The explosion of Internet connectivity across a range of mobile devices have definitely led to more and more user input in online sites as well as apps. Take TripAdvisor for example – most of us these days, before going for a holiday would check out wherever we are going to stay using TripAdvisor as word of mouth works wonders. Hence, traffic updates on your mobile device might come from the navigational company itself, but is it really that accurate? For those of you who have given crowd-sourced traffic and navigation app Waze a go before, you will be pleased to hear that Waze has finally arrived at the Windows Phone Store.

The thing is, Waze for the Windows Phone platform is right now undergoing a private beta test, so even if you happen to have the platform on your smartphone, you are unable to download it at the moment. Israeli based Waze actually kicked off on Windows Mobile, but did not follow Microsoft to Windows Phone 7. It has been quite popular on iOS and Android where 40 million users assist other Waze members to locate the best route in order to avoid traffic jams, know where all the speed traps are, as well as the cheapest gas stations.

There is something about rugged smartphones, where you know for sure that it is capable of taking in the different knocks that a smartphone tends to go through in its lifetime. Of course, there are some of us who so happen to be more of a butterfingers than others, and we have successfully (to my dismay) drowned some of these handsets in the past either due to negligence or carelessness. The recently announced Sony Xperia ZR (which will not make its way to certain countries) is said to be available from the end of June onwards.

Wherever it is going to be launched, the Sony Xperia ZR is said to cost approximately €400, although there is also word that there the new Xperia ZR will roll out in the Netherlands for approximately €479 in July. Folks living in Belgium as well as the Nordic countries ought to have the smartphone at about the same time. Sony too, wants you to win an Xperia ZR on Facebook. You will be able to enter this competition by May 27th, where all you need to do is to answer a question, and talk about how the Xperia ZR will “play a role at your perfect pool party.” So far, the Terms and Conditions of the contest do point to the Xperia ZR having an approximate value of €400.

If you thought Pebble watch was a fantastic little gadget that saw the light of day courtesy of crowd-funding, the Agent smartwatch will surely make you stop in your tracks. Dubbed as the World’s Smartest Watch, designed and developed by Secret Labs in conjunction with House of Horology, this watch connects via Bluetooth to iPhone 4S or higher, Android 2.3 or higher firmware running devices, and Windows Phone 8. It also features wireless charging.

Read full post →Agent Smartwatch With Dual Processors A Good Pebble Rival

We all know IBM Watson is the insanely popular and expensive supercomputer that beat two former winners of Jeopardy. IBM and its various partners will now be using the system as a customer service agent. The feature is called “Ask Watson,” it will be programmed to answer questions through a variety of mediums including but not limited to smartphone apps, email, web chats and SMS. This feature is also likely to be hooked up with voice recognition as well by some partners, which will definitely make it infinitely more powerful than Siri. IBM’s partners include Nielsen, IHS, Royal Bank of Canada, ANZ Bank etc.

Watson will be powering the customer service systems of these partners, who will all develop their own branding and interface. These “Ask Watson” enabled apps are expected to released in the next few months, though at first they’re likely to be internally tested. The fact remains though, this will actually be the first time many people will get to query the great IBM Watson. Wouldn’t it be amazingly cool to be able to ask a supercomputer questions?

Approximately two weeks from now, Apple will unveil iOS 7 at WWDC 2013, due to take place on the 10th of June. A lot has been rumored about the upcoming iOS platform update, today’s rumor hints at possible integration of Vimeo and Flicker in iOS 7. In the past we’ve seen Apple slowly but deeply integrated Twitter and Facebook in to its mobile platform. The integration will reportedly be similar to that of Facebook and Twitter, third party apps will be able to access these services as well.

This doesn’t seem like a far-fetched idea. OS X already has both of these services integrated, it’s not like Apple would be going in to uncharted waters. Users will reportedly be able to upload photos directly to Flickr and Vimeo, though it is also said that since the integration isn’t fully ready, there’s a possibility it might come as a firmware update in the future. From a user’s point of view, do you think you will gain any benefit from having these two services integrated in to iOS 7? As always, Apple has not commented on this rumor. We’ll know for sure come June 10th.

Microsoft finally unveiled its next-generation Xbox, called the Xbox One, earlier today and although they didn’t disclose as much information as rival Sony did when they announced their PlayStation 4, at least they showed what the console will look like. Within its one-hour presentation, Microsoft covered some information we feel future Xbox One owners will certainly want to know.

Read full post →Xbox One: All The Official Details

Prior to today’s Xbox One announcement, the Internet was circulating with rumors regarding whether or not the next-generation console would have an always-on mode which would result in Microsoft knowing when a game has been borrowed or sold as a used game. It looks like those previous rumors have some truth to them as Microsoft has detailed how it will make it more difficult to purchase used games or borrow from a friend.

Microsoft says the Xbox One will require a mandatory installation onto the system’s hard drive for all games that are played on the console for the first time. If the same game disc is then played on an additional Xbox One console, or even a different Xbox Live account, the second user will have to pay a fee.
Read full post →Xbox One Will Have A Pre-Owned Game Fee To Curb Used Game Sales [Updated]

Intel is in the news today for reasons other than upcoming processors. Reuters claims that a leaked internal email suggests that Intel CEO Brian Krzanich has re-organized various groups with in the company and also created a “new devices” group. Brian has apparently initiated this re-organization shortly after taking over from long time CEO Paul Otellini. No major details are available as yet regarding this new unit, it is not even know for now what exactly this unit is supposed to be doing.

Perhaps this unit will be tasked with convincing manufacturers of current and upcoming products that their devices will be better off with Intel’s chips. One far fetched speculation can be that perhaps Intel is looking in to manufacturing entire devices of its own, expanding its product line from chips to actual devices such as mobiles or tablets? The latter seems less likely to be honest. For all we know, the “new devices” unit may be tasked with manufacturing products for new emerging technologies. It is also being reported that ex Apple and Palm employee Mike Bell will be at the helm of this unit. The company is yet to comment on this.

François Beaufort, an engineer at Google, has revealed that the company is working on bringing the Chrome OS app launcher to Mac OS X. No exact release date has been given for the final version, though Beaufort does point towards a beta version that is available for download now. Chromium will need to be installed before one gets the beta Chrome app launcher on OS X. The app launcher presents users a very simple and easy way to launch Chrome web apps.

Once Chromium is installed, clicking on its dock icon will bring up a list of web apps installed from Chrome store. Through this list any web app can be launched. The caveat with this beta version is that once one app has been launched, and if another is to be launched, it can only be done through the Chrome browser window. Not through the list which pops up when the Chromium dock icon is clicked. This final version will obviously work exactly the way it will be supposed to, but there’s no saying when Google will ultimately release it.

Pandora allows users to create custom radio stations, the service is quite simple and one of the most widely used ones in this particular niche. Today, it announced the launch of Pandora Premieres, a station which will be used to preview upcoming albums of established as well as new artists before they are released. Pandora will allow Premieres users to listen to any track being previewed, in any order they desire. This is different than iTunes, which only previews such tracks in a continuous stream.

Pandora Premieres will be available for paying and non-paying members alike. Two albums will be previewed initially, Once I Was an Eagle by Laura Marling and Wrote a Song for Everyone by John Fogerty. Pandora says that it will feature new albums every week on this station, as well as exclusive content such as video interviews of artists. Users simply need to such for Pandora Premieres in the search box to be able to hear albums being previewed before their actual release. T-Mobile is the debut sponsor of Premieres, this sponsorship will run through the end of 2013.