Nexus 7

It's here! The Nexus 7 was released last night amongst a host of other Google goodies (more on that in another post).

Pretty much as expected:

• 7 inch 1280x800 HD screen
• Scratch resistant glass
• 1.2mp front facing camera (no back camera)
• NFC
• Jelly Bean 4.1 operating system
• 1.3ghz Tegra 3 processor
• £159 (8gb) or £199 (16gb)

Already hailed as the best Android tablet to exist this really has hit it off. Due to be available from the middle of July, mine is already pre-ordered! It's so good that I've already managed to convince 2 other people that they should be buying one! 

There really appear to be no drawbacks on this one. Some might complain it doesn't have a back camera, but if you use a tablet for taking pictures you shouldn't be allowed one anyway. 7inches looks like it could be the Goldilocks of the tablet World with it sitting perfectly in one hand (at 340 grams), yet still big enough to watch a film on comfortably. The addition of the latest version of Android also makes it a must-have, where it zips through while multi-tasking with no lag. 

All in all, this is pinched the market from right under the Kindle Fire's nose as they have been slow off the mark getting it shifted to the UK. It will be one heck of a tablet and one of the most exciting bits of kit I've been looking forward to getting in a long time! 

Pancake Time

Yum-yum!

Mozilla hasn't had the best time of it recently, most of it's funding comes from Google and this looks to be coming to a close soon - no surprise as Chrome has overtaken both Firefox and IE to be the most used browser. So, what's the plan for the internet giant after Fox comes crashing down? Another big idea named after a delicious sweet snack is what - Pancake!

Those apps you love, well Mozilla hates them.  They think they're compartmentalising the internet, making it more difficult to have a seamless experience where everything flows with interconnectivity, quite the reverse of what apps are for. Mozilla are gearing up to launch their big new project, and so far it seems exciting - doing away with URLS, tabs and even individual web pages to create a free-flowing centre of everything you could want.

Not sure what I'm talking about? Well, neither am I at this point - Mozilla are only talking in abstracts with no definite info on how this will be managed or what it'll look like. I sure am excited though, this could be the next big web stir-up, the next thing to change the face of the internet. Or, it could all fall flat on its face as nothing but conjecture and wind.

Still, keep your eye holes peeled for this one - worth taking note of!

App of the week

The stock android keyboard ain't all that bad, especially with the updated ICS version. For those of you looking for a nice uprgade though, look no further than Swiftkey3. There is a free trial version or the full version for about £1.50 (although prices vary with discounts).

So, why should you use this I hear you ask? Well, it logs into your gmail, facebook, twitter, blog posts to understand how you 'speak'. Using this it predicts what you want to say, scarily accurately. For example, if you type 'hey', it will suggest the next word as 'how's', then 'it', then 'going?'. Effectively, you can get away without typing out words at all as they are all pre-suggested there! The video below probably gives a better example! Countless other secondary features are available such as themes and haptic feedback (or not). 

Galaxy Tablet

Google is due to release it's very own tablet (think galaxy nexus, but a tablet form) on Wednesday. The rumour mills have been rife but today has seen the most convincing (and hopefully true) information drop so far.

On the grapevine, the Nexus 7, is a 7inch tablet that will be running Jelly Bean (Google IOS 4.1) on a Tegra 3 1.3ghz processor and 1GB RAM. There will be a 1280 by 800 resolution IPS display, 9hr battery and NFC support also, all built by Asus. Doesn't sound bad, does it? Certainly the vanilla version of software will be nice, along with Google promising that they will be in charge of updating software.

And the price? Around about £160. Now I've got your attention! In Amazon Kindle Fire territory, if it gets in there first then could sweep up most of the market. I know I'm certainly considering selling by Tab 10.1 and going for this instead!

We'll keep you updated as the device is released at 5.30pm on Wednesday. Until then, definitely food for thought.

Windows 8 Mobile Interface

I'm not going to lie, the Windows mobile interface is gorgeous. It's how every phone should look, but with the ease of use of iphone and the customisability of android. That would be ideal.

For those of you not familiar, Windows mobile OS is built up of tiles for your favourite apps making it easy to navigate to your top apps, with all the rest of your settings etc stored in another menu. This gives everything a sexy uniform design that fits together perfectly.

The latest Windows 8 version takes an already awesome system and takes it one step further. Live tiles that display information without having to open apps, the ability to resize tiles (a bug-bear I think most Windows users find) and different colour schemes. Kudos Microsoft, kudos.

