The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which opens in the UK on Thursday, is shot in 3D at 48 frames per second — twice the rate of normal movies. You can see it in 2D, 3D and in certain cinemas at the full 3D High Frame Rate (HFR). But what difference does it make? What does …

Apple’s troubled Maps app could be dangerous in the wrong circumstances, Australian police have warned, after rescuing several people who were directed into the outback by mistake. Cops in Victoria have had to fetch tourists from the huge Murray Sunset National Park, after their iPhones sent them more than 40 miles out of their way. Apple Maps plotted the entire …

If you’re looking for a cheaper way to hook up with Windows Phone 8 and its cheery live-tile lifestyle than Nokia’s pricey Lumias, HTC is here to help. The HTC 8S — or Windows Phone 8S by HTC to give its full perfume-inspired name — is out now for £180 (plus top-up) on pay as you go from Three, and …

Sky has angered its Android-using customers by refusing to speed up or widen Android support for its Sky Go service. Sky Go is an app that lets you watch the Sky stuff you pay for — including live sport and the latest movies — on your phone or tablet. Android fans are outraged that very few Android devices are supported, …

Pay a little up front and get your brand-new Android tablet, then pay a monthly fee for a service. But we’re not talking 3G data here — we’re talking news. The Times, the Rupert Murdoch-owned 227-year-old newspaper, will sell you a 32GB Nexus 7 for just £50 when you sign up to a £4 per week subscription to its tablet …

With a bellow of “Hello Britain!” Google’s Play Music service is on stage and launching into its first number, after the world’s longest tune-up. While you’ve been able to store your music in Google’s cloud for ages, you can now finally buy new tunes — and they’re pretty cheap. Prices are different to those on iTunes. Muse’s albums are mainly …

Apple flogged 3 million of its newest iPads — the iPad with retina display and its Mini-Me, the iPad mini — last weekend. The Californian company boasts this is a record for its tablets, doubling the 1.5 million Wi-Fi only iPad 3s it shifted after its first three days on sale in March. That’s pretty darn quick — Asus last …

Free Wi-Fi will be beaming through 80 London Underground stations during the Olympics in July and August, at no cost to you or your Oyster card, thanks to Virgin Media. Olympic tourists will be able to alleviate the boredom of being crammed into a dirty tunnel, waiting up to half an hour for a Tube train at some stations, by …

4G really needs to get its skates on — for the sake of our national reputation. Mobile Internet is four times faster in nippy New York than it is in lagging London, according to a new report from pro tester RootMetrics. Mobile data averaged 2.3Mbps download speed across a hefty 11,413 tests in our capital, and 8.5Mbps over 5,294 tests …

Deep into the murky depths of phone rumours we tread, Japanese mobile blogs and user agent profiles swirling about us, thick as autumn fog. Sony, creator and destroyer of worlds, gives birth to the squalling one-eyed infant Odin. The seers ascribe this new blower aspects of a god, such as Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. All of which is to say: …