August, 2012

• 6 August

  Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 notable for split

  

  Take note: the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 hits shops this month, Samsung has confirmed. The oversized half-brother to the popular 5.3-inch Galaxy Note sports the Note’s trademark stylus and a bigger 10.1-inch screen that you can split in half to do two things at once. We first saw the Note 10.1 in February, but Samsung has thrown out …

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• 6 August

  Apple, Samsung take 108% of handset profits

  

  Apple and Samsung Electronics’ lead over the rest of the handset field only widened in the second quarter, with the two companies combining for a staggering 108 percent of the industry’s operating profit. How can two companies exceed the 100 percent mark? When several of the other companies, including Research in Motion, Nokia, Motorola, and Sony, posted hefty operating losses …

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• 6 August

  Nuance Nina to put Siri into any app

  

  Nuance has announced the availability of a software-development kit (SDK) for a new voice-recognition software that it’s calling Nina, offering developers the opportunity to incorporate Siri-like natural language recognition into any app for iOS and Android. To be clear, Nina itself isn’t an app for users to download. Instead, it is a collection of APIs bundled together into an SDK …

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• 6 August

  Samsung prepping Galaxy Note launches throughout August

  

  Samsung is preparing for a month of new Note product launches, with a Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet to be unveiled mid-August in the US, while the Note handset will be on display on 29 August — just in time for the IFA electronics expo in Berlin, Germany. Last year’s surprise hit: the Galaxy Note. (Credit: Samsung) Samsung confirmed the upcoming …

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• 6 August

  Nokia Lumia X is a new twist on Windows Phone 8

  

  The story of Nokia and Windows Phone takes another twist. At least, the Nokia Lumia X concept design features a cool twisty camera — but whether it’s real or not is another matter. The Lumia X concept phone boasts a high-definition AMOLED display screen, a Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor and an 8-megapixel camera. The software on the phone is Windows …

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• 6 August

  Free Aesop for Children app brings classic fables to smartphones, tablets

  

  Your tax dollars at work. How better to describe Aesop for Children, a new iOS app (update: it’s also available for Android, though not through Google Play) offered free by the Library of Congress? I’m sure there’s a debate to be had on whether the government should be in the app-development business, especially when there are competing commercial apps like …

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• 6 August

  Nuance unveils Nina, a Siri sister that lives in third

  

  Nuance, a company that plays a part in some of the most well-known speech-recognition services on the market, has unveiled its own intra-app service, called Nina. With Nina’s help, iOS and Android developers can bring speech recognition, text-to-speech, and voice biometrics to their individual applications. Nina works much in the same way as Siri, allowing users to provide voice commands …

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• 6 August

  Rumoured HTC One X+ benchmarked, has 1.7GHz chip

  

  HTC’s One X may be the most ridiculously powerful smart phone money can buy, but it looks like a successor is waiting in the wings. A handset codenamed the HTC PM63100, thought to be the HTC One X+, has been benchmarked using NenaMark2 — a graphics performance app for testing Android devices. And the big news? That monster 1.5GHz quad-core …

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• 6 August

  Get ready to download apps to your Chrysler Ram or Viper

  

  The 2013 SRT Viper will be one of two connected cars under Chrysler. Chrysler Two of Chrysler’s cars are morphing into smartphones, sort of — right down to the ability to access their own “app store.” The 2013 models of the Ram 1500 pickup and the SRT Viper sports car, expected to hit the market later this year, will come …

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• 4 August

  Will the FCC ever force AT&T and Verizon to revive unlimited data?

  

  More than a year after the unlimited data plans were eliminated from AT&T and Verizon, subscribers are still grumbling, especially as these carriers further tweak their policies for those grandfathered into the plans. Is it time for the FCC to step in and investigate? In this edition of Ask Maggie, I explain why I think it’s unlikely the FCC will …

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