Latest Gadgets, Tablets and Smartphones
The North Paw Directional Anklet is a device that you attach to your ankle. Its only purpose in life is to vibrate when you are facing north.
As the “kit” part of the name suggests, it actually comes in kit form and requires that you do a bit of soldering and general assembly to get it working.
Angry Birds Space will be getting an update soon which will bring the birds to the Red Planet. The Red Planet update is launching to coincide with the landing of the Mars Curiosity Rover (landed within the last hour or so).
Not much is known about the update although I think it’s fairly obvious what it will be about considering we’ve already had the Space version of Angry Birds since earlier this year.
A new device called the M001 Nettop has been announced by J&W. The device runs an Intel Cedar Trail Atom processor with which the company offers three options. These are the D2550, N2800 and the N2600 dual-core versions. Up to 4GB of RAM is supported via a single slot that takes a DDR3 module.
Sky is planning to launch a new internet TV service in the first half of 2012. Anyone with a broadband connection will be able to sign up to use it. The services is described as being stand-alone and OTT with standalone meaning that you don’t need to be a regular Sky TV subscriber to use this service and the OTT referring to being “over the top”.
A new Android app has been launched that aims to hide tethering from carriers. The reason some users might want to do this is so that they can pay for the data allowance on their mobile plan and then use that allowance to either browse on a mobile device or browse on a laptop tethered to the device. Recently, carriers have decided to charge for tethering which means an additional cost to the user, even if they stay within their plan.
O2 is rolling out a trial of a 4G LTE network in London. The project will run from now till summer 2012 and will allow a number of individuals and businesses to test and see what mobile broadband runs like at 4G LTE speeds.
Skype is offering free WiFi access to the net during the Internet Week conference. The start date is November 7 and it runs through November 12. During that time, any WiFi hotspot tied in to Skype WiFi will allow you to get on the Internet for free without using any Skype credits.
HTC has launched its first 4G smartphone on the AT&T network. The new device is the HTC Vivid which comes with Android 2.3.4 installed.
Netflix is bringing streaming to the UK and Ireland. In an announcement made recently, the company has said that streaming of movies will be available early 2012 in the countries mentioned.
Last year Orange and T-Mobile combined forces to create one large network. The company is called Everything Everywhere although T-Mobile and Orange are still keeping their own brands within that name. Late last year Everything Everywhere began sharing 2G connections across networks allowing registered users on either network to automatically hop over to the other network when signal strength was bad on their own network. This was only 2G though.
We now hear that 3G will begin switching on starting next week.
When the iPhone 5 is announced, one of the details that will likely be included is the device supporting both GSM and CDMA networks. Since the launch of the iPhone 4 on Verizon earlier this year that particular model has used a Qualcomm chip inside for CDMA. It is believed that Apple will use Qualcomm in a dual-mode device so that it is compatible on both types of networks.
The term ‘Internet TV’ refers to a television service that is available online. Much like conventional television, it allows viewers to select what they want to watch from a directory of channels. Many major Internet TV web sites are available on an on-demand basis. Unlike conventional Digital or Satellite TV, on-demand Internet TV viewers aren’t limited to only what is currently being broadcast. They can choose from the most recently aired shows or take a trip into the past with a visit to the site’s archives.
