Things to come: April 2012

03/04/2012 — AndroidZoom

Android users had a blast last March’12 since it came full of premiere and new releases for Android OS. Starting with Google Play which claims to be an unified market place for apps, music, movies and ebooks provided by Google. What’s more, there were really good news for Android gamers too: the expected Angry Birds Space came up almost at the same time that Cut The Rope Experiments (expansion pack) and the beloved Temple Run. Other great apps like Readability or Bluestacks also broke into the Market throughout last March.

April seems to be another great month regarding new releases. We’re previewing here three apps that are supposed to be launched this month: Galaxy Pool, Google Drive and Demolition Inc. Check them out because they’re worth. Let’s zoom in them:

Galaxy Pool

This game will be probably released next Tuesday, 10th April. Its developers (IT EO Team) is debugging it, but it allowed us to give a go to its beta version. Galaxy Pool is a puzzle game set in the space. Your purpose is to guide the Trippers (cute small aliens into a spaceship) to the Planet by bouncing ship off space bars and galactic rocks. On the way, the Trippers have to grab three precious stars to get the maximum score and unlock the next level. The game is all about controlling space bar angle in order to guide the bouncy spaceship to the planet. However, as long as you advance through levels, more handicaps like vortex and rocks will show up.

There are up to 50 levels in two “Worlds”, 25 each. Each level has to be beat to unlock the next. Likewise, you have to complete the first 25 levels to unlock the 2nd World or unlock it by paying Zaps. You get Zaps for every level you beat or you can get more by rating the game on Google Play, liking its page on Facebook or following it on Twitter (1K extra Zaps). A new concept of puzzle game that will delight Android gamers.


Google Drive

The long-rumored Google Drive. Actually, we all were on Google Drive’s trail when Google Play came up, taken us aback. However, Google Drive was still there, in the oven. It seems that the cloud-based storage system provided by Google is about to come to light. After offering a cloud-office with Google Docs, it was a matter of time getting a cloud-based storage system, specially after the success of other companies that offer this kind of service: Dropbox, Sugarsync or even iCloud.
Some have speculated that it would be a logical extension of Google Docs, which seems quite reliable taken into accout Google’s integration mood. Actually, there’s expected an automatic integration of pictures, videos and other media files uploaded to Google+. It seems that the nitial-free storage would be 5GB with the change to purchase larger pools. It seems quite probably the release of Google Drive throughout this April, so its Android app will be released too, as well as its desktop file browser. We’ll keep tune to give you fresh news.

Demolition Inc.

Last September 2011 was launched (only PC) a new action strategy game called Demolition Inc. It was well-received by critics due to its innovative and hilarious gameplay. Assume the role of a demolition alien worker called Mike who navigates on an UFO with a clear mission:  start a devastating chain reaction on Earth. Graphics and physics are stunning. Check out the video:


Well, this game that has been quite successful on PC is coming to Android. At least, that’s what its developer announced on the 8th International Mobile Game Awards at MWC12. Although its developer said that it would be released by the end of March, it seems that it will finally released throughout April, for Tegra 2 and Tegra 3 devices. We have no clue about price or lite versions, just that this should be the premiere month. We’re looking forward to play it on our Android devices.

We’ll try to keep you up-to-date of which apps and games are heading to Android OS in our series “Things to come”. Keep tune and have a happy app discovery.

Emmanuel Lund, scrying the future from his crystal ball.

Posted in AndroidZoom, Apps, Developers, Games, Google, MWC2012, New Feature, Previews. Tags: , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments »

What we learned at MWC2012: Security

09/03/2012 — AndroidZoom

Mobile security: a growing concern

After attending some conferences at MWC12 about the future of smartphones and other mobile devices connected to the Internet, we ‘ve realized that security is becoming one of the challenges that developers and users will have to handle with in the future. Although there have not been reported too many cases of malware or massive attacks in mobile devices, the issue is breaking into the agenda at the same time that NFC mobile payment systems are offering reliable and user-friendly platforms.

Actually, since the technology already allows it, the first barrier for the spreading of NFC mobile payment systems is, precisely, the security. In other words, the ability of the developers of that payments platforms to ensure users’ data privacy and security as well as the ability to explain it to their potential users.

