Roumen.ganeff

Microsoft and Opera have signed a contract, which will make the Opera Mobile Store the default app store for Nokia feature phones, those running Symbian as well as Nokia X devices. The change will happen in the beginning of 2015 and people who are still using Series 40, Series 60, Symbian, Asha and Nokia X devices will be redirected from the Nokia Store to the Opera Mobile Store. According to Microsoft, the change enables millions of people using classic Nokia phones to continue having a "trusted source for apps, games and content." Because the process includes changing the default app store of so many users, both companies estimate the change will take place over the good part of the first half of 2015. Then, the Nokia Store will close its doors. "We continue to sell and support classic Nokia devices, which remain popular in many parts of the world," said Rich Bernardo, Vice President, Phones, Microsoft. "We're delighted to partner with Opera Software and continue to provide a reliable app store experience for consumers and developers alike." Once the transition ends, the Opera Mobile Store will become the third largest app store in terms of downloads. Currently, the store boasts close to 300,000 apps and games with support for more than 7,500 devices ranging from feature phones to smartphones. 40,000 developers from around the world have contributed to the store's range of app...

When I think of the ultimate future cruise ship, many things come to mind. Most of them borrowed from Star Trek, I'll admit. Holodecks, food replicators, staff in tight-fitting onesies -- that kinda thing. I'd also be willing to throw in some robot...

Vehicle will also be available via $499/month lease

Since selling their mobile device division to Microsoft, much contemplation has been had over the future of Nokia. As it slowly turns out, their future is not all that different from the past. Except perhaps that there’s a lot more Android in Nokia’s future.

As part of the Slush 2014 conference, Nokia has announced their next consumer gadget, a new tablet going by the name Nokia N1. Measuring at 7.9” diagonal, powered by an Intel CPU, and running Android Lollipop, the N1 is Nokia’s first tablet since selling their mobile device division.

From a design perspective I’m not sure there’s anything to call the N1 other than an unabashed duplicate of the iPad Mini. Built out of a single piece of aluminum, the N1 incorporates the iPad’s 7.9” diagonal size and many of its stylings, including curves, button placements, and even the location of the headphone jack. Short of the iPad’s home button, at first glance you would be hard pressed to tell the N1 and iPad Mini apart.

In any case, while in many ways Nokia is looking to learn from the masters here, the N1’s design does have some elements that set it apart (and ahead) of the iPad Mini and similar tablets. Nokia has been able to drive the tablet to just 6.9mm thick and 318g heavy – thinner and lighter than any iPad Mini. Meanwhile the display has been fully laminated, with Nokia eliminating any kind of air gap between the display panel and the cover glass.

In terms of technical specifications Nokia is tapping Intel’s Atom Z3580 to power the device. Z3580 includes a quad-core Silvermont processor running at 2.3Ghz, along with an Imagination PowerVR G6430 running at 533MHz. Paired with the processor is 2GB of LPDDR3-1600, Bluetooth 4.0, and 802.11ac WiFi. Meanwhile the 7.9” 4:3 IPS display is 2048x1536 pixels, once again identical to the retina iPad Mini. Powering the device will be an 18.5Whr battery.

Tablet Specificaiton Comparison
	Nokia N1	iPad Mini 3	NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet
SoC	Intel Atom Z3580	Apple A7	Tegra K1
CPU	4x Silvermont @ 2.3Ghz	2x Cyclone @ 1.3GHz	4x Cortex A15r3 @ 2.2GHz
GPU	PowerVR G6430 @ 533MHz	PowerVR G6430	Kepler (1 SMX)
RAM	2GB LPDDR3-1600	1GB LPDDR3	2GB DDR3L-1866
NAND	32GB NAND (eMMC 5.0)	16GB/64GB/128GB NAND	16GB/32GB NAND + microSD
Display	7.9" 2048 x 1536 IPS LCD	7.9" 2048 x 1536 IPS LCD	8” 1920 x 1200 IPS LCD
Dimensions	200.7 x 138.6 x 6.9mm, 318 grams	200 x 134.7 x 7.5mm, 331 grams	221 x 126 x 9.2mm, 390 grams
Camera	8MP Rear Camera 5MP FFC	5MP Rear Camera 1.2MP FFC	5MP Rear Camera 5MP FFC
Battery	5300 mAh, 3.7V chemistry (19.61 Whr)	23.8Whr	5197 mAh, 3.8V chemistry (19.75 Whr)
OS	Android 5.0 + Nokia Z Launcher	iOS 8	Android 4.4.2
Connectivity	802.11a/b/g/n/ac + BT 4.0, USB Type-C (USB 2.0)	802.11a/b/g/n + BT 4.0, Lightning (USB 2.0)	2x2 802.11a/b/g/n + BT 4.0, USB2.0, mini HDMI 1.4a
Price	$249 (32GB)	$399 (16GB) $499 (64GB)	$299 (16GB/WiFi) $399 (32GB/LTE)

