Apple

Samsung Galaxy S4 release date 1 April 2013

2012-12-05T15:29:00.002-08:00

Samsung Galaxy S4

It’s not an easy task to choose the right Android smartphone for you, that’s why some of you may ask about Samsung Galaxy S4 release date. Others may be forced to wait until 2013 to buy a new Android smartphone because they are tied on a contract with a carrier.
Since the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S, each new flagship Android smartphone of the South Koreans was sold better than its predecessor. Samsung Galaxy S was outsold by Galaxy S2, Samsung reporting that 10 million GS2 units were shipped 5 months after the official launch. Galaxy S3 is by far the best selling Android-powered smartphone manufactured by Samsung: 30 million units were shipped in the first 100 days after the launch. Now, everyone expects the Samsung Galaxy S4 to be even more popular than its predecessor.

The analysts are estimating that 660 million smartphones will be shipped by the end of 2012, with a growth of 21.4% forecasted for 2013. Of course, both Apple’s and Samsung’s shipments will grow, but the South Koreans are seeking to bite an even larger chunk of iPhone’s market share, withSamsungGalaxy S4 on song.'

he first Galaxy was meant to be a competitor for the iPhone 4. It was released in June close to the debut of iPhone 4, with not enough time left to hurt iPhone 4′s sales. Next year the Samsung Galaxy S2 was made available for purchase in April, while Apple launched the iPhone 4S six months later, in October. By that time the Galaxy S2 sales were going down, as the customers already forgot about the smartphone launched by Samsung.

The war between Apple and Samsung is continuing to heat up. Days after the release of the iPhone 5, Samsung came out with an attack ad promoting their latest available smartphone – the Galaxy S3 (video below) and are reportedly readying the next generation Galaxy. While there no definitive reports of the Samsung Galaxy S4 release date, it is rumored to be released in February. This is slightly different than Apple’s releases as they have been known to tackle the holiday season, but it looks like Samsung Galaxy S4 release date will give Samsung a big boost in 2013. We have included everything that we know about the GS 4 below, check it out!

Statistics have indicated that the popular devices reach the sales peak in the first quarter after the launch, therefore the Samsung Galaxy S3 has hit the market at the right time and its sales were not affected by the iPhone 5 launch. I guess that the South Korean phone maker will have a similar approach for 2013. It will try to give the Samsung Galaxy S4 enough time (three months) to hit at the iPhone 5S, iPhone 6, or whatever the guys at Apple decide to call it.

Samsung has yet to confirm any of the reports on specs, but here is what we know. It’s expected that the Galaxy S4 will sport a quad-core processor and depending on the country, will feature Samsung’s Exynos processor or Qualcomm’s Snapdragon. The OLED screen will be larger than that of its predecessor, the S3 (4.8 inches), and the iPhone 5’s (4 inches) – most likely 5 minches. It will also sport 4G LTE connectivity and an Android OS. All of these rumored specs look to build upon the already impressive Galaxy S3 which boasts a 4.8 inch 720p HD display, 4G LTE connectivity, Android’s 4.0 OS, and a reasonable contracted price of $199. We have included some of the mock ups of what the Samsung Galaxy S4 might look like.

Earlier it was rumored that Samsung galaxy S IV is to be released or launched in February or March 2013. The rumor surfaced just after few days of iPhone 5 release. I was certainly very suspicious to the claim and couldn’t digest it. After all, Samsung Galaxy S3 was just launched in May,2012. My doubts were cleared when Samsung officially announced on their twitter page that no such event or launch is planned for now. This means that the reported rumor was not true. This rumor already caught media sites like fire and had been published wildly on several news and phone sites and blogs. However, we expect the release date of Samsung Galaxy S IV to be around July/August of 2013.

Samsung Galaxy S IV Specification

A new rumor has caught our attention. It is about camera module of 13 megapixel. It is rumored that Galaxy SIV will have 13 MP rear camera, something which many people expected in S III as well as in Note II but unfortunately, Samsung remained intact with 8 MP in the current generation phones. I am amazed by the work Nokia does with camera, especially in Nokia Lumia 920 and PureView 808. If you are to ask me, I’ll say, instead of bumping more megapixels in our captures, provide us with a better camera with optical image stabilization, excellent low-light performance which can replace our point and shoot digital camera at all in every way. I have not been fond of camera on Samsung phones which, according to me, is not as better as in iPhone 5 (lets not talk about Nokia Lumia 920 here as it outperforms all other phones easily). To support the rumor of 13 megapixel camera in Samsung galaxy S4, we believe it likely to happen because of late, we’ve seen 13 MP camera in the new LG Optimus G also. Even, the front camera is expected to receive megapixel jump.

Another recent leaks suggest screen size of 5 inch in Galaxy S4 which seems true as per the tradition of Samsung to increase the screen size, as is evident from its history (Galaxy S has 4 inch display, S2 has 4.3 inch display, S3 has 4.8 inch screen). But I highly doubt this. In fact, let me ask you, do you want a bigger screen in Galaxy S4? To support my argument, I’ll say that a bigger screen will diminish the gap between note series phones and galaxy s series phones, which might not be good from marketing strategy viewpoint for both the phones. But you never know! Samsung is one such giant manufacturer which brought the trend of ‘bigger, the better’ android phones in market.

A phone description can’t be complete without talking about its fine design features. Samsung has always been negligent to providing aluminum or alike kind of body which supposedly offers premium touch and the same case will be with S4 also. Not much design change will be there.

LG introduced in-cell display in LG Optimus G and iPhone 5 display employ similar technologies to make the display thinner. Well, Samsung has always been forward and technologically advanced in display tech. At IFA event lately, we had witnessed transparent displays from Sam. Well, transparent display is not coming to smartphones at this time but flexible display might come as Samsung has already developed required technology to enable such display in the phones. Even, then flexible display in Galaxy S IV is far-fetched for now.

Since we’re talking about display, rumors in this regards says that Samsung Galaxy S4 will have 1080p Full HD screen, but it won’t has Super Amoled display, instead Super clear LCD (probably because of technical limitations arising in amoled display when it comes to pumping more pixels in small dimension). To support 1080p display in galaxy s4, we can take hint from the recently unveiled HTC J Butterfly which caused stir in smartphone industry with its ultra-gorgeous screen, and as we know that Samsung always want to stay ahead of its competitors when it comes to its flagship marksmanship.

The processor could be Exynos “Adonis” 28 nanometer quad-core ARM Cortex A15 powerful chip, which is being tested actively, and hence may be slated to power the featured phone we’re discussing. The new CPU is designed with ultimate motive to exhibit undying strength without consuming more of the battery. Adonis is the supposed code-name.

LTE(4G) will be ubiquitous in the next phone as opposed to the current generation which offers 4G support in select regions only.Samsung Galaxy S IV will of course feature the latest available version of Android OS, which at the time of release might be Android 5. Take my word, Touchwhiz UI will get complete makeover. As in Galaxy S III, Samsung will introduce few new and exclusive features in terms of exclusive free services and certain software and hardware tweaks.

Without any doubt, the battery life won’t just be improved in the next version of Android OS, but at the hardware level also, it will feature extended battery backup capacity with equipped battery of more than 3000mAh. Wireless Charging and better headsets and phone speakers, processors, RAM are going to be other areas of improvements and feature additions. Also, this time, Samsung will focus more on adding awesome accessories lineup to support the phone and extend its features. A wildcard(?) hardware level exclusive feature must be planned by Samsung to fully beat Apple’s next iPhone. About price of Samsung galaxy S4, we expect it to be little higher than close competitors at launch time as was the case with S3. No doubt, the handset will rock and reign the android phone market (Galaxy S3 sold more than 20 million in just 100 days). More about this phone will be updated in this article, so keep checking it from time to time to keep yourself abreast of all the knowledge, info and news there is about your favorite phone.

Apple iPad 4 review

2012-12-04T06:03:00.000-08:00

Three Apple tablets in a single year. This is more than anyone asked for and yet, by some weird logic - or lack thereof, not too many for Apple to successfully sell. All fine and dandy, unless you got the iPad 3 - better luck next time if you were unfortunate enough to buy it in September.

Well, so much for the new iPad. Number 4 is the new new iPad. You must've heard the one about the double positives. Did we hear some iPad 3 owners say "Yeah, right"? To be honest, they're not without a point.

Apple iPad 4 official photos
Anyway, the tablet market is still Apple's to lose and the least it could do is send a message to the competition. The double November release may look like a knee-jerk reaction to Google and Microsoft's raid on the slate market but the fact is that Apple has the depth to compete on two fronts. The mini against compact droids and the iPad 4 against the Surface means Cupertino is leaving nothing to chance in defending its number one spot.

The fourth generation iPad is no major upgrade. It keeps the design, display and the main camera of its predecessor. What it gets is a new chipset and the new Lightning port. Oh, and there's an HD FaceTime front cam but that's barely worth mentioning.

Overall, it's the same tablet as the one released in March, with the class-leading Retina display and a welcome boost to the processing power. Plus, the Lightning port ensures seamless compatibility with the iPhone 5, which has sold by the millions.

Key features

9.7" LED-backlit IPS LCD touchscreen, 2048 x 1536 pixels; scratch-resistant, oleophobic coating
Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n connectivity, carrier-dependent hotspot support
Optional LTE connectivity (data only)
Optional GPS with A-GPS and GLONASS support (for the 3G model only)
Apple A6X SoC with 1 GHz dual-core processor
PowerVR SGX554MP4 quad-core GPU
1GB of RAM
iOS 6.0 with iCloud support and activation
16/32/64GB of inbuilt storage
652 grams of weight (662 grams for the LTE version)
Bluetooth 4.0
Lightning USB port
11,560 mAh battery
Accelerometer, compass and three-axis gyro-sensor
5MP auto-focus camera
1080p video recording at 30fps
1.2MP secondary camera capable of FaceTime HD calls
Four and five-finger gestures
1080p TV-output with the Apple Digital AV Adapter (purchased separately for $39), 720p video streaming
Supports magnetic cases

Main disadvantages

iTunes still required for uploading most of the content
Reflective screen struggles outdoors
No standard USB port
No stereo speakers
No GPS receiver in the Wi-Fi version
No memory card slot
Lack of basic iOS apps - stocks, clock, calculator, voice memos

It's an Apple device so things like a file manager and a memory card slot are not even up for discussion. They'll probably never be. Nothing on the list above should come as a surprise and, if you are still with us, you are OK with most of it.

The A6X chipset potentially doubles the processing power but let's be honest, the real life gain is not enough to make anyone throw away a still fresh iPad 3. Yet that's what Apple just did - you can think of that as investing in the future-proofing of the device more than anything else.

iPad 4 over iPad 3

Apple A6X chipset with PowerVR554MP4 quad-core GPU for allegedly 2x faster performance
1.2MP front FaceTime camera with HD video
GLONASS support (for the cellular version only)
Lightning USB port

Whether or not Cupertino will admit to feeling the pressure from Microsoft, they knew the right thing to do is prepare. Apple could not afford to have development split between flagship devices running different hardware.

Someone had to take the hit and leaving iPad 3 users out in the cold was probably a hard decision for Apple. The new product launch schedule may've put the iPad 4's market prospects in question too - users are less certain whether they should commit to a new device that may soon become outdated. Apparently, the new Apple tablets are doing great, but the iPad 4 seems to be the one that's always in stock, while the mini takes about 2 weeks to deliver.

But the iPad mini already had its moment in the spotlight here, it's now iPad 4's turn to have our full attention. Before we get busy, we should note that numbers are the short and easy way to set the different generations of Apple tablets apart. What was until recently known as the New iPad (iPad 3) is now discontinued. The current model (iPad 4) is officially called iPad with Retina. The only older generation Apple tablet officially in circulation is the iPad 2. Quite a mess, indeed.

Apple iPhone 5 hits 55 more countries this month

2012-12-04T05:44:00.000-08:00

Apple is expanding the iPhone 5 availability to 55 new countries this month. On December 7 the Apple's thinnest and lightest is coming to the Samsung's homeland - South Korea. A week later, on December 14, the iPhone 5 will land in 33 more markets. Those include Albania, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Ecuador, Grenada, Indonesia, Israel, Jamaica, Jordan, Kuwait, Macedonia, Malaysia, Moldova, Montenegro, Panama, Paraguay, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Taiwan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. December 21 is when another wave of countries will get to join on the iPhone 5 fun - Barbados, Botswana, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Egypt, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, St.Vincent & the Grenadines, Tunisia, Uganda and Vietnam. The iPhone 5 is already available in 47 countries and with these new addition the list grows to 102, making this the quickest rollout of any iPhone to date.