However, security doesn’t concern just payment platforms, even though that’s the issue which is putting it into the agenda. We wanted to learn how’s the state of the topic. For this reason we attended Kaspersky Labs Press Conference “The Mobile Environment as a Paradise for Cyber Criminals”. Eugene Kaspersky, CEO and Co-Founder of Kaspersky Labs started the conference with a simple question: “Malware in smartphones, is it real or a hype?” The question itself reveals that there’s some susceptibility with this topic. Mr. Kaspersky stated that they’ve been keeping track of the evolution of threats and attacks to mobile devices, as they did in the 90s with PCs. It seems that there’s a shared pattern: some steps that makes predictable an explosion of malware attacks in the short-term. Actually, he said that explosion has already started as this graph shows:

Source: Kaspersky Labs Presentation at MWC 2012

What’s more, Mr. Kaspersky explained that there’s no substantial differences between traditional desktop devices threats and mobile threats: DDOS, spam (specially via SMS), banks accounts theft, identity fakes or phishing (which becomes smishing in mobile devices) among others. Actually, Denis Maslennikov and Vicente Díaz, Senior Malware Analysts from Kaspersky Labs, tried to demonstrate the audience with their analysis results that mobile malware is becoming a real problem, not an occultism issue. And, by the way, prove that they aren’t “charlatans”, as some critics have asserted.

In summary, they keep showing evidences of the inminent explosion of malware and attacks to mobile devices. What’s more, they explained that the most common attacks they’ve registered in smartphones so far have been Trojan-SMS, Backdoor and Trojan-Spy. A Trojan is basically “malicious code into a legitim app code” which is more difficult to detect for the security system of the app markets. That’s precisely what happened on February 2011: some malware yanked the Android market. Some others not-so-well-known attacks have been reported since then.


Source: Kaspersky Labs Presentation at MWC 2012

Putting all these evidences together, Mr. Kaspersky considers that there’s (already) a real threat for our mobile devices. He believes that the same tools for fighting virus and malware on desktop devices should be used to protect our mobile devices: anti-virus, firewalls, parental control, anti-spam… Obviously, after introducing the facts, Kaspersky Labs presented their new apps for battling malware:

Kaspersky Parental Control for Android-based devices

A set of tools to prohibit children from visiting unsuitable or potentially harmful websites. The solution allows to set specific categories of websites to be restricted. Potentially malicious resources such as phishing websites or those distributing harmful to devices are blocked automatically (Web Filtering). KPC permits either allowing or restricting usage of certain apps installed on a device (APP Control).

Kaspersky Parental Control
Discover more Android apps

Kaspersky Tablet Security
KTS gives protection against all kinds of cybercriminal activity, specifically designed for Android-based tablets. It includes anti-virus, protection from alicious and fraudulent software in real time, with cloud protection, that’s it, inmediate reaction against new and emerging threats. What’s more, it detects and block dangerous URLS and websites, including phishing websites. There’s a web management platform for remote control of a device. Finally, it includes anti-theft security features: find, block, data wipe and mugshot the thief.

Kaspersky Tablet Security
Discover more Android apps

My opinion on the subject

Well, I’m not going to discuss the reliability of graphs and data collected by Kaspersky Labs. They’re professionals and, at least, they deserve that respect-treatment from all of us. What’s more, they’re trying to prove something that we all (in different degree) agree: malware and attacks to mobile devices are meant to increase in the next months/years.

I only cast doubt on some points of that hypothesis: we cannot equate 100% PCs & Mobile threats. There are different parameters involved. First off, most of the attacks to PCs where to commercial non-opensource OS like Windows and their products. In most of the cases their purpose was to break its security system and free harm. We have to bear in mind that Android is an open-source linux-based OS. Even though the Android code is fully accessible for the “bad guys”, there’s also a whole community of “good guys” who can voluntarily fix any irregularity. What’s more, open-source OS users are more security conscious (like another Kaspersky Lab Analyst stated once). However, in mobile devices Android is the OS which sees most infections, despite of being an open-source system. What’s more, the nature of the attacks to mobile devices are less gratuitous. In other words, it’s not just to break security systems and free harm: it’s more about attacking the wallet. Mobile devices, specially smartphones, give an economic reason to the cyber criminals for developing malware and trying to place it into the Android Market. The following graph shows percentage of infections by platform:

