Yearly Archives: 2013

68 posts

Vodafone Smart Mini announced with Android Jellybean

The Vodafone Smart Mini is the latest and most affordable addition to the Vodafone Smart line-up, bringing you a sleek, compact smartphone without any compromise on performance – for just £50 on Pay as you go.

Vodafone Smart MiniThe Vodafone Smart Mini offers a large, 3.5 inch display and 2MP camera with digital zoom so you can easily capture all those precious moments. Plus, as it runs on up-to-date Android Jellybean you can enjoy smooth navigation and seamless browsing.

Full of powerful messaging features – including push email, Facebook integration and pre-loaded Twitter – the Vodafone Smart Mini lets you share your snaps with friends and family instantly, while the easy access online app store brings a wealth of games, tools, social apps and entertainment to your fingertips.

With Vodafone Freebees on Pay as you go, when you top up your new Vodafone Smart Mini you can get free calls, text and internet. Also, if you buy your Smart Mini before the end of July, to help you find your feet, you can use as much data as you like, for whatever you like for 30 days with our Freedom Freebee, so you can get to grips with your new smartphone.

The Vodafone Smart Mini will be available to buy on Vodafone.co.uk later today in either black or white, with a pink version coming soon.

Specifications:

Dimensions (mm) 115 x 62.3 x 12.2
TouchScreen 320 x 480 HVGA Capacitive
Processor 1 GHz MT6575 single-core
Screensize (inches) 3.5
RAM & Internal memory 512 MB + 4GB / 2.4GB End user (microSD up to 32GB)
Camera 2MP
Operating system Android Jellybean

EE announces flat-rate unlimited broadband and call packages

EE, the UK’s digital communications company, has launched a range of new unlimited home broadband and call plans designed to make it as simple as possible for customers to choose a great value bundle to meet their needs.

Available immediately across all EE channels including retail shops and online, customers can now choose between one of six unlimited home broadband packages – with the entry level bundle starting from just £5 per month plus line rental. All customers need to do is to choose how fast they want their broadband (between a choice of up to 14 Mbps over standard broadband or up to 38 and up to 76 Mbps over superfast fibre), as well as whether they require only ‘weekend calls’ or an abundance of calls included in their plan (‘anytime and mobile calls’) for only £7 more a month.

Plans with unlimited weekend calls include 0845 and 0870 numbers and for those who want a more inclusive home phone calling option, ‘anytime and mobile calls’ covers unlimited anytime calls to UK landlines and 30 international landline destinations, plus 1,000 anytime minutes to all UK mobiles.

EE’s fibre broadband service now covers more than 50% of UK households and offers speeds typically ten times faster than today’s average broadband speeds**. Fibre broadband from EE allows customers to stream films in HD with plenty of broadband left for the whole family to play games, browse their favourite online shops, or chat to their friends on Facebook – all at the same time. Unlimited Fibre Broadband and calls plans now start from £15 per month plus line rental, making it the best monthly price in the UK for this speed, up to 38 Mbps. What’s more, until the end of June mobile customers can try Fibre for free for the first 3 months – all they have to pay for is line rental and out of bundle call charges if they make any.

The refresh is part of EE’s commitment to offer the best value home broadband packages for mobile customers. All plans come with a year of McAfee Family Protection, EE’s award-winning Bright Box wireless router, and access to a great range of EE benefits, including 2-4-1 cinema tickets as part of EE Film.

BBC announces weather app on Android and iOS

BBC Weather today launched a mobile application for iOS and Android devices in the UK. The free app enables you to keep ahead of the weather by taking BBC Weather’s accurate and in-depth information with you on-the-go.

BBC announces weather app
As soon as you open the app it will automatically detect your location and give you an instant overview of the weather conditions wherever you are. It also gives quick access to the 5-day forecast with the option to look up further detail such as hourly UK forecasts, and three hourly forecasts for international locations, for the next 48 hours. You can find other destinations from the UK and abroad with a simple search and save them to a customisable list of your favourite places.

The app lets you make the most of this summer’s big events with Glastonbury, Wimbledon and the British Grand Prix all approaching. With regular updates for the weather and other information including UV, pollen count, wind speed and humidity, you’ll always know when to take out the brolly, put on the sun screen, or stock-up on hay fever supplies. And when the summer has been and gone, you can still keep ahead of the snow, sleet and showers.

The app follows a huge increase in users accessing BBC Weather’s services from mobile devices over the last year, and brings the breadth of its highly trusted information into a simple, clean and intuitive design. The look and feel is consistent across iOS and Android with subtle differences, such as navigation and search, that are designed to be instantly familiar to users of each platform.

All information and data can be found in either version of the app, but Android users can also add a widget on the device’s home screen and share favourite locations over NFC (Near-Field Communications) by simply touching two compatible devices together.

