Techradar reported that months of waiting and procrastinating, the long-awaited Google Chromecast streaming dongle will finally go on sale in the UK this coming Wednesday 19 March, according to leaked Dixons retail inventory revealed on Twitter.
My only concern is it’s limited use at the moment. So who wants one or has obtained one already? And if you have one, what did you use it for?
Sometimes the simplest things are the best. I bought 2 of these Masterplug USB Surge Protected Chargers so I could use one downstairs and another upstairs.
It’s great as I can charge a phone, tablet via the USB and still plug in another appliance and it’s all surge protected in a tidy space of just one plug.
I was shopping in Plymouth and popped into my local Sony Centre enquiring about the Sony SBH-80 Bluetooth headset. It’s a new headset but because it was advertised on the Sonymobile website as opposed to the Sony.co.uk website the Sony Centre shop advised they may not be able to order item for me.
What on earth is Sony trying to do? Consumers will just see Sony on the branding and be bemused by this situation. Meanwhile, this could impact the survival of a really good store.
O2 online and in the retail stores from today (UK) are selling the Samsung Galaxy Gear at 50% off. So it’s now £124.99.
My local O2 store had stock too.
Morrisons says the vast majority of its staff have been affected by the theft of payroll data.
BBC business correspondent Emma Simpson has been told that details of around 100,000 employees have been stolen.
The information, which includes bank account details, has been published online and sent on a disc to a newspaper, according to the firm.
Morrisons said its initial investigation does not point to the work of an outside hacker.
The Bradford-based chain sought to allay shoppers’ fears by saying there had been no loss of customer data.
Morrisons says that staff will be not be “financially disadvantaged” by the data theft.
The company’s response is being led by Chief Executive, Dalton Philips.
He is working with the police and cyber crime authorities to track down the source.
More at BBC News.
I bought the above book after hearing about it on the Cultcasts podcast. I got it from Amazon Kindle Store as a digital download.
I have now finished reading the book and it really does offer a no holds bar look at Apple. In fact if you are an Apple Fan Boy you might even take offence. But you shouldn’t. Nothing in the book is revolutionary but it is very well written.
And it does make me think hard at some of the devices I have owned and the dangerous tortuous conditions workers endured.
Well worth a read in my opinion.
Hiroshi Mikitani, chief executive officer of the Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten Inc. (4755), aims to expand to 2 billion users with his acquisition of messaging service Viber Media Inc.
Growth for Viber’s free messaging and Internet calling app is already accelerating. It’s adding 600,000 users daily, up by about 50,000 from Feb. 14 when the deal was announced, and that can rise to a million a day, Mikitani said in an interview. Viber had about 300 million users at the time of the deal.
Mikitani, 48, is plowing cash into technologies such as mobile applications and online video as he seeks to expand Rakuten beyond its core business as an online marketplace. The strategy has led to rising competition with companies such as SoftBank Corp. (9984), Amazon.com Inc. and Facebook Inc. (FB), which agreed to pay $19 billion for the messaging service WhatsApp just five days after Rakuten unveiled its deal.
Viber is a good messaging service but competition in very tough in this arena so it will be interesting to see how this unfolds.
More at Bloomberg.
Google has just heavily reduced its Google Drive storage plans to just $1.99 a month for 100gb of data storage. This limit works across all Google Products including your photos and gmail.
Apple’s iCloud storage costs seem very expensive in comparison. 50gb of data costs £70 a year. That’s not even 100gb. Apple really needs to amend its pricing structure before it loses everyone to Google.
Above photo courtesy of @evleaks and additional info below from GSM Arena.
So GSM Arena have stated the following – the specs known so far are – The HTC One (2014) will measure 146.36 x 70.6 x 9.35, making it a little thicker than its main rivals. Weight is set at 160g. The screen will indeed be a 5″ 1080p unit. The processor is quoted to be a quad-core 2.3 GHz Snapdragon 801, while the battery capacity will be 2,600 mAh. The SIM is said to be of the nano variety (like on the iPhone 5, 5c and 5s, Moto X, etc.) and there will be a microSD card slot to compliment the preloaded 16 GB of storage (10GB of which will b e user available). There’s no world on the camera resolution but the rest of the specs appear the same as last year’s model – 1/3.0″ size, f/2.0 aperture, 2µm pixel size, etc. suggesting the resolution could again be 4 MP. According to the leaked guide the video capture is still 1080p and not 4K. There will also be a rapid improvement in the front-facing camera which will now pack 5MP sensor. A Barometer is also said to be on board, but FM Radio is a no-go.
So the second camera is for changing the focus after the shot and 3D effects.
BUT. The standout points that concern me is the phone only having 10gb user free internal storage. The memory card slot doesn’t solve where to save large apps and games or data that can only be stored in the internal memory. I hope there is a 32gb model like there was last year with the memory card expansion. I do wonder if this move to lower internal memory is a decision made with networks to force people to buy higher data contracts as they will need to use cloud services more and more.
The second concern is the main rear camera. If it’s the same 4mp affair as last years then I will be disappointed unless they have worked out how to get decent amount of pixels into a photo. This becomes more apparent with landscape shots. On screen they looked fabulous but as soon as you tried to crop or zoom there the image became pixelated due to lack of pixels. If you want to recap on my mega HTC One 2013 review click here.
Otherwise the HTC One 2014 is shaping up to a decent device.
Ever been stuck deep down inside Netflix on the Apple TV and wished there was a way to instantly jump all the way back to the main Home screen? Ever been frustrated by fast forward going too slow or too fast and wished you could simply skip chapter by chapter instead? Ever had Home screen icons disappear or services say they’re not available and wished you could reboot with only a couple of clicks? Well, you can! The little aluminum remote that comes with the Apple TV might not seem like much but there are a lot of options hidden behind those buttons. Here are some of the best!
How to instantly jump back to the Apple TV Home screen
How to put your Apple TV to sleep with one button press
How to jump through video chapters on Apple TV
How to quickly pair and unpair an Apple TV remote
How to reset your Apple TV in two button presses
How to mark videos as watched or unwatched with the Apple TV remote
How to reorder channels with the Apple TV remote
A handy article by imore.
Gavin's Gadgets & Photography 