Android - page 58

Details are short on the ground, but The New York Times’ Brian X. Chen is reporting on Twitter that Samsung has purchaseds Boxee, maker of the Boxee Box, one of the Apple TV’s main competitors.

“In today’s world, there’s no reason not to be constantly simulated,” says Samsung. “With Apex, you can be constantly watching movies, browsing Facebook, and receiving head from a robotic mouth, all at the same time.”

An absolutely priceless Onion News Network video, with perhaps the best headline of all time: “New Wearable Computer Also Sucks Your Dick.” Check out the video after the jump.

Android’s share of the worldwide smartphone market may be sizably bigger than that of its rivals, but when it comes to mobile advertising, iOS remains king. According to the latest data from mobile ad firm Velti, Apple’s share grew from 59% to 64% between May 2012 and May 2013.

EE, currently the United Kingdom’s only 4G LTE provider, has just announced that it will double its 4G speeds in 12 cities starting tomorrow, July 4. The carrier says that the average connection will increase to between 12 Mbps and 30 Mbps, which is twice the average speed of home broadband in the U.K.

EE has also announced new “pay-for-speed” plans that will allow customers to pay higher fees for faster connections from September.

Egadz is a glitch musician, using video game sounds and samples to create original electronica music. He’s been at it for a while, with a number of releases–some from as far back as 2002–to his credit.

Today, however, Egadz has released an mobile game, with a version on Android, iOS, and Windows 8, based on his new single, “Ghosts,” the video of which can be seen below.

While the U.S. market has been the biggest measure for success with handset makers over the last few years, all of that may soon change as the U.S. smartphone market quickly gets dwarfed by China and others.

According to a new report from ABI Research, China will displace the U.S. as the largest smartphone market by the end of 2013, but just five years later both India and Brazil will pass the U.S. too:

With so much success on Kickstarter, the Pebble smartwatch hasn’t been easy to get hold of if you weren’t an early backer. But you’ll soon be able to pick one up at Best Buy. The retailer just added the device to its website with a $150 price tag, though it doesn’t yet have a release date.

HP famously gave up on its smartphone and tablet business back in 2011 when it announced that it would no longer be developing hardware powered by its webOS platform. But two years later, the company is planning to have another crack at it.

Yam Su Yin, HP’s Senior Director of Consumer PCs and Tablets, has confirmed that the company is already working on a new smartphone — one that will deliver a unique experience that you won’t get from its rivals.

Rumors about a coming smartwatch from Google were fortified this week when The Wall Street Journal reported that Google was, in fact, working on an Android-powered wristwatch, according to people familiar with the matter.

When the Journal starts talking about matters about which people are familiar, you can assume they’re reporting something more solid than rumor. We can move the Google smartwatch likelihood needle up to 95% at this point.

As a heavy user of Google services, I really want a great, Google-centric smartwatch.

But what would such a watch do?

I have a theory. And if my theory is correct, then we should be able to speculate about what the watch’s actual specifications, functionality and user interface will be.

First, the theory.

We had feared that Facebook’s ploy to ruin the Vine party by bringing video to Instagram would work, and according to data from Marketing Land, we were right. Since Instagram began supporting video on June 15, Vine sharing has tumbled by about 70%.

We had expected BlackBerry Messenger to make its debut on Android and iOS on June 27 thanks to T-Mobile U.K., but when it became apparent that the carrier’s announcement was incorrect, we started to wonder just how long BlackBerry would keep us waiting.

But during a quarterly earnings call this morning, CEO Thorsten Heins again reiterated the company’s plan to make BBM a cross-platform service “before the end of the summer.”

While the iPhone has been slowly making its way to carriers all over the world since its release in 2007, there are still a number of major operators that are yet to offer it. One of those is China Mobile, the world’s largest carrier with over 800 million subscribers; and another is DoCoMo, a Japanese carrier that serves almost half of the country’s mobile market.