Source: Kaspersky Labs Presentation at MWC 2012

In short, from my point of view, we aren’t in such a state of emergency, despite of the graphs. From my point fo view, malware and attacks on Android will increase, although due to the open-source nature of the OS, the attacks will be specially oriented to Bank Account Theft, SMiShing or any other type of “attack to the wallet”. Besides the malicious code, we will realize a growth in other soft-attacks like more confusing pay per built-in credits in kids-like apps with no re-funding policy. Finally, the permissions will play a main role in the evolution of the attacks to mobile devices (as we explained in this post and this other), since they’re a legitimate breach in our devices security.

Emmanuel Lund, writer at AndroidZoom.com and sightseer at MWC12

Posted in AndroidZoom, Apps, Developers, MWC2012, Opinion. Tags: , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments »

In a world of conferences…

08/03/2012 — AndroidZoom

It would be hard to summarize all the conferences we’ve attend but I’ll try to do my best and give you a brief inside look at the congress so you can have a better notion of what we got to experience.

The first conference I attended was one called: The Connected Consumer. It had three speakers: Ebay’s CEO and President, who talked avout the changes in the industry and how the ecommerce and retail could combine themselves. Then, BestBuy’s CEO went on to talk about his experience and stated that all devices should be connected, which would led to richer lives. Lastly, we listened to Interpublic’s CEO, Michael Roth,  who made his point about mobile advertising and said we should all introduce ourselves into the concept of mobile engagement.

My second conference was no other than Brett Taylor’s keynote about Facebook. Basically, the talk was focused on Open Graph and how this concept has and will continue enhancing the Facebook experience for everyone. Facebook wanted to become partners with many companies that could use this mechanism and wire accounts together.

Apps for all was a two-part pannel where the main topics where finacing apps and the developer ecosystem. Everything was pretty technical and the main idea that was that everyone should make an hybrid approach and try to give the users what they want, it doesn’t matter  if it’s HTML5 or native apps.

If you’re interested in the Future and Text & Voice messaging, What’sApp’s CEO made an appearance and confessed the app was not intended to be used as a messaging system but simply as an app for displaying your status during the day so people would no bother you when you were busy. Four other speakers followed Jan Koum and they all gave their opinions about the outlook of this particular topic and how everyone should be connected.


Evolution of App Developement was one of MWC’s key pannels. At&T’s Jon Summers spoke about the evolution of Apps, Cloud and APIs, focusing on AT&T engagement model and the three key areas: Cloud enablement, open networks and world class information. The second one was Scott Jenson from Frog, who made a controversial speech about native and web approach, stating that “Native Apps must die” and the three trends that dominated the environment: App glut, Size and cost reduction and Leverage other platforms. The two following companies featured were Service2media and AlJazeera, who was a client of them and talked about an app’s Lifecycle and Cross-platform experiences. The last one to go on stage was SK telecom, a Korean mobile service provider who made their speech about app ecosystems.

The longest queue was to see Eric Schmidt from Google. Everyone was expectant and he didn’t disappoint. Firstly, they showed us the new features of Google Chrome for Android: being able to navigate comfortably between tabs and using your mobile device to access to the computer’s web browser history with just a click. Then, Schmidt proceeded to give a lecture on the future of mobile connection, trying to reach countries with no access and the different types of consumers, from the Ultra-connected people to the communities with no connection at all. “Connect people with information and they will change the world”.

The Mobile Education project featured people with experience in the field. The first one was n experienced young boy who had created an innovative initiative in favor of digital learning and the use of mobile devices in class. We also heard a woman from Telefonica Learning Services who explained their success and their teaching mechanism. There’s quite a lot of information about the project and it actually makes some good points.

The last conference I attended was one that featured people from the music business and was titled: The future of mobile music. A music manager,  a music company economist and Terra Latinoamerica’s CEO let all the attendees know about their views on the music business. People are nowadays more invested in music, although they don’t want to pay for a physical album.

