Google Announces Android KitKat
Google has confirmed that the next version of Android will be called KitKat. No, I'm not joking, KitKat, as in that chocolate bar available in either fingers or the chunky variety, will be the codename for Android 4.4. This keeps Android's tradition of naming each version after desserts; but this is the first with a deeply integrated (and rather delicious) joint marketing venture.
New Rising Media Now Available On Google Currents
New Rising Media is now available on your smartphone through Google Currents.
The one feature request asked for most by our readers is mobile optimisation. With great stories, why not make them available on-the-go? Well, that may be coming sooner than you think; but we are now on one of the slickest news reading apps on iOS and Android.
Microsoft Planning 7-Inch Surface Tablet For Xbox 720?
Microsoft seemingly isn’t keen on resting on its laurels any time soon. Despite just launching the Surface with Windows RT tablet to consumers across the globe, and with the Surface with Windows 8 just around the corner, the company has plans to build a 7-inch Surface gaming tablet that may well be used in conjunction with the next-generation Xbox, a la Wii U.
32GB Surface With Windows RT Comes With Just 16GB Free Storage
If you’re in the market for Microsoft’s new tablet, you might want to take a little more time in making your purchasing decision. At least, for those with a library of applications, music, photos, videos and files to store. Despite Microsoft boasting the Surface is an ‘all-in-one’ PC and tablet, it appears its on-board storage capacity is really quite woeful.
Google Confirms The Rumours, Nexus 10 Announced
We knew Google had something special up its sleeve, but the specifics of what it had in store were vague at best. But in a smorgasbord of announcements coming direct from the company in the wake of the cancellation of the much-anticipated Android event, we finally have confirmation. First up, a 10-inch tablet featuring a Retina Display-topping 2560 x 1600 resolution, boasted to be the “highest resolution tablet on the planet”. Say hello to the Nexus 10...
Tim Cook Says Microsoft Surface Is "A Fairly Compromised, Confusing Product"
Tim Cook was asked for his thoughts on Microsoft's new Surface tablet during Apple's Q4 2012 results conference call, to which his response, while noted he hadn't tried one for himself yet, was that the device is "a fairly compromised confusing product."
Google Nexus 10 Confirmed By Leaked Manual
The Google Nexus 10 is coming; this much we can pretty much guarantee, with as many leaks coming from Google HQ and beyond as is becoming annoyingly customary with a modern-day product launch. Going under the name ‘Codename Manta’, we already understand the successor to the immensely-popular Nexus 7 (the best-selling Android tablet) will likely be running Android 4.2 Jellybean and will purportedly boast a truly staggering, Retina-smashing resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels (16:10), but now we might just have the first clues of what it will look like.
Has Microsoft's Surface Been Priced Out Of The Market?
'Tablet talk' is becoming ever-more regular around these parts. Sleek, black, slate-like tablet PC's seem to be everywhere these days. From the top-end range featuring Apple's iPad and Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 all the way down to the likes of ASUS's lovingly-refined Nexus 7 and Amazon's up and coming Kindle Fire HD, there's not a consumer electronic in sight that has appeared to have such an explosive arrival onto the scene.
‘iPad Mini’ And 4G iPad 3 Rumoured To Be Announced Within Days
“7-inch tablets are tweeners: too big to compete with a smartphone, and too small to compete with an iPad. They are going to be DOA [Dead On Arrival].” So said ex-Apple CEO Steve Jobs during an Apple earnings call in October 2010, resolutely shunning any idea that the so-influential tech giant would follow suit of its competitors and opt for a smaller-sized tablet.
Worthy Companions: Amazon Reveals Kindle Fire HD And Paperwhite Kindle
As Jeff Bezos stepped out on stage at Amazon's press conference in Santa Monica last night, two things were apparently certain. One, Amazon would finally see it fit to unveil the Android-based smartphone it had be cooking up. And second, the successor to mid-level tablet the Kindle Fire would finally be on its way.
Google Nexus 7 Review
Let's be honest, Android tablets have been a sort of sketchy affair. A mish-mash of hardware form factors and disappointing user experiences. But that is about to change.
"7-inch tablets are going to be dead on arrival," the late Steve Jobs proclaimed in October 2010. Google, myself and probably lots of others would beg to differ with the Nexus 7.
The next in the line of products that present the metaphorical middle finger to OEMs and their depreciation of the stock Android experience through needless clutter and skinning, the Nexus 7 redefines your pre-conceptions of what makes a budget tablet. This software and hardware love affair between Google and Asus has produced something with the real potential to kickstart the campaign for Android tablets as a whole.
Microsoft’s ‘Surface’ Tablet Is A Bigger Rival To The iPad Than You Think
Having been granted a favourable early look at Windows 8 late last year, we came away with high hopes for the future of Windows. We enthused how Microsoft’s latest operating system was “an OS for the age of the tablet PC” and how “if Windows 7 was the admirable yet flawed first chapter for Microsoft to claw back some of Apple’s dominance in the market, this [was] the climactic body of the fight.”
Google Seeking To Test Its ‘Next-Generation Personal Communications Device’
The ascendancy of Google has meant the company no longer sticks religiously to its search engine roots. The California-based tech giant has recently been growing an appetite, it seems, to pledge much more of a focus in hardware after having been solely dedicated to software since being founded in 1998. The company is now reported to have filed for permission with the FCC for Special Temporary Authority (STA), a move that would allow its own employees to test a “next-generation personal communications device” in cities across the US; including Mountain View, Los Angeles, New York and Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Chaotic Moon's modestly named 'Board of Awesomeness'
Chaotic Moons Labs is showing a 30 mph motorized longboard controlled by the use of Kinect and a Samsung Windows 8 tablet at CES 2012. Being the chiefs of tact, this device has been given the name of the "Board of Awesomeness."
OnLive comes to Tablets and Smartphones
Brazenly fending off the competition (Gaikai & the recently-unveiled Approxy), OnLive has today made its cloud gaming service available on a range of smartphones and tablets – making triple-A gaming on the go a truer possibility.
How Windows killed the Courier tablet
Image courtesy of engadget.
CNET released a report about how Microsoft was presented with two competing tablet ideas, and their decision eventually became Windows 8, rather than the technologically infamous Courier.
For the uninitiated, the Courier was a dual-screen tablet, representing a notepad that captured the passionate inspiration of tech journalists across the globe in 2009. As you can see in the video below, it presented something that was much more for the creative consumer, showing options of use that exceed the ideas of content creation that are already present nowadays. So why was it killed off? This is what Jay Greene's report for CNet answers.
ASUS presents the 'Michael Bay' of Tablet ads
Honest to God, we were expecting either it all to blow up or a Transformer of some variety, as it seems that the marketing department at ASUS have just drunk a little too much Bay in a Can.