TalkAndroid Weekly Recap for May 13 – May 19, 2013

by Robert Nazarian on May 19th 2013, 1:55pm
tagged Weekly Recaps

We had another busy week at TalkAndroid so here’s a recap of all the top stories. Google I/O was this week, so it’s no surprise that it dominated the headlines. Google officially unveiled their new unified messaging service called Hangouts and their new gaming service called Play Games Services. They also unveiled their new streaming music serviced called Play Music All Access. The only hardware announcement was the Galaxy S 4 Google Edition. All in all, it was an exciting event that featured a lot of new stuff for development, which is what Google I/O is all about. Even though I/O was the focal point for the week, there was still a lot of other news, so it’s time to get caught up and get ready for another exciting week.

Guides

Best Android music playing applications [May 2013]

Reviews

Quiz of Seers [Brain & Puzzle]

WeVideo – Video Editor [Media]

Google I/O

Re-experience all three exciting hours of the Google I/O 2013 keynote right here

Google I/O 2013 Keynote: Android activations account for nearly 1/7th of the world’s population with 900 million total activations

Google I/O 2013 Keynote: Play Store will bring more personalized recommendation, apps that will be “Designed for Tablets” and new All Access music subscription service

Google announces unlocked Samsung Galaxy S 4 with stock Android coming June 26 for $649

Google Play Developer Console gets a major injection of new features

Google announces Google Play for Education at Google I/O 2013

New Google Maps makes the Map the UI just a little better and easier for all

Google Search gets expanded functionality for users, brings new cards and improved Voice Search abilities

Google Hangouts officially announced at Google I/O, now live in the Google Play Store

Google Hangouts requires permissions to receive, read, and send SMS messages, could support be added soon?

Google Hangouts “easter eggs” revealed, include ponies and dinosaurs

Gmail and Google Wallet can now help you get money to people in your life

Google TV gets bumped to Android 4.2.2 and the latest version of Chrome

Hands on with the Map Diving simulator

Hands on with NVIDIA Shield

Quick look at the Google Street View Trekker

Hands on with WeVideo’s video editing solution for Chromebooks

» Read the rest

TalkAndroid Daily Dose for May 15, 2013

by Robert Nazarian on May 16th 2013, 2:00am
tagged Daily Doses

With hectic schedules, it can be hard to keep track of everything in your news feed. That’s why we created the TalkAndroid Daily Dose. This is where we recap the day’s hottest stories so you can get yourself up to speed in quick fashion. Happy reading!!

Google I/O

Re-experience all three exciting hours of the Google I/O 2013 keynote right here

Google I/O 2013 Keynote: Android activations account for nearly 1/7th of the world’s population with 900 million total activations

Google I/O 2013 Keynote: Play Store will bring more personalized recommendation, apps that will be “Designed for Tablets” and new All Access music subscription service

Google announces unlocked Samsung Galaxy S 4 with stock Android coming June 26 for $649

Google Play Developer Console gets a major injection of new features

Google announces Google Play for Education at Google I/O 2013

New Google Maps makes the Map the UI just a little better and easier for all

Google Search gets expanded functionality for users, brings new cards and improved Voice Search abilities

Google Hangouts officially announced at Google I/O, now live in the Google Play Store

Google Hangouts requires permissions to receive, read, and send SMS messages, could support be added soon?

Gmail and Google Wallet can now help you get money to people in your life

Google TV gets bumped to Android 4.2.2 and the latest version of Chrome

Hands on with the Map Diving simulator

Hands on with NVIDIA Shield

Quick look at the Google Street View Trekker

Hands on with WeVideo’s video editing solution for Chromebooks

» Read the rest

ZTE reveals Grand X2 In with Intel CloverTrail+ processor capable of taking 24 photos per second

by James Gray on May 15th 2013, 2:32pm
tagged atom, Clover Trail+, CloverTrail, Intel, ZTE

ZTE is no stranger to Intel’s up-and-coming CloverTrail+ project, including one of Intel’s chips in the ZTE Geek we reported on about a month ago. Today we bring you Intel and ZTE’s newest collaboration, dubbed the ZTE Grand X2 In. The Grand X2 In is a sleek purple device with a 4.5-inch, 720p display. It runs Android Jellybean and is powered by Intel’s 2GHz Atom Z2580 chip. Also under the hood is 1GB of RAM, 8GB of expandable storage, an 8-megapixel rear camera and a 1-megapixel front-facing camera. While this phone is not going to compete with today’s flagships, it does have some features that set it apart, most notably the aforementioned camera. Capable of 24 frames-per-second, zero shutter lag and image stabilization, the camera alone puts this mid-range offering ahead of many other comparable devices. Hit the break for the full press release. » Read the rest

NVIDIA Tegra 4 devices to be announced this quarter

by Jeff Causey on May 13th 2013, 1:27pm
tagged HP Slate 21, HP Slatebook, nvidia, Project Shield, tegra 4, Tegra 4i

During a quarterly earnings call last Thursday, NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang revealed Tegra 4 powered devices should be announced this quarter as several tablets are in development. Two of the devices will be coming from HP including the HP Slate 21 AIO and the HP Slatebook 10 X2. Toshiba also has a tablet device in the works, the Toshiba AT10LE-A, which will be powered by the Tegra 4. Going down in size a bit, sources believe ZTE is working on a “super phone” that will be powered by the Tegra 4 chip. In house, NVIDIA themselves are working on a handheld gaming console Project Shield that will be powered by the new quad-core chip.

