Author: Dan Graziano

Samsung, Intel invest in speech analysis company to boost voice command apps

Samsung, Intel and Telefónica have joined the likes of Google and invested in a startup company that specializes in speech analysis, IDC News Service reported. The San Francisco-based Expect Labs created a technology that can analyze and understand conversations in real-time, and then uses that data to find related information. The company previously created an iPad application known as MindMeld that can analyze a conversation and automatically display relevant content such as photos, videos and articles.

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April 30, 2013
Samsung promises PC-like performance from new mobile RAM

Samsung on Tuesday announced its new mobile memory that promises to deliver PC-like performance for multimedia-intensive features on smartphones and tablets. The 20-nanometer class low power DDR3 mobile RAM is equipped with 4GB of memory and is capable of transmitting data at up to 2,133 Mbps per pin. Samsung says at those speeds, three full HD videos could be transmitted in one second in a mobile device.

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April 30, 2013
HP may be working on a quad-core 10-inch Android tablet

In the wake of grim PC sales, HP may be preparing to release a high-end Android tablet in the coming months. A listing on the AnTuTu benchmark network, per TabTech, revealed a new tablet known as the HP SlateBook 10 X2. The slate is equipped with a 10.1-inch display, a new quad-core Tegra 4 processor clocked at 1.8GHz and Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. HP recently entered the Android tablet market with the mid-range Slate 7 that’s selling for only $169.99. The affordable tablet is equipped with a 7-inch 1024 x 600 pixel resolution display, a 1.6GHz dual-core processor, 8GB of internal storage, 1GB of RAM, Beats Audio, a microSD card and a 3-megapixel rear camera.

April 30, 2013
Microsoft promo turns Forbes Magazine into a free Wi-Fi hotspot

Many subscribers will be in for a surprise when the latest issue of Forbes Magazine arrives on doorsteps and newsstands. Microsoft has embedded a Wi-Fi router in select copies of the May 6th print edition of the magazine, which gives users 15 days of free Wi-Fi through T-Mobile. The free Wi-Fi is part of Microsoft’s latest campaign to promote its subscription-based Office 365 service. The router lasts for three hours before it must be recharged using the included microUSB cable. Once activated, up to five devices at a time can be connected to the hotspot until the free service expires.

April 30, 2013
Apple and Samsung head back to court in November

Judge Lucy Koh on Monday set a new trial date to determine the proper damages due to Apple in its ongoing patent battle with Samsung, Reuters reported. Koh determined that a new trial was needed because the jury had incorrectly calculated part of the damages. Apple was originally awarded $1.05 billion, however the federal judge slashed the amount by more than 40% to $450.5 million in March. The final ruling will likely see that award adjusted again, however. Koh ruled that Samsung and Apple will not be permitted to seek additional damages based on new sales data, products or theories, and the trial is must focus around the 13 Samsung devices that were found to infringe Apple’s technology in the original trial. The two companies are now set to face off in court beginning on November 12th.

April 30, 2013
Sony reportedly prepping quad-core phablet with 20-megapixel camera

Sony is believed to be working on two new smartphones that will debut later this year. Earlier rumors suggested the company is preparing to release a phablet with a 6.44-inch full HD display, codenamed Togari. The device was expected to debut at Mobile World Congress in February, however it has since fallen off the grid. The second smartphone, codenamed Honami, is said to be part of the company’s “One Sony” branding initiative, which looks to bring all of Sony’s top technology to one device.

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April 29, 2013
2013 is shaping up to be the year of the Chromebook

A handful of companies are said to be preparing new Chromebook models that will launch later this year. According to a report from Digitimes, both Acer and ASUS are optimistic about the long-term prospects of Google’s Chromebooks and are working on low-priced computers that will debut in the second half of 2013. Acer is reportedly planning to target students with a new 11.6-inch model to be released in July, while new Chrome OS-powered computers are expected from ASUS, HP, Samsung and Lenovo later this year. Of note, ASUS never planned to enter the market but has apparently rethought its strategy. Google is also said to be working with ASUS, Acer, HP and Samsung on so-called “Androidbooks” that could debut in the near future.

