Moto G Launches with Boost Mobile Today for $129.99
Yet again with a Moto G availability announcement. We know that just a couple weeks ago the Moto G hit Best buy for $99.99. Earlier today we saw it land in the Play Store for $179.99 and now it is available through Boost Mobile for $129.99. All of those are off-contract prices, but do vary in their use cases.
On the Boost Mobile front the Moto G is available for order online at their site today. It will make its way to physical exclusive Boost Mobile stores on January 20th. It will come preloaded with NextRadio, which is a free interactive FM radio that uses less power than a traditional streaming solution. Boost is also making the Moto G a hit on their $55 a month unlimited everything plan. The kicker, every 6 months that you make a payment for the plan on time, Boost shrinks your monthly down by $5.
Head over to Boost Mobile to get a closer look and get one ordered.
Moment begins Kickstarter campaign for clip-on smartphone camera lenses
If you’re fed up with the camera on your phone, there’s no shortage of clip-on lenses to enhance the experience: Just take a look at Sony, Olloclip and Photojojo for great examples of this. This doesn’t mean there isn’t room for a new contender, however. Moment, a startup founded by the creator of Contour, has just launched a Kickstarter project for a pair of lenses that clip on to your iPhone, iPad or Samsung Galaxy S 2, 3 or 4. The new products, which consist of your choice of wide-angle or telephoto, can be mounted onto the phones with a thin piece of metal. Each one features a four- or five-element lens, almost no geometric distortion or chromatic aberration, the same professional-quality cinema glass that Moment claims is used for HD film and slightly larger diameters designed to keep image quality the same around the edges as it is in the center. If you choose to back the project, you’ll be able to buy one lens for $50 or two for $100, though there are a couple more expensive options should you be interested in getting something a little more exclusive.
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Apple, Samsung
Via: Recode
Source: Kickstarter
Chrome 32 brings a Chrome OS-style ‘desktop’ to Windows 8
After a fairly lengthy beta phase, Google has released the finished version of Chrome 32 — and it’s one of the biggest updates to the browser in recent memory. Windows 8 users now get a Chrome OS-style interface (shown above), complete with its own windowing system and a web app launcher. Whichever platform you’re running, you’ll also get malware blocking and notifications when tabs are playing audio or using your webcam. Protective parents may also like a beta supervised users feature that lets them review their kids’ browsing habits. Suffice it to say that there’s more than enough here to warrant grabbing the Chrome update; visit the source links if you’d like the full release notes.
Filed under: Internet, Software, Google
Source: Google Chrome Blog, Chrome Releases
Tumblr adds @ mentions, further establishes internet jargon
Silly Tumblr, what with its ability to type full, actual names instead of @-based messages. Quaint, even! Well it turns out that Yahoo’s favorite microblogging service is adding Twitter-esque @ messages as of today — the company’s even celebrating the news with a custom GIF just for you (seen above). Wondering how to do it? Just…uh, well, the GIF above should let you know.
Filed under: Internet, Software
Via: CNET
Horizon for iOS records landscape video no matter how you hold your phone
On Vine and Instagram, square-sharing is the name of the game. But when it comes to YouTube or TV, you’re going to insult viewers if you present them with a vertical video. Despite six years of smartphone innovation, Apple hasn’t really solved what’s come to be known as Vertical Video Syndrome, so one app developer is taking it upon itself to fix it. With Horizon, Evil Window Dog believes it can help shape a world with no more black sidebars. Where some developers ask users to hold their iPhone on its side before shooting, like Google tried with YouTube Capture for iOS, Horizon wants to make things a whole lot easier by letting you capture horizontal video from any angle.
Horizon works by using your iOS device’s gyroscope to auto-level videos, keeping a horizontal focus on the action unfolding in front of you. If you rotate your iPhone 45-degrees, the app simply adjusts the frame to maintain its aspect ratio (it currently supports square 1:1, wide 16:9 and standard 4:3). But that’s not all it has to offer. In the app’s settings, you can set whether you’d like to rotate as you film, rotate and scale recordings or disable rotation altogether. Video quality can be tweaked to output VGA, 720p or Full HD recordings and there’s also an option to mirror videos to your Apple TV using AirPlay. You can even apply one of eight pre-installed filters, if artistically destroying homemade videos is your thing. Horizon is available on the App Store for $0.99 for a limited time — we just wish Apple and Google had bundled this as standard.
Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile
Via: The Next Web
Source: Horizon (App Store), Horizon
New Nexus 10 details include Android 4.5, 3GB RAM
Samsung again looks to be the hardware maker of choice for the 10-inch Nexus tablet
Take this next bit of news however you want, but new Nexus 10 details have surfaced this afternoon. According to evleaks, the successor could debut with Android 4.5 and feature 3GB RAM with 16GB and 32GB storage options. The kicker? It’s from Samsung, not Asus.
We’ve heard arguments on both sides of the field that the new 10-inch Google tablet would come from either of these. Should this bit of news prove accurate, then the tablet could also boast a Samsung Exynos 5 processor, a 5-megapixel rear camera, and 3-megapixel front-facing camera. That display? Look for 2560×1600 pixels, or a WQWGA resolution.
As to whether all of this will pan out remains unclear; even evleaks says they “cannot vouch for this”.
We would assume that Android 4.5 is stilled called “KitKat”, especially given the promotional effort and cross-branding involved.
Unfortunately there’s not a word of pricing or availability. But, given that the 16GB and 32GB versions of the Nexus 10 are out of stock (as of right now) we could hear something soon.
