Chris Davies - SlashGear

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Someone told Samsung we needed another tablet

Chris Davies, Feb 13th 2012 Discuss [0]

At what point do you stage an intervention: gently prise the set-square and soldering iron from Samsung‘s hands, and lead them from the tablet labs and into a quiet room where all the iPad adverts have been snipped from the coffee table magazines? This morning Samsung outed its latest model, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2, a 7-inch successor to the original Galaxy Tab of late 2010. In the intervening period, we’ve seen a cavalcade of Samsung slates – the Tab 10.1 and 8.9, the 7.7 with its Super AMOLED Plus display, the 7.0 Plus which, for a while, looked like the original Tab replacement, and they’ve not been the only ones. Has Samsung got a tablet obsession or is it simply reading the market right?

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RIM feared “morons from outside” in CEO hunt says director

Chris Davies, Feb 13th 2012 Discuss [0]

RIM's choice for its new CEO was either look internally to save the BlackBerry business or "hand it over to children, or morons from the outside who will destroy the company" according to one outspoken board member. Roger Martin, who has been on the RIM board for around five years, dismisses suggestions that the company should have junked co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis several years back, telling The Globe and Mail that the best strategy was that RIM "try to build our way to having succession." Read The Full Story

Google Experience Center hub of search firm’s hardware ambitions

Chris Davies, Feb 13th 2012 Discuss [0]

Google is preparing a huge push in hardware under the "@home" brand, it's suggested, as well as a "Google Experience Center" for promoting, showcasing and marketing Google products and services to VIPs and potential customers. The plans, part of $120m construction project at Google's Mountain View base, will see one or more new hardware testing labs perfecting the "home entertainment device" and "next-gen personal communication device" revealed in recent weeks, the San Jose Mercury News reports. Read The Full Story

Mozilla takes on Apple, Android with Open Web apps

Chris Davies, Feb 13th 2012 Discuss [0]

Firefox creator Mozilla has revealed its plans to take on the closed ecosystems of Apple, Google and others, challenging developers to consider the entire web as their potential marketplace, not just the App Store or Android Market. Outlined in the non-profit foundation's 2012 roadmap, Mozilla aims to "enable web apps that rival native [code]"; "The Web must be made easier to develop for than proprietary platforms" the organization insists, as well as revealing plans to broaden the existing Mozilla Marketplace to a range of devices. Read The Full Story

Apple stock passes $500 a share

Chris Davies, Feb 13th 2012 Discuss [0]

Listen carefully and you'll hear the faint sound of whooping and screaming, as Apple's share price breaks the $500-apiece barrier and - we're guessing - rapturous glee breaks out among the ordinarily sensible Cupertino coin counters. The NASDAQ woke to an individual Apple share at $502.55, having hovered around the $498-499 point earlier in the week: that means it's now more expensive to buy a single share in Apple than it is to buy an iPad 2. Read The Full Story

Apple brings in Fair Labor Association to audit suppliers

Chris Davies, Feb 13th 2012 Discuss [0]

Apple has requested an “ethical manufacturing” check of all its final-assembly suppliers, with the Fair Labor Association (FLA) investigating Foxconn, Quanta, Pegatron and others for signs of worker mistreatment or unsafe conditions. The FLA will look at working and living environments, health and safety provisions, compensation, working hours and communication with management, Apple has said; “We believe that workers everywhere have the right to a safe and fair work environment” CEO Tim Cook said of the independent assessments, which come after the company was singled out for criticism over poor treatment of supply chain employees.

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Vuzix and NEC scoop Google on cloud-connected Smart Glasses

Chris Davies, Feb 13th 2012 Discuss [0]

Vuzix and NEC BIGLOBE have partnered on cloud-connected Augmented Reality glasses, a wearable display that can identify people and match them with their Facebook and Twitter profiles, in an apparent attempt to get in ahead of Google's HUD Smart Glasses. Based on Vuzix's STAR series of AR video eyewear, which we made fools of ourselves wearing last September, the concept demo uses the headset's integrated camera and a persistent wireless web connection to NEC BIGLOBE's servers, though the potential applications go much further than simply showing you your neighbors latest tweets. Read The Full Story

Boxee Box DVR subscription tipped

Chris Davies, Feb 13th 2012 Discuss [0]

Smart TV company Boxee promised to consider DVR functionality when it launched its Live TV adapter, and it seems a paid add-on service delivering just that might be in the pipeline. A survey fired out to Live TV dongle owners over the weekend questioned whether they would be willing to pay between $5 and $15 per month for the ability to record live TV for later playback, GigaOm reports, or indeed if they were uninterested in the functionality at all. Read The Full Story

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 delivers entry-level Ice Cream Sandwich

Chris Davies, Feb 13th 2012 Discuss [0]

Samsung has outed its latest tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0), the Ice Cream Sandwich successor to the original Galaxy Tab model from 2010. Built around a 7-inch 1024 x 600 PLS LCD display, the new Galaxy Tab 2 has a 1GHz dual-core processor paired with 1GB of RAM, along with WiFi and a 3-megapixel rear facing camera.

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HTC Endeavor ROM hints at HTC Speak potential Siri rival

Chris Davies, Feb 13th 2012 Discuss [0]

The HTC Endeavor continues to give up its secrets, with diagrams of the upcoming smartphone along with hints of an "HTC Speak" potential Siri-rival being dragged from the leaked ROM. Curiously, although the quadcore Tegra 3 based Endeavor is believed to be the same as the HTC Edge, the graphics used in the ROM as part of the SIM-insertion sequence show the angular Android device leaked last week. Meanwhile, HDBlog's digging has apparently unearthed a movie editing app - and not the regular Google one - along with HTC Speak, a voice command system. Read The Full Story

Apple forced Pegatron to dump ASUS in ultrabook snub say sources

Chris Davies, Feb 13th 2012 Discuss [0]

Apple has strong-armed its MacBook Air manufacturer into refusing to construct ultrabooks for rival ASUS, with Pegatron being given a Cupertino ultimatum to pick between the two accounts. Apple was reportedly frustrated by the resemblance of the ASUS Zenbook range to its own ultraportable, China's Commercial Times reports, particularly in terms of the exterior design which uses a unibody construction. Read The Full Story

HTC Endeavor leak spills Sense 4.0 secrets

Chris Davies, Feb 13th 2012 Discuss [0]

Details on the HTC Endeavor have emerged this weekend, after a ROM for the Android smartphone - believed to be the same device as the HTC Edge - revealed it as a Tegra 3 powered 4.7-inch superphone with an 8-megapixel camera. The ROM was turned up at xda-developers, detailing Android 4.0.3 and Sense 4.0 along with NFC and Beats Audio; then HTC-Hub did some digging, pulling out screenshots of exactly what we have to expect from the newest iteration of HTC's UI. Read The Full Story