MobilityBeat RSS Feed

MATAERIAL 3D printer draws anti-gravity objects in midair

Chris Davies — Wed, 22 May 2013 06:31:00 -0400

3D printing is beginning to take off – scary DIY guns and all – but MATAERIAL wants to take it one step further, "defying gravity" with its mesmerizing object modeling. Described as a new "extrusion technology", the combination of squirted-printing and a specially setting goo means 3D artists could create objects on irregular or non-horizontal Read The Full Story

Cloudbase.io launches shared API to help mobile apps get connected

David Meyer — Wed, 22 May 2013 06:00:00 -0400

Kids these days! There they are, creating all their little mobile apps, yet too many of them aren't considering the possibilities provided by connections to other apps. That, at least, is the view of Cloudbase.io founder Stefano Buliani, whose London-based backend-as-a-service (BaaS) outfit wants to make it easier to both plug in and cash in. As part of reaching that objective, Cloudbase.io has launched a shared API to encourage data-sharing between apps. By way of example, someone coming up with a Foursquare-like idea could decide to use Cloudbase.io to build their application. Cloudbase.io . . .

MessageMe chat app amasses 5 million users in 75 days across Android and iOS

Alexis Santos — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:50:00 -0400

Between WhatsApp, Viber, Google+ Hangouts and a raft of others, the mobile messaging app space is crowded, but recent entrant MessageMe has still managed to make notable headway. After a mere 75 days since its launch, the application has amassed 5 million registered users, up from 1 million in its first ten days. Now, the software is churning out an average of 1,500 notifications per second and handling approximately eight image uploads each second. For the uninitiated, the app is attempting to woo chatty folks on Android and iOS away from its rivals with the ability to send pictures, doodles, . . .

Samsung splashes $48m on 10% Pantech stake

Chris Davies — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:50:00 -0400

Samsung has splashed $48m on a stake in rival smartphone manufacturer Pantech, scooping up a tenth of the South Korean company though saying it will have no input into how it runs its business. The deal, revealed by Yonhap News, makes Samsung the third-largest stakeholder in Pantech, and builds on an existing supply chain relationship Read The Full Story

Here's one for you Liverpool Football Club fans - LFC Connect for BlackBerry 10

James Richardson — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:36:00 -0400

LFC Connect (Liverpool Football Club) will pretty much be mainly of interest to UK football fans but considering the BlackBerry subscriber base we have here in Great Britain I thought this one was well worth sharing. Read More »

Logitech Wired Keyboard for iPad eschews Bluetooth for old-school connection

Chris Davies — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:25:00 -0400

Logitech isn't short on keyboards for the iPad, but for those sick of changing batteries its new wired version may be the answer. Billed as ideal for the classroom – where, as Logitech points out, more and more schools are deploying Apple's tablet as a learning aid – the new ‘board would also work in Read The Full Story

Bang & Olufsen CEO: 4K TV on the way, stacks more premium products due this year

Mike Lowe — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:21:00 -0400

Bang & Olufsen is synonymous with design; the Danish company's products are like the audio equivalent of a Paul Smith suit. So it's no big surprise that Pocket-lint's London meet-up with the audio brand's chief exec, Tue Mantoni, is held at the designer...

Samsung Galaxy S4 Group Play

Pocket-lint Promotion — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:00:00 -0400

Future Samsung Galaxy S4 owners can share music and games along with photos and documents, and the group leader's device acts as the Wi-Fi access point connecting all the other devices together. That means you don't have connect to any Wi-Fi or cellular...

Porsche Design BlackBerry P'9981 goes gold, misses the Q10 memo

Chris Hall — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:00:00 -0400

Porsche Design has added a gold version of its luxury tweak of the BlackBerry Bold to its line-up of handsets. We know that Porsche is sometimes slow to evolve its design, if its motorcars are anything to go by, but someone seems to have missed the fact...

