Sony Xperia Z4 Allegedly Certified In Indonesia

xperia-z4-certJust about everyone knows that there will be a new flagship device from Sony arriving later this year, and it will no doubt continue from where the Sony Xperia Z series left off – which would mean the latest model number would be known as the Sony Xperia Z4. The thing is, there is still not much information on this device, but we have discovered that an alleged Sony Xperia Z4 has already picked up the required certification from Postel, which happens to be the Indonesian authority that handles such shenanigans.

Out of the trio of Sony smartphone models which have been given the nod of approval by Postel, one of them could very well be the Sony Xperia Z4. So far, we have been furnished with the devices’ model numbers, although it would not be too far off the mark to come up with some assumptions of our own.

The E6533 is interesting to look at – with the Xperia Z2 bearing the model number D65xx, alongside the Xperia Z3 carrying D66xx, hence it would be interesting to note that the letter would denote the year of its release, hence “E” would be for 2015. Elementary, my dear Watson! Hence, should the alleged Xperia Z4 be certified already, you can be sure that a release is not too far off from the horizon.

Sony Xperia Z4 Allegedly Certified In Indonesia , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Yahoo App For iOS Gets New Features

yahoo-ios-updateIt is more or less a given that a piece of hardware or a particular software should not remain as it is for all time – it will surely get outdated, and in order to maintain interest and grow your market share, it would be wise to ensure that new features and capabilities are introduced to it from time to time. Yahoo knows this, which is why they have just updated the Yahoo App for iOS that will offer beautiful images and engaging features that ensure content from the ten digital magazines are even more fun to plough through than ever before. The entire design has been refined, to make sure that one enjoys a more crafted and vibrant experience.

Imagine this virtual reading experience, where you vote “who wore it best” on Yahoo Style, before checking out just what Editor-in-Chief Joe Zee thinks concerning the most glamorous red carpet looks at the moment. How about swiping to check out Johnny Depp’s character transformations on Yahoo Movies, before you go ahead and immerse yourself in reviews and analysis that have been curated by Executive Editor Josh Wolk? Feeling hungry? Fret not – there are “before and after” shots of the “Cake of the Day” recipe on Yahoo Food, in addition to the trendiest food crazes curated by Editor-in-Chief Kerry Diamond.

iPhone users over in the U.S. ought to update their Yahoo app today so that they can enjoy this new and improved experience, where one can do so manually for free in the App Store. [Press Release]

Yahoo App For iOS Gets New Features , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Yu Yureka Gets Sold Out In A Matter Of Seconds…Again

yurekaIt was just last week that we brought you word on how the Yu Yureka, a smartphone from the folks over at Micromax that will run on the Cyanogen operating system, was sold out in a matter of just seconds over in the world’s second most populous country, India. Well, the smartphone is a hit to say the least – it has seen yet another 10,000 units sold in a matter of three seconds. Of course, when you have a decently priced handset that is well within reach of the target market, then 10,000 units is not too much to ask when it comes to shifting them off from virtual store shelves, is it?

In the previous sales, it took mere seconds to shift 10,000 and 15,000 units, and overall, Micromax has managed to sell 35,000 Yureka handsets in under 10 seconds, albeit on different days. At $145 a pop after conversion, the Yu Yureka does offer plenty of bang for one’s hard earned buck – we are talking about a 5.5” 720p display, LTE connectivity, a 64-bit octa-core Snapdragon 615 processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB of internal memory which can be expanded via a microSD memory card slot, and a 13MP camera at the back. It would be interesting to see how this flash sales method will work out for other smartphone manufacturers in the long run.

Yu Yureka Gets Sold Out In A Matter Of Seconds…Again , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

LG H959 Appears On GFXBench

lg-g4-gfxbenchThe LG G4 has had its fair share of drama and rumors surrounding it, will it or will it not be revealed at Mobile World Congress at the beginning of March this year just happens to be one of them, and we have already answered that question recently. Well, what you see here happens to be a snapshot from the GFXBench site, where it shows a LG H959 device that will run on a 64-bit octa-core Snapdragon 810 processor, making us wonder whether this could very well be the highly anticipated LG G4.

