Skip to content

Posts tagged ‘Software’

4
Aug

What is the least important feature on a phone? [Poll]


We spend lots of time talking about the best features on smartphones and what makes them so great. But what if we decided to turn the tables? Today, we are not talking about what feature has to be included on the phone you buy, but rather which feature you could live without. So here is the setup for this question.

Y

ou are walking through the woods when you come upon an old shack. Inquisitive, you decide to check out what is inside and discover an old magician sitting in the corner reading a book, Android for Dummies. He sees you and begs you to help him figure out how to use his new Android smartphone. As a self-proclaimed tech whiz, you get him all set up and prepare to leave. He says he must reward you and promises to create you the perfect smartphone. His describes the phone to you as he works his magic.

BoomSoundThe screen is beautiful and perfectly sized for your hand. The gorgeous 2K resolution makes pictures and text pop. You are not sure what magical screen technology the wizard used, but the colors are perfectly accurate and the blacks are true. Even better, outdoor visibility is amazing!

The performance on this phone is second to none. No matter how much stress you put on it, you will never experience any lag. It flies through multitasking, gaming, web browsing, videoing, and anything else you can throw at it.

The build quality is strong yet light. You know that no matter what you do to this phone, it will never chip, scratch, shatter, or dent. The materials feel comfortable in your hand, and no matter how much you use it, the phone never gets hot.

The speakers make sound come alive and fill the room you are in. The audio quality would bring tears to an audiophile’s eyes. Best of all, the speakers are front-facing but take up no room on the bezel. Magic, you say? Well…yes.

Smartphone cameraThe camera takes pictures that look more real life that the world outside. Every feature and add-on you want is already included, and there is not even a camera hump. Just for fun, the magician throws in a best-in-class selfie camera, too.

The battery life is unbelievable! No matter how much you use it, the phone will always last for days. When you do finally need to charge it, the charging technology is so good you can be back up to full in no time.

Finally, the software is top notch. It is running the latest version of Android, and if you want, you can add any skin on top. Updates become available the day they are announced, and the magician promises your phone will be supported forever.

All of this sounds amazing, and you are eager for the magician to finish his spells and hand over your new phone. Unfortunately, the magician is old and reluctantly tells you he cannot deliver on one of his promised features. In fact, he has to skimp on one of them to deliver the other features he offered.

So now the question is: Which feature would you give up in order to have an otherwise perfect phone? 

To make this more interesting, I am going to tell you what you will have to endure depending on what you choose.

Smartphone batteriesIf you choose the screen as least important, the size will be unbearable for you. Either too large or too small, depending on which you hate more. The resolution matches 5-year-old budget phones, the colors look terrible, and you will never be able to see it outside.

For those of you who do not think performance is important, you will find yourself will a phone that cannot even handle basic tasks. Texting, browsing the web, using social media, and switching apps cause your device to lag and stutter until you are frustrated beyond comprehension.

Choosing build quality will give you the cheapest built phone you could ever imagine. The materials are flimsy and weak, and the phone creaks every time you touch it. It feels like the phone might just shatter if you set it down to quickly. And this is a problem that no mere case is going to fix, regardless of the brand or materials.

If you go with speakers/sound quality as least important, you will never want to listen to anything on this phone again. First, the speaker will be placed in a way that you will almost always muffle it. The audio itself is distorted, crackly, tinny, and just plain terrible. Unfortunately, the problem persists even if you use headphones or a Bluetooth speaker.

Choosing camera as unimportant will net you a camera that 2009 Android phones could beat. The megapixel count is extremely low, the sensor is absolute trash, the colors in every picture look wrong, low light performance does not exist, and you are stuck using a bare-bones camera app.

FroyoIf you do not think battery life is important, you will be sorry once you have to use this phone. With top of the line specs, this phone will never last you through a day. When you are forced to charge during your lunch break, you will find no Quick Charge technology here. A slow trickle barely fills your battery at all, and you will be back to the outlet in no time.

Finally, choosing software as least important will leave you with an extremely powerful phone running an outdated, ugly, terribly skinned version of Android Froyo. With a guarantee that no updates will ever reach your device and absolutely no root community, you will be stuck in the past forever.

So now the time has come to vote! Which awful feature you choose to endure to have all the other features in the top list? Select you answer in the poll below, and they let us know what you chose and why down in the comments!


What is the least important feature on a phone?

The post What is the least important feature on a phone? [Poll] appeared first on AndroidGuys.

4
Aug

OS X flaw leaves Macs vulnerable to attacks, no password required


The latest version of OS X contains a serious flaw that hackers can use to attack your computer without ever needing your password. The issue is around a hidden document — Sudoers — which is effectively a list of permissions as to which pieces of software are allowed to mess around with your computer. Unfortunately, a change to how Yosemite stores the list means that it’s now possible to add malware to the register. As such, if you inadvertently run an offending script, hackers can take advantage of your computer’s unwitting hospitality to install crapware like VSearch and MacKeeper.

