Androidifying

Nokia a new member of its feature phone family of devices – Nokia 515. It’s a fancy device made out of premium materials (like sandblasted aluminum and hardened polycarbonate), while offering quite a bang for the buck. Specs wise, the Nokia 515 comes with a Gorilla Glass 2-protected 2.4-inch QVGA screen, HSDPA connectivity, Bluetooth 3.0, USB tethering, and a battery that will keep the phone alive for up to 10.4 hours in talk and 38 days in standby mode. In addition, there’s also a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash on the back that sings along the Nokia camera software, allowing users to take voice-guided self-portraits, Panorama and group photos (sequential shots). Plus, let’s not forget the preloaded apps that include Facebook, Twitter and Nimbuzz (multi-network IM client), as well as Nokia Xpress Browser that uses compression to make web surfing faster. The Nokia 515 will be available in black and white in the third quarter of this year, costing 115 EUR before any local taxes or

Apple  has applied for two patents that would help its products adjust itself to the specifications of a set user. This special technology will happen by way of a selective screen brightness control and auto camera switching during FaceTime video calls. Pursuing this further, the way the first patent works is it allows users to selectively adjust brightness and contrast of different user interface elements independently of one another. Without going crazy on explaining settings no one has tangible info on (because it doesn’t exist within an Apple product yet), it’s important to mention that the most important thing about it will be the battery settings it will garner. In the same way Android already offers this ability to control darker and brighter elements within the software. The second patent is more automated as it will let  Apple  devices switch automatically between front and rear-facing cameras at will thanks to learning how the device owner uses either lens. In order to exe

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is a terrific smartphone, and it’s already a massive success. But it received lots of criticism following its launch earlier this year because of Samsung’s decision to stick with plastic and not adopt premium materials like stainless steel or aluminum. But the company may finally be looking to change that next time around. According to a new report from Korea, Samsung will introduce a metal chassis for the next-generation Galaxy S5, and to ensure there are no production problems, it’s going to start making it later this year.ETNews reports that Samsung hopes to improve its competitive strategy and “enhance the premium brand image” with a metal Galaxy S5, which hopes to better compete with aluminum smartphones from the likes of Apple and HTC when it comes to design and build quality. It’s thought the company has already had samples produced in Europe and sent to Samsung factories in Vietnam. However, Samsung is weary about the problems that metal smartphones can su

One of the best features of Android is the ability to customize just about every aspect of your phone. One of the best ways to customize your phone is to throw a new launcher on there. Especially if you’re not a fan of the Touchwiz launcher or the Sense launcher. For those that don’t know what a launcher is, it’s basically the app that controls your homescreens and app drawer, and installing a third-party launcher will take over your home screen and app drawer. With that said, we’ve found 10 great launchers on the Play Store that we think you’re going to love. So let’s start our countdown to number one. 10. Turbo Launcher Turbo Launcher is one of the highly customizable launchers we’ll be talking about today. Turbo launcher is an innovative and fast launcher not to mention it’s completely free. It works with most icon packs, it also has color themes, customizable dock, a customizable drawer, scroll effects, folder icons and so much more. 9. Smart Launcher Another great launcher is S

If you thought Google was done with Hangouts, think again. The folks at GigaOM has just gotten word that Google is in the process of upgrading to 720p HD video for hangouts and that a select group of people might already have HD video chat enabled. GigaOM got some information from Google on the latest Hangouts upgrade, which switches several protocols and uses more open standards so that Hangouts can eventually turn into a plugin-free chat service, now wouldn’t we all love that? As far as video is concerned, Google is dropping the proprietary, royalty-emcumbered H.264 codec for their own VP8. Back in 2010 when Google purchased On2 technologies, VP8 was acquired and open sourced. This new codec will require significantly less processing power, which Google is stating will enable most computers to handle 10 720p video streams at once. Additionally, it should also enable higher-quality, lower-bit-rate streams across the board. The H.264 plugin will still be supported for browsers that

Nokia is about to embrace the Windows RT platform with a new tablet  codenamed Sirius. We saw some spy shots of the device earlier this month, and now  The Verge  was able to get their hands on some of the details surrounding this mystery tablet. According to The Verge, the tablet will have the following specs: Quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor 10.1-inch display with 1920 x 1080 resolution 2GB of RAM 6-megapixel rear camera 2-megapixel front camera LTE connectivity Windows RT 8.1 According to The Verge’s sources, Nokia will unveil the tablet during its September 26th event. It allegedly will be priced competitively with the iPad. [Via  The Verge ]

Buried in an  article about Apple's upcoming Tokyo retail store ,  Bloomberg  briefly mentions that Apple's September 10 media event will see the introduction of not only new iPhone models, but also new iPads. The Cupertino, California-based company plans to introduce new versions of its phone and tablet at a Sept. 10 event, a person familiar with the matter has said, and the company promised “several more game changers” in the product pipeline as it tries to fend off Samsung Electronics Co. and Chinese makers selling cheaper handsets.   The September 10 date for Apple's iPhone media event was  reported by  AllThingsD  earlier this month and  all but confirmed  over the following few days by a number of other sources, but the event had been thought to be focused solely on the iPhone and iOS 7.  Given the casual nature with which  Bloomberg  mentions that new iPads are expected at the event, it is possible that it is an error, as rumors have suggested that the new iPads