Samsung S4 Group Play

Pocket-lint Promotion — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:00:00 -0400

In particular, future S4 owners can share music and games along with photos and documents, and the group leader's device acts as the Wi-Fi access point connecting all the other devices. That means you don't have connect to any Wi-Fi or cellular data network...

HP SlateBook x2 Android hybrid set for UK, Split x2 unlikely

Rik Henderson — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:52:00 -0400

When HP announced two new hybrid tablet/notebook devices last week, it focused on US prices and release details. Normally the company also gives information for European release of its products, at the same time or shortly after. It didn't in this case,...

HTC sees more top execs disappear as Facebook fouls First launch

Chris Davies — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:49:00 -0400

HTC continues to lose high-level staff as its North American team gradually peels away the struggling smartphone company, with industry talk suggesting Facebook's Home launch strategy actually ended up undermining rather than supporting the firm. Chief Product Officer Kouki Kodera, in charge of HTC's product strategy, left the firm last week according to The Verge‘s Read The Full Story

Samsung buys stake in Pantech, securing innovation access

Phone Arena — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:34:00 -0400

Samsung has apparently acquired a 10% stake in Pantech, its fellow South Korean phone maker, for reasons yet unknown. That makes Sammy one of the largest shareholders in the company, after Qualcomm and the state's Development Bank...

Mirasol reborn: 5.1″ phone display with near Retina MacBook resolution

Chris Davies — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:12:00 -0400

Qualcomm has unexpectedly revealed a new mirasol mobile display, a 5.1-inch panel running at a whopping 2,560 x 1,440 resolution. Last we heard of mirasol, Qualcomm was dousing production plans and focusing on licensing out the low-power technology instead, having seen production issues and the dominance of E Ink undermine its market. However, this new Read The Full Story

Qualcomm demonstrates its future display: 5.1-inch Mirasol 577dpi screen

Phone Arena — Wed, 22 May 2013 03:56:00 -0400

The time of super high-resolution displays has already come with pixel density of over 440ppi on most high-end smartphones today . . .

Apple and Google are the top two global brands on the BrandZ list of the top 100

Phone Arena — Wed, 22 May 2013 03:47:00 -0400

Of the top 100 global brand names in the world as measured by the BrandZ ranking, it was Apple and Google that were on top of the charts; Apple's brand had a value of $185 billion followed by Google with a valuation of $113 billion. It was the latter than closed the gap a bit with a 5% gain from last year while Apple's name was worth just 1% more over the 2012 figure...

LifeProof Frē for iPad Mini Lets You Take Your Tablet For a Swim

LAPTOP Magazine — Wed, 22 May 2013 03:18:00 -0400

This player is used on Facebook and anytime it's embedded outside of our sites. LifeProof wants you to be able to take your iPad mini with you everywhere, even under water. And with the new Frē for iPad Mini case, you can do exactly that. Strap your iPad mini into the Frē, and you can submerge the slate without issue. Not only that, but you can also listen to music while it's under water and even watch video. Of course, the Frē isn't just water proof, it's also dirt proof, snow proof and shock proof, as well. And to ensure you never have to take your iPad mini out of the Frē, . . .

LoJack Coming to Galaxy S4 This Summer, Thieves Not Pleased

LAPTOP Magazine — Wed, 22 May 2013 03:12:00 -0400

Baked inside every Samsung Galaxy S4 is something that can locate your phone if it's lost or stolen and also help put that thief behindbars. We're talking about Absolute Software's LoJack for mobile devices, which will start at $29.99 per year when the service launches early this summer. As we learned here at CTIA 2013, there's no app that you need to download. Absolute's persistence technology is embedded right in the firmware of the S4, which enables the company's experienced Investigations and Recovery Team track down your device–and the perpetrator. Similar to competing . . .

