Recent Articles
LG Optimus G Pro only $79.99 on Amazon
If you’re on AT&T and in the market for a huge phone, Amazon may have the deal for you. The Optimus G Pro, which was just only recently released, is now only $79.99 on Amazon. This is $20 lower than AT&T’s regular price of $99.99, so it’s a good grab. This deal is available to both new customers as well as those looking to upgrade on a new 2-year contract. If you’re interested, make sure to jump on this deal soon, since Amazon clearly shows that they have limited stock.
As far as specs go, the Optimus G Pro features a 5.5″ 1080p screen, 1.7Ghz Quad Core Snapdragon 600 processor, 2GB of RAM, a 13MP Back-facing camera, 32GB of storage as well as Android 4.1.2.
The device is LG’s answer to Samsung’s Galaxy Note II, as the two look highly similar. However, it does have some differentiating features, such as a notification light built into the home button.
Google Now Wallpapers Now Available For Download
If you’ve ever used Google Now, you’ve definitely noticed the wallpapers behind the Google logo. If you’ve ever wanted to use those backgrounds as your actual wallpaper, artist Brent Couchman has uploaded his talented artwork onto Flickr for everyone to enjoy. The artwork is available on 1680 x 1050 resolution for everyone to enjoy.
The most popular Google Now wallpapers are included in his Flickr uploads, such as ‘Forest Night,’ ‘Mountains Day,’ ‘Plains Day,’ as well as ‘Beach Night.’
I have to admit I’m pretty impressed with his artwork. It’s not all just Google Now wallpapers, however, as there are a variety of others. Just taking a quick little peek, I can say that this is one of my favorites from his collection:
If you’re interested in taking a look at it, hit up the source link below. Please remember, however, that the artwork is copyrighted. Give credit where credit is due.
Source: Flickr
What is 4G LTE Advanced?
Samsung’s CEO just announced a new variant of the Galaxy S4 which will launch a new wireless technology called 4G LTE Advanced. Exactly what is LTE 4G Advanced Technology?
LTE 4G Advanced, also known as LTE-A, will be able to theoretically achieve download speeds up to 3Gbps and upload speeds of up to 1.5Gbps. In the real world, it is expected to be two times faster than current LTE technology.
4G LTE Advanced is able to provide a dramatic increase in speed because of Carrier Aggregation technology. One of the problems with current LTE technology is that the usable frequencies are all split up like a patchwork, making it difficult for carriers to efficiently take advantage of them. Carrier aggregation will allow carriers to combine two separate spectrum bands to minimize latency and improve data rates. By doubling the amount of spectral bandwidth, you double the data rate. Theoretically, LTE-A will allow for the aggregation of up to five separate spectrum bands.
LTE-A is not 5G. It will not require an overhaul of current LTE technology. LTE-A utilizes existing LTE technology in a more efficient way. Still, deploying LTE-A will require networks to upgrade their existing networks. LTE-A is currently available in Russia, and a variant will soon be available in South Korea.
Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini Now Available For Pre-Order In The U.K.
The Samsung Galaxy S4 which is the latest flagship model of the Korean company has just gotten smaller with the Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini. The company revealed this upcoming smaller model last May but no price tag was revealed. Today, the device is now ready for pre-order in the U.K. via Clove UK and costs £325.00 or approximately $510.
There are two colors to choose from, the black mist and the white frost, both coming with 8 GB of storage space. Those who wish to pre-order the S4 mini will be expecting to get it by early July. And by the way, this will be a SIM free model so you will be able to use this with any GSM network around the world.
If you want to get the Galaxy S4 Mini at a cheaper option then Carphone Warehouse is a good choice. They are also taking in pre-orders for the device but you’ll get tied down to a two year contract. The lowest plan that can be availed is the £27 a month plan which gets you the smartphone for free.
Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini Technical Specifications
- Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean
- 1.7 GHz Dual Core processor
- 4.3″ qHD Super AMOLED screen
- 1.5 GB RAM
- 8 MP rear camera with autofocus and LED flash
- 1.9 MP front facing camera
- 8 GB internal storage (approx 5GB user accessible)
- Wi-FI a/b/g/n 2.4 / 5 GHz
- DLNA
- NFC
- Bluetooth 4.0
- 1900 mAh removable battery
- 124.6 x 61.3 x 8.94mm
- 107 grams
If you are impressed with the Galaxy S4 but the large screen is not ideal for you then you might be interested in getting its mini version. It offers a similar performance as its bigger brother yet comes in a smaller package.
Some of the key differences between both devices are listed below.
