Alicia Keys cheats on BlackBerry, tweets from iPhone
Have you ever taken on a tokenistic 'creative' position within a huge multinational corporation, only to be caught out actively using the products of the competition? Me neither.
Alicia Keys, on the other hand, has been snared in such a situation. Only a month after publicly accepting the role of Chief Creative Director for BlackBerry, Keys Twitter account has been populated by a tweet sent from an iPhone.
Blame it on the boogie
Of course, she says it wasn't her, instead blaming that age-old digital scapegoat: the hackers. "What the h*ll?!!!! Looks like I've been hacked... I like@Drake but that wasn't my tweet :-(" she posted shortly after the offending missive. Yes, yes, hackers, we hear you. We may have even been inclined to believe you too, Ms Keys, had you not done exactly the same thing just a month ago, just days before the launch of BlackBerry 10. The whole thing just seems so sad. BlackBerry, like an ageing billionaire, taking on a younger, attractive partner only to be cuckolded by the same jerk who all the pretty girls flock to. At least this might once and for all prove that celebrity endorsements like this are an embarrassing waste of money. Via The Verge
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LG Optimus L7 II, Optimus L5 II, Optimus L3 II specs outed ahead of MWC 2013
LG has been teasing that "a new series will be unveiled" at Mobile World Congress 2013, but its new lineup of LG Optimus L series smartphones couldn't wait until Barcelona to be unveiled.
Specifically, the LG Optimus L7 II and LG Optimus L5 II specs have been leaked twice over, by a benchmarking database database and a Korean-language blog.
LG Optimus L7 II, which goes by model number LG P715 in the database, has specs that line up with has been been expected: a 1GHz dual-core processor and Snapdragon S4 Play system on a chip.
This sequel to the LG Optimus 7 is backed up by Adreno 203 graphics, 768MB of RAM, and a 2460mAh battery.
The LG L7 II will run Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean on the inside, while the outside will sport a 4.3-inch WVGA (800 × 480) touchscreen and 8MP camera, according to the specs-filled database.
On to the Optimus L5 II and L3 II specs
The Optimus L5 II will be powered by Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean too, though its system on a chip will be a single-core 1GHz MediaTek MT6575 with PowerVR SGX 531 graphics. The benchmark database doesn't include screen dimensions, but the Korean blog points to a slightly smaller 4-inch display at 800 x 480 pixels. Specs for the entry-level Optimus L3 II weren't leaked by the same stat-heavy benchmarking website, but its details are laid out in full color by a T-Mobile Hungary advertisement that jumped the gun. The L3 II is an Android smartphone that continues the shrinking screen size trend with a smaller 3.2-inch QVGA screen at 240 x 320 pixels. This no-frills budget model is supposed have a 5MP camera on the back and include Bluetooth, WLAN and A-GPS. LG didn't get back to TechRadar to confirm any of the leaked specs, so this just adds to the list of what to expect from Mobile World Congress 2013 beginning on Feb. 25.
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Bill Gates talks robots, philanthropy and Jobs in Reddit AMA
Microsoft chairman and super philanthropist Bill Gates took to Reddit Monday to answer user-submitted questions in a "ask me anything" (AMA) ranging from the cheap things that give him pleasure to vaccines to, of course, tech.
The whole post is worth a read, showing a capricious Gates take on all sorts of inquires in, as many Redditors noted, a prompt fashion.
The one never-made-to-market Microsoft product Gates wish was given the chance? WinFS, a data storage and management system intended to debut with Windows.
"I always wanted to see what happened to that," he wrote.
Bill bits
Gates also revealed he picked up a Surface Pro a week ago - "it is very nice," he wrote - while he was using an 80-inch Windows 8 touch whiteboard to answer Reddit's questions. Though he doesn't jump over chairs for ski training any more, he still writes some code and gets books (not software) for Christmas. When asked about his relationship with Steve Jobs, Gates was candid though brief. "He and I respected each other," he wrote. "Our biggest joint project was the Mac where Microsoft had more people on the project than Apple did as we wrote a lot of applications. I saw Steve regularly over the years including spending an afternoon with him a few months before he tragically passed away[.]" Bing, he said, is "the better product at this point," and the work done to make it better "has been amazing." As for future tech that will impact consumers as much as the "home computer," Gates had this to say: "Robots, pervasive screens, speech interaction will all change the way we look at 'computers.' Once seeing, hearing, and reading (including handwriting) work very well you will interact in new ways[.]"Meanwhile, in Apple land
A few hours after Gates wrapped his Reddit convo by asking for help in deleting a famous (or infamous) photo of him, news arrived that Apple CEO Tim Cook will be a guest of First Lady Michelle Obama during President Obama's State of the Union address tomorrow. He'll have primo box seats, a source for CNN Money is reporting, and likely get some camera time if the president touches on technology. The speech will top off a day that starts with Cook addressing the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco. Apple plans to stream his talk, scheduled to begin soon after things get off the ground at 7:15 a.m. PST. CNN Money anticipated Jobs fielding some difficult questions from the investor crowd in SF, especially after record-breaking yet Wall Street-disappointing earnings last quarter. There's word he might address the investor who's call for Apple to unleash some of its $137 billion (UK£87.5 million, AU$133 billion) cash holdings to shareholders. Should make for a juicy listen, though it won't have the same accessibility of an AMA.
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Android users burned as Nike Fuelband companion app binned
Nike appears to have abandoned plans to make its Fuelband wellness monitor compatible with Android devices, according to a tweet sent out by the company on Monday.
The wristband, launched in January 2012, keeps track of the bearer's kinetic activity throughout the day, with the aim of earning 'Nikefuel' and lighting-up LEDs on the display as goals are ticket off.
The device has been boosted by an iOS companion app since day one, which wirelessly syncs data, tracks steps and calories, enables social sharing and allows users to track their achievements over time.
As of last summer, Nike company had vowed that an Android-based solution was also on the way, but a tweet from the @NikeSupport account now suggests a serious change of heart.
Fuelling the Apple/Nike alliance?
The post, picked up by the Droid-Life website, was made in response to a question urging Nike's developers to "do your job." The reply said: "Right now, we're focused on iOS and web. We're not working on an Android app" and while this doesn't rule out a launch in future, it doesn't look particularly promising. Android users can, of course, use the online-based portal in order to make use of the Fuelband, but the lack of a mobile app certainly detracts from the device's usefulness for would-be buyers. It means that Android users may now be better off looking at solutions like the Larklife wristband and the Fitbit Flex, which both have Android compatibility, or the Jawbone UP which promises one is on the way.Shutout
So why would Nike want to shut out the majority of the smartphone-wielding population? Business Insider's Steve Kovach suspects there's a little more to the decision to scrap the app than meets the eye. He wrote: "Here's a theory: Keep in mind that Apple's CEO Tim Cook sits on Nike's board Tim Cook sits on Nike's board, and we know Apple is experimenting with wearable tech itself in the form of an iOS powered watch. Nike's fitness tracking app "Nike + iPod" is also built into every iPhone and iPod touch. In short, Apple and Nike are very close." Do you think there's a chance Apple wields that much influence at the world's most famous sportswear company? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
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Leaked info pegs Kinect as 'mandatory' feature of Xbox 720
With just over a week to go before Sony's Feb. 20 event, a happening where we expect the company to unveil the PS4, more details are seemingly emerging about another highly anticipated gaming system.
Kotaku said Monday it obtained a cache of info about the next Xbox, a device codenamed "Durango," from someone using the alias "SuperDaE." SuperDaE supposedly has access to two development kits as well as Microsoft "white papers," documents created to prep game developers for new systems.
Microsoft remains tight lipped as to whether it's even developing a Xbox 360 follow-up, and specs and features are always subject to change, so take the following with a grain of salt. That said, Kotaku noted that many of the revealed details aren't just for dev kits - they apply to the final retail versions too.
Of particular note in SuperDaE's info is wording that Kinect will be essential to the new Xbox - the system won't run without it. We've heard about and fully expected such a tight connection between the so-called Xbox 720 and Kinect, and SuperDaE's data seemingly backs up the relationship.
SuperDaE, by the way, gained some notoriety last year when he tried to sell a Durango dev kit on eBay, an act Microsoft reportedly blocked him from doing over copyright issues. He's also leaked info to Kotaku about the PS4, the publication noted.
