It's fair to say, with Google Glass on the horizon and the likes of the Pebble and Galaxy Gear already on the market, that we're currently in the middle of a wearable tech boom. From the Nike FuelBand to the so-called iWatch, many companies are getting in on the act, and with something a little different to bring to the table comes Smarty Ring, a digital device that wraps around your finger. With notifications, access to two different clocks, social updates, smartphone tracking capabilities and Bluetooth, as well as a 24-hour battery life, it does a great deal more than your average band, and for a fraction of the price.
China may be the location in which most Apple products are manufactured, but the iPhone has yet to make a huge mark on the country. With the iPhone 5c outlined as the first step towards making an impact on this developing market, the The Wall Street Journal suggests that China Mobile, the nation's foremost carrier by some distance, will begin taking iPhone pre-orders from 12th December. Although China's 4G network doesn't officially launch until next week on the 18th of December, it looks as though China Mobile wishes to get interested parties to commit early, and if all runs smoothly, this could be the first significant step for Apple in its quest to expand its mobile reach.
The recent wave of data breaches on a number of popular sites and Web service providers should definitely be a cause for concern to most users. Malicious attacks on the likes of Yahoo!, Facebook and Adobe should act as a catalyst for us to review our current account setup and make changes accordingly to improve the strength of passwords, even if your data wasn't amongst the batch that was compromised in any of the attacks. Microsoft Research is well aware that password strength is one of the most vital components in combating such breaches, and as such has created the Telephathwords tool to try and guess the next character of a password based on a large database and complex query patterns.
Microsoft's decision to not offer any kind of backwards compatibility with the Xbox One undoubtedly ruffled a few feathers. The decision is entirely understandable from a business perspective, but it has definitely left a bitter taste in the mouths of many users who will go to great lengths to try and "enable" compatibility with older Xbox 360 games, even if it means putting their console at risk. Larry Hryb - better known as Major Nelson to most - has taken to his official Twitter timeline to warn Xbox One users of the dangers involved in enabling the built-in developer mode on the console in the hope of playing those old games.
Tim Cook and Apple's executive team are always keen to wax lyrical about how many apps have passed through the App Store over the last five years. The majority of the company's media events heavily feature slides featuring the number of available third-party applications available and the amount of revenue that has been paid out to the developers who create and publish those apps. In the relatively short lifespan of the App Store, Apple has managed to hit, and go beyond some pretty impressive milestones. Recent data from AppsFire suggests that Apple have hit yet another notable goal by now having over one million apps live in the U.S. App Store alone.
In the video below, we pit Moto G vs Samsung Galaxy S4 in a comparison test to see which of the two smartphones offer best value-for-money.
Earlier on in the year, Google made a move which some people deemed clever, some foolish. With the expertise that comes with being one of the world's largest software companies, Google doesn’t have the best credentials when it comes to hardware production. The answer? Purchase an already existing, well thought of, manufacturer. In this case, Google purchased the then-struggling Motorola Mobility to head their mobile device production.
Losing a leader like Nelson Mandela is always a huge loss not just for his own nation, but for all of humanity on the whole. When the former South African president and national leader passed away, almost everyone paid tribute to his achievements and his life in their own way, but seeing a corporation doing that is always different and noteworthy. Cupertino tech giant Apple has honored the great leader by updating its home page with the photo of Mandela, paying homage to a giant life that was taken away from us.
Security and general privacy tends to be of paramount importance to most mobile device users, and with very good reason. But while the battle to steer clear of the unscrupulously-intended, non-niceties of the mobile world are well documented, one company obscures its potentially dangerous spying app under a veil of legitimacy.
The CyanogenMod team rarely slacks, but even by their standards, it has been a really busy past couple of weeks. Not too hectic, however, to have any major effect on the schedule it would seem, for CyanogenMod M1 has just been released, supporting most Nexus devices in the process. As we learned earlier on in the week, CyanogenMod 10.2 would be the last version supporting those old Android Jelly Bean ROMs, and in a matter of just 72 hours, the "Milestone 1" release of the Android 4.4 KitKat-based version 11 is upon us.
