Android

Following the introduction of its new line of Galaxy Pro tablets during CES, today Samsung introduced a new 7-inch tablet on the opposite end of the lineup with the new entry-level Galaxy Tab3 Lite.

The two-years ago specs are certainly nothing to brag about, but depending on how close Samsung prices the tablet to $100, it won’t look all that bad next to its competition in the low-cost tablet category. Unfortunately the company hasn’t announced pricing, but looking at the specs below, we think it could be its most affordable Galaxy Tab yet. That’s especially considering the current 7-inch Galaxy Tab 3 has been going for as low as $140 lately. It did confirm the tablet will be available globally in both black and white, but there’s no word on exact availability or markets.

Full specs for the Galaxy Tab3 Lite below:
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Following the continued growth of smartphones in the US and increasing competition between Samsung and Apple, the two companies saw combined growth between 2012 and 2013 amounting to 68% of the US smartphone market. That’s according to data provided by The NPD Group which reports overall smartphone growth increased from 52% to 60% in Q4 of 2012 and 2013, respectively. NPD reports Samsung rose from 22% to 26% in Q4 2012 to 2013 among US smartphone users.
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There have been indications for a long time that Google Now was eventually coming to the Chrome browser on the desktop. Via the Google Operating System Blog, the service has finally surfaced in the most recent release of Chrome Canary (Google’s name for the app’s ‘alpha’ channel builds).

As expected, Google Now in Chrome closely mirrors Google Now on Android. The contextually-relevant cards (which show information such as weather, news or upcoming flights) appear in Chrome’s Notification Center on the desktop. This area be found in the Window’s taskbar or the Mac’s menubar, represented by a bell icon.

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Back in November, the CyanogenMod team announced an interesting new project that allowed users to flash the team’s custom ROM in just a few clicks.  The app came with a catch, though. It was only available on Windows machines, leaving Mac users in the dark. Today, however, the CyanogenMod team has released its Installer application on Mac OS X. 

CyanogenMod installer supports a long-list of devices, ranging from the HTC One and Galaxy S4 to the Nexus S and Galaxy S II. The process is very simple. First, simply join the CyanogenMod Installer for Mac beta group, download the actual app from Google+, connect a compatible Android device, and the Installer will handle most everything else. It’s important to note that the Installer will wipe all the data from your device, so be sure to back it up before beginning the process. 

The CyanogenMod team has had a very successful time over the past few months, as it raised $22 million in funding in December in addition to releasing more devices that run the CyanogenMod ROM out of the box.    

Check out CyanogenMod’s Google+ page for more.

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Today, Google has released a new application for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch to allow Google Play users to stream purchased movies and TV shows. You cannot rent or purchase content via this application: you must download it from Google Play on Android or the web and then the purchased titles will be available to stream via this app. The application is only supported in the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom. WiFi is currently required for streaming. The app also allows streaming to the ChromeCast.

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The Samsung Galaxy S5, expected to be announced in March and released in April, will come in two variants, a higher-spec one in a metal case and a lower-spec one in a plastic case, claims SamMobile, citing an anonymous ‘insider.’

First, let’s get the most mysterious thing about the Galaxy S5 out of the way: Yes, it will come in both metal and plastic versions as has been rumored, with the metal version costing around 800 Euros and the plastic model coming in at around 650 Euros … 
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Last week, we went on the record saying that HP was set to unveil their new smartphones within a week and here we are just 5 days later with an announcement.  The quad-core Slate 6 and Slate 7 VoiceTab are (as predicted) 720P displayed “mega” phablets that will play in the same market as Samsung’s Galaxy Mega line. The initial launch country will be India but more are on the way.  While no price was given, we’d imagine that since the other details were true, the $200 price point for the Slate 6 VoiceTab and $250 for the 7-inch seem like a pretty good starting point.

The phones will come with 16GB of on board storage and have a Micro-SD card for 32GB more storage. As you can see in the image above, they both have stereo speakers a la the HTC One (no word yet on Beats Branding which HP still uses and HTC once used).

It appears that HP has really done its homework here and has identified a market where it can make things happen. HP obviously has a huge brand and PC presence in India and at the same time, the market is easy to enter because the carriers aren’t gatekeepers like they are in the US.

As for the phones themselves, they actually have some styling which is a notable step up from HP’s US slate lineup. While I’ll go on the record saying that I’m not a fan of the Black on Gold appearance from the press release and Android skin they are showing off, I’m not privy to style considerations from India.

Also ringing an alarm bell is the Android 4.2 launch OS. Combined with that pretty heavy looking skin/overlay, Indian consumers are already starting 2 OSes back…and counting.

In all, though Google has to be pretty satisfied with the launch. HP is traditionally a Windows shop but since Meg Whitman’s return has gone ChomeOS and Android first with the Slate line of tablets and now their Smartphones.

Another image if the Slate 6 Voicetab and Press release below:
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This morning Google announced that its releasing a Moto G Google Play Edition starting at $179 for the 8GB model and $199 for the 16GB model. There isn’t much of a difference between the Google Play Edition and the regular unlocked GSM model of the Moto G selling through other retailers. The Moto G is already just about stock Android to begin with, and the pricing is around the same you’ll find through third-party retailers. Either way, with the GPE Moto G you’ll be guaranteed completely stock Android and updates when other Google Play Edition devices receive them. The Moto G is available now through the Google Play website for customers in the US and will run on AT&T or T-Mobile networks. 
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Following its announcement last August and rollout in the US, the Google-owned Motorola announced today via Twitter a timeline for Moto X availability in select European countries. Motorola is taking its Moto X smartphone to the United Kingdom, France, and Germany beginning sometime next month.

