Showing posts with label News. Show all posts
Is Apple's iPhone 5S fingerprint scanner is going to kill password?
Do you all taught that coming of fingerprint scanner in iPhone 5S really going to kill the password? I don’t think so! According to latest news the customers who wish the use Touch ID also have to create a passcode as a backup. If u don’t use iPhone for 48 hours or if you rebooted it then you wanted the passcode(not the fingerprint) to unlock it. This system is to block the hackers to get into the phone.
And you can’t unlock the iPhone with moisture-laden fingers covered in sweat, lotion or other liquids(that includes water).There also problems for persons whose fingers are scarred by accident or surgery. So I really think the passcode will be useful to those persons.
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Apple Phones,
News
New Sony QX lens pics leaked,which can be attached to Z1 to get 20MP images.
There can no longer be any denying it – Sony is about to announce a self-contained camera inside a lens that attaches to your smartphone. The Sony DSC-QX10 and DSC-QX100 lens camera modules have been spotted a few times, but this is the largest cache of pictures so far.While Sony readies a 20MP shooter for their upcoming (and beautiful) Z1 Honami, they haven’t forgotten the rest of us. Their QX lenses are widely reported to work with just about any device via NFC and/or Bluetooth, and have the ability to work while detached from our phones or tablets. We’ve already seem images.
The DSC-QX10 (everything above this) is the cheaper of the two and will feature 10x optical zoom and an 18MP sensor at f/3.3-5.9. It is rumored to cost $250, and it even comes with a nifty little carrying case. You can see the lens above from every conceivable angle, including the clip mechanism.
It appears there will be a case (we assume proprietary to a Sony device, probably the Z1) as well the familiar clip-on holder for the lenses. Interestingly enough, the clip-on or case are separate from the lenses, according to these pics. That would be a good choice, and leads us to think there will be more lenses in the future, if these prove to be popular.
If you’re concerned about the blurred portion in the center of the pics, don’t worry — nobody is hiding anything. It seems the helpful tipster plastered the images with some anti-Japanese rhetoric.
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News,
Sony Mobiles
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 may feature 2.5 GB Ram only.
Earlier today, a tweet from @evleaks revealed two screenshots that supposedly come from the Note 3, one showing an AnTuTu benchmark score, and the other the “About Device” screen. If that’s not enough to peak your interest, the tweet also includes some ‘alleged’ specs that differ a little from most of the rumors out there.
First, let’s talk about the device screenshot. As you can see below, this particular Note 3 is model SM-N9005, and runs Android 4.3 Jelly Bean with build number JSS15J. Not much else here worth taking notice of.
Turning to the second screenshot, we have a benchmark. Honestly, we’re not going to read into this one too much. Sure there are other devices that have achieved much higher results than this, but it is impossible to judge a handset based on a single benchmark.
Even if we had multiple benchmark reports, these scores often mean very little when it comes to real world use.
Okay, so we’ve covered the two images. What about the specs? If @evleaks proves correct, the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 SM-N9005 will feature a 1920 x 1080 display, a 2.3GHz quad-core CPU and 2.5GB RAM.
Keep in mind that the device could actually have 3GB of RAM, but 512MB might be reserved for something else and therefore not counted. There’s also the possibility that the screenshots and/or alleged specs aren’t correct, so speculation is certainly advised.
Samsung will officially announce the Note 3 on Wednesday, September 4th, just ahead of IFA 2013.
Sony Z1 official press images leaked,ahead of it much anticipated launch.
Long rumored,Sony Z1 (or Honami) official press images have reportedly been leaked.
While images of this nature are often highly doubtful, these appear to be the real deal. They match up with the specs we’ve heard about, as well as previously leaked images. These pics happen to show a bit more detail, and are a touch more glamorous than those we’ve seen before.
If these are images of the final production Z1, we’re smitten. The nearly seamless construction and overall finish are gorgeous, and Sony has hinted the device would be water resistant. Sony always builds high quality devices, and the Z1 — or whatever it’s going to be called — doesn’t seem to be any different.
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News,
Sony Mobiles
Hello Kitty Butterfly S edition launched by HTC.
HTC officially announced the “limited edition” Hello Kitty Butterfly S today, which is now being showcased on the HTC Taiwan website. According to various Taiwanese media outlets that attended HTC’s launch event, the device will retail for NT$22,900 ($765) — the same price the Butterfly S went on sale for in Taiwan at the end of June.
