It’s been a long wait for all the fans of Counter Strike out there since the last release of the popular shooter. Today, we have the first trailers of the upcoming Counter Strike: Global Offensive, which is due for release in Q1 of 2012 and, dare I say, the latest CS looks more than promising.
The new video game
Samsung will showcase a revamped version of its Galaxy S II with LTE support and more, and it’s due to be unveiled next week at the IFA 2011 expo in Berlin. It will also launch a new version of the Galaxy Tab 8.9 slate, which could land in just three days on August 29th at an event held in New York.
The Galaxy S II will have a bigger 4.5″ SuperAMOLED Plus display, a multi-mode LTE/WCDMA/GSM radio inside, NFC, a slightly beefier 1850mAh battery and finally, a snappier 1.5GHz dual-core processor. Sounds a little like a Galaxy S II Plus, doesn’t it? Specs aside, it will feature a revamped back panel, which is quoted to look made out of brushed aluminum.
The PlayBook OS version 2.0.0.2992 has leaked in screenshots form and the screens show the Playbook’s new email client suspiciously lacks an option for setting it up with a BlackBerry BES and BIS account. Also there’s an Android Emulator icon in the main menu, which means that the compatibility project between droid apps and QNX may be late but is still coming.
The accounts screen in the settings menu shows the available options to configure an email account. They include Exchange/ActiveSync, IMAP, POP, CalDAV, CardDAV, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn but there’s no BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) or BlackBerry Internet Server (BIS) on there. This could mean that QNX is on track to join the other smart OSes and use the same integrated email, calendar and contacts sync options.
Nokia Maps for Symbian is one of the best SatNav apps around and Nokia’s dev team is intent on making it better. Beta Labs just released a test version of Nokia Maps 3.08 with Weather, which brings a number of improvements, especially in the UI department.
The new version offers more information before you start and while you’re driving, with an emphasis on live traffic info. It also comes with an attractive-looking dedicated weather app, which shows forecasts by the hour.
It looks like someone only recently bought the burgeoning tablet market to Logitech’s attention and so now they are coming out with one tablet accessory after another in quick succession to make up for the lost time. The first one was Tablet Keyboard for the iPad and Android tablets, then came the Fold-Up Keyboard for the iPad and now comes with Joystick, again exclusively or the iPad.
The Joystick basically latches onto your iPad’s display and manipulates the virtual D-Pad on the screen. This gives better control over the game and being transparent doesn’t veil the screen content the way your non-transparent thumb does.
Although Samsung had announced bada 2.0 back in February during MWC 2011, it took them quite a long time to release it. But it seems Samsung has not forgotten about its little pet project as today we got news of Samsung making bada 2.0 live and also releasing the SDK to anyone willing to visit their website, register and download the 368KB file.
Among the list of changes in bada 2.0 include a new user interface, improved multi-tasking, support for OpenAL, NFC, speech-to-text and text-to-speech, Wi-Fi Direct, in-app ads, push notifications and HTML5. But then again, we already knew all that.
RIM is putting a clever new spin to the old “share what song you’re listening to” trick by letting you share the actual tracks, not just the mere artist/track name info. Enter BBM Music – it’s an add-on for BlackBerry Messenger 6, that lets people create a 50 song collection and share it with their friends.
You can listen to your 50 tracks and to the 50 tracks of each of your friends, or as RIM puts it “More friends = More music”.
And we have some more camera news for you today. Following Canon and Nikon’s lead Sony too has launched some new cameras. This time we have two EVIL (Electronic Viewfinder with Interchangeable Lens) cameras and two SLT (Single-Lens Translucent) cameras from their NEX and Alpha series respectively.
The first of the EVIL twins (sorry, couldn’t resist) is the Sony NEX-5N, which is the updated version of the NEX-5 launched last year. Sony claims it has the world’s shortest shutter lag for interchangeable lens camera (only 20ms) and an extremely quick auto-focus mechanism. The new 5N also shoots 1080p videos in 60fps, up from the 30fps in last year’s model. It also has a 16.1 megapixel sensor and will come with a 18.55mm kit lens for $700 in September.
After Canon announced it’s new range of cameras a few days back Nikon too has updated its range of point and shoot cameras. This includes four basic point-and-shoot cameras for beginners, one prosumer camera and their first every rugged, water-proof camera.
First we will talk about the AW100. It is Nikon’s first water-proof, shock-proof and cold resistant camera. It can function under-water for up to 10m, survive a shock of 1.5m and withstand temperatures as low as -10 degree Celsius. Under that tough body it has a 16 megapixel sensor with 5x optical zoom, 1080p video recording, 3.0-inch display, A-GPS and electronic compass with built-in maps for displaying your geo-tagged pictures on. The AW100 will be sold in five different colors for $379.95 starting September 8.
It is well known to everyone these days, that the Samsung made Super AMOLED screens are the standard to beat in the mobile industry. LG surely thinks so. The Korean company’s yet to be launched AH-IPS display for mobile devices, just received the prestigious Quality & Performance Mark from Intertek – a global testing and certification company. What’s particularly important about this award for LG, is that it has been achieved by comparing its display with no other but Samsung Galaxy SII’s Super AMOLED screen.
Now on with some numbers. The award winning AH-IPS display from LG measures
Samsung has worked up a new naming scheme for its Androids and today we’re seeing the first phones to abide by the new rules. Of course, old models fit the new naming scheme too, but what Samsung has done is codified the tiers (low, mid, high, premium, and “Super Smart”).
I’ll go over the four new models from Samsung (which hail from the M, W and Y lines) along with a few older ones (that conform to the new naming scheme) to see how well it works. You’re welcome to join me.
It seems that HTC’s first 10.1 Honeycomb slate, dubbed Puccini or Jetstream, is all but confirmed for an appearance on the AT&T network with true 4G capabilities – yes, LTE support.
Fresh images of the device have leaked and this time we can really have a proper look at it. Also the some of the specs have been revealed like the 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 1 gig of RAM, 16GB on-board storage, an 8 MP snapper with dual-LED flash, LTE support, a 10.1″ WXGA resolution (1280×800) and finally a Sensed-out Android Honeycomb OS.
After an official photo of the white version of Samsung I9100 Galaxy S II leaked about a month ago, today we finally have the real deal in our office. Well, it was truly worth the wait.
It’s a real pleasure to show you the world’s first live pictures of the white Samsung Galaxy S II.
Facebook has often been chided in the past for disregarding its user’s privacy but over the years they kept adding more options to further protect your data from those whom you don’t want to share it with. But today they have released what is perhaps the biggest update that brings a host of new options, taking privacy to a whole new level.
First of all, you can now change who can see your profile page information from your profile with a simple drop down menu. You can also see how your profile will look to others, whether they are your friends or not.
Yesterday’s camera update to the Nokia N8 was off to a foul start and was quickly recalled. Today, we finally got the real deal from the Nokia beta labs and we’re happy to report on how it changes the already great video camera of the phone. The update is exclusive to Anna-running N8s but it’s an important one, so we tested it as well.
A few words on how we applied the camera update – it’s not a part of Anna as it wasn’t finished on time, so it’s not updated over the usual channels (it’s in experimental testing stages too).
BLU Life View hands-on impressions
Samsung Galaxy Fame battery test complete, numbers are inside
RHA SA950i on-ear headphones review
US LG Optimus G Pro hands-on
The Samsung Galaxy Mega 5.8 lands in our office, we give it the hands-on treatment