Author: Shivaank Rana

HTC To Drop ‘Quietly Brilliant’ Tagline

HTC’s making some sweeping changes to their marketing lately with a new announcement that they are dropping the “Quietly Brilliant” tagline in future product ads, according to WSJ.

“We have a lot of innovations but we haven’t been loud enough,” said Mr. Ho, a Singaporean who is HTC’s third marketing chief in less than two years. The new approach, he says, will be bolder.

One such example is HTC’s attack on the Samsung Galaxy S 4, referring to the device as “#thenextbigflop” on Twitter. Ho also said that HTC will be stepping up its advertising efforts by growing its digital marketing budget by 250 percent from 2012, while its traditional marketing budget will grow by 100 percent.

HTC will begin its “bolder strategy” with a new marketing campaign for the HTC One with themes like “bold,” “authentic,” and “playful.” Ho says “bold” will demonstrate that HTC wants to be more aggressive in their marketing speak. “Authentic” will reinforce focus on HTC’s innovation and “playful” will highlight new features that are based on consumer demand.

Ho confirmed the firm will up its worldwide marketing budget 250 per cent on last year, and also told the newspaper: “We have a lot of innovations but we haven’t been loud enough.

Ho stepped outside of the marketing conversation by confirming the delay of the HTC One is due to camera supply shortages.

“Our friends in the media have been asking why there has been a delay in shipments for the new HTC One, whether there is a component shortage. There is some shortage, because the phone’s camera was designed specifically for us, and production cannot be ramped up so quickly.”

[Via Wall Street Journal]

March 25, 2013
Evernote 5 For Android Brings New Camera Features, Revamped UI

Evernote updated the Android version of its app Monday to version 5, bringing an enhanced look to the app as well as a number of new features including support for the app’s Smart Notebook.

A multishot feature lets users snap multiple photos of a moment, and save them without ever leaving the in-app camera. Evernote is also bringing its “page camera” over from iOS, which uses the smartphone’s camera to turn Evernote into a pocket scanner. The page camera finds the edges of scanned pages, removes any shadows and improves the contrast, Evernote says.

The Page Camera function comes particularly in handy with Evernote’s Smart notebook. The Moleskine notebook is designed specifically to work along with Evernote. Dots on each page help page Camera create the optimal representation of a page within Evernote. Smart Stickers allow you to tag a page in real life, while simultaneously tagging the virtual page as well.

Premium users also get to enjoy some new goodies, namely in the form of Document search. Evernote will now search through attached documents, spreadsheets and presentations from the universal search.

Your shortcuts are always just a swipe to the left away, offering you quick access to your most frequently used notebooks and notes.

Engadget reports that there are continued issues with Evernote’s text recognition, which tends to be slow for non-premium users.

[Via Engadget]

March 25, 2013
“XCOM : Enemy Unknown” Coming To iOS

Firaxis has announced that the full version of console and PC strategy title XCOM : Enemy Unknown will release on iOS.

XCOM‘s developers spoke with Joystiq on Saturday after revealing the iOS port of the award-winning strategy game during a PAX East panel. The iOS version of XCOM : Enemy Unknown, they said, will arrive fully intact, with all the features available on its PC and console counterparts.

“It is a straight port,” XCOM lead designer Jake Solomon said. “We have not made any gameplay exceptions. You play the exact same game… it’s just now fully playable on an iPhone or an iPad.”

XCOM : Enemy Unknown is a re-imagined version of the 1994 game X-COM: UFO Defense. The game puts players at the head of a secretive agency charged with protecting Earth from extraterrestrials. Players must monitor alien activity throughout the globe and respond to it with force. They can scramble jets to shoot down UFO’s, or send teams of agents into battle against alien ground forces. Players will directly control their agents in turn-based battles. They’re also in charge of researching new technologies to ensure that their team is adequately equipped to stop the alien invasion.

The game’s developers stressed that XCOM : Enemy Unknown on iOS will be a premium product and priced accordingly.

“It’s going to be priced appropriately for what it is,” Solomon said. “It’s going to be a premium price point. It is the game. It is the full game.”

Some questions remain, however. Will multiplayer make the port? Will any kind of cross-platform saving or online matches be possible?

March 25, 2013
Hyperkin RetroN 5 Console Announced, Can Play Old Game Cartridges
Today, Hyperkin officially showed off their console, and it’s been renamed the RetroN 5, since it has five cartridge slots.

