HTC CEO Brandishes White M7, Starts “HTC M7!” Chant!

Ever woken up the day after a killer party and everyone but you knows you messed up last night? HTC CEO Peter Chou might be that guy when he wakes up, unless he intentionally showed off the new HTC M7 smartphone just a few days before the official launch.

The cordial and savvy CEO was seen taking photos of a crowd during a news broadcast, and though we don’t see much detail of the white version of the phone, we’re happy to see it. The HTC M7 is expected to come in both black and white at launch, and may be released in early March according to the latest rumours.
“This event today is a great opportunity for testing [the camera],” Chou, as translated by Engadget, said. “I was still testing it just now.”
Aside from the fact that he was so juiced he had gave the world its first real look at the HTC M7, Chou’s excitement came pouring out as he led the room in spirited chants of “HTC” and “M7.”

The device appears to be longer and narrower than the popular One X, with a centred camera module and a barely-perceptible HTC logo on the back.

As for the phone itself, rumors say this phone will have a 4.7-inch 1080p display with a 1.7Ghz Snapdragon S4 Pro and 2GB of RAM. Add in a 13MP camera in the back and a 2.1MP wide frame camera in the front and you’ve got yourself a pretty solid phone. If HTC is, in fact, about to release a beefier HTC Butterfly that is a little easier for most people to actually hold and use with one hand, the M7 will be a force to be reckoned with this spring.



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Angry Birds Star Wars Gains 20 New Mynock Pigs Filled Stages

The popular Angry Birds Star Wars game by Rovio has been updated with 20 additional free levels, where players must navigate an asteroid field.

Version 1.1.2 of Angry Birds Star Wars is set after the Battle of Hoth seen in the last game update, with the Rebel Birds being chased by the PigTroopers through an asteroid field.

The 20 new “nail-biting” levels feature new characters, the Mynock Pigs, found deep in the belly of the asteroid the Rebel Birds have flown into trying to find cover.

The update also includes 2 additional bonus levels and a new boss level you’ll have to “make a daring escape” from.
The update reads: “After the epic Battle of Hoth, the Rebel Birds have barely escaped the ice planet with the Pigtroopers in close pursuit! There’s an asteroid field close by that could provide some cover… but watch out, there’s more to it than meets the eye!”
For those who haven’t played it yet, Angry Birds Star Wars is well worth a download, if just for the nostalgia factor. Straying all the way out into space, the game combines the best of all the Angry Birds games into one. This 20-level update costs nothing and is a nice little content boost to an already enjoyable app.

Angry Birds Star Wars is available on iOS, Mac, Android and Windows platforms costing up to £1.99 for the HD version. The 1.1.2 version update will be available free to all those who already have the app.

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LG Optimus L7 II Dual leaked, likely to be announced at MWC

L-series range of smartphones from LG have been quite a hit amongst the masses since their launch at last year’s Mobile Word Congress and it seems that LG plans to use the MWC platform once again in 2013, to launch an upgraded version of the mid-range LG Optimus L7 smartphone.


According to a Russian website, upgrade to the L7 will be known as the LG Optimus L7 II Dual which is expected to be launched in Russia this month and as the name suggests, it will be a dual-SIM smartphone. Though, the design seen on the leaked image is unlike the current breed of L-series smartphones, and adopts a more curvier look. On the specifications front, the rumored LG Optimus L7 II Dual is expected to sport a 4.3-inch IPS LCD display and powered by a 1GHz dual-core processor. The smartphone will feature a better, 8-megapixel camera capable of recording videos in 720pand is said to be running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean out of the box and also, housing an impressive 2460mAh battery.The LG Optimus L7 II Dual is expected to carry a price tag of about 12,990 rubles in Russia, which roughly translates to about $430 in the US and if the device lands up in India as well, the price translates to about Rs.23,000. We guess it’s better to refrain from any comments on the device till it’s actually unveiled and hopefully, along with other new L-series smartphones as well. Fingers crossed!



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Google+ And Google Play Music For Android Updated

Google on Wednesday released updates to two of its Android apps, Google+ and Google Play Music. You can download the latest versions now directly from the Google Play Store: here and here.

The former now displays notifications in the top right corner, much like its web-based counterpart. This makes more sense when scrolling through the app, as Google+ relies so heavily on them. Google+ users can now also insert links into their posts, and Community Moderators have more options when administrating a page.

The Google Play Music update is more significant. This makes sense given that the service is even newer than Google+, if you can believe it.