One notable first here, Nokia is utilizing the new USB Type-C connector for the tablet, and not entirely in the way we’d expect. With the Type-C connector serving as Nokia’s analogue to Apple’s Lightning, Nokia is using what they call a “Micro-USB 2.0 with a Type-C reversible connector” setup, which means that while this is a Type-C connector it is only wired up for USB 2.0 and not USB 3.0. Given the design goals of the Type-C connector, we expect this will be the first of many such mobile devices to make use of it in the coming months.

Vision for the N1 will be provided by a pair of cameras on the front and back. The rear camera is an 8MP camera with autofocus and is capable of recording video at 1080p. Meanwhile the smaller front camera is 5MP and utilizes fixed focus. Finally, the tablet comes in a single storage configuration of 32GB, with Nokia’s NAND driven through eMMC 5.0.

On the software side of matters, the N1 will run a semi-customized version of Android Loliipop. In this case Nokia has made only a handful of changes, primarily replacing the standard Android launcher with their newly released Z Launcher.

Finally, while the N1 is a Nokia branded product, Nokia is calling special attention to their manufacturing arrangement with tablet partner Foxconn. As part of Nokia’s development strategy, the industrial design, IP, and Z Launcher software are being licensed to Foxconn for the production of the tablet. Foxconn in turn basically assumes all further responsibilities for the product, including business execution, engineering, and support, in many ways making this a Foxconn tablet with Nokia software and branding.

No doubt due in part to this reason, the N1 will be launching first in China before coming to other regions. Nokia’s official announcement states that it will be launching in China in Q1’15 for the equivalent of $249 USD (before taxes) with no further markets announced at this time. Meanwhile BGR is reporting that it is expected to launch in China after Chinese New Year, with further releases in Russia and parts of Europe in the following months. To that end there are no currently announced plans to bring the N1 to North America, though at this stage by no means does it mean that the N1 won’t come at a later date.

Not tech news per se but very relevant to all of us in some form: two of the largest chocolate makers say that the cocoa supply is running out. A combo of pod fungus and dry weather is causing supply issues and deficits are becoming the norm. There's also a slight demand problem. China's growing love for the stuff is of particular concern. The Chinese are buying more and more chocolate each year. Still, they only consume per capita about 5 percent of what the average Western European eats. There's also the rising popularity of dark chocolate, which contains a good deal more cocoa by volume than traditional chocolate bars (the average chocolate bar contains about 10 percent, while dark chocolate often contains upwards of 70 percent). Comments

Earlier this week we reported Universal wanted Justin Lin back to direct the last few Fast and Furious movies back-to-back. But just because Universal is talking endgame doesn’t mean the series is going out anytime soon.

Universal Pictures chairman Donna Langley has clarified that she believes there will be “at least three more” Fast and Furious films, which means we’re looking at “at least three more” years of Fast and Furious films. Hit the jump for details on more Fast and Furious movies.

Langley hinted at the future of the Fast and Furious franchise in a roundtable convo with THR.

We think there’s at least three more. [...] I think it’s still a growing franchise. We’ll see what happens with Furious 7, obviously, but our box office has grown over the past three or four films and internationally, in particular. So we think that there’s more to mine there. But we’re of course very mindful about fatigue.

The Fast and Furious franchise suffered a big blow last year when star Paul Walker passed away. However, Langley is confident the series can continue without him. “Paul is, and always will be, an integral part of the story,” she said. “But there are many other great characters, and it’s also an opportunity to introduce new characters.”

Langley’s comments suggest they’re still figuring things out over at Universal. As she points out, they’re still waiting to see what comes of Furious 7. But that probably also means a multi-film deal with Lin can’t be locked in just yet. It’s hard to imagine an in-demand filmmaker committing to an unspecified number of movies.