Google: Facebook is a 'social network of the past'

2012-11-29T11:12:00.001-08:00

Google: Facebook is a 'social network of the past'

Google's Bradley Horowitz has chucked down the social networking gauntlet, saying that Facebook is "pissing off users". He argues that the 'Book has had its day, calling it a "social network of the past" and that its intrusive ads are what is killing it. Using a slightly laboured analogy of two people chatting while a guy in a sandwich board keeps trying to get them to sell them a sandwich, he said, "I'm trying to communicate in that sacred space of social connection. "It doesn't matter if I 'Like' the sandwich, it doesn't matter if it's personalised with my favourite mustard, that is the wrong moment to try and dangle [it] in front of me. "There is a time and place for sandwiches," he added, to soothe sandwich fans' potential ire. "It's called lunch at a restaurant."

Mmm, sandwiches

He added that Facebook's ad strategy of "jamming" ads into people's news streams is "pissing off users and frustrating brands". Guess who's doing it better? That's right, Google's own social network, Google+. Horowitz says that Google's use of social recommendations rather than straight-up ads is a more "holistic" approach. That's all well and good but are your friends actually using Google+? The company reckons 100 million people are actively using the network each month but whether they're using it enough to make the recommendations engine work effectively is another story.

How to fix a broken touchscreen

2012-11-26T03:33:00.001-08:00

How to fix a broken touchscreen
TUTORIAL A home touchscreen repair could be easier and far cheaper than you think

It's the modern nightmare: a slip of the hand, an absent minded moment and a split second later your life lies there shattered on the floor. As desperately depressing as a broken phone screen may look, it may not be as terminal or as expensive as it looks.

All phones are obviously different, but many use separate elements for the touch-sensing component called the digitser and the actual LCD/OLED display. The digitiser sits at the front and often when dropped it's this that shatters rather than the display.

A broken display usually results in rainbow effects and the display not working in sections. A broken digitizer will continue to work, just with the nasty cracks. NOTE:Future Publishing Limited provides the information for this project in good faith and makes no representations as to its completeness or accuracy. Individuals carrying out the instructions in this project do so at their own risk and must exercise their independent judgment in determining the appropriateness of parts, equipment, sealants and other adhesives for a particular use. 1. We're going to look at replacing the HTC Desire S digitiser element, while not identical it'll be a similar process on many other models. These cost as little as £10 and should come with a suitable pry tools. You'll also probably need a jeweller screw driver set and ideally a set of Torx (star shaped) drivers sized 4 to 7.

2. Clear the work area and light it well. We're going to be dealing with tiny screws that you should arrange in order, as you remove them. To begin remove any cover, battery, SIM and SD cards.

3. For the HTC Desire S we start by removing four size 5 Torx screws from the base around the battery cover. If in doubt it's a good idea to photograph your device as you go along.

4. The HTC Desire S is pretty forgiving there's only one area that needs the pry tool and that's the top camera cover. Some devices need their entire backs removing with the pry tool. These are tricky to use but start at a corner and try and work the pry tool under the edge. Once in work along the edge popping out the clips and lift away the cover.

5. Remove two more size 5 Torx screws that are revealed. Any visible connections can also be unclipped, on the HTC Desire S there are two at the base.

6. We can now carefully "push" the main device out of the metal chassis screen first. Be careful here to bend up the lower PCB, as it'll catch on the rear of the chassis. You shouldn't need to force it at all.

7. Remove two more size 5 Torx screws at the top and remove the plastic bracket that this releases. It'll just lift away.

8. At this point we're working towards separating the display elements from the phone motherboard. On the HTC Desire S spot the two ribbon cables coming in to the side, these are the digitizer and display connections. Using the pry tool remove any tape but save this. Lift up the white locking element and using the help of a small screw driver remove the ribbons.

9. We're now free to part the display and the motherboard. As with many tablets and phones these are glued together, using the pry tool carefully and slowly start to separate the two, the glue will give you just need to take your time and work around the edge.

10. Carefully fold open the phone and disconnect the final two connecting elements. Leaving you with the display section and the motherboard section.

11. This is the hardest part of the whole tear-down. An adhesive gasket binds the digitizer to the display chassis. This needs to be heated to loosen the adhesive and using the pry tool separate the digitizer from the display. We strongly recommend using a hair dryer, too much heat will damage the display. So point it away from the centre and just at the edge of the display. You can use a hot-air gun but be extra careful, use the lowest setting and keep it moving.

12. Start on just the bottom edge or the least broken section. Use the pry tool to test how "sticky" the adhesive is and reheat, repeat until it starts coming away. Move on to the next small section and repeat. Eventually you'll lift the entire digitizer out. The process takes a while but if you can save the gasket it'll help avoid the next step.

13. If you've damaged the adhesive gasket or part has some away, this will need to be replaced with 1mm or 2mm adhesive tape designed for phones. Ebay and Amazon has vendors that sell this. If any area of the digitizer touches the display or chassis it'll short and you'll get false-positive touches, sending the touchscreen crazy.

14. Remove any protective film on either side, feed the new digitizer's ribbon through the lower hole and carefully from the base, angle it back into place firmly pushing it down to make sure the adhesive holds well. Feed the ribbon along the back of the display and reverse this process to carefully rebuild your phone.

15. Cross your fingers and press the power button. If all has gone well your phone will spring back to life and the display will be sensing your touch again.

Samsung Galaxy S4 what we want to see

2012-11-23T03:19:00.001-08:00

Samsung Galaxy S4: what we want to see

It certainly feels like Samsung is taking over the world right now – at least, the Android world. There's no doubt that last year's Galaxy S2 was arguably the phone of the year.

And not in recent times, discounting Apple of course, can we remember the anticipation and expectation of a phone as much as the Galaxy S3. If you needed a barometer of this, just look at how it was unveiled. Not at MWC like lots of others, but its own event. Yep, the Galaxy line has reached the level where it can guarantee hoards will come just for an unveiling. Very Cupertino. But despite the whooping masses and the queues on launch day, it wasn't the five star phone we hoped it would be... there's still very much room for improvement. So here's what we'd like to see for next year's SIV.

Samsung Galaxy S4 screen

This was the main source of criticism. The Galaxy S2 had an amazing Super AMOLED Plus display – and boy, was it vibrant. The S3 upped the screen size from 4.3-inches to 4.8-inches and the pixel density went from 217 to 306 to take a run at the iPhone's Retina Display.

But, Samsung also opted for a PenTile approach, to the chagrin of geeks. What does that mean for the end user?

Well, the screen looks great but you can make out pixels if you really, really strain. And some of the vivacity and colour saturation is lost. On the plus side, Samsung reckons the screen will last longer – but we'd rather see a much more S2-like screen with a sharper resolution - and given that's now appeared on the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, we're pretty hopeful we'll get it on the Samsung Galaxy S4 too. Alternatively, there have been a number of rumours that Samsung is going to bring a flexible screen to the Galaxy S4 - but given the Korean brand is already pushing the delivery of such tech back into 2013 for its customers, we think we'll be in Galaxy S5 territory before that happens.

There seems a much more likely option in the shape of the 5-inch 1080p screen that could offer up an eye-splitting 441ppi, making it easily the highest res out there. It would probably need to be shrunk down a smidge to fit into the palm, or Samsung could actually just make the phone even closer to the edges of the screen. Dare we dream of an edge-to-edge display like on the 9000 series TVs? However, the bad news is that due to reported manufacturing issues these may have been delayed... does that mean the phone will have to be pushed back as well?

Samsung Galaxy S4 release date

It seems more than likely that Samsung will eschew MWC 2013 once more for the release of its top handset, instead focusing on the launch in May 2013, which we'd really like to see.

This makes sense for a number of reasons: time to allow the current customers to buy the S3, being able to scoop up all the customers about to come out of contract from the S2 and also not making its fans feel like its throwing out a new flagship phone every three seconds. However, that didn't stop the rumour mill deciding that the Galaxy S4 launch was set for March 2013, based on something a Samsung 'representative' said to the media. The brand quickly took to Twitter to discredit the rumours, so it looks like the middle of the year launch is still firmly on the cards.

Samsung Galaxy S4 specs

There's not a lot around about specs at the moment, but the rumours emanating from the good ol' internet rumour mill are certainly enough to make us excited. The first is that the S4 will have a quad-core chip, which might sound a little 'last gen' to many. However, it will be based on ARM's A15 architecture, bringing with it a big boost in power for all those resource-intensive tasks we love to do all the time. But then again, that's not Samsung's way really, is it? We want to see bigger, bangier and faster, so doubling it again to an OCTO-core would be the way to go. Rather than just making it super powerful though, the eight core innards would split into two groups: A15-spec chips for the big stuff, and A7 when things need to get a little lower power, bringing with it the best of both worlds.

The other big news that we think should be on our wish list is the fact that Samsung's internal storage bods have been hard at work bringing the flash memory down in size and up in speed... so think even thinner phones with higher capacity that can be written to up to 10x faster. We're now looking forward to the S4 even more now.

Beam and beam again

Samsung may be setting up its Galaxy Beam smartphone as an individual entity but we'd love the ability to be able to beam stuff straight from our S4 onto a wall and truly show off the eight-core and Super HD capabilities. Imagine the faces of iFans when it's a spec-off and you shine THAT (literally) in their faces.

The fact of the matter is that the S3 has the processing power to run graphically-intense offerings and the Google Play store lets you download movies. As long as there was some way of also booming out the sound, we think this would be a great addition

Samsung Galaxy S4 battery

Ok, we admit we always want more. The S2's 1,650mAh was manageable and the S3's 2,100mAh blows that out of the water. But it's still only OK. You can get by on a day of moderate use but if you use this phone heavily (and we're talking watching TV shows on the morning and evening commute alongside your normal tinkering), this handset will still want a plug in at some point. Motorola has proven it can be done by whacking a 3,300mAh power pack into the RAZR Maxx which can still be considered a skinny Minnie. Something of that size – along with ICS and Samsung's power management abilities – would really be the icing on the Ice Cream Sandwich.

Samsung Galaxy S4 design

We've lost count of the amount of people we've shown our device off to who've replied with the words: "Yeah, it's great but looks like a bit of a toy." It's a double-edged sword: the plastic is used to keep this handset nice and light, but does detract from what should be a premium device.

A bit of glass wouldn't go amiss. Android users, say what you like about the iPhone 4/4S (and we know you won't be short of words), but aside from being smash-tastic, the glass really adds that premium and expensive feel that the S3 just doesn't have. Forget what your mum told you – it's what's on the outside that counts too, so the Samsung Galaxy S4 needs to step it up in the design stakes.

Better S-Voice

S-Voice just isn't there. At least Siri had the nous to call itself a BETA so that it could be excused for not getting things right at times. The problem we have with S-Voice is it just doesn't seem to be able to do much. Sure, it can tell you what the weather is like if you really can't be bothered to look out the window. And it'll save you 10 seconds by setting an alarm. But it's just not powerful enough - and is, frankly, awful for something that's supposed to be a headline feature on one of the world's best smartphones. We've actually been using Speak To It Assistant far more often because it's superior. Samsung could do worse than buy a company like this to give the Galaxy S4 a real chance of being the best voice-controlled mobile out there.

Better Mac support

Yep, we know many consumers believe Mac users account for only 0.000001% of Android owners (why wouldn't they just buy an iPhone, right?) But there are lots who like Apple computers as well as Android devices. And up until the S3, they got on famously.

But Android has changed the rules and how storage works so that it follows the MTP Protocol which plays along brilliantly with Windows but can't stand Macs. Yes, we know this is a Google issue and not something that Samsung can be blamed for. But having said that, the HTC One X also runs Ice Cream Sandwich and it has managed to tweak the code enough for there to not be a problem.

Please Samsung – don't shut them out. Ice Cream Sandwich may be frozen – but we shouldn't be, so when you bring out the Jelly Bean or Key Lime Pie-powered Galaxy S4, let's get some support.

Samsung Galaxy S4 accessories

Samsung unveiled the SIII alongside a raft of accessories – the usual things like cases were complimented by the C-Pen (like the Note 2's S-Pen but smaller) and the dongle for connecting to your TV to stream stuff. The problem is, they're all so expensive: £20 for the C-Pen and the best part of £70 for the AllShare Dongle. They're not mainstream accessories – and little wonder. If Samsung made these cheaper – or even threw them into the box for the Galaxy S4 (highly unlikely, but we can dream) then it would make for a much happier customer. Perhaps a premium package where you spend a little more but get the accessories at the same time would work... people like to get the most out of things when they get their shiny new device.

