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Report : Android 4.2.2 Update Coming Later This Month

As we wait for the next big version of Android to appear — Key Lime Pie is rumoured to debut at Google I/O in May — Google hasn’t slowed down its sprucing and pruning of the current version.

According to a recent article on ibtimes.com, Google might be set to make the new platform version available by mid-February, after concluding internal testing for it.

The story goes that Google has been having employees test the 4.2.2 update on all of the Nexus devices – Galaxy, 4, 7, and 10 – and that the update is close to being released. There isn’t a lot to the update, which is expected to be very minimal. The only major issue that is expected to be fixed is the “stuttering” audio issue when using a Bluetooth headset with the Nexus 7.

Multiple reports and videos have surfaced showing at least the latest LG Nexus 4 running 4.2.2 Jelly Bean for a select few. Google hasn’t pushed 4.2.2 to AOSP and it hasn’t been confirmed, but either way it’s coming soon.

News of this forthcoming version of Jelly Bean comes not long after Google updated the Android version share page. According to the data, Jelly Bean–both versions 4.1 and 4.2–has grown by 3.2 per cent since last month. This new update will probably see more Jelly Bean devices being activated, giving a firm foothold to Jelly Bean before the next version of Android is released.

[Android Community]

February 7, 2013
LG Teaser Talks About ‘Unlimited Possibilities’ At MWC

LG is forging ahead and doubling down on the teasing today. Earlier this morning the wireless manufacturer posted an image of a present on their Facebook wall that proudly stated a “new series will be unveiled.” They also declared this mystery unveiling would have some sort of “unexpected distinction” to it. Now a video has been uploaded to YouTube with a similar feel, but gives a bit more insight.

“Are you ready for the next breakthrough from LG? Join us and see LG Mobile’s unlimited possibilities at the MWC 2013,” the company notes.

The official Mobile World Congress “2013 Trailer Video” suggests we’ll see “unlimited possibilities” and asks is you’re “ready for the next breakthrough from LG?” This is followed by a series of buzz words such as premium, stylish, speedy, powerful, innovative, fast-paced, edgy that look to be a constellation – perhaps a “galaxy.”

While no specific info on what might be unveiled there has been provided as of now, rumor has it that the company might announce new F-Series smartphones at the event.

Additionally, there’s also the possibility that LG will unveil new handsets in the L-Series lineup, or a successor for its flagship Optimus G smartphone.

Take a look at the video and then you can decide for yourself what kind of phone or phones LG plans on pulling down from the heavens in Barcelona.

[Mobile Syrup]

February 7, 2013
Zync To Launch 5 New Android Tablets With Dual And Quad Core Processors

Zync will launch five new dual-core and quad-core tablets with 7 inch, 8 inch, 9.7 inch and 10.1 inch screens. The price of these tablets will be below Rs 15,000.

According to Zync, the 8 inch and 10.1 inch tablets will be India’s first quad-core tablets. The press release sent by the company says, “some of these tablets will be using the Apple iPad 3 screen.” Before we conclude anything from this statement, it’s wise to wait for the launch of these products.

Some of these tablets will come powered by a 1.6 GHz processor, 32GB in-built memory, a dual camera. Ashish Garg, Director, Zync Global, said, “All these five tablets which will be launched by the end of this month which will have a unique USP which no other player has in the market.”

[quote]“All these five tablets which will be launched end of this month will have a unique USP which no other player has in the market in terms of features and price. Zync is bullish on the tablet market and the price range of these tablets with the latest features is going to sweep people off their feet, so watch this space for more!” Ashish Garg, Director, Zync Global, is quoted as saying[/quote]

The Indian tablet market has seen an intense competition over the last year with a number of Indian manufacturers coming up with budget slates. Zync has launched quite a few tablets such as the ZyncZ930, Z909 and Z999 Plus.

Zync’s previous 9.7-inch tablet, the Z1000, features a 1.5GHz processor, 1GB RAM, HD Display, 3G, Bluetooth and runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

February 5, 2013
BlackBerry Z10 Sales ‘Exceeding Expectations’ So Far

BlackBerry, the company formerly known as RIM, has said that demand for the BlackBerry Z10 has exceeded expectations since the full touchscreen device went on sale in the UK last week.

Whilst BlackBerry did not release any details on how many of their Z10 smartphone they have sold since launch, the company’s UK MD Stephen Bates had the following to say about the device.

[quote]

“The response we’ve seen exceeded all of our launch partners’ expectations. Customers are choosing to buy the BlackBerry Z10 in large numbers,” said Bates. “In fact some of our partners have told us that they sold out over the weekend in some of their key retail locations.

“The partners’ call centres are also flooded with calls, as people phone to ask for more information about the device, and also where and how to buy it.”

