Updated: iPad Mini release date, news and rumours
The new iPad has been and gone, sporting a chunkier and heavier build than the iPad 2, which left some wondering: what's with all the extra weight?
However, it looks like Apple may be about to aid those conscious of extra grams in their bags, as rumours hot up about a potential iPad Mini (or iPad nano, if you prefer) arriving later this year.
As the Amazon Kindle Fire steals the budget tablet show and with more small, cheap tablets on the horizon, such as the Google Nexus tablet, Apple may well want a bite of the, well, apple.
Back in 2010, former Apple CEO Steve Jobs said that smaller screened tablets were not "sufficient to create great tablet apps" and would be "dead on arrival", so rumours suggesting a new iPad mini is in the works reveals a potentially new direction for the firm in its post-Jobs era.
Believe it or not, there's certainly a lot of chat surrounding the iPad Mini, so we've scooped it all up, mushed it all together and expelled it into a handy round up, allowing you to keep track of every twist and turn.
If you're pressed for time then check out our iPad Mini rumour roundup video below.
Update: A new report has examined the prospects for an iPad Mini - and how it might contribute to the company's bottom line, particularly with gamers and the educational market.
According to analyst Ben A. Reitzes, the iPad Mini would not be a threat to Apple's current domination with the New iPad, and is likely to be a favourite among gamers as well as educational institutes, particularly with the electronic textbooks introduced earlier this year.
iPad Mini release date
There's not even an official sign from Apple that the iPad Mini/iPad nano is even in the works, so a release date for the tablet is even more up in the air.Although if the rumours turn out to be true, we can expect Apple to start rolling out the iPad Mini very soon after a extraordinarily over-hyped launch event.
According to a Digitimes source the iPad Mini/nano could start production in the third quarter of 2012.
Analyst Shaw Wu says the "exact timing" for an iPad mini release date "is difficult to predict", but said its launch is a "question of when, not if." Pretty confident then, are we, Shaw?
A report straight out of China suggests that key Apple manufactures Foxconn and Pegatron have started to receive orders for the new iPad mini. It goes on to say the factories will have 6 million units ready for a launch in Q3 of 2012.
When Apple announced its annual WWDC event running from June 11-15, which sold out in just two hours, there was some speculation that we could see the Cupertino firm announce the iPad mini there, but no new iPad broke cover at WWDC.
Update: A iMore source claims that the iPad Mini will be ready by October 2012. Hold on to your hats people!
Update: A Taiwanese source has claimed that the mini iPad will be in the hands of consumers before Christmas, with a third quater launch on the cards.
Update: According to Bloomberg an unnamed source said a tablet with a screen size of "7 to 8 inches diagonally" will arrive before 2012 reaches its close.
Update: The Wall Street Journal reports that sources in Apple's Asian supply chain have revealed the iPad Mini will go into production from September.
iPad Mini price
Apple is known for its extravagant products, launch events and pricing policies, but the iPad Mini may herald a new era for those who long for an Apple device, but simply can't part with an arm and a leg to buy one.It's thought that Apple's idea behind the iPad nano is to tackle the budget end of the market, where the Amazon Kindle Fire is currently king, and a Digitimes source predicts it could land with a very reasonable sub £200 ($249-$299) price tag.
Update: Could the iPad Mini be a super cheap tablet contender? It can according to one source, who claims it will land with a price tag between $200 and $250 (around £150) - we certainly hope this turns out to be true!
Update: Those famous "various analysts" and "industry sources" have spoken out again, confirming that the iPad Mini should arrive on the market for $249-$299 (around £159-£190).
Update: On 9 July, we covered a report from Japanese blog Macotakara which said that the iPad Mini price would be in the region of $250-$350 (around £160-£230).
iPad Mini display
As the name suggests, we're looking at an iPad which will be sporting a screen smaller than the stock 9.7-inch display found on the first three Apple tablets.In February we saw a report from the Wall Street Journal claiming a source from an Apple component supplier had confirmed it was testing a smaller screen for Apple, in the region of 8-inches with a similar resolution to the iPad 2.
At the start of March, Digitimes reported that the new iPad Mini would actually come with a 7.85-inch display – a tad bigger than the 7-inch screen found on the Kindle Fire.
April saw Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu reveal that Apple had been testing devices with screens ranging from 4 to 12-inches and highlighted that the 7.85-inch format would be most likely "when, not if" the iPad mini is launched.
Wu also predicted the iPad nano would sport the same resolution as the original iPad and iPad 2, at 1,024 x 768 – meaning developers wouldn't have to tweak their apps.
Update: According to an iMore source, the mini iPad will sport a 7-inch screen with the same retina display as the iPhone 4S and new iPad.
Update: The 7.85-inch screen rumour gets ever stronger as industry sources claim the iPad Mini will sport IGZO display panels, which are capable of delivering a retina-quality display.
Update: According to Bloomberg's sources, the iPad Mini will not arrive packing the Retina Display featured on the new iPad 3.
Other iPad Mini specs
To help keep the cost of the iPad Mini down, one source reckons it will ship with just 8GB of internal storage - the same amount as the Amazon Kindle Fire.In terms of thickness, Japanese blog Macotakara cites an unknown source, claiming the iPad Mini will be a 7.2mm thick.
Macotakara also wrote that the iPad Mini would come with 3G functionality.
iPad Mini early verdict
Well, we're still unsure whether Apple will go down the iPad Mini route. Steve Jobs made his stance on smaller tablets quite clear and it would be a daring move by the Cupertino-firm to go against its popular former boss.The budget tablet market is one which is definitely growing, and one which Apple is currently not part of, so it won't be too much of a surprise if the firm does decide to go down this route.
We'd love to see a new iPad Mini come to market, as it would certainly give Amazon and co a run for their money... plus it would be intriguing to see what Apple would do with the smaller format.
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Windows To Go brings Windows 8 to older PCs via USB
Microsoft has unveiled Windows 8 To Go, a USB stick that will allow users to run Windows 8 on a Windows 7 PC.
It's basically a 32GB USB drive which runs Windows 8 on any PC you plug it into from Windows XP upwards.
As well as storing the OS, the USB will save users' apps and settings so that any PC the To Go stick is plugged into will seem like your home Windows 8 computer.
Take away OS
Of course, Microsoft's pitching it at business users; if you're a workaholic, you can access all your work data and settings from home, or holiday, or the motel you have to move into while the divorce goes through.The USB drive was shown off at Microsoft's Digital Worldwide Partner Conference this week with no word yet on pricing and availability.
No doubt Windows To Go will be available from approximately the same time as full-blown Windows 8, which now has an official release date of 'late October'.
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Excel tutorial – Sales and commissions
Make your business more efficient with our Excel Tutorial on creating a sales and commission spreadsheet
In this article I am going to show off five top Excel tricks for making your spreadsheets sing and to help edit and refine your sales and commissions spreadsheet.
