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Apple App Store Crosses 40 Billion Downloads, 500 Million Active Accounts

Apple announced on Monday that the App Store has surpassed 40 billion downloads. That’s unique downloads excluding re-downloads and updates. Nearly half of that came in last year alone. The company also says it has over 500 million active users, and surpassed over 2 billion downloads during the month of December.

There are over 775,000 apps available in the store, for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices. Apple says it has paid the developers of those apps over $7 billion.

[quote]”Developers have made over seven billion dollars on the App Store, and we continue to invest in providing them with the best ecosystem so they can create the most innovative apps in the world,” says Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, in a statement.[/quote]

Apple launched its app store in 2008. The store hit the 10 billion downloads mark in early 2011. In March 2012, Apple announced that more than 25 billion apps have been downloaded.

The last valuable figure Google gave for its Play Store was 25 billion downloads, encompassing 675,000 apps. Google’s marketplace launched after the App Store, but the search giant does not disclose how much money it has paid to developers.

January 7, 2013
Belkin shows off Thunderstorm Handheld Home Theater for iPad with Integrated Front Speakers
iPads usually have been known for notoriously low sound, and while several companies and startups have tried to solve this issue. Belkin has launched a product which might be an actual answer to the above problem. The case works as a dock and Belkin will release two models to accommodate for both 30-pin and Lightning connectors. Belkin is also making a free companion app available that will allow users to customize sound profiles for different types of media.

Both models will be available early this year, for a price of US $ 199 or about INR 12000.
- Integrated, front-facing, landscape-oriented, stereo speakers
- Ported speakers for rich bass and depth
- Low-distortion, high-efficiency amplifier
- Magnetically attached folding soft cover with multiple stand configurations
- MFi Certified
- G3A1000 with 30-pin docking interface is compatible with iPad 2 and iPad 3rd generation
- G3A2000 with Lightning connector is compatible with iPad 4th generation
- Pass-through access for iPad rear camera, headset jack, microphone, speaker, charging, lock switch, volume control, and mute/rotation lock toggle
January 7, 2013
Hp Launches Monitors Galore at CES 2013, 20 to 27 inch IPS panels

HP has just flooded the streets with a lineup of monitors they have released at CES 2013. Ranging from 20 inches to 27 inches and US $ 130 to US $ 500 (approx. INR 7000 to 30000).

Envy 27.

The Envy 27 is the flagship monitor by HP for 2013 with an asking price of US $ 499 or INR 27500 The HP Envy 27 has a 1080p IPS panel with wide viewing angles . A anti reflective coating on the glossy display makes looking at the monitor a stunning experience. Edge to Edge disply along with a die-cast aluminum base and built-in Beats Audio.

For ports, there’s VGA, DisplayPort, HDMI, a 3.5mm headphone jack and optical digital output, allowing you to send audio to wireless speakers]. The monitor will go on sale in February in the US and should hit India side soon after.

Pavilion 20xi, 22xi, 23xi, 25xi and 27xi.

Similar to the flagship above the HP Pavilion line offers full hd 1080p IPS panels in a affordable price bracket. ranging in sizes from 200 to 27 inch. The 20-inch 20xi has a lower 1,600 x 900 resolution, along with VGA and DVI output (but not HDMI). These monitors will go on sale in February in the US and should hit India side soon after with prices ranging from $130 to $340.

ProDisplay P191, P201, P201m and P221.

Designed for Enterprise and businesses these HP monitors range in size from 18.5 to 21 inches. Throughout the line up most of the specs are the same: a 250-nit brightness rating, 1,000:1 contrast ratio and 5ms response time. All can tilt 35 degrees and can rotate up to 90 degrees to offer ergonomic options to the viewer.

the P191 has a pixel count of 1,366 x 768, compared with 1,600 x 900 for the P201 and 1080p for the P221.

These HP monitors will go on sale in February in the US and should hit India side soon after price from $129 to $179, making them the most affordable of these new models.

January 7, 2013
NVIDIA launches Tegra 4: with quad-core Cortex A15 and 72 GPU cores !