Better charging

Plug it in and charge until it's full. That's always been the way. But we'd love to see a more advanced version of charging - ditching the wires should be more prevalent.

Maybe something similar to the conductive methods used by Palm in the Pre which never really caught on. The idea being that you don't have to plug the phone in to charge, just place it on a particular mat or place and it does it automatically.The S3 has that functionality, but it's hardly been well-publicised since launch.

The likes of Nokia with the Lumia 920 have been banging on about the amazing world of wireless charging for ages now, with a range of accessories too. Given that it will all be based on the Qi wireless charging standard, we'll soon see reams of coffee shops and airports with these charging stations littered around - just don't forget to watch your phone.

Or how about something really radical – like a battery that can also charge kinetically on the S4. Sure, it would be slow but wouldn't it be great if you could go for a run and manage to gain an extra 10 or 20% just by doing so to get you through the day? Radical – yes. But Samsung is known for its innovation.

Improved speakers

As beautiful and wonderful as the S3 is, the speaker still sounds tinny. Ringtones sound cheap and when it is on its back, they're also muffled. At least the iPhone has a bit of bass.

But what about going a bit further? Have three or four powerful but small speakers around the rim so when you play music, it comes out loud and with a bit of bass. Hell, even make it so strong that it negates the need for a travel dock so you can play music at a decent volume when you nip away for the weekend or are sitting on the beach. That'd be a real selling point.

Better media offerings

The range Samsung has in its various hubs is admirable - the Music Hub has a lot of functionality with streaming and radio recommendations, and the Video Hub... well, it has some videos. But it's bitty and on top of that you've got all of Google's media offerings too. This is one of Apple's strengths – it just all works as one ecosystem. Maybe Samsung could look at teaming up with Google or even Amazon to create a 'super media store' that would really knock the socks off Apple when it launches the S4 - imagine a service where you got unlimited movie streaming each month as part of your contract.

But even if it's just incorporating a Samsung Galaxy Store, open to all, into Google Play, that would at least be an improvement. Some say Android is fragmented. Why not lead the way, Samsung, and end that by pushing to have it all in one place?

Samsung Galaxy S IV Rumors Swirl

2012-11-21T05:16:00.000-08:00

Samsung Galaxy S IV Rumors Swirl

Samsung is doing quite well for itself at the moment with the Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II, but that doesn't mean the Korean phone maker isn't working on the next big thing.

According to various reports, we might get a glimpse of Samsung's next smartphone as early as January's CES or February's Mobile World Congress. According to a Korean newspaper, the phone - the Samsung Galaxy IV - will feature a high-def, 4.99-inch, 1,920-by-1,080 display. That would mean a 445 ppi, up from the 306 ppi on the Galaxy S III.

GSM Arena, meanwhile, said the device could sport a 13-megapixel camera. Samsung did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But the South Korean company in September dismissed reports of a followup to this year's flagship Galaxy S III smartphone (pictured).

When we might see the Galaxy S IV is anyone's guess. Recently, Samsung has unveiled its newest smartphones at overseas events. The Galaxy S III $179.99 at Amazon Wireless made its debut in May in London, while the Galaxy Note II was announced at IFA in Berlin several months ago. As a result, an unveiling at MWC in Barcelona rather than CES in Las Vegas might make more sense, but we'll have to wait and see. Might the new Galaxy smartphone face competition from HTC's Droid DNA? The smartphone, released earlier this month, sports a 5-inch, 1,920-by-1,080 display. Its Super LCD 3 display is coated with Gorilla Glass 2, with a 443 pixel-per-inch resolution

Samsung Galaxy S2 Plus coming in 2013?

2012-11-20T13:02:00.000-08:00

Samsung Galaxy S2 Plus
coming in 2013?
Milking the S2 for all its worth?

Samsung is reportedly planning to squeeze more life out of its breakthrough Galaxy S2 smartphone with a new and improved version slated for next year. SamMobile is reporting that a Samsung Galaxy S2 Plus handset is being prepped for a Q1 2013 release.

According to the site, the phone would come with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean out of the box and the latest version of the TouchWiz UI, along with 8GB of storage and a choice of two colours - white or blue.

The report does not speculate on whether there'll be improvements in the engine room through the addition of a quad-core processor or improved memory.

Strange timing

The speculation comes six months after Samsung succeeded the Galaxy S2 with the all-conquering Galaxy S3, so it would be an interesting move if the predecessor was pushed back into the limelight.

Samsung also launched the downsized Galaxy S3 mini in the last month, while recent tech gossip has been trained on a potential Galaxy S4 launch at CES 2013. The original S2 is still selling well with some mobile carriers and is clinging to the top ten in TechRadar's 20 best mobile phones in the world today chart, over 18 months after it launched

If Samsung does launch an Galaxy S2 Plus it may risks blurring its brand clarity, an issue which HTC has admitted caused confusion among customers and saw the start of its fall from grace in 2011

Tritton Pro+ review

2012-11-19T23:53:00.006-08:00

Tritton Pro+ review

A good 5.1 headset made (slightly) better

Should you ask anyone at Tritton what the best way to deliver 5.1 surround sound in a headset is, they'd tell you it's by putting four separate drivers in each ear cup - that's 'true' surround sound, after all. It's the ethos behind both the flawed AX Pro headset, and this Pro+. This is a revised iteration of those cans, designed to iron out the irksome mic, rigid headset design and fussy setup, while still delivering crystal clear surround audio.

However, if you asked someone who wasn't trying to sell you their 5.1 headset, you wouldn't get such a black and white response. We've heard excellent results from digital 5.1 headsets like Creative's Recon3D, which digitally interpolates (read: magics up) the points between physical drivers to create a much wider (albeit virtual) sound space.

That's what you're dealing with when choosing between true and digital 5.1 - the latter wins for fidelity, but with a bit of trickery, the best digital cans can create an experience that's just as dazzling.

Pros and cons

This is important for the Tritton Pro+ because early signs suggest a £150 price point, which means you're paying a premium for those eight drivers. You're also paying for a more malleable microphone and headset than you get with the AX Pro, plus cross-platform compatibility and an interesting volume control that lets you alter the levels of each driver to accommodate for different 5.1 mixes.

For example, we found that FIFA 13's crowds sounded like a riptide by default, until we lowered the rear and sub volumes. Sound quality isn't always where you want it to be, but with a little tweaking you can achieve a really impressive surround. We're not sure it's good enough for pro gamers to pinpoint sound cues though. The Recon3D offered a mode that exaggerated nearby sounds to that end - a feature that's missing here. Ironically, for anything less than pro gaming, the Pro+ is great. We do have a couple of grumbles around setting the headset up, though. Assembly requires quite a few cables - one proprietary cable from the headset to the Dolby box, one AC power cable, and optical and USB cables connecting to the PC, PS3 or Xbox.

It's more simple if you're running an analog setup to the PC - you just hook up the headset to a PC adapter cable via USB, and plug in four mini-jacks and a USB into your back panel - but for anything else you're going to have a lot of wires lying around. Isn't there an easier way? The Pro+'s convoluted setup procedure actually makes a great case for wireless headsets.

If we're being harsh, you're not rewarded by anything stellar at the end of the setup. The cans tend to get hot and uncomfortable after an hour, and although the sound they're producing is fantastic with the exception of some muddy low end, when you're sitting there all sweaty-eared looking at five cables going in and out of a box the size of a router, maybe fantastic sound isn't all that. This isn't a headset you'll regret buying, or one that fails to deliver on its promises, but neither is it an easy headset to love.

Nokia Lumia 610 review

2012-11-19T08:27:00.000-08:00

Nokia Lumia 610 review

The Nokia Lumia 610 has placed itself squarely at the low end of the smartphone market, with just 256MB of RAM and a single-core 800MHz processor.

20 best mobile phones in the world today

Alongside the new stripped down Windows Phone Tango operating system and a new, more wallet-friendly UK price tag of only around £125 on Pay as you go, or free on contracts starting from just £13 per month.

This oddly puts it at a higher price than the better-specified Nokia Lumia 710 - we're not sure what's going on here, especially in the UK market.
Although the Nokia Lumia 610 is broadly competing with every other low spec and low price handset, its real competition will come from other Windows Phone Tango handsets, such as the ZTE Tania. It remains to be seen how they'll fare, since the Nokia Lumia 610 has beaten them to market, so as a pioneer of the new budget-conscious operating system, how does the Nokia Lumia 610 stack up

Based on physical impressions, it isn't likely to stand out in a crowd, with a plastic body and a dinky 3.7-inch 800 x 480 TFT screen. The sides have a metallic gleam to them but it's never likely to be mistaken for real metal, and the illusion is lost altogether once you actually hold the phone, which feels plastic through and through.

It's not flimsy, though, with a reassuringly sturdy back cover and a generally solid feel. At 131.5g, it weighs about what you'd expect for a phone of its size, which is to say that it's light, but given its relatively small dimensions of 119 x 62 x 12mm, the weight feels about right.

This all serves to give the Nokia Lumia 610 a feeling of surprisingly high quality for such a cheap phone. Especially when compared, for example, to the substantially more expensive Samsung Galaxy S2, which has none of the density or solidity to it that the Nokia Lumia 610 has.

Sticking to the trademark bright and bold colours of the Lumia range, the Nokia Lumia 610 comes in magenta or cyan, or if you're feeling more conventional, black or white.

The phone features several hardware buttons, all of which are positioned on the right-hand side. There's a volume rocker near the top, the power button in the middle and a dedicated camera button at the bottom.

The layout isn't totally ideal, since - depending on how you're holding the phone - the camera button can be awkward to reach without using two hands. And having the power button so close to the volume rocker means it's easy to press the wrong button.
We can't help but feel that having the power button opposite the volume rocker and moving the camera button slightly further up the body of the phone would have worked better, as it requires some thumb movement to turn the phone on when held naturally in the hand.

In addition, the Nokia Lumia 610 has soft key buttons just below the screen for home, back and search. These are intuitive and feature pictures of each function, making their use obvious even to someone who's never used the phone before.

The ports, meanwhile, all sit along the top of the phone, with a 3.5mm headphone socket in the centre, and a micro USB connector on the right. There's also a wrist strap hole on the top-left, while the microphone sits alone at the bottom of the phone.

There's no microSD card slot, which is especially disappointing given the paltry 8GB of internal storage. The battery cover requires a slide down from the main chassis to remove - something that can be hard for those used to popping a backplate off.

Thankfully, for most users it's a problem they'll only have to face once, since as soon as the SIM card is in there's little reason to remove the cover again. Although it's good to know that if you ever want to replace the battery, the option is there, even if it is a little fiddly to get at.

The Nokia Lumia 610 sports a respectable 5MP camera, the lens of which lies flush with the back cover of the phone. This is always cause for concern, because scratches and smudges can play havoc with photos, although in our time with the phone, while it's certainly seen its share of smudges, the lens has thankfully remained scratch-free.

Ultimately, while it's not going to win any design awards, the Nokia Lumia 610 is a reasonably attractive and well built handset.

Nokia Lumia 820 review

2012-11-18T12:16:00.000-08:00

Nokia Lumia 820 review

The Nokia Lumia 820 isn't meant as the Finnish firm's flagship handset - that accolade belongs to the Lumia 920 - but this colourful Windows Phone 8 smartphone is impressive nonetheless.

The Nokia Lumia 820 carries plenty of unique features and costs less than the Lumia 920, making it a tempting offer for anyone considering making the move to Microsoft's OS.

It goes without saying Nokia is pinning a lot of hope on this phone. Apple's iPhone 5 and Samsung's Galaxy S3 are kicking up dust both in terms of sales and as standard bearers for their respective operating systems.

You can pick the Lumia 820 up free from £25 per month on Vodafone, albeit with only 300 minutes and 250MB of data, on a 24 month contract. Alternatively the SIM-free version of the phone will set you back an entirely reasonable £380.

There's a reasonable amount of power on offer at that price thanks to the dual core 1.5Ghz Snapdragon processor and Adreno 225 GPU. Windows OS is a typically smooth operating system the Lumia 820 runs off 1GB of RAM which keeps things nice and slick.

