Cell Phone News
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?
Nokia Embraces 3D Printing
3D printers are an incredibly interesting piece of technology. Not only is a machine that is capable of printing incredibly detailed 3D objects fascinating, but the potential ramifications of popularizing said technology are immense. In a world where anything plastic can essentially be scanned, uploaded as data, downloaded and then physically recreated in flawless detail, the product becomes the design itself, rather than the physical object. Many people have been making wild predictions of a future economy based solely on creativity and innovation, rather than production and distribution.
Hopes For the Mobile World in 2013
We have high hopes for the mobile world in 2013. If the past few years are any indicator, mobile technology should move forward an impressive amount within the next 12 months. Usually what we’ve seen is a lot of rumor and speculation for the first half of a year followed by an absolute explosion of new devices and services in the months from July to October.
Season’s Greetings
Seeing as we usually forget to do one of these I thought we should get in early this year. The blog will be going dark from today until early January, as we’ll all be generally busy with families, friends and social engagements. We’ve had a pretty great year here and we’d like to thank all of our readers and the fans of our site. Anyone who’s used the site, linked it on the net or mentioned it to a friend has our sincerest thanks and we’ll do our best to continue improving performance throughout 2013.
Lumia 920 Hands-On 1st Impressions
We finally have our very own Nokia Lumia 920 to play with, right on the heels of our Lumia 820 review. The Lumia 920, for those who haven’t been keeping up, is Nokia’s new flagship Lumia device for the Windows Phone 8 platform. As such, it should pack more of a punch than the Lumia 820 and impress us enough to offset its higher price and top-dog status.
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