Despite the fact the release of the Samsung Galaxy S4 is just around the corner, Samsung haven’t forget about the Galaxy S III

Samsung have just announced the Amethyst Purple color option for the Galaxy S III that will be exclusive to Sprint customers.

Sprint announced this morning that a 16GB version of the Samsung Galaxy S III in Amethyst Purple will be coming to its network exclusively. In addition to the new color option, the carrier has also lowered the price of the 16GB Galaxy S III to $99.99 for a new two-year contract after a $50 mail-in rebate. New customers who port their number to Sprint can use their port-in credit to get a Galaxy S III for free.

The purple Galaxy S III was on display at last night’s Digital Experience showcase. Sprint also showed off the Samsung Galaxy S IIII, which was fitting because customers will have to make a decision between the two phones shortly. Why buy a phone that’s a year old when you can get something newer and more powerful? Well, the lower price and new color option may tempt people.

Facebook Home arrives today on Android and can now be downloaded from the Google Play Store but one of the software’s main features is coming to another Facebook product; a new update out today for Facebook Messenger brings Chat Heads to the Android app.

The Chat Heads in Messenger will show your friends’ pictures in a little movable circle, which can follow you around your Android phone. That means that you’ll be able to keep on talking with friends as you engage with other apps, docked to the sides of your handset’s screen.

If someone sends you a Facebook Message and you’re watching a YouTube video, you’ll see their head pop up in a circle above the video. If you’re on the home screen and someone sends you a message, their head will appear there – click on it and you’re back to chatting. You can hold down their head and pull it down until the ‘X’ appears and their message will be dismissed.

Following last month’s rumors, LinkedIn has announced that it acquired the popular news application Pulse; a popular news reader app similar to Flipboard and Circa.

Earlier reports suggested LinkedIn would pay between $50 million and $100 million for Pulse. LinkedIn said the deal is worth $90 million and includes 10 percent cash and 90 percent stock. Deep Nishar, SVP of Products and User Experience for LinkedIn said:

We are thrilled to be able to add Pulse’s considerable talent, technology, and products to our growing ecosystem of content offerings, and we believe that they will help us accelerate our ability to deliver to our members the insights they need to be better at what they do, on any device. To continue to deliver that value to our members, our vision for content is that LinkedIn will be the definitive professional publishing platform, and Pulse is a perfect complement to this vision.

It’s clear that Pulse’s technology will not be discarded, but it appears that Pulse will not remain in its current form forever.

Pulse employees will move to LinkedIn’s headquarters in Mountain View, California. LinkedIn will continue to support existing Pulse technology.

Lighting company Philips have developed an LED lamp that it describes as “the world’s most energy-efficient”. The prototype version of the LED lamp is twice as efficient as current LED lamps but offers the same amount of light. Lighting accounts for more than 19% of global electricity consumption, so the ability to halve the cost of energy used for LED lamps could mean huge savings around the world. Rene van Schooten, chief executive of light source and electronics at Philips said:

This is a major breakthrough in LED lighting and will further drive the transformation of the lighting industry. It’s exciting to imagine the massive energy and cost savings it will bring to our planet and customers.

The prototype Tube LED (TLED) from Philips pulls 200 lumen per watt. That’s not only double what a flourescent can do, it’s nearly double what existing LEDs, like the Philips T8, can achieve as well.

The Energy Saving Trust, a UK charity which provides advice on how to cut carbon emissions said the manufacture results need to be treated with caution but added that if Philips could bring the product to market it would represent a major advance. James Russill, the trust’s technical development manager, told the BBC:

The typical performance of LEDs we have trialed and tested before has typically been in the range of 50 to 70 lumens per watt which is significantly better than traditional lighting – so if this new Philips product can perform as claimed then it represents a huge leap forward in performance. It is also good that this product is aimed at office environments, where lighting is often left on for 24 hours per day – the potential for reducing electricity demand is therefore very high.

The company has not yet published prices but a spokesperson told the BBC that the cost would not be significantly more than current LED tube lights.

source [BBC Technology]

Reports a few weeks ago suggested that Nokia was preparing new firmware update for a handful of specific Nokia Windows 8 phones. The update which is being referred to as PR2.0 includes some fancy new features.

One of the new features is the ability to wake the phone from sleep by double-tapping on the handset’s screen. Today, we get to check out how that would work, thanks to a video purporting to demo the feature. That feature as seen in the video is pretty what you would expect but the more interesting news might be the option to have an always-on clock, as also seen in this video.

Apparently, users will have an an option to have a clock on the screen when it is asleep. We are concerned about the effect it might have on battery life, as the 920 uses an LCD, not an OLED panel, and constantly keeping the backlight engaged just to display the time doesn’t sound like the most efficient idea. Still we’ll wait and see for ourselves how the battery holds up and are optimistic as it does look like a pretty cool idea.

Today at the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona we got a hands look at the Samsung HomeSync; a home theater media box that integrates the Android OS into your TV via a handheld Samsung device. The media box can stream videos, games, and other media from your handheld Samsung device to your TV through Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

The media box has a finished metallic-effect but made from plastic, and only a LED indicator on the front. On the back, there’s a microUSB port, two USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI output, and an S/PDIF digital audio output, along with an ethernet port.

