Nokia Finally Officially Unveils the Lumia 1520 For Real, Lumia 2520 Windows RT 8.1 Tablet Unveiled at $499

lumia 2520 22I’m a little exhausted by Lumia 1520 leaks and rumor posts. Thankfully Nokia has made this thing real, so now we can talk about it again.

Soon-to-be-Microsoft-Employee (CEO perhaps?) Stephen Elop took the stage at Nokia World this morning in Abu Dhabi to show off Nokia’s new wares. The worst kept secret in tech made it’s appearance, and we all finally got to confirm what the rumors and leaks have been feeding us for a couple months now. Nokia is making a phablet, and the Lumia 1520 looks like it’ll be a formidable piece of gear.

lumia 1520 02The 1520 will sport a 1080p six inch display, the highest resolution screen ever put into a Nokia or a Windows Phone. The Qualcomm 800 is unsurprisingly confirmed as well, boosting Windows Phone into more current quad-core processors. Along with the GDR3 software update (now called Nokia Black), the screen size has allowed Nokia to add a third column of Live Tiles to the home screen. lumia 1520 03It’ll have 32GB of storage on board and will be the first premier Lumia to finally include a MicroSD card slot for expanded storage (up to 64GB). Nothing like walking around with almost 100GB of flash storage in your pocket to make you feel powerful. The purchase of a 1520 will also include an additional 7GB of Skydrive storage free.

lumia 1520 04The Lumia 1520 sports a new 20MP Pureview camera, something of a halfway point between the Lumia 9xx series and the monster 41MP Lumia 1020. It’ll sport optical image stabilization and oversampling software tech, which means we’ll probably get some of the zoom and crop capability from the 1020, and photos downsampled to 5MP for uploading online should look pretty good. Also of note, the camera app is getting a refresh. Dubbed ‘Nokia Camera’, most of the features from the separate Nokia Pro Camera, Smart Camera, and Video camera apps are getting rolled into one interface. I would expect the horsepower of the Qualcomm 800 to improve on the auto-focus and white balance speed of the sometimes pokey dual-core in the Lumia 1020.

lumia 1520 05

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Instagram and Vine finally officially come to Windows Phone

lumia 1520 09It was always the ultimate irony. The line of phones from Nokia featuring some of the most advanced camera optics were denied access to the world’s most popular social photo and video services.

No longer.

Announced this morning in Abu Dhabi at Nokia World, official Instagram and Vine apps are finally on their way to the Windows Phone App Store. IG will face some hearty competition from the third party Instagram solutions already in the ecosystem. Personally, I’ve been a big fan of 6Tag for uploading and sharing pics on my Lumia 1020. However, for those of you concerned about third parties having access to your log on, or you just really want that “pure” IG experience, you wont have to wait much longer.

Expect both apps to drop later this year.

lumia 1520 10

f.lux Update Helps Your Tired Eyes While Looking at Computer Monitors at Night

flux update health somegadgetguy screen clor brightness temperature (1)f.lux is one of my favorite “lifehack-y” finds, and it gets installed on every computer I use. Basically it changes the color temperature of your display based on time of day. At night, instead of pure bright white light hitting your face, it’s softened to a warmer orange-y glow. It’s really nice, and it’s helped me tremendously with late night eye strain. It also helps take some of the edge off my internal clock as it gets closer to bedtime. My eyes aren’t being bombarded with sunlight grade light right before I shut off the light and try to sleep.

Well this little body science piece of software is getting a pretty robust update. Users can now customize an even wide range of color temperatures, and new hot keys allow for quick adjustments. Old f.lux would only disable color adjustments for an hour. Now you can manually engage or disable changes, or program in time periods to disable if you’re doing work on color sensitive things like photos and videos.

Best of all this is still a free software tool. It’s jarring the first couple times your screen colors change, but if you stare at glowing rectangles late into the evening like I do, your eyes will thank you for it.

Grab it now at http://justgetflux.com, or hit the jump for more info.

flux update health somegadgetguy screen clor brightness temperature (2)

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Youtube Offline Viewing will allow viewers to store video on device for up to 48 hours

somegadgetguy youtube htc one app softwareWe finally have more details!

