We’re guessing people over at HTC never have any holidays, since the Taiwanese manufacturer keeps on churning new smartphones. The latest devices to have found their way out on ‘the Internets’ are the 4.5-inch HTC Holiday — fitting name — behemoth and the 1.5GHz dual-core Ruby. We have juicy details and pictures of the two handsets waiting for you after the break.
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Google has announced that it will be acquiring Motorola Mobility — these are the guys that brought you the Droid, the Atrix, the Xoom and yep the StarTAC back in the day — for $12.5 billion. The announcement was made in a blog post by Google CEO Larry Page.
Google reiterated the commitment of Motorola to the Android platform while pointing out that the acquisition of Motorola will strengthen Google’s patent portfolio helping it to fend off legal attacks by Microsoft and Apple. Just to put some numbers into the equation, Google has around 1,000 patents while Motorola has around 17,000 patents. Larry goes on saying that Android will remain an open platform and that Google will run Motorola as a separate company; which we are sure has put Google’s Android partners at ease. Both HTC and Samsung have come out with similar statements in the lines of We welcome today’s news, which demonstrates that Google is deeply committed to defending Android, its partners, and the entire ecosystem.
Full press release after the break.
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HTC Sensation owners in Europe are slowly getting an over-the-air (OTA) update to Android 2.3.4. The update is being rolled out to different countries in stages, so don’t worry if you haven’t yet received a notification for the update — though it might help going to ‘Settings > About Phone > Software updates’ and pressing ‘Check Now’. Mind you the update is for unbranded, i.e. not carrier specific, handsets. Branded handset owners might have to wait a bit longer for the update to be rolled out by their carriers; we will post a guide on how-to change your carrier ID so that you can get the update now.
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Sony hasn’t been keeping a very tight lid on the upcoming Alpha A77 digital camera. The, still, un-announced camera has now appeared as a nominee for a Good Design Award; an award system operated by the Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization.
Besides a new side view of the camera, the organization’s website confirms some of the specifications we’ve already reported on and adds a couple of new exciting details on the A77.
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Time really does fly; why, it seems like yesterday that everyone was raving and speculating about the iPhone 4. Well, it’s actually been over a year now since the iPhone 4 was introduced, and of course speculation for the next Apple smartphone is running feverishly high. Apple has already unveiled iOS 5 and the rumor mill on the iPhone 5 that will join the operating system keeps churning.
It’s not hard to imagine that the iPhone 5 will be thinner, we’re used to Apple making things thinner, and well, with the success of bigger screened phones, it would seem logical that iPhone 5’s display will venture north of the usual 3.5-inches. So today’s leak comes from guigsh on MacRumors forum, who claims to have taken a picture of the iPhone 5 at the office of a French operator yesterday. It certainly matches the dimensions we’ve seen before, but so does an iPhone 4 with a little stretching and squishing in Photoshop. So what do you think?
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When video chatting was initially released on Skype for Android there was only official support for four devices. That didn’t stop many of you however from enabling video calling ‘un-officially’.
Skype has just updated their application, version 2.1.0.46, with added support for 17 more smartphones and tablets. Skype is forewarning however that you if your device is running Android 2.2 (Froyo), only the back camera will work, as only Android 2.3+ allows access to the front facing camera.
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HTC has just detailed out the process for unlocking the bootloaders on its devices via its Facebook page. Unfortunately the company has also taken a step back from its initial unannouncement a few months back that it will stop locking bootloaders on future devices.
To unlock a phone the owner must register for an account through a web tool (coming later this month) and apparently waive liability if anything goes wrong as a result of having an unlocked phone. We are not sure here whether you lose your complete warranty, though it would make sense that although you can screw-up the software and/or brick the phone, hardware should still be covered — announcement says “may void all or parts of your warranty”.
Next step involves using the Android SDK on a computer with the device connected to get a “device identifier token” which you then use in the web tool to receive your unlocking key via email.
The HTC Sensation (global version) will be the first to receive an update, which will enable the unlocking process later this month, followed by the HTC Sensation on T-Mobile and the HTC EVO 3D.
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What you see above are the innards — that is the motherboard — of the latest 2011 MacBook Air, dissected and displayed with love and care from the folks at iFixit.
A careful examination of the Thunderbolt controller chip at the top right has revealed that this is a different chip compared to the one used in other Thunderbolt-equipped Macs we’ve seen so far. This chip, codenamed Eagle Ridge, is capable of handling two bi-directional 10Gbps Thunderbolt channels and one DisplayPort output. This means you can connect only one display, that is, no daisy-chaining of displays here.
