Microsoft to push its cross-platform apps with Windows 10 phone companion
Microsoft has some ambitious plans for Windows 10 and it seems that better mobile integration is going to play a big part in that vision. Along with the announcement of Cortana for Android the other day, Microsoft also gave us a preview of its upcoming phone companion app for Windows 10.
The app will act as a hub that allows users to connect their Windows 10 PC up to their smartphone, regardless of its OS. The hub encourages users to install Microsoft applications such as Music, Skype, OneDrive, OneNote, Outlook and Office. The companion app essentially helps you set-up your phone to make use of Microsoft’s apps to automatically sync your devices to the same cloud accounts for the various products. This should allow for easy sharing and management of documents, photos, music, etc, across a range of devices.
Microsoft hopes that users on different operating systems will make use of its apps and services
For Microsoft, the hope is that it can encourage users on different operating systems to make use of its apps and services, by providing an ecosystem that plays very nicely together.
The launch of numerous Microsoft apps for Android this year have been building towards this more cross-platform friendly approach with Windows 10.
Of course, this move puts Microsoft directly in competition with many of the pre-installed Google apps that ship by default on Android phones. Google Docs, Photos, and Music can already be accessed in Windows, so adoption will likely boil down to if consumers end up preferring Microsoft’s features over Google’s.
An early look at the phone companion app will be available in a few weeks as part of the Windows 10 Insider Preview. If you’re interested in beta testing, you can sign up for the program here.
Korean handset manufacturer Pantech heads towards liquidation
It’s no secret that South Korean smartphone manufacturer Pantech has been struggling for finances, but the company is now facing the very real prospect of going out of business. Pantech has been up for sale since 2011, but has failed to find a buyer and has now asked the Seoul Central District Court to end its receivership.
Pantech was placed under court protection in August, but has been unable to find a suitable buyer to take over its financial obligations. This means that Pantech, which was once the second largest handset manufacturer in the country, will likely have its assets sold to try and payback some of the money that it owes. According to data from the Financial Supervisory Service, Pantech’s total assets are worth 268.3 billion won (US$242.52 million), while its total debt stands at 996.2 billion won (US$900.48 million), as of the end of 2014.
If the court accepts the application within the next 15 days, it will consult parties of interest for the next two weeks on how to proceed. This leaves one final month for a buyer to materialize, but it’s likely that Pantech will be faced with a liquidation order.
“Despite our 10-month long efforts, we could not find an appropriate bidder with a right evaluation of Pantech … Being unable to take our duty and role as a company, we have decided to apply for the end of the normalization procedures.” – Pantech
The company has been steadily releasing Android hardware in select markets despite its instability, including as the rather good Vega Iron 2, but sales have remained sluggish for years. The company has seen its debts accumulate massively, partly due to its acquisition of a few smaller manufacturers that failed to return a profit. Pantech was placed under a five-year debt restructuring scheme in 2007, but has not managed to grab a foothold in the competitive smartphone market since.
Back in 2013, Samsung purchased a 10 percent stake in its rival, partly in an effort to help prop up the company. This seems to have been a rather poor investment with hindsight.
Pantech’s tangible and intellectual assets will be divided up among its creditors, if the court issues a liquidation order, and the company could be wound down in little over a month. Such is the competitive nature of today’s smartphone market.
70,000 pictures make up this panorama of Mont Blanc
This is a photo of Mont Blanc, the tallest mountain in the European Union. But it’s not just any photo: it’s actually just a small part of a panorama comprised of 70,000 pictures and 365 gigapixels. In 2014, a team of photographers led by Filippo Blengini spent 35 hours overall within two weeks — in temperatures averaging 14F at an altitude of 11,500 feet — taking as many pictures as they could of the mountain. They used a Canon 70D DSLR with a Canon EF 400mm f/2.8 II IS lens and an extender, all attached to a robotic mount. It then took them two more months to stitch all 46 terabytes of pictures together to create a panorama, which they claim is the world’s largest photo.