April 29, 2013
Android widens lead in Q1 as iPhone loses market share, Windows Phone gains ground

Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 platform has slowly increased its market share since being released last October. The latest numbers from Kantar Worldpanel found that the operating system accounted for 5.6% of sales in the United States in the first quarter of 2013, up 1.9 percentage points from the same period in 2012. Android smartphones continue to dominate the market, increasing 1.4 percentage points and accounting for 49.3% of all smartphone sales, compared to the iPhone’s market share, which fell from 44.6% in Q1 2012 to 43.7% last quarter.

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April 29, 2013
Android design chief praises Facebook Home, calls it incredibly polished

Facebook unveiled Facebook Home, an application that replaces your Android phone’s homescreen with Facebook photos and status updates, earlier this month for select Android smartphones. Google chairman Eric Schmidt previously called the software “fantastic” and said it was a creative tweaking of the operating system that fits in well with Google’s conception of Android as an open source platform. He isn’t the only Google executive who finds Facebook Home intriguing, however: Android design chief Matias Durate told ABC News that Facebook’s homescreen replacement “shows an incredible amount of polish and attention to design detail,” which is impressive especially because it “didn’t come from a hardware manufacturer.”

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April 29, 2013
Preloaded apps clog up half the 16GB Galaxy S4′s internal storage

Samsung’s newest flagship smartphone is now available on AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint, and will be coming to Verizon later next month. The Galaxy S4 comes in 16GB, 32GB or 64GB models, however users may want to splurge for the higher capacity models. Geek.com discovered that nearly half of the internal storage for the 16GB model is used even before the device is powered on for the first time. Samsung has bundled together a number of preloaded applications on the handset such as S Health, S Travel and its ChatOn messaging service, among others, that take up a total of 45% of the 16GB Galaxy S4. Despite the fact that it is advertised to include 16GB of internal storage, in reality users are left with a mere 8.82GB of available space. Luckily the Galaxy S4 supports expandable storage of up to 64GB of additional space, so it is recommended that users bypass the entry-level model or purchase a microSD card.

April 29, 2013
Suspect in biggest cyberattack in Internet history arrested

Spanish officials have arrested a Dutch citizen in northeast Spain for his involvement in what has been called the biggest cyberattack in Internet history. The suspect is said to have operated a hacking bunker in a van that was equipped with “various antennas to scan frequencies” that he used to evade authorities. The unnamed individual, who was only identified by his initials S.K., is accused of launching several large denial-of-service attacks on Internet servers in the Netherlands, United Kingdom and the United States, and also of attacking Spamhaus, a Swiss-British watchdog group that blocks spam advertisement for counterfeit Viagra and fake weight-loss pills from reaching Internet inboxes. The Associated Press reports that the 35-year-old male was arrested in the city of Granollers on Thursday by Spanish authorities acting on an arrest warrant issued by Dutch authorities. The suspect is expected to be extradited from Spain to the Netherlands where he will stand trial.

April 29, 2013
Galaxy Note III possibly pictured, said to include 6-inch full HD display, eight-core CPU

An image published on a Chinese website over the weekend supposedly reveals Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Note III phablet. According to MyDrivers, the next-generation Note smartphone will be equipped with a 5.99-inch full HD 1080p display, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, a microSD slot and Android 4.2.2. The report also claims that the handset will feature an eight-core Exynos 5410 Octa processor with the Cortex A15 cores clocked at 2.0GHz and the Cortex A7 core at 1.7GHz, considerably higher than the international Galaxy S4’s clock speeds of 1.6GHz and 1.2GHz, respectively. Earlier rumors have suggested that the device may include a flexible and shatter-proof display and better build quality compared to Samsung’s previous plastic smartphones. The Galaxy Note III is expected to debut at the IFA Trade Show in September. The alleged image follows below.

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April 29, 2013
Sony to post its first annual profit in five years

Sony on Friday announced that it will be reporting its first annual profit since 2008 due to sales of various assets. The company sold its New York City headquarters earlier this year for $1.1 billion, which was estimated to generate net cash proceeds of about $770 million and help it pay off debt. Sony said that the weaker yen helped increase the value of its overseas earnings, and the company now expects to report a net profit of 40 billion yen for the fiscal year ended on March 31st, up from an earlier forecast of 20 billion yen. Sony is scheduled to report its March-quarter earnings on May 9th.

