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Showing posts from August, 2012

Hurricane Isaac storm surge tops levee in Plaquemines Parish

- August 29, 2012

A storm surge pounds the seawall along Lake Pontchartrain as Isaac makes landfall. (AP) A storm surge from Hurricane Isaac topped a levee in Plaquemines Parish south of New Orleans early Wednesday, officials said, trapping those who chose not to evacuate. Plaquemines Parish president Billy Nungesser said the 18-mile, 8-foot-high levee--which is not part of the $1.5 billion federal levee system constructed after Hurricane Katrina--was in the process of being raised. "The levees are topping in several locations," Nungresser said on CNN. "We're trying to get the few people who have stayed out. ... We've got a serious situation over there." Isaac made landfall at 6:45 p.m. CDT Tuesday in Plaquemines Parish, and the slow-moving Category 1 hurricane--now centered about 50 miles southwest of New Orleans with maximum sustained winds topping 80 mph--is expected to dump as much as 20 inches of rain in several parts of Louisiana...

Want The New iPhone Now? You Can Have It… With Android

- August 29, 2012

The new iPhone design has been leaked a few times already, So we know generally how it’s going to look like (assuming all the leaks are real). So it was only a matter of time before someone rips the design off for a cheap Android phone. It always happens! This device isn’t half bad though. Yes, the display is 3.5″ (so it won’t be the same size as the new iPhone), but it is qHD, has a decent 1 GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, 5MP camera, and 1.3MP front facing camera. Not bad specs at all! Hopefully this phone will be out soon, as it doesn’t seem like a bad option at all. What do you guys think? Would you buy it for cheap?

Motorola and Intel send invites to Sept. 18 event – Announcing Intel-powered smartphone

- August 29, 2012

Motorola and Intel sent invitations today for a Sept. 18 event in London. We have been waiting for the two companies to announce something since their partnership was revealed back at CES at the start of this year , and it looks like we will finally see the fruits of their efforts. Motorola and Intel did say that they would announce a Medfield-powered phone this year, so we are fairly certain that this is exactly what we will see at this event.Little is known about the first Intel-powered Motorola handset, but rumors speculate it will boast Android 4.0 to start and a stellar camera. It is worth noting that Paul Otellini, the current president and chief executive of Intel, also serves on the board of directors at Google (Motorola’s new owner). PhoneArena

LG Optimus G Announced, Gives The Galaxy S III A Run For Its Money

- August 28, 2012

Ready for the latest flagship from none other than LG? Look no further than the Optimus G, LG’s next powerhouse. Just announced, the phone boasts some powerful specs: a quad-core Snapdragon S4 processor, 2GB of RAM, a 4.7-inch 1280 x 768 HD display, a 13MP camera, and a 2100mAh battery to keep it chugging along. Sadly, Ice Cream Sandwich is the version of Android this superphone is running. The phone will be hitting Korea next month, followed by a global launch shortly after. Since the Snapdragon S4 is compatible with LTE, is very possible that we could see this phone on US carriers. This fall will be a hectic one for the mobile industry, and hopefully the US will be able to join in. The Verge

Pandora for Android Updated With New UI, Lyrics

- August 24, 2012

Pandora, an app I know many people use, has gotten a pretty big update. First and foremost, you’ll notice that the UI is radically different. It has a new blue theme that takes inspiration from the holo UI Google has been pushing so hard. Strange that they recolored it, but it still looks good. Other than that, you get song lyrics for songs, along with a new song history with the ability to bookmark songs (that’s always useful). Go grab the update from the Play Store. Play Store: Pandora | Engadget

Samsung Opens Copycat Apple Store in Sydney?

- August 24, 2012

If you take a quick look at the picture above, you might mistake the man standing in front of you as an Apple employee. Let the image sink in for a minute and you realize it’s actually a Samsung associate. Samsung has gone ahead and opened a flagship store that’s all too familiar to Sydney’s Apple store that happens to be just one block away. Launching it’s grand opening this morning at 8am, the store began selling its new tablet computer, the Galaxy Note 10.1. for $589. According to sources, this is not the first time Samsung has encroached on this particular store. ”Samsung previously ambushed Apple’s iPhone 4S launch by offering $2 smart phones in a temporary shop just metres away form the Apple George Street store, but now its presence is more permanent”. While Samsung’s Vice President of telecommunications, Tyler McGee, insists that the look of the store was all their own and Apple “didn’t even come in...