Outwardly though, this is a different-looking phone from the Lumia 920. The unibody is gone, replaced with a removable plastic back that lets you change the colour of the handset. Our review model came with a bright yellow rear cover, although red, black, magenta, blue, white and grey are also available.

Hopefully over time third-party designs will become available allowing you to customise your handset just like the Nokia's of old.

Unfortunately, the back cover is also where we run into our first problem with the Lumia 820. Basically you'll need fingernails like Wolverine to claw the cover back from the body of the phone. It took the TechRadar team several amusing minutes trying to remove the casing in order to insert our SIM to begin using the phone.

Once you're happy with the casing, and you've spent the required ten minutes struggling to get your Micro SIM installed, you'll be able to sit back and notice that at 160g, the Lumia 820 isn't as heavy as its bigger brother.

It's also got slightly smaller dimensions - but at 124 x 69 x 10mm with a 4.3-inch AMOLED screen we wouldn't go so far as to call it tiny.
The curved sides and rounded corners of the handset make it comfortable to hold and certainly give it a friendly appearance. We could easily wrap our hand around the Lumia 820 and access the physical buttons, which are all located along the right hand side of the phone.

You get a volume rocker at the top, followed by the power on/off button in the centre and then a physical camera shutter button - something we're always happy to see on a smartphone. All the buttons can be easily flicked with either the thumb of your right hand or the fingers of your left, depending on which you use to hold the phone.

One point though, the plastic backing on the Lumia 820 is completely smooth which looks nice but doesn't offer any great amount of grip.

The front of the phone is minimal in terms of design, with just the Nokia lettering at the top and the three standard Windows phone soft touch keys at the bottom. While the 4.3-inch AMOLED, 800 x 480 screen is up to Nokia's usual high standard, there's definitely a noticeable black bezel around the display.

Usually this doesn't cause too much concern, but given the near edge-to-edge displays of handsets like the Motorola Razr i and the iPhone 5, it's becoming more of an issue.

The display isn't as large as other smartphones out there. It won't compete with the 4.7-inch HTC One X+, the 4.8-inch Galaxy S3 or the 4.5-inch Lumia 920, for screen real estate but compromises with portability.
Screen size itself is becoming far more of a subjective issue anyway with a device on offer at pretty much every stage from pocket-friendly smartphone to sofa-surfing tablet.

The top and bottom of the Lumia 820 are given over to the 3.5mm headphone jack and the micro-USB charging and connection port respectively. There's also a small speaker to the right of the micro-USB port which we felt didn't look as nicely uniform as the dual speaker vents on the Lumia 920.Overall build quality is as good as you would expect given Nokia's long history of mobile phone craftsmanship. While we would expect the casing to scratch fairly easily if this phone took a tumble, there's a reassuring heft to the handset that suggests the internal workings would stay protected.

Importantly then, first impressions are quite good. It's a good looking, feature-packed phone from a pair of companies that really have something to prove this time around.

Nokia Lumia 920 review

2012-11-17T21:42:00.001-08:00

Nokia Lumia 920 review

The Nokia Lumia 920 is the flagship handset from the Finnish firm, but it's no longer Microsoft's darling device, with the HTC 8X selected as the signature Windows Phone 8 handset. But the Lumia 920 is the most feature-packed of the initial Windows Phone 8 line up, as Nokia looks to regain its dominance in the WP market and ride the new OS wave to success. With its impressive spec sheet it's no surprise the Lumia 920 comes at a price, available exclusively for now on EE in the UK from £36 per month and £129.99 upfront, but you'll only get 500MB of data, SIM-free prices are expected to be around £450.

In the US AT&T is the exclusive carrier, offering the Lumia 920 for £149.99 upfront on a two year contract, while SIM-only prices are expected to settle around the $600 mark.

The handset itself follows on from the design of the Nokia Lumia 800 and Lumia 900, the latter of which is the natural predecessor of the Lumia 920, offering up the Finn's big-screen Windows Phone experience.

Front on you'll be hard pushed to tell the difference between the Lumia 920 and Lumia 900; however the newer handset has a smaller bezel above the screen, but a larger one below it.

It's a strange decision and if we're honest the additional space below the three touch buttons; back, Windows and search, seems a little unnecessary - reminiscent of the Motorola Razr.

The Lumia 920 is pretty big as far a smartphones go these days measuring 130.3 x 70.8 x 10.7 mm, with the unibodied polycarbonate chassis providing a sturdy, premium finish – however its weight is noticeable.

Tipping the scales at 185g the Nokia Lumia 920 is unmistakably heavy, especially if you're coming from the 112g iPhone 5 or 133g Samsung Galaxy S3.

And while the weight may be a shock to start with we did become accustomed to it, and after a few days use it was honestly no longer a real issue – however those with smaller palms may still find it a bit of a struggle.

The rounded sides of the Lumia 920 make for a smooth, comfortable hold, as long as your hand is big enough to wrap round the handset, and with the physical keys all located on the right hand side, they're relatively easy to hit.

On the right there's the volume rocker switch, followed by the power/lock in the centre and a physical camera shutter button towards the base – a rarity among smartphones these days, but something Windows Phone handsets stick with.

The main feature on the front of the Nokia Lumia 920 is the 4.5-inch IPS TFT screen, which provides a crisp, bright display offering up an HD resolution of 768x1280.

It's not quite as large as the 4.7-inch display on the HTC One X+ or the 4.8-inch Galaxy S3, but it is the biggest Windows Phone 8 handset currently on offer, with the Windows Phone 8X clocking in at 4.3-inches.

On top there's a centralised 3.5mm jack, which Nokia claims makes it easier to slide into your pocket when you have headphones plugged in (it's certainly a better position that the side location on the Nokia N95),

next to a microSIM tray which requires a little tool included in the box to pop open.

The presence of the SIM slot reveals there's no access to the 2,000mAh battery housed inside the Lumia 920, plus there's no SD slot to expand on the 32GB of internal storage.

The left side of the Lumia 920 is an uninterrupted slice of polycarbonate allowing you to marvel at the beautifully curved edge.

On the bottom you have a microUSB port flanked by a couple of speaker grills and two exposed rivets, similar to the ones on the base of the Google Nexus 4 and down the sides of the Motorola Razr i.

Place the Lumia 920 face down and it becomes even more difficult to differentiate it from the Lumia 900, with the centralised 8MP camera lens, sliver plate surround and dual LED flash the only features on the back.

The only clue that this is a different handset is the word Nokia in large text on the sliver plate, instead of Carl Ziess on the previous model, which has now been relegated to a smaller font next to the firm's name.

The matte black finish on our review model completes the minimalist industrial design, with the Lumia 920 is also available in grey, white, red and yellow which sport a glossy finish which we reckon looks a bit cheap.

As long as you can get over the size and weight of the Nokia Lumia 920 - we did after a few days - you'll find it's a robust device which certainly feels premium in the hand, with possibly only the iPhone 5 feeling classier.

50 Android Jelly Bean tips, tricks and hints

2012-11-16T09:21:00.002-08:00

50 Android Jelly Bean tips, tricks and hints

Jelly Bean may not be the same huge leap forward as Ice Cream Sandwich, but it still brings a lot of new features and functionality to the operating system. Many of these are improvements to the smoothness of rendering on the device - it even briefly boosts the CPU when the screen's turned on to make things super slick and speedy. Google dubs these little performance and software improvements as being "buttery", assumedly referring to some nice spreadable Lurpak rather than a solidified hunk of congealed milk. The other big addition here is Google Now. This adds personalised recommendations and information based on your browsing history. Some people love its perceptive usefulness, others hate its pervy, intrusive nature. One thing's for sure though: the Siri-like voice search feature is awesome.

Top 160 best Android apps 2012 As ever, these tips are based on the vanilla installation of Android, so your mileage may vary depending on how many layers of extra "features" have been added by your phone or tablet's manufacturer

1. Say "Google" to search

If you're in America, you can open Google Now and say "Google" followed by your query to search the net. If you're not in America, you can trick Android into thinking you are. Open the settings on your device, choose "Language and input", then switch Google Voice Typing's language from "Automatic" to "English (US)". Next go to Google Now's settings and again change the language to "English (US)". You should see "Search or say Google" in Now's search bar. Faking an American accent: optional.

2. Now settings

You can open now in two ways - either swipe up from the Home icon, or swipe the lock icon up when the screen is locked. When you first start it, Now will run through the basics of what it does, and even show you some example cards. In Now's settings, you'll find each card has its own notifications settings, which apply to both the Now home screen and the Notification shade. Standard means that new cards are accompanied by a ringtone and vibration, Low priority places them at the bottom of the list without any notification, and off, well, turns them off altogether.

3. Talk to Google Now

Google Now also includes Siri-like functionality, supplying spoken answers to your inane questions. Try things like, "what time is it in Kuala Lumpur?", "when's Tom Cruise's birthday I want to send him a card?", "how do I get home?" or "will it be sunny tomorrow?" and Now will speak the answer back at you or search the web for relevant pages.

4. Get more Google Now cards

Google Now presents relevant information such as weather and places on "cards". To begin with it may be a little sparse, but searching the web from any device will give you more. Just make sure your web history is enabled: visit history.google.com, hit the settings cog and ensure that Web History is on and not paused. Next, search Google for favorite football teams, planned flights and destinations and the relevant cards will pop up automatically.

5. Notification Shade

We previously referred to it as the "pully-down menu thing", but apparently it's officially called the "Notification Shade". Niftily, certain notifications in the shade can be expanded by sliding two fingers outwards on them, giving you an overview of the subject headers in your email inbox, for example. Moving two fingers inwards on a notification neatly contracts them, too.

6. Rotation lock

You're sitting on a plane watching a vid in horizontal orientation. Suddenly, the plane banks sharply to the left and - oh no! - the video changes orientation. This worst-case-scenario can be avoided by tapping the rotation lock in the Notification Shade, which keeps the screen in its current orientation. Tap it again to unlock the rotation.

7. Turn notifications off

Install enough apps and the notification bar at the top of your Android device becomes the digital equivalent of an unending stream of ticker tape. In fact, Airpush is an entire advertising company that makes money in this way. Fortunately, each and every app you install in Jelly Bean has the option to turn this off. Go to its info page under Apps, uncheck the box labelled "Show notifications" and enjoy your empty notifications bar.

8. Equalise your music

The ability to adjust those all-important bass and treble settings has been sorely missed on Android devices - so much so that a bunch of apps have been made to enable it. It's fixed in Android's stock music player, though. Open a music file in the stock player, hit Settings then choose Equaliser. Here you'll find manual sliders, a load of presets and bass and 3D effects. Unfortunately it doesn't work for the whole device, but it will give your tunes a little more oomph.

9. Rearrange your home screens

Long-press on any icon or widget on your homescreen and you can move it around, and other icons and widgets will shift out of the way to fit it in. Bigger widgets can also be resized by long-pressing and releasing them, and then dragging the circles that appear on the edges. It's actually quite fun and satisfying. We just spent three hours doing nothing but this.

10. Fling to remove

Homescreen app clutter (surely the worst of all types of clutter) can be quickly and easily defeated. Long-press an icon or widget, then fling it upwards and it'll ascend into shortcut heaven. This won't uninstall the app, though - it'll still reside in your app drawer.

11. Owner info

Wait! Put down that blunt rock you were about to use to chisel your contact details into the back of your Android device! Jelly Bean includes the ability to display a few lines of contact details on the lock screen, such as your email address, name and phone number. You'll need to enable a screen lock from Security, and then you'll see the Owner info option appear. This information is mirrored across all Jelly Bean devices, too.

12. Access App info

The all-important App info screen - which allows you to uninstall, stop and disable apps - can be accessed in a completely new way with Jelly Bean. Pull down the notification shade, long-press on an open task and you'll be taken straight to the settings page for the relevant app. It's handy if you don't know which app displayed the notification.

13. Volume controls

You can now set the volume for all the noisiest bits of your Android device individually. Press the volume up or down key and you'll the familiar little slider with a settings icon to the right of this. Tap this and you'll see separate sliders for media, and notifications and ringtones. Bonus tip: each of these sliders can be, er, slid, with your finger.

14. Talkback

Designed for blind and low-vision users, Talkback provides an ongoing narration of what's displayed on your phone or tablet. You can turn it on via Accessibility, and then you'll be taken through a tutorial of its functions. It's a very different way of navigating your device, and quite interesting to experience. It also supports braille input and output devices via USB and Bluetooth.