April 26, 2013
Android developers now banned from bypassing Google’s Play Store app updates

Google on Friday changed one of its Play Store policies to prevent apps from being updated outside of its marketplace. The company states that “an app downloaded from Google Play may not modify, replace or update its own APK binary code using any method other than Google Play’s update mechanism.” The change comes shortly after Facebook tweaked its Android application to allow users to update it without using the normal Google Play update system. It could be a coincidence, however it would appear that Google is worried that other developers might have followed suit and would therefore become less dependent on its Play Store.

April 26, 2013
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 to enter mass production next month

Vendors such as Samsung, HTC and LG have turned to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 600 processor to power their flagship devices. The chipset has been praised for its high-end performance and efficient power consumption, and Qualcomm is promising an even better user experience with its Snapdragon 800 processor. The company’s upcoming chip is similar to the 600 version with its four cores that are clocked asynchronously, however it can maintain a clock speed of up to 2.3GHz and includes a new Adreno 330 graphics processor that is capable of supporting 4K resolution playback at 30 frames-per-second.

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April 26, 2013
Sony reportedly prepping water-resistant Xperia phone with 720p display

Sony is reportedly preparing to launch a new flagship Xperia smartphone in the near future. According to the Xperia Blog, the Xperia ZR will be equipped with a 4.6-inch display, either a 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro or a Snapdragon 600 chipset and a 13-megapixel rear camera. The handset will also reportedly include 2GB RAM, 8GB of internal storage, a microSD slot and a 2,300 mAh battery, and will be capable of sitting in more than 5 feet of water for up to 30 minutes without being damaged. Unlike similar high-end devices, however, Sony’s new smartphone won’t include a full HD display and will instead reportedly feature a 720p panel.

April 26, 2013
More Google Glass specs emerge: Dual-core CPU, 1GB of RAM and Android 4.0

Additional specs are beginning to trickle out as developers begin to get their hands on Google Glass devices. It was already revealed that Google’s computer headset was equipped with a 640 x 360 display, 16GB of internal storage and a 5-megapixel camera. Developer Jay Lee, who received a developer prototype of Glass, has found that the device runs Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich and includes a dual-core TI OMAP 4430 processor, the same CPU as the original Kindle Fire and DROID RAZR. The developer also discovered that there was 682MB of useable RAM, although he believes there is 1GB of RAM in total since some of the RAM is being used for “other hardware purposes.”

April 26, 2013
Next-gen Xbox to let publishers decide whether games require Internet connection

The next-generation Xbox is expected to include high-end hardware and a variety of software improvements when Microsoft announces the system next month. According to a new report from Polygon, the console will incorporate the controversial requirement that users will need an Internet connection to play some games, although the decision on whether a game will require a constant Internet will be decided by the game’s publisher. Polygon warns that Microsoft’s current guidelines can still change, however.

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April 26, 2013
Judge denies Motorola’s demand for billions in patent fees from Microsoft

U.S. District Judge James Robart on Thursday determined that Google’s Motorola Mobility unit was not entitled to the $4 billion per year it sought from Microsoft for its standard-essential patents. Motorola was seeking royalties from Microsoft’s Xbox gaming system, which utilizes the company’s technology concerning video decoding wireless connectivity. Instead of the $4 billion per year Google had valued Motorola’s patents, the judge decided that the appropriate annual payment was closer to $1.8 million.

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April 26, 2013
Study shows major generational divide on online privacy attitudes

A study published this week by the USC Annenberg Center for the Digital Future found that young adults don’t care as much about online privacy as older Internet users. Individuals between the ages of 18 and 34, known as Millennials, were found to be more willing to hand over their personal data or web behavior to online businesses. Although 70% of young adults agreed that companies should never be allowed to access their personal data, compared to 77% by those older than 35, Millennials were more willing to give up some privacy if they benefited from it, such as receiving coupons or other business deals.

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April 25, 2013