Author Archive: Gareth

ZTE show of the first Tegra 3 tablet

ZTE showcased, at the CES (China International Exhibition Center) expo event held in Beijing, its latest 7-inch T98 Android 3.2 Honeycomb tablet powered by Nvidia’s Tegra3 chipset.

ZTE T98 features a 7-inch WXGA touchscreen display with 1280*800p resolution, equipped with a 1.5GHz Tegra3 quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB on-board storage, two cameras a 5MP on the back with 1080p HD video rec capabilities and a 2MP on the front for video chat. T98 is 11.5mm thick and it comes with a battery capacity of 4000mAh.

The slate comes with 3G GSM enabled, weird that it doesn’t pack 4G/LTE technology and no mention about NFC support either. There’s no information regarding an availability date, nor any pricing information.

Posted by Gareth

Rather exciting lookin: The Dark Meadow trailer

Phosphor Game Studios’ The Dark Meadow is an action-adventure monster slaying game set in a creepy abandoned hospital. The Dark Meadow is coming next month, and is boasting some incredibly compelling features such as gesture-based combat, "console-level" story and production, and a six-ish hour campaign that will need to be replayed multiple times if you want to see all the game has to offer.

This looks to be a pretty exciting game, and for good reason too. For the hardware and popularity of the iOS devices there should be more projects like this on there way, as sometimes it feels like a waste to be playing simple 2D physics games on iOS devices when they’re totally capable of this.

Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S landing soon

Sony Ericsson are launching a new a smartphone in October and calling it the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S.  It seems the new Arc S is pumped with a 1.4 Ghz processor compared to its predecessor which clocked at 1Ghz. The Xperia Arc S has a 2d to 3d converter which lets you take photos and use ” 3d sweep panorama” application to display 2d photos in 3d if you plug it into a 3d TV or any other 3d display using a HDMI port. The phone will use Android OS Gingerbread 2.3 and have pretty much the same hardware features the original Arc did including ultra thinness at 8.7mm.  The Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S is available in an array of colours :  pure white, gloss black, misty silver, sakura pink and midnight blue.

Posted by Gareth

Android 2.3.6 arrives on………

This morning I rolled over to my Nexus One to see an update message. How very exciting and unexpected. Not much is known about the contents of the software other than it includes ‘important bug fixes and security patches.’ It doesn’t allude to anything in particular so you’re just going to have to download it and see what it takes care of.

The Nexus S recently saw an update to 2.3.6 that included some sort of voice search fix. There have been some unconfirmed reports that the update was breaking USB and Wi-Fi tethering.

So, for those of you that haven’t seen it roll out OTA just yet, here is how to get Android 2.3.6 on your Nexus One at this very moment. The steps are pretty easy so even if you’re not proficient in tinkering with your device, you should be able to do this.

Could Google become a wireless carrier

There is some industry speculation that Google may be planning to take on the role of wireless carrier in parts of Europe soon. In fact, they may have already started testing a Mobile Virtual Network (MVN) in Spain. The images posted are of what appears to be a Google-branded SIM card and a Nexus S running on a network dubbed “Google_es”. According to the report, a few trusted engineers have started receiving this starter pack for testing purposes already. Here’s a quote with a few more details,

HTC and Dropbox to offer 5GB accounts for Sense 3.5 users

HTC has partnered with Dropbox to bring a deal to those who upgrade to an HTC Sense 3.5 device. While we mere peasants are entitled to a paltry 2 GB of free cloud storage, HTC Sense 3.5 devices will get access to 5 GB at no extra price. Pretty sweet deal if you ask us.

Currently, the only device with Sense 3.5 is the brand new HTC Rhyme on Verizon. If you happen to get this device, odds are that it will be through an upgrade or new contract. This means you’ll be hitching your wagon to data caps.

This isn’t exactly a new idea, companies like Asus have been doing it for a few years right back from their original Eeepc. Data caps from network providers do limit what you can do with your phone, Spotify and music and video streaming services are a fine examples.  If you plan to take advantage of those 5 free GB, you’d better keep that unlimited data contract. Your 2 GB will fly away in no time if you use cloud storage constantly. So be careful with those transfers! You can also use WiFi when transferring large files to/from your Dropbox account (or upgrade to a higher data cap).

There’s still no word on whether current HTC Sense users will also get this treat or not. Future Sense 3.5 smartphones will definitely get an extra 3 GB, though. It might not be a major decision factor when choosing your next smartphone, but it’s definitely a nice extra. These devices will also come with the Dropbox app pre-installed. Depending on how you see it, this could be great or just more bloatware.

Posted by Gareth

Microsoft phones to become interchangeable

BGR is reporting a patent filed by Microsoft titled “Mobile Communication Device Having Multiple, Interchangeable Second Devices” was published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday. The patent it describes a device that consists of a display and “multiple second devices” that can serve as accessories to the primary screen. We have seen this design executed before: Verizon Wireless launched the LG Versa in 2009 that could be equipped with a game pad accessory, but Microsoft has bigger plans. The patent describes the additional accessories as “more game controllers, batteries, physical keyboards or mobile phone handsets with a display.” Users can detach the devices too, and use wireless communications to interact with the primary display. It is a compelling concept although we aren’t so sure consumers will want to carry multiple accessories at once and could prove costly to replace once misplaced.

Posted by Gareth

Amazon Android App Store back to the US

Yesterday I spent some time trying to get it to work, in the end it just wouldn’t work so I didn’t mention it again. It seemed as though Amazon had finally opened up the App Store for Android to the entire world making many people very happy. However, this was too good to be true to last and Amazon has shut down the service for everyone outside of the US once again.

Whether it was opened up by accident or it was a test run is unknown right now and there is no word from the Amazon camp as to why it was available for everyone for one day. The end result though today is that it is shut down and there is no indication as to when it will open back up for everyone outside of the US to use it.

It is possible they are getting ready for the official launch of the Amazon App Store for Android on a worldwide basis when they announce their tablet plans. It makes sense considering Amazon didn’t officially announce anything about the service becoming available worldwide yesterday so it could have been a test run.

So for those of you who got to use it for a day, we hope you enjoyed it. For those of you who missed out don’t worry, the fact that it was working worldwide is a good sign. Hopefully we won’t have to wait long to use it again. You can also just use the workaround to get by the blocking of outside countries if you really want to use the Amazon App Store badly.

Posted by Gareth