Fifa Street Review

A bit belated (by about 2 months) but figured I'd throw up a review of Fifa Street. I'd never personally played any of the predecessors of this game, although I hear that they weren't great; poor graphics, cartoon-like gameplay and various button bashing.

That all changed with the new Fifa Street. 

EA Games tried to bring realism to this one, basing it on the same game engine as Fifa 12 bringing player likeness, a better physics understanding (bumping into players) and none of those ridiculous power-ups from the previous versions. This all combined to make a street football game where you actually feel like you know what you're doing. Fancy backheel finish? Meant that. Rainbow flick over the defender's head before chipping it to your strike partner to bicycle? Not just a fluke. 

With various game types it keeps things fresh so that you always have a different approach be it 5-a-side, 6-a-side, points for pannas (nut-megs) or skill/goal point combination games. Add this to the main game mode, where you hike about Europe in competitions, where every team you beat, you get to choose a player. In addition to these you can create your own team and players that improve as the game progresses (Euro 2012 take note). 

All-in-all this is a decent game, definitely enough to tide you over until Fifa 13 and better than the Euro 2012 download (probably about the same price now too). The fact that elements of the skill control are being brought into Fifa 13 only goes to show that the game has made an impression at HQ. 

Gmail Backgrounds

Hurrah!!

Gmail has finally given you the option to completely customise the background! Been waiting for this for a while now. Not that the backgrounds they give you aren't bad, but it's nice to give a personal spin! Just head on to 'Settings' > 'Themes' > 'Custom Themes' then select either Light or Dark. From here you can either choose a host of pictures that other users added or upload your own from Google+ or your computer.

Well done Google, I knew there was a reason for you.

Microsoft Surface

Microsoft are gearing up for major warfare as an all-in-one provider for all things computer (OS, apps, cloud service and mobile hardware).  Both Google and Apple already offer this and Microsoft are going to have to pull out a stunner to compete with these behemoths (not that MS is any small fry mind).

Microsoft are readying to launch their new Windows Server 2012, and of course, this is a pretty vital piece of the puzzle.

In a very brief summary; Microsoft is rolling out the latest iteration of its cloud services, with particular emphasis on targeting large business (read Fortune 500 companies, such as ING Direct and Aflac who have both had access to a beta version).  Though there is no official release date, it’s almost a given it’ll be later this year, around when Windows 8 drops as it’s pretty much key to creating a cloud computing “environment” across all the multiple devices 8 will run on.

In order to ensure no freak-outs at launch, Microsoft are stress testing the server with all of their online programmes (Office, Xbox Live, Bing etc.).  For Bing alone, the server is handling over 300 petabytes a day, a truly staggering amount without even considering the demands data hungry services like Xbox Live will be demanding.  With the Xbox 720 almost certainly coming early next year, the server will be placed under even more strain as it is reported to have cloud functions of its own. 

This is all happening just as Microsoft have unveiled their debut entry into the world of tablets, the Surface.  The devices are set to be very impressive, with two variations, where the more advanced type running the full desktop version of 8.  No official word on prices yet, but expect just below Apple’s and entering into ultrabook territory for higher specs. The key to the tablet so far appears to be the 'magnetic keyboard attachment' which, coupled with the business usability, gives it a strong niche.   

Still, one must suspect Microsoft know what they’re up to (you don’t really get to an electronics giant otherwise...cough...Sony…), but can’t help but remember the ill-fated Zune.  With this almost wave-like set of releases (not even mentioning Smart Glass), we might well see another contender in the go-to-guys for all our computing needs.

App of the week

This week it's time for "Awesome New Tab Page". Their words, not mine. Ok, so it's not technically an app, but an extension. It's still groovy through!

ANTP (as known by its friends) is an extension that lets you customise and personalise the new tab page within chrome. The whole effect kinda looks Windows 8-ish which is nice and simplistic, not to mention will match in with the update!

 It gives you options to use shortcuts and widgets as illustrated in the screenshot below. Just click on an empty space, add the URL, then find a image that is 200x200 pixels to create a unique shortcut. The extension comes with a few widgets and gives a link for a host more that you simply install from the Chrome Extension page then add to your new tab page through ANTP. Simples.

Tiger Woods 13 Review

Ah yes, Tiger Woods 13 with Kinect. Pffftt, nice try.