In the GFXBench site, it points out how the LG H959 will arrive with a 5.5” display, which would definitely jive with previous speculations and rumors so far. However, the resolution count of 1080 x 1920 means there is no QHD resolution, which would most probably mean this is not the LG G4 after all. Apart from that, storage stands at just 16GB, accompanied by 2GB RAM, which would pretty much make this a higher end mid-tier handset. At the back lies a 12MP shooter with a front-facing 2MP camera, accompanied by Android 5.0.1 Lollipop as the operating system of choice.

Maybe this might very well be a “Lite” version of the LG G4, who knows? Only time will be able to tell.

LG H959 Appears On GFXBench , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

BBM Beta For BlackBerry To Come With Landscape Support

BlackBerry-LogoDo bear in mind that this might be a limited beta at the moment, and will not be made available to just about everyone at the moment, but at least it will appease some of the masses who were not too happy that BBM on iOS has already obtained landscape support. Thankfully, BlackBerry users have not been forgotten at the moment, and it seems as though landscape support will be part of the deal in due time, should everything else run fine and dandy where the beta is concerned.

The Landscape Mode in the BBM application will be supported directly, which means there will no longer be any need to view your messages from the Hub view. Apart from that, there will also be Multiple Picture Transfer support from the Pictures App, which lets you take advantage of this unique function through the Pictures App itself.

As mentioned earlier, this is but limited at the moment, so do not fret if you have not quite gained access to it, but it should provide a certain degree of comfort that it is already in the pipeline, so the masses should be on the receiving end of it not too far down the road. One must admit, the ability to perform multiple sharing of pictures from the Pictures App is quite a coup.

BBM Beta For BlackBerry To Come With Landscape Support , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Bank Of America Will Drop Windows Phone Support

boa-windowsphoneIt was not too long ago that we brought you word that Chase Bank would no longer support the Windows Phone mobile operating system, and when you see one of the market leaders make a move, what will the rest of the industry do? Bank of America, the second largest bank in the U.S., has decided to follow in Chase Bank’s footsteps – having made an announcement that they, too, will no longer support the Windows Phone platform.

If one were to head to the Windows Phone Store listing for its app, Bank of America (BoA) has included this updated description that carries with it an urgent notice: “In early March 2015, we’ll no longer support this app for this device. We’re sorry for the inconvenience. You can access mobile banking with us through your browser. Just go to www.bankofamerica.com.”

Apart from that, the listing for the Windows 8.1 version of the app too, has received such similar treatment, delivering the same kind of information – which goes to show that Windows 8.1 users will have to make do without the BoA app in due time. I suppose this would further widen the app gap between the two mobile platforms, but with Windows 10 on the horizon, do you think the banks will change their minds?

Bank Of America Will Drop Windows Phone Support , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

PS Vita Accessory Gives The Handheld Console L2/R2 Triggers

PSVitaCradle-670x344One of the cool features of the PlayStation 4 would be its remote play feature that basically lets you play games from the PS4 console on another device, like the PS Vita for example. Unfortunately due to the difference in design in the PS Vita and the PS4’s controller, some functions might take some getting used to.

The good news is that if you were hoping to make the transition and gaming on the PS Vita a bit more bearable and familiar, you might be pleased to learn that Japanese manufacturer Joetsu Denshi Kogyo has recently announced an accessory for the PS Vita that will add L2 and R2 trigger buttons to the handheld console.

As you can see in the image above, it is basically an attachment that you can clip onto the PS Vita console. It will give the handheld the additional trigger buttons which will make things feel a bit more familiar. Unfortunately it seems that the attachment will only play nice with the PCH-2000 PS Vita model, which is basically the newer version of the PS Vita.