The Hello Kitty Butterfly S also comes pre-loaded with nine Hello Kitty wallpapers — all the better for those madly in love with the cartoon cat.
The Butterfly S, which was unveiled in mid-June, is a top-tier handset on par with the company’s flagship HTC One that features a 5-inch 1080p display and runs Android Jelly Bean on a quad-core 1.9GHZ Snapdragon 600 processor. It also comes with an UltraPixel Camera, as well as a 2.1-megapixel front-facing wide-angle camera, and should provide plenty of juice from its 3,200 mAh battery.
There has been no word yet on subsequent launches of the Butterfly S in Asia or internationally, though it makes sense that if the Hello Kitty Butterfly S does well, other markets may gladly welcome it — and the cutesy cartoon cat could well help refresh the company’s image.
Tag :
HTC Mobiles,
News
Acer liquid S2 launched!
Acer has unveiled its latest Android-powered smartphone at IFA 2013. If you’re the sort of early adopter that’s always out to get the latest features first, you’ll want to pay attention to this device. The Liquid S2 can record 4K resolution video with four times the resolution of 1080p.
The downside is you’ll need a display of some sort display supporting 4K resolution to enjoy that video. The smartphone can also shoot still images at 13-megapixel resolution and make full panoramic 27-megapixel photos. The smartphone is also able to record four times slow-motion at full HD resolution and features an LED ring flash.
The smartphone also features a two-megapixel front camera with an 80-degree viewing angle for videoconferencing and video chats. The smartphone camera has a quick first shot feature allowing you to take a picture from the unlock screen with automatic center focus by tapping any location on the screen. The camera also features a smart best shot feature that automatically detects photo type and takes multiple shots to get the best image possible. Users can also adjust focus and exposure settings using a finger.
The Liquid S2 definitely falls into the phablet realm with a six-inch 1080p IPS display. It uses a QUALCOMM Snapdragon 2.2 GHz processor and has 2 GB of internal memory. The battery pack has 3300 mAh of power and it has 16 GB of onboard storage. Storage can be expanded using memory cards up to 128 GB. Other features include integrated Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS+GLONASS, NFC, and a host of sensors and accelerometers. The operating system is Android 4.2.2. The smartphone is set for availability at the end of October with pricing announced closer to launch.
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News
LG is going to launch G pad 8.3 by the end of this year.
LG announced the impending arrival of its G Pad 8.3 tablet, which will officially launch at IFA 2013 next week. The company revealed that the tablet will have an 8.3-inch display screen and run Android Jelly Bean 4.2.2. Unfortunately, while full specs for the device have been provided, we still do not know the price yet — that will be provided when it launches. However, we do know that it will be available worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2013.
LG’s G Pad will come with a 1.7GHz Quad-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 Processor, 16GB worth of memory, 2GB of RAM, dual camera (5MP rear/ 1.3MP front), weigh 338 grams, and come in black or white.
The official announcement of the G Pad had been expected following the discovery of a YouTube ad on the company’s channel. It featured people talking about their experience with current tablet devices offering feedback like they want full HD picture quality, being able to connect to other devices, and that it not be a think device.
The electronic giant’s tablet is its latest G Series device that it hopes will successfully build on the launch of its G2 “superphone”. It touts four key items that it believes will entice consumers to try it out and buy one:
The G Pad has a 4600mAh battery and weighs just 338 grams. When you stack it against the iPad Mini, which boasts a somewhat comparable 7.9-inch display, the G Pad is actually heavier by 38 grams.
Featuring a 1900 x 1200 display at 273 pixels per inch, consumers should find watching movies, playing games, and whatever else they do on the tablet to appear sharp and clear. LG has copied the same attribute that it included with its G Series devices. Compared to the iPad Mini, which has a 1024×768 resolution at 163 pixels per inch, LG seems to have the win in this category. But then again, this comes just days before Apple holds an event in San Francisco where some say that a new iPad is being announced (or maybe not).
LG has implemented a better integration with its QPair app. Through this unique piece of software, the company says that you can see incoming calls and messages. This is interesting in that, while you can’t actually take voice calls on the device, you could respond to them in texts
LG touts that the G Pad includes “real-life benefits” include multitasking with its “slide aside” feature (three-finger swipe), QSlide, which allows you to control up to three different apps without any interruption, and KnockOn, a feature that lets you turn the device on and off just by tapping on it twice.
