We’re live from Nokia’s MWC 2014 event!
Nokia always puts on a show at Mobile World Congress, but this particular event may be a little… different. See, if all the rumors are true, we should expect to see a grand total of zero Windows Phones and one Android device introduced. Perhaps we’ll see a Bizarro version of Stephen Elop get on stage as well, so we’re crossing our fingers. Regardless of what happens, this is definitely going to be a liveblog for the ages, so stay locked in here at 2:30AM ET (11:30PM PT, 8:30AM CET) for all of our coverage!
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Microsoft, Nokia
SlideLock Brings Your Notifications to Your Lockscreen with a Minimal Look – APP OF THE WEEK
For those out there who are bored with their lockscreen, allow me to throw SlideLock your way. I actually posted about this lockscreen app when it first landed in the Play Store, and I have been using it ever since.
SlideLock brings your notifications to your lockscreen in a very bar-bones, minimal look. I have tried my fair share of lockscreen apps that have some pretty fancy features, but I am really digging this app more so than any of those others. Just to have a minimal looking lockscreen to access my notifications, makes my phone experience that more enjoyable.
Setting up SlideLock is easy: You first click the on button, then you go into your security settings so the app has notification access. It allows you to do all this within the app, then you get to go through all the apps to pick out which ones you want to see get notifications from on your lockscreen. After that, I would recommend you turning off your stock lockscreen so there aren’t any conflicts. You will then start receiving notifications on your lockscreen, and you have the choice to either swipe left to rid your phone of that notification, or swipe right to open that notification. Easy enough, right? It also has this eye-pleasing, pulsating UNLOCK word that appears on the bottom, that I really dig. To completely unlock your device, you simply swipe right on the bottom, or swipe in the middle if you have no notifications. Swiping left will quickly access your camera.
There is a free and a paid version of this app, so you have the lovely option in trying out the app first. I highly recommend it, and I am actually still on the free version because I haven’t needed anything extra. Check out my video below of it in action. Let us know how you like it.
Alcatel introduces Pop S series of budget-friendly LTE phones
After seeing Alcatel OneTouch announce a series of mid-range Idol phones and a lower-cost fitness-centric phone yesterday, a family of budget devices may not seem quite as… cool. Regardless, the company is pushing out a new trio of Pop smartphones known as “Pop S” (the ‘S’ stands for — you got it — speed) that throw in Cat 4 LTE connectivity while keeping down the price. First, there’s the Pop S7 (pictured above), which features a 5-inch qHD display as well as MediaTek’s new quad-core 1.3GHz LTE chip, Android 4.4 KitKat, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, a 5MP rear camera and VGA front-facing camera, microSD support and a 3,000mAh battery. It’ll come in two flavors of LTE, depending on where you live, and will be making its way to Europe and Asia first. The device will go for 189 euro ($260).
If you want something bigger, the S9 might be a better fit — it’s a 6-inch 720p handset with a 3,400mAh battery and comes in at 8.5mm thick. It features a quad-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm 8926 processor, 8MP rear camera, 2MP front-facing camera, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, Android 4.3 Jelly Bean and 8GB internal storage (along with a microSD slot that takes up to 32GB). The device should launch in March in Europe and Asia, but we expect to see it on Tracfone in the US sometime in the second half of this year. All this can be yours for 219 euro ($300).
Lastly, there’s the Pop S3, which is a much more petite size and comes with a variety of swappable back covers in the box. The specs are pretty minimal in certain places, but impressive in others: 4-inch WVGA display, Android 4.3 and 2,000mAh battery aren’t nothing worth talking about, but it offers a 1.2GHz quad-core processor, the same high-speed LTE connectivity, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, a 5MP rear camera and VGA front-facing cam, 4GB internal storage and microSD that supports up to 32GB. This particular device should head to the UK sometime around May, and it’ll eventually make it to the US, we’re told. All in all, it’s a fairly impressive stack of phones that’ll bring solid speed to emerging markets and developing countries, but the big question will be if the price is right.
