CES always kicks the tech calendar off with a bang, and having already seen Pebble's Steel smartwatch, Samsung's curved television sets and other such niceties, Sony has come through with its own interesting product for the mobile scene. After a successful launch of the PlayStation 4, the Japanese company has refocused its attention on its smartphone endeavors, and the Xperia Z1 Compact is a device that brings typical high-end features and hardware, but on a smaller scale than the Xperia Z1.
CES is officially now in top gear and we can say that with supreme confidence now that we've had the obligatory onslaught of new tablets. What we perhaps didn't quite expect though was that so many of those new slate machines would happen to all have the same manufacturer's logo on the back. Introducing Samsung's four (4!) new tablets.
History has shown us time and time again that the companies who often provide the best products and solutions are the ones that have experience within the field and industry that they are trying to penetrate. Of course, this isn't always the case, but it definitely does help to have an intricate knowledge of the industry your product is going to be launched in. The OpenWays Group, a company specializing in providing smartphone based door locks to hotels, has extended its range of locking solutions by introducing the OKIDOKEYS, a new smart lock spin off that it hopes will capture a significant portion of the consumer section of the industry.
The Consumer Electronics Show (CES), held annually in Las Vegas, Nevada, has always been an arena for companies to showcase their latest and greatest products. Some use it as an opportunity to introduce periodical updates to existing consumer tech, whereas others seize the chance to introduce a whole new product to what is essentially a captive technology loving audience.
Snapchat's little security snafu has made quite the splash over the last day or two. The photo-based social messaging service has grown so popular that even mainstream media outlets have been frothing at the mouth about the hack that has seen 4.6 million users have their usernames and mobile phone numbers stolen and subsequently leaked on the Internet. It's certainly not Snapchat's proudest moment.
The creators, designers and developers behind the Pebble Smartwatch have already managed to propel the intelligent wrist wear to the top of the wearable technology charts. After gaining life through an insanely successful Kickstarter campaign, Pebble has gone from strength-to-strength and managed to see out the end of 2013 in style with a plethora of improvement announcements as well as a developer facing SDK upgrade. To most companies that would seem like enough, but Pebble is keen to keep striking when the iron is hot with an official press release announcing that they will be bringing "something special" to this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
There have been more than enough rumors around the Galaxy S5 already, and perhaps an equal number of reports have also surfaced dispelling all those rumors (not to mention dampening our hopes), but what kind of rumor mill would it be if it stopped already. Despite the claims that Samsung will play it safe with the upcoming and highlight-anticipated Galaxy S5, a new report from iNews24 makes it seem that the Korean manufacturer might actually be looking to toss in a few fresh ideas for its latest flagship Android smartphone when it gets launched in March (reportedly).
What is next in the technology arena? Cameras, of course, and boy, have there been some remarkable improvements in that domain. The trend, however, is still on the up side, with Samsung unveiling two more contenders today in the form of Galaxy Camera 2 and the NX30.
Android Gingerbread 2.3 seems a long time ago, and indeed, in terms of progress, it was. It was the last major smartphone only-release before it joined forces with Honeycomb to bring Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, and while this unified release did offer a plethora of new features, it also took a fair few away. The ability to sync contacts with Facebook was one of them, and although this decision was probably a win for overall security and privacy, many did find it rather useful. Never the kind to leave Android users bereft, the folks of XDA-Developers have brought the feature back from the dead, and you can catch the details after the fold.
It's never great to start off the beginning of a new year shrouded in controversy and having to deal with a public relations nightmare, but that's exactly the position which Snapchat finds itself in. The company behind the photo messaging app has confirmed that the app’s user database has indeed been comprised. The news itself is quite daunting, but the situation is further compounded by the fact that the details of more than 4.6 million accounts have been posted online by those who compromised the company's infrastructure.