- Galaxy S4 – Plastic battery cover, 130g, 7.9mm ; Galaxy S4 Mini – Plastic battery cover, 107g, 8.9mm
- Galaxy S4 – 5-inch Super AMOLED, 1080p resolution ; Galaxy S4 Mini – 4.3-inch Super AMOLED, qHD resolution
- Galaxy S4 – 16GB, with microSD slot ; Galaxy S4 Mini – 8GB, with microSD slot
- Galaxy S4 – Qualcomm APQ8064T Snapdragon 600 Quad-core 1.9GHz, 2GB RAM ; Galaxy S4 Mini – Qualcomm MSM8930 Snapdragon 400, 1.7GHz dual-core, 1.5GB RAM
- Galaxy S4 – 13MP with LED flash ; Galaxy S4 Mini – 8MP with LED flash
via clove
Tianhe-2 is Now the World’s Fastest Supercomputer
Photo Source: Top500 via Forbes
Every half a year, the analysts from firm called Top500 produces a list of the world’s fastest supercomputers. Recently, it just held its 41st event in its bi-annual tradition according to the company’s official website. During that, a new topnotcher has been revealed.
The fastest supercomputer to date is the China-made Tianhe-2 said the online publication of Forbes. Based on the report, the machine was built by the National University of Defense Technology to become the successor of the Tianhe-1. It added that the product is set to debut on the National Supercomputer Center located in Guangzho two years earlier than its scheduled release.
The Specs of Tianhe 2
The speed of Tianhe-2 in processing data is brought about by its series of Intel processors. The report pointed out that it has around 16,000 nodes. Then, each contains two Xeon IvyBridge processors and three Xeon Phi processors. Overall, the total processor cores that the supercomputer has numbers up to 3,120,000.
The Performance of the Tianhe-2
In the benchmarking result of Top500, the reading in terms of the supercomputer’s performance reached a mark of 33.86 petaflops per second. That makes it nearly twice as fast as the Cray Titan supercomputer which held the distinction as the world’s fastest supercomputer in November 2012.
The Top Brand
Despite the Tianhe-2 winning the ranking in the fastest supercomputer category, it was IBM that dominated to the Top500 list. The report explained that the brand came up on top because five out of the supercomputers featured in the top ten actually came from IBM. Thirty-four of the supercomputers featured in the top 100 list also came from the same company.
Cray and Fujitsu fared well in the rankings too because a few of their supercomputers were listed in the top 100. Therefore, Forbers ruled out that despite China having the fastest supercomputer in the world, it still faces a lot of competition from the other popular brands.
Source: Forbes
Microsoft Offers Surface RT For $199 To Educational Institutions
Microsoft is pushing for its Surface RT tablet to be used by more students in classrooms. The company’s Windows in the Classroom Surface Experience Project is making sure of this by providing individuals linked to educational institutions an easier and affordable way to get the tablet. Just last week the company announced that they will be giving away the device to the first 10,000 people who registers at the International Society for Technology in Education which will be held this month in San Antonio. The latest announcement of the company is that it is offering the tablet to educational institutions at a discounted price for a limited time only.
Microsoft is now offering the Surface RT (32 GB) for only $ 199 down from its original price of $499. This offer is valid for K-12 and higher educational institutions in 25 countries around the world. The Surface RT (32GB) with Touch Keyboard Cover which regularly costs $599 is also now sold at a discounted price of $249 while the Surface RT (32GB) with Type Keyboard Cover now costs $289 down from $629. This is a limited time offer which is valid from June 17, 2013 up to August 31, 2013. Individual students won’t be able to order this tablet since it will be sold directly to schools and universities.
In a post by Microsoft the company announced that “Our mission in education is to help schools and universities, students and educators realize their full potential. One way we do this is by offering software, hardware and services at affordable prices to education institutions. Surface RT is a terrific tool for teaching and learning and we want students and educators to have the best technology on the market today.”
Surface RT Technical Specifications
- OS: Windows RT
- Storage: 32 GB
- Display: Display 10.6” ClearType HD Display, 1366 x 768 pixels, 16:9 (widescreen), 5-point multi-touch
- CPU: CPU Quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3
- RAM: 2GB
- Wireless: Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n), Bluetooth 4.0 technology
- Camera: Two 720p HD LifeCams, front- and rear-facing
- Ports: Full-size USB 2.0, microSDXC card slot, Headset jack, HD video out port, Cover port
- Sensors: Ambient light sensor, Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Compass
- Included apps: Microsoft Office Home and Student 2013 RT1 (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote), Windows Mail and Messaging; SkyDrive, Internet Explorer 10, Bing, Xbox Music, Video, and Games
The Microsoft Surface RT is a great tool for students looking for a device that they can use in school for research, communications and general productivity tasks. It’s got a great battery life and has a solid construction that won’t get damaged easily.
via engadget
AT&T 4G LTE Network Determined to be the Fastest in the US
The 4G LTE network of AT&T is the fastest but Verizon was deemed by experts to be more available to smartphone users.