Announced at this weekend’s Midwest Gaming Classic, the RetroN 5 made an appearance as both a rendering, and as a shiny red prototype console, still bearing the RetroN 4 badge, and without the promised GBA slot.

According to Slashdot, the Retron 5 will support cartridges from all of the following:
- NES
- SNES
- Genesis
- Famicom
- Game Boy Advance
- Mega Drive
- Super Famicom
- Game Boy Color
- Game Boy
Rather than using emulators on a PC to play ROM copies of old classic Nintendo and Sega games, the RetroN will allow you to play from original game cartridges and with original controllers, Slashdot reports.

In addition, it will offer an HDMI output for playing games on today’s HDTVs, and a special video enhancement circuit to ensure high quality playback at resolutions up to 720p.

The RetroN 5 will also offer technology to improve the audio quality compared to what you’re used to hearing from emulators, with the ability to increase playback frequency if you so choose.

The RetroN 5 uses an ARM-based System-on-Chip. Hyperkin prefers not to reveal the exact CPU/GPU and memory chips it uses, for fear of tipping off competitors. After all, the process of locating appropriate hardware for clone systems is a tricky one.

Hyperkin hasn’t revealed the pricing or an exact release date for the RetroN 5, but they’re hoping to release the system this July – though they were clear they want to give their development team enough time to put a shiny coat of polish on the finished product, so that date isn’t carved in stone.

You can watch the launch video below :

[Via Slashdot, Technabob]
March 24, 2013
Windows Store Hits 50,000 Apps

According to an unofficial tally by the site MetroStore Scanner, Microsoft has pushed past 50,000 total apps within the Windows Store.

The service also noted that there has been a large decline in new submissions since November of last year, with averages dropping from 400 to 150 in February before seeing an uptick to 200 in March.

It is unclear whether Microsoft’s new rewards program has helped in the growth. The company began offering developers $100 per app for new published apps submitted to either the Windows Phone Store or the Windows 8 Store before June 30th. Each developer can qualify for up to 10 apps per store, for a net total of $2000 in bonuses. All apps must meet standard certification requirements, and the app must do more than just launch a web page. Additionally, you cannot clone existing published apps.

The offers runs until June 30 but is exclusive to those living in the US.

As TechCrunch’s Matt Burns notes, it’s difficult to compare the growth of apps in the Microsoft Store versus rival Apple, which lists approximately 13,000 total apps or so in its Mac App Store as of this article’s writing, as there is a huge difference in the quality of apps available for the 2 OSs.

While this is good news for Windows 8 PC users, it’s not so great for Windows RT tablet users considering the iPad has 376,000 dedicated applications.

With that in mind there’s still plenty of work for Microsoft to do, but signs are more encouraging.

[Via TechCrunch]

March 24, 2013
Apple Acquires WiFiSLAM Indoor Location Tech Startup

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple has acquired indoor mobile location positioning firm WiFiSLAM, in a deal worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 million.

The Wall Street Journal‘s Jessica Lessin reports:

“Apple has acquired indoor-GPS company WifiSLAM, a sign that the war over indoor mobile location services is heating up. Apple paid around $20 million for the Silicon Valley-based company, according to a person familiar with the matter who said the deal closed recently.

The two-year-old startup has developed ways for mobile apps to detect a phone user’s location in a building using Wi-Fi signals. It has been offering the technology to application developers for indoor mapping and new types of retail and social networking apps.”

Founded in 2010 by former Google engineering intern Joseph Huang and Jessica Tsoong, WifiSlam develops technology that allows mobile apps to find a person’s exact location inside a building by using wi-fi signals. Such tech has been alluring to brick-and-mortar retail organizations that wish to gain more location-based data on customers as they browse a store, not to mention museums, theme parks, malls, and convention centers.

Apple could implement the positioning assets into its much maligned iOS Maps app as an answer to Google’s Indoor Maps initiative, which leverages crowdsourcing to deliver indoor location information for a number of sites worldwide.

[Wall Street Journal]

March 24, 2013
HTC One Gets April Release Due To “Unprecedented Demand”

HTC has just issued another official statement regarding the HTC One’s delayed launch.

“HTC has seen unprecedented demand for and interest in the new HTC One, and the care taken to design and build it is evidenced in early reviews. The new HTC One will roll out in the UK, Germany and Taiwan next week and across Europe, North America and most of Asia-Pacific before the end of April. We appreciate our customers’ patience, and believe that once they have the phone in their hands they will agree that it has been worth the wait.”