Okay, so here’s the important part: the tablet is not available yet — it will be sold worldwide starting in the fourth quarter in North America, Europe, and Asia, along with some other regions. It’s also still unclear whether this will be a WiFi only device or available on mobile carriers like Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T, or Sprint.
Amber Update Will Come To All Windows Phone 8 by September last,says Nokia.
Today Nokia promised owners of its Lumia Windows Phone 8 devices that its “Amber”update will reach all phones by the end of September. The Amber upgrade is a mix of feature improvements that will improve Nokia’s handsets, further setting them apart from devices built by other smartphone OEMs.
Amber contains a photo-editing tool, improved image processing, the ability to snag motion in sequence with “Action Shot,” the acceptance of double-tap input to wake the phone, and improved internal storage reporting.
However, the most important new piece delivered by Amber is “Glance Screen,” a tool that makes your phone’s inactive state more interesting. When your handset is inactive, it will display a clock and battery information. So, you can more quickly interact with your phone without having to do anything at all. You can turn off Glance, of course, or have it switch off after a set amount of time.
In past years, we would now discuss how Amber puts Nokia ahead of Samsung, HTC, and other Windows Phone OEMs (remember Dell?). We don’t have to do that anymore, as Nokia controlsessentially the entire Windows Phone market. Thus, the changes are not as much changes to Nokia’s Windows Phone handsets as they are adaptations to the Windows Phone platform itself. Given that Nokia sells nearly 90 percent of Windows Phone devices, any changes that it makes become de facto official changes.
This is a problem for Microsoft, as it initially ceded flexibility to make changes to Nokia in partial exchange for it adopting the platform. This saved Microsoft’s mobile life, but in the process cost it control: If Nokia can essentially skin Windows Phone to its own contentment, Microsoft is in a material way not in charge of the Windows Phone user experience and design.
Thus, Microsoft either builds a phone itself (there have been rumors), or it bolsters HTC (the only remaining OEM partner with more than a scrape of market share that isn’t Nokia) to get a better grip on its platform.
Whatever the case, if you are a Nokia handset owner, the Amber update will be rolling out depending on your handset and country and likely carrier over the next month.
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News,
Nokia Mobiles
Cube26 brings gesture control technology for Indian SmartPhone makers.
Gesture control is a buzzword on the tips of everyone’s tongues these days, and after Samsung debuted a number of touch-free control features with the Galaxy S4, it’s natural that other OEMs are looking to integrated the same kind of tech into their devices. That tendency has played out well for Cube26, a Santa Clara-based startup.
Cube26 co-founders Saurav Kumar and Aakash Jain have found some interested buyers, starting with six of India’s leading OEMs, including number two smartphone provider Micromax, Intex, Celkon, Zen, iBerry and Lemon Mobile. All told, Cube26 says this represents 25 percent of the Indian smartphone market, which according to recent data, is one of the fastest growing on the planet.
Kumar says
OEMs around the world are looking for new ways to stand out from the crowd, which is what motivated Samsung to come up with its own gesture features to begin with. Cube26 offers a way to do this via licensed software, rather than having to develop it in-house, giving any OEM access to tech perceived as at the cutting edge of mobile products. And unlike Samsung’s version, it doesn’t require specialized hardware; the Galaxy S4 contains two IR cameras to make Air Gesture features work, whereas Cube26′s tech is designed to be used with standard smartphone cameras, as well as other connected devices like smart TVs.
Cube26 offers up a number of gesture features including “Look away to Pause,” “Auto-call” (call starts when phone moved to ear), and “Touch-less Swipe to answer,” which is demoed in the embedded video. All of these need only a front-facing camera to work, and if you’re curious about how the look away feature performs, you can download the startup’s dedicated video player for iOS, a tech demo which Cube26 says has received over 150,000 downloads since its launch in April.
To reflect its increased efforts to sell to mobile companies, Cube26 has also brought on Kunal Ahooja, former CEO of Indian mobile OEM S Mobility as an advisor. Smartphones packing its tech have already rolled out from Micromax (the Canvas 4) and iBerry (the Auxus Nuclea N1), and devices from the remaining new partners will follow shortly, per Kumar.