Info mania
According to the report, the new Kinect will be a "far superior" version to the model currently on the market and will ship with every Xbox. Users will have to plug in and calibrate the unit in order for the console to work. Calibration is vital as developers are creating games with Kinect in mind, Kotaku noted, since every system is camera-equipped. What's more, the Kinect camera sensor will be able to pick up six individual "skeletons" occupying one room at the same time, anytime. There's definite "we're watching you" implications with this, including possible relation to a newly-patented Microsoft system that monitors and possibly charges users "based on who is watching what." Automatic player identification may become part of the gameplay experience, SuperDaE's docs mention. Compared to the current camera Kinect for Xbox 360 owns, Durango's will have a resolution of 1920 x 1080 with a depth resolution of 512 x 424. It will be able to track more minute movements than before, such as whether a hand is open or closed.Other goods
According to the documentation, users can run multiple games or apps simultaneously on the system. User will also have the ability to put a game into "suspend" or "constrained" states mid-play, then flip on another game without losing their place in the first one. As for storage, Durango is said to come with a 500GB HDD, while also offering an 8-core, 64-bit CPU running at 1.6GHz, an 800MHz DirectX 11.x GPU, plus "various custom hardware blocks" for tackling individual tasks.
Check out Kotaku's report for the full breadth of information, but do note that for now, everything is just speculation until we have final word from Microsoft. We anticipate an announcement soon, especially with the PS4 likely roaring onto the scene by next week.
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Dell will have to fight for its right to be private
While Dell is trying to go private, the computer company's largest outside investor may have constructed a significant roadblock to the firm's independence.
Southeastern Asset Management, which represents an 8.5 percent stake in Dell, said last week it plans to fight the move to make Dell a private company.
The $24.4 billion buyout deal proposed by CEO Michael Dell values the company at $13.65 per share, what appears to be a reasonable offer for most investors who haven't seen a price even approaching $14 per share since last May.
In a letter to the Dell Board of Directors, Southeastern Asset Management disagrees, contending that Dell is worth significantly more at $23.72 per share.
Dear Dell, no
The letter outlines several alternatives to the current deal managed by private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, including payment of special dividends to shareholders, an auction of shares, or seeking a completely different deal with a higher company value. "If given the option, other existing shareholders could provide as much or more equity than Michael Dell currently proposes to do, which would lead to superior levels of equity contribution and more financial flexibility to serve Dell's customers and to grow," Southeastern Asset Management said. However, Southeastern Asset Management admits that due to rules that the Board of Directors already imposed, most of the alternatives are not actually viable. For that reason, the firm hopes that the board ultimately decides to reject the deal to strike a new one. Dell is currently undergoing a 45-day go-shop process to draw out any outside bids for the company. While Southeastern Asset Management's options seem limited in actually halting Dell's privatization, there is still a small opportunity for the firm to raise enough of a fuss to influence the deal's terms. The effect, if any, on Dell customers will be negligible though compared to the titanic shift to a privatized company.
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Sony PS3 finally gets a native YouTube app in Europe and Australia
Sony PS3 users in Europe, India, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa now have access to Google's native YouTube app for the console.
The Google-made app was launched in North America back in August, but had been missing in action in other Sony's territories until today.
The free portal is available to download from the PS3's online TV/Video services menu in 19 new countries in total.
The arrival of the official YouTube app frees PS3 users from the hassle of having to access videos using the console's web browser.
720p and Watch Later on board
Videos play in up to 720p HD resolution, users can summon those previously viewed as well as those added to a Watch Later folder, which is a great option for those who'd prefer to save interesting clips for watching on a larger screen. Users are also able to make use of their smartphone and tablet devices to stream videos to the console, for similar benefits. Coupled with today's news that YouTube has agreed a deal for a standalone TV channel on Freesat in the UK, it's been a good day for British-based viral video-lovers.
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Nexus 4 charging orb finally available for purchase
Google's Nexus 4 has been one hot commodity, having just crossed the million units shipped mark late last week, in spite of constant sell outs.
Since launching in November, it's been almost impossible to get a hold of the Nexus 4 without monitoring the Google Play store daily to see when the stock has been replenished.
For those consumers that have managed to get their hands on the elusive smartphone, there's now a new reason to return once more to the Google Play store.
On Monday, Google finally opened sales for the Nexus 4 wireless charging dock, which had been promised when the phone was first revealed.
Form and function
The geode-looking wireless charging station is currently available for $59.99 for North American customers, and provides power through a Qi inductive charger. Expected to ship in the next week or so, the docking station is shaped to provide a better viewing angle while the Nexus 4 is charging. Curiously enough, you can see a new charging menu on the display of the Nexus 4 in the promotional image seen above. There's no indicator on the storefront that the station will cause your phone to feature a new look while charging, but the smooth interface definitely follows the unique look and feel of the dock. Like the Nexus 4 itself, there's no telling just how long the wireless charging station will be able to stay in stock, so if you're in the market for a new charging accessory, it's probably best to act fast. As of now, there's no word on when an internationally compatible version will be available.
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Relief for iPhone 4S users: 6.1.1 update fixes cell issues
Apple's iPhone 4S is getting an exclusive new update to fix the cellular performance and reliability issues the 2011 phone has been experiencing.
The 6.1.1 fix was released on Monday for iPhone 4S models, and no other versions of the iPhone (or cellular iPads) will receive the update.
Apple's 6.1 update, released at the end of January, added some features to the mobile OS. Unfortunately, it also added some issues that caused problems for iPhone 4S users.
Thankfully, Apple was relatively quick with a comeback fix, and Monday's 6.1.1 update is hopefully just what the iDoctor ordered.
Think before updating
The iOS 6.1 update expanded LTE offerings for international users of the iPhone 5 and newer iPads. It also gave Siri the ability to purchase movie tickets direct from Fandango, plus iTunes Match to let users download individual songs from iCloud. But iOS 6.1 wasn't all gravy - iPhone 4S users began experiencing issues with cellular data connections, especially on UK carrier Vodafone, which urged customers not to update at all until Apple came out with a fix. Apple's official statement on the update reads that iOS 6.1.1 "fixes an issue that could impact cellular performance and reliability for iPhone 4S." Hopefully, Vodafone users' iPhone 4S problems will be cleared up by the fix. According to CNET, some iOS 6.1 users also experienced a bug that caused issues between the iOS Mail app and Microsoft Exchange, but it's unclear if iOS 6.1.1 swept that mess up as well. TechRadar reached out to Apple to find out, but the Cupertino company has not yet responded.
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Yahoo sorry after Flickr exposes some users' privates
Internet giant Yahoo has issued an apology after a small number of users' private Flickr photos were mistakenly made public.
Yahoo, which of course owns the popular photo-sharing site, admitted that the protected photos of a "very, very small" sample of users had been visible to the entire community from January 18 to February 7.
The problem was a result of "routine maintenance," and had been identified and fixed according to official correspondence from both Yahoo and its Flickr division.
Flickr vice president Brett Wayn is now contacting those affected users individually, rather than making public blog posts about the issue.
'Incredibly disturbing'
One user, Barry Schwartz, expressed his disgust that 688 of his private photos and videos had been mate public for nearly three weeks as a result of the bug. He posted the contents of the "incredibly disturbing" email from Wayn on the Search Engine Roundtable website. "We are deeply sorry this happened. As an avid Flickr user, I am personally committed to ensuring your memories are safe," Wayn wrote. "Our team worked hard to earn your trust and we take it very seriously. We've put in place a number of additional measures to prevent this from happening again." Yahoo added in its own statement: "We're deeply sorry this happened and that we're working with affected users directly to fix the issue."
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Google wants some form of self-driving cars on roads by 2018
Google is working hard on its self-driving car technology, but it will still be several years before robotic cars drive themselves on a regular basis.
Anthony Levandowsky, Google's self-driving car tech project manager, recently spoke at a meeting for the Society of Automotive Engineers where he said the technology may be ready within half a decade.
"The improvement can be such that we can make cars that drive safer than people do," Levandowsky said.
"I can't tell you you'll be able to have a Google car in your garage next year. We expect to release the technology in the next five years. In what form it gets released is still to be determined."