15. Blink to unlock

While face unlock is smart and quick, more paranoid users may worry that a ne'er-do-weller could somehow steal an image of their face - or their actual face - and use it to access the device. Android's Liveness check requires the user to blink before the device is unlocked, preventing access if a quick eye-shut isn't detected.

16. Offline speech-to-text

Being able to dictate long and rambling texts to loved ones is quite an old Android feature, but it's just got a whole lot better with an offline mode. Go to Google voice typing settings under Language & input and choose Download offline speech recognition. Now you'll be able to dictate that great novel without being distracted by Reddit.

17. Beam it across

Android Beam works with near-field communication (NFC) to enable fast data exchange between two devices. You'll need to make sure it's enabled first - you'll find it under Wireless & networks. You'll also need to know where the NFC area is on your device. This isn't a problem for phones, but it can be just about anywhere on the back of a ludicrously large tablet, so do a quick Google to find out where it is.

18. Simple secure pairing

Simple secure pairing works alongside NFC to provide a quick and easy way to connect Bluetooth accessories such as headsets, speakers and keyboards. You don't actually need to do anything other than activate NFC to use it, but make sure whatever you're pairing with is Simple secure pairing-compatible.

19. Calendar notifications

Any events you've been invited to via Google Calendar will show up in the notifications blind. From here you can expand it and quickly send a pre-defined response (Such as "I'll be there in 10 minutes") or type your own. Quick responses can be edited from within the General settings of the Calendar app itself. Perfect for you social butterflies.

20. Gallery views

Android snappers will love its new gallery features. Pinch on photos to zoom out into a filmstrip mode, where all your pics are displayed side-by-side. Swipe left and right to browse all your snaps quickly, and slide up and down on individual images to delete them. The gallery then gives you just enough time to realise you've canned the wrong thing and undo your delete.

21. Wi-Fi savings

It's all too easy to run up costs when you're on public or mobile WiFi. Tethering a tablet to a phone can suck a surprising amount of data, and public WiFi, such as that found in hotels, sometimes have ridiculously strict usage policies. In Jelly Bean's Data usage settings you'll find the option to designate certain WiFi networks as Mobile hotspots, which stops background apps accessing data and could save you lots of cash. If there's another Jelly Bean device on the same network it'll pick up its Mobile hotspot settings, too.

22. Try the stock keyboard

The Swiftkey keyboard is enormously popular among Android users, and for good reason: it monitors your typing and grammatical style uses this to predict words. Jelly Bean's keyboard now offers the same functionality, using bigram prediction and correction to complete words and sentences. We've found it to be every bit as good as Swiftkey, and even slightly faster and slicker.

23. Reboot to safe mode

Ah safe mode, the saviour of so many Windows PCs. Thanks to the sheer amount of dodgy apps on the Play Store it's on Android now, too. Long-press the power button, then long-press the Power off option. Choose OK to reboot in safe mode, which completely disables all third-party apps on your device. Then hunt down and destroy that nefarious bit of software.

24. Reset app preferences

Android gives you loads of different options for each installed app, and on the whole this is a very good thing. Sometimes it can be a bad thing, though: you may find your phone playing up because a crucial app has been disabled, or you've changed the notifications for something important like emails. In the apps drawer, you'll find Reset app preferences under the settings. This resets all your apps on a global level, returning actions and data settings to their original levels.

25. Add emojis

"Emojis" are the Japanese version of emoticons, and like most things from Japan they're much better and cooler than their western counterparts. You can enable emoji support for the default Jelly Bean keyboard by choosing Language & input in the settings app, then going to the settings for the stock Android keyboard. Here, choose Add-on dictionaries and select Emoji for English words. When you next type certain words (there's a complete list here) you'll see its symbol appear in the predictions bar. It's like Wingdings never died.

26. Sound search

The good news: Google has created its own version of Shazam. Known as What's that Song?, the widget works in much the same way, matching snippets of music to its database and providing you with the artist, track and album. The bad news: due to licencing restrictions it's only available in certain countries, and we don't live in one of them. Keep an eye on your widgets tray when you update, though - Google could well re-implement it in the future.

27. Add accounts

Android devices - especially tablets - are great for passing around and sharing. But until now switching between various Google accounts has involved wiping the whole device and starting again. Jelly Bean's handy Add account feature takes pride of place in the settings app, making it easy to add multiple Gmail addresses to your device. There's still no quick way of switching users, but it is a step in the right direction.

28. Take and share screenshots

The number of times we've pressed the power button and volume down to take a screenshot is truly astonishing. It gets even better in Jelly Bean - as soon as you've taken a screenshot, you can expand its notification from the blind and share it from there. Perfect for showing off just how handsome and brilliant Android is to your iOS friends.

29. Device encryption

Paranoid users with sensitive materials on their devices love encryption: it basically scrambles all your content so it can't be read by hackers or thieves. It's been a part of Android for a while, but Jelly Bean gets it spot on, even periodically reminding you to encrypt your device. You'll find Encryption under your phone or tablet's security settings.

30. Voice searches on the go

Plug an Android-compatible headset into your device, then long press its button and voila: Google voice search. You'll get spoken results and answers straight into your brain, and it comes in especially useful if you're lost but don't want to stop listening to your banging, disorientating tunes.

31. Add quick controls to the browser

One of the options buried beneath the Labs section of Android 4.0's web browser is the Quick Controls option. This adds a pop-out menu to the browser, which pulls in a little semi-circular collection of shortcuts to the main browser features, removing the URL bar and giving you more screen to play with. Also, holding down the Back button is the Android standard way of bringing up the bookmarks and history tool, too. But that's been around for years.

32. Long-press to uninstall

Long-pressing on an app within the app drawer lets you drag it to a Home screen, but it also pops up a couple of menus along the top of the screen. App Info gives you the boring technical stuff about how much memory it's taking up, or you can fling it off the other way to uninstall it.

33. Flying Android screensaver

One odd undocumented little secret within Android 4.0 is this strange little collection of flying Androids, which you can... look at. Look at for as long as you like. To activate it, head into the phone's About screen and hammer away at the Android Version tab and it'll all happen.

34. Save your eyes with inverted rendering

Inverted rendering is a posh way of saying it makes the pages black and turns the text white, so it looks like you're reading the internet from 1997. It also supposedly saves battery, plus is easier on the eyes if you're reading in the dark. It's under the browser's settings tab, within the accessibility area - and there's a contrast slider, too.

35. Set a custom rejection text message

When your Twitter action is rudely interrupted by someone actually telephoning you, there's a polite way to give the caller the boot. Android 4.0 lets users ping a rejection text message to callers - and you're able to customise this too. Just answer a call and ping the lock screen notification up to access to custom rejection messaging area.

36. Stop app icons automatically appearing

One of the many new ICS features is the way Google lets apps automatically add shortcuts to themselves on your Home screen when they've finished installing. It's useful, but if you're a control freak and wish to remain 100% in charge of your Home layout, head to the Google Play app's settings tab and untick the Auto-add Shortcuts toggle.

37. There's a Settings shortcut in the Notifications pane

That little settings icon in the ICS notifications area isn't just art to fill the space. It's a shortcut to your phone or tablet's settings area. So use that instead of giving it a Home screen icon slot all to itself.

38. Manually close apps

Google's lovely new recent apps multitasking menu also lets you close apps quickly, should you suspect one's gone rogue. A Long-press within the Recent Apps listing lets you visit the app's info page, from where you can easily force close it.

39. Remove the lock screen

It's possible to entirely bin your Android 4.0 lock screen, making the phone instantly turn itself on when you press the power button. It's a security nightmare, but if your phone lives entirely on your desk and you demand instant access without any unlocking, head to Security > Screen lock and select none. Then be very careful.

40. Folders in the dock

Android's new official love of folder formation makes it dead easy to combine app shortcuts and make folders, simply by dragging one icon on top of another. You can make these groups of apps even easier to access by dragging a folder onto the ICS floating dock, meaning you can squeeze stacks more content on to each creaking Home screen.

41. Take photos while recording video

The Android 4.0 camera app that arrived with the Galaxy Nexus has one cool little extra feature - the ability to fire off still photos while recording video clips. Simply tapping the screen takes a shot at full resolution, which is saved to the phone's gallery while the video's still happily recording away

42. Bin animations and transitions

Hidden within the Developer Options section of the Ice Cream Sandwich software are quite a few nerdy ways to adapt your phone. Most won't be of any use to those who are just using their phone as a phone, but if you want it to feel faster, or at least look a little different, the scrolling, zooming effects on windows and menus can be edited in many ways.

43. Take a grab of your phone

Screen grabbing of your phone's display is finally in Android. On the Galaxy Nexus, it's activated through holding the power button and volume down switch. On HTC's new models it's done by holding the power button and pressing Home. Other phones had different techniques for doing this before Ice Cream Sandwich, but it's good to see this now becoming part of the standard Android feature set in Android 4.0.

44. Long-press dotted words

When typing on the Android 4.0 keyboard, you may see some suggested words appear with the "..." icon beneath. Doing a long-press on this one will pop up a much bigger window of suggested words, letting you bail out on some of that tedious typing a little quicker.

45. Add additional faces

The ICS face unlock feature, as found in the Galaxy Nexus, lets you unlock it by scanning your face with the front camera. Which is great, but what if you haven't shaved for a month? The software can actually store multiple images of your face, so you can do left parting, right parting, shaved, unshaved - or even add a trusted a friend to the visually verified user list.

46. Experiment with GPU settings

Another hidden little gem found within the Development options tab is the hardware acceleration 'Force On' toggle. This makes ICS attempt to boost the performance of any apps that don't already use the feature. It may also break them in the process, though, so it's something of a trial and error fiddling exercise to do on a very rainy day.

47. Type like an adult

Make a stand for grammatical standards in this day and age by long-pressing on the stock Android 4.0 keyboard's full stop button. This brings up such doomed punctuation as commas and speech marks, plus even a semicolon for the extra brave mobile typist.

48. Nick wallpapers off the internet

Found a lovely photograph of some stars, a pretty computer generated planet or even the mighty Professor Brian Cox himself? Long-pressing on any image in the web browsers lets you instantly set it as your wallpaper, without the hassle of saving it, finding it, and setting it the long way.

49. Limit background process

If you fancy an even more serious bit of fiddling, the same ICS developer area contains the option to "limit background process" demands by the OS. You can use this to stop your phone or tablet storing so many apps in memory. Whether this has any effect of the actual battery life of us users is up for debate, but again, it's something to play with and see if it suits your phone use patterns.

50. Quickly access Notifications

Here's a simple yet huge change Google's made in Android 4.0 - the Notifications pane can be accessed from the lock screen. Press power, touch the Notifications area, then scroll down to read your latest messages. Obviously it's a bit of a security risk and lets anyone access your messages, so best be careful.

Android 4.2 Jelly Bean update roundup Samsung Galaxy S3

2012-11-15T08:19:00.003-08:00

Android 4.2 Jelly Bean update

roundup

Samsung Galaxy S3

Following the release of the latest additions to its hardware range - the Nexus 4 handset and Nexus 10 tablet - earlier this week, Google delighted owners of two of its older products by announcing that they would be on the receiving end of a quickfire software update. Both the Galaxy Nexus smartphone and Nexus 7 mini-tablet were made privy to Android 4.2 Jelly Bean in the last couple of days, and now rumors are starting to swirl hinting that two of 2012's highest-profile Android devices, the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 and Galaxy S3, are being lined up for a trip to the recently refurbished sweet shop in early-2013. The speculation originates at Samsung fan site Sam Mobile, which reports that an "insider" has informed them of a Q1 2013 arrival date for the Galaxy Jelly Bean 4.2 updates in question. However unreliable anonymous sources can be, this seems to be a realistic time frame, and the Korean tech giant has already gone on the record as saying that it is currently prepping Android 4.2 updates. "We will announce roll out plans for Android 4.2 to our Galaxy portfolio of devices in due course," a Samsung spokesperson said.

Will your next smartphone take a baby's temperature?

2012-11-14T21:49:00.000-08:00

Will your next smartphone
take a baby's temperature?

Taking a child's temperature could be as easy as scanning a barcode (baby: Shutterstock, phone: Shutterstock)

is smartphone evolution at a standstill? Today's

batch of phones have ultra-sharp displays, zippy performance, and great cameras. What's left? One man hopes that the next big thing will be infrared sensors.

Taking children's temperatures can be a pain. No matter which orifice you stick the thermometer in, the kid will probably pitch a fit. With so much of our tech being airborne, why not add thermometers to the list?

