The evolution of the phone and subsequently the smartphone has been wild and uncertain, remember features like push-to-talk, me neither. Such functionality never really sat right in the grand scheme of mobile telephony and with the Swiss army knife approach that app-capable phones now employ, calling is only a single piece of the overall experience.

That being said, despite all the improvements to data speeds for mobile web browsing, better camera functionality and improved email support, call enhancements haven’t really seen the same levels of care and attention, something that is now slowly changing, finally. Read more »

Internal mapping has been in the mind of Google for some time, with the initial introduction of interior navigation making its first real appearance with Google Maps 6.0.

At the time you could use it to traverse places like airports, shopping centers and even your local IKEA, but navigating indoor spaces overall has remained relatively limited, something Google are attempting to rectify. Read more »

For those who don’t know, singer/rapper/producer Labrinth (real name Timothy McKenzie) took to the stage last night in central London to promote the launch of his new album, Electronic Earth.

The event in question was actually a little soiree set up by Sony Mobile, not only acting as the launch platform for the artist’s new album, but also for the company to reinforce the new Sony Xperia name. Read more »

Nvidia’s Tegra 3 chipset has been making waves in the Android world and with an ever increasing number of tablets adopting the quad-core SoC, it was only a matter of time before smartphones joined the fray too.

The HTC One X is taking center stage as the Taiwanese company’s new flagship for 2012 and we go hands-on to see what it has to offer besides being the first quad-core smartphone to market. Read more »

Despite any official word on Sony’s next major console unlikely to emerge until the likes of E3 next year, speculation, rumors and leaks have already started to creep out of the woodwork.

First and foremost, the new name. It’s uncertain whether Sony intend on keeping it through to market, or whether it’s merely a placeholder during the developmental stages, but the company’s next leading console may well bear the name, ‘Orbis’. Read more »

Founders of insanely popular social photo-sharing iOS app, Instagram made no bones about it at SXSW this year stating that an Android version was on its way and it will be “better than our iPhone app“, in fact they went as far as to say “it’s one of the most amazing Android apps you’ll ever see.”

With the creators drumming up hype for the Android release and talk of the app’s existence stretching back into last year, one question still remains; when is the official launch date? The answer is still, it would appear, very very soon. Read more »

If you like being a guinea pig and you’re a fan of Nokia, there’s every chance you’ve already signed up to Nokia’s Beta Labs and the latest app to enter this unique testing area is Nokia Play To, which is hoping to make it as the native DLNA client that’ll grace the Lumia Windows Phone family.

The Play To app already offers the ability to throw pictures, movies and music onto various connected devices around the home, with plans for Media Server support in the near future adding Xbox 360 and PS3 friendly functionality in due time. Read more »

With the amount of money going down on the table, it’s no surprise that proud new owners of the latest iPad will want to squeeze every ounce of goodness out the new features it brings to the party, namely that all important Retina display.

Well for the movie buffs and trailer junkies out there, the iTunes Movie Trailers app has just been upgraded to version 1.1, which adds Retina display support for the new iPad. Read more »

The FCC database revealed a number of elements pertaining to a new member of Sony’s VAIO laptop family this week in the form of the VCC111.

It would seem that manufactures are still happy to follow through on support for Google’s web connected OS and Sony are shaping up to provide the next Chromebook in the lineup. Read more »

Wes Anderson of Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums fame, more recently dipped his toe into the world of animation with the release of Fantastic Mr. Fox in 2009.

As a result of his directorial prowess and his experience with stop-motion animation, Sony Mobile have enlisted his talents to help produce the newest ad campaign for their 2012 NXT device lineup. Read more »

Amazon are today celebrating their Android Appstore’s first birthday and in light of this fact, they’ve come over all generous. As well as a number of discounts on popular paid apps, they’re also giving away eight Kindle Fire’s between now and the end of March.

As well as the week-long app discounts, the company also revealed a number of stats which they’ve been able to pull over the course of the year. For one, there are now some 31,000+ applications available to download from the Appstore up from 4000 last year, but lets talk more about those deals. Read more »

To coincide with Archos now shipping Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich on their current G9 tablet family, two new models have emerged to join lineup, the Archos 80 G9 Turbo and the Archos 101 G9 Turbo.

These two new devices come similarly specced with 1.5GHz CPUs and ICS, the 80 utilizes an 8-inch display, whilst the 101 a, you guessed it, 10.1 inch display. Depending on the device and storage capacity you opt for prices range from $310 to $425. These two tablets have little time to bask in the limelight however as Archos’ next tablets under the banner of the G10 xs Series, ready themselves for deployment. Read more »

We may think of the term ‘social network’ as a relatively new creation, but it turns out the legacy of sites like Facebook, Google+ and Pinterest have a history dating as far back as the 1960s.

The team at Citizen Brando have traveled through time (sort of) to find which sites and services have tried to become the people’s social network over the years; turns out, there have been quite a few, see how many you remember. Read more »

A trip to the supermarket can be filled with special offers like “buy one get one free” or “two for the price of one”, but how about an iPad for just £50.

What some may see as the sale of the century, supermarket retailer Tesco see as a technical blunder on their part. Due to a glitch on the chain’s website, thousands of customers were fooled into thinking that a new 64GB WiFi/4G iPad was available to purchase for just £49.99. Read more »

A team at Iowa State University in the US have discovered that spider silk possesses properties that could see use within the future of electronics. The team have established that spider silk makes for an excellent heat conductor, which could lead to advances in manufacturing down the line.

The perplexing substance that is spider silk was shown to conduct heat up to 800 times more effectively than any other organic material. Professor Xinwei Wang, who is heading up the university’s research, used eight golden silk orbweaver spiders to test the notion of heat conductivity through spider silk. Read more »