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 »
