News

O2 launches hunt for the world’s favourite Angry Bird

O2 today launches the biggest bird search since Tweety and Sylvester to discover just which Angry Bird is closest to the country’s heart.

The vote, being run via text, Twitter, Facebook and the O2 Blog, will determine one of the biggest questions of our time: does the yellow bird’s turbo boost outweigh the blue bird’s ability to split, or are the pigs in the right after all?
Voters can choose between the red, yellow, green, blue, black and white birds as well as the pigs. To have their say, voters can use any of the following voting methods:

• Twitter: to tweet their choice, voters should write a tweet with their vote and include the hashtag #angrybirdso2. Tweets without this hashtag will not be counted
• Facebook: Facebookers can vote by visiting www.facebook.com/o2uk and hitting Like on the picture of their bird
• O2 Blog: to vote on the O2 Blog, voters need to visit the O2 Blog and add a comment with their favourite bird
• Text: To vote by text, send a message to 60600 with the word ANGRY followed by RED, YELLOW, GREEN, BLUE, BLACK, WHITE or PIG. Votes cast by text will cost the standard network rate and can only be sent in the UK.

There are also Twibbons available for voters to show their support – to download them, head to the O2 Blog.

The search, being run to coincide with O2 selling Red Bird, Yellow Bird and Green Pig Gear4 Angry Birds cases for iPhone 4 in store and at www.o2.co.uk/angrybirds, finishes at lunchtime on Friday 10 December. The results will then be announced in time for worldwide Angry Birds Day on Saturday 11 December with one lucky voter for red bird, yellow bird and pig each winning a case featuring the character they voted for.

Posted by: James

BlackBerry PlayBook demoed in more detail

With nearly every gadget manufacturer wanting to out a tablet of their own, RIM and their PlayBook is one that seems to be grabbing the headlines, and rightly so. At a Rogers demo, David Neale showed off a demo of a PlayBook with a newer OS build, which was capable of showing the operating system’s multitasking system, though on only one of the two cores of its processor. The interface is very webOS-like with swiping gestures used to manage running apps. Another tasty treat was a full HD 1080p video clip playing very smoothly – it seems like one of the most promising tablets for the future!

Posted by: Vince

On screen keyboard found on webOS

The chaps at precentral.net have been playing about with the Palm Pre 2 and have come across an on screen keyboard which has not been seen before. Having this keyboard on the Palm Pre or Pixi is fairly pointless but what is does make us think is that HP/Palm must be working on some touch screen only devices for the near future. This is pretty exciting stuff as WebOS is a great platform sorely let down by some not so great hardware from Palm. I suspect things are going to change now that HP are running the show.

Video after the break:

Gingerbread enhancements revealed, rolling out to Nexus Ones

Google have finally come clean about the newest release of Android. As the rumours suggested, Gingerbread is indeed version 2.3. It isn’t a huge overhaul of Android, but rather many refinements under the hood and more UI tweaks and enhancements; Honeycomb 3.0, expected early next year, is the one that’s supposed to be the next major release. As well as officially announcing the release, Google have also seen it fit to already begin rolling over the air updates to Nexus One owners, so watch out for the update if you’re a lucky enough to own one. If not, there’s the Nexus S expected to be on sale on the 20th of December. Click through to see a brief summary of the tweaks and improvements over Froyo:

Google Nexus S arrives

Carphone Warehouse have updated their site with details of what you can expect to pay for the new Nexus S. Sim unlocked the high price of £549.95 is being demanded. You can of course grab it on PAYG on Vodafone by adding £10 to that. To get it free you’ll be paying £35 a month for 600mins, 500 sms and 500 mb data on a 24 month contract. There is also a £40 option at 900mins, 500 sms, 750mb, again for 2 years.

It’s a tall order and roughly equivalent to what early adopters had to pay to get their hands on the Nexus One on it’s initial release. Delivery is roughly estimated as the end of December.

Posted by Gareth

]

The Nexus S is coming!

Google’s new flagship Android device will be with us in a matter of weeks. The joint effort from Samsung and Google will be the first Android device to come pre loaded with Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

After December 16, Nexus S will be sold unlocked and carrier-independent initially through Best Buy stores in the U.S. and after December 20 at Carphone Warehouse stores in the UK.

See the specs and the press release after the break:

Angry Birds Seasons is here for Android and iOS

Angry Birds Seasons is now available for download for iOS and Android devices! Initially launched in the App Store as Angry Birds Halloween, the game has been expanded with a brand new festive level pack Season’s Greetings.
Season’s Greetings consists of 25 daily surprises for fans of Angry Birds to enjoy while counting down the days until Christmas. Included in the game is also the 45-level Halloween special edition, now packaged as a separate episode called Trick Or Treat.

The game will set you back 59 pence on the iPhone/iPod Touch and only £1.19 for the iPad. Android users get their edition for free but it is ad-supported currently.

Go check it out.

Posted by: James

RIM vs Kik – The story continues

For those of you that have been following the Kik messaging saga on BlackBerry you may or may not be aware that RIM have launched a suit against Kik Interactive for patent infringement.

It would appear that Kik have infringed three Canadian patents but in addition it also looks like Ted Livingston, the CEO of Kik interactive, worked at RIM as part of the BBM group in 2007 to 2008. RIM alleged that Ted had access to confidential information regarding BBM development, future plans, and technology and used them to his benefit.
RIM also alleged that Kik had, without obtaining user consent, transmitted end users’ personal information, including information from their address books, to Kik’s servers and then used that information to send spam.
This is going to be an interesting case to watch, as RIM will certainly ask for an injunction to stop Kik from distributing its software across not only BlackBerry, but all other mobile platforms as well.

Some unhappy times lie ahead for happy Kik users I think.

Posted by: James

Is this the next BlackBerry Curve?

This one has apparently shown up for FCC approval in the States and is called the BlackBerry Curve 8980.

It’s rumored to have a QVGA screen, a 3.2 megapixel camera and only be EDGE which will not be everyone’s cup of tea.

In fact when I first heard about this one I was a little disappointed and initially thought what is the point in this.  However, I soon realised that this one does have a place in the market.

The Curve 8980 may be the replacement for the 8520. The 8520 was reviewed by us over a year ago so this would be perfect timing for a new improved version. The Curve 8520 has been a huge seller, particularly here in the UK where I see a so many youngsters with them so I see no reason why the 8980 shouldn’t follow suit. I could be totally wrong though and it will really depend on price.

Posted by: James

Free BlackBerry Services from T-Mobile

Those nice chaps at T-Mobile have announced a rather nice offer for us BlackBerry fans. If you click this link you can enter your details and T-Mobile will send you one or two sim cards with six months BlackBerry Services free of charge.

If you are a PAYG customer then as an added bonus you will get unlimited texts when you top up £10.00 per month.

Vodafone did a similar thing recently which I would imagine was a big hit. Nice to see T-Mobile following.

Posted by: James