BlackBerry Z10 UK confirmed pricing and networks

As with all major smartphone launches next up comes the networks, and this is no exception with EE, Vodafone and O2 all confirming the BlackBerry Z10

As with all major smartphone launches next up comes the networks, and this is no exception with EE, Vodafone and O2 all confirming the BlackBerry Z10

The BlackBerry Z10 has an official release date of the 31 January with the new BlackBerry 10 smartphone now being confirmed on EE, Three, Vodafone and O2.

The Z10 will be coming to EE's 4G network available for £49.99 on a £41 per month 24 month contract giving users 1GB data and unlimited calls and texts. Orange and T-Mobile customers can expect to get the Z10 for £49.99 but on a £36 per month contract offering the same amount of data, unlimited calls and texts.
EE hasn't yet given an exact date when the handset will be available however you can expect it to be within the next few weeks.

Vodafone has confirmed it will also be selling the BlackBerry Z10 from tomorrow with the 4G-ready smartphone available for £29 upfront on a £42 a month contract giving you unlimited texts, calls and 2GB of data.

The Z10 will be just one of a number of smartphones that Vodafone will be offering to customers on its upcoming 4G network which, when launched, will be rivalling EE's own superfast service.

Facebook invite for event next week ‘sparks rumours of mobile phone in offing’

Social networking giant Facebook has issued invites for an event at its California headquarters next week, fueling rumours that the firm is planning to launch its own mobile phone.

 

The invite for the event says `Come and see what we''re building'.
While it''s possible thatFacebook is simply unveiling another update to its website, there have been frequent rumours that the company plans to make its own mobile phone, the Telegraph reports.

According to the paper, some recent reports have claimed that Facebook is working on a mobile handset with manufacturer HTC.
The new device would connect directly to a user''s Facebook account and run software such as Facebook Messenger and Instagram, the picture sharing service Facebook bought last year.

The site's founder Mark Zuckerberg, however, poured cold water on the speculations last year, saying `building out a phone wouldn''t make sense for us to do.'

Zuckerberg has talked in the past about the need to improve Facebook search, so there is some speculation that next week''s event will be about that.

Samsung Galaxy S smartphones sales touch 100 mln mark globally

South Korean electronics giant Samsung has said that worldwide sales of its Galaxy S smartphones have surpassed 100 million mark.

Samsung said it had sold over 25 million Galaxy S smartphones, 40 million Galaxy S II smartphones and 41 million Galaxy S III smartphones.
Samsung launched the first Galaxy S model at the end of May 2010, amid increasing competition with iphone maker Apple, the Herald Sun reports.
According to the report, research firm IHS iSuppli said last month Samsung beat Nokia in mobile phone sales and Apple in smartphone sales last year.

Apple''s iPhone sales hit the 100-million mark in March 2011, nearly four years after the introduction of the phone in 2007, the report said.

Robots cook and serve food at Chinese restaurant

A restaurant in China''s northern Heilongjiang province has 20 robots working for it, as waiters, cooks and busboys.

 
According to the South China Morning Post, the mechanical staff at Robot Restaurant in Harbin can work continuously for five hours after charging for two hours and can also display more than 10 expressions on their faces.

When a diner walks in, an usher robot extends their mechanic arm to the side and says ''Earth person hello. Welcome to the Robot Restaurant.''
After diners have ordered, robots in the kitchen set to work cooking their meals.
Once the dish is prepared, a robot waiter, which runs along tracks on the floor, carries it from kitchen to table, the Daily Mail reported.

A singing robot entertains diners as they eat.

The restaurant has gained international fame and continues to grow in popularity since it opened in June last year.

iPhone 5 owners download most data among smartphone users in Europe, finds study

Apple iPhone 5 owners use the most mobile download data of all European smartphone owners, according to a new research.

 

In a new study, Apple iPhone 5 owners were found to use 50 percent more download data than iPhone 4S users.

However, Samsung Galaxy S III was top of the list for data uploads, ahead of the iPhone 3G and the third-placed iPhone 5.

This is the third year of the study, conducted by Arieso, and for the first time smartphone users were shown to be downloading more data than tablet owners, the Telegraph reports.

According to the report, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 was above the Apple iPad on the tablet data list, with Tab 2 owners using 20 percent more download data than iPad users.

China mobile users hit by large botnet bug

Security researchers in China have discovered a huge botnet running on the smartphones of more than a million unsuspecting mobile users in the country.

The devices had been infected by a Trojan-based attack first discovered in 2011, news agency Xinhua reported.

The botnet can allow the smartphones to be hijacked remotely and potentially be used for fraudulent purposes, the BBC reported.
The warning comes as mobile Internet use in China has soared, growing by more than 18 percent in the past year.

There are now more than 420 million mobile users, according to the China Internet Network Information Center (Cinic).
The surge has attracted the attention of Apple chief executive Tim Cook, who met with the chairman of China Mobile last week, the report said.
Details of the meeting were scant, but a China Mobile spokesman said it was regarding `matters of co-operation' in the region.
According to the report, in China specifically, local authorities even went as far as to warn operators to clean up security weaknesses in their mobile app stores.

Despite warnings at the time, it is believed that the Trojan is still very much active and enabling the growth of the botnet, the report said.

Users have been advised to monitor their call and data logs for unusual activity, it added.

How Facebook's new search tool could also help businesses

Graph Search feature could provide businesses with reams of information about customers -- and help find new clients

Businesses that aren't very active on Facebook might want to think about ramping up their presence in case Facebook's new service proves useful.
Facebook's new Graph Search, announced this morning but not yet available, could be a valuable tool for businesses, who increasingly use the social network to maintain contact with customers.

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Graph Search is designed to offer a much better search function for Facebook users to find material they and their contacts have posted on Facebook. It is not a full Web search tool like Google or Microsoft's Bing, but is rather meant to improve the fairly poor internal Facebook search available now.

For instance, users will be able to find all the photos they've liked, search for all photos of two particular people, and locate all their friends who live in a particular city, Tom Stocky, a Facebook product director, said on a video about the service. Other examples Facebook offered include looking for music that friends like or searching for people who like cycling who are from your hometown.

Facebook pitched the new feature as an end-user benefit, but in fact it could prove extremely useful to businesses who want to make the most of their presence on Facebook.

For instance, a retail business might be able to search among its users for everyone who likes posts about a certain kind of product in order to offer them a deal, or search for all followers in a city in order to invite them to an event. A business might be able to search for followers who have attended certain kinds of events or checked in at particular locations.

Business could use GraphSearch in subtler ways. Searching for the kind of food and music followers in a city like could inform decisions about the kind of food and music featured at an event.
Eventually, Graph Search could become a useful tool for advertisers as well. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company is not displaying advertisements in search results at first, but as the product matures, this seems like an obvious way for Facebook to increase revenue -- and perhaps steal search ad budget from rival Google.
Facebook said that results will only show things that have been shared with you on Facebook.

For now, Facebook GraphSearch is available in a "very limited program" in the United States. Facebook is offering a sign-up page for people interested in finding out when they can start using the service.
The concept behind Graph Search is reminiscent of a similar service from Microsoft's Bing search engine. Users who connect their Bing searches to Facebook will see results in the right hand column of Bing that come from their Facebook friends.