Beats By Dr. Dre is a brand everybody now recognizes. Some argue the audio equipment endorsed and partially designed by the hip-hop legend is overpriced, gimmicky, and inferior to similar products offered by rivaling companies. Although it's certainly laughable to see certain folks pay upward of $300 for headphones without knowing how to properly encode music (or indeed, what encoding even means), you have to hand it to Beats for its marketing strength.
Now that Apple has officially sent out event invites for the predicted media event on October 23rd, we can be rest assured that Tim Cook and his executive team are planning on introducing us to the miniature iPad that has been so heavily speculated on over the last few months. As the company gears up to present their new mid-range tablet to the world; it looks like they also have one eye on the next major iPad release coming in 2013. According to new reports that have surfaced today; Apple has already been in contact with parts and components suppliers regarding the next version of the 9.7-inch iPad.
With the prices of the Microsoft Surface finally having leaked into the wild earlier, it seemed pretty inevitable pre-orders wouldn't be far behind, and that has wound up being the case today. If you've been saving your next tablet purchase until the grand launch of the software maker's tablet-plus-ultrabook, you'll be pleased to know that you can now pre-order your very own.
At the beginning of this month, it was presumed the iPad Mini would be announced on October 17th, with invitations going out a week prior on the 10th. That hasn't turned out to be the case, but tech enthusiasts remain defiantly undeterred - predicting Apple's announcement instead for next week. As well as corroborating the notion of a launch next week, AppleInsider has learned the smaller iPad will arrive in four storage configurations ranging from an entry-level 8GB all the way up to 64GB.
After going through a period of public beta testing, Microsoft has started to officially rollout the planned changes to their Xbox LIVE service. As is usually the case with large scale changes like the ones being pushed to the LIVE service, the updates will be gradual and will start to be noticeable to different members in different territories over the next seven days.
We all remember when Microsoft held a rather mysterious event that brought us the initial announcement and showcasing of the gorgeous looking Surface tablet. Microsoft managed to create something that we couldn't wait to get our hands on and try out, but unfortunately, the lines of communication seemed to stop with more information only recently starting to surface thanks to the looming launch date of the hardware. As part of the run-up to the official release on October 26th, the first Microsoft Surface TV advertisement has landed on the web, and to accompany the rather awesome looking ad; Microsoft (by accident we’re assuming) has slipped out the official pricing points of the Surface RT tablet.
The next couple of weeks will undoubtedly be all about the future of Windows with the launch of Windows 8 and Microsoft's Surface tablet coming on October 26th, but this rather informative infographic gives us a chance of taking a walk down memory lane and seeing the evolution of the company's much-loved software.
I'm not sure whether it's down to the fast-moving nature of technology, or our insatiable requirement as tech enthusiasts to be presented as something new, but whenever a new product - hardware or software - hits the market, it seems no sooner do we become acquainted with our new bit of kit than we look ahead to what's coming up next. Thus, with Android Jelly Bean 4.1.2 having begun trickling out to the Samsung-manufactured Galaxy Nexus among others, it's only fair we turn our attentions to the upcoming dose of Android - 4.2 - right?
Earlier, we revealed the a 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display was likely to drop alongside the iPad Mini later this month, and to add to those two significant releases, it looks as though the Mac mini will be getting a refresh in the image of the WWDC enhancements offered to the MacBook Air and Pro ranges.
Mobile gaming has evolved in leaps and bounds over the past five or so years, and although our smartphones and tablets now offer vast libraries of titles on a scale surpassing any other platform, the likes of iOS and Android still struggle to shake off the "casual" gaming tag thanks to the high volumes of simple-yet-addictive pick-up, put-down offerings.
