android
Honeycomb With Hidden Gingerbread Interface?
During Google’s I/O conference they talked a bit about their much anticipated and talked about operating system update – Ice Cream Sandwich which was supposed to bridge the tablet’s and cell phones operating systems and make them into just one.
Currently Android cell phones are running on Gingerbread 2.3.4, with the exception of a couple still running on Froyo 2.2. Android tablets on the other hand mostly run on the tablet-centered operating system, Honeycomb 3.1, with a couple of exceptions running on Gingerbread 2.3.4. The whole point of Ice Cream Sandwich was to drop both operating systems and make one universal operating system that could support both tablets and cell phones, much like Apple’s iOS.
However, it seems that recently a YouTube user has posted a video that shows a hidden Android 2.3 Gingerbread user interface that was hidden inside his rooted Dell Streak Android Honeycomb tablet. What the user discovered was that by increasing the pixel density setting on his device beyond 170 the operating system thought that it was running on a phone and switched user interfaces after a reboot. While perhaps not the most elegant of solutions it goes to show that Google is well on their way to creating the Ice Cream Sandwich operating system, much closer than we thought too.
If you want to watch the video, click here for the link to YouTube.
The Fairphone 2 was first unveiled in June earlier this year, where this particular handset carried a modular design while featuring majority of its components that have been sourced from conflict-free mines. It seems that this particular handset that you can purchase with a clear conscience has begun to ship to those who happen to live across Europe.
Fairphone announced in a blog post, “It’s been almost two years in the making, and some of the earliest buyers have been patiently waiting since July to receive their new phones. As community manager, I want to personally welcome the new batch of Fairphone owners to our community.” The initial 1,000 units are tipped to ship this month, before the other pre-orders follow in January 2016.
In terms of hardware specifications, the Fairphone 2 will run on a Snapdragon 801 chipset, has a 5″ 1080p screen with Gorilla Glass 3 protection, 2GB of RAM, an 8MP camera, with Android 5.1 Lollipop in tow. It will be a dual SIM capable handset with a microSD memory card slot and plays nice with 4G LTE networks, retailing for approximately €525 a pop.
It looks like the upcoming flagship model from Xiaomi will feature NFC support, at least based on a document that was released by China UnionPay. Just in case you are scratching your head and wondering who China UnionPay is, they happen to be the only domestic payment gateway supplier and card organization, and hence, to see them offer detailed support concerning the newly released NFC-based payment system points to the very real possibility of the upcoming Xiaomi Mi 5 featuring NFC capability.
After all, the Xiaomi Mi 3 was also mentioned on the list, which so happens to feature NFC, and there is no mention of the Xiaomi Mi 4 which does not come with NFC. Still, such a new payment system would be the ideal tool to see the reintroduction of NFC to the flagship model.
OnePlus did make an announcement in the previous month that the Ceramic variant of the OnePlus X will be released on November 24. True to their word, they did exactly that – although only a pitiful number of units were made available, and not only that, this was through a charity auction. Thankfully for the rest of the masses who are on the lookout for this device, it has gone on sale officially already.
Needless to say, this particular variant is available only by an invitation, although do bear in mind that standard OnePlus X invites are not good here – you will still need to snag yourself a specific Ceramic variant invite before you make a purchase. OnePlus is also on the lookout to offer additional methods of picking up this smartphone, although no further details were revealed.
The OnePlus X Ceramic will be available only in select markets, where among them include Europe, India, and Hong Kong. To date, we do know that OnePlus had made only 10,000 units of the handset available. A case of the early bird getting the proverbial worm here?