Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from June, 2012

Apple puts preliminary ban on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus in the United States

Samsung was just minding their own business being happy about their Galaxy Nexus getting Jelly Bean and then Apple just hits them in the face with a ban. Just a couple of days after the judge, Lucy Koh, granted Apple a preliminary ban on the selling of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 she made Apple even happier by doing the same thing on the Galaxy Nexus. Samsung will probably try to appeal this, because the Galaxy Nexus is now the only phone with Android Jelly Bean 4.1 and could still be considered a compelling phone to buy. The patent the ban is for is on unified search that's linked to Siri. This ban is probably from the Google Now that lets you search by talking to it and it will respond to you. We personally think that this is completely stupid and unreasonable. Apple is stopping innovation by trolling around making money by suing companies that try to innovate, while Apple just does not want to innovate as much as them. Apple already used a patent to give some grief to HTC with

Wrap up of Google I/O 2012 Day Two

Yesterday, Google conducted the second keynote for their 2012 I/O conference. Google started off the conference by telling the press that Google Chrome has 2.3 billion users. They gave us some other stats such as that, on Chrome, there have been 60 billion words typed, 1 terabyte of content downloaded, and 13 years of time saved through the speed of Chrome every day. The first thing they announced was that there will soon be Google Chrome available on the App Store for iPhones and the iPad 2. On the browser, tabs can be stacked up, closed with gestures, and flip between tabs quickly by dragging them side by side. You can sync all of your bookmarks and history across all your devices with Chrome on them, so you can pull up the page you left off on quickly. Google also unveiled Google Drive for iOS and Chrome OS. There is new and improved searching for Google Drive that is very intuitive. In the new searching, you can search for certain documents by words in them or by what it is. Goog

Wrap up of Google I/O 2012 Day One

Google unveiled many new and interesting things at their I/O yesterday. They unveiled many things about new software and new hardware. Let's take a look at the things they unveiled. Google I/O first started off with the introduction of Android Jelly Bean 4.1. Google made Jelly Bean much smoother by making the entire OS run at 60 FPS (feet per second). Google made it smoother with what they called, "Project Butter". They also introduced triple buffering, for graphics, which allows the CPU and the GPU to run alongside to allow them to not wait for each other. Project Butter also has improved touch responsiveness and the OS anticipates where your finger will touch. In Jelly Bean, they also introduced a much easier way to manage your home screens. When you put a widget on the screen in Jelly Bean, all the other icons will align around it. No more having to move the icons over and over to make it look neat! If the widget is too big for the home screen, it will automaticall

Android Jelly Bean 4.1 statue is set up on Google's lawn

Google just unveiled their new monument to their soon-to-be-announced Android release, Android Jelly Bean 4.1. Making a statue for each new Android release has been a tradition for Google since Android 1.5 Cupcake came out. The new statue depicts a jar of colorful, spilled jelly beans . It stands alongside the cupcake, doughnut, eclair, froyo, gingerbread, honeycomb, and ice cream sandwich statues. The new Jelly Bean version of Android is expected to be announced at Google I/O tomorrow. Want more information on Google's latest sugary concoction? Head on over to the links for more information. Update: The picture was of the statue being set up. The actual statue is a green android with a jelly bean jar as the torso and head.

Asus Transformer Pad Infinity shows up online at Best Buy

Earlier today, Asus's new top-of-the-line tablet showed up sold out online at Best Buy. The Asus Transformer Pad Infinity is an upgraded version of the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime that came out in late 2011. Asus revamped the tablet by adding a higher resolution display, with a screen resolution of 1920 x 1200. Asus also fixed the GPS issues that were found on the Transformer Prime by putting a plastic strip on the top of the Transformer Pad Infinity. The higher-resolution display on the Transformer Pad Infinity does make the battery life a little worse than the Transformer Prime. Best Buy shows the new tablet at $599.99 for the 64 GB model. The display is not much of a reason for the early adopters of the Transformer Prime to upgrade to the new Pad Infinity. If you happen to be an original Asus Eee Pad Transformer owner, you should make the upgrade to the new tablet. Need more information on Asus's best tablet? Head on over to the links for more information.

Nintendo announces new 3DS LL for Japan and 3DS XL for the United States

For the people who do not have the child-sized hands to play Nintendo's 3DS comfortably but still want to play Nintendo's latest games, your wait is finally over. Nintendo announced yesterday that they will be releasing a successor to the DSi XL/LL, the 3DS XL/LL. This new offering from Nintendo will be called the Nintendo 3DS LL for Japan and the Nintendo 3DS XL for the United States. The new 3DS XL will have a 4.88 inch top screen and a 4.18 inch bottom screen. The new 3DS's screens are more than an inch bigger than the regular 3DS's screens and it comes with a 4GB SD card. In Japan, you can get the new 3DS LL for 18,900 yen (around $237.38) on July 28th in white, red and black, or silver and black versions. In the United States, you can get the 3DS XL for $200 on August 19th in red or blue versions. The new 3DS XL may not be a very compelling option compared to the likes of the Playstation Vita, when you get better graphics, better games, and better game play at on