UPDATE: Pocket-lint has received its own render of this tablet, however their model is black. A black and white version of a device sounds exactly like something Google might do.
The post New Nexus 10 details include Android 4.5, 3GB RAM appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Sony Xperia T2 Ultra and Xperia E1 get Announced
Sony just recently announced the Xperia Z1S, which is up for order through T-Mobile right now, and the Xperia Z1 Compact. Apparently they werent done and have since announced two more device offerings, the Xperia T2 Ultra and Xperia E1.
The Sony Xperia T2 Ultra is the larger size phablet style style device that pulls off a sleek 6-inch 720p TRILUMINOS display. It offers a 1.1MP front facer and a 13MP rear shooter. Inside you will a quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor clocked at 1.4GHz with just 1GB of RAM. It will support an SD card slot which will be needed with the small 8GB of on board storage. It does pack in a 3000 mAh battery to keep you going long term and will be offered in a dual-sim single SIM offering. However, unlike many of its sought after higher-end counterparts, the Xperia T2 Ultra doesn’t appear to have an IP rating for water resistance.
Moving along to the smaller size Sony brings out the Xperia E1. This little guys has a traditional 4-inch 800×480 display. It packs in a 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon 200 processor with 512MB of RAM and a smaller 1700 mAh battery. Storage is limited to 4GBs but does offer up a micro SD card slot. The Xperia E1 is easily aimed at the music centric users who don’t need massive screens and a ton of processing power. Its big selling point is the 100Db rear speaker and intuitive Walkman controls. Again, this is another single or dual-sim phone too.
Both devices come out rocking Android 4.3 and easily fit into the more mid-range category of devices. Pricing and availability are still under wraps for now but are clearly aimed at overseas markets like China and the Middle East. If Sony can find the sweet spot for the pricing on these they should have no issues selling a ton of both.
Press release links: Sony Xperia T2 Ultra / Sony Xperia E1
[Kickstarter] Dust Your Friends in a Game of Geo-Combat with Dustcloud
Walking around CES, I got to see the “next greatest things in tech” scattered throughout thousands of booths in the three convention halls. It’s not always inside that you’ll see the latest ideas, though. I happened to be outside for a breather of the North Hall when I bumped into Howard Hunt, founder and CEO of The Dustcloud. Howard demonstrated this new GPS-based game of laser tag to me first-hand.
The small, hand-held guns are called Dusters and shoot invisible bullets called Speks. When someone says laser tag, everyone immediately knows what that means, but calling this laser tag is a little misleading. The Dusters aren’t actually lasers, but are ZigBee powered, meaning they can’t be blocked by clothing or people and have a range of five meters. There’s blue, green, and red teams where you try to take out or dust your opponents by blasting them with Speks. (Note that you can change colors at any time.) Each Duster is paired to your Android or iOS device via Bluetooth and broadcasts your location and stats to The Dustcloud. You can track opponents, create alliances, see your friends, call on opponents for a match, and call in backup to “avenge your death” where you were just dusted. As you dust more opponents you move up the ranks and your Duster becomes more powerful. If The Dustcloud takes off, there’s aspiration for expansion into things such as Google Glass, the possibilities are endless.
Using Speks costs cash money at $.05 each via PayPal, so there’s an incentive to use them wisely. They’re stored in your paired device where you can reload them into your Duster. But, if you’re a good player you won’t have to buy them very often. When someone is dusted:
• Their Dusters are switched off for thirteen seconds.
• The Speks in their Dusters are captured by the player who has dusted them.
• Their positional marker (POI) disappears from the iOS and Android app on their phone.
• Their efficiency percentage decreases incrementally on the Dustcloud database.
• Their Mini Dossier is sent to the Dustbin in the Dossier of the player who has dusted them.
If you don’t want to pay for Speks and just want to play for fun without stats, there’s an option for offline mode. You’ll get five lives to Dust your opponents. When you are dusted your Duster refills in thirteen seconds, but in the meantime your opponent receives one of your Speks.
The Dustcloud has a Kickstarter campaign going, which is trying to get it off the ground. Early backers will get incentives such a free magazine of six Speks every 24 hours though 2015. If you want an early Duster, you’ll have to pledge at least $39, but that’ll get you 300 Speks, two 24 hour empty Spek recharges through 2015, and three minute resurrection.
The Dustcloud looks like a fun strategy-filled game to play with friends and strangers alike; it couples the essence of laser tag with modern technology in Geo-Combat utilizing GPS, social networking, and mobile devices.
Check out Dustcloud’s Kickstarter Campaign HERE.
Verizon Motorola DROID Users Seeing Android 4.4 Updates Today, Again
Motorola and Verizon have been performing their usual soak test for the pending Android 4.4 KitKat update for the Motorola DROID line of devices. After what seems like ages, and after it was pulled, they are finally ready to start rolling it out to all current users. Per the norm, the update will roll out gradually for the Motorola DROID Ultra, DROID MAXX and DROID Mini over the next few weeks.
For the most part the update will be all KitKatted out. There are a few minor differences to report though. Users will keep the blue icons and not go to the frosty white. The Jelly Bean dialer remains in place and the home screen stays the same.
Each device gets a slew of improvements to their camera apps, Emojis, DROID ZAP 2.0 update, Fitbit support and some more app updates and integrated ones too. Check out the support docs for the DROID MAXX and Ultra or the DROID Mini for more indepth details.
AIVAnet 