Google is known for celebrating April Fool’s Day every year with a bunch of hoaxes that often involve launching fake new products or canceling existing ones.
This year, it’s Google Nose (Beta). Called ‘the new scentsation in search’, Google Nose will let you search for things by smell. You can search for things such as a wet dog or car exhaust and you get the smell, images and description from Google’s Aromabase. You will even get a list of recommendations from ‘People who sniffed’. And SafeSearch lets you not smell things you are not sure of.
Next in Google’s list of pranks is shutting down YouTube. Turns out, YouTube was always meant to be a contest to find out who can upload the best video on the internet. And now, the site is shutting down, after which will begin the process of finding out who uploaded the best video, with the results being announced on April 1, 2023.
Unfortunately, Google Reader shutting down was not a joke. That’s still real.
Want to go treasure hunting with your buddies? This new Google Treasure Map is just what you need. You can actually switch to the treasure map mode on the web version of Google Maps. Best part is, it’s still more detailed than Apple Maps.
Lastly, tired of seeing the same old Gmail? Presenting, Gmail Blue.
These are just some of the pranks from Google this year. You can find more in the link below.
Those who are into fishing would know that it’s not a terribly exciting activity. In fact, fishing is often a way for many to spend hours relaxing by the water, with the occasional tug on the string providing the only entertainment whatsoever. But what if you had a toaster, hairdryer and chainsaw attached to your hook?
This what puts the ridiculous in Ridiculous Fishing, a brand new game for iOS that has already won awards and praise from the media. The game turns the rather boring act of fishing into a crazy and often hilarious adventure. Let’s take a closer look at it.
Title
Ridiculous Fishing
Developer
Vlambeer
Platform
iOS
Release Date
March 14, 2013
Content Reating
12+
Size
48.3MB
Price
$2.99
Gameplay
The gameplay in Ridiculous Fishing is rather simple. You throw the hook in the water and as it goes down you try to avoid all the fishes that are swimming by. Yes, you have to avoid them. If you touch any one of them, then the hook stops going downward and then it starts ascending. At this point you do the exact opposite; you try to collect as many fishes as possible by turning the device side by side.
Now this is where the game gets ridiculous. Once the fishes are out, Billy, the dude who’s fishing, pulls out his gun and shoots the living daylights out of them. Yes, the fishes are tossed up in the air and you have to shoot as many as you can before they fall back into the water. The more you shoot, the more money you get.
Once you have enough money, you can buy items from the store. The store can be accessed from a dilapidated old phone that Billy’s using. Here you can buy items from five different categories. There are the reels and you can choose to purchase a longer one. You sort of have to if you need to go deep enough and collect any significant number of fishes and default one is too short. Then you can also upgrade your default pistol with more powerful shotguns, uzis, magnums and even a goddamned bazooka, if you manage to collect enough cash.
Next are the lures, where you can choose to have a chainsaw lure that lets you press and hold on the screen to cut through the fishes if avoiding them is not possible. You can only press and hold for a limited time, though, although you can upgrade this time limit as well by purchasing a bigger fuel tank. Some lures give you boost as you cut through the fishes and others let you slow down temporarily while going back up.
The tech section lets you purchase stuff like springs that launch the fishes higher in the air, giving you more time to shoot them, toasters and hairdryers, which zap the first and second fishes respectively that you touch, in case you couldn’t avoid them in time. There are also lamps, which are absolutely essential for when you go deep down or else you won’t see a thing.
The last category is miscellaneous, where you find stuff like caps, hats, ties and robes for Billy. Although they may seem useless at first, some of them give you abilities such as getting more cash off each fish sold, etc. You can also buy the Fish-o-pedia here, which gives you information about the various fishes in the game and can be accessed through Billy’s phone.
The game does have a great deal of fishes in it and each one gives you a different amount of cash when you shoot it. Also, there are certain fishes, usually the jellyfish, that you have to avoid as they actually deduct money from your balance. You need to find a certain number of fishes in a level to unlock the next one. Finding them involves hooking and shooting them, and not just floating past them. If you go deep enough you can collect a decent number of fishes at first attempt but some fishes only come out at certain times and so you have to play repeatedly to collect them. Wearing certain items from the Miscellaneous list also affects which fishes come out to play.
The game has four maps, which doesn’t seem like a lot and it isn’t. And the maps are mostly similar, with the major difference being the kind of fishes you find there. You can pretty much finish all four in a day if you take out some time but even otherwise it won’t take you too long to finish the whole game. Having said that, because of the nature of the gameplay, you can still continue playing it even after unlocking everything and find it quite enjoyable.
Graphics and Sound
Ridiculous Fishing has a very distinctive visual style. The 2D animation is dominated by sharply cut polygons which are used to draw everything. On top of that it uses a bright color palette that makes it look like something out of a children’s coloring book. The visuals give the game a whimsical look, which is also conveyed through the weird items you can purchase and the amusing descriptions for the fishes in the game. Of course, what matters is how it looks and it does look very good, especially on a Retina display.
The sound in the game is also very good. The chirpy 8-bit inspired tunes match the colorful visuals of the games and change according to the map you’re in and whether you’re going down or up. The tracks while going back up are especially interesting as they are made to sound like a tune is being played backwards. Overall, the soundtrack is also quite nice and works well with the theme of the game.
Verdict
Despite the high praises heaped on the game I didn’t have particularly high hopes with Ridiculous Fishing as it seemed overly simplistic. However, after spending some time with it I was pleasantly surprised by it. The gameplay is fun and addictive, especially once you get the hang of it and unlock a few items on the store, and the tongue-in-cheek humor makes it that much more enjoyable. The visuals and sounds are also quite good. For $2.99, Ridiculous Fishing is good value, especially for a universal app with absolutely no in-app purchases.
