What will it be? Galaxy J or Galaxy S5

There have been a lot of rumors regarding the launch of a premium device from Samsung, but a recent video is showing a Samsung device with a metallic finish accompanied by some catchy phrases.  If we analyses these phrases “Just fit” “Just simple” “Just elegant” “Just fast” “Just for you” we see a predominant word "Just" but we are not interested in the word but in the first letter. The guys from Samsung Taiwan are trying to give us a small hint or maybe if we take into consideration the number SC-02F present on the side of the device we will surely say that this will be a version of the Galaxy J.

At the moment we don’t know if this device will have the same hardware as the Japanese version, but we know that Galaxy J is a 1080p 5inch Super AMOLED display housing a quad-core Snapdragon 800 chipset clocked at 2.26GHz with 3GB RAM with a storage of 32GB with microSD support also and a 13MP camera with OIS. All of these are powered by a 2,600mAh removable battery.

Some sources claim that this device will be the International Edition of Galaxy J and Taiwan will host on December 9th this event. But until that day will come we will not know if it will be another version of Galaxy J or the new Galaxy S5.

If you are curious you can check out the following video from Samsung Taiwan.

Is this the end of the mouse era?

There are things that have been around us for quite a while but still we can’t consider them obsolete. Today we are going to talk about one of them, the mouse which is used on every PC and Mac. In this case we could say that in the battle of pointing devices the touch screen is trying to attack this dominance but recently a new device joined the completion. The device in question is the leap motion controller manufactured by Leap Motion Inc. Basically you can use your arm or arms to control objects or the cursor of your device.

This device is small considering it has two infrared cameras and three infrared LEDs that can detect movement up to 3feet. This device will help you generate 3D movement in the virtual world. Maybe you are wondering how it can achieve this. Well the answer to this question is very simple, because of the two cameras placed in the same way as a 3D recording camera and with the help of math formulas the two planes or should I say the two frames are compared to generate a 3D position. Connecting this device is done using a USB cable.

Just like the touchscreen this device can replace the use of the mouse. You can move with it your mouse cursor, but this works perfectly with games like Cut the Rope, Angry Birds,  but also with creativity applications like Photoshop.

Overall for a device that can take to a whole new level the gaming experience, create things or even sculpt into virtual clay, $79.99 is a small price to pay.

New tablets inspired by “Steve Jobs”?

The world renowned actor Ashton Kutcher that portrayed Steve Jobs in one of these summer’s blockbusters, “Jobs”, has accepted a ‘Product Engineer’ job at Lenovo. How did he arrived to this and what will come next?

Well... although this comes as a bit odd, it seems that the actor has quite a neck for emerging markets and IT or tech startups. In his early career as a businessman he invested in companies like Skype, Spotify, Foursquare, Fab and moreover, he co-founded the media creating company Katalyst.

Enough with the jibber-jabber about his history and these awesome companies!

Mr. Kutcher seems to have had a real impact on Lenovo’s orientation. After this short collaboration, Lenovo’s Yoga tablet seems to push the boundaries on ergonomics. The short story is that the company decided to create a case that is more consumer friendly and strap into it a few nifty components that make the iPad Air shiver in its boots.

Though few might say that the new Lenovo Yoga tablet is a bit unfit to be compared to the iPad’s stylish curves and features, keep in mind that this is a first move towards a new collection of tablets’ features. On the other hand, an aspect that is not very hard on the consumers’ wallet is the lack of necessity for multiple accessories. Although the iPad takes pride in covers that come in different shapes and sizes or with various functions, they are sometimes very pricey. The Yoga tablet has a cylindrical handle that doubles as a prop or a stand out to angle the screen, all “wrapped” around a battery that will power the device for 18 hours.

Might all this fuss be for nothing or are “Steve Jobs” and the new Lenovo Yoga tablet making way for new changes in the world wide tablet arena?

How to download restricted apps from Play Store

There are a lot of questions that start with "Why…" when it comes to Android apps, but the most annoying of them all why would not a well-known app from Play Store not work on all devices. Considering that Android devices are not restricted to download and install only from Play store like all iDevices do with App Store, users can test non-Market apps by activating Unknown sources on their Android device. We have seen in the past apps or ports of some apps work on devices where developers said that won’t work or there are region locked. But not all developers obey this marketing scheme and they really say that their app won’t work on some device because of deprecated hardware configuration or old Android version.

You can download any free app that has restrictions from Play Store to your device using this cool web tool called APK Downloader. I think some of you did not understand the mechanism, well to make it simple here’s an example. Because I own Samsung Galaxy S with stock Android 2.3.4 I can’t install BBM on my device. So in this case I had two ways by generating a download link first using the Play Store app address or the name of the package in my case com.bbm. After using this tool for a while I was stunned to see that most apps worked well on my device. If you want to test restricted apps just visit http://apps.evozi.com/apk-downloader/

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.