LG expands Optimus smartphone lineup with the new F5 and F7
On Thursday, South Korean mobile device manufacturer LG unveiled the new Optimus F series, comprised of two smartphones, the Optimus F5 and the Optimus F7, that will debut at MWC (Mobile World Congress) in Barcelona, next week.
The Optimus F series slots under the Optimus G lineup, the latter of which includes the Optimus G and Optimus G Pro Android flagship smartphones, sporting smaller displays and less powerful processors. Both the Optimus F7 and the Optimus F5 ship with Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean out-of-the-box and 4G LTE cellular connectivity. But what separates the two?
Can it possibly be true? Microsoft is cool again?
Could it be possible that Microsoft has become cool again? A BetaNews poll seemed to indicate Windows 8 was popular and there have been recent reports that the Surface tablet is "cool" to teens. Now there is this -- a poll conducted by Reuters indicates that young people may actually think the computer company from Redmond, Wash. is cool again.
Reuters reports that "just under half of 853 respondents between the ages of 18 and 29 thought Microsoft is cooler now than it was a year or two ago". If this this is representative of the larger sentiment then it ties in very neatly with recent Apple problems.
Mozilla releases Firefox Beta 20.0b1 -- get it NOW!
Mozilla has released Firefox Beta 20.0b1, the first public beta of a landmark release. Like its predecessor, Firefox 19 FINAL, which debuted the new inline PDF viewer, version 20 looks set to unveil another major new feature to the Firefox armoury: a redesigned, panel-based download manager.
Version 20 also includes a major refresh of the Developer toolbar, providing tweaked and redesigned access to all of the major components, plus an option to view the tools in a separate window. A new Javascript benchmarking tool has also been added.
Chromebook Pixel is Microsoft's worst nightmare come true -- and Apple's, too
The rumors were true! Google developed a touchscreen Chromebook for release this year. Like today! No one should misunderstand what the computer means competitively. Already, four Microsoft Windows partners produce Chromebooks -- Acer, HP, Lenovo and Samsung. Chromebook Pixel promises to do for the Chrome OS platform what Nexus devices did for Android smartphones and tablets: Establish a reference design for hardware partners and provide developers base system to develop apps for the platform. But it's also a competitive move against PCs running OS X or Windows and Google pushing Chrome OS into the premium notebook market.
Today Google unveiled Chromebook Pixel, following weeks of rumors. The company also extended a vision for Chrome OS. Bottom line: Commitment to the operating system is strong. The search and information giant briefed journalists in different cities. I had to turn down an invite to the San Francisco briefing because of family matters. Do I feel left out! But, hey.
Snapchat for Android adds video, makes sexting easier
Snapchat is popular app among young people. As the name suggests, it is a mobile chat app that also allows for communication using a device's front-facing camera, as well as the sharing of photographs and drawings. The big draw here is setting an expiration -- up to ten seconds -- on the images, or video, sent. SnapChat's short-sends gives it a bad reputation -- as a "sexting" app. That will not change with today's announcement.
The company is "thrilled to announce the arrival of video to our Android community". The update is included in version 2.0 of the app, which just hit the Google Play Store.
Qualcomm details the Snapdragon 200 and 400 processors for entry level and mid-range devices
After unveiling the Snapdragon 600 and Snapdragon 800 at CES 2013, American mobile giant Qualcomm has on Wednesday taken the wraps off two new processors. The Snapdragon 200 and Snapdragon 400 join the company's latest lineup for smartphones and tablets, targeting the low-end and mid-range mobile market.
The Snapdragon 400 is the mid-range mobile processor and, to some extent, resembles the now-traditional Snapdragon S4 found in a number of currently-available smartphones such as the HTC Windows Phone 8X, Nokia Lumia 920 or Samsung Galaxy S III (US variants). The Snapdragon 400 features dual-core Krait CPUs with speeds of up to 1.7GHz per core or quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPUs with speeds of up to 1.4GHz per core.
How much would you pay to watch YouTube in Windows 8? $999.99?
A couple of days ago I described the Windows Store as being like a Bangkok night market, filled with nothing but knockoffs. You can’t get an official app for Facebook, Twitter, or Gmail on there, but you can get lots of third-party alternatives, many of which are of dubious quality.
One of the biggest names missing from the Windows Store is YouTube. Google says it has no plans to create an app for Windows 8, but fortunately an enterprising publisher called T.O.K. has got you covered with his exciting sounding “Youtube Player Deluxe”, which really must be deluxe given its $999.99 asking price.
Find new ways to open file types with OpenWith Enhanced
If you’re wondering how to open a particular file on your PC, then right-clicking it and selecting Open With may provide some options -- but only if you’ve already installed an application which can handle that particular file type.
