M-Edge's SuperShell case will "bounce" your iPhone when dropped
Military-grade optics and apps add geotagging and night vision to the iPhone and iPad
Gizmon introduces three clip-on lenses for the iPhone
Seen at: itproportal 
Facebook Camera for iPhone takes best of Instagram - The Christian Science Monitor
A little over a month after Facebook acquired photo-sharing hub Instagram for a reported $1 billion, the newly-public social network has released its own mobile photo app called Facebook Camera. Camera works a whole lot like Instagram: Users can snap and share photos with a few swipes of the finger, or edit the images with a range of speciality filters.
Skip to next paragraph"When you launch the app, you'll see a feed of just great photos from the people you care about," Facebook reps wrote in a press release. "You can swipe to see more of any album or tap to enlarge an individual photo." Facebook Camera is currently available on the iPhone; versions for Android and other mobile operating systems may follow, although Facebook is keeping mostly mum.
RELATED: 10 best Facebook apps and games
So how does Facebook Camera stack up against Instagram? Well, over at Gizmodo, Sam Biddle has run a pretty comprehensive side-by-side test of both apps. Verdict: Instagram, by dint of a few added virtual filters, has a slight edge in the photo-taking department. But Facebook Camera makes uploading and sharing photographs easier, which is why most of us use an app such as Instagram or Camera in the first place.
"So long as Facebook remains the social gold standard online it makes sense for it to be the central place for your photos," Biddle writes. He adds: "With Camera, Facebook's back to being a one stop shop. Any argument for Instagram to the contrary is just contrarianism; the urge of the cool kid to do something unconventional and away from the crowd for its own sake. It's time to give in."
In recent months, photo and video sharing apps have soared in popularity. According to a recent report by analytics company Flurry, which tracked downloads on all the major mobile operating systems, the photo and video apps category grew by 89 percent between October of last year and March of this year. For the first time since the 2008 launch of the Apple App Store, Flurry reps wrote, "the Games category found itself rivaled by another category."
Not a bad time for Facebook to get into the game.
For more tech news, follow us on Twitter @venturenaut.
RELATED: 10 best Facebook apps and games
Nokia delivers live traffic, geocoding to Bing - CNET News
A look at Bing Maps powered by Nokia's services.
(Credit: Nokia)Nokia has brought a couple of its location-based services to Bing Maps.
The company announced yesterday that Bing Maps users will now have traffic information available to them from Nokia's Where platform. Where is available in 24 countries, including the U.S., the U.K., and Canada. According to Nokia, users in the U.S. already had traffic information available to them, but this addition now includes support for side streets.
Nokia is also bringing geocoding to Bing Maps, allowing the platform to take latitude and longitude information, and connect that to a readable address.
"It's how we know that Seattle's Space Needle is at the geocoordinates N47 degrees 37' 13.807", W122 degrees 20' 57.088" and vice versa," the company wrote on its blog. "But in practical terms it means something simpler."
Nokia's announcement comes just a few weeks after the company showed off an update to its Drive app in Windows Phone 7, called MyCommute. The feature is designed to analyze how long it takes you to get from one point to another, and then as it learns, update the Live start screen tile with the best estimate.
Looking ahead, Nokia says that it will find new ways to power Bing Maps on Windows Phone devices.
Microsoft Integrates More Nokia “Infrastructure” (Traffic, Geocoding) Into Bing Maps - Searchengineland.com
Yesterday Microsoft announced that in 24 countries, including the US and UK, Nokia (Navteq) will be delivering traffic data to Bing Maps. The company also said that it would start using Nokia’s geocoding services in several (unnamed) countries to improve directions.
In May last year I wrote Bing Maps To Be Powered (Replaced) By Nokia? A source argued to me that over time Nokia would gradually replace most of the infrastructure behind Bing Maps. I was very surprised at the time but it appears to be happening.
This mapping integration was allegedly, according to my source, one of the sticking points that caused Nokia to pass on Android as a platform. Google wouldn’t similarly agree to a commingling of Google Maps with Nokia on the back end. However if Windows Phone fails to deliver for Nokia — so far results have been modest — the company may be compelled to embrace Android as a survival move.
Nokia is also behind the new Yahoo Maps. My suspicion is that Nokia hopes to eventually make these third party mapping services part of its local ad network.
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- Microsoft Makes Venue Maps More Visible On Bing
- Bing Maps To Be Powered (Replaced) By Nokia?