These tricks make it easier to create spreadsheets that are easy to use and which allow you to get to the heart of the matter immediately. None of them involve any scripting, VBA or macros and once learnt can be applied in any spreadsheet.
The tricks will cover layout and formatting, sorting, highlighting important data and searching for information.
Our working spreadsheet is a very familiar scenario: a list of orders sorted by date with prices and commissions and it looks like the sheet below.
1/ Formatting your spreadsheet
The first thing I want to do is a bit of formatting to make the headers stand out. I get the font, colour and alignment of cell A1 just right.
Everyone knows the little format painter icon on the cut and paste panel on the home tab in the ribbon bar. When you click this it picks up the format of the current cell and allows you to paint another cell or range of cells. It only allows you to do this once, if you have lots of different cells you want to format the same way you need to re-click the format painter. With a big spreadsheet this could be a bit 'peck and hunt'. In modern versions of Excel though you can double click the format painter to lock it on. It changes to and stays that way until you next click it. So I can easily format my page.
2/ Editing headlines to fit the page
OK, so each header looks nice but we have another classic spreadsheet problem: the columns are a bit congested, and if I fix that then the data goes off the page.
I can solve this problem elegantly using the Orientation button on the Alignment panel on the Home Tab:
It's the little angled 'ab' with an arrow. I select all the headings and use this dropdown to select 'angle counterclockwise'. This tips the column headers on their side and I can now shrink the columns to make the page nice and compact whilst keeping the column headers clear:
3/ Conditional formatting to highlight what's important
The next trick is to highlight the most important bits of information for me eg my commission. To do this we are going to use conditional formatting from the Styles panel on the home tab:
The drop down offers a number of options:
- Highlight Cell Rules
- Top/Bottom Rules
- Data Bars
- Colour Scales
- Icon Sets
I am going to choose the icon sets option and then the simple traffic lights option. If I select all the commission payments and apply conditional formatting I get:
Excel has applied the default rules to the traffic lights:
If I go back and select the menu Conditional Formatting -> Icon Sets -> More Rules we get the rules dialog box:
This shows the default rules are green for the top third of values, red for the bottom third and yellow for the middle third.
There is a tricky problem with conditional formatting that trips people up. These conditional rules apply to all the values in the selection at the time the formatting was applied. I need to select all the values and apply the conditional format to them as a group. I want to flag all payments above £40 as green, and all those below £20 as red because they are too small to worry about. The middle set get yellow. We can just select all cells and edit the formula to do that.
4/ Grouping and sorting by a filter
In order to improve my sales performance I need to be able to group all the sales to a single customer account and work out which ones are valuable to me. I am going to do that with the sort and filter function on the sort and filter panel on the data tab.
I select columns A-H in my spreadsheet and use the filter. I can now sort and filter the data by the various columns:
The little drop down buttons on the headers open a filter/sort dialog box when they are clicked on:
This dialog box lets me sort the data by rows, or display only some rows to look at. I can now pick out a particular customers account out of the long list of orders and figure out what they buy and how to sell more to them.
I am going to setup statuses on each order so that I can start using this list to manage my work.
Our possible statuses for each order will be:
- Placed
- Delivered
- Follow up call required
- Completed
5/ Validating your data
Lastly I want to be able to filter my work list on the work status to make sure I keep everything on the level.I select the cells in column H and use the Data Validation dropdown in the Data Tools Panel on the Data Tab:
Selecting Data Validation from the menu opens this dialog box:
I can set up the status to come from a list of values – Ordered, Delivered, Followup or Completed. When I click on these cells now they look like this:
I can now only enter one of those four values in the cell.
Ok that's pretty cool, but the data is one line per order – that's not how I work. I sell to accounts, I need to know how valuable each account is. My fifth and final trick will show you how to do this.
Let's sort the data by account number first – then I am going to use the Subtotal command on the outline panel on the Data tab:
When I select columns A-H and then click Subtotal I get the subtotal dialog box:
I am going to change it to sum the commission amount for each account number. When I do that I get:
It has now nicely totalled my commission from each account so I can work out which accounts to focus on.
Gordon Guthrie loves spreadsheets so much he has written his own – Vixo, like spreadsheets but better, which you can explore at Vixo.com.
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Android 4.1 Jelly Bean source code released
Google has officially released the Android 4.1 source code today, although it's only available for two devices at the moment.
Android Jelly Bean is the latest incarnation of Google's mobile platform and sees an improved user experience, thanks to Project Butter, along with various other upgrades and improvements over Ice Cream Sandwich.
But before you get over excited, the Jelly Bean (version 4.1.1) source has only been released for the Google Nexus 7 and Samsung Galaxy Nexus, although Google promises versions for the Motorola Xoom and Google Nexus S will arrive soon.
Time to get building
This release is significant as it allows device manufacturers and developers to start tuning their products to work with Android 4.1.We're just hoping that the upgrade path is a far quicker one than we saw with the Ice Cream Sandwich update – which is yet to make its way on to all compatible devices, and still only accounts for just over 10 percent of the Android OS market share.
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In Depth: Inside McAfee Labs: how antivirus is saving you from an identity crisis
Inside McAfee Labs
With the amount of connected devices in the world edging ever closer to 50 billion, securing consumers on the web has never been so multifaceted.To understand just what is needed to protect every user – as well as every device that connects to the internet – TechRadar visited McAfee Labs in Amsterdam and spoke to the very people that deal with tackling web threats every single day.
According to McAfee, a whopping 6 million PCs become infected with bots every month, there's 65,000 pieces of new malware every day and one in five people are hit by cybercrime every year.
While not all of these pieces of malicious code are given the time of day in the press, occasionally a threat is so extensive it will affect millions of users. We've seen this recently with Flame – a bundle of malware that came in a rather large 20MB package. There was so much malware in the Flame payload that it would have taken a lab such as McAfee's 10 years to analyse it.
It was littered with keylogging software and screen-capture technology and had the potential to devastate even the most protected computers. The kicker was that it had an automatic delete function – it was made by people that just wanted to show the world what they could do, and was luckily spotted by McAfee's rival's Kaspersky.
Before this there was Stuxnet, which was aimed at Iran and all about controlling weaponry – an altogether more sinister prospect.
But, according to McAfee, one of the biggest issues around AV at the moment is that of data theft and how easy we are all making it for criminals to essentially clone us online.
"All your details have a value of some sort and there are people out there who will steal personal data and try and sell it," explained Raj Samani, VP chief technical officer EMEA at McAfee.
"In 2006, Operation Motorman found how much money data was worth - there is an industry out there extracting personal data.
"One 'information broker' earned £50,000 a month from one client alone. We just don't realise the scale of personal data theft."
And even if our information isn't found by paid information brokers, there are plenty of dodgy emails around to entice us to click on a link that will mine our computers for information.
"Everybody has a price. There is something out there that will interest you and make you click on a link," said Jon Carpenter, technical product manager at McAfee Labs.
