Android News & Articles

Regardless of how happy users are with their current phones, the makers are always pushing new levels of performance at us. Samsung's latest quad-core chip will power the next-generation Galaxy smartphone and future tablets, and push performance to new heights.

With the growing popularity of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, not all websites are churning out mobile-friendly content, it seems. According to a recent study, poorly designed websites are probably killing your battery faster than they should be.

Google, as ever, has been rolling out the changes across its range of products with more integration betweern Gmail and Google+ and many other additions. As we wait for the big Drive unveiling (will it be this week? Will it, will it?) we catch up on all the Googling fun that's gone in the past few days.

While the ability to gain access to content through smartphones or other mobile devices was a welcome step forward, it's just not enough any more. Workers are now looking for the ability to interact with that content and initiate business processes. SpringCM has introduced a new range of apps that does that with its content management software.

The ARM platform is the king of the hill when it comes to smartphone and tablet processing chips. At the 2012 Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona though, Intel challenged ARM by announcing its Medfield class Atom chips, meant for mobile phones. This April, Intel is officially getting into the smartphone business with the Xolo X900 by Indian smartphone maker Lava International.

Apple and Samsung have been on an all-out war against each other for the best part of 2011, with either claiming patent infringements by the other. With some successes and failures in each one's patent claims, Apple and Samsung now appear to be willing to settle their disputes outside of costly court litigation and potentially damaging injunctions.

If you're not satisfied with your existing cloud storage facility, then why not give the beta of Cubby a go. Billed as "one giant leap for your stuff", it offers a mix of local or 5GB of cloud storage and access from browsers, iPads and other devices for easy collaboration.

All those mobile photos now belong to Facebook as the social networking giant snaps up its rapidly expanding rival, which started as a touch-up and share service, and became a social network in its own right.

Security researcher Gareth Wright discovered a Facebook app security hole on iOS devices, and then The Next Web revealed that the Dropbox file-syncing app is also vulnerable.

Google is now offering the world a peek at its wearable glass displays, which will be being tested by employees out in the real world in the months to come. If popularized, they will open up a whole new world of local information, marketing and content opportunities.

Google's Drive service is likely to sneak out of the garage in the next few weeks according to insiders at the company, bringing it into conflict with Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Dropbox and pretty much everyone else. Let the cloud storage wars commence.

Zoho is bringing its impressive lineup of Web-based office apps from the desktop to smartphones with the arrival of Zoho Docs and Zoho CRM for Android (available now) and. Zoho Projects for Apple's iPhone, which will be available shortly.

Cisco is upping its game in the collaboration and unified communications market, bringing its Jabber video and TelePresence offerings to new platforms and broadening users mobility and connectivity options to encourage wider enterprise adoption.

For once, I haven't read about Google upsetting someone this week, is the company taking it easy in the run up to Spring Break? Instead, there's useful new features in Android updates, a push on Google Wallet and the company is seeing positive corporate signs in a highly competitive market.

If you're planning to hold off on spending US$ 0.99 for a mobile app to get the free version instead, you might want to think twice. Research from Purdue University and Microsoft has determined that free mobile applications that use third-party services to serve and display ads are likely to drain batteries faster than their paid counterparts.