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We’ve been covering this app, from LauncherPro developer Federico Carnale, since its humble beginnings; we’ve watched it quickly grow from alpha to beta and now its final built, UberMusic v1.0, has hit the Android Market.
We first fell in love with this Android music app because of its uncanny resemblance to the Zune and Windows Phone 7 music players. The app has grown however to be much more than just a copycat of Microsoft’s Metro UI; UberMusic is fully customizable with a number of skins, which you can download from the Android Market. Sure enough however the Zune/WP7 look is still available as the downloadable Metro skin.
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We’ve had a feeling that the new MacBook Airs, featuring Intel second generation Core processors — a.k.a. Sandy Bridge — would be fast; we just didn’t know how fast.
Well we’ve taken our new 2011 11-inch MacBook Air running on a Core i5 1.60GHz processor, which is actually the lower spec’d of the new MBAs, and benchmarked it using 32-bit Geekbench. The results, which you can see after the break, are pretty impressive.
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Although we’re still waiting for LG’s 31-inch OLED TV shown-off last year — and pictured above — the Korean manufacturer has come out saying it will now concentrate on larger displays.
LG Display (LGD) CEO Kwon Young-soo, has said in an earnings call, that the company will launch a 55-inch OLED TV by the second half of next year.
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Grand Central Terminal in NYC is about to get even more crowded, especially during new product launch time, as Apple has signed a ten-year lease for the former Métrazur restaurant space.
Apple has just inked a deal with New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) for a 23,000 square foot space at the iconic station and, pending approval on Monday by the MTA’s financial committee, this will become Apple’s largest store in the world.
Apple is set to renovate the space which takes up Grand Central’s east balcony.
We can already picture the hordes of tourists and suburban New Yorkers congregating around the new Apple Store.
[New York Post article]
Although we can’t say we’re too surprised, together with the release of Mac OS X Lion, Apple has released an updated line of MacBook Air ultraportable laptops.
Both the 11- and 13-inch models have been updated with latest generation 2011 Intel Core i5 and i7 Sandy Bridge processors, Thunderbolt ports, while the MacBook Airs will once again sport back-lit keyboards.
Apple has also officially axed the basic white MacBook, which, lets face it, would have now had limited appeal as both MacBook Airs will now be running on speedy processors.
The basic 11-inch model, selling for $999, now features a 1.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, 2GB of RAM and a 64GB solid state drive (SSD). For an extra $200 you can double both the RAM and disk space to 4GB and 128GB respectively while there is also a $150 option to bump the processor to an 1.8GHz Core i7.
The $1,299 base 13-inch model runs a 1.7GHz dual-core i5 with 4GB RAM and 128GB SSD storage. Doubling the SSD to 256GB will cost you $300 more, while the 1.8GHz Core i7 option adds $100.
The 11-inch model weighs 2.38 pounds with a disclosed 5 hours battery life, while the 13-inch weighs 2.96 pounds providing up to 7 hours of battery life.
All models come with OS X Lion, of course, and you can order them online immediately — at least for now shipping is within 24 hours, so hurry up! Pictures and press release after the break.
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Two more pictures of Sony’s rumored Alpha A77 digital camera have surfaced, courtesy of Dyxum forums, which could end up to be real. The first picture which you can see above, while a second picture awaits for you after the break.
There have been quite a few rumors going around regarding Sony’s upcoming top mid-range shooter which will be based on translucent mirror technology. The Sony Alpha A77, which would be replacing the aging A700 APS-C DSLR, is said to boast a 24 megapixel sensor, new double Bionz processors and a 3-million dot OLED electronic view-finder. The A77 is also said to be joined by a slightly worse spec’d A65.
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Fujifilm X100S camera announced with fast AF and new 16.3MP X-Trans II sensor (hands-on video)January 6, 2013
Supposed Sony Nexus X images leakOctober 15, 2012
Asus 4.7-inch Padfone 2 demoed in video with new slimmer tablet dockOctober 14, 2012
Upcoming Google Nexus 4 smartphone by LG poses for camera in leaked picsOctober 11, 2012
Skype for Android with video chat official for some, unofficially for Galaxy S II, HTC Evo 3D, Thunderbolt, Sensation and othersJuly 1, 2011
Stuff-Review giveaway: win a B&N Nook Color, leather case and 4GB microSD cardOctober 12, 2011
Stuff-Review giveaway: win a PowerSkin silicon case with built-in batteryAugust 21, 2011
Connecting the Galaxy Nexus to your computer via MTP and the lack of USB Mass StorageDecember 10, 2011