Mobile Awards might not be as glamorous as the Academy Awards but we enjoyed them as if they were. GSMA Global Mobile Awards were extremely enjoyable thanks to the presenter and his songs featuring Talking Tom Cat and a love letter to an old mobile phone. Samsung was one of the main winners (Peter Warrior managed to list all the winners on Twitter when they were announced) and fun fact: Apple was not there to receive its Tablet award. On the other hand, the Gaming Awards’ ceremony lasted all day and we were sad to know only a few of the winners were actually Android games. They need more recognition!

And that is all, AndroidZoomers, we hope you’ve enjoyed reading about MWC12 and you’ve come to understand a little bit more what it is about and the type of lectures that are usually given.

A.G

Posted in AndroidZoom, MWC2012. No Comments »

Feeling like a tourist at MWC12

06/03/2012 — AndroidZoom

As you can see these days, this blog is being full of news about what the Mobile World Congress latest edition has brought to town. My colleagues Peter, Anna and Emmanuel were on location to make you feel you were right there (check out our Twitter and Facebook account if you want to have a better idea of it), while I was at Androidzoom’s headquarters giving them support and doing other tasks. But on Wednesday morning I was able to take a peek at what was going on inside the Barcelona’s Fair huge pavillons and I have to say that I felt like Alice in Wonderland, equally amazed and overwhelmed by what I found in front of my eyes. Being honest, I’m still a rookie at the whole smartphones & apps fantasy, and Androidzoom is the White Rabbit that got me here in the first place. So let’s say I went to MWC12 to learn more about the landscape around my job, but the experience ended up being beyond delicious.

Before I even put my feet in the very first pavillon I helped myself with the Congress thick catalogue and some maps to not lose my way around the area… As you can imagine, not so different from the hordes of tourists that come to Barcelona anytime of the year. Though as soon as I had got a glimpse of a inmense green robot waving at the visitors above one of the entrances, I forgot completely about the brochures and headed straight to it. The Androidworld was waiting for me. In comparison to the other stands and boxes, this one was the funniest by far. I think the corporate atmosphere was there too but fantastically hidden behind a slide, a music area, a typical fairy machine to pick up the Android-bear that, like any other of its kind, was  tricked for you to fail, and my favourite service: a bar where you can have free smoothies and ice cream sandwiches tailored with the Android figure (clearly a pun to the latest operative system). The happy atmosphere and friendly faces turned shark-levels hostile when it came to collect all the 84 costumized pins models that the participants developers like Foursquare or the BBC offered on their counters. But this is nothing compared to the enraged crowd that gathered a round the bar when the tenders threw licensed Android goodies… Like they were giving away money! (of course, I got my own, couldn’t be less, ha!).

Not being a fan of tablets and Yeti-like screens on phones myself, I can tell that I went back home in love with the new Samsung Galaxy Note collection. It has to be the pen, since I’m a bit nostalgic of PDAs, and the possibility of painting a moustache to the that random that hogs all the attention in your favourite holiday picture. Still, the devices on display didn’t work properly in some cases, maybe because they got exhausted with that many people testing them. These aspect needs improvement but, overall, I think it’s a great idea to boost smart devices features, especially for those who have a hard time taping the screen keys, or for those arty ones that love sketching and making notes. By the way, it was great seeing a exhibition painter doing real caricatures with the Galaxy Note 10 on the spot. Too bad I can’t tell you the result on my case, there was a lenghty queue.

Despite the magnificent organization and welcoming atmosphere and facilities at the WMC, the biggest drawback, and unfortunately, it is a basic one, was the Internet connection. I was anxious about trying Nokia’s Lumia after all the hype created around the giant’s attemp to tackle the smartphone market along with Windows Phone. Well, it couldn’t be thanks to the mediocre net. Instead of letting disappointment get to me, I took to opportunity to speak to one of the exhibitors. Wayne, like the rest of the Nokia gang, was wearing surpringsily not a suit, but a black and blue stripped shirts, jeans and sneakers. He informed about the interest of the company in the developing countries which is one of the reason behind their strategy on launching low cost, basic app-featured devices like their Asha series in which they continue using their own operative system.

