Android Smartphone's Dominate World Market (Phone Sales Q3 2013)

Global smartphone shipments reached 251.4 million units in Q3 2013, up 45 percent from 172.8 million units in Q3 2012. Breaking those numbers down:

• Google’s Android secured a whopping 81.3 percent global share
• Apple’s iOS fell to 13.4 percent
• Windows Phone took third with 4.1 percent.

The majority of growth came from robust demand for Android and Windows Phone models in developed and developing markets, notably Europe and Asia. Here’s the full breakdown for annual growth:

By Emil Protalinski

Sexiest iWatch Concept

First of all, I am not into physical product design at all - so please be kind (I know it looks basically like the bastard child of a Fuel Band and an iPhone)

After several weeks with my new fuel band and a quiet disappointing revamp last week it got me thinking what functions I would love to see in a so called "smart watch" like this - not that many actually.

But I really liked the idea of wrapping the Interface around the wrist and have something like the click wheel rotating around my arm. The main problem is, I love the form-factor of the fuel band but would it be practical to read more text than "GOAL" or even interact with it? If the possibilities are just swipe and tap I'm sure it's possible but a watch has to be something that people like to use and I am not quiet convinced if this would be the fact.

But what we've seen so far is either ugly or stupid or both - and the conclusions going to be: smart watches are just pricy unnecessary gimmicks, until "somebody" will teach us better :)

by Thomas Bogner

 

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New LG Smartphone - G Flex with Curved Screen technology

 

LG has announced it's latest smartphone which will be named G Flex and will feature a curved screen. As you can see from these images, the handset will be sleek, curved and with a 6-inch display, quite large.

 

Specs, availability and pricing are not yet available which might be an indicator that this device will probably have some major changes before it is released or, as has happened before, might not even make it on store shelves.

 

Will you be supporting this design and technology when it arrives?

Nexus 5 Leaked Image, Android 4.4 Kit Kat and Internal Service Manual

Android Police has reported on a document that presents itself as a draft internal Service Manual for the Nexus 5 (LG-D821) — revealing a:

• 4.95 inch Nexus device
• 1080p display
• Snapdragon 800 processor
• Android 4.4 KitKat
• 2300mAh battery
• 2GB RAM of memory
• 32GB internal storage
• 8-megapixel rear camera
• 1.3 megapixel front camera.

Take a look at the whole 281-page document below.

Document removed due to copyright infringement  

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First Look: Amazon's 3D Smartphone

Amazon is working on devices with an eye/head movement tracking 3D user interface, and has been at it for at least 5 years.

Code Name "Smith"

Amazon filed quite a few patent applications at the U.S Patent and Trademark Office describing their 3D user interface ideas, and a lot of them talk about things we are now hearing about: device with a camera on each corner, eye and head movement tracking, adjusting user interface elements based on viewing angle, etc.

Those four front-cameras that Kindle smartphone should come equipped with? It seems that they are not really necessary to make Amazon’s faux-3D smartphone UI work. One, or at most two cameras should be plenty enough to accomplish the movement tracking task. Instead they are needed for Amazon’s Kinect like touch-less input gesture user interface.

If the ideas from this patent app make it into the commercial release, you should be able to operate your Kindle Phone by hovering your finger and making various gestures above the device, without touching it. But following your finger movement and hand gestures requires much more detailed resolution and precision, than just figuring out your viewing angle. That’s where 4 front-cameras come into play.

Why would you need such a thing for a smartphone or tablet? Touch works just fine? Yep, multi-touch works great on a 2D UI’s of today. But to effectively navigate through the 3D interfaces, you also need the depth dimension. And that’s what Amazon’s multi-dimensional input UI is all about.

Another smartphone feature that Amazon has been working on for a while now, is constant awareness and user tracking. A bit similar to Moto X's constant voice command monitoring for Google Now integration. But also able to track your whereabouts in the room through device cameras, and always ready for your voice or gesture commands. It’s described in some detail in these patent apps: App 1, App 2.

And why would Amazon go through all this trouble with their own smartphone? Well, to better integrate its services and sell you more stuff, of course. They think they can do it much better with own 3D UI, than with currently available 2D stuff. In Amazon’s own words:

"...an electronic marketplace might not display information through a conventional Web page in a browser, but might provide information to a device that can be displayed along one or more dimensions of a multi-dimensional interface and can be sorted and modified just as any data stored on the device. For example, a shopping view might show dimensions such as past purchases, browse history, reviews, wish list items, etc. A user can select such a view and navigate to content of interest using approaches discussed and suggested herein. Further, since the data can be associated with other data dimensions, the user can obtain information that would not previously have been readily determinable. For example, if a product on the marketplace was reviewed by a reviewer that the user recognizes, but cannot remember where the user met that reviewer, the user can change the view to combine contacts, location, or other such dimensions with the shopping dimension to locate the information.”

Original story by Stasys Bielinis
Photos courtesy of Amazon