iPad mini 2 and iPad Air tech specs

I don’t know if this event was welcomed with open arms, but if you missed Apple’s live stream and want to take a look at the changes and new features that these new tablets have to offer you came to the right place.

As we all expected beside the new OS X Mavericks and new MacBook Pros with Intel Haswell this event featured the launch of two new tablets, iPad mini 2 and not iPad 5 but iPad Air. In the past few weeks there have been a lot of speculations and rumors that these tablets will also feature the same Touch ID that iPhone 5s has, instead we see present the same old Home button. Comparing to the old model the iPad mini 2 has now a Retina display. 

Put side by side we see that the 7.9 inch of iPad mini 2 has 326 ppi and the 9.7 inch iPad Air has 264 ppi whereas for the other screen specs they both use IPS technology with LED backlit Multi-Touch and oleophobic coating. The camera suffered no changes is the same 5MP iSight camera with f/2.4 aperture.

These to feature the new A7 chip 64bit architecture with a M7 motion coprocessor. The new iPad mini got more RAM, now it has 1GB of RAM also a new GPU, a 6th series PowerVR SGX to be exact. As for connectivity they feature dual channel wireless capabilities with MIMO, Bluetooth 4.0 and LTE for the cellular version. The battery autonomy can go up to 10 hours on both models.

Compared to previous versions iPad mini 2 gained weight where iPad Air lost weight. iPad mini 2 has 0.73 pounds non-cellular and 0.75 pounds cellular version, where iPad Air weighs 1 pund non-cellular and 1.05 punds cellular. They both come in Space Gray and Silver versions.

The starting price for each model is set at $399 for 16GB Wi-Fi and $529 Wi-Fi + Cellular for iPad mini 2, where the iPad Air 16GB Wi-Fi costs $499 and 16GB Wi-Fi + Cellular costs $629. The storage can go up to 128GB.  You can get your hands on iPad Air on November 1 whereas for iPad mini 2 in mid-November.

Manage users and apps on mobile devices using BlackBerry Cloud Service

At the Gartner Symposium ITxpo 2013 BlackBerry announced a cloud service that will easily manage users and apps for devices that run BlackBerry, Android and iOS. Even though it does not need any software, IT skills or servers; the BlackBerry designed this to be simple and easy to use. It is also good for business that practice BOYD policy. The role of this service is to increase efficiency and productivity by giving them the needed information without compromising the user’s privacy.

All of this can be done through a web page from where the admin will activate and deploy on smartphones and tables running BlackBerry, Android and iOS. Also through this interface administrators can manage apps and enforce security policy configurations for personal and corporate devices. They can also create catalogs using apps from well-known stores like Google Play, App Store and then see the usage and distribution of these apps. This service also provides support for end-user from where they can perform task like a password change, remote lock and remote wipe without the help of an administrator. All these features without the need for a servers or software, you just simply register.

There is no official date for this but BlackBerry is stating that is “coming soon”.

A new type of controller called Steam Controller

I have presented you in previous articles things like SteamOS and Steam Machines and to make things more fun what better way to enjoy these new features, only by a new controller called Steam Controller. This gamepad is nowhere near to what you have seen before in any controller. It may have the same shape as any other controller but when it comes to interaction it’s totally alien.

This controller supports and will support every game from the Steam catalog. This means it will be supported even by games that did not support the XBOX controller.

Enough said let’s talk about the features. This gamepad features circular dual trackpads. The sensitivity of these trackpads is given by their high resolution but also acting as a giant button. With this you can play any game from strategy games even to racing or simulator games like Euro Truck Simulator 2. But FPS games will get the most of this gamepad. 

They also have a new and superior haptic feedback, so that the user can experience from a game speed, texture or any other information that user should know through trackpads and gamepad. The trackpads can also act as speakers.

Another feature is the touch screen which can allow you to set and invoke special functions including from games also. And there also buttons.

The best part Valve claims that this gamepad is designed to be hackable.  Overall these are interesting features but let’s make a final decision when we will test drive the finished product.

Steam Machines the perfect gaming consoles for your leaving room.

After the announcement of the SteamOS, Valve showed us another count down timer where for most of us till it reached zero was more of a dilemma with what is going to surprises us this time Valve. Well considering the announcement of SteamOS they planned to launch a hardware platform on which the operating system will run. These hardware’s called Steam Machines will be made by multiple partners to diversify the market so that the user will have the final word in choosing his gaming machine.

For this to work, Valve will offer for free 300 prototypes for testing. Eligibility Quest is the best way to see if you eligible and a way to offer you the possibility to be eligible. The deadline to complete this quest is October 25th. If you are curious the Eligibility Quest is very simple to achieve, you will need to join a group Steam Universe, agree to terms and conditions for Steam Hardware Beta, if you haven’t reach that 10 steam friends mark, also you will to create a public Steam Community profile and last but not least you will need to play a game in Big Picture using a gamepad.

If you will not be one of the lucky ones to get their hands on the beta hardware you will have the possibility to buy the finished product in 2014.

SteamOS, the launch of a new operating system

Valve has done a lot of testing with its new feature Big Picture in its software platform, where the user can interact more easily with Steam interface using just the controller. This feature is designed to run on big screens or big TVs. From my point it had a lot of success since you can turn your PC or Laptop into a game console.

Compared to recent news, Big Picture is old news because Valve has announced that is going to release an OS called SteamOS. This combines the power of Linux and the Steam platform with Big Picture to bring the best gaming experience on every PC or Laptop.

Specially designed for TVs this operating system will soon be free for download. It can stream games from any machine in your network to your TV. SteamOS will also support media files.

Because of the design of running in you leaving room SteamOS features Family Sharing and Family Options where you will have the possibility to partition so you can manage your own achievements, settings, game progress  and what games to see in your library, all of this will be saved to Steam cloud. Valve will bring to Steam all its 3000 games also desktop software using the streaming feature.