According to The Telegraph, if you printed it at 300dpi, it would be as big as a soccer field. The world’s largest photo title’s been unofficially passed around almost every year and was once claimed by a 360-degree panorama of London. You can see the whole Mont Blanc image on its website and zoom in to see cool little details, including people climbing the icy peak.
Source: In2White
‘Evolve’ simplifies the hunt with free deathmatch arena mode
Evolve isn’t a typical multiplayer shooter. The game pits four hunters against a quickly mutating monster, with the first task usually being to find and trap the player-controlled goliath. The experience can be a little bewildering for newcomers, so developer Turtle Rock Studios is throwing in a free Arena Mode that keeps everything simple. In a best-of-three match, the hunters and monster are dropped in a small, pre-determined dome with only one goal; take down your opponent(s). The monster starts at stage two with 50 percent armour, reducing the need to devour local wildlife, and when a hunter dies they’re out until the next round. It’s a bare-bones take on the Evolve formula, stripping away some of what makes the game unique. Still, if you’re interested in shorter rounds where you can easily hone your combat skills, Arena Mode could be a welcome change on planet Shear.
Filed under: Gaming
Source: Evolve
Google Play Store updated to version 5.6.6, brings minor changes [APK Download]
It’s the day before Google I/O 2015 begins, and the Play Store app is the recipient of a minor update, bumping it to version 5.6.6. There are some layout changes as well as some groundwork laid for the rumoured Kids Accounts that is rumoured to be announced in the next day or two.
The changes in layout involve standardising the alert dialog boxes. According to Googler Kirill Grouchnikov, ” it was also time to switch to consistent layout alignment and order of buttons everywhere in the app“. If you take a look at the main image, the older layout is on the left, with the latest layout on the right. It’s a subtle change but noticeable.
As for the rumoured Kids Accounts, Android Police’s teardown of the Play Store app revealed strings of code that show how download limits will be enforced for kids, with searches limited to age-appropriate material. It would also appear that authorisation will be needed every time a purchase is made, this includes IAP’s (In-App-Purchases).
You can download Pay Store version 5.6.6 here if the update hasn’t reached you yet. You can check out the rest of our Google I/O 2015 coverage here.
Source: AndroidPolice
Come comment on this article: Google Play Store updated to version 5.6.6, brings minor changes [APK Download]
Dual battery Gionee M5 passes TENAA with 6,000mAh capacity
While mobile tech innovators are busy trying to find new ways to optimize device battery life, Gionee has decided that a brute force approach might be easier. A new Gionee M5 smartphone has been spotted passing through China’s TENAA, featuring two 3,000mAh batteries for a mammoth 6,000mAh combined capacity.
Early rumors are suggesting that the handset could last up to four days on a single charge. What is even more impressive is that the handset can continue to run with just a single battery inside, leaving you free to charge them up in an alternating pattern for as much juice as you’ll ever likely need.
However this extra capacity does make the Gionee M5 a little bulkier than most other smartphones. The handset measures around 8.5mm at its thickest and weighs in at 213 grams, which is notably heavier than most other handsets in the 5.5-inch market.
Other hardware specifications include a 5.5-inch 720p AMOLED display, a 1.3GHz quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, an 8 megapixel rear camera with 5 megapixel front facing companion, and Android 5.0 Lollipop installed as standard. Given the more mid-range specifications, the huge 6,000mAh battery capacity should go quite a long way.
We’re still waiting on a launch date and price, but some more details should appear soon.
Google’s Roboto font goes open source
The Roboto font has come to define the look of Google’s Android and Chrome OS platforms since its introduction with Android 4.0 back in 2011. It has been incorporated into a range of Google products and services over the years and is also now a promoted part of the Material Design language. The tech giant is now opening up the font for anyone to make their own, as Roboto has gone open-source.
Google had already made its customized font available for download a long time ago, but by going open-source, developers can now modify the font as they desire. The font is now up on GitHub, complete with a revamped font production toolchain used to design the font, which is also based on open source software. In addition, Google has also updated the font to include all Latin, Cyrillic and Greek Characters.
