Nexus 7 and Surface sales propel record numbers for NVIDIA
NVIDIA's third-quarter earnings revealed this week that the tech manufacturer reached record level earnings, largely thanks to sales of Google's Nexus 7 and Microsoft's Surface.
The financial results showed that the Santa Clara-based company made $1.20 billion (UK£0.75, AUS$1.15) in revenue for the last quarter, a growth of 15.3% from the preceding quarter.
Jen-Hsun Huang, President and CEO of NVIDIA, explained the drivers for this growth in the earnings report.
"Kepler GPUs are winning across the special-purpose PC markets we serve, from gaming to design to supercomputing," said Huang. "And Tegra is powering some of the most innovative tablets, phones and cars in the market."
GPUs and tablets too
This financial success is due in part to NVIDIA's GeForce GPUs, particularly those made with the Kepler architecture, including the GTX 680, GTX 690, and GT 640M. The new line of bargain Kepler GPUs, including the 660ti, GTX 660, 650ti, and GTX 650 have also performed well at market. Rising sales for tablets running on NVIDIA's Tegra 3 system-on-a-chip have been a substantial source of recent revenue for the company. Among these tablets, the "million a month" sales of the Nexus 7 and sales from the newly released MIcrosoft Surface RT seem to be buoying NVIDIA's profits more than most.
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Spotify heading for $3 billion valuation
A new round of financing could see music streaming giant Spotify valued at $3 billion (UK£1.88, AUD$2.89).
The Wall Street Journal reports that the company is in the process of raising $100m (UK£60, AUD$96), with Goldman Sachs named as one of many potential investors.
The streaming giant, which opened its virtual doors back in 2006, is hoping to capitalise on its 15 million active users, 4 million of which pay monthly subscription fees to remove ads and listen on mobile devices.
However, the massively-popular service which piggy-backed on Facebook's success, is still unprofitable, with the WSJ quoting net losses of $56.6 million last year, so continued financing remains important.
Scaled back expectations
According to the WSJ, the company had been hoping for a greater level of capital investment that would have pushed its value closer to $4 billion ahead of a potential IPO. However, the Swedish-based company is said to have scaled back its expectations, due to the recent poor performance of Facebook, Groupon, Zynga and other publicly traded tech companies.
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ASUS offers £25 voucher for early Google Nexus 7 adopters
Google Nexus 7 manufacturer ASUS is offering a £25 voucher to those who bought the 7-inch tablet before last month's price chop.
The compensation offer comes after Google lowered the price of the 16GB tablet in order to make way for the 32GB model, on October 29.
The 16GB tablet was reduced from £199 to £169, while the £159 8GB model was removed from the range completely.
Now ASUS wants to reward those who snapped up the award-winning tablet in the first few months of sale.
How to get it
The £25 voucher can only be spent on the ASUS online store, must be claimed by November 29 and must be redeemed by December 31. Buyers will need to have purchased the tablet from Google or ASUS directly and will need to show proof of purchase. For details on how to pick up the voucher, follow the ASUS link in the hat tip.
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Star Wars Episode VII screenwriter confirmed by Lucasfilm
Oscar-winning screenwriter Michael Arndt has been confirmed to pen the script for the new Star Wars film, set to be released in 2015.
Arndt, who enjoyed huge success with his screenplay for Toy Story 3 and earned an Academy Award for Little Miss Sunshine, has been handed the mammoth task of living up to the expectations of millions of Star Wars loyalists worldwide.
Reports on Thursday had claimed Arndt had been writing a 40-50 page treatment for a new trilogy of movies, but has now been signed by Lucasfilm to write the first flick planned by new custodians Disney.
The writer remains in story conferences with creative consultant George Lucas and soon-to-be head of Lucasfilm Kathleen Kennedy, who will now be charged with finding the right director for the project.
Disney moving fast
The Star Wars news continues to arrive thick and fast. Just over a week ago, Disney shocked fans by agreeing to pay $4.05 billion (UK£2.45 AUD$3.96)to buy Lucasfilm from creator George Lucas. Upon sealing the deal, Disney announced that a third trilogy of movies was on the way, with the first coming in less than three years. Earlier this week, Harrison Ford, who played Han Solo in Episode IV, V and VI said he was "open" to reprising the role. It is also thought that Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher may be on track to return as older versions of the Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia characters. Are you excited or filled with dread? Let us know in the comments section below.