Apple v. Samsung Patent Infringement Saga Continues – South Korean Court Rules on Korean Case

- August 24, 2012

The Apple vs. Samsung case has been an ongoing media circus here in the US. However the battle between these two tech behemoths is truly an international one. In case you might have missed it, Apple and Samsung have been disputing over in Samsung’s native Korea. In that case a ruling has been made with the Seoul District Court now laying out a split decision for both parties involved. Essentially both Apple and Samsung have been found guilty of infringing on each others patents. As part of the decision, Apple will no longer be allowed to offer their infringing products in South Korea that include the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 as well as the first two generations of the iPad. Something that shouldn’t bother Apple all that much, given how those devices are no longer for sale in South Korea anyway. In addition, Apple wil...

Christina Aguilera's Dirty New Single 'Your Body' Leaks Online

- August 24, 2012

Xtina channels her inner siren on the brand-new track, which is expected to be properly released in September. Christina Aguilera 's new single, "Your Body," has leaked , and the fist-pumping party jam leaves very little to the imagination. Produced by Max Martin, the loud club banger finds the big-voiced pop singer telling her lover, "I am a freak, I'm disturbed/ So come on and give me your worst/ We're moving faster than slow/ If you don't know where to go/ I'll finish off on my own." The single, the first off Aguilera's next album , is expected to get a proper release in September. Aguilera tweeted from the music video's set earlier this week, sharing a photo of her bright pink platform shoe. Days before, from the set of her album cover shoot, she tweeted out a photo of her hair, a bright shade of purple. She wrote, "Thrilled to be back in my 'artist mode.' Kisses!" In an interview with Rolling Stone ...

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 vs. Google Nexus 7 Part 1

- August 23, 2012

Today we are taking a look at two popular 7” Android tablets, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 and the Google Nexus 7 by ASUS. In this part 1 of 2, I do a tour of the device as well as introduce the operating systems. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 is running Ice Cream Sandwich with a TouchWiz overlay compared to Stock Jelly Bean on the Nexus 7. My intention in providing this video for you is so you can see the differences in the two devices, and hopefully help you make a more informed decision when purchasing a tablet. You also have permission to watch the video if you’re just interested in tablets and how they perform against each other. Let us know your thoughts by posting below… Which one fi...

Virgin Mobile to Offer Pre-Order of Samsung Galaxy Reverb August 29th for $250

- August 23, 2012

Virgin Mobile has just announced its intention to offer the Samsung Galaxy Reverb. On August 29th, customers will be able to pre-order the device for $250. Contract free and with Ice Cream Sandwich, the device will also feature: “a 1.4GHz Snapdragon processor, 4-inch 800×480 resolution display, 5MP shooter and 1.3MP front facing cam, 4GB of internal memory, while running on Sprint’s 3G network (sorry, no WiMax or LTE here)”. Phandroid

Samsung Galaxy SIII for MetroPCS arriving this Fall

- August 22, 2012

Good news has arrived for subscribers to the nation’s 5th largest carrier. This fall, MetroPCS is slated to carry the Samsung Galaxy SIII. This version of the Galaxy S III will be equally as powerful as the multiple variants available today. The only difference being the “MetroPCS” logo will be labeled on the back of the device. As with previous MetroPCS phones, the Galaxy SIII will come loaded with carrier bloatware but nothing unexpected. In terms of pricing, the carrier has not released any specific information but it is believed to be somewhere in the $549 price range. PCMag has a detailed Hands-On session with the phone as well for those interested in checking out how the phone performed. As details continue to emerge, DroidDog will keep you updated on an exact release date and price point. PCMag

Google Play Store Gift Cards Official

- August 21, 2012

We knew about Google Play gift cards for a while, with evidence in the Play Store APK and the actual cards being found in Target inventory, but Google has just made them official. Their official page is live now , explaining their new system. Not only that, but they also put up a support page for the gift cards. It’s all official now. The gift cards will be coming to Radio Shack, Target (where they were seen many times), and GameStop. Walmart will also be selling them soon, so hang in there. Also, the pages state that your Play Store balance cannot be combined with other forms of payment. So if you have a bit of money left over, but it isn’t enough for an app, you’d need to buy another card. Definitely not surprising. So it’s all official, public, and ready to be used. How many of you will be buying gift cards for yourself or others? Tell us in the comments, we are inte...

