| Shock horror: iOS 8 Control Centre in not-so-drastic makeover scandal Jul 22nd 2014, 14:58, by James Rogerson 
iOS 8 isn't yet ready for public consumption yet, as Apple's still tweaking it and ironing out the bugs. But thanks to the existence of a developer preview, it's a fairly open process with changes arriving in each new build. The latest version, iOS 8 beta 4, has just landed, and while most of the changes are aimed at stability and squashing the aforementioned bugs, there is one visual change which particularly stands out: the humble Control Centre. Functionally it's the same as ever, but eagle-eyed observers will notice that the black borders around icons are gone and that the circles are filled with white when activated, whereas in the current version the black border and the icon itself turns white. This changes everything. Again. May not be finalIt's a minor alteration that's unlikely to cause too much division. Personally we're not sure it was a change for the better as we like the relative subtlety of the old style. It's worth noting though that there's no guarantee it will still look like this come release. Apple is regularly making changes to the preview build so it may well change it again before the final version arrives. But while nothing is set in stone this could well be the future look of Control Centre.        |  | Meet the handset claiming to be the 'world's fastest smartphone' Jul 22nd 2014, 10:04, by John McCann 
Xiaomi may not be particularly well known outside of China, but in its homeland it's a huge company with a dedicated following - and it's just launched a new smartphone in the form of the Xiaomi Mi 4. With a 2.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor and 3GB of RAM, Xiaomi reckons the Mi 4 is the 'world's fastest smartphone'. It does ever so slightly trump the 2.3GHz quad-core 801 chip and 3GB of RAM found inside the Sony Xperia Z2, so it has some decent grounding for its claim. As well as a decent amount of power the Mi 4 also boasts a 5-inch full HD display, the choice of either 16GB or 64GB of internal storage, a 13MP rear camera, 8MP front snapper and a 3080mAh battery. Apple-likeIn terms of design it looks like Xiaomi has taken a leaf out of Apple's book with a stainless steel band encompassing the slender device. Price wise the Xiaomi Mi 4 is quoted at a rather affordable $320 (around £190, AU$340) for the 16GB model, and $400 (around £240, AU$430) for the 64GB variant. Xiaomi has previously said that it wants to expand its reach in global markets, although it's not clear how far reaching the Mi 4 will be - it may well be an import only option in many countries.        | | Telstra and Optus to begin switching on 700MHz spectrum Jul 21st 2014, 23:56, by Farrha Khan 
Both Optus and Telstra will begin switching on their 4G 700MHz networks this week in six locations across the country. Telstra announced that it will conduct commercial trials using 20MHz of the 700MHz spectrum band in Darwin, Perth, Fremantle, Mt Isa, Mildura and Griffith, while Optus will be switching on its 700MHz network in Darwin and Perth CBDs. This follows the final analog TV switch off occurring last year, while Telstra, Optus and TPG had bought up the spectrum during the Digital Dividend in early 2013. The freed up 700MHz spectrum is scheduled to be switched on across nationwide in January 2015. Next-gen 4GTelstra and Optus were both granted early access commercial licences by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). Optus has noted that switching on its the 700MHz spectrum network in Darwin this week will also mark the first time an Optus 4G service has been available in that region. "Using 700MHz we'll be able to improve the indoor experience for our customers around the country and bring more choice to the 4G market by offering Optus 4G for the first time in places like Darwin," said Vic McClelland, Managing Director of Optus Networks. It allows us to move beyond the testing phase into what customers experience on our live commercial network and enables us to deliver an enhanced 4G network experience." With the early access, Telstra will be conducting commercial trials using 20MHz of the 700MHz spectrum band at the six locations mentioned above, allowing the network to combine the spectrum with the 1800MHz spectrum band to offer 4G Advanced. "It will be capable of providing customers double the speeds they currently experience on the 4G network, plus better 4G coverage indoors and beyond," said Mike Wright, Telstra Group Managing Director Networks, of the telco's 4G Advanced network. "In addition to faster speeds, this combination of two spectrum bands also doubles the 4G capacity of our network, which means it can support more customers, using more devices, doing more of the things they love at the same time." 700MHz devicesCurrently, 700MHz compatible devices include HTC One M8 and Samsung Galaxy S5 handsets, as well as Telstra's Advance Pro X Category 6 Wi-Fi hotspot. It is expected that more compatible devices will make its way to Australia before the end of the year. All wireless audio equipment operating in the 700MHz spectrum band can still be used up until the end of 2014. Early access to the band will help the telcos determine and test how such equipment affects the new networks until the end of the year.   | | The mobile SoC arms race: where are we heading? Jul 21st 2014, 23:00, by Désiré Athow 