"So, what is your price? Would it be 10 million, would you believe it if you had, say, won 10 million?
If it's 10 pounds then it is more believable. So, you can essentially get duped for the price of a tenner. These viruses work because we are so simple."
Going viral
Regardless of viruses, the data trail we leave behind on the web is startling. Whether we know it or not, we scatter digital breadcrumbs everywhere."When it comes to personal data – you have behavioural, derived data. If you enter your details into a website that is logged, you have volunteered that information," said Samani to TechRadar.
"But do you know the affiliates that get this data? Have a look at the applications on your smartphone – things like Foursquare, Yelp... all of this data is stored.
"There is a yawning gap between what people believe is happening and what is happening today. Data value is simply enormous."
As Samani explained, suddenly Facebook's initial valuation of $108 billion doesn't look that silly.
"The amount of personal data Facebook holds on individuals is the most we have ever known and personal data has a significant, enormous value."
Born identity
Identity is part of McAfee's three tenets of security – data and anti-malware make up the triumvirate – and it is confident that its buyout by Intel in 2011 will improve its reach for both customers and consumers.
"Intel believes that security is the third pillar of computing," said Gary Davis, director WW consumer product marketing.
"The span of enterprises that use McAfee was part of the decision and they also wanted an industry leader.
"We are driven by our partnerships. It is a rich and meaningful portfolio of partners and those are the main reasons Intel chose McAfee."
Davis also hinted at what is to come with security and Intel's chips.
"The amount of security technology that is in IvyBridge dwarfs anything before it. We are looking to work together to solve the problems that consumers have.
"It's important that security works from the moment that you turn your device on. We are working from the bottom up – hardware protection built into the start-up process."
"The next generation Intel device is everything you can imagine. The Medfield smartphone, Clover Trail tablet, Ultrabooks – McAfee is making sure that all of these different form factors are protected."
It's these form factors that have given AV companies something of a headache over the years. McAfee and other antivirus companies aren't just looking at desktops and laptops anymore, there's phones, tablets and even TVs to protect now as well.
"In the first quarter of this year we saw a 12 hundred per cent increase in malware centred on Android devices," explained Davis to TechRadar.
"And IPTV provides a huge opportunity for hackers so we need to make sure our software works on all fronts."
McAfee has 6,500 dedicated employees, 350 researchers scattered across the globe there are 125 million McAfee users in the world.
But, despite all this, vigilance by the consumer is still the key to making sure a computer virus doesn't ruin our online lives – especially when it comes to surfing even the friendliest of sites on the web.
"Porn sites today are the most protected websites in the industry – you won't get malware from them," explained Davis.
"If you go to your local pub site, though, there may well be viruses there as their servers just aren't as protected.
"As much as we can write the best code, the consumer itself can only act in its best interest."
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LG to produce its own quad-core processor
LG is set to make its own mobile quad-core processor know as the L9, which will apparently launch in September.
This isn't the first time a mobile manufacturer has produced its own chip, as Samsung currently has its Exynos range of processors - with the quad-core variant found in the Galaxy S3.
According to Chinese site Chosun, LG is planning to stick its L9 processor in a phone which sports the same True HD screen found on the Optimus 4X HD, and a camera which will be at least 10MP.
Optimus 4X HD in trouble?
It's though that the L9 chip will be based around the ARM Cortex-A9, which is slightly older than the latest Cortex-A15 – although this version is yet to feature in a mobile phone.The device sporting LG's fancy new chip is rumoured to arrive in September, just a month after the firm's first quad-core handset, the Optimus 4X HD, is due to arrive in stores.
Back in May we heard rumours that the LG Eclipse was being lined up to usurp the Optimus 4X HD, and although that rumour pointed towards a Qualcomm processor, it could still be the handset which is being talked about here.
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Nokia Lumia Pureview is coming soon, says company VP
A Nokia Lumia bearing the PureView camera functionality is coming 'very soon' according to the Finnish company's vice president of worldwide developer relations.
The Nokia 808 PureView was always set to be more of a showcase for the 41MP camera and its apps, with the rest of the Symbian phone not really winning any fans.
However, with PureView winning over a fair few (if not all) critics, the technology is destined to make its appearance in Nokia's most high profile range, the Windows Phone-toting Lumia range.
Soon
Speaking to NeoWin, Richard Kerris, who heads up developer relations for Nokia globally, apparently said a Lumia Pureview would be arriving "very soon".Obviously Windows Phone 8 is on the horizon, and the PureView camera would be a nice addition to the next generation of Lumia handsets.
Nokia has bet the farm on Microsoft's impressive Windows Phone operating system, which is battling to gain traction in the tough mobile phones market.
With the likes of Samsung and Google's Android, and Apple's leviathan iPhone already capturing a huge proportion of the smartphone market, Windows Phone and Nokia needs all the extra features they can get.
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Motorola Motosmart budget smartphone heading to UK
The Motorola Motosmart will hit UK shores at the end of July, and is aimed at those on a tight budget.
Set to arrive for £79.99 on PAYG, and just £7 per month on contract, the Motosmart is defiantly coming in at the bottom of the smartphone pile – setting its sights on the likes of the LG Optimus L3, HTC Desire C and Huawei Ascend G300.
According to Motorola, the Motosmart will make life simpler, and it uses the firm's MotoSwitch software, which will learn your most used actions and stick them in an easy to reach widget on the homescreen.
Low price, low specs
One look at the price tag will tell you the Motosmart isn't going to set the world alight with a dazzling spec sheet.For your £80 you'll get a 600MHz processor, 512MB of RAM, 3.5-inch (480 x 320) display, 165MB of internal storage, 3MP camera, 1,400mAh battery plus a microSD card slot – which is certainly needed considering the pitiful amount of storage inside.
Sadly the Motosmart will come running Android 2.3 Gingerbread, and with the low spec level there's no guarantee it'll see Ice Cream Sandwich, let alone Jelly Bean.
The Motorola Motosmart will be stocked by Carphone Warehouse and T-Mobile in the UK – keep an eye out for our Motosmart review coming soon.
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Review: Epson EH-TW5900
Lies. Damned lies. And projector specifications. For proof, look no further than the fact that the Epson EH-TW5900's claimed contrast ratio is poorer than its cheaper TW3200 sibling. Frankly, we're not sure why they bother.
In this particular example, part of the explanation is that we're talking dynamic contrast achieved thanks to ruses like dynamic irises, lamp modulation and image processing. Much more useful are measures of native or static contrast that give you an idea of what sorts of blacks and whites a projector is inherently capable of rendering.
Sadly, Epson doesn't see fit to furnish us with that data, so pointless dynamic numbers it is. But never mind, because we've actually looked at the thing running and can tell you what it's really like to use. And fortunately, it's pretty damn good.
Like the TW3200, it's a full 1080p LCD projector. You get vibrant, saturated colours and nice, clean whites. In fact, the TW5900 is noticeably superior to the TW3200 in every regard.
