Rumor: Sony may be ending the Xperia Tablet series
In a decision that is sure to upset many of the fans Sony has left, it has been reported by a Sony store manager in Japan that the conglomerate may be ending the Xperia Tablet series. Dozens of websites – and even some stores – have now made mention of the story.
The origin of the speculation was apparently pending promotional material that reflected sales would be ending in early March. The caveat is that this apparently pertains to Wi-Fi only models, so in theory the cellular variants may still stick around.
The source responsible for the news also made note that any future tablet product is currently “pending” or “undecided” depending on how one wishes to translate the word “未定”. It is unclear as to if this refers strictly to Wi-Fi variants, or all of the company’s tablets in general.
What’s the cause for concern?
Before addressing the issue at large, it is important to consider the Japanese market in and of itself. Should this news pan out, it would come as a somewhat serious blow to Sony’s already limited selection of Android-based products on sale in the country. Unlike in outside Asian markets, as well as in Europe, many – if not all – of Sony’s low and mid range smartphones are not sold in Japan. This means the Xperia Tablet is a more prominent product when it comes to overall offerings.
In addition, while the idea of a Wi-Fi only model might not seem as important, it is relevant to point out that the Xperia Z Ultra was originally released in Japan as a Wi-Fi tablet, which was then later picked up by the country’s smallest major carrier, KDDI au and sold as a traditional phone like it was elsewhere.
The Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact
Perhaps even more relevant and – somewhat – more recent, the Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact was only released as a Wifi device in Japan, despite numerous Asian markets receiving it as a full blown cellular consideration. For explanations unknown, not a single carrier offered the mini’s mobile make.
Still, Sony’s tablets have consistently been sold at extremely high price points, with even the Z3 Tablet Compact selling for over $450 when it released here. The full-blown carrier models are even more expensive, usually retailing for around $800 when purchased at full price. This puts the Xperia Tablet brand in direct competition with Apple’s iPad. Apple in and of itself, almost always outsells Sony in Japan with respect to the mobile space, especially in recent years.
Meanwhile, similar products are often significantly cheaper. As Sony’s brand name value decreases over time for some, so too may the perceived benefit of spending such money for a tablet from the famous OEM. Another problem? When push comes to shove the differences between the Xperia Z2 Tablet and the Xperia Z4 Tablet, for example, may not be strong enough to justify the financial outlay for some.
What future may follow
The Xperia Z4 Tablet
Sony didn’t release a Z5 Tablet last year which came as a bit of a surprise given that there has been an Xperia Tablet released along side each of its major Z-series smartphone offerings. The Z5 of course, was released mere months after the Z4 (or Xperia Z3+ depending on the market’s naming convention) and it may have been decided that another tablet would be redundant.
Nonetheless, Fall 2015 would have been an excellent time to put out a follow-up to the Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact, however the opportunity was thus passed on.
The decision to terminate tablets – if true – may make more sense when considering a post on this subject by XperiaBlog.net which stated:
We know that tablets made just 5% of Sony Mobile’s revenues back in 2013 and that was expected to shrink even further. Given the R&D costs of developing and supporting new devices, Sony may feel that producing another tablet for 2016 might not be commercially viable.
It remains to be seen what exactly will transpire this year. A leak has already surfaced that purports to picture the Xperia Z6 smartphone, and the design is a dramatic departure from the more easily identifiable image the Z series has used since its inception.
Wrap up
Should Sony formally withdraw from the tablet marketplace, it will mean the end of a brand that many users loved, and the end of yet another high end tablet offering for customers to choose from.
We want to hear what you think about this situation. Would you care if Sony dropped its Xperia Tablet line, or are you a loyal fan who will deeply miss it? Be sure to take our survey below, and then leave your thoughts in the comments section so all can hear what you have to say!
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Take back TV with Sling TV for Android: review
I recently became one of the many who finally decided to cancel my expensive cable television service. Companies like Cox, Time Warner and Comcast are some of the largest in the world because of their high profit margins. They have instilled a need in us for a service that is more of a luxury than we realize. From a non expert on cable TV service, I find it absolutely ridiculous that I only have access to one TV service in my zip code. The lack of direct competition allows these companies to charge us ridiculous fees for service.
