YouTube's Big Revamp!

Last week saw the launch of the refreshed and redesigned YouTube. The new interface was designed to promote YouTube Channel's, aiming to begin competing with channels provided through your household cable or Sky service. This was Google's first major redesign of the service since securing YouTube five years ago.

You now have the ability to customise your YouTube homepage. You are presented with three main columns, one to organise Channels on your left, a middle column relating to your subscriptions, and a 'recommended for you' column out on the right. There is also now an option to connect to YouTube via a Google+, or Facebook account to share what you are watching with your friends.

BEFORE

NOW

To quote the Google official blog, they say they have designed a "simpler YouTube, with a consistent grey background, bigger video thumbnails and a more streamlined watch page." as a whole the site is definitely more customisable, and Google definitely havn't stripped away that 'YouTube feel' by completely changing the look of the site. Although we aren't too sure on the huge advert banner at the top! Luckily it can be switched off.

It is clear they are focussing on making the service more 'tv-like', but don't worry as Google do promise to keep everything free, including 25 hours of on-demand services available each day!

Samsung > Apple - New advert

I have just seen Samsung's latest advert for their T3 award-winning 'Phone of the year', the Samsung Galaxy S2. It undermines Apple's 'creative' users rather brilliantly, being both subtle and funny. Of course the advert does not directly mention Apple or either the iPhone 4S, however it is quite obvious what Samsung are getting at with the suggestion of battery problems, and the quote "if it looks the same, how will people know I upgraded?".

The advert suggests that the generic iPhone groupies, are blinded by the fact the 'magnificent' phone they see someone holding, is a Samsung. Of course up until the Apple fanatics are aware it is a Samsung, they are blown away by the Galaxy S2. Check out the advert for yourself! Especially if your an Android fan...

Siri on your Android?! HACKED!

A french mobile software company called 'Applidium' recently managed to hack Apples 'Siri' service, that comes on their latest piece of kit, the iPhone 4S. The developers at Applidium managed to figure out that a vast amount of the work involved with Siri, is done on Apple's remote servers. Hence why Siri doesn't work if you are out of 3G service or not connected to WiFi.

They then figured out by using a reverse-engineering protocol how Siri communicates with Apple's servers, and that if you have the correct 'code' to speak to these servers, you can then use Siri from absolutely any device. The only thing you need to be able to use Siri on any tablet/smartphone then is a unique iPhone 4S key, which you will have to figure out how to get on your own! You can check out Applidium's Siri crack tool on their website.

This news could come as a major blow to Apple, seeing as the introduction of Siri to the iPhone 4S, is one of the main features used to differentiate it from the iPhone 4. Who knows maybe we will see Siri working on Samsung Galaxy sII's , Motorola Razr's and Amazon Kindle Fire's in the next few weeks!!!!

First Android Docking Speakers?!

Philips have just released a 'Fidelio' range of docking speakers for your android smartphone. This comes quite literally as music to the ears of many Android fanatics, who have been left without a way of docking their smartphones in order to play music aloud while charging. I am almost surprised it has taken anyone so long to get this idea out on the market! It seems like a huge gap in the market, especially seeing as Android are out-selling Apple at a 2 to 1 ratio in the UK!



Philips AS851 - This will be the more powerful of the Fidelio range, rocking 30 Watt speakers, a microUSB port for docking, a remote control, five band equaliser and Digital Sound Processing for 'crystal-clear' music. Includes Songbird for easy syncing of music between your mobile and PC. RRP is £199 and is available to buy now on Philips website.

Philips AS351 - This is the middle of the range speaker dock in the Fidelio series. It's aimed at being more portable for use at home and also on-the-go, therefore it can be powered by AC or battery. It features 10 Watts of power, a FlexiDock and even the capability of charging a second device via USB at the same time. Also includes Songbird and is retailing at £129 on the Philips store.

Philips AS111 - This is entering as the low-end speaker of the bunch, not to say it doesn't still include some top features. The digital clock display automatically syncs its time with your android phone, while it also includes a soft glow night light, Songbird, a FlexiDock and like the AS351 it incorporates 10 Watts of power. This will cost you £70 from the Philips store today.

Emulation on the Samsung Galaxy S2 - N64, PSX, GameBoy Colour, SNES

I just uploaded a video to my YouTube channel showing game-play on multiple emulators running on the Samsung Galaxy S2. All of the emulators shown run incredibly well with completely competent fps rates. I thought I would also write about each one to mention particularly good/bad points! You can check what I have to say about each one after the video...

N64oid - In the video below you can see me running 'The Legend of Zelda - Ocarina of Time', a timeless classic that completely performs on the Galaxy S2. The one thing I would mention with this emulator, is that obviously due to the N64 controllers being rather complex with buttons in all kinds of places!, it isn't the easiest to use. However once you have used it for long enough you will find it usable and will be playing tunes on the ocarina in no time!

Super GNES - Runs all SNES games very well, with the added bonus of the SNES roms being small files so quick to download. The interface is nice to use either portrait or landscape, with simple buttons and a D-Pad.

FPse - This playstation emulator is the most powerful of the four emulators shown in my video. Seems crazy to think you can now play games on your smartphone that were made for a platform that sold 100 million units in 9 years! Really good for all time classics such as Crash Bandicoot , Spyro, Tomb Raider and much more, with easy to use and very customisable controls.

GBC A.D. - GameBoy Colour emulator that makes your smartphone look exactly like a GameBoy!  Really good for use on touch-screen smartphones considering the simplicity of the interface. