Windows Phone owners have been stuck without a major OS update for some time now but thankfully, Microsoft has finally released the Windows Phone 8.1 developer preview bringing some big features such as Cortana, the digital assistant as well as a new notification centre and skinned tiles for the start …
Read More »Age of Empires is going mobile
Age of Empires, the history based RTS game is now coming to mobile devices, the last main instalment to the series was Age of Empires III which came out in 2005. An online focused game came out in 2011 but failed to take off and as a result, it will …
Read More »Apple iWatch: Two sizes, precious materials, bended form-factor
A rumour has it that Apple is on track to release its long-awaited iWatch smart-watch later this year. While Apple’s iWatch will functionally resemble existing devices, they will have one significant difference: they will be made to look like fine watches from leading brands, will be made using precious metals …
Read More »Amazon to unveil smartphone in June, begin shipments in September
The world’s largest e-tailer Amazon is on the finish line with its long-awaited smartphone, a media report citing people familiar with the matter claims. The company reportedly intends to unleash the smartphone and services associated with it in June and plans to start shipments in late September. Unfortunately, it is …
Read More »Apple roadmap for 2014: new iPhones, iWatch, new MacBooks, no iTV
A South Korean analyst with a good track record in predicting the future of Apple’s products as well as schedules of their introductions has published a new version of the company’s roadmap for the this year. The plan includes plenty of new products, several upgrades, but excludes the highly-anticipated TV-sets …
Read More »Sony warns 26,000 Vaio laptops at risk of catching fire
Sony has issued a warning today urging users to stop using the Vaio Fit 11A laptop as soon as possible due to a battery fault that potentially puts 26,000 laptops at risk of catching fire. It all comes down to a manufacturing fault found in Panasonic's batteries which now puts around …
Read More »IDC: Shipments of wearables to reach 19.2 million this year
A lot of promising wearable computing devices have been introduced in the recent months and quarters. Things like Google Glass, Samsung Gear 2 as well as various smartbands are still pretty expensive, but at least they are becoming more and more useful and therefore attractive to the consumer. As a …
Read More »Microsoft Surface 2 4G gets UK release date
The 4G version of Microsoft's much improved Surface 2 tablet will be coming to the UK next month, Microsoft has confirmed. Currently only WiFi models are available and with networks getting stricter on mobile tethering, its getting harder to use your tablet to get online while on the road. The …
Read More »BlackBerry may consider exiting handsets business – CEO
BlackBerry would consider exiting smartphone hardware business if it remains unprofitable, its chief executive officer said. The head of the company is very interested in keeping the company afloat, so he is looking beyond the smartphone in general to other connected devices, which will become pervasive across different industries. “If …
Read More »MSI GE60 2PE Apache Pro 15.6in gaming notebook
Laptops are rarely given much credit when it comes to gaming ability, but the GE60 2PE Apache Pro from MSI has the potential to turn that idea on its head. Packing the ‘hot-off-the-shelf' Nvidia GTX 860M, an Intel i7 4700 HQ CPU with 12GB of DDR3 and a 128GB SSD …
Read More »Apple to release iWatch in August or September – rumour
After years of preparations, Apple is expected to be finally ready with its iWatch smart watch device sometimes this August or September. Several makers of flexible printed-circuit boards have reportedly supplied samples of their FPCBs to Apple for validation. Moreover, some additional details about the internals of the watch have …
Read More »Qualcomm looking forward to triple Wi-Fi speeds
Qualcomm has announced its new family of Wi-Fi chips that could improve performance of wireless local area networks by several times. The new Qualcomm Atheros Vive chips (and select Snapdragon application processors) for routers, gateways as well as client devices support multi-stream 802.11ac Wi-Fi with multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) technology that …
Read More »Nokia-Microsoft transaction nearly complete after China okays the deal
Nokia Corp. has announced that the Chinese anti-trust authorities have approved the sale of its devices and services division to Microsoft Corp. Essentially, this means that the transaction between the two companies is complete as by now the two were authorized by the majority of the world’s regulators. Nokia and …
Read More »Apple’s iTV production postponed to 2015 – report
Apple has reportedly reconsidered its plans concerning its own TV-set again. A media report claims that Apple wants its televisions to use OLED display, but at the same time it wants them to be more or less affordable. As a result, in order to meet price requirements, Apple is now …
Read More »Qualcomm unveils next-gen Snapdragon processors: 64-bit, 4K video, LTE-A
Qualcomm on Monday announced two new high-end application processors for smartphones and tablets. The new chips integrate 64-bit general-purpose cores, new-generation Adreno graphics engines, 2K/4K video processing as well as 4G/LTE Advanced modem that supports 3*20MHz carrier aggregation, enabling speeds of up to 300Mb/s. The new Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 and …
