Author Archive: Matt

More than 20 years in the IT industry. Blogging with a passion and thirst for new technology since 2005.

rss feed Facebook Twitter Pinterest Google Plus YouTube

Author's Website →

By November 20, 2013 Read More →

HTC Desire 500 hands-on in White

htc-desire-500-white-blueBack in September of this year, HTC launched a new Android smartphone under the much-used Desire name, the HTC Desire 500.

This new phone featured much of the software improvements from the popular HTC One but in a somewhat more affordable package.

When the Desire 500 first went on sale the all-black version was the first to land and we had an early hands-on with that model. Since then two further versions have become available; White with blue-trim and white with red-trim.

These are essentially the same hardware spec but it’s surprising just how different the phone can appear from a simple colour change. We wouldn’t normally return to a device just because of a colour change but as the Desire 500 has just had an Android update and has been so popular on PAYG tariffs we thought it was worth another look.

In the video below, Gareth takes a brief break from his painting-by-numbers to have a closer look at the HTC Desire 500 in white clothing. The phone, not Gareth in white clothing…

By November 19, 2013 Read More →

Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 starts shipping

Kindle Fire HDX 8.9Just a few weeks after the initial announcements of the new Kindle Fire HDX, news just in that Amazon’s latest tablet has started shipping in the UK.

With models starting at £329.00 for the 16GB WiFi version up to £489 for the 64GB WiFi/4G version. The Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 4G LTE will be released on 13 December and that can also be pre-ordered now.

Kindle Fire HDX 8.9” combines groundbreaking hardware, Fire OS 3.0 “Mojito,” and new features like expanded X-Ray for films and TV and the revolutionary new Mayday button.  Front-facing HD camera makes it easy to stay in touch with Skype, plus a new 8 megapixel wide- aperture rear-facing camera offers crisp photos and 1080p HD video.   Learn more about the new Kindle Fire HDX 8.9” at www.amazon.co.uk

  • Astonishingly light design — at just 374 grams, the 8.9″ Kindle Fire HDX is the lightest large-screen tablet, 34% lighter than the previous generation.
  • Powered by the latest version of Fire OS — Fire OS 3.0 “Mojito” — with hundreds of new and upgraded features, platform updates and Amazon-exclusive services.
  • New Mayday button delivers revolutionary, live tech support — one tap connects you to an Amazon expert who can guide you remotely through any feature — 24/7, 365 days a year, and free of charge. 15 seconds or less is the Mayday response time goal.
  • Kindle FreeTime extends parental controls to give parents a simple, engaging way to manage the way children use Kindle Fire — parents select content and set time limits by content type.
  • 8MP rear-facing camera with LED flash for high-resolution photos and 1080p HD video, plus a front-facing 720p HD camera makes it easy to stay in touch with Skype
  • Watch thousands of films and TV shows with LOVEFiLM, Europe’s leading film subscription service. Expanded X-Ray for films and TV, adding trivia, character backstories and soundtrack information.
  • All-day battery life — up to 11 hours of mixed use and 17 hours of reading.
  • Updated e-mail, calendar and Silk browser to stay connected and productive.
  • New enterprise features including hardware and software encryption, Kerberos Intranet, secure
  • Wi-Fi connections, VPN integration and wireless printing.
  • Dual stereo speakers with Dolby Digital Plus audio and virtual 5.1 multi-channel surround sound — the standard in high-end audio.
  • Full integration with the world’s best content ecosystem — over 27 million films, TV shows, songs, apps, games, books, audiobooks and magazines.
  • New Origami covers feature an innovative design that allows you to position Fire HDX in both portrait and landscape mode.
  • The 8.9” Kindle Fire HDX is £329.

Kindle Fire HDX 8.9″ has the highest resolution (2560×1600) and the best pixel density (339 ppi) of any Kindle Fire tablet, providing an incredible multimedia experience. The HDX display features over four million pixels for vivid, lifelike images that go beyond standard HD.

Posted in: News, Tablets
Tags:
By November 18, 2013 Read More →

How many are still using BBM for Android and iOS?

bbmiconAfter the initial surge of downloads of BBM, apparently hitting 10 million downloads within the first 24 hours after launch, how many are still using it almost 4 weeks later?

We’ve already seen the BBM app drop in the iTunes and Play Store charts and at the time of writing it’s well outside of the top 50. Was the initial surge something of curiosity or nostalgia among those users that used to have BlackBerry’s and have now migrated to other devices/platforms?

Many users that I know and support did indeed download and try BBM on their iPhone’s and Android smartphones but have since abandoned BBM again in favour of iMessage, Hangouts and WhatsApp, where they already have their contacts set up.

Looking at the latest download charts for the week, we can see that WhatsApp downloads, for example, are back to being ahead of BBM once again.

