It’s day zero at Google I/O 2013, the company’s developer event made for and by developer groups and Google to strengthen their world of software, services, and everything in-between. SlashGear has gotten the opportunity to step behind-the-scenes at this event on registration day – that is, the day before everything begins. Here we’ll begin to explore what’s actually at the event with the hard evidence that only comes from on-site investigation right in the midst of the big setup.
Nokia can afford to put tablets and even phablets on the back-burner, relying instead on Microsoft’s broader ecosystem to fill in the gaps in the Finnish firm’s range, the company’s top execs argue, though they concede both firms need to do better in explaining why that ecosystem is so special. Speaking to SlashGear at the launch of the Lumia 925 in London today, EVP of smart devices Jo Harlow and EVP of sales and marketing Chris Weber refused to be drawn on what big-screen smartphone and tablet plans Nokia might have on the drawing board right now, but each admitted that the next stage in the firm’s recovery was explaining exactly how it was differentiated from rival phones. That includes clearing up the misconception that Windows Phone is closed while Android is open, Harlow says.
This week NVIDIA’s Project SHIELD was revealed all over again, this time renamed simply: SHIELD, arriving as both the company’s first handheld gaming device and hardware sold direct to end users, all at once. It is here that NVIDIA starts its journey in converging the worlds of mobile and desktop gaming with the Tegra 4 mobile processor on one end and GeForce graphics on the other. NVIDIA has announced today that SHIELD will not only be available in the US and Canadian markets starting in June, but that it’ll be up for pre-order (for some) starting today.
The Nokia Lumia 925 bottom line is simple: it’s the best looking, best feeling Windows Phone 8 handset Nokia has given us to-date, and while it may not be PureView as the 808 outlined it, Nokia is aiming big with claims that it offers the best low-light performance of any smartphone on the market. Officially announced today, we caught up with the Lumia 925 to see whether it truly lives up to its premium billing, and whether – as Nokia insists – it can live alongside the Lumia 920 and 928, rather than just muddy the waters. Read on for our first impressions.
Google Glass isn’t solely about photography, but that’s inevitably the first thing you try out – and the first thing you demonstrate to people when they inevitably ask you questions. Right now there seem to be two approaches to wearables like Glass, either aiming to make the headset blend in, and not cause waves by avoiding being noticed in the first place, or by facing the privacy and photography concerns people have face-on, and opening up a dialog about how bodyworn tech is going to change things. Maybe the fact I picked Google’s tangerine-finish Glass Explorer Edition is an indicator, but I’m all for challenging the status-quo rather than hoping it will merely blend in.
The accessory company RokForm has been releasing accessories since 2010, coming up here in 2013 with a family of components that allow a smartphone – one of several models – to be attached to essentially any hard surface you’ve got near you. Though the group continues to keep the use cases for their accessories wide open, we’d like to suggest one that’s proven itself to be pretty neat right here at home: dish washing.
With the OPPO Find 5 seeing a surprising amount of interest in the forums and across-the-ocean mobile carriers of the world this month, it comes time to compare to one of the other most-searched smartphones on the planet: the iPhone 5. Both devices are the hero smartphone for their manufacturer, and both work with the newest (or ever-so-close to newest) mobile operating system available to them. Other than that, they’re quite a bit different from one another.
If you were wondering about the app and game limitations of the Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon gaming table before today, you’ll be glad to know that BlueStacks is in full effect. SlashGear has this massive oddity in the house here in its first week of launch, and amongst the surprising number of pre-loaded touch-friendly games included with the unit we’ve found BlueStacks, right out of the box. BlueStacks is an app interface which allows Android apps and games to be used on a Windows or Mac machine, here expanding the world of the Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon with essentially every app an Android user works with on a daily basis.
This week we’re having a peek at the OPPO Find 5, a device aimed at China’s Android-loving smartphone market made by a manufacturer that, if this handset is any indication, has a very bright future. This device delivers a 5-inch 1080p display – the same resolution as the DROID DNA aka HTC Butterfly, works with the same Qualcomm Snapdragon quad-core processor as the Google Nexus 4, and comes with a 13 megapixel camera on its back. It’s also quite charming to see.
When we spoke with Matias Duarte earlier this year about Google Now, it seemed as though Google Now would become the “control panel” of sorts for every smart device it appeared on. Now that we’ve seen the initial Google Now push for the iPhone and iPad, it would seem that Google doesn’t want to simply give Apple products their whole “Now” experience. Instead Google’s release of the Google Now experience on iOS is an assistant to Google Search.
This week the until-now Android-exclusive system Google Now reaches out to iOS inside the Google Search app for Apple’s iPad and iPhone. Both versions are tuned to the display size they appear on, with sets of “cards” appearing in a single column for iPhone and a set of two columns for iPad. These cards contain information about current events and the environment around the user based on their search history and interests.
The Epson Moverio BT-100 is a pair of augmented reality glasses that, in the wake of the future success of Google Glass and the Occulus Rift, keeps itself unique with its own combination of abilities. This week SlashGear had a chat with Eric Mizufuka, Product Manager of New Markets at Epson and Scott Montgomerie, CEO and lead developer of Scope Technologies about the newest use of this still very developer-stage pair of futuristic glasses: augmented reality industrial product training.
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