New Year's Day breaks iOS 6 Do Not Disturb mode, makes it silence your iPhone permanently
The Do Not Disturb mode introduced with Apple’s latest iOS 6 appears to have a serious bug. Since the turn of the year, it stopped functioning as promised and prevented quite a lot of people from getting their calls and messages.
The DND feature allows you to set a period of time when your iPhone will stop alerting you of incoming calls, messages and notifications. It doesn’t affects the alarms though.
Unfortunately since last midnight the DND mode won’t turn off automatically once the scheduled time comes and continues to silence pretty much everything. If you are in iPhone user, don’t panic, your friends didn’t forget you (probably), your phone is not alerting. And maybe those friends you have a hard time reaching since last night, are probably victims of the said bug.
Anyway, you can’t fix this with just switching the feature on/off (already tried this, it eventually get stuck again), so you’ll have to turn it off until an official update becomes available.
New version of redsn0w is out, jailbreaks everything 4.3.2 but the iPad 2, again
Apple released iOS 4.3.2 shortly after iOS 4.3.1. It fixed a few things and brought another batch of security updates making the jailbreak tools unusable once again.
Well, the jailbreaking community is a hard working one and a new version of redsn0w compatible with the iOS 4.3.2 is now available.
The latest redsn0w version jailbreaks every iOS 4.3.2-supported device but the iPad 2. It seems Apple has done good job protecting it. The jailbreak works on iPad 1, iPod Touch 3G/4G and iPhone 3GS/4 (GSM).
If you are interested to jailbreak your iGadget just hit the link below. And make sure you read the instructions carefully!
A few leaked webOS 3.0 screenshots give us a glimpse of what’s coming this summer
In case you haven’t heard HP is preparing to launch a webOS-based tablet called TouchPad this summer. It will run on the tablet-optimized webOS 3.0 that nobody has seen. Up until now.
Today five screenshots taken from a webOS 3.0 emulator escaped into the wild for our viewing pleasure.
The shots give us a glimpse into the browser, messaging, maps and music apps plus the dock icons and notification area.
As you can see all the apps use a minimalistic and intuitive interface. The Web (the browser app) has been renamed to Browser. There you can also see the new virtual QWERTY keyboard, which has a dedicated number row and a Next key to ease your interaction with various page elements (such as text fields).
The maps and messaging apps
HP replaced Google with Bing maps within the Maps application and added map scale info.
The notification area and the music player
The notification area now occupies just the upper right corner, while the Dock seems to be intact.
One more thing – the new music player seems awfully familiar. iPad anyone?
The webOS 3.0 seems promising and so does the TouchPad. We’ll know more this summer. The webOS should also be available on HP PCs and laptops later this year.
Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 is the first 7200 rpm 3TB 3.5-inch hard drive
Today Hitachi announced its Dekstar 7K3000 hard drive – the world’s first to offer 3TB storage and 7200 RPM speed. The 3.5” drive also supports 6Gb/s SATA interface and packs a whopping 64MB cache.
These specs should give it an edge over the other available 3TB internal drive – the Western Digital 3TB Caviar Green, which only runs at 5400 RPM.So if you have been delaying that hard drive update for until 3TB units get up to speed it might be time to jump in. The Deskstar 7K3000 offers maximum interface transfer rates of up to 600 MB/s and media transfer rates of up to 1656 Mb/s.
There’s no mention of pricing or target launch date just yet but those should be revealed in the coming weeks.
Nokia Windows RT tablet pictured, alleged full Windows 8 version on the way
What we may be seeing here is Nokia’s rumored Windows tablet, which has been doing the rounds in Rumorland for quite a long time now, but is yet to be officially confirmed.
The slate runs Windows RT nd not the full-blown Windows 8. However sources, allegedly close to the situation at Espoo, claim that Nokia may have given up on the RT version (pictured here) and will move its focus to delivering a slate with the full Windows experience.