According to research from Leichman Research Group the mean monthly spending on cable TV is $99.10! That total cost works out to almost $1200 dollars a year for service where you use a fraction of the channels. And you would think with 83 percent of households with a pay TV service, the cost would come down, but it has done the opposite. Since 2010 the average cost has gone up 39 percent. In theory TV should be paid for by commercials and advertisements. Netflix doesn’t have any ads and does fine offering thousands of shows and movies for just $7.99 per month.
And the channels you’re most likely interested in like NBC, FOX, ABC and CBS are all broadcasted free over the air and can be watched in full 1080p if you use a $20-30 antenna from Amazon.com.
While there was a slight adjustment phase from having access to over 200 channels, I have learned there are fantastic video streaming alternatives that cost a fraction of the price of cable.
That’s where Sling TV comes in and I have been using it for over two weeks now.
Sling TV description
Sling TV provides live TV from over 20 channels, with big names such as ESPN, HBO, Food Network, HGTV, TBS, and more.
Sling TV is not free with pricing starting at $20 per month, but it does allow you to stream video to a whole host of connected devices. You can stream to smartphones, tablets, streaming boxes like the Chromecast and Fire TV as well as PC and Mac OS computers.
Sling TV highlights:
• Watch college and pro sports like basketball and football, NCAA, NBA, Monday Night Football, Pretty Little Liars, Star Wars Rebels, Girl Meets World, Angie Tribeca, Shadowhunters, Portlandia, Todd Margaret, PewDiePie’s Broken Podcast, & others. Top shows, kids shows, movies & more.
• Fast-forward, rewind & pause on most channels. Watch up to 3 days of replay on certain channels. No DVR needed!
• Stream & control your viewing experience via mobile & more with your Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV stick, Roku, and Xbox One, Android TV – and Sling TV is now part of T-Mobile’s #BingeOn!
• Go mobile & watch live streaming TV and On Demand at home or on-the-go on your phone, tablet, laptop, or on your TV using Google Chromecast (one device at a time). Stream live television like sports with ESPN, football, basketball, NBA, NCAA, kids shows, movies & more.
• Add on the HBO Extra, featuring streaming shows like The Leftovers, Silicon Valley, Game of Thrones & Girls, plus classics like The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, The Wire, blockbuster movies, original television programming & more.
Setup and usage
The first thing you need to do is create an account at Sling TV. Sling offers a free seven day trial with access to it’s standard package, but you will need to provide a credit card that will automatically be billed at $20 a month after the trial phase. You are free to cancel at anytime before that though so you’re free to give it a try to see for yourself what disconnecting from cable TV service is all about.
Once I signed up for my free trial I headed on over to the Google Play Store for the U.S. app version of Sling TV. Sling TV is still relatively new and is working through technical issues. The app wouldn’t install on my smartphone no matter what I tried. Although it did install without issue on my Samsung Galaxy View and NVIDIA Shield tablet.
I contacted Sling’s customer chat service and the representative directed me to the international app which was downloadable on all of my Android smartphones. She assured me that it was no different than the U.S. version and in my two weeks of use, I couldn’t find any significant differences.
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Initially I experienced severe connection issues to the TV service. But after about 20 minutes of waiting, everything seemed to sort itself out. I most recently watched the NFL Pro Bowl on ESPN followed by Armageddon on AMC. There aren’t any options for local stations like NBC and ABC, but those are free over the air. For the last two weeks I have tried streaming video to my smartphone over the AT&T network and it worked great. T-Mobile even added Sling TV to its Binge On program that allows for unlimited video streaming.
Unlike cable TV, you cannot watch video on multiple devices at the same time. Which means if you’re apart of a family that likes to watch a lot of TV, Sling may not be the best option for you. But if you’re okay with sharing, especially if you have a subscription to Netflix and/or Amazon Prime Video, Sling TV might be a great option for you if you enjoy live TV.
