Hasta La Gadget!

When Nokia agreed to sell its cellphone division to Microsoft, it was almost like a match made in heaven. After all Nokia was probably Microsoft’s biggest support as far as Windows Phone devices were concerned, and with the company commanding a whopping 90% of the Windows Phone market, it sort of made sense.  While the majority of Nokia shareholders approved the deal, there were some who weren’t too happy about it and criticized Nokia’s then CEO, Stephen Elop. In an interview with the South China Morning Post, Nokia’s Chairman not only defends the company’s decision to sell, but also Stephen Elop.

According to Risto Siilasmaa, he defended Elop by saying, “I have never met anyone who had done as much work as Stephen has done.” He also went on to defend the reason behind Nokia’s decision to sell to Microsoft, stating, “On the board of directors, we understood that, as the decision-makers, we would also be heavily criticized . However, we are convinced that continuing with the old strategy would have most likely led to great difficulties for Nokia, its shareholders and employee.” He also highlighted how the deal made sense for Microsoft, who was paying Nokia $20 per handset for marketing efforts, while Nokia only paid them $10 per handset for licensing fees.

Nokia Chairman Defends Stephen Elop And Decision To Sell To Microsoft original content from Ubergizmo.

Arguably the most notable characteristic of the iPhone 5s is the TouchID fingerprint sensor, which lets you unlock your phone and authorize app purchases simply by resting a pre-authenticated fingertip on the home button. It turns out, however, that Apple might’ve had plans for the technology that go far beyond just that. According to a patent application filed with the World International Property Organization, the Cupertino company may use TouchID’s sensor technology to transform the Home button into a trackpad, similar to the ones on BlackBerry’s older line of Curve handhelds. Indeed, the patent filing describes how users could navigate the phone by “revolving” or “twisting” their fingerprint on the button’s sensor. Additionally, the sensor could measure the length of time and amount of pressure that is placed on it, which might lead to more interesting use-cases in apps or games.

What’s even more intriguing, however, is that the document goes on to describe how the entire display can be used to read your fingerprints. This sounds like a crazy idea at first, but if implemented, the phone would then know exactly which finger of which hand is on the screen. This could lead to certain actions mapped to specific digits — perhaps a long-press of your index finger could launch Maps, while a pinch of your pinky and thumb could open up Messages, for example. A few diagrams from the patent application show how screen-wide fingerprint recognition could be used for playing a piano or touch-typing on the virtual keyboard. If you’re concerned that this could lead to serious battery drain, the patent even addresses that, stating that the phone would be smart enough to recognize when it’s in moments of fingerprint recognition (i.e. “enhanced sensitivity”) or when it’s normal everyday use, otherwise known as “reduced sensitivity.”

Further, it seems that enhanced sensitivity could just be restricted to small screen areas so that only certain apps — like banking or email perhaps — would be cloaked in that extra layer of protection. Of course, just because such functionality is filed away in a patent application doesn’t mean we’ll see this in real life. However, taken with the promise of Apple’s recent acquisition, we’ll admit we’re very interested to see how the iPhone 6 will turn out. Those interested in patent minutiae can go ahead and peruse the rather lengthy 612-page document in the link below.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Apple

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Via: Unwired View

Source: WIPO

As the leaves turn to gold and flutter from the trees, the Engadget team digs out their scarves and mittens to get ready for the mad rush of phone launches that take place ahead of the holiday season. We’ve seen big devices (both large and high-profile ones) enter the world over the last few months, including new heavyweights from Apple and Google. Then there’s Samsung, Nokia and HTC, which are all following the philosophy that bigger is better.

But it’s not just on the hardware side that things are getting exciting. T-Mobile’s eliminated roaming charges and Verizon is doubling its LTE speeds to a whopping 80 Mbps. AT&T is offering customers a $5 daily pass for internet and is making mobile share plans the standard rather than the exception. Of course, if you’d prefer unlimited data, Sprint is promising that its Spark LTE will beat the field — but it’s currently only available in NYC, LA, Chicago, Tampa and Miami. Whether you’re looking for a smartphone right now, or if you’re contract is about to expire, this is your guide to the best ones on the market.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Apple, Samsung, HTC, Nokia, Google, Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, LG, Blackberry, T-Mobile

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HTC hasn’t said what major device it is going to release in 2014 but rumors have already been circulating. Codenamed the M8, it is believed that this device will be released in Q1, 2014. We have already seen allegedly leaked photos of the HTC M8 and have also heard about its specifications from the ever trustworthy Twitter leaker @evleaks. Additional specifications of the M8 have surfaced, thanks to a purported M8 appearing in AnTuTu benchmark results scoring just over 36,000. Those who know their AnTuTu scores know that the score is quite impressive.

This device is actually believed to be the successor to the popular HTC One. It is believed to have a 2.3GHz MSM8974 Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 quadcore processor, 2GB RAM, Qualcomm Adreno 330 GPU, Ultrapixel camera, 16GB of onboard storage as well as Android 4.4 KitKat pre-installed. The M8 will apparently have a 5 inch full 1080p HD display as well. Sense 6.0 user interface is expected to be slapped on top of the Android 4.4 core OS. Pricing and availability information is not known at this point in time. HTC obviously hasn’t said anything as yet, we can’t expect it to prior to the official announcement. There haven’t been a lot of leaked pictures though, because we surely do remember that the HTC One Max pictures were leaking almost every single day, perhaps we might see more as the expected release timeframe draws near.

Purported HTC M8 Appears In AnTuTu Benchmark original content from Ubergizmo.

It hasn’t been long since the official Android 4.4 KitKat update rolled out for the Google Nexus 4 smartphone. First the factory images were posted online for enthusiasts who like to manually flash their updates, and a short while after that the Android 4.4 KitKat update was rolled out over-the-air for Nexus 4 devices. Some users are reporting that the update has caused several issues such as rendering the Home button useless, breaking the dialer, non-working Quick Settings toggle and some other issues. The issues don’t appear to be widespread, as quite a lot of users running the same build report that everything is working like it should.

It seems that these issues affect those users the most who have upgraded from the final Jelly Bean build JWR66Y to Android 4.4 KitKat KRT16S over-the-air or through the factory image without first wiping the device. Users who updated through the KRT160 factory build don’t appear to be affected at all. The fix that most users have discovered to work for them is a complete wipe of the device, this obviously means that all data stored on it will be erased, so if you’re facing this issue, its best that you first create a backup of your data. The exact reason why these issues are being faced is not known at this point in time.

Nexus 4 Android 4.4 KRT16S Build Causing Issues For Some Users original content from Ubergizmo.