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile
MediaTek’s latest processor brings 64-bit to mid-range smartphones
You won’t have to fork over a lot of cash to get a 64-bit smartphone this year — at least, not if MediaTek can help it. The company has just unveiled the MT6732 (not shown here), a system-on-chip aimed at mid-range phone buyers who are willing to pay a little extra for high-end features. It centers around a 1.5GHz, quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor (sorry, no octa-core) that should offer both immediate speed gains and some futureproofing through its 64-bit code support. The chip also incorporates a Mali-T760 graphics unit that can handle both the latest OpenGL ES visual effects and general-purpose OpenCL computing. Its built-in modem offers 150Mbps LTE data on the right network, too. Unfortunately, you’ll have to be patient if you want a device with the MT6732 inside. MediaTek isn’t making the chip available to companies until the third quarter of the year, and finished hardware should reach the market shortly after that.
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Mobile
Source: PR Newswire
SanDisk’s 128GB microSD card holds 24 hours of HD video
SanDisk just took the wraps off of its new 128GB Ultra microSD card. On sale today for your favorite microSDXC-enabled phone or tablet, the card offers twice the storage of current cards, making it the largest-capacity microSD card on the market. Doubling up the storage space wasn’t easy, in fact SanDisk used custom manufacturing to stack 16 memory dies — each thinner than a human hair — within each card. It’s an impressive engineering feat, but let’s be honest, we really only care because it will let us store 24 hours of those HD cat videos that help us make it through the day.
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Wireless, Mobile
Lenovo outs three budget phones, we go hands-on (video)
As it promised, Lenovo became a manufacturer of US smartphones when it purchased Motorola for $3 billion — instantly. Meanwhile, it’s still producing its own models for Asia, and just announced a trio at MWC 2014. The most highly spec’d of the three is the metal-backed $349 5.3-inch S860 (pictured above), which comes with a 720p screen, quad-core 1.3GHz MediaTek CPU, 2GB of RAM and 8-megapixel front / 1.6-megapixel rear cameras. But Lenovo is boasting more about the battery life, saying it’ll last a rather stunning 40 days on standby and give 24 hours of talk time. As you might expect for its target Asian market, there are also dual-sim slots (but no 4G, sadly).
Stepping down, the S850 model is aimed more at the “fashion-savvy,” according to Lenovo, thanks to a thin, lightweight all-glass body. It also packs a 1.3GHz quad-core MTK chip and 720p screen, but drops the RAM to 1GB. Oddly, there’s a better 12-megapixel rear / 5-megapixel front camera, and a considerably cheaper $269 price. Finally, the S660 brings an upmarket metal back to downmarket specs, with the aforementioned MTK CPU, 960 x 540 screen, 1GB RAM, expandable storage, 8-megapixel camera and $229 price tag. Lenovo said all the models will arrive to “selected countries,” but don’t count on the US being one of them.