Let's get the major gripes out of the way first, it should not be listed with Kinect. I tried using the Kinect and failed miserably. The Kinect picked up my back swing, then got stuck. No matter what I did I couldn't hit the ball. Fail. Better than someone else I saw play that couldn't even navigate the menu system it was that bad!

No that's over with, we can talk about the game itself. No real major changes from the last version. The swing system is slightly different, allowing you to see how your swing looks according to how you move the thumb-stick..quite handy for drawing/fading. The caddy system works well too, most of the time, where taking their advice can be the difference between landing on the green or the drink. There is a new mode too, where you play through Tiger Wood's life from a 3 year old kid through his young career and up to seducing ladies as a mini-game (not really).

One caveat, the game should really be played on 'hard' or above. I've played through the majority of the career mode on normal and finished most tournaments around about 30 under which is just plain ridiculous. The masters tournaments are a little more realistic, although as an up and coming amateur I was still fighting it out with big Ernie and Mcilroy at the top!

The Kinect issues aside, this is a decent game that can waste plenty of hours while it's rainy outside. I wouldn't say it's a must have, but if you see it at a knock-down price, it's worth a shot.

Euro 2012 Game

Since I play it enough, thought it would be apt to give a quick review on the Fifa download for Euro 2012. First off, I have to say that I have been fairly disappointed. Yes it has plenty of hours gameplay within, but it is far too repetitive. There are a couple of different modes; Expedition and Story.

Expedition mode is similar to the Fifa Street World Tour where you play against teams to get their players using your virtual pro. Some big drawbacks though - you have to play each team 3 times (to get reserve, bench, 1st team players) which is incredibly boring especially when if you lose on penalties and have to start again. Not that that ever happened to us. Against Albania. Five times. After beating them you get one of their players which is fair enough, but you don't even get to pick! So after beating Germany 3 times, we eventually got the almighty Per Mertesacker, and let's be honest here, I've seen milk turn faster than him. All this added up to plenty of gameplay but we got half-way through the 3rd group (you progress through each qualifying group to gather players) and gave up bored. The fact that your virtual pro doesn't improve renders it pointless too as they quickly become replaceable which takes away the personification of the team!

Going to be honest here, haven't really dabbled in the story mode, but it seams a pretty straight run through the tournament itself using any team. Woop-de-doo, no big thrill there and minimal hours to complete I'd imagine.

I guess I'm just bitter that (in my opinion) the best game Fifa have done in a while was the World Cup 2010 edition. The captain your country mode is has never been replicated; where you can create a few virtual pros and play multiplayer moving from reserve team, through the qualifiers and eventually onto the World Cup itself to captain your country to glory! Very addictive to the point that staying up til 6am to get USA to the final before losing on penalties to Serbia seems totally worth it, that's when a game grips you!

To be fair, I can't really complain too much as it is a £15 download to tide us over until Fifa 13 hits the stores. Speaking of which, it's due to use the Kinect to identify when you swear at the ref and dish out the yellow card for unsportsman like behaviour. Uh oh, could be a few players sent off next season. Anyway, if you're looking for a game to get you through the summer months, I'd suggest picking up Fifa Street instead to familiarise yourself with the skill gameplay that's being merged into Fifa 13, that should be cracking.

Apple WWDC 2012

And now the Apple fanboys can rejoice, alas there is a new range of gadgetry to spend money on this year! Apple have announced updates to the majority of their computing ranges including Macbook Air, Macbook Pro and the Mac Pro. Here's a quick run-down of the updates;

Macbook Air

• Same build/looks on the outside (11inch and 13inch variations)
• Juiced up on the inside - you can now pimp your Air up to 2.0GHz i7 Ivy Bridge, 8GB RAM and and 512GB SSD
• Prices ranging from £849 - £1249. Ouch. 

Macbook Pro

• 25% Thinner (13inch and 15inch variations)
• New insides - max spec giving you 2.9GHz i7 Ivy Bridge, 16GB RAM, 768GB SSD, USB 3.0
• Prices ranging from £999 circa £2299 and higher with different spec!
• Of course, there is a retina display too at a whopping 2880 by 1800 pixels (better than HD). This is only available on the 15inch model and the price is not for the faint-hearted.   