Technology stuck in traffic
Despite all of the company's tests into self-driving cars, Google isn't interested in breaking into the car manufacturing business. Instead, Google's focus is on engineering the software to make self-driving cars possible and reliable, then distributing that technology to the automotive giants of the world. "We're really focusing on building in the reliability so we can trust and understand the system will perform safely in all conditions," Levandowski added. "How can you trust the system? How do you know how it can perform? How do you design it with proper processes in order to understand and minimize failure? How do you bake into a car redundant braking?" As if making a car that can drive itself weren't enough of a challenge, the software would have little leeway for errors if it's really meant to be safer than a human driver.Rules of the road
Assuming Google's robo-car technology is ready in the next five years, there is no guarantee that the legal system will be ready for the shift. Even if the cars are safer drivers accidents can still occur, and in those cases there are questions as to who is liable on an insurance claim. "It's a legal morass right now, and unfortunately it will take court decisions to work this out," president for the Insurance Information Institute Robert Hartwig said at the SAE meeting. "Right behind the first autonomous vehicle is the first autonomous vehicle ambulance chaser," he said. "They will be there faster than you can imagine looking for any sort of accident that might be attributable to a deep pocket." Technology often advances at a much faster rate than the laws which govern it, and self-driving cars do not appear to be an exception to that rule. That goes back to Levandowski's statement about form. The technology may be ready in five years, but its introduction will likely be far more gradual before cars can become completely autonomous.
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Did Facebook steal the Like button from Dutch inventor?
Facebook's 'like' button is the star of a new lawsuit against the social network.
A deceased Dutchman's estate claims to hold the patent for similar features that were allegedly developed for 'Surfbook', a social network that never saw the light of day.
The inventor in question was Joannes Jozef Everardus Van Der Meer who passed away in 2004 before he could implement his patents.
Granted in 1998, the patents cover creation of "a 'diary' containing multimedia references to contents of websites… with the specific intent of making the content objects available to a user to place in his diary" - all using a 'like' style button.
Déjà vu
The second patent covers a chronological "catalog of network objects of interest to the user" - which is basically the newsfeed or timeline. It all does sound pretty familiar, to be fair - and the lawyers also claim that Facebook is aware of the patents, having cited them in its own patent applications. A patent holding company is suing on behalf of van Der Meer, saying that the patents in question "represent an important foundation of social media as we know it". But this isn't the first time that some third party has tried to claim responsibility for Facebook's success; the Winkelvoss twins, Paul Allen, Yahoo…
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Tesco gives Netflix, Lovefilm a run for their money with free film streaming
Tesco is trialling a new film and TV streaming service called Clubcard TV, which promises to be 'free forever'.
The beta trial is running only with Tesco staff at the moment, and when it opens up to the wider public you'll have to be a card-carrying Clubcard member to make use of it.
Tesco says the 'free forever' stance is "a thank you to our customers" so there'll be no charges, no contracts and no subscription fees.
Blink and you'll miss the good content
Clubcard TV is powered by Blinkbox, the streaming site that Tesco bought an 80 per cent share of in 2011. There doesn't seem to be an abundance of up-to-the-minute releases available at present, with the likes of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps proving one of the TV highlights and a film called Cheesecake Casserole is one of the featured movies. Now, we haven't seen (or heard of) Cheesecake Casserole so it might be amazing. Probably not though. Lovefilm and Netflix: we think you might be safe for now.
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Booth babes and jeans are safe for another year at CES
The CEA, organiser of the annual technology shindig that is CES, has ruled that bikini-clad booth babes are a-okay for another year.
The backlash against the scantily clad spokesladies has been steadily growing over the past few years and this year one Forbes journalist took it one step further by creating a petition against companies' use of near-nude women as glorified gadget stands.
In response, the CEA has said it will revise its guidelines on the subject but that it will not introduce any kind of dress code for the show.
The amendments will simply warn exhibitors that using booth babes could 'reflect poorly' on the company, advising that they give it some "thoughtful consideration" before placing that bulk order for 16 branded G-strings.
Talking pigs
On the matter of bringing a dress code in for the show, the CEA's Karen Chupka said "We do not want to create and impose arbitrary or unenforceable rules, or worse, inch our event towards a Talibanesque ban on exposure of skin." Apparently the problem is that there's no middle ground between bikinis and business casual, because if the CEA banned barely-there attire from the CES show floor, it would have literally no choice but to outlaw jeans too: "Mandating a dress code of business casual for 150,000 people or even for the subset of 51,000 exhibitor personnel, as some suggest, would mean banning blue jeans, t-shirts and other common apparel while also trampling on freedom of expression," Chupka explained. Well as long as we're not trampling on people's rights to imply that the only viable role for a woman at a technology show is as a backdrop to the technology that only heterosexual men are interested in. Chupka concludes that it is an exhibitor's right to decide how to market their goods, as long as they "meet our legal guidelines as well as generally acceptable standards of decency". At least our jeans are safe.
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Panasonic adds twin HD tuners to its TV line-up
What's better than one HD tuner? Two HD tuners, says Panasonic as it adds twin high-def tuners to its 2013 Viera Smart TV range.
While Panasonic's set top boxes have offered dual-tuners for some time, this is the first time the company has managed it on a television.
It's pretty handy because the dual HD tuner set up allow you to watch one HD thing while recording another - you'll need to be using a USB 3.- hard disk device for that.
Sociable
Another option that the dual-tuners give you is to watch one show on the TV while someone watches something else on a tablet. The hardcore among you could even watch two programmes at once - one on the left hand side of the screen, one on the right. Although you'll probably enjoy neither. Panasonic's European 2013 line-up will be the first to get the Twin HD tuners, with the plasma ZT60 and VT60s first in line, alongside the LED/LCD WT60 and DT60.
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HTC One gets name-checked again alongside alleged image
As hype builds around the Taiwanese firm's next flagship smartphone we've been given another glimpse of what could be the HTC One.
Initially known by the codename HTC M7, @evleaks has now tweeted a photo along with the caption "HTC One".
The same twitter account apparently revealed the official name for the handset on Friday, saying " HTC M7 coming to market as simply the HTC One."
Déjà vu
Interestingly, the handset shown in the snap is very similar to another image which was leaked back in January on the same account with the distinctive dual-speaker set up, front facing camera and large display all present and correct.
The HTC One design and name are far from a done deal, however, with a pretty convincing press image also doing the rounds suggesting the M7 will sport the looks of the lovely HTC 8X.
Thankfully we should be enlightened next week as HTC has a special event planned where we expect to see the launch of its next flagship smartphone.
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Facebook up and down like a yo-yo due to 'technical issue'
If you're having trouble accessing Facebook right now, you're not alone - the site is experiencing a few difficulties.
Although some are able to get onto the site with no problems, others are encountering DNS errors or a major site slow-down.
There's no official statement on the glitches but Facebook tells us it's aware of the difficulties and is working on a fix.
Chin up
We hope you can all stay strong during this difficult time. Hopefully full working status will be restored soon and we can all get back to liking, poking, messaging and whatever else the kids do on there these days soon.
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Updated: MWC 2013: What to expect
February is always the most exciting month of the year for mobile phone fans, as it's when the entire phone industry has a big, boozy party somewhere in Europe and shows off the new phones and tablets it'll be launching over the spring and summer.
The show has been dominated in recent years by the vast number of new Android models that continuously swamp the market, with the big players like HTC, Samsung and Sony using the event to thrill punters with their newest ranges.
Last year saw HTC unleash its impressive One series, LG debuted the Optimus 4X HD and even Nokia decided to go large at the tech event for once, showing off its bonkers 808 PureView model complete with 41MP camera.
In short, if you care about the mobile arms race, MWC is the most exciting time of the year.
Previously held in Barcelona's palatial Fira Montjuic halls, this year's MWC is switching venue to a less glamorous (but more convenient for stressed journalists and marketing managers) spot a little nearer the city's airport. And in a building twice the size. Imagine how many cheap Android tablets it'll be able to contain this year.
MWC 2013 kicks off on 25 February. We'll be there, sobbing into a laptop in an unlit corner somewhere. Here's what we're expecting to see from the big names of mobile.
