Brian Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp Messenger, is naturally among the headlines today after Facebook acquired the instant messaging service for the colossal sum of $19 billion. But what make's Acton's story particularly interesting is not just the mere fact that he, along with another former Yahoo employee, created perhaps the most high-profile service to be bought-out in tech history, but in an ironic twist, was rejected when applying for several jobs at major firms - including Facebook.
If you leave your phone lying around, the chances are, somebody's going to tamper with it, and although adding a passcode lock can resolve this issue, this is a rather extreme measure if, for example, you just wish to prevent your apps from being moved or deleted. In this instance, IconLock7 has you covered, allowing you to set a password which pops up whenever an attempt is made to move or delete an app.
Most music players, including smartphones, will automatically pause music or video when the headphones or speakers are disconnected. Not only does this mean that we get to keep our place in the song / movie / TV show if the headphone plug is accidentally yanked from the jack, but can also save those precious droplets of battery. What our treasured devices don't do, however, is pause music when the volume is on zero, and while you could watch a video without sound, the same cannot be said for audio. A handy new tweak by the name of AutoPause does exactly as it purports, automatically pausing your music when you turn the volume right down to mute.
Microsoft made a pretty big thing about its rebranding of SkyDrive to the new OneDrive name yesterday, and to try and drum up as much buzz as possible for the old-new service, the Redmond outfit offered a free 100GB of cloud storage to the first 100,000 people to sign into OneDrive.com. Obviously that offer didn't take too long to be exhausted, with news of the offer spreading around the Internet like wildfire.
Facebook has just made waves in the tech world by announcing that it is to purchase the popular WhatsApp Messenger for an eye-watering $16 billion. The huge sum, which will comprise of $12 billion in stocks and $4 billion in cold, hard cash, just made the news by means of a press release, and although we've witnessed many high-profile tech acquisitions over the past few years, this is easily the most astonishing.
As a user of both iOS and Android-based devices, there are certain elements of each interface that I admire, and while the iOS lock screen is a lot prettier than it used to be, I still prefer the appearance of stock Jelly Bean's. As such, I was enthused to learn that the JellyLock tweak, which brings that native Android Jelly Bean interface to iOS, had recently been updated for iOS 7.
Google Glass is still very much in its infancy, but that hasn't stopped plenty of people from getting excited about the first wearable technology that lives on your face. Google Glass Explorers were the first to get the opportunity to buy Glass, and with that program constantly opening up to more and more people, there has inevitably been one or two flash-points in which those donning Google's eyewear have found themselves singled out. Google's set about making sure Glass wearers don't make themselves easy targets for such things, and it's posted a handy list of Do's and Don'ts for people to follow.
You might have been forgiven for completely forgetting about the existence of Doom 4. In fact, for a long time, it seemed like the title had even slipped the mind of publisher Bethesda Softworks, but now - almost six years after Doom 4 was first announced - it's back, and will be releasing in beta at some point later this year.
A new flagship device is almost invariably exciting if you’re a tech junkie, and we all at Redmond Pie surely are, even if we don’t plan on getting our hands on every new device that sees the light of day. Yesterday, we brought to you news of HTC One’s successor - a device that has so far been recognized only by its codename, M8 - being leaked in high-quality press images courtesy of the reliable leakster Evleaks, and today, another image has surfaced, thanks to the same source.
Windows Phone 8.1 is due to hit the scene very soon, and judging by the recent spate of leaks and information regarding the software update, we have some significant improvements to look forward to. Following on from yesterday's report that a revamped, Swype-like keyboard would offer dramatic improvements as far as typing is concerned, the new notification center, dubbed 'Action Center,' has been given a video demonstration.