The Nokia tablet was rumored to be running on a lowly Tegra 3 processor, have a 10″ display, HDMI and USB ports, SIM slot and a MagSafe charger, similar to that of the MacBook and Microsoft Surface – a charger that magnetically attaches to the port for convenience.
The tablet is said to sport the model number NVIDIA P1001, but we doubt it will be what the final version is called. When we hear more, we’ll update you immediately.
If there’s one thing Gameloft’s good at, it’s consistently bringing console quality games to the small screen. Some of these are perhaps too close to some of the console titles out there, close enough to be labelled as clones, but for those who want to experience some of the audio visual glory that they are used to seeing on the big screen in the palm of their hands, these games have rarely disappointed.
The newest title to fit this description is Wild Blood. The first Gameloft game to feature the exceptional Unreal Engine, Wild Blood promises gory hack and slash action with stunning visuals that the engine is known for. Let’s see how well it manages to do that.
Title
Wild Blood
Developer
Gameloft
Platform
iOS
Android
Release Date
September 6, 2012
October 8, 2012
Content rating
12+
Medium Maturity
Size
771MB
698MB
Cost
$6.99
The Premise
Our hero in this game is Sir Lancelot, who is having an affair with King Arthur’s wife, Queen Guinevere. When the king finds out about this, he goes berserk and sets out to destroy Lancelot, and everything in his path. He employs the services of the evil sorceress Morgana, who opens the Hellgate and sets all sorts of not very nice creatures upon the land. Oh, and she also captures the Queen Guinevere and holds her hostage. Now Lancelot has to stop the carnage going about him, kill Morgana, free Guinevere and make it home in time to catch Medieval Britain’s Got Talent. Okay, so I made up the last part.
The story is not much and just an excuse to shove that massive sword through all sorts of evil hell spawn. And Sir Lancelot is perhaps the most boring lead character in the history of gaming. He even looks like he’s slightly bored. You don’t really care if he saves the day or gets used as a mop by one of the ogres in the game. If you have played Horn that we reviewed last week, you’d know that even that young blacksmith’s assistant was more involving a character than this fancy knight. Heck, even Pac-Man was a more involving character.
Gameplay
Wild Blood is an action-adventure game with a third-person camera view. You use the left side of the screen as a joystick to move the character around and the right side to control the camera. The right side also has buttons for all the weapons and attacks that you will be using.
To attack enemies, you get a host of weapons, from swords to axes and a bow and arrow. You can upgrade these weapons using gold coins you collect by killing enemies, opening chests and breaking pots and barrels spread around. You will also often come across civilians who are held captive. Breaking their cage releases them and in return they give you some more gold.
Other uses for the gold is purchasing potions for restoring health and mana. You can also purchase additional powers that you can use a limited number of times depending upon your mana. These powers are usually devastating attacks that can take down enemies in one blow. You can upgrade these powers to cause even more damage.
You can also use the gold (a significant amount of it, mind you) to instantly revive yourself after you die, or you can choose to use the restart the game at the last checkpoint, which could be close by or somewhere far away. At times you have no choice but to keep replaying a significant section of the game because the damn checkpoint is just so far back and you don’t have enough gold to instantly revive yourself. This is where you might be tempted to use the game’s in-app purchase option to purchase additional gold by spending real money.
Most of the game has you running around and battling enemies. The enemies come in great variety, 20 of them in fact, and it includes some bosses. The boss battles are all well spaced out and every time you think things are getting too easy the game throws one at you. The other enemies are also quite varied in their attacks and range from mildly annoying to extreme pain in the nether regions.
Other things you do in the game involve opening chests, as mentioned before, except there is another type of chests that has you solving puzzles. The puzzles involve moving blocks around and in return you get a lot more gold than from the usual chests. The puzzles reminds strongly of the game Unblock Me, except here they are easier. These serve as a nice diversion from the usual action but they are also the only type of puzzles you’ll be solving. And they are completely optional.