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- Powered By Nokia, The New Yahoo Maps Goes Live
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Related Topics: Google: Maps & Local | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Bing Maps & Local | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines
Samsung Galaxy S3 pounds HTC One X into benchmark dust - Crave
We've run the Samsung Galaxy S3 through a barrage of benchmark tests, with our results showing that Samsung's latest toy is a proper performance powerhouse that manages to beat the beefy HTC One X. Read on, folks, and brace for numbers.
In the Antutu benchmark, which tests memory, CPU speed and graphics, the S3 racked up an impressive 12,112 points, beating the One X, which scored 10,827 in the same test.
A similar benchmark, Quadrant, awarded the Galaxy S3 with 5,289 points, again beating the One X, which mustered a score of 4,904. The HTC One X ran GL Benchmark's Standard Egypt test at a rate of 52 frames per second, but was once more bested by the Galaxy S3, which ran the same test at 59fps -- the same score managed by the frighteningly powerful new iPad.
The 4.8-inch Galaxy S3 even beat Apple's frighteningly powerful new tablet in one of our browser tests. When we ran the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark (in which lower scores are better), the S3 scored 1,498.9ms, while the new iPad and iPad 2 took slightly longer with scores of 1,890.9 and 1,884.6 respectively. The S3's result also aces the iPhone 4S, which scored 2,181.6ms.
HTC clawed back one victory -- sort of. In the Vellamo browser test the S3's score of 2,077 wasn't as high as the app's database score for the HTC One XL, a phone that's not out in the UK yet.
Despite the HTC One X also offering a quad-core chip and a slightly higher clock speed, our tests show that it's not quite as powerful as the Galaxy S3. That could be down to the S3's Exynos 4 Quad chip being made by Samsung itself, while the Tegra 3 processor in the One X is built by Nvidia.
Number crunching aside, my expert colleague Natasha reckons the Galaxy S3 feels slicker to use than HTC's offering, with no lag or stutter as you cruise around the phone's Ice Cream Sandwich-flavoured interface.
It's worth noting that while it's pipped to the post by the S3 in performance stakes, the One X is still a very powerful smart phone. For more on the One X's performance click here, and for more on the Galaxy S3, including test shots from the phone's 8-megapixel camera, observe our in-depth review.
Are you planning on buying the S3? If you own the One X, what do you think of its performance? Sound off in the comments or on our Facebook wall.
Nokia Lumia 610 UK release date confirmed for June - T3.com
Nokia has ended much speculation, revealing its MWC unveiled entry level Windows Phone handset, the Nokia Lumia 610 will be officially released next month.
Set to hit stores across the UK in the coming weeks, the 610 will build on the company’s existing, and highly popular, selection of Windows Phone packing, Lumia branded handsets, taking on the throng of budget, entry level Android devices in the process.
Nokia Lumia 610 Release Date
Following its first officially outing during the Barcelona based Mobile World Congress convention earlier this year, there have been a number of rumours surrounding when exactly the first truly budget Windows Phone handset would hit the market.
Although Nokia has yet to reveal a concrete date of arrival, the Finnish phone manufacturer has spoken out, confirming the Lumia 710 sibling will be available to consumers in June.
Living up to its budget billing, the Nokia Lumia 610 plays host to an acceptable but hardly groundbreaking array of specs.
With a 3.7-inch display lining up on the handset’s fore with an 800 x 400p resolution, the minimalist 256MB of RAM found about the 610 means the handset will not be able to run the newly launch Skype for Windows Phone application, a service which requires at least 512MB of memory.
Playing host to a rather impressive 8GB of internal storage, those looking for more space will be able to make use of 25GB worth of complementary SkyDrive based cloud storage.
Are you in the market for a new smartphone? Tempted by the upcoming Nokia Lumia 610? Let us know via the T3 Twitter and Facebook feeds.
Via: TheTelegraph
Nokia and Symbian still number one in China - The Register
Android may have an insurmountable lead in the Chinese smartphone market, but when it comes to internet-connected mobiles Symbian and Nokia are still number one according to new stats from search giant Baidu.
The company’s latest quarterly Mobile Internet Development Trends Report for Q1 2012 measured only internet-connected phones which have browsed the web through Baidu.
Discarding the category of ‘other’ which came out tops on both counts, the breakdown by brand shows Nokia in the lead with 22 per cent, counterfeit or shanzhai products with 16.1 per cent and Samsung third with a share of 10.4 per cent.
Apple is fourth with 5.9 per cent, which tallies with Analysys International’s estimates that iOS had a smartphone market share of 5.7 per cent by the end of 2011.
