Thought your quad-core smartphone was impressive? Well, you ain’t seen nothing yet. There’s fierce rumors going around that ZTE will be coming out with an 8-core processor equipped smartphone codenamed “Apache”. MediaTek will be stuffing a yet to be announced ARM15 MT6599 chip that’s been manufactured with TSMC’s 28nm process.
Other specs of the Apache includes a high-resolution 1080p display, along with a 13-megapixel camera with LTE support (for the markets that have it). If the rumors are true, it means that ZTE hopes to make a big splash on the mobile market that’s currently saturated with other, more premium brands. While ZTE has created other, more budget friendly devices, it has yet to break out into the Android smartphone scene with a drool-worthy device that gives other manufacturers like Sony, Samsung and Apple a run for their money.
It’s understandable that a lot of people are waiting to see a glimpse of BlackBerry’s next OS and series of handsets. Well, until the big reveal of the device in early 2013, RIM-aholics will have to get by through leaked product images dropped online by people in the know. One of those people has graciously taken multiple pictures of the BlackBerry Powered L Series phone and plastered it all over the net for everyone to see. If you’re curious to see what the next step in BlackBerry’s evolution looks like, you only need to look at the images posted n the link below.
Razer’s updating another product in their peripheral line, and this time it’s their mobile mouse, the Orochi. Much like the DeathAdder that came before it, the Orochi is getting a newer, higher resolution 4G 6400 DPI sensor, which should make it more sensitive than ever before.
Razer also made the new Orochi more efficient, as its Bluetooth 3.0 connection to notebooks and power optimization give it long 30 hour continuous battery life, or 3 months of actual usage – at least according to Razer. The new Orochi should be hitting stores in the States and will retail for $69.99 or Php 2819. We haven’t gotten any word when this particular mouse will hit our stores.
Remember the random reboot issue that some Windows Phone 8 users were experiencing? Well, if you’re one of the unlucky ones that has been hit with that particular annoying bug, you’ll be happy to know that Microsoft is planning to push out an OTA update to correct the issues that you’ve been experiencing. Microsoft has identified the cause of the issue and has managed to find a fix for it, though mum’s the word on what exactly caused all those problems.
Do you feel like sending your friends your vacation photos—and maybe throw in an HD quality feature length movie with it? Need to send PDFs to your co-workers? Google has announced that its email service, Gmail, is integrating Google Drive, allowing file transfers of up to 10 GB, which is 400 times bigger than a regular email attachment.
“Like a smart assistant, Gmail will also double-check that your recipients all have access to any files you’re sending. This works like Gmail’s forgotten attachment detector: whenever you send a file from Drive that isn’t shared with everyone, you’ll be prompted with the option to change the file’s sharing settings without leaving your email. It’ll even work with Drive links pasted directly into emails,” product manager Phil Sharp said.
The catch? You’ll have to update to Gmail’s new composing window. The service is expected to be released over the next few days.
More than 2,000 motor enthusiasts and spectators attended the 5th round of the Lateral Drift Championship Seriesnight race at the Clark International Speedway.
Pro Division Winners (L-R) 3rd placer Ralph Tan, champion Alex Perez, and 2nd placer Gio Rodriguez
Five-time Lateral Drift champion Alex Perez bested Gio Rodriguez in the battle for the top spot in the professional division. Rodriguez falls short and lands in second place.
Perez vs. Rodriguez
Ralph Tan of Team Hankook was able to defeat Ryan Agoncillo of Team Yellow Cab in the battle for third place.
Pao Agregado of Team Hankook reached the highest speed at 100kph, but failed to make it into the final four.
The championship leader in the previous rounds, Audel Sison, falls short as he lands on the 8th spot. Perez capitalizes with 457 points, while Sison tails behind him with 440 points.
Amateur Division Winners (L-R) 3rd placer Rad Albano, 2nd placer Jesus Salas, and champion Jet Mathay
In the amateur division, championship leader Jet Mathay bagged the top spot, knocking Jesus Salas into second place. It was Rad Albano of Team Autocraft who landed in third place.
Jet Mathay racing under Team HKS
The sixth and final round of the Lateral Drift Championship Series will be on December 8, 2012 at the Clark EXPO open parking grounds.
The Lateral Drift Championship Series was made possible by the following sponsors: Hyundai Philippines, Dickies, DC shoes, Atoycustoms, Edsahosting, Aguila Auto Glass, Aikkapaints, Speedlab, Light hand Dental Clinic, Wave 891, Racing beat, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Sprocketph.com, Kotse.com, StoplightTV, TopGear PH, Motorcycle Magazine, Power Wheels, Autoreview, Pinoy Speed, Manila Standard, Gadgets Magazine, HKS oil, Emperor Motor Sport, and Zero-400.
