2012 ~ @AndroidBasha's Blog

The smartphone app Instagram turned off a feature Wednesday that allowed easier photo viewing for Twitter users, in a move that pushes the two popular tech platforms farther apart.

Twitter and Instagram are pretty much saying "Oh yeah?!" at each other in increasingly louder volumes.

HTC experienced an increase in sales by more than 20 percent in November, with the smartphone maker generating $730 million, The figure represents an increase of 23.3 percent when compared to the revenue generated during October.

HTC Makes $730 Million in November

More than likely, Microsoft was very well aware that the Windows 8 UI would be very divisive and would require a massive change in the way a user interface is perceived and what it is supposed to do in various ways.

MIT Professor: Windows 8 is a Christmas Gift for Someone You Hate

Dec 1, 2012

Samsung's first Windows Phone 8 in the form of the Ativ S may be the subject of a further delay, SamMobile suggests that, in Europe at least, the Ativ S may launch sometime during 2013. Samsung's first Windows Phone 8 device was due to launch during mid-November, but a current release date is unknown.

Samsung Ativ S May be Delayed to 2013

By: Unknown on: Saturday, December 01, 2012

Well Canadian Samsung Galaxy S3 owners, and I know there’s probably a lot of you out there, time to get excited. It sure looks like you’ll be getting some Jelly Bean love starting December 3rd. Which is next Monday!

Jelly Bean Update Coming to Galaxy S3, Says Samsung Canada

By: Unknown on: Saturday, December 01, 2012

Nov 28, 2012

Sony said that the world's first 4K Ultra HD content system will be launched with the release of its XBR-84X900 84-inch 4K Ultra HD TV. The TV itself will come packed with 8 million individual pixels (3,840 x 2,160) and possibly enough sparkle and clarity to make you forget to go back to work or to feed the goldfish.

Introducing XBR-84X900, The World's First 84-inch 4K Ultra HD TV !

By: Unknown on: Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Samsung’s Galaxy series has taken to Google’s Android platform like a duck to water, and the release of the Galaxy S III earlier this year was by far the biggest Android release of the year. With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that, after just a few months, the rumor mill is now picking up tidbits on its eventual successor – the Galaxy S IV.

Galaxy S IV... more rumors!

By: Unknown on: Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto franchise is one of the most iconic on any gaming platform, and to commemorate the tenth anniversary since the release of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, a port for iOS and Android is set to arrive on December 6th.

GTA: Vice City Coming For iOS And Android On December 6th

By: Unknown on: Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Nov 22, 2012

The U.S. International Trade Commission has taken interest in a recent case between Apple and Samsung, and no, it’s not the billion-dollar ruling from this summer. The ITC wants to make sure that Apple did not infringe upon Samsung’s patents while making the iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad.

The U.S. ITC Will Check to See if Apple Infringed Samsung’s Patent

By: Unknown on: Thursday, November 22, 2012

We’ve just barely gotten Android 4.2 - Jelly Bean, currently only officially available on the Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 7, Nexus 10, and Nexus 4, and it looks like Sony has gotten their hands on Android 5.0, which is rumored to be named Key Lime Pie. Which sounds a lot better than Kandy Kane, am I right? Although we also thought that Android 4.2 would be Key Lime Pie, which turned out to be just a dot upgrade from Jelly Bean and kept the same name. This is all rumor-based and should be taken with a grain of salt as usual, but it’s still quite interesting.

Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie appears in NenaMark Benchmarks

By: Unknown on: Thursday, November 22, 2012

Nov 18, 2012

Can’t say that we’re surprised to see this one. It looks like Samsung will be announcing a new 5 inch device come CES 2013 that rocks a 4.99″ 1080p Super AMOLED HD display. Said device would fall in line with the new Droid DNA’s awesome PPI of 441, bringing the heat against HTC.

More details of the yet-to-be announced Samsung Galaxy S4

By: Unknown on: Sunday, November 18, 2012

Nov 17, 2012

The rumor is that Samsung will launch the next Galaxy S device at the upcoming Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the company official told Korea Times. The upcoming Galaxy S IV (or that’s S4) will keep the “inspired by nature” design language while boasting a bigger 5-inch screen, which may or may not be a full HD one.

Samsung Galaxy S4 launching in February 2013?

By: Unknown on: Saturday, November 17, 2012

Asiae is reporting Samsung will bring a 4.99-inch Full HD AMOLED Display to CES in January 2013. The rumored device is said to have a resolution of 1920 x 1080 and massive pixel density around 441 PPI (pixels per inch).

Samsung To Bring 5-Inch Full HD AMOLED Display Next Year.

