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Category: smartphone

  • Smartphones of the Future Will Be Able To See, Hear, Smell, Touch, and Taste Things

    What will the future look like? Though the answers may not be definite, IBM's annual Five in Five list does its best to answer this pressing question. The list, which enumerates five predictions about technological breakthroughs that may happen in the next five years, gives people an overview of how technology will develop in the future.

    What will the future look like? Though the answers may not be definite, IBM's annual Five in Five list does its best to answer this pressing question. The list, which enumerates five predictions about technological breakthroughs that may happen in the next five years, gives people an overview of how technology will develop in the future.

    Most of the visions that were included in the list seem impossible to achieve. But what most people don't know is that some predictions have already came true. For example in 2006, Five in Five have stated that real-time speech translation will become the norm in the near future. Fast forward a year later, IBM have started work on n.Fluent, a breakthrough technology that translates English and 11 other languages in real-time.

    This year, it's all about the senses. IBM believes that the gadgets of the future will have the ability to feel, see, hear, taste, and smell. This innovation will surely leave a huge impact on how we use devices like smartphones and tablets.

    Touch

    Through the use of infrared, vibration, and other haptic technologies, a smartphone's display will be able to render the texture and feel of physical surfaces. Imagine being able to feel the softness of a cotton sheet through a smartphone's display instead of just reading about it.

    See

    IBM thinks that today's visual recognition technologies can be taken one step further. For example, future systems would have the capability to detect minute details and anomalies in a patient's MRI scan which could help doctors do their work more efficiently.

    Hear

    Aside from merely recording audio, sensors will have the ability to analyze patterns and frequencies from the sounds that it picks up. Future audio technologies will be able to judge the structural integrity of a bridge through the use of sound data alone.

    Taste

    It may not sound that appetizing, but digital tastebuds might become a technological norm in the near future. This could help people keep up with their diets and/or everyday nutritional needs.

    Smell

    Computers might soon be able to distinguish odors from various substances. A person's breath can be analyzed for data that might reveal something about that person's health

  • Nokia Lumia 620 – Attractive Entry Level Smartphone with Windows Phone 8

    Taking the analysts by surprise, Nokia has launched a new model of its Lumia range – Lumia 620 – Nokia’s third phone that runs Microsoft’s latest version of Windows Phone, .

    Priced at $249, excluding taxes and subsidies from operators, the smartphone is a more attractive model in terms of price in the Lumia series. The new smartphone, launched during the salon Le Web 2012 in Paris, will enter the Asian market in January and will shortly be launched in Europe and the Middle East.

    Lumia 620 aims at younger customers, according to Nokia, and will be available in seven different housing colors.

    The 3.8-inch screen with 800 x 480 WVGA resolutions is more compact than the other two Lumia handsets, 920 and 820, which were harshly criticized for being too heavy and too thick.

    The screen comes with ClearBlack technology and Nokia boasts that it will be as visible in daylight as Lumia 920 and Lumia 820. The chipset is more than decent and allows HD video camera. Dual band wireless card is a plus, and the 1300 mAh battery should provide a decent range, but it will not be able to be charged wirelessly. However, the smartphone supports NFC connectivity.

    Like most advanced models, Nokia Lumia 620 comes with Nokia Maps, Nokia Drive and Nokia City Lens. Operating system offers mobile browser Internet Explorer 10, support Windows Live, Microsoft Office Mobile applications and 7 GB SkyDrive storage.

    Lumia 620 has a 1 GHz Snapdragon S4 Plus processor, with 500 MB RAM, 8 GB internal storage (expandable up to 64 GB) and a battery of 1.300mAh, according to Engadget.

    Separately, Nokia has announced on Wednesday the launch of a new smartphone, Lumia 920T, in partnership with China Mobile, the largest mobile operator in China.

    Overall, we could say that Nokia Lumia 620 is a step in the right direction. The smartphone looks good, has good facilities and has an attractive price.

  • Unlocked iPhone 5 available in USA

    Apple has finally decided to provide an unlocked version of the iPhone 5 in USA, targeting the clients that want to avoid the commitment of a contract.

    Just before the Christmas period, when shopping craze is more intense than ever, Apple has updated the online store, allowing the clients to purchase a contract-free version of the iPhone 5, which will be shipped in one week of the purchase, in any capacity and color. The starting price is $649 for the 16GB, with the 32GB costing $749 and the 64GB model being priced $849. Even though some customers find the price relatively high and prefer the safety of a contract, there are also contract haters among us that prefer to buy a single handset, without any constraints of the carrier.

