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Microsoft announces phone support life cycles. Ill founded conclusions are made.

A few days back, Microsoft posted the support lifecycle for their Windows Phone devices, both those running version 7.8, and newer devices running Windows Phone 8. If you’re familiar with lifecycle patterns at all, these numbers seem pretty reasonable. Windows Phone 7.8 will continue to be supported until September 9th, 2014. The newer WP8 actually ends earlier, in July of 2014. While no official announcement about an update to WP8 has been made, the chances are that there will be an update to those devices either later this year, or…

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Computing Hardware Mobile 

Configuring the Budweiser Red Light without a phone

Budweiser recently released the Red Light, a limited edition a wireless hockey goal light that’ll blast the horns and spin the lights when your favourite team(s) score a goal. It’s the perfect addition to any den or man cave inhabited by even casual hockey fans.

The Red Light has been such a hit for Bud that they’re now back ordered until May, and a brisk second hand market for them on Ebay with the kind of 200% to 300% markup you’d expect from a gizmo limited to Canada, leaving US hockey fans out in the cold. I was lucky enough to get one as an early birthday present from a friend…

but there was a caveat that came with it.

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Computing Hardware Mobile 

iPhone 5: 5 days in

So Friday Sept 21 finally arrived, and with it, the latest iteration of the venerable iPhone. Me being the new-toy-nerd that I am, and one that is beginning to come to grips with what may be a severe case of Fanboyism, I dutifully ran down to my local Rogers store and waited in line with the masses to get my hands on the shiny gadget I’d wanted all my life…since 9 days prior

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Computing Internet Mobile 

SkyDrive updates for PC and Mac / Google Drive launches

Microsoft’s SkyDrive cloud storage has been around for a number of years now, providing users with up to 25 GB of free storage, with their Live ID login.  Yesterday, they updated the service by releasing an updated Skydrive application for both Windows (Vista, 7 and 8 ) and Mac OS X (Lion). Once installed and you provide the proper login, the SkyDrive folder simply appears as another folder in Windows Explorer and the Mac Finder, much like other cloud solutions such as DropBox.  The maximum filesize has also recently climbed…

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Computing Internet Mobile 

The myth of the saturated smartphone market

Ever since the days of the original Palm Pre, worries about saturated market has permeated many reviews and reports about new entrants in the smartphone ‘race’. A lot of the tech press were raising flags, suggesting Palm was in a “too little, too late” position. Palm was certainly in the “too little” category, I’d argue they were far from “too late”.  There were a lot of problems with Palm’s WebOS reboot, few of which had to do with timing.  Unfortunately, because Palm (via HP) did crash and burn, it reinforces the idea that “market saturation” is…

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Arts Computing Featured Mobile Photography 

Nokia impresses at MWC with 41 megapixel PureView 808

Nokia, which has long held the crown as ‘best camera on a phone’ with their 12 megapixel N8 today upped the ante with the announcement of their PureView 808 phone. The phone will ship with a custom 1/1.2″ sensor, much larger than most smartphone cameras. While this leads to a noticable hump on the back, the results make up for it, as it sports a 41 megapixel sensor, enabling it to capture images up to 38 megapixels in size.

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Computing Featured Gaming Mobile 

Windows 8 and why the Zune brand needs to die

Microsoft has taken a lot of flak for their horrible naming conventions and overly long names, and deservedly so. When first announced, Windows Phone was called Windows Phone Series 7. They officially chopped of the “Series” by launch, and now just advertise it as Windows Phone. It just makes more sense.

Similarly, they last year rebranded their paid Office cloud service to Office 365. Office 365 makes sense. It’s Office, all the time. Do you know what they called it previously?

Business Productivity Online Suite.

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Computing Featured Mobile 

Carrier IQ and mobile (in)security

Back in October, a story ran on XDA Developers about software running on HTC Android phones called Carrier IQ (CIQ) that appeared to be collecting a fair amount of data about your device and not doing a good job of storing it securely. Beyond your device ID, it collected phone numbers, geo-location and account names. Since that initial discovery, there’ve been reports of it being even more invasive, leading Carrier IQ to issue a Cease and Desist letter and denying what it does.

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Computing Featured Mobile video 

Nokia 900 leaked in developer video?

Last February, Nokia made a drastic decision regarding the future of its operating systems by going all-in with Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS. While there was a lot of online fallout from both proud Finns and Symbian advocates, Nokia’s new Windows Phones, the Lumia 710 and Lumia 800, finally started hitting overseas. The Lumia 800, which shares the same body design as their N9, has been getting rave reviews for the industrial design, but there’s still no word on what’s happening in North America.

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Computing Featured Mobile 

HTC Raider LTE phone hits Bell and Rogers

If you’re going to be surfing on the new high speed LTE networks from Bell or Rogers, you’re going to want a phone that can handle it. That’s where the HTC Raider comes in. The company has announced that the Raider, HTC’s first LTE phone in Canada, will be coming to both Bell and Rogers next month. The phone checks all the other boxes for a high end smartphone as well, with a 4.5″ qHD screen, 1.2GHz dual core processor and an 8 megapixel camera with f/2.2 aperture for better low light performance and 108op video recording.

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Computing Featured Gaming Mobile 

Toshiba glasses-free 3D Qosimo F750 laptop

One thing we weren’t expecting to see at Fan Expo this year was new laptop technology. While game franchises have become a major part of conventions in the past few years, with the convergence of geek culture, it’s usually a matter of game titles, not the hardware underneath it. So when we came across the Toshiba booth, which had their new Qosimo glasses-free 3D laptop on display, we had to take a look.

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