Technology Updateas From All Around The World: 2013

Monday, 16 December 2013

‘Responsible’ the UAE’s most overused buzzword on LinkedIn

As a UAE resident, how often do you use the words ‘responsible’, ‘effective’ or ‘strategic’ when describing yourself professionally or to a potential employer on your online profiles?
You might indeed be all of those things, but does that necessarily mean that you should rely on cliché terms to differentiate yourself?
According to LinkedIn, which has recently released its annual list of buzzwords, those three words top the list of being the most overused in the UAE members’ profiles for 2013.

In the midst of the competition between free texting and calling apps such as Skype, Viber, Whatsapp and others, Facebook Messenger stood idly watching the fun while its users only used it to text and call their Facebook friends, which went against the odds of them using any other app.
Not anymore; because the 3.0 Facebook Messenger update now enables you to text anyone in your contacts outside Facebook by obtaining your number and accessing your contact list.

Do you know what goes on the Internet every single minute? Google processes 2 million search requests. 72 hours of videos are uploaded on YouTube. And over 204 million emails are sent. This happens every minute. The following incredible info graphic from QMee shows the amazing activity that happens across some of the most popular websites in the world.

The new version of HTC’s award-winning handset, the HTC One, is to be out in the US by the start of next year.

Following the success of the HTC One, the newer version is anticipated to have the same fate which will be determined soon. Tweets, namely from @evleaks, confirm the new device’s predicted upcoming launch date.

We live in a world that is sparkling with cutting-edge graphics and special effects, games played on innovative devices that enhance the gaming experience by a far difference from our childhood gear. That being said, there are times when we feel nostalgic of the times when video games were a simple round of Tetris or Pac-man; luckily, our favorite oldies are making a comeback to the digital world.

Google has announced the return of Arabic Web Days, an annual initiative created to boost the amount of Arabic content on the internet.
The initiative, which was developed by Google, Vinelab and Wamda last year, works to raise awareness and bridge the gap between the number of Arabic speakers online and the percentage of Arabic content on the web.
The effort is conducted in association with several regional and

On 5 November 2013, Microsoft South Africa announced the availability of a new SME resource hub, Biz4Afrika, that aims to deliver a range of free and low-cost resources – both IT and non-IT –to South African SMEs. Biz4Afrika is a key element of Microsoft’s 4Afrika commitment to bring 1 million African SMEs online within three years.
The announcement was made by Kevin Turner, Chief Operating Officer

Apple’s trading program has started to welcome in damaged iPhones and iPads.

As part of its Reuse and Recycling Program, Apple has begun to allow devices with water damage to be traded in for credit, starting last week. The prices at which the devices can be compensated are at a relatively low price.

Hackers will be having a tougher time trying to hack into Twitter users’ accounts thanks to the social media hub’s new security technology.

Via a blog post yesterday, Twitter stated that new measures known as “forward secrecy” are currently being put into use for the purpose of protecting user information.

HTC One in a gold finish will soon hit stores in the UK and Europe. The Middle East can’t be far behind…

Silver, blue, red and black. It’s now time for the awesome HTC One to go gold. Rose Gold too. HTC is to begin offering its award-winning HTC One smartphone in a gold finish in the UK and Europe. The gold version of the smartphone follows on from the very limited run created for the winners of this year’s MOBO Awards. Unlike the limited edition HTC One, the gold model

Today BBM Channels, a forum for active, real conversations between people, brands and communities, will be made available for BlackBerry users on BlackBerry OS 5 and above and BlackBerry 10 through BlackBerry World. BlackBerry users can simply update to the newest version of BBM to have access to the BBM Channels beta when it becomes available later today.

BBM Channels builds on BBM’s strengths of engagement and

After the winning of the Expo 2020 bid last night, Google showed their support for the UAE by changing the Google doodle that appears on their UAE home page or Google Now with the Expo 2020 logo.
Dubai will be hosting the World Expo in the year 2020 and it will the first time a city in the Middle East has been chosen. Inaugurated in 1851 in London, the World Expos is held every five years and attracts millions of visitors to explore.
Head over to google from within UAE to see the doodle from outside UAE.

If you build it, they will use it for sex.
The PlayStation 4, Sony's new gaming console, has a camera that can be used to record gamers while they play. But after only two weeks on sale, the PS4 is already being used to broadcast sex sessions with the virtual-reality game "The Playroom," which lets gamers share feeds of their living rooms through a video platform called Twitch.

