Author Archive
Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 MDP benchmarks: prepare for ludicrous speed
Author: Dave Adams
Today we had a chance to play with Qualcomm’s latest MDP devices (tablet and phone) which pack the company’s mighty Snapdragon 800 SoC (MSM8974). The tablet is slightly larger than last year’s MDP and features a 11.6-inch 1920 x 1080 pixel display, 2GB of LPDDR3 RAM, 32GB of built-in flash storage (with microSD expansion) and a 12 megapixel AF rear camera with flash (2MP in front). All of this is crammed into a light and slim (0.46 inches / 11.7mm) chassis that’s powered by a 3400mAh Li-ion battery and includes a bevvy of radios (LTE, WiFi ac, Bluetooth 4 LE, GPS, NFC) and sensors (including pressure and humidity).
We put the Snapdragon 800-equipped MDP through its paces by running our usual suite of benchmarks (plus a few more). The results? Prepare for ludicrous speed.
Developing…
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Mobile
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GEAK unveils Eye and Mars smartphones with 13MP cameras, budget prices
Author: Dave Adams
GEAK may be focusing its attention on wearable tech like the Ring and Watch, but it still has a pair of new offerings for those who like old-fashioned smartphones: meet the 5-inch Eye and 5.8-inch Mars. Both are tailored to photo junkies with 13MP, backside-illuminated rear cameras as well as strong front cameras that shoot at 8MP (Eye) and 2MP (Mars). Differences between the handsets revolve mostly around performance and screen size. The Eye keeps things modest with a 720p IPS display, a quad-core MediaTek MT6589, HSPA+ data, 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. Spring for the extra-large Mars and you’ll upgrade to a 1080p IPS LCD, a Snapdragon 600 and 2GB of RAM. Either way, you won’t be paying a lot for the imaging prowess — when pre-orders start on June 25th, GEAK will ask ¥1,999 ($ 326) off-contract for the Eye and ¥2,999 ($ 490) for the Mars. Just don’t expect either to leave China when there’s no word of international plans.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
Via: Engadget Chinese (translated)
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Watch Microsoft’s Xbox One E3 keynote in just two minutes
Author: Dave Adams
While Microsoft’s original Xbox One announcement spent a lot of time focused on media and the living room, today’s E3 keynote was geared primarily towards gaming. If you’d like to take a look at what the company and its partners had to show — or take a peek at the redesigned Xbox 360 — we’ve got the highlights wrapped up for you in just over two minutes.
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Xbox One launch delayed in Asia until late 2014, no mention of Japan
Author: Dave Adams
Microsoft revealed its Xbox One launch pricing this week at E3, with the company planning to release its next-gen console in November for $ 499. Twenty-one markets were revealed, including the UK and parts of Europe, but the company remained quiet about its exact plans in other regions. The Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft is delaying its Xbox One launch in Asia until late 2014, a full year after the console debuts in the US.
A staged approach with limited markets
Alan Bowman, Microsoft’s regional vice president for sales and marketing in Asia, says the move is part of a “staged approach” for the Xbox One, noting the company is planning to offer localised content once the console is available. The WSJ claims Microsoft is…
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Samsung Galaxy S III Mini I8190 8GB Blue Unlocked GSM Phone with Android 4.1 OS, Dual Core, Super AMOLED Touchscreen, 5M
Author: Dave Adams
Samsung Galaxy S III Mini I8190 8GB Blue Unlocked GSM Phone with Android 4.1 OS, Dual Core, Super AMOLED Touchscreen, 5M
- Battery Capacity (mAh) 1500mAh
- CPU Dual-core 1GHz
- Network Band : GSM 850, GSM 900, GSM 1800, GSM 1900, 3G 900, 3G 1900, 3G 2100
- Weight 111.5 g, Height 121.55 mm ,Width 63 mm ,Thickness 9.85 mm
- Internal Memory 8GB
Sleek and stylish, the ergonomically-designed Samsung Galaxy S III mini GT-I8190 cell phone takes functionality to another level. Designed with a 4-inch screen featuring Super AMOLED display, this Samsung Galaxy S III (O2) cell phone offers an enhanced view of the content, be it multimedia or websites. Running on the powerful Android 4.1 Jelly Bean OS, which offers a wide range of useful applications, this smartphone helps you with improved efficiency.
List Price: $ 286.00
Price: $ 286.00
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APPLE TV 160GB *JAILBROKEN* XBMC / ICEFILMS / NAVI-X *UNTETHERED*!
