| News@8pm: Quad-core phones, Android Ice Cream Posted: 16 Feb 2011 12:00 PM PST Posted by Richard Wordsworth on Wed 16 Feb 2011 Welcome to your nightly round-up of the day's news and goings on courtesy of T3.com. Just a two days after its announcement at MWC and the HTC Flyer tablet had its launch price revealed by the good people over at Amazon.de, and would you know, it's actually pretty reasonably priced, especially when you compare it to... well, everything, really.
But just when we were getting all psyched up for MWC's slew of dual-core sporting smartphones, those killjoys over at Nvidia and Qualcomm come along and tell us that we'll be seeing quad-core processors in mobiles and tablets before the year is out. Boo and/or hooray, depending on how you look at it.
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All the latest headlines, straight from Mobile World Congress Barcelona: T3.com's MWC 2011 microsite.
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Lastly an not least-ly from MWC, we got word that Google CEO Eric Schmidt has cunning plans afoot for the future of Android - plans that would see tablet-based Honeycomb and smartphone-centric Gingerbread sliced apart and stitched together to form some new Frankensteinian monster of an operating system. The townsfolk... they call it "Ice Cream".
Vodafone have packaged their technological savvy into a super-cheap and super-portable internet computer, but unless you're browsing T3 from deep in the heart of the third world, you probably won't be getting your hands on one. The Webbox is basically the web-browsing bit of your smartphone built into a portable, TV-compatible keyboard, and is Vodafone's shot at getting the web into the hands of those without the money for "proper" computers.
Finally, T3's iPad app became one of the first to take advantage of Apple's new app subscription service, meaning your monthly copy of all the latest gadget wizardry can now be beamed straight to your lap each month without your having to lift a finger. Single issues of the digital mag still cost £2.99, while the full-trimmings 12 month subscription will set you back £23.99 - a paltry £1.99 per issue. And if you're still undecided, our sample issue is still available for free.
In the meantime, keep yourself informed of all the mobile and tablet goings on at this year's Mobile World Congress at the T3.com MWC 2011 microsite.
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| The Dark Knight and Inception get smartphone apps Posted: 16 Feb 2011 06:43 AM PST Posted by Chris Smith on Wed 16 Feb 2011 Chris Nolan classics go from IMAX to iPod. Warner Brothers has released 'App Editions' of box office smash movies The Dark Knight and Inception for iPod touch, iPhone and iPad. The app editions provide bonus content such as extra footage, soundboards, games and the first five minutes of the movie free of charge. If you feel inclined you can buy the rest of the movie to watch directly onto your device. Naturally, the app has social media integration so you can tweet along with the movie in real-time if you're so inclined. If you thought watching a movie on a 3.5-inch screen was inhibiting then try having a twitter feed running alongside it. Maybe some tweeps can let you know what the hell was going on in Inception? Warner Brothers have gone straight for the Christopher Nolan-directed big guns in Inception and The Dark Knight, but plans to launch a host of new and classic movies as 'App Editions' in 2011. Link: App Editions This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| HTC Flyer price revealed on German Amazon Posted: 16 Feb 2011 06:16 AM PST Posted by Richard Wordsworth on Wed 16 Feb 2011 HTC's Flyer tablet to launch cheaper than equivalent iPad. Here's a position we would never have predicted for Apple: having their iPad take up the mantle of budget option in the tablet market. Of all the positive trends to come out of Mobile World Congress (dual-core smartphones, Honeycomb tablets, HD playback) one thing we're not fans of at all are the rumoured price tags surrounding the next generation of tablets. $1200 for the Motorla Xoom? 999 Euros for an LG Optimus Pad? Stick that in your recession, gadgeteers.
One company that doesn't seem to have completely lost the fiscal plot is HTC, however, whose MWC-debuted Flyer tablet has been spied by German tech fans lurking over on Amazon.de. The asking price is 669 Euros (or £563 for us in Blighty) - around the same price as a 16GB iPad 3G, which considering the Flyer packs 32GB of space into it's aluminium body, makes it a comparative bargain (a 32GB iPad 3G will set you back £612, in comparison).
The HTC flyer is only available for pre-order, and only so far from Amazon.de, but with other tablet producers seemingly banding about prices north of £700 or even £800, perhaps the Flyer will be the one to slink away with Apple's tablet crown. Take a look at our hands-on HTC Flyer pictures and let us know what you think.
Follow all the latest headlines from Mobile World Congress at the T3.com MWC 2011 microsite.
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| Android Honeycomb and Gingerbread form Ice Cream Posted: 16 Feb 2011 04:04 AM PST Posted by Richard Wordsworth on Wed 16 Feb 2011 Google's next Android OS will blend Honeycomb and Gingerbread into delicious new recipe. With most of the biggest announcements and surprises of Mobile World Congress now behind us, Google's CEO Eric Schmidt left MWC with a parting shot: that Google's next iteration of its Android OS would merge aspects of both tablet-centric Honeycomb and current smartphone standard Gingerbread into a new OS which "will start with an I" and "be named after a dessert".
