| Phonebloks' Dave Hakkens talks about plans, partnership with Motorola Oct 30th 2013, 03:11, by Juan Carlos Torres If you’ve been on the look out for tech news today, you’re probably well aware of the big splash that Motorola made with its Project Ara reveal. But Motorola’s modular smartphone project won’t be yet another walled garden and has enlisted the community-centric input of Phonebloks. Now Phonebloks instigator Dave Hakkens is telling all about this curious collaboration with the Google-owned company and his own plans for the future. 
Motorola says the seeds for Project Ara has been planted almost a year ago and even then the concept of a modular device is definitely nothing new. However, the pace really picked up when the Phonebloks concept video started to go viral last month. Dutch designer Dave Hakkens, the brains behind Phonebloks, initially intended to design a smartphone for environmentally-conscious users, as one of the selling points of the concept is that you don’t need to throw away a whole smartphone just to upgrade parts of it. The reception that Phonebloks got, however, proved that the concept appealed to a wider range of users and caught the attention of big names in the industry, one of which was Motorola. How Motorola proceeded was somewhat unprecedented. Where most companies would try to squash small fry competition, sometimes with the threat of litigation, Motorola instead opted to adopt an open path, not unlike the open source nature of Android that its parent company, Google, develops. Motorola has the technical know-how, but, to be able to truly claim openness, it needed to build a community around it and get input from outside sources. That is where Dave Hakkens comes in. Instead of working for Motorola, which apparently was the original offer, Hakkens opted to remain outside and develop the community from there, which gives him the freedom to steer Phonebloks in its own direction should Motorola decide to take Project Ara somewhere else. Phonebloks has uploaded a video explaining this development in the project’s overall goals. At this point, some of the details of this quite exciting collaboration are still vague or even scarce. One thing that’s certain is that Phonebloks will continue as an independent endeavor, without funding from Motorola, which is why it is still looking for and accepting financial support. The group has already been approached by component manufacturers interested in producing “bloks” for the modular phone, but Hakkens has his sights first on making a standard specification and then making hardware that actually works. Then they can get to decide things like whether the phone would even run Android at all. SOURCE: Phonebloks, Forbes |  | Lenovo Yoga Tablet unveiled with hold, tilt and stand modes Oct 30th 2013, 02:28, by Robert Nelson Lenovo had been teasing some new products recently. The teasing included a mix of YouTube videos and the #betterway hashtag. Many will likely remember the videos as they were suggesting a tablet that, in general, was easier to use and sporting more features. Well, coming out of the livestream launch event with Ashton Kutcher, Lenovo has announced the Yoga Tablet which will be available in an 8-inch and 10-inch variant. 
Both display sizes will have a 1280 x 800 resolution and 178 degree viewing angle. They will also both share many of the same features, including an MT8125 quad-core 1.2GHz processor with 1GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. But putting the traditional hardware specs to the side, Lenovo has the Yoga Tablet equipped with what they are referring to as “three innovative modes.” Those modes refer to the bump out that you see on the tablet. They are further described as being options to hold, tilt and stand the tablet. The tilt and stand modes are a bit more obvious in terms of explanation. But with that in mind, Lenovo does have a bit more to say about the hold mode. In fact, they are touting the Yoga Tablet as being one that “is designed to fit an individuals hand” and one that is “easier to hold and offers more control over the device whereas other tablets require two hands.” For this, Lenovo looks towards physics and mentions how the tablet has a center of gravity closer to the hand, as opposed to a center of gravity that is in the center of the tablet. In theory, this should make it easier to hold with one hand.    Otherwise, looking at some of the remaining hardware and we find a 5 megapixel rear-facing camera, 1.6 megapixel front-facing camera and microSD card slot with support for cards up to 64GB in size. The Yoga Tablet will also have dual front facing speakers, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, microUSB, a 3.5mm headphone jack and a microSIM card slot. Though, for now Lenovo has only said the 3G support would be available in “select regions.” Some of the differences between the sizes come with the battery and of course, the weight. The 8-inch model has a 6000 mAh battery and the 10-inch model has a 9000 mAh battery. The 8-inch model will weigh in at 0.88 pounds and the 10-inch model weighs in at 1.33 pounds. That all being said, these tablets will arrive on October 30th and priced at $249 and $299 for the 8-inch and 10-inch models respectively. Both models will be available with Best Buy and Lenovo. In addition, the 10-inch model will also be available with Amazon, Fry’s and Newegg. Along with the tablets, Lenovo will have a protective cover available for both models. The cover will be available in a variety of colors and priced at $29.99. The 10-inch model will also have a $69.99 keyboard cover available.        | | Samsung Galaxy Note 3 gets a huge bug fix OTA update Oct 30th 2013, 02:19, by Juan Carlos Torres Samsung has just started rolling out an update to the international variant of its latest pen-enabled phablet. The Galaxy Note 3 will be receiving a rather large over-the-air update that focuses on fixing a number of glaring problems that the smartphone had since it launched last month. 
The biggest change introduced by the update is related to a new reactivation lock security feature introduced with the Galaxy Note 3. When the lock is enabled, users will be required to enter their Samsung account information after the device has undergone factory reset, which may surprise and confuse users. With the update, the feature is now disable by default and has to be explicitly turned on under the Security settings should the owner wish to do so. The update also brings in some fixes that will make the smartphone more usable with the Pebble smartwatch. Previously, because Pebble used Android’s accessibility features, many of Samsung’s own TouchWiz features are automatically turned off when connecting with Pebble. The problem is that these are not automatically re-enabled, forcing users to hunt down individual settings for features such as Air gestures, Multi window, or even Direct pen input. Now the Galaxy Note 3 will automatically reactivate these features. This latest update is, however, available only for the international unlocked version of the Galaxy Note 3, with the model number SM-N9005. The update is quite large at 116 MB and is delivered via OTA only, so make sure you have a decent connection when you start the update process. VIA: Android Central | | BBM experiences exponential growth in first week of Android release Oct 30th 2013, 01:51, by Juan Carlos Torres It’s almost difficult to comprehend that BBM for Android and iOS is almost a week old now, considering how long it took to get there or how it almost never came to be. Still, BlackBerry remains quite ecstatic over the numbers that continue to flow that seem to prove to themselves and to the world that BBM still has a place and is here to stay. 
Anyone’s who has been keeping in touch with mobile world probably already knows how wildly popular the BBM app has been, if one takes into account the raw download numbers. According to statistics coming from BlackBerry, the app has been downloaded 5 million times in the first 8 hours, and 10 million within the first day. It has also garnered a staggering amount of highly positive reviews, which could probably be reduced by half due to a large number of obviously faked and automated reviews. However, download numbers are one thing and regular users are another, and even BlackBerry agrees. Now that the initial frenzy of launch day downloads is almost over, the company wants to shift its eyes towards actual usage numbers, to see if the over 20 million new BBM users will remain as part of BBM’s 80 million monthly active users. That will be the true litmus test as BBM attempts to reclaim its throne in a saturating messaging market. Of course, it probably helps that BlackBerry is officially saying that it is committed to keeping BBM free of charge, at least for the foreseeable future. In the meantime, BlackBerry wants BBM to go viral and is making it extremely easy to do so. It’s new sharing tool is a simple landing page that lets people profess on Facebook, Twitter, or e-mail their new found love for BBM. A BBM PIN sharing page, on the other hand, makes it too easy to share and click on others’ PINs, which is probably somewhat akin to posting your phone number online. BlackBerry claims it still has a few cards to show and it might be interesting to watch the company try to carve out a name for itself once more. SOURCE: BlackBerry | |
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