Google + Social Networking Service System

YOUR spectre is haunting your technology industry. It is known as "electric wok syndrome" plus it mainly afflicts engineers and people who invest in their fantasies. The condition takes its name from that experts claim nobody in his and also her right mind would want a wok. But because you possibly can make such things, there're manufactured, regardless of regardless of whether there is a dependence on them. The syndrome is thus characterised with the mantra: "Technology is the result; now what was of which question again? "
Way back when two weeks have viewed a virulent outbreak belonging to the syndrome. It was triggered by simply Google's limited release of your new "service" called Google+ which was widely interpreted because search giant's first serious foray into social network . Initially available by invitation only to some select group of geeks and also early adopters (which wouldn't at first include that columnist), it has been the supply of frenzied speculation in the particular blogosphere, not least as it implied that Google was finally planning to take on this 800lb gorilla of social media, Facebook.
In its "limited industry test" form, Google+ features five components: Circles, Hangouts, Instantaneous Upload, Huddle and Sets off. The blurb explains that Circles enables you to assign your friends in an arbitrary lots of "circles" – family, acquaintances, poker buddies etc – "just including real life". Hangouts brings "the unplanned meet-up into the web for initially. Let specific buddies (or total circles) know you're chilling with your girls and see who drops by for your face-to-face chat". It can be, apparently, "the next very best thing until teleportation arrives". (I am not causeing the up. ) Instant Upload is the reason why your pictures and videos upload automatically with a private album, ready to get sharing. Huddle is class text-chat, which apparently will be handy "when you're getting six different people to determine on a movie". And Sparks is any recordings RSS feed on anabolic steroids. "Tell Sparks what you're into but it will send you stuff it thinks you might like. "
To read many of the excited commentary on these innovations you'd believe teleportation had actually appeared. Watching people salivate around Circles and, er, Hangouts helps you to explain how the historic Egyptians came to worship a great insect. It also reminds one of several astonishing power that large corporations possess to build a reality-distortion field about them which, among other pursuits, disables the capacity to think that these organisations may well sometimes do very absurd things indeed. There was a period, for example, when Microsoft's every move was greeted when using the hushed reverence with which in turn devout Catholics greet papal utterances. Grown up men swoon whenever Steve Work opportunities appears in public. And it's not that sometime ago since Google launched it is incomprehensible "Wave" service (now defunct) as well as an idiotic venture labeled "Buzz" – things in which excited geeks but left the remaining portion of the world unmoved.
So the question du jour is whether Google+ is surely an electric wok or not really. Initial reactions suggest it is. First of most of, it's engagingly flaky making sure that even simple tasks like setting up a individual profile are formidably hard, as my Guardian friend Charles Arthur reported with his hilarious, and admirably acerbic, review whereby he describes his attempts to generate a profile and publish a photograph. "If Yahoo were a start-up, " he or she concluded, "it would possess lost precisely 99. 999% of each and every would-be joiner. Getting photos uploaded will be the most fundamental thing you should be able to do as well as every start-up knows the item. " He's right: geeks along with early adopters revel throughout difficulty; ordinary users abominate them. They like stuff of which just works.
Charles Arthur's experience is on no account unique. What it suggests is Google+ is what application people call a "closed beta" – ie a release that is definitely OK for techies however is not suitable for normal individuals. And that's fine. It is going to improve over time. Though the thing about social networking usually it's now a zero-sum game since it depends on a really scarce resource – their users' time and consideration. Facebook's users already spend lots of time on the site, time that probably will not available to Google+, it doesn't matter how slick its photo-upload practice becomes.
Which is a new pity, because Facebook requires some real competition. This morning, it announced some brand-new features that look suspiciously similar to bits of Google +. But it let slip it has reached 750 zillion users. It's beginning to take a look like the winner this took all. Oh, and if you want an electric wok, you can aquire one out of Amazon. It even has a tempura rack and some sort of spatula.