Rating: 8/10 Pros: Simple yet fun gameplay, plenty of fun items to unlock, impressive visuals and sound Cons: Not enough maps, no way to quit or restart a game once started
Skype, the most popular instant messenger, has updated its application for the Windows 8 machines. The latest version of the Skype for Windows 8 now comes with contact blocking and few other tweaks to improve the overall performance.
. The all new contact blocking option allows you to control over who can contact you and gives you the ability to block contacts. Furthermore, you can also choose to remove or report a contact request as spam.
Skype for Windows 8 1.6 also comes with improved loading speed and reliability across the app, which results in a better contact load speeds. The update also offers fix for a number issues from the previous releases.
The latest version of Skype can be downloaded from the Windows Store.
Epic Games, creators of the successful Gears of War series, have released a new demo video that shows off their next generation Unreal Engine 4, which should slowly be making its way into upcoming games.
The demo video, called Infiltrator, is just made for demonstration purposes and is not actually from a real game, unlike last year’s Samaritan video for Unreal Engine 3. As you will see from the video below, the engine is absolutely fantastic, with the final result (which is being rendered real-time) looking like a high quality animated movie.
But the best part about this is that unlike what one would expect, it doesn’t take an insane amount of power to make the visuals look this good. What you see in the video below is running off of a single off-the-shelf NVIDIA GTX 680. Although not something an average consumer would buy, a GTX 680 is still a reasonably priced GPU for the kind of visuals that are being churned out by the engine.
Of course, it depends upon the game developers how well they take advantage of the engine as well as the hardware for their games, so actual games might look as good, at least not initially. Also, if you have a Wii U then you can just forget about it, as it won’t be able to run the Unreal Engine 4. But other console owners, especially PC gamers can look forward to some sweet visuals in future.
SoundHound has updated the Android version of their popular music recognition app. The biggest change in this update is a new UI for Android tablet users. Although the previous UI was somewhat optimized for tablets, it still looked like the smartphone app was being stretched across the screen in landscape mode.
In the updated version, the app will now show you large thumbnail for the tracks on the side, instead of a simple, stretched out list in the previous version. Along with the new UI for tablets, you also get the following changes:
• See LiveLyrics, the newest way to experience lyrics as they magically move in sync with the song • Explore charts, albums and artists with graphic imagery • Streamlined sharing to Facebook, Twitter, and more • Easily purchase the songs you love
On the phone you can now: • Find your songs quickly with SoundHound’s even faster music recognition! • Scroll through history more easily
You can update the app from the Play Store on your device or download it from the links below.
What does this app do?: Clipboard is a web-based service that allows you to clip, save and organize whatever grabs you and, in turn, you want to grab from the web—a recipe that entices you, photographs that inspire you, or projects that motivate you, for example.
Suppose you’re browsing a website or another app. Press down and hold to copy and highlight what you want to clip—maybe it’s just a photo, or maybe it’s the entire page. Assuming you’re searching an app or website that supports copying, you can grab the entire contents of a page including text, images and links. Switch over to the Clipboard app, and then press down on its heart shaped paperclip icon in order to save the clip. Viola! The content can be saved as text, HTML, or a bookmark preserving the information as it appears on the web.
Once you save it, you can organize material by creating boards based on categories or themes, such as Design or Health, as well as peruse fellow Clipboard user’s boards. Give your clip a title and description, and from there add comments and either keep it private or choose to share it with the Clipboard community. (We created one called #technology).
Is it easy to Install?: It’s simple to install. Download the free app from the iTunes store, and then create an account.
Should I try it?: Clipboard is reminiscent of others, such as Pinterest, Skitch for iPad, and Instapaper in that it allows users to put together collages of information and make it easy to share across social media platforms. What sets this app apart, however, is the ability to share parts of a website, not just images or text. Clipboard’s simple layout lends itself well to beginners offering helpful hints on how to navigate and perform basic functions. However, if you’re already using a clip sharing app, there’s no reason to ditch it for Clipboard.
We knew that the Human Right Campaign’s (HRC) red and pink logo in support of gay marriage had spread across the web at a record pace, but Facebook is now confirming that with some numbers.
Facebook says that millions of people change their profile photos every day, but on Tuesday, March 26, the day the HRC asked gay marriage supporters to “paint the town red” with a new logo, 2.7 million moreusers changed their photo compared with the previous Tuesday. Profile photo uploads were up by 120 percent, it says. Facebook has more than a billion users.
Facebook doesn’t have exact numbers on whether all those users changed it to the pink and red logo or some variation of it. Facebook did confirm that the rise in uploads occurred after the HRC released its status message encouraging people to change their pictures in support of gay marriage.
“We find that the increase in uploads does indeed start around the time when HRC began urging their Facebook followers to change their profile photos at 1 p.m. EST,” Facebook’s Data Science Team said in a blog post today.
Wondering how old many of the profile photo-switchers were? Facebook also says that more people around age 30 changed their profile photo, in comparison to the previous Tuesday. According to the data, “roughly 3.5 percent of 30-year-old Facebook users updated their profiles in response to the events surrounding the HRC campaign.”
Counties with bolder colors had more photo-switchers. (Credit: Facebook)
According to the released data, support shown via the photo change was spread across the country, but a county in Michigan — Wahtenaw County — topped the list, with approximately 6.2 percent of people who logged in from that county changing their profile photo in response to the campaign. It also appears that people in college towns were more apt to change their photos; among the highest towns were Orange (University of North Carolina), Durham (Duke University) and Monroe (Indiana University). San Francisco County and Washington, D.C., also ranked highly.
Samsung is continuing to churn out new color options for the Galaxy S III, the latest addition is Amethyst (purple for those with limited knowledge of color names). The new shade leaked about 10 days ago, but now is officially up on Samsung’s US site.
Right now the Amethyst Galaxy S III is available only for Sprint (in addition to the standard Pebble Blue and White versions).