Inventor Jacob Fraden has patented the smartphone thermometer. He wants manufacturers to equip phones with infrared sensors. You could then aim at your little one's head, and have her temperature in less than a second.

New doors

Temperature-taking wouldn't be limited to humans. You could use it on pets (another pesky chore), or inanimate objects like stoves or bathtubs. It sounds promising. The small infrared lens would lie near the smartphone's camera, without any protrusions. Fraden says that results are accurate, falling within International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards. He adds that the manufacturing cost would be "incremental." Imagine the other uses for a smartphone infrared sensor. We could see apps for detecting gas leaks, home security (infrared tripwires), or even breathalyzer alcohol tests. These weren't covered by Fraden's patent, but once the hardware is there, developers' imaginations could go wild.

Samsung Galaxy S4: Is It Worth The Wait?

2012-11-14T04:29:00.000-08:00

Samsung Galaxy S4: Is It Worth The Wait?

The rumors surrounding the Samsung Galaxy S4 have been growing very fast, as some people say that the device will be out in February 2013. Rumors have included the handset having a display of 5 inches, a quad core processor and a brand new style.

Samsung Galaxy S4 rumors sprout

One of the most popular series of Android phones to date has been the Galaxy S series. Devices happen to come with some of the latest in technology from Samsung and this has been seen in the S, S2 and S3, and even lately along with the Note and the Note 2. Coming after these models, the Samsung Galaxy S4 will have to have something very special to offer.

Droid-Life has speculated that the Galaxy S4 will take Samsung into the exclusive 1080p club. If they do have a 1080p display on the Samsung Galaxy S4 they will be among others which include the HTC J Butterfly (HTC DROID DNA) with a ppi of 440, 2GB of RAM and a fast Snapdragon S4 processor. This means that the Samsung Galaxy S4 will have to be nothing short of spectacular. Rumours has it that the S4 will be revealed at MWC in 2013 and this gives Samsung ample time to come up with something unique to bring along with the best display tech out there at this time.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 may infact have the 1080p display coupled with a YOUM flexible screen. This would more than make up for the lower ppi than the HTC J Butterfly, if the S4 does have 400ppi as DL speculates. The tech would mean that the display could be bent to angles that while not extreme will come in handy given the size of the device. Samsung have already told us that this tech will be in production next year, so they may have dropped a big hint about what we can expect from the Samsung Galaxy S4.

Of course what hardware the device may have still remains a mystery at the moment. However it is thought that if Samsung include the new display technology, they will also upgrade the processor and give the device a better camera. At the moment the Samsung Galaxy S3 camera is not as good as the camera on the iPhone 5 or the Nokia Lumia 920 when it comes to low-light performance, so maybe that’s one angle they can work on too.

Nexus 10 vs. Surface RT

2012-11-13T23:37:00.005-08:00

Nexus 10 vs. Surface RT

Apple has owned the 10-inch tablet market. Budget slates have done well on the low end, but other full-sized tablets have been utterly dominated by the iPad. Samsung, Google, and Microsoft hope to change that. Surface RT and Nexus 10 are the most compelling full-sized iPad challengers yet.

Size

The tablets are close in size, though Surface is a bit more oblong. The Nexus 10 is thinner, but not by a wide margin.

Weight

The Nexus 10 is significantly lighter. The best argument against 10-inch tablets is that they're too heavy, so this could be an important advantage for Samsung's tablet.

Display

This is a tremendous advantage for the Nexus 10. It has the highest resolution of any commercial tablet. Images and text will be razor-sharp.

Microsoft's ClearType (sub-pixel rendering) tech helps Surface's display to look sharper than its resolution would suggest ... but that isn't enough to put it in the same league as the Nexus 10's display.

Processor

Both tablets have great processors, so there shouldn't be any performance issues. The Nexus 10 should have the edge, with its speedy Samsung chip.

RAM

Multitasking performance will be great, as both tablets have 2 GB of random-access memory (RAM).

Storage

These numbers are deceiving. Windows RT takes up a lot of space. That leaves the 32 GB model of Surface with roughly the same amount of useable storage as the 16 GB Nexus 10.

Unlike the Nexus 10, though, Surface has a microSD card slot. You can use it to expand its storage.

Wireless

Neither tablet offers cellular data, so you'll need to connect to Wi-Fi (or your phone's mobile hotspot) for internet access.

Battery

Take these estimates with grains of salt, but the Nexus 10 looks to have the advantage.

Camera

The Nexus 10 has far superior cameras. Both standard photography and video chat will look much sharper than they will on Surface.

Starting price

This is another big advantage for the Nexus 10. Its base model ships for US$100 less than Surface. Also remember that Surface's keyboard – its killer feature – tacks another $100 onto its price.

Intangibles

Hardware is important, but a tablet is nothing without apps. This is where both tablets stumble.

Android's Google Play Store has all the apps you want … if you have a smartphone. There's still a shortage of quality tablet apps. Sure, those smartphone apps will run on the Nexus 10, but they might look like the Twitter app pictured above. Lots of wasted space, and an unattractive layout.

Surface has its own issues. Windows RT is a brand new platform, and doesn't run desktop Windows software. So don't be surprised if you see some tumbleweeds blowing around. With Surface sales starting slowly, the Windows Store may not be booming anytime soon.

The software story isn't all dismal. The Nexus 10 ships with the latest version of Android, 4.2 Jellybean. It will also receive future updates immediately.

Despite its lack of apps, Windows RT is a bold new operating system. It's basically Windows 8 without the desktop apps. Surface also includes Microsoft Office RT, a selling point for some shoppers.

Surface also has a couple of nifty keyboard add-ons. The Type Cover is a traditional keyboard attachment, but the Touch Cover is something new. It's like an iPad Smart Cover, only with pressure-sensitive keys. Reviews have been mixed, so you might want to try one before throwing down an extra $100.

Summing up

Should Apple be scared? It's hard to say. Both new 10-inch tablets have compelling hardware and exciting new operating systems. Will that be enough to attract software developers? Will customers take the plunge with a lack of tablet apps?

It's a steep hill to climb, but the Nexus 10 may have better odds. It has a lower starting price, a rabid Android fan base, and Surface will soon be competing with its own sibling (Surface Pro).

Mind-controlled robot avatars inch towards reality

2012-11-13T13:29:00.001-08:00

Mind-controlled robot

avatars inch towards reality

A researcher minds the robot's balance as it is commanded
to pick up a canned drink by an operator

Researchers at the CNRS-AIST Joint Robotics Laboratory (a collaboration between France's Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology) are developing software that allows a person to drive a robot with their thoughts alone. The technology could one day give a paralyzed patient greater autonomy through a robotic agent or avatar.

The system requires that a patient concentrate their attention on a symbol displayed on a computer screen (such as a flashing arrow). An electroencephalography (EEG) cap outfitted with electrodes reads the electrical activity in their brain, which is interpreted by a signal processor. Finally, the desired command is sent to the robot to carry out.

The system does not provide direct fine-grain motor control: the robot is simply performing a preset action such as walking forward, turning right or left, and so on. The robot's artificial intelligence, developed over several years at the lab, allows it to perform more delicate tasks such as picking up an object from a table without needing human input. In this scenario, the robot's camera images are parsed by object recognition software, allowing the patient to choose one of the objects on a table by focusing their attention on it.

Object recognition software automatically detects and highlights the bottled water and canned drink in the robot's camera images,

and by focusing on one of them the patient can command the robot to retrieve it

With training, the user can direct the robot's movements and pick up beverages or other objects in their surroundings. The system can be seen in use in the DigInfo video at the bottom of the page.

This is similar to but more sophisticated than previous projects, one involving Honda's ASIMO robot from 2006, and another at the University of Washington from 2007.

A different but more direct approach would be to track a patient's eye movements. Recent research conducted at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris enabled cursive writing on a computer screen through eye movement alone. The same technology could allow a patient to move a cursor and select from a multitude of action icons without having to go through the EEG middle-man. The hitch is that – in some circumstances – eye movement isn't possible or can't be tracked reliably due to eye conditions. In that case, brain implants may be the way to go.

No matter how you slice it, researchers aren't giving up, and with further progress robot avatars may cease being the stuff of science fiction. No doubt patients would feel empowered and liberated by this technology, but it will be awhile before it can be implemented, and the robots being deployed will likely look more like Toyota's recently unveiled Human Support Robot than advanced bipedal robots.

Leaked Images of HTC Droid DNA

2012-11-13T04:20:00.000-08:00

Leaked Images of HTC Droid DNA

The speculations can finally be put to rest. After a very successful launch in Japan, the HTC J Butterfly will be rebranded as Verizon’s HTC Droid DNA for its Western consumer-base and will be announced tomorrow with a release next week. This “super phablet” is making waves in the mobile device community as it will become HTC’s first smartphone/tablet hybrid with a full HD display dubbed the Super LCD 3. Leaked photos from the notorious tech leak twitter handle @evleaks today confirm the launch and re-branding.

If preliminary specifications are correct, this phablet looks to be among the most powerful and aesthetically pleasing handsets on the market. The Super LCD 3 screen is is a 1080 x 1920 display with 440 pixels per inch for extreme clarity. The processor looks to be one of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processors, one of the most efficient out there today. There’s plenty of storage and memory space for added gaming, computing, downloading, and web-surfing, with 32GB and 2GB apiece. It will boast two cameras, an 8mp rear-facing cam and a 2mp front-facing cam; will feature NFC capability and LTE connectivity; and the entire device will run on Androids 4.1 operating system–or Jelly Bean OS.

The only drawback seems to be the battery life which will be based on a 2,020 mAh battery. This isn’t definitive yet as it seems odd that such a dynamic device will run on such little power, but we’ll find out more tomorrow at the launch event.

There’s no word on price yet either but sources are suggesting anywhere from $199 to $249 though it will likely be the latter seeing as how HTC’s October sales numbers indicated a 60% drop in annual sales revenue for the Taiwanese manufacturer.

HTC and Verizon will be teaming up tomorrow at a press event in New York to likely unveil the Droid DNA which will be released next week. The phablet has already been made available in Japan with great success and will be launching in China and Taiwan in early December.

It looks as though the Droid DNA and Samsung’s Galaxy Note 2 will battle it out to become king of the phablet hill. Both smartphones offer supreme internal hardware for basically anything a user wishes to do, though the Droid DNA has an unprecedented crystal-clear display.

Stay tuned to BostInno for latest information about the HTC Droid DNA by Verizon. As reviews begin to roll in, we’ll be sure to grab ahold of them to let you know which smartphone is best suited for you. In the meantime, we’d like to hear some comments from you. How do you think the Droid DNA will do competing against the likes of Samsung? Do you have an HTC phone? Do you like it? Would you toss it aside for a different device? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

iPhone 5S Release Date and Rumors

2012-11-13T04:02:00.001-08:00

iPhone 5S Release Date and Rumors

Just two months after Apple unveiled the iPhone 5, reports have emerged that the company is taking steps to release an iPhone 5S. Said iPhone 5S reports were started by Chinese-language publication The Commercial Times Monday, sending Apple fans into a frenzy. Now, the Commercial Times isn’t the most reliable of sources, so other tech publications have since thrown their two cents into the iPhone 5S rumor mill, leading to a wide range of speculations. Here’s everything you need to know about the alleged iPhone 5S, including release date, probability, and potential specs.

iPhone 5S Release Date

According to Commercial Times’s report, Apple will start trial production of the iPhone 5S in December. Initial production volumes will be small, around 50,000 to 100,000 phones. If this rumor is true, Apple would increase production to full shipping volumes in early 2013, putting the iPhone 5S release date sometime in the second quarter of the year.

The Commercial Times isn’t the most trustworthy of sources, but such an early release is far from unprecedented for Apple. Although the company has historically kept hardware upgrades on a yearly cycle, the 4th generation iPad was released in October, just 6 months after the 3rd generation hit stores.

TechCrunch says that this may be a sign of new policies by Apple. “[The iPhone 5S rumors may show] what kind of changes we might expect from mid-year overhauls: improved specs, retaining the design, to take advantage of the faster pace of component development and supply pricing changes.”

iPhone 5S Potential Spec

The Commercial Times doesn’t offer much insight into the 5S’ specs, but if past “S” releases are any indication, we’ll see a faster processor, more RAM, and identical design. Apple could also take the opportunity to fix some of the issues iPhone 5 owners have complained about, like the purple hue that the camera puts on overly-lit photos. Other than those likely upgrades, we can’t speculate on additional changes.

iPhone 5S Soon: Farewell Yearly Update Cycle?