Mac Pro

• No massive updates really
• 6-core processors, 64GB RAM,  AMD Radeon HD 5870 graphic cards
• Prices from £2049 to well over £3000

On top of all that fruity goodness there is new software in the form of Mountain Lion. This gives a host of additions/upgrades including notifications (a la ios devices), gatekeeper (upgraded security), powernap (syncing whilst napping) and game centre to name but a few. This costs £14 which isn't bad when you consider a new version of windows will set you back considerably more. 

So that about covers it. I will admit, I've just procured one of the new Macbook Pros, although this is mainly due to an unfortunate incident involving a broken laptop and insurance company, otherwise this would all be rather out of my price-range! Still, as my last one proved, these bad-boys chug along nicely for a few years before showing any sign of slowing down so it's future-proofed at least! 

Hit us up in the comments if you're tempted by the new range, or are you a PC fan with a preferred alternative? 

App of the week

A very handy tool for monitoring data usage is My Data Manager available on Android and ios. [Windows users - had a look everywhere but couldn't find an equivalent for you!] This app is simple to use but perfect for stopping you from going over your data limits, which on a smartphone is very easy to achieve! Some key features:

• See which apps are using your data
• Add date ranges for monitoring (for example my data contract runs from the 17th of each month)
• Set alerts to warn you when getting close to your limit
• Check on wifi usage aswell as 3G

I have the app running constantly and it uses about 2% battery, so hardly anything. It appears in my notification drop-down menu so is easy to check up on and has a host of widgets too. Pretty much, this is a must-have app. 

Xbox Smart Glass

This is the future right here. Maybe.

Microsoft have announced Xbox Smart Glass, a revolutionary project that brings together your entire eco-system of products in one fell swoop.

Working with windows, android and ios devices, it lets you control your xbox through an app. This allows you to control your music on your tv, view halo maps on your tablet whilst playing halo 4, use the multi-touch of your phone to browse web pages on your tv or if you're rushing out the door, pick up the film you were watching at the same point on your mobile device.

As those cheeky chappies from South Park said, “How many times have you been watching an episode of ‘South Park’ and thought, ‘I’d like to watch this on my television, while hooked into my mobile device, which is being controlled by my tablet device, which is hooked into my oven – all while sitting in the refrigerator.”

This has so much potential, yet, as the kinect proved, will no doubt have a lot of teething issues. Give it 5 years and it will be nicely integrated with everything, up until then it will be a frustrating stop-start mission to get it up and running.

Here's hoping it takes off and works straight away though, nice to be optimistic!

Audio Relief

Easy on the ears

After having gone through many, and I mean many pairs of cheap in-ear phones not including those daft IPod ones I've finally seen the light.

I was looking to branch out into the real world of head phones and this is where I've started. What I wanted was something that was comfy, practical, packed some good base and didn't burst my pocket. The outcome was a snazzy pair of Sony MDRZX300B's. The good thing about these phones are they aren't very expensive at all for what you get. Amazon will sort you out for around £20, and Play will even beat that.

So after having 'burned' in the phones for a good 10's of hours I can happily say they are still doing themselves justice, and here's my own rating so far:

Comfort: 4/5 (Later models have a cushioning I skimped out on)

Practicality: 5/5 (Easy round the neck and a chunky cord for few tangles)

Bass: 4/5 (Better after some 'burning' in)

Value:5/5 (Honestly couldn't argue with that price for what I got)

Finally a bit of Technical Spec for those audio geeks are as follows:

Type: Dynamic

Capacity: 1000 mW

Driver Unit: 30 mm (Dome Type)

Diaphragm: PET

Frequency: 10-24000 Hz

Sensitivity: 102 dB/mW

Magnet: Neodymium

Impedance: 24 Ohm

Cord Type: Both-sided

Cord Length: 1.2 m

Plug: Gold-plated L-shaped Stereo Mini

Weight: 120

App of the week

One I'm sure you've heard of this week, Shazam. This nifty little app helps for those times when you hear a song that you like, but can't for the life of you remember who/what it is. It listens to the song then (using a little magic) brings you back results of what the song is. The best bit about the app is the functionality after searching. It gives you the option to share the song, find the youtube video, play it in spotify, get tour info for the artist, give recommended similar artists and the discography. Having used the app many times it picks up the song 99% of the time even in tough-to-hear situations. A well featured app with plenty to offer.

E3

On the 5th of June, the annual electronic games expo, E3, kicked off and since then we've seen some pretty amazing stuff. All the biggest and best companies in the world of games were there to show off their products.