A new research claims that AT&T 4G LTE network is the fastest in the United States. The record breaking discovery came from PCMag according to BGR.
The Testing Procedure
The report said that the website tested all the four major carriers in the US using eight Samsung smartphones that have the same model and specs. The tests were conducted in around 30 cities of the country.
Results
The AT&T 4G LTE came up on top in terms of connection speed. However, the article noted that Verizon happened to be the most reliable among the rest. This is probably because despite the fast connection of AT&T, it tends to fluctuate in some areas. On the other hand, T-Mobile should have been really great if it weren’t for its low availability. Sprint is still in its introductory phase in the LTE markets but the demand for its service is currently on an upward trend added the source.
Based on the article, the download speed of the AT&T 4G LTE averaged around 16.65 Mbps with an upload speed of 7.43 Mbps. Verizon only scored 11.93 Mbps in terms of download speed and 6.25 Mbps in upload speed. The T-Mobile 4G service was only tested on six markets but it performed surprisingly well as it gave off a reading of 12.07 Mbps in download and 7.09 Mbps for the upload. For places without LTE, T-Mobile’s HSPA+ network reached a 7.91 Mbps download speed mark and 1.42 Mbps in upload speed.
Sprint appeared to have struggled in the testing. It only scored 5.55 Mbps during downloads and 2.41 Mbps in uploads.
In terms of the highest recorded download speed, AT&T topped the list with 66.11 Mbps. This is followed by T-Mobile’s 62.03 Mbps and Verizon’s 59.83 Mbps. Still Sprint was left behind with its max download speed of only 32.32 Mbps.
Source: BGR
Oculus Rift Virtual Reality Kit has received over $16 Million from Investors
I think we’re just two steps away from our childhood sci-fi fantasies becoming a reality, and these two steps first lie in hovercars and virtual reality machines.
Whilst we’re a long shot off having hover cars, virtual reality seems to be getting closer and closer thanks to a few devoted developers trying their best to reach the ever-wanted VR breakthrough.
One of these virtual reality machines that holds a lot of promise is the Oculus Rift- it is a headset that has managed to crowd-fund $2.5 million on Kickstarter, and has now secured another $16 million thanks to investors hoping to help the Rift get into the hands of everybody that wants it.
Investors are also interested in the Oculus Rift because they believe that the virtual reality headset has a lot of financial potential waiting to be taken, and if the VR headset manages to catch mainstream appeal, it’s likely it could sell very well, especially with developers that are keen to work on making titles for the hardware.
source: Engadget
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Chromebooks May Be Coming to a Store near You
Whilst a lot of shopping is being done online these days, there are still a lot of people who like to go out and look at exactly what they are buying before they buy it.
It seems Google has caught on to this and has decided to make deals with a large amount of retailers to get their Chromebooks available in-store.
These deals include retailers and chain-stores in the US such as Walmart, Staples, Office Depot, Office Max, Fry’s and TigerDirect, and Chromebooks will be available both online and in-store from these retail stores this summer and the months following.
Google says the web-based Chromebooks will soon be available in a total of 6,600 stores across the world, making them three times more available than previously.
Opening more deals with retail stores will certainly help Google to grab the interest of those that don’t use the internet often or aren’t up to date on what Google does behind its search engine, and hopefully this will help Google to make more sales so they can work on improving the barebones system.
Source: Verge
Less than 300 phone numbers were probed by US Government in 2012
According to an unclassified document circulated Saturday, NSA probed less than 300 phone numbers last year.
This comes at a time when tech companies like Facebook and Microsoft are trying to regain the confidence of their customers by revealing the number of requests received and granted by these companies. And looks like the Obama Government is also trying to do the same as the paper explains the procedure of such searches conducted by the Government.
The paper explains that such searches have enabled the Government thwart several terrorist attacks in the country. These programs have nailed down terrorists before they even execute their plans like the two individuals who were caught while making plans to attack New York City’s subway system.
The Chairman of the House Committee, U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers further explains how the Government collected information from the citizens without violating any individual’s rights.
“We take the business records by a court order, and it’s just phone numbers — no names, no addresses — put it in a lock box,” Rogers went on to explain to CBS News “And if they get a foreign terrorist overseas that’s dialing in to the United Sates, they take that phone number… they plug it into this big pile, if you will, of just phone numbers — it’s like a phonebook without any names and any addresses with it — to see if there’s a connection, a foreign terrorist connection to the United States.”
