AT&T revealed today that it has exclusive rights to stock the new Samsung Galaxy S4 in Aurora Red, a new color variant announced earlier today when the smartphone passed 10 million global sales.

The device will be available to buy both in-store and online from June 14, although pre-orders are opening on May 24 (tomorrow). The 16GB model will cost $199.99 on a two-year contract, the same as the existing color variants, Black Mist and White Frost.

The Samsung Galaxy S4, unveiled in March, is currently going head-to-head with the HTC One, and will also compete with the next iPhone that will inevitably be released later this year.

The device has a premium 5-inch 1080p display, set at an impressive 441 ppi. Under the hood is a quad-core 1.6 GHz Cortex-A15 processor, bumped up by an additional quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7 chipset. That’s an insane amount of processing power, to put it mildly.

Alongside the aforementioned 16GB of internal storage is a microSD card for extra memory, and the device runs on the latest version of Android (version 4.2.2) with Samsung’s TouchWiz skin slapped on top.

The Galaxy S4 also has a mighty Li-Ion 2600 mAh battery, which should do a pretty decent job of counterbalancing the smartphone’s power-hungry processors, and 2GB of RAM handling multiple apps and tasks.

The device hit 10 million global sales today, breaking the milestone within one month of its initial launch. That’s twice as fast as the Galaxy S3, which took two months last year.

The HTC First, the only smartphone to come pre-installed with Facebook Home, is no longer coming to the United Kingdom.

At least not right now, anyway.

The device was originally set to launch with local network operators EE and Orange this summer, but Facebook has reportedly decided to cancel all pre-orders and shipments until further notice, due to “customer feedback” following its availability in the United States.

“Following customer feedback, Facebook has decided to focus on adding new customization features to Facebook Home over the coming months,” a statement sent to Engadget by EE reads. ”While they are working to make a better Facebook Home experience, they have recommended holding off launching the HTC First in the United Kingdom, and so we will shortly be contacting those who registered their interest with us to let them know of this decision.”

It continues: “Rest assured, we remain committed to bringing our customers the latest mobile experiences, and we will continue to build on our strong relationship with Facebook so as to offer customers new opportunities in the future.”

It’s a huge blow for Facebook Home. The service, which combines an interactive lockscreen experience with its new cross-platform Chat Heads messaging service, was met with a rather mixed reaction when it was unveiled earlier this year.

The service is available to a large number of Android users to install as a custom app launcher, but it doesn’t come with all of the functionality found on the HTC First. This is because the hardware was designed from the ground-up to take advantage of the software, thereby allowing Facebook to dive a little deeper into the Android operating system.

There have been rumors that the HTC First isn’t selling very well in the United States, but this hasn’t been confirmed with any concrete sales figures. Regardless, the statement from EE shows that at least in Facebook’s eyes, the dedicated smartphone isn’t ready to be sold to the British public.

“We’ve listened to feedback from users on their experience using Home. While many people love it, we’ve heard a lot of great feedback about how to make Home substantially better,” a spokesperson for Facebook told The Verge.

“As a result we’re focusing the next few months on adding customization features that address the feedback we received. While we focus on making Home better, we are going to limit supporting new devices and think it makes a lot of sense for EE and Orange to hold off deploying the HTC First in Europe.”

By putting the breaks on a wider release, Facebook will give itself some time to improve Facebook Home and fix any glaring problems. It’s a sensible move, given that it’s vital both HTC and Facebook make a good first impression with new users.

HTC unveiled the Desire 600 today, the first mid-range smartphone to be equipped with dual BoomSound speakers and run its new Sense 5 Android skin, including its Flipboard-inspired BlinkFeed home screen.

The device offers a 4.5-inch super LCD2 display – no pixel resolution just yet – and runs on an unspecified 1.2 GHz quad-core processor.

Interestingly, there’s an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera that appears to forgo the new ‘UltraPixel’ philosophy bestowed upon HTC’s latest flagship Android smartphone, the HTC One. There’s also a 1.6-megapixel front-facing camera for video calls and the like, as well as HTC’s dedicated camera app for burst mode shooting and ZOE animations.