Microsoft unveils Windows Phone 8

Earlier today, Microsoft unveiled its new mobile operating system Windows Phone 8. In their announcement, they introduced some very welcomed new features for Windows Phone 8 like multi-core chipsets and higher resolutions for Windows Phone. Microsoft has now allowed higher resolution screens with WVGA (800x480), WXVGA (1280x768), and 720p resolution supported on Windows Phone 8. The long awaited microSD support feature has also been announced with Windows Phone 8. Microsoft also introduced NFC in the upcoming new Windows Phone 8 phones. With the NFC, Microsoft showed off a new Wallet feature with Windows Phone 8. Microsoft's new Wallet feature looks like a blend of Google Wallet and Apple's Passbook. This new feature will let you put your Loyalty cards, Membership cards, Credit cards, Debit cards, and it lets you access saved deals (like Google Offers). With all these features that you can put into your Windows Phone, Microsoft may make mobile NFC payments more popular. Wit

Microsoft unveils new tablets: Surface for Windows 8 Pro RT and Surface for Windows

Microsoft unveiled two new tablets that could change the tablet landscape. These two tablets will both run Microsoft's new Windows 8 operating system, and they will come out at around the launch of Windows 8. For some reason, Microsoft has made the launch of the Windows 8 Pro three months after the launch of Windows 8. These two tablets could let Microsoft get a hold into the huge, growing tablet market. The Surface for Windows RT is the more consumer oriented tablet of the two. It has a very simplistic and durable design. It is made of a magnesium VaporMg case that is very light at under 1.3 pounds. It has a 10.6 inch ClearType HD display that is covered in Gorilla Glass 2. The Windows RT also has a plentiful array of ports for a tablet with Microsoft including a USB 2.0 port, a HDMI port, and a microSD port. The Surface for Windows RT also has a useful kickstand on the back. The Surface for Windows RT is also very thin at a thickness of 9.3mm. This tablet comes in two varieti

Verizon's new Share Everything data plans

You might have already heard of the rumors about Verizon's shared data plans, and those rumors have come true to some extent. These plans let you share unlimited talking minutes, unlimited texting minutes, and a chosen amount of data with up to ten separate devices. With these plans you can choose either 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, 6GB, 8GB, or 10 GB of data to share among your devices. These plans go for $50, $60, $70, $80, $90, and $100 respectively. You then add on an extra $40 a month for every smartphone you add to the plan, $30 extra for every feature phone on to the plan, $20 for every mobile hotspot you add on to the plan, and an extra $10 for every tablet you add on to the plan. These prices do not save you much money, so why did Verizon even make these plans? Hopefully, Verizon will have more options in the future so you could maybe choose to have more data, less talking minutes, less texting minutes, and maybe save a couple of dollars a month. Until then, check out the sources for

Samsung Galaxy Nexus and HTC Rezound discounted at Verizon Wireless

For a limited time, you can get the Verizon version of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and the HTC Rezound at a discounted price. The Galaxy Nexus is discounted by $50 to the price of $149.99. This is a great deal, because you get a 720p HD Super AMOLED screen, (yes it is Pentile but it is still a great screen) stock Android Ice Cream Sandwich, LTE speeds, and a path to the Nexus updates. The things that make the Verizon Nexus not as good as the unlocked HSPA+ Galaxy Nexus from Google is that the Verizon version has worse battery life, that Verizon put many logos on the back, and that Verizon blocked Google Wallet from the Nexus. This makes the Verizon Nexus somewhat of not a true Nexus. The HTC Rezound is discounted to an incredible $79.99. For this very low price you get a great 720p Super LCD TFT screen, a great 8 megapixel camera, and LTE speeds. The Rezound also comes with a set of high quality Beats headphones that would regularly cost $100 on their own. The bad thing about the Rezoun

Apple's new Retina Display Macbook Pro

At this year's WWDC, Apple unveiled a new MacBook Pro that wowed everyone with a new Retina display on the Apple laptop. The new Retina display on the MacBook Pro has a shocking 220ppi (pixels per inch) screen. The Retina display MacBook Pro only comes in a 15 inch screen size, not in 13 inch or 17 inch sizes. Large laptop lovers will weep from the fact that Apple also removed the 17 inch MacBook Pro from its line. This is rather strange, because Apple was one of the first companies with a 17 inch laptop. Another change to the MacBook Pro is that the new Retina display MacBook Pro is that it is now even thinner with a 0.71 inch thickness. This thinness was partly made possible from the removal of the optical slot-loading disk drive. The removal of the disc drive may bring some problems to people who like to use DVD's or to play games that are on discs. The ports on the new MacBook Pro are very plentiful. The new MacBookPro has an SD card reader, full size HDMI port, two USB

iOS 6 at Apple's WWDC wrap up

Last week, Apple unveiled its new mobile operating system iOS 6.  With the new OS, Apple ushered in many new features like Facebook integration, a "Do Not Disturb" feature, Siri for the iPad, and new abilities for Siri. The new Facebook integration is much like Apple's iOS 5 Twitter integration with having the ability to post pictures and web pages directly to Facebook and to like apps and songs through the App Store and iTunes. The "Do Not Disturb" feature looks like a very useful feature that lets the user make all notifications not make a sound or light up the screen until you turn the feature off again, but you will still get these notifications. This feature is undoubtedly useful when you are in certain places like a meeting or when you are sleeping. Another new feature iOS 6 brings is Siri for the new iPad. This long awaited feature lets users of the new iPad finally use Siri instead of the "voice dictation" on the new iPad in iOS 5. iOS 6 al