Author: Dave Adams
Apple Mac TV First Generation Model A1218
 | $99.00 End Date: Wednesday Jun-26-2013 10:50:44 PDT Buy It Now for only: $99.00 Buy It Now | Add to watch list |
Apple TV 3rd Generation MD199LL/A NEWEST MODEL 1080p HD
 | $37.00 (11 Bids) End Date: Wednesday Jun-19-2013 21:00:47 PDT Bid now | Add to watch list |
Apple TV 1st Generation 160GB Jailbroken with Latest aTV Flash Pre Install
 | $149.00 End Date: Friday Jul-19-2013 8:04:45 PDT Buy It Now for only: $149.00 Buy It Now | Add to watch list |
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Sugarbooger Mini Bib Gift, Set of 2, Retro Robot
Author: Dave Adams
Sugarbooger Mini Bib Gift, Set of 2, Retro Robot
- Mini bib two piece gift set with vintage alphabet graphics
- Each bib measures 12 x 9? with 4 inch neck opening
- Machine wash and dry
- Non toxic EVA with a cotton/nylon lining
- Snap closure
SugarBooger by O.R.E. Mini Bib Gift Set of 2 Retro Robot
Two-piece go-anywhere mini-bib set that features two different patterns and made from non-toxic EVA with a cotton/nylon lining with a snap closure.
List Price: $ 12.50
Price: $ 9.46
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What Teenagers Are Really Doing On Facebook
Author: Dave Adams
Chatting. And little else, even among the obsessed. That isn’t news advertisers want to hear.
Via: Facebook.com
Of all the social media sites, Facebook is the one 15-year-old Miki spends the most time on. She has 657 friends, and frequently checks with them through the app on her phone; she’s on Facebook at least an hour a day. Signing up for Facebook was one of her seventh-grade graduation presents.
She is Facebook's ideal customer: young, well connected, and as a student at one of Manhattan's elite private schools, a great demographic for advertisers.
But if you look at her page, it's surprisingly empty. Friends tag her in photos (she has 386) and write on her wall, but she has only posted twice on her page since February.
Miki, like a number of teenagers whom BuzzFeed has interviewed, is using Facebook almost exclusively as a instant-messaging platform. “Messaging is pretty much the main reason I go on,” she says. “I don't go scrolling through the News Feed.”
“I don't post statuses anymore,” says another girl, a 14-year-old in the Bay Area, who nonetheless says she's “addicted” to Facebook. She spends a cumulative four hours a day on the site. It is the first page she goes to when she turns on her computer, and the last one she checks at night before bed.
“I don't want to be that person you see with hundreds of [posts on] News Feeds,” she says.
Facebook's own numbers suggest that messaging on the service is increasing overall. The company doesn't break down numbers by age, but there are more than 10 billion messages sent each day on Facebook — many through its apps. There are four times as many mobile Facebook messages sent each day at the beginning of this year compared with 2012.
But Facebook's pitch to investors depends largely on the News Feed and its app ecosystem, where ad placement possibilities are obvious. By contrast, instant messaging is a revenue black hole. If teenagers are an indicator of where Facebook users are headed — or if this is indicative of a larger trend — Facebook might be facing a serious problem.
Facebook is doing what it can to embrace messaging; users are users, after all. With Home on Android, Facebook is attempting to put chat in the middle of everything, with “Chat Heads” that follow you everywhere (the initial response to Home, however, wasn't promising). On iOS, Chat Heads are at the center of Facebook's app but close when the app closes — a limitation of iOS.
In any case, this is a user behavior Facebook is going to need to adapt to, or risk losing its most valuable users. Users who say things like this: “I post on a friend's wall to say 'Happy birthday,' but that's pretty much it. I think it is really annoying when people post and have long talks.”
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Chemical weapons likely used in Syria, UN says
Author: Dave Adams
Investigators at the United Nations today announced that chemical weapons were likely used in Syria earlier this year, though it remains unclear whether they were deployed by President Bashar al-Assad or the opposition groups looking to depose him. The UN detailed its findings in a 29-page report examining four chemical attacks allegedly staged in March and April.
Human rights investigators conducted more than 400 interviews with refugees, nurses, and victims in affected areas, with most witnesses alleging that the weapons were used by Assad’s army. Assad and rebel leaders have accused each other of using chemical agents, which US President Barack Obama has publicly described as a “red line” that could trigger American intervention. In…
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Mad genius Rickrolls and crashes Vine with full-length music video embed
Author: Dave Adams
Web developer Will Smidlein managed to bypass the six-second upload limit on Vine today, inserting the entirety of Rick Astley’s immortal “Never Gonna Give You Up” into a post that was ultimately taken down by Twitter. “I think I broke Vine,” Smidlein tweeted, along with the full embed of the song. He previously tweeted that Twitter engineers had asked him to take the post down.
The first ever Rickroll on Vine occurred the same day that the app became available for Android. Smidlein, 16, declined to say in detail how he got around Vine’s upload limitations. But he’s not the first to do so: as noted by TechCrunch, in March, the blog OneSoneX described a technique that involves uploading from the camera roll of a jailbroken iPhone….