I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s and am used to channel surfing. Kids these days, are fortunate enough to live in an age with DVR’s and commercial free services such as HBO On Demand as well as Netflix. There’s something about having commercials every few minutes to break up a TV show, and there is something to just mindlessly browsing through stations. I don’t always know what I want to watch and having live TV is something I need. Even if there’s nothing of interest on TV, I still love to browse through the channels and Sling TV brings that to me. While Netflix is great, I really don’t have the attention span to sit for hours at a time without breaks.
In my two weeks of use, I have experienced the occasional streaming lag, but other than that everything has worked great.
What I liked
- Available channels, especially ESPN
- Live TV just like cable TV
- Pricing
- Compatibility with a wide range of devices
- Portability
- Fantastic alternative to high priced cable TV
What I didn’t like
- Occasional lag
- Early software bugs
Summary
While there are some bugs to work through, Sling TV is a great alternative to cable TV. With cable TV subscriptions costing about $100 a month, it doesn’t make sense to continue to pay for a service where you use a fraction of the channels. Don’t continue to pay for TV just because that is what you’re used to. It isn’t necessary to have cable TV like it is to have water and electricity, and with the available alternatives you should strongly think about your options.
At $20 a month, Sling TV is a bargain compared to service from Comast, Cox, Uverse and Time Warner. As long as you have a data connection through your mobile provider or a WiFi signal you can watch live TV from anywhere. Sling TV even has promotions where you can get $50 off a Fire TV or a free Roku player with the purchase of three months of service up front. You can try out Sling TV for seven days free if you’re interested in disconnecting from that expensive service. Just think about the savings of $1000 per year you would get by making the switch.
Learn more at Sling TV
Google Play Store Sling TV app
Google Play Store International TV app (use this app if the main one will not install)
The post Take back TV with Sling TV for Android: review appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Carbon nanotube film is stronger and stretchier than kevlar
Researchers at East China University of Science & Technology have finally managed to develop a macroscopic material that exhibits the same strength and pliability as individual nanotubes. In fact, their new carbon nanotube-based film that is five times stronger and 8 percent more pliable than any such material previously developed.
The secret is in how the nanotubes are arrayed, according to ECU professor Jian Nong Wang. By laying the tubes parallel to each other — rather than spraying or filtering them on, as other methods do — the ECU team was able to create the super-strong film. Their film has an average strength of 9.6 gigapascals — far more than the 3.7 and 7 GPa that Kevlar and carbon fiber offer, respectively. It also offers superior electrical conductivity, making the new material ideal for use as a structural coating on vehicles and aerospace components or as next-generation electrodes.
Via: Slashdot
Source: Chemical and Engineering News
110 Super high resolution abstract wallpapers for your mobile devices
Your phone probably has a fantastic display and there is no better way to see the beauty of it than through a wallpaper. We’ve collected a huge library of over 100 HD (1080p) and QHD (1440p) wallpapers of abstract art for your backgrounds. These are perfect to show off the pixels and color gamut on your Android, iOS or Windows smartphones. They’ll also look great on your tablets as well.
We’ve changed things up lately and will be sharing the entire collection through Google Photos rather than hosting them on our servers. There are thousands of you who love these wallpapers and rather than drain the speed on our server, we’re offloading that responsibility to Google. All you have to do is join the collection through this link and you’re free to download all of the wallpapers to your device.
We would also love it if you tweeted screenshots of your home screens to us at Twitter.com. We might feature your background in an upcoming wallpapers collection!
See the entire collection by clicking on this LINK to Google Photos.
Here some of our favorites from the collection.
The post 110 Super high resolution abstract wallpapers for your mobile devices appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Get the XIAOMI Mi4C Android Lollipop smartphone for just $250
Do you know who the world’s fifth largest smartphone manufacturer is? You would probably guess LG, Motorola, or HTC but you’re very wrong. Xiaomi is the fifth largest smartphone manufacturer in the world, but hasn’t made its way into the U.S. just yet. The four other manufacturers who are bigger are Samsung, Apple, Huawei, and Lenovo in that order. Xiaomi sold over 70 million smartphones in 2015 and for good reason: phones like the Xiaomi Mi4C are fully loaded and cost less than $300.