While the general hack and slash action is enjoyable, there are two things that make the game fairly frustrating. First of all the joystick controls suck. This is extremely apparent when you’re trying to run, or use a special attack that involves directing yourself towards the enemies. The number of times you miss your enemies and run straight past them is not funny. Also, you can’t turn, so if you miss the enemy, you end up raging alone in some corner wasting your mana while the enemies are half a mile away from you.
Another area where the control situation crops up is when you are controlling a ballista in the game’s many moments. It would be easier to give someone instructions over the phone to control a real ballista instead of controlling one of these in the game. Even the tiniest motions moves the thing around as if it’s some pea shooter and you need to be extremely accurate to kill, which means even before you can line up your shot you are killed by the enemy, who all happen to have their own projectile attack and don’t have to deal with terrible controls at their end.
The other more atrocious problem is the camera. First of all, it seems all enemies have decided before they spawn that they are not going to be anywhere inside the view that you see on the screen. Each one appears perhaps as far away as possible, so you have to run to them to kill them. What’s worse is that moving the camera around is extremely slow. You have to keep swiping on the screen like an idiot to make the camera turn 180 degress and by then the enemy has probably moved. Half the time in the game is spent adjusting the camera and pointing it in the right direction so you can see what you’re supposed to kill. At this point you seriously start wondering if the Queen is worth rescuing and start contemplating on letting Morgana keep her as her pet.
One last issue for me that others may not have is the feeling of having done all this before. It’s not just about the fact that the game takes heavy inspiration from the God of War series in practically everything it does but more with the genre itself. The third-person action adventure genre is probably older than the real King Arthur and doing the same things again and again has become terribly boring. Bringing games that have started to feel stale on the consoles to mobile doesn’t make them any more interesting. You can marvel at the visuals for a while, but it doesn’t take long to realize you did the same basic things ten years ago.
What I’m saying is that mobile doesn’t need more recycled titles from old genres. Games like Super Hexagon that we saw last week work because they do something new and even though the game probably had 1/100th the budget of Wild Blood it will hold your attention for longer and will you have you coming back more often. We need more games like that. Not just the same old FPS, racing or action-adventure games.
There is a multiplayer mode as well, but it’s not really about skill but rather who has the fanciest weapons and armor around. If your weapons aren’t upgraded you won’t last ten seconds, even though most arenas have 4-5 players right now. Also, being against smarter and more powerful human enemies only further exposes the game’s inherent flaws.
Graphics and Sound
Having an Unreal Engine in a mobile game is a surefire recipe to have great visuals. We have already seen what this engine can do on game such as the Infinity Blade series and even on Wild Blood it does a great job. The game looks stunning throughout, especially on the new iPad with the Retina display. Gameloft has also made good use of the engine’s prowess by creating amazing level and enemy designs. In short, it all looks great.
Sound-wise there is not much to say. The soundtrack is passable (it sounds ridiculously similar to The Dark Knight Rises soundtrack in the menu where you have to solve the puzzles to open chests) and the weapon and enemy sounds are the usual affair. The dialogues are cheesier than a cheese burst pizza and the voice acting is lame. The character mouths do move this time around but they don’t move with what they’re saying. Lancelot could be swearing at you for all you know.
Conclusion
It might seem as if I have been harder on this game than usual but that’s just because I expect big budget games from big developers selling for big bucks to be more than just console game rehashes. It’s time mobile game developers stopped looking at what the folks on the consoles are doing and started doing something new designed specifically with the touchscreen in mind.
Wild Blood is a fine game if you don’t mind having the same sort of gaming experience that you have on the consoles. Of course, the camera and the controls still suck, but they would probably be fixed and then the game would have few real flaws. And besides, it makes for a great showcase for your hardware, particularly if you have the new iPad as the Unreal Engine gives it a nice workout. But if like me you’re bored of this genre and were looking for something new, give this one a pass.