Our appetite for smartphones and tablets has become insatiable and the mobile boom has perhaps become the defining feature of the technology industry over the past decade. This has made the mobile semiconductor business one of the most profitable around, with manufacturers desperately vying to get inside the most famous smart devices. Among the pack is the less-known SoC maker MediaTek, so we spoke to the company's VP and GM for Europe, Siegmund Redl, to get the low down on life in such a competitive market space. TechRadar Pro: Why do you think there's a need for more cores when the OS and apps are not fully optimised for handling so many? Siegmund Redl: Hardware is the enabler for software – in terms of evolution of this kind of technology, you always see the hardware coming first and then the software developers lean on it and exploit it; this will happen in Android as well, enabled by more cores, smoother and faster operation, higher performance and better user experience. TRP: We're witnessing the equivalent of an arms race in mobile SoC with more of everything piled on (radio, cores etc). Is there a risk that the whole industry will plateau too quickly? SR: Since the introduction of mobile telephony and then mobile data processing there has been tremendous development on all technology fronts. For the first time with 20nm, Moore's law will be broken, but only in the fact that cost is not adequately reduced as in previous iterations. Other than that, I still do not see a plateau as there will always be new challenges the industry will be facing – and solving! For example, LTE-A with multiple band carrier aggregation, MIMO Antenna Technology, higher density and higher resolution display (at reasonable power consumption), and so forth. TRP: Do you expect a commoditization of SoC to happen soon? SR: The features and performance in SoC of today will be commoditized tomorrow, that has always been the case and that will continue in the future. New feature challenges will lead to higher cost and complexity, and the industry will find a way to aggregate this in streamlined commoditized products. In fact, 2G and 3G features and smartphone chipsets for the mainstream markets can be considered a commodity today, available through a variety of chip vendors. Adding new levels of complexity, however, may be challenging for some industry players, because investment into R&D is very high. TRP: How important is 64-bit to Mediatek and the rest of the industry? SR: 64-bit will find its place into mainstream mobile devices as it supports higher memory footprints and allows the re-use of software, which will be built (once) for a variety of (64-bit) devices like Workstation/PC, netbook/laptop/tablet PC, TV-set, and smartphones. 64-bit is the way to go for MediaTek and we were amongst the first in the industry to go down this path. TRP: What is Mediatek doing to increase its presence in the market and become a more recognised brand? SR: We have just re-launched the new MediaTek brand with the tagline "everyday genius". By that, we want to create the notion that everyone, everyday can achieve a special experience in using products that are based on MediaTek technology. We are inclusive and enable everyone to participate in this connected world by making devices affordable. The brand building itself will be a process that we hope will find its way into the interested consumer who will connect MediaTek "everyday genius" with affordable, well performing devices and highly rewarding user experiences. TRP: How many devices from the top 5 vendors can we expect to be powered by Mediatek by year's end? SR: We have over 80 customers making smartphones based on our platforms and many of these companies represent international brands and some are found in the top 10 of smartphone makers. We have had approximately 1,500 smartphone projects to date (since 2010/2011), so expect a good selection coming up with the newly released and announced SoCs. TRP: What will be your big focus in 2015? How will you evolve over the next 12 months? SR: 2014 is the year when we start to deliver on LTE. 2015 will be the year where MediaTek will become mass volume provider of LTE SoC into the mainstream but also into the higher end. Through LinkIt, you should see the first products and ideas materialize in the internet of things domain over the next 12 – 18 months. TRP: What do you consider to be Mediatek's biggest threats and challenges? SR: Keeping up with the pace of technical requirements from different and varying markets is always a challenge and sometimes you need to make bold decisions about what to do and what not to do. So far, MediaTek has proven to be on the right track to get into a position from which we will help enable the next 3 billion users – 80% of which will be in the middle sweet spot, we call the "super-mid market" – and the plethora of connected devices to come. TRP: How enthused, or not, are you about Windows Phone 8 and Windows RT? SR: We are certainly watching the market developments in that direction as well – for the time being our chosen path for smartphone OS support, however, is Android.   | | Updated: Yahoo acquires mobile analytics company Flurry Jul 21st 2014, 22:59, by Juan Martinez 
Yahoo has acquired mobile advertising analytics company Flurry. The company will pay at least $300 million for Flurry, according to reports. Flurry offers mobile advertisers the ability to leverage consumer data to produce personalized advertisements via banner ads, interstitials and video. The technology measures user behavior in applications by tracking taps, level completions, and purchases in order to understand the user 's path to purchase. Flurry is installed on 540,000 apps, including BCC, Skype and Zynga. The company was founded in 2005 and is based in San Francisco. Mayer's mobile missionYahoo has more than 450 million monthly active mobile device users. The company's search and display mobile ad revenues increased 100% over the past two years. Acquiring Flurry would enable Yahoo to build off of this momentum by providing its advertisers with a more in-depth ad publishing and reporting platform. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer recently said she believes contextual search could put Yahoo at the top of the search engine market. By tracking data, such as location and prior activity, Yahoo hopes to be able to take advantage of how users interact with search and what leads them to making a purchase. Beating GoogleMayer is intent on replacing Google as the default search engine on Apple's iOS devices. Yahoo is focused on building a viable mobile search engine to pitch to Apple as an alternative to Google. She also recently spoke of her focus on beefing up the company's mobile DNA. "When I got to Yahoo, mobile was everyone's hobby," Mayer quipped. "Everyone did a little bit of [mobile] and it was literally no one's job." Since she joined the company in 2012, Yahoo has built a mobile team of more than 500 employees, and the company has made approximately 30 mobile-based acquisitions.        | | Sony Xperia Z2 goes on sale in the US for $700 Jul 21st 2014, 20:42, by Michelle Fitzsimmons 
