Couldn't make it out to Berlin for Samsung's Unpacked event? No worries -- Sammy has re-packed its deluge of tablets, phones and Android-powered cameras for your viewing pleasure. Go ahead and relive Sammy's self-proclaimed magic at the outfit's Facebook page or with the embedded video after the break.
Would a Series 5 Slate be just as sweet under any other name? We've already got hands-on with the ATIV Smart PC Pro (called the Series 7 Slate in the US) and now we're going to show you the wonder that is the ATIV Smart PC -- aka, the Series 5 Slate on this side of the Atlantic. And what can we say? It's a lot like the Series 7 we checked out, though this guy is of course a smidge thinner and lighter, given the fanless design and inclusion of an Atom-based Clover Trail processor instead of something in the Ivy Bridge family.
Another difference: that 11.6 inch display. It's still bright, of course, but the resolution is a lower 1,366 x 768, as opposed to the 1080p panel used in the Series 7 / Smart PC Pro. That caveat aside, the Series 5 / Smart PC is still pretty sexy, with that vibrant display and brushed metal back -- though, as mentioned in our hands-on with the dock, that beauty clashes a bit with the relative cheapness of the keyboard.
As you may have read, the two slates also have stylus slots, though the S Pen was nowhere in sight during our demo -- perhaps to keep it out of the hands of sneaky bloggers. In the meantime, we've got some hands-on photos, but we encourage you to refer back to our Series 7 / Smart PC Pro hands-on to compare the designs, and get a better feel for the custom apps Samsung has bundled.
Right on cue, Google has launched in-app payment support for Android applications. Developer testing began last week, and now many popular apps -- like the ones pictured above -- can begin charging users for add-on functionality, content, or whatever the heck else they feel is worthy of additional bits of your pocket change. If you were wondering, Google will take the same 30% cut that Apple takes from in-app purchases. At last we can buy individual issues in Comics with minimal fuss!
It's not as specific as we're guessing some would like, but Samsung confirmed during its IFA 2012 keynote today that a Jelly Bean update is coming to both the Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note 10.1 "very soon." That is at least a bit more encouraging than the "later this year" that we last heard for the Note 10.1, and follows a leak of an official GS3 Jelly Bean build earlier this month. The original Galaxy Note wasn't specifically mentioned on stage, but it did make an appearance on the company's Jelly Bean slide, so we'd assume an update for it is coming as well, if not necessarily "very soon."
Not content with limiting its dominance in streaming uploaded videos, YouTube is now ready to take on competitors like Justin.TV and Ustream. The new YouTube Live service is being rolled out to select YouTube partners and will enable real-time broadcasting. In its official announcement, Google states that "The goal is to provide thousands of partners with the capability to live stream from their channels in the months ahead." You can check out live broadcasts at http://www.youtube.com/live, where you'll also find a schedule of upcoming episodes from beta partners like Revision3 and Destructoid. You're also able to subscribe to YouTube Live broadcasts -- which will ensure you're notified when a new episode is coming up.
You'll be forgiven for not paying too much attention to IFA, a giant tech conference taking place this week in Berlin. There have been some fine spectacles so far—84-inch, 4k TV anyone?—but for the most part, you're not missing much. More »
Our Mobile Nations sibling sites, Android Central, and WPCentral are live at IFA 2012 in Berlin, Germany, and since Apple doesn't attend any shows but their own -- expected on September, 12, of course -- that leaves the stage wide open to companies like Sony and Samsung to show off new Xperia T, Galaxy Note 2, Ativ-S, and other devices. Here's what we've seen so far...
As we've seen in previous leaks, [the Xperia T] runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich with an upgrade to Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean shortly after launch. It also has a 720p display, 13MP camera and built-in NFC along with a 1.5GHz dual core processor
The Xperia V will be coming with LTE connectivity and NFC that allows for interaction with a wide array of upcoming Sony accessories. A 13MP camera will allow for HD video recording while the 1.5GHz dual core processor will keep Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich going until it gets upgraded to Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean and if that's not enough, it's also water and dust resistant.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 2, meanwhile, continues to blur the line between Smartphone and Tablet, but is mostly a way to get Wacom's advanced, pen-based digitizing technology into a highly mobile product. Richard Devine got his hands on it:
The Note 2 has a 5.5 inch HD SuperAMOLED 16:9 display at 1280x720, a 1.6GHz Exynos quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM and 16, 32 or 64GB of storage. Powering the whole show is a pretty sizeable 3100mAh battery, and we also get NFC and Samsung's latest Touchwix Nature UX based on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. At only 9.4mm thick and weighing in at 180g the Note 2 doesn't feel as large in the hand as its massive screen would possibly lead you to believe. The overall design of the Note 2 lends very much from the smaller Galaxy S 3, which in turn sets it apart from the 2011 Galaxy Note.
Samsung also announced the first Windows Phone 8 phone, the imaginatively named Windows Phone 8 Ativ-S. Ativ is Vita spelled backwards. Vita is Sony's handheld gaming console. So... maybe they should have gone with Efil? And hey, at least it's, um, bigger than an iPhone 3G, right?
And then there's the Samsung Galaxy Camera, which is an altogether new, if not unexpected beast. Richard Devine gave it the once over:
We shouldn't forget that this is a camera powered by Android, and not an out and out Android device. Samsung has put their latest version of the Touchwiz Nature UX on there, based on Android 4.1. Yes, that's right, this is a camera running Jelly Bean. The possibilities with a connected camera are pretty exciting, and we're seeing the start of a whole new category of devices.
Of course, image quality remains to be seen. However, with a 16-megapixel sensor and 20X optical zoom, Samsung looks to have created a compelling alternative to smartphone cameras for those looking to graduate from the world of smartphone photography.
Android Central and WPCentral will be live at IFA 2012 all week, so check back with them often for all the latest hot phone stuff that ain't Apple...
Color, the $41-million-in-funding location-oriented photo sharing startup, is susceptible to simple GPS spoofing. With nothing more than a jailbroken iPad or iPhone, you can use FakeLocation to trick Color into thinking you're somewhere else. Within seconds you can be browsing photos that were snapped thousands of miles away. With a little digging, you can pore through photos not intended for your eyes. Of course, such a hack isn't illegal as such -- every photo you take with Color is public. With FakeLocation you are simply circumventing Color's very limited location-oriented security mechanism. It does undermine Color's usefulness (and uniqueness), though -- if nefarious types can sit in their bedroom or basement and eavesdrop on classy dinner parties and wild night club soirees, people might be less inclined to share personal photos with those around them. Fortunately, both for Color and its users, this is an easy security hole to plug -- at least in the short term. The app (or server-side) code simply checks to see if the user has 'teleported' an impossibly large distance, without any intermediate steps in between. In the long term, though, Color's users must be aware that its social graph is completely public. Color's users must realize that every photo they upload is visible by anyone, from any place. After the break, just to elucidate a little on Color's actual business model and ultimate intention, we have two amazing quotes from Bill Nguyen, Color's founder.