Hasta La Gadget!

Few would doubt that 2012 was Android’s year given how rapidly it grew, but it’s good to have some context. IDC is more than willing to oblige. It estimates that Google’s OS climbed from 49.2 percent of the smartphone space in 2011 to 68.8 percent in 2012. As we’ve seen in the past, though, most of that came from customers leaving embattled platforms, including a pre-BB10 BlackBerry and Symbian. Apple reportedly held its ground at 18.8 percent, while Microsoft appears to have turned a corner with Windows Phone by climbing back up to 2.5 percent.

The fourth quarter results paint a slightly different picture. Android still had a comfortable 70.1 percent of share in IDC’s reckoning, but it took a hit from 75 percent in the third quarter — similar to what we’ve seen elsewhere, the iPhone 5 launch helped iOS claw back enough share to hit 21 percent. BlackBerry and Windows Phone weren’t quite so rosy, although they also didn’t have full quarters with new devices to offer. We’ll have to wait for the first quarter of 2013 to finish before we learn of any true shakeups in the status quo.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Apple, Microsoft, Nokia, Google, Blackberry

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Source: IDC

There are plenty of quadcopters out there that you can buy if you want, but they tend to have one or more of the following downsides: They are expensive. They are fragile. They are difficult to fly. Just one can be a bummer, any pair is twice the drag, and all three just all out sucks. The pair of Arial tricksters Air Hogs rolled out for Toy Fair 2013 soar above those troubles. More »

This week the folks at Samsung have revealed the REX series, what they’re calling “smart feature phones” working with the company’s own “TouchWiz” user interface – but this time without Android underneath. Each Samsung smartphone to have been released over the past several years either works with Samsung’s TouchWiz UI or has been a rather unique addition to the family – the Samsung Galaxy Nexus was one of these, working with a Google-only version of Android per the “Nexus” brand’s legacy. Now with a series of Java-based OS-running Smart Feature Phones, Samsung is ready to take on the world – and specifically Nokia’s Asha lineup.

If you’ll take a peek at the recent recent sales report on how Nokia Asha phones are selling, you’ll see why Nokia is in the game in the low-end of the spectrum for cash. A whopping 12 Asha phones have been launched in the past 12 months by Nokia, and they’ve sold 16 million Asha phones in the latter half of 2012. So Samsung wants a piece of that pie – of course.

Today Samsung reveals the REX 60, REX 70, REX 80, REX 90, each of them with ever-so-slight differences between them. Each of them works with the TouchWiz interface that does look extremely similar to what it does on Android devices, and have full touchscreen interfaces with home-buttons to boot. Each of these devices has a call button and a hang-up button of course, they being the hallmark of any real-deal feature phone.

Each device comes with a Facebook app pre-installed as well as Opera for a web browser. You’ll find the intelligent messaging app ChatOn in play along with a series of standard Samsung-made apps you’d normally find on Android-toting devices. The REX 60 works with a 2.8-inch QVGA TFT LCD display with a 1.3 megapixel camera on the back and the ability to work with Dual SIM functionality. The REX 70 has a 3-inch QVGA TFT LCD display and a 2 megapixel camera on its back with dual SIM action with “hot swap” – you also get Yahoo Messenger, Gtalk, and Facebook chat with this device – and Twitter too!

The REX 80 works with a 3-inch QVGA TFT LCD display and a 3.2 megapixel camera on its back with Dual SIM functionality and each of the messenger options listed for the previous models. The REX 90 (pictured immediately above) has a lovely 3.5-inch HVGA TFT LCD display and a 3.2 megapixel camera with each of the features listed on the lesser models. And each of these devices works with Bluetooth wireless connectivity as well as USB 2.0 and wifi – and they all connect to data with EDGE 850/900/1800/1900MHz.

[via Samsung]

Samsung REX series aims for Nokia’s pie with “smart feature phones” is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Tesla’s systematic take-down of New York Times car writer John Broder’s Model S review proves one thing: tomorrow’s cars are going to be so smart, we’ll probably trust them more than we will the driver. Elon Musk, Tesla‘s founder and CEO, relied on the Model S’ own performance logs in order to challenge Broder’s cynicism, raising questions as to why the NYT car journalist did battery-sapping donuts in a parking lot, took the EV off the Superchargers well before it was topped up, and fudged on his cruise control settings. That makes for an entertaining media spat, certainly, but it raises questions about how increasingly intelligent cars may one day soon undermine some of the “freedom” of the open road.

Broder’s review of the Model S pulled up the car for its supposedly unreliable range, forcing drastic energy-saving driving styles and, eventually, a rescue on a low-loader when the Tesla couldn’t finish the journey. Unsurprisingly, Tesla wasn’t too impressed; however, unlike most cars, the Model S doesn’t just put its technology front-and-center, in the shape of the dash-dominating touchscreen, but in the on-board computer that keeps track of just about every element of the driving process.