2012-11-13T00:59:00.002-08:00

iPhone 5S Soon: Farewell

Yearly Update Cycle?

A new report today claiming Apple is prepping an iPhone 5S for test production in December and volume manufacturing early in 2013 is spreading like wildfire through the blogosphere. The initial source is Chinese-language publication The Commercial Times, and it’s being spread by Digitimes, the supply chain-focused publication that’s a frequent, and fairly unreliable source of rumor and speculation. But is there any way Apple could really be working towards updating a phone it just released in September?

Assuming, for a second, that these rumors have any truth to them, an iPhone 5S beginning test production in December and ramping up to full shipping volumes early next year would likely hit store shelves right around six months from when the iPhone 5 was released. Is that unprecedented? Hardly. The 4th generation iPad, which Apple unveiled alongside the iPad mini at an event in October, upset the usual pattern Apple maintains of updating its iOS hardware once a year, with annual refreshes essentially hitting like clockwork (with the exception of the iPhone 4S, which went over a year). But the latest iPad breaks with that pattern.

Not only does the newest iPad represent a deviation from the established way of releasing things, suggesting Apple could do the same thing with other products in its lineup, but it also shows what kind of changes we might expect from mid-year overhauls: improved specs, retaining the design, to take advantage of the faster pace of component development and supply pricing changes. Google updated its Nexus lineup of tablets recently, bumping storage while keeping prices the same, and citing better deals on NAND flash as the reason for doing so.

Apple’s competitors in the smartphone market don’t adhere to annual updates; Samsung, HTC and countless other Android OEMs push out new and updated phones with increasing frequency, and even iterate on old models with carrier specific variants and modified versions of the original that promise more connectivity, improved storage and more. Samsung’s Galaxy S line has enjoyed a roughly annual update cycle, but the company has also released countless other Galaxy devices during the same years over the course of which we’ve seen just six iPhones. In the past, the frequency of competitor updates never really affected Apple; now, however, Samsung has risen to become a very strong competitor with growing momentum. The Commercial Times report also indicated that Apple would be introducing new lower-priced options, which could be another sign of the company moving to product releases more like those of its competition.

But mid-cycle upgrades introduce a degree of uncertainty that could have far different effects on a company like Apple than they would on Samsung, which is known for its scattershot approach aimed at targeting every segment of the market. For Apple, whose customers anticipate and plan on yearly updates, changes that come in between could play havoc with expectations, and therefore with buying patterns. Would people wait for the ‘X’ or the ‘XS’ variant, for instance? Would a wait-and-see approach from shoppers hamper sales volumes all year round? Or would the vast majority of shoppers ignore the timeline of updates and simply buy when they needed, the way most seem to with Android devices?

This report isn’t a solid one by any means, given its sources, however, and may in fact just be timed to take advantage of the recent 4th generation iPad’s release to back up its plausibility. But it’s also not completely ridiculous, given industry trends and the pace of the mobile device market. Also, it’s worth noting that an updated iPad is also mentioned (though which version is meant to be changed isn’t clear), which would arrive around a quarter later than the iPhone 5S, indicating at least semi-annual updates for that line would be the rule going forward, too. I’ve mentioned before that Apple might actually benefit from less product line predictability, but again, take this one with ample heaping helpings of salt.

Samsung Galaxy S4 Concept Pictures Specs and Release Date

2012-11-11T11:24:00.000-08:00

Samsung Galaxy S4 Concept Pictures Specs and Release Date

Samsung Galaxy S4 Rumors are now circulating in the media now a days after the release of Apple iPhone 5 on 12 September 2012. Samsung Galaxy S3 was a super hit and more than 20 million handsets were sold in just 3 months. It was looking impossible specially when you have smartphone like iPhone in the market its really a good job by Samsung to produce such a quality handset. Although Samsung is still leading the smartphone race with Apple when it comes features but still people are expecting more and more from Samsung. Another rumor is also circulating that Samsung will release Galaxy S IV in Mobile World Congress which will held in February 2013.

Although Apple iPhone 5 has much more improved features like LTE support, 4 inch touch screen display, fifth row of icons, improved battery life, A6 processor but still it lacks the quite a few major features like NFC, 4G and Micro SD card slot.

Samsung Galaxy S-IV Concept Pictures

Samsung Galaxy S4 video with believable specs and design Released

2012-11-11T01:18:00.002-08:00

Samsung Galaxy S4 video with believable specs and design Released

Samsung has become a truly major player in the smartphone market and only Apple could rub shoulders with it and provide a decent competition. The Samsung Galaxy S3 has achieved something of a cult status and the recently released S4 video shows specs and designs which are believable. The Samsung S3 has toppled the iPhone 4S from its top position in the third quarter of 2012 and already it is being said in hushed tones that the next smartphone from Samsung, the Galaxy S4 will unseat the iPhone 5 as the latest and the most popular smartphone.

Other suggestions included the suggestion to have a polycarbonate casing with a 2.4GHz quad Core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. Bob followed it with a promotional Samsung Galaxy S4 video which was based upon the requests from Samsung fans. One incredible suggestion was for a 13 megapixel rear camera capable 1080p video capture at 30fps.

The Galaxy S4 could be encased in a scratch and shatter proof glass. There is also a possibility of an Aluminum version which will be available in six different finishes on the back. The Galaxy S4 will also feature a 3 Mega Pixel camera on the front and it will also be 1080p. Google Now and S Voice will be incorporated together.

The video of the Galaxy S4 showed some of the ideas but it must be said that the concept phone looked very alluring and also quite believable. The swords have been drawn for the epic battle between Samsung Galaxy S4 and the Apple’s iPhone 6 in 2013. Both the companies will push the boundaries of Smartphone still further. The final beneficiary will be the consumer who will get the better of the two worlds.

How to Increase Website Traffic

2012-11-09T00:29:00.000-08:00

Search engine optimization is about ways to get your website to the top of search engines.

This cannot be stressed enough. You can do this by generating useful content like articles and blogs, by social networking and the development of multimedia. This sounds easy but it’s a lot of hard work. Still, you can also strategically spread your content in different websites while keeping your target niche in mind. Be very careful not to overlink to pages within your site, this is a new penalty from Google's most recent update.

After on-page optimization,

you can go build your back links to your site. With backlinks, search engines will directly index your websites after finding the links. No need to submit your website to the search engines themselves. Your backlinks will do the work for you.

This cannot be done without a little effort though; there are companies out there on the Web that could do the hard stuff for you at a reasonable price.

Improve your Internet Presence

Offer free, original, and quality content on your site.

This is the most effective means for increasing traffic to a website; offering people something that they cannot obtain elsewhere, or at least, not to the level of quality that you are offering it. Ways in which to ensure that your content is of higher quality than competitors or is unique include:

Creating content that is helpful and useful. Simply cobbling together information from another website will not generate traffic. You need to offer visitors the information they need to achieve a goal, solve a problem, be entertained, find out quality news or have a good laugh. Keep it fresh. For repeat visits, it is crucial to provide regular updates to the website, especially in frequently viewed zones. Add fresh content every few days if possible; at a minimum, weekly.

To have a fully functioning and successful website, you need to make sure your tags are in place and your links are not broken. You also need to submit a sitemap.xml file to Google to have your website show up in Google's search engines. There is a tool that inspects websites just in case you missed tags and links and it creates a free sitemap.xml file. It gives you results in minutes. Outsource article writing. If you hate the thought of generating content yourself, or your team is not writing-savvy, consider outsourcing this end of the task. Depending on the length, content, specialization and quality required, prices can start as low as US$5 per article. However, don't neglect attempting to write your own work - who better than you knows your own business, hobby or club and can express precisely what needs to be said? Just sit down and start writing an article. You may be impressed when you're done!

Add video to your landing pages (VLP - Video Landing Page) that is informative and relevant to your site. Respected studies show that good video can improve conversions and page ranking more than most any other item you can add to your pages. Use landing pages for fast fulfillment of your PPC advertisement. Launch some contests. It'll draw you instant traffic. You can Goggle search some free sponsor program and do such contest frequently.

Supplement your original content.

Leverage available free content from sources with Creative Commons licenses that support your website message that readers will share.

Find for-fee products that will allow you to fully use premium branded content that is legally allowed to be shared.

Trying to get more backlinks on your website this may help to increase the traffic.

Get a proofreader. Poor spelling and grammar reflect badly on the services and information being provided; avoid unwarranted negative judgments by getting the writing in order prior to publication online.

Avoid content generators. While these were once the delight of a fledgling web industry, they are no longer useful. Putting your own team's creativity online is what is useful.

Never copy and paste from another website - Google, Yahoo, MSN and other search engines are too smart for this nowadays and will detect copied and unoriginal content, sending you to the bottom of the pile.

Improve your search engine ranking by focusing your content on keywords related to your topic.

This is called search engine optimization and will help people find your website when they're searching the Web. Make sure the keywords flow naturally with the text and when you are brainstorming for good words, ask around for words that come naturally to people of all ages when looking for your type of site. To help you understand better, realize that the keywords not only go into headings and page names but also into "meta tags". "Meta tags" are the software code that website visitors do not see but search engines do. Finally, don't overdo the keywords; over-stuffing keywords will result in a very low search ranking for your website. Also, be very careful not to place key text inside graphics; search engines cannot pick up graphics.

Get linked.

This is a very important part of website management. Exchange links. Trading links with other websites that are closely related to the subject of your website can bring you more website traffic. These are two-way links because you must provide a link to them, too, and linking to low-quality websites can threaten the credibility of yours. Only link to sites that are dead on topic, and truly help your visitors. Instead of trading links, you could also trade banner ads, half page ads, classified ads, etc.

Be sure to not be too excessive with your link exchanges and do not make this your entire link building method.

Google webmaster guidelines specifically says to not engage in link schemes including "Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging ("Link to me and I'll link to you.")"

Use social media.

Post compelling content and you’ll soon build a loyal following. Follow and share with other users, who may reciprocate and follow you. Keeping up to date with social media and finding time to post can be tricky, but it’s well worth it. Let people talk and become part of a community and they’ll promote your content for you. This will save you a great deal of time, and they will share much further than via conventional strategies.

Advertise your presence.

Besides using links, you must make use of numerous other ways to increase web traffic. Sit down and write a list of all the ways you can think of to get your web address noticed and clicked on. For example:

If you have money - consider pay per click. The big search engines like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft provide schemes. But find out first how to limit your expenditure to the level you want.

Use e-zines. Make your own that relate to your website and form a regular reminder each issue for people to visit your website. Submit all the free e-zine directories on the internet.

Submit your articles to e-zines, websites and writing sites that accept article submissions. Include your business information and web address at the end of the article. This is a good way to create one-way backlinks to your website. This is the most effective way to get listed on any search engine. Usually, the more relevant links you have pointing to your site the higher you will rank.

Go beyond the electronic medium and into the print medium. Advertise in local newspapers, business brochures, magazines, nationwide publications and mail-drop literature. And don't forget the perennial favorite, the good old Yellow Pages™ - printed version naturally!

Small business cards left in cafés, on signboards, exchanged at meetings etc. Use local resources such as clubs, libraries and community centers for non-profit website awareness raising.

Participate on message boards. Post answers to other people's questions, ask questions and post appropriate information. Include your signature file containing your website's URL at the end of all your postings.

Start your own online discussion community. It could be an online message board, e-mail discussion list or chat room. When people get involved in your community, they will regularly return to communicate with others.

Use word of mouth. Tell everyone you know about your website, give out business cards to passers-by in the street, and so on. You might even want to run a guerrilla marketing program!

Use your car, especially if your website is area-specific (e.g. a website detailing local events or selling local services). Get some vinyl decals or bumper stickers created and turn your car into a moving advertisement, literally driving traffic to your web site

Give freebies.

Who doesn't like a freebie?! Online freebies are commonplace and they leave the visitor wanting more when they are well written and informative introductory materials. Consider such freebies as:

Giving away an eBook with your ad on it. Allow your visitors to also give the freebie away. This'll increase your ad exposure and increase web traffic to your website at the same time;

Holding free online classes or seminars. They could be held in your website's chat room. The idea of "live" information will definitely entice people to visit your website. You will become known as an expert on the topic.

Giving visitors a free entry into your contest or sweepstakes. The prizes should be something of interest or value to your visitors. Most people who enter will continually revisit your web site to get the results.