It’s not clear if other carriers and stores outside the US will get the new color. Also, the Galaxy Note II and Galaxy S III mini have mostly tried to keep up with the Galaxy S III when it comes to color options, will they get an Amethyst version?
Anyway, head over to Samsung’s US site for a quick look of Galaxy S III’s new paintjob. Unfortunately, there’s only one image.
Google delivers everything from your email to your search results to your to-do list, instantly. So why not your groceries, office supplies or your medication?
That’s exactly Google’s next move, to bring you your physical goods when you want them. In San Francisco, the search giant has began a test-run of its Google Shopping Express service, which provides same-day delivery from a number of stores, including Target, Walgreens, Office Depot, Staples and Blue Bottle Coffee Co.
Using Google’s Shopping Express site, users will be able to browse inventory at those stores, put the products they want in their virtual shopping bag, and then select a delivery time that works for them. A Google Express delivery person will then deliver them right to their doorstep.
The catch? It’s being called an “experiment” right now and it’s only being offered to a limited number of people in San Francisco and the Bay Area. Testers can apply now on Google’s Shopping Express site. Those selected will get a free six-month membership, which includes unlimited same-day delivery. Google says it is working out the long-term pricing plan.
“It’s incredibly early days and so the service is only available to a small number of people in the Bay Area,” Tom Fallows, the product management director for Google Shopping Express, said in a blog post.
Fallows says that the pilot program will expand.
Google joins eBay and Amazon in the same-day delivery service game. EBay’s Now service, which provides same-day delivery for hundreds of stores, is available in San Francisco, New York City and San Jose, Calif. It costs $5 per order while being tested.
Amazon provides its Local Express Delivery service in 10 cities, including New York, Las Vegas, Seattle, Boston and Washington. It is more expensive at $8.99 and up, depending on the size of the delivery.
The Sony Xperia Tablet Z was definitely one of the hottest tablets to set foot at the Mobile World Congress floor this year, and we were pretty excited when we learned that we’d be able to get our hands on one in mid-April. Sadly, Sony has pushed back the slate’s European release to the end of May.
On the checkout screen on the company’s webstore, the Xperia Tablet Z is listed to ship on May 28-29. In the UK, online retailers like Expansys and Clove say the device is expected to show up in the week of May 20.
Sony hasn’t officially given out any information regarding the delay of the Tablet Z, but if I had to put my finger on it, I’d guess that there are some issues with the manufacturing process or part shortages behind it all.
Anyhow, the European pricing of the Tablet Z starts from €499 for the 16GB Wi-Fi only version, and €629 for the LTE/4G one. The 32GB model is priced at €549.
The Android-powered OUYA console has started shipping to Kickstarter backers, as promised. This is the developer console with a transparent plastic casing, while the retail unit (scheduled to hit shelves on June 4) will have a metallic outer shell.
The OUYA team says consoles will be shipped out of the factory over the next few weeks so you might not get yours right away. You will receive an email when yours leaves the factory.
Another thing to know is that the first thing you’ll have to do when you plug in your console is update it – it should be quite fast (a few seconds, unless your Internet is slow) and the team is looking into background updates to prevent such interruptions in the future.
All games (104 at the moment) will be free to try, but you will have to put in your credit card info in case you want to do in-app purchases.
The OUYA uses Bluetooth to connect to the controller and the team is looking into what other devices you can hook up (the Wiimote and PS3’s DualShock controller use Bluetooth, let’s see if they can get those working).
A couple of months ago Panasonic unveiled its plan to improve digital cameras by replacing the ubiquitous Bayer filter. The company claims a Bayer filter blocks 50%-70% of the light entering the camera, while its new color splitter design uses all the available light. A new video goes into more detail on the tech.
According to Panasonic, the color splitters are a pop-in replacement for Bayer filters, so the same sensor tech can be used. Also, the splitters can be made by current manufacturing processes, the big problem was that getting the design right took a lot of computing power to run simulations.
Faster computers and new algorithms finally allowed Panasonic to get the job done. Here’s the gist of how it works – pixels are arranged into groups of four and color splitters is put over two of them, a red and a blue splitter (check the image above). So, instead of filtering out light, the new tech refracts in the pattern below. Traditional RGB colors are calculated with simple formulas.
So, while sensors themselves don’t change, getting extra light compared to a Bayer filter setup leads to improved camera performance, particularly in low-light situations. Here are demo photos taken by Panasonic at F/4.0, the company’s color splitter photo is on the left, the old Bayer tech photo on the right.
Here’s the video in question:
If the manufacturing is as simple as Panasonic says it is, we hope to see color splitters hit mobile phone cameras as soon as possible. Those tiny sensors certainly need all the light they can get.
The Gmail app for iOS has received another update, which brings it to v2.1. One of the key new features in this update is that you can now move between mails simply by swiping horizontally on the screen. This functionality has existed in the Android version of the apps for a while now but only now has it made an appearance on iOS. The feature is only available on the iPhone, as on the iPad you can simply tap on the mail list on the side.
Another change in 2.1 is that you can now mark multiple mails in the inbox and then take a bulk action on them, including archive, delete or more from the action bar. This feature is available on the iPhone as well as the iPad.
The Kickstarter funded, Android-based gaming console is now in its final stage, ready to go into the hands of eager buyers. But when exactly will you be able to buy it?
According to OUYA, the console will start shipping to regular customers on June 4 for $99. It will be sold through Amazon, Best Buy and other retailers. For that money, you get the console, the controller with the touchpad, an HDMI cable and batteries for the controller. Meanwhile, the Kickstarter project backers started receiving the console this month itself.
