Galaxy Cam: Android powered Camera

On Wednesday during the 2012 IFA conference in Berlin, Samsung unveiled an Android-powered Galaxy Camera you can partially control with your voice.

The new device, which looks like a camera in the front and a smartphone in the back, runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, and allows users to shoot, edit and share pictures with their social networks. But perhaps one of the most innovative features of the Galaxy Camera is its voice-control capabilities. You can tell the device to “zoom in” and “shoot” while snapping pictures.

Specs include a 21x optical touch zoom lens, a 4.8-inch HD Super Clear LCD display and a bright 16M BSI CMOS sensor and a quad-core processor. The Galaxy Camera also enables connectivity through 3G and 4G.

Icing on the cake is "Auto Cloud Backup", which automatically saves photos into Samsung’s AllShare cloud service. 

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Samsung ATIV Windows phone released

And here is the new Windows 8 powered phone, Samsung ATIV S. With ATIV, Samsung appears to be fully embracing Windows 8 as part of its mobile strategy.

ATIV is “vita” spelled backward, and it’s a way for the company to showcase that it’s one of the few companies that makes Windows computers, tablets and phones. The ATIV S is the first Windows Phone 8 smartphone. It packs a dual-core 1.5GHz processor with 1GB of RAM and can connect to HSPA+ 42 networks. The 

ATIV S has an 8-megapixel camera with LED flash in back and a 1.9MP camera in front. It’s equipped with Bluetooth 3.0, NFC (near-field communication) along with assisted GPS and its Russian counterpart, Glonass. It also boasts the same “tap to share” ability that Samsung put in the new Galaxy Note II. It comes with either 16 or 32GB of storage.

Samsung ATIV Series: http://www.samsung.com/global/ativ

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Samsung ATIV Tab launched

Samsung unveiled its first Windows RT tablet on Wednesday during the 2012 IFA conference in Berlin. The 10.1-inch ATIV Tab features a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor, along with a HD (1,366x768) LCD display, Bluetooth 4.0, Micro HDMI and NFC capabilities. It weighs in at 1.25 pounds and is 0.35 inches thick.

The tablet is part of Samsung’s new ATIV product series — a name that is the reverse order of the word “vita,” meaning “Life” in Latin — and includes the world’s first Windows 8 phone. The company said the new products are a part effort to “make life easier for everyone.”

Windows RT is the version of Windows 8 made to run on devices powered by ARM-based processors, as opposed to traditional chips made by Intel and AMD. A variant of the Microsoft’s Surface tablet will also run Windows RT. Machines running Windows RT should have favorable battery life but won’t be able to run apps made for older versions of Windows.

The company noted that the ATIV Tab will come with Office Home and Student RT, which offers the latest version of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. Microsoft has said all Windows RT devices will come packaged with Office. The tablet also comes with a 8,200 mAh battery.

Samsung ATIV Series: http://www.samsung.com/global/ativ/

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Galaxy Note II unveiled

Samsung has just unveiled the Samsung Galaxy Note II smartphone at its event at the IFA trade show in Berlin. The new Note is narrower and taller than the old version, with a 5.5-inch HD Super AMOLED screen — slightly larger than the previous Note‘s 5.3-incher. Samsung managed to narrow the form factor by changing the aspect ratio to a 16:9 widescreen display.

The new Note is powered by Android 4.1 “Jelly Bean.” It packs a 1.6GHz processor with 2GB of RAM.

Of course, it also has the S Pen stylus, boasting some new abilities that weren’t in the old Note. First is Air View, which lets you preview content by hovering the stylus over icons. For example, you could hold the S Pen over a day on a calendar, and a preview window of that day’s appointments will appear.

There’s also Quick Command: Just sweep the S Pen up and a blank square pops up where you can write customized commands that will instantly do things such as send an email to a specific person.

[Courtesy: Mashable]

Faster Facebook for iOS

If you’re one of the millions of people using Facebook’s main iOS application, you already know it’s horrendously slow.
The app’s performance up to now has been embarrassing, considering Facebook is the most installed iOS application in the entire world. Slogging through the feed was sluggish. Photos took forever to load. Even the basic action of opening the app itself took longer than other apps.
Facebook has answered the pleas of millions of mobile users with the release of a new application for iOS. The social network has finally addressed the most glaring issue of the company’s iPhone and iPad applications: speed.

Facebook acknowledges as much. “People have different expectations when it comes to using Facebook for iOS,” Mick Johnson, Facebook iOS mobile product manager, told me in an interview this morning. “They expect a level of performance and speed that just wasn’t there.”

Part of the reason behind the slowness was the old app’s reliance on HTML5. While HTML5 is a great way to build cross-platform, mobile-friendly apps and web pages, it’s not as fast for certain types of applications.

In June, two Facebook developers told The New York Times that they were working on rebuilding the iOS app in Objective-C and that the resulting app could be 2.5 times faster.For iPad users, Timeline is finally supported on the device. We have to say, it looks great on the retina screen!

Download: Facebook for iOS

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Galaxy S3 Jellybean: 29 August

Samsung Galaxy S3, meet Jelly Bean. Jelly Bean, meet the Samsung Galaxy S3. The hottest update for the hottest phone around is rumored to be taking place this month, as the popular Galaxy S3 is upgraded to the latest version of Android.

The Samsung fans at Sam Mobile report that the S3's Jelly Bean update is in the final stages of testing, and will be revealed on 29 August. That's the start of IFA, the annual European trade show where the world's tech manufacturers, distributors, press and general hangers-on gather in Berlin to eat sausages, quaff from steins, and fondle the best kit hitting shops for the rest of the year and beyond. Samsung is expected to unveil a new Galaxy Note at IFA. 

Could we see some Jelly Bean action too? Word on the street is that the code for the Jelly Bean update is fully baked and has been submitted to Google for certification. When the big G gives the thumbs up, Samsung can start to push the update out to you and your S3.

It's unusual that no code has leaked yet, but we already know that security around the S3 is intense. One engineer who worked on designing the phone described the security as "torture" -- so that could extend to the Jelly Bean update too.

It's unusual that no code has leaked yet, but we already know that security around the S3 is intense. One engineer who worked on designing the phone described the security as "torture" -- so that could extend to the Jelly Bean update too. Let's hope the Jelly Bean update goes rather more smoothly than the last upgrade.

[Thanks to: CNET]

YouTube kicked out from iOS 6

Slowly but surely, it seems as though Apple’s mobile OS is being stripped of search giant Google’s influence. Apple’s redesigned Maps application — due to make its debut in iOS 6 — no longer makes use of Google’s map data, and that trend continues with another recently spotted change.

The latest beta version of iOS 6 no longer includes the YouTube app, which has been a mainstay of iOS homescreens since the original iPhone.

Google is already working on a replacement app – which this time it will maintain and distribute itself – while Apple highlights that YouTube video playback already works within Safari and doesn’t demand the standalone software anyway. However, rather than just pushing Google’s services further to the periphery, there’s also the chance that Apple could move to fill the ensuing gap with a video offering of its own.

Apple's entire statement is below.

• Our license to include the YouTube app in iOS has ended, customers can use YouTube in the Safari browser and Google is working on a new YouTube app to be on the App Store.

Those sticking with older versions of iOS – either by choice or because their Apple gadget won’t support the new OS – won’t have to worry. Phones and tablets on iOS 5 and earlier will keep the existing YouTube app, as Apple’s license with Google apparently continues to cover it; the player won’t be deleted remotely or disabled.

For the end-user, it means YouTube won’t be at their fingertips from the get-go, though it also means Google can update and improve the app more frequently.