The Olympic Games, held in London, England this year, will certainly be the highlight of the sporting calendar. Despite Wimbledon, EURO 2012 and many other big sporting events currently in full flow, none will quite live up to the glorious, diverse, and immensely entertaining Olympics. Living in London, the media has talked about little else over the past year, and as exciting as it is for us on a national level, most of the world will - in one event or another - be tuned in to a chunk of the coverage.
As well as taking Apple's crown as the king of the smartphone market, Samsung seems to be selling mobile phones in record numbers, having shifted an impressive 50.5 million during Q2 of 2012. This is in spite of industry analysts suggesting smartphone sales in general had hit something of a plateau - seeing its slowest growth rate for three years, and the Korean consumer electronics giant marched through to sell an incredible 566,000 smartphones per day during the last 90 days.
Throughout the constant back and forth legal bickering between Apple and Samsung lately, some interesting, formerly confidential tidbits have leaked out giving us a glimpse at some early internal iPhone prototypes. TheVerge spotted a few of them after scouring through various documents, and they're actually rather interesting. One interesting concept in particular draws a hefty deal of inspiration from one of Sony's designs, and Samsung plans to bring it up to basically tell the court that Apple, with all of their accusations, aren't holy angels in the situation either.
Seeing that we've been able to gather a few years of experience with touchscreen keyboards, they've become relatively easy to use for most, especially for simple and short search queries. However, if you want to add a more creative and personal touch to your input, you will be able to take advantage of Handwrite, which Google just announced. It's a new feature of Google's mobile search website that's actually built into the search webpage itself, so you'll be able to try this out on any touch-enabled smartphone (or tablet, for that matter.)
Apple's iPad has dominated a market it is credited with creating back in 2010, when the very first iPad slate was unveiled to a very mixed response. Some lauded it as the next best thing, while the skeptics brushed it off as merely a large iPhone, but nobody can argue it has been a huge success, one most Android vendors have tried - and failed - to emulate.
The ongoing patent infringement battle between Cupertino-based Apple and Korean born Samsung is about to come to a full swing next week when the official trial starts in which a judge will attempt to determine who exactly has infringed upon who and what the punishment will be. Apple is heading into the case in confident and jubilant mood thanks to recent judgments ruling that Samsung can't sell specific devices in the United States, but it is worth remembering that this isn't a small case with Apple looking forward to claim $2.5 billion in damages from the world’s current leading smartphone vendor.
Although we’re in the middle of an Apple related mayhem with their earnings report to Wall Street and the final release of OS X Mountain Lion to the Mac App Store, we mustn't forget what is going in other parts of the technology world. It wasn't that long ago when the Google team took to the stage during the first day of the I/O conference in San Francisco and introduced us all to the Nexus 7 and the Nexus Q hardware. In the weeks following much after the event, it seems to be the former device which is getting all of the attention, but the Nexus Q is getting its game up in the form of a dedicated app for Android devices.
Samsung's newest device, the Galaxy S III, has received a new OTA update internationally, removing the local search feature that has proved so controversial of late. Samsung has taken another step in its preemptive work to try and avoid Apple's legal juggernaut from being able to get another of the Koreans' handsets banned from sale.
Jelly Bean (4.1) is Google's latest and greatest Android release, and while many of the newer devices will be seeing (or already have seen) an OTA update of the buttery new operating system, it now appears the Samsung Galaxy S II - an oldie but goodie - will also be treated to the tasty new firmware.
As part of the ongoing court battles with Samsung, Apple is seeking to recover a whopping $2.5 billion in damages for patent infringement, as well as $30 per device sold by Samsung, according to new court filings.
