This system was developed by Instrument to track user input and motion tracking with a custom C++ app built with openNI as well as an ASUS Xtion Pro 3D motion tracking sensor camera. As the motion tracker sees and understands the angle of the human playing the game’s torso and location of each arm, so too will their avatar on the display array move as they fall.

The 3D game content is rendered with WebGL using THREE.js, the WebGL layer being rendered with a totally transparent background. This setup allows the map layer underneath to show through, this map layer being generated by Google Maps.

What the user sees below – the earth they’re plummeting toward – is a completely live HTML Google Map instance. It’s accurate – meaning you could potentially be diving toward your house, a national landmark, or perhaps somewhere that’d be useful for real-world training.

In addition to this setup being live and ready to roll here at Google I/O 2013 as a playable demo, Instrument has created a Dive editor. With this Dive editor, an editor is able to build directly into the control node administrative console, each of these changes reflected instantly – live in the scene.

The editor user interface exists as a Google Map, the person editing it able to use draggable markers that act as game objects. With this interface, developers and savvy users will be able to utilize geocoding to center the map view on locations of their choice – anywhere Google Maps can see. Think of the possibilities!

Recon Jet is not in a place where it’s able to be sold at the moment – the version we’re having a peek at here at the Google developer event is a pre-production item – but once it’s ready, it’ll be largely the same as what we’re seeing on the inside. Inside this device works with a dual-core mobile processor (the name of which we’re not allowed to speak of quite yet) powering Android 4.2 Jelly Bean with a custom Recon-made user interface over the top.

You’ll control this machine with a miniature touch-sensitive optical pad that sits on the side of the device near the display. Touching this pad as well as swiping left and right, up and down will allow you access to the device’s abilities and settings.

Inside you’ll be working with GPS, wi-fi connectivity for web, Bluetooth 4.0, and ANT+. With ANT+ you’ll be able to connect to a variety of other sports sensors – this device is, after all, made for hardcore sporting enthusiasts, after all. All of this connects to an HD camera the megapixels of which are not yet available as well.

You’ll be working with “gaze detection” for instant access to the machine’s abilities, its display turning off and on when you want or do not want to work with it. Your eyes will decide.

Have a peek at our brief adventure with this device and note that the main aim of revealing this device this week is to find developers that want to work with the SDK for the device in advance of its final release. This machine will be released to the public before the end of the year – we’ve confirmed this specifically once again in-person with Recon – making its appearance fall well before Google Glass hits the streets in a consumer edition. Pricing and release dates will be coming soon.

With this new version of Google Maps on the web, users will be able to tap on lit-up locations across the map. This system allows you to search for a restaurant in your area, find that place, and where the experience would end with that in the past, you’ll just have started. Users have cards to the left, similar to Google Now with cards that bring information on the location’s address, hours, webpage, phone number, and reviews through Zagat.

This system also gives the one-button click ability to access directions from the location you’re sitting in (or wherever you’d like to start from) as well as save the location as a favorite. This system also works with five-star ratings for locations be they a place of business, a public park, or anything in-between.

Below the map you’ll find a collection of images that come from users who have contributed photos and photo spheres from their cameras or android smartphones and tablets. These results appear courtesy of Google+ where users have recently also been given the ability to post photo spheres and embed them in webpages across the web.

Multiple modes of transport will be available to users as they’d be available in Navigation, public transport, flights, automobiles, and biking included. This system also learns with the user the same way Google Now does, changing and adjusting based on past searches and your Google Now preferences.

We’ll be working with this new Google Maps system through the immediate future and answering any and all questions you, the reader, have between now and the final roll-out for the public. This system is one you can access with an invite request starting today, and users will be seeing upgrades with invites in the near future.

NOTE: We’ll be continuing our journey with Google Earth integration soon. It’s here that Google will be pushing the boundaries between the 3D and the 2D visions they’ve had separate until now: Google Maps and Google Earth will soon become one!

Overall, we’re dealing with many of the same features that we’ve already seen with services like Spotify, Rdio, and Pandora, but Google has put its own spin and look into All Access. The Explore page is probably where most users will spend their time if they’re interested in discovering new artists. This section includes personal recommendations, featured artists and albums, as well as new releases.

As what may appear to be obvious, All Access is simply added on to the current Google Music app, so all the previous features of the app still remain. You even still have the ability to upload all of your own music the app and have it combined with the streaming music that you have picked out, creating one large library of music that includes a mix between the two. This is something that only Spotify has, and it’s a mighty-awesome feature to have.

All Access also has a Pandora-like feature where you can create radio stations of sorts based on a single artist or song. From there, you can give a song a thumbs up or thumbs down to make the app continuously learn about the music that you enjoy most. You also have the ability to rearrange future songs in the automated playlist in the radio station, as well as the ability to swipe away the songs you don’t want to listen to.

As for the user interface, nothing hasn’t changed too much. You get the typical Google look with an orange and white color theme. Frankly, I’m not a huge fan of the squared-off boxes and shapes that many Android apps have, but it certainly doesn’t hinder the music listening experience at all, and it’s something that I can easily get accustomed to.

One huge problem with All Access is cross-platform support. It is available on the web in any web browser, turning your laptop and desktop into its own DJ of sorts, but as far as mobile apps outside of Android, Google has yet to make that expansion. The great thing about Spotify is that it’s available on pretty much any platform, including iOS, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone. We’d be surprised if Google released their Music app for all of these platforms, so for users who yearn for cross-platform support, that seems to be where All Access’s weakness is.

As for price, All Access will cost $9.99 per month, but if you sign up before June 30, you’ll only play $7.99 per month. That price seems to be a permanent thing, so if you sign up before the end of June, you’ll only pay $7.99 for as long as you have an All Access subscription. Furthermore, All Access comes with a 30-day free trial, whether you sign up before June 30 or not.

Overall, Google Play Music All Access isn’t anything revolutionary, and we’re frankly a little disappointed that Google is simply getting their feet wet first before diving in. Of course, this is a smart move sometimes, but instead of boldly diving in and giving Spotify and Rdio a run for their money, Google is simply taking it easy to get a feel for the market, which could put them further behind in the music-streaming race.

This Lumia device works with a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon dual-core processor that powers a 4.5-inch display with 1280 x 768 pixel resolution. This display differs ever-so-slightly from the Nokia norm with OLED and PureMotion HD+ technology – we’ll be comparing with the Lumia 920 soon. This device is also slightly thinner than the Lumia 920, otherwise retaining most of its abilities.

You’ll find a 2,000 mAh battery inside, NFC as well as wireless charging right out of the box, and a couple of relatively decent cameras. Up front is a 1.2-megapixel camera while the back employs an 8.7 megapixel camera with Nokia’s PureView camera promise. This doesn’t necessarily mean your photos are going to be PureView 808-quality, but it does mean Nokia means business.

Below you’ll see a set of photos taken with the Lumia 928 both inside and outside on a rather bright and sunny day. And dear readers: Let us know if you’re in need of any specific place or setting for additional sample photos and we’ll make it happen for the final review.

The front of this device works with three capacitive buttons, those being a Windows Phone home button, back, and magnifying glass. The magnifying glass can bring you to Bing or it can explore an app that’s had its abilities built into it. Either way, this is the button Android axed.

You’ll be working with this device with a microSIM card from Verizon right out of the box. This device has a small – but telling – change from past Nokia devices. The SIM card slot is not one you need to jam a pin into – instead it’s a drawer – easy!

Have a peek at the timeline below for more information on the Nokia Lumia 928 and stay tuned as we give this device a full run-down in a review coming up soon!

There’s something about metal which makes a phone feel great. Apple knew that with the iPhone 5; HTC realized it with the One; and now Nokia has succumbed with the Lumia 925 (previously known as the Nokia “Catwalk”). Specifically, the 127.5 x 70.5 x 8.5 mm, 139g chassis is constructed around a frame of anodized aluminum, which tapers to tactile, curved edges on all four sides. The metal also serves an important purpose beyond rigidity and feel, however; it’s the antenna for the Lumia 925′s pentaband 4G LTE radio (as well as the GSM/UMTS bands), saving space by making it a constituent part of the phone.

On the front there’s a slice of toughened Gorilla 2 Glass, while on the back there’s Nokia’s favorite polycarbonate. Plastic meets metal in a gentle curve at the edge of the phone, neatly dovetailing in a way that feels great nestled into your hand; that polycarbonate also swells – Nokia says “pillows” – to accommodate the camera lens, atop the dual-LED flash. A row of contact points for the optional wireless charging shell are below.

In terms of hand-feel, Nokia is onto a winner out of the gate. Gone is the heft of the Lumia 920, and its slightly toy-like glossy plastic, replaced with premium-feel materials and a more refined design. A 3.5mm headphone jack and a SIM slot punctuate the top edge, along with microUSB connectivity, while the usual volume rocker, power/lock key, and camera shortcut run along the right edge.

Nokia Lumia 925 hands-on:

Up front is another improvement, the 4.5-inch OLED ClearBlack display that debuted on Friday on the Lumia 928. Just as on the Verizon phone, it supports a high-brightness mode for outdoor readability, and super-sensitivity for use while wearing gloves. It’s also stunning to look at: colors are vivid, blacks inky, and the broad viewing angles mean you can glance almost entirely askance at the Lumia 925 and still make out graphics without aberrations. The 1280 x 768 resolution may not be the Full HD we’ve seen on some recent Android devices, but it’s certainly sufficient for text and the like on a 4.5-inch phone to be smooth.

Nokia’s emphasis with its recent Windows Phones has been on their photographic abilities, and the Lumia 925 is no different. Like the 920 and 928, it bears the coveted PureView branding, and in fact it packs the same 8.7-megapixel sensor as they do. The optical image stabilization system – which physically moves the entire camera assembly to match shake and judder – is also the same, as is the dual-LED flash system from the 920.

What’s different is the lens, and here Nokia and Carl Zeiss have cooked up a World’s First on a smartphone: the first 6-part lens. Where the Lumia 920/928 have 5-part lenses, combining five different plastic components, the new Lumia adds a sixth, glass lens, which Nokia claims will improve sharpness and low-light performance.

In fact, Nokia says the Lumia 925 is capable of the “best low light images without a flash” of any current smartphone, with its f/2.0 lens, OIS, and exclusive Zeiss optics. It also uses the 925 to debut Nokia Smart Camera, a suite of effects and post-processing that can replace the default camera app should the owner see fit.

Smart Camera approaches things much in the same way as HTC and Samsung have on the One and Galaxy S 4, respectively: with the assumption that having more photo data to choose from is A Good Thing. In the Lumia 925′s case, that means firing off a burst of 10 frames over the course of 2.5 seconds when you hit the shutter-release, elements from each of which can then be combined or generally modified in different ways.

In the gallery, Smart Camera clusters of shots show up with a single thumbnail, but when you open them (and tap the “Smart Camera” legend) the editing potential is unlocked. First up is Best Shot, which analyzes each of the ten frames and picks out whichever it decides is the best based on sharpness and other details. Swiping left and right allows for a manual override. Swipe down, meanwhile, and you go through the other options: Motion Focus, Object Removal, Action Shot, and Group Shot.

Motion Focus tries to inject some more vigor into your stills. Smart Camera automatically identifies the subject of the frame – you can swipe left and right, and see white outlines of each of the potential subjects that can be used – and then applies one of two degrees of blurring to the background. A similar editing system is implemented in the Object Removal system, with the Lumia 925 identifying potentially unwanted people or objects moving through the frame, and then combining elements from the ten different shots to get rid of them.

Nokia Lumia 925 Smart Camera demo:

Group Shot is the face-combining system we’ve already seen on previous Lumia devices, based on the same Scalado tech as BlackBerry 10 has used on the Z10 and Q10. Nokia tells us its version in Smart Camera is actually newer than what we’ve seen before, another exclusive for the Lumia line-up.

Finally, and perhaps most impressive, is Action Shot. This works best when there’s a moving object passing through a still frame: then, just as with Motion Focus, the Lumia 925 identifies the moving subject and allows you to combine multiple versions of it on top of a single background. A row of straightforward buttons along the bottom allows you to toggle content from each frame on or off, while a fade button blurs out details from all but a single, user-selected frame.

