Android - page 53

Bring your own device (BYOD) programs that allow employees to use their personal iPhones, iPads, Android devices, or other mobile technologies in the office are becoming more mainstream. While there are many advantages to allowing or actively encouraging employee-owned devices in the workplace, reducing costs isn’t one of them for most companies despite the fact that cost reduction is one of the most common goals for a BYOD program.

In fact, companies are more likely to see costs increase after adding BYOD as an option for employees. That’s a common perception that is being proved accurate by a new study that looks at home companies are handling BYOD, the cost savings or increases associated with BYOD, and the mobile platforms supported by BYOD programs.

Apple has been granted what has been described as “the mother of all software patents,” which covers a whole host of features that Apple pioneered with the iPhone. Not only is this huge for Apple in its fight against copycats, but it could have a significant affect on almost every single device that rivals the iPhone or the iPad.

There’s a growing consensus among IT leaders that organizations need a contingency plan in the event that RIM experiences a sudden and unexpected meltdown. That concern is so strong that 70% of IT managers are planning to replace RIM’s BlackBerry management tools with third-party options over the next one to two years – a move that could ease the transition away from BlackBerry devices to iPhones, iPads, and other mobile technologies.

Seeking to capitalize on that concern, mobile management powerhouse MobileIron announced yesterday that it is opening its training and certification services to any IT professionals that are administrators of RIM’s BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES).

MobileIron, which we profiled during our Mobile Management Month series, offers one of the most full-featured mobile management solutions on the market, and is the only company to offer training and certification centered specifically around mobile management technologies. Until now, however, the company’s MobileIron University training service was available only of MobileIron customers and partners.

If you’ve recently typed “weather” into Google search on your mobile phone, you may have noticed Google’s neat little interactive weather visualizations. The new weather visualizations give you a look at the current forecast, precipitation, wind direction/speeds, as well as an hourly and ten-day forecast. And now, these same cool visualizations are available in search on tablets.

Mobile management vendor BoxTone announced an aggressive pricing and sales campaign for its mobile management platform today. From now through the end of September, companies will be able to license BoxTone’s mobile device management (MDM) suite for a monthly fee of just $0.99 per device.

The move comes just a week after BoxTone announced the latest generation of its mobile management tools that includes the now-discounted MDM module as well as modules focused on mobile app management (MAM), mobile device support solutions for help desk agents and IT support teams, and a mobile operations module for monitoring and managing mobile IT staff.

If you’ve ever used Steam’s platform for purchasing and downloading games — and you probably have if you’re a Mac or PC gamer — then you’ll already be aware of just how great it is. In fact, if there’s one platform that beats the Mac App Store when it comes to buying games, it’s Steam.

And that rivalry could be about to get a whole lot greater. After a list of productivity software categories briefly appeared within Steam’s mobile app, it looks like the company could be about to take on Apple’s store by selling apps as well as games.

We’ve already shown you how well Android’s Jelly Bean voice search performs in respect to Siri, but one reviewer has managed to uncover a hidden obsession of Siri’s: Siri likes to show you pictures of stallions! After asking Siri and Android’s new voice search a barrage of real world questions, it became apparent Siri only had one thing on the mind: male horses.

Did you know that people on the internet still make unboxing videos? I didn’t. I thought that fad came to a halt back in 2009, but apparently I was wrong. YouTube was hit with a tidal wave of new unboxing videos as people finally got their hands on Google’s new iPad competitor, the Nexus 7. Not only is it not as good as the iPad, but it’s a super huge pain in the ass open. Just check out the video and chuckle as poor Android fans have to result to using collar stays and butcher knives to get at their precious new tablet.

Source: YouTube

Thanks: Vincent

You might want to hold off on the sexting via Skype for a bit, as Skype has acknowledge a “rare” bug, which according to complaints on Skype support, appears to send messages to unintended contacts. The Skype team has already responded and plans on pushing out a fix soon.

“We are aware that in rare circumstances IM’s between two contacts could be sent to an unintended third contact. We are rolling out a fix for this issue in the next few days and will notify our users to download an updated version of Skype.”

No surprises as the latest Nielsen numbers show Android and iOS leading U.S. smartphone market share. Both operating systems continue to gain at the expense of RIM — who has all but fallen into the “Other” category. Speaking of the “Other” category: Windows mobile, Windows 7, Symbian, and Palm/WebOS were all grouped together, combining for a measly 5.9% market share.

After landing on Android and iOS yesterday, Rovio has confirmed that Amazing Alex will be making its way to Mac and PC. The new physics-based puzzler is Rovio’s first break away from the hugely successful Angry Birds series, and it’s already gotten off to a great start, rocketing up to the number one spot in the App Store’s paid charts in several countries.

Since its debut back in 2009, the iPad has dominated the tablet market. At the time of writing this piece, the device holds around 55% of the market share in the United States. Rival tablets from the likes of Amazon, Samsung, and HTC have tried to do battle with it, but they’ve had very little impact on its success.

But there is one tablet that Apple will need to keep its eye on: Microsoft’s new Surface. It’s already being dubbed an “iPad killer” by some, and although we’re skeptical the Windows-powered slate will “kill” Apple’s device, there are a number of reasons why the “Pro” variant will have more of an impact than you think.

Get in your doomsday bunker because Rovio has released a new game. That’s right, Casey’s Contraptions Amazing Alex is now available on both the Google Play Store and App Store. You’ve seen the trailers and now it’s time to see how much weight Rovio’s name carries.

