Author Archives:
Switch view

New Imgur iOS application offers browsing images in style

by 7 comments

Most of you have surely used Imgur’s services for instant and easy image sharing. The platform has come a long way since it was lunched, back in 2009. Today, Imgur is so popular that it is no longer merely an image hosting solution, it is now more or less representative of image sharing trends online.

Imgur has been capitalizing on that and it’s growing into a social network, rather than a simple image hosting website. A very logical step to further aid this development is to target the ever-growing mobile community in a proper matter and Alan Schaaf, the company’s founder and CEO, feels they might have finally achieved that with their new iOS application. Read more »

Chrome for Android will be dropping support for Ice Cream Sandwich

by 33 comments

Chrome on Android has really come a long way since its release back in 2014. 22 versions have been created, each one more capable than the previous and Android 4.0 – Ice Cream Sandwich was the scene, on which everything started.

The team behind Chromium, the open-source project which powers the development of the Chrome browser, has announced that it is leaving behind the software’s original Android 4.0 home, which will no longer be supported after version 42. Read more »

New “Freak” SSL exploit may be a major threat to online security

by 72 comments

The name “Heartbleed” will ring a bell to almost anyone. It was center stage in a quite significant security crisys in 2014. In its essence, it was a fault that plagued the widely-used TLS (Transport Layer Security) protocol, used to protect HTTP connections. That problem was quickly dealt away with by an emergency patch to the OpennSSL cryptography library which contained the vulnerability.

News has come today that researchers have found another vulnerability in the same package, which could, once again, expose a lot of critical and personal data to malicious attacks. Just like Heartbleed, the new exploit, dubbed “FREAK attack” targets the SSL/TLS protocol, widely used for securing online connections. This new exploit, however is not solely limited to servers, but could put browsers at risk as well. Read more »

Hackaball – a smart programmable ball that reimagines old-school games and empowers creativity

by 19 comments

Hackaball is the brain child of a group of entrepreneurs who long to revive more traditional social kid games by giving them a new tech twist. What seems like a simple rubber toy has been carefully designed so that it can compete with all the distraction and allure of modern-day tech.

The goal, of course, is to weave the young generation away from the screen and promote more social outdoor activities, but the toy seems to be equally appealing to adults as well.

The Hackaball is packed full of electronics, including – a set of LED’s, a speaker, gyroscope, accelerometer, vibration motor, rechargeable battery and, of course as small processor with a little bit of memory to make it come alive. Read more »

Glympse location sharing app gets more car-friendly with a car mode and MirrorLink integration

by 2 comments

Glymspe has released a new application today, which is meant to simplify the usage of the location sharing service within vehicles. The new application is essentially an add-on to the main app and provides a new simplified dashboard interface as well as MirrorLink compatibility.

If you are unfamiliar with what Glympse does, it is basically a very user-intuitive location sharing service. It is meant to quickly tell your contacts where you are and when you are arriving all in a very simple manner.

To do so, you just fire up the app, select a contact and a period for active location tracking and simply hit send. The recipient will then receive a link where he or she can track you current whereabouts until the period you specified expires. Read more »

EPIC is making the popular Unreal engine 4 open source and free for all

by 16 comments

Tim Sweeney, CEO, technical director and original co-founder on Epic Games announced today that the company is making the latest version of its famous Unreal engine free to download and use. The fourth version of the complete and very impressive creative suite is now open source, which means that developers can not only use the powerful tools, but also freely tweak them and ideally make them better.

There is somewhat of a catch though. The software package is free for use in everything all the way from educational purposes to commercial projects, but Epic still wants to capitalize on its creation. The scheme they have come up with is ingenious. Instead of charging its current $19 monthly subscription fee, the team is making the entire platform free-for-all with the agreement that if your Unreal-based creation starts making more than $3,000 per month, per quarter, they are entitled to 5% of that gross revenue. Read more »

Updated Google Play Services 7.0 will bring better performance and experience for both Android users and developers

by 60 comments

Today the new version of the all-important Google Play services framework was announced through the official Android developers blog. This new version is a major update, hence the version number 7.0 and brings about numerous new features, APIs and optimizations to existing features, which will allow both developers and users to make the most of their applications, mobile hardware and the services Google provides.

For anybody not exactly sure what Google play services is or what it does – it is probably best known as the app that helps you seamlessly update your other applications through the Play store. It is actually far more powerful than a simple update delivery system. It is actually a whole framework, or collection of functions or API’s which allow developers to easily access various hardware features on your device, as well as remote Google features, such as maps, authentication and others within their applications. Read more »

New BlackBerry Leap gets demoed in an official hands-on video

by 29 comments

Just moments ago BlackBerry announced a brand new device ant it MWC 2015 press talk. The BlackBerry Leap, as it is called, comes with a 5-inch HD screen and is powered by what the company refers to as “mid-range” hardware.