Letting visitors download free software such as freeware, shareware, demos etc. You could even turn part of your site into a free software directory. If you created the software, include your ad inside and let other people give it away.

Targeting specific groups who might worry about using the internet with free classes in using it on your site - senior citizens, busy workers etc. might find these convenient and alluring. Offering free online services or utilities from your website. For instance, they could be search engine submitting, copywriting, proofreading etc. The service or utility should be helpful to your target audience.

Giving free consulting to people who visit your website. You could offer your knowledge via e-mail or by telephone. People will consider this a huge value because consulting fees can be very expensive.

Offering a free start-up package that has a finite time; enough time for the customer to practice with your online product and like it enough to pay for continued use. Sending out free CD-Roms, CDs, DVDs etc. that contain starter packs or teasers to encourage the customer to use your site more.

Offering free screensavers or templates for business cards, cards, writing paper etc., anything that a customer can print out.

Be patient

Search engines need a lot of time to index a new website and domain. They need time to index all your content; it's worth the wait and should be factored into your website profitability and/or popularity timeline. In the meantime, continue to add high quality content to your website and keep it up to date and relevant.

Use all of these free techniques to increase traffic to your website:

USFreeads.net, twitter.com, bloggvertise.com, drop flyers, chat rooms, forums, Youtube, Myspace and Google Groups.

Improve Your Website Balance your page.

To improve your website, balance your page because when users enter a website, their focus first starts at the top left of the page and hovers there before slowly tracking to the right. The web user is focused more on the text of the page, rather than images or graphics. This is where balance comes into place. Balance will not only make your page more visually appealing, but it will make your page easier to read and items easier to find. A good object will help the objects on your page flow.

Keeping it simple. If you clean your website up by removing all the unnecessary visual elements, it will allow important items to stand out. You should leave some white space on the page so the illusion of the space is visually pleasing, as well as easier to navigate.

Clean backgrounds.

The background textures and colour you chose have the ability to estimate the overall appeal of the website. Lots of texture and graphics in the background can be distracting, and the more texture you add to the background, the less noticeable your text and images become. If you are going to use a colour on the background, you should make sure there is significant contrast between the background colour and the text. You will rarely go wrong with black text and white background because it’s clean and easy to read. You have to be careful when using brighter and darker colours such as red or yellow. They cause visual fatigue (temporary loss of strength and energy resulting from hard physical or mental work) and the reader will lose their focus on the text.

For easy navigation,

you should create a toolbar with links that are easy to navigate and position the toolbar in an area that makes sense. Web users often look for the toolbar across the top or down the left the left hand side of the page. You shouldn’t forget a link to your homepage. It’s often forgotten but very important to point your users to your homepage.

Text readability should make your pages easy to read, break up blocks of text and create short paragraphs.

You should consider the key points on each page and create headings and subheadings use one or two fonts. You should select one font for your headings and subheadings and another for the body text and highlight key words and phrases by bolding or using a different colour. You should be careful when selecting colours, and not to use every colour in the rainbow. Many such as yellow and pink don’t stand out well if you’ve selected a white or black background.

Scrolling Horizontal scrolling- it would be better if you get rid of horizontal scrolling because users hate to scroll left to right.

It's disorienting and annoying, so if you've got it, lose it. Vertical scrolling is ok if you have to have it, but consider moving larger blocks of information to another page and providing links. There's also the danger of missing vital information that falls below the screen if a user decides not to scroll down to view it. So if you’ve got to have a scrolling page, try to keep all your important information above the fold.

Make it quick.

We all get impatient when it takes more than 5 seconds to connect to a website. Users want to make contact, and make it quick. You need to ensure that your pages load as quickly as possible. Eliminate unnecessary graphics, especially flash graphics they can be time hogs.

Apple iOS vs. Windows Phone 8 vs. Android 4.2 Jelly Bean: Who will win the smartphone war?

2012-11-08T08:37:00.000-08:00

Apple vs. Windows Phone 8 vs. Android 4.2 Jelly Bean
Who will win the smartphone war?

A dizzying number of smartphones is now available in the United States. Picking one is a big commitment, especially when you're signing up for a two-year wireless contract. There are multiple factors to consider when picking a new phone, such as the carrier, your budget, hardware and the operating system.
Apple, Google and Microsoft each has its own mobile operating systems and ecosystems
IOS, Android and Windows Phone, respectively and they've all been updated in the last year.

The three rivals will be going head to head on shiny new handsets this holiday season. We spent a week or so playing with new phones running these systems to see how they stack up. (For now, we're skipping other struggling smartphone platforms, BlackBerry and Symbian, even though they are more popular globally than Windows Phone. Both are quickly losing market share, although BlackBerry could bounce back when it releases its new smartphone OS, Blackberry 10, in 2013.)

Here are our impressions:

ANDROID

The Android operating system was released by Google in 2008 and has become the No. 1 smartphone OS in the world. It was running on three out of every four smartphone handsets sold in the third quarter of 2012, according to IDC. (The following descriptions are based on the latest version, Android 4.2, aka Jelly Bean.)

Interface

Android has the most detailed interface of the available operating systems, with many options and a lot of flexibility for setting it up to meet your needs. The home screen has a Google search bar at the top, and a bar at the bottom can hold four app icons or folders. The middle button brings up the complete list of apps installed on the phone.

You can place icons for your favorite apps anywhere on one of the multiple home screens, then tap an icon to launch that app. You also can decorate the pages with widgets. Widgets are like interactive mini-apps, and they show live information such as the latest from your Twitter feed, titles in your media library or little photo albums that you can flip through from the home screen. You can add widgets on the lock screen as well.

Dragging a finger down from the top of the screen shows notifications. If you're ever lost, you can just hit the back or home button at the bottom of the screen.

Apps and content

On Android phones, apps, games and content such as movies and music are sold in one unified marketplace, the Google Play store. There are about 675,000 apps and games in this store, which is just below the the number in Apple's App Store.

The devices often come preloaded with extra, unnecessary apps from the phone maker and wireless carrier, many of which try to get you to sign up for some paid service. The same is true for Windows Phone handsets.

A sizable library of movies, music, TV shows books and magazines is also available in the Google Play store.

Key features

Customization and control are big draws for Android users, and the platform is crammed with options.

The latest update adds a fun, swipe keyboard feature called Gesture Typing that lets you spell words by dragging your finger around instead of tapping on each letter.

Google Now uses your location and timing to show you the most relevant information, such as your upcoming flight times and public transit updates. There is voice search, so you can speak questions and search terms into the phone.

And of course, Android has the Google Maps app.

Hardware

Android is available on the largest number of smartphones. There is a device for every price point, and they have different features, manufacturers and carriers.

Because Android is open source, different companies can take the OS and modify it to work with their hardware. That means there are several versions of the same operating system. One of the downsides to this fragmentation is that software updates have to be adapted for each version, and the updates can be maddeningly slow to come to Android devices.

Currently, the only phone running Android 4.2 is Google's own Nexus 4, by LG.

Who it's for

Android is made for anyone heavily invested in the Google ecosystem (Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar); people who prefer their maps with public transit directions and a high level of accuracy; people who like control over their computer systems and who are fans of customization and tinkering; anyone looking for a low-cost smartphone and are unable (or unwilling) to pay the Apple premium; and buyers who want a large screen.

iOS 6

Apple's iOS operating system powers iPhones, iPads and the iPod touch. It's is the second top-selling smartphone operating system; 14% of all smartphones sold worldwide in the last quarter were running iOS. The gap between Android and iOS is huge, but keep in mind that Apple's platform only runs on one smartphone line, the iPhone.

Interface

This is the most straightforward interface in the bunch, and it's been relatively unchanged since the first iPhone came out in 2007. There have been nice minor tweaks, such as the addition of folders and notifications, but the gist is the same.

The home screen displays icons for each app; they aren't stashed away in any second location. You can organize apps in folders or search for them using the Spotlight search feature.

The iPhone doesn't display live-updating content on the home screens like Android and Windows Phone devices do. It does have a notification center and notification badges that can appear on icons. The lock screen isn't very customizable beyond the background photo.

A fixed dock along the bottom of the screen can display the four apps you use the most.

Apps and content

Apps must be purchased in the official Apple App Store, which currently has more than 700,000 apps and games in stock. The importance of a platform with a large volume of apps is overblown. What matters is the availability of quality apps and the willingness of major developers and companies to produce good products for that platform.

Content including music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, books and audiobooks are purchased through the well-stocked iTunes Store, though you can also buy them through another company such as Amazon and synch them to your iPhone. Books are also available directly through the iBooks app.

Apple has the tightest control over its operating system and the heaviest hand when it comes to editing exactly what features reach the final product. That means no extra preinstalled apps, just the necessities.

Key features

The iPhone is iOS's killer feature. It is a stunning piece of industrial design, and the newest version is durable and lightweight.

The voice-assistant feature, Siri; ease of use; and high-quality, third-party apps are other big selling points. If you're near an Apple store, the free tech support is a great perk.

Hardware

Apple's iOS operating system only runs on Apple's iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. The latest version, iOS 6, runs on the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and the iPhone 5, though some features such as the camera's panorama mode and Siri are only available on the iPhone 4S and later.

The cheapest phone currently sold by Apple is the iPhone 4, which costs $450 unlocked but is free with a two-year wireless contract when you buy it through AT&T, Sprint or Verizon.

Who it's for

iOS is designed for people who want a simple interface; nontechnical types who will appreciate the convenient and free hand-holding available at the Genius Bar; Mac users; and design lovers.

WINDOWS PHONE 8

This is the second generation of Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system, which began in 2010. Windows Phone 8 was launched in October, and Microsoft hopes the expensive marketing campaign and improved features will help it climb up from fifth place. Last quarter, only 2% of phones sold in the world were Windows Phone devices.

Interface

Instead of icons, the Windows Phone 8 home screen is covered with a quilt of brightly colored squares and rectangles. Each tile can display live information, such as a photo album or your newest e-mail, which can save you a trip into the sometimes jumbled innards of the operating system.

A swipe to the left brings up an alphabetical list of installed apps. Tap and hold on an app to place it, or "pin" it, on the start screen. Tap a tile and hold to change its size or placement.

There are some odd design choices, such as allowing text to be cut off randomly to make the most of the smartphone screen. Overall, the design relies on flat, simple images and a lot of large text. By default, the text is mostly white on black, which is jarring but saves battery life. You can switch it to black on white and change the color of your tiles.

It's possible to display personalized information on the lock screen, such as your most recent calendar event, e-mail, text message or missed phone call.

Apps and content

The current app selection on Windows Phone 8 is the smallest of the three platforms, but Microsoft is working hard to woo developers. The system shares its underlying framework with Windows 8, so that may make it easier for developers to make apps for both platforms.

Like Android phones, there is usually some preinstalled clutter -- apps from carriers and manufacturers -- on Windows Phones, but these can be deleted easily.

Tunes are available in the Xbox music store, but you have to sync movies and TV shows over from a desktop application. Pandora radio comes preinstalled along with a free year of ad-free service. Nokia phones have the Nokia Music service installed.

Key features

The main screen is the winning ingredient for Windows Phone 8. It's simple, fun and easy to understand, and it does a great job of surfacing important information.

Kids Corner is nice touch for parents. It creates a separate profile for kids, limiting them to approved apps and keeping them out of your personal accounts. Data Sense is a new feature Microsoft claims will help optimize the amount of data you use.

As part of its latest marketing push, Microsoft has been talking up the "people" angle of the phone for consumers (for example, the Rooms feature is a nice way to communicate with custom groups of people, such as family members). However, the company might be better off promoting Windows Phone's business side. Working with Office documents and syncing them across devices is much easier, and there are built-in features for large companies that need to support phones for employees.

Hardware

The new version of Windows Phone adds support for more advanced hardware than its predecessor, including phones with higher resolution screens, multicore processors and near field communication. So far, there are only a handful of Windows 8 phones available, from HTC, Samsung and Nokia. The most anticipated of the bunch is the Nokia 920, which features a powerful camera.

Unfortunately, people who already own a device running Windows Phone 7 will not be able to upgrade to the new operating system. To upgrade the OS, they must purchase a new phone

Who it's for

Windows is the most used operating system in the world, and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said he thinks 500 million people will be using Windows 8, the newest PC/tablet operating system, by the end of 2013. Windows Phone 8 will be best as a companion device for people using Windows 8 on a PC. It's also a nice choice for people who want a simple and customizable interface; heavy Microsoft Office users; parents; and anyone who likes to root for (the corporate overlord version of) the underdog