The new Tegra 4 chip was announced earlier this year at CES 2013. The Tegra 4 is built on four Cortex-A15 processors and 72 graphic processors capable of driving 3200×2000 LED displays with Ultra HD video. Running at 1.9 GHz, the Tegra 4 is the company’s successor to the Tegra 3. Although slightly less powerful, the Tegra 4i will start to hit the market during the latter half of 2013 with an integrated i500 LTE modem.

Huang sees “these new computing devices becoming like entry-level PCs.” NVIDIA is trying to throw as much power into the devices as possible as they think performance will be a differentiator for buyers in the future.

source: Tom’s Hardware

AT&T launches a new bring-your-own-phone pre-paid service called AIO Wireless

by James Gray on May 9th 2013, 9:48pm
tagged AIO Wireless, AT&T, pre-paid

AT&T just joined the likes of T-Mobile and Straight Talk by launching AIO Wireless, a new bring-your-own-pre-paid phone service. Customers can purchase any compatible GSM phone and AIO Wireless will provide a SIM card upon purchase of one of their three plans. AIO offers two options for smartphone users priced at $40 and $70 and a tablet plan for $15. All plans include unlimited data, throttled slightly around 4 megabits. The $40 plan data is throttled even more after 250 MB, while the $70 plan allows a comfortable 7 GB before slowing down the connection. For just $10 more customers can purchase an extra 1 GB of high speed data.

AIO also provides a few phones for purchase directly from their website including the Samsung Galaxy Express for $250, the Samsung Galaxy Amp for $100 and the ZTE Prelude for $50. While nothing special, these are excellent prices for decent smartphones.

» Read the rest

Huawei CEO says company not linked to US cyber threats

by Jared Peters on May 9th 2013, 1:16pm
tagged CEO, huawei, Ren Zhengfei

Huawei has been in hot water with the US government recently after being accused of posing a major security threat to the US, along with other Chinese company ZTE. Ren Zhengfei, found of Huawei and still CEO of the company, has come out and denied any links to cyber threats to the US and denied any improper links to the Chinese government. Now, this is a pretty big deal because Ren has spend the past 26 years at Huawei avoiding the press.

Ren went on to say that Huawei equipment is barely used in US networks at all. Huawei has never sold equipment to any major US carriers or to a US government agency, which undermines the accusations by the US government. So while those accusations don’t necessarily hurt Huawei’s business in the US, it does in turn cause other countries to be more skeptical about using Huawei equipment, which has been the case in Australia and Canada. Hopefully this all gets sorted out sooner or later.

source: Yahoo

Intel announces new Silvermont architecture for low-power, high-performance applications

by Jeff Causey on May 6th 2013, 9:44pm
tagged bay trail, Intel, Merrifield, Silvermont

Intel announced today their new Silvermont microarchitecture, a new design for 22nm Tri-Gate SoC chips. The architecture will offer three times the performance of current generation Atom processors while using five times less power. The new chips may help Intel get their chips into top-tier phones that seem to be dominated by Qualcomm chips. Besides making use of the 22nm SoC process, the chips also “revolutionary” 3-D Tri-Gate transistors. Intel says the architecture will also offer: » Read the rest

Huawei announces departure from U.S. market, then reverses course

by Jeff Causey on Apr 25th 2013, 12:33pm
tagged analysts, huawei, U.S. Market

The past two days have been interesting ones for Huawei and their efforts to break into the U.S. market. During a summit with analysts on Tuesday, Huawei’s Executive Vice President Eric Xu made some statements indicating Huawei was going to abandon the U.S. market. At least, that is how many people interpreted his comments. A day later Huawei issued a clarification to explain that Mr. Xu was commenting on growth in other developed countries, especially European markets. Huawei anticipates those markets will be much more important for them than the U.S. market, but they have no intention of abandoning the U.S. market. » Read the rest

TalkAndroid Weekly Recap for April 8 – April 14, 2013

by Robert Nazarian on Apr 14th 2013, 10:15am
tagged Weekly Recaps

We had another busy week at TalkAndroid so here’s a recap of all the top stories. The big news of the week had to be the launch of Facebook Home. Initially it’s only available on select devices, but unofficially it’s available to everyone thanks to patched APKs. Samsung officially announced the mid-level Galaxy Mega that puts big displays into budget-conscious pockets. We reviewed some cool apps too, and is that the DROID Bionic getting Jelly Bean? It’s time to get caught up and get ready for another exciting week.