For those who don’t know, OUYA is a game console based on Android Jelly Bean operating system and runs on NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 processor. It’s the first of its kind device that lets you play Android games on the big screen with a controller. OUYA will have its own online store from where you can purchase games directly on the console and where all games are expected to provide a free demo so customers can try out the game before they can purchase them. As of now, there are a handful of new games being made for the console, with existing Android games such as Shadowgun and Dead Trigger also making an appearance. Hopefully, you should be able to play a lot more games in future, assuming the platform takes off.
If ever there’s a phone in need of a teardown the iFixit team is ready for action. This time the crew disassembled the HTC One and found that it’s no picnic.
The One ended up with a bad grade for repairability but received good marks for build quality and durability. We get to see the Snapdragon 600 CPU, the 4 “Ultrapixel” camera, inside the sweet looking unibody and those stereo speakers at the front.
It seems that the 2.1 MP ultra-wide-angle front facing camera is made by OmniVision while the centerpiece of imaging, the 4 MP sharpshooter is the work of ST Microelectronics.
The 32 GB NAND flash is manufactured by Samsung.
HTC One teardown
The bad points are that you simply cannot open the device without damaging the rear case. The battery is tough to replace because you need to dig past the motherboard and the display assembly forces you to remove the rear case, which makes replacing a broken screen nearly impossible on your own (even with the proper tools and knowledge).
To sum up it’s best if you don’t break your HTC One. Check out the source link for the full breakdown.
Now that we finished with our HTC Onereview, we took our time to give you the detailed breakdown of the smartphone’s battery stress tests.
The HTC One is powered by a 2300 mAh Li-Po battery unit that handles the latest quad-core Snapdragon 600 chipset. So, how did the HTC One do? Here we go.
Our first battery test is all about 3G calls. The HTC One battery went out after 13 hours and 38 minutes, quite an impressive result and very close to the Galaxy S4′s talk time despite the 300 mAh battery advantage of the Samsung flagship.
Talk time
Motorola RAZR MAXX (ICS) 21:18
LG Optimus G Pro 20:45
Motorola DROID RAZR MAXX 20:24
Motorola RAZR i 20:07
Samsung Galaxy Note II N7100 16:57
Sony Xperia Z 16:03
LG Optimus G 15:30
Nokia Lumia 620 14:17
Oppo Find 5 14:17
Google Nexus 4 14:17
Samsung Galaxy S4 13:53
HTC One 13:38
HTC One X+ 13:31
Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos 12:45
Huawei Ascend P1 12:30
HTC Butterfly 12:18
Samsung Galaxy Note 12:14
Samsung I8530 Galaxy Beam 11:58
Samsung Galaxy Premier 11:30
Asus Padfone 2 11:20
HTC Droid DNA 11:07
HTC Windows Phone 8X 11:07
Samsung Wave 3 S8600 11:07
Samsung I9105 Galaxy S II Plus 11:06
HTC Desire X 11:03
HTC One X (AT&T, LTE) 10:35
Samsung I9300 Galaxy S III 10:20
Samsung I9300 Galaxy S III (JB) 10:15
Samsung Galaxy Xcover 2 10:03
HTC One V 10:00
Meizu MX 4-core 10:00
Samsung Galaxy Express 10:00
HTC One X 9:57
HTC One S 9:42
Samsung I9103 Galaxy R 9:40
HTC Sensation XL 9:30
Nokia Lumia 810 9:05
Nokia Lumia 710 9:05
Acer CloudMobile S500 9:05
Motorola Atrix HD 9:04
HTC Vivid 9:02
Nokia Lumia 920 8:56
Nokia Lumia 610 8:51
HTC Rhyme 8:48
Apple iPhone 5 8:42
LG Optimus 3D Max P720 8:42
Sony Ericsson Xperia neo V 8:41
Meizu MX 8:39
Samsung Galaxy S II 8:35
Samsung Galaxy S Duos 8:28
Nokia Lumia 800 8:25
Samsung Galaxy Nexus 8:23
Nokia Lumia 510 8:22
BlackBerry Z10 8:20
HTC Desire V 8:20
Samsung Captivate Glide 8:20
Sony Xperia T 8:15
HTC Rezound (LTE) 8:10
Samsung Galaxy Note (LTE) 8:02
LG Optimus Vu 7:57
LG Optimus 4X HD 7:41
Apple iPhone 4S 7:41
Samsung i937 Focus S 7:25
HTC Evo 4G LTE (LTE) 7:21
Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G 7:14
Nokia Lumia 820 7:09
Sony Xperia acro S 7:09
Samsung Rugby Smart I847 7:09
Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro 6:57
Nokia N9 6:57
HTC Radar 6:53
Samsung Galaxy Ace Duos 6:53
BlackBerry Curve 9380 6:52
Sony Xperia E dual 6:42
Samsung Galaxy S III mini 6:22
Samsung Galaxy Pocket 5:54
Nokia Lumia 900 for AT&T (LTE) 5:53
Sony Xperia ion LTE 5:52
Sony Xperia P 5:33
Nokia 808 PureView 5:16
LG Nitro HD (LTE) 5:16
HTC Titan II (LTE) 5:10
BlackBerry Bold 9790 5:00
Pantech Burst 4:46
HTC One did an amazing job with the web browsing test. It outlasted every other smartphone we’ve tested so far and took the first place in the chart coming just a couple of minutes short of the 10 hours milestone. Nicely done, HTC.
