Anyone that’s dabbled with Linux in the past few years will know of the distribution, Ubuntu. It’s widely regarded as one of the most user friendly and easy to use distributions out there and is used by millions of people around the world on both desktop computers and servers. Soon you’ll also be able to boot up your smartphone and be welcomed by Ubuntu’s home screen. Why’s this? Well, Canonical (the guys behind the Ubuntu project) have announced that they will be releasing a version of their operating system specifically for use on smartphones, allowing them to replace the often stock, outdated versions of Android (Google’s own Linux based operating system) most users are running now. An additional feature that users will be able to make use of is it’s ability to double up as an Ubuntu based PC when the phone is connected to a TV/PC Monitor and with the latest smartphones often being on par / more powerful than basic laptops these days, it’s a huge step in mobile computing. Read More »
4G is finally here (for some of us at least), and with it all the promises that the nation will be receiving superfast broadband directly to their 4G enabled phones. With this comes the question, will 4G eventually just replace home broadband? If everyone is able to access high speed internet over their phone this could lead to sharing this mobile connection via a home router, allowing desktops, tablets and laptops to use this.
A recent poll by Broadband Genie stated that around 40% said they would drop their fixed line service in favour of fast mobile broadband, with 17% planning no change and 45% saying they would probably opt for both. Read More »
Everyone wonders what the next big thing will be in the consumer financial world. Contactless payment has been the big thing recently and with its ease of use, it’s not hard to see why. Another option has now come to the table in the form of a Mastercard with a built in keyboard and LCD screen. Yep, you read that right, a keyboard and screen on your credit card!
Now we’re all used to seeing SKY24384 or BTHomeHub3-3483 (or their variants!) when we search for our wireless networks at home, but have you ever had a neighour ramp things up a bit and leave you a message via their network name? It seems that it’s a growing trend for home network admins to leave messages via their SSID (Service Set Identification) Read More »
Surrey University – The development capital for 5G in the UK.
As it stands, in the UK we are yet to be able to access a 4G mobile network due to various restrictions and delays in getting the networks ready. Yet despite this, a research unit based at the University of Surrey have been given a grant to the tune of £35million (thirty-five million GBP) to get working on the next standard, being dubbed (rather inspiringly) 5G. The grant itself has been given to the University by mobile network operators and infrastructures as well as the UK Research Partnership Investment Fund to create a “5G Innovation Centre”. Read More »
So as everyone expected the iPhone 5 (thankfully not “the new iPhone!”) was announced yesterday and there aren’t too many surprises, here’s a brief summary of the major changes from the iPhone 4S:
Size
iPhone 5 123.8 x 58.6 x 7.6mm vs 115.2 x 58.66 x 9.3mm iPhone 4S As you can see from these numbers it’s grown a little in height, though not as much as you would expect for the screen resolution increase which has gone from 940×640 to 1136×640, that’s a 17% resolution increase but only a 7% overall phone height increase, it retains the same 326 pixel per inch pixel density. They have also managed to make it 18% thinner than the 4S at 7.6mm, it’s the thinnest phone on the market currently and 12% thinner than the Samsung Galaxy S3 (8.6mm) Read More »
It seems that small, tablet PCs are all the rage these days and with Apple’s iPad leading the way, countless other manufacturers are trying to get their share of the market by bringing in their own versions. We’ve even mentioned on this very blog, the Indian tablet that you can buy for less than £50 so it’s a worldwide thing that will only get bigger. Read More »
In the UK we know that ISP selection can make a big difference to connection speed, with high-speed broadband services such as 100MB BT Infinity and Virgin Media having quite limited availability, but how do we really shape up against the rest of the world? Read More »
Everyone knows that Apple have a legion of fans that will stop at nothing to get their paws on the latest tech, often for products with few technical changes and Apple love it. The “hype machine” is something that Apple are famous for, with people getting extremely excited over the next revision of their phones, tablets and laptops every few months. But recent comments from the Apple CEO, Tim Cook (and his right-hand man) have suggested that it’s actually caused an issue for the company recently, with rumours and hype being so great for future products, that current models aren’t selling as expected.
With the London 2012 Olympic & Paralympic games just around the corner, final preparations are being done to ensure that the event runs as smoothly as possible (this is England after all!) One of the big talking points at this stage, is whether the UK mobile networks will be able to keep up with the demand of hundreds of thousands of people in the capital trying to stream video, update their social media pages and text/call their friends and family, all in one relatively small area. Spectators at the Beijing 2008 Olympics had similar concerns which came into fruition when many people complained of slow network speeds when trying to upload pictures and video of the opening / closing ceremonies. The Olympic Committee here have attempted to combat this issue by teaming up with a venture called the Join Operators Olympic Group (JOOG) which is made up of various UK network operators such as O2, Everything Everywhere, 3, Vodafone and BT. Together, they plan on making networks more available for not only the tourists and visitors to the games, but also Read More »
Client Support