Rating: 3/5 Pros: Great visuals, wide variety of weapons and enemies Cons: Botched up controls and camera, cheesy dialogues, lacks originality
A few quick impressions on Lenovo's IdeaPad K1, ThinkPad, and IdeaPad A1 Android tablets
Being already one of the premier PC makers, it was only logical for Lenovo to take a shot at the quickly expanding market for Android tablets. This summer, the Chinese manufacturer released three different models, which include the IdeaPad K1, ThinkPad and IdeaPad A1, in an attempt to offer a droid tablet for every taste and budget. We managed to spend some quality time with the entire lineup of Lenovo slates, running the Google OS at an event in New York, and here are some fresh initial impressions for you.
We will begin with the Android Honeycomb 3.1 running Lenovo IdeaPad K1.
Lenovo IdeaPad K1
The 10″ tablet sits right in the middle of the Lenovo lineup of droids, and is expected to compete with the offerings from ASUS, Acer, and Toshiba.
The IdeaPad K1 is powered by a dual-core NVIDIA Tegra CPU, and comes with a gig of RAM on board. The internal memory of the tablet varies between 16 and 64GB, and can be further expandable via a microSD card. Full connectivity suite is available, including optional 3G support. The tablet has a 5MP camera on its back, along with a 2MP front-facing snapper. Its 10″ screen has 1280×800 pixels resolution. The IdeaPad K1 weighs 1.7 lbs, and has 10 hours of battery life. Software wise, you get Android Honeycomb 3.1, which has been slightly tweaked by Lenovo with a launcher on the homescreen, and a proprietary app store, offering apps which have been tested for compatibility with the tablet.
Bearing that in mind, as far as specs are concerned, most Android Honeycomb tablets come quite close, we believe it’s factors such as design and build quality, which are crucial for the success of any of them. In this aspect, the Lenovo IdeaPad K1, much like the other products from the Chinese company, gets a high score. The build quality of the tablet is superb. The back is made from textured plastic with a pleasant feel and prevents the slate from easily slipping from your grip.
The Lenovo IdeaPad K1 from Lenovo is currently available with prices starting at $449 for the 16GB, Wi-Fi only version. Like we already mentioned above, if you like the looks of the device, it is certainly worth attention.
Lenovo ThinkPad tablet
The next object of our attention is the Lenovo ThinkPad tablet. The device is an extension of the highly popular line of business oriented laptops, which can be traced all the way back to the times, when they carried an IBM logo.
Just a brief look at the ThinkPad can tell you that the tablet means business. It shares most of its internals with the IdeaPad, but there have been a few major additions, which bring it up to par with its laptop cousins. Among them are a full USB port, 3 in 1 card reader, and data encryption. Software wise, along with Android Honeycomb 3.1, the slate comes with a serous number of productivity apps preloaded such as Documents to Go, Printer Share and Citrix Receiver. The latter allows you access to your Microsoft Windows running desktop in the office. Battery life is claimed at 8 hours with Wi-Fi turned on.
The Lenovo ThinkPad droid comes with a tablet pen which, with the help of software, transforms your hand-written notes into digital text. As an option, you can also purchase the keyboard dock, which has the exactly same design as the ThinkPad notebooks, including the signature red mouse bud.
By far, we dare to say, the Lenovo ThinkPad is one of the best Android tablets on the market. With a superb build quality, a number of options which are not offered by the competition, and a starting price of $499.99 for the entry level, 16GB version with Wi-Fi, the tablet brings its game closer to full blown personal computer than any of its rivals.
Lenovo IdeaPad A1
The last tablet offering from Lenovo which we encountered, was the recently announced, 7″ IdeaPad A1. Priced at the highly affordable $199.99, the Android 2.3 Gingerbread offering is aimed to compete mostly with the dedicated e-book readers out there.