Announced last month, Youtube will be rolling out an offline mode for Youtube, allowing users to buffer videos on devices to watch later if they don’t have an internet connection, or if you’re trying to be frugal with your data plan. What we didn’t know was how and when this was going to implemented, but now Google’s explaining a bit more.

Through the Youtube app, there will now be an option to allow offline viewing. The videos stored through this setting will stay on the device for up to 48 hours. If the phone or tablet doesn’t connect back to the internet within that time frame, then the videos will no longer be available. For people who operate a Youtube channel, viewing stats will be updated once the device connects to the internet. This service will also work for certain types of Google ads, helping to keep monetized channels paying out.

This is pretty great. There have been a number of times I wished I could buffer videos before taking a flight, or where I might not watch a video because I don’t want to use a ton of data, but I could’ve pre-loaded the video while on WiFi. Google expects the offline mode should be available in November.

And if you aren’t already, you should subscribe to my channel on Youtube, so you can watch all my awesome gadget reviews offline. I’m shameless like that.

(via Youtube FAQ)

Android 4.3 FINALLY rolling out to AT&T HTC One’s

WP_20130503_003Better late than never? It would seem HTC wasn’t able to move through the verification process to meet their September deadline on updating all of their One phones to Google’s current version of Android Jellybean, but those of you on AT&T will finally start seeing update notifications soon!

Among the various improvements, users will see improved camera performance (hopefully a fix for some of the low light problems some users face) and new focus options for video. We’ll also see improved quick access to controls in the notification tray, so no more going to your settings menu to turn WiFi on and off.

The update should roll out auto-magically, but if you’re really impatient, you can start spamming the software update setting throughout the day. Maybe it’ll work for you?

Now HTC… When can we start talking about KitKat updates?

I kid… I kid… But no really when? [Said while doing ‘grabby hands’]

(via AT&T Blog)

Google’s misguided denial of Windows Phone

windows phone microsoft google youtube app somegadgetguyBrand management is critical. You don’t want consumers interacting with services that show your company in a poor light. When you’re a services company like Google, your reputation depends on people having good experiences using apps like GMail and Youtube.

Which is why I find Google’s current strategy of ignoring Windows Phone so interesting. Yes, I understand the official reasoning, you don’t support an OS with so few users until it’s popular enough to force you to support it. Much like how Google NEEDS to be on iOS. Though it’s a somewhat childish corporate tactic ignoring Windows Phone, hoping it’ll just go away.

Unfortunately for Google, Microsoft is the new number three smartphone ecosystem, showing fairly strong growth in Europe, and by buying Nokia they open up an entire market of potential customers around the world. Plenty of markets where low cost Lumias will start to show up against locally-made entry-level Android fare.

We’ve seen Google end support for Exchange which upset how calendar and contact info was synced on Windows 8, and now their current squabble is over Youtube. Google has refused to release any of their own services as apps for Windows Phone. No Voice. No Maps. No Now. No Gmail. No Docs. Nothing. Many of these are being replaced by third party developers, but Youtube was special. Microsoft delivered a pretty decent Youtube app for Windows Phone. Google broke the app by revoking the developer key, citing some conflict that the app wasn’t “fully featured” enough.

Now it would seem that negotiations between Google and Microsoft have broken down even further. Now in its place, the official Windows Phone Youtube app (from Microsoft) is essentially just a web portal, a lame version of the experience you’d have firing up the browser.

And for what? 

You might win some people over to Android by making Google services painful to use on Windows Phone, but you’re equally likely to just piss other people off. For my own personal use, I try to only leave the house with one phone at a time. If I’m reviewing a Windows Phone for the day, what happens? I interact with Google services less. I post on Twitter and Facebook a LOT more than I do on G+. Funny how it works out that way.

And why?

Google doesn’t make money on Android directly. They make money on advertising and mining user data. Ignoring Windows Phone wont make it disappear. Microsoft is perfectly content to lose money building a reputation over years. Yes, you’d be developing for a smaller user base, but why not get that community’s data too?

