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Nokia’s Windows RT tablet revealed in new leaked image

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We have been seeing bits and pieces of Nokia’s alleged Windows RT tablet for a while now. Windows expert Paul Thurott now has what looks like a press image of this unnamed Nokia tablet that is scheduled to be announced later this month.

The Nokia tablet will have a 10-inch 1080p display, a quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor, 6.7 megapixel camera and a $499 price tag. As mentioned before, this tablet will be running on Windows RT and not the full blown Windows 8, which is a cause for concern. Read more »

Asphalt 8: Airborne to go free on iOS over the weekend

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Gameloft announced on Twitter that their popular new racing game, Asphalt 8: Airborne, will go free on iOS over the weekend. The game is usually priced at $0.99 on both the App Store as well as the Play Store.

Airborne is the latest in the long line of Asphalt games for mobile devices. We reviewed the game recently but were less than blown away by it, due to the aggressive difficulty, expensive IAP options and performance issues on Android. It is still a decent game overall for the price and now that it is being made available for free on iOS, it’s definitely worth a download. Read more »

Google brings photo editing tools to Google+, work only in Chrome

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You may remember Google acquired the team that built the Snapseed application for iOS a few months ago. Although we did see a version of Snapseed for Android we didn’t hear much from them ever since. That is until now.

Google has now integrated some of the photo editing features of the Snapseed app into Google+. You can now open your photos on Google+ and go into the new Edit option available on top. This brings up some familiar options you may have seen in the Snapseed app on the side. Read more »

Apple’s Touch ID fingerprint sensor not accessible to third party developers

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One of the key new features on the iPhone 5s is the presence of a fingerprint scanner on the Home button, called Touch ID. It essentially remembers your fingerprint and then lets you and only you unlock your phone or make iTunes purchases by simply touching your finger on the Home button.

Turns out, however, those are going to be the only use cases for Touch ID, at least for now. Apple’s Senior Vice President Phil Schiller has revealed that the Touch ID sensor is off limits to third party developers and refused to comment on whether this would change in future. Read more »

Apple announces new docks for the iPhone 5c and the 5s

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Apple has been making docks for the iPhone, iPod and the iPad for a while now. But last year’s iPhone 5 launch didn’t see the release of a corresponding dock, which would have led most people to believe that Apple has given up on the idea.

But turns out, that is not the case. This year, Apple has not one but two docks for both the new iPhones, and they are available for $29 each. The docks are slightly different, with the 5c dock having a bigger slot to accommodate the slightly different shape. By the looks of things it seems you can use the 5c dock with both the 5c and the 5s but the 5s dock can only accommodate the 5s and the older 5. Read more »

Motorola launches new ‘Lazy Phone’ ad campaign for the Moto X

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Motorola has released a new ad campaign for the Moto X. Called the ‘Lazy Phone’, the new ads concentrate on some of the key new features of the Moto X, such as the hands-free voice recognition functionality.

There are three ads so far, each of which features an actor who represents your current phone. In the first ad a guy is trying to play a song using just his voice but the ‘phone’ urges him to touch him instead whereas the Moto X can do the same with just a voice command. Read more »

Coast is Opera’s brand new browser for the iPad

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Opera has released a brand new browser made specifically for the iPad called Coast. Coast reimagines the traditional browser interface and utilizes gestures to make the interaction easier and more attractive.

When you launch Coast you will see some sites pinned to the browser’s homescreen, along with the URL/search bar, which opens one of the most innovative interfaces I’ve seen. Read more »

Sony announces PlayStation Vita TV for Japan

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Sony has announced a new device for the Japanese market called the PlayStation Vita TV. Based on the PlayStation Vita’s hardware, the Vita TV is a tiny device that plugs into your TV and lets you play games and multimedia content.

The PlayStation Vita TV has basically the same hardware as the Vita, which enables it to play not just Vita games but also PSP and PSOne titles from the PlayStation Store. The PlayStation Vita TV comes with a single DualShock 3 controller to enable you to play games on your TV. Read more »

Sony announces thinner and lighter PlayStation Vita in Japan

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Sony has just announced the second generation model of its handheld gaming console, the PlayStation Vita, at the SCE Japan press conference. The new model is said to be 20 percent thinner and 15 percent lighter than the previous generation Vita.

Along with the reduction in size and weight, Sony has also swapped the OLED display in the previous model with an LCD on the new one. But despite these changes, the new Vita will have a longer battery life of six hours, compared to five on the previous one. Read more »

Xbox Music arrives on iOS and Android

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Microsoft has announced that their music service, oddly named Xbox Music, will now be available on iOS and Android devices. The company has made dedicated apps for both platforms and they are now available for download for free on their respective stores.

Xbox Music is Microsoft’s subscription based ‘all you can eat’ music service, where you pay a subscription fee and then stream as much music as you want. You will need to purchase the Xbox Music Pass that enables you to use the service. Read more »

’2K Drive’ for iOS game review

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You may know 2K Games from excellent desktop and console series such as Bioshock, Borderlands and Mafia. Their sports division, 2K Sports, has now released a new title for iOS, called 2K Drive.

2K Drive is a racing game but not quite in the same league as your Asphalt or Need for Speed. It’s more along the lines of Real Racing, wherein it is a simulation racing game that tries to be more realistic with believable physics and other characteristics. We took it for a spin to see how it performs. Read more »

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 gets the full review treatment

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It’s just been three days since Samsung officially unveiled the Galaxy Note 3 at IFA in Berlin and the phone has already been put through a review process. Hi-Tech.Mail.Ru managed to get their hands on a review unit and promptly put up a quick review of the device.

The review is in Russian so we have to depend on Google Translate’s translation skills to glean any information off it. There is still a lot of other information that doesn’t require translation, such as product photos, screenshots, benchmark scores and camera samples. Read more »

Google introduces Chrome Apps for Chrome OS and Windows

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Google has introduced Chrome Apps for those using Chrome OS or Windows computers. Unlike the apps that you had for Chrome until now that always ran within the browser itself and in some cases were nothing but bookmarks for websites, the new Chrome apps run outside the browser and are full fledged applications.

For Windows users this may not be a big deal since you could always run native apps on the OS but for Chrome OS users this means they are no longer restricted to running apps within the browser window. You can now go to the Chrome Store and choose from a selection of new desktop apps, which are then installed in a folder on your taskbar. You can then run these independently of the browser. Read more »

XOLO Tab is the company’s first Android tablet

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XOLO has announced the company’s first Android tablet, the XOLO Tab. The XOLO Tab comes with an 8.0-inch, 1024×768 resolution IPS display.

On the inside is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8225Q SoC with a 1.2GHz quad-core ARM Cortex A5 CPU and Adreno 203 GPU, 1GB RAM, 4GB internal memory with microSD card slot, 3G connectivity, 4,000mAh battery and Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean. On the back is a 2 megapixel camera and on the front is a VGA resolution shooter. Read more »

Call of Duty: Strike Team launched on iOS

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Activision has released a brand new version of Call of Duty, called Call of Duty: Strike Team, on iOS. The game has been built from the ground up for the mobile platform and features a unique hybrid FPS and third person modes.

Playing first person shooters on consoles is difficult enough as it is with a controller but on a touch device with no physical buttons it is even more frustrating. Activision seems to understand this well, which is why they have offered the choice to play the game in a top down third person mode. Read more »