Hankering for a new phone and have $699.99 to spare? Sony's quite good Xperia Z2 may be right up your alley. The phone that's been on sale in other regions is finally available in the US starting today. It's being sold direct from Sony's online store for the unlocked price quoted above. This is actually a $50 discount over its listing price and perhaps the best deal you can get for the handset with no carrier attached (no carries have actually jumped to carry the phone). Available in purple, black or white, the Xperia Z2 features a 20.7MP camera capable of recording 4K video. The screen measures 5.2 inches and is backed by a 2.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor. The dust-resistant and waterproof phone also packs a hefty 3GB of RAM. The question is, is all that worth $700? No monthly carrier payments may sway the answer towards "yes," though your bank account may beg to differ.        | | BBC Sport app does a little Grandstanding with Chromecast support Jul 21st 2014, 19:10, by Chris Smith 
The BBC Sport apps for iOS and Android have become the latest to join the Google Chromecast party. Mobile device owners with equipped with the Chromecast HDMI streaming dongle can now stream content and directly to their television set or computer screen. That means like all of the live sporting action screened via the app, such as the Commonwealth Games which gets underway in Glasgow this week, can be easily viewed on a larger display. "Cast live and on-demand video to your TV using Chromecast," says Google in the new release notes. AirPlay alternativeThe BBC Sport app joins the iPlayer in the Chromecast stable, as the platform continues to look more like a viable alternative to the Apple TV AirPlay functionality. Early this month Google rolled out full screen mirroring on Android devices, allowing smartphone and tablet owners to send their entire display to the television. The new BBC Sport apps for iOS and Android are available to download now from the respective portals.        | | Moto G2 pops up with beefed up specs and familiar looks Jul 21st 2014, 18:40, by klee 
Along with the Moto X+1 it seems Motorola is also hard at work on the Moto G's follow-up. New images and specs of the rumored Moto G2 have shown up on Mallandono Android. It looks like the updated handset will have a very similar style to the original Moto G and share the same screen resolution of 1280 x 720. However, there's no word on actual display size. Purported specs suggest the Moto G2 will be slightly beefed up with a quad-core ARM V7 (VFPv4 NEON) processor and an Adreno 305 GPU. The Moto G successor will also supposedly sport an 8MP rear camera have have dual SIMS, meaning it can host two phone numbers at once. 
There's still a lot unknown about the handset including details on RAM, storage space and battery size, but this is a good start. Lowest bid winsAlong with the rumored specs and images comes the tantalizing whisper that the handset could be sold at a lower price than the $179/£100 (about AU$190) Moto G. Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside hinted as much back in January asking, "Why can't these devices be $50?" In the past Motorola has done better in the smartphone market with its affordable Moto G and Moto E handsets than the lukewarm reception of the Moto X. In these circumstances, makes sense that the Lenovo-conscripted company would be interested in making the next Moto G even more affordable. - Will Motorola go with a trifecta of two new smartphones and the Moto 360 smarwatch?
       | | Microsoft reportedly axed its McLaren phone with Kinect-like controls Jul 21st 2014, 18:14, by JR Bookwalter 
Goldfinger may not have been the kiss of death for James Bond, but a Windows Phone prototype originally bearing the same name appears to have met its maker in the form of ... its maker. WPCentral reported last week that Microsoft has apparently cancelled plans for a new high-end Windows Phone handset known as "McLaren," an internal codename previously referred to as "Goldfinger." Apparently lacking the Midas touch, McLaren was rumored to be Microsoft's flagship device for this fall, which would have reportedly introduced new technology alongside the launch of Windows Phone 8.1 Update 2. McLaren's main claim to fame was an enticing new feature known as 3D Touch, a sensor-based system first outed in November 2013 that allows users to interact with the device using touchless hand gestures. Feature or gimmick?Although that sounds more than a little like the new Amazon Fire Phone, Microsoft apparently found a way to perform such tasks as swipes and side taps without the use of camera sensors. 3D Touch worked hand-in-hand with other APIs including MixView, a feature which lets a single tile break apart into smaller pieces, each of which could be independently selected using a finger hovering over the display. WPCentral's report paints the impression that Microsoft's development team found 3D gestures to be little more than a gimmick at the moment, although development on the technology behind 3D Touch is said to be ongoing even as McLaren turns cold. While one assumption might be that McLaren was axed as a result of last week's extensive layoffs, unnamed sources claim the project actually its end sometime "within the last few weeks," leaving Microsoft with a potentially big hole in its 2014 holiday lineup. - Soak in our full review of Microsoft's Xbox One!