LG
Back at MWC 2012, LG wowed attendees with the Optimus 4X HD, a powerful 4.7-inch phone that helped signal the start of the race to stick quad-core processors in mobiles. It also showed off the Optimus 3D Max and the oddball Optimus Vu, but the less said about those the better, as with 2011's reveal of the original Optimus 3D. As for 2013, LG's already carried out a bit of teasing, with an updated Optimus G expected to be shown at some point, and the maker using the recent CES event to announce plans to show off a "tier one" smartphone at MWC 2012. Given that the original Optimus G was a quad-core monster that LG soon rebranded as the Nexus 4, any sequel arriving so soon is unlikely to be much of a leap above the first phone, as even in 2013 we'd still be impressed by a quad-core phone with a 4.7-inch display. But has the Nexus 4 done enough to make LG a respected brand name and a major player? Regardless of whether LG has done enough, the Korean firm is promising a "breakthrough will be made at MWC 2013", where a new range of devices will be announced. There's not a huge amount to go on in regards to the new handsets, but rumours seem to suggest a reboot of the Optimus G (possibly the 5.5-inch Optimus G Pro) and some dual-SIM L-Style devices are on their way.
Sony
Sony's just announced a new flagship model at this year's CES tech show, so it's unlikely to have anything hugely new and exciting at MWC. But it will give the media a chance to play with its new Xperia Z, the exciting, quad-core, 5-inch monster the hardware maker is set to launch this March.- Sony Xperia Z release date: when can I get it and where?
HTC
HTC unleashed the One series of phones at last year's MWC, showing off the One V, One S and the glorious One X as it tried to reinvigorate its line up. But in 2011 it disappointed us a little, showing minor upgrades of its old HTC Desire range, the awful Wildfire S and the niche Salsa and ChaCha models to a very, very quiet fanfare. In fact, it wasn't even a fanfare, just a mouse playing Three Blind Mice on the recorder. 2013, however, looks like being another good year for HTC, as we've already seen fairly concrete details of one of its new models leak. We expect HTC to bring along its HTC M7 mobile, which, as we've previously seen, is believed to be a quad-core device with a 5-inch 1080p display and 13MP camera. Loads of companies will be showing phones of a similar size and power level, but we'll always have a soft spot for HTC's lovely old Sense interface. While the M7, now thought to be called the HTC One, will probably be at MWC 2013 the handset looks set to be officially launched beforehand on February 19.
Samsung
Samsung disappointed the nerds of the world last year, when it opted to announce its flagship Galaxy S3 model a couple of months later at its own private event. But even if it repeats that trick this year and doesn't show off the Galaxy S4, it's guaranteed to be bringing along plenty of other Android phones. Last year Samsung underwhelmed us all by using MWC to announce the Samsung Galaxy S Wi-Fi, a Galaxy S2-styled media player, plus the rather odd and niche Galaxy Beam, complete with integrated media projector. So either we see the Galaxy S4 and Samsung has a stormer, or it brings along some cheaper models and we write it off. However, there's a small chance we may see something really exciting. Samsung's working on hardware powered by the new Tizen OS, a supposed Android rival that Samsung claims it'll be bringing to market some time in 2013. Good luck with that.
The latest news from the Samsung rumour mill is that we'll see a new tablet which will slide into the Note family, currently made up of the Galaxy Note 2 and Galaxy Note 10.1.
Reports suggest that the slate in question is the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0, which will feature an 8-inch Super Clear LCD screen, 2GB of RAM, a 5MP camera and a 4,600mAh battery.
It looks like Samsung may be planning on going a bit tablet crazy at MWC 2013, with other reports suggesting it's readying a new range of slates to fall under the Galaxy Tab 3 banner.
We could see three tablets slide into this new family, with 7-inch, 8-inch and 10-inch models all making an appearance as the Korean firm looks to solidify its offering across the market.
Nokia
Nokia's had a wide selection of phones at last year's MWC, showing off the bonkers Nokia 808 PureView and its 41MP sensor, alongside the rather less exciting budget Windows Phone powered Lumia 610 and the high-end Lumia 900. One Nokia-based rumour claims it's working on a slimmer update of the Lumia 920, which would use an aluminium body to reduce the weight of its hefty flagship phone. Nokia's traditionally preferred to show phones off at its own events, so it's hard to guesstimate whether it'll have new stuff at MWC or not. It's a maverick. It makes its own rules. More rumours are pointing towards the famed 41MP camera landing on its first Lumia handset which is apparently code named Eos.Huawei
Huawei's really made a name for itself in the UK over the last year, thanks to its winning budget Ascend G300 and the recent Ascend G330 update, plus the powerful Ascend P1. At last year's MWC it announced the impressive looking Ascend D Quad, a 4.5-inch model in a slim 8.9mm case, alongside a 10.1-inch version of its MediaPad tablet. Neither of which made it to the UK officially, so we were left a bit disappointed by its commitment levels. Huawei's also just announced a tasty pair of smartphones at CES in the form of the Ascend D2 and Ascend Mate, so it's likely to elaborate more on these at MWC 2013 rather than announce many new phones. It's recently stated "we will be launching two more exciting innovative products at MWC 2013," according to CEO Richard Yu. It's likely to be the Huawei Ascend P2 if the leaks are to be believed, with a five inch phone and a quad core processor on the cards - or is that an octo-core processor instead?
RIM
MWC 2013 is going to be absolutely critical for RIM. The troubled BlackBerry maker is revealing its BB10 hardware and software at a standalone event at the end of January, so MWC will be a chance for the masses to properly fiddle with the new OS and the two phones it'll initially be running on. Last year's MWC was a bit of a disaster for RIM. All it managed to show was the BlackBerry PlayBook 2.0 OS update for the super-flop tablet. This year it ought to have significantly more buzz surrounding its presence, although it should have already announced the phones that will be running BB10 by the time we stumble off the plane onto Spanish tarmac.ZTE
MWC 2013 should be another good year for the budget makers, as we're expecting to see bigger screens and more powerful processors hitting the cheaper end of the market. Last year ZTE announced the ZTE PF112, a 4.5-inch device said to be running on the dual-core Snapdragon S4 chipset, but that pretty much sunk without trace and is yet to go on sale. And the ZTE Era, a promising 4.3-inch quad-core model, is also missing presumed never to hit the UK. One MWC 2012 phone that did arrive was the Mimosa X, which ZTE renamed the Grand X for the UK. It was a bit of a disappointing mid-range model that undid much of the maker's hype. So don't get too excited by what the ZTE man is waving around, it might just be a balsa wood model that'll never see the light of day. In fact, ZTE's started making its pledges for 2013 already, with the promising ZTE Grand S just announced at CES. It's another member of the 5-inch / 1080p / quad-core club, which ought to be a big winner... if it ever appears on the shelves. It seems ZTE may have given the game away though with a couple of revealing hashtags which accompanied its press invite; #ZTEGrandMemo and #ZTEMozilla. Rumours suggest the Grand Memo will be the Chinese firm's answer to the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 and Huawei Ascend Mate, while the ZTE Mozilla could be the first handset to run the HTML 5 based Firefox OS.Acer
Niche smartphone maker Acer always has a packed show stand, with the company using MWC 2012 to announce its Liquid Glow models, which were a vast improvement on the Liquid E and Liquid MT it took to MWC 2011. Since then, Acer's launched a few decent mid-range Android models, like the CloudMobile and Liquid Gallant, although we'd expect to see it make more of a deal about its tablet ranges at MWC this year, seeing as that's where the Android hot money is going these days.Asus
Last year's MWC was a big winner for Asus, which updated its winning Transformer tablet range with a couple of impressive quad-core models.- 10 best tablets in the world today
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Predicting the future with Facebook: Minority Report another step closer
A US security company has developed a product that mines data from social networks to secretly monitor any citizen and predict their movements, Minority Report style.
Raytheon is the multinational firm behind the Rapid Information Overlay Technology (RIOT), which uses information gleaned from Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Gowalla, among other networks.
In a video demonstration, the company's principal investigator Brian Urch showed how easily the software can analyse your past movements and use them to predict future ones.
