Ben Lovejoy

Training materials leaked from both HTC and Samsung identify the arguments each manufacturer hopes will persuade you to buy its new flagship handset.

HTCSource posted a flyer showing that HTC has five main arguments, and seven secondary ones, for the HTC One M8. The primary features highlighted are the metal casing, two front speakers, tap & swipe features to facilitate one-handed use, the duo camera and the HTC Advantage program … 
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Samsung has announced that the Samsung Galaxy S5 goes on sale today in 125 countries, along with the new Gear smartwatches. It was already known that it would be launched today in the USA.

The new Galaxy S5 and the Samsung Gear devices – Samsung Gear 2, Samsung Gear 2 Neo, and Samsung Gear Fit – are ready to hit the market in 125 countries in Europe, Middle East, North America, Latin America, and most of Asia.

The S5 has a 5.1-inch full HD display which was declared “the best smartphone display ever tested” by DisplayMate. Other key features include a fingerprint sensor and heartrate monitor. Reviewers considered it an excellent phone, albeit lacking in excitement … 
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The Chromecast homescreen could in future emulate the MyCastScreen app

Reddit user asjmcguire has spotted code in a recent Chromecast update suggesting that the standby screen which currently displays only a clock and images chosen by Google could in future be rather more useful.

The code appears to allow for future support of weather and a slideshow of user-defined photos. If Google does indeed implement this, we can see the possibility of expanding it into a complete personalized dashboard, with information pulled from your Google Calendar and Google Now feed, and perhaps user-selected news sources. Come down in the morning, switch on your TV and see at-a-glance all the info you might want to start your day … 
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The early reviews of the Samsung Galaxy S5 are in, and the general verdict appears to be that it’s a very good phone – but perhaps doesn’t offer any really persuasive reason to upgrade from the S4.

Re/Code took the view that the waterproofing was the only real standout feature.

I’ve been testing the new S5 for a couple of weeks, and I like it, though I didn’t find it especially exciting or novel. In every major hardware area, it’s a very good phone, with a sharp, gorgeous screen that, at 5.1 inches, is a teeny bit bigger than the five-inch display on last year’s model, the S4 […]

Overall, the Galaxy 5S is a very good phone, but not one compelling enough for me to recommend that you buy it to replace last year’s Galaxy or the current iPhone. But there’s one caveat: If you drop your phone in water a lot, you want this one …

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Reuters is reporting that a decline in Samsung’s high-end handset sales means that the company is expected to report its second successive quarter of declining profits.

Samsung is likely to estimate a 3 percent year-on-year decline in January-March operating profit to 8.5 trillion won ($8.1 billion) on Tuesday, according to a mean consensus of 40 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S […]

This would mark the second consecutive quarter of decline – the first negative streak since a four-quarter slip in 2010-2011 – and analysts polled by Reuters expect the trend to continue through the July-September period …

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Registration for Google’s I/O developer’s conference, originally due to open today, has been pushed back by a week, now opening on 15th April.

Google hasn’t offered any explanation, though its brief statement suggests that a problem in the registration process has been spotted at the last minute … 
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Graphic: The Verge

HTC had better hope the new HTC One (M8) sells well: it has just reported its second quarterly loss in three quarters after essentially doing no better than breaking even since the third quarter of 2012.

The company had warned investors that it would begin the year with a loss, but The Verge reports that the figures were worse than expected.

Even its downbeat estimates weren’t pessimistic enough. The company fell short of the expected NT$35 billion in sales, posting NT$33.12 billion, and disappointed analysts who had been predicting a narrower loss … 

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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DhJZAhjbcI]

I’d find this video hard to believe were it not for its credentials. The WSJ reports that StoreDot, the start-up behind the technology, has its background in the Nanotechnology department of Tel Aviv University, and it’s been demonstrated at Microsoft’s Think Next conference.

Ultra-fast battery charging has been seen before, but using special (and not very portable) battery technology. This system charges batteries compact enough for smartphones. It’s demonstrated here with a Samsung Galaxy S3, but the company says that it plans to make versions for other phones … 
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Verizon has started accepting pre-orders for the Galaxy S5, confirming pricing at $199.99 on a two-year contract (after $50 mail-in rebate), or $599.99 full retail without contract, with shipping from 11th April. These are similar deals to those already announced by AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint.