HTC's product chief departs, ex-strategy head Eric Lin tweets "leave now"

Phone Arena — Wed, 22 May 2013 03:10:00 -0400

Mr Kodera, HTC's Chief Product Officer, left the company, joining the communications chief Jason Gordon, who left Friday, as well as several other marketing and communications people, one of whom, Eric Lin, went to work for Skype, leaving the tweet you see inside behind him...

More than 75 million smartphones sold in China during Q1

Phone Arena — Wed, 22 May 2013 03:01:00 -0400

According to stats compiled in the first quarter from DigiTimes, 90.54 million mobile phones were sold in China during the first quarter of 2013; sequentially, that was a gain of 23.5%. Year-over-year the gain was 34%. 75.28 million of those purchased units were smartphones. Smartphone sales rose 32.2% from the fourth quarter...

Samsung buys 10 percent stake in rival phone maker Pantech

Sharif Sakr — Wed, 22 May 2013 02:44:00 -0400

Hang around these pages long enough and you're bound to come across Pantech, the South Korean purveyor of everything from giant 1080p handsets down to... giant 720p handsets. Samsung has noticed this rising star too and, so says Yonhap News, has now made a $50 million investment in the smaller company in return for a 10 percent stake. Implicit in that is that the Korean government has allowed Samsung's ever-expanding influence to infiltrate a potential rival, since Pantech is now the No. 3 phone maker in that country and only Qualcomm and a state-run bank possess larger stakes than Samsung's. . . .

Apple and Google rated 2013 top two most valuable global brands

Brittany Hillen — Wed, 22 May 2013 02:43:00 -0400

Millward Brown Optimor has released its annual BrandZ list of the most valuable global brands for the year, and Apple and Google are in the top slots, with the former coming in at #1 and the latter at #2. On top of that, comparing the numbers, we see that both companies saw an increase in Read The Full Story

CTIA 2013: Hands-On With the Kyocera Hydro Edge

Blake Stimac — Wed, 22 May 2013 02:40:00 -0400

We got our hands on a few new Kyocera handsets today at CTIA 2013 in Las Vegas, one of them being the ruggedized and waterproof Kyocera Hydro Edge. It's predecessor, the Kyocera Hydro was announced last year at CTIA 2012 in New Orleans. The Hydro Edge continues Kyocera's ruggedized, waterproof mid-range smartphone model, and brings it up to 2013 with more powerful specs and Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean. The specs of the device are not super impressive by today's standards, but are functional nonetheless. The Kyocera Hydro Edge packs a dual-core 1 GHz processor, a 5 MP rear facing camera, . . .

CTIA 2013: Hand-On With the Nokia Lumia 925 for T-Mobile

Blake Stimac — Wed, 22 May 2013 02:36:00 -0400

T-Mobile's latest Windows Phone handsets is certainly one of the best, and we just walked away from handling it. We're talking of the Nokia Lumia 925, of course. The 925 is both sleek, sexy, and has a great build quality to boot, thanks to its aluminum body. While the device is has a nice aluminum body, don't think it to be a weighty piece of kit. It's rather lights, and it's 4.5 inch PureMotion HD+ fits in the hand very nicely. The rounded edges surrounding the device also help this great in-hand feel. While the pack plate of the Lumia 925 is polycarbonate, it's certainly "metal . . .

Tech21′s Impact Shield Uses Bulletproof Tech to Protect Screens

LAPTOP Magazine — Wed, 22 May 2013 02:21:00 -0400

Thanks to its unparalleled durability, Tech21 already has one of the world's best-selling iPhone 5 cases, and now the company has set its sites on smartphone screens with the Impact Shield. Available for the iPhone 5, Galaxy S4, S3, iPad mini and Note II, this $30 accessory leverages BulletShield technology via BASF along with two other layers of protection to keep your phone crack and scratch free. During a hands-on demo, Tech21 took a wire brush to the iPhone 5 Impact Shield (in this case applied to an iPad mini display). Almost immediately, the scratches disappeared as if the screen . . .