Smartphones these days are not mere communication devices, and I’ve said so many times before as well. What they’ve turned into is an all-in-one solution for portable media playback, internet surfing, managing personal information, manipulating documents, spreadsheets, presentations on the go, and so much more. Not to miss out on one of the key uses that a capable smartphone is put through, is photography. The powerful camera units being mounted atop these devices nowadays have practically redefined the whole digital photography frontier, and spawned an entirely new breed of photographers who have a reasonable quality capturing unit for every moment, right there in their pockets.
Microsoft's Live Messenger chat platform had been embraced by millions of users around the globe, and over time, it benefitted from a number of design and function iterations, but the Redmond based company has now officially announced that the service will be eventually laid to rest on March 15th of this year. Messenger has been handling online conversations for the last 13 years, but it seems Microsoft is finally ready to retire the veteran platform in favor of migrating its users across to the recently updated Skype service.
For the last few years, a common story in the rumor mill has been a possible lower-cost iPhone in order to serve customers who are not able to put down hundreds of dollars on the current standard-range one. While this story has been one and off over the last 4 years, there is a new report that suggests that Apple is beginning to take this possibility quite seriously.
Netflix today announced two new high quality video streams, with one featuring a whole extra for those who just can't get enough. Netflix has almost singlehandedly put the video store out of business, and with DVD and Blu-ray disc sales always under pressure from online content distributors, the streaming media company is seeking to re-double its efforts to stay ahead of the competition.
For Linux-based operating systems, especially Android, bootloaders are more like a double-edged sword. On one hand, you’d want an unlocked one, because that will enable opening up your device to all sorts of modifications, including gaining root/super user access, but at the same time, an unlocked bootloader also means a potentially vulnerable smartphone or tablet that’s open to malicious attacks. With the amount of new apps that the Play Store gets on a daily basis, it’s also hard to figure out whether an app is truly what it claims to be, or some developer with the intent of stealing your personal information that’s unleashed a Trojan horse in the guise of an otherwise-innocent-looking application. Thus, the risk of remaining exposed stays lingering above you.
For Windows Phone users, perhaps the most useful feature you can think of is not the temperature indicator within the Weather app, or where it is displayed. However, sometimes checking the current temperature in your town before heading out might just save you the time of going back indoors and pick a different jacket. LockTemp adds a small temperature indicator straight to the bottom-right corner of your lock screen.
Imagine you have just bought a brand-new smartphone and just a few days later you spill an entire mug of coffee over it, or drop it in the sink. Generally, you’d have to beg your manufacturer’s support staff to have it replaced, but now there is a much easier and convenient option to make sure this never happens in the first place: Liquipel 2.0.
Mozilla has delivered the latest of its ongoing, sixth-weekly updates to Firefox, pushing the browser up to version 18.0. As you may expect, the company has packed in a whole bunch of new features, and while most concern the overall running and general performance of the app (read: under the hood housekeeping), there are one or two which many will notice from the get-go. Details, and info on where you can grab the new Firefox, are available after the break!
We here at Redmond Pie are always interested in innovative new ideas and gadgets that take an already fantastic piece of kit and push the boundaries by making it that little bit better. What could be better than a fully functional iPhone that comes complete with a new accessory designed to give the premium Apple device a little more power? Kickstarter is often home to designers and developers who are keen to get onto the accessory market with such trinkets, and thankfully, it hasn't let us down this time with the MAUZ smartphone attachment.
Windows Phone 8 is on the up these days accompanied by fantastic devices like the Lumia 920, but it seems to be the emerging Firefox OS that is gathering interest as a newcomer to the scene. Although extremely early builds of the operating system have been released for those daring enough to try it out, not many people have witnessed it in the flesh, that is until it appeared on a mysterious smartphone during a CES event.