They’re ambitious effects (and Nokia says more are on the way), but they’re also system-intensive. Smart Camera shoots and saves the cluster of ten images swiftly, which is good since we hate missing a great image because of a sluggish phone, but actually using the editing tools demands some patience.

We clocked the Lumia 925 in at 15 seconds just to analyze the frames initially, when we tapped into them from the gallery. That process needs to be completed each and every time you open the same set of ten stills: there’s no caching of the analysis, for instance. Tweaking things like the combinations of Action Shot frames happens instantly, but there’s another delay involved when you export the final result, with it taking around 14 seconds to spit the still into the gallery.

Now, it’s worth remembering that Nokia still has some time to finesse the software – the Lumia 925 isn’t expected to hit shelves until June, after all – but it does take away some of the immediacy of the tweaking process. There’s also no way to just look at all ten frames without jumping straight into the editing suite, which can make browsing through photos a stop-start affair.

It’s a shame, because generally the phone runs smooth and fast. With the same dualcore processor and RAM as the Lumia 920 and 928, the Lumia 925 had no problems running through the browser and other apps that we could find. There’s also Nokia’s own HERE Maps and HERE Drive+, with offline turn-by-turn navigation among other things, and the full array of Windows Store apps to choose from. Nokia Music for free streaming and offline playlists is also included.

If we had to compare the Lumia 925 to the rest of Nokia’s current range, it’s probably best described as the specifications of the 928 with the sleek design of the 720, only with build quality that’s a step above anything we’ve seen from Nokia in recent months. Photos simply don’t do the Lumia 925 justice: you have to pick it up and feel how its careful curves fit into your hand.

True, there have been some compromises along the way – Nokia’s decision not to integrate wireless charging is perhaps acceptable given the dimensions of the phone, and the company’s supposed goal of “meaningful thinness”, but it also should be ashamed that there isn’t a snap-on wireless charging shell included in the box – but overall it’s the most compelling Windows Phone Nokia has made so far.

The full judgment will have to wait until we can spend some more time with the Lumia 925 and see how it – and its camera abilities – fit into our daily lives. That should happen closer to the smartphone’s June 2013 release, with it landing in the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, and China initially, followed by the US and other countries.

I picked up Glass a little less than a week ago, and it’s already become a must-grab gadget when I leave the house. A big part of that is how closely it weaves multimedia into your daily life, not just in how you record them, but how you can then instantly share them in a way that doesn’t take you away from the moment.

The quality of the footage Glass produces is actually pretty good. The camera snaps stills at 5-megapixels and up to 720p HD video, and while low-light performance pales in comparison to the more adept smartphones, it’s still good enough to make our your subject in the resulting clip. What takes more getting used to is the actual process of filming clips, which only serves to highlight quite how much movement we make without realizing it.

Usually, with a smartphone camera, we’re pretty adept at keeping it still during filming. When the camera is mounted on your head, though, you suddenly realize that we seldom keep our heads still, nodding and turning around and generally doing things completely at odds with capturing a stable clip. It also took a little time before I learned to plan movements with my eyes before turning my head: otherwise, you dash the frame all around. That also means no nodding when in conversations with people, no looking off to the side to make sure the dog hasn’t run off, and no glancing down at your watch unless you want everybody to look at it too.

If there are compromises to be made, though, then there are advantages to Glass-style filming too. The ability to go hands-free when you’re playing with your kids, or to quickly snap off a photo when a friend is doing something goofy, without having to dig into your pocket first and unlock your phone. It’s also surprisingly useful for documenting things as you do them, from the user’s eye view. Okay, not everybody is going to be running through opening up and applying a screen protector, like I did with Glass and this Galaxy S 4 kit, but giving remote tech support to a distant relative, or sitting in as someone shows you their favorite recipe, or piggy-backing into a meeting when you can’t be there in person.

What would make Glass better? I can’t help but imagine what an UltraPixel sensor as in HTC’s One could do for low-light shots. In fact, HTC’s Zoe system, pulling together a brief video clip (3.5s versus Glass’ default 10s) and a cluster of stills, seems like an ideal match for a wearable like Glass. That way you’d have more likelihood of picking out the best-framed image of the bunch, and with fewer headaches about low-light conditions.

That HTC also manages to fit in optical image stabilization is also tempting, since that might help iron out some of the judders we can’t help but make when wearing Glass. Most of all, though, I’d like to see more battery life: right now, with mixed use, I’m seeing around four hours before Glass is demanding I plug it in, though it’s worth pointing out that it does recharge relatively quickly.

I’m also excited about the camera potential when Glass spreads. Right now, it’s a one-way thing, since most people don’t have Explorer Edition units yet. But, when that changes – and I do believe it will, despite the Glass naysayers – it’ll mean we can effectively split ourselves between multiple places, switching between physical and virtual presence as we jump in and out of other Glass-wearers’ headsets.

Still, as I said, there’s more to Glass than its camera. Next up I’ll be looking at the practicalities of slinging an Android computer to your head, and whether wearable tech really does offer more than just a capable smartphone. Meanwhile, if you have any Glass questions, ask them in the comments!

Google Glass: Sample shots

Nokia isn’t new to making cheap phones, nor cheap touchscreen handsets. Its previous Asha series have run the gamut from numeric keypads through QWERTY thumbboards, to full-touch, with pricing in the low double-digits even before operators have had their way with subsidies. The Asha 501, though, is of a new breed: the first to market to run the new “Asha platform” for a start, and the closest an Asha has come to not only a Lumia Windows Phone, but to Nokia’s ill-fated but highly-esteemed N9.

So, you get a compact, sturdy unibody plastic chassis that’s worlds apart from the cheap feeling casing of previous Asha phones, and available in a choice of Lumia-esque colors – red, green, cyan, yellow, white, or black – with a slab of scratch-resistant glass up front. Just because it’s a cheap phone doesn’t mean it compromises on design: fit and finish of the handsets we saw felt far above the $100 price point, and the neat stylistic touches – such as the oval stud on the lower back panel, which not only allows you to remove the cover but serves as the speaker hole – leave the Asha 501 punching higher than its peers.

The hardware straddles the line between price and ability. Most disappointing – though understandable, given the target market – is the absence of 3G, with the Asha 501 making do with a 2G connection along with WiFi. There’ll be 3G Asha touch phones in future, Nokia tells us. Both single- and dual-SIM versions of the 501 will be offered, depending on location, with the first SIM under the battery but the second hot-swappable next to it, and a microSD slot that will come preloaded with a 4GB card. Dual-SIM models will be able to switch between the two cards without demanding the phone be power-cycled.

Speaking of power, that’s another string to the Asha 501′s bow. Nokia is quoting a runtime of up to 48 days standby (from the single-SIM version; the dual-SIM manages up to 26 days standby) or up to 17hrs talktime, which is more than impressive for a touchscreen smartphone. There’s Bluetooth inside too, along with a 3.2-megapixel camera.

Nokia Asha 501 hands-on video:

The tech is only half of the story, though; the other side is the new Asha platform. It may be built on some of the fundamentals of S40, but in practice it’s a new beast almost entirely, far more reminiscent of MeeGo on 2011′s N9 than anything else. We loved MeeGo and the N9, and so are glad to see that Nokia has in effect distilled much of what made them great into a device that’s far more ready for the mass market.

Swiping is the name of the game, with the Asha platform homescreen split into two views: the app launcher, a grid of “squircle” icons, and the Fastlane, a notification stream that tracks how you use your phone in chronological order. Apps loaded, calls and messages made or received, photos or videos taken, music played, or social networking updates posted are all listed, with the single physical control on the fascia – the back button – making multitasking between apps straightforward. Pull the Fastlane down, meanwhile, and you get a glimpse of what’s round the corner, with upcoming calendar entries listed, along with single-tap updating of Facebook and/or Twitter.

The other big software addition is Nokia Xpress Now, which builds on the Xpress browser – supporting server-side compression to cut down on data costs and delays – with a dynamically customized web-based “magazine” of news content that automatically pulls in new information based on your previous reading preferences. The browser itself has been redesigned with big, easily navigable buttons from the outset, along with a merged address/search bar that can be switched between Bing, Google, and Yahoo. HERE mapping will arrive in Q3 2013, meanwhile, and pave the way for more of Nokia’s custom location services to be added to the Asha platform.

Nokia isn’t handling all the apps itself, however. The Asha platform has access to a download store for third-party titles, with only a minor amount of fettling needed to get existing S40 software ready for the new OS. Nokia has carried over its deal with EA Games to offer forty free titles for all new buyers, while Facebook, Foursquare, LINE, Twitter, and more all have software ready to download. Nokia tells us it expects 90-percent of the so-called “key apps” to be available for the Asha platform within the next few months, a somewhat nebulous promise admittedly, but one which at least suggests the Finns aren’t entirely focused on pushing Windows Phone.

In practice, it all works surprisingly well, considering the price. At 99.2 x 58 x 12.1 mm and 98g it’s a short, stubby little thing that nestles into the palm nicely; Nokia isn’t talking processor speed or memory, instead expecting that the fluidity of what User Experience Design VP Peter Skillman – who also led the N9 project – tells us is a heavily optimized UI layer will speak for itself. Sure enough, we have no complaints around performance, though the LCD display has mediocre viewing angles (although we can stomach its QVGA resolution given the overall small size).

The Fastlane system quickly becomes second nature. By swiping left or right in an app you return to the homescreen – either app launcher or Fastlane, depending on what you used last – while dragging town from the top edge pulls open a notification drawer complete with toggles between the two SIMs (if supported) and shortcuts for WiFi, Bluetooth, and other settings. Pull up from the bottom edge and you find the contextual menu, helping keep the UI as clear as possible for the app itself. It leaves the software experience feeling more expansive than it actually is, aided by the use of MeeGo-esque graphics that still look crisp and clean even several years down the line.

As on the N9, you tap the display to wake the phone from standby. Notifications pop up as scrollable blocks on the lockscreen, and you can either swipe generally to get to the homescreen, or swipe a notification itself to jump straight into the relevant app. Nokia has usefully added a SIM icon to show which account the notification comes from. There’s also support for music playback controls when locked – along with, optionally, a dim but persistent clock always kept on-screen – and in the Fastlane; Nokia will bundle a set of bright magenta wired headphones in the box, and audio quality from them and the the Asha 501′s speaker is surprisingly strong.

Given the affection many within Nokia had for the N9, and the frustration – inside and out of the company – at seeing the MeeGo project cancelled, we were curious as to whether Skillman felt the Asha 501 was cribbing from that OS as an homage or an insult. Letting go of MeeGo was tough, he told us, but the potential benefits from the new Asha platform, not to mention the potential audience, is considerably greater. In all, they amount to a “fit for purpose experience” he explained, which epitomizes Nokia’s ambitions with MeeGo but at a price point that opens the range up in ways the N9 could never have managed. Yet, even with cost as an ever-present consideration, Nokia still had room to call the Bratislava Symphony in to record a new batch of custom ringtones, and commission artists to create the preloaded wallpapers.

With many manufacturers, there’s a tendency to compare their cheap smartphones with their higher-tier models and find them very obviously lacking. Nokia’s Asha 501 somehow manages to escape that fate, even when placed next to a Lumia 820 or 920. The Windows Phone will undoubtedly be more flexible, and better specified, but the Asha gives none of the sluggish reminder with every swipe and tap that it’s a far cheaper phone, unlike many rivals might. With 3G, we could see it being a hit for those wanting the web and app experience of a smartphone, only without the bulk and expense one might traditionally entail. Similarly, as a second phone – for taking away on a weekend trip free from the tyranny of a charger, or to a festival where you wouldn’t risk an iPhone – it has obvious charms.

Subscribers in Africa, India, and Latin America will get the Asha 501 first, with Airtel, Telkomsel, America Movil, and MTN all confirming they’ll offer the phone. Expected to begin shipping in late June 2013, it will go on sale through as many as sixty operators across 90 countries; UK sales will begin in Q3. Rival phone manufacturers, Skillman pointed out to us, have effectively given up on the low-end of the market. “We still feel we have something to offer there,” he concluded.