The company’s statement comes several days after reports that said the HTC One’s rollout would be delayed. A shortage of components like metal casings and camera parts slowed shipments of the HTC One, executives told the Wall Street Journal.

The HTC One has drawn early praise from tech reviewers, but the delay is another setback for a company that has struggled to keep up with competitors like Samsung. Last month, the company reported that revenue fell 44 percent from the previous year.

The HTC One boasts a 4.7-inch full HD 1080p display with 468 ppi. It runs a 1.7-GHz, quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor and HTC Sense, a customized version of Android. The phone supports NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, and DLNA for wireless streaming to a TV or computer. It can also work as a remote control on supported devices. There’s a microUSB 2.0 port with a mobile high-def video link for USB or HDMI hookup. There’s also a new “UltraPixel” camera which HTC has been touting.

We can’t wait to get our hands on this device!

March 23, 2013
Apple Adds ‘In-App Purchase’ Warning In iTunes

Apple has made a subtle change to the App Store to make consumers more aware of apps that offer in-app purchases. Apple recently added a new “Offers In-App Purchases” warning directly underneath the download button in iTunes following the settlement (as pictured below).

Rather than continue to cash back to users, Apple has attempted to make perfectly clear which apps should be kept out of the reach of children if their folks aren’t savvy enough to password-protect purchases.

Just last week the iPhone-maker refunded the parents of an 8-year-old British boy who had blown £980 (US$1,493, AU$1,429) of very real cash on virtual donuts in the ‘free’ Simpsons: Tapped Out game.

It wasn’t the first time, either. Last month, the company agreed to pay out up to $100m (UK£66m, AUD$96m) in refunds to parents in the United States whose kids had also made unsanctioned in-app purchases.

The new “Offers In-App Purchases” warning is currently only visible within the desktop version of the iTunes App Store; but we would expect that to be rolled out across the iPhone and iPad versions of the store very soon.

The new warning will still not prevent careless parents from allowing their children access to their passwords and running up huge bills but it will give Apple a better legal argument. Also it may be a sign that Apple could offer the ability to filter apps from the App Store that contain in-app purchases; this could be a good option for parents that give their children access to their iTunes password to download free apps.

Making it clearer which apps use IAP is a step in the right direction on the latter front. More may follow at Apple’s WWDC developer event this summer, when the company is expected to unveil its iOS 7 software.

March 23, 2013
Intel’s Pentium Processor Turns 20 Years Old Today

Following Intel’s previous series of 8086, 80186, 80286, 80386, and 80486 microprocessors, the company’s first P5-based microprocessor was released as the original Intel Pentium, 20 years ago today, on March 22, 1993.

Marketing firm Lexicon Branding was hired to coin a name for the new processor. The suffix -ium was chosen as it could connote a fundamental ingredient of a computer, like a chemical element, while the prefix pent- could refer to the fifth generation of x86.

If you’re old enough to recall, the chip ran circles around its 486DX2 predecessor, and thanks to a heavy dose of marketing from Intel, the brand quickly became synonymous with the PC. For you trivia types, the original Pentium P5 was available in 60MHz and 66MHz variants, and was manufactured with an 800-nanometer fabrication process, which is quite the contrast to the 22nm chips on the market today.

Despite Intel’s poor initial handling of the Pentium FDIV bug, the processor went on to become arguably the firm’s most successful piece of silicon. Intel’s Pentium chip hasn’t been its highest volume part, as the computer industry was considerably smaller during its original three and a half year run, but such is its association with the firm that the company still uses the branding to this day, 20 years on.

These chips also ran extremely hot, meaning they required a large heatsink and noisy cooling fan to keep under control. The misstep ultimately allowed AMD to take the performance crown with their highly successful Athlon line for several years.

Intel eventually found their way again with the Core architecture that debuted near the end of 2007. Interestingly enough, this platform was based on the same P6 architecture used in the first Pentium Pro back in 1995.

So there you have it: Happy birthday, Pentium!

March 23, 2013
New Loophole Lets Attacker Reset An Apple ID With Only Your Birthday And Email Address

A worrying new security hole allows for an Apple ID to be hacked, simply by knowing the user’s email address and date of birth. The Verge first reported the vulnerability after being tipped off to the hack.

The Verge reports:

[T]oday a new exploit has been discovered that affects all customers who haven’t yet enabled [two-step verification]. It allows anyone with your email address and date of birth to reset your password — using Apple’s own tools. We’ve been made aware of a step-by-step tutorial (which remains available as of this writing) that explains in detail how to take advantage of the vulnerability. The exploit involves pasting in a modified URL while answering the DOB security question on Apple’s iForgot page.