I could go on sharing with you my views on the MWC, rating about the connection (that we expect to be better next year when the exhibition moves to a newer fair area in the city) and showing my amazement at the unexpectedly nice Blackberry’s tablet, but I’ll finish with only one more thing: being there has confirmed me that aplications and device are not a fantasy anymore

MAR G.P., discovering the Androidverse just like you.

Posted in AndroidZoom, MWC2012. Tags: , , , . No Comments »

4 days in Mobile Paradise

02/03/2012 — AndroidZoom

The Mobile World Congress is over. From Monday to Thursday, 4 days full of excitement, learning, emotion, people and mobile devices, many of them.

We arrived right on time and we didn’t have to wait in a long queue. It took less than five minutes to get our badge and go inside the congress’ walls. The weather was pretty good and although it was cloudy for most part of the first day, it was still fairly hot compared to the previous weeks. As for the environment, it was excellent: people walking continuously, wandering and meeting others. And hundreds and hundreds of stands, some of them really impressive (anyone said water-proof devices?).

The place where the WMC was located is great: it has wide spaces, water fountains and many places to sit and rest, even to have a cup of coffee while you chat with your colleagues or friends. With all the conferences, stands and seminars, it’s impossible to get bored. In fact, it’s quite the opposite: you always have things to do, places to go, lectures to listen to and demos to see. There are so many things happening at the same time that it’s necessary to organize your schedule and prioritize what you really want to do, otherwise you might end up missing out stuff.

Organization is one of the pillars of the congress: everything is right on schedule, all the people who are going to give a presentation are ready and nothing has gone wrong (at least, from our experience). In an Award Ceremony, we even had a singing We were able to attend all the conference we wanted to and almost all of them turned out to be really interesting. Yes, we got to see Facebook’s CTO and Google’s Eric Schmidt.

In conclusion,these four days have been extremely productive and we’re all really tired now. I feel like I could sleep for three days straight but always with the feeling that this experience is worth it. We wouldn’t have had it any other way.

A.G

Posted in AndroidZoom, MWC2012. Tags: . No Comments »

AndroidZoom at MWC12 day two

28/02/2012 — AndroidZoom

Hi, AndroidZoomers!

If yesterday was a day to get oneself used to Mobile World Congress atmosphere, stroll around and meet old friends and make new ones; today has been a day to work, to know, to ask and be asked.

We put our hands on Nokia‘s Pureview 808. I won’t spend more than a few lines on this: as it couldn’t be otherwise, a 41 Mp pic is untweeteable, unfacebookable, ungmailable and unsendable in any known way beyond a ftp client or a too tech-savvy solution, and I don’t think Nokia is precisely working on that. Pics taken are great and pinch-out-able a lot of times before pixelling themselves, but I’m sure Nokia will be left alone in its own crazy race to bring Megapixels beyond reasonable levels. I’m sorry to say this, but Nokia hostesses have been the unkindest we’ve met, though perhaps wearing a press badge with AndroidZoom in it hanging from your neck doesn’t help at all, or maybe it means something I don’t dare to realize.

On the other hand, LG is making the most of their tech. To say that their gadgets are awesome is is an understatement. LG is sure that the future will be in 3D or it won’t be. Their 3D TVs are beyond comparison and, here’s the part I like most, latest generation LG Optimus P920, dual core and running ICS and featuring HD screens able to take 3D pics, 3D video and play them on screen without polarized glasses, well, we’ll need to get used to soon. I was absolutely skeptical about it, I kindly asked for a demo and, when it ended, I humbly sayed: “I’m amazed. It’s impressive. Thank you, good evening”. Belive when I say that it’s really hard to amaze me with a gadget if it hasn’t at least the NASA brand on it. I don’t know how these guys at LG have made it, but we might talk about not only one of the most powerful Android device ever released. This way, LG positions itself as a deluxe brand, in a perfect place to compete with any love brand you can tell.