The original HTC Desire was a popular device and it therefore comes as no surprise to see the moniker carried on HTC’s next range of low and mid-end Android smartphones. We’ve already seen the HTC Desire X and HTC Desire C fill this space, which made sense last year given the refreshed HTC One X, S and V naming system – however the Desire 600 seems to stand all on its own.

That’s perhaps not surprising, given the relatively small room for maneuverability created by the refreshed HTC One branding. The Desire 600 is also notable because it supports two SIM cards, which suggests that the device is being targeted at emerging markets, or at least those with inconsistent network connectivity. It also uses HTCs “dual active” system, which means that the user can receive a call on one line, even if they’re already using the other.

They’re not as pronounced as the HTC One, but the Desire 600 is also equipped with dual front-facing speakers. These ‘BoomSound’ amplifiers were one of the stand-out features of the HTC One – we’ve never experienced sound quality like it on a smartphone – and should help to provide a clearer and more balanced listening experience.

HTC says its new mid-range smartphone runs on Android Jelly Bean, although the exact firmware version hasn’t been disclosed. It will be available in either silver/red or black “in a number of markets” from early June. When we have more specific details, we’ll be sure to let you know.

Related: HTC One review: An absolutely superb Android smartphone with software flaws

Amazon has just announced that its Kindle Fire HD tablet – both the 7” and 8.9” HD display-sporting versions – are now available to customers in over 170 countries and regions around the world.

The devices are available for pre-order through Amazon’s flagship website and will start shipping June 13, the company says.

More specifically, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9” is available for preorder starting today for $284. The Kindle Fire HD 7” is also available for preorder, and retails for $214.

The 8.9-inch screen on the Kindle Fire HD has a resolution of 1920 by 1200 pixels (equal to 254 ppi), a dual-core 1.5 GHz TI OMAP 4470 processor, and Dolby Digital Plus audio. It also houses 1GB of RAM, a 6000 mAh and either 32GB or 64GB of internal storage.

Dave Limp, VP of Amazon Kindle, says in a statement:

Kindle Fire HD is the #1 best-selling item in the world for Amazon since its launch, and we’re thrilled to make it available to even more customers around the globe today.

Not only does Kindle Fire feature advanced hardware, it’s also a service. When combined with our content ecosystem, great email and browsing and top-rated customer service, we hope people around the world will agree that Kindle Fire HD is the best tablet for an incredible price.

The content he speaks of encompasses millions of apps, games, magazines and e-books, including more than 300,000 books that are exclusive to Amazon’s Kindle Store.

In other, fresh and related news, the Amazon Appstore for Android is now available in nearly 200 countries (as expected).

The news of the geographic expansion comes two months after Amazon announced that the 8.9″ version of its Kindle Fire HD tablet became available in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan.

At the time, it also got a lower price point in the US, starting at $269 for the WiFi-only version and $399 for the 4G-enabled edition.

The devices started shipping in the US back in November 2012.

Also read:

Despite recovered margins, Amazon disappoints in Q4 with revenue of $21.27B and EPS of $0.21

Image credit: Joe Klamar for AFP / Getty Images

As the global PC market continues to spiral downwards, Lenovo, the world’s second-largest PC maker after HP, has reported solid earnings for its fourth fiscal quarter and full-year ended March 31, 2013.

The Chinese multinational is in fact boasting that, “despite a challenging macro-economic environment and ongoing PC industry transformation”, it has reached a record 15.5 percent PC market share for the full year.

All in all, it has shipped 52.4 million PCs during the year.

That has translated in record annual sales of $34 billion for the fiscal year, and $635 million in income after taxes (up 34 percent year-over-year).

It also reported an estimate-beating 90 percent rise in quarterly profit.

Notably, the company says in a statement that it will “enhance the profitability” of its core PC business but look to smart devices (tablets and smartphones) and enterprise hardware for future growth.

Yang Yuanqing, Lenovo Chairman and CEO, notes:

“Not only were we the fastest growing among all major PC players, with record market share, revenue and profitability, more importantly, our smartphone and tablet businesses saw dramatic growth.

