Random Dumber Generator

The Verge Gives HD2 The Plaudits

2012-02-09T23:43:00.001Z

The phone that transcends its roots, the HTC HD2 has been honoured by The Verge. Originally shipped with Windows Mobile 6.5 (the first Windows Mobile device with a capacitive screen) the HD2 has been given unofficial ROMs running the latest versions of Android and WP7. As well as being versatile, the HD2 has set the design language for HTC since its release, in fact one of the likely reasons

What's Wrong With HTC Sense?

2012-02-09T23:31:00.001Z

There are a lot of people complaining about HTC Sense - how it delays the launch of Android updates and assists in the fragmentation of Android. What nonsense! Sense does a fantastic job of giving HTC phones a consistent look and feel and a set of widgets that look like they were designed by the same team. Those people who complain are probably the same ones who moan about Android phones

Fabio Capello Takes The High Ground - English Press Fails To Notice

2012-02-08T22:53:00.001Z

So the John Terry affair ends with England manager Fabio Capello tendering his resignation to the FA, who were glad to accept it. The English press has painted this as a result of Capello's outburst on Italian TV at the weekend, where he criticised the FA's decision to strip Terry of the England captaincy. The barely hidden subtext is that the smarmy Italian has been booted out for his stance.

Why The FA Is Wrong About John Terry

2012-02-07T08:59:00.001Z

The Football Association has decided to strip John Terry of the captaincy of the England football team following allegations that he racially abused another player during a game for his club. Terry will face charges in court relating to the offence later this summer. This is wrong in so many ways. As far as I am aware the UK still retains the legal principle of the presumption of innocence

Would You Compromise Capability For Battery Life?

2012-02-06T00:42:00.000Z

Asus has done a magnificent job of making its Transformer Prime stretch out the battery hours - the claim is that 18 hours ae possible and I have no problems believing that based on my experiences so far. Which given the size difference between the Asus and regular ultraportables begs the question: would you forego some functionality to have a device that runs forever in an ultraslim form factor

Will Apple Take A Gamble On iPad 3?

2012-02-05T10:35:00.002Z

It's hard to argue that the iPad has been a success - despite many having reservations when it was first announced. Interestingly the big blow-up in iPad sales came with the announcement of the iPad 2, which added features which Apple had denied were necesary on the first model. A similar thing happened with the iPhone 3G and its noticeable that Apple have improved the iPhone platform by

Asus Transformer Prime

2012-02-04T13:34:00.001Z

My latest technology investment arrived today, courtesy of eBuyer's Saturday delivery service - the Asus Transformer Prime. I was always a big fan of the original Transformer and the new one has moved the game forward considerably. Ignoring any of the technical changes and improvements, the Prime is a perfect example of a device which is a joy to use and will bring a smile to user's faces when

I'm Getting Tired Of Apps

2012-02-02T23:24:00.001Z

Call it fatigue, call it annoyance but whatever it may be its starting to make me long for the good old days when no-one had heard of or used smartphone outside of a small exclusive group of uber-nerds. There are far too many companies out there doing 'an app' because everyone else is doing one as well. No concept of the value to the business or customer; no real reason to do it either. How

What Does The Future Hold For Apple TV?

2012-01-28T09:29:00.001Z

There are huge rumours that Apple are about to launch a TV into the crowded consumer market. It's an interesting theory but does it seem likely? I'm not overly convinced. TVs aren't something that we replace on a short cycle and there are limited benefits that Apple can add to the device to make it a value proposition for the average consumer. Maybe a slicker control interface but that isn't

RIM: Doomed, On The Bounce or a New Business Model?

2012-01-24T22:04:00.001Z

It's been a crazy couple of years for RIM, for a long time now the Canadian company has appeared to be in something a death spiral - a bit like Palm before it. This week it dumped its twin CEOs, appointed a man who seems placed to market the company to potential buyers. Not looking good then. RIM does have one saving grace: as its market share collapses and the enterprise market it once

Why Google+ Beats Facebook Hands Down

2012-01-22T11:29:00.001Z

Here's a very good demonstration of why Google+ is so much more powerful than Facebook. Do you really want all those random people you've 'friended' to get all those intimate details of your life?

Apple Claims Ownership of Kodak Patents

2012-01-21T20:54:00.001Z

Kodak's bankruptcy filing could have a significant knock-on effect for the camera industry. Apple has today laid claim to Kodak's patents around digital camera technologies, claiming that during the period in the early-nineties when the two companies were collaborating Kodak misappropriated Apple's technology. This has two important effects. Firstly Apple would be given ammunition to further

Nokia Lumia Discount Points To Disappointing Sales

2012-01-21T11:59:00.000Z

Nokia's relaunch under Windows Phone may not be going as well as the Finnish giant or Microsoft would have hoped. At least that's the conclusion I fear that will have to be made based on an astonishing offer currently available to UK buyers at Argos. Launched at £400+ just a few scant week ago, Argos now has the Lumia 800 in black (admittedly the least flattering colour for the handset) for a

Kodak Files For Bankruptcy

2012-01-19T11:59:00.001Z

Failure to transform its business from the sale of film to a digital device market has finally told on Kodak. The company has applied for Chapter 11 protection in the US. The only real way forward for the company involves a sale of its patents to a patent troll, Google or Apple. To aid that process Kodak has recently issued claims against both Apple and Samsung in an attempt to show that it's

Apple To Do Text Books?