Evil Google
Firing up a browser page that looks like an evil Google, he tapped the name of a staff member into the Riot browser, returning a host of social network-based results. He then pulled out the staffer's check-ins which were instantly plotted on a map. Urch also explained that the software can plot locations pulled from uploaded photos' EXIF data. Using RIOT, Urch told us that the best place to find this particular staff member was at the gym on a Monday morning, around 6am. As well as location and photographical data, RIOT analyses your connections across networks and displays them in handy graphical format.I predict a privacy riot
While Raytheon says it hasn't sold the RIOT program to anyone "yet", it did concede that the US government "and industry" have seen RIOT. "Riot is a big data analytics system design we are working on with industry, national labs and commercial partners to help turn massive amounts of data into useable information to help meet our nation's rapidly changing security needs," Jared Adams, a spokesperson for the firm told the Guardian. "Its innovative privacy features are the most robust that we're aware of, enabling the sharing and analysis of data without personally identifiable information [such as social security numbers, bank or other financial account information] being disclosed." While the company positions itself as allowing a kind of "private" monitoring for the greater defensive good, it will no doubt leave many people feeling exposed. Time to delete that Foursquare account?
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Updated: 14 best graphics cards for every budget
AMD or Nvidia? Which is right for you?
These things can take time, but at last this generation of graphics cards has been pretty much finalised. AMD did its part early on, having almost its entire lineup sorted before the summer, while Nvidia has been dragging its heels like a schoolboy who's forgotten his homework. The release of the GTX 650 Ti, though, marks the completion of this generation of cards, and despite the fact it's taken nearly an entire year to get to this stage, things have never looked so good for the consumer. It's somewhat inevitable that every generation offers more power for less cash than ever before, but it's still surprising that a card you can buy for less than £100 will be able to deliver more than 30fps on average at full HD resolutions in the latest DX11 titles. It's strange, then, that people are calling these the end times for the discrete graphics card, what with all the advances in integrated CPU graphics performance. For the end user though, us PC gamers, our rigs have never looked so sprightly. Being able to pick up mid-range cards with the sort of performance the high-end cards of the past few years could only wish for, is making our gaming experience the envy of the slavering console hordes. Just look at the gaming shows of the past year, GamesCom and E3 especially. All the best-looking titles were being demoed on high-end PCs. Why? Because there's no way to get the games looking as good on the current generation of consoles. With the next generation of those limited tech bricks not arriving until the tail-end of 2013, the PC has an entire year of even greater gaming dominance. And by then, chances are it's still going to hold the technological gaming advantage. But what of right now? Who are the winners and losers in the great graphics arms race? We've lined up the full range of gaming-capable graphics cards of this generation and we'll tell you where the smart upgrade money should go. 2012 was a rather strange year in terms of graphics card releases. It all kicked off in a rather bizarre way just before Christmas 2011 when AMD 'launched' its HD 7970 - despite only actually having stock in January. We could have understood AMD's desire to get the card in front of the tech press before Christmas if Nvidia was likely to have its brand new card out soon after, but the green team was a long way behind with its new GPUs - but we'll get back to that later. Still, the new top-end card arrived and it was - somewhat inevitably given the lack of Nvidia competition - the fastest GPU around. But it was a brand new GPU architecture, in a year when AMD had also released a new CPU architecture with limited success. That new architecture represented a strange flip in terms of the focus of each side's graphics card design. Rather than looking to continue with its standard, one-trick method of hitting gaming frame rates, AMD was now, with the Graphics Core Next chips, focusing on nailing compute performance. That had been Nvidia's route with the previous generation Fermi cards and now AMD was creating a very similar architecture to cope with the graphics engines of the day. And then in March, Nvidia dropped the K bomb: Kepler hit the streets with the GTX 680. It's new 28nm architecture had almost switched sides with AMD - the Kepler GPUs focused more on raw graphics performance than the general compute-focused Fermi cards that came before it.Where's my compute?
Nvidia has left a lot of the compute power out of the consumer-focused cards then, preferring instead to jam the extra silicon necessary for such general-purpose calculations into the Tesla series of professional cards.
That space-saving silicon design means the top consumer Kepler chip is an incredibly power-efficient graphics processor, with a TDP of just 195W compared to the 250W TDP of the competing Radeon HD 7970. Nvidia's Kepler GPU also introduced the Intel-aping GPU Boost, which dynamically ramps the GPU clock speed depending on the power usage and thermal envelope.
Now it was AMD's turn to play catch-up as it introduced the PowerTune Technology with Boost - which more or less did the same thing for its GPUs - later in the summer. In terms of raw graphics performance, the top two tiers of graphics cards - GTX 670/680 and HD 7950/HD 7970 - are much of a muchness, trading performance leads in different game benchmarks.
At the top, then, it pretty much comes down to which card's feature-set you prefer and which plays best with your favourite games. Things have become a lot less equitable in the lower echelons of the graphics card market. While AMD had released its full HD 7900, HD 7800 and HD 7700 series of cards into the wild by the end of March, Nvidia would take another seven months to actually flesh out its Kepler lineup.
That meant AMD could keep its prices high while it was the only new kid on the block, and then take an axe to its GPUs' price tags when Nvidia's rival cards finally touched down. We will probably never know the real reason for Nvidia's tardiness on its lower-end cards, but rumour has it that low silicon yields on its 28nm process had something to do with it.
Nvidia just claimed to be waiting for the wealth of big games titles coming out at the end of the year. Whatever the truth of it, AMD is winning the price battle, and has better cards available at every price-point in the sub-£250 market.
One of the big problems, though, is the fact there are few games out there at the moment that will really tax a modern GPU. If you've bought a card in the past couple of years and are still sitting on a native resolution of 1,920 x 1,080, or lower, then there's really not a compelling reason to upgrade. Chances are you'll still be hitting reasonable frame rates in the latest games and that means the upgrade market is a little flat.
If you are looking for a new graphics card, though, there has never been a better time to make the move because you can pick up an inordinate amount of pixel-pushing power for very little cash these days. But are you still going to need a graphics card in your next PC?
Both AMD and Intel are making great strides in the integrated graphics market with future generations of chips. AMD, though, is segmenting things, leaving its top consumer chips, the FX range without any graphics on die. Intel, on the other hand, is resolutely sticking its iGPUs in every chip it throws out, bar the crazy £800+ Sandy Bridge E side.
Discrete days numbered
With the processor upgrade to Haswell next year, Intel is predicting a doubling of its graphics performance in Ivy Bridge. In terms of gaming on the desktop that still isn't going to give you the frames per second you'll need to get the most out of Star Citizen, but on the mobile side it's talking up the capabilities of the GT3E Haswell graphics.
Speaking to the graphics guys at IDF this year, Intel seems to think it will be making dedicated gaming laptops without dedicated graphics cards a reality in the next generation. With the next generation of AMD's APUs looking to include the proper Graphics Core Next architecture as the GPU component, its new lineup could also make things sticky for the dedicated graphics side.
With no concrete news yet of Nvidia's Project Denver - it's own ARM-based gaming CPU with a full-fat GeForce graphics part - the green side of the graphics war is looking a little ill-equipped for the coming battle - at least on the PC.
The next generation of both AMD and Nvidia graphics cards will simply be building on the advances of their respective first 28nm parts, so we don't expect a lot of particularly interesting new tech next year, just a little faster and a little more efficient. So that makes this generation even more interesting.
These cards will consistently drop in price up to the launch of the slight upgrades of the HD 8000 and GTX 700 series of cards, and with the next generation of consoles not arriving until the tail end of next year, right now this is all the card most of us need. But which one is best for you? Let me show you…
Graphics cards on test
1. EVGA GTX 680 Signature 2
The GTX 680 is still an impressive piece of technical engineering this far down the line. Released back in March, Nvidia's current flagship card is still at the top of the graphics tree, duking it out with AMD's HD 7970 for GPU supremacy. That's impressive given the fact that its GK104 is a far simpler bit of silicon compared to the Tahiti XT behemoth in the AMD card.
The GK104 is a 3.5bn transistor chip verses the 4.3bn transistor Tahiti XT core, and as such is smaller and more power efficient. That's quite a change compared to the Fermi generation where the top GTX 480 and GTX 580 housed massive, power-hungry GPUs chock-full of CUDA cores and SM units.
