Leaks and Rumors (11)
Rumors, Leaks and other unconfirmed stuff
Microsoft Surface has not yet fully gone on sale, but already rumors about the new models are appearing. According to the relatively reliable MS_nerd, there will be three versions of this tablet. Surface RT 2, edition of Microsoft's tablet with an ARM chip, should have a screen with a diagonal of 8.6 inches. Also, the tablet should be powered by a Qualcomm chipset, unlike the Nvidia Tegra 3 which is in the current edition of Surface RT.
With just a few days left until the announcement of the new iPhone from Apple, we bumped leaked photos of the battery that is supposed to be in the device on the internet. If you can’t wait to get a glimpse of something, anything from new the iPhone here are some photos for you. The guys at iResQ apparently have quite a few pieces of iPhone and they have decided to place this new battery in their chassis, and it fits perfectly. Hopefully it will solve issues with battery drain while using 3G and LTE which is still quite a big problem. It would be nice if you didn’t have to charge your iPhone literally every day if you intend to do a bit of surfing, check some videos online or maybe play multiplayer games.
Apparently gaming accessory maker PDP has a slip of tongue, at the GameStop manager's conference in Texas. During one of the presentations a representative for PDP said that they will release their peripherals just before Wii U launch on November 18. This news come from an attendee that decided to remain anonymous so we can’t be certain about this date, but if we consider that the holiday season is fast approaching it seems rather believable. Both the release date and the console price are officially a secret for now. Both are expected to be announced at a major event that will take place in New York on September 13.
The Nikon Coolpix S800c is assumed to be a new camera from the Japanese manufacturer and it is belived it will feature Android software. It is not official, but after seeing leaked photos of the device we can say it looks promising. If it comes out it will be first Android based camera, and it is expected to be announced on August 22nd. The device will have 4.5-54mm lens, 3.5“ OLED display and will run on Android 2.3 Gingerbread.
As consumers are becoming less and less enchanted with their wireless carriers we are now hearing that Microsoft is trying to take a leaf from their book of tricks. With a wireless provider the way to get people in the door is to offer great phones (like the iPhone, Google Nexus, Galaxy III Etc) for amazing prices, but then to require a two year commitment for service. This is exactly what Microsoft might be doing with the next round or XboX hardware.
Valve is one of those companies that just seems to work. They have a leadership and management style that supports creativity and free thinking. In fact during a recent interview Gabe Newell stated that they let people work on the things they feel are important and that is how new projects are created (it was funny to hear him say he often rolls his desk into the elevator to work with others).
After our initial report of an Office suite from Microsoft developed for Apple’s iPad it seems the company is trying very hard to deny the rumors and speculation, while at the same time leaving their options open. What is the real story? We are not entirely sure, but we are convinced that something is going on that will allow Office functionality on the iPad and other tablets in the works.
It looks like AMD might be taking a leaf out of HP’s book. According to a report from ZDNet Asia AMD will begin to shift its focus away from the desktop to the server side where the margins are much higher per unit. This latest news plays into some additional rumblings that AMD is getting out of the x86 market (which is not true at all). We have already told you that AMD is planning to shift its consumer line up toward the mobile market where AMD feels they have an advantage over Intel and the Atom.
There is a rumor (according to CNET) that says Microsoft might release a version of their popular Office Suite for the iPad. Before you start slamming Microsoft or make the comment that Apple’s iWork suite is better/ just as good, let’s take a quick look at why Microsoft would even entertain this idea.
With all of the hubbub about Spotify and other new music services it seems that Microsoft would like to get in on some of that MP3 love. To do this they are launching a new $10 Zune Pass service. Now, this is not a price reduction, but it is a new level of service. With the $15 price tag you get unlimited downloads, complete with DRM, and 10 song credits per month. You can use these to download DRM free songs that you can use in almost any way you like.
With the new $10 plan you get the same unlimited downloads, but you lose out on the 10 song credits. We are fairly certain that this will not bring in a ton of new Zune owners, but it certainly is a step in the right direction for Microsoft at this point. This news was accompanied by a rumor that Microsoft will be adding more video services to the Xbox 360. Some of the ones that are being tossed around are Comcast, HBO Go, Crackle and many more. The thing that makes this even more interesting is that is Microsoft is working on this for the XboX 360 then it is already planning to drop these into Windows 8’s Media Center.
Now I wonder if I can get confirmation on that Microsoft Run Media Service that I was hearing about. Maybe this report is not so much Microsoft adding these services in but offering an aggregation service for these and dropping this into Windows and the Xbox… Remember, Microsoft has already said they are working toward integrating Xbox and Windows, so this idea is not that far-fetched. We will work to find out more on this.
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It has not even been a month since the announcement of HP’s decision to kill off the mobile operating system it bought from Palm WebOS. Now we hear that HTC could be considering buying this operating system from HP and starting its own mobile OS. If they do this it would put them in competition with a few companies that they have a long standing relationship with. I am also pretty sure that Google and Microsoft might think twice about stepping in to help (well ok help more) them in their ongoing (never ending) patent battle with Apple if they suddenly found themselves cut out of some of the business they get from HTC.
We also hate to say this but WebOS was not that much of a hit on the market. It had an impact at a time when Android was in its infancy, iOS sill did not have copy and paste and Windows Mobile OS 6… well we all remember WinMobile 6. We also think that now is not the time for HTC to be diving into this as they have quite a few fish in the pan already. The financial impact of buying WebOS, then developing it into something that is marketable and then pushing these products onto a market that is split into roughly two houses (Google and Apple) could end up being too much for the embattled company.
We really hope this is nothing more than a rumor and that HTC remains dedicated to making hardware and does not try to branch out and become its own channel.
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