Of course RokForm accessories aren’t made for washing dishes, they’re made for holding and protecting your smartphone. But what we’ve got here in a combination of elements is a way to hold, in this case, a Samsung Galaxy S III aloft above a sink full of dirty dishes playing Netflix while we go about our business. So we’ve got Beavis and Butthead playing on loop while the cups and pans are run through the hands-on action.

With the RokForm v3 Suction Mount we’ve got one piece of the puzzle, and with the Rokbed v3 S3 Case we’ve got the other. RokForm is expanding their line of compatible components with this v3 set, working with devices like the iPhone 5 and the iPhone 4S right this minute with plans for devices like the GALAXY S 4 on the list. In addition to the Suction Mount, there’s also a friendly list of components that attach with the same multi-clip attachment point you see here.

You’ll be able to attach with a Bike Mount, an Extended Tripod Adapter, Sport Clip, and magnets – amongst others coming up, too. With the Rokbed v3 S3 Case on its own, you’ve got an injection molded polycarbonate frame, “thermoplastic elastomer non-slip grip insert”, a magnet kit, a Rokguard screen protector, and a Remote Mounting System for moist mount – these are basically heavy-duty sticker-backed units that lock in to the back of the case like the Suction Mount does.

So you’ve got the case – you’ll buy that for right around $40 or $45 USD depending on the device you’re working with. Then you’ll want the Suction Mount which will run you another $49 USD. This mount, like the case, is heavy duty. Made with polycarbonate and die cast zinc construction with two angles for movement – 360 degrees of rotation as well as a 210 degree tilt. All we need is one, the one which allows the phone to sit horizontal for superior television show viewing.

This mount has sat attached to a tile above the sink for over a week straight with no end in sight. Of course that’ll happen when you’ve got a 3.4-inch suction cup holding up a device that’s much, much lighter than its full weight capacity. Sound like a winning combination to you? Let us know!

When you first encounter the Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon, you’ll find yourself mystified at how such a device was ever put into production. It’s certainly not a traditional sort of PC. Such is the atmosphere we’re in here in 2013 with Windows 8, touchscreen hype, and Lenovo’s current freedom of creation.

In our past encounters with this machine you’ll find connections to accessories (that do, indeed, come in the box), up and down usability, and Windows apps galore. Today we’re having a look at BlueStacks specifically – down the line we’ll have a full review of this machine for you in SlashGear’s main review hub. It’s all about Android right this minute.

What we’ve done is to side-load the Google Play app store to download some games that certainly aren’t optimized for this device to show right along some that are. This means you’re going to see games that look nice as well as games that work, but just barely. You’ll quite likely find the native Windows apps – some optimized for this device specifically – much more engaging.

The back of the Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon has a support bar stronger than any we’ve seen on a tablet or PC, able to hold the entire device up at a variety of angles. Push the device flat and Lenovo brings up a touch interface made for multiple users – more on this in our full review.

That said, it’s important to show the versatility of this device through BlueStacks, an app interface that just this February arrived for Windows 8 and just this May passed 10 million downloads. You’ll find BlueStacks on Mac with a wireless interface app on Android for your smartphones and tablets as well.

The Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon is here with SlashGear for a full review aside from this BlueStacks peek, so make sure to let us know if you’ve got any questions on its inner workings before we get there! Stay tuned to SlashGear’s Lenovo tag portal for more information on this device as we reach that point!

When the device is off, the display is so black you’ll not be able to tell where the blackness of the bezel stops and the screen begins. The bezel around this device’s display is quite thin to begin with at 3.25mm, and it’s nearly full-faced glass front allows for a healthy presentation of the display, a display the company should be quite proud of.

At 441 PPI, this device is one of the most densely-packed on the market, and with the device’s “one glass solution”, also known as OGS, OPPO have implemented an optical lamination to bond the touch layer of the display as close as possible to the rest, allowing this device to also be rather thin overall. The battery inside is also non-removable, allowing OPPO to make it slim too.

On the back you’ve got a 13-megapixel camera with an f/2.2 aperture and the ability to shoot 120fps video for some excellent slow-motion action. The camera software in the end is extremely simple with a no-nonsense user interface and its very few features made easy to access. Another of these features is the ability to shoot 100 photos every five seconds.

This device’s main speaker is back-facing – this is unfortunate as it does sound rather good when facing towards the user. With Dolby 3D sound and Dirac HD, you’ll still have substantial sound as it reflects off the palm of your hand.

More insight and details about the innards and overall package this device delivers will be available to you from SlashGear in the near future in our full review. Until then, please feel free to ask any and all questions you may have about the devices – no limits!

Much like the Android version of Google Now, this interface shows several different kinds of cards, each of them containing information based on the unique user that’s using them. If a user has worked with Google Now outside of iOS before they sign in initially, they’ll find cards based on their use of Google waiting for them. In our example here, two sports teams recent game scores appear, a map to work appears, and several birthday announcements appear.

Google Now is part of a user’s Google Search experience, meaning they’ll be getting results – cards, that is – based on what they’ve worked with in the past for search terms. If a user has never searched for anything in Google while being logged in to their Google account at the same time, results will appear as example cards. Example cards show what COULD be displayed for the user if they’d agree to have their search results utilized.

With the iPhone and iPad versions of Google Now, it would appear at first that the user’s calendar will not be used as it would in an Android device. If one does use Google Calendar separate from iOS, they’ll still be able to see dates of Birthdays, connections to events, and etcetera. Birthday announcements can be sourced from a user’s Google+ social networking account as well, as this connection is also made possible via the user’s all-encompassing Google account.

One of the key reasons a user might prefer using Google Now with an Android device rather than with an iOS device is their ability to access the system easily. With some Android devices, the user is able to hold their finger down on their on-screen home button and swipe up to move into Google Now. Some devices working with Android allow access to Google Now with a long-press of a back or menu button.

Intrepid iOS hackers have already made inroads to similar access with apps like “Activator”. This app allows Jailbroken (read: hacked) iPhones to launch apps using a variety of gestures and button presses. Tie your home button to Google Now for a real slick experience.

Users will be able to check this Google Now experience out by updating (or downloading) Google Search for iOS on their iPhone or iPad starting today. Let us know how you’re liking it – or if you’re avoiding it – in our Google Now chat in Google+ right this minute!

You can tell the PowerShot N is an unusual little shooter from the start, with its 78.6 x 60.2 x 29.3 mm body almost square face-on, and a hinged rear 2.8-inch touchscreen that folds up 90-degrees. Turn the camera over, so the screen is facing down, and you can hold it over your head and still frame shots; the picture flips 180-degrees automatically. Unfortunately, the LCD doesn’t fold up all the way, so you can’t use it to frame images from the front; that seems a missed opportunity, given Canon’s target audience of the photo-addicted.

While the touchscreen does most of the work, Canon hasn’t skimped on manual controls where they make more sense. To get in close, you twist the ring around the 8x optical zoom lens; pressing down on the ring – from any direction – fires off a shot. It takes a little getting used to initially, though you soon get comfortable with the system. Touch-focus can be used, or face-detection. On the sides, meanwhile, there are some physical switches and buttons: a key to power the PowerShot N on, one for image/video playback, and one to quickly connect with WiFi (b/g/n)to push images to a phone, tablet, or elsewhere. A switch on the other side puts the camera into Creative Shot mode, which automatically applies a range of effects to the original image.

Image quality is solid for a compact camera, with the 12.1-megapixel CMOS sensor feeding shots through Canon’s DIGIC 5 processor. The company claims macro images down to a centimeter are possible, though we had a few issues with focusing when dealing with close-up subjects; there’s also lens-shift image stabilization, though you still need a pretty steady hand since the PowerShot N’s relatively light 195g weight and compact body makes it easy to move during shooting. The fact that you need to push the lens-ring sideways to take a picture can exacerbate that.

The Creative Shot system is a mixed bag. Canon uses a combination of different effects as well as cropping to muster up five alternative versions of your original photo (which is also saved), a little like Instagram but without manual control over what gets applied. Sometimes the results are quite pleasing, but other times the cropping is too obituary and the filters too heavy-handed.

Where the PowerShot N could be particularly interesting is in its potential for life-logging. Canon recognizes some may want to wear it round their neck, and so will offer a choice of neckstraps which clip onto the Frankenstein’s Monster-style silver lugs on either side of the camera. Unfortunately there’s no option to set up timed shutter release, so you’ll have to tap the button manually, but with a little work – perhaps a remote control smartphone app; Canon’s CameraWindow can be used to copy images off the camera to your iPhone or Android device, as well as GPS tag them, but not actually control it – it could end up a mass-market alternative to something like Kickstarter-funded Memoto.

Not all is good, however. The battery is good for around 200 shots (280 in Eco Mode) only, and obviously less if you take advantage of the integrated WiFi. It’s also not cheap: $299 or £269, when it begins shipping in the next few days. Still, if you’re looking for a reason to carry both your smartphone and a standalone camera, the PowerShot N makes a great party shooter and drops neatly into a pocket or purse.

For that target audience of avid readers, Kobo insists that E Ink remains the way forward for usability. The Aura HD’s panel sees a step up in specifications, however, with a 1440 x 1080 resolution, 6.8-inch Pearl panel, running at 256ppi; it also has front-lighting, as we’ve seen on other recent ereaders from Amazon and B&N, though Kobo claims its system offers the most even illumination. It’s certainly bright and looked consistent across the panel. Inside, there’s WiFi b/g/n though no cellular connectivity, Kobo telling us it still doesn’t believe the hassle of getting 3G/4G hardware certified and the costs of data involved make it worthwhile for its audience.

Kobo is pretty keen to highlight its angular back-panel, though, modeled after a creased sheet of paper. The raised edges give your fingers somewhere to rest, so the theory goes; in practice, it’s certainly not the thinnest way to read an ebook – the iPad mini and Nexus 7 have replaced a standalone ereader for many – but the Aura HD is easy to grip and feels like it could survive a fall from your nightstand. Physical controls are limited to a power button (finished in a contrasting color) and a key for the “ComfortLight” illumination.

Everything else is operated with the touchscreen, which seems reasonably responsive. The Kobo homescreen pulls together your recently read titles – complete with both a percentage of how much is read, and a useful indication of roughly how long it might take you to read the rest, handy if you’re trying to plan ahead for a journey – with recommendations for new books and authors. A tally keeps track of how many books you’ve finished and how long you spent reading them, and you’re prompted to rate completed titles. The Aura HD also supports basic gaming, like chess, with widgets to access your most recent game.

In use, what impresses the most is the clarity of the ereader’s screen. Even at small font levels, there’s no graininess or jagged edges to the text, something Kobo said it achieved not only by virtue of the higher-density display resolution but by going back to first-principles with the fonts and redesigning them pixel-by-pixel to suit the E Ink panel. The screen is also 30-percent larger than other ereaders of a similar scale, and together with the improved readability at small sizes, that means more text on a single page and fewer turns. Fewer turns also adds up to longer battery life, as e-paper displays like the Aura HD’s only use power when they’re changing the content of the display, not maintaining it.

Otherwise, it’s pretty much par for the course for the Aura HD. The onboard 4GB of storage can be expanded by up to 32GB with a microSD card, and there’s a new Freescale i.MX527 processor that, at 1GHz, is apparently 25-percent faster than any rival model out there. We can’t say we noticed a significant uptick in speed, though we also didn’t encounter responsiveness issues.

Kobo has high hopes for the Aura HD, and says there’s still a strong market for ebook-centric devices rather than tablets. In fact, its own ereader sales tripled year-over-year, something the $169.99/€169.99 Aura HD is expected to contribute to. It’s already up for preorder in the US and Europe, and will arrive in US and UK stores come April 25.

Twitter Charts

What you’re seeing here is Twitter-generated charts that allow you to see what’s trending – it’s not just the best of the best, but the most popular as well. You’ll be seeing charts based on what’s most popular, what’s “hottest”, what’s best for you, and more. One of the most interesting connections you’re going to see here is your suggested tracks.