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Of the most notable things Motorola has accomplished over the past year is arguably its contextually aware services, found on devices like the Moto X. Today, the company’s Assist app on the Play Store has been updated with a few new features. For those unaware, Assist can determine your actions, such as driving and sleeping, and perform a pre-specificed command.

Up until today, the app could only read you the text messages you got while driving. With this newest update, however, you can now reply to texts while driving by speaking to the phone. So once the text is read to you, you will have the ability to read a response to the app. In addition to that, Assist can also now launch your music player of choice when it notices you are driving.

The update is available on the Play Store, although Motorola Assist is only compatible with the most recent Droid line of devices, as well as the Moto X.

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Nvidia made some pretty big claims when it launched its 192-core Tegra K1 mobile processor, notable among them that it would out-perform many of today’s PC chips. Benchmark results posted on the WCCFtech site suggest that the claims are true: a tablet with a Tegra K1 delivered GFX GLBenchmark of 60fps at 1080p, making it significantly faster than two basic Intel Graphics notebooks included in the comparison.

As you can see the only device included in the bench to beat the Tegra K1 chip was Nvidia’s own GT 740M; and seeing this is a full fledged dGPU with 45W TDP it doesn’t mean much. However for the target niche the Tegra K1 was actually created; it leads with a major gap. Scoring a rock solid 60fps in an off screen 1080p Benchmark it fares significantly better than the Tegra 4. The predecessor to this chip can only manage a measly 16fps so you can see for yourself how great a difference this is … 
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We’ve gotten word from inside HP that the company is set to release an inexpensive Android smartphone aimed at the prepaid and emerging (BRIC) markets. We’re hearing the street price will be around $200 and it will be released in more than one market. Our source has pegged the launch at next week but delays can’t be ruled out at this point (and we’ve yet to hear anything publicly). Nokia Meego defector and new HP SVP Mobility  Alberto Torres is said to be heading up the group which has been working on the product for a year and a half.

We’re hearing that the device resembles the 5.5-inch Galaxy Note with obvious cost cutting measures to get the device down to the $200 price point. With HP’s Slate Android products, the company cut costs by using low pixel density displays so having a 720P display would seem about right and put it on a collision course with Samsung’s Galaxy Mega line with its 6.3-inch display and current street price of around $400.

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HP CEO Meg Whitman last year confirmed the company was building a smartphone on the trail of dumping its WebOS ‘detour’.

“So a smartphone is not if, but when, for Hewlett-Packard?” – Whitman replied:  “[HP has] to ultimately offer a smartphone, because in many countries in the world that is your first computing device. You know, there will be countries around the world where people may never own a tablet or a PC or desktop. They will do everything on the smartphone. We’re a computing company, we have to take advantage of that form factor.”

Computerworld UK reported that she indicated it wouldn’t be in 2013.

“We don’t have any plans to introduce a smartphone in 2013, but we’ve got to start thinking about what is our unique play, how do we capture this element of the personal computing market?” Whitman said.

HP has to offer every kind of device, from workstations through all-in-one PCs, laptops, hybrid PCs, tablets “and, ultimately, smartphones,” she said.

“I believe that five years from now, if we don’t have a smartphone or whatever the next generation of that device is, we’ll be locked out of a huge segment of the population in many countries of the world,” she said.

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Google last updated its Play Services app back in October when KitKat and the Nexus 5 launched with a plethora of improvements. Today via the official Android Developers Blog, the company has announced another rather significant update to the app, brining it to version 4.1.

First off, the update will allow for developers to start implementing turn-based multiplayer capabilities into games entirely with Play Services. This will allow for improved asynchronous games with friends and opponents. The update also adds a developer preview of a new Google Drive API that lets users read and write Google Drive files from any device, with or without a data connection, and have their changes synced across other devices and platforms.

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After the Cyber Monday madness surrounding the $349 Moto X, Motorola officially dropped the device’s off-contract price to just $399 last week, looking to get the device into even more consumer’s hands. Today, the company has announced another special offer for the Moto X. Starting today, January 8th, and running through January 14th, anyone who purchases an off-contract Moto X from Motorola’s website will also get a free Google Chromecast. The Chromecast costs $35 normally, so this is a great deal for anyone looking for the two devices.

The deal is live now on Motorola’s site. Simply use the promo “STREAM” to obtain the offer. The Moto X runs $399 for 16GB and $449 for 32GB.

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Galaxy S5 design needs to be different to the S4, says Samsung

Samsung didn’t reveal much that was new in a fairly wide-ranging interview with Bloomberg, but exec VP of the company’s mobile division Lee Young Hee did tease a couple of things while confirming that the Galaxy S5 would be released by April.

The company is “studying the possibility” of including the iris-recognition security system we told you about last month. If Samsung succeeds, it would be a neat piece of one-upmanship on the Touch ID fingerprint scanner in Apple’s iPhone 5S, iris-recognition being both faster and more secure than fingerprints.

The company also said that it recognized that the design of the S4 wasn’t sufficiently different from the S3, and that we can expect something significantly different from the S5 … 
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Photo: engadget.com

When a whole new category of technology arrives, you can usually rely on tech-heads to get excited about them even if the mass-market doesn’t. So far, though, smartwatches don’t seem to have made as much headway as many expected. When a confirmed gadget addict like me is left wondering why I’d want one, something somewhere is wrong.

But where functionality hasn’t persuaded many of us, perhaps price will. Archos is planning to launch a basic smartwatch in the summer for just $50, a price it may be hoping will lead people to stop asking ‘Why?’ and instead ask ‘Why not?’ … 
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The story of the Nokia Normandy project to get Android on low cost smartphones got some more real today with yet another leak of the phones, this time with some OS shots on them. If what we’re seeing is legit, and most evleaks are, this one has two SIM card slots and very thick custom overlay.  I can’t wait to see if these are released so I can not buy one. 
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