The colours are even lovelier and, critically, it closes the gap that little bit further to DLP models when it comes to the perennial LCD weak spots of black level and contrast. The TW5900 is capable of genuinely cinematic visuals. It also runs very quietly indeed.
Then there are the top notch optics. Not only does it maintain focus when adjusting the image size, it also has lens shift, allowing you to adjust the image vertically and horizontally, thankfully without resorting to those horrid, image-killing digital keystone settings. The only downside in this area is the slightly longer throw. You'll get a smaller image at a given distance compared to the TW3200. But it's easily worth the extra £100 or so over the TW3200.
It's a nicer unit all round. It's also worth noting the TW5900 throws stereoscopic 3D into the mix, though you'll need to shell out roughly £80 a pop for shutter glasses and we had problems getting it to run with Nvidia's 3D Vision platform. This projector is probably best viewed as a feature for use with 3D movies and broadcast HDTV.
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In Depth: iOS 6: everything you need to know
iOS 6: what you need to know
iOS 6, the latest generation of Apple's mobile software for iPod touch, iPhone and iPad, has finally been unveiled - and from what we've seen so far, it's going to delight an awful lot of iOS users.From badly-kept secrets to things that have been on wishlists for what seems like forever, here are the highlights.
The iOS 6 release date is Autumn
iOS 6 was released as a beta today, but the final version will ship "this Fall".
iOS 6 introduces Passbook
Passbook is Apple's new e-tickets app, enabling you to carry electronic tickets for anything from sports events to plane travel, or to have a digital loyalty card. The tickets update too, so for example your airline ticket would send you a notification once your departure gate was announced or changed. Hopefully enough firms will support this one to make it work for all our everyday bits and bobs.
Update: It you fancy seeing PassBook in action on an iPod in Hong Kong airport, then you're in luck because the chaps over as PassK.it have given it a spin - shame the airport wasn't ready for it though! Check out the video below.
iOS 6 has an improved phone app
The revised phone app offers smart reminders, so for example you can reject a call with a message saying you're busy, on your way, lost in a forest... You can also be reminded to call someone back when you leave your current location. The new Do Not Disturb mode is particularly nifty: when new messages arrive, they do so silently and without the screen lighting up. If you wish, you can also tell your iPhone not to silence calls from a list of favourite callers, or to automatically silent repeat calls from the same person.iOS 6 has Facetime over 3G
To tell the truth, we're amazed it took so long. If this takes off, the mobile operators will be very sad. Unless we use it abroad, in which case they'll be dancing on great big piles of our money.
iOS 6 has a brand new Safari app
There are lots of useful improvements here: Instapaper-style offline reading, iCloud tab syncing and photo sharing website integration to make uploading less hassle. Less wonderfully, Smart App Banners enable websites to tell you about their sodding iOS apps more easily, which is just brilliant. Who among us hasn't thought, "man! I wish more websites told me about their iOS app on each visit!"?iOS 6 Mail has VIPs and pull to refresh
Pull to refresh is here! Yay! You can also create a list of VIPs whose messages will appear on your device's lock screen and in a dedicated, separate mailbox. Sharing photos or videos from within Mail is finally here too, as are per-account signatures.iOS 6 photo sharing is more selective
Instead of sharing everything with everyone, you can choose which photos should be shared with which people. We're not sure why you'd use this rather than, say, put a friends-only album on Facebook or Flickr. Anyone?iOS 6 makes Siri more serious, and puts it in cars
Siri is able to understand a wider range of questions than before - the demo showed it understanding questions about sports scores, statistics and trivia, booking restaurants and finding out what's worth seeing at the cinema - but as yet it's unclear which, if any, of these features will make it to the UK. Local search is being rolled out worldwide, however, and there's support for more languages.Siri is also going mobile: the new Eyes Free feature will put a Siri button on the steering wheel of Jaguars, Land Robers, BMWs, Mercs, Toyotas, Chryslers, Hondas, Audis and GM cars. The manufacturers have promised to support the feature in the next 12 months.
iOS 6 brings Siri to the iPad
...but only the new iPad.
iOS 6 has Facebook integration
Apple promises "the best Facebook integration ever in a mobile device", and to our eyes it looks pretty much the same as iOS 5's Twitter integration: you can post photos, locations, URLs and so on to annoy your friends. The API is public, so non-Apple apps can share to Facebook too, and you'll be able to see your Facebook friends' App Store recommendations.
iOS 6 has guided access for children
The new Guided Access feature enables you to disable certain parts of the screen so that children can't accidentally hit the wrong buttons. We're going to use it on the in-app purchase icons in every kid-targeted iOS game. Hahah!iOS 6 has a new Maps app
New York, London, Paris, Munich, everybody's talking about - iOS 6 maps! Well, maybe not, but Apple's much-rumoured mapping system finally breaks cover. It's pretty, will have traffic information, doubles as a sat-nav system with turn-by-turn navigation, can be controlled via Siri and will probably be rubbish outside major metropolitan areas in the UK. Still, the new Flyover 3D views of major cities are lovely.
Update: It's been confirmed that Yelp, a social networking, user review, and local search service, will be integrated into Apple's new mapping software - allowing you to check out restaurants, bars, clubs and cultural venues.
Update: Google is clearly concerned about loosing a huge percentage of the mapping market, as it's slashed the price of its Maps API by 88 percent following Apple's announcement of its own service.
iOS 6 dedicated Podcast app
A report from AllThingsD suggest that Apple may be about to give Podcasts their own application within the forthcoming iOS 6 software.iOS 6 should be adopted very quickly
Unlike other mobile operating systems, iOS isn't dependent on mobile operators approving updates: as a result 80% of Apple's 365 million iOS customers are using the latest iOS, compared to 7% of Android users. Once iOS ships, expect a similarly speedy take-up.iOS 6 doesn't work on everything
iOS 6 supports iPhones from the 3GS onwards, the fourth generation iPod touch and the second and third generation iPad. Check our story for more on iOS 6 compatibility.Update: Apple has now pushed out iOS 6 Beta 2 to developers, available on the iPhone 4S, iPhone 4 and new iPad. Why is this exciting? Because the cogs in the settings icon now spin... oh yes!
Update: However developers have already managed to Jailbreak iOS 6 beta 2, so if you're someone who likes tinkering with handsets you might me able to get it running on the earlier iPhones and iPads.
Previous iOS 6 rumours
Here are the rumours we reported on before the WWDC 2012 announcement.What hasn't been certain is what will be involved in the new platform – but we've sifted through the upcoming releases to see what's likely to appear, whether you'll be getting it and more importantly: the iOS 6 release date.
iOS 6 launch
If Apple doesn't release the new iOS 6 platform for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch this evening (spotted by T3), we'll be gobsmacked - and it will have wasted loads of money on all these signs.
