blackberry 10

The latest smartphone leak to hit the internet is the BlackBerry 10.

Images of what is being claimed to be the BlackBerry 10 Developer Alpha device have been doing the rounds and according to Crackberry, where the images where first posted, the device currently allows developers to test BlackBerry 10 apps.

BlackBerry 10 is expected to be released later this year.

The Alpha devices that look like the mini version of Playbook could well be the ones that are handed over to the attendees at the BlackBerry Jam in Orlando next week.

Meanwhile, RIM has enabled the owners of Porsche Design P'9981 to download the OS 7.1 via BlackBerry Desktop Software or via direct download through the Mobily BlackBerry download page.

The stainless steel luxury handset costs $2,000 and is available in select stores across Dubai.

Considered more a style statement, it runs on 1.2 GHz processor 5 megapixel digital camera, 4X digital zoom, 768 Mb RAM and an 8GB internal memory that can be expanded upto 32GB.

World’s thinnest smartphone
Pictures of the world’s possible thinnest smartphone has been leaked.

Chinese phone maker Oppo plans to come out with a smartphone that’s just 6.65mm thick.
Engadget has posted a picture of what it terms could be the world’s thinnest smartphone slimmer than the 6.68mm Ascent P1 S from another Chinese firm Huawei.

The design looks simple and sleek with a full metal rim and an edgeless glass design.

Huawei’s Ascend P1 S runs on a dual-core 1.5 GHz processor, a 4.3″ qHD AMOLED display at 960 x 540 resolution, adual-core TI OMAP 4460 Cortext-A9 CPU at 1.5 GHz and SGX 540 graphics, apart from 1GB RAM.

The super slim phone also has an impressive 8 megapixel back camera and a 1.3mp front camera. The phone can currently be preordered on cellhut.com for $699.99.

Would you ditch your iPhone for Samsung?


Both Apple and Samsung are scheduled to launch their next big models this year and the bets are already on as to who will win the race.

Samsung is already planning to release its S3 next month, ahead of the iPhone 5’s possible launch in June, in an effort to beat the competition.

According to CNet, the Korean giant might include bad credit loans a new human interaction feature in the S3.

A feature similar to face recognition software being used on Android phones, it will use the front camera to keep track of the user’s eye movement and lock the screen accordingly.

While preventing others from using the phone or accessing contents on the screen the feature could also help save battery power by keeping alive only the section where the eye contact is active.

Reports also indicate that the new smartphone will feature a 4.7-inch display and have features that could almost match the Apple’s Retina Display.

And with the Exynos Quad.-core 1.5GHz processing chip along with 1GB of RAM it would take some convincing for anyone to put the new S3 aside.

The new iPhone 5, according to latest online reports may even include a new 3D feature when it is launched in June.

In fact, what sparked the rumour is a job listing on Apple’s website for an iOS software engineer with skills, knowledge and experience in Computer Vision, Image Analysis and 3D geometry.

Other features that Apple might incorporate in its new phone could be an increase in the screen size from its current 3.5 to 4 and do away with physical buttons.

Samsung has already increased its market share with regard to the sale of its S2 and Galaxy Note.
A sales staff at Sharaf DG told Emirates 24|7 that almost 20 units of Galaxy Notes and S2s are being sold every day, a number that is similar to that of the iPhone 4S.

“In fact Samsung is actually doing well. At least in this market there is a growing appetite for Android phones,” he said.

And with forthcoming new releases the gap with regard to technological advancement and features between Samsung and iPhone would get much closer, giving a clear edge to the former outside the United States.

Price of Apple iPhone4s in the UAE on a downward spiral


The cost of iPhone 4S in the UAE has been steadily dropping over the last few weeks as users anticipate the announcement of a successor.

In the latest price drop, a deal on a group buying website is offering the 16GB iPhone 4S for Dh2,629, a drop of 20 per cent to the product’s price in various electronic stores across the country.

Some classified advertisements are promising to sell the 16GB 4S for as low as Dh2,000 in a special deal.
Apple launched the iPhone 4S last October instead of the much awaited iPhone 5 along with its revolutionary voice recognition software Siri.

The 16GB device was initially being sold in the UAE in the grey market for Dh5200. Within a month the prices dropped to Dh4250.

In December, both etisalat and du officially launched the 4S in the UAE with a price tag of Dh2,749 for the 16 GB device.

The UAE prices are much lower to what Apple is charging for its new models elsewhere outside the United States and Europe.