The times they are a-changing, however, with Nokia at risk of losing that impressive lead if it doesn’t innovate and produce more smartphones that appeal to users, said Baidu.
It may need more than the recently launched Lumia 800C and the planned 610C to do this, especially given the fierce competition in the smartphone market.
One strategy would be to target the entry-level, which is set to provide great growth opportunities for handset makers in China. In fact, with domestic giants such as Huawei, ZTE and Lenovo all set to launch in that area, the days of shanzhai manufacturers could also be numbered.
“Nokia’s mobile market share continues to drop, with 5.8 [per cent] decrease month-by-month and 18.4 per cent drop year-on-year. Shanzhai phones’ market share is also steadily decreasing, with 4.3 per cent decrease month-by-month and 10.3 per cent drop year-on-year,” said Baidu.
Over on the platform side, Baidu hasn’t broken the results down in English but TechInAsia has a handy translation.
Android is surprisingly down in fourth place with a share of 14.4 per cent, despite an overwhelming lead in the pure-play smartphone market of around 70 per cent, according to Analysys International stats.
Discounting ‘other’ again, number one spot goes to that old classic Symbian S60, with 17.2 per cent of the Baidu-surfing market, followed by MTK – an OS favoured by shanzhai handset makers – with 16.7 per cent, and then the nondescript ‘feature phone’ with 16.1 per cent.
Apple’s iOS is fifth with 5.8 per cent, just a percentage point higher than Symbian on the S40.
All of which proves that while the smartphone market is where most Chinese users are headed, the majority are still on much more basic handsets, according to IDC research manager Ian Song.
“The biggest thing to consider here is that China is still predominately a feature phone market. Based on our sell-in numbers, feature phones made up 75 per cent and smartphones made up 15 per cent of the total PRC mobile phone market in 2011,” he told The Reg.
“Going forward, IDC believes that feature phone brands and OSes will speed up in decline as smartphones becomes cheaper and more useable in China.” ®
Samsung unveils dual-sim Galaxy Ace Duos with GSM radios - gsmarena.com
The world-wide edition of the Samsung Galaxy Ace Duos is now official.
It's been a while since we saw the dual-mode version of the phone get announced for India. Now we finally have the two-SIM-slot variety intended for for international GSM markets.
international Samsung Galaxy Ace Duos
Specs-wise, the Samsung Galaxy Ace Duos is no surprise. There's a 3.5 HVGA (320x480px) LCD screen, 5MP camera with VGA video recording, 832MHz processor, 512MB RAM and Android 2.3 Gingerbread. The user-available on-board storage space is supposedly 3GB, but there's a microSD slot as well. The battery on this one is mere 1,300 mAh unlike the one on the CDMA variety, which is 1650 mAh. But hey, perhaps CDMA networks strain battery consumption harder.
The good news are that at 11.5mm thickness, the new dual SIM variety of the Galaxy Ace Duos is as slim as the original Galaxy Ace and it's less than 10g heavier.
The smartphone comes with Samsungs proprietary Dual SIM always on feature, which automatically forwards calls from SIM 2 to the SIM 1 when when the user is talking on SIM 1, meaning there are no calls missed calls.
The Galaxy Ace Duos will launch first in Russia this June but it will later roll out to the rest of Europe, CIS, Latin America, Southeast and Southwest Asia, Middle East, Africa, and China.
The GSM+CDMA version costs $340 in India, so we should probably expect similar pricing with the worldwide edition as well.
Samsung Announces Dual-SIM Samsung Galaxy Ace Duos - ibtimes.co.uk
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The device flaunts a 3.5in HVGA TFT-LCD display. Its dimension measure 112.74 x 61.5 x 11.5mm and weighs 122g. It runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system. It is powered by an 832MHz processor. The smartphone includes HSDPA 7.2Mbps which delivers improved browsing as well as fast download with reduced lag-times. It includes Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and offers support to Bluetooth 3.0 wireless technology.
The new Galaxy Ace Duos contains a 3GB of storage and 512MB of RAM. It comes with a microSD card slot with an additional memory of 32GB.
It has a rear-facing camera of five megapixel which features auto-focus, single shot, smile shot and panorama shot. It contains a 1300mAh battery. Apart from the specs, the device includes ChatON, Samsung's communication service which allows users to connect on any phone platform into a single area, ensuring them to stay connected with the content and contacts that are required.
The new Samsung smartphone will be available from June starting in Russia and slowly rolled out to Europe, CIS, Latin America, Southeast and Southwest Asia, Middle East, Africa and China.
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