The Meizu MX, A Chinese Android Phone Worth Taking A Look At August 16, 2012 David Beren 2 comment Editors Note: This is a cross-posted review I did over on TmoNews, hence the TmoNews watermarks. As a penta-band device, it’s ready for both AT&T, T-Mobile and every other GSM carrier in the US. As such, this phone is a great look at what’s going outside the US in the Android world and a look at one of the most powerful Android phones currently on the international market. When it comes to T-Mobile, one of the many things I love about the Magenta network is the ability to bring any handset to the network and have it work. This was the case with the Meizu MX, a device that was provided to me by Meizu and ends up as one of my favorite Android devices, albeit with a wrinkle or two. The name Meizu isn’t one we typically see here in the US. They aren’t available on any carrier and if you do recognize the name, it’s likely your familiarity is due to their earlier legal troubles with Apple. However, when I caught word that Meizu had a pentaband device with a quad-core processor, the very same processor as found in the international version of the Galaxy S III, I knew I had to try this. Off I went to find a contact at Meizu and, around 10 days later, I had the Meizu MX in my hands. I’ve made no bones about loving the 4″ Android phone and this is quite honestly my perfect device. I will amend this post right away and say that my review unit is an engineering sample so that’s something to keep in mind. That often means a niggle or two is expected as we tend to become guinea pigs with units and our problems are used to help make a better experience for everyone else buying the phone. The box the Meizu MX arrived in is a thing of beauty, an all white box with a blue ribbon and it felt like Christmas morning. There is a Chinese plug in the box, so I tossed that aside and went right for the phone and the “book” that the phone arrived with. In a hidden compartment on the backside of the “book” is a USB cord, SIM card adapter and a tool to help remove the back plate of the phone. No headphones were sent with the box and I’m not sure if that’s because this is an engineering unit or if they just don’t come with the device, but either way I have plenty to play with. It’s likely that you’ve never seen a Meizu MX before and there’s a good chance you never will. They aren’t generally found outside of China and that’s ok. The hardware is an absolute iPhone-like experience while the Android interface takes care of that side. All things considered, this phone is VERY reminiscent of the iPhone and while Android may grace the software side, this thing still screams Apple with its icon layout. Hardware: The hardware is a riddle wrapped in an enigma. It’s so very iPhone-like that just about everyone who looked at the phone in the past two weeks has thought it WAS the iPhone at first. If you didn’t notice the hardware button on the front or the placement of the camera in the middle of the backside of the device, you would be hard-pressed to notice a difference between the two – especially if you didn’t know what you were looking for. To the average passerby, this device screams iPhone. The home key on the front side of the device raises up just enough to be pressed, but not enough that I was accidentally kicking myself back to the home screen. In fact, I found the rounded shape pretty comfortable to use, more so than the Galaxy S III button. The capacitive keys that sit to the left and right of the home button are something I’ve not yet seen an Android manufacturer do before, and Meizu did it with excellent results. First, the keys light up dependent on the phone’s orientation of landscape vs vertical. they’ll know which direction to show. They will also change depending on the action available to you as the right side button will light up and show three dots when a menu is available and just one dot for everything else. The left side is basically a back key all the time and it appears to look like an arrow when the option to go back a screen is available. Meizu’s website lists the screen itself as a 4″ 960 x 640 ASV screen with 288ppi, which is the same resolution as the iPhone’s Retina display, just a larger screen size. The VGA front-facing camera sits to the very right of the earpiece, with the 8 megapixel 1080p rear camera resting in the middle of the back of the device. On the left side of the unit sits the volume rocker button, with the right side being empty. The top of the phone has the power button and headphone outlet, and on the bottom of the phone sits the microUSB power outlet. There is a pair of speakers on the rear of the device, a pretty mysterious place for them as one tends to cover them up as you hold the phone in your hands. For what it’s worth, removing the backplate to insert the microSIM was about the hardest task I’ve ever had to carry out. Seriously, I was able to pick a wedding venue easier than I was able to remove this backplate, which is why Meizu provides a tool to help remove the backplate. On one hand, I suppose it’s good to know how sturdy this is, but if you’re someone who changes phones as often as I do and constantly reaches for his SIM card, this is a bit of an annoyance. However, it has absolutely no bearing on the experience of using the phone, so it’s really just a mild complaint. The 1,700 mAh battery appears to be user-replaceable, except it isn’t. It’s a tease, as it can’t be removed at all and you would have to really tear up the phone to