[/quote]

The Blackberry Z10 will launch in Canada today and also in a number of European countries this week which include France, Germany, Spain and more. We expect it to land in India sometime around 25th February.

Alongside giving its first indication on sales for the Z10, BlackBerry has also today (February 5) announced a partnership with Unity to bring more games to the BlackBerry 10 platform.

February 5, 2013
Report : Dell Buyout Deal Nearing Completion

Talks between Dell and a consortium led by its founder and chief executive Michael Dell to take the world’s No.3 PC maker private were still on track on Monday, with negotiations focusing on a price of between $13.50 and $13.75 per share, a person familiar with the matter said. This makes the total value of the deal almost $24 million.

If the transaction goes ahead it will be the largest leveraged takeover since the onset of the banking crisis in 2007, worth around $20bn (£12.7bn). Microsoft is expected to invest about $2bn in the deal, while the private equity firm Silver Lake – which has previously invested in Skype – is expected to put in about $1bn, the source said.

The prospect of Microsoft — which is a long-time Dell partner — holding sway over a major hardware player continues to raise eyebrows. Cozying up with one supplier — say Dell, over others such as HP, Lenovo, Acer etc…. could obviously cause problems. But Microsoft appears to be losing leverage over its traditional PC partners, most of which could be counted on to pre-load Windows on virtually all of their laptops and desktops.

As a sign of changing times, HP on Monday announced its first Chromebook, a laptop that ships with Google’s Chrome OS, not Windows. Whether that is a reaction to all this Dell-Microsoft talk or was just an inevitable hedging of bets is unclear.

Michael Dell is expected to roll over his roughly 16% stake and put in some of his own cash for control of the emerging private company.

He intends to convert the business from a computer company to a business which provides a range of information technology services. The PC market is in sharp decline, and at present PCs account for 70% of Dell’s earnings and more than half of its profits.

[Wall Street Journal]

February 5, 2013
BlackBerry Rewards App Developers With A Limited Edition Red Z10

Image Courtesy : CrackBerry

In order to thank the developers who had supported BlackBerry 10 platform before it went live last month, BlackBerry decided to offer them limited edition BlackBerry Z10 devices.

According to CrackBerry, there will be only 12,000 limited edition BlackBerry Z10 devices specially manufactured for developers. They will be red and will be etched with special serial numbers.

The BlackBerry Z10 is an all-touch device with a 4.2-inch display, a dual-core Qualcomm S4 Processor, 2GB of RAM, and multi-band LTE-support.

Announcing the move at the BlackBerry Jam developer conference in Amsterdam today, BlackBerry’s VP of developer relations Alec Saunders said that early developers will be “the only ones that will have these devices because they’re the ones that earned them”.

He did however, say the phone will also be made available to new developers, provided they get their apps accepted by 28 February, so there’s still a chance you can get your hands on one if you act quickly.

Image Courtesy : N4BB

Media is also getting a hands-on with the new Dev Alpha C device, which will become available in the coming months as developers adjust their apps to work on the 1:1 ratio 720×720 screen of the BlackBerry Q10. The Dev Alpha C may not be pretty — it’s boxy in the same way as the Alpha and Alpha B devices were — but it’s meant to do a job, and it comes with that excellent fretted QWERTY keyboard.

[CrackBerry, N4BB]

February 5, 2013
iOS 6.1 Jailbreak Evasi0n goes live

We earlier reported that the iOS 6.1 jailbreak was 95% complete, now its gone live. As mentioned in our previous post, Evasi0n supports all 20+ variants of iOS devices, including the iPhone 5, on iOS 6.0 through iOS 6.1.

The release of the new userland-based Evasi0n iOS 6.1 jailbreak tool means that users now have an extremely efficient way of making a complicated background process seem extremely simple.

So head on over to evasi0n.com and download the compatible version with your computer and get on going.

February 5, 2013
Facebook Turns 9 Today!

The few Ivy Leaguers privileged enough to join “Thefacebook” nine years ago would hardly recognize the site today. It celebrates its birthday today!

Zuckerberg started with an invite only Ivy League college website, from where he took Facebook to a different level. These nine years for Facebook brought many changes to the social media platform bringing in features like social networking games, business pages and of course relationship status.

In nine years, the company has overshadowed the mobile platforms for not just social networking but also messaging. Change being its fixed feature, Facebook came up with an application called Poke which self-destroys message once it’s read. Facebook has proved its worth when it reached to a remarkable milestone of one billion users which many biggies like My space, Twitter and Orkut had only dreamt about.

According to a report by GlobalWebIndex, in Q4 alone last year, Facebook saw 693 million users globally, with a growth rate of 33 per cent.

In 2012 Facebook floated its IPO and the company went public with a peak market capitalisation of over $104 billion. The hype was short-lived and the stock of the company soon took a battering.

