Seasoned tech blogger. Host of the Tech Addicts podcast.
This week Gareth and James are joined by Chris Vesey, a writer from Tracyandmatt.co.uk to discuss the latest mobile news. RIM launch Version 2.0 of the Playbook’s operating system and James is quite excited by this, Chris is playing with the HTC Explorer and Gareth continues his quest for value from Vodafone.
This week Gareth has a chat with a manages of Carphone Warehouse about the rising prices of mobile phones, interviews the Director of Operations at Jampot, Sean Hunter, about The App Builder and encounters problems with a typically broken bit of French engineering. James is on the podcast . He reacts to stuff and farts.
The Department of Justice gave its seal of approval to Google’s proposed takeover of U.S. cell-phone maker Motorola Mobility on Monday, just hours after European regulators also gave the deal clearance.
The $12.5 billion acquisition positions Google to move into the device market and potentially into more direct competition with companies like Apple.
Google wants to own the hardware to pair with its Android operating system for smartphones, and could use the acquisition to protect patents as well as to develop other devices such as home gaming systems.
“The combination of Google and Motorola Mobility will help supercharge Android,” Google’s Don Harrison said in a blog post earlier in the day. “It will also enhance competition and offer consumers faster innovation, greater choice, and wonderful user experiences.”
The European Union earlier on Monday approved the deal, which still needs the approval of regulators in several other countries, including China.
Posted by: Gareth
Carphone Warehouse has put the Toshiba AT200, also known as the Toshiba Excite X10, up for sale. The 7.7mm 10 inch tablet houses a 1.2GHz TI OMAP 4430 processor, 1GB of RAM, a 5 megapixel rear camera, a front facing camera and comes in configurations of either 16GB or 32GB. This one’s still running Honeycomb, unfortunately, but Toshiba assures us that it will be getting the upgrade to Android 4.0+ sometime down the line. Pricing is £399 and £449 for the 16GB and 32GB configurations, respectively. Deliver to the mainland and store are free, but you’ll have to wait until February 15th to find it in-stores. Get started here and here.
Full specs after the below:
Matt kindly joins in this week with James and Gareth. There is a host of Blackberry updates and James has a look at Three’s new Web Cube. Matt gets a little annoyed over some Vodafone issues and Gareth looks forward to a new tablet from Toshiba.
TechRadar received an official statement from Samsung that the much anticipated Samsung Galaxy S III, Samsung’s successor to the Galaxy S II that turns one year this month, won’t be announced at this month’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The official statement says that "Samsung is looking forward to introducing and demonstrating exciting new mobile products at Mobile World Congress 2012. The successor to the Galaxy S2 smartphone will be unveiled at a separate Samsung-hosted event in the first half of the year, closer to commercial availability of the product". At this point the real reasons for the announcement-shift are unclear.
Rumours have circled the internet of just what to expect from the Galaxy S III’s load out. More recently we have hear it’s going to launch with ICS, the camera is going to be upgraded and 12MP and it will run with a 1.5GHz-1.6GHz quad-core processor. It all sounds like a dream phone but lets not forget The SII rumours were pretty much spot on.
Posted by: Gareth
Gareth, James and Donkey meet up to see what’s happening in the mobile tech world on this Monday night podcast. Blackberry dominates with the announcement that they have, for the second year running, come out tops in the smartphone sales list. T-Mobile launch a new unlimited plan and Samsung revamp an old favourite with the Galaxy S Advance. Oh, and Donkey says “hee-haw”
It’s Gareth and James this week for an adventure through the world of mobile news. The CEO shuffle at Blackberry is examined by James, Gareth’s reveals his thoughts on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Donkey has his say and Nokia raises some interest this week
Sony claims that it’s distinctive Android tablets are leading the race to dominate sales in a crowded market. A company spokesman said that Sony’s products accounted for 26% of the UK market in October, the most recent period for which independent data is available. Sony also claims it has had a successful Christmas, but conceded that it was likely to have been beaten on tablet sales by aggressively priced BlackBerry Playbooks.
Wonder if they will learn anything from Blackberry on that strategy?
Posted by: Gareth
Google look to be changing their privacy agreement, whether you like it or not. Google said on Tuesday it will require users to allow the company to follow their activities across e-mail, search, YouTube and other services, a shift in strategy that is expected to invite greater scrutiny of its privacy and competitive practices.
Consumers will have no choice but to accept the changes. The policy will take effect March 1 and will also impact Android mobile phone users, who are required to log in to Google accounts when they activate their phones.
The change to its privacy policies come as Google is facing competition for the attention of Web users. It recently disappointed investors for the first time in a couple of years, failing last week to meet earnings predictions. Apple,for the same period, reported record earnings on Tuesday that blew past even the most optimistic expectations.
Some said Google’s move is aimed squarely at Apple and Facebook, which have been more successful at capture people’s attention. A Google executive said in an interview that the company wants to create a much more seamless environment across its various offerings. Alma Whitten, Google’s director of privacy for product and engineering, wrote in a blog post.
If you’re signed in, we may combine information you’ve provided from one service with information from other services. In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.
Posted by: Gareth
Connect
Connect with us on the following social media platforms.