13th May 2012

New Kindle in July

Although it was not the first e-reader, there are still some excellent electronic books to be bought, the Kindle has been an overwhelming success and no doubt the marketing strategy of Amazon has made the device a market leader. However, news has reached us from a Reuters report, who have cited a source with “direct knowledge of the matter”, that Amazon hopes to have the new Kindle e-reader on sale in July.

The new Kindle will have a monochrome E Ink display, like existing models, but will add a front light for reading in the dark. Kindle users who want to read in poor light or in the dark currently have to buy an external light. The new Kindle will have a touch screen and will come in 3G and WiFi versions, the report says. The addition of a light will reduce the battery life of the Kindle, which currently lasts for up to two months.

+ Gadgets

9th May 2012

Pirate Bay must be blocked

A judge in the High Court has ruled that providers of broadband, Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, O2 and Virgin Media must block users from accessing file sharing website The Pirate Bay. Just for the moment, BT who has also been named has requested that it be granted extra time to deal with the complaint which was originally made by the record industry body, the BPI. The BPI has agreed, but sources expect The Pirate Bay to be inaccessible by BT customers in due course as well.

There are arguments that, because Pirate Bay does not host copyright material and works in a similar way to Google there is no case. However, the High Court Judge Mr Justice Arnold found its operators “actively encourage” copyright infringement. Pirate Bay lays claim that it is the largest website of its kind, with more than four million trackers, and according to record labels generated up to $3m in advertising in October last year and some 3.7 million Britons are Pirate Bay users.

+ Internet, News

6th May 2012

New Blackberry introduced early

A prototype new BlackBerry operating system, designed to bring the struggling Smartphone range up-to-date with its Android and iPhone rivals, has been unveiled and released to app developers early. Followers of Blackberry should not start looking for the ‘phone in the shops though, this is a prototype device created for the purpose of testing BlackBerry 10 applications during development.

Research in Motion need something to boost their market share back to where they were previously at around 13% of the market, down now to 6.7% The version of BlackBerry 10 unveiled on Tuesday, at the BlackBerry World conference in Orlando, seems to address many of the criticisms of current BlackBerry software. It will offer full multi-tasking, allowing users to switch seamlessly between apps, cleaner presentation, new predictive virtual keyboard, and new camera app.

+ Mobile Phones

4th May 2012

Samsung Galaxy S3, will this rival the iPhone?

Samsung’s pervious model, the Galaxy S2, proved to be very popular within the mobile market. The phone competed alongside market dominators such as Apple’s IPhone 4S.

So what made the phone so special? Samsung managed to create a phone with a very powerful processor, alongside the ability to download apps and a very developed camera into an incredibly fashionable and extremely thin design. 

After the success of the S2, of course, there was going to have to be a sequel. May 3 at Earls Court, London is the launch date for the new, improved model, the Samsung Galaxy S3.

In order to upgrade the last model, the S3 is bound to run off a dual-core processor, at least. Although there have even been some rumours of a quad-core chipset to power the S3. Alongside this powerful processor, the phone is thought to have around 1Gb or RAM and around 16Gb of on-board memory. Following the model of the S2 the S3 is also thought to have got rid of the SD card slot, allowing owners of the handset to have the 16Gb of on-board memory only.

As well as its power, the S2 was also highly popular for its large and easy to use screen. The last model of the galaxy had a whopping 4.2” screen and the latest model is thought to have gone one better as rumours have surfaced that the S3 is said to have a 4.6” screen. Wow!

Rumours have also surfaced about the mobiles camera. The rumours suggest that the S3 is going to be built with a 12MP camera built into the back of the phone, meaning that there will be no ‘bump’ as on the last Samsung model.

And finally the price, the last model was put on the market for £500 to begin with, alongside contracts of around £46 per month. These prices however dropped quickly and this is what we are expecting from the S3, too.

+ Mobile Phones, Samsung

28th April 2012

Motorola mobile phones and their many features

Motorola offers a host of different mobile phones depending on what exactly you are looking for. There are many different styles of phones, such as the candy bar, slider, or the clamshell style that also proves popular. 

A number of the Motorola mobile phones have many standard features including a camera and video.  Some of the phones have an impressive 5 megapixel camera that takes great photos when you are out and about. The video cameras are also quite often sophisticated HD cameras that are great at capturing those precious moments, giving you peace of mind that the quality of the picture will be good. 

Many of Motorola’s phones also offer Bluetooth and GPS which both come in handy when you are on the go. Some of the phones even feature a MP3 player so that you have the convenience of being able to listen to your favourite tunes whenever you feel like. And that’s not all; on some of the phones you can even listen to your tunes on 3D surround sound.

