Tech Roundup: Nexus 5, iPad Air, Nokia 2520 & More
[A recurring feature on the latest trends in Science & Technology.]
The Nexus 5, iPad Air and Lumia 2520:
After weeks of endless leaks and rumors, Google took the wraps off its much anticipated pure Android smartphone Nexus 5 at a low key event yesterday. The phone is based on the LG G2, but runs on the latest version of Android, aka KitKat or 4.4, that aims to brings about a host of performance improvements to be able to run on devices even with 512 MB of RAM, a very welcome step towards solving the platform's fragmentation. The updated user interface brings in a lot of visual changes, including unified messaging with Hangouts, which Google announced separately at a Google+ event last week, and a deeper integration with Google Now.
My only concerns lie with the 2300 mAH battery, but we'll know about this aspect in a couple of days. In India, the phone is surprisingly listed on the Play Store as 'Coming Soon' and it's good to see LG and Google learning from the last year's Nexus 4 debacle. As the Apple's iPhone 5S and 5C go on sale for a whopping 53,500 and 41,900 Rs respectively today, this new phone from Google and LG is priced comparatively cheaper at 29,000 Rs for the 16 GB variant.
Apple's October 22 event saw the tech giant unveiling 2013 editions of the 13 and 15-inch MacBook Pros with Retina Display and Intel's new Haswell processor, and making OS X Mavericks a free upgrade for its Mac lineup. But the headline grabbing announcement was the iPad Air, the lightest and the thinnest version of the 9.7 inch iPad, and the 7.9 inch iPad mini with Retina Display running on iOS 7.
Notably absent from the new iPads is the Touch ID fingerprint sensor which made its debut in the iPhone 5S. Otherwise, they share the same A7 processor and the M7 motion coprocessor found in the latest iPhone, making the Retina Display iPad mini a more lucrative option than its big brother. In a strange turn of events, Apple has decided to no longer sell the iPad 4, but will continue to keep the two-year-old iPad 2 on shelves for $399, the same price as that of the new iPad mini! The tablets also come bundled with the company's iLife and iWork productivity suites for free.
Finnish handset maker Nokia took the same day (Oct 22) to show off its very first tablet Lumia 2520, and a beautiful one at that, at an event in Abu Dhabi. Running on Windows 8.1 RT, the unibody designed 10.1 inch tablet offers full-fledged connectivity and a Surface tablet like Power keyboard accessory that promises an extra five hour battery life - an addition to the 11 hours the device gets by itself.
The event also saw Nokia making its next Lumia smartphones official. Boasting of a 6-inch display, the Lumia 1520 and 1320 take advantage of the latest Windows Phone 8 GDR3 update that adds support for larger screens and 1080p display resolution. The Lumia 1520 is the superior of the two for its 1080p display, a 20 MP rear camera and Qualcomm's quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor, the Lumia 1320, on the other hand, powered by a dual-core Snapdragon 400 processor, a 720p display and a 5MP camera making it a choice for the more budget conscious. And finally Windows Phone users can heave a sigh of relief, the official Instagram app is arriving in a couple of weeks.
Latest NSA revelations leave Google and Yahoo! furious:
The USA's National Security Agency, in a joint operation with its British counterpart GCHQ, has intercepted communication links between data centers that Google and Yahoo operate across the world, new documents obtained from Edward Snowden reveal. By breaking into the data links without even their knowledge, the intelligence agency has positioned itself to collect at will from hundreds of millions of user accounts, many of them belonging to Americans, writes the Washington Post.
In the midst of all these, Lavabit, the encrypted email service provider that voluntarily shut down months back, has joined hands with Silent Circle, another encrypted email service that was closed in August, to form the Dark Mail Alliance through which it hopes to offer a more secure email service, called Email 3.0, that subjects a digital missive's metadata (such as the To, From, Subject) to encryption alongside the contents to subvert NSA's attempts at collecting email metadata.