Instant mixes finally go beyond 25 songs (an arbitrary limit that should never have been there in the first place) and the app now features new album art. As for new features, the homescreen widget has gained a previous button and you can now shuffle an album, artist, or playlist.

There’s a new widget design and, thankfully, freezing fixes for the Galaxy S III.

Changelog for version 4.5.910I:

Instant mixes continue playing beyond 25 songs.Added ability to shuffle an album, artist or playlist.New default album art.Previous button added to widget.Pinning progress now shown on album and playlist pages.Fix for the Galaxy S3 freezing issue.

Again, neither of these updates are particularly breathtaking but they are part of what makes using Google’s apps so enjoyable. Everyone likes regular updates that bring in more functionality for free. In both the social networking and music streaming spaces, Google has to keep iterating to fight the competition.

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Motorola X Phone Confirmed By LinkedIn Job Posting

Motorola posted a job opening on LinkedIn this week searching for a product manager for an upcoming smartphone called the X Phone.
There was a pervasive rumour going around last year that Google and its newly-acquired Motorola Mobile division were working on a phone that would rival the iPhone, both in terms of sales and quality. While Motorola hasn’t had the best 12 months, repeatedly losing money quarter over quarter, the company is poised for a comeback in 2013.

The job posting on LinkedIn was for a “Senior Director of Product Management” to work on the X-Phone project and this is the first time Motorola directly referenced the X-Phone. The listing did not reveal anything about the phone itself, but at least it seems to prove its existence. It also indicates that development is still at an early stage, so don’t expect to see it anytime soon.

Motorola is trying to regain its strength in the smartphone market, and Google is attempting to get its $12.5 billion money’s worth. During Google’s earnings call last week, they deflected blame that they haven’t yet been able to turn around Motorola’s mobile business, stating that all the devices the company released since the acquisition were planned and executed without Google’s intervention.

We’re excited about the potential for Motorola’s success this year; the company is in better hands with Google than it was before.

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Rumour : HTC To Follow M7 With M4 and G2

Taiwanese mobile phone maker HTC Corporation is reportedly gearing up for the release of new Android-based handsets in the near future, including the newly leaked HTC M4 and HTC G2 smartphones, which will complement the previously spotted HTC M7, it seems.

These could very well be announced at the upcoming Mobile World Congress in a few weeks. First up is the “M4? – a device that will come with specs just under the M7 – and sport a 4.3-inch 720p display, 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor, 2GB RAM, 13MP camera and a 1.6MP front-facing camera, 1,700 mAh battery, plus run Android OS 4.2 Jellybean with the new Sense 5.0.

Next is another code-name device called the “G2.” This is an entry level Android that might feature specs that were popular on devices last year. The “G2? is rumoured to come with a 1GHz processor, 3.5-inch HVGA display, 5 MP camera, runs OS 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich The main difference, 512 RAM and a 1,400 mAh battery.

On the specs front, the HTC M7 is expected to be powered by 1.7GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor paired with 2GB of RAM. The device would come with a 4.7-inch Full-HD display, amounting to a pixel density of 468ppi. The M7 will most probable sport a 13 megapixel snapper at the back along with a 2 megapixel camera at the front and 32GB of on-board storage.

The HTC “M4? and “G2? are rumoured to be available “sometime during the spring.

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Twitter hacked, More than 250,000 user accounts compromised

The social networking giant, Twitter is the latest victim of cyber attacks as the website has confirmed that it has been hit by a major security breach and the data of over 250,000 users might have been compromised.

Twitter said in it’s official blog, that it detected unusual access patterns, leading the website to identify unauthorized access attempts to it’s user data. The website has confirmed one attack, which it claims was resolved without much delay.

However, Twitter notes that during it’s investigation, it found out that the hackers might have been able to access personal data of over 250K users, and the information like usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted/salted versions of passwords might have been compromised.

As a precautionary step, Twitter has reset passwords and revoked session tokens for the effected accounts, and all the 250,000 users whose account information is believed to have been compromised, have been sent e-mails notifying them to create a new passwords.

Suspecting that this might not be an isolated incident, Bob Lord, Director of Information Security, Twitter said, This attack was not the work of amateurs, and we do not believe it was an isolated incident. The attackers were extremely sophisticated, and we believe other companies and organizations have also been recently similarly attacked. For that reason we felt that it was important to publicize this attack while we still gather information, and we are helping government and federal law enforcement in their effort to find and prosecute these attackers to make the Internet safer for all users.

Twitter’s confirmation regarding the hack comes after the website experienced a widespread outage effecting the users earlier this week, but Twitter claims that the two incidences weren’t related to each other.

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