News

Zinio available for BlackBerry PlayBook

Do you want to read magazines on your PlayBook? Well from today you can thanks to Zinio.

Zinio is the premier app for magazines, giving readers immediate access to thousands of global titles. Read and download single issues or subscriptions of your favorite magazines and sync your library to your home computer, smart phone and tablet seamlessly. Keep up with trending topics and stories from magazines like Rolling Stone, The Economist, Hello!, US Weekly, T3, Macworld, Travel + Leisure and many more.

Key Features:

• Thousands of top magazines from the world’s largest newsstand.
• Full-color pages.
• Full subscriptions or single issues available so you can choose what you want.
• Sync your library instantly to your other mobile devices or your home computer.

The app itself is free but subscriptions will cost I’m afraid. That said, you wont need to travel to the shops to collect your magazine.

Click here from your PlayBook to download.

Posted by: James

Orange favoring Windows Phone for business?

The guys over at WPCentral have posted the image to the right from the Orange business website. It looks like Orange are suggesting that Windows Phone could be the best mobile operating system for business users.

Now, while I am a fan of Windows Phone, and currently use the HTC Radar as my second device, I have to disagree with Orange on this one. Regular readers and listeners of our podcast will know I am a big BlackBerry fan and maybe I am slightly biased but I can’t see why a Windows Phone would be better than a BlackBerry for business.

Part of the reason I use a BlackBerry is its ease of use and how quickly I can bang out an email/instant message or tweet just to name a few top features. Whether you prefer a hardware keyboard or prefer a touch screen I have not found a single OS that allows me to manage my email/calendar and contacts as efficiently and as easily as on the BlackBerry OS.

I am sure many of you will disagree with me, especially those of you in North America but we all have our own preferences. Feel free to leave your opinions in the Facebook feed or over on our forums.

Rant over!

Posted by: James

Talk Talk Announce Superfast Broadband On BT Network

Are you ready to say ‘yes’ to much faster broadband speeds? At Talk Talk’s price you might soon be. You could enjoy video conferencing and other data-heavy activities at a much cheaper price thanks to the best broadband deals. Talk Talk are planning to use BT’s existing 40 Mbps network to offer a much faster 80 Mbps service. Those interested in receiving the new FTTC (‘fibre to the cabinet’ ). The new service will come at a cost of £15 extra per month.

Fibre To The Cabinet can still work on the same connections as the majority of older ADSL lines, however, because it runs on fibre for a longer length of its journey to your home router, it’s much much faster than the older broadband connections.

BT Openreach are happy to “almost double” the download and upload speeds on offer. BT’s upgraded ‘fibre footprint’ is expected to benefit the homes and businesses within the area. The service will also include a boosted 20 Mbps upload speed.

This is perhaps the start of a new trend amongst broadband providers for 80 Mbps packages. Some in the industry have described the new pricing plan as “disruptive” as very fast broadband is generally perceived to be available only at a much higher price point. It seems as if Talk Talk are trying to come out with a game-changer.

The government is supporting local councils in upgrading the whole of the UK’s broadband infrastructure throughout 2012-2013. The extra millions of pounds of funding are hoped to bring the UK’s broadband up to speed with the high speeds commonly found in mainland European countries. You should be able to check if you’re in an FTTC enabled area on the company’s website. The new package doesn’t begin to roll out until April but you can register your interest starting now.

Posted by: Matt

Formula 1 apps for BlackBerry

With the latest season of F1 about to kick off in Melbourne this weekend (16,17,18 March) there some great F1 apps for BlackBerry Smartphones and BlackBerry PlayBook to get you geared up and in prime position.

If you fancy racing yourself then don’t forget that Need For Speed: Undercover and Asphalt 6: Adrenaline HD are both free to download for the BlackBerry PlayBook.

You can see further details and links to the F1 apps below:

Archos present a new line

Whilst I work away at my review of the new Archos 101 G9 it seems they have preparing a new line of tablets to succeed the G9 range already. The Archos G10 xs series. Showing off a concept demo featuring a keyboard dock, magnetic screen protector with a mouse pad it seems the device(s) will run on something like an OMAP4470 1.8Ghz Dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 with SGX544 graphics or even the OMAP5430 which can also run upwards 1.8Ghz or more. Before all specs are announced Archos have already targeted this device at the £250(ish) pricing point.

In addition to their Arnova, budget, range Archos Elements brings Google Certified tablets at as low as £100. A reliable source believes Archos Elements will bring the Rockchip RK30 Dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 performance and higher capacitive screen resolutions than Arnova at extremely competitive pricing.

Check out the video after the break:

Angry Birds Space – Preview

Posted by: James

Apple iPad event

We’re just about 5 minutes away from the event starting. It’s action stations and I’m live blogging the event as it unfolds. Refresh this page frequently for updates as we go along!

17:55 – Getting excited now and everyone is being asked to settle and take their seats. Most are doing as they are told!

18:00 – Tim Cook takes the stage, looking remarkably Jobs-like!

18:02 – We’re kicking off with a run down of the post-PC devices that Apple brought to market. Apparently 172 million post-PC devices were sold last year. Accounting for 76% of apple revenue.

18:05 – Apple now has 362 retail stores and 110 million visitors.

18:06 – Video tour of Apple’s latest retail store.

18:07 – Tim’s back and talking about Siri now. Siri is your best friend! Funny thing is, it hates me!

18:08 – Siri now has a Aussie, French and German accent. iOS 5.1 will be rolling out later today including Japan?

18:10 – 100 million iCloud users. 585,000 apps available in the app store, 25 billion downloads.

18:11 – Movies now to be avaialable in 1080p on your new AppleTV with simple streamlined interface.

18:13 – Third-party apps mentioned for AppleTV also! Photostream comes to the device too.