The vulnerability affects all customers yet to upgrade to the two-step verification process, leaving those users’ accounts wide open to anyone who knows those not-exactly-hard-to-track down pieces of basic data.

The bad news is that two-step verification is not yet available in many countries. According to the Apple FAQ:

Initially, two-step verification is being offered in the U.S., UK, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand. Additional countries will be added over time. When your country is added, two-step verification will automatically appear in the Password and Security section of Manage My Apple ID when you sign in to My Apple ID.

After the discovery, Apple subsequently took down the iForgot password reset page “for maintenance,” and updated the iCloud System Status webpage to inform users of the issue.

In a statement to The Verge the company said, “Apple takes customer privacy very seriously. We are aware of this issue, and working on a fix.”

At the time of posting, Apple has taken down the iForgot page to avoid further hacks.

Update : Several online sources report that the loophole has been fixed.

[Via The Verge]

March 23, 2013
Court Says File-Sharing Service IsoHunt Illegally Fosters Piracy

US content owners’ battle against online piracy has received a significant boost with the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issuing a unanimous decision against the website isoHunt for “inducing” users to download and distribute copyrighted material such as movies and TV programmes illegally.

The decision by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, hailed by the Motion Picture Association of America, marks the first time a federal appeals court has ruled against a BitTorrent search engine. IsoHunt, TorrenTBox and Podtropolis unlawfully pointed the way to free movies, music, videogames and software that were copyrighted and not authorized for the sites’ operator — Gary Fung — to help distribute, the court said.

Programmer Bram Cohen released the BitTorrent file-sharing protocol in 2001, and its efficient way of transferring files has become the method of choice for illicit, peer-to-peer sharing of copyright-protected content that sites like Canada’s isoHunt and Europe’s The Pirate Bay have capitalized upon.

“This ruling affirms a core principle of copyright law: Those who build businesses around encouraging, enabling and helping others to commit copyright infringement are themselves infringers, and will be held accountable for their illegal actions,” said Henry Hoberman, a vice president for the MPAA, which initially sued Fung in 2009.

Even if you interpret the data in a light favorable to IsoHunt, there’s no question that the site’s main use was to trade copyrighted material, the judges wrote. Columbia’s expert found that between 90 and 96 percent of content on the site was confirmed or “highly likely” to infringe copyright. And while Fung “takes issue” with some aspects of the methodology, “he does not attempt to rebut the factual assertion that his services were widely used to infringe copyrights.” Even tripling the margin of error on the Columbia survey would mean that the overwhelming use of IsoHunt was to violate copyright.

March 23, 2013
Video : Sony Xperia Tablet Z Teardown

The Sony Xperia Tablet Z is currently the thinnest tablet yet at only 6.9mm and it weighs just 495grams. That’s actually thinner than the 7.9mm Xperia Z. To find out how its top notching hardware gets packed in such a slim profile, Sony has released its official tear down of the Xperia Tablet Z. Of course, dissecting the tablet would automatically void its warranty, so don’t try this at home (if you have one, that is, which is highly unlikely for people living in India)!

The Sony Xperia Tablet Z was announced back in January, and has gone on sale in Japan today, it will also launch in the US and Europe shortly followed by Asia, the device comes with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and it features a 10.1 inch full HD display with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels.

Other specifications on the Sony Xperia Tablet Z include a quad core Qualcomm APQ8064 processor clocked at 1.5GHz, plus 2GB of RAM and 32GB of built in storage, and there is also a rear facing 8.1 megapixel camera with Sony’s Exmor R sensor.

The Sony Xperia Tablet Z teardown begins with cracking the device open. Sounds easy? Well, think again. Since the tablet is resistant to dust and water damage, it comes as no surprise that taking its back cover off isn’t a job for everyone. Once that’s unglued, the delicate part dismantling process begins, starting with the Sony-made lithium-ion battery weighing 130 grams and then moving on to the smaller components. There’s plenty of glue and tape holding the Xperia Tablet Z together, which leads us to believe that its repairability score might not be very high.

