News

Pebble E-Paper Watch concept attracts two million dollars of interest

You may or may not have heard of Kickstarter; for those who haven’t, it’s a website where entrepreneurs can pitch their ideas on the internet, looking for funding to take those ideas into commercial production. Many successful projects have turned into worldwide hits such as the Lunatik iPod nano watch case, but the Pebble watch threatens to send even that into the background, as it is currently the highest funded project ever by over half a million dollars. Despite setting out for a target of $100,000, they surpassed that in well under 48 hours and are now sitting at a cool two million, still with 35 days to go.

The Pebble watch was born out of Palo Alto, which carries on from their previous product, the inPulse, and is similar to the MOTOACTV or Sony Smart Watch. Of course, the Pebble does the expected smartwatch things – it connects to your iPhone or Android smartphone via Bluetooth 2.1, alerting you via the vibrating motor to new texts, email, calls etc.

The Pebble promises two key differences however which drastically improves the practicality of using a smartwatch on a daily basis. The first is the E-Ink display – not only is it very readable in sunlight, it is also super power efficient, allowing a claimed 7+ days of battery life. The second is the open nature of the software – a free SDK allows anyone to develop and distribute their own watch faces and apps for the Pebble such as everything from a simple stopwatch to a GPS powered Golf Rangefinder.

This all sounds mighty exciting to me, and you can join myself and the other 14,383 (and counting) backers and their $2,000,053 (and counting) by pledging cash here in return for a black, white, or red Pebble watch (or a hundred!) due for delivery in September.

Post by: Vince

Upgrade your BlackBerry and get money for your old one

Yes, you read that right. If you were not aware you can in fact get money for your old BlackBerry when you upgrade to a new one.

All the details can be found on the BlackBerry UK website. It is just a case of filling in the information consisting of what BlackBerry Smartphone you currently have and which you wish to upgrade to and you will be given a trade in price. 

With ten different devices on sale here in the UK (excluding the Porsche Design P’9981) there is an option for everyone so you may as well take advantage of the offer.

If you are interested head on over to the BlackBerry site. You can find a shortcut to the trade up FAQ’s here.

Posted by: James

BlackBerry of the future?

We have seen a few BlackBerry 10 concept designs but none until now with a hardware keyboard. This concept designed by DigitalHomeBoy is possibly the dream BlackBerry for many, including myself.

It is pretty much certain that the first QNX powered BlackBerry 10 device we will see will be touch screen only. This should be confirmed in the first week of May at BlackBerry Jam which is the developer conference taking place at BlackBerry World in Orlando. However, will Team BlackBerry be happy to ditch their beloved hardware keyboards for a touch screen slab? I’m not convinced so RIM had better take a good look at this concept and make it happen, or as close as they can anyway.

You can see more info on the concept device below. Would you consider a move to BlackBerry if you could have a smartphone like this? Please let us know.

NFC powered Nokia Lumia 610 coming to Orange

The below video popped up today on Nokia’s YouTube channel. I’m not entirely sure it was meant to but it is done now. This new Lumia 610 variant will be the first Near Field Communication supported Windows Phone we will get here in the UK.

Contactless payment is far from mainstream but the NFC Lumia 610 will support both Visa and MasterCard payments in due course.

"Orange is committed to rolling out mobile NFC services in all its European territories and as part of this goal we’re very excited to be the first operator to launch the Lumia 610 NFC," said Yves Maitre, Senior VP Mobile Multimedia & Devices at Orange. "The Nokia Lumia smartphones have been very well received by Orange customers. We are now going one step further and adding an NFC-enabled handset to this popular range of devices, enabling people to use contactless services via a single tap. Nokia is a natural fit for us regarding NFC and, like Orange, has shown a very early commitment to the standard."

You can see the video below:

Toshiba have an exciting new line of tablets

We have some news from Toshiba this morning. The company officially launched their new Excite line of Android Tablets. Toshiba has taken things to a new level with the Excite, by heavily stepping up the specs, reducing the size and weight, and adding a unique new size category, the monstrous 13-inch tablet! For reference, there are several specs that all of these tablets have in common. Here is a list of all the specs that they all have, prices are only listed in dollars and then below that we have each individual tab with their differences:

• Fixed Back Covers with an Aluminium Surface and styling
• Dual Cameras – 2MP for the front and 5MP for the back that can handle 1080p HD video
• Tegra 3
• 1GB DDR3 Ram
• Gorilla Glass
• Stereo Speakers with SRS Surround
• WiFi
• Android 4.0/Ice Cream Sandwich – Unskinned & Stock from Google
• BioManager Utility to improve battery life

RIM confirms side loading apps on the PlayBook will still be available

According to a report on DroidMatters, RIM wants to avoid, what it calls the "chaotic cesspool" of piracy on Android’s Google Play Store (quote from RIM.) They shall will be locking the BlackBerry PlayBook to keep users from being able to side-load Android apps. Alec Saunders, VP of Developer Relations at RIM, announced these plans on Twitter. Mr. Saunders claims, without citing sources, that over 25% of Android device apps are downloaded illegally. RIM plans to create the lock in a future update.
Things have developed now and Mr Saunders has confirmed what direction RIM are taking with side loading apps over on the BlackBerry developer blog.