We’ll be investigating further to see how Twitter selects this list for you. Stay tuned to this post as well as SlashGear’s main news feed for more information on Twitter’s music discovery engine throughout the day!

Follow Artists

If you’re like me, you’ve already been following a collection of musical artists on Twitter well before the #music app launched. Artists like Ice Cube, Santigold, and the RZA already have tracks set up right at the start. From here you’ll be able to see new tracks they promote sent straight from their Twitter handles – tweets for listening in!

We must assume that artists will quickly begin to send out tracks that are shown on Twitter first – just so long as they’re also posted to iTunes, RDIO, and/or Spotify as well. The way artists will generate revenue for themselves here is through those services. It’s unclear at the moment how exactly Twitter is cashing in on this project.

Tweet Tracks

Once you find a track you like in RDIO, Spotify, iTunes, or straight through the Twitter #music app, you can tweet or re-tweet it. From there your Twitter followers will be able to play a preview of the track instantly. If they’re a RDIO or Spotify subscriber, they’ll be able to play the full track you’ve tweeted straight from your tweet!

In the future there will more than likely be a rather similar interface to what we’re seeing here on the web as well. Android, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry may very well be getting the same app interface soon too – just wait!

Listen Now

You can listen in using your own Twitter #music app (available for download now for free) or you can see all you need to see in your web browser. If you’re using RDIO or Spotify, you’ll be able to listen right out the gate – if you’re listening in with iTunes, you’ll need to give your web browser permission to use Quicktime to play a track.

Head over to this tweet to see what it’s like to play a music track with iTunes inside Twitter. You’ll also be able to – from there – hit the #NowPlaying hashtag link to see what everyone on Twitter is playing right now!

Feedback

Let us know what you think of this app and/or the web interface you’re using if you don’t want to go mobile just yet. Also please feel free to let us know how you’re feeling about Twitter’s music app if you’re NOT an iOS user – feeling left out, or is the web browser interface enough for you?

With the Mythro you’ve got a collection of color choices at your hands including gunmetal gray, jet silver, tyrian purple, satin gold, rose pink, and burgundy red. You’ll be picking these little monsters up for a cool $29 USD, which should throw up a red flag for you quality seekers out there – but no worries! These buds are for you!

- DR8 Neodymium drivers (15Hz-20kHz / -10dB@1kHz) in an anodized aluminum casing.
- Integrated microphone with universal button control.
- Hybrid injection silicone earbuds in three sizes for superior noise isolation and comfort.
- A convenient Velcro HandyStrap cable manager.

The strap you get with the buds wrap around the cord real hand-like, keeping everything in order for transport. The color of the different sized buds you get in the package reflect the specific color of the buds you’ve purchased, and you’ve got a unique application available for your experience right out of the box as well. With the unique “Burn In Tool” app available for free from the iTunes App Store you’ll have a curated series of sounds played from your iPhone through your new set of earbuds that’ll break in or “burn in” the phones for a more satisfying experience from the start.

By playing back a curated list of tones/frequencies, the Moshi Audio Burn-In Tool allows the headphone diaphragms to relax and reach their optimal level of sonic performance. Simply install the burn-in tool on any iOS device and select the headphone and desired burn-in period. The burn-in tool is customized for all Moshi Audio headphones, but also includes support for any third-party audio headsets as well.

These little buds will be exactly what you need if you’ve got a twenty dollar bill, a ten dollar bill, and a love of fashionable audio accessories for your smartphone or tablet. Grab them right this minute – and have a peek at the timeline below for more Moshi excellence as well!

What we’ve got here is the HTC One Ultra Crystal Steinheil “enhanced optical hard coated film.” It ends up protecting your display with a single sheet of hard coated 4H over back and forth, up and down, and adding the protector is easy as pie. With a Spigen SGP screen protector you’ve got only to peel off one side, stick it flat, peel the other side, and poof- there it is.

What you’re seeing above and below is the HTC One’s display set to a bit dimmer setting than what it’s capable of – the transparency of the screen protector we’re looking at here is absolute. There’s no discernable effect on the brightness or the sharpness of the screen when you place this protector on.

Be sure to check out our HTC One Review as well as our AT&T HTC One Review for all the HTC One action you can handle!

You need no special spray to stick this film to your smartphone’s display, you’ll have just as much touch sensitivity as you had before applying, and you’ll no longer have to worry about gouges and scratches from the top of your reinforced glass to the bottom. This protector is going to run you $13.99 USD and is available right this minute straight from Spigen SGP!

This isn’t the first screen protector, case, or other oddity we’ve seen from Spigen SGP – in fact that’s rather far from the truth! Those fabulous folks at Spigen SGP have been sending review units to SlashGear for many moons now, and we’ve never been let down – have a peek at the timeline below for a few more looks at Spigen SGP gear and let us know what you’d like us to look at next!

This smartphone runs with many of the same specifications that the XPERIA Z did, bringing on the 5-inch 1080 x 1920p full HD Reality Display with Mobile BRAVIA Engine 2 for the brightest and sharpest experience you’ve ever had on an XPERIA smartphone. You’ll be working with Infra-red for controlling your television, NFC for connecting to all the NFC tags you could ever want, and that same cool 13 megapixel camera on the back. You’ve also got a rather nice “Superior Auto” mode on the camera that instantly adds or subtracts camera features depending on what the camera detects in front of you.

You’ve got a newly rubbery textured plastic back panel instead of the glass flat panel the Z worked with – while some might not be all that pumped up about such a change, we’re certainly all for it. Now the device doesn’t feel nearly as fragile, and it retains its high-end feel just as well. You also get a significant size advantage with this build, the device working with the same massive display but with a bezel that’s shaved enough off the top and bottom of the build that you’ll be holding what basically feels like a “borderless” screen – a rather nice feeling.

Interestingly enough, it’s not as if the Xperia ZL was made entirely on the suggestions made for the Z. We saw the Xperia ZL at the same time as the Z back at CES 2013 with our Xperia Z hands-on. Both devices were ready to roll in their near-ready forms one next to the other, the one ready to dunk in the water, the other being the smaller-bodied beast.

Inside you’ve got the same processor you’ll get with the LG Optimus G and the Google Nexus 4 (by LG) – have a peek below at some benchmark tests to prove this device’s might. You’ll also find some hands-on images above and below, and we’ll be presenting additional tests soon. Please feel free to let us know any questions you’ve got about this device and we’ll do our best to make sure you’re fully informed before you purchase the Xperia ZL later this month!

With the launch of Facebook Home you’ve got the ability to use advanced features (new this week) for Facebook without adding the Home launcher to your Android device. You’ve got three applications in the mix now where before you had two:

• Facebook for Android
• Facebook Messenger
• Facebook Home

The first two have received updates today along with the update for Facebook Home which include connections to Home, but do not require Home to work. If you want to avoid Home entirely, you’re free to do so. With Facebook Messenger you get what Facebook calls “Chat Heads”, a rather awesome feature that you can learn all about in our Chat Heads First! post from earlier today. With Chat Heads you’ve got Facebook’s messenger service with you at all times – those heads can pop up anywhere!

Facebook for Android stays largely the same if you don’t download Facebook Messenger or Facebook Home. In fact you’ve got basically an app with no real surface updates at all if you don’t download Messenger or Home – how about that? If you do download Home, though, you’re in for a real trip.

When you first open Home, you’ll be treated with a full-screen presentation of one of your friends’ recent status updates with a photo that will be oversized enough to fit your display. This status will be accompanied by a short blurb – sometimes the full text, sometimes just a clip, and you’ll see some recent activity from your “updates” in the form of small bars with attached Facebook “Heads”.

These Heads will continue to pop up throughout your experience with Facebook at this point. They’re just your regular Facebook profile photo living in a sphere rather than a square, and outside of Chat Heads, they’re just plain old Heads. You’ll find the SlashGear “head” to be more of a “Gear”, as it were.

You can cycle through statuses from here, pretty pictures included if you have friends that post appropriately colorful bits and pieces. Whichever status you leave up, that’s the one that sticks as your “wallpaper” as you cycle through apps if you do choose to enter any app from this point onward.

Your apps are all still accessible, and as our Facebook Home Review shows, you’ve got a really basic experience waiting for you. This Facebook Home environment makes for a real Facebook Front and Center situation, that’s for sure.

The lockscreen isn’t actually a lockscreen in Facebook Home, it’s called “Cover Feed.” With Cover Feed as your first screen, you’ll often not really want to go far beyond – or if you do, it’s through Facebook that you’ll be doing it. Facebook Home covers you in a solid blue aura of Facebook. I nearly typed “of social networking”, but with Facebook Home, you don’t get your other social networking (or any other) updates on the Cover Feed, you only get updates from Facebook.

Above: Facebook’s own camera interface makes its mark as your primary go-to shooter as well.

The story is a bit different when you get a Facebook Phone like the HTC First. Have a peek at our HTC First review to see how different the experience is – it starts with apps other than Facebook being able to give you notifications in-launcher. That can be quite an important decision point for you if you’re planning on working with Facebook Home one way or the other.

Above: Your normal Android settings are available if you know where to find them. On the Galaxy S III you can simply pull your notifications bar down and hit the gear!

You can download Facebook Home right this minute from the Google Play app store for free and load it for a limited number of devices. After today there will be updates every once in a while adding smartphones to the fold – for now, it’s quite obvious that AT&T is being favored for the hero line-up. Have a peek at which devices can work with Facebook Home and let us know what you think!

BONUS: What you’re seeing above is the Samsung Galaxy S III running the Quadrant benchmark test with Facebook Home running, then without Facebook Home installed at all. The differences can be seen two ways – extremely minor, or just different enough to sway you one way or the other. Consider your options!

With Facebook Messenger’s newest update you’ve got a row of “Heads” above your display that you can easily flip through to speak with different Facebook users. While before you’d have had to tap a couple of times before switching to a new person to chat with, now you’ve got but a swipe. Perhaps most important of all is Facebook Messenger’s new ability to appear on top of any screen – if it’s on, it’s everywhere.

This means that if someone sends you a Facebook Message and you’re watching a YouTube video, you’ll see their head pop up in a circle above the video. If you’re on a home screen and someone sends a message, their head will appear there – click in and you’re back to chatting. You can also hold down on their head and pull it down to the “X” that appears – this will dismiss their message.

Facebook for Android (the basic app) appears to have fewer changes that we can see at the moment – we’re expecting things to light up a bit more when the full Facebook Home app appears later today. The HTC First (see our full review here) smartphone with Facebook Home built-in is available in stores today as well – go grab it!

Here with the Galaxy Note 8.0 you’ve got an 8-inch display that’s both bright and relatively sharp, 1280 x 800 pixel resolution working with TFT LCD technology and a connection to the newest in new S-Pen technology. The entire tablet measures in at 210.8 x 135.9 x 7.95 mm regardless of which version you’ve got while the weight will be ringing in at 340g for the wifi version (that being the one we’ve got here) and just 5g more for the 3G or LTE iteration (coming soon!)

This machine continues the tradition begun with the original Samsung Galaxy Note, employing a built-in “S-Pen” device that connects wirelessly to your tablet. You’ll be able to hover over bits and pieces of your everyday Android experience to see previews or zoom-in, you can draw pictures galore in a lovely assortment of ways, and you can write all the notes you like. This device has all the features of the previous Galaxy Note devices and more – the closest you’ll get to this experience outside this experience is in the Samsung Galaxy Note II.

Below you’ll see a set of three basic benchmark tests, each of them run without this device’s “power save” mode activated. You’ll find that with this display size and processor, the Galaxy Note 8.0 should be more than powerful enough to handle your everyday activities, be they gaming, productivity, or simple web browsing.

This device works with a 5 megapixel camera on its back, a 1.3 megapixel camera on its front, and is just large enough to feel a tiny bit awkward using while capturing photographs. We’ll have photo examples for you later this week when we’ve posted the full review – the same goes for more detail on the software included here, and battery tests as well. Here we’ve got an additional gallery of up-close-and-personal photographs of the device for you to enjoy.