[Via Sony Blog]

March 22, 2013
Apple’s Jonathan Ive Pushing For A More ‘Flat Design’ To iOS 7

Back in October, iOS leader Scott Forstall was, along retail SVP John Browett, removed from Apple. It was a surprising decision, even after the nightmare iOS 6 Maps issue, but it quickly emerged that Forstall, in particular, had stepped on more than a few toes within the Cupertino executive ranks. Jony Ive, head of Industrial Design and credited with molding the vast majority of the company’s recent success stories, was said to strongly disagree with Forstall’s rampant skeuomorphism within the iOS UI, and since the Englishman has taken on the role as leader of Human Interface following Forstall’s departure, it now looks as though he plans to remove all remnants of the former iOS Senior Vice President.

Jonathan Ive is pushing for a more ‘flat design’ to iOS 7, reports the WSJ.

In the past, most of the iOS designers were cut out of the loop on specifics relating to the hardware of the devices they were designing for. On prototype projects, Ive used a stealth group of software developers. However, that is slowing starting to change, says the Journal.

The Human Interface team led by Greg Christie is being briefed about industrial prototypes earlier. A source described the change as “a thawing”. Ive now sits in on the team’s review sessions to vet new designs and despite Christie being a blunt talker the sessions are described as “pleasant and cordial”.

Some suggested that in Apple’s next mobile operating system, Ive is pushing a more “flat design” that is starker and simpler, according to developers who have spoken to Apple employees but didn’t have further details. Overall, they expect any changes to be pretty conservative. For the past few years, Apple has unveiled versions of its mobile operating system in the summer.

While this report makes it sound as though there won’t be any earth-shattering changes made to the next version of iOS, a slight makeover could be in the cards. That obviously isn’t going to sit well with anyone that’s hoping for a major overhaul of iOS

[Via WSJ]

March 22, 2013
AMD Introduces Radeon HD 7790 GPU Optimised For 1080p Gaming

After weeks of predictions and reports about it, the latest graphics card from Advanced Micro Devices is finally ready to land in people’s computers, or to be used in totally new systems as the situation demands.

AMD will spend most of 2013 expanding its Radeon 7000 series of GPUs, and today it made good on that commitment by announcing an incremental evolution, the Radeon HD 7790, priced at $149.

[pullquote_left] “We want to augment and solidify the [7000] product stack, and we’ll do that through the 7790,” Evan Groenke, graphics product manager at AMD, said during a press briefing earlier this week. [/pullquote_left]

The 7790 is based on a slick new piece of silicon, Groenke said, making this a never-before-seen GPU to add to the chipmaker’s already well-selling 7000 repertoire.

Based on AMD’s Graphics Core Next architecture, the chip is built on the promise of delivering excellent 1080p performance for a market that’s become saturated with the mode.

“1080p is the minimum bar these days,” Groenke noted, and AMD aims to have the 7790 dominate the field.

AMD, however, tried to make up for a lack of clock speed, 1GHz, by doubling the processor’s PowerTune Technology. In doing so, AMD claims it’s created the first discrete chip to oscillate between eight DPM states. This allows for higher sustained engine clocks, greater performance and improved power efficiency, AMD explained.

In as little as 10 milliseconds, the 7790 can switch between an octagonal bunch of clock/voltage DPM pairings.

AMD also loaded the chip with 896 stream processors (14 compute units in all, four more than the 7770 model), a typical power draw of 85W and 1GB GDDR5 memory.

[Via TechRadar]

March 22, 2013
Nokia CEO Stephen Elop Throws An iPhone On National TV, Calls It “Embarrassing”

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop decided to have some fun at a Finnish TV show, and what better way to entertain the audience than throwing the host’s phone on the floor?! Even better when the phone in question is an iPhone!

Stephen Elop faced some tough questions from a Finnish TV presenter this week, focusing on the upcoming Lumia 928 handset. In a show aired on commercial TV station MTV3 in Finland, Elop is repeatedly questioned about when the company plans to introduce its Lumia 928 Verizon flagship handset. Elop claims he doesn’t know what the Lumia 928 is because the company hasn’t announced it, before trying to divert the questioning to the recently launched Lumia 620.

As part of the interview the presenter asked Stephen Elop when he will release a product which would allow him to replace his iPhone. Finally, the host took out his iPhone and said that he doesn’t want to have an iPhone, but a Nokia phone, because he believes in Nokia (and he’s Finnish, so it kind of makes sense). Then Elop said that he can easily remedy this, took the presenter’s phone and threw it away. It didn’t become clear if the iPhone survived the fall, but a minute later Elop promised to give the host a new Nokia phone.

It’s not clear what phone would Nokia’s CEO give him. My bet goes for a Lumia 920.

Check out the part of the interview in question from the video below.

March 22, 2013