We bought the Sony Xperia Tablet Z two weeks ago while we were in Tokyo at the Ginza Sony Store, because we could not wait any longer to get one in our hands. The first thing that surprised us when we held the Sony Xperia tablet Z is its beautiful thin and light form factor.

For one, it is really comfortable to read for hours holding a 10-inch tablet, in comparison, the iPad feels heavy and it becomes tiring after a few hours of reading. In fact, the Xperia Tablet Z is the perfect device to read books and watch video while you are in your bath: just like the Xperia Z smartphone which launched earlier this year in Europe and Japan, the tablet is water and dust resistant. You can check the hilarious Chinese video showing someone cooking a soup with the Xperia tablet Z in it, and the device still works after that treatment…
Read full post →Sony Xperia Tablet Z Review

When unreleased or heavily rumored devices stop by the FCC, that’s the Federal Communications Commission for those who don’t know, it means that an official announcement by the manufacturer itself isn’t that far off. Toshiba has a new tablet that was first spotted back in February, apparently carrying the AT10LE-A moniker for now, this unreleased tablet has turned up at the FCC for approval. It was rumored that Toshbia AT10LE-A touts a 1.8GHz NVIDIA Tegra 4 processor, the FCC filing reveals the same, along with details pointing towards Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/b/ac, NFC and Bluetooth 4.0 support.

This 10.1 inch tablet will apparently come with Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean installed. There have also been rumors of a mini HDMI output, stereo speakers and a microSD card slot. The AT10LE-A looks like a codename of sorts, I doubt that it will be publicly released with such a complicated name. Toshiba hasn’t announced any plans of unveiling a new tablet any time soon, so we’ll have to wait until the do inform us of such plans. Though considering that FCC approval process has already begun, that shouldn’t take much time.

At its Live 2013 conference last week, BlackBerry finally announced what was being rumored for a long time. The ailing Canadian manufacturing is officially opening up its iconic BlackBerry Messenger service to rival platforms iOS and Android. BBM will be released for these platforms, without tablet support that is, over the next couple of months. BlackBerry founder and ex-CEO Mike Lazaridis has high hopes that BBM will outperform its rivals on these platforms.

BBM’s eroding user base was linked to the popularity of free cross platform messaging services such as WhatsApp and Viber, both of which are available for its own platform as well. While these services are available for almost every mobile platform, BBM up till now has always been exclusive to BlackBerry. Though even with the company’s user base of around 70 million, BBM is still very popular, as it sees some 10 billion messages being sent each day. Mike Lazaridis said that “BBM is by far the most compelling wireless experience and wireless social-networking environment.” From the looks of it, they’re all set to give popular cross platform messaging services a run for their money. If BBM on iOS and Android does bring features such as video calling and screen share, then it definitely has a change of trumping its rivals.

We covered the last Twitter for Mac update which was released towards the end of April. The update came for quite a while, in which Twitter released various updates for its mobile apps, but it looked like the microblogging network had forgotten about its Mac app. Twitter said late last month when it released the update that we should expect more improvements in Twitter for Mac soon. They’ve delivered on that promise, almost one month on, there’s now a new update of this app which brings Notification Center integration.

Don’t confuse Notification Center integration with the Twitter integration that is already present in OS X. The notifications are a completely different thing and it was a shame that they weren’t integrated with Notification Center earlier. Users now have the option of setting preferences for this new feature from straight within the app itself. Notification Center will now display notifications when someone @ mentions you in a tweet or if someone sends you a DM a.k.a direct message. Apart from the integration, there are a host of bug fixes, security and performance improvements. The updated Twitter for Mac can now be downloaded from Mac App Store.

Late last month we reported that Twitter was supposedly testing a two factor authentication system to improve account security. In the past couple of months we have seen a few high profile accounts being hacked, Twitter warned that the attacks will continue, and they sure did. Today they’ve finally unveiled this new two factor authentication which they call “login verification.” It is quite similar to how Google’s two factor authentication works, the user logs in to their account and are then sent a six digit code by Twitter via SMS, it is only upon entering this code that access is granted.

Even with login verification enabled, all existing applications will work without disruption. If the user needs to sign in on any other devices or apps, they’ll need to generate a temporary password from the applications page so that the particular device or app is authorized. Before you can turn on login verification for you account, you’ll need to register a verified phone number and a confirmed email address.

Two factor authentication means that there’s essentially another protective wall ahead of the password. Lone passwords, even the strongest ones, are likely be cracked. While two factor authentication isn’t exactly bulletproof itself, it does significantly ramp up account security as in Twitter’s case the user has to enter the randomly generated code each time they want to log in, and the code is only sent to their registered mobile number. Even if it sounds like a chore, one can never be too safe with a lone password, and its always better to have that extra wall of security.