The IdeaPad A1 runs on a single-core Cortex-A8 processor, clocked at 1GHz. Its 7″ screen comes with a 1024 x 600 pixels resolution. The entry model comes with 8GB of on board memory, which goes up to 32GB. A microSD card slot is available for further expansion. There is a 3MP camera on the back, along with a VGA unit for video calls in the front. Full connectivity is on board sans 3G. The latter will not be available as an option. All this functionality comes in a package which is only 10.1mm thin, and weighs 400 grams.
In our brief encounter with the budget tablet, we found it feeling a lot more upscale than its price tag suggests. We attribute this fact to the high quality materials used by Lenovo. Given that the price is marginally higher than what basic e-book readers command, we believe that the Lenovo IdeaPad A1 is a viable alternative to them.
We do look forward to spending more time with the Lenovo Android tablets. Our first impressions were quite positive across the entire range. In the meantime, feel free to tell us which one do you like the most in the comments section below.
A couple of ASUS Eee Pads announced, pack CULV Intel Core 2 Duo, Windows 7 and some serious battery life
If you are in the hunt for a tablet running a full-fledged OS, then by all means spare a minute to check this out. ASUS, the company that sparked the netbook revolution several years ago, announced the 12-inch Windows 7-running Eee Pad EP121 and the 10-inch EP101TC that sport Windows Embedded Compact 7.
The Eee Pad EP121 (pictured above) is certainly the more interesting half of the duo with its CULV Intel Core 2 Duo CPU and 10 hours of battery life. There will also be a docking station with keyboard available for those moments when faster typing is required. Most of the other specs of the EP121 are still unknown but the start is more than promising.
With asking price between 400 and 500 US dollars I’m already feeling the temptation to get one of these Eee Pads. The thing is, they will only hit the shelves in Q1 of 2011 and it’s quite hard to predict what other alternatives will be available by then.
The Lenovo K900 was one of the most exciting smartphones from the company. The impressive design and the impressive chipset of the K900 made quite a few geeks regret that the exotic device didn’t enjoy wider availability. Lenovo is now expected to raise its game and compete with the top dogs of the industry with its next generation flagship smartphone.
An early benchmark result of the Lenovo K910, company’s next best handset have been leaked and it looks like, the device is all set to rub its shoulders against the top performers on the market this Fall.
The benchmark results of the Lenovo K910 reveal the presence of the Snapdragon 800 chipset with the processor clocked at 2.2 GHz. The K910 runs on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean and the smartphone has managed to score an impressive 30,059 points.
AnTuTu
Sony Xperia Z Ultra 33832
Samsung Galaxy S4 Advanced 31491
Lenovo K910 30059
Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa) 26275
Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600) 24716
HTC One 22678
Sony Xperia Z 20794
LG Optimus G Pro 20056
HTC Butterfly 19513
Huawei Ascend Mate 15714
Samsung Galaxy S III 15547
Oppo Find 5 15167
Samsung Galaxy Note II 13562
Unfortunately, there is no official confirmation from Lenovo at the moment, but we are hoping to see an announcement in the coming weeks.
'World's thinnest' tablet, the Toshiba AT200, is available at Carphone Warehouse UK
Toshiba and Carphone Warehouse are bringing “the world’s thinnest tablet” – the Toshiba AT200, or as users stateside know it, the Excite X10. It measures just 7.7mm thick and weighs 535g.
We first saw the AT200 last September at IFA when it beat the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 (another tablet to debut at IFA) by 0.2mm in terms of thickness, despite having a larger 10.1″ 1280×800 screen.
The AT200 runs Android 3.2 Honeycomb (it will be updated to 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich later on). It’s powered by two Cortex-A9 cores running at 1.2GHz and has 1GB of RAM.
Other specs include a 5MP main camera with 720p video recording and a 2MP video-call camera. There’s a miniHDMI port along with a miniUSB port and a microSD card slot.
