Archive for February, 2012

By February 26, 2012 Read More →

MWC Starts Tomorrow

MWC_logo As the title says, Mobile World Congress (MWC) gets underway in Barcelona tomorrow so we can expect plenty of news and press releases over the next week or so as the mobile industry gears up to making announcements about the products that are going to be hitting the market this year.

There are events taking place in the UK as well as other countries too relating to the events taking place in Barcelona. We’ve already been attending such events here in London over the past week and we’ll be kicking off our MWC news cycle later on today once some embargos have been lifted! 😉

We can certainly expect plenty from HTC, Sony Ericsson and Samsung to name just a few but there will be no shortage of announcements so keep your eyes peeled!

 

Posted by: Matt

Posted in: News
By February 25, 2012 Read More →

Viewsonic set to impress at MWC 2012

viewsonic-viewpad-g70Viewsonic is really going all out this year for Mobile World Congress 2012. They are bringing five new Android devices and one Windows tablet to the table at the press event this year. One of the devices, a new smartphone, uses the same Retina display that is in the iPhone.

Here is a breakdown on what we know about the phones’ specs:
ViewPhone 4s – (This one looks like an Apple lawsuit waiting to happen.)

  • Android 4.0/ICS
  • 3.5 screen with 640×960 pixel Retina display
Posted in: News
By February 25, 2012 Read More →

Nexus Tablet may start production in April

Nexus-tabletLate last year speculation was running rampant after Google chairman Eric Schmidt made the comment that Google was planning to, “market a tablet of the highest quality.” Immediately the dream of a Nexus tablet was spawned and Android and tablet fans began frothing at the mouth. Some of the earlier speculation pegged the device as a 7-inch Nexus-branded device that will run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and compete with the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet at the $199 price point in the States. Today there are some new rumours regarding this mythic device. Here’s a quote with some more details,

Quote:


…DisplaySearch analyst Richard Shim stoked the fire, noting that the Google slate will enter production in April and the initial run will yield between 1.5 million and 2 million units. Shim also said that the Nexus Tablet will feature a high-resolution 1,280 x 800-pixel 7-inch display, besting Amazon’s 1,024 x 600-pixel panel. “I don’t know how they plan on marketing it,” Shim said. “If it’s going to be a premium device, or if it’s going to be a Kindle Fire type competitor.” April production could mean the tablet will launch as soon as the second quarter this year.


Hmmm… if this turns out to be true, we could see a Nexus tablet in mid-to-late 2012. The question still remains, would Google really be willing to "bite the hands that feed it" and potentially push some OEMs out of the Android Tablet market by making it too tough to compete with a Nexus branded tablet? Share your reasoning.

 

Posted by: Gareth

Posted in: News
By February 24, 2012 Read More →

Acer announces the Liquid Glow

New_Liquid_Glow_Smartphone

Prior to Mobile World Congress Acer has announced the Liquid Glow, an Android 4.0 device aimed at the younger market.

The Liquid Glow sports a 3.7-inch screen and portrays Acer’s signature look with nice curves, chrome details, and a soft-touch casing combined to deliver the perfect size, grip and feel. This new smartphone will be available in a series of trendy colors: Sakura Pink, Alpine White, and Cat’s-eye Black. Going a step further, the onscreen display style varies with the external color, making each smartphone a unique fashion statement.

The Liquid Glow brings together the power and the convenience of Ice Cream Sandwich, providing a user-friendly interface along with widgets to easily stay connected, entertained and updated. It also works with the latest voice-input engine from Google, which guarantees a continuous "open microphone" experience and streaming voice recognition.

The smartphone’s 5 MP rear camera features an LED flash for low light, as well as panoramic image capture and touch focus. With Android Beam, photos can be shared by a single tap with another NFC powered Android device, without the hassle of launching application or pairing. What’s more, Android Beam can also share anything like contacts, favorite apps, music or videos instantaneously through NFC.

The Acer Liquid Glow will be available in early summer 2012.

 

Posted by: James

Posted in: Press Releases
By February 24, 2012 Read More →

The Orange Phone Guards

 

Orange Phone Guards

 

Posted by: James

Posted in: Videos/Unboxings
By February 24, 2012 Read More →

Two superb free games for the BlackBerry PlayBook

blackberry-playbook-os-2-0

To celebrate the launch of BlackBerry® PlayBook OS 2.0 this week, ALL BlackBerry PlayBook users can download TWO FREE games – Asphalt 6 Adrenaline HD and Modern Combat 2 Black Pegasus HD – free of charge from now until June 20th.