We’re not getting rid of side-loading on the BlackBerry PlayBook OS or in BlackBerry 10.
Side-loading on our platform is changing in nature. Side-loading is a developer feature. It exists so that developers can load their apps onto their own devices to test. It’s there so developers can send a beta release to their testing community for review. It is definitely not there for some people to side load a pirated app.

What are we doing?
Starting with our next release of the BlackBerry PlayBook OS, we’re introducing a feature that will encrypt apps so they can only be run by the user who purchased the app.

What’s next?
We’re working with you, our developer community, to ensure you can still quickly and easily test your apps on real hardware. That’s one of the reasons we’re kicking off BlackBerry 10 Jam by giving each developer attendee a prototype device to start building on. I’ll be on-hand at the show to answer your questions – look forward to seeing you there.

Let’s Jam.

@asaunders

While it can be argued that there are some piracy issues with Android, the Google Play Store can hardly be called a "chaotic cesspool" by any means.

Posted by: Gareth

Angry Birds Space now available for the BlackBerry PlayBook

Attention PlayBook users. Fear not, Angry Birds Space has arrived. The latest addition that has been so popular on iOS and Android is now available to download. Priced at £5 for us UK users (yes we get ripped off again) the game offers hour upon hour of fun including the following features:

• 60 interstellar levels!
• Regular free updates!
• Brand new birds!
• Brand new superpowers!
• Zero-gravity space adventures!
• Trick shots using planets’ gravity!
• Hidden bonus levels!
• Beautifully detailed backgrounds! 

Posted by: James

Lenovo take us on a tour of the IdeaTab

Lenovo has officially released details on their newest IdeaTab Android tablet: The S2109. You can see the new device in the video below, and it has the following specs:

• 9.7" 4:3 IPS display
• TI OMAP chip
• A microSD slot
• Android 4.0/Ice Cream Sandwich
• Unibody 8.9mm thin shell with gunmetal finish
• 1.3 Megapixel front camera
• SRS Trumedia
• Quad speakers for stronger bass
• Micro-HDMI
• Micro-USB
• 10 hour battery
• 1GB of RAM

They still haven’t released details on pricing or availability, but we will keep you apprised as we find out more. Check out the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=__5DlnyEsy4&noredirect=1

Posted by: Gareth

Facebook acquires Instagram for $1 billion

Instagram’s army of users aren’t the only ones who see value in the popular Instagram app for iOS and Android; Mark Zuckerberg has aptly taken to Facebook to announce Facebook’s purchase of the app. While there are only 6 employees, they’ll be transferring to Facebook for cash and shares in Facebook to the tune of a cool one billion US dollars.

For avid users of Instagram, there’s nothing to worry about just yet – Kevin Systrom, current CEO of Instagram, has said that Facebook will not be the only network to share your photos to. What is likely to happen is for Instagram to integrate to Facebook much more tightly, which sounds good for Facebook users. After hitting 30 million users, Instagram’s growth is only going to get bigger under Facebook’s wing, so whether you love or hate it, chances are you’ll be seeing more Instagrammed photos in your newsfeed.

Post by: Vince

Google glasses spotted

Here’s something you don’t see everyday: one of the co-founders of one of the largest and most influential corporations on the planet out and about using a prototype of one of his companies "pet projects." Apparently, Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google is one of the "beta-testers" of their coolest new project, "Project Glass", aka Google Goggles. Here’s a quote from the Engadget article with some of the details:

Quote:

It would appear company co-founder Sergey Brin already knows, as he was spotted by tech pundits Robert Scoble and Thomas Hawk rocking a prototype at a Dining in the Dark charity event for the Foundation Fighting Blindness. Scoble has already posted a couple of pictures with Brin on Google+, mentioning more photos would be forthcoming from Hawk after the event concluded and that he’d heard other people, including Google exec Vic Gundotra, have the devices already. For now he mentions the glasses appeared to be "self contained" and that he could see a blueish light flashing on Brin’s eyes.

That’s pretty cool! If he can already start testing them in real-world situations, then they may not be too far off from an actual production model after-all. We will keep you apprised of this interesting and evolving tech.

Posted by: Gareth