New color options coming on the Lumia Glance screen with GDR3

The Glance Screen is a really great feature of the Lumia range. It’s a tribute to the MeeGo lockscreen (and Symbian smartphones), where you can always see a clock and get any missed events listed right on the standby screen.

Until now the Glance Screen, which premiered with the Amber update, had two color options – the default white font and the optional night theme that paints the clock red.
It seems Microsoft and Nokia will be adding more colors to the Glance screen night mode (you can, of course, set the night mode be active the whole day). The new color options that are joining the lonely red paintjob are blue and green.

There is no official info on this and the color details are coming from a leaked screenshot. Maybe we’ll see even more color when the update goes live in a few months.

Lenovo P780 review

Lenovo has been one of the biggest gainers in the smartphone market over the past couple of years. The company even did devices like the K900 and Vibe Z, showing that it’s not out of its depth in the high-end market.





Yet it’s smartphones like the recently announced P780 that Lenovo is strongest at producing. The handset brings four 1.2 GHz Cortex A7 cores along with PowerVR SGX544 GPU on a MTK6589 chipset along with a whopping 4,000mAh battery aiming to become one of the longest lasting smartphones on the market.

Apple allegedly accquires Cue to compete against Google Now

Apple has reported acquired Cue, a personal assistant app that was formerly known as Greplin. According to a report from AppleInsider, the Cupertino giant has bought the startup for a price tag of $35-$45 million.

In the meantime, Cue has announced that its service will be shutting down and will no longer be available to consumers. All the Cue Premium users will receive a refund, which can be claimed through the iTunes or the company’s website.
In case you are wondering what Cue is all about, the app is quite similar to Google Now and Apple’s new iOS 7 contextual notifications. However, Cue had made its way to the market well ahead of both known services.
Unfortunately, there is no official word from Apple, but a spokesperson from the company has said that “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans”.

Google and HP out 11-inch Chromebook 11 for $279, available in the US today

Google has teamed up with HP to deliver the latest Chromebook, this one sporting an 11″ IPS display of 1366 x 768 pixel resolution, an Exynos 5250 (Exynos 5 Dual) with two Cortex-A15 cores inside and, naturally, Chrome OS. The notebook weighs only 1.04 kg (2.3 pounds).

The little portable computer sports two main colors – black and white – and comes with a variety of accents, emulating Google’s look – green, blue, red and yellow. The device sports a full-sized chicklet keyboard with speakers around it and no moving parts like a fan or hard drive so the device will be very quiet and, hopefully, not too hot. The device will be available in the US starting today at Google Play, Amazon and BestBuy for $279 in Wi-Fi-only flavor. There is going to be an LTE version soon, but no exact date or pricing have been provided.
The rest of the specs are a 16 gig SSD along with 100 GB of Google Drive cloud storage for two years and a 60 day trial of Google Play Music All Access (and an additional 12 free GoGo passes). There’s a VGA webcam, 2 GB of RAM, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 and a battery lasting around 6 hours according to Google.
Here’s a hands-on video, courtesy of the Engadget team.

Official Google cases for the 2013 Nexus 7 hit the shelves of the US Play Store

Google quietly released its own protective cover for the 2013 Nexus 7 in the United States. The Google-branded case is currently available for purchase directly from the Play Store.

The Nexus 7 (2013) Case is the first tablet cover designed by Google specifically for the slate. The cover differentiates from the official ASUS-made accessories by sporting a Google logo, as well as a cool-looking flag adorned in the search giant’s signature red, blue, yellow and green colors.

Official photos of the Nexus 7 (2013) Case (click to enlarge)
The tablet is custom–molded to perfectly fit the latest Nexus 7. It features as a microsuede cover and built-in stand.
The Nexus 7 (2013) Case is available in four different colors for $49.99.

Samsung Galaxy Gear can be tweaked to run proper Android apps

The Samsung Galaxy Gear has turned out to be quite the entertaining hacking device. Using Android’s SDK and Android Debug Bridge (ADB) ArsTechnica was able to sideload some proper Android apps on the little smartwatch and it had no trouble running them.

You only need to enable USB debugging on the Galaxy Gear settings in order for this to work – no root required. The Samsung smartwatch runs Android Jelly Bean 4.2.2 with an 800 MHz single-core chip and 512 MB of RAM so it’s able to run apps like most droids would – the only limitation is the small on-board storage and tiny screen.
There’s still no root available for the Galaxy Gear, which prevents the hackers from enabling the sideload of Google Apps on it, though. And interestingly you cannot change the wallpaper, even with Nova Launcher (which the Galaxy Gear had no trouble running). Here’s a video showing the Galaxy Gear running Candy Crush, CyanogenMod-based Apollo music player and Nova Launcher. Oh there’s also a video playing on the MX player.

New Apple iPad 5 leaks in high-res photos

The next generation iPad 5 is expected to be unveiled at an Apple event on October 22. Before then, however, a slew of new images have leaked showing off the upcoming tablet in full detail.

The images show off the anticipated new design scheme that will be thinner and smaller, and more in line with that of the current iPad mini.