Read the full EVGA GTX 680 Signature 2 review
2. Sapphire HD 7970 GHz Edition Vapor-X
The HD 7970 GHz Edition is the fastest consumer graphics card, and the best news is it's not the most expensive. When Nvidia released the GTX 680, AMD was able to counter with the upgraded GHz Edition of its HD 7970, upping the clockspeed to cope with the new kid on the block and retain its top-GPU crown.
This is the card to get if you're powering a hi-res screen or three. It's got the graphics processing chops to run pretty much any game at 2,560 x 1,600, on the highest settings, without batting a silicon eyelid. It may only be a little faster than the GTX 680 in most tests, but in the compute-heavy titles, such as the lighting-intensive DiRT Showdown, it has a clear lead.
Read the full Sapphire HD 7970 GHz Edition Vapor-X review
3. Asus GTX 670 Direct CU II
Featuring an only slightly cut-down GK104 GPU compared to the top-end GTX 680, we were big fans of the GTX 670 when it first tipped up. It was only a little slower than the top GeForce card and was much cheaper. It also had a performance lead on the HD 7950 and was on par with the original HD 7970.
Time hasn't been kind to the GTX 670 though and with prices staying relatively high since launch, its relevance has diminished. The new GHz Edition of the HD 7970 put it out in front of both top Kepler cards and the Catalyst driver optimisations, and more compute-oriented game engines have made the HD 7950 a rather tantalising prospect in comparison.
Read the full Asus GTX 670 Direct CU II review
4. Asus HD 7950 Direct CU II
There's a tremendous sense of value when you get this Asus version of AMD's HD 7950 out of the box. It really is rather massive. The triple-slot cooling array, means that you're going to have to think long and hard about whether you've got enough space inside your PC chassis to house such a behemoth of a card. That said it's not a bad little performer, especially at this price point.
AMD has managed to be incredibly aggressive on pricing as new Nvidia-shaped competitors have hit the streets, and to have this sort of performance for much less than £300 is impressive.
This card swaps performance leads with the more expensive GTX 670 across our benchmarking suite, showing that it has the chops at both hi-res and in the more compute-oriented games/lighting engines we've started to come across.
Read the full Asus HD 7950 Direct CU II review
5. EVGA GTX 660 Ti Superclocked
When we first saw the GTX 660 Ti from EVGA it was hovering around the £260 - £270 price mark and was then bumping heads with the HD 7950 and that was a battle it was never going to win. Unlike a lot of the other Nvidia cards, though, this has had a little price cut in recent times.
Now it's available for just under £230 and that makes it much more of an interesting proposition. At this price it's smack bang in the middle of the HD 7950 and HD 7870, and in performance terms too that's exactly where it ought to be.
Broadly speaking it's a quicker card than the HD 7870, even the overclocked Gigabyte version we're looking at in this test. There are a couple of instances where it suffers by comparison, but then only very slightly. Interestingly it's actually quicker than the HD 7870 in the traditionally AMD-centric DiRT Showdown.
Read the full EVGA GTX 660 Ti Superclocked review
6. Gigabyte Radeon HD 7870 OC Edition
When the HD 7870 first tipped up in March we weren't that fussed about it. Sure, it delivered decent numbers in the benchmarks, but at about £260 it was way overpriced and left us feeling rather cool towards this mid-range Radeon card.
Thanks to Nvidia finally getting its act together with its own mid-range cards, AMD has started aggressively pricing and now the HD 7870s, and even this overclocked edition, are sitting below the £200 mark. At this price there really isn't anything Nvidia can do to compete.
Now the GTX 660 Ti's prices have come down, though, it does represent a little more competition for AMD's mid-range master. Still, the Pitcairn XT is pretty much all the GPU you need for your 1080p screen - it will throw polygons around at impressive speeds in any game you care to throw at it.
Read the full Gigabyte Radeon HD 7870 OC Edition review
7. EVGA GTX 660 Superclocked
When Nvidia finally got the GTX 660 out of the door it was all set to go head-to-head with AMD's HD 7850. And that would have been completely right - both offer similar performance figures. Among the Nvidia-favouring titles it does better, and vice versa with the AMD-centric games.
Had the situation stayed static then Nvidia's cards would've had their own place in the world. Yay. But AMD held its pricing at a level before Nvidia's mid-range hit the streets and thanks to its cards being out for a good while longer, AMD's been able to slash its price tags. That means the straight GTX 660 is now going up against the vanilla HD 7870.
Despite the overclocked nature of this EVGA card, it still can't beat the stock-clocked Radeon. Even on the Nvidia-sponsored games, like Max Payne 3, it's second best to the current mid-range king.
Read the full EVGA GTX 660 Superclocked review
8. Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 2GB
The performance of the HD 7850 when it first came out, combined with its relatively low price tag, made for a very enticing mid-range card. That impressive start has only gotten better as time has moved on and the price has dropped ever lower. Once it dropped below £200 it was hard to really recommend anyone with a 1080p screen spending more.
Now it's sub-£200 graphics card crown has slipped as its HD 7870 big brother has usurped the HD 7850's place by making itself a whole lot cheaper than it used to be. Still, at £150 you'd surely expect us to still be pretty taken with the HD 7850.
And while it's still a great mid-range card, there has been one other sibling to make us take a second look. And that's the 1GB version of this GPU. You might expect the extra gigabyte of graphics memory to push this graphics card significantly ahead in the high-res benchmarks - but you'd be wrong.
Read the full Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 2GB review
9. Zotac GTX 650 Ti AMP!
So, you thought things looked bad for the HD 7850 in standard 2GB trim when the 1GB version came out, but spare a thought for the poor ol' GTX 650 Ti. Bless its little silicon socks, it's really trying.
Throwing off the shackles of the GK107 GPU, Nvidia decided to lumber the standard GTX 650 with this Ti version, which is rocking the same pumped-up pixel-pusher as the GTX 660. That means it's actually much more of a reasonable gamer's graphics card than the standard version. Were it simply going head-to-head with an equivalently priced HD 7770 then it would have beaten the AMD card hands down.
Sadly it's all shifted around and this AMP! edition of the GTX 650 Ti sits in between the 1GB and 2GB versions of the HD 7850 - and suffers by comparison with each of them.
Read the full Zotac GTX 650 TI AMP! review
10. MSI HD 7850 1GB
We have to admit this was a bit of a surprise. We wanted to get the 1GB version of the HD 7850 to test it against the HD 7770 more than anything else - assuming this would be the card it'd be going up against. After all, the 2GB frame buffer of the stock HD 7850 must be partly responsible for its impressive showing at hi-res, right?
And that's putting post-processing such as anti-aliasing in the mix. How wrong we were. It seems that the bottleneck to the Pitcairn Pro's performance is not the memory at all - the GPU itself bottlenecks performance well before the memory gets anywhere near making things crawl.
What does that mean though? Well, it means the 1GB version of the HD 7850, especially the slightly overclocked version supplied by MSI, is more than able to keep pace with the stock 2GB version of the Pitcairn Pro card.
Read the full MSI HD 7850 1GB review
11. MSI HD 7770
This is as good as it gets if you're looking for a genuinely gaming-capable card at the sub-£100 level. Granted, it's only just under £100, but compared with the competing GTX 650, at this price point it's the gamer's only real option.
Heaven is a great metric for comparing GPU performance in isolation of any marketing nonsense, or any company specific extras, and the figures don't lie. The HD 7770 is considerably faster than the GTX 650 in Heaven 3.0 with only Batman: AC actually giving any parity of performance between the two cards. Across all the other benchmarks, whether at 1080p or 2,560 x 1,600, the AMD graphics card has a pretty significant advantage. When you look at the different GPU architecture it's easy to see why.
Read the full MSI HD 7770 review
12. PNY GTX 650
What both iterations of the GTX 650, in either this or the speedier, pricier Ti-trim, have going for them is their diminutive size. They're both pleasingly small little graphics cards, ideal for the wee PC. Well, ideal for the wee PC that you don't really have any interest in getting decent gaming frame rates from in any case.
Okay, that's a little unfair - the traditionally Nvidia-lovin' Batman: AC will still let you top 40fps at 1080p at the top settings. Elsewhere, though, you're going to have to seriously tighten your graphical-pretties belt in order to make sure you're getting decent frame rates.