Liz Howell, Head of BBC Weather, said: “The new BBC Weather app is the perfect companion for this summer’s great British sport and music events. We know that our audiences really want that at-a-glance forecast when they’re out and about, with the option of digging for further detail when they need or want to. That’s exactly what we’ve delivered, squeezing in all of our trusted data into an app that’s simple to use and looks fantastic.”

James Metcalfe, Senior Product Manager for Weather, BBC Future Media, said: “We’re making BBC Weather truly mobile with the launch of our new app. As so many of our audiences access BBC Weather from iOS and Android devices, we can now offer them an even better way to keep ahead of the weather on-the-go. This represents a significant milestone in our commitment to provide a world-class weather service to audiences across four screens – desktop, mobile, tablet and connected TV.”

The app is freely available to download now on iOS from the Apple iTunes App Store and on Android via Google Play.

Twitter for iOS and Android updated

Twitter have released updates to their iPhone and Android apps. Tweeting is now even easier and more seamless.

Twitter for iOS and Android updated
Photos: When you add a photo to your Tweet, you’ll see a full preview of your photo, not just the cropped version. We’ve also redesigned the experience to make it easy to share a photo from your camera roll: simply click the photo icon on the bottom right corner of the Tweet box. With fewer steps needed to share photos, you can more easily share what’s going on in your life and quickly return to marveling over that gorgeous sunset.

Accounts: When you compose a Tweet, you’ll see your avatar and username, giving you a better sense of how your Tweet will actually appear. If you tweet from multiple accounts, it’s now easier to select the account you want to use by simply tapping on your avatar.

Location: You can still add or remove your location from individual Tweets right from the Tweet box. Tagging your location is a handy way to save characters and provide context.

Read more: https://blog.twitter.com/2013/new-iphone-android-features-better-tweeting-0

Google Calendar for Android adds color highlighting, date and time picker tweaks

Google Calendar for Android gets color highlighting, date and time picker tweaks.

colordatetime
“One of the most requested features we’ve seen so far for Google Calendar on Android is the ability to customize event and calendar colors directly from your device. Today’s update allows you to do just that (Android 4.1 or higher for custom event colors). Now you can highlight those super-urgent meetings and important birthdays, or just switch up the color of your calendar whenever your heart desires

Adding events is now easier and more fun with our redesigned date and time pickers, which let you schedule your special dinner date or the start of your well-deserved vacation in a snap.”

Read more: http://officialandroid.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/google-calendar-update-for-android.html

Google updates Gmail with tabbed inbox

Google has updated Gmail with tabbed inbox on on desktop and mobile versions.

On the desktop, the new inbox groups your mail into categories which appear as different tabs. You simply choose which categories you want and voilà! Your inbox is organized in a way that lets you see what’s new at a glance and decide which emails you want to read when.

You can easily customize the new inbox – select the tabs you want from all five to none, drag-and-drop to move messages between tabs, set certain senders to always appear in a particular tab and star messages so that they also appear in the Primary tab.

In the Gmail for Android 4.0+ and Gmail for iPhone and iPad apps, you’ll see your Primary mail when you open the app and you can easily navigate to the other tabs.

The new inbox is rolling out gradually. The desktop, Android and iOS versions will become available within the next few weeks. http://gmailblog.blogspot.ca/2013/05/a-new-inbox-that-puts-you-back-in.html

Twitter for Mac 2.2.1

Twitter has released Twitter for Mac 2.2.1 including Notification Center integration: receive notifications when someone mentions you or when you receive a Direct Message. You can configure this from the app’s Preferences window.

Twitter for Mac 2.2.1

This update also includes the following changes:
* Fix for Growl notifications not working in Lion and Mountain Lion
* Fix for bug that prevented un-favoriting tweets
* Fix for missing account switcher in composer
* Fix for error message when posting a tweet with a pasted image
* Fix for enlarged avatar when dragging a tweet into an email
* Fixes for crashes and various other bugs

Download: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/twitter/id409789998?mt=12

Google combines Drive Gmail and Google+ Photo storage into 15GB

Google has announced instead of having 10 GB for Gmail and another 5 GB for Drive and Google+ Photos, you’ll now get 15 GB of unified storage for free to use as you like between Drive, Gmail, and Google+ Photos.

“With this new combined storage space, you won’t have to worry about how much you’re storing and where. For example, maybe you’re a heavy Gmail user but light on photos, or perhaps you were bumping up against your Drive storage limit but were only using 2 GB in Gmail. Now it doesn’t matter, because you can use your storage the way you want.”