    No matter which side you are, Apple made sure that you understand how an unlocked phone works:

    If you don’t want a multiyear service contract, or if you prefer to use a local carrier when traveling abroad, the unlocked iPhone is the best choice. It does not come with a micro-SIM card for iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, or a nano-SIM card for iPhone 5, so you’ll need to get one from any supported GSM carrier worldwide. To start using it, simply insert the card into the slot on your iPhone and turn it on by pressing and holding the On/Off button for a few seconds. Then follow the onscreen instructions to set up your iPhone.

    Thus, Apple clarifies that the unlocked version of the iPhone 5 is great if you are a frequent traveler and want to combine different networks on your handset. However, there is a price to pay for this, as it was on the previous iPhones. If you are thinking of buying the unlocked version then, you still have time before the holidays with the shipment in a week!

  • Amazon Appstore Continues Global Expansion, Now Available in Japan

    Amazon continues its strong effort to corner the digital content market with the announcement that they have launched a Japanese version of the Amazon App Store, bringing forth a wealth of content for their line of tablets as well as smart phones and other mobile devices.

    In addition to a diverse library that shares some of the best selling applications and games with an entirely new market, the Amazon App Store also includes some mainstays that have helped the previous incarnations in other countries remain successful, including "Angry Birds," "Where's My Water?" and "Cut the Rope". Japanese customers now have access to the platform's personalized recommendations feature, simple ordering process and detailed order history menus.

    Amazon is also one of the only large digital application stores to feature a free application every day of the week, allowing users free access to content they would otherwise have to pay for simply as a "thank you" for their continued business.

    Amazon's standing as the world's largest retailer have made it a prime target for application developers big and small. Due to the raging success of the Kindle Fire, more and more applications that were once exclusive to other platforms have begun making efforts to get themselves in the fold. The advent of the Japanese App Store also opens the door for Amazon to open a similar feature in other markets, specifically Asian demographics that already have Amazon.com's basic services.

    Company CEO's and software developers alike have taken time to heap the praise on Amazon for the way they run their business and the ease with which people are able to begin marketing their content. Their current business structure is designed to give developers the maximum profits and is a huge reason for their continued success.

    Amazon markets itself as "the most complete end-to-end platform for developers looking to build, market and monetize their apps and games" and it's hard to argue this point based on the recent rapid growth the company has experienced. The addition of the Japanese market can only mean good things as the retail giant expands its customer base.

  • Ericsson Mobility Report – Number of Mobile Subscribers, LTE Coverage and Trends

    Now at the third edition, Ericsson Mobility Analysis Report, created by one of the greatest players in the telecom market, highlights some interesting aspects of the market in the quarter ended and makes a series of forecasts for the next six years.

    According to data centralized globally by Ericsson, 40% of all terminals sold in Q3 2012 were smartphones, they stimulating users towards using enough data to exceed the average.

    Data traffic has doubled in the last 12 months and its growth trend will lead to an increase of 14 times the amount of data transferred by 2018. This growth will be dominated by the use of video content, which already represents 25% of the traffic generated by mobile devices and 40% of the one generated by tablets.

    The total number of subscribers to mobile networks will reach 6.6 billion next year, the number following to increase by 2018 to about 9.3 billion. The most important increases are recorded in China, where operators have received an additional stream of 40 million customers in the last three months, this country being followed by Brazil, Indonesia and the Philippines. 91% of the world population currently has access to 2G/3G connections, the total number of subscribers being around 6.4 billion.

    Of this number of subscribers, about 6.5% benefit from LTE coverage, the United States having a visible advantage to Europe or the Asia – Pacific area. By the end of 2018, LTE will be available to half of the total number of customers, the leader remaining the United States, which will have a coverage of about 70%, followed by Europe and Asia-Pacific with about 28% and 18%, respectively.

    The number of LTE subscribers is currently about 55 million, by 2018 being expected to reach the fabulous figure of 1.6 billion.

  • New Rumors About The Upcoming Samsung Galaxy S4

    Galaxy S3 is still one of the most impressive smartphones released this year, so it is not surprising at all that rumors about the next step to be taken by the South Koreans have already appeared.

    The fourth iteration of the Galaxy S terminal would have a screen 4.99-inch screen and a resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels, which already seems to be the default standard for the top models scheduled for 2013. According to some Korean sources, Samsung is expected to show at CES 2013 the first HD Super AMOLED panel with this resolution.

    As the company did not release any panel with RGB matrix yet, we can assume that we will still be talking about a PenTile screen, but given the new arrangement of subpixels used to make the screen of Galaxy Note 2, with a density of 441 ppi, probably this inconvenience will not bother too much.

