HTC One X DROP TEST

We found an interesting unofficial drop test of the new HTC Flagship, the HTC One X:



In this test you will see me drop the HTC One X three times. Once on its back from waist height then the same way from shoulder height. The next thing that I did was chest high face down to get a full shot on the Gorilla Glass.

After the first two drops you will notice the shell of the HTC One X can really take a beating only showing minor scratches and dings, except for the scratch that we noticed going across the camera lens.

The difference between the HTC One X drop test and other drop tests, is that there is no removable battery that will pop out when you drop it. Just watch the video and you will see what happens..

source: www.youtube.com

Stories you shouldn't have missed this week

It is once again time for a short recap of the past week. Perhaps the most significant event that we reported was the Motorola Mobility acquisition by Google, which is now a done deal. As a result, CEO Sanjay Jha was replaced by Dennis Woodside, and who knows, Mr Jha may not be the only person in need of a new job as thousands of Motorola employees might be given the sack soon, if rumors are to be trusted.

In other news, NVIDIA unveiled its Kai platform, which is the company's recipe for delivering Tegra 3 Android tablets at the very reasonable price point of $199. While no device announcements have been made yet, it would not be surprising if such affordable slates hit the market before the year's end.

Want an iPhone-related story? Here's one: it is rumored that two iPhone prototypes are being tested, and both of them flaunt a 4-inch display. But as with all Apple rumors, whether this is true or not will be known once the next iteration of the device is announced officially.


source: Phone Arena

Google Nexus tablet details leaked, will be quad-core and may include Jelly Bean

A “trusted source” speaking to TechnoBuffalo has confirmed many of the details about the upcoming Nex

us tablet…although whether or not Google’s 7” tablet is actually named “Nexus” is not one of those details. The source did confirm that it will be built by ASUS and will be one of the hardware giveaways for Google I/O on June 27th, something we’ve been expecting ahead of its July ship date.

One exciting tidbit is that they also were receiving “conflicting reports” on whether or not the tablet would come preinstalled with Jellybean, the next major version of Android. That would come as something of a pleasant surprise, since many analysts were not expecting the next major version of the little green robot operating system to appear until late fall or early winter.

Also of great interest is the source indicated that the tablet would indeed be rocking a quad-core Tegra3 device, not the dual-core solution that some had expected in light of Google’s attempts to price their tablet aggressively. Of course NVIDIA has said on more than one occasion that part of their project strategy is to help bring to market a sub-$200 Tegra3 tablet, so we may still get the low price point that many of you have been hoping for.

Who out there would be interesting in a $199 quad-core Nexus tablet running Jelly Bean this summer? We reckon quite a few people would be. Is it too good to be true? Most of the hardware and pricing rumors seem reasonable. We have no idea how close Jelly Bean is to fruition, although in the past Google has turned out major software updates in less than a year, so it’s not impossible, even if it’s far from certain. And in a way it’s just a matter of months either way – even if Jelly Bean doesn’t hit until this fall, we’re sure the vanilla Android tablet would be one of the first devices to get the update.

source: TechnoBuffalo via Droid-Life

Supposedly Google's Majel will be called Google Assistant

It looks like Google's next iteration of its voice command software is starting to take shape. TechCrunch is reporting that the product may have shed its codename "Majel" in favor of an official name: Google Assistant. This is especially interesting given that Android chief Andy Rubin, notoriously said that he doesn't "believe your phone should be an assistant". 

Another interesting thing is that TechCrunch is reporting that Google Assistant is now in the hands of the Android team (along with search engineer Amit Singhal) not the mysterious Google X project, which is where Majel had lived. Word has it that Google has been building this product with three goals in mind:

1. Gather all information and make it understandable by computers.
2. Create a personalization layer
3. Build a mobile, voice-powered productivity engine, which is focused less on finding information and more on getting things done

All of this sounds pretty logical. The current voice controls from Google are mainly focused on finding info or communication, so adding in more productivity tools makes sense. The personalization layer is the "plussification" of everything Google that we've been seeing, which is an effort to gather more individual and local data. And, the first goal seems like that has been one of the overarching goals of Google since before it was even called Google. 

Of course, many will call this nothing more than a Siri competitor, but as always, there is the Google openness to consider. Word has it that Google is planning to "extend this service to developers" just like it has with its current voice control app. So, there will likely be APIs allowing developers to hook into the Assistant platform, and just like the current voice control, we may even see a number of third party apps built on top of Google's software. 

The bad news is that the newest info has this product not being released until Q4 of this year.

source: TechCrunch

Here's what the iPad 3 won't be (but we wish it was)

Now, we don’t know what the next-gen iPad will look like. Quite frankly, Apple has been pretty good with keep it under cover as any other of its products, that the only think rumors point to is a high-res display and hopefully a better battery. At the same time, we’re pretty confident it won’t have a dreamy edge-to-edge display and all the awesome features pictured in the concept video below. But we wish it would.

The video imagined by well known Aatma Studio depicts a concept of the iPad 3 that not only has an edge-to-edge screen, but it also easily connects with another iPad via NFC which augments the screen to include that of the second tablet, and it somehow projects controls to the side and even 3D-esque holographic image above it.

Now, what we’re particulaly impressed is the flight of the fantasy of Aatma Studios. It will certainly inspire you with some futuristic ideas. It could also make you less enthusiastic when you see the actual next-gen iPad on March 7th, so proceed with caution, especially if you’re a barista.

source: Electric Pig