In India while the 16GB iPhone is priced at Rs44.500 (Dh3,325) in Indonesia, where Apple officially launched the 4S on Friday it is priced at $850 (Dh3,121). unsecured loans

According to Nishanth Kamath one of the reasons for the drop in prices in the UAE is due to the anticipation of the next level model. “Apple funs now want to look forward to the new model. Yes, Siri has been amazing, but I am eagerly awaiting to find out what is new in the iPhone 5.”

According to Bittu S who deals with mobile phones and other electronics at a Dubai-based outlet, the price may not drop further. “Initially the cost was artificially high because of the non availability. Today the situation has changed and the price has evened out. We may not see a further drop from here on,” he said.
Meanwhile, according to latest figures, 4S dominated sales in the US market since October 2011. A recent survey by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners notes that about 89 per cent of all US iPhone sales can be attributed to apple’s new smartphone.

Iphone 4 pixel bumper

A new iPhone bumper takes our love of all things 8-bit and shoehorns it into an iPhone bumper that is sure to appeal to anyone who was around in the eighties and nineties.
When Apple released the iPhone 4 and then subsequently fell into the whole Antennagate debacle, the humble bumper case was born. Originally labeled a bit of a waste of time, the bumper case soon became something of a necessity for those wanting to get all the way through a telephone call without having to ring back a couple of times.
Of course, Apple isn’t the only one that makes bumpers, and just like all other iPhone accessories, plenty of third-party accessory makers have joined in to produce some pretty interesting, and at time pretty awesome bumper cases. One example of that may not be so much about the protection of your pride of joy, but it certainly adds a little color and personality to it.

Made by Big Big Pixel, the 8-bit Bumper costs $25 and is available to be shipped worldwide so long as you don’t mind the week or two wait that the company is currently quoting. Of the three colors – black, white and red – we thing we would have to go for a white bad credit loans model on our black iPhone.
The case itself is made out of rubber silicon, so it will certainly offer some degree of protection, but it is safe to say that it is the way it looks that sells the 8-bit Bumper for us. Being children of the 80s, 8-bit graphics have a special place in our hearts, and Big Big Pixel has managed to hit the spot with alarming accuracy.


iPhone bumpers became an important accessory when Apple began offering them free of charge to owners of the iPhone 4 after reports of dropped calls caused by the handset’s all-new unsecured loans antenna design. With people’s hands causing an issue with the exposed antenna, a bumper almost completely fixed the issue, though it did also hide that gorgeous industrial design behind a $29 piece of rubber. Apple later altered the design for the iPhone 4S and is set to alter it further when the next iPhone goes on sale, potentially in March.

Games overtakes video as uks best entertainment

Video games software overtook video for the first time in
2011 to become the UK's biggest entertainment category, according to the
Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA).
The figures for the ERA Yearbook published today (Thursday 22 March) show that despite
faltering physical sales of console games, digital downloads and app sales
propelled the UK games market to sales of £1,926m in 2011, well ahead of video
on £1,802m and music on £1,066m.
Games accounted for 40.2% of the entertainment market, compared with video on 37.6%
and music on 22.2%. bad credit loans
But in the first 11 weeks of 2012, sales of video on physical formats have been
worth more than twice those of games. Even with the addition of digital, video
is still ahead.
Kim Bayley, Director General of ERA, said, "This is a dramatic time for the
entertainment market. It is an historic development for the games sector to
have overtaken video last year. Video has long been the biggest entertainment
sector. Sales so far this year, however, suggest video is not going down
without a fight."
Overall sales of games, video and music fell by 3.3% by value to £4,795m in 2011.
Digital sales of games were worth £504m in 2011 compared with digital music sales of
£333m and digital video sales of £97m, based on analysis of data from the
Official Charts Company, GfK Chart-Track and IHS Screen Digest.
Online and mobile delivery now accounts for 31% of the music market, 26% of Games and
5.4% of video.
Virtually all physical formats registered falls in sales, apart from vinyl albums (up 44%
by volume), Blu ray ( up 18.5%) and games for the Xbox 360 (up 3.3%).
Said Bayley, "Online and mobile are doing very well, and this reflects the huge
investment, much of it by retailers, in producing new products and services.
Physical formats still account for the vast majority of entertainment sales -
80% of albums are still sold on CD - but lack of investment and innovation in
physical product means it is increasingly under pressure."