In January, this year Facebook announced the launch of Graph Search that allows users to search the site for photos, places, likes, people on the site.

February 4, 2013
Kodak Transaction Related To Digital Imaging Patents Closed At $527 Million

Eastman Kodak Co. said Friday it has completed the transaction for the sale and licensing of its digital imaging patents for net proceeds of $527 million.

The transaction, which achieves one of Kodak’s key restructuring objectives, continues its momentum toward emergence from bankruptcy midyear, the company said.

A portion of the $527 million was paid by 12 intellectual property licensees organized by Intellectual Ventures Management LLC and RPX Corp. Another portion was paid by Intellectual Ventures, which acquired a substantial majority of the digital imaging patent portfolio subject to these new licenses, as well as previously existing licenses, Kodak said.

The consortium includes industry giants Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc., Facebook Inc., Google Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co.

Kodak originally had hoped to receive more than $2 billion for the patents.

The deal includes an agreement to settle current patent-related litigation between the participants. Kodak retains the rights to use the 1,100 digital imaging patents sold in the transaction.

“The licensing and sale of our digital imaging patents is another major milestone toward successful emergence,” said Chairman and CEO Antonio Perez in a statement. “We are on track to emerge as a profitable, sustainable company.”

The completion of the sale enables Kodak to repay a substantial amount of its initial debtor in possession loan, satisfies a key condition for its newly approved financing facility and positions its core Commercial Imaging business for future growth and success, the company said. Kodak maintains ownership of some 9,600 patents.

[RBJ]

February 4, 2013
HP Unveils Pavilion 14, Its First Chromebook

HP has launched the HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook, which it’s calling “the first full-size 14-inch Chromebook.”

Having been leaked at the end of January, HP has now officially taken the wraps off its new Google OS laptop.

[quote]”Google’s Chrome OS is showing great appeal to a growing customer base,” said Kevin Frost, vice president and general manager, Consumer PCs, Printing and Personal Systems, HP. “With HP’s Chromebook, customers can get the best of the Google experience on a full-sized laptop — all backed up by our service and brand.[/quote]

The HP Pavilion 14 itself only has a 16 GB solid-state drive, whose whole purpose is to hold the Chrome operating system and ensure fast boot-up and run times.

Everything else, including the programs and data storage, is done in the Cloud. That is to say, on Google’s servers, over the web.

HP Pavilion 14 has a 14-inch panel, which is about 2 inches wider (diagonally) than the few other Chromebooks on the market.

An Intel Celeron CPU with Intel HD integrated graphics runs the whole device, while security is ensured by constant OS updates and a built-in Trusted Platform Module (TPM).

Other specs include HDMI, USB 2.0, Ethernet and a mixed headphone/microphone jack.

The Chromebook will be available in the United States at a starting price of $329.99. Indian pricing will be updated soon.

With the launch of the HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook, the company joins the likes of Samsung, Lenovo and Acer in providing a lightweight alternative to the divisive Windows 8 OS.

February 4, 2013
Samsung And LG Resolve Their OLED Patent Dispute

The only reason the patent war between LG and Samsung hasn’t become more notorious is because it has been mostly overshadowed by the ongoing fight between the latter and Apple.

It turns out that was a good thing. The IT world could definitely do with a bit less drama, and a government ministry from South Korea helped eliminate this particular source of it.

Long story short, LG and Samsung have agreed to settle their patent disputes without pushing anything further through courts.

The decision was reached after the aforementioned government ministry persuaded the chief executive officers (CEOs) of Samsung Display and LG Display to meet.

The meeting took place in a Seoul hotel and ended with the legal stalemate being broken at last.

LG had filed a patent infringement lawsuit against fellow South Korean electronics giant Samsung over the latter’s use of advanced OLED display technology in smartphones and tablets, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The paper reported that alleged patent infringements include the design of OLED panels, driver circuitry and device design, and said LG intended to seek damages and a permanent injunction against the sale of accused devices in South Korea.

Devices accused of infringing LG’s patents include Samsung’s latest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy SIII, along with the Galaxy Note phablet and the Galaxy Tab 7.7 tablet.

February 4, 2013
iOS 6.1 Jailbreak 95% ready for iPhone 5, 4s, 4, 3GS, iPad 4, 3, 2 and iPod Touch

Waiting on that jailbreak to unleash the creativity on the iPhone 5, or the new iPad for that matter? The Team Evad3rs have updated their website and are showing that 95% of the iOS 6.1 jailbreak is ready with only a few hours to go up until release.

So hold your breath because this is going to come sooner than you think.

What is the most used feature after Jailbreaking?, for us we prefer toggles in the notification panel, so SB settings is all we need from the jailbreak. Now with team Hackul0us and Install0us gone from Cydia, we feel that number of Jailbreaks on iOS 6.1 may be limited to those who do it for the heck of it.

