It’s not uncommon for an as yet announced phone to pop up on Twitter, or via an insider leak. But a physical billboard? That takes some doing. If this image — spotted out in the wild — is to be believed, Nokia’s Lumia 928 is as real as the day is long. The Verizon handset shown certainly fits the images we’ve already seen, and the low-light boast will stoke the coals of any Xenon or PureView rumors for sure. However, this spot is hardly Times Square, so until we see something a little more concrete, Lumia fans on Big Red will have to keep the faith with that 822.
Alongside a bump up to Android 4.1.2, Verizon’s Galaxy Note II update (which is apparently rolling out now) adds plenty of improvements and features. As well as fixing several bugs with its calendar and email apps, the refresh adds Multi Window support to some key players, including Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Kindle and Google Maps — a feature that was there from the start on the global model. There’s also a new notification panel editing menu within settings and Samsung’s Smart Switch app to speed up migrating content from your old device to another, although whether you’d need that when you’re updating your own Note II is a good question.
Another bullet-point caught our attention too. Tucked away at the end of the change log issued by Verizon is, would you believe it, the removal of one of its preloaded apps. Shopping app Zappos gets dropped during the update.
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Starting today, Verizon Wireless will finally be pushing out Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean update for its Samsung Galaxy Note II. The device has now been updated to build JZ054K.I604VRAMC3, which is geek speak for various device enhancements and a new OS update. The latest update also brings improvements of various applications as well as several of Google’s security patches.
Some of the enhancements that this update brings includes the ability to download images from Enterprise Exchange email and to use downloaded languages on the keyboard. Verizon’s Galaxy Note II now gets better multi-windows support for accomplishing multiple tasks at once, such as jotting down notes while watching a video. Apps that support this include YouTube, Facebook, Gmail, Twitter and a lot more. A new Notification Panel editing menu has now been added under Display Settings. As previously mentioned, this build updates the core Android OS to version 4.1.2. It also features improvements to Exchange email syncing, Back Up Assistant Plus and a host of bug fixes as well as performance improvements. It is expected that this Verizon Galaxy Note II update will begin rolling out to customers in a little while.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has released its annual “Who Has Your Back?” report, ranking 18 companies by how well they protect user information from government eyes. Twitter and Sonic.net get high scores from the EFF, as they meet all six of the organization’s privacy guidelines, which include requiring a warrant for sharing content and telling users about government data requests. On the other end of the spectrum are MySpace and Verizon, both of which score zero out of six stars. Meanwhile, Apple and AT&T get one gold star each, and Google, Dropbox and LinkedIn are tied for second place. You’ll find the complete breakdown in the EFF ‘s comprehensive infographic (partially displayed above), and the full report is available via the source link.
This week we’ve had the opportunity to have a peek at the newest smartphone from Verizon in the Pantech Perception, a device whose gesture abilities appear at first to outweigh its full suite of high-end specifications. While this device isn’t exactly a match for the likes of the GALAXY S 4 from Samsung or the HTC One by any means, Pantech does appear to have created a solid device for the masses, and not one meant for the budget crowd they’ve so often tended to in the past.
Hardware
This device features a setup that, at the start of 2012, would have seemed like quite the beast. You’ve got a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED display at 1280 x 720 pixel resolution resting in a chassis largely made of hard plastic. This device does appear to have a brushed metal back, but don’t be fooled – it’s not quite that hardcore.
Inside you’ve got a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro dual-core processor clocked in at 1.5GHz and 1GB of RAM. So you’ve got an SoC that’s basically as powerful as the first wave of dual-core smartphones from the beginning of last year with half the RAM that any of those devices – like the Galaxy S III or DROID RAZR family – had under their hood.
You do have an 8 megapixel camera on the back of this device with a single LED flash bulb as well as a few fun features in the software attached to it. This device has a 2-megapixel camera up front that you’ll be able to use for video chat as well. This device has 16GB of internal storage and a microSD card slot to add an additional 32GB if you have the need.
Software
Easily the most excellent feature of this device is its set of motion controls. You’ll be able to wave over the display of the Perception to change songs, answer calls, browse through your photo gallery – basically anything you’d normally do with a swipe across the screen with your finger. These controls can also be found – ever-so-slightly different though they may be – in the Samsung GALAXY S 4. Here you’ll find them for a few dollars less, of course.
This device comes with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich right out of the box. That’s bad news for those of you looking to work with Google Now. Verizon has made it clear in the original announcement of this device that Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, but haven’t given a timeframe for such an update.
You’ll get a set of odd apps like Document Viewer for your PDFs and Word files, Net Media for controlling your local network media, and Smart Voice. Pantech’s implementation of this command-ready voice app may appear to be similar to systems like Sherpa and Google’s own voice recognition for search, but we’ve found it to be surprisingly finicky and unhelpful. We’re expecting some upgrades to this system before it can be considered ready for any big battle with the top guns.
You’ll find benchmark results for this device to in some cases be beating previous generations of devices and in others failing miserably. While this device appears to win over a device like the HTC One X in Quadrant with overall score, a significant amount of this comes from memory and I/O while basic CPU power lacks in a large way. This device certainly shouldn’t be picked up if you’re looking to best your buddies at the latest shooting games, that’s for sure.
Camera
The photo software being implemented on this device is oddly enticing – while it’s not up to par with HTC’s current offering in the photography user interface department, it does do the trick. Hidden features like quad-photos and the ability to use voice commands (“cheese!”) to take photos are well received. Have a peek at some examples and see what you make of them.