We visited Android world. I don’t want to make a speech just saying that Android is better than anything else. I will only say that it’s the best part of all whole Mobile World Congress. It’s really fun. People’s laughing, you are attended by smiling people proud of what they’ve done or are doing, waiters show tattoed arms and piercings and there’s even a waitress with lilac rastas and a faerie look in her eyes. I asked for a snack or something in the afternoon but there was a crowd between the bar and me and she throwed over an ice cream sandwich to me! A true Android-like ice cream sandwich, I mean. It’s a fair, and in Android world it’s obvious that hostesses don’t have to pose straight and smile falsely to every passer-by guest. Although it seems a joke, there’s a slide to you can glide into and a childish wall to play with textures and lights. There’s also a virtual library and I don’t know how many more funny stuff. Have I said it’s the best part of MWC? Trust me, if I worked for whatever-zoom, I’d say the same words.

GSMA hosted the Global Mobile Awards. If you have followed us on Twitter, you should already know what I’m talking about, because we’ve tweeted every single prize awarded in real time. What it promised to be a boring ceremony became hilariously fun thanks to host Tim Minchin, who not only is a great comedian but also a talented pianist. He made a duo with Talking Tom Cat when both sang a song called “there’s an app for everything”, a song that made people laugh out loud. He stamped the awards a fast pace, put a pun here and there and was kind to award-winners who aren’t used to give “thank you for this prize” speeches. In the end, no surprises. Etisalat, Samsung, Whatsapp and Rovio among others were awarded and, nearly at the end, when the “best tablet” award was given to Apple’s iPad2, people booed because no Apple representant has gone to the event to receive the prize. Mr Minchin was shrewd and make an intended pun when asked if “maybe any Google staff can go up and take it on behalf of them” (no exact, but nearly quote). People laughed once again and the host ended the ceremony with another witty song. We should look forward for a GSMA’s video on Youtube or something, because these two songs Tim Minchin composed especially for the occasion were really great.

We also saw how Fujitsu’s Arrows tablet ran underwater and attended Alcatel‘s conference. Alcatel has managed to grow in these times through smart investment on emerging countries and sacrificing top notch developing. It’s been a sincere and straightforward conference watered with cava, which is Catalan champagne, perhaps a little softer and sweeter than its French counterpart. Great for Alcatel, as there’s no point in selling yourself as a spearhead of tech delopment when you aren’t. Instead of, they’re proud to reach virgin markets, improve design and do what they do best: selling cheap yet nice devices.

Eric Schmidt’s conference, keynote speaker, has been about how Chrome syncs computer and mobile bookmarks, history and favorites, all wrapped up in a main message: Chrome is faster, better and, obviously, cheaper than its competitors. He even dared to open a Q&A intake at the end, but people’s questions were either too odd or too personal opinion to be needed to be reproduced here.

I’m sure I’ve overlooked a lot of things. Stay tuned, we have a ton of pics and videos to upload yet and a thousand and one things to talk about.

Sun’s been shining all day long and, as we walked through the main avenue, fountains were leaving behind us little rainbows. Wish you were here.

Peter Warrior

EiC at AndroidZoom, from Barcelona.

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AndroidZoom at MWC12 day one

27/02/2012 — AndroidZoom

Our first day at Barcelona Mobile World Congress is about to end. Let’s try to highlight some key points.

First at all, we’ve been lucky enough to enjoy a sunny day. Weather has been kind to us. In fact, it got cloudy for a while somewhen in the early afternoon, which it was appreciated because halls are too warm.

Straight to the point: organization is awesome. We’ve arrived at half past eight in the morning and we were in just five minutes later. No queues, no awkward security measures, no odd ID checkings. La Fira (that’s how the place is called) is gorgeous, with water fountains here and there, and it’s just a step out of the metro, near Espanya square, this is, rather near from the centre of the city if not in the centre itself. And no, there has not been any metro workers strike, in case you were worried about it.

Not everything shiny is gold, though. Mobile coverage is nothing but awful and even wifi hotspots run slowly. This makes hard to tweet on real time, not to talk about uploading pics or vids. Of course, you can imagine how difficult it can be to manage thousands of people everyone toying with latest-end devices.