At CES 2013, NVIDIA has announced their chipset upgrade of the year, The Tegra 4 platform. Even though the chip retains the same 4-plus-1 arrangement of the Tegra 3 Platform, adds capabilities of an impressive 72 GPU cores. That will improve the GPU capability almost 6 times.

The first test this processor was put to live on stage was between itself in an unnamed tablet and the Google Nexus 10 – loading webpages on the Tegra 4 finished almost 50% quicker than the Nexus 10.

Its also the first quad-core processor with Cortex A15 cores on-board, which offers compatibility with LTE networks. NVIDIA also claims this piece of silicon is the world’s fastest mobile processor. in a comparative chart putting the NVIDIA Tegra 4 ahead of the iPad 4 and then the Nexus 10.

The Tegra 4 also boasts of new Photography computational expertise, which will drastically improve the time between an image clicked, processed and saved. NVIDIA said that it will introduce a new mobile processor architecture each year, with the Tegra 4 however it seems the Tegra 3 chipset has been updated.

January 7, 2013
Hashtag Declared 2012 Word of the Year

These days it seems like everyone goes around declaring the “word of the year,” but the tradition began with the American Dialect Society, which met last night in Boston for its 23rd annual Word of the Year vote. It’s a spirited event, where the members of the society—a group of linguists, lexicographers, and other professional language scholars—argue for their choices.

The American Dialect Society has selected its Word of the Year for 2012, and the winner was a bit of a surprise. It wasn’t fiscal cliff, the ubiquitous term in the news from Capitol Hill. And it wasn’t YOLO, the youthful acronym for “You Only Live Once” that quickly rose (and just as quickly fell) this past year. No, the ultimate champion was that mainstay of the Twittersphere, hashtag.

A hashtag is a convention used on Twitter to organize conversations, mark topics, or make witty commentary, created by appending a word or phrase with the hash symbol (#) preceding it.Word of the Year is interpreted in its broader sense as “vocabulary item” — not just words but phrases. The words or phrases do not have to be brand-new, but they have to be newly prominent or notable in the past year.

This isn’t the first time an Internet term has gotten the nod: “Tweet” was declared word of the year by the group in 2010, while “Google” was then-named the word of the decade. In a nod to the worldwide Occupy movements, the group declared “Occupy” to be last year’s word of the year.

January 6, 2013
Lenovo To Split Into Lenovo Business Group, Think Business Group To Help Compete With Apple

Lenovo Group today announced that the company internally will have an organizational structure adjustment. The company will be divided into two major business groups: the Lenovo business group (LBG) and Think Business Group (TBG) after the adjustment. The adjustment will take effect on April 1.

Lenovo Business Group, responsible for mid-range desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones and TVs aimed at average consumers, will be headed by Liu Jun, senior vice-president (mobile internet digital home).

Despite some attempts to change course, the Lenovo brand is still only playing well in the mainstream and low-end markets; whereas the Think brand is his company’s best asset in the high-end market, and the only brand that can compete with Apple in the high-end market, Yang said in the email.

Think Business Group will be headed by Peter Hortensius, senior vice-president (product group). Yuanqing says this group will compete with the likes of Apple for the top-spot in the high-end market.

According to a recent report from Digitimes, Lenovo intends to move notebook production in-house within five years. This plan may help the company get there.

[Engadget]

January 6, 2013
Report : Sony C530X ‘HuaShan’ To Come With Dual-Core 1.7 GHz Snapdragon S4 and 720p Display

Sometime in the middle of last month, the Sony C530X (otherwise known as the C5303 as well), which carries the code name HuaShan, was seen in an AnTuTu benchmark, where it was revealed to the world that the HuaShan will carry a 1.7GHz processor after picking up a not half bad score of 16,133 in the benchmark. Other than that, very little else was revealed concerning the smartphone, but its latest outing on GLBenchmark has lifted the curtain a wee bit more.

Little else was known at that stage, but an outing on GLBenchmark reveals a few more details, as spotted by the Xperia Blog.