Let us know if you’d like any more information than you expect us to provide in the review and we’ll do our best to make a fabulous review appear for you! Meanwhile hang tight and get ready for another look!

Facebook describes it as designing a phone around people, not apps, and the focus is the very first places you see when you turn on your device. “The homescreen is really the soul of your phone” Mark Zuckerberg said during the presentation, and Home works as that replacement launcher, with Cover Feed to make those friends your core menu, and Chat Heads to streamline talking to them.

Loading Home is like any other Android app, though it does have one extra hook into the OS. Since it’s designed as a replacement launcher, to be used instead of the regular Android one rather than alongside it, you can choose to have it open by default whenever you hit the home button on your device. At that point, consider your phone Facebookafied.

Alternatively, you can grab the HTC First, which has Home preloaded by default. Either way, the lockscreen and homescreen are swapped for Coverfeed: full-screen, chromeless pictures pulled from your friends’ updates, with discrete icons at the bottom showing “Likes” and comments. Double-tapping the image automatically likes it. Meanwhile, pulling up the bubble near the bottom of the screen – which shows your own Facebook profile picture – gives you a choice of three options: Facebook, the app launcher, and jumping back into your last-used app.

The app launcher is basically a pared-down tray of apps, where Facebook expects you to keep your most-commonly used titles. At the top, meanwhile, there are shortcuts to add Facebook status updates or photos. A side-swipe pulls over the full app drawer from the left, from which you can drag over icons to the quick launcher tray. No widgets beyond Facebook’s own Coverfeed, however.

The other big introduction with Facebook Home is Chat Heads, a new integrated messaging system that’s designed to discretely pervade the whole device. Get a new message – whether it’s a Facebook Chat or an SMS – and a small circular bubble pops up in the upper right hand corner. You can drag it around (useful, since it’ll show up on top of any app you’re currently using it, including full-screen games) and tap it to open it, at which point a conversation view opens up floating on top of whatever you were doing.

Whether it’s a Facebook conversation or a text message one is shown by the color of the voice bubble boxes themselves, and you can have multiple conversations open at once, switching between them with the row of circles along the top. Facebook group messages are also supported, with a thumbnail of the group icons clustered in the circle. Similarly swipeable notifications include missed calls and calendar alerts.

It’s certainly slick, as long as you live your social – and, by extension, mobile – life in Facebook. The complexity of a regular phone is hidden away under full-screen images, and the familiar iconography should prove welcoming for Facebook-addicts. Those who divide their time between multiple networks – such as Google+, or Twitter – might find those edged out, however, as Facebook Home’s notifications system is designed to cater for its own alerts, not those of others.

It certainly seems to make the most sense on a device that has been designed with Home in mind, the first of which – though Samsung, Huawei and others have committed to join in – is the HTC First. The phone itself is a slim, simple slice of soft-touch plastic, fronted with a glass 4.3-inch touchscreen above three touch-sensitive buttons for back, home, and menu. It’s also worth noting that the First does indeed support displaying all Android notifications, not just Facebook ones, and will come preloaded with Instagram.

The slightly out-of-date OS is also likely to be less of a big deal: the First hides Android 4.1 Jelly Bean under Home, running on a dualcore Snapdragon 400 processor and paired with multimode 3G/4G for roaming LTE use. AT&T will have the first taste of the First, at $99.99 with a new, two-year agreement from April 12, though it’ll also be coming to the UK and Europe on EE and Orange later in the year.

Facebook’s strategy – focusing on its software for many devices, not software and hardware for just one – does make some sense. Dedicating yourself to a single device doesn’t make sense when you want to appeal to every Facebook user who has an Android phone, after all. What remains to be seen is whether even those who are totally devoted to Facebook will be willing to immerse themselves so entirely in the experience.

Zuckerberg’s stats suggest Facebook mobile use is by far the most common thing smartphone owners are doing with their handsets. We’re not quite so convinced, and while the garden isn’t entirely walled – you can obviously get to other Android apps, they’re just not placed front and center like Facebook is – we’ve seen things like HTC’s own BlinkFeed on the HTC One giving immersive Facebook updates without also ousting every other news feed, Twitter, and other notifications. Meanwhile, the Facebook Home Program seems unlikely to take off until prepaid devices arrive; $99.99 with agreement gets you a decent smartphone these days, after all, and one which isn’t dominated by a single service, however sociable that might be.

What you’re seeing here is a demonstration done by NVIDIA at the official GTC 2013 conference. That the GPU Technology Conference, a multi-day event we attended with bells on – have a peek at our GTC 2013 tag portal now for everything we got to see – with more coming up in the future! The demonstration shown here is of a technology originally revealed earlier this year at NVIDIA’s keynote presentation at CES 2013 – head back to the original reveal post to see a whole different angle!

Here a high dynamic range scene has been arranged behind a device running the Chimera photography experience with an NVIDIA Tegra 4 (or perhaps 4i) processor inside. While a traditional HDR-capable camera takes two images one-after-another at different exposures and fuses them together, NVIDIA’s Always-on HDR feature works to take away the two negative bits involved with traditional HDR by allowing the following:

• Live preview through your camera’s display (on your smartphone, tablet, etc).
• The ability to capture moving objects.

With traditional HDR, if you’ve got someone running through the scene, you’ll get even more of a blur than you’d normally get because you’re effectively taking two photos. With NVIDIA’s method you’re capturing your image 10 times faster than you’d be capturing it without a Tegra 4 working to help. Because of this, when you’ve got a Tegra 4 processor in your smartphone, you’ll be able to use a flash in your HDR photos, use burst mode to capture several HDR shots in quick succession, and you’ll be able to capture HDR video, too!

We’re very much looking forward to rolling out with the Tegra 4 on smart devices soon – until then, we can only dream of the colors! Check out the full NVIDIA mobile experience in our fabulous Tegra hub right this minute!

From the outset, it’s clear that Samsung hasn’t strayed too far from the formula that made the Galaxy S III so successful. The new phone follows in the family style footsteps, though while the dimensions are similar to before – the same 136.6mm length, slightly wider at 69.8mm, and slightly thinner at 7.9mm – Samsung has managed to squeeze in a larger display. The new Super AMOLED HD screen measures in at 5-inches, versus the 4.7- of the older phone, and now runs at a crisp 1080p resolution for 441ppi pixel density.

Even just accommodating a screen of that size without a significant change in size is impressive, but the panel itself is a good one too. It’s still PenTile, which is likely to make some display purists groan, but it keeps the great contrast and rich colors we’re familiar with from AMOLED. We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that the similarly 1080p (though slightly smaller) HTC One’s LCD3 screen is a little more natural and pleasing to our eyes, though.

If HTC has focused its software efforts on BlinkFeed and Zoe, Samsung has cast its net wide, basically throwing everything at the wall in the expectation that at least something will stick for most users. The 13-megapixel main camera (paired with a 2-megapixel front camera) gets a new suite of features, such as the ability to take two photos or videos simultaneously from the front and rear cameras and combine them into one, Samsung Dual Shot, and being able to append up to nine seconds of audio to a still, to give it some context when you later review it. Samsung calls that Sound-in-Shot, though while it’s clever, we’re not quite as impressed as we were by HTC Zoe.

There’s also no shortage of signs that Samsung has its eye on what’s currently fashionable in mobile. So, there’s Cinema Photo, which basically creates a cinemagram-style animated photo without demanding a third-party app, and Drama Shot, which builds a single frame out of multiple burst-photography stills. You can easily share a group of images about, say, a recent holiday in a Story Album, complete with facts from Trip Advisor; that can later be printed courtesy of a tie-in with Blurb.

The Galaxy S III introduced eye-recognition for keeping its display active, and the GALAXY S 4 builds on that with Smart Pause and Smart Scroll. When you look away from the screen during video playback, the phone automatically pauses it until you look back; similarly, if you’re looking at the S 4 and reading a longer list, then simply tilting the phone scrolls through it. The GALAXY S 4 is pretty obsessed by where your fingers are, too: the Galaxy Note II, for instance, could track whether its S Pen nib was hovering over the screen but not touching, but now the S 4 can do the same only recognizing your fingertips.

That means you can peep inside folders and galleries, or at the content of unopened messages, simply by floating your fingertips over the top of them; Samsung has also brought in some third-party app support, with titles like Flipboard also supporting the Hover feature to preview new stories. It’s not the only way the GALAXY S 4 is watching you. Air Browse, Air Jump, and Air Call Accept all track hand movements, allowing you to wave and gesture your way through menus, answering calls – which we could see being particularly usefully when you’re driving – and controlling music playback.

When you can pretty much count on your phone selling in the millions, you can start to look at how different units interact, as Samsung has with the GALAXY S 4. There’s Group Play for audio, video, and gaming playback, creating ad-hoc local networks of multiple handsets all running the same content synchronized, for instance, with support for games like Asphalt 7 and Gun Bros 2 working with the feature. There’s also S Translator in the latest version of ChatON, the messaging app, and the email app, usefully switching between languages rather than forcing you to copy and paste into something like Google Translate.

Samsung has really gone to town on added-extras – in fact the number of times you might have to dig into Google Play for a third-party solution is shrinking all the time. There’s a business card scanner – which also usefully gets S Translator baked-in, to pick out and convert foreign addresses and job titles – and an IR blaster which, with the new Samsung WatchON app, turns the phone into a remote control complete with EPG and on-demand access.

The rest of the hardware basically backs up that software flourish with the power the Galaxy S4 needs to deliver on its promises. Different geographies will get different processors, depending on the combination of LTE and other factors, with Samsung choosing between the quadcore Snapdragon 1.9Ghz and its own eight-core 1.6Ghz Exynos 5. . No matter the chip, there’ll be 2GB of memory to accompany it, and the usual 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB of internal capacity. Samsung has also stuck with expandable memory and a removable battery, something neither the HTC One nor the iPhone 5 offer, features which remain popular among power-users and business customers.

Image and sound processing also get worked over, with Samsung Adapt Sound and Adapt Display. We’ve seen such DSP used to good effect by Sony and others, and the Galaxy S4 benefits too, though when it comes to sound it’s clear that nothing can replace big drivers. The HTC One’s custom speaker system and Beats Audio processing still has the edge, to our ears.

Samsung didn’t stint on accessories for the Galaxy S III – at a time when, while iPhone had a thriving ecosystem of third-party add-ons, Android devices still lacked anything so cohesive – and the company hasn’t slowed down with the Galaxy S4. There’s a new S View Cover, like a flip-cover only with a window cut through that allows a small part of the smartphone’s display to remain powered-up and show battery, signal status, music playlists, and incoming call details. That’s courtesy of AMOLED’s capability to only power a small subset of an overall display, and sip battery while it does so.

Then there are the new add-ons to go with S Health. Samsung did have some health & fitness tech for the previous Galaxy, but the S4 steps it up a notch, timely given the focus on wearables and monitoring right now. Software-only, S Health will work as a pedometer as well as tracking temperature and humidity, in addition to allowing users to log their food (with a huge database in the background of nutritional information). However, there’s also Samsung S Band, a Bluetooth-enabled tracker in the manner of a Jawbone UP, which logs data even if the GALAXY S 4 isn’t nearby, and then synchronizes with it once they’re back in range. Samsung also has a Bluetooth-enabled body scale and heart-rate monitor, which also feed their recordings into the phone.

Expectations for the GALAXY S 4 have been high, but Samsung has taken the evolutionary rather than revolutionary path for its new phone. Then again, it didn’t have to: sales of the Galaxy S III remain brisk, and the company has the marketing budget to hammer home its latest message. It also avoids frustrating existing owners too greatly: they’ll be getting software updates which add many of the new Samsung-exclusive additions, and haven’t been left too far behind with the hardware.

That said, should Galaxy S III users upgrade to the GALAXY S 4? If you insist on being on the very latest hardware, and you’re wedded to Samsung, then perhaps it’s a no-brainer. However, it’s not the vast step-up we saw from, say, the Galaxy S II to its successor. In fact, while the hardware is cutting-edge, it’s clear that Samsung’s efforts this time around have really been focused on software enhancements. Some won’t care about things like the IR blaster or Group Play, but will lap up the S Health system and Air Gestures, or vice-versa, but either way there’s a sense that there’s something for everybody.