get the battery out of its compartment. As batteries tend to get tucked away inside smartphones more and more, this isn’t as big of a deal as it once might have been, but we still like the idea of being able to change batteries at will, especially for power users or travelers. As for the hardware itself, the measurements of 121.3 x 63.3 x 10.3 mm make it incredibly comfortable for my personal tastes and, at 4.9oz, it’s 0.2 ounces heavier than the Galaxy S III. The phone’s backplate does feel a little slippery, but at no point was I ever concerned about it slipping out of my hands. In fact, I loved the size and feel of this phone. Yes, I know that larger screens are all the rage these days, but this baby just felt “right” in my hands. Hate away! The Meizu MX display really is great, and it’s very difficult to spot any one individual pixel, unlike some Pentile displays hanging around these days. If you crank up the brightness a little, using the screen outdoors was very easy and that’s a great thing. Still, with all the display advancements that have come out lately, there isn’t anything about the MX which separates it from the pack. It’s still just a really good display. I found viewing angles to be pretty decent, and it’s really just a great screen. Software: Things really start to separate themselves with the MX when it comes to the software and interface part of the phone. Android 4.0.3 powers the device, but you’d be hard pressed to determine that since Meizu’s Flyme OS covers Android like a blanket. There is almost zero doubt that Flyme was inspired by the folks in Cupertino and I don’t think Meizu is making any effort to hide it. For one, there is no app drawer. Everything just resides on the home-screen, but there are folders. So that’s something. App shortcuts appear right on the home-screen immediately after installation and there they shall live forever. Removing the shortcut will remove the app itself. Flyme is very different from what we’re used to here in the US. It’s both easier to follow and yet much less detailed than Samsung’s TouchWiz or HTC’s Sense. Whether or not you view that as a good or bad thing is totally up to you. I, for one, had no qualms about the way Meizu pieced together their Android overlay and the lack of an app drawer never bothered me. As long as I have folders, organization isn’t much of a problem for me and I never felt like I was missing out on anything. Each folder will store up to 16 apps, and, if you want to remove them from the folder, just drag them outside and back onto the home-screen. It’s clear that Meizu was focused on performance with their overlay, and not including some specific features from Ice Cream Sandwich. Of course, widgets are available, and I’ve already covered folders. Meizu completely stripped ICS of its new gallery app, music player, face unlock or calendar. If those features are important to you and you cannot live without them, the MX will disappoint you. The lock-screen takes a slide-to-unlock turn with three separate shortcuts, one for jumping right into phone, one for messages and one for a general unlock. If the music player is active, a shortcut will play on the lock-screen as well which allows you to pause and select different songs. Another distinctly different direction for Meizu was the notification area with five separate connectivity options: Wi-Fi, Data, Bluetooth, GPS and Sync. Actual notifications (e.g. messages, app updates, game alerts) all drop into the screen, but the notification menu never takes up the screen. The box itself will require scrolling to see all relevant notifications. This is good, a very good adaptation of the notification system on Android and I loved it. Task switching on the MX is performed by holding the Menu key (right capacitive button) and items appear at the bottom of the screen. It’s a side-scrolling row of icons, showing four at a time in order of recently used. Apps can be killed by holding an icon and dragging it over the X or hitting the X and ending all the apps running in the background. The task switching menu also has music controls, which is very iPhone-like. Beginning to see a pattern here? The app dock itself allows for five icons, though only four are capable of being switched as Meizu’s stock browser icon is a dock staple and cannot be removed. Still, this is Ice Cream Sandwich and Android so widgets and the entire Google Play market are at your disposal. There are some nifty little features here in the Flyme OS though, such as the pressing and holding of the back button immediately puts the phone into standby mode. Pressing the home and power buttons will take a screenshot, though I suppose that’s a fairly standard inclusion in ICS these days, and pressing the top-right corner of the display will take you back to the top of whatever page you’re looking at. One interesting drawback of the Google Play store is the limitation that just one download/app update may occur at a time. Core Google apps, such as Gmail and Google+ require download from the Google Play store, which we should mention is tucked away inside another folder upon taking the phone out of the box. Given that the phone is set for a Chinese market and Meizu has a pretty Flyme App Store available, that didn’t come as much of a surprise. In fact, I found the stock email program better than Gmail and ended up uninstalling Gmail altogether. Another interesting quirk on the MX was the lack of a smart-dialer, though it will tell you the country based on the phone number. I