Your new Samsung Galaxy S III (S3) is one of the most sophisticated and technologically advanced phones you can buy. TPU is a sophisticated material known for resisting abrasion, great low temperature performance, good transparency and elasticity and resistant to fingerprints.
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Huawei announced the MediaPad 10 FHD all the way back at February at Mobile World Congress. That feels like an age away, but it seems that the 10.1 inch tablet may be due to release sooner rather than later. The above promotional video has shown up on Huawei's YouTube channel today, and it looks the marketing guys have done a great job with a flashy promo video for Huawei's flagship tab.
The metallic MediaPad 10 FHD will come packing a 1.5 GHz quad-core processor, LTE support (on some models), 16GB of storage and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. It's 10.1 inch HD IPS display (1920 x 1200 pixels), and as we mentioned in our MWC hands-on, it's a fantastic-looking panel. An 8MP camera is also onboard partnered with a dual LED flash, along with a lower-res front-facer.
Huawei certainly isn't short on high-end Android devices at the moment. With the Ascend P1 now available, the and Asecnd D Quad just around the corner, the company will be hoping its new MediaPad will be able to compete alongside the likes of ASUS's Transformer Pad Infinity. Keep watching for further developments as the 10 FHD approaches release.
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The MOTOACTV Android powered smartwatch may not be as successful as many had hoped, but that may be due to the high price point Motorola and others have been charging. We’re not sure if Motorola has seen the error of its ways or is simply trying to clear out some inventory, but you can now [...]]]>
Bsquare Announces Availability of the Quad-Core Snapdragon S4 Pro Mobile Development Platform for TabletsSnapdragon S4 APQ8064-based Developer Tool Gives Access to Android 4.0 platform for application and game developmentBellevue, WA – July 24, 2012 – BSQUARE Corporation (NASDAQ: BSQR), a leading enabler of smart, connected devices, today announced general availability of the next generation Mobile Development Platform (MDP/T) for Android tablets based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon™ S4 Pro Processor. The MDP/T provides application developers and device manufacturers with access to a high-performance Android 4.0 platform for developing, testing, optimizing and showcasing applications and games.
The MDP/T is the first Snapdragon based Mobile Development Platform in a tablet form factor available to developers, middleware vendors and others. It's also the first to feature the Snapdragon™ S4 Pro APQ8064 processor by Qualcomm with asynchronous Quad CPU cores, running up to 1.5 GHz each. The tablet development platform offers powerful built-in graphics enabled by the Adreno™ 320 GPU, which is over two times faster than the 225 GPU on previous Snapdragon-based MDPs. Power management and multimedia efficiencies are also increased over previous MDPs due to the 2GB LPDDR2 RAM and 32GB Storage. The device also features a higher resolution 10.1 WXGA Multi-touch Display.
"Access to the APQ8064 processor with its asynchronous Quad CPU cores gives Android application developers a powerful platform to develop their differentiated applications for rapid market release," said John Traynor, vice president of products, Bsquare. "This access, combined with best-in-class engineering support and testing solutions from Bsquare, provides a major benefit to application and game developers developing for a wide range of pre-commercial devices."
"It's exciting for us to make available the first tablet form factor Snapdragon -based development platform with Bsquare," said Tia Cassett, senior director of business development, Qualcomm. "The combination of a powerful developer device in the Snapdragon APQ8064-based MDP/T and industry-leading services from Bsquare means faster time-to-market for Android developers."
The Mobile Development Platform (MDP/T) based on Snapdragon S4 Pro Processor is available now at www.bsquare.com/qualcomm. Bsquare will support developers and manufacturers using the APQ8064-based MDP/T with engineering services and technical support. Customers of the tablet device also have 24/7 access to the Bsquare Knowledge Base, technical documentation, complimentary tools and Snapdragon MDP software updates. Users of the APQ8064-based MDP/T can also benefit from the industry-leading TestQuest automated testing technology from Bsquare, which supports testing of Android software and hardware.
BIG Launcher has just updated their replacement Android launcher built for the visually impaired. As the name suggests, BIG Launcher provides a bare-bones, high-contrast interface with gigantic icons. Size can be changed, and individual icons can be read out loud through text-to-voice wizardry. Here's the 2.0 changelog for BIG Launcher.
You can check out our review of BIG Launcher, or download version 2.0 at the link below. Anyone having a hard time convincing grandma to try out an Android device? Think something like this would help?
Download: BIG Launcher ($1.49)
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One of the many added goodies within Jelly Bean, is the Google Sound Search widget, sometimes referred to as Google Ears. It's really simple, but also a really nice touch to have built in to the OS.
For some reason -- quite possibly some licensing stuff -- it isn't always there to choose from in the widget drawer for everybody. True, that when both my own Galaxy Nexus got the 4.1 update, and my new Nexus 7 arrived, neither had this widget. Being based in the UK, I imagine that it's got something to do with location. There are alternative apps, Shazam, Soundhound for example, but why should you have to use an alternative application when Google supposedly builds the functionality into the OS.
Installing the apk that's been doing the rounds for a while doesn't do the trick either. On Jelly Bean it doesn't seem to like installing, but it works great on ICS. The app itself isn't missing from the device, it's just frozen so you can't use it. As too is Google Play Magazines, and Google Wallet.
So, how do you use it? Well, to unfreeze it requires root. But from there, it's real simple. Titanium Backup is a fantastically useful root application, and is what we'll be using here to make things happen. If you're not sure on what freezing and unfreezing is, we'll walk you through it.
Once you've opened Titanium Backup, and all the application data has loaded, go ahead and hit the "backup/restore" button at the top. You should then be presented with a comprehensive list of every single application installed on your device. Including, all the system apps. Scroll through until you see "Sound Search for Google Play" -- which will also be highlighted by a purple bar -- click on it, and hit the defrost button. Next time you go into the widget drawer, there it will be, ready and waiting.
Also, remember that clicking on a song once it's been identified won't do anything either, other than take you to the main Google Play Store front page. One day, maybe, Google will bring the full range of content to non-U.S. users. We can hope.
The same tactic also applies to Google Play Magazines, and Google Wallet. But, outside of the U.S. there's not really anything you can use these for anyway, and Google Wallet will tell you so if you try to launch it.
The only downside -- when you reboot your device, things will be reset and the app will be frozen again. But, if you're like me, your device rarely gets rebooted unless you're going in and out of recovery. So it's inconvenient, but not massively.
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