More info: http://googledrive.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/bringing-it-all-together-15-gb-now.html

Google Earth 7.1 for Android introduces Street View

Google Earth 7.1 for Android has been announced. This new mobile version of Earth includes great new features like the addition of Street View, better search and directions and a streamlined interface.

Google Earth 7.1
Google Earth’s 3D imagery has always been a great way to immerse yourself in the world. With the addition of Street View to Earth for Android, you can now check out the world from the street level too. Simply zoom into an area you’d like to explore and Pegman will appear in the right hand corner. Drag and drop the Pegman into the street and you’ll be greeted by familiar Street View interface. More info: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+GoogleEarth/posts/UJypmc8TdSe

Adding events to Google Calendar from Gmail

You can now add events to Google Calendar from Gmail writes Boris Khvostichenko, Product Manager on the Gmail blog.

Google Calendar from Gmail
“If you do a lot of scheduling over email, it’s now a little bit easier to create events directly from your Gmail. Starting today, dates and times within emails are lightly underlined: click them to schedule that conference call or lunch date without ever leaving Gmail.

When you click on one of these underlined dates, you’ll be able to preview your schedule for the day and change the title, date or time of the event. Clicking “Add to Calendar” will do exactly that — add the event to your calendar, and for extra convenience, the calendar event will include a link back to the original email.

This new feature is rolling out over the next week to everyone with the English (US) language. We’ll be adding other languages soon”

Twitter updates iOS and Android apps

twitter mobile app
Twitter has updated it’s iOS and Android apps. Both versions gain a clearer look at trends and local Tweets, faster account changing, and bug fixes. In addition to these, the iOS version of Twitter gains the ability to invite friends to Twitter from within the app, improved playback of Vine videos, and more complete conversations that include retweets.

Kingston Digital Announces Wireless Reader, Battery Charger for Apple, Android Mobile Devices

Kingston Digital, Inc., announced the release of MobileLite Wireless. MobileLite Wireless is the next generation of the innovative Wi-Drive® portable wireless storage device Kingston® released in 2011, for Apple and Android devices. The new reader is enhanced as it wirelessly streams movies, music, photos and documents from USB Flash drives, microSD (with included adapter) and SD/SDHC/SDXC cards. MobileLite Wireless also serves as an emergency mobile charger when the user’s phone battery gets low.

MobileLite Wireless

Kingston’s new MobileLite Wireless is the ultimate companion to keep up with one’s active lifestyle, giving users access to unprecedented mobile essentials at a great price. It is as easy as plugging in any USB Flash drive into the USB port to quickly watch and share movies or view and share files wirelessly on mobile devices. The SD/SDHC/SDXC slot enables fast, easy sharing of images with friends and family by removing the card from a camera and plugging it directly into the MobileLite Wireless. The included adapter allows the same access and sharing for microSD cards used in many mobile phones and tablets.
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MobileLite Wireless also serves as an emergency backup battery charger to keep devices going longer. The charging feature works with most mobile phones as it charges them via the device’s USB slot. MobileLite Wireless has a rechargeable battery which can handle up to five hours of continuous use as a wireless reader, easily handling long road trips.
MobileLite Wireless allows streaming and sharing of data with up to three users simultaneously. Like the Wi-Drive, the new device allows simultaneous connections to both device and router via Wi-Fi so, for example, one can stream music and browse the Internet at the same time. The MobileLite Wireless app is available now for Apple devices and soon for Android and Kindle Fire. Support for Windows Phone OS, Windows PC and Mac are forthcoming.

“When we released Wi-Drive, our customers loved the idea of storing and sharing content from a wireless device but wanted additional slots to plug in everyday items like USBs and cards. We listened to them through the entire process,” said Craig Tilmont, wireless products business manager, Kingston. “MobileLite Wireless is really easy to use but just in case, we created videos and even a simple walkthrough tutorial when people first access the app. One thing people often forget is that Kingston offers free technical support. We are here to help people set it up if needed. I think once people give this product a try, they will recommend it to their friends.”

The feature-rich MobileLite Wireless has a suggested price of $69.99 USD. It is available via e-tail in the United States at Amazon.com, and will be carried in the coming weeks at Staples retail locations. It will be available globally soon via a ramped regional rollout.
A video with a demonstration of the MobileLite Wireless is available here. The MobileLite Wireless is backed by a one-year warranty, free technical support and legendary Kingston reliability. For more information, visit www.kingston.com. For a full list of videos explaining how easy the MobileLite Wireless is to use, please visit our product page.

Kingston is celebrating 25 years in the memory industry. The company was founded on October 17, 1987, and has grown to become the largest third-party memory manufacturer in the world. The 25th anniversary video can be found here, along with more information, including a timeline of Kingston’s history. In addition, HyperX memory is celebrating its 10th anniversary. The first HyperX high-performance memory module was released in November 2002.