    The speculated hardware platform is Exynos 5 Quad, the quad-core version of the already-launched dual-core model Exynos 5250, which was implemented in the portable Samsung Chromebook and the tablet Google Nexus 10. Also known as the Exynos 5450, this chip will not seem to see the light of the day as simple quad-core version of the current model, but as an improved version that will also implement an ARM T658 GPU, better than the current version T604.

    The third rumor says that the next Samsung Galaxy S4 will offer a 13-megapixel camera, a rumor also heard before the launch of Galaxy Note 2, but which did not come true.

    As we all know, the new Galaxy S will be launched somewhere in late spring 2013, during which much can happen in the world of smartphones. But anyway, hopefully we will have a rich year in real flagship releases from both Samsung and the easily-left-behind competition: LG, HTC, Nokia and others.

  • Samsung not willing to agree with Apple over patents

    The patent war between Apple and Samsung is not over yet and as it seems, it is not expected to end anytime soon. Although Apple has reached an agreement with HTC, Samsung is not willing to do so.

    It was only a few days ago when we were informed that Apple and HTC have agreed to end their patent war, at least for the next 10 years. This agreement created further speculations, whether it was the beginning of a new era, where patent wars would not exist. And although the collaboration between Apple and HTC might have been a step towards that era, the big deal would be a possible agreement on patent cases between Apple and Samsung, the two big rivals on the smartphone market.

    However, Shin Jong-kyun, the head of Samsung's mobile and IT division in South Korea made sure with his words that there won't be any further questions regarding a possible settlement:

    “We have no such intention. … HTC may have agreed to pay 300 billion won (US$276 million) to Apple, but we don’t intend to [negotiate] at all.”

    And just like that, we are informed that the battle cases between Apple and Samsung will keep going in the future. We don't know whether Samsung is extremely confident over their current and future products, but they surely have paid the price quite expensive on the patent war. Just a few months ago the US court have ordered them to pay 1 billion dollars for copying parts of the iPhone and iPad. And even though they have every right to be confident with their current share in the smartphone market, are they certain about the future? Will they manage to survive the following years or should we still expect a possible settlement between the two companies?

  • The Automotive Aftermarket X-Factor: Telematics Tech Wins Over the Consumer

    By 2014, 70% of consumer devices will be connected to the internet, extending the digital lifestyle into vehicles. So one key questions stands out – how will automotive and consumer electronics technologies optimize the customer experience? Mercedes-Benz, Ford, Honda and six other leading automotive OEMs will take the stage in Las Vegas on Jan 7, 2013 in order to discuss how to satisfy consumer demands for a smooth, seamless In-Vehicle Infotainment and HMI solution in the vehicle at the Consumer Telematics Show, one day before the International CES.

    Technology in active interfaces have proved to drive car purchasing decisions, and the market for infotainment systems alone is set to grow 7.3% year on year to $35.89 billion in 2013, and as a consequence the telematics value chain is currently investigating how companies can take advantage most effectively of this growth in this vertical.

    The Consumer Telematics Show is the premier B2B forum and the key start of year event created specifically to answer the crucial tech and business strategy questions set to unlock the value of telematics innovation in the US market and beyond. High quality, seamless and personalized end-to-end connected driver experiences are at the top of the agenda.

    John McLaughlin, National Manager for Cross Car Line Planning at Toyota, declared “CTS is your one stop shop to get on board with the latest technological innovations driving change in telematics”. Now in its 11th year, CTS is the largest forum dedicated to automotive infotainment and HMI in the USA and is once again set to feature exclusive keynote OEM announcements of brand new services for 2013. 

    The race to merge the consumer’s out-vehicle and in-vehicle lifestyle

    At this lucrative tipping point for connected vehicle services, The Consumer Telematics Show 2013 (Jan 7, Las Vegas) marks the start of a critical year in the development of the consumer telematics industry. Indeed, with embedded connectivity on the horizon, it is imperative that the ecosystem unites at the start of 2013 to engage and maintain consumer loyalty through bridging the gap between life outside and inside the car.