This is the same GK107 GPU that we've seen in a number of laptops recently - that twin SMX GPU being perfect for the power- conscious mobile crowd - and if you're running a 720p screen, at 1,366 x 768 or similar, then you're going to be able to get some decent gaming speeds.
Read the full PNY GTX 650 review
13. Sapphire HD 7750
This far down the pecking order of graphics cards you will really struggle to get anything close to decent gaming frame rates out of a normal 1080p screen. With the Sapphire HD 7750 you're not going to be pushing much past 20 frames per second in most games without seriously knocking back the graphics settings or resolution.
This version of the HD 7750, with the 2GB of relatively slow DDR3 video RAM, is almost irrelevant in gaming terms. That said, though, you can pick up a low-profile version which could go into a small machine to stick under your TV.
With Steam's TV mode, and a drop in resolution, you'll be able to get almost gaming-capable speeds at 720p on your telly. For another £20, though, you can get double the gaming performance with an HD 7770, and £50 extra will get you the awesome HD 7850 1GB.
Read the full Sapphire HD 7750 review
14. Zotac GT 640 ZONE
The main, indeed probably only, selling point of the GT 640 Zone is the fact that it's completely silent. With a chunky passive cooler sitting atop the GPU and memory chips, there are no spinning fans whirring away like a mini-turbine inside your PC. That means that despite its standard card height it would make a pretty decent media centre GPU.
Like the HD 7750, you'll struggle to get any decent gaming frame rates out of the card at standard 1080p resolutions and top settings, but lower your expectations and you'll be able to hit reasonable gaming speeds.
Nowadays, lower settings in current games don't make them look much worse than their console counterparts but, still, for an extra £20 you can pick up much more bona fide gaming cards.
Read the full Zotac GT 640 ZONE review
Benchmark analysis and winner
Given our penchant for high-performance components it might seem strange that we've gone all gooey over a £120 graphics card which is easily outperformed by a good chunk of the cards on test. But a quick scan of the benchmarks on these 'ere pages should show you why we're so taken by the HD 7850 1GB. It beats the other cards in its class in pretty much every test and gives much more expensive cards a run for their money. In fact, as the two value tests prove, it offers the most performance for your dosh of the lot - and you can't ask for much more than that. At the top of the tech tree, the HD 7970 and GTX 680 inevitably fight it out, each taking it in turn to top the test. Except when it comes to price performance - in both tests the Sapphire offers far better value than the EVGA.
And the winner is… MSI HD 7850 1GB
We've been accused in recent times of being AMD fan boys here at PCFormat. That's a rather ridiculous accusation considering that we get to test every single card on the market and we don't have to make decisions on what graphics cards to jam in our machines based on tribal loyalties.
What we do base our decisions on is a combination of gaming performance and the cost to you, our beloved readers. In this generation it's been an almost complete whitewash for AMD in terms of performance per pound, and actually in outright straight-line gaming speed too.
Most of this is down to Nvidia's tardiness in releasing the new Kepler architecture into the wild, giving AMD the time to harvest its cards at the high initial price tags and then the option to slash prices when the competition finally comes around.
At every pairing AMD comes out on top. At the top-end, the HD 7970 has held on to the performance crown thanks to the release of the GHz Edition, even the pricey, overclocked EVGA GTX 680 Signature 2 can't maintain a consistent performance lead over the AMD card. The price cuts have also allowed the HD 7950 to carve out an excellent little niche for itself, sitting between the GTX 660 Ti and GTX 670.
The GTX 660 Ti has become a little more relevant thanks to some price chopping on the part of Nvidia for a change. It's got enough about it to take on the HD 7870 and make a real fist of it.
The truth of it, though, is that Nvidia actually hasn't had to make a fight on the pricing front. It has been happily selling its Kepler cards thanks to existing goodwill among its user base, and that tribal loyalty sometimes outweighs the actual performance. If Nvidia is still selling at its current pricing then there's really no reason to get any more competitive on cost.
That's where AMD really has to fight its corner, after all, a quick check of the Steam hardware survey shows that Nvidia still has the advantage in numbers out in the real world.
The real star of the show, though, has to be the incredible HD 7850 in lightweight 1GB trim. We really didn't expect this MSI card to be quite as impressive as it is. We ostensibly got the card in to go up against the HD 7770, but as it turned out it made things uncomfortable for the 2GB version, and for both the GTX 650 Ti and the GTX 660.
In fact, for the gamer on a budget, the HD 7850 1GB is the perfect 1080p graphics card - it's got some impressive performance chops in high-resolution trim too. We've had a play with a pair of these in CrossFire too, and at £240 you're getting performance that is right up there with the GTX 680 and HD 7970.
The vagaries of multi-GPU systems in terms of playing nice with modern games mean it's still not an absolute must-buy pairing, but it's getting pretty darned close.
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Updated: Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 release date, news and rumours
We've got the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 and Galaxy Note 10.1, but there's a smaller sized tablet missing in this line up: enter the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0.
Apparently developed under the codename "Kona", the Galaxy Note 8.0 seems set to be the name the tablet will go to market with.
Although not yet officially confirmed there's an awful lot of talk on the web that Samsung is readying a new, S-Pen wielding slate to slip between the two devices currently making up the Note family.
In fact Samsung's Head of Mobile, JK Shin has apparently confirmed that the Galaxy Note 8.0 will indeed arrive at MWC 2013 in Barcelona.
Although Samsung already has the Galaxy Tab 7.0 and Galaxy Tab 7.7 on the market, it may be that the company sees the Galaxy Note 8.0 as it's best chance of directly competing against Apple's 7.9-inch iPad mini, given its unique styus-based spin.
Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 release date
Everything seems to point to an MWC 2013 unveiling for the Galaxy Note 8.0, with Samsung's Head of Mobile even reportedly confirming a Barcelona launch. MWC 2013 kicks off during the last week of February, but don't go thinking you'll be able to lay your hands on the Galaxy Note 8.0 anytime soon, as it will probably take a month or two to reach stores. That means we'll probably see the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 release date set for around April - watch this space.Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 price
We'd expect to see the Galaxy Note 8.0 carry a healthy price tag as it will be competing more with the iPad mini than the likes of the budget focussed Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD. The iPad mini starts at £269/$329/AU$369, so in true Samsung fashion the Galaxy Note 8.0 will probably look to undercut its Cupertino-based rival in an attempt to pull customers away from Apple.Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 screen
Unsurprisingly the Galaxy Note 8.0 will sport, yes, you've guess it, an 8-inch display, with early reports suggesting it will pack Super Clear LCD technology and a decent 1280 x 800 resolution. If true it would mean the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 would have an ever-so-slightly better display than the iPad mini, but there's not a lot in it.Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 operating system
The Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 will almost certainly come running Android Jelly Bean out of the box, but whether it will be version 4.1 or 4.2 is still up for debate. According to SamMobile the Note 8.0 will indeed ship with the very latest version of Jelly Bean - Android 4.2 - which would be excellent news for anyone interested in picking one up.Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 specs
There have been a couple of specification leaks regarding the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 recently, both of which come via SamMobile. As well as the 8-inch display and Jelly Bean OS the Galaxy Note 8.0 will apparently pack 2GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, microSD slot, 5MP rear camera, 3G option, 4,600mAh battery and of course the famous S-Pen stylus. A second set of specs turned up a few days later claiming to be from Spanish marketing material for the Galaxy Note 8.0. This leak revealed that the slate is likely to pack a 1.6GHz quad-core processor alongside the 2GB of RAM and 5MP camera, but this report suggests you'll only get 16GB of internal memory. Samsung could well offer the Galaxy Note 8.0 in both 16GB and 32GB variants, as well as having the option to throw in 3G connectivity if you so wish. If you require a web connection on the go then the portable Galaxy Note 8.0 should have you covered, with details appearing online about three variants of the tab. Apparently you'll be spoiled for choice when it comes to selecting the right Galaxy Note 8.0 for you, will the tablet set to come in Wi-Fi only, Wi-Fi + 3G and Wi-Fi + 3G + 4G guises.Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 image leaks
The first glimpse we potentially got of the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 came via SamMobile; the site was sent a snap of a Spanish listing for the tablet revealing some specs alongside photos of the front and back of the tablet. In terms of looks the Galaxy Note 8.0 looks to be an upscaled Galaxy Note 2, instead of a down sized Galaxy Note 10.1.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 design is reinforced in our second set of photo leaks, this time showing the Galaxy Note 8.0 taking a ride on public transport.
