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.

Cricket Wireless has announced today that it will be carrying the Samsung Galaxy S4. In a press release, the carrier has said that this latest flagship Android smartphone will be launched on the 7th of June. The device will be available in Cricket retail stores as well as through the carrier’s online store. The device will be compatible with Cricket’s LTE network which is available in limited markets: Philadelphia and some parts of Nevada, Texas and Arizona.

Cricket will be selling Galaxy S4 for $599.99. Alternatively, customers can pay a $55 down payment and pay the rest in equal monthly instalments. Cricket’s variant of the Galaxy S4 isn’t different from what the other carriers are selling, though it does feature Cricket Muve Music service, which allows users to download songs and ringtones as much as they like without incurring any extra charge on their monthly Android rate plan. So if you’re a current or prospective Cricket customer waiting to pick up the new Samsung Galaxy S4, June 7th is the date you mark on your calendars. While you wait, do read up on our detailed Galaxy S4 review.

One of the biggest legal battles in the technology arena has to be between Apple and Samsung. Both of these companies have sued and counter-sued each other in various courts around the world, alleging that the other infringes on its patents. Apple now says that Samsung’s latest Android flagship smartphone Galaxy S4 also infringes on its patents, five to be precise. The company says that it is also looking in to the confidential source code to find out whether any more patents are being infringed upon.

Apple says that it began its “infringement analysis” on April 27, when it got the device. The five patents Galaxy S4 allegedly infringes upon are two that relate to user interface, two related to Siri and one that is related to data synchronization. This claim was filed at the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, San Jose Division. Apple wants to add the Galaxy S4 to the list of Samsung devices it claims to infringe on its patents. The court will ultimately rule whether S4 will be added to the list, and whether or not the devices on that list infringe any mentioned patents. Hang on to your seats and grab some popcorn, this is going to take a while.

I clearly remember driving by this particular seafood restaurant back home with a huge sign that reads, “If it swims, we have it!” I guess mermaids are a fantasy then, as so far there was no tank at the seafood restaurant which was huge enough to hold a mermaid.Having said that, the focus on this story would be the advent of a new swimming robot that has been inspired by none other than the humble octopus. It is said that octopi are strong swimmers, although they do take the road less traveled (obviously all 8 tentacles has something to do with it) by utilizing a rather weird swimming technique known as sculling.

Sculling would require the use of all of their eight limbs, and right now, a research team in Europe is working on a robot version of the octopus, hoping that they are able to recreate the movement within a water tank, So far, this team has met with different degrees of success, although we do hope that eventually they will succeed in getting close to replicating what has been perfected in the wild for many millennia already.

Approximately a week back at the I/O 2013 conference, Google released the new and improved Google Search app for Android. The update brought voice reminders, real-time public transit updates and content suggestions such as upcoming music, TV, books etc. Before version 2.5 of this app came online, the previous version had a perfectly useful feature that has, according to the folks at AndroidPolice, been quietly removed. The ‘Search With Camera’ feature of the Google Search app has been removed without any explanation whatsoever.

It was pretty simple to use this feature. The user just had to take a picture through the device’s camera and the app would do an image search. It essentially was the integration of Google Goggles in this app, as the feature was also useful for scanning QR codes. Reportedly, no voice commands are working and ‘Search With Camera’ has completely been disabled and removed from within the app. Google hasn’t released a statement as to why this feature was removed, though its not something they’re obliged to do, but it would certainly be nice knowing the reason behind the axing of ‘Search With Camera.’

Over at SID 2013, the folks over at Engadget have managed to snap some photos of what could possibly be one of the wonders of the technological world, namely LG’s flexible OLED display. Of course, to keep that unique flexible display, we also have the LG HD Oxide that was on parade. Of course, there is this particular pride from LG concerning how this 5” High Definition display might still be in the prototype stage, but it has already managed to garner its fair share of attention over time. Just how did LG pull this off with the HD Oxide display? Well, it seems that this 5” display will make use of TFT Oxide technology that consumes very little juice, not to mention allowing it to come with an extremely slim profile.

Similar to the 5” flexible display, this particular model comes with a 1mm bezel that will rely on IPS technology so that one is able to enjoy superior viewing angles. So far, the display at SID 2013 has been rated at 250 nits, although LG definitely has plans to bump the brightness level up before it is ready to roll out in the market.