Early in the morning, ZTE announced a bunch of new devices. Apart from a shy Windows device (ZTE Orbit), the rest have been Android. Mr. He Shiyou, ZTE’s Europe chief manager declared that ZTE is the world fourth handset builder and wants to be the third. Then he gave the floor to Mr. Fan Jiongyi, business manager, who announced the beginning ZTE’s era, in an obvious pun to promote their new flagship ZTE ERA among many low-end devices including a few tablets running Honeycomb 3.3. ERA will be running Android 4.0, will have a 4,3″ screen and a quadcore engine with, they’ve said, awesome multitasking performance. It won’t be available until the second half of the year. Mr. Shiyou emphasized that batteries will last more than we can expect, but he didn’t want to be more precise. Likewise, he announced a new user interface called mifavor created from scratch by ZTE, but in the video played at the conference we didn’t see any special virtue, no matter how many times his speech included the words “new user experience”. In summary, I hope that ZTE’s devices are really cheap, because they aren’t precisely the spearhead of mobile technology.

We can’t say the same about Samsung. Galaxy Note 10 first impression has been absolutely awesome and becomes an actual rival for any iPad or iPad-like device on market. It doesn’t matter if it seems too big to be carried on or how expensive it will be (it’s really hard to get the price out of anyone). No matter how you look at it, Galaxy Note 10 will  be the gadget everyone will talk about and an object of desire for every known creative artist out there.

We strolled around Sony, Nokia and BlackBerry stands, too, and talked with some representatives. Sony‘s primary concern is promoting PSVita, you know, it’s like a PSP with connectivity to PS3. In a demo, we’ve played something similar to SNES F-Zero to de-stress ourselves, but there’s nothing we can contribute about it. No news about Xperia either. On the other hand, Blackberry jumps into the pool and takes the risk of betting on themselves with new Blackberry devices -nothing to write home about- and even tablets. It should be said that the new Blackberry tablets look great and have enviable multitasking properties but, on the whole,  they are far behind what we’ve seen at Samsung’s. When asked about if Blackberry would turn to Android or if Blackberry is going to be sold to Microsoft or any other player, they closed ranks and sang a boring letany about how wonderful Blackberry, Blackberry store and RIM OS are. And what can we say about Nokia? Nokia’s proud of defending Nokia Belle OS with Nokia 808 Pureview. Hold tight, Androidzoomers, it’ll come with a 41 Mp camera with Carl Zeiss optics. Yes, you’ve read right. What we aren’t sure enough is whether it’ll be able to manage so huge files or if it’ll be just a nice camera thought for downloading and managing pics once you get home.

Facebook‘s CTO Bred Taylor talked about (this is not a quote) a holy alliance between Facebook and nearly every other major developer (Google not included) to create an easy and one tap payment platform to increase revenue no matter what it takes. Well, he also talked about Facebook’s awesomeness, but that shouldn’t strike anyone so far.

If you wandered how our future will be, the most spectacular shows have been the domotic house and Toyota, Porsche and Ford cars with connectivity properties. Nothing able to awe you if you’re used to read sci-fi books, but second to none in order to let your mind fly to a future when houses and cars develop a somewhat intelligence of their own and become a nemesis of mankind, hehe.

Anyway, it’s clear that Android rules MWC. Stay tuned for upcoming updates. Tomorrow we’ll talk about Alcatel, showing off that they not only don’t give up easily, but they are growing instead and are launching cheap and nice ICS Android devices with funny 3D launchers. So or so the same as ZTE, but without announcing new eras or whatever. And Fujitsu, don’t forget Fujitsu, who has made Arrows tablets become water-proof!

Peter Warrior

AZ EiC, from Barcelona

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AndroidZoom is going to MWC12

23/02/2012 — AndroidZoom

Hi there, AndroidZoomers from all over the world.

Although it has been a badly kept secret, we’re officially announcing that AndroidZoom team will be at Barcelona World Mobile Congress (related article) that will begin Monday 27th and end on Thursday. It’s the most important congress about wireless industry, and nearly everyone worthy will be there. We should be there and we’ll be there, as if it couldn’t be otherwise.