The Sony C530X (C5302, C5303, C5306) will be armed with the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro MSM8960T chipset with a 1.7GHz dual-core processor and Adreno 320 graphics. The benchmark also reveals that HuaShan will have a 720 x 1280 display with onscreen touchscreen buttons. The handset tested was running Android 4.1.2. We don’t know whether HuaShan will make an appearance at CES next week, but if not, MWC in February is a dead cert.

Beginning last year, Sony had decided to use a different nomenclature for naming its devices. We saw many devices in the Xperia series differentiated with alphabets like U, S, J and so on. But these didn’t clearly indicate what the user should expect from the handset.

January 6, 2013
Sony Xperia Z Video Stills Show Off Water Resistance And Skeletal Frame Structure

Sony’s upcoming Xperia Z (or Yuga), the company’s entry into the 5-inch smartphone space, will reportedly sport a “skeleton frame structure” and HDR video recording capabilities. Will these be the kind of features that get Sony into the same race as Samsung and Apple?

According to a leaked promotional video, the Xperia Z has a “skeleton frame” and is water/dust resistant. In addition, it has an Exmor RS image sensor and can take images and record video in HDR.

The so-called skeleton frame is composed of individual components, according to Sony, upon which the phone is assembled. In addition, there’s an OptiContrast panel, a 13-megapixel Exmor RS camera, a full HD Reality display, and the ability to both take images and record videos in the HDR mode. Also demonstrated is its water-resistant body, with images showing the handset covered in large droplets of water.

As we previously mentioned, the Xperia Z is expected to launch alongside a slightly smaller Xperia ZL. The Xperia Z will feature a 5-inch 1080p display, 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon CPU, 2GB of RAM, a 13MP camera, and what we hope is a huge battery.

According to leaked images, it is running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. So far, everything we’ve seen points to an exceptional, sleek handset.

Sony today sent out an email to subscribers informing them that something worth noticing was going to be announced in three days.. that’s during CES.. it’s very likely to be this device. We can’t wait!

[Xperia Blog]

January 6, 2013
Skoda Confirms 6 Launches For 2013

Skoda has confirmed it is to launch six new models by the end of 2013.

The Rapid and the Octavia were teased repeatedly on the main Skoda fan page and the launches did not go unnoticed even with Facebook users who weren’t auto buffs. After all, who isn’t logging to Facebook today to keep a tab on their world?

Just before the year closed, Skoda’s French subsidiary uploaded one such image, teasing not one, but five launches for their country.

The first launch is that of the new Rapid, indicating the start of availability in the French market. The second launch is the Octavia sedan that rolled out last month, and the veil on the third launch covers the impending Octavia wagon variant.

The fourth, fifth and sixth launches could feature the Roomster facelift while photographs of the facelifted Yeti and Superb test prototypes spotted around the foothills of the Alps, characterizing the VisionD concept, confirm that they are waiting for their big days this year.

For the Indian market, 2013 could witness the launch of the new Octavia in the first half of the year, followed by facelifts of the Superb and Yeti towards the festival season.

For 2014 and 2015, Skoda should secretly be working on their version of the Taigun and the Up!-based sedan and not to forget the next generation Fabia and Yeti using the MQB platform.

Meanwhile, Skoda Auto India sales during the calendar year 2012 totaled 34,678 units as compared to 30,741 units in the same period of 2011 resulting in 13% sales growth. This was a notable increase in sales, especially when considering tough and turbulent conditions being faced by auto companies in India.

“Despite challenging market conditions, Skoda India achieved growth of 13% on the strength of our strong product line-up. Skoda Rapid steered our sales for this year and will continue to be one of our prime offerings in the year ahead. We are confident that the Skoda range of products, anchored by our class-leading Skoda Superb at the top end and the acknowledged high-quality and value-for-money Skoda Fabia at the bottom end will continue to grow from strength to strength. Our approach for 2013 is to continue the focus on improving Skoda’s performance in all areas of business in order to enhance the experience our customers have with Skoda products and services”, says Mr Sudhir Rao, Managing Director, Skoda Auto India.