While Lin wasn’t involved with the original The Fast and the Furious, he’s had a bigger influence on the franchise than any other director. He’s helmed four out of the seven installments so far, and it was under his watch that the series became one of Universal’s most prized properties. James Wan took over the series starting with the upcoming Furious 7, but he may be too busy with The Conjuring 2 to do Fast and Furious 8 on Universal’s schedule. Hence the Justin Lin rumors.

It’s tricky to tell when the right time is to end a film franchise. End while the property’s still hot, and you’re leaving money on the table; wait until it’s totally cold and your once-beloved property will have become a national joke. From here, three more films sounds like a good goal for the Fast and Furious franchise, but like Universal we’ll have to see what happens with Furious 7 before playing armchair studio exec.

Do you think three more films is enough for the Fast and the Furious series, or are you holding out hope for more?

The post There Will Be “At Least Three More” ‘Fast and Furious’ Movies appeared first on /Film.

Directed by Morten Tyldum (Headhunters) and starring Benedict Cumberbatch as pioneering and unjustly prosecuted computer scientist Alan Turing, The Imitation Game has been squarely established as a key player in this year’s awards race. That means it can be easy to talk about Cumberbatch’s Oscar chances rather than the film itself. But set aside questions about awards for now. Focus instead on the fact that there’s a big movie about a man who has long been celebrated in scientific circles, and who is also known for his sexuality and the shameful way he was treated by his country because of it. See a final Imitation Game trailer below.

This is a minute-long trailer, so it hits the high beats, throws out some critical praise, and gets out. As I’ve said before I like this trend of one-minute trailers more and more. It’s a good way to remind audiences of the movie, but not badger us all with extensive plot details and big emotional moments.

The Imitation Game opens on November 28 in the US. Trailer via YouTube.

In THE IMITATION GAME, Benedict Cumberbatch stars as Alan Turing, the genius British mathematician, logician, cryptologist and computer scientist who led the charge to crack the German Enigma Code that helped the Allies win WWII. Turing went on to assist with the development of computers at the University of Manchester after the war, but was prosecuted by the UK government in 1952 for homosexual acts which the country deemed illegal.

The post ‘The Imitation Game’ Trailer: Reaching New Heights appeared first on /Film.

If you're a MMO player LFG - Looking For Goats - then you're probably mad. You're also exactly the kind of oddball who'll be interested by Goat MMO Simulator, a free expansion for Goat Simulator that's releasing on Steam this Thursday, November...

ESA's comet lander Philae has ran out of batteries and gone to sleep at 7:30PM on November 14th, 2014. It was supposed to harness solar energy to continue its operations, but it unfortunately bounced twice during touchdown and settled in the shade....

Cathematics [via]

[amrbasshead17]

Ever wanted to have a peek inside the mind of a visual effects genius? We did, we got a chance, and here's what we asked John Gaeta, the man behind the visual effects of the Matrix trilogy.

The man who won the war gets his dues

For months now it’s been rumored that YouTube is going to release some form of a music streaming service. We haven’t really understood what it is, and what is different about it from Google Play Music All Access. Well today some of those questions has been answered.

YouTube Music Key

YouTube Music Key offers Ad-free music, background listening, and offline playback. You can see the landing page for Music Key here. The service is currently in Beta, and all you can do is put in your email to receive more information.

However CNET has some information on it, and says that the service will be released in a pilot version on Monday starting at $10/month. Users selected for Beta will get it for 6 months for free, and then after that $8/month if they decide to keep it. Those who already subscribe to Google Play Music All Access have no fear, because if you already pay for that you will have access to Music Key, and those with Music Key will have All Access.

What’s great about this is two things:

1. This will be the first music subscription service to include videos
2. This may very well be the most successful music subscription service.

I say the second point because of YouTube’s very wide reach around the world. It’s already the biggest video site, and is top in legally provided music online. Hundreds of millions of people use YouTube regularly, so it would not be very hard for YouTube to achieve wide-spread with this service.

I already have All Access, so I’m looking forward to trying out this large addition to my subscription, which may very well make it more worth it.

Are you excited for Music Key?

via CNET

The post Google readies YouTube Music Key streaming service appeared first on AndroidGuys.

Last month, Procter & Gamble decided that it wanted out of the battery game, and was selling Duracell to the highest bidder. Today, a surprising figure has emerged as the buyer: America's richest man, Warren Buffett. According to the release,...