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China blocks Google Search, Gmail and Drive
China blocked all Google web domains throughout the country for long periods on Friday, the search giant has said.
Google Search, Gmail, Google Drive and all other web products were largely blacked out and, in a statement to Bloomberg and Reuters, Google said it had "checked and there's nothing wrong on our end."
Google's own Transparency Report website, which shows usage levels around the world, showed a sharp decline to Google sites in China on Friday.
The country has censored Google before, during a stand-off in 2010, but has never taken the drastic step of blocking the popular Gmail email service too.
The outage left countless users without access to email throughout the nation and could be a watershed moment for the issue of web censorship in China, according to one watchdog.
GreatFire.org posted on Twitter: "One step closer to fully separating the Chinanet from the Internet."
Protests?
In an article on its own site, the group also wrote: "We've argued before that the authorities didn't dare to fully block Gmail since it has too many users already. Fully blocking Google goes much further. According to Alexa, it's the Top 5 most used website in China. "Never before have so many people been affected by a decision to block a website. If Google stays blocked, many more people in China will become aware of the extent of censorship. How will they react? Will there be protests?" GreatFire.org also said that VPN servers (which allow users to circumnavigate in-country restrictions) have also been targeted. TechRadar will be following this story closely as it continues to develop.
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In Depth: OS XI: what we'd like to see
Every major new version of the Mac's operating system brings with it a slew of changes. Sometimes, these are for the better.
We remember when Quick Look first arrived and how comparatively naked a Mac felt that had yet to be updated to Leopard.
However, there's also the dark side to operating system upgrades. Occasionally, things will change and you'll prefer how they were before. In part, this will be due to getting stuck in your ways, but sometimes it'll be because Apple's new way of doing things is actually a bit rubbish.
Now and again, you'll also discover that Apple's entirely removed a feature that you loved using, turning your upgrade into something more akin to a 'side-grade' or even a step backwards.
In this feature, we explore the ten things we think Apple could do to OS X that would make it a better operating system as we - presumably - move towards the 11th version of Mac OS. However, some of these enhancements could, of course, appear in OS X 10.9 and so this feature could equally be called OS X 10.9: what we'd like to see.
We've included changes to existing features, entirely new ideas and the return of some old favourites, plus the opinions of two interface experts.
Make a better Finder
The heart of OS X's interface is in dire need of a makeover
Finder is an application so invisible that many Mac users forget it's an application at all. And yet you'll use it daily to find and manage documents and files.
Finder used to have a reputation for being unstable and buggy, but those problems have largely been dealt with as OS X has matured. However, Finder remains a fairly basic file-manager, offering a handful of views and a sidebar that rapidly fills with items, the icons for which are all the same colour, making it difficult to tell them apart at a glance.
Despite those issues, Finder nonetheless remains a suitable (if uninspiring) file manager for the majority of people who own a Mac. But it could be better, especially if Apple embraced features that add-ons and alternatives offer.
Both TotalFinder and Path Finder provide tabbed browsing and dual-pane views. Tabbed browsing is a great way to reduce Finder window clutter - you can have every open window within a single tabbed pane if you like, or work with multiple tabbed windows, perhaps defined by context.
For example, if you're working on a few projects, you could have a tabbed Finder window for each, so locating related files is easier.A dual-pane mode then makes it simpler to move files between folders.
Such changes would benefit Finder but should be optional; relative novices would never have to see them, but 'power users' could revel in the increased functionality. We also wouldn't say no to cut-and-paste, file tagging, and a drop stack for temporarily holding a file during move actions.
Dismantle iTunes
It's time for this Jack of all trades to be master of some
We remember how revolutionary and exciting iTunes was when it first appeared, back in 2001. Over a decade ago, digital music was still a novelty and apps dedicated to playing MP3s were aimed at the geekier end of the market. But when iTunes arrived, it was simple and elegant, enabling you to rip, mix and burn. (Now we just activate 'Shuffle' mode.)
Fast forward a few years and iTunes gained support for Apple's new iPods and smart playlists, and an integrated music store was added. The problem is, these additions never stopped.
Today, iTunes is a bloated monster, tasked with too many jobs and dealing with too many media types. It's still a jukebox but also houses TV shows, films, podcasts, ebooks and apps. It's used for managing iOS devices and has a rather naff social network, Ping, lurking like a bad smell.