On the one hand, that’s liberating – after all, why should everyone use the same device in the same way? – but on the other it can get overwhelming and confusing. The appeal of the HTC One is not only that it’s built so well (leagues ahead, we must say, than the in-hand-feel of the GALAXY S 4) but that it focuses on doing a couple of things particularly well, in ways that make a significant difference to the user over and above the standard Android OS.

We’ll confess to a certain sense of unease, then, about how the GALAXY S 4 will find its place in the smartphone market today. Samsung has done what it needed to – in the manner of Apple and the transition between the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S – to bring its flagship up to speed. Promotion and advertising will take care of the rest. If that overshadows phones like the HTC One, however, devices which really do take a more revolutionary approach, then we’d be mightily disappointed.

The Samsung GALAXY S 4 will sell by the bucket-load. Everybody knows that. But in a way we’re still more thankful for its predecessor and how that forced every other Android OEM to raise its game for 2013. That’s better for consumers, and more interesting for us. We’ll have to wait until we can review the Galaxy S4 before we can tell whether it’s actually the best Android device of the lot, however.

Dell isn’t the first to try the big-tablet segment. Sony showed off its 20-inch Tap 20 at IFA last year, while Panasonic brought a 20-inch, 4K prototype tablet to CES in January.

Still, the XPS 18 does have some advantages. At five pounds it’s not exactly light for a tablet, but it’s half the weight of Sony’s model and the battery is rated for almost twice the runtime. That means you can actually hold it with one hand, though you probably wouldn’t want to support it that way for more than the minimum of time. Instead, Dell supplies a stand – with a set of power-providing magnetic pogo-pins that charge the slate section – and flip-out feet that can support the XPS 18 either in an upright pose or at a more laid-back angle for comfortable typing. Dell did point out that the rubbery feet on the pre-production units we tried were likely to change, which is good since they were a little slippery on the table.

The display is a luscious Full HD panel which looks great showing photos and video. The XPS 18 has small stereo speakers, one in either side of the slate, but they’re plenty loud enough for impromptu video watching duties, making the portable all-in-one a viable option for keeping the kids entertained. Physical controls are minimal, with a touch-sensitive Windows button in the bezel and a power/standby button on the right side. You also get a pair of USB 3.0 ports and a memory card slot, along with a webcam and integrated digital microphone.

Inside, Dell will run the gamut with processors, kicking off with a Pentium dual-core and then stepping up through Core i3, i5, and finally i7 chips depending on your power requirements. Storage options range from a basic HDD through hybrid drives, and finally SSDs; RAM is from 4GB, while graphics are courtesy of Intel’s HD GPUs. Dell will include a wireless keyboard and mouse in the box, as well as a stand and a single AC adapter; you’ll be able to buy the stand separately for $50, if you want to have a few of them dotted around the house.

We’ll confess, we weren’t too hopeful for the XPS 18 when we first saw it. Still, after a little playtime, it started to make more sense. Where the Sony is ridiculously heavy – more of a luggable than a portable PC – Dell’s version is actually light enough to rest on your knees or crossed-legs without cutting off all circulation. That opens up some interesting browsing possibilities, or simply makes it more likely that you actually will pick up the XPS 18 and carry it round with you.

Nonetheless, it’s a niche product. Dell will offer it from $899 in the US and from £849 in the UK from mid-April, with prices climbing to around $1,200 for a fully-spec’d version. That obviously makes the XPS 18 more expensive than a tablet, but it also makes it considerable more expensive than a regular all-in-one PC. For some, the flexibility will be sufficient for them to overlook the price, but we’re still yet to be convinced that the big home tablet segment is one that will stick around.

In Fraunhofer’s demo, a computer running SHORE was able to identify and classify multiple people walking in and out of frame, with the results of the analysis floated over each person on a wall display. The measurements happen almost instantaneously – the research institute says SHORE can identify a face at 107.5fps if it’s directly facing the camera, while full analysis including facial expression detection is at 45.5fps – and the system can handle head tilts of +/- 60-degrees and head rotation of +/- 90-degrees.

So far so good, but it’s the measurements not the identification which is what makes SHORE so impressive. Fraunhofer claims a 91.5-percent accuracy rate on face detection and a 94.3-percent accuracy rate on gender detection: by identifying the face, the eyes, nose, and mouth, and the rest of the facial shape, it can decide how happy or sad, angry or surprised they are. The extent of those criteria are displayed on red bars: when we smiled, it accurately picked up on that, while widening our eyes boosted our “surprised” rating.

More patchy was the age detection, which gives an estimate with a degree of confidence (so, for instance, SHORE could decide you’re 38, with a range of +/- 8-years). That proved susceptible to being confused by the ambient lighting: with strong ceiling lights, for instance, those wearing glasses were often confused for someone much older, because the shadows of the glasses frames on their cheeks were mistaken for evidence of old age.

Nonetheless, it’s a mighty impressive system in all, not least because of the incredibly low minimum specifications. Fraunhofer says SHORE will run on a single core of an Intel Core 2 Duo 6420 processor, under Windows XP, and with facial detection from anything down to an 8 x 8 pixel image (though you won’t get the more complex analysis). It’ll also run on mobile devices, such as smartphones, and can either be a standalone system or integrated into another, more complex monitoring package.

That flexibility – and the fact that Fraunhofer is licensing out the technology together with the offer of customizing it depending on client need – means the possibilities for implementation are far greater than, say, Intel’s proposed advertising tailoring on the Web TV box. Market research is an obvious one, for instance a camera above a store window display to track reactions of those glancing in, as well as customizing advertising playlists depending on the demographics of those watching. Car dashboards could monitor drivers and ensure they were alert and calm, as well as better track which person was giving which spoken command.

In hospitals, the degree of pain to which patients are suffering could be monitored autonomously, helping the more efficient use of painkillers (and avoiding unnecessary suffering). Augmented reality games are another possibility, but Fraunhofer is also keen on the idea of using the SHORE technology to enhance “virtual actors” and “intelligent agents” for customer services and entertainment, reacting to those they are talking to, behaving appropriately for their mood, and even mimicking that mood themselves. In fact, Fraunhofer had a robotic head which, using a camera in the forehead, could replicate the viewer’s expressions with animated eyes, mouth, and other elements.

Behind the scenes, the magic is in the huge amount of education Fraunhofer has given the system, teaching it to recognize common schema of mood and reaction from thousands of images of expressions. Called the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) it allows the computer to quickly calculate what each viewer is showing in a matter of milliseconds. That’s even if there are dozens of people in the frame, too; Fraunhofer showed the camera a print out covered in face thumbnails – over a hundred of them, packed tightly together – and SHORE spotted them all and ran its mood analysis. The system has short-term memory, too; Fraunhofer tells us that faces aren’t stored long-term, but there is a shorter-term caching system which can spot if a face was in-frame very recently, and collate all the data from each sighting. Each gets a temporary ID code, and a timer to show how long they were attentive for.

Perhaps most alarming is the fact that this isn’t a simple piece of prescient, Minority Report-style research: SHORE is already out in the wild. Fraunhofer couldn’t tell us all of its clients, but did confirm that market research firm GFK is using SHORE for its consumer surveys. There, participants simply allow the standard webcam on their computer to feed their expressions back to the server, as they watch a series of commercials or other content. Meanwhile, there are SHORE installations already watching passers-by from within store display windows, though Fraunhofer wouldn’t be pressed on which retailers exactly are using it.

Meanwhile, you can try it for yourself. Fraunhofer offers a free trial version of SHORE to download, as a proof of concept, which you can find here. Those particularly paranoid might prefer to spend their time knitting balaclavas, however, as the possibility that you’re being watched, analyzed, and generally figured out by a machine running something like SHORE is growing every day.

Whereas Glass has a full Android-powered computer integrated into the headset, GlassUp is merely a wireless display, using Bluetooth to link to your Android, iOS, or – eventually – Windows Phone handset. That keeps power consumption down; a standby time of around 150hrs is promised for the first-gen model, or a full day of periodic use such as, say, when emails or Tweets come in. An updated model will use Bluetooth 4.0, making it more power-efficient.

What differentiates GlassUp is the display technology itself. Whereas Google has opted for a transparent prismic display embedded in a glass block positioned at the corner of your eye, GlassUp’s patented system uses a micro-projector fixed on the inside of the glasses arm. That focuses a yellow monochromatic image on the inner surface of the right lens, at 320 x 240 resolution. Not enough to replace your phone or tablet for multimedia duties, true, but certainly sufficient for text updates and basic graphics.

Like Glass, there are a fair few sensors and controls integrated into the arm of the glasses: GlassUp has a touch-surface which recognizes tap and double-tap, long-press, and swipe, in addition to a power/control button. There’s also an accelerometer, digital compass, ambient light sensor, and altimeter.

Unfortunately, the prototype GlassUp brought along to CeBIT wasn’t market-ready. More striking in its design than the concept – which manages to look reasonably discrete, in a chunky retro way – the silver headset required a USB link to a computer for its display signal and power, and the projection itself is onto a noticeably orange-tinted pane in the right lens. Meanwhile, even when the battery-powered version is ready, if you want to have the display active all the time – such as when navigating, for instance – the runtimes will be “a few hours” rather than the all-day longevity promised with more sporadic use.

GlassUp argues that, whereas Google’s wearable requires users to glance up and to the side to see the display, their system is far more discrete: the information floats directly in your eyeline. Another advantage is availability and price, though neither Glass nor GlassUp are quite ready for the mass-market. GlassUp is accepting preorders for the headset, at €299/$399, with deliveries of the first units expected in September 2013.

This isn’t the first huge multitouch screen we’ve seen – 3M had an 84-incher at CES, for instance – but it’s one of the first with a price tag attached. MyMultitouch tells us the display will retail for around €33,000, making this a $43k plaything.

If you simply have to have a vast screen that’s finger-friendly, though, the Alvaro GIANT certainly delivers. We first navigated through Windows 8, tapping, swiping and pinching through the usual Metro-style interface as we would on a far smaller tablet; since the display can run off of any HDMI input (as well as DVI, RGB, AV, and DisplayPort; MyMultitouch also offers an optional integrated PC for standalone use) you could hook up basically any Windows 8 PC to it and suddenly have a vast worksurface to operate from.

That showed its merit when we flipped over to Android, running off a simple “thumbdrive” sized stick computer. The 4K resolution was downscaled to suit Android’s display limitations, but Angry Birds and the regular Android UI looked great spread across 84-inches.

It probably comes as little surprise, but home users wanting more room to throw birds at pigs isn’t MyMultitouch’s target audience. Instead, the Alvaro GIANT is positioned as a tool for retail, display, and industrial implementation: the top glass layer is toughened, and the system recognizes up to 32-points of contact simultaneously. It’s also capable of differentiating between different hand positions, such as whether a fist is in contact or a hand with spread fingers. It’ll track users even if they’re wearing gloves, too.

$43k might be a whole lot of money on the face of it, but the Alvaro GIANT finds itself in good Ultra HD company. Samsung’s 85-inch Ultra HD TV announced at CES back in January is a cool $38,000 after all, and if you try touching that all you’ll get are greasy finger-smudges.

That’s because there’s a smaller, internal battery inside the Toughbook’s compact footprint, which tides the CF-AX2 over while you drop out the first pack and slot in a second one. It’s a factor that will make the Toughbook particularly appealing to Panasonic’s target audience: mobile professionals who’ll also appreciate the drop and bump resilience.

Inside, there’s a Core i5 3427U processor and Intel HD 4000 graphics, and Panasonic has managed to accommodate no small number of ports despite the size. You get VGA, HDMI, two USB 3.0, ethernet, audio in/out, and an SD card reader, as well as the usual WiFi and Bluetooth (with a discrete switch to turn the wireless off).