New designer craze for Headphones

It seems like only yesterday that hooking Apple's white flex into your ears was just about the coolest thing that anyone could do on public transport. Today those little earbuds give out a different message, however. Sure you've got an iPod, they say, but you don't know anything about fashion or music. Because – as you may have noticed if you've seen any footballer getting on to a team bus recently – those who can afford it buy designer headphones these days.

"Now that digital music is so firmly established and growing," HMV's head of technology Ewan Pinder explains, "many consumers are becoming increasingly aware that to fully appreciate and enjoy the music via this new channel you also need to be able to listen to it in the sound quality intended by the studios."

So seriously does HMV take the trend, in fact, that the tottering high-street music chain now puts designer headphones at the heart of its revival plans. Currently, the company lists 146 different kinds on its website, and last week chief executive Simon Fox announced that 25% of floor space would soon be given over to electronic devices, citing the headphone market alone as being worth around £150m. In the US, the trend is strongly upward too, with sales increasing 30% in value between 2009 and 2010. The average amount spent on a headphone sale in the UK is £15, but this figure too is rising.

As these things go, the headphones craze is actually quite rational. If you can afford to carry round a £400 smartphone filled with £500 worth of music, then it does seem like a false economy to listen to it with the cheap, hissy earphones that fell out of the box. Better headphones also tend to leak less, which your fellow passengers will be grateful for. And there is some evidence that, by blocking out external noise more effectively, they also dissuade users from turning the volume up too high, which may protect their hearing in the long term.

Even so, this has mostly been a fashion thing, especially since celebrities got involved. The big beast here is Dr Dre, who released his Beats range in 2008, in partnership with the electronics firm Monster. Retailing for anything up to £449, these headphones have been worn by international stars such as Thierry Henry, Wayne Rooney and, less convincingly, the Tory spin doctor Craig Oliver. New lines endorsed by Lady Gaga, P Diddy and Justin Bieber have subsequently been added to the Beats range. And now Ludacris, 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg, with different companies, have also got in on the act.

"Certainly in the last 12 months, people have been looking for a fashion product that sounds good," says Linda Irvin, product manager at Sennheiser, which has recently launched its own range with Adidas. "There's also been a trend towards larger-sized headphones, which means you have more opportunity to introduce colour, lifestyle and fashion into a product." In part, this has meant designing headphones specially to look good when they are not being used. "It's an urban street trend to wear them not plugged in, but loose around the neck," Irvin explains. Just don't do it, I'd advise, with anything from Justin Bieber's purple Just Beats range.

Huawei Ideos Tablet S7 Product Review

Stab, stab, stab. Stab, stab, stab. No, that's not me trying to stab my own eyes out in frustration, nor me plunging a kitchen implement into whoever chucked together the Huawei Ideos Tablet S7, but me trying to get the touchscreen first to register my taps and second to respond to them.

But wait! It's a resistive screen, not a capacitive one. So what you actually need is the stylus tucked away around the back of the device.

But it's a horrible little stylus, made of brittle plastic that you'll either break or lose within a few days, at which point you'll go back to stabbing the tablet with your fingers. Which sort of works, but will drive you crazy. And surely the whole point of a tablet is that you use your fingers? Styluses are – or should be – implements of history.

Every tech company and its dog is churning out tablets at the moment and the range is baffling. What this means is that some poor unsuspecting tablet-shopper who doesn't have enough money for an iPad or a Samsung Galaxy might think that this tablet, which you can find online for around £250, is a viable alternative.

It's not. Save up for an iPad, the Galaxy or the upcoming Motorola Xoom, which will run Honeycomb, the version of Android properly optimised for tablets. This one is a collection of compromises. The size is OK – it's seven inches, which fits neatly into the hands. But it feels heavy and not particularly portable: at 500 grammes, it's weightier than the Galaxy (380 grammes), and not a lot lighter than the bigger iPad (730 grammes). And it's thicker than the bigger iPad.

The screen is reasonably bright, but is lacking in punch and is low on the pixel count at 800x480.