Web browsing
HTC One 9:58
Apple iPhone 5 9:56
Motorola RAZR MAXX (ICS) 9:12
Apple iPad mini 9:05
Samsung Galaxy Note II N7100 8:48
Samsung Galaxy S4 8:42
Nokia Lumia 810 8:20
Asus Padfone 2 8:20
Nokia Lumia 610 8:01
HTC One X+ 7:56
Sony Xperia E dual 7:42
Samsung Galaxy S III mini 7:38
Motorola DROID RAZR MAXX 7:23
HTC Radar 7:17
Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos 7:09
Samsung Galaxy Express 7:09
Motorola RAZR i 7:06
Apple iPhone 4S 6:56
HTC One V 6:49
LG Optimus G Pro 6:40
Samsung I9105 Galaxy S II Plus 6:40
HTC Droid DNA 6:40
Samsung Galaxy Premier 6:40
Motorola Atrix HD 6:40
BlackBerry Curve 9380 6:40
Sony Xperia Z 6:37
Samsung Galaxy Xcover 2 6:35
BlackBerry Z10 6:27
Samsung I9300 Galaxy S III (JB) 6:27
HTC Butterfly 6:24
Samsung i937 Focus S 6:15
Nokia Lumia 510 6:13
HTC Windows Phone 8X 6:01
Sony Xperia ion LTE 5:56
Samsung Rugby Smart I847 5:53
Pantech Burst 5:51
Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G 5:45
HTC Desire V 5:44
HTC Evo 4G LTE 5:41
Nokia Lumia 920 5:40
Samsung Wave 3 S8600 5:34
Oppo Find 5 5:33
Sony Xperia T 5:33
Samsung Captivate Glide 5:33
Samsung I8530 Galaxy Beam 5:28
Samsung Galaxy Note LTE 5:24
Samsung Galaxy S Duos 5:23
HTC Sensation XL 5:20
Meizu MX 4-core 5:19
Samsung I9300 Galaxy S III 5:17
Sony Xperia acro S 5:16
HTC Rezound 5:16
HTC Desire X 5:16
LG Optimus G 5:15
HTC Rhyme 5:08
Samsung I9103 Galaxy R 5:07
HTC One X (AT&T) 5:03
Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro 4:50
LG Optimus Vu 4:49
HTC Vivid 4:46
Samsung Galaxy Ace Duos 4:45
Meizu MX 4:35
Google Nexus 4 4:34
Nokia N9 4:33
Acer CloudMobile S500 4:32
Nokia Lumia 820 4:24
Samsung Galaxy S II 4:24
Sony Ericsson Xperia neo V 4:20
HTC One X 4:18
Nokia 808 PureView 4:14
LG Optimus 3D Max P720 4:10
Nokia Lumia 900 for AT&T 4:10
Nokia Lumia 800 4:07
HTC Titan II (LTE) 4:05
HTC One S 4:03
BlackBerry Bold 9790 4:02
LG Nitro HD 4:00
LG Optimus 4X HD 3:59
Sony Xperia P 3:59
Nokia Lumia 710 3:51
Nokia Lumia 620 3:50
Samsung Galaxy Pocket 3:47
Samsung Galaxy Note 3:35
Huawei Ascend P1 3:23
Samsung Galaxy Nexus 3:01
Finally we’ve put the One into an endless video playback loop to see how long it’ll take for it to lose 90% of its battery charge. We were in for yet another impressive result with the HTC One matching the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the Apple iPhone 5. The battery drained after 10 hours and 2 minutes, which is quite an impressive result sufficing for sixth place in our all-time chart.
Video playback
Motorola RAZR MAXX (ICS) 16:35
Motorola DROID RAZR MAXX 14:17
Apple iPad mini 12:51
Samsung Galaxy Premier 12:51
Samsung Galaxy Note II N7100 11:27
Samsung Galaxy S4 10:16
Apple iPhone 5 10:12
HTC One 10:02
Samsung I9300 Galaxy S III 10:01
Samsung Galaxy Express 10:00
Samsung I9105 Galaxy S II Plus 10:00
Nokia 808 PureView 9:53
Samsung I8530 Galaxy Beam 9:42
Samsung Rugby Smart I847 9:34
HTC One S 9:28
Samsung I9300 Galaxy S III (JB) 9:27
Apple iPhone 4S 9:24
HTC Evo 4G LTE 9:07
BlackBerry Z10 8:44
LG Optimus G Pro 8:40
Nokia N9 8:40
HTC Butterfly 8:28
Samsung Galaxy Note 8:25
Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos 8:11
HTC One X+ 8:11
Motorola RAZR i 8:11
Samsung Galaxy S II 8:00
Samsung i937 Focus S 7:55
Samsung Wave 3 S8600 7:52
Samsung Galaxy S III mini 7:46
Sony Ericsson Xperia neo V 7:45
Asus Padfone 2 7:38
Huawei Ascend P1 7:38
Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G 7:33
HTC Droid DNA 7:30
Samsung Galaxy Note LTE 7:30
Samsung Galaxy Xcover 2 7:30
Nokia Lumia 610 7:23
LG Optimus G 7:16
Meizu MX 4-core 6:33
Nokia Lumia 620 6:32
HTC Windows Phone 8X 6:27
Sony Xperia E dual 6:27
Nokia Lumia 810 6:27
HTC Desire V 6:26
HTC One X (AT&T) 6:26
Nokia Lumia 820 6:25
Samsung Galaxy Ace Duos 6:25
Nokia Lumia 510 6:23
LG Optimus Vu 6:23
Samsung I9103 Galaxy R 6:21
Nokia Lumia 920 6:19
HTC Sensation XL 6:12
Samsung Galaxy Pocket 6:06
Samsung Captivate Glide 6:04
Sony Xperia ion LTE 6:03
Samsung Galaxy Nexus 6:02
Sony Xperia T 6:01
Motorola Atrix HD 6:01
HTC Vivid 6:00
HTC Radar 5:54
Nokia Lumia 800 5:52
HTC Titan II 5:50
BlackBerry Bold 9790 5:47
HTC One X 5:45
Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro 5:44
Sony Xperia Z 5:39
Sony Xperia acro S 5:38
HTC Desire X 5:38
Pantech Burst 5:38
Meizu MX 5:27
HTC Rhyme 5:23
HTC One V 5:20
Acer CloudMobile S500 5:18
Oppo Find 5 5:18
Nokia Lumia 900 for AT&T 5:18
BlackBerry Curve 9380 5:09
HTC Rezound 5:03
Google Nexus 4 4:55
Samsung Galaxy S Duos 4:30
Sony Xperia P 4:30
LG Nitro HD 4:17
LG Optimus 4X HD 4:14
LG Optimus 3D Max P720 3:28
Nokia Lumia 710 3:27
With the kind of performance we witnessed in the indivudual tests, we were preparing to see the HTC One post a record overall score. Alas, the smartphone was led down by its standby efficiency and only manged 48h. That’s as much as the Sony Xperia Z, but seriously short of the Samsung Galaxy S4 achievement. This means you’ll only need to charge the HTC One every 48 hours if you use it for an hour of talk-time, an hour of web browsing and an hour of video-watching per day.