The one-size-fits-all interface is the antithesis of Apple's own design and UI ethos, requiring plug-ins to add functionality and tutorials so people can actually use it properly. The single search engine can be frustratingly obdurate unless you know the precise name of the thing you're looking for and, let's be honest, even the name iTunes is now hugely inappropriate.
We'd like to see Apple take a leaf from iOS here (as it appears to be doing elsewhere, judging by Lion and Mountain Lion) and break iTunes into individual apps: Music, Videos, iBooks, iTunes (the store), and so on. It wouldn't be an easy task, and Apple having to support Windows as well suggests it won't happen, but we can dream…
Revamp the desktop
Why not make the desktop more like a real desktop
The OS X desktop is an oddball. It's really a folder inside your Mac's file system, living at /Desktop, and yet you can put hard drive links on it, along with aliases to folders, and pretty much anything else. It's all too easy for the desktop to become a dumping ground for anything that's not been filed; we regularly make such a mess that unearthing any one file is nigh-on impossible, especially once there's not enough space to display all of the file icons.
With the advent of Spaces and latterly Mission Control, you do have some flexibility over how you view your applications, and store files for easy access, but it still feels like there's more to be had from the basic desktop paradigm.
We're not sure what we want Apple to do here, though. Part of us wants it to just go whole-hog with Launchpad and make that the desktop, while another part of us wants Apple to make the desktop more intelligent. Instead of it being a flat area to randomly dump files and folders, Apple could provide user-definable areas akin to an in-tray and an out-tray. Each area would be 'rubber-banded' so you'd need a distinct effort to move a file to a different area (but without the need for a dialog box).
This would turn the OS X desktop into a digital equivalent of piles of stuff on a real desk, but with the ability to move things around without the hassle of real-world folders. With Quick Look and a 'mini' Exposé, this could be a great time-saver.
In the meantime, Hazel offers some solace, sorting any folder's content through user-definable rules.
Add more colour
Apple's interfaces appear to be heading towards two extremes. On the one hand, you've got the kind of thing you see in Finder and iTunes - a sea of blue and grey. And then at the opposite end of the scale, you have iCal with its fake-leather toolbar (complete with fake stitching) and Address Book, which is a prime example of how making an application that looks like a book but isn't a book, really isn't a smart move.
Colour is useful for differentiation, but apeing real-world objects in a computer interface - termed 'skeuomorphism' - distracts from the content. We'd like to see Apple aim for something of a happy medium in future, bringing back a little life to Finder and iTunes, but not turning them into another iCal.
Enhance Spotlight
In some ways, Spotlight is great. It provides a central location for finding pretty much anything on your Mac. The big problem with Spotlight is its randomness. You'll type in a search term and, if you're lucky, get what you're looking for as your first choice and click to open it.
But often, you'll click a nanosecond after Spotlight 'helpfully' reorders the list, causing you to launch something else, slowing down your entire Mac while the weightiest application you own grudgingly lurches into life.
What we really want is Siri for OS X, but some kind of super-intelligent version, like a benign Skynet that would instantly know what you meant by "that Pages document I wrote about that thing for John" but wouldn't on a whim decide to eradicate the human race.
Enhance full-screen mode
You've given it to us, now make it work properly
In a world that boasts distractions by the bucketload, we're grateful for anything that helps us focus. Even if it reminds us a tiny bit of something Windows has been able to do since day one, full-screen mode, introduced in OS X Lion, does this, blocking out everything apart from the front-most app.
It's now an essential part of our Mac experience, especially when working in iPhoto and apps for writing. Full-screen mode wasn't much use in OS X Lion when you had a multiple-monitor setup, as all but one of your displays showed what amounted to a blank screen, but this annoyance was fixed with the release of OS X Mountain Lion.
But there are still many apps that don't make use of this brilliant feature - including some of Apple's own programs like App Store. If you'd like to use the full-screen feature on more apps, you can do so with a SIMBL plug-in called Maximizer. SIMBL - or SIMple Bundle Loader - is a system for loading custom code into Cocoa applications.
Then you need to download Maximizer, decompress the file and then put the Maximizer.bundle in the SIMBL plug-ins folder which resides at: /Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins.
To take things further in the next OS X we think that a split-screen mode would be really handy (for example, to have a writing tool and browser side-by-side), although such functionality can at least be approximated by window managers like Moom.