Others including Israeli startup Umoove and Leap Motion are attempting to capitalize on the newfound interest in gesture tech via partnerships with OEMs, so expect a lot of activity from this space as the land grab continues. Whether or not anyone will actually use hand-waving to control their smartphones long-term, instead of just as a product differentiation gimmick, remains far more uncertain, however.
Future mobiles may build with Carbon instead of rare earth metals.
One of the biggest knocks against cellphones is they require small amounts of rare earth elements: gallium, indium and arsenic, for example, that are both scarce and expensive. But what if you could make a phone out of a more common element, like carbon?
Researchers are taking slow but sure steps toward building the innards of a cellphone out of carbon nanotubes, a structure that resembles a microscopic sheet of chicken wire rolled into a cylinder. These cylinders can be used to either conduct electricity or store energy.
At the Technical University of Denmark, Jakob Wagner and colleagues have found a better way to build carbon nanotubes that could lead to their use as a semiconductor, a key component of all electronic circuit parts found in both cellphones and laptops. Carbon nanotubes have properties of both a metal and a semiconductor, depending on how they are rolled.
“The breakthrough here is that we are able to control the production of nanotubes whether they are metallic or semiconducting,” Wagner said. “That’s important because if you want to use them in cellphones, we have to make sure they are either one or the other. The prospect is to use semiconducting carbon nanotubes as a substitute for gallium.”
Warner published his work earlier this month in the Nature publication Scientific Reports.
The next step is to be able to produce large amounts of semiconducting carbon nanotubes that could be made into an electronic device, Wagner said.
“It will not be tomorrow, let’s say 10 years,” he said.
But at IBM, researchers like James Hannon are working to speed up that lab-to-prototype timescale. Hannon says that Wagner’s finding is an important step, but it needs to be replicated on larger-diameter carbon nanotubes.
"This is a nice scientific demonstration, but not in the range that would be used in a logic application," said Hannon, manager of IBM’s carbon electronics group in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. "I’d like to see if this technique could work for larger diameter tubes as well."
Last year, Hannon and his IBM colleagues announced they had built memory and microprocessing chips using carbon nanotubes. He said the tough thing is getting them to lie down in straight lines, but they overcame this obstacle by creating special grooves etched into the silicon chip surface and a bonding agent.
Hannon says the two challenges with carbon nanotubes is figuring out how to place them and how to separate the semiconducting ones from the metallic ones, which are thrown away. A separate team at North Carolina State University recently reported they were able to integrate carbon nanotubes into a flexible scaffold for a silicon-based battery that would last longer than existing lithium ion batteries.
Hannon says he expects carbon nanotubes to play a big role in electronic devices in a few more years of testing.
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Future tech,
News
Micromax is in race with Samsung to become 1st in Indian Market.
India’s currency may be floundering, but its smartphone market is on fire. Sales have nearly tripled in the last year, led by the local upstart Micromax, which is nipping at the heels of Samsung for market share dominance. Micromax now commands a 22% market share, up from 18.8% in the first quarter. Samsung’s share has slipped to 26% from 32.7%.
The scenario that is playing out in India — initial dominance by foreign brands like Samsung and Sony, which is quickly eroded by homegrown manufacturers like Micromax and Karbonn — is eerily similar to the dynamic seen in China, where Samsung and Apple had an early advantage that is being steadily erased by Huawei and Lenovo.
Other companies that fit a similar mold include Coolpad in China, Smartfren in Indonesia, Ninetology in Malaysia, Cherry Mobile in the Philippines, i-Mobile in Thailand, and Q-Smart in Vietnam, as IDC noted earlier this month. There is plenty of money on the table: emerging-market sales are expected to surge from 400 million units in 2013 to 749 million in 2017.
In India’s case, the trend will be accelerated by the country’s currency woes, which are making foreign imports much more expensive — the rupee has declined by nearly a third in the last six months. But even without foreign exchange fluctuations it could spell bad news for companies like Samsung and Apple, which derive huge portions of their profits from smartphones, yet have largely saturated their existing markets and are facing increasingly intense domestic competition in new ones.
Micromax, now within shouting distance of becoming the top smartphone maker in the world’s largest market after the United States and China, at first glance bears some similarities to Xiaomi, the Chinese firm that drew attention this week by poaching a top executive from Google’s Android division, which makes the operating system used by some 80% of the world’s smartphones, including Samsung and Micromax.