For a limited time only you can get the Xiaomi Mi4C at gearbest.com for just $249.99. It even comes with the hexa-core Snapdragon 808 processor that powers Google’s Nexus 5X.
Get the Xiaomi Mi4C at gearbest.com.
Main features:
Display: 5.0 inch, 1920×1080 Pixel
CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 64bit Hexa Core 1.44GHz
GPU: Adreno 418
System: Android 5.1
RAM + ROM: 3GB RAM + 32GB ROM
Camera: 5.0MP with 85 degree wide-angle, f/2.0 aperture front camera + 13.0MP 5 element lens, f/2.0 aperture back camera
Sensor: Light sensor, G-sensor, Proximity sensor, Hall Sensor
Feature: Gyroscope, Electronic Compass
Bluetooth: 4.1
GPS: Yes
SIM Card: Dual SIM dual standby, Dual Micro SIM
Network:
2G: GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz
3G: WCDMA 850/900/1900/2100MHz
4G: FDD-LTE 1800/2100/2600MHz
The post Get the XIAOMI Mi4C Android Lollipop smartphone for just $250 appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Nintendo sold almost 10 million Amiibos in the last three months
While Nintendo didn’t have a lot of good news to share in its latest earnings report, it’s now elaborated on a new money-maker. Yep, those Amiibo: for-real figurines that can connect to compatible games — which are eminently collectible in the process. Nintendo says it sold a stunning 9.9 million figures in the last quarter, which is up from 6.4 million Amiibos from the quarter before. It’s also more than double the number of Splatoon copies sold: the Wii U’s best-selling game.
While the figures aren’t cheap, as the company itself notes, Amiibo are often cheaper than game software. Again, there’s interesting differences in which figures sell well in which territories: Splatoon characters make up the entire top three in Japan, while in the US, Link stays at the top and (technically?) Italian plumber Mario tops the charts in Europe. It seems that Nintendo are just getting started. Expect many more figures and Amiibo cards in 2016.
Source: NIntendo (Japanese)
Watch Amazon spoof tech culture in its upcoming sci-fi movie
There’s already a spot-on parody of tech industry culture you can watch, but Amazon — a big part of that industry — might have a clever satire of its own. Its studio wing just released the first trailer for Creative Control, a movie that roasts the relentless optimism of many tech companies. The story revolves around augmented reality glasses that are supposed to put a “magical layer” on top of life (a not-so-subtle poke at devices like Google Glass and HoloLens), but really just mess with the main character’s grasp of the real world. Among other things, the flick includes virtual romance and a surreal performance from noted VR enthusiast Reggie Watts. There’s no release date yet, but what little we’ve seen suggests that it’ll be worth waiting for the eventual online and theatrical releases.
Source: The Verge
US Mobile strips webshop, justifies deal with third parties
US Mobile has posted an update to its official blog justifying its decision to partner with third party distributors to sell Chinese smartphones.
Earlier this week we reported on news that US Mobile had become the first carrier in the United States to offer up affordable contract smartphones from Chinese manufacturers. Originally, big names including Xiaomi and Meizu were said to be fully on board.
Despite the initial excitement, Xiaomi has claimed that US Mobile is unauthorized to sell Xiaomi smartphones. A spokesperson for the group caught up with IBT to discuss the news, even though a previous US Mobile post said consumers could buy Xiaomi devices on the network including the Redmi 2 and Mi 3.
Xiaomi said:
“Recent reports have indicated that Xiaomi products will be available in the US. Xiaomi only offers a small selection of accessories for sale in the US through Mi.com. There are no plans to sell smartphones through any authorised distributors in the US. US Mobile is not authorised to sell Xiaomi products in the US.”