Give us a media centre
Bring back Front Row - or preferably something better
There's pretty much no chance of this happening. We're sure if we went up to Tim Cook and demanded media-centre software from Apple, he'd tell us to buy an Apple TV, while scowling angrily - and Tim usually seems like a laid-back guy.
And yet we can't help thinking Apple's missing a bit of a trick here, in not enabling any Mac (such as the svelte Mac mini) to become a home media centre. Of course, Apple used to ship Front Row, which was essentially a front-end for your iTunes content that provided access to your music, videos and photos through an Apple remote. The interface wasn't a million miles away from what you get on the Apple TV either, making it all the more surprising Apple axed it.
Now, your best bet is some flavour of XBMC Media Center, Plex, a Boxee unit, or biting the bullet and buying that black box that is the Apple TV. We can sort of understand Apple's decision to remove Front Row, when they're keen to push Apple TV for your media needs, and the idea of a 'media hub' is being phased out in lieu of streaming and cloud storage. We also suspect not a lot of people used it and were merely perplexed when they hit Command+Esc by mistake, only to find OS X replaced by giant icons.
But given that today's Mac still plays host to the majority of your photos, music and home video, it seems odd to have removed a fairly innocuous piece of software that made the viewing experience slightly less arduous.
Revert to 'Save As'
In OS X Lion, Apple integrated versioning into the heart of the OS. Regular copies of any file you work on are automatically saved, enabling you to go back to an earlier version, or compare versions and copy content from one to the other.
At the same time, Apple drastically changed the save system on the Mac. Instead of the default Save command and Save As…, you now have Save and Duplicate. Some people like this new workflow, but old habits die hard and after much grumbling, Apple has relented: Mountain Lion reintroduces Save As… to OS X but the option only appears in your File menu if you hit the å key.
We think most people won't know this and it should become the default view.
Sound controls
Apple only provides a limited amount of control over sound in OS X. You can control input and output devices, and there's a global volume control, along with volume level settings in sound-oriented apps like GarageBand and iTunes.
But apps are increasingly noisy, especially web browsers, and there's no easy way to silence them. We'd love to see something like Prosoft's SoundBunny (prosofteng.com/products/soundbunny.php) built directly into OS X, providing the means to adjust the volume of any open application, and, preferably, individual browser pages.
This would clearly be more complicated than the standard controls, but Apple is not averse to providing more advanced controls 'under the hood'.
WindowShade
WindowShade started out as a third-party utility, became an add-on to Mac OS 7.5 and was later merged into Mac OS 8's Appearance Manager. It was a handy tool for peeking at whatever was behind a window.
A quick double-click on any window's WindowShade widget would collapse it to just the title bar. The WindowShade concept bit the dust in OS X, presumably because windows could be minimised to the Dock, and newer versions of the operating system provide Exposé and Mission Control for quickly viewing open windows and moving between them.
For a while, you could at least install Unsanity's WindowShade X 'haxie', but even that's not an option if you've upgraded to OS X Lion or the new Mountain Lion.
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Tutorial: iMovie for iPad: how to edit your videos quickly and easily
Apple has made it really easy to edit home movies on your Mac thanks to the constantly refined iMovie app. But with the release of the iPhone and iPad, Apple went one step further and introduced a portable version of iMovie to enable you to edit on the go.
Of course, it's pretty bare bones compared to what you can do on a Mac, but that's not the point: with iMovie for iOS, you can edit wherever you are, taking advantage of the long battery life of iOS devices.
More often than not, you can have a finished movie by the time you get home. Although bulkier than an iPhone or iPod touch, an iPad gives you more space to edit in, making the process a more comfortable experience.
With the help of the iPad Camera Connection Kit, you can also easily transfer shots from your iPhone or iPod touch to your iPad, so one person can keep shooting while another edits, giving you immense flexibility.
We'll show you the basics of editing on an iPad. Then you can hit the ground running without feeling that video editing is solely the preserve of 'proper' computers.
How to perform basic video edits on the iPad
1. Create a New Project
Launch iMovie and you'll be presented with an old-style American front-of-house movie theatre. Previous projects are represented by posters (made up of a still image of your project, along with a design that's based on your chosen theme - more on that later).
Here you can rename your project by tapping on its title; you can also play your film back or export it with the options available at the bottom. To create a new film, tap on the '+' button. Choose the option to create a new Project.
2. Library and themes
All the clips stored on your iPad are available on the top-left part of the interface (we're using landscape orientation in this tutorial). Media is divided based on type: videos, photos and audio - which includes music from your library as well as sound effects and themespecific background tracks.
