All posts by Gavin Fabiani-Laymond

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About Gavin Fabiani-Laymond

President, CEO & Editor of https://gavinsgadgets.com Reviews & News of Technology

If the iPhone 6 was free would that be the end of Android?

There are two differentiators with iPhones and android devices. Price. The iPhone 5 costs a lot of money and yet android is significantly less and therefore more people will buy one based on price.

But what if the iPhone 6 went free. Apple could adopt the Google or Amazon model and make money from the software sales. Would this kill off android?

I doubt will we ever know, since I cannot see Apple moving along this business model. Not unless water freezes in hell first.

The Samsung Unicorn ads are for real – game released

Starting earlier this year, Samsung has been running a series of commercials that follow a mythical company developing a Unicorn Apocalypse game. Samsung has released the Unicorn Apocalypse on the Google Play Store. In the game, you play as the lone unicorn that wreaks havoc on humanity. Samsung has provided the unicorn with magic dash powers and rainbow lasers to help in the battle against the Anti Unicorn Force. Link here.

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SimCity – having some downtime

There are benefits of connected games and there are negatives too.

So for all the fancy graphics if you have no Internet at either your end or at EA games end, you cannot play. If EA turn off the servers in future years, all your effort and game play is over.

And don’t think EA wouldn’t do this, they have on other games already.

The current situation with SimCity and EA servers is so bad, Amazon has stopped allowing US customers to buy the game.

Lets hope the mess gets resolved quickly.

Tesco goes into streaming services

Tesco is a retail behemoth which, has turned into a one-stop shop for everything from a pint of milk to the latest video game releases and tasty horse burgers.

Last year, Tesco acquired both a music streaming service and an e-book publisher. Later this year, services known as Blinkboxmusic and Blinkboxbooks, run by Gavin Sathianathan, who was previously Head of Retail (EMEA) at Facebook, and will head up the e-book offering, while Mark Bennett, formerly Head of Digital & Cross Channel at rival super-supermarket Sainsbury’s, will run the musical endeavor. Tesco also announced that former Blinkbox exec Scott Deutrom is taking the reins of Clubcard TV, a new ad-supported video streaming service currently being tested.

Is Tesco the next Amazon?

TVCatchup website in hot water – updated

My favourite iPhone app TVCatchup has been dealt a legal blow. The top European Court has, ruled that UK-based website TVCatchup cannot transmit live TV streams online without the permission of broadcasters.

In a case brought against the site (and dozens of others) by ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5, the European Court of Justice ruled that as “authors” of the content, they have the right to forbid its use elsewhere.

TVCatchup had argued that licenses granted to the channels by Ofcom also covered “subsidiary services” such as its own and claimed it was not breaking copyright law by re-transmitting free-to-air broadcasts.

In a statement, on behalf of all three broadcasters, ITV said it was now free to pursue legal action against unauthorised sites that sought to broadcast its content.

Like any legal case its never over, and TVCatchup director Bruce Pilley insisted that the service was operating within the law and claimed the ECJ’s ruling would only affect around 30 per cent of its 12 million members and that TVCatchup.com is here to stay. Big words but I’m not sure it will work for them.

Update – TV Catchup responded directly to me via twitter. See here.

EA Games CFO back tracks

EA games received negative press over its plans to include in app purchases in its games. I sense more and more people getting frustrated over this greed where the in app purchases can cost more than a full size console game that is far superior than any phone game!

CFO Blake Jorgensen of EA Games has gone on record to say not all its games will feature in app purchases. I sense social media pressure has caused him to change his tune.

My advice to EA is to charge £10 for a decent game and have no in app purchases.

Would you pay £10 for a game that meant you would not have to buy any in app purchases.

iPhone 5 vs Samsung Galaxy Note 2 – Battery comparisons

On Thursday I left rural Dartmoor, and travelled to London. It was the first time I was away from my mains power or car charger.

One thing shocked me about the iPhone 5 was its poor battery life that day. It went flat at 8pm coming off charge at 6.30am and spending over 6 hours on airplane mode to save battery. I did some investigation and realised the jail break was impacting the battery, but I also looked at the official specs and compared it to the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 and S3.

The iPhone 5 states it can browse the Internet for 8 hours on 3G and 10 hours on wifi. Since I used wifi most of the time, that might explain why I felt the loss of battery. It has a standby time of only 225 hours. The Samsung S3 is similar but has a standby time 3 times that of the iPhone 5. That seems odd.

But we all know the Note 2 is famed for its size and battery life. And here’s why. The Note 2 can browse the Internet over 3G for 16 hours and has a standby time of nearly 950 hours.

This clearly shows all phones of smartphone capabilities need to have the Note 2 stamina.

Technology application in cars – no more scraping frosted windscreens

Winter mornings spent shivering and scraping the ice from your windscreen are over. Scientists have developed a coating for glass which keeps it clear regardless to whether its ice or snow. Anything that is.

Created by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it repels rain but absorbs moisture from the environment rather than allowing it to gather as condensation.

The coating is a ‘zwitter-wettable surface’ which absorbs molecular moisture from the environment but repels rain.This means that, in effect, rain will bounce off the surface but dampness in the air will be absorbed rather than allowed to gather as condensation on the surface.

I will only believe in such a system if it is tested on Dartmoor, Devon. Here we have the highest rainfall in the UK, lots of snow, ice and fog.