So, we can probably expect to see the 'world's most advanced mobile operating system' unveiled at WWDC...
iOS 6 maps
If you were a gambling type of person and had a very tech-savvy bookie, we'd recommend you pop a few dollar on this: Apple bringing out its own mapping application.Not only has Apple acquired C3 3D mapping firm last year, but it also snapped up the likes of Placebase and Poly9, both companies involved in the same space – and moving into the mapping space would give Apple a fantastic leg up in the location-based services that are getting more and more popular every year.
The fact Google is launching its own 'next dimension' of Google Maps imminently is unlikely to be a coincidence, further backing up the rumour that Apple and Google are set to dissolve their partnership on the mobile side of things.
Facebook integration
There are strong, strong rumblings that Facebook is going to do what Twitter did with iOS 5 – namely, become more of an integral part of the iOS 6 experience.TechCrunch is stating that integration with Zuckerberg's creation is a 'go' for the new release, but details of how far that integration will permeate through the iExperience are still vague.
What's most likely is being able to quickly share photos to Facebook from the Photo app in the same way as Twitter – whether Apple takes the next step and allows features like autosharing, contact integration or offline access to Facebook albums remains to be seen.
Either way, it's a massive coup for Facebook as it looks to get more involved in the mobile space – perhaps this can stop the pesky rumours of a forthcoming Facebook phone.
Siri coming to the iPad
We were verging on the gobsmacked when the new iPad 3 didn't launch with Siri – instead we got the less-exciting Voice Dictation instead.
However, according to 9to5Mac the experience will be massively improved by adding in all the functionality of Siri on the iPhone 4S (minus the phone business), allowing instant search, music control and more by a simple long-press of the home button.
But how will it look? According to the same sources, the app won't run in full screen, instead popping up from the bottom of the display to show you the information you requested.
Which, let's face it, will quickly be setting alarms and timers and the odd voice search when you've heard certain questions evoke comedic responses from Siri.
Enhanced email and Do Not Disturb
OS X Mountain Lion seems to be something of an inspiration for the forthcoming release of iOS 6, with a couple of sensible features likely to be added, so says a 9to5Mac source.The first is VIP Mail, which allows you to tag the key people you talk to most (or your boss) and make sure their mail is front and centre when you pop open the Mail app.
This is the same system we've seen within HTC Sense and work very nicely, especially as you're able to group your contacts accordingly.
It's also an automatic feature in Google Mail these days, and as such we'd now expect it from Apple too.
The other is Do Not Disturb: allowing you to turn off notifications when you're looking to do things like run full screen apps or just not bother with getting bugged on the way home.
Whether it will be offered to become part of apps' design remains to be seen – or if users will have to toggle it manually.
iCloud Tabs
In the same way that Android has live synchronisation to the Chrome Browser, Apple apparently wants to repeat the trick with iOS 6 and Mountain Lion, which will be a simple synchronised list of opened tabs between the devices.The button will be kept in the Bookmarks toolbar to give access to the relevant tabs – but whether the feature will be available for users of Safari on other non-Apple devices is still uncertain.
Live icons?
This is a biggie, and would be the equivalent of the notifications bar coming to iOS 5 – basically bringing one of the best bits of Android to the Apple mobile OS.So it makes sense that Apple could look to Windows Phone's Live Tiles and think: 'we'll have a bit of that'.
We've spoken to a number of UI designers from the Android and Windows Phone camps who have criticised the way Apple's icons are pictures of information waiting to be opened, rather than the picture itself.
Of course, Apple has always been about simplicity, and app icons that change too frequently might confuse some users, but the option to make some apps more widget-like would appease the legions of iFans that have looked on with quiet envy at their friends' Android devices.
iOS 6 release date
The iOS 6 release date is still very much up in the air – but some sites are claiming it will be as late as autumn, which plays very much into a mooted iPhone 5 release date of October.However, it's unlikely Apple will wait that long to launch something it announces in June (especially when iPad and iPhone users will have ready-to-use devices), so expect the iOS 6 release date to be somewhere in July or August… and the chances of seeing an iPhone 5 then don't look too outlandish either.
Of course, if you're running the older Apple hardware (and by that we mean iPhone 3GS and older, plus probably the first iPad) you won't get access to the new iOS 6 if previous form is anything to go by.
Update: it seems you lucky 3GS owners are getting a reprieve - here's hoping Apple has at least optimised the new platform so you're not subject to terrible slowdown.
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Apple Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion Gold Master outed for devs
The launch of the next version of Mac OS X may be days away after Apple seeded the Gold Master version to developers.
Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion has been available in Beta for developers, but this latest version is all-but complete with very few changes likely before the full version is outed to consumers.
Announced in February and unveiled in full at the recent WWDC conference, Mountain Lion brings a host of new features to MacBooks, iMacs and Mac Pro computers.
Apple has incorporated a host of functionality from its popular iOS mobile software including AirPlay Mirroring which allows Apple TV owners to wirelessly send content to their HD TVs.
More iOS-alike features
There's also the Messages app, which brings instant free instant messages between OS X and iOS device users, along with the Notes and Reminders apps.Apple is also bringing system-wide Facebook and Twitter integration, a new Voice Dictation feature, Game Center, offline reading in Safari and improved security settings.
The upgrade will be just $20 for US users from the Mac App Store and we'd expect that to translate into around £15-£20 when Apple outs the OS, probably within the next couple of weeks.
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Kickstarter launching in the UK this autumn
The popular US-based crowd-sourcing website Kickstarter will open its doors to British-based innovators this autumn, the company has announced.
The website which has helped neat ideas like the Pebble Smartwatch, and the TriggerTrap camera trigger to become a reality, will accept submissions from outside the US for the time later this year.
Kickstarter took to its official Twitter account to break the news, which will come as a massive boost for Blighty-based inventors looking for new ways to get their tech made.
In a brief message the company posted: "People in the UK will be able to launch projects on Kickstarter starting this autumn! More info soon! <3 <3 <3"
Get your ideas ready
Kickstarter will join around 44 other crowd-sourcing sites already online in the UK. However it is by far the most illustrious in the world and the extra visibility will be a boon for entrepreneurs.So far the company, which is sort of like a Dragon's Den where everyone had a shot, has helped raised $275m for around 63,000 projects, with seven projects hitting the $1m plus mark this year.
The site encourages donations for projects, with the inventor often promising the first wave of the product within the donation price.
For the donors it also presents the chance to be part of the process of bringing the gadget to market, with regular updates from the inventors. All in all, everyone's a winner.
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Sharp to pay $198.5 million in LCD price fixing lawsuit
Today, Sharp settled out of court in a case LCD price fixing to the tune of $198.5 million.
The dispute was filed against the LCD manufacturer by Dell and two other unspecified companies over Sharp's TFT business in North America and Europe.
Dell first filed the suit in 2010 against Sharp, Hitachi, Toshiba, and others over LCD price fixing.