The phone is equipped with a quite dated Snapdragon S4 Plus chip and comes with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of onboard storage. Battery life should be pretty good thanks to the 2800 mAh battery pack, but it does come at a price, as the device is quite thick at 9.5mm and weighs 170g. Read more »

Google is hard at work prepping Titan drones for internet delivery

by 18 comments

Most of you surely remember project Loom – Google’s amazing effort to bring internet connectivity to remote locations, through specialized balloons. This is just one of the company’s numerous projects that aim to revolutionize the modern world and it is already making astounding progress. However, as it turns out, the tech giant has yet another ongoing endeavor, which could potentially hold the key to seamless internet access worldwide.

Back in 2014 Google acquired an Albuquerque-based company, called “Titan Aerospace”, which specializes in designing and manufacturing unmanned aircrafts. Allegedly, the deal was sealed to snatch the company away from Facebook, which had set its sights on the business, but since then Google has definitely been making the most of its investment. Read more »

TP-Link announces new powerful Wi-Fi 802.11ac router with a touch screen

by 34 comments

Amidst all the commotion and announcements of mobile tech we often forget to mention some of the other tech innovation that debuts at the MWC. One item in particular grabbed our attention, mostly for its odd and interesting appearance.

TP-Link’s brand new Touch 5 router is the perfect combination of geeky awesomeness and useless over-accessorizing. It is a powerful, high-bandwidth wireless router, complete with its very own, built-in touchscreen. As you might have guessed, this screen is dedicated to settings and accessing various features, which sound convenient enough, but honestly, how often do you need to change your router setting to actually justify a separate screen control. Read more »

Yezz finally shows off an awesome Ara model, well, sort of

by 15 comments

Most of you surely remember Google’s project ARA – the ingenious modular phone concept, that started out as “Phoneblocks”, way back in 2013. Well, it is pretty much alive today it seems to be coming up quite nicely.

Project Are has drawn so much attention that there have been numerous conferences on the subject, as well as an official Project Ara Module Developers Kit and even a few actual Project Ara prototypes.

While roaming around the MWC yesterday we stumbled upon Yezz Mobile’s take on a Project Ara phone. But before you get overly excited as well, it was not a functioning unit, but rather a model, showcasing what the first Ara devices should look like, once they become a reality, hopefully some time later this year. Read more »

Google+ reimagined, Google Photos no longer part of it

by 72 comments

Google is apparently having a change of heart for its Google+ social network. For a long time the struggling platform was a top priority for the tech giant and one major consequence is that a lot of other Google services are still very intertwined with it.

Ever since Google’s decision to bind YouTube comments with Google+ the stage was set for a lot of controversy and polarizing opinion. And the discussion still rages on. The sad fact is that Google+ did not manage to catch on for a multitude of reasons and is mostly deserted compared to Facebook and other niche leaders. It seems the online giant has finally decide to back down on its push of the withering platform as a recent announcement made it clear that Google+ will be splitting into two separate services – Google Photos and “Streams”. Read more »

Universal apps are a perfect match for all your Microsoft devices

by 15 comments

The Microsoft MWC event had a few interesting device announces, namely the new Lumia 640 and its bigger brother – the Lumia 640 XL. A large part of the company’s presentation, however was dedicated to the constantly improving universal application experience on Windows devices.

As most of you surely know, Windows 10 applications are now built around a brand new “One Windows” philosophy. The concept is incredibly straight-forward – have a uniform application ecosystem that will be supported across the whole range of Windows devices and allow developers to write uniform code and make for a seamless user experience transition from mobile screens all the way to full PC desktops. Read more »

BBM for Android and iOS gets an array of new features

by 32 comments

Blackberry has announced that a new version of their popular messenger app is coming for both Android and iOS shortly. The new build will bring a lot of interesting features and make for an improved experience, tailored to use product-specific features, such as Apple’s Touch Id and the Android Wear platform.

Some of the more interesting additions to the app include a new Custom PIN feature. Users will be able to purchase a custom 6-8 character alpha-numeric pin form the BBM store for $1.99 a month. Another new opt-in payment option is the removal of advertisements from the messenger feed, which will set you back an additional $0.99 a month. This all sound way too price, but Blackberry does need all the income it can get right now. Read more »

IKEA plans to bring new Wireless charging furniture to the UK

by 10 comments

With the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge finally official, the tech world is buzzing with comments on the new devices and the new features they have to offer. And while beastly Exynos processors and futuristic build and design are on everybody’s minds the people over at IKEA ate definitely most excited about another new feature of the S flagship – wireless charging.

What started out as a rather clunky, inefficient and even rather dangerous charging method, has really picked up recently, with major standards, such as Qi really pushing the technology along. Everything seems to be pointing toward a cleaner and wire-free future and the Swedish furniture giant is quick to capitalize on the new trend. The retailer has announced a new line of furniture, with built-in wireless charging components. Read more »