OpenWith Enhanced takes this idea a step further, replacing the standard Windows with an extended version which not only displays your installed programs, but also lists other popular options, both commercial and free, and links directly to their download page.
ZTE will launch Nvidia Tegra 4-based smartphones, but not soon
Qualcomm's new Snapdragon processor lineup has cast a shadow over Nvidia's Tegra 4 ever since its CES 2013 unveiling in Las Vegas. Especially thanks to new smartphone releases such as LG's Optimus G Pro and HTC's One flagship, which both feature Qualcomm's Snapdragon 600 processor. So where does Nvidia fit in the new mobile scene?
Accustomed to having its Tegra products used in flagship Android devices generally unveiled with much fanfare, Nvidia's latest partnership with Chinese telecommunications company ZTE seems bland by comparison, and almost flew under the radar. On Thursday, ZTE announced that it will release "the first super phones powered by the Nvidia Tegra 4 mobile processor", without going into too much detail as to what prospective customers can expect.
View, fix, or delete broken shortcuts with ShortcutsMan
There are many ways to break a shortcut. Moving an important file might do it; manually deleting a program is another possibility; and of course too many uninstallers will leave application shortcuts behind. And because there’s no visible sign that a shortcut is broken it’ll just stay there, cluttering your system, until eventually you click it and discover the problem.
If you’re tired of junk shortcuts, though, ShortcutsMan offers an easier way to control them. It’s a lightweight and portable application which quickly provides a very detailed report on your system shortcuts, highlights any that are broken, and allows you to fix or resolve these with a click.
Please don't file for divorce -- I didn't mean to nuke my wife's data
I do not generally use our desktop computer. I prefer my laptop, but my wife likes that desktop and uses it daily. She also keeps her precious files on it, and I have the folder set to backup to Crashplan automatically, as well as to sync with the home server. However, she also uses a small four gigabyte USB drive for files -- I assumed ones that she just wishes to move around with her. I was wrong.
I am not making excuses for myself. Even if I had known the files were backed up I would not have deleted them -- I had no reason to wipe her drive. The truth is that it was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was a victim of my own oversight.
PlayStation 4 comes to stores this year
This evening, Sony captured geekdom for two hours, during a live event announcing PlayStation 4. If you're not prostrate on the floor crying like a baby, desperate to get the console now, you must have missed the stream -- or perhaps you're holding out for E3 in a few months and the promise of Xbox 720.
PS4 will go on sale this year -- that's right, holiday 2013. So Microsoft better get its shtick together and have Xbox in stores, too. Consumers will make some hard choices this year about gaming platforms. Whichever, or both, console gaming is going to be a whole lot more exciting come Black Friday.
Sigil 0.7.0 by any other name is still an EPUB 2 editor
Open-source, cross-platform EPUB creator Sigil 0.7.0 has been released, sporting a number of major new features. These include finished versions of the Live Preview, Clips and spellcheck features.
The new version also sports a new HTML rendering engine, Qt 5, but remains an EPUB 2 editor, despite the inclusion of EPUB 3 features such as audio and video support. Support for EPUB 3 (as well as backwards compatibility with EPUB 2) is noted as in development for a future release.
Today Google made me want Glass
We all have heard about Google Glass -- for sometime now. There's talk it's coming (but not when) and that there are unique capabilities (but most details are under wraps). Google Glass is a bit of an enigma, and I have remained largely uninterested in the project. That changed this morning.
Google makes me want a product I had no idea I was even interested in -- I am pretty sure that's the intention. In fact, Google had me drooling in only two minutes and sixteen seconds -- talk about a good sales pitch. And the video did not even require many words to accomplish its task.
Updated evasi0n jailbreak tool available for iOS 6.1.2
Yesterday Apple rolled out iOS 6.1.2 for compatible iPads, iPhones and iPod touch devices, touting the fix of an Exchange calendar bug that might boost network activity and decrease battery life. And, as customary with a new iteration of iOS 6, there's also a new version of the popular evasi0n jailbreak tool. Evad3rs, the team responsible for the first iOS 6 jailbreak tool, released evasi0n 1.4 shortly after iOS 6.1.2 rolled out.
The latest version, according to the "evasi0n 6.0-6.1 Unthether" package in Cydia, touts the same bug fixes as two weeks ago when I reported on the first evasi0n update. It appears that the fruit company did not put the lid on modding attempts just yet. First-time jailbreakers running iOS 6.1.2 simply have to connect their iPads, iPhones or iPod touch devices to a compatible PC running Windows, MacOS X or Linux and run evasi0n to unleash the modding gates on their smartphone or tablet.
Most Commented Stories
© 1998-2025 BetaNews, Inc. All Rights Reserved. About Us - Privacy Policy - Cookie Policy - Sitemap.