18:15 – The price of the new AppleTV will be the same as the old $99 – bargain! Available from next week and pre-order today.

18:16 – Over 15 million iPad’s sold last quarter.

18:19 – More than 200,000 iPad specific apps in the app store

18:21 – Everyone has been wounding who could possibly come up with a product to be more amazing than the iPad2

18:22 – Tha company is Apple and here is the iPad 3!

18:24 – Yippee, retina display! 2048 x 1536 resolution! Over 3 million pixels 264 pixels per inch!

18:26 – iPad3 to boast a 40% better colour saturation

18:27 – A5X Quad core CPU

18:28 – New feature – iSight camera. 5 mega pixel sensor and 5 element lens (lets hope it’s way better than that iPad2 then!) Image processing built in to the A5X chip!

18:31 – 1080p video recording

18:32 – Voice dictation added to the iPad at last!

18:33 – Built in 4G LTE. Great for those in the US! LTE up to 73Mbps download speed!!!!

18:36 – Demo of photos downloading on LTE 4G in half the time.

– Notice that the design seems not to have changed a lot looking at the photos. Nothing on the physical size and weight as yet.

18:36 – International roaming thanks to the multi-band support. Can even act as personal hotspot if the carrier supports it.

18:38 – But what about the battery life.? For iPad2 we said 10 hours battery life – iPad3 will have the same battery life despite the new CPU and retina display.

18:40 – Physically – 9.4mm thick and 1.4lbs – slightly heavier!

18:41 – $499 for the 16GB – $599 and $699 for the 32GB and 64GB – Adding the 4G adds $130 to the price

18:42 – On sale from the 16th March and pre-orders from today! UK, USA, Japan, France and Germany all on the same day.

18:43 – Same price as existing models then.

18:44 – Existinng apps can be scaled up and rendered on the new display (same as iPhone apps did/do on the iPad)

18:45 – Some awesome game demos now on the big screen in the theatre – console-quality games.

18:46 – Chris Cheung from Autodesk now on stage – starting off by talking about desktop customers. Blah, blah, blah!

18:48 – Talking about sketchbook pro on the iPad – There’s a new engine for ink that "takes advantage of the incredible graphics power of iPad." Can support drawings of up to 100 mega-pixels.

18:50 – Mike Capps, president of Epic Games: demo time methinks. Oooh, Infinity Blade:Dungeons – HDR graphics and tone-mapping. Looks of beautiful lighting and action. "The Unreal engine is unleashing the power of the new iPad."

18:53 – iPad 3 "more memory or screen resolution than either the Xbox 360 or the PS3."

18:56 – Back with Phil:  iWork apps updated to take full advantage of the retina display

18:58 – iMovie updated too!

19.00 – Garage Band updated to include collaboration over wi-fi

19.02 – iPhoto for iPad launched

19.05 – iPhoto includes multi-touch editing and easily share through email, Flickr and Twitter

19.12 – Still talking about all the effects in iPhoto

19.15 – iPhoto will be priced $4.99 and released today

19.20 – Video playing

19.21 -  iPad2 to continue with a $100 price drop – 16GB $399

19.23 – New iPad commercial is being played

19.25 – and thats it – The new iPad it is!

Posted by: Matt

Post Tags: [Apple, iPad 3, iPad HD, iPad mini, iOS 6, tracyandmatt.co.uk]

Apple (iPad) event later today

Today’s press event being held by Apple is just hours away and there’s a hell of a lot of speculation around it. However, one thing seems to be pretty universally accepted; it’s going to be a very important event!

Important, perhaps, in many ways. It will be the first major announcement by Apple since Steve Jobs passed away last year. The host later today is expected to be Tim Cook but I’d imagine we’ll see a variety of Apple execs take the stage for various portions of the presentation.

So we think we are going to see the latest coming of the iPad today. Will it be called the iPad 3? That would be my guess but many others think it could be called the iPad HD because of the expected hi-res or retina display. The new quad-core A6 CPU is also high on the list of guesses along with larger amounts of memory, up to 128GB perhaps.

iOS 6 could well be on the cards. That seems to be coming up in logfiles from various popular websites so it could be that Apple have been testing the OS internally.

How about a mini-iPad? That too has been mentioned on more than one occasion. Personally I think it less likely but not impossible.

The event starts at 6pm UK time and I’ll be covering the highlights live on the site and twitter so be sure to stick check back in on us later.

Posted by: Matt

RIM hold a Twinterview from the House of Commons

Research in Motion are holding a #BBEMEAChat that takes place tomorrow, Tuesday 6th March. Follow the conversation with MP Rob Halfon (@halfon4harlowmp) from 9.30am when he’ll be giving an insight into what goes on inside the House of Commons and how his BlackBerry helps him balance his work and personal life.  

Rob Halfon is the current Member of Parliament for Harlow and was elected at the 2010 general election. He is a big advocate of using social media to keep in touch with his constituents and is a self-proclaimed lover of mobile technology.

You can get involved by asking a question using the hashtag: #BBEMEAChat and follow @BBEMEABusiness.

Posted by: James

Asus might be building the Nexus tablet

So fresh off of the press is a new rumour which Android and Me are reporting on regarding the rumoured Google’s 7-inch Nexus Tablet that would be selling for $199 when it is released, if it actually exists. According to two reliable sources that Android and Me spoke with at MWC 2012, Asus will be the company building the device.

Asus has seen quite the success with the Transformer and Transformer Prime line-up of tablets. We really are not surprised if the rumour is true regarding Asus being the company that will build this Nexus Tablet. Other information about this tablet, which is also rumoured to be coming Q2 2012, is that it will sport a Tegra 3 quad-core chipset which is not really surprising at all. Nexus devices have always been the flagship of Android so stuffing as much good hardware into one is essential.