In fact, smartphone shipments were 3.7 times greater than last year globally and we are now number two in the China smartphone market. This has laid a solid foundation for the successful transformation of Lenovo into a PC Plus leader.”

Also read:

As expected, Dell reports miserable $0.21 per share profit on revenue of $14.1B in Q1

Hewlett-Packard misses street on low PC sales with Q2 revenue of $27.6B and $0.87 EPS

Image credit: DIBYANGSHU SARKAR for AFP / Getty Images

The BBC has developed an experimental piece of hardware called the Perceptive Radio, that adjusts the content it plays based on a wide range of circumstances, such as location, time, a user’s proximity to the device and background noise in the environment in which it’s being used..

The device was unveiled today at the Thinking Digital conference in Gateshead, UK and builds upon the Perceptive Media project that the BBC announced last year.

Perceptive Media adjusts content for each audience member based on their specific circumstances. The only demo content announced so far is a radio play that adjusts the location in which it’s set, the weather and other factors depending on where and when it’s listened to.

The radio shown off today includes a light sensor, proximity sensor and a microphone that can influence the content it plays. The proximity sensor is currently used to adjust the audio mix of the radio play, adding or removing background sound effects depending on how close a listener is to the device.

The BBC’s Ian Forrester has been working on the Perceptive Radio project at the Future Media & Technology department in Salford, UK. He said today that the radio set will soon be tested in homes to see how it can be applied in real-world scenarios. One content idea that Forrester suggested for the device, which streams audio over a WiFi connection, is a ‘karaoke drama’, which could incorporate audience engagement via the microphone. He added that an accelerometer had been discussed as a possible additional sensor to influence content based on whether or not the device was moving. (Update: It’s worth noting that the Perceptive Radio was a collaboration between the BBC, Mudlark, MCQN and Deferred Procrastination).

Personalized advertising is one compelling possibility for future commercial uses of Perceptive Media. Imagine a TV ad that tweaks its messaging based on your Facebook Likes, for example. Despite the BBC’s non-commercial status, that’s certainly a possibility – the Perceptive Radio design will soon be open-sourced, and most of the Perceptive Media source code is already freely available on GitHub.

Grishin Robotics, an investment firm that specializes in – you guessed it – robotics, has pumped $500,000 into Swivl, the company behind the cool robotic video device that basically acts like a personal cameraman.

Swivl lets people capture videos of themselves (speaking, lecturing, presenting, teaching, singing and whatnot) without the need for them to stay in the same place or have someone else move or tilt the camera.

Instead, the portable Swivl dock tracks your motions to ensure you’re being recorded even when you’re moving about.

One of the first – especially hardware – products ever successfully crowd-funded and delivered to market, Swivl has already sold over 10,000 units worldwide since its initial debut.

What comes next

Swivl is now working hard on the next version of the widely praised accessory, which supports iPads, iPhones, DSLRs and Android devices.

In an earlier Kickstarter campaign, the company had raised just south of $160,000 – from over 1,000 backers and exceeding its goal of raising $120,000 – to finance the new device.

With the new funds from Grishin Robotics, which was founded by Mail.Ru Group co-founder and CEO Dmitry Grishin, Swivl says it will accelerate the development of the second-generation Swivl, and prepare the launch of its yet-to-be-announced connected video services.

Both the device and services will be launched “later this year”, the company vaguely said in a statement.

Swivl says its device has been used for a wide variety of applications, ranging from enterprise telepresence to pet monitoring, but has been a big hit with teachers in particular.

The company says its product has already been deployed in over 1,000 schools and 250 universities, showcasing the potential for the device in the realm of education.

Grishin commented on the investment thusly:

“The global educational industry is undergoing huge transforming changes, and robotics plays an increasingly significant role in that process. Swivl represents a rare combination of strong technologies, beautiful design, and affordable price-point – exactly the type of product we are looking for.”

His $25 million robotics investment firm has earlier backed the likes of Double Robotics, RobotAppStore and Bolt.

(All images courtesy of Swivl)

In my aim to simplify and aggregate my life, one gadget has had an enormous impact, meet CardNinja.

