World Mobile News

Posted in: Android, Rumors, Tablets August 24th, 2012, 18:56 by Ian It seems like September will be a month to remember, as now Amazon.com have added themselves to the list of companies set to announce a new product. The retail giant hasn’t officially confirmed what it will be announcing, but we are most likely getting a sequel of its highly successful Kindle Fire tablet, which was announced last September. It was no secret that Amazon was thinking of releasing a Kindle successor in Q3 of this year, and considering the Kindle Fire currently controls more than half of the Android tablet market since its release last holiday season, why not follow a formula that worked the first time around? Last year Amazon did very well with the sales in the holiday season, after the September announcement, and it seems like it’s going to try and do it again. What the Kindle sequel will be like is anyone’s guess, although there are rumors of a higher resolution display and front-facing camera to riva...

Posted in: Mobile phones, Mobile software August 24th, 2012, 11:50 by Chip Samsung have just released the source code of the ICS kernel of their Galaxy R Android smartphone. This will presumably open the floodgates and custom ROMs and kernels for the device will now start appearing at a rapid rate. Samsung engineers took their time with the Galaxy R ICS update, delivering it several months after the release for the Galaxy S II, but that was to be expected given the difference in popularity (and price) between the two handsets. Now that the update is seeding and the source code is released the two Galaxy smartphones are finally on equal footing, though this will probably change in the next few months as the Galaxy S II catches the train to Jelly Bean station. If you happen to own a Galaxy R, you might want to keep an eye on the XDA-developers forums, where helpful hackers will start working their magic on the Samsung code and will probably have a host of interesting new ROMs for you ...

Recently, the movie business has all been about comic books and Lycra. But what about the much loved novel? The ability to check out countless books and films on your smartphone is one of the great things about living in the future. And if you’re a real movie book buff, what better way to spend the day than watching film adaptations. Hollywood has been plundering the literary treasure chest ever since director Erich von Stroheim attempted a literal adaptation of Frank Norris’s novel McTeague in 1924. The resulting film, Greed, was sixteen hours long. Thankfully directors have since honed their art and we’re now spoilt for choice. Nevertheless, if we had to pick five, these would be our Oscar winners. LA CONFIDENTIAL (1997) Adapted from James Ellroy’s LA Confidential Ellroy was afraid that moviemakers would ‘screw it up beyond redemption.’ He admitted to selling his soul but ‘Then I retrieved it.’ In his imitable style, he was rumoured to have recited creepy poetry to Russell Crowe. ...

Posted in: BlackBerry, Tablets August 25th, 2012, 17:46 by Peter The BlackBerry PlayBook is on its way out – as far as 7” tablets are concerned, the Google Nexus 7 is getting all the attention, after it stole the spotlight from the Amazon Kindle Fire. But a good deal is a good deal – the 64GB version of the PlayBook is currently going for £129 in the UK. For comparison, a Nexus 7 8GB costs £159, while the 16GB one is £199. Somewhat amusingly, a 16GB PlayBook is £129 or even £169 in some places. Currently three stores offer the BlackBerry PlayBook 64GB Wi-Fi at £129 – Dixons, Currys and PC World (actually those three stores are part of the Dixons Stores Group). Note that those stores offer the 16GB version at the same price and the 32GB at £20 more. You can view the full list of prices in different UK stores for the different versions over at the BlackBerry site. Before you rush to buy one, you should note that this might be the worst time to buy a tablet, even one so cheap. Amazon is...

While extreme sports often seem like masochistic thrill-rides for musclemen and daredevils, they’re not all about brawn. Skateboarding, BMXing, free running, you name a crazy, adrenalin pumping sport and the likelihood is you’ll find someone with a Lumia in-hand. Maybe it’s the smartphones’ creative design or the crazy colours. Who knows? But one thing’s for sure, extreme sports people love to think outside (cartwheel over and jump) the box. To see for yourself, prepare to marvel at the most imaginative sports ever invented. And, please, do NOT try these at home… Human Slingshot Well, this does what it says on the tin. Think bungee cord, a hill, an 8ft jump, a willing victim and a big lake. A quad bike and a bungee cord tug you and your dinghy down the slope and over the jump; the bungee whips the dingy away, and you’re in the air! Definitely not for the weak of heart, but still the closest you might ever come to flying. Train Surfing When waves just don’t cut it for you anymore, you...

Regular readers of Nokia Connects will know that Friday means App News, a look at some of the latest news and reviews that have caught our eye over the past week. We bring it to you so you don’t have to go looking. Triangula Cost: Free in the Marketplace Availability: Everywhere In a nutshell: Think Squares, but with…triangles Ewan has taken a look at the app that takes a paper and pen-based game and gives it what looks like a cracking twist. As he outlines, it’s not just about making several squares the same size, but there is lots of room for freestyling. Triangles of any size can be made – complete with ‘delightful swooshing’ noises – and while Ewan says not being able to submit your score online is a little bit of a let-down, the game ‘knows how to marry it to a really good user interface on Windows Phone’. This app looked so good, I downloaded it, and can attest to Ewan’s thoughts on the game, with the corollary that you *will* be beaten a lot before you get the hang of it. High...

Nokia Life and the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women launch Business Women service in Nigeria The empowerment of women in business lies at the heart of a new mobile phone service in Nigeria that was launched today by a partnership between Nokia, the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women and the leading mobile operator, MTN Nigeria.  The new Nokia Life service, called Business Women, will offer essential tips and practical advice on starting and running a successful business to female entrepreneurs in Nigeria on their mobile phones. With micro & small businesses accounting for over 90% of Nigeria’s employment, helping more women in Nigeria run successful businesses is seen as a great way of empowering women and enabling personal improvement that benefits not just the individual, but their children, family and society as a whole.  Strikingly, women already own a significant percentage of the small enterprises in the Nigerian economy. That statistic can only increase as the Business Wome...

Posted in: Android, Portable Media Players 11 minutes ago by Prasad If you thought the Galaxy Note was big, wait till you get a load of this. Samsung has just announced the new Galaxy Player 5.8, where 5.8 is not just a random number but actually the size of the display. This should dwarf even the display on the upcoming Galaxy Note II, which is rumored to be around 5.5-inch in size. Surprisingly, though, for something the size of a small country, the display has a resolution of just 960 x 540, giving it a pixel density of 190 ppi. Samsung has also dropped their favorite Super AMOLED in favor of LCD technology for this panel. Other details are rather sketchy at this point; we don’t even know what the back looks like. What we do know is that the Galaxy Player 5.8 will have Android 4.0 and a 2,500mAh battery. It will also be available in 16GB and 32GB variants (with microSD card slots) and black and white color options. The pricing and launch dates are also unknown as of now but we’ll ...

Spirits is a puzzle solving game for iOS and Android. The game was released on iOS almost two years ago but was released on Android this month. The game won awards back when it was launched and features simple gameplay with beautiful artwork and a soothing soundtrack. Let’s take a closer look at it. In Spirits, you indirectly control spirits from fallen leaves who are now on their journey back home. Your goal is to direct them towards their destination indicated by a swirl placed somewhere in the level. At the start of a level, you’ll notice these spirits slowly appear out of a stack of fallen leaves. Once they materialize, they start walking. How they walk depends upon the terrain. They can go up or down a slope but they can’t climb up on a surface. To help them get to their destination, you have to sacrifice some of them for the rest. By tapping on a spirit, you can get up to four options depending upon the level. You can turn them into a cloud, where they blow wind that lift other ...