Leaks are becoming part and parcel of any big smartphone release these days, and it’s becoming increasingly rare that a new handset is announced without at least the main talking points already out in the public domain. The iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c suffered such a fate, and it's starting to look like the unannounced Nexus 5 from Google and LG may suffer a very similar fate.
Long gone are the days when portable gaming was a matter of only Game Boy and PlayStation Portable, owing to the power houses that smartphones have become. Be it iOS and Android, both platforms and the devices running them back with solid enough hardware to give a satisfactory, serious gaming experience no matter where you are. That being said, certain gaming titles on both platforms are more coveted than others, and Plants vs. Zombies 2 is one of them. Plants vs. Zombies 2 for iOS was released to the joy of users worldwide, but Android users were left waiting. Then, last week, we brought you news that Plant vs. Zombies 2 was available finally on Android only for users based in China. Now, it seems, EA has finally brought it for everyone out there sporting an Android device.
When Google, sorry, Motorola announced the Moto X, the smartphone maker lauded its software enhancements almost as much as some of the people who got to play with it did. Active Notifications were perhaps top of the list of new software features that caught our attention, but the Moto X's touchless controls were probably a close second.
Well, that’s odd (and quite unprecedented). Seems like not only there is an Android 4.3.1 build in existence, but it’s polished enough that it has started rolling out to customers over the air, as well.
Apple's iPhone 5s, as is so often the case with new, flagship smartphones launched by the Cupertino company, brought quite a few new and exciting features unprecedented in the mainstream smartphone market, and as well as being the first to include a 64-bit processor, the aluminum-clad handset's 'Touch ID' fingerprint sensor is also the first of its kind. Now The FIDO Alliance, a cluster of almost fifty companies pooling ideas on an eventual successor to the traditional password, reckons that Android devices could soon start to see something similar to Touch ID in as little as six months.
When it comes to gaming on mobile devices, there are now simply hundreds of thousands of options, and whether you like casual titles like Tiny Wings, or something more high-end such as Infinity Blade, both the App Store and Google's Play Store are like treasure troves packed to the gills with new and exciting content. Transport Tycoon is a fairly eagerly awaited title for the main two ecosystems, and if the thought of building up your own transportation empire really takes your fancy, then you'll be stoked to learn that it is now available to download for both iOS and Android. Details, as well as those download links, can be found right after the leap!
One of the major arguments against large-displaying "phablet" devices, which take the features of a smartphone and combine them with a slate-like form factor, is that they are incredibly hard to function with just one hand. The new Samsung Galaxy Note 3, which packs a mammoth 5.7-inch display, is one such handset, but for those struggling to use their shiny new Note 3 without using both hands or getting some kind of repetitive strain injury on one, Samsung has thrown in a neat little feature that scales down the display.
Just yesterday, a little digging by Ars Technica revealed that Samsung had rigged its Galaxy Note 3 device for benchmark tests in order to make it appear as though it performed at higher levels than it did. But while Samsung may have born the brunt of the criticism - not less since, this has happened before with the International Galaxy S4 - the problem doesn't begin and end with the South Korean company. Nope; as it transpires, many of the market's well-respected vendors like to, shall we say fine tune certain aspects of a device's make-up to reflect favorably when those benchmark apps are running, and the fully classified list, as collated by AnandTech, makes for very interesting reading.
It's well known that Samsung has a pretty sizeable budget for purpose of marketing and advertising, and with the Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy Gear smartwatch having recently been announced and subsequently released worldwide, the Korean outfit will doubtlessly be putting some of that vast wad to good use. The ball is already rolling with the first major ad for these two major releases, and in a break from convention, features some strange, borderline creepy puppets. Check it out after the break!
As soon as a new mobile device hits the market and even before, statisticians keenly run the hardware through a series of benchmark tests, which offer a fairly accurate idea of the general overall performance. In the past, we've seen evidence of Samsung rigging the International Galaxy S4's GPU to perform better when running these apps, and now, the folks of Ars Technica have concluded beyond doubt that the Korean company has been up to its tricks again with the Galaxy Note 3.
