If the HTC Status' dedicated Facebook button fell shy of satisfying your obsessive social networking needs, sit tight: the house of Zuckerberg may be building a slab of tech just for you. According to the New York Times Bits blog, those old Facebook phone rumors are making a comeback. A handful of Facebook employees and engineers familiar with the matter reportedly say that the firm is collecting former Apple engineers, specifically, ones that worked on the iPhone and iPad. Like Zuckerberg said, mobile is the company's top focus, and one employee says the man at the top is afraid of getting overlooked in a sea of apps. "Mark is worried that if he doesn't create a mobile phone in the near future that Facebook will simply become an app on other mobile platforms." Facebook has focused on deep integration with other devices for some time, but a dedicated handset could take the freshly public company in new directions. Reports suggest that the rumored device is still in its infancy, and there's no word on form factor or OS, of course. Up for some speculation? Check out the source link below for Bits' full take.
» Read More...
Forget DLNA, that pesky setup requires all of your electronic kit to match up with the same certification. If you want full HDMI-mirroring without the fuss, your go-to's going to be an innocuous little dongle from Dream Chip Technologies. The plain, white xBounds stick links up to your smartphone over WiFi using the outfit's xBeam encoder, transmitting mobile content via HDMI to an HDTV set or external monitor. Games and videos streamed to the big screen will also enjoy output in a higher resolution thanks to the company's xBounds ReMatch tech. But all of this ease of use comes at a price, as the RemoteGPU device is purported to cost €99 (about $134), with the full-on dev kit (which includes a Nexus S) ringing in at €998 (about $1,350). There's no word yet on an official release, so you'll just have to make due with the video after the break.
» Read More...
We have already seen Ubuntu working on tablets and smartphones, however not in any official capacity. Rumors had it that Canonical can be making a severe push into the pill space in early 2011, but that effort by no means materialized, or at the least was by no means acknowledged. Nonetheless, Unity has some finger-pleasant streaks and Oneiric added ARM help -- so it is not much of a stretch to see the favored Linux distro on your cellular devices. Well, on the Ubuntu Developer Summit, Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth made that move official by issuing a problem to the Ubuntu group to start out pushing past the traditional PC type factor. Few details were given, but Shuttleworth did say that he believes the time is true for the OS to begin making strikes into the tablet, telephone, in-dash infotainment and good TV spaces. There have been no products to announce, but Shuttleworth was confident the OS could be prepared and in transport client electronics by the point version 14.04 arrived in April of 2014. Although, we're sure some prototypes will start displaying up sooner slightly than later.
» Read More...
