As promised, Canonical has delivered its Ubuntu Touch Developer Preview to a bunch of Nexus smartphones and tablets. In the same week that also saw the announcement of a version tailored specifically for tablets, Canonical really seems intent on driving its easy-to-use Linux flavor to both of the mobile realms, and if you've a spare Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4, Nexus 7 or Nexus 10 lying around (plus, a little know-how), then you can now get started with the Ubuntu Touch Developer Preview.
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There's scarcely an industry within the digital spectrum that Google hasn't tried its hand at, and having made a decent start to its notebook ventures with a fleet of Chromebook machines, the Mountain View company is looking to step things up a notch or two. This is according to the Wall Street Journal, which states the search giant is planning to release Chromebooks later this year with touchscreen panels, and after several reports singing a similar tune, it's looking increasingly likely that the Big G does have something up its sleeve.
Finally, after all the fanfare, Sony put all of the PS4 rumors to rest with the official announcement a short while ago, and if you're looking for the when, where, and what, we'll be clarifying all of the available key details in the following post. With so many new features and implementations, it is a lot to digest, but stay tuned for the full round-up after the break.
Sony just took to the stage to announce their much-awaited next-gen console; the PlayStation 4 and its accompanying new controller; the DualShock 4.
Instagram has been nothing short of a revelation in its short lifespan. What started out as an app for iPhone now spans multiple devices and platforms, and having been purchased by Facebook last year for an eye-watering one billion dollars, its rise is quite rightly seen as landmark achievement. The app itself however, which allows users to take, edit, share and comment on photos, is certainly not as feature-rich as some would like, and the lack of ability to save photos - as one can on the Web - is certainly a limitation. It's not the be-all, end-all of the Instagram experience, yet is still kind of annoying, but much like the new-found ability to copy text from the Facebook News Feed, a tweak for jailbroken iPhones has been developed to facilitate the saving of Instagram photos from your News Feed directly to the device's camera roll.
The highly-anticipated launch of the PlayStation 4 is almost upon us, but it serves as just a mere chapter in what promises to be an explosive battle between the major next-gen consoles this year. Also purported for announcement at some point in 2013 is the successor to the Xbox 360, and although much of the rumor and speculation thus far has encircled the console itself, the changes made to the current Kinect peripheral will also be important in determining the overall success of the console, dubbed the 'Xbox 720'. VGleaks, a site which always seems to have the scoop on forthcoming console info, has delivered once more with a detailed list of what it purports to be the specs of the so-called Kinect 2.0.
As smartphones have gotten better and more powerful, this has naturally had a knock-on effect with regards to battery life. The designers of the high-end handsets have had to think long and hard about how to keep the increasingly demanding feature set as juiced-up as possible, and although there have been some improvements from the early days of iOS and Android, devices seldom hold up beyond a day of moderate to high use. Chip maker Qualcomm, which develops processors for a fleet of Android and Windows Phone devices, has developed an app by the name of BatteryGuru which, it claims, will extend battery performance. As well as better battery retention, the app, which is still in beta, also purports to "improve overall user experience by intelligently making changes that optimize Snapdragon device functionality."
SwiftKey has, for quite a while now, been making the process of typing on an Android a great deal easier, and with the self-proclaimed "best selling Android app of 2012" continuing to be adopted by millions of users of Google's mobile OS worldwide, the developer has just pushed version 4 out to the Play Store after keeping it in beta for a while.
Microsoft has been preparing its Windows Blue updates for quite a while now, and screenshots of some of the latest developments have begun to emerge via several sites dedicated to the Redmond company's flagship operating system. The screenies reveal two different builds of what is referred to internally as Windows Blue, and although build numbers are unconfirmed, TheVerge has learned that Microsoft recently pushed its NT kernel up to 6.3.
The long-awaited release of iTunes 11 ran fairly smoothly for Apple towards the close of last year, and although the completely overhauled UI does take a bit of getting used to, it would seem as though the vast majority of users have now managed to adapt. Following on from the hurried release of iTunes 11.0.1 to alleviate a bunch of teething issues back in December, Apple has just released iTunes 11.0.2 which, among a bunch of bug fixes, also adds a new Composer view, and improves playlist responses.