Mike Judge’s upcoming HBO comedy ‘Silicon Valley’ gets its first trailer (video)
You can add tech to the list of topics — Hollywood stardom, cable news, Westeros — HBO is diving behind the scenes on, as its new series Silicon Valley will debut April 6th. Mike Judge, who brought the world Beavis & Butthead, Office Space, Idiocracy and King of the Hill, is executive producing and writing the series plus directing the first four episodes. According to the show’s press release, it’s “inspired” by his time as a Silicon Valley engineer in the 80s. This show is a comedy, and it’s focused on several coders living together and working together at large (fictional) tech company while trying to launch their own startup. Silicon Valley’s first full trailer debuted tonight ahead of True Detective (and it’s embedded after the break), give it a peek and see if it’s something you’d watch. Given the pedigree of its backers we’re hoping for something more like Curb Your Enthusiasm or Eastbound and Down than Luck, but it at least has to be better than the Bravo reality TV series it shares a name with.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD
Source: HBO (YouTube)
Crowdfunded Veronica Mars movie will hit theaters and your living room simultaneously
It wasn’t enough that the Veronica Mars film turned the standard studio model upside down by going to Kickstarter for its funds. Now word is that the feature length Kristen Bell vehicle will be available online to rent or purchase on the same day that it opens in 270 theaters across the country — March 14th. Normally AMC (which owns 260 of those screens) requires that a movie not be available for home viewing until 90 days after its theatrical release, but Time Warner has found a way around that policy. Rather than doing a standard release and spliting the box office earnings with AMC, the company is simply renting out the theaters where Veronica Mars will be shown. That means that Time Warner is laying out a significant chunk of change up front to screen the film, but will pocket all of the cash from the ticket sales. That’s in addition to a significant portion of the proceeds from on-demand rentals and digital purchases, which will mostly be delivered by cable and satellite providers. Don’t expect this to become a standard model for movie releases, however. Time Warner views this primarily as an experiment that caters specifically to the passionate Veronica Mars fan base.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD
Source: Wall Street Journal
iOS 8 Concept Video Features Unified Interface for Control Center and Multitasking [iOS Blog]
A concept video of what a unified Control Center and multitasking interface would look like in iOS 8 has been created by designer Bill Labus and posted by TheTechBlock (via Cult of Mac).
The version of iOS 8 in the video shows the app switcher and user settings in one unified view accessed by a single swipe up gesture. Users are free to multitask or toggle preferences such as music volume and WiFi, as the buttons for the toggles themselves have been combined into one space to allow for more room. The video also shows a refined Notification Center that features a minimalistic look with more centered text, which is triggered by a swipe gesture down.
Labus also noted his reasons for making such changes to integrate the multitasking switcher into Control Center:
Unfortunately, I find double-clicking the home button to be irritating- there’s a noticeable delay between the second click and the multitasking view appearing, and in my haste I often accidentally triple-click the home button, forcing me to wait while the OS bounces into, and back out of, multitasking. Control Center’s bottom edge gesture is far faster and easier to perform, however as I said I do use Control Center frequently as well, so I wouldn’t necessarily want to swap the two and use the home button double click to bring up Control Center.
Apple introduced Control Center and a refined version of multitasking with the release of iOS 7 last fall. While an overhaul or unification of both is unlikely to happen with any immediate update to iOS 7, it is possible that Apple could make major changes in time for iOS 8, which will likely be released this fall.
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Apple Planning Fix for OS X SSL Bug as New Research Reveals iMessage, Other Apps Affected
Apple has confirmed that it will issue a software update “very soon” to patch the security flaw found in OS X that allows attackers to capture or modify data protected by the SSL/TLS protocols in Safari, reports Reuters. The vulnerability of OS X to the bug was detailed by security firm CrowdStrike and a Google engineer last Friday, and came right after Apple released iOS 7.0.6 to fix the same security flaw found on its mobile devices.
However, the security flaw, which has been termed “GoToFail” by security specialists due to the improperly used “goto” command that triggers it, may be affecting more than just Safari. Independent privacy researcher Ashkan Soltani has pointed out on his Twitter (via Forbes) that Apple’s vulnerable SSL library is also used by apps including FaceTime, iMessage, Twitter, Calendar, Keynote, Mail, iBooks, Software Update, and more.
A list of apps deemed vulnerable to the SSL bug found in OS X and iOS by security researcher Ashkan Soltani
Soltani does point out that apps such as iMessage and FaceTime have addded security measures that weaken the effects of the security flaw, but also added that the initial iCloud login used to authenticate such apps may also be compromised. The researcher states that other parts of the protocol such as the handshake between a service and a device are vulnerable to an attack as well, and will need to be secured by Apple.
Currently, users can check whether or not their computers are affected by the vulnerability by visiting gotofail.com in Safari. As users wait for a fix to the flaw, CrowdStrike recommends avoiding untrusted and unsecured WiFi networks while traveling. The site also recommends that users update to iOS 7.0.6 if they have not yet installed it on their iOS devices.
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