One of the reasons the price is so low is that there's no onboard storage – you have to add a Micro SD card to take pictures or even to read the user manual, as the app to launch it, Documents to Go, requires that SD card.

It's an Android tab, but it's only running 2.1, so there's no Flash.

I'm not a fan of Android at the best of times, but this device, with its Fisher Price-like icons and clunky interface, will try the patience of even the most devoted Android-lover.

I was constantly distracted by the flashing "i" in the top right-hand corner, worrying that it was warning me about something. Turns out that all it's doing is telling you that it's running several apps at once – which you should really avoid doing, as the 768MHz processor struggles to cope.

Connectivity-wise, it's OK, with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and there's space for a sim card too, but it struggled to hold on to my home Wi-Fi network. It comes with a mini-USB cable, but that won't charge it – it requires its own proprietary charger. And you'll need to keep that charger handy – battery life is a problem with this tablet, with many users reporting only about two and a half hours of juice. That is surely the dealbreaker: a tablet should be a device you want to take out and about with you and have it keep going throughout your commute to work, your working day and then your journey home. This one just doesn't cut it, not on that front, nor any other. It's not cheap and cheerful, it's cheap and a bit nasty.

Samsung Overcome 4G redefines the connection level Android smartphone, falls TouchWiz

There’s nothing we love greater than a vanilla build of Bot, especially when it’s Robot Gingerbread. Samsung has silently announced ‘Conquer 4G’, its new entry grade Android smartphone destined to get a US release on Sprint’s 4G WiMax system.

When you hear gain access to level and Android utilised in the same sentence, one more thing you’d expect to hear is usually a 1 GHz processor. Surprisingly that’s exactly what’s inside Conquer 4G, along using a 3. 5-inch HVGA file size touchscreen, 3. 2-megapixel digicam, 1. 3-megapixel front confronting camera and Tri-band CDMA help support.

Sure, the Samsung Conquer 4G pales when compared with the HTC EVO STILL RENDERS, but in terms belonging to the entry or even core level market, the machine raises the bar. Would you have thought that a new 1 GHz smartphone with dual cameras along with a 3. 5-inch touchscreen screen would become the cell phone baseline in 2011?

No word on whether or not we’ll see a 4G-less GSM model ship out to the remaining world just yet. Hopefully other manufacturers take serious notice and ship all lower and mid-range Android cell phones with vanilla builds regarding Android Gingerbread.

HTC Desire Product review

HTC Drive review

HTC, with these kinds of smart phones, you usually are really spoiling us. Besides did you tempt us while using drool-worthy Legend, you've followed it up when using the stunning Desire. With an enormous screen and speedy brand, the Desire definitely lives approximately its name, and possibly trumps its Google-branded full, the Nexus One.

The Desire comes free using a two-year, £30-per-month contract, or you can get it SIM-free for around £400.

Off white and gorgeous
The Want is pure gadget sauciness twisted in an unassuming deal. Like its twin, the actual Nexus One, the Desire's look and feel gives little indication involving its powerful 1GHz Snapdragon one or its seemingly almost endless pool of features. On the exterior, it's just modest, dim grey plastic, although there are a number of design tweaks that set it as well as the Nexus One.

HTC, along with these smart phones, you will be really spoiling us. Besides did you tempt us while using drool-worthy Legend, you've followed it up when using the stunning Desire. With an enormous screen and speedy brand, the Desire definitely lives approximately its name, and possibly trumps its Google-branded full, the Nexus One.

The Desire comes free using a two-year, £30-per-month contract, or you can get it SIM-free for around £400.

Off white and gorgeous
The Want is pure gadget sauciness twisted in an unassuming deal. Like its twin, the actual Nexus One, the Desire's look and feel gives little indication involving its powerful 1GHz Snapdragon one or its seemingly almost endless pool of features. On the exterior, it's just modest, dim grey plastic, although there are a number of design tweaks that set it as well as the Nexus One.