guess that’s something. There is also an option for recording calls or recording portions of calls along with a blacklist which allows you to select phone numbers to filter out as spam. You can also set it so just calls in your phonebook are allowed in. Awesome. Call Quality and Battery Life: When it comes to call-quality, voices sounded great on both sides and reception was never a problem. The built-in speaker was plenty loud, though if you are using speakerphone and keeping the phone in your hand, just be sure to stay away from the speaker on the back. Battery life with the 1,700 mAh battery was pretty good and it lasted through a complete day of mostly moderate usage. However, battery life brings us into a piece of the Meizu MX that struck me as both interesting and questionable. Unlike most phones which require hacks and tweaks to adjust the processor speed, Meizu comes with three separate settings for processor speed: low, medium and high. I won’t even get into low, because who wants to use it at low. By default, it comes out of the box with medium selected, which clocks the processor in at 1GHz. It’s a weird move by Meizu and I’m not sure what the reasoning is behind this move, however a quick flip of a switch and I’m at high and pushing out that Exynos quad-core processor. When the Exynos is selected on high, this bad boy puts out some beautiful numbers on quadrant, besting my Galaxy S III with a score of 5220 to 4551. The flip-side to running it on high is the shortened battery life which, even with moderate usage, saw me needing the plug in for battery life around early evening. I’m a power user for sure, and granted there were times on high I was pushing the phone as much as possible and doing more tasks than I “regularly” would, but having a charger handy is recommended if running this thing on “high” is your de-facto setting. Network: When it comes to internet speed, the phone has a radio capable of HSPA+ 21Mbps and it showed. I was regularly hitting speeds in the 10-12 range on T-Mobile’s network. Web-browsing was never a concern and downloading apps didn’t seem any slower than using a T-Mobile branded device with a 42Mbps radio. Of course, the real time you’ll see a difference between those two speeds is when downloading larger files than an app with a size of few MB. Before and After: Now for a couple of those little niggles that came my way while using the Meizu, and the before and after experience I had with Meizu. There are two aspects of the MX that were driving me crazy. The first was the GPS receiver and how long it took to lock my location, if it locked it at all, and the second one was something a little more major. My first week with the phone was marred by black screens and random reboots. In fact, one day while waiting on hold for a painter, the phone shut off completely and I had no idea the phone was off. I merely thought nobody cared about talking to me. As it turned out, the phone had shut off. So those were the problems. However, there was a solution. After pinging Meizu on their @Meizu Twitter account, I was told they were aware of the problems and that a fix was on the way. In all honesty, Meizu is hardly the first company to have either of these problems and they won’t be the last, so I decided to wait. Like all good things, the software came while I waited and I updated Flyme OS to version 1.0.3 and, voila, a brand new phone! GPS locked within seconds and in the week I’ve used the phone again on this new software, not a single lock-up, reboot, black screen or any of the previous problems that occurred when I first unwrapped this Chinese superstar. Closing Thoughts: When it comes to making a final decision on the Meizu MX, the first thing I have to say is that as an unlocked phone, you’ll have to dive into your pocket to bring one stateside. That could run upwards of $400, which for those of you familiar with buying unlocked phones is pretty par for the course and is, in fact, less expensive than buying some of T-Mobile’s staple phones off contract. Money aside, the Meizu MX is a sleeper in the smartphone world and it’s got enough going for it to keep you not only interested but impressed. Yes, a few software problems marred my first few days, but I’m seriously in love with this phone and I would have zero problem picking one up online. It’s powerful, even with a plasticky-feeling back and an iPhone-like Android overlay. It’s still one of the most powerful Android phones on the market. Meizu’s Flyme OS wants to keep everything simple, and the hardware itself is future proof. I don’t have any indication if Meizu will update their MX line to Jelly Bean, but I’d like to think it would run Jelly Bean like a champ. If premium build quality is important to you, Sony has plenty of devices you can use. The Meizu, like the Galaxy S III, has a very plasticky feel as I stated earlier, but like the Samsung, it doesn’t hurt the experience of the phone at all. I know I’m a fan of 4″ Android phones and I’ve longed to find a powerful Android phone that fits the bill at the size I love. Thankfully, I don’t have to look any further than the Meizu MX. Even as a device that’s supposed to be a “budget” option, it packs far more than most high-end devices in the US and with a quad-core processor, if you’re up for shelling out the cash, you should take a long hard look at the Meizu MX. Next Previous Picture 1 of 26 | Toggle 2012-08-10 13.50.09wtmk Tags: Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich, Meizu, Meizu MX, MIUI, mx