This means that if you have the older model, you’d be out of luck. Its release has been scheduled for late April 2015 in Japan, but no word on pricing or availability stateside for now.

PS Vita Accessory Gives The Handheld Console L2/R2 Triggers , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Instagram Falls Behind Twitter In Number Of Users And Active Users

twitter-crimeIn the battle for popularity between Instagram and Twitter, who do you think is the more popular? Granted both are different in their offerings, but if you had to pick, which would you think comes out on top? If you said Twitter, you would be right. This is according to a recent survey conducted by GlobalWebIndex (via AdWeek) in which Twitter came out on top.

The survey involved polling internet users aged 16-64 around the world, and as you can see in the graph above, it seems that Twitter is far ahead in the lead in terms of users who have an account and users who actually use the service. Interestingly enough it seems that Google’s attempts at a social media platform in the form of Google+ has outpaced Instagram and Twitter as well, although Twitter is a bit ahead in terms of active users.

top-five-social-platformsPrior to this back in December 2014, Instagram appeared to be more popular by the numbers as they announced they had managed to achieve 300 million monthly active users. This is versus Twitter’s 284 million monthly active users, however a purge of bots and spam accounts on Instagram quickly whittled away their numbers which effectively made Twitter larger, although to be fair Twitter has their share of spam and bot accounts.

However the survey would be more objective as it polls actual users, providing a slightly more accurate representation of popularity, but what do you guys think? Are you surprised that Twitter is actually more popular than Instagram?

Instagram Falls Behind Twitter In Number Of Users And Active Users , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Google’s Smart Lock Feature Now Available To All Chromebook Users

smart lock chromeosWouldn’t it be awesome to be able to lock/unlock your laptop using just your phone? It would certainly save you time from having to always enter your password and to manually logout of your computer everytime you step away. Now some of you guys might recall that last year, Google was working on such a feature for their Chromebook laptops.

The feature was announced at Google I/O last year and it was only in December that the feature began making its way into beta status where it was tested by developers. The good news is that it now looks like the feature is available for everyone. The Smart Lock feature has been rolled out and it basically requires the user to have a Chromebook running Chrome OS version 40+.

It will also require the user to own an Android device that runs on Android 5.0 Lollipop which at the moment is still somewhat limited to Nexus handsets and some higher-end flagship smartphones, so if your smartphone is old and has yet to be be updated, we guess you’d be out of luck for now.

Smart Lock works by pairing your phone to the Chromebook via Bluetooth. When it detects that you’re out of range, it will lock your computer, but when it detects that you are nearby, it will unlock it. The range is 100 feet which is admittedly rather far away for your computer to lock and unlock itself, but if you want to learn more on how to use the feature, head on over to Google’s support page for the details.

Google’s Smart Lock Feature Now Available To All Chromebook Users , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Robot Writers Help The Associated Press To Improve Earnings

robot-author-apNow here is a novel method to make sure that robots are able to help us out in our lives, making it better through the use of automation technology in order to write its earnings reports. In fact, The Associated Press (AP) claims to have generated 3,000 stories each quarter, which is ten times its previous output. This particular nugget of information hails from Automated Insights, which is the company behind the automation. Apart from that, it is said that these robot-generated stories also carried a whole lot less errors in comparison to the ones written by actual journalists.

The Associated Press started to publish earnings reports with the help of automation technology in July for various companies that include, but are not limited to, Hasbro Inc., Honeywell International Inc. and GE. Each of those stories do come with the addendum which reads, “This story was generated automatically by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Full GE report: http://www.zacks.com/ap/GE.”

In such stories, there are descriptions of individual businesses that contain “forward-looking guidance provided by the companies.” It does seem as though the news cooperative’s customers have been pleased as punch to receive more stories, and such automation has allowed reporters to have more time on their hands to handle the tougher assignments. Not only that, there has been no job cuts resulting from the automated earnings reports. Image courtesy of All Len All.

Robot Writers Help The Associated Press To Improve Earnings , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.