[Indian Autos Blog]

January 5, 2013
Report : Google Maps Never Supported Internet Explorer On Windows Phone 8

Microsoft’s complaint that Google is hoarding its YouTube metadata has fueled a new conspiracy theory: The search giant has pulled levers to prevent Windows Phones from accessing Google Maps. In reality, this phenomenon likely has little if anything to do with chicanery on Google’s part and everything to do with Microsoft’s reluctance to support the WebKit browser framework.

While Google Maps was never officially built for or supported by the Windows Phone platform, prior to this complaint, the service was accessible to a certain degree. Users of Windows Phone 7 and 8 both seem to be facing this issue.

Google released an explanation for the issue, saying that Google Maps rely on WebKit on mobile devices and Internet Explorer for Windows Phone does not utilise the rendering engine.

Microsoft, over the past few months, has publicly sparred with Google over its shutting down of Exchange Activesync support at the end of January. Microsoft expressed “disappointment” in the action and implored any affected users to transition to Outlook.com, its new (and excellent) mail offering. By turning off Activesync access (which applies to all platforms, not just Microsoft’s), Windows Phone users will not be able to sync Google contacts or calendars. Because Microsoft has yet to implement CalDAV and CardDAV support in its mobile OS, users will be out of luck by the end of the month.

Apple, on the other hand, will be unaffected by the change as it implemented the new calendar and contact sync standards in its latest version and has push support for mail via a native app. Android users, of course, will suffer no such issues with sync as their phones tie directly into Google’s activation servers.

While it’s currently assumed that the redirect is a bug and not the status quo going forward, we’ve yet to hear from Google on the issue.

January 5, 2013
WhatsApp Pushed Record 18 Billion Messages On December 31st

WhatsApp has a message for its users — a lot of them.

The mobile messaging service announced today that it set a WhatsApp record on New Year’s Eve, processing 18 billion messages on the last day of the year. The company said it delivered 7 billion inbound messages and 11 billion outbound messages, surpassing its previous record of 10 billion messages processed in one day back in August.

In comparison, Apple revealed in October that its iMessage text service had delivered about 300 billion texts sent by iOS users during the previous 12 months — an average of less than a billion a day.

WhatsApp is an ad-free, paid service intended to replace your text messaging plan. Generally it works out cheaper, particularly when sending messages overseas, because it uses WiFi or mobile networks to carry texts instead.

It’s available for Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, Windows Phone and Nokia phones.

Its success hasn’t gone unnoticed – according to rumours published last year by Techcrunch and others WhatsApp might still be facing a potential acquisition by Facebook.

WhatsApp denies that Facebook has made an attempt to buy the service, but with this kind of success it can’t be out of the question that several companies would be sizing up a potential takeover.

January 4, 2013
Rumoured Samsung Galaxy S4 Press Picture Leaked

The Samsung Galaxy S4 will the company’s direct competition to Apple’s iPhone 5 and iPhone 6 so if this image is anything to go by then Samsung believes bigger is better. SamMobile claims it comes from a huge tip from a “Samsung insider”. SamMobile also goes on to say that, while it can’t be 100 per cent certain it’s genuine, the fact that it looks so much like the Samsung Galaxy S III adds credibility to its authenticity.

The official Samsung Lebanon Facebook page answered a question about the pending release of the GS IV, stating “The Galaxy SIV won’t be released before May 2013.”

Another rumour doing the rounds indicates that Samsung’s Vice Chairman Jay Le will be showing off a prototype of the Galaxy S IV to select executive and partners at CES next week. It’ll happen behind closed doors.

Considering the amount of caution Samsung went to protect the design and features of the Samsung Galaxy S III, it’s possible that the above pic is an early prototype. Samsung made several variations and employees led a “double life” to protect to final GS III product. Everything with unfold itself over the next few months.

The rumoured specs so far reveal :

– Exynos 5450 Quad-Core CPU clocked at 2.0GHz
– Mali-T658 GPU
– 2GB of RAM
– 4.99” SuperAMOLED FULL HD resolution (1080×1920) Display
– 13 Megapixel Rear Facing Camera
– 2 Megapixel Front Facing Camera
– Android 4.2.1 (Out of the box)

January 4, 2013
Rumour : LG 5.5 inch 1080p Flagship Optimus G2 To Be Revealed At CES

At CES 2012 LG was incredibly quiet. They only showcased devices that were already announced and let the world wait until Mobile World Congress for their big flagship unveilings. LG is already rumoured to be coming out with a follow-up to the Optimus G called the Optimus G2, which will be revealed at CES 2013.