Above you’ll find an HDR photo example from the Pantech Perception while below you’ll find a photo taken in the same position without HDR activated.
Here you’ll also find a back-facing video demo recorded with the Perception. We’re going from inside to outside and back in and down into a low-lit area with this one. Note the speed at which the camera reacts.
Battery Life
The battery issues with 4G LTE appear to be a thing of the past here in 2013, this holding true for the Pantech Perception. With Qualcomm’s handling of the situation with its modem making the task of transferring data not quite so painful as it was back when Verizon first brought the network to the public, we’ve seen all-day battery life without an issue. The biggest drain on your battery here will be your display, so if you’re aiming for an 8-hour session, you’ll be best off turning the brightness down somewhat.
Wrap-up
The Pantech Perception is a fine addition to Pantech’s archive of relatively unique devices, and makes one wish they’d continue to push forth in the USA for a more on-time release. This device could have been a really great addition to Verizon’s ranks if it’d been brought to the market right around a year ago. Unfortunately, since it’s being shown here in the Spring of 2013, this release falls flat in the face of its much more robust competitors.
Over six months ago, a joint venture between AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon called Isis launched a trial of its nascent mobile payment service in Austin and Salt Lake City. Not only was its debut already delayed, we also haven’t heard more than a peep from the company since. CEO Michael Abbott, who is the keynote speaker at ETA 2013 in New Orleans, has opened the discourse but still isn’t giving many specific details on the future. When we asked him about his company’s expansion plans, Abbott simply told us that “when [we’re] ready, we’ll start putting it out in different places and see where to go from there.” In essence, he views progress in the mobile payments field as a constant evolution, which often involves taking smaller steps to accomplish a greater purpose. You can find the full quote below the break.
Digital rights advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has released their annual report of which companies are the best at protecting its users data from the government, and the results may be surprising to some. The EFF reports that Twitter is the best when it comes to protecting user data, while Verizon, Apple, and didn’t score so great.
The report ranks the policies of various large companies, and see how each company stacks up based on six privacy criteria, including whether or not the company published transparency reports and if they fight for users’ privacy rights in Congress and in court. Twitter came out on top, meeting all six criteria, along with internet service provider Sonic.net.
As for the low scorers, Verizon and MySpace didn’t meet any of the six criteria, while Apple, AT&T, and Yahoo only met one of the criteria. However, other companies that received high marks include Dropbox, Google, and LinkedIn, all of which require a warrant in order for their content to be handed over to government officials.
One of the trends seen in this year’s report is the constant low marks with wireless carriers, with both Verizon and AT&T scoring lowly, and the EFF is calling for wireless carriers to up their game and join the other big companies in doing their users a favor by publishing law enforcement guidelines and regular transparency reports.
Mention the word “cloud” to a 60 year old, and he or she will give you a very different definition to that of the younger, tech savvy generation. After all, many of us work from the cloud itself right now. Just ask yourself, how many important documents have you stashed away onto Google Drive by now? Well, smartphone owners are definitely not “suffering” from the issue of not having enough cloud-based safety nets, considering the range of options available via the likes of Google, iCloud, or other file sync providers.
Well, Verizon is about to throw their lot into the cloud territory by deploying their very own Verizon Cloud service which will function as a crutch for anyone who wants to replace a handset on its network. Verizon Cloud will remain Android only at this point in time (web-only is supported, too) where it will deliver daily backups of your media libraries in addition to a slew of other information such as call logs, contacts and messages. Not only that, Verizon has also thrown in cross-platform safeguards, with an iOS app being in the pipeline, slated as available “soon”, alongside future OS support which ought to allow customers to retrieve some of their data should they decide to switch platforms. Thing is, the first 500MB of space is free, but if you want to do more, then you will have to fork out $3 for 25GB per month, and a monthly fee of $10 for 125GB. [Press Release]
Verizon has rolled out the Android app version of its online storage solution called Verizon Cloud, which isn’t a terribly original name but gets the main point of the service across. With Verizon Cloud, customers can do the same thing they’ve likely been doing with Dropbox and similar services already – upload and store content in the cloud, ensuring that it is always there even if the smartphone ends up lost or needs to be wiped.
Verizon says the service will be rolled out to its customers in the coming weeks, but those running Android can head over to the Google Play Store and grab the app now. Those with an iPhone will have to wait for the iOS app, which is said to be “following soon,” although a specific date wasn’t provided. Once the Apple-centric app rolls out, those who own devices running both mobile operating systems will be able to upload and access their content using the service from both devices.
The carrier says it plans to have other mobile operating systems supported later this year. A total of 125GB of data can be stored using the service, with customers getting the first paltry 500MB of that data for free. That changes after the limit is hit, with users needing to switch to a for-pay subscription that is charged monthly for the duration in which the data is stored.
For $2.99 a month, users can upload up to 25GB of data, with the price increasing a tad from there to $5.99 monthly for 75GB and $9.99 per month for 125GB. Once the 125GB of data is hit, users will have to look elsewhere for their cloud storage needs. The Verizon Cloud app is available for smartphones running Android 2.2 and higher, and is currently sitting at version 13.2.5.
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Mention the word “cloud” to a 60 year old, and he or she will give you a very different definition to that of the younger, tech savvy generation. After all, many of us work from the cloud itself right now. Just ask yourself, how many important documents have you stashed away onto Google Drive by now? Well, smartphone owners are definitely not “suffering” from the issue of not having enough 
