Hasta La Gadget!

Beats Music is a relatively new on-demand music streaming service. Due to its intelligent recommendation features the service has actually become quite popular over the past few months. While the app is free to download users must pay $9.99 per month after their 7-day free trial ends. Previously Beats Music circumvented Apple’s in-app purchase system to let potential subscribers pay through carrier billing or its own website, that way it wouldn’t have to give Cupertino a 30 percent cut. Now though Beats Music lets users subscribe to the service from straight within the iOS app through in-app purchases.

Its possible that Beats Music might not have been happy with the previous means of subscription simply because they might not have been driving a great number of new subscribers. For average users it is much easier to subscribe from within the app since they already have their payment methods setup with iTunes. The downside for Beats is that for every subscriber that comes through an in-app purchase, it has to give Apple $3 out of the $9.99 it earns.

A recent update to the Beats Music application brings an improved “The Sentence” feature, which is one of the pivotal recommendation features of this service. Other improvements include better offline playback and social features.

Beats Music Embraces In-App Subscriptions To Drive Subscriber Base

, original content from Ubergizmo, Filed in Audio, Cellphones, Beats Music, iOS,

If you have been keeping up with tech news over the past few weeks you might have heard about the OnePlus One. Its a new smartphone that is set to be launched on April 23rd by OnePlus, a new kid on the block. On paper the specifications rival this year’s biggest flagships but we can’t be sure of its performance until the device is actually in our hands. OnePlus hasn’t given a glimpse of the actual smartphone as yet but leaked photos originating out of China give us just that.

One glance at the leaked photos is enough to convince anyone that this is a high-end phone. The way its 5.5-inch 1080p display sits on top makes it seem like the display is floating. From a design standpoint it looks quite similar to the Oppo Find 7, which doesn’t exactly come as a surprise, since OnePlus founder Pete Lau used to be a vice president at that company.

In another photo we get to see OnePlus One’s “StyleSwap” back covers. The company has already revealed that these covers will be made out of various materials, including but not limited to carbon fiber, denim and wood.

Under its shell the smartphone comes with a 2.5GHz quadcore Snapdragon 801 processor with 3GB RAM, a 3,100mAh battery and a 13 megapixel rear camera. It will be powered by a custom version of CyanogenMod. Set to retail for under $400, the OnePlus One will be available in over a dozen countries at launch. [Images via oneplusbbs]

OnePlus One Finally Seen In Leaked Photos

, original content from Ubergizmo, Filed in Cellphones, OnePlus One,

When it comes to cameras on a smartphone, you can more or less say that the improvements made in this department has definitely blown the mind, with the VGA quality shots of the previous decade being nothing more than a bad memory. HTC has certainly done their bit to ensure that camera technology has improved tremendously in their previous flagship smartphones, with the HTC One (M7) delivering an UltraPixel camera which has a higher focus on low-light performance compared to simply having a high megapixel count, while the HTC One (M8) has a Duo Camera setup that will boast not only of an UltraPixel shooter, but also a secondary camera that enables the user to blur either the background or foreground of a photo. What’s next down the road?

An HTC executive, Symon Whitehorn who happens to be HTC’s imaging expert, has dropped a hint on what the future major camera feature from HTC will be. Whitehorn shared, “Optical zooming in a smartphone is not too far off at all for HTC. I can’t give too much away, but within 12-18 months we’ll see huge advances in phone optics.”

Could we be looking at an optical zoom lens which might be able to elevate smartphone cameras to the next level? [Press Release]

HTC: Optical Zoom On Phone Cameras 18 Months Away , original content from Ubergizmo, Filed in Cellphones, HTC,

When it comes to an online service like Twitter, there is certainly entertainment value there if you know just where to look For instance, there are plenty of parody accounts out there that pop up from time to time, and one of the more recent ones that we could think of is Steve Ballmer and his iPhone gig, which has proved to be a fake account. Majority of these accounts tend to be left alone because they have clearly explained themselves to be satirical in nature instead of trying to pass themselves off as the real McCoy. Of course, there are other accounts that could be held accountable for misrepresentation.

In fact, one of the best examples to not create a parody Twitter account without a proper disclaimer would be this – police officers have recently raided a home in Peoria, Illinois, as part of their efforts to flush out the creator of a parody account that actually insulted the town’s mayor.

The @PeoriaMayor account was said to have been created in February earlier this year, where it came with a photo of Mayor Jim Ardis. Accompanying that was a bio that described his job, as well as his email address. It took a fortnight thereabouts before the bio was updated to clarify that this happened to be a parody account. The damage had been done by then though, as some of the previous tweets did include plenty of references to sex and drug consumption.

Needless to say, this account was suspended since, having snagged a mere 50 followers thereabouts when it was still active. An investigation by the Peoria Police Chief Steve Settingsgaard has been launched, where the account’s creator could end up being charged with an offence that might incur a maximum fine of $2,500 in addition to spending a year in the slammer.

Twitter Parody Account Results In Police Raid At Home , original content from Ubergizmo, Filed in Cellphones, Twitter,

Word on the street has it that Motorola is working on a new smartphone that sports a 4.3” display, where this alleged handset will arrive in three different models – the single SIM XT1021, the dual SIM XT1022, and the XT1025 that sports dual SIM capability in addition to digital TV ability. Apparently, all three models have already picked up the nod of approval by the relevant Brazilian authorities, which means we ought to be able to get a closer look at them soon.

The exact resolution count of the new handset’s alleged 4.3” display has not been revealed, but a screenshot tip off did show off other features that we would most definitely be interested in – including the Android 4.4 KitKat operating system, a dual-core 1.2GHz processor, a 5MP shooter at the back, 1GB RAM, 4GB of internal memory that will, in all probability, be able to be expanded via a microSD memory card slot, and a 1,900 mAh battery to keep you going.

These are also said to be extremely thin in nature, so the big question is, will they launch in May? It really is a matter of waiting it out now. From what we have heard on the grapevine, these handsets will measure 4.91” x 2.55” x 0.24”, which would mean it is really, really slim.

Motorola To Introduce XT1021, XT1022 And XT1025 In May (Rumor) , original content from Ubergizmo, Filed in Cellphones, Rumors, Motorola,