As an example, the Desire has any built-in back-up app that may save your data on to your SD card, and a program to assist you to sync your music and photos along with your PC over a USB cable television. It's possible to do almost all these things with bog-standard Bot and free apps in the Android Market, but HTC has managed to get easier for those among us who don't might like to do any of the legwork.

The actual downside of Sense, for those of us who do love to geek out at times, is that it's tougher for HTC to update the Desire while using latest version of Robot, since Sense has being updated and tested as well. This means that phones such as the Nexus One, which manage un-modified versions of Google android, may get upgraded more speedily.

Sense also includes numerous fun home-screen widgets, including an innovative Friend Stream widget that includes Facebook updates and twitter updates into one live mode. It's a good thought, but it didn't remain up-to-date during our exams, and tapping a twitter opens the Twitter app without jumping fot it particular message. We also had difficulty the widget that demonstrated our favourite contacts -- it appeared to drop certain people with the list occasionally. Only we're allowed to undertake that.

The Desire now offers an excellent address ebook that pulls in acquaintances and photos from View, Facebook, Gmail and Stumbleupon. Organising any duplicates may be a breeze. We particularly like that experts claim you can hide that contacts from each bill, such as those boring work folks in the Outlook address book, but still have them synced onto the item, just in case an individual ever need them. Only if the Desire also merged Perspective email and our additional email accounts into one particular inbox. Annoyingly, these usually are handled in two distinct apps, although the viral marketing themselves are excellent.

Despite many of the widgets needing polish, we could big fans of Good sense overall, and you can always do away with the widgets you dislike and download more with the Android Market. The Android Market isn't too organised as the apple iphone App Store, but no less than plenty of the greatest stuff is free.

Movie-maker
The actual Desire's 5-megapixel camera requires decent shots in very good light, and the CONTRIBUTED photo light is helpful when it's dark, although it is usually quite harsh. We were particularly impressed while using Desire's video-recording capability -- lower light and changes within lighting are handled adequately.

The camera is fast to get started on, with hardly any shutter lag. Additionally , it writes speedily to the actual microSD card. These facts are all testament for the phone's muscle-bound processor as well as 512MB of RAM. Please note, however, that Android phones can reduce significantly once you've got many apps running on them -- it is the curse of multi-tasking -- however we had no problems with our fresh-from-the-oven Want.

Dreamy screen makes all of us scream
With a 94mm (3. 7-inch) display screen sporting a 480x800-pixel res, the Desire is a fantastic choice for multimedia junkies. As opposed to the iPhone, it will play Flash from the Web browser, and that supports 3GP, 3G2, MP4 along with WMV video files.

The microSD card is often filled with up to be able to 32GB of movie miraculous, and HSPA connectivity retains your YouTube flicks internet fast over 3G, even though the on-board Wi-Fi is possibly faster. A standard A FEW. 5mm headphone jack models out the media enjoyment.

The Desire's stunningly well lit and vivid AMOLED display screen definitely has wow thing but, now that that sun's out again, our relationship with AMOLED is switching sour. Indoors, the screen's perfection is blindingly impressive, though the display is almost impossible to determine in sunlight.

Web sorcerer
The huge screen helps make Web surfing a enjoyment, and the Desire's browser has become the best we've used. It's not only insanely fast, HTC has tweaked standard Android browser to allow it to become easier to use in addition to better-looking.

Flash support helps to ensure that pages look just when they should, and the browser is usually almost fast enough to learn Flash movies, although navigation elements fare significantly better. It's also got multi-touch the lens quality capability, so zooming in on pages may be a fast and instinctive expertise. The browser also does a superb job of automatically driving in on and reformatting text once you double tap the display, which means pages quickly get themselves right into a state in which they are easy to read.

But all this power comes with a cost. Like many clever phones, the Desire's battery lifestyle is diabolical -- in reality, it's even worse approach Legend's. Expect to charge it daily, especially if you frequently develop live widgets and Web-surfing capabilities.