Like Xiaomi, Micromax’s top-of-the-line phones are significantly cheaper than the premium-priced handsets from Apple and Samsung; its newly launched Canvas Doodle 2 phablet sells for 19,990 rupees ($300). (It also has a gimmicky “blow-to-unlock” feature.) The company has bet heavily on the super-size phones known as phablets, which now make up 30% of the Indian smartphone market. “[G]iven the growth we are seeing in the phablet category (Canvas series), we are aiming to be the top player by Diwali, which is Q3,” Micromax co-founder Rahul Sharmatold the PTI news agency.
Market research firm IDC said that India’s second-quarter smartphone sales nearly tripled to 9.3 million, from 3.5 million a year earlier, led by devices with super-sized screens of five inches and bigger. These so-called phablets now make up 30% of the Indian smartphone market.
If there’s anything standing in the way of Micromax’s march to dominance in India, it might be the lack of a charismatic executive at the helm, a la Xiaomi’s Lei Jun, often called “China’s Steve Jobs.” Rajesh Agarwal, co-founder and managing director of Micromax, was forced to resign at the beginning of August after he was arrested for attempting to bribe municipal engineers to obtain approval for the construction of a banquet hall. The incident could derail the company’s anticipated IPO; it is backed by private equity firms Sequoia Capital, Sandstone Capital and Madison India Capital.
Sony Xperia Honami Mini's image is leaked!
If you’ve been paying attention to the smartphone market over the past few months, you’ve likely noticed a miniature trend: small versions of hero phones released with the name “mini” attached. Here we’re seeing a glimpse of a device that would shadow both the Sony Xperia Z and the still-unconfirmed Sony Xperia i1, aka Honami. This little beast is code-named Honami mini.According to the leakster tossing out the image you’re seeing here, the BlackBerry device next to this next-generation Xperia is 119.6mm tall and 66.8mm wide, making (by comparison base solely on this photograph) the Sony Xperia Honami Mini 57.88mm wide and 109.24mm tall. That’s a fairly small smartphone, to be sure.
Despite its miniature body, those responsible for leaking this device have taken to XDA Developers forums to suggest that it’ll be released with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 quad-core processor. That’s a lot less likely than the device being released with a slightly less piece of processing architecture under its hood – even something like a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro dual-core processor would be more appropriate due to the miniature size of this device’s display.
Meanwhile the Snapdragon 800 is said to be employed on the full-sized Xperia i1 Honami, the Samsung Galaxy Note III, and – this one is confirmed – the LG G2. This Xperia device wave will likely be appearing first on September 4th.
It should be made clear that this smaller Xperia is from an entirely different generation from the Sony Ericsson XPERIA mini pro from back in 2011 – that was a slider, mind you. There’s also a mini handset appearing with the name Sony SBH52 this season that could also just as easily be called an Xperia Mini – this device is made to work together with a larger Xperia smartphone, not as its own separate handset.
According to the same leak source as sited above, this Sony Xperia Honami Mini will come with a 4.3-inch HD display, 2GB of RAM, and a 20.7 megapixel camera sensor with 1/2.3 F 2.0 SONY G lens. Inside you’ll find 16GB of storage space and a battery sitting at 2400 mAh. Time for war with the DROID Mini, HTC One Mini, and Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini all the same.
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News
Images of Budget iPhone again leaked!
Every day, we are getting closer to the September 10 Apple event, at which we’ll get the official reveal for the iPhone 5S and the budget iPhone 5C. However, today you can get a look at the 5C a little early as leaked photos show a batch of the less expensive iPhone undergoing tests.But we are yet not sure about that these are 5C itself.The leak shows what appears to be the iPhone 5C undergoing a battery of tests. There’s no verification that this photo captures the real deal but the testing setup does seem legit. There’s always a chance that the photo shows off knock-offs in a factory somewhere though, so take it with a grain of salt
It’s hard to discern what’s on the screens in the photo, though the iPhone 5C is expected to launch running iOS 7, also likely to be officially released at the rumored early September event.September 10th can’t get here soon enough–and you know we’ll be bringing you up-to-the-minute coverage of all things iPhone that day. Until then, we’re keeping our eyes peeled.
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News
Photos of the Rumored Gold iPhone 5S
Thanks to our sources, we've managed to get a hold of some high-resolution photos of this rumored device.