By: Unknown on: Saturday, November 17, 2012

Nov 15, 2012

When it comes to storage, these days it seems like we can never have enough of it. We’re always wanting more storage in our phones and tablets, and we’re more than willing to pay for it as well. Something that is fast becoming the norm is the lack of microSD card slots on phones and tablets these days, not so much so on tablets but a lot of phones these days are shipping without expandable storage. This is fine as long as you have a phone with a lot of internal storage but, often these are hard to come by. Samsung has been leading the pack a little bit by bringing high-capacity versions of the Galaxy S III to market as well as including a microSD card slot, too.

10 Nanometer 64GB memory is here, time to say goodbye to SD cards?

By: Unknown on: Thursday, November 15, 2012

Back in September, we’ve told you that Samsung is working on a special version of the Galaxy Note II for the Chinese market. This model will keep all of the good things of the original device while adding a second SIM card slot to the mix. However, this doesn’t mean such a phone can work all around the world with one SIM card slot being used for a CDMA network and the other one for GSM-based one. In comparison, CDMA operators in the U.S. like Verizon and Sprint don’t support SIM cards.

Dual-SIM Samsung Galaxy Note II launching in China on November 24

By: Unknown on: Thursday, November 15, 2012

According to the latest report from Gartner. Of the 428 million total mobile phones sold in Q3 2012, about 169.2 million (39.6%) were smartphones signaling the continued trend away from feature phones as smartphones become more powerful and affordable.

Smartphone sales up 47%, Android dominates with 72.4% of sales

By: Unknown on: Thursday, November 15, 2012

Nov 13, 2012

Google launched its Nexus 4 earlier this morning in the US and the UK, and both the 16GB and 8GB models are now sold out. The two handsets flew off the shelves selling out in the UK and the US in less than an hour. Android World is also reporting that sales of the Nexus 4 in Belgium and the Netherlands were cancelled due to unexpected, overwhelming demand for the phone.

Nexus 4 sell out in less than 50 minutes!

Research in Motion (RIM) confirmed today that it will launch its BlackBerry 10 mobile operating system on January 30, as it aims to stem the flow of enterprises ditching BlackBerry phones and tablets for iOS devices.

RIM will announce two new mobile phones running BB10 on January 30

As many of you know, Samsung supplies several important pieces to some of Apple’s devices, including the processors. Recently, Samsung decided to ask 20% more for the cost of those processors.

Samsung raises processor cost on Apple by 20%

China blocked all Google web domains throughout the country for long periods on Friday, the search giant has said.

Google Search, Gmail, Google Drive and all other web products were largely blacked out and, in a statement to Bloomberg and Reuters, Google said it had "checked and there's nothing wrong on our end."

China blocks all Google services

Nov 11, 2012

Earlier last week Apple was ordered to pay more than $368 million to a company called VirnetX for having infringed upon some of its patents with FaceTime — and now VirnetX is back with another suit.

VirnetX sues Apple again after winning $368 million

By: Unknown on: Sunday, November 11, 2012

Nov 10, 2012

After the recent ruling in Apple’s favor on that infamous patent case, Samsung asked the court to investigate whether jury foreman Velvin Hogan had concealed information about previous legal situations that would provide basis for an anti-Samsung bias.

Judge Lucy Koh agrees to hear Samsung's accusations of juror misconduct in patent trial

By: Unknown on: Saturday, November 10, 2012

Nov 7, 2012

Though Apple is selling millions of smartphones, it's iPhone adoption rate can’t keep up with Android says well-known Internet analyst Mary Meeker.

Android adoption rate increasing six times faster than iPhone

By: Unknown on: Wednesday, November 07, 2012

Nov 6, 2012

A federal judge on Monday tossed out an Apple lawsuit accusing Google-owned Motorola Mobility of trying to charge the iPhone maker too much for licenses to essential technology for mobile devices.

US judge tosses Apple suit against Motorola

By: Unknown on: Tuesday, November 06, 2012

Nov 3, 2012

Amongst the many other additions that will be part of Android 4.2, it looks like keeping your device secure will be a priority as well. I know we don’t like the idea of malware on our Android devices, but the fact is, it’s out there. Google is looking to combat that in 4.2 by offering the option of scanning an application before it’s fully installed. Once the app is scanned, if it finds something suspicious within the app, it’ll then prompt you and inform you as such and give you the option to continue. Additionally, the scanner will block the installation completely if the fingerprint matches existing malware.

Android 4.2 is all about security

By: Unknown on: Saturday, November 03, 2012

Google has announced the release of Android 4.2, an update to Jelly Bean, that promises to bring a new camera app, typing improvements, and other upgrades to the Jelly Bean experience.