Card Ninja is effectively a wallet replacement that attaches to the back of your phone. I use it on the back of my iPhone but it works on virtually any smartphone.

It’s a pretty magical little gizmo. Irrespective of the number of items you include in it, it manages to hold your cash and cards in there no problem. I’ve had as many as ten cards, and a stack of cash (naturally) and it’s held it in there without issue. Conversely, I’ve had just two cards in there and no cash and it still manages to hold everything in there, even with a solid shake of the phone upside down. It really is very impressive.

To attach Card Ninja, you simple glue it to the back of your phone. It comes off fairly easily if you ever want to remove it, but you will need to hand pick bits of glue off the back of your phone — nothing too tiresome though, just a little time consuming — it does no damage to your phone.

CardNinja is also ideally sized so you don’t cover your phone’s camera, just make sure you attach it as far down your phone as possible.

The people I’ve shown it off to have some immediate concerns I’ll address here.

Cards falling out? Not a problem for me (or others), as mentioned above.

Losing both your phone, cash and money at the same time? Valid, but at least with Find My iPhone, Where’s my Droid and others, you stand a better chance of getting them all back than if you just lost your wallet somewhere.

Will it ruin my credit cards at all? I can say from almost a year of first hand experience that no damage has been done to any of my cards.

This might appear to be a near flawless ad-like mention of a product but the truth is I rarely get the time to write any more and when I do, it’s only for products that I’m in love with. This is one of them.

On face value, it might not appear to be the most glamorous, cool or cutting edge, but it is, however, incredibly useful and has proven to be the most used phone accessory I’ve ever owned.

Get yourself one here, $19.95 and comes in three colors: black, purple and eggplant.

Headline image via CardNinja

Dell calls its XPS 18 a “portable, all-in-one desktop” machine. You’ll probably call it the biggest tablet that you’ve ever used, but for the first time ever, that’s perhaps not a bad thing. I’ve gotten to spend the past week or so with the XPS 18 and I have to applaud Dell for taking risks and innovating in size to produce a machine that’s become a lot of fun to use.

First thing’s first, let’s chat about specs for just a second. My review model includes a hyper-threaded dual core Intel i5 processor, 8 GB of RAM and a 500 GB SATA hard drive, plus an additional 32 GB mSATA SSD for quick loading. Intel HD 4000 graphics power the 18.4-inch, 1920×1080 display. The machine also includes Bluetooth 4.0, it runs Windows 8 and weighs in at just a touch over 5 pounds.

Now that we’ve got the numbers out of the way, let’s talk about using the XPS 18 in the real world. Chances are that you won’t be carrying around this “tablet” very often, but when you choose to do so you’ll find that it’s surprisingly easy to use while just sitting on the couch or in a chair. Though I still prefer 7 or 8-inch tablets for my handheld computing, the XPS 18 is a novel concept and not without its uses.

When it’s sitting on your desk, it’s easy to forget that you’re using something that you can just pick up and stick into a case. It’s very much a tablet computer, but flipping out the legs on the back takes you to a stand mode where it looks like any other 18-inch monitor on your desktop. My review unit also included a metal stand (a $100 option on the lower-priced models, but included with the i5 and i7 flavors) to raise the XPS 18 from the desktop. The tilt on the stand is fantastic, and magnets allow it to be charged from the stand itself. Not only does this provide a cleaner appearance, it also holds the tablet in a manner that feels a bit more secure than the dual kickstands on the back.

Port options on the XPS 18 are somewhat spartan for a desktop machine, but you’ll probably be okay with them. There are two USB ports on the left side, as well as a headphone/headset port. Dell includes a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse as well, to keep those ports free. The keyboard is lovely, and I believe it’s the same one that Dell includes with the XPS One 27, but the mouse is passable at best.

I honestly expected to hate the XPS 18, and to not see a good use for it. But after playing with it for a few days, I’m well impressed. The challenge for any OEM is to do something that’s different, but ultimately useful. Dell’s risen to that challenge and managed to design a machine that’s plenty capable for both work and entertainment, while still offering the flexibility of using it no matter where you are in the house.

