There's a new mobile phone with a battery life that lasts for a month: Microsoft's Nokia 215, CNET reports.
It costs just £19, and goes on sale in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia in the first few months of 2015.
The Nokia 215 is a feature phone targeted at first-time buyers, people on a serious budget, and consumers in the developing world who want an entry-level phone at the lowest cost possible. Obviously, it's also useful for anyone who travels a lot or lives somewhere where recharging and electricity supply points are intermittent.
But its extremely long-lasting battery life will be of interest to everyone else simply because it proves that batteries can be made to last longer than a day. Or at least, that phones can be made that will nurse power for an extended period of time. One of the top complaints of iPhone users is how quickly they need to be recharged.
The phone runs on Nokia Series 30+ software, a platform that functions for an entire month on just one charge.
Of course, the phone's functions are limited — but not without merit. It's got room for dual SIM cards, so people can operate with two functioning numbers simultaneously. Using a single SIM, the battery will keep going on standby for 29 days; the second SIM option can last 21, with up to 20 hours of talk time, 50 hours of MP3 listening, and 45 hours of listening to the phone's built-in FM radio, CNET explains.
It's also got the internet. Sort of. It's been designed with web connection — though not 3G — and includes basic apps such as Microsoft's Bing search, the Opera Mini browser, MSN Weather, Twitter, and Facebook. They won't run quickly — but they all come as standard in the £19 price tag.
The Nokia 215 also boasts a VGA camera and a 32MB micro SD card, a torch, and comes in bright green, black and white.
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You read that correctly. Sony is coming out with a Walkman (you remember those, right?) and it's going to cost over $1,100 dollars.
The product, called the Walkman ZX2, was announced at the CES conference in Las Vegas this week.
Sony is pushing the Walkman as "the fruit of continuous refinement in high audio quality technologies."
Though it can access apps through Google Play (it runs on an old version of Android), the device is not meant to compete with your smartphone.
It is unclear whether the device is in fact a Sony Walkman or an Android device being marketed by Sony with the Walkman branding.
You might be thinking this is crazy, but the device has already won people over.
The Verge's Ross Miller reports he got to play around with the ZX2,
I love the new ZX2. I love the texture of its matte black casing. I love the playback buttons carved into its curved side — in the little time I've had to hold the device, my fingers curled right onto the play, pause, and rewind. It's heavier than you'd initially expect, in a good way. It's solid. The distinctive gold-toned headphone jack juts wider than the frame and adjacent to the microSD slot (if you need more than the 128GB of built-in storage).
Check out the Walkman ZX2 in this video from The Verge:
SEE ALSO: This Is How Little Kids React When You Show Them A Walkman
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Netflix vp/content delivery Ken Florance posted a blog yesterday warning the world about the perils of "internet fast lanes".
He's talking about the ongoing war over "net neutrality". The FCC is about to rule on whether internet service providers (ISPs) should be required to deliver their services equally to everyone, or whether they can charge higher access fees to companies like Netflix who are heavy (and thus expensive) users of internet bandwidth. President Obama favours net neutrality.
Florance argues that abandoning net neutrality would allow ISPs to sell speedier access to companies and/or websites that can afford to pay.
Fast lanes would mean that some websites — such as Netflix, which rely on high-speeds to stream properly — could avoid the congestion that slows them down. Obviously, it would mean ISPs make more money as they extract a premium from Netflix for these faster channels.
But Florance writes that such measures would stifle companies that don't have big budgets — and create "the very opposite environment than the one the internet created".
He says:
Right now, there are no paid fast lanes on the Internet. That's a good thing. A large part of the debate about net neutrality is focused on ensuring it stays that way. If ISPs are allowed to sell fast lanes, competition for various Internet sites and services will become less about the value of what's offered and more about who can pay the most to deliver it faster.
Florance is talking about net neutrality on the back of another issue: the fact Netflix has recently agreed to pay ISPs Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, and Timer Warner access fees to reach its customers. Netflix, by the way, doesn't enjoy doing this. CEO Reed Hastings is not exactly a fan.
Florance explains that without additional payments to the companies, they let internet traffic "build up", which slows and damages user experience. If too many people decide to watch Dallas Buyers Club, for instance, there'd be problems.
"Without those payments, ISPs allowed these connection points to congest," Florance adds, "resulting in poor video streaming." Netflix can afford to pay. However, the company believes the practice "stands in contrast to an open internet and all its promise."
"Allowing fast lanes gives ISPs a perverse incentive to boost revenues by allowing their networks to congest", he says.
Join the conversation about this story -- For more information read the original article here.
Apple has been granted a patent for a flexible phone that can be deformed, twisted, and even bent in half, Cult of Mac reports.
Don't hold your breath for a bendy iPhone, however: Apple files thousands of patents, most of which never turn into actual products. Patent filings are often used to bar rivals from producing products or to entangle them in distracting litigation.
That said, US Patent No. 8,929,085 relates to "flexible electronic devices," and covers both the internal components of the device as well as the outer casing. As Apple Insider notes, while the Cupertino-based technology giant already holds patents for individual bendable components, it has “until today failed to fully integrate the pieces into a comprehensive model.”
The patent discusses the possibility of flexible batteries and circuit boards, and suggests that a bendable iPhone would be manufactured out of “plastic, thin glass, fiber composites,thin metal, fabric, [or] silicone.
PCR is even reporting that the theoretical device could incorporate “force-based gesture input, meaning users may be able to squeeze the device to perform a command.”
One of the few flexible phones currently on the market is manufactured by LG — the G Flex — but it doesn't come close to the level of bendiness shown in the illustrations accompanying the Apple's patent. While the G Flex can gently bend under pressure, the diagrams show handsets severely deforming and even being bent in half without damage.
The release of the iPhone 6 in September 2014 was tarred by “Bendgate,”the realization that many iPhone users' handsets were being accidentally deformed under pressure in their pockets. But the patent suggests that the benefits of a flexible iPhone may go beyond avoiding such accidents and improve the handset's overall durability.
“Flexible electronic devices may be more resistant to damage during impact events such as drops because the flexible device may bend or deform while absorbing the impact,” the patent reads. “Deformation of this type may increase the duration of the impact thereby reducing the impulse received by other components of the flexible device.”
A durable, bendable iPhone is at best years from coming to the market. But bendable handsets aren't as far off as you might think. Samsung is expected to release a a smartphone with displays that can be bent in half before the end of 2015.
Read the full patent application here -- For more information read the original article here.
-- For more information read the original article here.