Tech News

We know many of you don’t like the term (phablet), but it is the most commonly used word to address those devices that blur the line between a smartphone and a tablet. We don’t necessarily like it either, but if you can help us come up with a better name, we just might use it!
Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get to the point. There seem to be different standards when it comes to categorizing such devices. Screens that we used to see as large are becoming small and gigantic phones are becoming normal. So when does a smartphone exactly become these mystical devices we all stare at when we go to the phone store? Does it depend on the features? Maybe it has more to do with the size?

To me, a phone becomes a “phablet” when you are no longer able to use it comfortably with one hand. Of course, this will vary from person to person, as our hands are not the same size. This is just the way I personally tend to see it. In my eyes, anything above a 5-inch screen is a “phablet” or a mini tablet.
If you believe it is more about features, then you may believe the Galaxy Note devices are about the only real smartphone/tablet hybrids out there. Said devices take advantage of the S-Pen (stylus) to bring more functionality to the larger display. This takes the device’s screen real estate to the next level and makes up for the lack of extra space in your pockets.
I happen to love large displays, even if many times I can’t just one-hand them. I usually don’t, anyways. But what do you guys think? Are you liking these enormous smartphones? Let us know what you think and participate in the poll to let us know when you think a smartphone becomes a “phablet”!

Today the Financial Times reported a unique deal that will see several of early Twitter employees sell stock at a valuation of more than $9 billion to a fund managed by the BlackRock group.
The $80 million offer to “a number” of early employees will allow them to shed some of their equity holdings in the social giant. The $9 billion valuation, according to the FT’s report, is an increase of more than 10% on the firm’s last priced funding. Facebook, another key player in the social web, by comparison, is worth more than $68 billion.
Blackrock is a multinational investment management corporation known to be the “the world's largest asset manager.” Twitter has raised a total of $1.16B in funding, most recently bringing in 400M back in September, 2011.
Recently, rumors swirled that Twitter has reached the point of being a profitable company. The cash-rich firm, if profitable, would not be in need of external funding, which likely explains why it itself did not sell stock in the above deal.
However, allowing early employees to cash in might lessen pressure on the company to go public, thus granting it more time to get its numbers straight for a strong IPO. Companies such as Zynga and Groupon made it onto the public markets, only to face stern repudiation of slowing revenue growth and elusive profits.

Source: The next web

Google’s Project Glass has been an interesting thing to follow. We first heard about the wearable technology back at Google I/O last year, and while the company’s initial vision was little more than a concept at the time, it has come a long way. We haven’t seen a huge influx of actual use cases outside of taking photos/video and sharing them to Google+ just yet, but perhaps all of that will change once Google holds its private developers’ event (though, considering those attending will be under strict NDA we might not hear about anything that will be discussed at the workshop).
Since then, many different patents have been uncovered to give us an idea of what kind of features Google might look to add between now and whenever these things are ready for retail. One such patent was a laser-projected keyboard that might allow someone to type or dial a phone number by manipulating a virtual keyboard on their hand. It sounds crazy, but projected keyboard technology already exists and it’s not outside the realm of possibility.

Another very interesting patent has been uncovered as of late in regards to Google Glass — “headphoneless” headphones. This patent, filed in October 2011, describes a system where a built-in vibration transducer will be used to create an indirect bone conduction speaker. In English, this means that a vibration motor within the frames of the glasses resting on a bone just in front of your ear could be used to send audio signals straight to your inner-ear.
This sort of tech would solve the issue of audio for the purposes of, say, a phone call or listening to turn-by-turn walking directions without having to wear actual earphones or make use of a privacy-killing external speaker. The easy way out would be to use frame-mounted ear buds, but it sounds like Google really wants this tech to be the 9th wonder of the world. Whether or not something like this ends up making it into Google Glass is still up for debate, but the existence of such a patent lets us know that Google’s at least thinking about it, and that’s all that we need to get excited.
We’re expecting Google to give us an update on the project at Google I/O in May — which we’ll be on hand for, of course — and we’re still trying to see if we can deliver any updates to you guys from the developer workshop taking place next month. Either way, Google’s looking to drop quite the bombshell in 2013 and you can bet we’ll be smack-dab in the center of the blast radius to absorb all the exciting bits we can.
[USPTO via Patent Bolt]

Zynga has a new game in the Apple App Store called ‘Running with Friends’. The firm has not turned to fitness apps but has presented a first person social chase game based on fleeing from the bulls of Pamplona and it looks to be very similar to Temple Run.
Naturally, being a Zynga game, the game has social elements and so players can pit their skills against friends and compare scores.  As you can see in the screen shots, the point is to run, leap over obstacles, dodge and slide around things in your way and mostly avoid being trampled by your bovine pursuers.
The game is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad and needs iOS 5.0 or later to work.
It’s interesting to see Zynga veer away from the puzzle and strategy games it is known for, but the chase game theme is one that has proven to be popular after the phenomenal success of Temple Run, which has seen over 100 million downloads and sparked the creation of Temple Run 2 which is expected to arrive in the App Store very soon.
Running with Friends appears to be available in the Canadian App Store at the moment, so you might need to wait for international access unless you have an account for that territory.
With this change of pace (excuse the pun), maybe Zynga will receive a boost to its numbers. Late last year the company saw a drop in active daily users overall, but at the same time managed to see gains with Farmville 2 with  8.4 million new daily active users since its release, according to the German Facebook application metrics provider AppStats.
➤ Running with Friends