It could readily be argued that a laptop is a better option here, but I think that there’s a lot to be said for the 18.4-inch display. On top of being downright lovely, the touch response is second-to-none. While you’re absolutely going to leave fingerprints all over your computer, it’s worth the trade-off for having a machine that doesn’t require a larger monitor when it’s sitting on your desk.

The XPS 18 is also another machine where Windows 8 starts to make a lot more sense. I’m not going to bring up the debate in this post, because this is a review of a machine and not its OS, but suffice it to say that quickly switching from touch to mouse and keyboard is a lot more friendly on Windows 8 than it could ever be on Windows 7, and the XPS 18 almost begs to be touched. Dell’s not always been known for great-looking computers, but this one most certainly is.

The question at hand is whether this is the bridge that we’re seeing into the “post-PC” generation. It’s not the first machine to take this hybrid approach, but at this point it’s probably the best. The challenge of course is in Dell finding its market. At a $1,349 price tag, the XPS 18 is on par with pricing for an Apple iMac, as well as the Asus Transformer AIO. But there are still advantages to the Dell. You can’t take an iMac with you, and the Asus machine turns into Android when you detach it from its case.

Dell has certainly managed to do something unique, but the question still remains to be answered as to whether or not it’s useful. What I can tell you with absolute certainty is that it’s incredibly thin (for a desktop machine), quite portable, plenty fast for almost anything you’ll do and ultimately a lot of fun to use. Personally, I hope that it’s the first of many hybrid desktop/tablet machines that we see in the future.

Jolla, the Finnish-based company set to launch its new Sailfish mobile operating system later this year, has unveiled its first device ahead of a dedicated press event later today.

The smartphone has a 4.5-inch “Estrade” display, as well as 16GB of internal storage and a microSD slot. There’s an unspecified dual-core processor to handle daily tasks and an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera.

Jolla’s first handset is also 4G-enabled and has a replaceable battery, which will go down a treat with power users who often find themselves in the red at the end of the day.

The spec sheet also mentions a new hardware feature called the “Other Half.” This refers to a customizable shell that clips onto the back of the device, thereby changing its primary color. The homepage of the Jolla website shows a red, teal and light green color variant, although more will likely be available before launch. Jolla says that the software will also change to match the color of the shell, such as the fonts, tones, profiles and wider functionality displayed on the device.

The new smartphone will cost €399 (roughly $512 USD) and ship before the end of 2013, “subject to demand in your local market.” The Jolla website reads: “Sales will start in European countries with more countries to follow.”

Anyone who pre-orders will also receive a voucher worth €100, which will be knocked off the price of the Jolla when it finally ships – as well as t-shirt and “priority pre-order status.” Jolla is set to hold an event in Helsinki today called Jolla LoveDay, which should provide a wealth of additional details about the device and its release date.

Images of the device also point to a new, refreshed design for Sailfish OS. The homescreen now shows at least seven tiles, rather than the four displayed before, and four bright, revamped icons in the dock.

The smartphone is also buttonless, which means that returning to the homescreen, searching for content and multitasking is all controlled via onscreen swipes and gestures.

The Sailfish OS is based on Mer, an open source operating system for mobile phones, tablets, TVs and other connected devices. It was used as part of MeeGo, a mobile OS that was developed by Nokia and eventually abandoned by CEO Stephen Elop in order to double-down on the Windows Phone platform.

Jolla debuted Sailfish OS in November last year, showing off a number of novel UI elements such as a ‘Pulley Menu’ for sharing with other social networks and a refreshed lockscreen. The company has since appointed a new CEO in Tomi Pienimäki, allowing Marc Dillon to take up a new role as Head of Software Development.

Jolla has a lot to prove with the Sailfish OS. Android adoption continues to accelerate in emerging markets, where Jolla is most likely to find success, and there’s a growing number of niche mobile platforms looking to increase their market share. These include Windows Phone and Nokia’s own revamped Asha platform, as well as BlackBerry 10 and the upcoming Firefox OS and Tizen platforms.

Jolla will need to prove that it has a unique proposition, but also one that is superior to anything else on the market. Support from app developers, as well as carriers and hardware manufacturers will be crucial throughout the next 12 months.