With themes you can add titles and transitions to your project. You can choose the one you want by tapping on the Gear menu, top-right, and swiping the thumbnails until you find the one you like.
3. Preview and clip selection
Go back to your library's Video section. You can preview any clip in the top-right section of the interface by dragging your finger over it. To select a clip, tap on it. You can then drag the yellow handles on either side inwards to only select part of your clip; use the main preview section to trim your selection precisely.
Then tap on the clip and it'll jump down into the timeline. Add a few more to build up your edit. Notice in the library that any clip or clip-part that's used in the project now has an orange line under it.
4. The timeline
The red line represents the playhead and the image shown top-right of the screen is the frame that the playhead's over. This playhead is stationary. You move your project by dragging it to the left or the right.
You can further fine-tune your edit straight from the timeline: tap any clip to bring up yellow handles. Use them to add or remove parts of that clip from your project (the currently used part is still linked to the main clip you took from the Library). To zoom in or out, move two fingers away or closer together.
5. Reordering and splitting
To change the order of clips, tap and hold on one. This removes it from the timeline. With a finger still touching the screen, you can move that clip to another position. If you release it while it's out of the timeline, it's removed from the project.
You can also perform more complex edits like inserting a new clip in the middle of an existing one: move the playhead over the clip then select it. Now, swipe down over the playhead to cut your clip in two. You can now insert a new clip in between those two parts.
6. Working with transitions
A transition is added between each clip, which may not be what you want. You can alter those transitions by double-tapping on them. You can choose between no transition (i.e, a straight cut) to a cross dissolve, to one based on your chosen theme; the transition icon changes to reflect your current choice.
You can also alter the duration. Select Theme, move the playhead back a bit and press the Play button to preview. You can then return to the Gear menu, select a theme and see what that transition looks like.
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Review: Intel Core i3-3225
The Intel Ivy Bridge technology is the finest desktop processor tech this side of Haswell, and for the PC build without severe budgetary constraints, it's the architecture we're telling you to stick into your gaming rig.
But what are those of you on a budget missing by dropping down the IvB stack to the i3 range, and would we still recommend Intel over AMD at this price point?
The current Core i3 range of CPUs is the real entry point for getting Ivy Bridge. At £100, this Core i3-3225 is at the budget end of the spectrum, though it isn't the cheapest on offer. You can pick up other i3 chips for less than a ton, but then you're dipping below the 3GHz mark and missing out on the top end of the Ivy Bridge HD graphics.
The i3-3225 comes with a decent 3.3GHz clock speed and the top HD 4000 graphics. As is the way with i3 chips, this is a dual-core CPU, but unlike the i5 range, Intel has turned HyperThreading back on.
What you don't get is any K series goodness at this unfashionable end of the Ivy Bridge table. That means you're stuck at 3.3GHz, so the legendary overclocking prowess of the Intel tech is completely lost on the i3 market.
That's a massive shame for the eager budget overclockers, but Intel obviously doesn't want anyone getting i5 performance out of an i3 chip, even if it has to introduce artificial barriers.
Budgeting
In this price range you can take your pick of the competition - AMD has three different options for around the £100 mark and that should give pause for thought for even the most ardent Intel fan. First off there's last month's new AMD offering, the Trinity A10-5800K, which is the alternative for anyone who's looking for integrated graphics performance. The HD 7660D graphics in the Trinity chip outperforms the HD 4000 on the Intel side by a huge margin - we hit 27fps in Batman: Arkham City at 'v high' settings at 1080p. The i3-3225 barely managed 16fps. In terms of CPU performance the i3 has the edge, but with a little overclocking of the AMD chip you can close the gap.Benchmarks
The i3-3225's general CPU performance is pretty good, but when you consider the similarly priced AMD chips - with access to overclocking - it starts to look a little off the pace. It will still keep a decent GPU filled in games though. CPU rendering performance Cinebench R11.5: Index score: Higher is better INTEL CORE I3-3225: 3.25 AMD FX-6200: 4.32 AMD A10-5800K: 3.05 CPU encoding performance X264 v4.0: FPS: Higher is better INTEL CORE I3-3225: 18.82 AMD FX-6200: 27.81 AMD A10-5800K: 18.83 CPU gaming performance Batman: AC: FPS: Higher is better INTEL CORE I3-3225: 126 AMD FX-6200: 110 AMD A10-5800K: 74 For us, the real competition for this i3 chip is the six-core FX-6200. For the exact same price as the i3-3225 you get another two cores for your cash and that makes for much higher multi-threaded performance. Again, the AMD chip can be overclocked where the Intel can't, putting the 6200 almost on the same CPU level as an i5 at stock speeds. So, the question I posited earlier regarding our recommendations at the budget level is actually an easy one to answer. There are really two options here, but neither of them is Intel-based. If you're not going to let a discrete card anywhere near your PC then the Trinity chip will deliver almost gaming-capable performance on its own, and the FX-6200 will defeat the i3-3225 in most tests. It's close at stock speeds, but the Intel chip falls behind when you start to consider the impressive overclocking performance of the AMD chips.
