Martyn

Today, we hear that Apple could be hiring some new staff. This would normally not be too exciting although this time, we hear that the staff being hired are ex Nintendo and Activision PR staff.

The Nintendo staff member is Rob Saunders who was Nintendo UK's head of PR. It is expected that his role will be related to PR and that the work will revolve around gaming on the iOS platform. [click to continue…]

Earlier this week, some URLs were uncovered on the Android Market that hinted we would be seeing a specific music, movies and books section. When visiting the Android Market URL and putting one of those three words on the end, the store actually loaded up whilst with other words and typos, nothing but a 404 was available.

What we see now is that the Books URL has officially gone live in that when you visit here, you are able to download books like the one from Glenn Beck pictured below for $9. [click to continue…]

Angry Birds has been available on Android smartphones for a while now. But unlike the iOS version that you need to pay for, the Android version is free. The downside is that it is supported by ads.

A number of people would prefer to pay a dollar or 2 to get rid of the ads. When asked on Twitter when an ad free version was due to launch, Rovio responded as follows

@rbtdev @thetechchat give us another month and we'll be there

[click to continue…]

You may remember yesterday that reports were appearing saying that the new Windows Phone 7 update is causing problems for the Samsung Omnia 7 smartphone.

The update being installed was a very minor update that made a few changes to the way WP7 will update in the future. However, when this process was run on the Omnia 7, it caused a few devices to be bricked, which is to say they were rendered useless due to a fault in the update.

We now hear that Microsoft has stopped the update for those running Samsung devices due to a problem being found. As soon as Microsoft [MSFT] manage to fix it, they'll allow the remaining devices to be updated. [click to continue…]

Microsoft [MSFT] is holding a press event next week at which point, it is believed the Microsoft Kinect SDK will be unveiled.

The press event is being held at GDC 2011 and it is here we should get to see exactly what's included in the SDK and how the Kinect will be opened up for use on Windows 7 based PC's.

Microsoft has sold 8 million Kinects since launch a few months back and there's been plenty of Kinect Hacks around that have extended what most of us thought the Kinect could achieve. [click to continue…]

Orange and T-Mobile have dropped the price of the iPad on contract. The price prior to the drop was £199 for existing users who sign up to a 24 month contact. For new owners, the monthly cost went up to £27 and the out right cost was £229.99.

Today, Orange dropped the price down to just £99 on the same contract for 24 months with T-Mobile doing the similar although the T-Mobile deal is for existing customers only. [click to continue…]

Instapaper is a popular app for iOS based devices. Due to the popularity of it, it always manages to hold a decent rank in the News category. That rank is constantly between number 2 and 5.

With the steady rank and popularity, it manages to give the owner, Marco, a good look in to various spikes that iOS devices get in sales. For example, when the iPad launches in a new country, a spike happens on Instapaper downloads. Likewise, when the NYT had a large feature in December about the iPhone, Instapaper downloads spiked (2.86 times to be exact). [click to continue…]

My Lawyer Android App Launches

by Martyn on February 21, 2011

Allen, Allen, Allen and Allen, have created a new app for Android called My Lawyer. What this app does is provide on tap assistance for when you find yourself in an accident. It works by telling you exactly what to do in the event of an accident, such as giving details as to what information to collect, what pictures to take and who to call.

The information presented is step by step allowing you to think clearly through the situation to make sure you don't forget anything. [click to continue…]

Nintendo 3DS Teardown

by Martyn on February 21, 2011

The Nintendo 3DS will be launching in Japan in the next few days. Somehow, someone managed to get hold of one early to tear it down and see exactly what Nintendo have crammed inside the case.

As you might already be aware, the Nintendo 3DS has a glasses free 3D screen allowing gamers to be more immersed in the action. Unfortunately, there is no detailed breakdown of the screen other than seeing it embedded in the casing of the 3DS, but expect over the coming weeks we'll see a more indepth breakdown in regards to the screen. [click to continue…]

We're learning more about the Nokia and Microsoft partnership as days go on. The latest we hear it that Microsoft has given Nokia the ability to customize the OS as much as they like, in that they can completely change the look of it in a similar way to what HTC does with Sense on the Android platform.

However, it appears that Nokia wont be doing much customization and instead, will be keeping the changes to a minimum from what they say. In doing this, it will allow new updates to be rolled out quickly rather than delaying them due to too many modifications. [click to continue…]

The Apple iPhone, that is every one of the four generations so far, has had a 3.5 inch screen. The iPhone 4 had a major update in that it became a Retina Display that put 4 times the amount of pixels on the same 3.5 inch diagonal screen.

We now hear rumors hinting that Apple [AAPL] could increase the screen size on the next version of the iPhone AKA iPhone 5 up to a 4 inch screen. The reasons behind this are said to be because of the competition that larger screen Android devices bring to the game. [click to continue…]

Samsung has announced the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. The new Galaxy Tab has a larger screen, as the name suggests. When launched, it will run the Android 3.0 Honeycomb operating system that has been designed by Google to be especially for tablet devices.

Powering the device is a Tegra 2 processor. The screen measures 10.1 inches and has a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. The screen is TFT and very similar to the Galaxy Tab 7 inch model. [click to continue…]