    Senior-level speakers  at CTS 2013 including Mercedes-Benz, Ford, Audi, Chrysler, Toyota, Subaru, Honda, Porsche, KIA and many more will address key infotainment and HMI focused topics such as:

    • CREATE YOUR APP DELIVERY STRATEGY: Assess how the availability of apps will influence consumers’ device-related purchasing decisions and debate their form and function in the vehicle: through a tethered solution, embedded, hybrid, or cloud

    • THE ARRIVAL OF HTML5 AND ITS VALUE TO THE AUTO WORLD: Harness the full capability of an HTML 5 ecosystem to create a flexible, cross-platform, non-proprietary solution which enables developers to build a host of profitable applications for the automotive environment

    • BALANCE NEXT-GEN HMI WITH D.O.T GUIDELINES: Discuss innovative HMI technologies such as touch, gesture and audio to ensure the compliancy of your solutions in a landscape fraught with fears over driver distraction

    • BRING CLOUD-BASED APPLICATIONS UP TO AUTO STANDARD: Render apps to the high-quality and robust specifications which customers expect, and ensure a seamless transition for the driver when it comes to cloud-based integration in the vehicle

    • A BRAVE NEW WORLD OF M&As: Hear directly from Hughes Telematics and Verizon Wireless as they speak out on the telematics industry’s first major acquisition and forecast its impact on the market’s development from 2013 to 2020

    With exclusive OEM presentations, 350+ exec delegates, 25+ senior-level telematics speakers and 10+ businesses-focussed sessions, CTS 2013 is the premier business intelligence and networking forum for the CE, telematics, digital, mobile and wireless industries.

    For the complete CTS 2013 conference program and speaker line-up, access the e-brochure here.

    Register today to join the 350+ senior delegates already registered.

    About Telematics Update:

    Telematics Update Conferences are the most prestigious in the industry. We produce the largest telematics events in North America, Europe & Asia, and attract the most influential speakers providing a rich environment for establishing strategic relationships and networking.

  • BlackBerry 10 to be introduced on January 30

    After all the speculation regarding the release of the Blackberry 10, RIM finally made an official announcement, informing us that they will introduce BlackBerry 10 on January 30.

    Although we do not know any details regarding the phones that will be presented, we do know that the two new smartphones will be faster, with a great range of choice among applications and will have touchscreens. Blackberries might have been popular about their QWERTY keyboards, but RIM seems to understand that touchscreen is preferred lately in the mobile industry and that's why their first smartphones will follow the latest trends. However, if you are a fan of the classic Blackberry smartphone, you won't be disappointed. You will just have to wait  little bit more for the next line of Blackberries.

    According to RIM, they will present both the new phones and their updated operating system, in multiple countries simultaneously on January 30, hoping that the delays have made them even more competitive.

    According to Thorsten Heins, the president and CEO of Research in Motion:

    “Our team has been working tirelessly to bring our customers innovative features combined with a best in class browser, a rich application ecosystem, and cutting-edge multimedia capabilities. All of this will be integrated into a user experience – the BlackBerry Flow – that is unlike any smartphone on the market today,”

    What's more, RIM is already trying their new products with many carriers around the world and they already have obtained a  U.S. government certification, which means that they will be ready to launch their brand new smartphones in USA.

    As it seems, RIM has finally managed to create a calendar with everything that we are expecting from Blackberry 10 the following months. We might not know whether the anticipation will be satisfied, but RIM surely needs it in order to survive in the mobile industry.

  • Sony Xperia J goes on sale

    Sony launched another smartphone from the Xperia line, the Xperia J, which was presented in IFA2012 and went on sale in UK just a few days ago.

    Sony Xperia J is presented as the "affordable" smartphone and seems to be a decent choice, if you are not looking for an expensive smartphone. At first sight it looks like Xperia T, which you might have already seen in the "Skyfall' movie, while its dimensions are of 124.3 x 61.2 x 9.2 mm. Apart from slim, it is also quite light, since it weighs 142 grams.

    It has a 4-inch and 854×480 display, it features an 1GHz processor and it has a 512MB RAM. Moreover, it has a 5MP rear camera, an 1,750mAh battery and a built-in storage of 4GB, which is enhanced with the microSD slot. It runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and is currently available by Three in UK in less than $240 for the device.

    Sony Xperia J is considered a bargain that has the features of a great smartphone. Except from its basic specifications, it also offers great sound quality, but what might be even more important is that it is socially orientated. We all live in the era of social media and we know that a smartphone that has an one-touch-function for content sharing and a special light that notifies you in everything that is new from your Facebook and Twitter accounts should not be ignored.

    Sylvia Chind, head of devices at Three, mentions that

    “The Sony Xperia J is ideal for style conscious social media fans and its 5 megapixel camera is perfect for Instagramming and sharing pictures on the go”

    To sum up, Sony Xperia J seems to be a good choice if you are looking for a low-priced smartphone, like the larger displays, enjoy great sound and love social media.