Much like how Google will be sneaking Chrome OS onto Windows 8 computers,why not infect every Windows Phone with Google apps and services. If you really want to cut Microsoft off at the knees, take users away from HERE maps and Microsoft Office. Offer up better gaming services than the still somewhat lame XBox integration. Google might even be doing some of their hardware partners a favor as Microsoft makes more money per phone on Android patent agreements than it does on Windows Phone 8 licenses.

Let Microsoft do all the heavy lifting getting a device to market. Let them convince people that it’s a solid alternative to the current Apple/Samsung battle. Then take all their users away with software, clouds, and apps. Now’s the time to do it, while Microsoft is a weak third place competitor in the United States. This Trojan Horse style combat becomes harder as Microsoft becomes a stronger third place and consumers realize the Live, HERE maps, and Skype work pretty well…

Google Sneaking Chrome OS onto Windows 8 Computers?

chrome os running on a windows 8 touchscreen hybrid laptop somegadgetguy

So all the hemming and hawing from the Chromebook faithful, that Chrome OS was SO much more than JUST a fancy browser slapped onto low power laptop hardware. It would seem like that’s not entirely true… In a good way…

The newest dev channel update of the Chrome browser for Windows 8 appears to essentially be the entire Chrome OS. When used within the ModernUI interface users have full access to the entire suite. Microsoft opened the door for this by allowing browsers other than IE to interface with the “Metro” ecosystem. Now you can have all the benefits of Google’s cloud OS on your Windows 8 machines. Loading it onto my hybrid also opens up some interesting possibilities. We haven’t seen Chrome OS on a proper slate tablet yet. That’s been Android territory, yet swiveling my Lenovo Twist into slate mode affords me a perfectly usable Chrome OS experience using a combination of Google’s UI and Microsoft’s virtual touch controls and keyboard. It’s kind of meta…

An app launcher at the bottom left gives you access to Chrome app, and Google favorites GMail, Search, Docs, and Youtube are docked at the bottom too. Performance has been solid for me after a couple hours of tooling around, but many are complaining of occasional crashes. Also, if you’re not running a lot of RAM, Windows 8 is very aggressive about shutting down Metro apps if you’re doing a lot of multi-tasking. In all though the experience has been very enjoyable, and updates to browser touch support make Chrome OS on Win8 almost as smooth as Microsoft’s native offerings.

It’s a pretty twisted end run around the traditional PC market. Now legit Chromebooks will face more competition from traditional PC’s in offering up the same OS, but still giving users access to legacy Windows software. This takes any potential risk out of using Chrome OS. Thinking generationally, a user could pick up a Windows Hybrid today, load up this new Chrome Browser, spend all their time in Chrome OS, and by the time they’re ready to shop another system, decide to walk away from Microsoft’s offerings altogether…

As a side note, now would be the time for Google to start unifying their app base. Bringing the variety of Android Apps to Chrome’s ability to handle things like documents and office software could put a serious hurt on Microsoft while they’re trying to unify their UI across all screen sizes.

Plus, Microsoft would have to compete for people’s attention on computers people already purchased. Wow.

Flutter acquired by Google. Kinect-like gestures coming to computers soon?

flutter app google acquired gesture controlYou ever go back and watch Minority Report and laugh that Tom Cruise has to wear weird finger gloves thing to control his magic computer screen? Yeah. We’ve already on top of that.

Taking things a step further, Flutter just announced that they’ve been optioned by Google. Flutter uses the webcam built into your computer or laptop to recognize gestures and movement to control various programs installed on your system. It was a quirky little project trying to pull an end-run around products like the LEAP motion controller which requires a special sensor, instead opting for the cameras we already have.

Now with Google’s influx of cash and talent, we could see much more rapid development of this type of control. Now what remain to be seen is what kind of support Goog will continue for Windows and OSX… Could be a killer app for all those Chromebooks out there…

Flutter Blog: We’ve Been Acquired By Google