News

Archos GamePad video debut

We have recently been treated to an exciting collection of videos for Archos’ new GamePad, a 7" tablet that favours gaming over all else. Running Ice Cream Sandwich and a fairly ingenious method of binding hardware keys to on screen functions Archos are taking steps into untested waters with this device that is likely to shift a good few units, especially at the proposed price of less than ?150! The idea of having hardware buttons rather than relying on Touchscreen will obviously be attractive to many.

It’s got a 1024×600 capacitive touch screen but more importantly for gaming, it’s got game controller buttons on each side of the screen. This device runs on the Rockchip RK3066 dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor with the quad-core Mali-400MP4 GPU.

Of course No. 1 Archos Fanboy Charbax got a bit of time with it. You can see the videos below:

O2 apologize for UK outage

Around 10% of the firm’s 23 million customers are believed to have been affected by the yesterday’s outage problem, with O2 admitting people in some areas had been unable to make or receive calls, texts or access data services.

Last night, an O2 spokesperson told Sky News: "Further to our previous update where some customers in some areas were unable to make or receive calls, send texts or use data, service has been fully restored for all remaining impacted customers.

"Once again we’re are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused."

Asked about whether any compensation would be offered, the spokesperson said: ”Our first priority was to get customers back up and in service. We’ll now need to conduct a full investigation into the cause of the problem.”

All Orange and T-Mobile stores to be rebranded as EE by the end of the month

The word on the street is that all 700 Orange and T-Mobile shops in the UK will get the new redesign to convert them into EE stores by the end of the month when the EE 4G LTE service goes live.

Prices of the new 4G tariffs are still to be announced but they will be made public prior to the 4G roll out. In the meantime Orange and T-Mobile customers can purchase 4G ready handsets which I believe are the iPhone 5, Huawei Ascend P1, HTC One XL and the Samsung Galaxy S3.

We will of course publish the price plans once we have them – not long to wait.

Posted by: James

CoPilot now available for over 250 Android devices

ALK Technologies Ltd, a leading developer of mobile applications, has announced that its CoPilot Live offline GPS navigation apps are now compatible with over 250 Google-certified Android Smartphones and tablets.

“Our mission is simple – to make sure CoPilot runs brilliantly on as many Android devices as possible.” said David Quin, Head of Consumer Applications at ALK Technologies. “We have been developing GPS navigation apps for the Android platform since the launch of T Mobile G1 in 2008 and we’ve learned an incredible amount about handling differing screen sizes and resolutions. The latest additions to the Android family such as the Samsung Galaxy SIII and HTC One X are perfect for GPS navigation with their high resolution touch screens.”

The latest version of the CoPilot Live Premium apps (version 9.3) supports Android OS versions from as far back as Froyo to the most recent version, Jellybean. This means that CoPilot’s full-featured voice guided navigation and mapping is available for Android veterans such as T Mobile G2 and HTC Desire, as well as the hottest new devices like HTC’s ONE X, Samsung’s Galaxy Note 2, Galaxy SIII and Google’s Nexus 7.

CoPilot navigation is available in two versions from Google Play:

· CoPilot Live Premium: a paid app which offers full-featured voice-guided GPS navigation with advanced 3D map views and live traffic as standard.

· CoPilot GPS: a free app which includes powerful trip planning and offline maps. Turn by turn navigation is available via in-app purchase.

For more information visit www.copilotlive.com

Posted by: Matt

ZTE say they pose no threat to the USA

We mentioned yesterday that ZTE and Huawei had some issues with their equipment being ‘security’ safe in the USA. Today ZTE have responded with the following statement:

October 9, 2012 – ZTE today reiterated its support for its Trusted Delivery Model and renewed its commitment to work with the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (Committee), government agencies, and the private sector to address all cyber security concerns.

ZTE has set an unprecedented standard for cooperation by any Chinese company with a US congressional inquiry. ZTE has presented the Committee with ample facts that demonstrate ZTE is China’s most transparent, independent, globally focused, publicly traded telecom company. ZTE is listed on the Hong Kong and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges. The company already is recognised as a Trusted Delivery Partner by 140 governments and 500 network carriers.

ZTE’s equipment is safe for US telecom infrastructure. In its Fourth Recommendation, the Committee encourages companies to offer “more consistent review by independent third-party evaluators of their cyber security processes.”  The Committee has credited ZTE with advocating a solution, based on a Trusted Delivery Model, in which the telecom vendor transfers hardware, software, firmware, and other structural equipment elements to an independent third-party threat assessment laboratory with US government agency oversight.

Angry Birds Star Wars coming soon!

Posted by: James

Could ZTE and Huawei have problems in the USA?

Over in good old America a congressional panel has allegedly said that both ZTE and Huawei pose as a national security threat and in a report to be published later today they wish the companies to be banned from mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. It said the firms had failed to allay fears about their association with the Chinese government and military.

Now we all know that ZTE and Hauwei are huge in the electronics world and a U.S ban could have a massive effect on their business. I’m a bit reluctant to go into the in’s and out’s of the politics but we will of course let you know of any further news on the subject.

Source: BBC

Posted by: James

The James Bond Sony Xperia T now available at O2

If you want to be like James Bond then head on over to O2 as they now have the Sony Xperia T in stock which features in the new Bond film Skyfall.
You can pick up the Xperia T from free to £179.99 on Pay Monthly and £429.99 on Pay & Go.

Introducing the new Sony Xperia T, as used by James Bond in the much anticipated film release, SKYFALL – at cinemas October 26. It’s pre-loaded with SKYFALL content only available to O2 customers including the 007 ringtone, themes and screensavers. It includes SKYFALL images that are geo-tagged to the film’s locations. And as you’d expect from James Bond’s phone, it’s beautifully sleek and packed with state-of-the-art technology.

    .    The Bond Phone, exclusive to O2
    .    13 Megapixel HD camera
    .    Razor-sharp 4.6" HD Reality Display
    .    Full 1080p HD video recording
    .    Eco rating: 4.1

Posted by: James

The BlackBerry 10 Browser

Posted by: James

Mobile Choice Awards – The Results

The nation has been voting for their best loved tech in the Mobile Choice Awards 2012 and from where I’m sitting it is Android that seems to be the nations best loved OS at the moment. Well, from the people that voted anyway.

You can catch the full list of contenders and winners below:

Phone of the Year:

Samsung Galaxy S III – winner
Apple iPhone 4S – runner up
HTC One X
Nokia Lumia 800
Sony Xperia S

Tablet of the Year:

Apple New iPad -winner
Nexus 7 by Asus – runner up
Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime
Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1
Sony Tablet S