As you can see in the images above, just about every detail fits the rumored description. Theres no way to tell if this back housing is real, but it seems to line up nicely with previous rumors and leaked photos. The top glass inlay appears to be large enough to accommodate the rumored dual-LED flash and the inside of the housing has a different set of mounts when compared to the iPhone 5.
This leads us to believe that these photos could be genuine, but theres no way to know for sure until Apple officially unveils its next generation iPhone in September.The next iPhone?
Another thing to point out is that the back housing is missing the text that’s normally present on the bottom half below the iPhone marking. Though it’s possible that this etching happens at a different point in the manufacturing process. Also, it appears that the “iPhone” marking is a bit thinner than usual. That could be due to Apple’s decision to use a thinner font in iOS 7, and the company wants to reflect that change on the hardware as well.
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News
Samsung still top Android smartphone maker, but missing target on tablets
For a company as large and successful as Samsung this is surprising as really it should be leading the way in Android tablets. Of course there is lots of competition in the tablet market and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab range competes with the likes of Google (with its Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 offerings) and with Amazon (and its Kindle Fire line-up). Pricing is always a key factor but so is specification and at the moment the Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 beat Samsung’s offerings hands-down.
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News
Ubuntu Edge campaign fails, but it’s all not in vain
Canonical’s adventure in crowdfunding has come to its predictable conclusion. With $12,809,906 raised in 30 days, the Indiegogo campaign to fund the Ubuntu Edge smartphone broke records and generated countless headlines in tech media, but ultimately that was not enough to make the Edge a reality.
Because Canonical opted for a fixed funding campaign, it won’t get to keep the money it raised and all backers will be refunded their contributions.
According to an update from Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth, almost 20,000 people have contributed to the campaign with hundreds of dollars each, along with three businesses that opted for the $7000 Enterprise Starter Kit perk and one massive contribution from Bloomberg LP, which contributed $80,000.
Ubuntu Edge broke the record for the largest crowdfunded sum, which was previously held by the Pebble smartwatch Kickstarter project. Still, Pebble remains that largest successful campaign ever.
It’s safe to say that the Ubuntu Edge campaign was very successful from the perspective of raising awareness about Canonical’s Ubuntu Phone project. The fact that several thousand people were ready to pay $700 or more for a phone that doesn’t even exist is very encouraging from Canonical’s plans to bring to market by 2014 the first devices running Ubuntu Phone, a mobile-optimized version of Linux.
Because Canonical opted for a fixed funding campaign, it won’t get to keep the money it raised and all backers will be refunded their contributions.
According to an update from Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth, almost 20,000 people have contributed to the campaign with hundreds of dollars each, along with three businesses that opted for the $7000 Enterprise Starter Kit perk and one massive contribution from Bloomberg LP, which contributed $80,000.
Ubuntu Edge broke the record for the largest crowdfunded sum, which was previously held by the Pebble smartwatch Kickstarter project. Still, Pebble remains that largest successful campaign ever.
It’s safe to say that the Ubuntu Edge campaign was very successful from the perspective of raising awareness about Canonical’s Ubuntu Phone project. The fact that several thousand people were ready to pay $700 or more for a phone that doesn’t even exist is very encouraging from Canonical’s plans to bring to market by 2014 the first devices running Ubuntu Phone, a mobile-optimized version of Linux.
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News
Google Exploring Location-Dependent Security Settings For Smartphone Unlock
The invention is clearly designed to make it harder for a stranger or unwanted intruder to access your phone and its data when it may be easily lifted from your pocket or bag while in transit or at a public location like a cafe. In the end it’s a convenience feature, more than a security one, since the most secure option would be to use the most intrustion-resistant method of screen locking available at all times. But making things easier to access at home makes a lot of sense, in terms of decreasing friction and potential displeasure with the general user experience.
small (19)The patent as described also contains a provision that would allow for a third authentication method to be set for a second so-called “familiar area.” This would allow for a number of different possibilities, like setting different levels of security for home, work and the rest of the world, for instance. It’s a handy and noteworthy wrinkle in the patent app, since it could also make it possible to essentially set up a specific security profile required in professions where on-site security of data and mobile devices is paramount.
There are a lot of ways this could potentially be useful, in fact, and it’s one of those context-based features that Google seems to be focusing on with Google Now and recent updates to apps like Keep. In the future, you have a different phone depending on where you go, and that’s something most of the tech giants seem to be working on.