US Mobile’s newly-launched webshop serves as a curated marketplace ‘to bring value to customers’, although some listings have now been pulled from the store. Speaking about the move, US Mobile has said:
“All of the phones sold on US Mobile are carrier and in most cases region agnostic. We don’t force our customers to buy US Mobile service plans with our phones, so customers can technically buy a phone from US Mobile and use it on any carrier they choose.”
US Mobile is first and foremost a wireless carrier and as such our enabling carriers can make the devices go through rigorous testing and certification if they wish to do so. If US Mobile were purely a contract free phone seller, the phones would still be in our catalog.”
US Mobile says that by teaming up with third party distributors, the group can offer customers warranty and support on the devices locally in the US. On top of that, users can call the company’s 24/7 Customer Support team with any queries. The company has said that product listings on the webshop specifically note that devices are “sold and fulfilled” by third party partners.
Looking to the future, US Mobile says that it will continue to work with enabling carriers to certify phones on its network. The blog post signs off:
“If we are successful, we promise to enable our distributors to offer these phones on our marketplace again.”
We’ll be keeping a close eye on this story as it develops.
Come comment on this article: US Mobile strips webshop, justifies deal with third parties
Uber gets new look
Let’s say you updated your Uber app Tuesday. And let’s say that when you did, you no longer saw the traditional black and white, stylized “U” logo. Instead, let’s say you saw a square with a white circle in the center with a smaller square inside the circle.
Or, if you’re an Uber driver, let’s say your update changed the app logo to a square with a white hexagon in the center with a square inside of the hexagon.
That’s exactly what happened Tuesday when lots of Uber users updated their app. Are you confused yet? Don’t worry. We can help.
Uber rolled a new logo Tuesday as part of a rebranding effort. Gone is the stylized “U” logo with the word “Uber” in a serif font. In its place is the new logo, which Uber is saying represents its growing list of service. The company no longer just transports people. Rather, Uber says, the company now transports food, goods and “soon, maybe much more.”
As a result, Uber says, there could be more apps in the future which means, “we needed one approach that connected them all.”
But it’s not just a new logo. Uber’s old branding materials were very black and white. Uber called it “somewhat distant and cold.”
No more, Uber says. Uber hopes to roll out different color palettes and designs for the app based on the cities in which the company operates in an effort to “bring out the human side” of what they do.
From Uber’s CEO and founder Travis Kalanick:
“Uber started out as everyone’s private driver. Today we aspire to make transportation as reliable as running water, everywhere and for everyone. Our new brand reflects that reality by working to celebrate the cities that Uber serves. We’re excited to share it with you. And oh yes… hopefully this haircut lasts a bit longer than the last.”
Source: Uber
Come comment on this article: Uber gets new look
Scientists raised endangered coral species in the lab
Elkhorn is a critical reef-building species in the Caribbean, and the fact that it’s endangered proves that our coral reefs are in huge trouble. In an effort to help the planet’s reefs recover, SECORE International grew Elkhorns in the lab four years ago, which have now reached sexual maturity. Instead of snapping off pieces of coral from the wild to induce asexual reproduction, the team waited until it’s time for the species to release gametes. Since that only happens once or twice a year, they didn’t waste their chance in August 2011, placing special nets over the marine invertebrates to capture germ cells.
SECORE’s scientists mixed egg and sperm cells in the lab, watching them grow into swimming larvae and settle onto substrates. When the test tube coral babies reached that phase, the team transplanted the substrates onto the reef where they captured the samples. By opting for sexual reproduction, the team managed to create new genotypes that might be able to withstand pollution better than the current crop of Elkhorns. Opting for asexual reproduction would have merely created clones.
The group warns, however, that growing corals in the lab “can only support natural recovery, which means that conditions have to be appropriate to allow long term survival of outplanted corals and succession by other organisms to restore ecosystem functions.” In the end, if we continue to overfish and pollute the oceans, coral reefs could still die out and take 25 percent of all marine species with them to the grave.
[Image credit: Paul Selvaggio, Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium]
Via: Gizmodo
Source: SECORE
AIVAnet 