       | | Alleged Sony Xperia Z Ultra sequel looks amazing, but is it the real deal? Jul 21st 2014, 17:35, by Chris Smith 
While Sony is busy preparing the landscape for the forthcoming Xperia Z3 handset, rumours emanating from the Chinese media have suggested the firm might also have something a little bigger on the agenda. Renders of an alleged 'Xperia Z3X' device, a phablet to succeed the Xperia Z Ultra perhaps, have emerged at Digi-wo.com along with a collection of rather impressive would-be specifications. The virtually bezel-less 6.14-inch ZX3 would come with a 2560 x 1152 Sony's Trimaster EL OLED display, which would be the first of its kind for a gadget smaller than the current 7.4- to 25-inch production ranges. The photos also show a massive camera sensor on the rear of the device, perhaps even larger in physical size than the Lumia Pureview camera phones. The accompanying specs peg the sensor at 22-megapixels. If the renders are the real deal, it also seems as if Sony would be looking to market the device as a camera replacement, judging by the substantial accessories also pictured. Pretty flyKeeping the blockbusting specs coming, the rumour also speaks of a 64-bit octa-core Snapdragon 810 processor doing the donkey work. All of that would be squeezed into a chassis measuring up at 69.5 x 150.1 x 7.9mm. What do you think? Does the Xperia Z3X look a little too impressive to be true or are we really looking at the flyest phablet on the block? Share your thoughts below.        | | BlackBerry poaches former LiveOps CEO Marty Beard Jul 21st 2014, 15:29, by Juan Martinez 
BlackBerry has named former LiveOps Chief Executive Officer Marty Beard Chief Operating Officer. As COO, Beard is responsible for BlackBerry's marketing, BlackBerry 10 Application Development, customer care and quality control. Beard had been CEO of LiveOps since 2011. He joined the cloud applications company after serving as President at Sybase 365 for six years. At Sybase, which was acquired by SAP in 2010, Beard served under BlackBerry CEO John Chen who served as CEO of Sybase from 1998 to 2012. Prior to Sybase, Beard was Vice President of Oracle Online for three years. A tough taskBeard's job will be to turn around the perception of BlackBerry, which once dominated the enterprise smartphone market but has seen its market share steadily decline in the past few years. During the first quarter of 2014, BlackBerry suffered a quarterly loss of $423 million (£254 million, AU$457 million). BlackBerry brought in just $976 million (£586 million, AU$1 billion) in revenue for the three months ending on March 1. BlackBerry recently formed a partnership that gave IBM the ability to directly manage devices running the BlackBerry 10 operating system. At the time, the move was seen as a coup for BlackBerry. Unfortunately for BlackBerry, the IBM partnership was overshadowed last week when Apple also formed an exclusive partnership with IBM to develop more than 100 industry-specific data and analytics apps developed for Apple's mobile devices. BlackBerry 10Beard will also have to improve BlackBerry 10, a device even Chen admitted takes a while to get used to using. "The key is it took me a while to get used to it. For most consumers if they get to our new phone and it's not intuitively obvious they get a little shy and they don't want to continue using it," Chen said in February.        | | Windows Phone's Cortana will hit the UK in 'less than two weeks' Jul 21st 2014, 09:04, by Hugh Langley 
Not even the Halo universe is immune from this tough economic climate, so Cortana has taken a second job as Windows Phone's voice assistant - though only for people living in the US right now. But she's on her way to Britain, and Microsoft has confirmed that the developer preview is less than two weeks away. Responding to someone on Twitter, Marcus Ash, Group Program Manager of Cortana, said: "Barring an unforeseen issue, down to less than 2 weeks for the developer preview." It's in the chipsSo long as Cortana has managed to get her head around the important difference between American and British "chips", we should see her here in less than a fortnight. Microsoft has been teasing a UK launch since May, but it sounds like the launch was pushed back by a few weeks. Ash said it was a "tough project" but confirmed that Cortana will be putting on her best British accent when she arrives.   | |
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