Company’s head of Middle East, Africa and Pakistan, Jonathan Labin, shares his top five tips.

1. Spruce up your page
A little bit of housekeeping on your page can add lots of value. Make sure that your hours of business and contact information are all up to date. It’s also a good idea to update your page’s cover photo with holiday- or small business-themed images. These little steps let visitors know that your page is an active extension of your business.
2. Post regularly

(Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc is testing delivery packages using drones, CEO Jeff Bezos said Sunday on the CBS television program "60 Minutes."
Bezos said the drones, unmanned vehicles that fly through the air, could deliver packages that weigh up to five pounds (2.3 kg). That represents roughly 86 percent of packages that Amazon delivers, he said.

Facebook is working towards making your homepage more informative, pushing more quality articles and news and cutting back on memes, over-shared photos.
This comes after the giant network found out that news and informative articles are more likely to get clicked on. It will also recommend similar links below articles in your news feed.
“Our surveys show that on average people prefer links to high quality articles about current events,” Facebook announced, “their favorite

Camera collectors have a reason to be happy. A gold plated camera which has been encased in lizard skin has surfaced. The camera, a Leica Luxus was auctioned on November 22 at Hong Kong. This is one of the special edition cameras made in 1932 and is the only surviving from the lot of four.

A pair of sunglasses that can convert the sun’s rays into power for your iPhone and any other smartphones. Awesome!Designed by wunderkind Sayalee Kaluskar from Mumbai, India, this pair of sunglasses was turned into an iPhone charger by just adding solar panels on each arm and is useful when the sun goes down. This new Ray Ban solar-panel

Samsung is reportedly planning to unveil a smaller, budget version of its Galaxy Tab 3 tablet at CES 2014

The rumoured tablet is said to have rock-bottom specs. It will come with a seven-inch display with a 1024 by 600 pixel display, a 1.2GHz dual-core A9 processor and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. Samsung will reportedly take the wraps off the tablet at the Consumer Electronics

Facebook is testing a “sympathize” button to serve as a replacement option for the “like” button, when necessary.

Last Thursday, a Facebook engineer spoke to the Huffington post and stated that the company is trying out a ‘sympathize’ button.
The idea behind the button lies on a correlation with a ‘sad’ Facebook post. If that sort of post is detected, namely one with the use of a sad

Kaneria banned for life by PCB

LAHORE: Danish Kaneria has been handed a life ban by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) for provoking a cricketer for match fixing during a county match.

He has been banned from playing cricket at any level.
Danish Kaneria has said that he has been treated unfairly as the PCB has shown a soft corner for Mohammad Amir and Salman Butt but not for

Cricket fans will be able to enjoy the Greenall's Gin Bar when Old Trafford hosts the second One-Day International between England and Australia on 8th September.

Greenall's Original London Dry Gin embarked on a busy summer with the announcement of their partnership with Lancashire County Cricket Club and Emirates Old Trafford.

Rajasthan Royals beat Indian Premier League champions Mumbai Indians in the first group game in the Champions League T20 proper in Jaipur.
A calm 54 from wicket-keeper Sanju Samson, coupled with contributions from Ajinkya Rahane, Shane Watson and Stuart Binny saw the Royals home in the final over.
It was a closely-contested run chase, but the home side were always just about in front, despite losing their captain Rahul Dravid in Nathan

As The Ashes began in Brisbane last night, people around the world were preparing to watch the spectacle. Whether you were in Australia, enjoying it at a reasonable time, or else wherearound the world attempting to pull an all-nighter, cricket fans took to Twitter to share their thoughts
. I personally managed almost 30 overs before realising I had work in around six hours and went off to bed. I asked the question to Cricket World followers how and where they were enjoying the game and got

South Africa captain Graeme Smith insists his side will attempt to win the Third Test against England at Lords despite holding a 1-0 series lead heading into the final game.
The Second Test at Headingley ended a draw on Monday, although not before a hectic final day with South Africa producing a surprise declaration which gave England an improbable chance.

There are a multitude of contenders for this week’s Cricket World Player of the Week award, with seven different men hitting centuries in international cricket last week, and starring roles from Mitchell Johnson, Boyd Rankin and Saeed Ajmal with the ball.