“When a number comes out of that lock box, it’s just a phone number — no names, no addresses,” he continued. “If they think that’s relevant to their counterterrorism investigation, they give that to the FBI. Then upon the FBI has to go out and meet all the legal standards to even get whose phone number that is.”
The news of the existence of the PRISM program and other such secret surveillance programs has been a revelation to the public as well as a number of law makers.
We have seen a number of tech companies and now the government come forward and reveal information about such programs and we are sure things will get clearer when we receive more information about the same in the future.
Microsoft revs speedier, smarter speech recognition for phones
Microsoft has recently revealed its next big thing that is speech recognition technology for phones. Since, Apple introduced Siri later S-Voice by Samsung both these technologies took mobile industry by storm and windows phone were lacking in this race.
Microsoft said that using unique novel method that traces brain functions our researchers have doubled the speed at which the app recognizes speech as well as we have gained 15% more accuracy as compared to competition.
Eventually something like this was expected at the end of Microsoft, otherwise the future of windows phone would be a question mark. Apple and Samsung are way ahead of Microsoft in term of their mobile phone sales; Microsoft can only win the battle by introducing something innovative and out of box.
Research unit of Microsoft says that they have come up with something unique using novel method that not only will improve your phones ability to recognize speech but also accuracy of speech recognition has also been improved.
Microsoft says that they have installed deep neural networks to speech recognition, their users inside United States will be able to compose a text message or search something on Big with their voice with double the speech as compared to competition.
“For a normal sentence, you will have one less word to correct,” said Michael Tjalve, a senior program manager in the speech technology group at Microsoft.
Test-run of this technology revealed that word-error rate fell from 16% to only 13.5%; and this is tremendous achievement. Imagine you can control your phone with your voice and your phone will be more responsive to your voice then before.
Do you want to know something surprising? Remember those lags we used to have with SIRI, S-Voice and Google speech recognizer? Gone are those lags, you phone types everything as soon as you start talking and spot simultaneously when you stop talk.
Microsoft will began rolling out this update to its data centers in US first, later the update will be sent to international data centers. Microsoft clears one thing that it does not compare its technology with competition but every company uses its own method of measurement. But experts says that by far this is something really improved in recent times.
Source CNET
Rumor: Oppo Find 7 to arrive this fall with 4,000 mAh battery
The Oppo Find 7, which is the supposed successor to the Oppo Find 5, is rumored to be arriving around the middle of September.
According to the rumors, the Oppo Find 7 will sport a 5-inch 1080p Full HD touchscreen display. The “7” in the name may be deemed a bit confusing, as it had been previously assumed that the “5” in Oppo Find 5 referred to the size of its display. Likewise, Oppo skipped the number 6 for unknown reasons.
Moving on, the Oppo Find 7 will run on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 CPU, and sport 32 GB of storage capacity as well as 2 GB of RAM. On its rear would be a 13 MP camera whereas on its front would be an 8 MP snapper. NFC connectivity will furthermore be supported. It appears, however, that the highlight of the Oppo Find 7 is its battery, which will have a capacity of 4,000 mAh. This is the same massive battery found on the Lenovo P780, another 5-inch handset. By comparison, Samsung’s 2013 Android flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S4, only comes with a 2600mAh battery. The leaked specifications unfortunately do not specify the number of hours that Oppo estimates its battery will provide users.
The high-capacity battery, however, may cause the device to be a bit thicker than the Oppo Find 5. It is estimated that the unreleased handset would have a measurement of about 9.9 mm. This is likewise the measurement of the Lenovo P780.
The China-based phone maker may decide to sell the Find 7 in the international market, as it did with its predecessor. Undoubtedly, this would be good news for those who find its specifications, particularly its battery, appealing.
Apart from the Oppo Find 7, Oppo is also reportedly preparing to release the Oppo Find 5 Mini, a 3.7-inch smartphone that will come in different color options.
via gsminsider
BlackBerry expected to add 3-4 devices in coming months
BlackBerry has already revealed the Z10, Q10 and Q5, but reports now suggest the company may be developing three or four more phones in the coming months.
According to the Taiwanese supply chain sources, BlackBerry will continue to manufacturer and release devices over the next three quarters, fading off into early 2014.
The sales of the BlackBerry Z10 and Q10 stick at about one million per month, although we believe the Q10 is doing better with hard-core BlackBerry fans who love the qwerty experience.
With the added boost to suppliers coming from the entry level BlackBerry Q5, they will see rapid movement in the production line and BlackBerry move more entry level devices.
We believe BlackBerry will launch two entry level devices and two mid-range devices, including one touchscreen, in the next months.
Source: DigiTimes
