Nokia keeps dripping out details about the Lumia 928, the new Windows Phone expected to officially launch next week, and latest is a confirmation on the rumored Xenon flash and a demo of the smartphone’s audio prowess. The new image, shared by Nokia itself, shows the rear of the Lumia 928 for the first official time, complete with PureView branding and what looks like a combined Xenon and LED flash assembly.
Take Nokia’s estimable skills in crafting solid, affordable smartphones, a dash of MeeGo-learned interface know-how, and a motivating desperation to own the developing market, and you get this, the Nokia Asha 501. First of the new Asha Touch series, and toting an ambitious $99 (pre-tax and subsidy) sticker, the Asha 501 does what Nokia would argue only it can: distill the build quality and usability of a Lumia into something with the mass market reach of an Asha. The 501 makes its debut in India today, but SlashGear caught up with Nokia last week to find out exactly what makes it special.
Though you’re not going to be able to work with it yourself until later this month (at the earliest), the next big upgrade to Google’s mobile operating system is out there in the wild right this minute. As Google I/O 2013 approaches, so too have suggestions that Google will reveal a collection of feature upgrades for their most basic mobile operating system software. At the moment the signs of life for Android 4.3 are small, but they’re there – having appeared for the first time here on SlashGear earlier this week!
Google is considering Glass boutiques where the public could try out the wearable, it’s reported, better explaining the Android headset by giving live demonstrations. A project closely involving Google co-founder Sergey Brin, according to whispers passed to Business Insider, the Glass-centric retail locations would push not only the concept of bodyworn computing, but the Glass brand specifically.
Nokia’s worst-kept-secret in Windows Phone, the Lumia 928, may not be officially announced, but that hasn’t stopped the company from pitting it against the iPhone 5 and Galaxy S III in a low-light camera test. The Finns still aren’t mentioning the Lumia 928 by name – though the video comparison is at the Lumia 928 page – but there’s already an official image of the phone showing its aesthetic changes from the Lumia 920 and confirming the 8.7-megapixel PureView camera.
It’s finally time to get a good look at the film adaptation of the science fiction novel classic Ender’s Game with the first official full-length trailer for the movie. This trailer is just under two minutes long and has Harrison Ford speaking in what might be the least intense declaration of intent in the history of on-film representations of the military, rivaled only by his admittedly unenthusiastic voice-over for the theater version of Blade Runner. That said, the visuals appear to be bringing a fully prepared vision from director Gavin Hood and producer Bob Orci.
Sony has revealed its latest entry-level VAIO notebooks, the VAIO Fit series, with a choice of 14- and 15.6-inch displays, 3rd-gen Intel Core processors, and the option of dedicated NVIDIA graphics. Kicking off from $649 for the VAIO Fit 14 and $699 for the VAIO Fit 15 – which have 1600 x 900 and 1920 x 1080 displays, respectively – the new Fit range also throw in features like NFC for easier transfer of content between notebooks and Xperia smartphones.
As Adobe announces that they’ll no longer be selling software in physical boxes, they continue their physical presence in this world with two bits of hardware: Project Napoleon and Project Mighty. With Project Mighty, the company is showing a cloud-connected stylus made specifically for apps and interfaces inside the Adobe Creative Cloud, Photoshop CC included. Adobe Project Napoleon is a candy bar-sized accessory that will allow users to keep digital lines straight – or curved, if they like.
A manned mission to Mars could take place within the next two decades, NASA and the private sector have agreed, though the race is on to research and fund such the next ambitious step fo the space race. The feasibility of such a mission – and the political, financial, technological, and social problems that would need to be addressed first – is on the agenda of the Humans to Mars (H2M) summit this week, with NASA staffers, researchers, private space agencies, and more all coming together at George Washington University to explore the practicalities of sending astronauts to Mars by the 2030s.
Motorola abused its dominance in wireless patents when it tried to block Apple’s iPhone in Germany, the European Commission has judged, potentially paving the way to official antitrust penalties against the Google-owned smartphone firm. The EU had been investigating Motorola’s use of standards-essential GSM patents to spar with Apple in Europe, citing the company’s intention to chase sales injunctions over use of technologies that had been agreed as core to the GSM standard, despite Apple suggesting it was willing to license them.
An LG prototype smartphone that could be the new Optimus G2 or even the Google “Nexus 5″ has been spotted in the wild, though exactly what the sizable handset is still remains a mystery. The image – as well as a close-up of the front camera assembly, shown after the cut – shared by evleaks comes with no hardware specifications nor branding beyond the LG logo in the lower bezel, and there’s no telling whether Google’s Nexus logo gets a mention on the back.
This week the fabled Motorola hero device called “X Phone” before this week has resurged in the tip lines at the Motorola XFON, complete with Qualcomm hardware compatibility with 4G LTE across all major carriers in the USA. This device has appeared several times in the recent past in both front and back hands-on photos with what appears to be a soft plastic back, a relatively large back-facing camera, and a palm-sized body. It’s been tipped most recently that this XFON device will be ready for both AT&T and Verizon this July.
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