The tide of the tablet market is turning. Android vendors have had a couple of years at trying to copy the iPad, and having failed, Apple’s rivals have sought new ways to compete with the Cupertino company’s market-leading device. As well as a glut of smaller tablets (to which Apple has also covered with the iPad mini), we’re also seeing a deluge of so-called “hybrid” devices – those that function both as a tablet and a notebook. The majority seem to be running on a variant of Windows 8, and due to the fledgling nature of Microsoft’s new OS, none of these tablet-notebooks have really gotten going as yet, but with so many of them set to hit the retail market this Fall, will Apple need an answer of its own?
When you're living off a franchise as big, a name as pivotal, and an anticipation level as colossal as that of Halo 4's, you expect sales figures to be pretty impressive. One of the first titles to release on the original Xbox, the Halo series has maintained its momentum, and so much so in fact, that it managed to shift an unbelievable 3.1 million units in its first day alone.
Officially set to be released next year, we can't help but get excited every time we hear little snippets of information regarding Grand Theft Auto V. The highly anticipated release in the GTA franchise has been under development for quite some time, but apart from the few teasing screenshots, promotional images released by Rockstar Games, we haven't really had a great deal to get our teeth into. GTA IV left a few hardcore fans feeling a little let down with the experience, but it certainly looks like Rockstar are back on top of their game with the latest offering.
With over one billion active users, there is no denying that Facebook is the largest social network on the planet, but if you compared the web based experience today with the experience that actually first launched with Facebook back in 2004 then it would be barely recognizable. Like any popular site or service, Facebook has evolved over time to meet increasing demand and has added - and sometimes removed - features that they believe will be beneficial to users. It seems that the latest addition to the social network could come in the form of a threaded comments system that stands a good chance of causing chaos on profiles if it gets through the user testing stage.
If you're constantly messing around and modding your device, you will undoubtedly have hit a snag or two along the way. When you have an issue, but cannot quite decipher what exactly is causing continual crashes, software malfunction or general bugs, things can become very frustrating indeed. In this instance, some - particularly developers - find logcat to be of particular help, as they help ascertain what isn't working, why it isn’t working, the steps that can be taken in order to amend the situation.
The Samsung Galaxy Note II is a very inviting device. Once you've got over the intimidation of it's phablet form factor, you can begin to enjoy some of the perks an incredibly large display brings, and the Multi Window feature of the new Samsung smartphone epitomizes the usefulness of the 5.5-inch Super AMOLED HD display.
When Microsoft first inducted itself into the tablet market by announcing the Surface earlier this year, many were torn about which configuration they'd be going for. The Redmond company revealed the Surface RT - powered by an ARM processor - would be releasing first along with the big Windows 8 launch, and so has been the case, and while many have already snapped up their Microsoft tablet and are already familiarizing themselves with Windows RT, others have held their ground, waiting for the fully-powered Surface Pro running Windows 8 and powered by Intel's Ivy Bridge chips.
When Tim Cook and his executive team introduced the new iMac as part of their most recent media event, it was the redesigned form factor and the extremely thin profile that grabbed most of the attention. Granted, the new aesthetics of the soon-to-be released iMac is quite a staggering aesthetic transformation from the currently available model, but the more technical minded consumer chose to focus on the under-the-hood announcements that came out of the event, one of which was the new Fusion Drive.
There is a little bit of a voice command battle going on at the moment in the mobile space, with Apple's digital Siri assistant and Google's Voice Search offering duking it out against one another for the affections of users. Both come with their own set of pros and cons and will only get better as we move forward into the future, but it seems that Microsoft's Research and Development teams have been working on something voice based of their own behind the scenes that could change the way humans interact with one another.
With the holiday shopping season fast approaching, it's inevitable that retailers and service providers will be falling over themselves to conjure up some seasonal deals that will entice the customers in. Yesterday, we brought information regarding Walmart's proposed Black Friday deals that will begin on Thanksgiving, and today is the turn of AT&T to get into the spirit with their tablet deals that will see the company offering a $100 discount on any purchased tablet as long as a specific criteria is met.
