Category Archives: Tech News

Day 2 with the Nokia Lumia 1020 – part 2

Ok, so part 1 looked at bright power sunrise photo shooting. So how about no sun and very overcast. In my mind this is where I started to get really impressed with the 1020. Also, I was able to reframe and zoom in on the cows. The iPhone 5S had no chance in hell getting the level of detail on the cows when zoomed in.

So below is the first shot from the 1020.

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And now a crop of the cows in the distance.

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And now the same shot from the iPhone 5S. But zooming in on the cows wasn’t really that great to view at all.

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So do you agree with my verdicts?

My view of the 1020 is that it really is all about the camera. In some bright light situations it doesn’t in my opinion offer a night and day difference but as soon as the lighting changes, or you need to use some of the pro features it comes into a world of its own. In fact the advanced camera features are brilliant. I took a few pitch black shots and was impressed by the results.

My only disappointment is that the new Nokia Black update is not due to arrive until 2014, and I would have loved to have been able to install this now. Not that it is available in any event.

Using the 1020 as a phone is fine. It’s the Lumia 925 in polycarbonate and with all the weaknesses and strengths of a windows phone.

Day 2 with the Nokia Lumia 1020 – part 1

It was a great sunrise this morning and so I thought I would take a few photos with the Lumia 1020 and iPhone 5S. Later on in the afternoon the sun faded and the light wasn’t very good. So what I have found is that while the 5S takes very good shots, as soon as the light fades, the 1020 can still take really good shots. Also in every shot the 1020 appears to have more detail, and the proof is on the reframing and zooming in on a photo even in poor light. In fact the level of detail possible was impressive on the 1020. And don’t forget the iPhone 5S has hardly any controls for the camera. The 1020 has a wealth of options to help take a stunning photo.

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The photo above was taken with the 1020. Below is the same shot using the iPhone 5S, normal and the other in HDR mode.

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Ok, another view from the 1020 below.

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And now the iPhone 5S , in normal and HDR mode.

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So which do you prefer?

From what I can notice the 1020 does sharpen and saturate the colours more. The 5S is more natural in its results. But there is no denying the 1020 delivers more detail.

Hacking Passwords

BBC Radio 4 have a cracking episode on their Documentary of the Week podcast called Invalid Password

Worth listening to 30 mins of just how easy it is to crack your password. It was done live with the BBC reporter who was rather shocked and non to pleased either. It features the hacker who cracked the passwords from the Linkedin file. He successfully cracked 91% of all the passwords in 5 days!

It also highlights just how crap our passwords are and indeed why we should use password generators.

Updated – First Podcast with new audio

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Dave from UKMobileTech and myself have teamed up to create a new tech podcast.

It’s our first podcast, so please be kind.

So if you haven’t listened already go and listen. Click here Gav & Dave’s Tech Podcast

You can contact me on twitter @gavinfabiani and Dave @davidmarkrich .

If you wish to subscribe to our podcast, copy and paste this URL into your favourite podcast app http://GGUKMT.podbean.com/feed/

Thanks for all your positive feedback so far, it is greatly appreciated.

Update – it’s now live in iTunes. Click here for iTunes.

Update 2 – the audio has been improved with no crackling. Episode 2 is coming shortly.

Amazon has balls

I couldn’t believe this when I heard Amazon had launched Amazon Source.

The Amazon Source programme, launching first in the US, lets bookshops sell the devices and receive a small cut of e-book sales thereafter for the first 2 years.

But reaction has been hostile with US booksellers furious with such an audacious move.

Amazon said bookshops “should be striving to offer customers what they want”. Announcing the initiative earlier this week the company said: “With Amazon Source, customers don’t have to choose between e-books and their favourite neighbourhood bookstore – they can have both.”

Yeah right Amazon. More like how to steal customers from the little guy! Then knock them out of business. Or is this move by Amazon actually a positive move? Let me know what your views are on this.

The openness of android is closing bit by bit

It should come as no surprise that the once big claim of Google was it free open sharing platform has taken a different turn. This is due to Google wanting control back and I don’t blame them.

Google has practically released large chunks of its operating system as apps in the Google Play store. As more and more parts of the operating system get launched on the play store, this means Google is under no obligation to provide the source code of its apps and can slowly claw back control again.

Just go to the play store and search “Google”. The list of apps ranges from Google Keyboard, Play Music, Play Books, Gmail, Google Calendar and so on.

It’s ironic that the main draw of android originally was that it was free and open. It has become so big, it now has become necessary for Google to reign it back in, and become more like Apple and Microsoft. That’s not a bad thing, and it might reduce fragmentation and enable Google’s services and apps to remain updated on everyone’s android phone without the carrier or manufacturer interfering.

Google Street View inside an airport – surely not on the grounds of security?

Google has stitched together more than 2,000 images taken inside the U.K.’s second busiest airport, Gatwick, which has some 34 million passengers tramping through it each year, so now you can take a virtual tour of it.

When I learnt about this I thought surely this cannot be true. But it is. It is great if you are travelling into the UK and want to familiarise yourself with the airport layout, but surely that visual is just as useful if you are a criminal or nutcase.

Personally, I think this is one step to far with street view, but sadly this won’t be the last airport to be visualised in this way. What do you think?