Well, that was anticlimactic. Online retail titan Amazon and the publisher Hachette have been sniping at each other for months because they couldn't see eye to eye on how much e-books should cost (and how much revenue Amazon should get off of them)....

When the Philae lander reached the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko after a decade in space, the ESA expected it to draw energy from the sun to power its scientific instruments. Unfortunately, it's now stuck in the worst place possible: in the shade,...

Yeah, we know. "Nobody expects the Dragon Age: Inquisition" and all that. News Content Director Alexander Sliwinski gave the game five stars, explaining that Dragon Age: Inquisition is "BioWare's reaffirmation of what it's capable of delivering," and...

Microsoft has opened up a lot over the past several months. It released powerful mobile versions of Office, launched cross-platform health technology and even posted some code for .NET, the programming framework that underpins a large part of the...

X-Men: Days of Future Past cleaned up the X-Men movie timeline (by erasing most of it) and set up some power dynamics that will be further explored in the next film, X-Men: Apocalypse, due in 2016. The core dynamics in the series are now between Xavier, Magneto, and Mystique. A Magneto and Mystique romance has been floated in the past, but now it sounds like Apocalypse will see the mentor relationship between Magneto and Mystique blossom into a full-blown red-on-blue romance. 

THR says,

Apocalypse is being crafted around Lawrence’s Mystique character and Michael Fassbender’s Magneto. A source who has seen the script says Fox will take full advantage of Lawrence and Fassbender’s star power, placing Mystique and Magneto’s romance front and center.

In other words, this decision was likely made in part based on the popularity of Jennifer Lawrence, and on Fox’s desire to keep her as a central character in the series. Is a big relationship between Magneto and Mystique something that makes sense for the story? Hard to say, but look at it this way: Fox wanting to keep Jennifer Lawrence front and center means the rest of the X-Men reality might bend a bit to accommodate her.

So the issue isn’t so much the romance — the X-Men stories are essentially super-powered soap operas and romantic entanglements have always been a big part of the comics and films — but what else might be sacrificed in order to keep Lawrence and Michael Fassbender as prominent players.

As for the rest of Apocalypse, we know the character who goes by the same name will make an appearance, and that the film will explore the earliest human mutants. Evan Peters will likely be back as Quicksilver, and we may see Channing Tatum as Gambit. X-Men: Apocalypse opens on May 27, 2016.

The post ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ Will Feature a Big Mystique and Magneto Relationship appeared first on /Film.

Video game adaptations tend to get a bad rap, but Sony is doing what it can to make sure Uncharted bucks that trend. The studio’s efforts now include bringing an Oscar winner on board. Mark Boal, the acclaimed screenwriter behind The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, has signed to work on the screenplay. Even better is the reason he signed on: He’s actually a big fan of the game. Hit the jump for more on the Mark Boal Uncharted hiring, plus new Uncharted plot details.

According to THR, Sony envisions Uncharted as “a swashbuckling adventure in the vein of Indiana Jones.” At the center of the story is Nate Drake, a descendent of explorer Sir Francis Drake, who believes he has found the location of the fabled El Dorado. In his search to find the lost city, he encounters creatures who turn out to be the mutated offspring of Spaniards and Nazis — and who apparently are none too thrilled with his quest to uncover the treasure’s secrets. 

Uncharted has been in the works for several years already and has gone through several screenwriters in that time. David O. Russell was once attached to direct from a screenplay he wrote. Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer, David Guggenheim, and Cormac and Marianne Wibberley have also worked on the screenplay at various points.

The video game adventure is a bit of a departure for Boal, who is known for more grounded dramas like The Hurt Locker and In the Valley of Elah, as well as the fact-based Zero Dark Thirty. However, THR says Boal was attracted to Uncharted because he likes the game. Between his affection for the source material and his proven talent for thrilling drama, he seems like just the guy to take this project to the next level.

Uncharted is expected to shoot in early 2015 with Seth Gordon directing. There are still a few more pieces that need to fall into place before cameras can roll, however, including a leading man. Mark Wahlberg was attached at one point but has since dropped out, and Chris Pratt has already turned down the gig. If all goes according to plan, Uncharted will open June 12, 2016.

The post ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Writer Mark Boal Boards ‘Uncharted;’ Get the Plot Details appeared first on /Film.