PLDT’s TelPad service has been around for oh, some time now, so it’s not surprising that the company is refreshing the tablet that they are including with their revolutionary offering. This time around, the company is packaging the Huawei S7 with the TelPad service. The TelPad S7 Lite is a 7-inch, IPS equipped tablet from Huawei that packs a 1.2GHz Cortex A8 processor paired with 1GB of RAM along with 8GB of storage that can increased through a microSD slot up to 32GB.
The tablet has ICS on board, and comes free (yes free!) with any of PLDT’s TelPad plans. PLDT hopes that users will be able to enjoy their internet connections more with a feature packed tablet. Considering what you’re getting, we think that PLDT’s TelPad plans are more than fair. Speaking of plans, check out the offerings:
Old subscribers will be able to upgrade to plan as well, though Patrick Tang, VP PLDT Home Solutions, say that there’s going to be a slight fee depending on how long you’ve been with the old plan. Early adopters will be able to exchange their devices straight up without any issue, though anyone under a year or under six month would have to pay a slight fee to get their newer S7 Lite.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Samsung thinks it’ll be able to release flexible plastic OLED displays by next year. The Korean company says that it is “in the last stage of development” for the displays, and hopes to be able to release them in 2013. If Samsung manages to keep to this particular timeline, we may see radically new phone designs based on the new technology near the second half of 2013 (Samsung and other manufacturers have to build the prototypes as well, a phone isn’t just a display). It has to be said though that the objective of these flexible displays isn’t to create a phone that can be folded in your pocket (though that may be the reality someday) – it’s more to do with improving the strength and flexibility of highly fragile displays that are used in hi-end smartphones today.
Nokia’s been rolling out low-cost Asha featurephones likecrazy in the recent months, and it doesn’t look like the Finnish company is going to stop soon. The latest Asha device to be unveiled by the company is the Asha 205 which was especially built for the social web which is evidenced by a dedicated Facebook button on the device. Nokia says the new button should allow users to instantly connect to their friends, by allowing them to see which of their friends are online to start chatting with them right away, start messages and group chats fast and reach more of the people they know, wherever they are, no matter what device they are using.
The button also allows users to quickly share their status updates and photos, though at this point in time we’re not exactly sure how it works. We suppose it’ll closely mimic the experience on HTC’s own Facebook specialized phone, the ChaCha though at this point in time it’s purely speculation from us. Other specs of the Asha 205 include a 2.5-inch display, QWERTY keyboard and dual-SIM capabilities. No price has been set as of writing.
We’ve been seeing a couple of people on our friends list posting a long, slightly legalese statement about their privacy and copyright guidelines. A bunch of you might have read this on your news feed lately:
In response to the new Facebook guidelines I hereby declare that my copyright is attached to all of my personal details, illustrations, comics, paintings, professional photos and videos, etc. (as a result of the Berner Convention).
For commercial use of the above, my written consent is needed at all times! (Anyone reading this can copy this text and paste it on their Facebook Wall. This will place them under protection of copyright laws.) By the present communiqué, I notify Facebook that it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, disseminate, or take any other action against me on the basis of this profile and/or its contents. The aforementioned prohibited actions also apply to employees, students, agents and/or any staff under Facebook’s direction or control. The content of this profile is private and confidential information. The violation of my privacy is punished by law (UCC 1 1-308-308 1-103 and the Rome Statute).
Facebook is now an open capital entity. All members are recommended to publish a notice like this, or if you prefer, you may copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once, you will be tacitly allowing the use of elements such as your photos as well as the information contained in your profile status updates.
We hate to break it to you guys, but this is all a hoax. The long and short of it is this: your copyright is already attached to whatever you post on your Facebook account, from that seemingly artsy shot of your unremarkable food a few days ago to that drunken binge that you posted with your friends when you weren’t thinking straight. There is no need to declare it, again. Even Facebook tells you this in their TOS: “You retain the copyright to your content. When you upload your content, you grant us a license to use and display that content.”
If you don’t believe us, you can check out this statement that Facebook posted regarding this issue:
There is a rumor circulating that Facebook is making a change related to ownership of users’ information or the content they post to the site. This is false. Anyone who uses Facebook owns and controls the content and information they post, as stated in our terms. They control how that content and information is shared. That is our policy, and it always has been.
TL;DR; Stop posting that status because it makes you look stupid. Instead, post pictures of cats because they are infinitely more adorable.