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Review Roundup: This week's hottest reviews on TechRadar
What a busy end to the year it is. Just when we were expecting to take things a bit easy in the run-up to Christmas, we're swamped with countless brilliant products from all over the place.
We're finally seeing the latest generation of Philips TVs. Panasonic is still (just about) putting out excellent plasmas. And of course, brilliant mobile devices are flooding in from every corner of the globe.
The iPad mini and iPad 4 will take some of the attention, of course, but spare some room in your brain for the likes of the Microsoft Surface and the Google Nexus 4, giving Apple a serious run for its money.
Microsoft Surface review
Surface is Microsoft's first real effort at taking on Apple and its iPad with a fully functional toushcreen tablet of its own. Surface makes you want to pick it up and play, pleases you with the delivery of Windows RT and the live tiles make it feel personal and alive. Performance is a real issue, but since Tegra is at the heart of high performing tablets, we hope that RT can be tweaked to iron out slowdown issues. Microsoft's hardware designers should be applauded for delivering a solid tablet which delivers a great experience, but now it's down to the fortunes of the Windows Store to decide whether Microsoft Surface is remembered in history.
Panasonic TX-P42X50B review
With the TX-P42X50B, Panasonic makes a compelling, though possibly last-ditch, argument for plasma as the tech of choice for living rooms. In the Twenty-Teens the question shouldn't be 'Why plasma?' but, instead, 'Why not plasma?' since the TX-P42X50B handles both motion and standard-definition TV far more smoothly than any LCD TV. Perfectly suited to the mix of resolutions on Freeview HD, the TX-P42X50B is ideal for film fans – though only those primarily watching DVD and not concerned with ultimate 1080p resolutions as this TV is HD Ready, not Full HD. In short, Blu-ray owners might want to look elsewhere – and DVD collectors after a TV that's kinder to standard definition discs might want to move to the TX-P42X50B from an LCD TV. Plasma isn't dead yet!
iPad 4 review
The iPad 4 appeared two weeks ago from nowhere and without anyone predicting it. But here it is, alongside the iPad mini, and it's the best iPad ever! Sure, the price is a little high, but given many tablets are coming in at well over £500 / $AU600 these days (plus the fact so many people are willing to pay it) we can't criticise Apple's pricing too much here. We do feel there should be a touch more 'awesome' for a 64GB device at a near £700 / $AU760 price tag, and beyond the screen there isn't too much more of an upgrade on show - at least until we get some titles that really show off the prowess of the new iPad's internals. Still though, if you've been lusting after an iPad since 2010, there's never been a better time to buy one.
Google Nexus 10 review
The Google Nexus 10 is an incredibly important product for Google. With the Nexus 7 it entered the tablet market, but was only really competing with other Android tablets - it was friendly competition and it was against devices that by and large had struggled to achieve much market share anyway. With the Nexus 10 it's inevitably going to be compared to its biggest rival: Apple and one of its most successful products, the iPad. In short it can't afford to get this wrong, so needs to hit the ground running in the larger tablet market and even then it's going to be an uphill struggle to make much of a dent in the iPad's sales. Google clearly realised this, because it has delivered a top-end device with a world beating screen (at least in resolution terms) and a modest price tag; but is it enough to topple the iPad and take its place at the top of the heap?
Google Nexus 4 review
Google and LG have worked together to bring to market a fantastic offering. We showed it to two friends who are both Apple fans. The kind of people who shower in holy water if they're exposed to Android. Both of them were smitten.
And this week's other reviews...
