This is a tablet we’d actually want — that’s right, consumers could really want this. It’s Sony’s just-announced XPERIA Tablet Z, a 6.9mm thin, dustproof and waterproof at 495g heavy Android 4.1 tablet with Sony’s own design customizations.
On top of that, there’s the latest hardware around: a Qualcomm 1.5GHz quad-core APQ8064 processor, 2GB RAM, 32GB storage, a 10.1-inch 1,920 x 1,200 screen (with Mobile Bravia Engine 2), a sweet 8.1-megapixel Exmor R camera, NFC, 4G LTE (on a MDM9215M radio), microSD expansion and Sony’s very own “S-Force” virtual surround sound technology tags along for the ride.
It’ll come in black and white, with an as of yet unannounced price or release date. But hey, it’s thinner than the iPad mini at 7.2mm. That’s one hot talbet, Sony!
Microsoft has done something that might just boost its design popularity — hiring a designer. It’s not any old designer, oh no sir, it’s Andrew Kim. He’s the guy that made a long list of concepts of what Microsoft should be with its brand image in order to remain a vision of the future, rather than the present. His designs were nothing short of awesome, so it turns out Microsoft has hired him. As he goes on to say:
It may be dry, but it once contained water. That’s the general consensus with the recent discovery. In a ”striking upper part of the Reull Vallis region of Mars,” which reveal a 932-mile-long (1500 kilometer) river running from the Promethei Terra Highlands to the vast Hellas basin, once existed a riverbed that was 4.3 miles (7 kilometers) wide and 984 feet (300 meters) deep. It turns out that Mars very much was like our planet Earth (in this regard).
The promised Android 4.1 update is finally, finally coming through over-the-air (OTA) updates to the Galaxy Note 10.1 and Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 tablets. The Note 10.1 users get the best part of the Jelly Bean update, with Air View’s hover-to-peek functionality, Quick Command shortcuts and the ability to clip content, as well as the Cascade View to see more than two apps at the same time. It’s about time Samsung got this out; PR after the break.
Instagram hasn’t been very open about statistics ever since the Terms of Service scandal involving mostly misinformed or scared (for not much) people. According to the retro photo filtering app company (now owned by Facebook), Instagram has 90 million users that are responsible for 40 million photos per day, with 8,500 likes per second and 1,000 comments per second. All of these stats are new and (technically speaking) are the best Instagram has ever reported. Well noted, indeed.
Talk about cozy. 300 homes in South Korea already have purchased an 84-inch, 4K Ultra HD TV from LG, each with the cost of $20.000. The weird part of the situation is that LG (and mostly everyone else) don’t even have 4K content ready for viewing. Nevertheless, it didn’t stop these people from getting ahead of the game and being early-adopters. It is worth noting however that if there’s an interest, producers will start to upscale their content to 4K (literally 4x the quality of HD) and prices of UHD TVs will start to go down, allowing for the new technology to be the new regular TV.
Word comes from the The Wrap that PBS is slated to air the very first TED Talk produced for TV on April 16th, featuring Microsoft’s co-founder, Bill Gates. Alongside the computer, business and philanthropic legend, educators Geoffrey Canada and Sir Ken Robinson will also be present during the televised TED Talk. The actual recording of the session is slated towards the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Harvey Theater on April 4th. No word on ticket availability, but it’s something to look out for.
In short, Graph Search is a search tool created by Facebook and Microsoft to search for very specific things. Like, for example, as Mark Zuckerberg put it, “Who are my friends in San Francisco?”. Graph Search allows you to find the very specific things in an area where your friends reside, in such a way that it makes it easy to find places or things that your friends like or are in the vicinity of. It’s a discovery engine, powered by Bing results, basically. It’s also privacy-aware, with Facebook applying 10% of its computing power towards the concealment of your privacy.