Motorcar insurer Federal Phoenix Assurance Co. (FPAC) partners with the insurance arm of the Cebuana Lhuillier pawnshop chain, Cebuana Lhuillier Insurance Solutions (CLIS), with the objective of making insurance more available to Filipinos and hastening vehicle registration at the Land Transportation Office (LTO) through a joint effort called the Cebuana Compulsory Third Party Liability (CTPL) Insurance or Cebuana CTPL.
Vehicle owners can now renew their CTPL policies conveniently just by bringing a copy of your LTO certificate of registration together with the official receipt at any Cebuana Lhuillier pawnshop. Insurance claimants with Cebuana CTPL can also file their claims at any Cebuana Lhuillier branch by simply submitting valid and complete claims documents for quick claims processing.
Cebuana Lhuillier claims that CTPL insurance renewal only takes a few minutes, thanks to its network and management system paired with the web-based claims technology developed by Federal Phoenix. Using this electronic claims settlement system, Federal Phoenix is immediately notified upon receipt of the electronic copies of the claims documents in any Cebuana Lhuillier outlet, thus expediting the claims process.
Cebuana Lhuillier added, “Cebuana CTPL fosters nation-building as the proliferation of fake CTPLs will be reduced, if not eliminated, thus ensuring the appropriation of right premium taxes to the government. Fake CTPLs issued by fly-by-night insurance companies has cost the government to lose millions of premium taxes to the detriment of the insuring public.”
Move over, MacGyver—a 16-year-old teenager named Kelvin Doe from Sierra Leone is building devices out of scrap metal, including batteries, generators, and transmitters, the very same things that we find in smartphones, radios, and what powers our gadgets or makes them interactive. The remarkable thing is that he has taught himself to do this since the age of 13 finding only scraps in the trash for his creations, and has gained the attention of one of the most prestigious technical universities in the world, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is the youngest person in MIT’s history to be invited to their “Visiting Practitioner’s Program.”
Doe is also a DJ, going by the name DJ Focus, and he manages his own fully-staffed community radio station in Sierra Leone where he broadcasts news and plays music. The radio station is powered by a generator created from a deteriorating voltage stabilizer, which he found in the trash, while a simple antenna lets his neighborhood listen in.
“I believe if you focus, you can do an invention perfectly,” Doe said. Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in the world, and electricity, as a result, is sporadically available. “The lights will come on once in a week, and the rest of the month, dark,” he added. He created a battery to power the homes in his neighborhood to fix this, which was a combination of soda, acid and metal, wrapped together by tape.
Soon he will be a resident practitioner with the International Development Initiative at MIT and a guest presenter at Harvard School of Engineering, where he’ll gain even more practical knowledge to help his community.
“Whatever things I’ve learned here, I will share it with my friends, colleagues and loved ones,” Doe said.
Are you planning on getting (or receiving) an iPad or iPad 2? Need a case that goes with it to protect your investment? In celebration of the season of gift-giving, there is a SPECIAL PROMO on selected high-quality NEW iPAD and iPAD 2 cases, specifically for the following brands: X-Doria, OPT, Moshi, Macally, Aprolink, and iPearl.
The first wave of this promo has begun with the following retail outlets: iStudio Shangri-La, iStudio VMall, iStudio SM Manila, Gadgets In Style Shangri-La, Gamestop Theater Mall, Gamestop VMall, Gamestop Trinoma and Gamestop Park Square. More outlets will be announced as the sale expands.
Whether or not you’re a current Nokia user, there’s little doubt the Finnish company influenced mobile phone design. They’ve always given us devices that are beautiful, functional and practical, and their latest flagship is no exception. The Lumia 920 is a wonderful phone to look at, and a lot of thought has been put into its design. In this quick little video, Design Lead Marko Ahtisaari gives us a quick walk-through on the Lumia 920. It’s an interesting video to see, and gives us an idea as to what it is Nokia aims to put into their devices. Take a look at the video HERE.
A lot of rumors have been circling about on HTC’s upcoming 5-inch, 1080p smartphone, the Deluxe. While there hasn’t been any more rumors about what’s going to power it inside, there’s been plenty of leaks on what it’ll look like on the outside. GSM Arena has managed to get their hands on purported press shots of the new device, which tells us that HTC will be offering the upcoming 5-inch smartphone in three different colors: black, brown and white. The device will sport a 5-inch Super LCD3 full HD display, and will be powered by an 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon Krait processor and 2GB of RAM. While there’s still no solid word when this particular device will ship, you can bet that it’ll be showing it’s gigantic, full-HD face sometime in January during CES or February during Mobile World Congress.