The vulnerability was discovered by old-school iOS jailbreaker Stefan Esser who, according to MalwareBytes, is accused of publicly revealing the flaw before telling Apple. That’s a big faux pas in the security community, with Google going toe-to-toe with Microsoft about revealing as-yet un-patched flaws that have a real risk of harming users.

Esser has offered-up his own kernel extension that could protect your machine against such attacks, which can be downloaded here. As Ars Technica says, however, installing a patch that didn’t come from the original developer can be a risky business and you should do so only if you know what you’re doing. Naturally, we’ve reached out to Apple in the hope of getting some official comment on when a patch will be released, but the company had yet to respond at the time of publication.

Filed under:
Software, Apple

Comments

Via:
Ars Technica, AppleInsider

Source:
MalwareBytes, GitHub

Tags: apple, Flaw, Malware, OSX, Security

4
Aug

Twitter tries out a dedicated News tab


If you’re noticing a new tab at the bottom of your Twitter app for iOS and Android, you’re not alone. The social network is experimenting with a “Featured News” tab that surfaces trending news items in its mobile apps to keep users engaged. The new tab sits right in the middle of the apps’ bottom row and when tapped, surfaces what’s currently happening in the world. Tapping on a news item not only opens up a screen with an image, block of text and link from the source, but a list of tweets from other publishers and Twitter users about the item. According to a Twitter spokesperson, “we’re experimenting with a news experience on iOS and Android as we continue to explore new ways to surface the best content to users.”

This latest experiment is part of Twitter’s push to add more value for users, especially new ones. With its upcoming editorially curated Project Lightning feature surfacing the best tweets about daily events, the company is attempting to gather and keep new users that have found the timeline confusing. While the company has increased revenue, getting new people on the platform has slowed.

Unlike the editorially curated Project Lightning, the experimental Featured News tab is populated algorithmically. But like all Twitter experiments, how and what gets surfaced in the tab could change. In fact, the whole feature might go away. But regardless of how it works and if it sticks around, the company seems poised to try more experiments like this to make all those Tweets more palatable to a wider audience.

Filed under:
,

Comments

Source:
Buzzfeed

Tags: FeaturedNews, Twitter

3
Aug

Windows 10 is coming to these Lumia phones first


Key Speakers At The Microsoft Build Developer 2014 Conference

In case you haven’t heard, Windows 10 is here, and the version for phones will arrive soon. To help you prepare, Microsoft posted the initial list of Lumia handsets that’ll be privy to the free upgrade later this year. The collection of mobile devices includes Lumia 430, Lumia 535, Lumia 640 XL, Lumia 735, Lumia 830, Lumia 930 and others for 10 total. This means that if you own one of group, or have been thinking about picking one up, you’ll be able to grab the new software when it’s released. Of course, Windows 10 Mobile will deliver those universal apps, a retooled Action Center and Microsoft’s new Edge browser. For the full list of phones that will be included in the initial update, jump down past the break. Bummed because your daily driver didn’t make the cut? Don’t fret: this is the first set and there could be more included later.

  • Lumia 430
  • Lumia 435
  • Lumia 532
  • Lumia 535
  • Lumia 540
  • Lumia 640
  • Lumia 640 XL
  • Lumia 735
  • Lumia 830
  • Lumia 930

[Image credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images]

Filed under:
Cellphones, Software, Mobile, Microsoft

Comments

Via:
ZDNet

Source:
Microsoft

Tags: lumia, microsoft, mobilepostcross, nokia, software, update, windows10, windows10mobile

3
Aug

Samsung UK confirms that the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom won’t be getting Android Lollipop




(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push();

Samsung has never been very good at keeping its more niche products up-to-date software-wise, and it appears this point is being proven again today. Samsung UK has just responded to an eager customer on Twitter, saying that the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom won’t be getting Android Lollipop, possibly ruining the customer’s day:


That means that the Galaxy K Zoom will be staying on Android 4.4.2 i.e. Android KitKat, till the end of its days – which is coincidentally the software version it launched with. We can’t exactly say we’re surprised, but it likely still hurts for those affected – we’re assuming that updating the software for niche products like the Galaxy K Zoom is actually work than they’re worth, and unfortunately Samsung is in the process of streamlining its whole company. Perhaps the silver lining in all of this is that Samsung, or at least the UK Twitter branch, isn’t above responding to customer’s questions about software updates, rather than ignoring them and leaving them in the dark.

What do you think about the news the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom won’t be getting Android Lollipop? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Source: Twitter via Phone Arena

The post Samsung UK confirms that the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom won’t be getting Android Lollipop appeared first on AndroidSPIN.

2
Aug

Disney explains why its 3D animation looks so realistic


Baymax from 'Big Hero 6'

Have you watched 3D-animated Disney flicks like Big Hero 6 and wondered how some of its scenes manage to look surprisingly realistic? Today’s your lucky day: Disney has posted a top-level explanation of how its image rendering engine, Hyperion, works its movie magic. The software revolves around “path tracing,” an advanced ray tracing technique that calculates light’s path as it bounces off objects in a scene. It takes into account materials (like Baymax’s translucent skin), and saves valuable time by bundling light rays that are headed in the same direction — important when Hyperion is tracking millions of rays at once. The technology is efficient enough that animators don’t have to ‘cheat’ when drawing very large scenes, like BH6‘s picturesque views of San Fransokyo. Although Disney’s tech still isn’t perfectly true to life, it’s close enough that the studio might just fool you in those moments when it strives for absolute accuracy.