It's believed that the other two companies in today's settlement may be AT&T and Nokia, since both firms filed similar suits against Sharp in 2009.
"After broadly considering factors such as the U.S. civil lawsuit system and the facts of this case, Sharp has determined that agreeing to a settlement is the best policy," Sharp said in a statement.
The price isn't right
Price fixing isn't exactly new for Sharp, which was found guilty of LCD price fixing in a 2008 suit with Nintendo.That suit concerned screens for Nintendo's DS and DS Lite handheld systems and saw the firm pay $3.3 million (£2.1 million) in penalties.
This time Sharp instead elected to settle the matter out of court. The settlement may have been inspired by a ruling last week in which Toshiba was found guilty of LCD price fixing, with the firm now owing $87 million(£56 million) in damages that could rise up to $261 million (£168 million).
Sharp will pay the settlement as part of its fourth quarter losses for the 2013 fiscal year ending in March 2014.
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Microsoft buys multitouch device maker for new batch of products
Microsoft announced a big investment into touch interfaces with the purchase of multitouch maker Perceptive Pixel.
The acquisition was revealed at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference this week, bringing the former partner into the fold for in-house collaborations.
"The acquisition of PPI allows us to draw on our complementary strengths, and we're excited to accelerate this market evolution," Kurt DelBene, president of Microsoft's office division, said.
"PPI's large touch displays, when combined with hardware from our OEMs, will become powerful Windows 8-based PCs and open new possibilities for productivity and collaboration."
Staying in touch
Microsoft and Perceptive Pixel have worked together on many occasions, most famously setting a record for the world's largest touchscreen with an 82-inch display at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this past March.The firms also partnered on Microsoft's Touch Mouse last year, and will continue to get even cozier together after today's merger.
Microsoft also confirmed its new touch-centric OS Windows 8 will launch this October.
Between the Surface tablet, Windows Phones, and likely a new batch of multitouch displays to take advantage of the new operating system, an in-house multitouch manufacturer is a wise move for Microsoft.
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Verizon getting Nokia Lumia phones
Nokia's well-liked Lumia line of Windows Phones will soon be headed to Verizon, according to statements from Nokia VP of Worldwide Developer Relations Richard Kerris.
Kerris said in a published report that "it won't be long" before Nokia Lumia phones are available on Verizon, though he withheld any further details.
TechRadar contacted Nokia to get more concrete release information for Verizon Lumia smartphones, but Nokia spokesperson Karen Lachtanski said the company had nothing further to add.
"We have good communications with all the U,S. carriers, but no specific detail on Verizon," she said.
Nokia Lumia phones on Verizon - but which ones?
The Nokia Lumia line of Windows Phones includes a wide array of devices of varying capabilities and price points, and it's unclear which Nokia Lumia devices will appear on Verizon.The Nokia Lumia 900 is the company's flagship Windows Phone, so that will likely appear on Verizon eventually.
Other Lumia phones, like the Nokia Lumia 610 and Nokia Lumia 800, occupy more of an in-between space, and chances of their arrival on Verizon are unknown.
Recently, a slew of new Nokia handsets, including the Lumia 910, Lumia 920, Lumia 950, and Lumia 1001, plus the Nokia 510 and Belle 805, were inadvertently revealed through a developer tool.
Nokia could be planning any of these leaked devices for release on Verizon.
Nokia also recently revealed that the PureView camera technology that lends smartphones 41-megapixel shutters will soon come to Lumia phones.
Hopefully, Nokia and Verizon will announce something soon, as there is no doubt plenty of Verizon customers would be willing to shell out for a shiny new Lumia Windows Phone.
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RIM boss Thorsten Heins targets January BB10 device launch
RIM CEO Thorsten Heins believes the crucial first BlackBerry 10 handset will be ready to ship in January.
The recently-appointed boss made the decision to hold back on the launch until 2013 to ensure the OS was fully completed, prompting panic from investors and prophecies of impending doom from analysts.
He says the launch will reinvigorate the beleaguered smartphone giant with a "one-two punch" of a full touchscreen handset and a device with a physical QWERTY keyboard to follow soon after.
Heins told the CIO website in an interview: "What I commit to the public out there is that when we ship BlackBerry 10, we will do it at high quality."
"In January with the full touch device and the QWERTY coming, I think we will reinstall faith in RIM."
'We failed because we succeeded...'
Heins also reassured the world that the delay in launching the potentially life-saving operating system is not a result of the company trying to shoehorn in new features.Actually, it is down to the success his teams experienced when developing the current ones... if that makes sense.
He added: "It's not because we added stuff to it. The delay is because our software groups were actually so successful in coding the various feature components... we got overwhelmed by integration efforts."
Well that's that cleared up.
Hopefully for RIM's sake its able to live-up to this latest teased launch date as the company's ever-dwindling user-base and investors are rapidly losing patience.
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Samsung Galaxy S3 release on Verizon delayed again
The latest offering in Samsung's flagship line of Android smartphones, the Galaxy S3, has been delayed yet again for release on Verizon.
The new Verizon Galaxy S3 release date is June 12.
The Galaxy S3 was initially meant for a mid-late June U.S. release on most major carriers, but on June 21 it was announced that it would be delayed on all four (AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon).
At the time, Verizon's Samsung Galaxy S3 release was pushed back from the already-late July 9 a single day to July 10.
Now that the Galaxy S3 release date for the other three major carriers has come to pass, it's surprising that Verizon's Galaxy S3 has been delayed yet again.
TechRadar reached out to Verizon for comment, but the company has yet to respond.
Expect the Galaxy S3 on July 12 starting at $199
Verizon's Samsung Galaxy S3 is now releasing July 12, starting at $199 for the 16GB version and $249 for the 32GB model with a two-year contract.But some sites are reporting that customers who pre-ordered the phone have already received it, further muddying the Verizon Galaxy S3's release.
TechRadar recently pitted the Samsung Galaxy S3 against its biggest competitors, Apple's iPhone 4S and HTC's One X.
The Galaxy S3 sports a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED display, Qualcomm S4 processor, 8MP camera, and 2100mAh battery.
The Android 4.0 smartphone also features NFC capabilities, facial recognition to track users' eye movements, and voice controls mimicking the Apple iPhone 4S's Siri.
Exciting features like true multitasking (watching a video in one corner while texting or surfing the web in another, for example) make it extremely attractive when compared to its biggest competitor, Apple's iPhone 4S.
And Apple's attempts to have the Galaxy S3 banned in the U.S. have so far been unsuccessful.
Maybe that's why Samsung predicted the Galaxy S3 will sell 10 million units in July. With every version set to finally be release by July 12, they might even reach that goal.
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Nokia handset roadmap leaked through remote developer tool?
The names of six as-yet-unannounced Nokia handsets have appeared within an in-house tool for app developers which allows them to remotely test software on virtual devices.