The Toshiba AT200 is available in two versions 16GB (£399) and 32GB (£449). Both are Wi-Fi only. It’s exclusive to the Carphone Warehouse in the UK and is available only online for now. Starting February 15, you’ll be able to get it from brick and mortar stores too.
The start of the week brought some great news to the Acer Iconia Tab A500 users around the globe. The Honeycomb 3.1 update has just surfaced and those brave enough to try a manual flash might get it right away.
The update is the real deal, meaning an official Acer update, which just burst out ahead of its time. It could all be on purpose to test if there are any problems with it but as usual with such updates – those willing to risk it and try it sooner rather than later are in no short supply.
Here goes the download provided by the XDA developers forum. You can also head to this topic to find more on the leaked update, along with help on how to install it on your device. As usual with that kind of update deals you should proceed at your own risk and keep in mind that it most probably will void your warranty.
Facebook teams up with carriers to offer discounted data access to Facebook messaging
Facebook announced partnerships with multiple mobile operators to provide free or discounted data access for its website usage. As we already know, much of the Facebook’s usage is from the mobile devices and the Mark Zuckerberg’s company is trying to make it easier on the wallets to access it.
Facebook’s latest promotion offers you free or discounted data access on Messenger for Android, Messenger for iOS and, of course, for every platform, for which the service has been optimized.
As such, the promotion will be available in 14 countries and with more than 18 operators. Facebook has teamed up with operators that include TMN in Portugal, Three in Ireland, Airtel and Reliance in India, Vivacom in Bulgaria, Backcell in Azerbaydzhan, Indosat, Smartfren, AXIS and XL Axiata in Indonesia, SMART in Philippines, DiGi in Malaysia, DTAC in Thailand, Viva in Bahrain, STC in Saudi Arabia, Oi in Brazil, Etisalat in Egypt and Tre in Italy.
Facebook’s free data access hasn’t started yet and the offer will be applicable in the coming months.
China to put heavy restrictions on Internet maps, Google Maps is probably out of there
China has been censoring a lot of Internet related stuff lately – the latest victim is online maps. Citing security concerns, the Chinese government is going to impose some very restricting rules about maps on the Internet and location-based services in China…
The new rules, which will come in effect next month, include stuff like requiring “servers storing map data” to be located in China and those servers must not have had any information leaks of any kind in the last three years.
These restrictions apply to both maps and satellite images as well as maps downloaded or copied to mobile phones.
This likely means that Google Maps is going to be banned in China – after the China/Google disagreement, the search giant moved its Chinese servers to Hong Kong. There’s no official response from Google yet, though.
Apparently, Nokia hasn’t commented on how this will affect them either (they own map-maker NAVTEQ). And I’m not sure where Bing Map’s servers are, but they may be in trouble too.
Related location-based services are collateral damage to the new rules – some use map data from Google and I’m pretty sure none of them can afford to set up China-based servers so they store “map data”.
YouTube adds an online video editor to its host of services
Latest YouTube update includes video editor allowing you to create/edit movies from your uploaded content. It’s easy to work out, doesn’t require any software installation and your new videos will directly appear on YouTube once they’re done.
YouTube video editor can combine clips, trim the beginning/end and change the audio track. That’s basically everything you need to create or edit a movie.
Here is a quick video explaining the basics:
It uploads the new videos directly into YouTube, so you don’t need to worry about space, processing power and video formats.
YouTube video editor is still in testing phase, but you’re welcome to try it in TestTube.
The BBC’s popular VOD service iPlayer, which brings you popular TV and Radio programs from their site as well as on various mobile devices and and web-enabled TV’s, is now also available on the Xbox 360.
One cool feature that the developers have implemented for this version is the ability to control the application using gestures via the Xbox Kinect controller. At the time of writing, this isn’t available on other consoles, such as on the PS3 with the Playstation Move motion controller.
Gesture-controlling is still in the development, and as such does not work without the occasional hiccup. Fortunately, it also features pretty decent voice recognition, giving you yet another reason to shout at your TV.
