The consumer technology industry is ever-changing and we have seen companies make some radical and rather risky decisions in the past in an attempt to get ahead of the game, sometimes you just have to sit back in amazement and rub your eyes a few times to make sure that what you are actually reading is accurate and not some kind of on-screen word play trickery. For me, this is one of those times, as reports are suggesting that Dr. Dre's Beats company has its eye on some serious expansion in the near future and could be set to launch an all out marketplace assault on the world’s most valuable company, Apple.
Samsung registered the name Galaxy Camera earlier this year, and ever since, the rumor mill has been abuzz with speculation of the Korean company offering an Android-based camera. Today at IFA, the Galaxy Camera has finally been unveiled to the public, and the device - which looks conspicuously similar to the Galaxy S III - certainly packs in a decent punch.
When it comes to satellite navigation systems and software, TomTom is among the most reputable, and although there has been an iPhone TomTom app for a good couple of years now, those running Google's Android mobile operating system have been left out in the cold.
It doesn't seem to matter where you turn at the minute, it seems pretty much impossible to get away from the Apple vs. Samsung patent trial that has been going on over the last few weeks in a San Jose courtroom. The main trial has come to an end with Apple notching up a pretty astronomical win over their Korean rivals, but even though the overseeing jury have reached and announced their final verdict, it doesn't mean the final word has been spoken on the matter. Additional courtroom dates have already been set for Samsung to attempt to have the injunction on their Galaxy Tab 10.1 overturned, as well as a date in early December for Apple to ask for eight Samsung handsets to be removed from sale.
Apple products are among the most frequently-plagiarized across the world, and even though the next-generation iPhone is yet to be announced, the knocker-offers are already hard at work creating devices similar to the upcoming smartphone.
Microsoft's SkyDrive cloud service has been knocking around for a while now, and having been given a native iOS app a couple of months back, it has now arrived - fashionably late as with most apps - over at the Google Play Store.
Users’ data and how it’s compromised to malicious sources is improving at a very fast pace today, but the way we set our passwords and log in to services is still very much stuck in the past. The general assumption is still the same: that the complexity of a password (multiple unique symbols, numbers, upper and lower case letters) is proportional to its security. Password guessing algorithms now take these patterns (using ‘@’ instead of ‘a’, randomly capitalizing letters etc.) into consideration and this means we need to change the way we set our passwords, perhaps even add an extra layer of authentication when signing into online services.
A new report claims that both iOS and Android smartphones are currently outpacing any previous consumer technology, with worldwide sales driving huge user adoption. A quick glance at any social network, technology blog or even the man in the street will show that smartphones are big business and gaining traction rapidly. Everyone seems to have either an iPhone or an Android phone these days, and mobile analytic firm Flurry has done what it does best - take a lot of numbers and extrapolate them into an interesting collection of facts.
Were you wondering where the Apple vs. Samsung patent battle would turn next? Now you know, with the news that a hardware ban is firmly within the Cupertino firm's sights. Fresh on the heals of winning a tasty victory in the courts on Friday, Apple has today named the eight Samsung smartphones which it hopes those same courts will ban from sale in the United States.
Nobody truly knows everything that goes on behind the closed doors at companies like Apple and Samsung, even though they have been forced to expose more than they would like in the last few weeks with a lot of their inner workings coming out during the recent patent trial in San Jose, it's unlikely that we ever will have a full understanding of the design and development process that goes on internally when designing a new product.