The Nokia Lumia 910, Lumia 920, Lumia 950, Lumia 1001 and the Nokia 510 and Belle 805 are now listed on the Remote Device Access (RAD) portal.
The listed handsets, which cannot be accessed through the RAD tool and appear in name only, seem to confirm Nokia's plans for forthcoming Windows Phone and Symbian devices.
It seems fair to suggest that the Lumia 1001 may be the company's flagship Windows Phone 8 product, while the 910, 920 and 950 may well be variants of the existing Lumia 900 device.
A new path to Windows Phone 8?
It's unlikely that Nokia would release further handsets that run Windows Phone 7.5 or the newer Windows Phone 7.8 software, given that there's no update path to Windows Phone 8.So, perhaps the remaining 900 series devices would be upgraded with the hardware necessary to run Windows Phone 8 and hence saving the range from becoming obsolete?
It's also worth pointing out that just because these devices are listed within the RDA, it doesn't mean they're certain for release. Plans and names could change quickly.
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Sony Xperia Go coming to O2 later this month
Sony's new tough smartphone the Xperia Go will arrive later this month with O2 the first UK network to get their hands on the device.
The dust-proof and water-resistant Sony Xperia Go is aimed at the more active user, with a scratch resistant 3.5-inch display that even works in the rain thanks to the wet finger tracking tech.
The latest variant from the Xperia series comes loaded with Android 2.3 (upgradable to Android 4.0), the Bravia-infused Reality Display and a 5-megapixel snapper.
There's also a 1GHz dual-core processor doing the work in the engine room, alongside 512MB of RAM. There's 8GB of storage and a microSD slot.
The device now has its own Coming Soon page on O2's website, which features a 'July' availability date, meaning it could become available any time now.
A good looking toughphone?
The Sony Xperia Go is probably the most easy-on-the-eye tough phone we've ever seen, although that's not saying too much given the stocky and downright ugly devices we've seen down the years.It comes in three shades; black, white and a lovely baby diarrhea yellow. We'll let you know when it drops... the handset, not the poop.
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Behind the scenes at the UK's first fully contactless festival
TechRadar recently was invited down to the Barclaycard Wireless Festival in Hyde Park – but this time it was wireless with a difference.
The organisers had written to all the festival-goers ahead of the event and asked if they'd like to enrol in the PayBand scheme, which allowed them to charge an NFC-enabled wrist band with money and also add in elements like Facebook integration too.
Each merchant at the festival was equipped with the ability to pay with the contactless technology, meaning users would be able to leave their wallet at home for the duration of the event.
John Conlon, Head of Future Propositions – Digital Payments for Barclaycard, told TechRadar: "Festivals are the perfect scenario to show off this technology.
"People don't want to come to places like this, and queue, people come to have good time, drink and watch music, so [the Wireless Festival] is a good example using contactless technology to give a better time."
"In the future the same technology could be used at other places like sporting events too; basically anywhere that you don't want to queue for cash is perfect for PayBand."
The Barclaycard PayBands themselves were rubber bracelets, similar to a watch-style accessory, and came in blue, green and pink to denote different levels of functionality, with those not wishing to cash-enable their wrist still able to gain entry to the Barclaycard Unwind perk park.
This area showed the extra elements that users can work with – by synchronising their PayBands with their Facebook or Twitter accounts ahead of the festival they could take photos in a special booth and have them uploaded to the social sites without the need for a phone.
"The response has been on social level so far," added Conlon. "It's been fantastic, activation rates for social networking have been very good so far, almost 80% of PayBand users have associated them Facebook."
The social aspect was more of an 'added extra' rather than a main draw though – the real reason to try the technology is to ditch the wallet.
To that end, the main hurdle is registration. While it could be done onsite, users should have associated a card with their PayBand ahead of the event, stating whether they want to place a fixed amount on the card or have an auto-top up in place.
The latter option is one Barclaycard was keen to see in use: if a pre-defined limit is reached, the PayBand will be automatically topped up with £20 (plus an extra £5 from Barclaycard as an incentive).
Users could head on over to one of the top up tents to check their balance or add some more cash if they were getting low by logging in to one of the terminals to choose how much more cash they needed.
What was great about the festival was the merchant education on the subject of NFC. There was no sign of the embarrassment we've encountered on the high street trying to pay for something with a phone or wristband – when you held up your arm the vendors were happy to pull out the terminal to get you on your way.
The process was incredibly simple – once tapped it was a couple of seconds before the transaction was all complete, thanks to not having to ask to use contactless payment ahead of the purchase.
The security of not having to worry about the wallet was helpful too – even in the unlikely event of losing the band (they were pretty hard to pull off accidentally) you could have them deactivated at any time, rather than losing a wallet full of cash.
We tested the BarclayCard PayBand against the Visa Contactless Payment system on the Samsung Galaxy S3, and while both were equally as swift (and the phone allowed you to see your balance without having to wander off to a tent) it was still another thing to lose at a festival.
Overall, it was really great to see contactless technology used on such a wide scale as it helps with the most important part of rolling out NFC payments: consumer education.
Those we spoke to using the PayBands were really in tune with the way it can help the festival experience, and while the bands were deactivated (and funds returned to festival-goers) on Sunday night, the chances are those signed up will be much more likely to keep using their contactless account in the future.
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Apple stomps out websites selling iOS beta access
iOS developers may be given the ability to register up to 100 devices for one $99 per year payment, but that doesn't mean Apple wants this access sold off to just anyone.
Reports are now streaming in that Cupertino has began to invoke the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in an effort to close up shop on websites offering beta access to anyone willing to pay.
A number of websites popped up in recent years offering access to early iOS betas for as little as $8.99 per device, requiring little more than the Unique Device Identifier (UDID) number of your iPhone 4S, iPad or iPod touch.
One such website called UDID Activation claims to have sold access to 2,300 devices over the last week alone, raking in a cool $20,600 at $8.99 each - and that's only the latest of 19,000 devices they claim to have activated thus far.
Apple steps up
Unfortunately, Apple frowns on such activity, and expressly forbids such abuse for those who pay $99 per year to become developers.Apparently tired of turning a blind eye, Cupertino has shut down these illicit websites at the service provider level, capping off the virtual gold mine of income for those shady enough to sell off UDID registrations.
The news is music to the ears of legitimate developers, including En Route! President and Founder Dave Smiddy, whose free iPhone app helps keep loved ones up-to-date while users are traveling.
"It's an interesting attempt to monetize the scarcity of pre-release software as well as the human desire to be first and different," Smiddy laments. "Having pre-release OS is exciting to a small audience of non-developers. Even though there is some demand, selling it is against Apple's terms so that just seems silly for a serious developer to do."
iStoryTime founder Woody Sears, whose company offers a wide range of popular licensed apps featuring beloved characters like The Smurfs and the Penguins of Madagascar, is quite happy to have iOS locked down the way Apple intended.