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News
BlackBerry Says It’s Looking For A Buyer (Or A Willing Partner),to ‘Explore Strategic Alternatives’.
Blackberry is now exploring strategic alternatives, including a possible sale or JV or other partnership. A committee chaired by Timothy Dattels and including CEO Thorsten Heins, along with Barbara Stymiest, Richard Lynch and Bert Nordberg, has been formed to look for alternatives.
“During the past year, management and the Board have been focused on launching the BlackBerry 10 platform and BES 10, establishing a strong financial position, and evaluating the best approach to delivering long-term value for customers and shareholders,” said Dattels in a statement. “Given the importance and strength of our technology, and the evolving industry and competitive landscape, we believe that now is the right time to explore strategic alternatives.” In effect, the company is basically saying “we tried that, and that didn’t work so now we’re calling it.”
BlackBerry has seen its share price fall by nearly 38% in the last six months. Currently it’s trading at $9.76 on NASDAQ, actually nudging up following reports last week there were reports that the company was looking to follow in the footsteps of Dell and go private.
The theory behind going private is that it can be a way of taking the company out of public scrutiny as it continues to try to restructure itself financially, and around the latest version of its mobile platfrom, BlackBerry 10. Yes, the BB10 platform is a major step change from previous generations of its software, but it’s possibly too late to make enough of an impact in a world currently dominated by Android and iOS — not just in terms of mindshare with consumers, but with developers and the rest of the ecosystem.
In the days following that report from Reuters, pundits have piped up to explain why going private may not be a viable option.
For starters, a turn away from the public markets may be more about majority shareholders then being able to more easily sell off assets, rather than restructuring with all that is currently there. Another glaring business issue is that the company is still selling more of its legacy BlackBerries than it is its newer handsets.
Indeed, so far, BB10 has not proven to be an instant home run. BlackBerry’s stock took a particularlybad tumble of nearly 30% just after its last earnings. In the quarter, which ended June 1, it reported sales of just 2.7 million BB10 devices.
In the wider league tables of smartphone sales, those building devices on Google’s Android have been running away with the show, with Andoid OEMs taking up nearly all of the top-five positions in Strategy Analytics’ latest report on smartphone shipments. (The lone holdout was Apple at just over 31% of shipments, with BlackBerry getting nary a mention in the report.)
Despite that, the company remains optimistic, even today.
“We continue to see compelling long-term opportunities for BlackBerry 10, we have exceptional technology that customers are embracing, we have a strong balance sheet and we are pleased with the progress that has been made in our transition,” Heins lists in his statement today, as he also sounded a note that signals more slashing in the meantime. “As the Special Committee focuses on exploring alternatives, we will be continuing with our strategy of reducing cost, driving efficiency and accelerating the deployment of BES 10, as well as driving adoption of BlackBerry 10 smartphones, launching the multi-platform BBM social messaging service, and pursuing mobile computing opportunities by leveraging the secure and reliable BlackBerry Global Data Network.”
What today’s news will do is once again start the rumor mill around who might end up shacking up with BlackBerry — another troubled handset maker very much needing scale? An untroubled handset maker but one that wants its own platform rather than continuing to use Google’s?
Still, before you start thinking that BlackBerry’s special committe will inevitably set things in motion for the levees finally to give over in Waterloo, the company also slips in the following caveat:
“There can be no assurance that this exploration process will result in any transaction. The Company does not currently intend to disclose further developments with respect to this process, unless and until its Board of Directors approves a specific transaction or otherwise concludes the review of strategic alternatives,” it notes.
That would surely be the worst-case scenario: BlackBerry admitting it can no longer go on like this, but still failing to find a decent route to get out of the mud.
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News
New leak has suggested that the iPhone 5s may come with a champagne colour option!
Online parts retailer Luna Commerce has posted what it claims are parts from the iPhone 5s. Among them are a group of three buttons titled Apple iPhone 5s champagne button set.
The parts in question are the lock slider, power button and volume buttons. The other three parts are related to the SIM card tray.
It is unclear if they are an official option or whether they are high quality third party parts.
Rumours have suggested that Apple may introduce at least one new colour option to its flagship iPhone model.
The company is also widely believed to be adding a new budget iPhone – currently thought to be called the iPhone 5c – that will be available in a number of colour options.
Apple is expected to officially unveil the new smartphones at some point in the next three months.
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