they’re located hundreds of miles away, and being able to see him or her in full life-size 3D holographic view is incredible.
BGR has a huge feature on BlackBerry 10 with a 100-screenshot tour of RIM's next operating system.
BGR says this version of BlackBerry 10 is the "Gold Master," or the final version that will appear on new BlackBerry phones when they launch in a few weeks.
The source who provided the images also told BGR the new phone, called the BlackBerry Z10, will cost less than $199 on contract.
That leaves a lot of wiggle room, but it sounds like RIM is willing to sell its new phone on the cheaper side in the hope that people will choose it over other top-tier phones that cost $199 and up.
If you’re a free soul and don’t want to be chained down by pointless limitations, chances are you’d prefer an Android-based phone over any other smartphone. And if you’re really adventurous, you might want to hack into your droid for personal customization.
If you’re an android owner and haven’t yet gone under-the-hood, this is a good starting point to start modding!
About 23 percent of world’s connections are now mobile broadband, according to new statistics compiled by Wireless Intelligence. 3G networks still predominate with WiMAX and LTE accounting for a mere 5 percent of the 1.6 billion total.
This isn't surprising, of course—we know there's a new iPhone coming, and there will be a new iPhone after that, and after that, until western civilization collapses. But TNW also says iOS 7 is making an appearance in developer usage logs alongside the test hardware, which were running on IP addresses from within Apple HQ. Last year, iOS 6 didn't start to pop up like this until a month before WWDC in June—is Apple going to drop a peek at the next giant software update earlier than usual? Or are their engineers just putting in overtime to renovate the somewhat stale mobile OS? Both? Neither? We have no clue, and neither does anyone outside of Apple. There are also zero hints as to what kind of specs are in these test units. It's probably faster.
Santa brought you an Android phone or tablet. Congratulations and Merry Christmas you filthy animal. Now you need some apps. Here's what you need to cop from the Google Play Store.
You probably know very well how RIM’s BlackBerries have fallen during the past years, from the clear leaders of the smartphone market to devices that are now struggling to keep up with the Windows Phone 8 “threat” way behind Android and iOS.
You also might know that Research in Motion is preparing a BlackBerry makeover, which will see a totally redesigned OS getting unveiled on January 30 2013. What you certainly didn’t know however is the name and look of the new BlackBerry 10-powered devices.
Well, one such handheld seems to have just been leaked, though it’s hard to tell whether the photo we’re looking at is real, a fake or just a render of one of the early prototypes. If it does prove to be real, it still doesn’t shed a lot of light on what we should expect from BB 10 smartphones, other than this Z10 is supposed to come in both white and black.
Then again, one educated guess is that the Z10 will be some sort of a refresh of the BlackBerry London that never saw daylight. That featured a dual-core 1.5 GHz TI OMAP CPU, 1 GB of RAM, an 8 MP camera and 16 GB of internal memory, so if RIM can take the specs up just a half a notch it might be on its way back to greatness.
Via [Ubergizmo] and [Unwired View]
You probably know very well how RIM’s BlackBerries have fallen during the past years, from the clear leaders of the smartphone market to devices that are now struggling to keep up with the Windows Phone 8 “threat” way behind Android and iOS.
You also might know that Research in Motion is preparing a BlackBerry makeover, which will see a totally redesigned OS getting unveiled on January 30 2013. What you certainly didn’t know however is the name and look of the new BlackBerry 10-powered devices.
Well, one such handheld seems to have just been leaked, though it’s hard to tell whether the photo we’re looking at is real, a fake or just a render of one of the early prototypes. If it does prove to be real, it still doesn’t shed a lot of light on what we should expect from BB 10 smartphones, other than this Z10 is supposed to come in both white and black.
RIM's next BlackBerry phone will be called the BlackBerry Z10, according to a leaked ad obtained by Unwired View.
This will be the first BlackBerry to run RIM's new mobile operating system, BlackBerry 10. RIM will formally unveil the new phone and all the finalized features of BB10 at a big global media event on Jan. 30.