Chief amongst the commotion was the spec unveiling of the new Wii U and some pretty nifty demonstrations of what it can do. While still lacking in hardware compared to what some of the other big boys are going to be doing, there are certainly some interesting innovations. Oddly, for a Nintendo product, I'm actually looking forward to getting a shot.






Both Microsoft and Sony focussed more on software, though Microsoft did show off it's new Smart Glass too (check out Ally's new post for more information on that).

But, by far the biggest news of the conference so far (certainly for me!) was all about Halo 4! The new infinity trailer blows my mind, as does the walkthrough level. Have a look at these videos for some great footage and stay tuned for some more in detail analysis of both E3 and Halo 4.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N-CRrP9xjQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0DSvSif23I

Windows 8

So, Windows 8 is nearly upon us and we’ve seen both an alpha and a beta version to get our hands on and have a play around with. Microsoft is even touting over a million downloads in 24 hours for the preview build released all the way back in February (and I struggle to remember last week).

Windows 8 is [going to be] cross-platform and support a far wider range of products over its distinguished ancestors (though, in fairness, most of those products only recently came into existence – smartphones, tablets etc.).  One of the most significant changes to the new OS is the new touch-based user interface and the removal of the start button for desktop variants.

According to Redmondmag.com many enterprise developers have not tested Windows 8, and are not actually looking to – at least in the beginning anyway. They surveyed more than 1,400 people who work within the computing industry and found that around 20% were very interested in getting to grips with Windows 8, 40% who are a little interested and about half were unsure whether they’d use it at all.

The reasons for this are, of course, very varied, but one of the more mentioned being that developers simply have no need for touch based applications and that to create for it requires far more of a commitment. Some apps even need to be completely re-worked from scratch for 8 – all at a time when Windows 7 is just being implemented as the main OS for many businesses. Companies, it seems, are very hesitant in adopting new software (just think how many times you’ve been at a reception, peered at the monitors and seen either 98 or even the dreaded Vista).

As far as testing goes, seems that for a while at least, there’s not going to be an influx of dedicated Windows 8 software and that we may have to wait a while before we start to see this (and then the new version, 9/panther/OMG or whatever they call it, will probably be being released).

App of the week

It's been a while since we've had one of these! Up this week is Flipboard. This has been available as an ios only app up until a couple of weeks ago when it was released as an APK download for android.

So what does it do? Well it's very similar to a number of apps out there (Pulse and Google Currents to name but two) in that it pulls together your feeds and favourite websites to one place for browsing. The caveat with Flipboard is that it has a unique interface, incase you hadn't guessed, like a Flipboard chart. Articles are simplified to maximise the pictures that accompany them and make it overall a more aesthetically pleasing read.

Another handy feature is the ability to add in your twitter and facebook account details to pull in tweets and posts from there. The screenshot below gives a flavour of the app and the link above has a nice demonstration:

Phone Customisation

Warning: This is a purely Android article, sorry Windows, iOS, Blackberry...Symbian ;)

One of the things I like best about Android is that you can easily customise your phone to make it personal without having to jailbreak etc. A couple of apps and some fiddling about gives you a unique user interface with minimal effort.

The default HTC homepage is as so:

Not bad, I hear you say, but it all looks a bit mis-match, nothing quite joins where some apps have text underneath, some have none, some are see-through widgets (weather) whilst others are blocks just sitting there (Google widget). Call me a perfectionist but I like a little co-ordination, is that so hard? Here's my rendition after a couple of hours tweaking:

Now isn't that lovely? Clean background with a couple of useful widgets fading into my most used apps that all have the same icon set. So, how did I do it? Here goes:

• Apex Launcher - this app allows you to customise the dock at the bottom to hold as many items as you want. It also handles transition effects eg. opening the app drawer. Downloading an 'icon set' also permits you to change the default icons used, which gives then uniform app visuals. 
• Next up, the widget in the middle. This is called Power Control. This is a highly customisable widget that can host as many shortcuts as you want. I've got wifi, brightness, battery, sound mode and torch all at the tips of my fingers. The colours, size and axis can all be changed to suit. 
• Finally, the top widget is SiMi Clock. This has the time, date and weather all in a nice minimalist format. This can also be setup to give access to apps by tapping certain areas of the clock. For example if I tap the time then the calendar app will fire up! 

And with that, my phone homescreen has been totally transformed. For more inspiration (and complicated) homescreens, check out the Lifehacker blog. Any questions hit me up in the comments!

Huzzah.