Developers can go and check out the project at this GitHub link.
The Sony Xperia Z3+ can be pre-ordered for £549 in the UK
Sony launched the Xperia Z4 in Japan just over a month ago and it was a low-key affair and we wondered if this ‘successor’ to the Xperia Z3 would be released globally. Yesterday Sony announced that this ‘Xperia Z4‘ would, in fact, be marketed as the Xperia Z3+ outside of Japan, with the handset becoming available from June 15th. Now we have news that Sony’s latest flagship is already available for pre-order in the UK.
You can pre-order the SIM-free Xperia Z3+ in white, black or copper from the UK online retailer, Clove, for £549 ($845), with stock slated to arrive towards the end of June. We have a recap of the handset’s specifications just below. Are you interested in upgrading to Sony’s Xperia Z3+?
Specifications:
- 5.2-Inch TRILUMINOS™ Display with 1920 x 1080 resolution (Full HD)
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 Octa-Core processor 4 x cores @2.0GHz + 4 x cores @ 1.5GHz (64-bit)
- Adreno 430 GPU
- 3GB RAM
- 32GB Internal storage
- 20.7MP Rear-camera, Exmor RS for mobile, Flash
- 5.1MP Front-facing camera with wide angle lens
- MicroSD card support (up to 128GB)
- Bluetooth 4.1, NFC, WiFi
- Dimensions: 146 x 72 x 6.9mm
- Weight: 144 grams
- Battery: 2,900mAh
- Waterproof/Dustproof: XPX5/8, IP6X
- Cap-less MicroUSB port
Source: Clove
Come comment on this article: The Sony Xperia Z3+ can be pre-ordered for £549 in the UK
Oculus VR bought a firm that reconstructs 3D scenes in real time
I’m willing to bet that one of the best things about having Facebook in your back pocket is that your pocketbook is likely bottomless. How’s that? Well, Oculus has acquired yet another company on its path to a retail model. This time it’s Surreal Vision, a firm focused on “3D scene reconstruction” according to a recent post on the VR outfit’s blog. “Great scene reconstruction will enable a new level of presence and telepresence, allowing you to move around the real world and interact with real-world objects from within VR,” the post reads. So! This acquisition should help out quite a bit when it comes to building out the social spaces and experiences Oculus has been crowing about since Zuckerberg and Co. made their $2 billion purchase.
“We’re developing breakthrough techniques to capture, interpret, manage, analyse, and finally reproject in real-time a model of reality back to the user in a way that feels real, creating a new, mixed reality that brings together the virtual and real worlds,” it continues. We’d typically be skeptical of such lofty claims, but considering one of the Surreal gents also reconstructed scenes in real time with a paltry Xbox 360 Kinect those promises seem a little less like moonshots.
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, Facebook
Source: Oculus blog
Opera Max adds WiFi data compression and app blocking
Opera is well known for its eponymous browsers, but the Norwegian company also offers a useful data compression service called Opera Max, which just received a big update.
Opera Max combines the functionality of a virtual private network with data compression. Put simply, the service routes your Internet traffic through Opera’s servers, and serves you a compressed version, resulting in smaller data bills and faster loading times.
The latest version of Opera Max (1.0.225) includes WiFi data compression. Previously, Opera Max only worked over cellular connections, but there are times when you can benefit from data connection even if you’re using WiFi – for instance, in a crowded airport or on a stadium. Switching compression on in these cases should give you a faster browsing experience.
Opera Max works with browsers, but also with any app that receives data over an unencrypted connection. The new version adds an app management component, allowing you to see which apps eat up a lot of data or battery.
The update also brings some changes to the UI, which is now more user-friendly, according to the app’s Play Store changelog.
It’s worth noting again that Opera Max does not work with apps that use encrypted connections. So, if most of your data is spent on, say, Facebook, you won’t see a big benefit from using the service. With that said, any saving is welcome when you’re on a tight data allowance, so go check out Opera Max in the Play Store.
AIVAnet 