While we welcome updates to Google's Android, Schmidt is also apparently worried that the irregular spacing of new iterations of Android is fragmenting the OS, to combat which he also announced that Google would move to a more regular system of updates coming every six months.
Other than vague promises of combining the two current OSs, there haven't been any details on exactly what to expect from Android 2.4 Ice Cream. However, with this new six month timeframe imposed by Schmidt, expect to find out sometime in June or July this year.
Follow all of the T3 Team's coverage of Mobile World Congress at the T3.com MWC 2011 microsite.
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| Dell: Streak 10 will run Android 3.0 Honeycomb at launch Posted: 16 Feb 2011 02:57 AM PST Posted by Adam Bunker on Wed 16 Feb 2011 So where does this leave the HTC Flyer? The 5-inch Dell Streak tablet was a strange beast. It boasted a top camera and decent spec, but was hampered by the fact that it launched with Android 1.6, whereas most of the competition at the time was rolling in Android 2.1 luxury.
The same fears have been applied to the company’s upcoming 10.1-inch variant – the Dell Streak 10. Rumours abounded that it’d launch later this year with the phone-centric Android 2.3, despite its iPad-sized dimensions. Now those worries have been put to rest by official word from Dell that the Streak 10 will run on Honeycomb – Android 3.0
“For tablets, it's Android Honeycomb and Windows,” the company told investors. Honeycomb is built from the ground up with tablets in mind, so it comes as reassuring news that the Streak 10 will be bang up to date.
The talk of Windows has fired rumours that the Streak 10 will share a body with a device built around Microsoft’s operating system. Dell said that it has “customers with a preference for either one. We can create platforms that share a great degree of hardware commonality that can run both -- or either -- operating system, and we don't see any other options that are worthy of consideration.”
Excited about the Dell Streak 10? Let us know your thoughts on the T3 Twitter feed. Want to see what the Android 3.0 fuss is about? Check out the video below of Honeycomb running on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2:
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| Dell: Steak 10 will run Android 3.0 Honeycomb at launch Posted: 16 Feb 2011 02:57 AM PST Posted by Adam Bunker on Wed 16 Feb 2011 So where does this leave the HTC Flyer? The 5-inch Dell Streak tablet was a strange beast. It boasted a top camera and decent spec, but was hampered by the fact that it launched with Android 1.6, whereas most of the competition at the time was rolling in Android 2.1 luxury.
The same fears have been applied to the company’s upcoming 10.1-inch variant – the Dell Streak 10. Rumours abounded that it’d launch later this year with the phone-centric Android 2.3, despite its iPad-sized dimensions. Now those worries have been put to rest by official word from Dell that the Streak 10 will run on Honeycomb – Android 3.0
“For tablets, it's Android Honeycomb and Windows,” the company told investors. Honeycomb is built from the ground up with tablets in mind, so it comes as reassuring news that the Streak 10 will be bang up to date.
The talk of Windows has fired rumours that the Streak 10 will share a body with a device built around Microsoft’s operating system. Dell said that it has “customers with a preference for either one. We can create platforms that share a great degree of hardware commonality that can run both -- or either -- operating system, and we don't see any other options that are worthy of consideration.”
Excited about the Dell Streak 10? Let us know your thoughts on the T3 Twitter feed. Want to see what the Android 3.0 fuss is about? Check out the video below of Honeycomb running on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2:
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Quad-core smartphones and tablets coming next year Posted: 16 Feb 2011 02:49 AM PST Posted by Richard Wordsworth on Wed 16 Feb 2011 Next-generation processors coming to tablets and smartphone in under 12 months. If you've been following our Mobile World Congress coverage (and if not, why not?), you'll have noticed one of the trends of this year's MWC are dual-core processors making their way into smartphones, as seen on the LG Optimus 3D and the Samsung Galaxy S2, for example.
And yet, cutting edge as these processors are, both Nvidia and Qualcomm are as you read this toiling away on the generation after that: the quad-core chip. These next-gen processors are, according to those in the know at Nvidia, headed for smartphones and tablets as early as this year, casting some serious shadow on the current stable of MWC offerings.
Qualcomm, who manufacture the Snapdragon processors that power so many modern smartphones, are taking a little more time with their quad-core chips, which will be out some time in 2012. But for a look at the kind of blisteringly fast web browsing Nvidia's 2011 chip can serve up, check out the video below.
Keep up with all the latest breaking news from Mobile World Congress at the MWC 2011 microsite.