Read More »Lenovo acquires mobile patents from NEC
Lenovo Group, the largest supplier of personal computers in the world that wants to become a top smartphone maker, said that it had bought a portfolio of mobile patents from NEC Corp. The move should help Lenovo to avoid legal conflicts with other makers of smartphones and boost its own …
Read More »Google is planning an Android TV
Google is reportedly planning to release an Android TV, the new service will go head to head against Amazon's recently launched Fire TV as well as the rumoured revamped Apple TV. However, this isn't Google's first time releasing a TV service, previously the company released Google TV but it failed …
Read More »Company offers Apple iPhone 5 dock made of concrete
There are plenty of various docs for Apple’s iPhones and iPods, which have different capabilities and look. Apparently, the guys from Hannover, Germany-based Hardwrk company decided to make a dock that would also feel differently and created an iPhone 5 dock made of pure concrete. The hardwrk Massive Dock dock …
Read More »Microsoft Office apps for iPad hit 12 million downloads
Microsoft Corp. has announced that its Office applications for Apple iPad were downloaded more than 12 million times in just one week. At present, the Word, Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint applications are top free apps in Apple’s AppStore. But is 12 million really a lot? “More than 12 million downloads …
Read More »iOS 8 could feature a revamped Siri
The dates for this year's WWDC were just announced and we've already got an idea of what we could expect to see at the event. Apple recently acquired Novauris, a research firm previously owned by Dragon Systems, which is well known for for its voice dictation technology. Apple did comment on …
Read More »Dell XPS 15 9530 Review
Today we take a look at a 2014 model laptop from Dell. The DELL XPS 15 9530 is a pretty standard looking 15″ laptop, but it incorporates an ultra high QHD+ resolution touch-screen (3200 x 1800 pixels), a quad core i7-4702HQ CPU with 16GB of DDR3 and a Nvidia GT 750m. …
Read More »Survival of the fittest: Galaxy S5 vs. Galaxy S4 drop/crash test
One of the most important features of modern smartphones is, without any doubts, their ability to survive during drops, falls and other incidents. The new Samsung Galaxy S5 is clearly better than the Samsung Galaxy S4 from 2013 when it comes to performance and design. But which one is more …
Read More »ImgTec MIPS-based platform for wearable electronics announced
With the introduction of Google Android Wear operating system, hardware makers developing ultra-low-power chipsets started to unveil their platforms for wearable devices, such as smart-watches or smart-eyewear. Imagination Technologies, a leading designer of general purpose processing cores as well as multimedia and graphics processing engines, said this week that it …
Read More »Intel reveals code-named ‘Braswell’ microprocessors for low-cost PCs
Intel Corp. this week revealed the name of its new-generation code-named Braswell system-on-chip that will power upcoming value notebooks and desktops. The new chip will be made using a leading-edge process technology and will combine relatively high performance, small footprint, low power consumption and low cost. Intel did not reveal …
Read More »Microsoft officially announces its answer to Siri- Cortana
It has been rumoured for a while but Microsoft has finally officially revealed Cortana, the Windows Phone version of Siri or Google Now. The Halo AI inspired voice assistant will be available in the next Windows Phone 8.1 update which is due to arrive in the US in beta form …
Read More »Microsoft to drop Windows license fees for select devices
Microsoft Corp. announced at the Build 2014 conference on Wednesday that it would waive licensing fees for special versions of Windows operating systems for select devices. Microsoft wants to enable partners to offer lower-cost systems in the highly competitive smartphone, tablet and PC categories. Microsoft Windows will be available for …
Read More »Chromebook shipments totaled just around 2.1 million units in 2013
Although a number of PC makers are pretty vocal about the success of notebooks based on ChromeOS operating system, actual sales of such computers are pretty low, according to market analysts. Apparently, the global market share of Chromebooks in 2013 was about 0.6 per cent. ABI Research estimates that 2.1 …
Read More »Apple Mac Pro shipments estimates stretched to 5-6 weeks
Apple has quietly delayed mass availability of its premium desktop again. At present the company offers to pre-order the new Mac Pro and get it in five or six weeks from now, sometimes in May. It looks like more than four months after the official launch date, Apple still cannot …
Read More »Microsoft may launch Windows Phone 8.1 later this month
Although the code-named “Blue” updates were supposed to modernize virtually all products and services offered by Microsoft Corp., the Windows Phone still has not received its updates nearly half a year after the launch of Windows 8.1 and Windows RT 8.1. However, the wait seems to be nearly over as, …
Read More »Qualcomm confirms plans to support Microsoft DirectX 12
Although Qualcomm took part in the announcement of Microsoft Corp.’s DirectX 12 application programming interface, the company’s plans regarding support of the new API were not completely clear. Last week an executive of Qualcomm confirmed that the future Adreno graphics cores will fully support DirectX 12. The current Snapdragon 800 …
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