The guys over at HI-TECH@mail.ru decided to go all scientific about screens and put the Samsung Galaxy S4′s 5″ 1080p Super AMOLED against the 4″ Retina of the Apple iPhone 5 and the 4.7″ Super LCD3 1080p display of the HTC One.
The review involved quite a few number of tests – from color reproduction, brightness, gamma, sharpness, viewing angles, the lot. And although a clear winner isn’t appointed your personal victor can be chosen based on the stuff you value the most.
The Samsung Galaxy S4 offers different screen modes that affect its color reproduction quite significantly. You can go all punchy and popping with Dynamic but in the tests the Movie mode was found to show very natural colors, which once used to be a forbidden area for Super AMOLEDs. Below you’ll find the color table of the Galaxy S4 while in Film mode.The green steadily follows the perfect line, while blue and red are pretty close too.
Adobe RGB mode was pioneered with the 1080p Super AMOLED on the Galaxy S4 and also follows true-to-life colors but surprisingly not quite as accurate as the Movie mode.
In terms of brightness the Galaxy S4 turned out inferior to the winning iPhone 5 screen, and the HTC One which followed closely. When it comes to white balance the Galaxy S4 in Film and Adobe RGB modes is closest to the desired 6500K color temperature while the iPhone 5 got about 7250K and the HTC One 8000K, both going for a colder color temperature.
When it comes to deep blacks and contrast the Super AMOLED retained its edge over the IPS LCDs it faced.
Samsung Galaxy S4 (left) iPhone 5 (middle) HTC One (right)
For the complete test, garnished with a load of photos and charts, follow the source link below. It’s in Russian though, so you might take advantage of Google Translate.
Your boss doesn’t follow you on Twitter, so if you tweet, “I hate my boss,” he will never know, right?
The FireMe! app says WRONG!
The newly unveiled German app called FireMe! tracks anyone who writes inappropriate things about their boss or job on Twitter, then displays their tweets with the person’s Twitter handle, profile picture and the timing of the post.
The displayed tweets run the range including people who call their bosses bad names, others who tweet about wanting to kill, maim or shoot their supervisors, and those who simply chant, “I hate my job i hate my job i hate my job.”
“If I don’t kill someone at work ill be shocked. Horrible mood,” one person’s tweet said.
Tweets are separated into four categories on the app: “Haters,” “Horrible Bosses,” “Sexual Intercourse” and “Potential Killers.” The app also features a “Leaderboard” that shows the “FireMe!” picks for the most incriminating tweets. The leader board hit 999 entries earlier today.
The app claims its purpose is to serve as a reminder to all the seemingly oblivious tweeters out there that tweets are not private – everyone can see them – so if you are posting about how much you hate your boss, you might as well go into his office and scream, “Fire Me!”
The app also has a ”FireMeter” that will scan tweets from your Twitter handle to see how likely you are to get fired based upon what you have tweeted.
According to the FireMeter, my score of 1 percent indicates that apparently I haven’t said anything too compromising about my job lately.
The AT&T version of Samsung’s Galaxy S4 will be available for pre-order beginning April 16 and is a bit more expensive than some would have anticipated. The new phone will start at $249.99 with a two-year contract. No specific launch date for the phone has been announced, but Samsung has said it would be in the second quarter of 2013.
The news comes just days after T-Mobile announced that it would be the first U.S. carrier to offer the long-awaited Android phone on May 1. T-Mobile’s new “contract-free” price for the phone will be $99 up front with monthly payments following.
The newest installment of Samsung’s Galaxy line of phones offers a series of hardware and software improvements over the company’s popular Galaxy S3. The phone has a larger, 5-inch, 1080p screen, faster quad-core processor and support for gesture controls with Air Gesturing and Air View. It also has new camera software and built-in health and fitness tracking capabilities. Both the AT&T and the T-Mobile versions of the Galaxy S4 will operate on the carriers’ LTE networks.
Last year’s Samsung Galaxy S3 was seen by many as the first real competitor for Apple’s iPhone, something that the Android class of phones had been lacking since launching on all four carriers in 2009.
Apple has responded to the launch of the Galaxy S3′s successor with a series of iPhone-praising ads and comments from Apple’s senior vice president of marketing, Phil Schiller. “Android is often given as a free replacement for a feature phone and the experience isn’t as good as an iPhone,” Schiller told The Wall Street Journal. Apple’s iPhone 5 costs $199 with a two-year contract at AT&T, $50 less than Samsung’s Galaxy S4 will cost when it hits this spring.
The folks from Firemonkeys studios broke a word on an upcoming update to the popular Real Racing 3 video game. Due in mid-April, the update will add the much needed cloud saving support, Chevrolet cars to the lineup, and a new racing mode.
The addition of cloud saving support will solve one of the game’s most notable issues at the moment. The service will automatically sync your progress once a day and will work across different platforms.
There will be a couple of Chevy cars initially available – the Camaro ZL1 and the Cobalt SS. According to the developers, Chevrolet was among the most requested car makers by the game’s players.