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| Vodafone launch Webbox internet for developing world Posted: 16 Feb 2011 02:37 AM PST Posted by Richard Wordsworth on Wed 16 Feb 2011 Vodafone brings TV-based internet access to the third world. Built with emerging markets in mind (it rolls out later this month in South Africa, before moving to the rest of the continent and then on to India), the Vodafone Webbox is described by Vodafone's Patrick Chomet as "the guts of a smartphone" built into a keyboard, with everything not related to data stripped out for simple web access via a television. The hope is to provide internet access for individuals and communities in the developing world who can't afford the expense of a traditional computer.
The Webbox takes a standard SIM card and connects to the TV using an old-school RCA cable. As Chomet says: "you just plug [the cables] into the back of the TV. Just follow the colour codes... [it's] the most complicated thing to do here."
The Webbox comes with a simple version of the Opera browser, which Vodafone reckon will give people good browsing even in areas which only have 2G phone networks. The device will allow browsing, e-mail and text messaging, and will, according to Vodafone, "bring internet to the TV, be that at home for the family, in schools for education or in small businesses to assist local economic growth."
Take a look at the video below for a walkthrough of the Webbox.
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| News@10: Kinect hack, T3 iPad app subscription Posted: 16 Feb 2011 02:00 AM PST |
| Mozilla: "Is IE9 a modern browser? No." Posted: 16 Feb 2011 12:46 AM PST Posted by Devina Divecha on Wed 16 Feb 2011 The browser wars are clearly still on. Mozilla's Paul Rouget has asked if Internet Explorer is a modern web browser, then answered it on his blog with a large "NO".
He starts out by saying that while IE9 is better than IE8, he doesn't "believe it to be a truly modern browser".
Rouget has set out a detailed blog post as well as an infographic comparing Internet Explorer 9 and Mozilla Firefox 4. Via his infographic which details comparisons based on a HTML 5 test, platform support, web compatibility, hardware acceleration and more. In each case he shows that Firefox 4 comes out on top.
He concludes his post by saying why he thinks IE9 is not a modern web browser, and says IE9 is "more modern, but not really modern".
Whatever your thoughts on these browser wars, if you're using Internet Explorer 9 Beta, Microsoft is currently pushing the Release Candidate version through automatic update.
Which browser is your default? Use that to head over to T3's Twitter and Facebook and tell us what you're surfing on. Follow us to get your daily dose of tech news.
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| Middle-aged people wait for cupid to strike online Posted: 15 Feb 2011 11:37 PM PST Posted by Devina Divecha on Wed 16 Feb 2011 Is the Internet playing Cupid? Middle-aged men and women are most likely to go online to find true love, according to research.
A study conducted by Oxford Internet Institute (OII) revealed that men and women between the ages of 40 and 69 were most likely to use online dating websites in order to find love, with 36% of the respondents saying they found their current partner on the internet.
The international survey questioned 12,000 couples, out of which 1 in 3 internet users said they had visited online dating sites at some point in their lives. Just 6% had used such websites in 1997, but in 2009, the number had jumped to 30%, with 15% finding their partner in that way.
In spite of this, many said they met their partner through traditional means, such as through friends of friends (67%) or meeting in clubs or bars (69%).
Dr Bernie Hogan, research fellow at the OII, said to The Press Association: "Finding your partner online was once regarded as a bit of a novelty, but this survey suggests it has become a common if not dominant way of meeting new partners, particularly if you are between 40 and 70 years old.”
These findings indicate that social networking and online dating is not just for youngsters.
T3 wants to know if you found your current partner online and how, so pop over to our social networking sites (Twitter and Facebook) and share. Stay tuned in for more tech updates, and for all the latest mobile news from Mobile World Congress be sure to check out T3.com's MWC 2011 microsite.
Via: ITProPortal
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| Rural broadband roll-out could take more time Posted: 15 Feb 2011 11:00 PM PST Posted by Devina Divecha on Wed 16 Feb 2011 Rural areas are still affected by broadband issues...but for how much more time? While there has been much news of plans to bring broadband to rural areas, but experts say it will take longer than people are hoping for.
The government's strategy was to deliver "digital hubs" across the UK in order to have the best broadband network in Europe by 2015, with £50 million invested in a second wave of projects.
Chief executive of the Broadband Stakeholder Group (BSG), Antony Walker, said that the complications that beset introducing broadband into rural areas indicate it could take some time before it's implemented.
He said, "There's a lot of work going on, but it's complicated and there's a lot to learn still about what the best and most effective approaches will be. It's important to recognise that nobody's really done this before in terms of building out next-generation networks into challenging rural locations and therefore it takes time to work out how to get it right."
Labour MP Ian Lucas is trying to get the government to "pull its finger out" of pilot schemes.
However, according to Walker, the issue of rural broadband is "being taken very seriously".
Is 2015 a realistic goal for UK to have the best broadband network in Europe? Tell us on Twitter and Facebook and stay tuned in for more tech news.
Via: Broadband Finder
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