Follow us on Twitter, because our wireless correspondents will be tweeting there often. They’ll do their best to pass you on and transmit what means to be there. They want to make you feel as if you were there with them, they’ll try to get fun and curious pics of the Congress. Everything will be hashtagged as #MWC12 and bylined by whomever tweet it: Emmanuel signs as E.L.; Ana as A.G. and myself, your humble server, as P.W. Thus, not only you can be up to date of what’s happening there, but also have three different points of view. If you are already following us, you can send us questions and we’ll try to answer them. If we are in Rovio’s Angry Birds stand, we can ask in your name when will the green parrot plush be available for sale. If we are having a sangría, you can ask us what it tastes of. These are just two impromptu examples, yet we’re sure you can be quite creative.

Don’t forget our so-beloved Facebook wall. We’ll gather together all photos and interesting stuff in an album called MWC’12. Your comments will be our wings and breath!

And we’ll shoot videos, too. We want you can hear the crowd, listen to CEOs speeches and see firsthand how the skies of Barcelona are. Whoever isn’t subscribed to our Youtube Channel, do it know or forever hold your peace. Though we’re quite shy, we’ll even try to be polite and salute in our own videos!

I won’t take you much more time. Just know that weather will be sunny all week long. Wish you were here.

Best wishes.

Peter Warrior,

on behalf of all AZ team sent to Barcelona and all our fellow mates we leave behind at AZ HQ.


Posted in AndroidZoom, MWC2012, Opinion. Tags: , , , . 1 Comment »

BCN MWC 12 is coming!

08/02/2012 — AndroidZoom

Dear AndroidZoomers:

Although February doesn’t seem the right month to enjoy sunbathing, sangria or Gothic art in the Northern Hemisphere, there’s a reason of force majeure to make a trip to Barcelona. By this I mean Barcelona, Spain. That is, that I’m not talking about Barcelona in Philippines, either Barcelona city in Venezuela, but Barcelona city in Spain instead. Before you ask, I can tell you in advance that there aren’t bullfights or flamenco saraos there. Barcelonan people use to talk about themselves as if they weren’t Spanish and they have nothing to do at all with Spain.

As we could say on a Facebook relationship status, it’s…complicated.

I would be able to talk about the wonders of Barcelona all day long, but it’d be better if we come back to the beginning.

Mobile World Congress 2012 will take place at the end of February. It promises to be an event so big, so wonderful and so related to the guts of the wireless industry that it well deserves we post an article about it.
It’s, in case that I haven’t been clear enough, the most important event about smartphone technology. Companies and attendees all over the world come to show off their not-yet-released prototypes, their not-yet-launched apps and, overall, every single not-yet-for sale whatever stuff will be there. There are some exceptions, though. Samsung claimed that they won’t present their Galaxy III, but maybe we can put our hands on a Nexus Galaxy S; nearly every smartphone manufacturer will bring their quad-core Android gadgets. HTC and Samsung are to be the most expected, but Asus, LG, Huawei and Fujitsu (!) have also confirmed their assistance. In fact, Fujitsu promised to bring an Android model with a 13Mp camera and both dust and water proof.

We also expect to big game developers to be there. Rumor has it that there’s an unholy alliance between Rovio (Angry Birds) and, brace yourselves, KISS (I was made for lovin’…) so there we’ll have the chance to ask if Seasons will change its course and if there’ll be an Angry Birds Movie or what. We’re sure that Gameloft, Glu and EA will charge their artillery somewhere within App Planet, that is the name where developers gather and where the best conferences will be held. Stay tuned.

Without mentioning the appearance of BlackBerry 10 and the penultimate Nokia attempt to save its skin with a Windows-powered smartphone; new and -we hope so- longer life batteries, bendable keyboards and unscratchable screens. Everything served with some canapés and cava (Catalan champagne). MWC12 is like a window to the near future where we, as professional androidnauts of the Androidverse, can understand where we are and where are we going.  More than seven hundred fifty thousand square feet (70,500 sq meters) of Mobile World Congress can offer a lot unless we have to dig a hole deep enough to protect ourselves from a falling meteorite (you know, 2012’s stuff).

Peter Warrior

-aka Pedro Guerrero is AndroidZoom’s editor-in-chief,

though he often wants to give free rein to his creative urge and writes an article about whatever related to Android.

Posted in AndroidZoom, MWC2012, Opinion. Tags: , , , , . No Comments »
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