At its event at Facebook’s new headquarters on Tuesday, the company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced Graph Search, a new social search engine that aimed at competing with other search engines on the market today, leveraging Facebook’s already vast knowledge of its members.
Android has no shortage of apps and tools for a variety of purposes, and it might not be incorrect to say that the platform from Google, just like Apple’s iOS, can now boast “there’s an app for that” without being able to prove it. As a matter of fact, there are certain facets where Android has apps that iOS couldn’t even dream of – or at least the way how these apps function. Want some examples? How about keyboards? Android has plenty of very capable contenders, whereas in iOS, you cannot modify that unless you’re jailbroken. Then, how about replacement messaging application? Go SMS Pro has been a favorite among Android users for a long time now, and then certain manufacturers (like Sony & HTC) have their own custom messaging apps that are pretty useful and aesthetically pleasing. You don’t get that on iOS, and it’s unlikely that you ever would.
Ingenious modders have turned LG's Optimus G into a fully fledged Nexus 7, complete with a broken LTE chip, and have released the mod into the wild.
The three major mobile operating systems are all very advanced, but they are certainly far from perfect, and still lack some quite standard features many users would like to see. The ability to block calls and text at will, for instance, is something we shouldn't have to request or pine for - it should just be there - however, developer Cristiano Tagliamonte has come through with a noteworthy solution in the form of an app called Sanity.
The continuing reports and speculation surrounding the possibility of Apple releasing a budget iPhone suggests that even a denial from Phil Schiller can't seem to derail the iPhone rumor train. It has been widely speculated in the last few days that Apple intends to appeal to emerging markets and territories like Latin America with the release of a budget iPhone during 2013, with the latest reports suggesting that the company could save money on a phone of this nature by manufacturing it with a plastic outer shell and only including metal parts where necessary.
When the retail version of Windows 8 was released back in October last year, it brought a lot of improvements over all the earlier versions, despite the fact that a lot of people didn’t seem very happy with it. The new Modern UI, along with its ability to launch apps much faster, the improved copy/move dialog box, the new task manager with a plethora of new options, and the Charms bar, for instance, are just some examples to name, among many others. However, not all features (or lack thereof) could really be considered as improvements. I can understand the grudge that some people hold against Microsoft for taking away the Start menu to be a matter of personal preference, but some changes were downright limiting, the top of which turns out to be the operating system’s native inability to play DVD & Blu-ray discs.
Facebook has been one of the fastest growing social networks that ever existed, even if Google+ claimed a higher growth rate (owing to the fact that every Gmail user was potentially a user of Google+, but that’s a separate debate). One of the reasons Facebook has been massively and addictively popular, apart from the feature set that it brought to the social networking table, was the fact that the company has some of the best iOS apps out there, offering a smooth and near-perfect experience on the go. Be it Facebook’s official app, the Camera app, the Pages app, or the Messenger app, you can expect high quality and polish from the Palo Alto company.
Despite the defiant claims of the major smartphone companies that they're not copying each other (despite litigation finding evidence to the contrary), there's little doubt that the market's handsets - by and large - tend to follow the trends of one another. One feature that seems to have unfortunately died out, is the once-popular BlackBerry / Nokia LED notification light. Particularly useful if you find even the vibrating alert to be a tad obtrusive, it allows your device to communicate a notification without any sound whatsoever. While the OEMs appear to be neglecting a feature many of us would like to see return, the commendable work of those over at XDA-Developers has lead to something of a solution in the form of ButtonLED, which turns your hardware button into a makeshift notification light.
Call of Duty: Black Ops II may have been the biggest selling title since, well, Modern Warfare III, but Activision hasn't gotten to the top of the gaming tree by resting on its laurels. As such, the publisher will be releasing a DLC pack at the end of this month for those rocking Microsoft's Xbox 360 console, and as you can probably gather, it features numerous new maps, modes and weapons in order to maintain the seemingly infallible captivation gamers have with the rampant CoD series.
Top Gun has withstood the test of time, and despite having released in the 1980's, is still revered is a classic movie. It took a relatively little-known actor in Tom Cruise and helped make him the household name he is today, entertaining millions along the way. Now, Top Gun is set for a dramatic return to the Big Screen for six days only, but this is no ordinary re-run, since the classic theatrical will burst from obscurity in three wondrous dimensions.