But DoCoMo isn’t at all concerned, even though it’s losing customers to other carriers that do offer Apple’s device. A company executive has acknowledged that the iPhone is an “attractive” device, but points out that it also comes with some disadvantages, and insists that the latest Android-powered offerings are just as good.

Verizon Wireless has been hard at work rolling out LTE on its network over the past three years or so, but the company announced today that the nationwide 4G LTE rollout is ‘substantially complete.’

With support for over 500 LTE markets, Verizon’s 4G LTE network now covers 95% of the U.S. population. Verizon Wireless CTO Nicola Palmer says the company isn’t totally done just yet. As reported by PC Mag, Palmer says the company plans to add more services to LTE over the next few years and open new markets:

Apple has lost its bid to add the new Galaxy S4 to its ongoing patent lawsuit against Samsung. U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal said that adding yet another device to the case is a “tax on the court’s resources,” and that it takes time away from other parties who require the court’s attention.

Microsoft announced earlier this week that it is bringing the PC classic Age of Empires to Android and iOS, and that sparked speculation that the software giant may be into porting Xbox games over, too. But don’t get your hopes up, because Microsoft Game Studios boss Phil Spencer has confirmed that it’s not going to happen.

EE has today announced that its speedy 4G LTE network is now available in an additional 11 towns across the United Kingdom. EE now covers 85 towns and cities, reaching more than 55% of the U.K. population just eight months after its 4G LTE network first launched.

Spanish mobile operator Telefonica has partnered with Microsoft in a bid to boost Windows Phone 8 adoption. The two companies plan to launch an “enhanced marketing effort” that will fight back against “the current duopoly” of Android and iOS.

Apple’s share price has steadily been falling for some time now, and earlier this week it dipped below $400 a share for the second time this year. Meanwhile, Google’s has been on the rise. As a result, if you take away all the cash the two companies have sat in the bank and just look at their enterprise value, then Google is worth more than Apple for the first time ever.

The total number of mobile phones shipped in Western Europe fell to its lowest level in nine years during Q1 2013 as total units dropped 4.2 percent year-on-year to 43.6 million.

The slowdown in sales comes sooner than analysts were expecting even though Apple only sold 800,000 units fewer than Q1 2012 and Samsung sold 3.4 million units more.

The total number of mobile phones shipped in Western Europe fell to its lowest level in nine years during Q1 2013 as total units dropped 4.2 percent year-on-year to 43.6 million.

The slowdown in sales comes sooner than analysts were expecting even though Apple only sold 800,000 units fewer than Q1 2012 and Samsung sold 3.4 million units more.

The iPhone 5 has been branded the “slowest smartphone” by Which? magazine after going up against its latest rivals in a group of tests that evaluate processing power and graphics capabilities. The Galaxy S4, Samsung’s latest Android-powered flagship, came out top in the tests, with a rating almost double that of the iPhone’s.

Rdio has updated its family subscription plans to allow up to five people to enjoy its music streaming service at once. The family plans aim to prevent sibling squabbles over just one Rdio account, and they’re cheaper than buying separate subscriptions for everyone in the home.

Microsoft has teamed up with Japanese development studio KLab to bring its 1997 classic Age of Empires to Android and iOS. Microsoft is hoping the real-time strategy simulator will capture some of the success of the growing mobile game market, which is currently luring gamers away from traditional handheld consoles like the Nintendo 3DS and the PlayStation Vita.

BlackBerry has today launched its Secure Work Space service for Android and iOS, allowing enterprises to manage their fleet of devices through the BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 administration console — regardless of the platform they’re running.

The service promises a higher level of control and security on Android and iOS, and the ability to secure and separate managed applications and data from personal content.

With Best Buy and even Apple itself offering deep discounts on iPhones, it seems like everyone is getting into the act. AT&T just announced a plan to offer users a trade-in plan for up to fifty percent off online or in-store purchases of mobile devices like the iPhone 5, Galaxy S4, or HTC One when an older phone is traded in towards the purchase.