Conclusion
Offering speed, style and every feature under the sun's rays, is the HTC Desire the right phone? Not quite -- it isn't as sexy-looking as that Legend, and Android holds clunkier and geekier approach iPhone operating system. However, if you can discover how to love Android's geek fashionable, the Desire is a phone that does compromise. The list of things we love concerning this is longer than the arm, and our grievances are mere quibbles. Entire, we're definitely feeling the actual Desire.

Study: Smartphone purchases on your rise

During the past 11 weeks, more consumers purchased a smartphone than the usual traditional cellphone, says a new survey conducted by Nielsen.

Between March and may even of this year, 55% of people who participated in the review say they bought the smartphone. That's up coming from 34% from 2010.

All round, 38% of U. VERTISEMENTS. consumers own a smart dataphone.

Android remains the dominant operating-system, finds Nielsen, with some sort of 38% share. The Google smartphone OS is with Apple's iOS at 27% as well as BlackBerry at 21%.

Then again, Nielsen says Apple offers shown the most growth during the last three months among recently available smartphone buyers, up 7%.

Find photos of: Google Inc, The apple company

HTC lab tests Android 2.3 about Desire, as Three produces Gingerbread to Desire HD

HTC's testing Android 2.3 Gingerbread on the particular Desire. The news occurs via a status revise on HTC's official Squidoo page, and means Desire owners hungry for many warm, cakey Gingerbread might not exactly have long to hold out.

HTC had declared so it wouldn't bring Gingerbread on the Desire, but just several hours later it backtracked, nevertheless the hugely popular smartphone would in fact be receiving the latest, greatest version of Google's mobile operating-system.

The original reason presented for not bringing Gingerbread on the Desire was that the item wouldn't have enough memory to take care of both the 2. 3 update and HTC's Sense gui. We're desperately hoping of which updating to Gingerbread won't cause our Aspire to spontaneously combust.

In some other 'droid news, if you have the Desire HD in Three, you'll shortly be offered the danger to update to Robot 2. 3 Gingerbread by an over-the-air update. The actual network announced the rollout with Twitter.

Gingerbread isn't an extensive upgrade from Android 2.2 Froyo, but adds a number of interface tweaks, and support for video calling having a front-facing camera.

More notable, though, continued updates show that the manufacturer isn't ready that will abandon a phone still. We were pretty miffed at the thought of HTC halting updates with the Desire when it's only about per annum old.

Are you champing with the bit for a bit of sweet, sweet Gingerbread? Or will you be more interested in Its polar environment Cream Sandwich? Let us know within the comments section below or even on our Facebook site.

Samsung sues Apple company after accusations of duplicating

The patent lawsuits, archived in South Korea, Asia and Germany, involve infringement of around five patents, Samsung said in the statement.

Apple filed any lawsuit against Samsung continue Friday for violating it is patents.

It is modern patent dispute in a increasingly competitive industry.

Rivalry intesifies

"Samsung is responding actively towards the legal action taken against us so that they can protect our intellectual home, " the statement reported.

South Korea's Samsung belongs to the fastest-growing smartphone makers while in the telecommunications industry.

Its Galaxy distinct smartphones and tablet pcs, which use Google's Android main system, have emerged as the most notable competitors so far for you to Apple's iPhone and iPad.

Nonetheless, Samsung is also considered one of Apple's main suppliers of components for example chips and LCD units.

The legal battle can therefore hurt the revenue of both companies because strong sales of Apple's apple company iphone and iPad mean put in revenue for Samsung.

Samsung seeks ban for sale of key Apple solutions in USA

Samsung would like to stop iPhone, iPad and iPod styles being imported and sold the united states.

The two companies are actually involved in a authorized tussle, accusing each additional of copying designs in addition to technology.

Apple produces that best-selling smartphones and product PCs.

"Samsung will vigorously secure our intellectual property to guard our role as any leader and innovator within the mobile communication business so that they can better serve our clients, " Samsung said in the statement.