Back at the I/O 2013 conference Google announced design updates for Google+ desktop website as well as its Android app. A week on from then, the company has finally made the newly updated design for Google+ mobile website live and it bears a resemblance to the ‘cards’ style design of Google Now. Despite the update, this new design isn’t as polished or visually appealing as that of the mobile apps.

The Google+ mobile site now displays posts, photos and videos in the cards style that Google Now debuted. Cover photos, which first went live for the desktop site, have now been brought over to the mobile site for all brand and personal pages. Unfortunately though, the Google+ mobile site still lacks some major features such as photo editing, Hangouts or communities. Android users who already have the newly updated app don’t have much reason to use the Google+ mobile site and neither do iOS users who also have an app available for them, those on other platforms such as Windows Phone or BlackBerry can take advantage of whatever basic functionality the stripped down mobile site offers.

Cellular companies roping in celebrities is no strange phenomenon. Recently we saw Alicia Keys being picked up by BlackBerry and being crowned the Global Creative Director. Many people believe that these positions serve no purpose at all and just exist to augment the company’s brand value, perhaps they’re right, but this trend doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon. Today at Verizon’s CTIA press conference Jennifer Lopez took to the stage, not for a performance, but to announce Viva Movil, a new phone retailer that Verizon is launching with focus on Latinos.

By the end of this year, 15 Viva Movil retail stores are expected to be opened in markets such as LA, Miami, New York, which are three cities you’ll definitely hear about on a Jennifer Lopez track, by the way. She’ll also be investing in these stores which are a result of a partnership between Moorehead Communications and distributor Brightstar. Lopez said she’s “kind of the Chief Creative Office” in this project, implying that she has been collaborating on layouts for the stores, accessories line and designs for the fonts.

Yesterday at the Xbox One reveal, Microsoft also announced a new Kinect. It has been incredibly overhauled, it comes with a wide-angle 1080p HD depth camera capable of capturing RGB color video at 30 frames-per-second. Capable of even working in a completely dark room, Microsoft says that the new Kinect is more sensitive and powerful than ever before. The previous Kinect was released for PC a little over a year later after it was released for Xbox 360. Microsoft will reportedly be releasing the new Kinect for PC as well.

Kinect program manager Scott Evans is quoted as saying that “We will bring this [new Kinect] to PC.” Microsoft hasn’t released any additional details regarding this as yet, they’ve not given a time frame for release, so for all we know it could perhaps take a full year before the new and improved Kinect makes its way over to PC. Microsoft finally unveiled the moniker for next generation Xbox, it hasn’t really said what the new Kinect is officially called. Kinect 2.0 perhaps? Too soon to say right now, perhaps we’ll know more when Microsoft continues this conversation at E3 conference in June.

Nokia entering in to partnerships with superhero movies isn’t something new. Back when they were promoting the Lumia 900/800 range, the Finnish manufacturer had a similar deal with Dark Knight Rises. For the past couple of days it was being rumored that the company was looking in to another such partnership, and now the official confirmation has materialized. Nokia’s current choice is the upcoming Warner Bothers’ Superman movie, Man of Steel.

I doubt that this means we’ll be seeing any Man of Steel editions of current Lumia smartphones being released, though the partnership will bring a plethora of content exclusive to Nokia. The content includes video teasers, exclusive app and wallpapers. The exclusive Man of Steel app will let users explore the film, unlike rewards such as ringtones, wallpapers, DC Comics digital comic books and more after beating various challenges. As previously mentioned, the content will be exclusive to Lumia smartphones running Windows Phone 8. The official page for this partnership is now up on Nokia’s website, it contains information about the movie itself and downloadable Man of Steel content for the Nokia Lumia smartphones.

Hot on the heels of releasing a new app for Windows Phone, Foursquare today has released new apps for both iOS and Android. The focus of this update is on bringing improved local search to the millions of users who use Foursquare, making it easier to discover places of interest around them. Foursquare says that with this update, the service will help users find exactly what they want, “whatever that may be.”

Foursquare users can now really fine tune their local searches, results can be filtered in a variety of ways, such as only displaying venues that are open at the time or search or the places that a user’s friends have previously visited. These results can then be sorted by best match, price or distance. Though if tinkering around with filters in the app isn’t your cup on tea, Foursquare recommends tapping the “Best Nearby” button to get an idea of what amazing venues are present in the vicinity. The newly updated Foursquare app for iOS and Android can now be downloaded from iTunes App Store and Google Play Store, respectively.