"Apple has created such an efficient marketplace for developers and for the price points that we sell our apps, I can't imagine a scenario where the economics would make sense to manage the distribution of iStoryTime apps on our own," Sears said.
Although a number of such websites have been squashed in recent days, a few continue to operate - at least for now.
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Nearly three quarters of business professionals own a tablet device
Nearly three quarters (71%) of business professionals own a tablet device and the vast majority of them (61%) use it daily for work.
Ownership of tablet devices is about to reach saturation point according to a June 2012 survey of over 3,000 IT and business professionals from all over the world, by analyst IDG Connect.
Of those that didn't already own a tablet device, 80% intended to get one of the next 12 months. This means by June 2013 the overwhelming majority of professionals will have a tablet of one form or another.
Thomas Coles, managing director of MSM Software, says, "Employees are increasingly demanding that their work devices and applications are as powerful and easy to use as those they use at home. Employers who refuse to service these demands may eventually struggle to attract the best talent. BYOD provides an easy solution, and while concerns remain around security and data protection, I firmly believe the benefits of BYOD far outweigh the difficulties."
However Coles believes the increasing mobility that BYOD offers to employees could have the potential to cause disruption for organisations considering the scheme.
He explains, "The higher level of freedom created by BYOD presents a threat which must be considered. With employees working independently a silo culture could seep in, causing widespread confusion and communication issues. This could be prevented however, by implementing a single cloud solution, removing the need for employees to store data locally.
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How to turn an Excel spreadsheet into a web app
New tech start-up Vixo has launched a new way to share, edit and collate data over the net that can be used for everything from creating a simple expenses system through to a mini call-centre application.
Scottish start-up Vixo has created a web-based service that allows businesses to share data and get data updated over the internet. With Vixo businesses can create secure spreadsheets that can be updated by multiple users over the internet, without the need for the users to have access to Excel or have any knowledge of Visual Basic or Excel macros.
The problem that most businesses have with sending spreadsheets over email or via the internet is an inability to control the spreadsheet once it's out of the business network For example with an Excel spreadsheet, once it's sent as an attachment or shared over DropBox it's an impossible task to collect data from it, without either collating data by hand or by getting someone to write a Visual Basic script to aggregate the data.
With Vixo businesses can collect and collate data from multiple users without users overwriting or destroying data, and finally you can audit the data and set security levels for individual users. So any changes to documents can be tracked and attributed.
Vixo also has additional features that allow users to create applications with the service including;
- Web-based outbound call-centres.
- Staff rota system that shows who does what where
- Online phone directories that can be maintained by the staff themselves
- Web expense systems
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Updated: Apple loses patent case against Samsung in UK courts
UPDATE
The UK court believes the Galaxy Tab "is not as cool" as the iPad, which seems to be one of the main reasons the court's ruled that it is not copying Apple's tablet.
According to the hearing: "The informed user's overall impression of each of the Samsung Galaxy Tablets is the following.
"From the front they belong to the family which includes the Apple design; but the Samsung products are very thin, almost insubstantial members of that family with unusual details on the back.
"They do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design. They are not as cool. The overall impression produced is different."
ORIGINAL
British courts have ruled that there are 'recognisable differences' between Samsung's Galaxy Tab tablets and the Apple iPad.
The upshot is that Samsung's Galaxy Tab line up, including the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7, Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Galaxy Tab 8.9 will remain on sale in the UK and there's not much Apple can do about it.
Apple accused Samsung of infringing its iPad design in the three differently-sized Galaxy slates, as it has in several countries around the world, but these claims were dismissed by the High Court this morning.
Pulling no punches
In a scathingly-worded statement, Samsung said, "The court found numerous Apple design features to lack originality, and numerous identical design features to have been visible in a wide range of earlier tablet designs from before 2004."Equally important, the court also found distinct differences between the Samsung and Apple tablet designs, which the court claimed were apparent to the naked eye."
These included differences in the front and sides of the tablets, but most notably there were 'vivid differences' described on the rear surface design. It's all incredibly thrilling stuff.
Ending its statement on a zinger, Samsung added "Samsung believes Apple's excessive legal claims based on such a generic design right can harm not only the industry's innovation as a whole, but also unduly limit consumer choice."
No doubt this will not deter Apple from pursuing other IP claims around the world – it seems to be finding more favour with US courts than in the UK, where it recently lost a patent case against HTC as well.
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News in Brief: One More Thing: Aliens look like jellyfish now
Alienwear - Forget everything you ever thought you knew: aliens now look like jellyfish with tiny radishes attached and not like Mr Burns on a bad day. Jeez, next you'll be telling us dinosaurs had feathers. [Mirror]
The trick is not minding that it hurts – Michael Fassbender is set to star in a film based on Asssassin's Creed. This is relevant because Michael Fassbender. No, sorry, we mean gaming. Gaming is relevant. Mmm, Fassbender… [Stuff]
Furb off - Gird your loins: Furby is back and he/she/it has brought an iOS app with it. The horrendous little robotic ratbag is even more hideous than before and no doubt the app-addition simply adds to the irritation it can inflict on older (read: better) siblings the world over. Although we will concede that it's possible that OMT does not entirely understand the what 'gird your loins' means. [CNET]
Litter on Mars – Ground control to Major Tom – can you pick up some of this space crap we've strewn around Mars please? The Radish Jellyfish are not at all impressed. [NASA]
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State UniversityDouble rainbow - The colours Asus has chosen for these Nexus 7 tablet cases look familiar. We wonder where it got its inspiration. [Twitter]
Vol-au-vent - Word Lens, the magical iOS app that awed us with its ability to read and translate other languages using a phone's camera is now available on Android from Google Play. Sac magique! [Google Play]
Short shorts – Virgin Media is on its annual prowl for the best amateur short films the world has to offer. Evidently we're a bit late to this since the closing date is July 12 but you've got an imagination and a smartphone right? There's £30,000 up for grabs so get to it. [HCC]
Curiouser and curiouser - Peter Molyneux has invented a new game or a social scam, you tell us. Basically there's this giant virtual cube, right, and it's made of 60 million cubelets which users chip away at in the hopes of being the person to remove the final block, at which point they win something "so amazing… it'll appear on news reports". All we know at this point is that it is not a dead cat. Wherein lies the scam? You can buy super tools that remove 10, 100 or 10,000 blocks at a time for as much as £32,000. [Wired UK]
Pipe down - Facebook, Twitter and other braggy social networks make people feel anxious, inadequate and generally terrible, says a new study commissioned Anxiety UK. You know what makes us anxious? Studies that speak to only 298 people then try to make out like the findings are representative of the world at large. [Metro]
4D or not 4D - Like the word 'fetch', 3D is only just about happening, but Hollywood isn't letting a little thing like that stop it from embracing 4D cinemas that bring the smells and feelings of movies to the, er, movies. South Korean firm CJ Group has a plan in place with a major US cinema chain and where the US leads, you can bet the UK will follow. [SlashFilm]
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