Verizon has also extended its HTC One and Samsung ATIV buy-one, get-one-free deal to the S5 – though only if you sign a two-year contract for each … 
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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q1JzJadgHY]

Ahead of the first Ara Development Conference on 15 & 16 April, Google has released a teaser video showing a few glimpses into the project to create a phone with swappable modules, allowing customers to configure a phone to order and update individual components at a later date … 
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Gif courtesy of <a href="http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2014/04/google-maps-stays-neutral-by-only-showing-your-side-in-border-disputes/">Gizmodo</a>

You can’t please all of the people all of the time – but when it comes to disputed borders, Google Maps gives it a very good try.

According to this wikipedia page, there are more than 200 disputed borders in the world – territories that are claimed by more than one country. Even the USA and Canada argue about who owns two islands, three straits and one sea. That’s more than 200 opportunities for Google Maps to cause offence … 
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Chipworks managed to get its hands on a Galaxy S5 ahead of Samsung’s new flagship handset officially going on sale on 11th April, and has been taking a look inside. The model it obtained was a Korean one, thanks to several carriers releasing it early. We’ve also noted third-party suppliers on Amazon advertising it as available in 1-2 days.

While Chipworks has only just begun its analysis, it does provide a sneak peek of the innards, together with a steer on three of the elements it plans to examine in detail: the fingerprint sensor, heart-rate chip and camera sensor.

The company says that the fingerprint sensor is split into two parts, a touch sensor embedded in the home button, and a second part connected to the touchscreen. It isn’t yet clear whether the screen simply detects a touch and switches on the sensor, or whether data from the touchscreen forms part of the identification process.

 
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DisplayMate Technologies, which makes display test kit for every major screen manufacturer in the world, has declared that the new Samsung Galaxy S5 has “the best performing smartphone display that we have ever tested” with “a long list of new records.”

While OLED screens have long been considered to be playing catch-up with LCD, DisplayMate says that the S5 demonstrates that the race has now been won.

In a span of just four years OLED display technology is now challenging and even exceeding the performance of the best LCDs across the board in brightness, contrast, color accuracy, color management, picture quality, performance in high ambient light, screen uniformity, and viewing angles …

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Photo: Reuters

Pieces in the NY Times and the WSJ suggest that the real target of Apple’s second courtroom patent battle with Samsung may be Android.

Some features in Samsung devices that Apple objects to are part of Google’s Android operating system, by far the most popular mobile operating system worldwide, running on more than a billion devices made by many manufacturers. That means that if Apple wins, Google could have to make changes to critical Android features, and Samsung and other Android phone makers might have to modify the software on their phones …

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Photo: @FindikKahve

Turkish citizens, who found access to Twitter blocked yesterday in an apparent attempt by prime minister Recep Erdoğan to stem the spread of corruption allegations against him, have been able to work around the block by switching to Google’s public DNS service.

The Turkish government blocked access to Twitter by requiring local ISPs to change the DNS entries so that twitter.com could no longer be reached. As soon as the method of blocking access was discovered, a campaign started to spread the word that it could be circumvented by changing network settings to use Google’s DNS servers at 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 (update: a comment suggests the Turkish government is blocking these addresses too) … 
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Photo: thestar.com.my

Samsung has finally confirmed pricing for the Tizen-based Galaxy Gear 2 and Gear Fit smartwatches, though still no word on pricing for the camera-less Gear 2 Neo. The Gear 2 comes in at almost the same price as the original (and widely panned) Gear at $295, while the Gear Fit can be yours for $197 when both devices go on sale next month.

Samsung made SDKs available for the Gear 2 watches a few days ago in the hope that third-party apps will be available by the time the devices go on sale … 
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Image: Medical Daily

Two former Stanford University students who created a startup to help doctors use Google Glass to view and update patient records have raised $3.2M in venture capital funding, reports SFGate.

Augmedix’s founders say that physicians currently spend around a third of their time with a patient looking at a computer screen, and that using Glass instead will allow them to spend more time communicating with patients … 
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