Interestingly in these sanps the Galaxy Note 8.0 is sporting a physical home button flanked by touch sensitive back and menu keys, as found on the smartphone and it's something which didn't feature in the image above.
Last up, for now anyway, is a snap found by French site FR Android which sees the supposed Galaxy Note 8.0 sitting beside the Galaxy Note 2.
The famous Samsung button set up from its smartphone range is present once again on the front of Galaxy Note 8.0 making it look more like a phone than a tablet.
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Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 touted with a trio of options
There's a lot of talk surrounding the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 and the latest report suggests the tablet will be available in three different variants.
According to Bluetooth SIG, Samsung is planning to produce the Galaxy Note 8.0 in Wi-Fi only (GT-N5100), Wi-Fi + 3G (GT-N5110) and Wi-Fi, 3G + 4G (GT-N5105) variants.
All three models will apparently make their way to Europe, with availability in other regions currently unknown.
Rumours suggest the Galaxy Note 8.0 will launch at MWC 2013 sporting an 8-inch 1280 x 800 display, quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 5MP rear camera, S-Pen stylus and come running Android Jelly Bean.
But wait, there's more!
There's also word that Samsung is planning a new range of Galaxy Tab 3 slates and further fuel has been added to this fire with user agent profiles for three new tablets appearing on the Samsung Mobile site. In the profiles three screen resolutions are listed under three separate model IDs, with what is expected to be the entry level slate - potentially a 7-inch offering to rival the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD - noted as the GT-P3200 with a 1024 x 600 display. Next up is the GT-P5200 sporting a 1280x800 screen which could rival the Galaxy Note 8.0 above and the 7.9-inch iPad mini, while the full HD GT-P8200 will probably go head to head with the likes of the iPad 4 and Google Nexus 10 thanks to its 2560 x 1600 resolution. TechRadar will be out in force at MWC 2013 in Barcelona to bring you all the latest from Samsung and any new tablets it may be wheeling out.
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Can BlackBerry 10 win over business buyers?
BlackBerry says its new Z10 smartphone, the first using its BB10 platform, is selling "close to three times our best in first week sales", and stores have reported that some businesses are buying up to 10 at a time.
It had a bad year before the launch, but its heritage is in the business market where it pioneered push email and long battery life. Is BB10 going to help BlackBerry reassert its top position in the business smartphone market?
The touchscreen BlackBerry Z10 is out now, and the BlackBerry Q10 with its physical keyboard and longer battery life (thanks to the larger battery and smaller screen using power-saving OLED technology), is due to arrive in April.
BlackBerry understands that individual users are increasingly making their own choices of business device, which means its new offerings will have to appeal to users who want a big screen, a powerful processor and excellent gaming support. But business functions will still be a crucial factor in whether BB10 proves a long term success.
Among the assets visible on the Z10 smartphone is the powerful predictive text on the touch keyboard (almost as good as Windows Phone 8 Word Flow in our tests), and the standards-compatible browser, which will be useful in dealing with email and intranet sites.
Larger businesses can use the HTML5-based WebWorks tools to build their own dashboards and scorecards for monitoring key information, using the web technologies with which they're increasingly familiar, or port an app already written in Adobe AIR. The browser in BB10 even comes with a Flash plug-in.
The advantages of BlackBerry Messenger are familiar: knowing when your message gets to someone and if they've read it is an asset when messages are part of an existing workflow or contribute to meeting service level agreements. That can be built into applications, for receipts and to send push notifications, so you're not relying on workers remembering to check a portal or log in to a website to see if there's something they need to know.
Often the information you want to push out to workers lives behind your firewall rather than out on the internet. That means deploying and supporting virtual private networks (VPNs) for iPhone or Android, and setting up DirectAccess or SharePoint for Windows Phone (which does not support VPN access).
But it can be more straightforward with BB10 if you have BES 10, the latest version of the BlackBerry management server. This enables you to get information from internal servers and applications and send it directly to apps on BlackBerry handsets without a VPN connection. Also, unlike many simple web apps, even BlackBerry WebWorks applications can cache the data and make it available when users are offline.
BES 10 connects to servers behind the firewall using standard http protocols, and you create the notifications to send to a BlackBerry using standard http post commands. But they're delivered over the encrypted (and compressed) connection from the BlackBerry cloud service to the phone, and go to an app that lives in a secure work partition that the company can manage.
You can manage any Android or Apple smartphone (with your choice of mobile device management tools, including BES 10) as long as the user doesn't mind that an administrator can see what apps they're running. You can also block any apps that the company decides are a problem, force users to tap in a complicated PIN even when they're just sending a message to a friend, and erase all their personal photos if the phone ever gets lost.
That could cause problems, as it would be widely acceptable on a work phone issued as part of the job, but less so when someone is using their own phone for work.
Other significant features include BlackBerry World for Work for managed handsets, through which a business can highlight apps from the main BlackBerry World or those it has written internally or licensed from an independent software vendor. This is similar to the company hubs that are found for Windows Phone 8 using Intune 4, as well as the various private Android app stores.
Also important is the BlackBerry Balance technology for separating work and personal information, using the secure architecture of the QNX system on which BB10 is built. Together they promise to give the Z10 and Q10 split personalities that could suit businesses and individual users.
One advantage is that apps, email, documents and screenshots for work can be stored in a separate, secure, managed area of the device that BlackBerry refers to as a perimeter. As BlackBerry's app platform manager Tim Neil explains it, nothing in the personal perimeter can be used with work information.
"If someone emails you a picture to your work account, you can't save it into BBM," he says. "You can't cut and paste from work email into your personal perimeter and you can't accidentally send a message form your work account to look like it's from your Gmail account."
Although an administrator can remove applications or wipe information stored in the work perimeter, they have no access to the personal section of the phone.
This could be important in ensuring that the new BlackBerry smartphones retain their appeal to individual users. In turn, that could make BB10 a great asset for business.
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Government urges SMBs to join IT consultation
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has called on small and midsized businesses to take part in a consultation on the information economy.
It says on the gov.uk website that it wants views from companies in the sector, both technology based and otherwise.
The consultation is intended to influence government policy towards the development of the IT industry. The common theme is that software, IT services and telecommunications services can play a significant role in promoting future economic growth.
BIS has published a consultation document that says it will focus on smart cities, cloud computing, the "internet of things" (in which physical objects become part of an information network), big data and e-commerce.
It defines the information economy as "the part of the economy where digital technologies and information combine to drive productivity and create new growth opportunities across the whole economy".
The document says: "The information economy sector is a significant enabler of other sectors.
"The use of digital technology and information is a key element of most parts of the economy which means the strategy has the potential to make a real difference, not only in the UK's IT sector but across the whole economy."
The consultation will run until 15 March.
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Review: PNY GTX 650
What both iterations of the GTX 650, in either this or the speedier, pricier Ti trim, have going for them is their diminutive size. They're both pleasingly small little graphics cards, ideal for the wee PC. Well, ideal for the wee PC that you don't really have any interest in getting decent gaming frame rates from in any case.
Okay, that's a little unfair - the traditionally Nvidia-lovin' Batman: AC will still let you top 40fps at 1080p at the top settings. Elsewhere, though, you're going to have to seriously tighten your graphical-pretties belt in order to make sure you're getting decent frame rates.
This is the same GK107 GPU that we've seen in a number of laptops recently - that twin SMX GPU being perfect for the power-conscious mobile crowd - and if you're running a 720p screen, at 1,366 x 768 or similar, then you're going to be able to get some decent gaming speeds.
On a desktop monitor though, dropping out of the native resolution will leave you with rather muddy textures and HUD elements really encroaching on your gaming environment with tough-toread text.
The HD 7770 then is a much better bet if your wallet, or better half, is limiting you to a £100 maximum for your next GPU purchase and you're looking to stick to the native res of your current screen.
You're going to have to make fewer graphical sacrifices to the gods of pricing with the AMD card than you will with this diminutive Nvidia GPU sat at the heart of your rig.
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