The touchscreen is bright and responsive, and has a welcome matte finish for anti-glare purposes. It was certainly capable of holding up to the CeBIT show floor lights, which bodes well for outdoor use. Next to the webcam is a physical Windows button for use when you fold the CF-AX2 back into tablet mode (though it’s worth noting that it leaves the keyboard and trackpad exposed on the opposite side, the same issue as with the Yoga. The chassis is also somewhat plasticky, at odds with the ruggedized finish.

Panasonic is already offering the Toughbook CF-AX2 in Japan, with European sales kicking off this quarter.

If you’ve seen a recent MSI all-in-one, the AG2712 shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. It’s a symphony of plastics, stacking various colors, shades, and finishes – clear, black, grey; matte and gloss – into a blunt-edged monolith with an adjustable stand (angle, not height).

It’s not going to win any design awards, nor any for quality feel; still, it does what it promises to. Down the left edge there are power/control buttons, indicator lights, a pair of USB 3.0 ports, and a memory card reader. On a recessed panel on the back, you get two more USB 3.0, along with a pair of USB 2.0, audio in/out, an ethernet port, and VGA output. You also get a pair of HDMI ports, one outputting for a second display, and the second accepting an input so that you could use the AG2712 as a standalone display for a PS3 or Xbox 360, for instance.

Finally, on the right edge there’s a tray-loading optical drive. MSI throws WiFi in the box too, though if you want the 10-point multitouch display you’ll have to pay extra; as standard, it’s a regular Full HD screen. Either way, you get a welcome anti-glare finish which we found did a decent job of avoiding the show-floor lighting.

It’s the pure specifications that MSI is most proud of, though, and so you get a choice of Core i5 or Core i7 processors, paired with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670X graphics. Audio is courtesy of THX TruStudio Pro processing, though we’d be tempted to plug in some external speakers since, while the AG2712 goes loud, it lacks thump at the low end.

MSI isn’t saying how much the AG2712 will cost, at this stage, and given the all-in-one is competitive with a laptop on specs, but not a regular desktop, we’d hope the company bears that in mind when it slaps on the stickers.

Before we go any further, you should know that this is just the second in what we’re expecting will be an extended series of Photo Tour posts here on SlashGear. The first was back a few months ago with the HTC Evo 4G LTE, a device whose photo setup was being pushed by its makers at the time. Of important note is the fact that both that device and this one both use Qualcomm Snapdragon processors – from different generations, yes, but both coming with architecture that Qualcomm is proud to speak about as having fabulous photo processing abilities. This time they team with LG, and here we go again on a different corner of the earth – Spain.

The first image you see above was shot with the camera right out of the box, automatic settings from start to finish, the shot taken in the morning of a Barcelona city street. Note that this photo was also the subject of another hands-on post earlier this week, the LG Pocket Photo – a miniature photo printer that requires no ink to use – like magic! Below you’ll see one of our first examples of an HDR photo. The shutter speed on this device, even with HDR, is rather quick – but because of the nature of HDR photos, you’ll still see multiple instances of the same people walking in this MWC 2013 crowd.

Below this you’ll find a gallery of photos taken in the same location as what you see above. With the quick shooting mode on this device, you’re able to collect a massive amount of photos in undeniably quick succession – 20 shots before it has to stop and think about what it’s done. The best way for you to visualize this here in still photos is to click (or tap) one of the photos below and move rapidly through the gallery with your arrow buttons. This will only work on a desktop computer with our gallery system unless you’ve got a wildfire-fast tablet or smartphone – if you do, go for it! The goal here it to see the images as a sort of stop-motion animation. When you do, you’ll see that this beast is a snappy shooter.

Another example of an HDR photo can be seen next – the big LG logo. Here you’ll get an idea of how this device shoots something lit up in a rather mixed-lighting environment. Again you’ll notice the multiple instances of the same faces because of the multi-exposure that happens when you shoot an HDR shot.

A macro photo can be seen next, even though the LG Optimus G Pro isn’t promoted for its macro abilities, you’ll find that this photo does the trick. The subject matter is the G Pro Quick Cover – an official LG-made cover for this device you can read all about over on Android Community. Up close and personal without a special setting looks rather nice and clear with the 13 megapixel camera we’re right here and now using with the LG Optimus G Pro.

Another HDR photo is next, in this case showing an especially dark locale. You’ll find that in this Beer shop in the midst of this week’s convention venue, the blacks have become in many cases a lighter shade of gray. With this you’ll see that there’s not much that you cannot see – that can be especially valuable if you’re doing photography for documentation rather than for the sake of high art. If you want 100% true-to-life colors, you wont want to use HDR with the Optimus G Pro.

Then there’s a two-up photo set here, the first of a Coke can taken without HDR, the next being that same Coke can, this time with HDR switched to “on”. You’ll be able to tell one from the other only with extremely sharp eyes – and by noticing that I’ve accidentally placed my finger into the edge of the HDR photo. The HDR photo looks almost identical to the non-HDR photo (besides the finger and the television picture behind the can, for obvious reasons). The HDR version is ever-so-slightly more intense, especially in the darks across the range – the red in the can, for example, is a bit more deep.

The gallery you’re having a peek at below shows two different examples of what the LG Optimus G Pro captures with its own unique version of a Photo Sphere. If you’ll remember back a few weeks when a new version of Android Jelly Bean was introduced, Google revealed Photo Sphere – a built-in camera mode that creates a panorama photo, but capturing a massive photo that covers all directions, something like what you see when you head to Street View in Google Maps. You’ll also remember that while it works great some times, it – at other times – doesn’t work so perfectly. The same is true of LG’s iteration of this feature, even with a slightly different user interface.

Another gallery rests below, this time showing a set of examples of a regular old panorama. This standard panorama mode has produced marginally better results for us thus far than the sphere-like mode above. It is important here – as it always is with panorama shooting at this time in history – to drag the camera across your scene at an even rate – and not too slow, not too fast either. One of the photos was taken at the Google Head Space party during MWC – as you can see, this club area was rather dark, and didn’t work too well with the panorama mode in the end. The others were taken on a bridge inside the main MWC 2013 event, lighting being a bit more generous.

Next you’ll see another example of a photo taken indoors of a rather large, open area at Mobile World Congress. The first shot was taken without HDR, the second was taken in HDR mode. This example set shows just a bit more clear the difference between the two – generally this is the case when you’ve got the possibility of a much more large range of colors and levels of light and dark.

The nighttime photo you see below is taken from across the street from the Mobile World Congress 2012 venue. This is a place where many MWC-goers stop on the train to transfer trains as it’s a large hub from one place to another – notably the new venue, mind you. The important point here is the levels of light in the darkness – and the idea that this photo was captured by hand. Normally a photo captured here at this time by hand – with most smartphone cameras, that is – would have lots of light streaks due to the shutter being open for enough time to capture the correct amount of light. In this case, LG’s setup allows you to do this much quicker – and the result is obvious.

Finally you’ll find a lovely gallery full of photos taken at one of the more challenging locations a person can take a photo at with results that look more than terrible. It is – once again – the Mobile World Congress 2013 Google party: Google Head Space. There are two rooms here, the first a smaller one made for chilling out and having a drink amongst a DJ mixing tunes under a massive Google Play Music set of orange headphones. The second is a massive room with a stage that held both Tinie Tempah and Florence and the Machine.

Enjoy this if you would, and have a peek at the rest of our Mobile World Congress 2013 content in our lovely MWC 2013 tag portal. You can also have a peek at our LG tag portal for more awesome Optimus action, there finding the review of the LG Optimus G Pro soon, and very soon.

Google’s Chromebook Pixel was certainly needed, with all their previous devices being extremely budget-oriented laptops, but is Google and their OS ready? We’ll have to spend more time with it and let you know in our full review. Chrome OS aside, this device is stunning on all sides. From the display, design, build quality, and even the integrated speakers. Lets dig in!

The Chromebook Pixel is finally a Chromebook with specs to match some of the competition, which also surpasses them on many levels. The Pixel features a 12.85-inch ‘Pixel’ display with a 2560 x 1700 resolution at 239 PPI and 4.3 million pixels – and it absolutely looks amazing. It’s rocking a Gorilla Glass 2 protected multi-touch panel and offers excellent viewing angles, but out of the gate we’ll let you know the screen glare is pretty awful. Under the hood you’ll be working with a 1.8 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, and a 32GB SSD for storage. As well as a 64GB 4G LTE option coming later. That isn’t all either. With your purchase users get 1TB (1000GB) of free Google Drive cloud storage. Essentially putting anything and everything on the cloud. Then you’ll get two USB 2.0 ports, Displayport, and a full SD slot among other things.

It’s pretty safe to say our initial impressions on the screen are good. It is certainly on the same level as a MacBook Retina. The colors are amazing, but the viewing angles weren’t quite as good as we expected, and Apple has a leg up here. Using the touchscreen for our limited time with it we don’t have too many thoughts. The video below you’ll see how smooth the touchscreen operation is, but we’re not sure how useful real world usage will be. The actual device is blazing fast and the most smooth and fluid Chrome OS we’ve seen or used to date. That’s all thanks to the Core i5 processor and 4GB of RAM of course. For now we’ll just let you enjoy the video:

Everything about this Chromebook screams “premium high end product.” The all aluminum design is solid and extremely sturdy, the Gorilla Glass protected display is sturdy and creak free, and the keyboard is a joy to use. Typing on this thing has been a wonderful experience so far. The backlit LED keyboard is nice, and the speakers are safely integrated under the keyboard to keep things sleek. We do want to make one thing clear, the speakers are exceptional for a laptop. It’s loud, clear, and extremely crisp. I was blown away at the first video I watched.

For those that missed the announcement the all new Chromebook Pixel is up now on the Google Play Store for $1,299 which gets you the 32GB model, and $1,449 coming soon with 64GB and 4G LTE from Verizon. Yeah.. it’s certainly not cheap. Not one bit. Google needed a premium device, but this is really premium.

We’ll obviously need a few days to enjoy the Chromebook Pixel. Find some of its strong points, and the quirks, and we’ll report back shortly with a full review. Can this premium laptop be your daily device, or is Chrome OS too much in its infancy? Does Google tempt the daring with the Pixel – we’re not sure. Stay tuned for our full review to see if this is a Ferrari with a 4-cylinder, or if it can be the real deal.

WIth this device costing so little, it’s almost as if the company wants to earn their money back with bulk rather than margins – but it’s not as if they skimped on the quality of the device itself. Each of the things this device aims to be, it is. You’ve got a super tiny unit with a perfectly classic industrial design and the ability to make phone calls and texts. What more could the average mobile phone user want?

- Assuming they don’t want a smartphone, of course.

The Nokia 105 uses a one-piece keymat that’s both dust-proof and splash-proof – though you won’t want to be dunking this device in to your cup any time soon as it’s not exactly sealed for weathering otherwise. You’ve got a built-in FM radio for on-the-go tuning-in, Dual band EGSM 900/1800 connectivity, and a beastly 8MB ROM inside – unthinkable on a modern smartphone.

With this setup and the battery inside, you’ve got such a setup as to need only one charge every few weeks. Nokia quotes the Nokia 105 as able to withstand 12.5 hours of talk time or 35 days on standby – charge it and forget it! The whole device is 107 x 44.8 x 14.3 mm large, weighing in at 70 grams with its battery inside – and it’s got a replaceable battery as well, mind you, so if you need to leave civilization for a few months, you can just bring a few extra packs along with you – no worries!

Have a peek at the timeline below to see more Nokia releases from the past week, and stick with SlashGear in our massive Mobile World Congress 2013 tag portal for more action throughout the week!

BONUS: Nokia has created some wonderfully vibrant advertisements for their newest line of devices – here’s the spot made for the Nokia 105. Get your dancing shoes out!

WIth the B15 you’re getting a dual-core 1Ghz Cortex A9 processor powering a 4-inch 800 x 480 pixel resolution display along with 512MB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage. There’s a microSD card slot inside able to take on 32GB of additional storage, and the whole phone is ready to fit in the palm of your hand easily – especially if you’re a construction worker or massive person of sorts, generally the type to get into situations where such damage-resistant features as this one has will come in handy. But the audience this device has is not limited to those that pick up and smash down large rocks!