The new hunter racing mode will allow users to catch and pass one car over a single lap. The opponent will have a head start, so the mode will surely be interesting. It will also make the total number of available racing events over 1,000.
Here’s a video showcasing the upcoming changes.
The Real Racing 3 update will hit both Android and iOS at some point in the middle of next month.
Back in Feburary, Google began a social media campaign asking Twitter and Google + users what they would do it they had Google Glass, those futuristic, Internet-connected glasses that show digital information right in front of your eyes. Those with the best answers would be selected for the Explorer version of the glasses.
And now the results of that contest are in. Google began tapping winners of its #IfIHadGlass contest via Twitter and Google+ this week, awarding some hopeful Google Glass owners with the opportunity to buy their very own “Explorer” edition of the eye-glass computer device for $1,500 when they are made avilable.
@georgeanthony15 You’re invited to join our #glassexplorers program. Woohoo! Make sure to follow us – we’ll DM in the coming weeks.
Google says they are aiming to invite 8,000 applicants to become “Glass Explorers,” but the contest hasn’t gone without snags.
The Glass team posted to its Google+ account Wednesday to explain that some applicants, originally being notified as winners, have now had their submissions disqualified. Google said that some submissions that “don’t comply with [the official terms of the contest] have slipped through the cracks,” and those applicants will be recontacted and notified of their disqualification.
According to the terms of the contest, a Twitter or Google+ submission is ineligible if it’s found to be “derogatory, offensive, threatening, defamatory, disparaging… or otherwise does not comply with the theme and spirit of #ifihadglass.”
Here’s an example of one of those mix ups:
@wutabril Unfortunately your application didn’t comply with our terms, and has been disqualified. We’re sorry for the confusion.
But the Glass Explorer program is only the beginning. Google Glass is expected to be released publicly sometime in 2013, so no matter what you would do “if you had Glass,” you might be able to buy your own pair by year end. The consumer release model is expected to cost less than the $1,500 price of the early Explorer edition.
Additionally, new information suggests the device may be manufactured in the U.S. The Financial Times has reported that “people familiar with the company’s plans,” are saying Google is working with Foxconn to assemble a factory in Santa Clara, Calif. When reached by ABC News, Google would not comment on the “made in the USA” report.
Domestic manufacturing wouldn’t be new territory for the Google. Google’s Nexus Q, an orb-shaped home entertainment device, was manufactured in California. Nexus Q features wireless connectivity to other Android devices to play music and video on your TV and home stereo system. The device was launched at Google’s 2012 I/O conference and sold through the online Google Play store, but was discontinued.
Probably the last thing you’d like to witness happening to a brand new HTC One is its quick fight with gravity, followed by the heart-breaking noise of the impact when it hits the ground. Well, that’s exactly what the folks over at AndroidAuthority did.
Goof thing then that the drops weren’t done in the name of science. The HTC One was put against the iPhone 5 in a series of drop tests from different heights to see which one would fare better.
The test was divided into three parts. Firstly, the phones got dropped from a typical height of a jeans pocket, then from the chest, and finally from an ear to simulate the different phone usage scenarios.
You can check out the video below and see how each phone does. Consider yourselves warned, though – the sight is not for the faint of heart.
While many people continue to move away from BlackBerry, the new BlackBerry 10 devices are bringing some back into the fold, the company reported today.
BlackBerry service subscribers decreased 3 million to 76 million in the last quarter from a year earlier, but the company shipped nearly six million phones in its fourth quarter of fiscal 2013. Of the six million, one million were new BlackBerry Z10 phones, which went on sale at the end of January in many countries and in the U.S. just last week. The Z10 is the first device to run the BlackBerry 10 software, which is a complete overhaul to the original BlackBerry interface.
“The BlackBerry 10 platform has been worth the wait,” BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins said on an earnings call this morning. Heins said that the platform has been a success and is bringing in new customers, ones that previously left the platform for other phones.
“Fifty-five percent of the Z10 customers globally are coming from platforms other than BlackBerry,” Heins revealed on the call. BlackBerry has lost significant market share to Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android phone in the last couple of years. Shipments of BlackBerry phones fell 40.9 percent in the second quarter of 2012, and the company’s market share slipped to 4.8 percent, according to research firm IDC.
The BlackBerry Z10, the company’s all-touchscreen device, will launch on 223 carriers this year, Heins said. The Q10 with a physical keyboard will be out in April.
Revenue for the quarter fell to $2.6 billion from $2.7 billion a year earlier. However, the company was still able to turn a profit of $98 million or 19 cents a share. The net loss for the completed fiscal year was $646 million.
“Our financial transformation over the past 12 months has been outstanding. To say it was a very challenging environment to deliver improved financial results could very well be the understatement of the year,” the CEO said.
Heins said that the company would continue to look at other revenue sources, including cross platform offerings and licensing its new BlackBerry 10 software. In an interview with ABC News last week, Heins said that the company was also planning to go beyond the smartphone. Heins stressed that BlackBerry wants to be the company that figures out how people can consolidate all their computers. Instead of having a tablet, laptop and desktop that synchronize with software, Heins believes the phone can power it all.
“We are talking about a mobile-computing experience that makes sure that for you as a user, you only have to carry one computing device,” he said during the interview. ”Then you get peripherals around it that make your life much more easy than it is today carrying a tablet, carrying a smartphone, carrying a laptop, going to your office and having a desktop.”
He said the company would discuss its plans at its BlackBerry Live conference in May.
Google Translate is a great tool for bridging the gap between languages – the Android app was pretty awesome but it let you down when you needed it most, in a foreign country with no data connection. That’s no longer an issue, as the latest version of Translate for Android (requires 2.3 and above) can download offline language packs for 50 languages.
