ZTE Blade S6 Plus now available on eBay -- premium Android on the cheap
Low cost Android handsets are both a blessing and a curse. While it allows the operating system to infiltrate low-income markets, it also creates a low-quality perception to some. For example, anyone who buys an iPhone gets a quality device with a good experience; there is no low-quality version. Conversely, an Android buyer can buy a low-spec dud that can sour the experience.
Not all low-cost Android smartphones are duds, however; quite the contrary. Google's previous generation Nexus 5 was an incredible value, as is the OnePlus One. Today, a new low-cost phone enters the market by way of eBay -- the ZTE Blade S6 Plus. The value is quite remarkable, as not only is the price low, but the specs are very impressive.
Turkey blocks Facebook, YouTube and Twitter; Zuckerberg caves in, Google fights back
Today Turkey blocked access to a number of websites including YouTube and Twitter. The ban came after the sites published images of a prosecutor being taken hostage at a court in Istanbul earlier in the week. Google has vowed to getting things back up and running, but it's not the same story for everyone.
While a block was also put in place on Facebook, the social network sidestepped the ban by agreeing to comply with a court ruling. This is not the first time Mark Zuckerberg's site has bowed to pressure from Turkey. At the beginning of the year, despite previous claims to stand up for free speech, Facebook bowed to pressure to block pages that insulted or offended the Prophet Mohammad. Now it looks as though history is repeating itself.
Easily set windows as always on top with PinMe!
If a Windows application needs to be accessible at any time -- a desktop calculator, perhaps -- then it’ll sometimes be possible to set it as always on top, ensuring its window stays on top of any others.
Not every application has that feature, unfortunately, but there’s another way. PinMe! can set any window as always on top in a couple of clicks.
Windows Phone keeps on losing major apps
There is no end in sight for the Windows Phone app-gap. While lots of major titles have made their way to Store over the years, the platform has seen a number of high-profile offerings disappear altogether. Some developers are backing out, while others are getting in the way of third-party clients being made available to users. It's a sad state of affairs.
While NBC has released updates for both the Android and iOS versions of the app, Today is listed as no longer available in Windows Phone Store. Meanwhile, 6snap will no longer be available to users because Snapchat has a problem with third-party clients.
Inateck BP2001 Bluetooth stereo speaker [Review]
With smartphones and tablets increasingly becoming the focus of our entertainment a decent portable speaker is becoming an essential accessory if you don’t want to be tied to headphones or want to share your music with others.
Inatek's latest offering has a pair of 5W speakers mounted in a stylish, compact (around 9.5 inches long by 2.5 inches high) black and silver enclosure. It has a nice weighty feel and there's a slot in the top into which you can sit a smartphone or tablet -- a pop-out strut at the back prevents the unit from becoming top heavy and tipping over as well as keeping a comfortable viewing angle -- so you can use it to watch videos. A built-in microphone means you can make hands-free calls too. However, it isn't an actual dock so it won't charge your phone or tablet.
Snapchat transparency report shows legal requests hit a devilish 666 accounts
Largely due to the exposés in the media following Edward Snowden's NSA revelations, there is now great interest in security and privacy. From this sprang a new breed of report -- transparency reports detailing the number of data requests legal and governmental agencies made about a particular service.
Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft and Apple are among the companies who have released transparency reports, and the latest name on the list is Snapchat. As with other similar reports there is a limit to what they are able to reveal, but it does show that various agencies had an interest in no fewer than 666 Snapchat accounts.
Spelr is a spell checker for any Windows program
There’s a common view online which says that spelling doesn’t really matter, mistakes are no big deal, and anyone who says otherwise is An Evil Grammar Nazi Who Can Safely Be Ignored.
There’s a fragment of truth in that, at least in some situations, but if you want to get your point across effectively in an email, a forum post or anywhere else, it’s still best to avoid distractions like spelling mistakes.
Sony pays out to customers after deceptive PS Vita ads
Sony has started to make settlement payments to PlayStation Vita owners, six months after the Federal Trade Commission found that the company had run misleading ads about the handheld console. If you bought a PS Vita before June 1, 2012 -- and haven’t already returned it for a full refund -- you are in line to receive $25 cash back.
