Of all the new year's resolutions people make to themselves, the one that's promised most commonly to oneself is that of improving health and fitness. Whether it's improved diet, more exercise, or a combination of the two, most of us will have pledged to make a beneficial change to our lives. New year, new start, and all that jazz. Well, for the 2012-13 changeover, you'll have added incentive thanks to the Xbox 360 Nike+ Kinect Training Bundle, which will officially become available to download on Xbox Live on December 25th.
It has always been a subject of curiosity as to why Facebook decided to make its Messenger feature a separate entity on mobile devices. The fact the version 1.0 of Facebook Messenger was riddled to the core with bugs certainly didn't help, but while many had seen the move to separate the two as merely arbitrary or for purpose of vanity, it appears there is, after all, some method to the madness. The Android department of the Facebook Messenger app will soon be releasing an update fairly soon to users in select countries, and intriguingly, it will no longer require users to own an account to log in and get chatting. A direct challenge to the likes of WhatsApp and the traditional SMS app? We think so.
Amongst all smartphone platforms, Android holds a certain appeal to power users. This is because none of its competitors offers the level of control and customization for that technologically elite crowd that Android puts on the table. From cooking custom ROMs based on a stock one, to concocting an entirely new mix from AOSP, to the likes of hybrid creations like the famous ParanoidAndroid series, which has now extended to a large number of devices, there’s always something for everyone in Google’s mobile operating system. Then, there’s that other kind of control – the one that lets the user play around with things like battery longevity, and factors associated with it. Among those, control over CPU is of great importance. Why? Because next to the screen, there’s nothing as bad as an over-hungry CPU drinking through your battery juice in a matter of mere hours. Don’t believe me? Ask someone who’s faced the recent bug with CM10, where the device didn’t go into deep sleep!
The Samsung Galaxy S III may only have been around for half of this year, but the focus has now well and truly turned to its eventual predecessor. The past couple of weeks have seen a notable spike in Galaxy S IV rumors and general coverage, and although much of it has been conflicting, we've seen some very interesting tidbits of information. The status of the Galaxy S brand certainly justifies the excitement building up, and in the latest revelation, it would seem recently-leaked handset - codenamed "Project J" - is going to be arriving circa April 2013.
The iPhone is an accomplished example of polished engineering, but as with all great devices, it's far from perfect. Like many of the large mobile vendors, Apple drip-feeds the features by year, so while the general consumer response is one of positivity - Apple's customer satisfaction regularly scores highest in most fields - it's not like there aren't features out there we still crave. The style of build with any Cupertino device - particularly the iPhone - tends to make hardware modification or upgrade a no-no, but the folk of Photojojo have once again come through with their intuitive wrist strap for the latest and greatest Apple smartphone.
Rockstar Games' iconic Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is ten years old would you believe, and to commemorate the release, the game developer is pushing a reworked version out to those wielding the popular mobile devices. Both iOS and Android will be getting a taste of Vice City on their smartphones and tablets this holiday, and with the release date just days away now, Rockstar has done what it so frequently does, and released some screenshots.
A new Facebook app? Does it really deserve a mention? What’s so special about it? Why should I consider recommending it to my readers? What does it have to offer that current ones don’t? These, and some more, are generally the questions I ask myself whenever I come across a new client for any platform – iOS, Android, Windows, or anything else – for the social networking giant. There are some obvious reasons for that. Being the largest social network on the planet, Facebook has no shortage of client apps – both official and third-party – for any platform. Some of these, like the one for iOS, are really functional and decent, while others are catching up pretty rapidly, and the Android counterpart is no exception. With all of that, a new player like oStream does make one raise eyebrows. However, after my run with the unofficial Facebook client for Android, I was pretty impressed, and satisfied enough to recommend it for your downloading pleasure.
Scarcely does a product get hyped and lauded more so than does a PC game release, and although the upcoming Crysis 3 will be launching on both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, it's the PC gamers that would consider themselves the most hardcore. In preparation for the title, which is powered by that Crytek CryEngine3, gamers have been bracing themselves for the inevitable spec requirement bump, and with Electronic Arts having just released the details of what kinds of standards your rig will need to meet, let's just say you'll definitely need to put mommy's Compaq to one side for this one.
In an official press statement released today, Apple has announced that the sixth-generation iPhone - known around the by its official name, the iPhone 5 - will be released to the South Korean market this coming Friday along with 50 additional markets going forward. Apple originally released the elongated smartphone on September 21st to the first batch of territories with subsequent releases hitting a number of other countries on September 28th and November 2nd. With the handset shifting over two million units in the first twenty-four hours of pre-orders going live, and five million units during the opening weekend, it's likely that the device will be positively received in new territories.
Whenever Apple release a new Mac or revamp their iOS device line-up with a new iPhone, iPod touch or iPad, it has become a tradition for the iFixit team to get their hands on the new hardware and deconstruct it bit-by-bit to take a look at the engineering that has gone into manufacturing the device and the individual components under the hood. The latest hardware to hit our shelves is the redesigned 21.5-inch iMac that landed last Friday, and as always the corresponding teardown reveals, the inner beauty of the machine as well as some rather bleak news for those who love to tinker with their hardware.