Ongoing tussle
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I can't wow Samsung will succeed within getting Apple's products banished from being sold”
Conclude Quote
Tim Charlton

Charlton Storage devices
The success of the iPhone and also the iPad saw many rival companies construct similar products in an make an effort to capture a share on the fast-growing market.

Samsung electronics tasted success while using launch of its Galaxy series within the smartphone and tablet LAPTOP category.

However, earlier this holiday season Apple sued Samsung, accusing the business of "slavishly" copying the designs.

Apple's claims centered on Galaxy's design features, like the look of its filter icons.

Samsung said its products were the consequence of research and development performed by the company.

But in surprise twist to the suitable tussle, days later Samsung archived suits against Apple within three countries accusing it's rival of infringing the patents.

Analysts said the particular legal wrangling was a unnecessary headache for both equally firms.

"I can't wow Samsung will get Apple's solutions banned from being distributed, " said Tim Charlton connected with Charlton Media.

"Similarly, it's going to be very difficulty for a judge to choose how a company's products must be designed, " he included, explaining that Apple is probably not able to dictate precisely how Samsung's gadgets should appearance.

Inter-dependence

Despite the legitimate claims and counter cases, the two companies remain influenced by each other.

Samsung provides microchips for Apple's products and also the California-based company is also key client for any Korean manufacturer, with business between the 2 main totalling $5. 7bn (£3. 5bn) completely.

Analysts said that however the legal tussle may sour relations between both, it was unlikely them to would stop dealing amongst each other.

"I think they might be pragmatic, " said Mister Charlton.

"At the end on the day, Apple will find themselves buying microchips from the supplier nobody can give them the greatest at the best fees, " he said.

Nonetheless, given the volume associated with microchips that Apple purchases, it is highly unlikely the organization would have many alternate suppliers, he added.

What are the best iPhone cycling satnav apps?

One of the main attractions of an iPhone, for me, was the thought of using it as a cycling satnav. First, I found the piece of kit I needed – an iPhone bike-mount, which holds the handset in a kind of plastic vice – at a price I liked: £20 on eBay. The whole lot then clips firmly on to a mounting on the handlebars, padded to protect everything against vibration. It still takes a bit of a battering on bumpy roads, but so far my phone seems to have emerged unscathed.

The next issue was which app I was going to use. You could make do with the inbuilt Google maps, but following that little blue dot while coping with traffic isn't really feasible, so I bought the £19. 99 CoPilot Live app over the more high-profile £49. 99 TomTom. It works pretty well, with a clear 3D display which is easy to see, even in bright sunlight. There's a cycle mode, which is pretty savvy about cycle paths and bike shortcuts. In theory you can even tell it to avoid main roads, although it doesn't seem to make a lot of difference for journeys around central London. You can search for your destination using postcodes, addresses or via the map, and there's also a pretty comprehensive list of major landmarks.

Oh for a rotation lock, though! When you're throwing your bike around, the display does flip upside down, which is enraging. And it does pick some pretty eccentric routes, displaying a particular penchant for touring south London council estates. (I've heard, anecdotally, that the TomTom's algorithm for route-planning is better. ) It's also a bit on the sluggish side – although that may be because I'm using a geriatric iPhone 3G – which can present something of a problem on winding backstreets. And of course, the first sign of rain and the whole game is off.

More recently, I've been using Fullpower-MotionX's simpler MotionX app, which gives you a compass and an arrow pointing in the direction of your destination, with the cyclist deciding the actual route. If you want a bit more freedom and you're not in a particular hurry, it's a great alternative.

Given satnav companies' obsession with keeping motorists up to date on, say, speed cameras, it would be nice to see a few more bike-friendly options. How about telling us where the nearest set of racks to our destination are, for example? Or maybe a directory of cycle shops and repair centres?

What are your tips and tricks for urban satnaving? And what features would you like to see on the next generation of apps?

• This article was amended on 28 June. The original version mistakenly said that Garmin manufactures the MotionX app. This has now been corrected.