According to team EVAD3RS the jailbreak had been readied on iOS 6.0 and 6.0.1 , but they wanted to release an iOS 6.1 Jailbreak so that Apple does not patch up the exploit in the iOS 6.1 update.

February 4, 2013
Motorola X Smartphone To Feature Great Battery Life And Kevlar Backing

If you’re a fan of Android devices then you will probably already have heard the rumors surrounding a new X Phone from the Google/Motorola stable. This has also been referred to as the Google X or Motorola X although the name will probably be changed before release. It’s rumored that this X Phone will be the first device to launch running the next overhaul of the Android operating system, 5.0 Key Lime Pie and today we have some snippets of specs claimed to be coming to the X Phone.

To start it looks like Google’s I/O event on May 15th is when the Motorola X-Phone will be revealed to the world, but read on for more details.

Rumors have been floating around on the X-Phone since the WSJ originally leaked the details, and today sources claim to actually have a friend using and testing the new smartphone. Yup, according to PhoneArena’s tipster the device is in the wild and being tested by a few lucky souls.

This source says Motorola and Google have decided on a 4.8-inch 1920 x 1080p full HD display, will reveal it at I/O on May 15th, and it will even sport the impressive Sony Exmor camera sensor. Apple’s exclusivity contract has ended, and we can expect that camera sensor to make its way into multiple handsets early this year.

Google’s big focus lately on Android smartphones has been for durability, and battery life. The X-Phone will address both of those. Using Motorola’s excellent Kevlar design for extreme durability and splash-guard water-resistance mixed in with a battery like the RAZR MAXX HD (3,300 mAh) the new X-Phone will reportedly rock. It will have the latest and greatest hardware on all levels, the newest Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie, amazing battery life, be extremely durable, support up to 128GB of internal storage and come with a micro-SD slot, and all of this will hit multiple carriers. Not to mention be sold on the Google Play Store.

Looks like a winner to us!

[Android Community]

February 3, 2013
Apple Still Leader In Tablet Market, But Samsung Closing In

Apple’s share of the tablet market declined again in the fourth quarter of 2012 but the company still has twice the share of its nearest rival, Samsung.

Research firm IDC and their latest numbers are showing that current market leader Apple with their iPad are losing tablet market share. Apple’s tablet market share dropped from 51.7% to 43.6%, where in the last three months of 2012 Samsung jumped up to 15.1%.

When taking in consideration the year-over-year numbers, Samsung’s growth has been huge where a year ago they sold just 2.2 million tablets, and twelve months later they’re seeing sales of 7.9 million units.

IDC said the strongest growth came from Android, including tablets made by South Korea’s Samsung and Taiwan’s Asus, which makes a Google-branded Nexus tablet.

The survey found that Microsoft, which launched its new Surface tablet in the quarter, failed to break into the top five sellers and shipped a modest 900,000 of the devices in the quarter.

IDC said Amazon, which does not provide its own sales data, delivered some six million tablets in the quarter to retain its spot as the number three vendor.

That represented 26.8 percent growth, giving Amazon a market share of 11.5 percent, IDC said.

Fourth place belonged to Asus, which sold 3.1 million tablets, year-on-year growth of more than 400 percent. That gave the Taiwan-based firm a 5.8 percent market share. Barnes & Noble sold one million of its Nook tablets and accounted to 1.9 percent of the market, the survey found.

The tablet market is expected to get much more serious this year, with multiple Nexus tablets from Google, as well as Microsoft’s upcoming Surface Pro slate.

February 3, 2013
Finally! Your Normal Data Plans Will Work With Blackberry 10 Devices, No Need For BIS

The BlackBerry Z10 is coming out soon — so close! — and just in case you were wondering, no, you won’t have to change your current plan.

Unlike older BlackBerries, the Z10 does not require an explicit BIS plan; in fact, it requires a regular data plan. BlackBerry-only plans such as Blackberry Personal E-mail Plans, BlackBerry Social Plans and BBM only will not work with the new Z10. The same is true of all other carriers as well.

This means that if you’re transitioning over from an iPhone or an Android with a data plan, just stick your SIM card in the Z10 and everything from the browser to BBM will work without issue. Of course, you’ll need a microSIM in order to connect to the network, so older devices (or iPhone 5 users) will need a new one.

When it comes to enterprise users who will be running their BlackBerry 10 phones via a BES10 server, a special BlackBerry BES plan will be required – so nothing has changed there. Being on BES10 is what enables features like BlackBerry Balance to function. However, if you’re in a business where you’re going to be running your BlackBerry 10 phones alongside iOS and Android devices with no BES in place, then no BlackBerry data plan is required – you’re in the same situation as a consumer.

[Mobile Syrup]

February 3, 2013