Compliments of BlackBerry PlayBook users can complete the mission of one of the most acclaimed FPS games for smartphones in Modern Combat 2 Black Pegasus HD, and feel the thrill of arcade racing like never before in Asphalt 6 Adrenaline HD.  Enjoy an immersive gaming experience on the PlayBook’s 1 GHz dual-core processor offering blazing speed and glorious graphics.

The BlackBerry PlayBook is currently available from £169 (for the 16GB model) from retailers including Dixons, Curries, PC World, Carphone Warehouse and Phones4u as well as selected B2B resellers.

If you are BlackBerry user you would be mad not to get one.

You can see our demo of Modern Combat 2 below:

Posted in: Press Releases
By February 24, 2012 Read More →

Orange To Launch Quick Tap ‘Treats’

orange-logo

We all like a treat. Orange today unveiled ‘Quick Tap Treats’ – the UK’s first mobile contactless retail reward scheme, in partnership with the EAT. restaurant chain. Quick Tap Treats will allow all Orange customers with NFC enabled handsets to simply tap their mobile phone on specially designed posters at any of the 110 EAT. outlets* so they can receive a free treat each day – from a free baguette or piece of fruit, to a free coffee.

Building on the success of the first contactless mobile payments service launched last year, the next phase of Quick Tap (the umbrella name used for Orange’s UK NFC services), sees all Orange customers with NFC handsets able to use their phones for the new Quick Tap reward programme, Quick Tap Treats.

From launch, these Quick Tap customers will be eligible to receive one on the following ‘treat’ reward options everyday.  New treats will be added over time:

Posted in: Press Releases
By February 24, 2012 Read More →

It’s not Tegra 3, it’s 4-Plus-1

battery-saver-ninja-coreNVIDIA wants to make sure that consumers get the full skinny on their new Tegra 3 chip’s architecture. Sometime last year we did an article sharing that the Tegra 3 is actually a 5 core chip, rather than just a quad-core chip. It has 4 primary cores for running intensive calculations, but also has a 5th "shadow-core" (which has also been called the "ninja-core" by NVIDIA). This 5th core is designed to handle easy to calculate and mundane tasks to free up battery life and improve over-all efficiency. Previously, their in-house name for this architecture was "Variable Symmetrical Multiprocessing", but that is rather a mouth-full to share as marketing speak. So, to make things easier, they came up with the simple alias, 4-PLUS-1.

You can see below the quote from NVIDIA’s press post:

Posted in: News
By February 23, 2012 Read More →

Fujitsu announce some insane specs

Fujitsu-Android-phoneFujitsu are set to make their debut in the phone market later this year. According to the Unwired View, Fujitsu’s handset will come packing a Nvidia 1.6GHz Tegra 3 processor – a quad-core chipset, a 4.6in screen (no further details there unfortunately), a 13.1MP camera, a fingerprint sensor, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, as well as "long battery life" and some kind of water and dust resistant finish. Yes, that was a 13.1mp camera!

It’s at a stage where anything can happen in the world of mobiles, as for a company like Fujitsu to make any sort of dent in the market they have to arrive guns blasting. Unless of course they want to take the market slowly, easing in at the bottom of the market like HTC did and ZTE are currently doing. There are concerns with specs like this. That CPU is going to really require a long life battery just to get you through to a day of heavy use.

At any rate, this looks to be one to watch and has the potential of blowing a few members of the competition out of the water!

Posted by: Gareth

Posted in: News
By February 23, 2012 Read More →

Googles lucky unlocky screen

fcc-new-device-unlock-patent-fromIt looks like the crafty folks at Google have decided to "head Apple off at the pass", when it comes to Apple’s slide-to-unlock patent disputes. Google engineers and/or patent experts have just filed for a patent on a new way to unlock devices.

In case you haven’t followed the Apple vs. the "world" news much, Apple is suing Samsung and Motorola for various violations of a "slide-to-unlock" patent, that many people feel is a bogus patent to begin with. Google isn’t having any of that though, and instead of needlessly fighting potentially wasteful battles on that front, they are "going over the top" and skipping the issue altogether in the future. Their new patent application is for an "Input to Locked Computing Device" method of locking and unlocking your device. Here’s a quick quote from Engadget’s article with some more details,

Quote:


…the application claims a method for a device unlocking process using one or more user inputs while simultaneously executing a command — like calling a specific contact or opening an application. Those user inputs can take the form of passcodes, touch and drag, or audio commands. While the application’s drawings depict such a system on a phone, it claims an unlocking system for desktops and laptops as well, so it could easily find its way onto a Chromebook or two.


Clever Google. Very clever…

 

Posted by: Gareth

Posted in: News
https://www.ukmeds.co.uk/surgical-face-masks