Younus Khan edges his Pakistan team-mate Saeed Ajmal out to earn the award. His unbeaten 200 in the first Test against a resilient Zimbabwe finally helped his side take control after an evenly-matched first three

Ryan ten Doeschate, playing his first match of the tournament after being granted leave by county side Essex, proved to be the star for Otago Volts
as they all but booked their place in the Champions League T20 proper by dispatching Kandurata Maroons in Mohali.
Ten Doeschate took two key wickets during the Maroons innings as only Upul Tharanga of their batsmen got going. He then smashed 64 off just 32 balls to help get a faltering Volts run chase back on track.

The International Cricket Council today announced match officials for the upcoming ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier UAE 2013 (WT20Q), which will take place from 15 to 30 November 2013.
The tournament will see 16 teams from across the ICC’s five regions competing for the remaining six places at the ICC World Twenty20 Bangladesh 2014, which will be staged from 16 March to 6 April in Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet.

Australia declared their second innings at 401 for seven, setting England 561 runs to win the opening Ashes Test at the Gabba on Saturday.

Skipper Michael Clarke declared with about an hour left on the third day giving his bowlers just over two days to attempt to bowl out England and take a 1-0 lead in the Ashes series.
England will have to create Ashes history to win the Gabba Test with

Watch out Sony and Moto, the smartwatch market is heating up
After a trademark filing for “Galaxy Gear” earlier this month, Samsung is reportedly planning to debut a watch with that name on September 4. According to Boomberg, the Galaxy Gear smartwatch “will make phone calls, surf the Web and handle e-mails.” Bloomberg says the watch will debut with the Galaxy Note 3, which we already expect on September 4.

Electronics giant Samsung yesterday unveiled its latest tablet, the GALAXY Note 10.1, 2014 Edition, at the Samsung Unpacked event in Berlin, Germany.
The device makes use of a WQXGA Super clear LCD (2560×1600) resolution in a 10-inch display, 1.9 GHZ Octa Core processor (for 3G / WiFi only version) and 3GB RAM.

Electronics maker Sony today unveiled the Xperia Z1, their new flagship model, which is expected to be made available globally in later in September.

“Xperia Z1 represents a significant milestone for Sony in our continued efforts to deliver unforgettable experiences to our consumer. Not only by bringing the power of Sony to the smartphone and through close collaboration with our partners but by setting a new standard in premium smartphones,” said Kunimasa Suzuki, President and CEO, Sony Mobile Communications.

Electronics manufacturer and video games console maker Sony on Monday morning announced a new version of their handheld gaming system, the PlayStation Vita.
Sony’s new version of the Vita (image: Sony)
During the unveiling, the company announced that the new Wi-Fi only model will be made available first in Japan on 10 October this year, and will also be 15% lighter(219g) , 20% thinner than the current version and will feature an upgraded battery pack that will allow of an extra one hour of battery life – with a total of six hours play-time.

Electronics manufacturer Apple last night revealed two new iPhone models and announced the official launch date for their highly-anticipated operating system iOS7.
In the first announcement, Apple unveiled the iPhone 5s, a follow-up to its flagship iPhone 5 model. According to Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller, the handset is “the most forward-thinking phone we’ve ever created,” and will be available in three colours: black, silver and gold.

Car meets watch? Sure, why not. The Nissan Nismo concept is claimed to be the first smartwatch created to correlate the driver to their watch.
With elements like tracking your mood along with measuring the rate of how much fuel your vehicle is consuming, the Nismo smartwatch is said to be packed with a large variety of driver and car specs that even include performance information.

TORONTO, Sept 18 (Reuters) - BlackBerry Ltd launched its new Z30 flagship smartphone on Wednesday, as it battles to win back market share despite uncertainty around its future.
Once a pioneer in the smartphone arena, BlackBerry said last month it was weighing options that could include an outright sale, in the face of lacklustre sales for its new devices that run on the BlackBerry 10 operating system.

(Reuters) - "Grand Theft Auto V," the fifth installment of the video game that became a focal point of debate about gratuitous violence and explicit content in the media, came out guns blasting with $800 million in global first-day sales.
Take-Two Interactive Software Inc's most lucrative franchise went on sale at midnight on Tuesday.

If you’re having problems with fully updating the iOS 7 on your iPhone, you’re not the only one experiencing this.

