Android has long been blamed for its fragmentation issues, with many pundits pointing out to the low adoption levels of the latest distributions as the main culprit. While this problem has yet to be resolved due to the nature of the operating system, it is much improved today as the Jelly Bean branch is now powering most Android smartphones and tablets.
Based on the number of devices accessing Google Play in the seven days ending November 1, Jelly Bean's market share in the Android realm is now at a dominating 52.1 percent. Combined, its three iterations have a higher distribution level than Ice Cream Sandwich and Gingerbread put together, which is a first for the green droid landscape.
This week Google put an end to all the speculation and finally launched not only the Nexus 5 but also the new version of Android -- KitKat. There were no great surprises as there had been so many leaks prior to launch that we knew pretty much everything there was to know, but it was good have the rumors confirmed. Expect a full review in the very near future. The Nexus 5 comes with KitKat preinstalled, but it will also be available as an upgrade for a number of other handsets. As it this wasn't quite enough for Google, the company also donated 17,000 Nexus 7s to communities affected by Hurricane Sandy.
After the recent announcement, the iPad Air went on sale, and Logitech was ready with a series of cases.
When it comes to reading, I use a Kindle PaperWhite. I hate paper books with a passion -- they take up space and are obsolete. The Kindle is wonderful because it allows me to easily bookmark pages, look up definitions, and scan the book for certain words with the x-ray feature. An Amazon Prime membership enhances the Kindle experience by letting the user "borrow" a book from among 350,000 choices.
Today, Amazon announces Kindle First , a new program that gets unreleased books into the hands of readers before the official release date. This is not just a few days either, it can be up to a month early. This will give Kindle owners extreme bragging-rights in the book-club community. I can already picture pretentious people sitting in Starbucks saying "oh, that book is so last month".
PhrozenSoft’s VirusTotal Uploader has been updated to version 3.0, and there’s plenty of useful new functionality to explore.
You no longer have to launch the program as an administrator, for instance. You’ll still be able to upload most files to VirusTotal, get a verdict on whether they’re malware, and if you do run into any limitations then the program can be elevated at any time.
Mozilla has followed on from the recent release of Firefox 25.0 FINAL with the update of its two pre-release channels to Firefox 26.0 Beta 1 and Firefox Aurora 27.0a2 respectively.
Like version 25, version 26 has little in the way of visible new features other than that all plug-ins now default to "click to play" mode. Version 27 has no brand new features either, although some features -- notably optimized Windows 8 support -- remain exclusive to this build.
Resplendence Software’s PC crash analysis tool WhoCrashed has been updated to version 5.0.
The big news in this release is that the program now runs properly on Windows 8.1. If your new system has a blue-screen crash, run the program, click Analyze and it’ll try to identify the cause for you. The crash report includes new hardware information, including system manufacturer and motherboard name.
Yesterday Google, after much teasing, made available both the Nexus 5 and Android 4.4, known as KitKat. The device seems to be an early hit as both the black and white 32 GB versions, as well as the white 16 GB model are now listing as two-to-three weeks away from being available. Meanwhile, the black colored low-end model is simply "out of stock". KitKat is set to arrive on other Android devices soon.
Cloud Storage service Box, is one of the first services ready to take advantage of the updated mobile OS. "Android now allows us to blend Box seamlessly with all your other apps that work with files", the company announces.
After a long string of leaks and rumors, Google has officially launched Android 4.4 KitKat. The new mobile operating system, that has debuted alongside the Nexus 5, focuses on polishing the overall user experience, adding new features and improvements aimed at both entry-level and high-end devices. As usual, the big question is: When will your smartphone and/or tablet get the upgrade?
Google was among the first companies to reveal its plans for the upgrade. The search giant has announced that Android 4.4 KitKat will soon be available for the Nexus 4, Nexus 7 and Nexus 10, as well as the Google Play editions of the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 in the following weeks.
The Lumia 1020 is famous for its camera. The Nokia smartphone offers a 41 MP shooter with Xenon flash, Zeiss lens and OIS (Optical Image Stabilization). It’s capable of producing photos at a whopping 7712 by 5360 resolution and recording 1080p video at 30 FPS.
Apple’s 8 MP iSight camera on the iPhone 5s is much weedier in comparison, although it does have some tricks up its sleeve, including a sensor that increases the area available for pixels by 15 percent. But even so, pitted head-to-head you’d expect the Nokia phone to win easily right? Apparently not. According to Laptop Mag, it’s Apple’s new phone that takes the crown.
It may no longer be All Hallows Eve, but the Day of the Dead is still firmly on our calendars and, perhaps in some twisted way, Google purposely chose this time to off one more service. Today iGoogle, the once popular homepage service, walks the Green Mile to meet its end on this most fitting of holidays.
The service will pass to the afterworld, joining a number of siblings already residing within the Google graveyard. The personalized homepage debuted back in 2005, but has since faded to an obsolescent technology thanks to the web moving forward and operating systems becoming better equipped to handle the same tasks.
Running can, at times, get rather boring (especially treadmill running). I’m a huge fan of the Zombies Run app which helps keep runners like me going for longer by providing an unfolding story in-between your music tracks, and also offers numerous modes (like Radio, Race and Supply) for when you’ve listened to all of the available chapters.
A bit of variety is always welcome though, and Runtastic is muscling in on Zombies Run territory with what it’s calling Story Running.
While Google is known for its "doodles", Bing remains more stately, opting for beautiful photography, but Halloween is about, not just treats, but also tricks. It's a time for scary movies, ghost stories and children working the neighborhood streets in search of candy hand-outs.
Today, Microsoft's search engine goes the extra mile, opting for an interactive background image, as opposed to the usual high-resolution image that appears each day.
Just in time for Hallowe'en, Google takes us all out of our misery and officially launches Android 4.4 -- or KitKat as it is rather sweetly known. As with the Nexus 5, we have known pretty much what to expect from KitKat for a little while now. Google's blog post heralding the arrival of the latest version of the OS is a little understated and doesn't give much away.
One thing is particularly interesting. Rather than blowing its own trumpet and boasting about rafts of new features -- although this will probably follow -- Google has chosen to highlight the fact that Android 4.4 can run comfortably on devices with as little as 512MB RAM. The blog post points out that it is not just the operating system that has been put on a diet (ironic when you consider the origins of the name) but all Google services such as YouTube and Chrome.
Ending months of rumors and speculation, Google puts all of our minds at rest and announces that the Nexus 5 not only exists (as if we didn’t already know following all of the leaked images!) but is launching now.
It does seem like an age since we first (apparently) caught a glimpse of this phone in a Nexus 7 video, but now we know it to be true. The Nexus 5 is here, and it looks like it's everything we could have hoped it would be.
Google groupies make too much of third quarter tablet shipment estimates released yesterday. By IDC's reckoning, Apple's global share fell from 40.2 percent to 29.6 percent year over year. Meanwhile, Samsung soared from 12.4 percent to 20.4 percent share. The whole Android market grew at iPad's expense -- that's the popular contention smirked across the InterWebs. Yeah, right.
Apple apologists are quick to give the money rebuttal whenever market share tides turn against the products -- that the fruit-logo company earns more per device than rivals, sometimes all of them combined. The revenue rebuttal is exhausting for being so predictable but often also it's right and no truer than the tablet market. Q3 share numbers make lots of sense behind CEO Tim Cook's shocking decision to raise iPad mini 2 prices by $70 over the original -- that's about 22 percent. Profit share is his priority.