This power house Android reportedly has a screen size between 5 to 5.5-inches with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 (440 ppi), LTE-enabled and has a 2 GHz quad-core processor. Previous overseas report indicated that LG will announce this within 6 months, but thanks to DigiTimes they state that,

[quote]“South Korea-based LG Electronics plans to showcase the Optimus G2 Android smartphone, with a 5.5-inch screen, and Qualcomm quad-core S4 Prime MSM8974.”[/quote]

A DigiTimes piece says less than 5% of the phones shipped in 2012 had a screen that measured 5 or more inches diagonal. That number is expected to hit between 10% and 15% in 2013, which should come out to around 100 million units.

LG may simply showcase the device at CES, and then release it many months later, although that kind of approach has never been a good idea.

January 3, 2013
Leap Motion Secures $30 Million in Series B Funding, Reveals Bundling Deal With Asus

In the near future, people will wear head-mounted computers and control them by moving hands through the air. They’ll learn guitar using programs that track the placement of each finger on each string. And in online combat games, they’ll smite an enemy with their fists.

Those are some of the applications that founders of Leap Motion foresee for motion sensing, as precision improves and pricing declines. And as the company prepares to launch its first product in Q1 – a $70 motion-sensing device that works with a computer – VCs are buying into the vision.

Leap Motion announced that it has raised $30 million in Series B funding. Co-founder and CEO Michael Buckwaldsaid that the company is still planning to ship its gesture-based controller sometime during the first quarter of this year, and he’s also announcing a partnership with Asus that should help get Leap Motion into the hands of consumers.

In this case, Asus is supposed to bundle the Leap Motion controller with its All-In-One PCs and high-end notebooks.

[quote]

“Leap Motion is poised to fundamentally change human/computer interaction, and this new funding will help us bring our technology to the mass global market,” said Leap Motion CEO Michael Buckwald. “With this influx of capital, coupled with the major OEM partnership we also announced today, we’re ready to make 2013 the year of the new interface.”

[/quote]

The new funding round will be used to scale manufacturing in preparation for the retail launch of the Leap Motion controller in early 2013. Leap Motion’s technology can track movements to 1/100th millimeter — smaller than the tip of a pin — with no visible lag time. The Leap Motion controller has a 150-degree field of view, and tracks individual hands and all 10 fingers at 290 frames per second.

Check out the demo video below :

[Tech Crunch]

January 3, 2013
35 HTC Smartphone Codenames Leaked, Unannounced M7 Flagship Confirmed
HTC may not be happy with the lastest leak hitting the rumor mill today. According to Android Authority, an internal security breach has exposed the codenames for 35 smartphone models.

While some of these phones have already been revealed (the Deluxe model was released as the HTC Butterfly, for example), there’s a few that stand out to us.

One of the main nuggets to pull out of this list is the eight variations of the HTC M7, a phone we’ve heard rumblings of before. Previously we had heard that the phone will sport a 1.7GHz quad-core Qualcomm processor, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, a 4.7-inch 1080p display and a 13 megapixel camera. While the code names don’t confirm the specs, the number of variations suggests that this is a phone HTC will likely market worldwide.

If anything, this could be a list of names to keep in the back of your mind for the coming months, especially with CES around the corner.

The following are the HTC codenames :
- VENUS_CL
- ERAU
- IMPRESSION_J
- EVITA_UTL
- K2_WL
- MONACO_TDU
- MONACO_UL
- MONACO_U
- OPERA_UL
- DELUXE_R
- DELUXE_UL
- DELUXE_TW
- M7
- M7_U
- M7_WL
- M7_WLV
- M7_WLJ
- M7DCG
- M7DUG
- M7DTG
- M7C_DTU
- CP3DCG
- CP3DTG
- CP3DUG
- DLXP_WL
- PRIMOMINIU
January 3, 2013