Bricks and mortar versus online and digital


Growing sales of online and mobile downloads have combined with surging sales by home
delivery services led by Amazon to put pressure on physical store outlets.
Digital and physical product bought online or via mobile now accounts for 32%
of the video market and 45% of games.
The most dramatic impact has been on the music market where for the first time in
2011, physical stores accounted for less than half of sales - 48.6%.
The ERA Yearbook contains full data on the UK games, video and music markets for
2011. It also highlights key innovations by entertainment retailers in driving
innovation in the market, including:

• HMV's listening post app
  which allows users to sample tracks from more than 100,000 albums simply by
  taking a photograph of the cover with their mobile phone;
• Orange's 'Swapables'
  tariff which gives users access to Deezer's streaming music service;
• Tesco's video locker
  service which automatically gives Clubcard users access to movies they buy on
  DVD on their PCs, Macs, PS3s and other devices.

Kim Bayley said, "Retailers know that innovation is key to maintaining consumer interest in
entertainment. That's why our members are investing unsecured loans heavily in new products and
services. The real innovation gap is in the physical market where our members
buy finished product from film and music and games companies. We will continue
to lobby them strongly to innovate too."

Firefox updates

Firefox has become one of the most popular web browsers, even beating out Internet Explorer in total users. By default, Firefox checks for updates automatically for the main application itself, add-ons, and search engines. Learn how to take control of how Firefox updates these application elements.

Why Control Firefox Updates?

It’s happened to everyone. You are working on an important project when suddenly a pop-up appears telling you that a new update is available for the software you are using. This is not only annoying, it interrupts your workflow and makes you less efficient.
Firefox has built-in options to let you take control over what updates the application checks for and how these updates are downloaded and installed. This is especially useful if you have many add-ons installed in Firefox and want to control when updates to these add-ons are installed.

Controlling Firefox Updates

Log into Windows 7 and open up the Firefox browser. On the menu, click on Tools>Options.

On the Options window, click on the Advanced tab and then on the Update tab on the secondary tab level.

This is where you specify how Firefox checks for, downloads, and installs updates for the Firefox browser and both add-ons and search engines. Locate the section of the window labeled Automatically Check for Update To. Here you will find three options:
Firefox – This is the Firefox application itself. bad credit loans Checking this box allows Firefox to search for updates to the main application.
Add-ons – These refer to any add-ons you have installed in Firefox. If you have many add-ons, unchecking this option is a wise idea to avoid constant notifications and reminders that there are updates for your add-ons.
Search Engines – These refer to the search engines you use for searching from within Firefox. Typically, it is best to keep this option checked so you have access to the most recent search engine updates.
Under those options is a section of the window labeled When Updates to Firefox are Found. There are two options here:
Ask Me What I Want to Do – This is the default option. If you check this option, Firefox will interrupt you to tell you that there are application, unsecured loans add-on, and search engine updates available for you to download and install. Which type of updates you will be notified about depends on which of the three options you checked above.
Automatically Download and Install Updates – This option offers the least intrusive method of downloading and installing updates. However, it offers you no control over which updates are installed; you must assume that you always want the latest updates if you choose this option.
On this window, there is also a Show Update History button. Clicking it opens a new window that shows you your update installation history. Although not useful to the casual user, this list can help you diagnose application, add-on, and search engine errors in Firefox.

Taking control of how Firefox downloads and installs application, add-on, and search engine updates is simply a matter of checking or unchecking a few options. By default, Firefox is set to check for application, add-on, and search engine updates automatically but does not automatically install them.
By default, Firefox asks you what you want to do with the updates available. Changing these default options lets you take control of Firefox updates and avoid annoying interruptions to your web browsing experience.

Google Drive - Bye bye dropbox

Google have been pretty busy in the last few months with the launch of its new social networking site Google+, and continued tweaks to its other services such as Gmail and the Android mobile OS. Today we have news of the Google Drive cloud service that has been detailed ahead of launch.


According to a report on The Next Web Google’s new Dropbox rival is expected to launch as early as next week with Tuesday being a possibility. It is also being claimed that the new service from the search engine giant will come with 5 GB of free storage, which compares to Dropbox’s 2GB.


Users will obviously have the chance to purchase more storage just as they can do with Dropbox, which also offers 23 GB of upgrades for users of HTC devices. It is believed that the Google Drive service will work seamlessly on both Windows and Mac devices in desktop folders as well as iOS and Android devices. Users should be able to access their computer files anywhere with changes made to files synced back across to all of your devices.


The Google Drive service seems to be more of a drag and drop file storage option rather than an iCloud rival, which is more focused on backing up personal unsecured loans content and application information. The service is believed to be coming on either Tuesday or Wednesday next week, and as often happens with big companies new services are often launched with partners for new features.


These partners often have a heads up with integration and specifics for the new service, which then leads onto leaks about the product that seems to have  bad credit loans happened with the information on Google Drive. As the possible launch date nears we will probably get to hear more details about Google’s new service, and users will be wondering what else it will offer compared to Dropbox.
Do you use Dropbox?