In other news:
The Nexus 5, iPad Air and Lumia 2520:
After weeks of endless leaks and rumors, Google took the wraps off its much anticipated pure Android smartphone Nexus 5 at a low key event yesterday. The phone is based on the LG G2, but runs on the latest version of Android, aka KitKat or 4.4, that aims to brings about a host of performance improvements to be able to run on devices even with 512 MB of RAM, a very welcome step towards solving the platform's fragmentation. The updated user interface brings in a lot of visual changes, including unified messaging with Hangouts, which Google announced separately at a Google+ event last week, and a deeper integration with Google Now.
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| The LG Nexus 5 |
Apple's October 22 event saw the tech giant unveiling 2013 editions of the 13 and 15-inch MacBook Pros with Retina Display and Intel's new Haswell processor, and making OS X Mavericks a free upgrade for its Mac lineup. But the headline grabbing announcement was the iPad Air, the lightest and the thinnest version of the 9.7 inch iPad, and the 7.9 inch iPad mini with Retina Display running on iOS 7.
Notably absent from the new iPads is the Touch ID fingerprint sensor which made its debut in the iPhone 5S. Otherwise, they share the same A7 processor and the M7 motion coprocessor found in the latest iPhone, making the Retina Display iPad mini a more lucrative option than its big brother. In a strange turn of events, Apple has decided to no longer sell the iPad 4, but will continue to keep the two-year-old iPad 2 on shelves for $399, the same price as that of the new iPad mini! The tablets also come bundled with the company's iLife and iWork productivity suites for free.
Finnish handset maker Nokia took the same day (Oct 22) to show off its very first tablet Lumia 2520, and a beautiful one at that, at an event in Abu Dhabi. Running on Windows 8.1 RT, the unibody designed 10.1 inch tablet offers full-fledged connectivity and a Surface tablet like Power keyboard accessory that promises an extra five hour battery life - an addition to the 11 hours the device gets by itself.
Latest NSA revelations leave Google and Yahoo! furious:
The USA's National Security Agency, in a joint operation with its British counterpart GCHQ, has intercepted communication links between data centers that Google and Yahoo operate across the world, new documents obtained from Edward Snowden reveal. By breaking into the data links without even their knowledge, the intelligence agency has positioned itself to collect at will from hundreds of millions of user accounts, many of them belonging to Americans, writes the Washington Post.
In the midst of all these, Lavabit, the encrypted email service provider that voluntarily shut down months back, has joined hands with Silent Circle, another encrypted email service that was closed in August, to form the Dark Mail Alliance through which it hopes to offer a more secure email service, called Email 3.0, that subjects a digital missive's metadata (such as the To, From, Subject) to encryption alongside the contents to subvert NSA's attempts at collecting email metadata.
In other news:
- Adobe hack attack compromised 38 million accounts, the software maker reveals.
- Android OS on 81.3% of all smartphones shipped in Q3 2013; Apple's iOS on 13.4% and Windows Phone 8 on 4.1% devices.
- LG and Samsung's curved smartphones are official.
- Google's personalized homepage service iGoogle shuts down today.
- HTC One Max is announced with a back-mounted fingerprint scanner.
- Brazil proposes plans to ditch Microsoft Outlook in the wake of Snowden disclosures, as new documents reveal NSA spied on its European allies including Germany, Spain and France.
- Samsung sells 40 million Galaxy S4's worldwide.
- Twitter picks New York Stock Exchange for its IPO.
- BlackBerry Messenger now available on Android and iOS.
- LG announces its first Firefox OS smartphone Fireweb.
- Ads debut on Instagram.
- Google's stock surges past $1000 after it posts better than expected quarterly results by managing to keep ad-rate declines in check.
- Nokia sells a record 8.8 million Lumia smartphones last quarter; US demand skyrockets.
- Struggling PC maker Dell officially goes private; gets delisted from NASDAQ.
- Facebook impresses Wall Street with rising revenues from mobile, but admits younger teens are deserting the social network.
- Apple fails to cheer Street despite record sales of iPhones; iPad's market share tumbles to the lowest level since its debut in 2010 as rivals catch-up.
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