+ Mobile Phones, Motorola

25th April 2012

Data is still on your deleted disc drive

If you are considering disposing of your old computer you should be aware that the hard drive disc will still contain valuable information even though you may have thought it had been deleted by pressing the delete button. Recently the watchdog or UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) purchased a number of devices from auction sites such as eBay and computer fairs. Of the 200 hard disks collected, 11% contained personal information.  According to the watchdog, two of the drives had enough information to enable someone to steal the former owners’ identities.

In another operation carried out by the ICO, it found that one in ten people who had disposed of a mobile phone, computer or laptop had not wiped the device. 21% of users now choose to sell their old mobile phones, computers and laptops rather than get rid of them, it suggested. It added that the trend was even more common among 18-24 year-olds among whom the figure rose to 31%. It is vital that if you dispose of an item such as this, steps are taken to completely remove data for the disc drives; the ICO has published guidance for individuals on how to securely delete information.

+ General Information

22nd April 2012

Mobile shortage looms

There is talk in the newsrooms that a shortage of mobile ‘phones is imminent due to a problem that has been highlighted  by Qualcomm, the world’s leading supplier of Smartphone and tablet processors, who says it is unable to keep up with the global demand for its chips. The US firm, whose S4 Snapdragon processor is due to be used in Android and Windows phones and tablets, said that it would not be able to create enough chips to meet orders.

Qualcomm said that it would not be able to create enough chips to meet orders. Many other mobiles use the S4 Snapdragon chip including the recently launched One XL and future ‘phones from HTC, also Nokia Smartphones as well as tablet computers from Lenovo. Shortages could seriously delay deliveries of existing products. More than 150 devices were due to be released with the Snapdragon S4 chip; other models of Snapdragon processors are also used in Blackberry and Nokia Smartphones and Samsung tablets.

+ Mobile Phones, News

20th April 2012

Bug hits new Nokia Lumia 900 Smartphone

Reports are coming in that a bug has affected one of the Nokia Smartphones, the newest which, although not yet released here has just been seen in the tech shops in the US. The ‘phone is the Lumia 900 and is seen as Nokia’s strongest attempt to take on Apple and Google.

According to reports, the software bug in the Smartphone is causing some handsets to occasionally lose their data connection. This is not good news for Nokia who are making a strong comeback and this problem is likely to hit Nokia’s hopes of regaining market share from rivals Apple and Google. Although Nokia is still the world’s largest mobile manufacturer, it is losing out significantly in the Smartphone market.

The Finnish manufacturer said a fix for the Lumia 900′s “memory management issue” would be issued on 16 April. Released in the US on Sunday the 8th April the new Smartphone is due to be seen here in the UK by the end of the month.

+ General Information, Mobile Phones, Nokia

14th April 2012

The Sony Xperia S smartphone

The Sony Xperia S smartphone was launched in the UK in spring 2012. It is unique, in that it is the first phone introduced by Sony since the company bought out Swedish telecommunications giant, Ericsson.

The outstanding feature of any Sony Xperia S review is the all singing and dancing screen to which Sony have incorporated the resolution already in use in their Bravia line. The phone uses Android devices and technical magazines are already enamoured with the phone’s 12 MP camera and superb HD screen. In the UK, 3 Mobile has just signed up with Sony to act as a network provider, along with T Mobile, O2 and Ultimate Internet. 

The plastic body of the phone is sleek and cool and currently only available in black. It uses 2.3 Gingerbread, which is highly rated by users and is expected to upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) in a couple of months, following the phone’s release. The memory on this phone is 32gb.

+ Mobile Phones, Sony

10th April 2012

Facebook buys Instagram

There seems to be no stopping Facebook as the social networking site is determined not to stand still, recently demonstrated by its decision to buy out Instagram, which is the popular photo-sharing Smartphone app.

Instagram is another example of success in the tech market as the company was only launched in October 2010 and initially just for the iPhone before being offered as an Android app last week. Facebook’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has pledged to continue to develop Instagram as a separate brand, allowing it to post to rival networks.

The app is free and allows users to apply 17 filters to the pictures they take by changing the colour balance to give the images a different feel, before they are uploaded. It has proven hugely popular and the firm says that it has more than 30 million users uploading more than 5 million new pictures every day. Facebook is paying $1bn (£629m) in cash and stock for the takeover and the move comes ahead of Facebook’s planned flotation later this year.

+ Internet