You’ll be working with aluminum (or aluminium, depending on how British you are), and shock-absorbing rubber on the outside. This is a device that will not – ever – need a case to protect it. The display up front is covered by Gorilla Glass (though we’re not sure at the moment if it’s Gorilla Glass or Gorilla Glass 2), and the aluminum and rubber frame comes up ever-so-slightly around the edges so if your device falls to a flat surface, the display will be further protected. You’ll see a couple of DEATH-DEFYING DROPS in the hands-on video above.

The CAT B15 is able to drop from a height of 6 feet, fall onto concrete, and survive to tell the tale. You’ll also be working with 3 feet of water protection as the whole of the device is sealed with more shock-absorbing rubber for the safety of its innards. Heat is also protected against up to 122 degrees Fahrenheit as well as cold, down to -4 degrees Fahrenheit.

You’ll be picking this device up in March if you live in one of the 50 countries the device is launched in across the world at first for right around 299 Euro. At the moment though we’ve heard from CAT that the device is planned for USA release in April, pricing has not been decided as deals with carriers have not been finalized. We shall see soon enough!

Be sure to have a peek at the rest of our up to the minute news blast and hands-on collection in the Mobile World Congress 2013 tag portal here on SlashGear. We’ll be here all week, and we’ve already seen quite a bit of excellent bits and pieces from manufacturers and developers of mobile greatness alike!

The choice of show is because GM sees its drive to adopt 4G as about more than just fitting off-the-shelf hardware: it’s about making the car another node on the network. While this isn’t the first time we’ve seen mobile hotspot functionality in a car, it is the tightest integration of that connection to the car’s underlying systems. That makes a big difference, Abram points out, when it comes to what you can actually do with the data that the car is producing, such as fuel efficiency, speed, direction, engine status, entertainment, and more.

For instance, there’s GM’s own mobile app which can be used to remotely control several of the features in the car: lock and unlock it from wherever you are in the world, sound the horn, and turn on or off the lights. With a persistently connected car, however, the app can also display real-time statistics, such as fuel levels.

It goes beyond time-saving measures, however. GM’s demo vehicle has three cameras on the interior and four outside, covering the front two passengers and the rear seat, and all four of the outward directions. They can be reviewed on the dashboard – handy, if you’re parking up and want to make sure you’re not too far from the curb – or streamed over the 4G to a smartphone or tablet. GM envisages rear seat passengers being able to hold Skype calls while being driven around, for instance, or the car automatically alerting you, complete with video recordings, if it’s hit or damaged while you’re away.

The potential for streaming also includes entertainment, using the 4G to push entertainment content to the dashboard (albeit only when you’re parked up). However, the concept car can also push its streamed video over WiFi to a tablet, so rear passengers could watch their own content rather than what’s on the integrated screens.

Not all of these features will be present when GM’s 4G cars actually begin to roll out to buyers; there won’t be cameras, at least not initially, for instance. However, the car company is hoping that developers will see the potential of being persistently online, and swiftly come up with new functionality to take advantage of that.

“We’ve taken one of the variables out of the equation,” Abram explains, pointing to the fact that those coders taking advantage of the APIs GM revealed back at CES will be able to make the assumption that drivers have a persistent data connection. One lingering question is exactly how much drivers will have to pay for actual data, or at least to access the service; Abram wouldn’t discuss fees, beyond pointing out that OnStar is a subscription-based service (current prices start at around $19 per month). That could have implications for how apps consume data, if it’s billed on a per-MB style basis.

That may well be an evolving issue, Abram points out, as drivers, GM, and developers get to grips with the potential of having 4G in your vehicle. The infotainment chief hopes that the key apps users are familiar with and already consider essential – Pandora, Spotify, and others – will transition over to the GM system, but also that we’ll see new and imaginative software that takes specific advantage of the context that you’re in a vehicle.

GM needs developers to there, but meanwhile it will be tailoring its connectivity message across its various brands. That’s going to take some careful explanation, Abram says, differing not only on a marque by marque basis, but by individual cars too, depending on the priorities of their target audiences. For instance, GM’s current message around the Chevy Sonic is to do with smartphone integration, while for the CUE system the focus has been on how interwoven it is through the car.

Standard 4G will begin showing up in 2015 model year GM vehicles from Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, and Cadillac, with AT&T providing its LTE network, on US and Canadian forecourts sometime in 2014. However, the company plans to expand the service across Europe and other territories in time.

In Quadrant, the Galaxy Note 8.0 scored 6,848 overall, with a CPU score of 14,608, memory score of 5,386, I/O of 11,035, and 2D/3D of 1,000/2,211. That’s actually more impressive in all but the CPU category than the Galaxy Note 10.1, running Samsung’s 1.4GHz Exynos quadcore, though the 8-inch tablet’s software is likely to get a last-minute polish before it ships.

Turning to SunSpider, the JavaScript benchmark of browser performance, the new Galaxy Note completed the test in 1,021.7ms. Faster is better in SunSpider; in contrast, the iPad mini completed it in 1,698.9ms.

In practical terms, we had no trouble multitasking on the Galaxy Note 8.0, even when using Samsung’s window-in-window system which allows you to view two apps on-screen simultaneously. The most pressing test, of course, relates to digital inking: if the experience of writing and drawing on-screen isn’t smooth and accurate, then the pen becomes near-worthless.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 hands-on:

Happily Samsung got that right too, and it’s the same clean ink-flow as we’ve seen on the Galaxy Note II, simply with more space to take advantage of. That could be the best argument for the 8-inch model overall, in fact; the Note II is pocketable, but arguably not quite large enough to replace a typical notebook, something the Note 8.0 is far closer in size to.

We’ve more on the Galaxy Note 8.0 in our full hands-on.

The HomeSync box itself is the size of a couple of stacked DVD cases, finished in metallic-effect plastic, and with nothing on the front bar an LED indicator. On the back, meanwhile, there’s a microUSB port, two USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI output, and an S/PDIF digital audio output, along with an ethernet port. Inside there’s a 1.7GHz dualcore processor, together with a 1TB hard-drive, 8GB of space for apps the like, 2GB of RAM, and WiFi a/b/g/n (2.4/5GHz) plus Bluetooth 4.0.

That hard-drive is used for local storage, including offloading content from your phone or tablet, though as you’d imaging the HomeSync is also set up to stream from the cloud. It integrates with the AllShare app on Samsung mobile devices, too, for one-touch streaming, though we had a little trouble getting a Galaxy Note II to push photos and video directly to the connected TV.

Android 4.2 Jelly Bean is running under the hood, with a customized UI to suit the living room environment. An app on your Samsung phone turns it into a wireless keyboard and remote – the display can either be used as a traditional trackpad, or you can physically wave the phone around to move the on-screen mouse cursor – with NFC used to easily pair handset to STB.

From then, you can use screen mirroring, push Full HD content wirelessly through the HomeSync box to your TV, or use local software such as the gallery, video player, and YouTube player. Samsung tells us that you should be able to install any app in the Google Play store too, including Netflix, though we weren’t able to test that since the Netflix app itself wasn’t offered in the regional store the demo hardware was set to.

Up to eight individual user accounts will be supported, each with its own locked-down section of the 1TB drive. Those hunting more local storage will be able to use the USB 3.0 ports to add external drives.

Samsung says the HomeSync will hit the US in April, though is yet to confirm pricing.

In Vodafone’s demo, two screens showed the two perspectives involved: the upper screen would be the TV in the viewer’s home, while the lower display showed what the camera – a simple Logitech webcam – saw and calculated. While facial recognition and tracking is already commonplace, particularly in cameras, Intel’s refinement is to gage attention too: if you’re not actually looking at the screen, instead engrossed in your phone, book, or tablet for instance, it won’t include you in the count of overall viewers.

Initial identification is almost instantaneous, though the system takes a few seconds of prolonged attention in order to identify gender and other details. Once that happens, the box overlaid on the user’s face – which tracks around as the viewer moves in the frame – turns either blue for males or red for females. Meanwhile, other graphics show more specific demographics, such as age bracket, and track historical viewing trends.

Vodafone had a playlist of three commercials for the system to cycle between, and depending on the split of male and female attention, as well as other factors, would choose which to queue up next. For the viewer it’s all seamless: there’s no sudden jump to new content, simply a selection of adverts that they might well be more interested in than the regular network choice.

The system isn’t perfect. We had trouble being recognized while wearing glasses – the camera simply didn’t flag us up as a viewer – and Vodafone told us that people with bald heads could also confuse things, with Intel’s computation unable to figure out gender. As for the inevitable privacy concerns, Intel has already said that it will be fitting a shutter mechanism to its STB, allowing coy subscribers to block off the view of the camera altogether.

Vodafone couldn’t tell us specific details about the Intel system, nor indeed confirm or deny whether this particular implementation would find its way into the eventual Web TV device. Still, this certainly fits in with what the chip company has described. Intel Web TV will launch sometime in 2013.

That works out to a screen that, although decent at first glance, simply lacks the rich pixel density of its Full HD rivals. Given the sheer size of the phone suggests it’s a media-centric device, that seems an odd choice to us.

ZTE Grand Memo hands-on video:

Elsewhere, though, things get somewhat better. The main camera runs at 13-megapixels – though it’s paired with a mere 1-megapixel front camera, where other devices might often have 2-megapixels or more – and has a 3,200 mAh battery to keep the big display running. You also get WiFi a/b/g/n (2.4/5GHz) and Bluetooth 4.0 LE, as well as LTE.

There’s no denying it’s an odd beast, though. The processor and 13-megapixel camera are top-tier, but the screen resolution smacks of older technology and the build quality is a dire symphony in cheap plastic.

ZTE could redeem itself somewhat if the pricing is right, though the company isn’t talking figures yet. We’ll know soon enough, when the Grand Memo hits China in March and then rolls on to a European launch.

As per the phone, the Tablet Z has glass side panels inset into a glass-polymer chassis; it lacks the full glass back, however, making do with a plain, slightly dull expanse of matte-finish plastic. It’s not exactly cheap-feeling, but neither does it have the same premium touch as, say, an iPad, and it’s not as grippy as the coating Samsung used on the Nexus 10.

Still, you can forgive a lot when you look at the screen. Again, it pales in comparison to the Apple and Samsung panels, in pixels at least, but the WUXGA resolution still looks fantastic, and the colors and viewing angles are particularly good. Sony has implemented its latest Mobile BRAVIA Engine 2 again, which does magical things to increase contrast and bolster colors in video playback; thankfully its not quite as rabid in its processing as previous iterations of the technology, which had a tendency to leave footage looking unnatural.

Sony hasn’t held off on custom software, and the Xperia Tablet Z comes preloaded with a universal remote app that works with the IR blaster on the leading edge of the slate. That can figure out which TV, cable box, DVR, and other home entertainment hardware you have, and allow you to control them all from the slate’s interface. There’s also a useful mini-remote pane that can be pinned on top of the regular Android 4.1 Jelly Bean UI, great to make quick channel and volume adjustments while you’re browsing, reading, or writing emails.

Sony Xperia Tablet Z hands-on:

Performance from the quadcore processor is tricky to judge amid the limits of the MWC show floor, but we’ve seen good things from Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 Pro before, and we couldn’t get the slate to bog down during our playtime. The MHL-HDMI output – as well as DLNA streaming support – should prove the Xperia Tablet Z’s mettle, too, assuming it can pump out the Full HD footage Sony promises.

Elsewhere, there’s all the things you’d hope for from a modern tablet, including WiFi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth, NFC – which Sony is pushing as an easy way to pair the slate with other devices, such as wireless speakers – and the option of HSPA+. Sony also expects up to eight hours of battery life, thanks in part to its Battery STAMINA mode which keeps standby wireless radio use on a tight leash.

The proof of the pudding will be in the performance, of course, and that we won’t know fully until the Xperia Tablet Z’s worldwide launch sometime in Q2. It’s certainly priced to take on the fourth-gen iPad with Retina Display, from $499 for the 16GB model in the US.