Last year's battle of the smartphones was all about Apple and Samsung, with the iPhone 5 and Galaxy S III proving to be the handsets of choice for a large percentage of consumers. Things aren't showing any signs of being different this year, as most of the chatter has once again been centered around when Apple will announce the next-generation iPhone and when Samsung will lift the lid of the specifications of the mysterious Galaxy S IV. The latest information leak across the web suggests that Samsung will strike first blood by holding a dedicated media event on March 22nd to discuss the next Galaxy S device in the 100 million selling series.
If you have been hoping to pick up a Microsoft Surface Pro this month as your late Christmas present, you may be disappointed, since the shipping date has been pushed back slightly, to February 9th, in both the United States and Canada, along with several accessories to please anybody’s ‘wants’ and ‘needs’.
Despite being a paid service in a sea of free alternatives, Microsoft's Xbox LIVE remains the most popular online hub of all the high-end consoles. At $60 for a year's service, it offers fairly good value for money, and for a very limited time, you can get a twelve-month subscription for just $35.
Mozilla has been grabbing any opportunity possible to show off their Firefox OS software, but there has been a notable lack of any kind of hardware associated with the new HTML5 powered firmware. Would-be developers for the new operating system have been able to get access to the software for quite some time but have had to rely on their own abilities to load Firefox OS onto their own devices in order to test their apps and services effectively.
It has been several years since the Xbox 360 released in a hail of glory, and with its life cycle now coming to an end, we've to contend with an almost weekly barrage of rumors and speculation with regards to its successor. According to the latest specs leak, the next-gen Xbox will be a real powerhouse, featuring an 8-core x64 CPU running at 1.6Ghz, 8GB of DDR3, USB 3.0 - get this - a 50GB 6x Blu-ray Disc drive. More (potentially outlandish) rumored specs after the jump!
Google's Nexus 10 tablet has hit the ground running in tablet space, with the majority of consumers and reviewers giving it the proverbial seal of approval. It features a dual core Exynos 5 processor to keep things ticking over, and while, all told, it does a fairly good job in doing so, it does struggle to cope with the 2560×1600 display. At a time when quad-core processors are ever becoming the norm, it has been suggested that Google may be planning to slap the revered tablet with a quad-core SoC later on this year.
The majority of the smartphone world keenly awaits the release of BlackBerry 10 and its associated devices. Perhaps not with the kind of excitement it once might have, it has to be said, but out of respect for the power the brand used to possess, it's hard to ignore the traction Research in Motion has managed to gain over the past year or so. To give us an idea of how far BlackBerry has come its quest to reestablish itself, one German site has compared the BlackBerry Z10 with the iPhone 5, and you may be surprised by the results. Details after the break.
Samsung fans have plenty to look forward to this side of the summer, and the Korean company's Vice President has stepped out and confirmed the Galaxy Note 8.0 is to be unveiled at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2013, which commences from 25th February. Perhaps the biggest date in the tech calendar besides CES, we'll be seeing plenty of new and exciting mobile gadgetry at the big event in little over a month, and although the Galaxy S IV will not be rearing its head late next month, Samsung's VP JK Shin has noted it will be arriving 'soon'.
With Microsoft making the announcement that they would be closing down the Windows Live Messenger platform and recently confirming that closure date; there will undoubtedly be a lot more attention paid to Skype. Windows Live Messenger users will automatically have their accounts migrated across to Skype to allow them to simply download the software, log in and begin sending IMs, making video and audio calls to their contacts.
With age and adulthood comes additional responsibilities, and although very few of us actually like or enjoy going about our daily chores, we all generally understand that they have to be done. Some households may have large families living in them and find it difficult to delegate individual chores to individual family members. Alternatively, it could just be a lone person who has difficulty remembering what needs to be done on any given day. Regardless of the situation, the Chorma iPhone app by Stephen Bennett could put a little sanity into that ever-expanding task list.