The box is running on a 1.7GHz dual-core processor and for storage has a 1TB hard-drive. There is also 8GB of space for apps, 2GB of RAM and WiFi a/b/g/n, plus Bluetooth 4.0. That 1TB hard-drive is used for local storage, which can include files transferred from your Samsung phone or tablet. It integrates with the AllShare app on Samsung mobile devices, too, for one-touch streaming.

It is running Android 4.2 Jelly Bean under the hood, with a customized UI to suit the living room environment. An app on your Samsung phone turns it into a wireless keyboard and remote – the display can either be used as a traditional trackpad, or you can physically wave the phone around to move the on-screen mouse cursor – with NFC used to easily pair handset to STB.

You can use screen mirroring, push Full HD content wirelessly through the HomeSync box to your TV, or use local software such as the gallery, video player, and YouTube player. Samsung tells us that you should be able to install any app in the Google Play store too, including Netflix.

Up to eight individual user accounts will be supported, each with its own section of the 1TB drive. Those wanting more local storage will be able to use the USB 3.0 ports to add external drives.

Samsung says the HomeSync media box will hit the US in April, though is yet to confirm pricing.

Nvidia recently announced its Tegra 4i processor, which combines Tegra 4 power with integrated LTE into a single system-on-a-chip. The company showed of the technology at Mobile World Congress, where they had in-house developed reference smartphone hardware on-show called the Phoenix.

The Tegra 4i is Nvidia’s attempt to break into the mainstream smartphone market at the first time of trying and judging by the technology it could be a great success. The Phoenix features a 5-inch 1080p display, 13-megapixel camera and integrated LTE. Nvidia touts the chip’s overall graphical prowess: 60-core GPU, while still improving battery life and web browsing. Not only that the phone is only 8mm thin, Nvidia’s Will Park said.:

Better yet, we’ve tweaked the Tegra 4i architecture to make the chip smaller and more efficient than the competition, allowing us to pack all its tech into a package just 8mm thin.

For a complete explanation of the the new Tegra 4i technology running inside the Phoenix reference smartphone check out the video below:

A new device slightly larger than a smartphone has appeared with HTC branding on it, that looks to be a competitor for the Samsung Galaxy Note in the very near future. Not much is known about the phone though the red accents on the metal rails on the side are a Verizon-favorite for its HTC line of devices. There is also a Beats Audio logo and a large sticker that looks very much like what HTC done on the One X. Apart from that we’re left wondering what this new HTC device could be.

The phone however does seem to line-up nicely with specs for an HTC phone that appeared on a benchmarking site last month. The HTC6435LVW has a 5-inch 1794 x 1080 display, a 1.5GHz processor that outperformed a traditional Qualcomm S4 chips and was also rumoured to be heading to Verizon.

Verizon users hoping for a high-end HTC One-series phone have had to make do with the Droid Incredible 4G LTE but if these rumours are true they’ll have something to look forward to.

Close to the end of the first official day of IFA 2012 in Berlin, Germany, Samsung had a small surprise for everyone; their upcoming 13-inch Series 9 WQHD Ultrabook. The Samsung Series 9 WQHD Ultrabook is currently still a concept right now, but we’re hoping it will come to the market sooner rather than later.

The Ultrabook features a 13-inch 2560 x 1440 super-high resolution display with a matte finish and an extreme slim design. Due to the Ultrabook still being a work-in-progress, Samsung hasn’t actually named the display technology used and the Samsung reps didn’t have much information on it, either.

The Ultrabook sports USB 3.0, DisplayPort, micro HDMI, Gigabit Ethernet and audio ports. The matte finish on the display is very effective against reflections and judging by the viewing angles the screen may well be based on IPS technology.

Windows 8 looks incredible on the display, which is no surprise, we’ve come to expect amazing displays from Samsung with such vivid colors and strong brightness. Not much else is known about the Series 9 Ultrabook but it is expected to have an Ivy Bridge processor.

There are no details regarding price or release date but we’ll let you know when we find out more.

Following the Kindle Fire 2 photo which was leaked yesterday, more images have surfaced today.

The tablet very much resembles the Kindle Fire that is currently on the market with the same edge bumper and display size but with some notable differences. The images clearly show two different models with slightly different features. On one model there is notch along one of the long edges which may be a front-facing mic for video calling and a front-facing camera for video calling. Skype being demonstrated can be seen in an image which is a pretty big feature for a budget tablet.

The image showing the two tablets may be showing the 7-inch model, while the upright tablet may be the 10-inch Kindle Fire 2. There had been rumours that the smaller version would be focused on media, whilst the larger version would have a more powerful processor and the ability to work with higher-requirements media. The user interface also reflects the Android Amazon app store’s relatively new look as well.

Nothing has been confirmed and we’re still not completely sure if there will be multiple models of the Kindle Fire 2 but we should know more in Los Angeles next week, at the Amazon press event.