If you live in the UK, look for the BBC iPlayer app on Xbox Live starting today.
MeeGo and Ubuntu ported to Nexus S, but they're not ready yet
The Google Nexus S was first rooted less than a month ago and there are already some pretty serious mods for it. One dev has managed to run both MeeGo and Ubuntu and while they run just barely, it’s still quite a feat…
Both OS’s currently load from the internal memory of the Nexus S, so there’s no need for flashing – great news, considering both can’t be put to daily use. One of the major items on the “doesn’t work” list is the screen – touchscreen doesn’t work and there are some color management issues with the MeeGo port.
Here’s a video of MeeGo booting on the Google Nexus S:
By the way, the Ubuntu port is based on the same image as the HTC HD2 Ubuntu port.
84-inch UltraHD panel from LG is bound to become world's biggest 3D screen
Everybody loves bigger and bigger TVs, but at what point do they get TOO big? 3D panels are obviously going there as LG are about to present the world’s largest 3D panel – a monstrous 84-inch giant with UltraHD resolution.
LG will showcase the 84-inch panel on the Society for Information Display expo in Seattle (25-27 May). It will be accompanied with another two great achievements in the 3D world – the 47-inch TV panel with liquid lens for use with no 3D glasses and another 47-inch 3D TV using polarized glasses with extremely low level of crosstalk – less than 1%.
It seems 3D technology is shaping really nicely and the Seattle expo promises to be interesting. But even if you are not a 3D fan, you may appreciate those chicks presenting every new Korean product.
360 Compact Mobile Phone concept puts touchscreens on flip covers with questionable results
We occasionally cover concepts for mobile phones – they may never leave the drawing board, but their designers often dream up of interesting new features that might one day make it to actual devices.
This design is by Baek Kil Hyun (a student at the Samsung Art & Design Institute) and it’s called 360 Compact Mobile Phone (hey, the guy’s a designer, not a copywriter). His imaginary product implements two flips that are also displays and do what the iPad 2’s Smart covers do, except… they are better.
Before you run to the comments to post “rip-off!” I’ll just point out that the design was posted a day before the iPad 2 was announced.
Anyway, the 360 Compact Mobile Phone (which I’ll call “the 360” for, uh, compactness) features a protective cover on the front, which splits into two equal pieces. They flip open to reveal the screen and are in fact screens themselves.
Unlike Smart covers, the flips on the 360 not only serve as kickstands or display covers but expand the screen size and can display special menus (check out Standing and Multitasking mode).
360 Compact Mobile Phone concept
Standing mode shows some shortcuts but I think it would have been more clever if it worked as a software keyboard – it won’t be as comfortable as a physical keyboard but still, slightly better than having the virtual keyboard cover up part of the screen. A keyboard that lays flat on the table while the screen is oriented towards you sounds good too.
There are of course some downfalls of the design (like no part of the display is visible when the flips are closed, which makes checking the time or Caller ID annoying) but would you like a touchscreen-packing, protective flap on your phone? Something like an uber Sony Ericsson P900 but with a touchscreen on the flap?
Brown Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 is official, US to get first dibs
Last month, we saw a leaked image showing off the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 in a brown paintjob, although we had no idea when or where it will be available. Until now.
The Brown versino has popped up online from several US retailers for $399.99, and is available now. You can get it, complete with free shipping, from Amazon, Best Buy, B&H, and Adorama.
The price is for the WiFi only version of the Note 8.0, complete with a brown-colored S-Pen, and a 1.6 GHz quad-core CPU, 2GB of RAM, an IR-port, and a 4,600 mAh battery. It runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean out of box.
For more on the Note 8.0, check out our full review.
GTA V set to launch in the Spring of 2013 according to leaked pre-order ads
The next installment in the Grand Theft Auto series will see the light of day some time in Spring next year. GTA V will be released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles around that time according to a leaked photo of a retail display.