Personally, I was one of the 10 million to download BBM within the first 24 hours. I like the BBM interface and it works well but the fact remains that only a handful of my contacts (5) are using BBM vs a hundred or so on iMessage and Hangouts, for example. I’m sure I cant be the only person with this experience…

Not that I was expecting an answer, but I emailed BlackBerry to ask what the user retention of BBM has been. I have not yet received a response.

So what’s the consensus? Are you an iOS or Android user and are you using BBM?

By November 16, 2013 Read More →

Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10 review and unboxing

Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10 reviewLenovo have several Android tablets on the market at the moment and we recently looked at the IdeaTab A3000.

A couple of weeks ago Lenovo announced two new Android tablets to join their lineup, the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 8 and Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10. The two tablets are identical aside from the size with 8 and 10-inch displays respectively. Ours will be a Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10 review.

These new Yoga tablets are a little different to the normal slab-style device that everyone else is bringing out at the moment and clearly some thought has gone in to the design. The most striking thing about them is the large bulge on the bottom of an otherwise slim form tablet. That bulge houses a large 9000mAh battery and also neatly hides a kick-stand that allows the tablet to either stand virtually upright or, if you lay it down, angle the screen towards the user at a convenient desk-viewing angle.

Both the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 8 and Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10 have a premium aluminium construction that makes then feel far more sturdy than many of the all-plastic alternatives out there and Lenovo have managed to achieve this without the tablet looking or feeling too industrial.

Check out the unboxing video below to see the design and that unique stand in a little more detail.

Her’s just a short Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10 review for now. I wanted to get my initial impressions up alongside the video before I go in to a lot more detail later.

Lenovo say that the Yoga 10 is capable of up to 18 hours of web browsing on just one charge. While I’m not about to sit here and browse the web for 18 hours straight, I can tell you that the battery life seems to be really very good. Out of the box the Yoga had around 40% charge and I’ve been using it all day for the video and putting the review together and it’s still going strong.

Another good thing with the Yoga 10 is that there’s a pair of speakers for stereo audio playback. The speakers are sensibly placed to face forward when you are in landscape mode, ideal for watching video. The speakers may not be that large and certainly there’s not much low-end but in terms of sheer volume it does rather well. There’s also Dolby Digital Plus built in to help the audio along a bit.

Screen-wise the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10 is OK. It’s not going to win any prizes but there are worse screens out there. 1280 x 800 pixels isn’t exactly watch you’d call dense these days but that said it’s a bright IPS display that’s pretty clear.

My final word for now is going to be on performance. Once again the 1.2GHz quad-core A7 chip isn’t exactly going to break any speed records but as you may be able to gather from the benchmark in the video, the Yoga 10 doesn’t disgrace itself either. In real-world use it’s fairly responsive and for the tasks I’d be performing regularly, such as web browsing, Hangouts and the like it does just fine and in terms of the few games I play on Android, it runs those without a hitch.

Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10 review image gallery

 Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10 review specification:

  • 2G Network: GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900
  • 3G Network: HSDPA 900 / 2100
  • Micro-SIM
  • Dimensions: 261 x 180 x 8.1 mm (10.28 x 7.09 x 0.32 in)
  • Weight: 605 g (Wi-Fi) / 610 g (3G) (1.34 lb)
  • Built-in 3-stage kickstand
  • Display: IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colours, 1280 x 800 pixels, 10.1 inches (~149 ppi pixel density)
  • Sound Alert types Vibration, Polyphonic, MP3 ringtones
  • Built-in stereo speakers
  • 3.5mm jack
  • Dolby Digital Plus sound enhancement
  • Memory Card slot microSD, up to 64 GB
  • Internal 16/32 GB
  • 1 GB RAM
  • Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
  • Bluetooth  v4.0
  • microUSB v2.0, USB On-the-go
  • Primary Camera: 5 MP, 2592х1936 pixels
  • Secondary Camera: 1.6 MP
  • OS: Android OS, v4.2.2 (Jelly Bean)
  • CPU: Quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7
  • Accelerometer
  • Compass
  • GPS with A-GPS support
  • Battery Non-removable Li-Ion 9000 mAh battery
By November 15, 2013 Read More →

Fonesalesman announces Note 3 Wireless Charging Receiver

iQi Mobile Wireless Charging For iPhone Indiegogo Crowdfunding Project Meets With Success Early OnWe love wireless charging, it’s one of the best features of the Nexus 5 so for those of you with devices that don’t have wireless charging built in, the options are expanding.

Thanks to a successful crowdfunded campaign, Fonesalesman announces their Samsung Galaxy Note 3 wireless charging system. With their products success the company has launched the Note 3 Receiver today, and their current iQi Mobile Wireless Charger For iPhone Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign is 80% funded with 16 days to go.

