Samsung has outed its new Smart Control remote for its 2014 line of televisions. The restyled remote is now Pebble-shaped, for a better grip, and has an 80 per cent smaller touchpad that remains within thumbs-reach.
There’s voice and motion control integration alongside a Soccer Mode that enhances the viewing experience with a single button.The new Smart Control remote will be on show at CES 2014.
Good news if you have a Sony Z Ultra. Sony is extending the case options to include the Z Ultra.
I imagine the lenses are proving rather popular.
The upcoming Galaxy Note Pro was rumoured to have been demoed in South Korea a few days ago. According to ZDNet Korea, the 12.2-inch Galaxy Note Pro will be released in the first quarter of next year, at CES 2014. The tablet is said to have a 2560 x 1600 resolution LCD display, 2.4GHz processor, 3GB of RAM, 9500mAh battery and Android 4.4 KitKat. A9500mAH battery would mean that the Galaxy Note Pro will have the largest battery of any Samsung device to this point. In addition, the device will weigh 1.7 pounds, and measure 11.6 x 8.0 inches and 14.1-inch diagonally.
But really the specs are meaningless. It is also about the software integration that will really count as well.
I thought it would be a good idea to get the Samsung Note 3 again. It arrived yesterday at 11am, took over 2 hours to complete 7 software updates one after the other. If that wasn’t bad enough every app installed seemed to have an update even after 7 software updates. Then every Samsung app or service had same issue.
I have tried two hard resets wiping the phone clean and starting again. 2 restores after a hard reset. And despite the Samsung and Google backups in place, the restore process is crap compared to that provide by Apple for iPhones and iPads. None of the layouts are remembered in the restore and no app data either. Useless.
As I write this at 6pm I still don’t have a fully working phone. The positive. It’s a great piece of tech. Lovely sound quality via headphones, camera better than expected actually took best photo to date of my dog George. See below. This compares even to the amazing Nokia Lumia 1020 and iPhone 5S. It has the kitchen sink of specifications and I love every aspect of it.
But it cannot play music streamed via Google, using Google Play Music. It plays one track, maybe a second, but on third no sound comes out of the headphones even though the track is playing. If you pause song and press play again you hear sound immediately.
So, I have to ask why were there 7 software updates? Why not consolidate them into one, and update the default applications at the same time?
Not sure whether I have a faulty phone re the music issues, as I have read about other people having same issues. It’s a real pity as the technology inside the device is magical.
As an update it appears Google Play Music app got updated and became incompatible with many Note 3’s, see screen shot below of review of app..
So welcome to 2014.
Can anyone tell me what happened to 2013?
So what resolutions did you make for 2014? And have you already broken them 🙂
I made a resolution not to change my tablet for 2 years *cough* and to keep the same phone for at least 6 months *chokes*.
Yesterday, I arranged for a 9am Apple Store Genius appointment to explore my 5S problems. 10 mins later I was leaving with a new iPhone 5S. It was that simple, no fuss just a quick explanation of the problems I was having with my battery, reboots and finger print scanner.
Even though I cannot complain with the whole manner, I do feel that if iOS 7 software is the root cause and I have simply been fogged off with a new phone then I will have the same problems. Time will tell, so I will keep you in the loop. Of course, a rogue app or two could have been the issue as well.
So here’s the killer Apple feature with their iOS devices, iPod Touches, iPhones and iPads. iCloud Backup. So I have a brand new iPhone. I hit restore. All my apps, games, settings and data are restored over the air in 2 hours flat. Within 2 hours I have connected to my mac and restored my 2,000 photos and 1,000 songs too on to my 5S. iCloud Keychain handles all my passwords now to the point I don’t know what my actual passwords are. I can enter into iCloud Keychain and copy out the password for any app(s) that needed a password. So music, media, photos, passwords, accounts, settings, saved data and 260 apps/games all back on my iPhone 5S , as easy as ABC. Try and do that out of the box on any other operating system.
As an update so far battery is slightly better but not amazing. Maybe, it’s the design. Slim phone for stylish finish equals small battery. For light to medium users the battery should last a day. For heavier users a charge point is essential.
In the meantime, I am expecting a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 to arrive later today so I will see how it fares.
Teenagers are ditching their Facebook accounts in droves, according to newly-published research into social networking habits across Europe by Global Social Media Impact study.
Instead of Facebook, youngsters are gravitating to the likes of Snapchat, WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook-owned Instagram, where their parents are less likely to be monitoring their activity or asking them what time they’re going to be home for tea.
According to Daniel Miller, a professor at University College London and lead anthropologist on the research team, “Facebook is not just on the slide – it is basically dead and buried.”
Social networks are sometimes just a fashion that ties and fall to the next new social network. But there are too many people on Facebook for it to be dead and buried.
I have been thinking about reviewing products using YouTube as well as having written content. But I wanted to gauge your views on whether you feel this will be useful or not?
BOSTON (Reuters) – A hacker secretly took over a computer server at the BBC, Britain’s public broadcaster, and then launched a Christmas Day campaign to convince other cyber criminals to pay him for access to the system.
While it is not known if the hacker found any buyers, the BBC’s security team responded to the issue on Saturday and believes it has secured the site, according to a person familiar with the cleanup effort.
A BBC spokesman declined to discuss the incident. “We do not comment on security issues,” he said.
Reuters could not determine whether the hackers stole data or caused any damage in the attack, which compromised a server that manages an obscure password-protected website.
It was not clear how the BBC, the world’s oldest and largest broadcaster, uses that site, ftp.bbc.co.uk, though ftp systems are typically used to manage the transfer of large data files over the Internet.
Another major organisation hacked. Just how unsafe is the internet. Will we be forced to an offline world in the future ?
Whether you like Google+ integration or not, as far as Google is concerned, there’s no turning back now. In an interview with Livemint, Google’s Steve Grove, director of partnerships for Google+, went into some detail about how the company plans to stretch Google+ even further in the future: “We’ve been consolidating the different services, so today Search, YouTube, the Google Play app store, all this plugs into Google+. And the reason for that is that Google+ is kind of like the next version of Google.”
Google+ is a Facebook type network which you may not realise you are already part of if you use Gmail or YouTube. But with Google’s plans this could be stretched even further.
Just how will you feel about this move and your lack of privacy ?
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