Alternatively, a voucher that can be exchanged for merchandise worth at least $50 is also available. Despite the FTC's findings Sony still "neither admits nor denies liability", the payouts offer some compensation for gamers who feel they were misled.
Need a wireless mouse? Try the Logitech M320 [Review]
The wireless mouse isn't new -- the technology is growing fairly old now, actually.But in this case that doesn't make it obsolete, as many of us still use them on a daily basis, and we aren't going back to wired. There's also no shortage of them on the market, but finding a good one can be a painstaking task, as everyone's needs are slightly different.
There's the gaming mouse, the travel mouse and plain old utilitarian daily-use mouse. We've reviewed many of the tiny peripherals here, but they never get old. Tolday we're looking at the Logitech M320, a simple wireless mouse. It isn't gaming and it's not considered travel size, but it's quite decent for daily use, which I'm doing as I type this from my laptop -- I hate toucpads.
Microsoft stops Kinect for Windows production... because it's so popular
Yes, you did read that headline correctly. Microsoft has announced that due to the popularity of Kinect for Windows, the sensor will no longer be produced. While an increase in demand would normally lead to an increase in production, Microsoft is taking something of a different approach.
Rather than maintaining two Kinect product lines -- a model for Xbox One and a model for Windows -- the company will instead sell an adapter that allows the console sensor to be connected to a PC. Microsoft says that this will help to keep things simple and create consistency for developers.
Save Text To File is a handy research tool for Firefox
If you find something interesting while researching online, your first instinct will probably be to bookmark the page for reference later. And that’s just fine, as long as you can find the bookmark later. And remember why you saved it. And don’t mind re-reading the entire page to locate the fragment you need.
Save Text To File is a Firefox add-on which could make this much easier. If you’re only interested in a paragraph or two of text, forget bookmarks, just select what you need with the mouse, then right-click, Save Text To File > Save, and your chosen words are saved directly to a local file.
Sling goes international with new language support
Though channels and shows can vary greatly, television is international, with each country having its own broadcasts and favorite things to watch. New kid on the block, Sling TV, recognizes this and is making efforts to go after a more international audience. Hence its latest offering -- "content that speaks your language".
In total there are 18 new languages being added, including Arabic, Bangla, Bengali, Brazilian, Cantonese, Filipino, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Mandarin, Marathi, Punjabi, Taiwanese, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu and Vietnamese.
Government should not control access to hardcore porn sites
Children's access to the internet can be a very emotive issue, particularly when subjects like pornography crop up. In the UK, the General Election is just around the corner and the current ruling party, the right wing Conservatives, are pledging to introduce legislation that enforces age restrictions on access to hardcore pornography sites.
The legislation would be dependent on the party retaining power after the May election, but Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Sajid Javid says the Conservatives "will age restrict online porn" offering "safety for children and peace of mind for parents". There are just two problems. Firstly, it is completely unworkable, and secondly it is not the government's place to restrict access to the internet using legislation.
Mac recovery tool Disk Drill comes to Windows
It's been undeleting Mac files since 2010, but CleverFiles’ Disk Drill is now also available -- for free -- on Windows XP and later.
The Mac heritage brings some immediate benefits. The program can recover data from HFS+ drives, as well as FAT, exFAT, NTFS or Linux EXT2/3/4 drives. And it's able to back up drives to a DMG image, handy if you're worried about files being overwritten before they can be restored.
Surface AMA reveals all about Surface 3 and nothing about Surface Pro 4
Microsoft's Surface team took to Reddit to answer a barrage of questions in an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session on the site. Although the team was available for probing for just one hour, scores of questions were fired at them and while nothing ground-breaking was revealed, shrouds of mystery were swept aside.
The upcoming Surface 3 has already managed to generate quite some interest. This is the first non-Pro Surface model that will ship will a full, non-RT version of Windows and it should come as little surprise that many of the questions related to this tablet. If you don’t have the time or inclination to read through the entire thread on Reddit, here are some of the edited highlights.
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