 

Posted in: News, Phones
By November 14, 2013 Read More →

iOS 7.0.4 Rolls Out

imageJust a few weeks after Apple release the update to iOS 7.0.3 there’s another version being pushed out to devices this evening.

iOS 7.0.4 has just been made available for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch and promises to fix a known issue with FaceTime which caused FaceTime calls to fail for some users. Personally hadn’t seen this problem.

Along with the FaceTime fix a number of other minor bugs are fixes with this update but we’ve yet to get to the bottom of what they are!

Bug fixes and improvements, including a fix for an issue that causes FaceTime calls to fail for some users.

For information on the security content of this update, please visit this website: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

Meanwhile, Apple has also released iOS 6.1.5 for fourth-generation iPod touch users. That iOS 6 update is designed to fix the FaceTime bug on the non-iOS 7 capable iPod touch.

If you are interested in the possibility of Jailbreaking your phone at some point in the future, the Jailbreak experts are warning that you should stay away from the 7.0.4 update for now.

Posted in: News, Phones
Tags: ,
By November 14, 2013 Read More →

Thousands Petition new YouTube Comment System

youtube-logoYou may have heard that recently YouTube started to revamp their comment system. Initially this sounded like a good idea – integrate YouTube comments with Google+, stop the reubbish and spam comments that many YouTube’rs suffer.

In itself that doesn’t sound like a big deal. However, here’s the rub, Google have decided to enforce the Google+ commenting system to the point that you MUST have a Google+ account in order to post a comment on a YouTube video.

YouTube channel owners, myself included, have become so angry with the change that an online petition has been started and it already has well over 100,000 signatures. Those signing the petition are demanding that the comment system be returned to its previous form.

“Google is forcing us to make Google+ accounts and invading our social life to comment on a YouTube video and trying to take away our anonymous profile. They are also trying to censor us unless we share the same worldview as they do.”

We’ve seen the comments on our YouTube videos fall to almost zero since the change where previously we’d have dozens daily. Furthermore, we’ve noticed that people can comment on our videos yet we’re unable to reply to those comments despite them appearing on our channel! YouTube channel owners can benefit from knowing how to buy YouTube subscribers from Zeru.

I’m actually a fan of Google+ and I like the idea but it would be better if it could be phased in or where channel owners could make the G+ account optional for viewer comments.

via The Enquirer

Posted in: Editorial
Tags: ,
By November 14, 2013 Read More →

Microsoft unveils state-of-the-art Cybercrime Center

Microsoft Cybercrime CenterWith security and cybercrime such a hot topic at the moment, Microsoft have today announced that they are to open a brand new Cybercrime Center, called, creatively, Microsoft Cybercrime Center.

It is to be a center of excellence at the forefront of the global fight against rising cybercrime and will feature the best of the best in legal and technical fields which includes an Entity Extraction software.

Microsoft have provided their full press release below.

By November 14, 2013 Read More →

Humax HB-1000S Freesat HD unboxing video

Humax HB-1000s freesat HDThe Freesat service has been around for a while and has found it’s way in to TV’s and set top boxes alike.

This Humax HB-1000s model that we are looking includes new on-demand features from BBC iPlayer and ITV Player. While this model may lack the built-in hard drive of some of the higher-end models, it will allow you to add external USB hard drives if you want to use it for recording. You can also add a USB WiFi adapter if you want to connect wirelessly.

In the video below it’s just a quick look at the hardware and what’s supplied with the unit before we crack on with the full review.

By November 14, 2013 Read More →

BlackBerry Not Working on iPad Specific BBM

bbm-iphoneSince BlackBerry resumed the BBM roll-out to iOS and Android devices, it has been downloaded tens of millions of times and has been consistently at the top of the app download charts.

BlackBerry recently spoke to Slashgear and Andrew Bocking confirmed that BlackBerry are working on a new version of BBM specifically for WiFi-only iPod’s and iPad’s. At the moment users must have a cellular capable device in order to register and set up BBM. This is a situation that BlackBerry are looking to resolve and the update is said to be coming any time now. This will mean that BBM does not have to be tied to a specific mobile number.

However, there’s no news from BlackBerry for WiFi only versions of BBM for WiFi only Android tablets but one would hope that if there’s to be an iPad and iPod WiFi version then an Android version should not be too far behind.

No iPad specific BBM

Perhaps one piece of news that may disappoint iPad owners, though, is that BlackBerry are said NOT to be working on an iPad specific version of BBM, one that would make better use of the larger display. At the moment BBM will work on iPad devices but just a larger version of the iPhone version. iPad users have been hoping for an iPad specific version that was more akin to the interface and layout from the PlayBook.

Hopefully BlackBerry will change their mind!

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