Android 4.2 Jelly Bean 101

By: Unknown on: Saturday, November 03, 2012

Nov 1, 2012

If you think you own your tablet and can put any software you want on it, think again. The U.S. government just made it officially illegal to "jailbreak" your tablet, while also saying it was ok to jailbreak your smartphone.

It's Officially illegal to Jailbreak Your iPad

The burning platform is still burning.

IDC released its quarterly cellphone shipment estimate, stating that the market grew by only 2.4 percent year over year, from 434.1 million to 444.5 million units. The smartphone market was solely responsible for the growth and compensated for a substantial drop in feature phone shipments. IDC said that smartphone shipments were 179.7 million units in Q3 2012, compared to 123.7 million units in Q3 2011.

Nokia Drops Out of Top 5 Smartphone Companies Rank

It seems like Apple gets a new patent every few days... Just on Tuesday, it won patents for a 3D remote mechanism and for a technology that allows it to detect unauthorized use of your phone, according to Apple Insider.

Apple Stupidest Patents

Samsung is enjoying a pretty fantastic time in the smartphone industry at the moment, thanks to their Galaxy S handsets that have proven to be hugely successful with the Android loving community. The current Galaxy S III model is still flying off the shelves and recent earnings reports have shown that the Korean based electronics giants are certainly going in the right direction with record breaking profits in the last quarter. There’s nothing like a good rumor to raise the stock price of a company and it looks like the Galaxy S 4 / IV speculation is starting to surface.

Samsung Galaxy S4 [RUMORS]

Oct 28, 2012

Samsung is working hard to improve its latest Android flag-ship, Galaxy S III, the device already got the Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean rolling-out for more users worldwide everyday. Latest Reports suggest that Samsung is working on a New Android build for the Galaxy S III, this time its a minor update to Jelly bean 4.1.2 but with a Huge New feature.

Android 4.1.2 update for the Galaxy S3 with Multi-Windows [VIDEO]

By: Unknown on: Sunday, October 28, 2012

Oct 21, 2012

Diverting some of the attention away from Apple’s ‘iPad mini’ unveiling on October 23 and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 event on October 29, Google is to unveil a number of new devices and software improvements on the same day as Microsoft - and I have all the details.

Google event schedule for October 29, and here is what's gunna happen

By: Unknown on: Sunday, October 21, 2012

Oct 16, 2012

Google’s Chromebook hasn’t proved to be quite popular amongst the general consumer since first being announced at last year’s I/O, and the Mountain View-based outfit has just announced a new addition to the roster. Sundar Pinchai, Senior VP of Chrome and Apps, has revealed the $249 kit for release next week, while special kiosks will begin popping up over 500 of the most heavily-populated Best Buy stores across the US to give prospective consumers a taster of what’s on offer.

Google Announces New $249 Samsung Chromebook

By: Unknown on: Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Oct 11, 2012

The OS for BlackBerry has always been quite limiting for developers, but now RIM are looking to change that as they bring out their next operating system. The OS in the video (below) shows a much more sleek phone, with simple slides to answer calls and a pretty neat texting tool which lets you swipe up for words (of course, Android will probably get a app out of that).

BlackBerry 10: Android Meets iOS! [VIDEO]

No, I didn't scale the images wrong, it's the new Samsung I8190 Galaxy S III mini that was just announced in Germany. Brought on by an increasing demand for 4" droids with good specs, the S III mini wants to please people who find the 4.8" screen of its big brother to be just too big.

Samsung Galaxy S3 mini is now official!

In something that should really come as no surprise, Samsung’s fastest selling device ever is now T-Mobile’s fastest selling device ever.

T-Mobile took some and made this historic announcement on its Twitter page for all the world to see. Coupled with T-Mobile’s extensive 4G and Samsung’s own Next Big Thing campaigns, the Galaxy S III represents itself as T-Mobile’s phone to beat and flagship phone. One has to wonder though how the Galaxy S III will do once the intriguing (and sleek I may add) Galaxy Note II hits shelves in about a month’s time.

source: T-Mobile Twitter

Galaxy S III: Fastest-Selling Device Ever On T-Mobile

Forget Jelly Bean, all the cool kids are talking about Android 4.2 these days and although not yet announced, it has started showing up in website analytics data.

The Next Android Is Already Here!

The AFP news agency reports that Hitachi has discovered a way to store digital information on slivers of quartz glass. This data can seemingly exist forever, enduring extreme temperatures and hostile conditions without degrading... at least until the sun begins to die and expend to consume the earth, that is.

Hitachi has found a way to store data in quartz glass