No sir, that’s not an Apple store you’re looking at, that there is a bona fide Samsung store. What looks like an episode of Punk’d, is actually Samsung’s first Canadian retail store in Metro Vancouver. This 140-square-metre store is located in Burnaby’s Metropolis at Metrotown and offers a plethora of Samsung’s latest mobile devices, as well as demo stations to see how they function and interact with other Samsung products such as TVs.

A long time ago, before this site was born, we reviewed the Altec Lansing BackBeat 906 Bluetooth headphones, and liked ’em. Plantronics had their own identical version of the 906, as they had owned Plantronics since 2005 (the two companies parted ways about the time the 906 was released).

The Plantronics BackBeat Go ($100) is an evolution of the 906. Same principle — wireless (meaning there’s no wire conecting the player with the headset) music and calls in a compact form via the magic of Bluetooth — but in an even smaller and more svelte form factor. Should be even more fantstic, right? Let’s take a look.

Who would have thought we’d see the day when Rovio released anything but an Angry Birds game? Well, that day is almost upon us, as Rovio has released the official Amazing Alex trailer announcing a July 12th release for both the Google Play Store and App Store.

Although a new iPhone didn’t show its face during Apple’s WWDC keynote back in June, the Cupertino company did release a number of new products, including refreshed MacBook Airs, MacBook Pros, and Mac Pros; a new “next generation” MacBook Pro, and more. But according to one analyst, the Cupertino company’s fall event will be even bigger, with a new iPhone, a new iPad, and a new Apple TV all on their way.

Let me tell you a story. Many years ago, I was a cocktail bartender in a busy London bar. I had just gotten a brand new dumb-phone (a Siemens if I remember correctly), a little silver candy-bar of crap, but it was my candy-bar of crap, and I’d owned it only a few hours.

On shift, I switched the phone to silent and put it in a rocks glass on the backbar, behind my station. The bottom shelf of the backbar had a small lip at the front. Partway through the busy shift I needed some Kahlua (for a Vodka Espresso, not a White Russian). I grabbed the bottle and the base caught the shelf-edge and sheared clean off. The Kahlua – of course – was dumped into the glass with my brand new phone.

I was lucky: this was before the days of moisture sensors and a quick wash later and I got a new handset from the store. Today, you might not fare so well.

Which is why I have mixed (no pun intended) opinions of the Cube.

Despite all the talk about Android, Windows, and other tablets being iPad killers and expected to steal both consumer and business market share from Apple, not one has managed to make a real dent in the iPad’s dominance – particularly in the business space.

There are, of course, plenty of factors that I could point to and say “this is why the iPad is still number one” – IT folks know how to secure and manage iPads, there’s a single form factor, there’s a great selection of apps. I could go on, but one of the biggest reasons Apple that retains the market share that it does has nothing to do with specs, brand loyalty, app choices, or integration with existing enterprise systems.

As this absurd  and rather sleazy ad for a Toshiba Windows tablet makes obvious, virtually all Android, BlackBerry, and Windows device commercials don’t tell me anything about what a device can actually do for me.

U.K. Interactive Entertainment (UKIE) chairman Andy Payne has revealed that Activision’s new studio in Leeds is working to bring a new Call of Duty game to iOS. The hugely successful first-person shooter already has its name in the App Store, but the existing titles only provide access to the game’s “Zombies” element.

Apple won a preliminary injunction against US sales of the Galaxy Nexus phone last week. Today, Samsung was denied a stay on the ban by Judge Lucy Koh, the main judge in the current case brought to court against Samsung’s smartphone as well as its Galaxy Tab.

It may not matter as much, however, as Google and Samsung have readied a patch to address the specific grievance, according to a post on The Verge.

There’s no question that the iPad is incredibly popular and revolutionary. As the device continues to become part of our daily lives, we’re beginning to see the iPad take hold in schools, workplaces, and our homes. What’s the most common task performed on an iPad(or other tablet)?

According to research firm Gartner, the most frequent task is checking email.

In a new report, Gartner used survey data from consumers in the U.S., U.K. and Australia that was recorded in a diary-style format at the end of last year. Email was the most common task performed on a tablet but a more interesting observation from Gartner is that people are largely using tablets as a way to replace tasks that previously involved printed and paper in one form or another.

The report stopped well short of saying we’re going to become a paperless society in the near future, but it did identify some interesting trends.

Following Apple’s Google’s leap into 3D mapping technologies, Amazon has acquired a 3D mapping startup of its own. The online retail giant today sealed a deal to purchase UpNext in a move that could signal the company’s intentions to bring 3D maps to its Kindle Fire slate without any assistance from Google.

Are mobile payments safe? That was a question that the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit posed to various finance officials earlier today. The subcommittee didn’t get a particularly clear answer.

According to written testimony provided by Stephanie Martin, associate general counsel for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, defining what protections apply to mobile payment systems is complicated by the fact that many businesses involved in the transfer of money through mobile devices aren’t banks. Companies involved in mobile payment systems that don’t meet the established definition of providing banking services aren’t subject to certain scrutiny, regulation, or consumer protection laws.

When Google announced Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean), they showed off the new voice actions as well as search cards. Naturally, everyone soon became curious about how the new voice actions compared to its Apple competitor and voice assistant Siri. While most Androidians didn’t have a spare iPhone 4S on hand, one blogger for TechnoBuffalo did, and was kind enough to put them to the test.