2012-01-16T23:50:00.001Z

Apple have been inviting tech journos and bloggers to a special event in New York which, reliable sources tell us, will be the launch of a school text book service. It's been regularly suggested that electronic text books are the future of education and many US school districts have furnished their students with laptops are tablets for exactly that purpose. Problem is that the books aren't

Keep Taking The Tablets

2012-01-15T07:55:00.001Z

The iPad 3 rumour mill has started to crank up, ahead of a likely February announcement for March shipping. I wonder how those rumours are likely to affect iPad 2 sales? After all its rare that Apple fluffs an upgrade these days and the third iteration of its tablet is likely to be the one that remakes the market again. Would you risk your money today, knowing that a newer, faster and more

WP7: No Use For Enterprise

2012-01-14T00:23:00.001Z

That's right, good as Windows Phone 7.5 is in many areas it's of no use to most enterprise customers. And if you're buying one in the expectation that you'll be able to use it on your company's mobile email platform you might be in for a surprise too. Mango added support for additional EAS security profiles - the tools that your email administrator uses to ensure that your email doesn't end up

DLNA: Time To Shape Up

2012-01-09T00:00:00.001Z

One of the more common accessories appearing for mobile phones and tablets today is an HDMI accessory. After all, with the capability of recording and playing back HD content, added to the number of options for buying HD movie content on device, it's not surprising that we're all keen to watch on the big screen whenever possible. Look at the number of devices which can handle media content -

Happy Holidays From... For Android

2011-12-29T00:25:00.000Z

Google's Android team created this YouTube video to wish Android users a happy holiday but it looks like the Android team had the happiest holiday of all, with Andy Rubin, Google's numbers man announcing that 3.7 million new Android's were activated on the 24th and 25th of December - that's an epic 1.85 million a day, more than doubling the average Android run rate of 700,000 a day. Looks like

Battery Life Is A Difficult Issue

2011-12-29T00:10:00.002Z

I'm not entirely sure why this should be the case but whenever I hear complaints about the battery life of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus I'm left bewildered. Here you can see a screenshot from my own device demonstrating that after 29 hours away from a charger its just dropped below 40% charge. In my book a potential two day battery life isn't something to complain about. Similarly with my iPhone 4S,

Carriers and OEMs Going After Apple With Android Ads

2011-12-28T23:59:00.000Z

Here's a new trend that I'm liking - Apple's iPhone getting a kicking for its failings in advertising from US carriers and Samsung. Normally this sort of stuff doesn't fly in the UK but as Apple themselves were guilty of a similar tactic with its "I'm a Mac" adverts a little bit of reciprocation doesn't hurt.

Spotify Really Disappoints

2011-12-26T21:42:00.003Z

I hate to harp on about this but for a service which is mostly brilliant Spotify has done a frankly pathetic job of its mobile client. On Android and iOS it looks awful and is a nightmare to navigate. As an added bonus its crashes repeatedly on ICS. There's no specific tablet version for either OS and as a result it manages to disappoint pretty much across the board... On Windows Phone 7 its a

Alfa Romeo Now Only Making Two Models

2011-12-18T22:50:00.001Z

The decline of Alfa Romeo under Fiat stewardship continues. Having lost the GT Coupe, Brera and Spider in recent years; with the 166 long dead and looking like it may be never be replaced; variety is one thing you weren't going to find at your Alfa dealership. Things have gone from bad to worse though - Fiat's pressing need to up production capacity of the ultra-desirable 500 has meant that

Spotify Mobile App Is Bloody Awful

2011-12-18T21:57:00.001Z

Having made the switch over to the Galaxy Nexus from my HD7 I was no longer able to access WP7's Zune music streaming service. That's no problem, I'll just sign up for a Spotify account. After all it works pretty well on the desktop, so on a mobile device it should be okay. No such luck. This is a pretty ropey bit of software, both on Android and iOS. Realistically the only way to use the

Microsoft's App Strategy Points To WP7 Problems

2011-12-18T01:19:00.001Z

I'm a big fan of Windows Phone 7, its a mobile OS that is both nice to use and look at. However, Microsoft's strategy of placing its gold standard applications onto competing platforms would suggest that internal battles between business units could rob the fledgling platform of its one chance of battling into the Android/iOS duopoly. The arrival of Xbox, Bing, OneNote and other tools on the