So, Musk was able to point to battery charge statistics to show exactly what sort of range Broder experienced – and what the estimated remaining range displayed would be – as well as his average speed and driving style. The Model S even tattled on its cabin comfort settings, with the NYT writer supposedly turning up the heating even when he wrote that he reduced it to save power.

“Top Gear incurred the wrath of Musk back in 2011”

This isn’t the first time Tesla has pulled out hard data to demonstrate car reviewers haven’t been entirely upfront with the cars’ performance. UK show Top Gear incurred the wrath of Musk back in 2011, after the irreverent hosts claimed the original Tesla Roadster left them stranded whereas, according to the car’s own logs, there was still around 50 miles worth of charge left in the “tank.”

In a vehicle that’s one part car, one part motorised computer, that sort of tracking isn’t perhaps unusual. For the moment, Musk says, “data logging is only turned on with explicit written permission” in customers cars, with the policy to activate it by default in media loaners stemming from the Top Gear debacle. Nonetheless, it’s not hard to see the climate around driver privacy evolving toward a world where the default is quite different.

Schemes that exchange driving anonymity for other benefits already exist, though they’re generally targeted at new, young, or at-risk motorists. Several insurance companies now offer discounted plans for drivers willing to install a “black box” to track their usage: that ensures no driving at night, for instance, outside of a specific area, or in unsafe ways. For the target audience, who could be facing typical insurance costs running to thousands of dollars, it’s a tempting proposition.

Regular drivers, however, have grown used to the idea of the car – bar being stopped by the police or snapped on a speed camera – being a silent accomplice for their road habits. That anonymity is likely to be short-lived, however, particularly as onboard systems become more complex, self-driving technology grows in popularity and mainstream penetration, and human error becomes the biggest flaw in the mobility story.

It’s a generally-accepted inevitability that, when self-driving cars such as those in the pipeline from Google finally hit the road in earnest, they’ll be an insurance nightmare. If they crash, or run someone over, or if the occupants are hurt in some way, who’s to blame: the driver, or the car manufacturer? When the sort of mesh networks Toyota and others are experimenting with – which will allow self-driving cars to communicate between themselves – appear, that will have a big impact (cutting the meat factor out often does that), but it’s not likely to happen for a good few years yet.

Still, the cars don’t need to be entirely autonomous in order to demand logging. Intelligent cruise-control and traffic following technology which can maintain dynamic distances from other cars; assisted accident avoidance which boosts braking effort; radar guided self-parking: they all take some of the responsibility of the person in the driver’s seat, and give it to the computer under the hood instead. And, where computers go, logging comes hand-in-hand, and it’s not hard to envisage a time when comprehensive, Tesla-style record keeping will be mandatory from insurers, not optional.

“Maybe it’s time the fallible meat-pilots did their part too”

Perhaps that’s not a bad thing. Maybe it’s about time we stopped thinking of the roads as the great freedom network, but instead a shared resource that’s as potentially dangerous as it is useful. Perhaps, just as car manufacturers are doing their part in making new models more and more intelligent – safer, and more environmentally friendly, too – it’s time we as the fallible meat-pilots behind the wheel did our part to tidy up our own game.

A cynic might well be justified in their pessimism, however, whether that might actually take place. Instead, expect a tug of war between expectations of individual rights and demands of group responsibility, helpfully confused by the mercenary ambitions of insurance firms. Nonetheless, just as smartphones get faster and tablets get skinnier, the move toward intelligent cars is likely to be inescapable. Today, that’s giving a New York Times writer a headache; tomorrow, it’s going to be us that the car is talking back to.

Tattletale Tesla is the Big Brother future of motoring is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If you happen to live in the Great White North, you would have read about how the Galaxy Note 2 has received the Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean update already recently, and owners of the Galaxy S2 can now rejoice, as their handset, too, will be on the receiving end of this highly anticipated update, at least according to the good people over at SamMobile. Apparently, there were some reports trickling in that their Android 4.0.x Ice Cream Sandwich-powered Galaxy S2 models were making the leap to Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean, although it will not be the latest Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean that recently rolled out for the GSM models of the Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4, Nexus 7, and Nexus 10.

With this Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean update, do expect to see your fair share of user interface enhancements in addition to stability improvements alongside a bunch of other new features such as Google Now and Project Butter. Not only that, a spanking new Notification bar is thrown into the mix with additional notification toggles. If you have already updated your Galaxy S2 and given it a new lease of life, how do you find the update so far?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Bump Is The Easy Way to Transfer Data Between Phones and Computers, Sony Xperia Z Available for Preorder on Vodafone UK,