- August 21, 2012

Editors Note: This is a cross-posted review I did over on TmoNews, hence the TmoNews watermarks. As a penta-band device, it’s ready for both AT&T, T-Mobile and every other GSM carrier in the US. As such, this phone is a great look at what’s going outside the US in the Android world and a look at one of the most powerful Android phones currently on the international market. When it comes to T-Mobile, one of the many things I love about the Magenta network is the ability to bring any handset to the network and have it work. This was the case with the Meizu MX, a device that was provided to me by Meizu and ends up as one of my favorite Android devices, albeit with a wrinkle or two. The name Meizu isn’t one we typically see here in the US. They aren’t available on any carrier and if you do recognize the...

MIUI Releases First Jelly Bean Based Version With Support For Both The Galaxy Nexus And Nexus 7

- August 21, 2012

Are you a fan of MIUI who happens to own either a Nexus 7 or Galaxy Nexus ? Then some good news just came in for you as MIUI has announced that the first version that’s built on Jelly Bean is now available for owners of the Nexus 7 or Galaxy Nexus. There’s a few new Jelly Bean features such as Google Now included but really, it’s not too terribly different from previous versions. The version number is 2.8.17 and you can find it for your device in the MIUI forums. If you want to see the entire changelog then you can find it at the other link below. Are any of you planning to flash this? MIUI Forums , Changelog

“Patent Wars Are Not Helpful to Consumers”, Says Google

- August 21, 2012

Pablo Chavez, Google’s public policy director, addressed attendees of the Technology Policy Institute’s conference today. In a question & answer period, Chavez was asked to touch upon the recent patent wars that have become increasingly infamous. Chavez responded that Google is through with patents altogether stating: “We think that these patent wars are not helpful to consumers. They’re not helpful to the marketplace. They’re not helpful to innovation.” Google is no stranger to speaking out against patents. In 2009 they stated in a brief to the Supreme Court along with other companies like Bank of America and Morgan Stanley: “ The recent surge in patents on abstract ideas such as how to run a business or software that merely implements such methods has not promoted innovation in the financial services or information technology fi...

Android Powered Nikon Photos Leak

- August 20, 2012

Point and shoot cameras have all been the same, relying either on optics or gimmicks to stand out from the crowd. How can you make a camera better when it shoots in great quality? Toss Android onto it, of course! The rumored Nikon S80C will be a traditional point and shoot with a big touchscreen showing off Android Gingerbread. The app selection will appeal to many, who want to ruin great quality photos with Instagram (I kid!). Also various connectivity options mean you can post photos straight to sites, instead of needing a computer to do so. Possibilities are expanded by the inclusion of Android, and this could very well be a great device. What do you guys think? Is an Android powered camera a good idea? Or just a gimmick? Will it pair well with Nikon’s famed image quality, or will it be a detriment to it? Tell us in the comme...