Audio systems Logitech UE Boombox review Audio systems Sonoro Troy review Cameras Hands on: Nikon D5200 review Stem IZON Video Monitor 2.0 review Cooling Deepcool Ice Matrix review Cooling NoFan CR-95C review Scythe Mugen 3 Rev. B review Scythe Katana 4 review Thermolab Trinity review Zalman CNPS14X review Desktops Raspberry Pi 512MB review Digital TV recorders Humax Freesat+ HDR-1000S review Digital TV recorders Sky+ HD 2TB review Nook Simple Touch GlowLight review Kobo Glo review In Car Gadgets Handpresso Auto E.S.E. review Laptops Lenovo IdeaPad S300 review Laptops Asus VivoBook S200 review Laptops Samsung Series 3 Chromebook review Mobile phone accessories Jabra Solemate review Altigen iFusion AP300 SmartStation review HTC One X+ review Mobile phones Samsung Array review Google Nexus 4 review Mobile phones Windows Phone 8 review Mobile phones Hands on: Google Nexus 4 review Motherboards Sapphire Pure Platinum A85XT review Processors AMD FX-8350 review Storage Corsair Neutron 240GB review Tablets Apple iPad mini review Tablets Kobo Mini review Tablets Hands on: Google Nexus 10 review Televisions Philips 55PFL6007T review Televisions Toshiba 42VL963 review
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Google now considers itself a 'mobile first' company as YouTube soars
Google is officially labeling itself a "mobile first" company, predicting that most of its users will access its products via smartphones and tablets in 2013.
This shift away from being a desktop search engine was revealed by Google executives at the 2012 Open Mobile Summit in San Francisco, and picked up by Business Insider.
The idea is actually nothing new.
A Google spokesperson told TechRadar that "the mobile first strategy was actually first laid out by Eric Schmidt years ago."
It's only now that the former Google CEO and current chairman's strategy is coming to fruition on the users' end.
In 2012, Google users' mobile searches have increased 200 percent to-date, paving the way to a mobile majority by next year.
YouTube's strong mobile growth
The Google executives' belief that mobile will be the primary way people access the site by next year is only one interesting mobile-focused statistic publicized at the event. YouTube, it turns out, received 25 percent of traffic and 40 percent of views from mobile devices in 2012. That's a 300 percent increase for this year. A Google executive also predicted that YouTube's mobile traffic could surpass 50 percent soon, as it has already in Korea. Too much Gangnam Style?Mobile software via Android hardware
Google's mobile focus isn't a surprise considering the company's business model is heavily invested in its Android operating system. A separate prediction for 2013, this one by Schmidt, pegged Android's lifetime activations surpassing one one billion. Google's dominance is expected to continue according to technology research firm Gartner. By 2016, Android smartphones are estimated to account for 56 percent of the market in North America and Europe. Having pre-loaded Google software in Android devices doesn't hurt your "mobile first" strategy when you're the market leader.
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Motorola starts Jelly Bean rollout for Droid Razr M
Verizon customers in the U.S. awaiting the Android 4.1: Jelly Bean update for their Droid Razr M smartphones can expect to upgrade very soon.
The 98.12.4 update will finally bring Jelly Bean to the Razr M, as well as a host of other major upgrades and overhauls to the existing firmware.
The planned rollout started on Friday, with Verizon planning to release the update to all its customers in phases over the coming days and weeks.
Coming in at a robust 254MB in size, the beefy update will include upgrades for proprietary Verizon apps, as well as Android applications, along with performance-related improvements.
Better camera, better keyboard, better performance
With this update, the Razr M will gain better camera software, which should make its use much easier and quicker. Verizon has also improved the voice and data connectivity, sped up the GPS signal detection, and improved the performance of the Mobile Hotspot function. The improved Smart Keyboard will offer "more accurate, more relevant dictionaries," while also providing better text-to-speech functionality. Verizon also included the VZ Navigator app, a new Remote Diagnostics tool, and strengthened the Razr M's Bluetooth connectivity.Google Now, Voice Search
The 98.12.4 update also brings with it the additions of Google Now and Voice Search. Google Now will provide users with updated traffic, weather, scores, and other important updates quickly and frequently throughout a given day. Voice Search finally gives users the ability to search the web by speaking rather than typing, and will also speak back to users if the Knowledge Graph can provide a precise answer. Though there are plenty of additions like support for the Isis Mobile Wallet, the new update also strikes features like the Color app from the OS. While there's no telling how long it will take for Verizon to rollout the update to all Razr M users, the litany of improvements should be well worth the wait.
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