All the popular languages are available and even less common languages are included, like Haitian Creole, Maltese and Esperanto.
When you download an offline pack, you’ll first have to download the English pack. The rest of the packs are over 100MB, so better do it over Wi-Fi.
Anyway, with the language packs installed, you’ll be able translate words (complete with a list of related words) and whole sentences. The offline packs are apparently not as accurate as their online equivalents but they seem to do a pretty good job in most cases. There are a number of things you lose when offline though – there’s no text to speech included in the packs (so you can’t hear the pronunciation of the word), the handwriting and camera text recognition don’t work either.
The conversation mode, which listens to one speaker and speaks the translation out loud also doesn’t work. If you’re running Android 4.1 or above, you can download the offline text to speech and speech recognition packages to get things working, though.
If you have Google Translate installed you can update it from the Play Store. If you don’t, you can grab it from here.
Remember when Qualcomm said in its Galaxy S4 announcement blog post that the smartphone touts 1080p@60fps video recording?. Well, sadly, that’s not the case.
Qualcomm has got in touch with us regarding the video recording capabilities of the Galaxy S4, and has confirmed that it has made a mistake – the Galaxy S4 is capable of shooting 1080p at just 30fps.
If you live in India or Mexico, you’ll notice that the Play Store app on your Android phone now has a new tab on the main screen: Movies. Yes, the Google Play Movies service has officially been added to the Play Store in these two countries.
The Movies store works like any other category. You can find a movie by searching for it or pick one from the various categories or genre. Once you find a movie, you can either choose to rent it or buy it. Choosing Rent streams the movie to your device and you have 30 days to watch it and then 24 hours to finish it once you start watching it (you can watch it any number of times in those 24 hours). If you Buy then you can stream it any number of times and even download it for offline viewing. The Rent or Buy option may not be available for all movies, though.
You can purchase movies from the Play Store website or through the app on your Android device. To watch the movie on your device, you will need to download the Google Play Movies & TV app from the Play Store.
The prices, at least in the Indian store, seem on par with Apple’s in iTunes, although occasionally you will find a certain title cheaper on one or the other. As of now, though, iTunes has a much wider collection and you get more options for renting and buying in SD or HD but the Play Store should catch up on that shortly. You can spend from ₹50 (approximately $1) all the way to ₹650 ($12) on movies, depending upon the title, resolution or whether you choose to rent or buy the movie.
Unfortunately, just like with the iTunes Store, only movies are available on these stores, with no sign of TV shows as of now.
In other related news, the aforementioned Google Play Music & TV has also been updated with some new features. You can now press pause on tablets and find information about the actors, related films and even the song playing in the background by tapping on the screen in supported movies. This feature, however is US only.
Other changes include ability to search across your library and the Play Store, notifications for new TV episodes if you’ve purchased the entire season, and a new refresh option in the overflow menu to update your library.
Roughly one and a half year after the launch of the game on iOS and exactly a year later on Android, the original Temple Run is now finally on the Windows Phone platform. Or to be precise, on Windows Phone 8.
The game is identical to the iOS and Android version but does not leverage the Xbox Live feature the way the iOS version uses Game Center. It’s also not what you’d expect to receive in 2013.
The original Temple Run came out back in 2011 but it’s been a while since then and they have released three more games after that, notably, Temple Run 2 a couple of months ago. Considering how long Windows Phone users had to wait for this game, it would have made sense to launch Temple Run 2 directly but now we have the old one with no sign of any of the others.
Don’t get me wrong, the original Temple Run is still a great game but I don’t see a whole lot of point in releasing an old game when a new one is out already.
In other, less depressing news, Temple Run isn’t the only game coming over to Windows Phone 8. There are also Chaos Rings, 6th Planet, Propel Man, Orcs Must Survive, Ruzzle, Fling Theory and Drift Mania Championship 2 coming over shortly. And then there is the new Gravity Guy 2, which for once, is being launched on Windows Phone before other platforms.
So things are looking up for gaming on Windows Phone. Unfortunately, it’s not happening at the rate you expect it to.
Gameloft released the launch date and trailer of the upcoming Iron Man 3 official video game. Android and iOS users will be able to jump into Tony Stark’s suit on April 25.
From the brief moments of gameplay included in the Iron Man 3 trailer, it becomes obvious that Gameloft’s latest superhero title will follow the endless running format. Of course, there will be a slew of obstacles, enemies, as well as weapons to properly deal with them, so the game will surely be far from boring.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 leakedso many times prior to its announcement late last month, that it’s almost yesterday’s news.
Nevertheless, we’ve been busy putting it through our gauntlet of testing, and will give you a quick look at what’s in store for you from Samsung’s latest tablet offering.
The Note 8.0 is set to compete directly with Apple’s iPad mini, and is spec’d competitively enough to do just that. It offers a (you guessed it) 8-inch screen of 800 x 1280 pixels resolution, which results in 189 ppi. It has a quad-core 1.6GHz Exynos 4412 processor, 2 GB of RAM, and either 16 or 32 GB of internal storage.
The Exynos 4412 may not be the latest and greatest around, but it does give you some great performance – enough to rival that of previous generation Samsung top droids.
Samsung has thrown in its Android 4.1.2 build into the Note 8.0, and it features many of the same features we’ve seen in the Galaxy Note II and Galaxy S III. We’ve definitely seen better camera performance from Samsung, but the 5MP shooter seems to be enough for the miniature tablet range.
Check out this quick video showing off the user interface in action:
From a design standpoint, the tablet takes after the Galaxy S III, which was introduced last year and while it may not be remarkable to look at, features a solid build and has a pleasant thickness of only 8mm. And, of course, no Note tablet would be complete without Samsung’s great S-pen stylus support.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 next to the original Galaxy Note
Counties with bolder colors had more photo-switchers. (Credit: Facebook)
