Articles By Alex Angove
Nokia Obtains Graphene Grant
If you haven’t heard of graphene yet then you’re in for a bit of a surprise. Graphene is a material, first discovered in Manchester in 2004, that is so useful it’s been described as “ubiquitous” in application. Graphene is estimated to be between 100x and 300x the strength of steel, making if the strongest material yet discovered, it is the best transmitter of electricity yet discovered, the best transmitter of heat yet discovered, is transparent, is highly resistive to corrosion and even apparently lets nothing other than pure water molecules pass through it, making it potentially the best and most simple water filter yet discovered.
BlackBerry Q10 Preview
The BlackBerry Q10 comes in alongside, although perhaps will see a bit of a later release than, the touch-centric BlackBerry Z10. The Q10, as one may guess from its moniker, is a the QWERTY flagship for BlackBerry’s new BB10 operating system (OS). BlackBerry/RIM certainly hasn’t forgot its die-hard fans and the reason it saw such success in the business market for so long. BlackBerry devices really do sport some of the best, if not the best hardware keyboards of any smartphone and, while many users shy away from that route these days in favor of a larger screen, hardcore emailers and texters still find hardware QWERTY keyboards very useful.
BlackBerry BB10 Officially Unveiled
First things first: RIM is no more. The iconic creators of the BlackBerry handset line have done away with their traditional title and simply renamed the entire company “BlackBerry”, which makes perfect sense, really. The BlackBerry range of handsets has been RIM’s sole focus for a long time now, so the renaming should not only make things simpler, but also make the brand name seem more accessible to potentially new customers who won’t look silly in assuming that the company is named after the product or vice versa.
BlackBerry Z10 Preview
The BlackBerry Z10 is the first all-touchscreen flagship of the new BB10 OS. Unlike other attempts at touch-centric devices we’ve seen from BlackBerry in the past, the Z10 has solid specs on paper and even sports a modern, sleek design. The new BB10 UI will go far in deciding the popularity to which the Z10 will, or won’t, rise, but the phone itself still deserves attention. Set to be launched in March in the US, this week in the UK and next week in Canada, BB10 and the Z10 are finally within reach of the public.
New Microsoft Office for Rent
The newest version of Microsoft Office has hit the shelves, but this time with a bit of a twist. Office is now available for both outright purchase or for monthly/yearly rental. Buying the personal Home version outright will cost a user $140 which includes all of the usual goodies therein (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote). The full business version will cost $220.
A New(?) iPad Surfaces
A new iPad has arisen, yet this time it seems like only one thing has been changed: storage. What we’ll hopefully end up calling the “iPad 4th Generation, 128GB” comes with, you guessed it, a whopping 128GB of on-board storage. Other than that the only other addition is the new price tag of US$799 for the WiFi-only version and US$929 for the full 4G LTE model. Some readers may recognise how close that price tag is to the US$999 of an 11-inch Macbook Air.
Illegal to Unlock Your Cell Phone
As of this past Saturday the 26th of January it is now illegal for anyone who has bought a device since October 28th 2012 to unlock their device without expressed permission from their carrier. The reason for the odd-sounding timeframe is that after the law was passed in October last year, a 90 day grace-period was allowed. That period has now expired.
Mozilla Announces Firefox OS Devices
Last year in July we reported that Firefox had started working on its very own mobile Firefox OS. Rather than an Android UI skin, or anything else designed to run in tandem with a pre-existing mobile OS, Firefox OS is a new ground-up operating system aimed at providing direct competition in the lower ends of the smartphone market, specifically the prepaid market.
Creepstreams: G-Maps Gone Creepy
Forget Big Brother; anyone could be watching. Last January a vulnerability in Tendnet home security cameras became famous on the web, particularly on forums like Reddit and 4Chan. The vulnerability allowed anyone to easily hack in to an IP camera feed and watch whatever it was monitoring without the user ever being the wiser.
Rumors: Samsung vs HTC in 2013
While Samsung’s biggest competitor is certainly Apple, in the Android world HTC and Samsung seem to be the most evenly matched each year. While Samsung takes most of the popularity and profit with each new flagship, HTC still manages to release a great flagship device each and every year. So, what do the current rumours say about each company’s new and upcoming devices?
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