Filed under:
Home Entertainment, Software, HD

Comments

Source:
Walt Disney Animation Studios

Tags: animation, bighero6, disney, hdpostcross, hyperion, light, lighting, movies, pathtracing, raytracing, video

1
Aug

Android M Developer Preview 3 is delayed, Google says they “need a little more time”




(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push();

Google has been like clock work for the first two Developer Previews of Android M, but it appears their next one, Android M Developer Preview 3 is delayed after it was promised to be released at the end of July. The reason given by Google’s Wojtek Kalicinski is that they want Android M Developer Preview 3 to be “near release”, and it appears whatever that entails means they “need a little more time to get it out to you”. Naturally, the promise of a “near release” build of Android M will fuel theories about when Android M itself will be released in full, a fact that Kalicinski is quick to address:

“Please be patient and refrain from posting speculations about the release date in the community. We will announce the Preview 3 availability here and on +Android Developers as soon as it’s ready.”

But speculating is what we love to do!


Based on previous full Android releases, we’re expecting a release sometime in late October or early November, which will hopefully coincide with the release of at least one (if not two) new Nexus devices. Only time will tell whether any of this is right, but the next few months should be an exciting time for Android fans.

What do you think about about the fact the Android M Developer Preview 3 is delayed? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Source: Google+ via Phandroid

The post Android M Developer Preview 3 is delayed, Google says they “need a little more time” appeared first on AndroidSPIN.

1
Aug

Kim Dotcom promises to launch an open-source competitor to Mega


Third time’s a charm. Kim Dotcom — creator of Megaupload and Mega file-sharing sites, New Zealand politician, US fugitive — plans to launch a third cloud-storage company when his existing non-compete clause runs out at the end of the year. Dotcom briefly outlined his plans for a new site in a Slashdot user interview, saying, “I will create a Mega competitor that is completely open source and non-profit, similar to the Wikipedia model. I want to give everyone free, unlimited and encrypted cloud storage with the help of donations from the community to keep things going.”

Dotcom added that he doesn’t trust Mega, a company he founded in 2013, now that the New Zealand government has control of the site. He claims a corrupt Chinese investor purchased enough shares in Mega to take over the company, but the New Zealand government recently seized all of the investor’s shares, transferring control to itself.

“In addition Hollywood has seized all the Megashares in the family trust that was setup for my children,” he says. “As a result of this and a number of other confidential issues I don’t trust Mega anymore. I don’t think your data is safe on Mega anymore.” Of course, someone planning to launch a direct competitor to Mega would say something like that.

While his claims of a hostile takeover remain unverified, Dotcom plans to release a detailed breakdown of Mega’s status next week, he said in a tweet today.

Filed under: ,

Comments

Via: Slashdot

Source: Wired UK

31
Jul

Mini review video: our verdict of Windows 10 in 45 seconds


Windows 10 Mini Review

Didn’t read all the way through our nearly 3,700-word review of Windows 10? You really should: Devindra makes some good points. That said, if you’re short on time, or just have a hopelessly short attention span, we’ve distilled our writeup into a mini review video. As you can tell by the score alone (91 out of 100), we really, really dig the new software, and found very little fault with it. In particular, we love how the new, Live Tile-ized Start menu seems to combine the best of Windows 7 and 8, all the while correcting some big UX mistakes that Microsoft made over the past few years. In addition, new features like Cortana search and the Edge browser are in and of themselves worth the upgrade (and what an easy upgrade process it is too). Find the highlights in the short video above, and head over to our full review at the link below if you decide you want a little more detail after all.

Filed under: Software, Microsoft

Comments

Source: Engadget’s Windows 10 review

31
Jul

Google makes it even easier to test Android apps


Moto G

For developers, allowing the public to evaluate apps before general release is paramount — it helps weed out the bugs that could derail an otherwise successful launch. Both Apple and Google offer the capability, but TestFlight features have only been baked into iOS for the better part of a year and Android owners have typically had to jump through a number of hoops in order to sign up. With that in mind, Google has made some welcome changes that take the hassle out of the process.

First up is a new open beta option that lets developers share a link and let you sign up with a single click. No groups, no step-by-step processes, just follow the link and start testing. Next up is email testing. App makers conduct a private test, but can choose to share their creations with participants via email. Similar to an open beta, click the link and you’ll immediately be opted-in.

Creators can still use their old Google+ communities or Google Groups, but they’ll now have the option to move across to an open test without losing their existing user base. For developers that like to give their apps some air before unleashing them on the world, the extra choice will be welcome. If you enjoy testing apps, it means you’ll still be able to try out cool new features, but it’ll now be easier to do so.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software, Mobile, Google

Comments

Source: Google Android Developers Blog