Many users who are having the same issues have voiced their complaints on social media, namely with Tweets, and on the pages of Apple’s support site. It is unsurprising that the legendary company is not too

Apple today announced it has sold a record-breaking nine million new iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c models, just three days after the launch of the new iPhones on September 20.

In addition, more than 200 million iOS devices are now running the completely redesigned iOS 7, making it the fastest software upgrade in history.

Smartphone manufacturer Samsung revealed two new colours to be added to the Galaxy S4 range. To be made available in the Middle East, the latest flagship smartphone will be made available in gold with a brown trim, or in pink with a gold trim.

“Have you seen the new elegant #GalaxyS4 new #GoldEdition colors? Gold Brown or Gold Pink,” Samsung Gulf said on their Facebook page as a caption to an image of the two new phone colours.

After making it to over fifty percent of Apple devices in North America alone, iOS 7 users have been complaining of motion sickness from the software update.
The iOS 7 had a widespread download rate at the time of its release, and now, a week after, there seems to be a newer update regarding its activation.

Apple has announced its new generation of iPad, the iPad Air, yesterday in its event.
3 years after announcing the first iPad, iPad Air differs greatly in design and functionality, featuring the same 9.7-inch display, the tablet’s new design has more in common with iPad Mini. 4 lbs lighter than its predecessor, iPad air weighs only one pound, making it the lightest big-screen tablet so far.

LG launched its first Firefox OS-based smartphone on Wednesday.

The LG Fireweb is a four-inch device that runs Mozilla’s mobile operating system. The OS is primarily aimed at developing markets.
However, there has also been a large amount of interest in the software from developed markets.
The LG Fireweb is an entry-level smartphone. It is aimed at users who aren’t looking for a wide range of features and instead are looking for

Today at Nokia World: Abu Dhabi, Nokia unveiled six new devices alongside new accessories, Nokia experiences and third-party developer applications. Nokia introduced its first ever Windows tablet, the Nokia Lumia 2520, and launched a portfolio of large screen Lumia smartphones: the Lumia 1520 and 1320.

Three new Asha models – including the first 3G device in the Asha Platform family of smartphones – deliver industry leading design, new vibrant colors and a more intuitive user interface, all at an accessible price.

LG South Africa today unveiled the world’s first curved OLED (organic Light-Emitting Diode) television on South African soil at a launch held at Montecasino in Johannesburg. The Company also used the launch to unveil an extended lineup of its ULTRA HD models with the 65-inch and 55-inch televisions.

First showcased at CES 2013 and already available in South Korea, US and Germany, LG’s groundbreaking curved OLED TV marks the

Korean electronics maker Samsung today unveiled Galaxy Round, the world’s first curved display smartphone. The unit is only available in Korea for now and Samsung South Africa could not confirm a release date (if any) for Africa.

“With this pioneering curved display technology, Galaxy Round blends the latest smartphone screen innovations with unique design features. The sleek and thin Samsung Galaxy Round is equipped with a 5.7″ Full HD Super AMOLED with 7.9mm thick and weighs 154g, offers a

Apple could be preparing to introduce its TouchID technology into the rest of its product range, according to a newly published patent.

In the patent, the company describes adding the biometric technology to its tablets, computers and “beyond”. The patent was discovered by Patently Apple.

Multimode computing manufacturer Lenovo today announced a new partnership with Ashton Kutcher at the livestream launch event of the new Yoga Tablet, held at the YouTube Space LA.

In his new role as a Lenovo product engineer, Kutcher will work with the company’s engineering teams around the world to develop and market the Yoga line of tablets by providing input and decision-making into design, specifications, software and usage scenarios.

Sony Mobile Communications today announced the availability of the new Xperia smartphone model to join its 2013 line up within the Vodacom channel – the Xperia L.

The Xperia L provides industry leading camera technology with HDR for both photos and videos complemented by a high quality screen.
The Xperia L offers the best of Sony with stunning premium designs and a range of technologies including a high quality screen for the ultimate viewing experience; the latest camera features for impressive pictures

he Google Nexus 5 is official after months of speculation and yes, it does come sporting Android 4.4 KitKat and flagship-class specs for a midrange-phone's price.

The Google Nexus 5 is now official having been unveiled via the Google Play Store. The latest LG-made Google phone is set to replace the Nexus 4 which had, until now, been the flagship Android smartphone