Polish fansite GTA Five.pl has obtained photos of an upcoming retail display, inviting customers to pre-order the game.
Judging by the logos shown on the advertisement, Rockstar isn’t going to offer the game for PC, or at least not initially.
Otherwise, details around the game have been scarce with Rockstar releasing just a couple of screenshots and one teaser trailer.
InVisage Technologies announce camera sensors with 4x light sensitivity, cameraphones lovers rejoice
Technology developer InVisage Technologies has developed an image sensor that can offer four times better light sensitivity than the traditional silicone-based CCD and CMOS sensors. That has become possible through the usage of quantum dots (nanocrystals wrapped in a polymer film) instead of silicon photodiodes.
According to the InVisage Technologies the quantum dots themselves are twice more sensitive to light than traditional photodiodes and that their placement on the sensor surface offers a further doubling of sensitivity over front-illuminated CMOS designs. The film can be positioned on conventional circuitry, allowing the chips to be produced more cheaply than CMOS or CCD designs. Also bear in mind that producing smaller sensors is cheaper per area unit than producing large sensors so camera using the new sensors should be far cheaper than their rivals.
But the best part is, of course the better sensitivity to light, which should theoretically allow a cameraphone-sized sensor (1/2.5″ inches in diagonal in the best case) to give low-light results (ISO performance) similar to what we are currently seeing from entry and mid-range dSLR cameras. Of course this is just in theory as we all know that things don’t work that well in practice. Nor is image quality all about the low-light performance but this has been a traditional weakness of all small sensor cameras.
The first QuantumFilm image sensors, targeting high-end mobile handsets and smartphones, will be manufactured in Q4 of 2010, so we should probably be expecting the first devices some time in H1 of 2011.
Check out the most amazing photography Rube Goldberg machine
Photography fans and Rude Goldberg machines fans checks this out. We stumbled upon the most complex setup, designed to perform the simplest of tasks – take a portrait photo. Created using almost exclusively photography gear this is certainly going to make every camera enthusiast tremble.
Obviously the amount of effort that went into designing this is mind-blowing, and the cost of the gear used could probably buy you a decent family sedan. And since words couldn’t possibly describe all the action that’s going on in the video, we aren’t even going to try.
Instead we’ll just give you the four minutes and thirteen seconds of awesomeness and let you enjoy it.
LG announces Smart Video feature, bound to hit the Optimus G Pro as part of a Value Pack upgrade
LG continues trying to steal Samsung’s thunder ahead of tonight’s Galaxy S IV show and has just announced a new software feature dubbed Smart Video.
Destined to hit the Optimus G Pro, Smart Video works pretty much the same way as the Smart pause feature we saw in thoseGalaxy S IV leaks – videos get automatically paused when you’re not looking at the screen.
LG says it has achieved this through advanced eye recognition technology, which recognizes the position of the viewer’s eye. The moment the front-facing camera detects your eyes are not on the display, video playback will be paused.
Smart Video will be joined by the Dual Camera features as a part of something LG calls Value Pack upgrade. It’s going to be offered for the Korean version of the Optimus G Pro next month. The international variant of the smartphone will get the sweet extras later down the pipe.
Here’s the rest of the Value Pack contents that’ll make it to the Optimus G Pro:
Magic Remote Pad and Text Keypad via the QRemote function. These new options
for QRemote work specifically with LG Smart TVs to enhance convenience when
using Optimus G Pro as a remote control for LG Smart TVs.
The Smart LED Lighting outlining the home button of the Optimus G Pro will be
upgraded so users can customize the colors to correspond to their favorite contacts.
The flashing of the LED in different colors will allow users to identify the source of
incoming calls, missed calls, unread messages and emails.
Video Pause/Resume allows the user to stop and start in record mode for one continuous video file.
The first Color Emoticons in an Android smartphone for more personalized text
messages.
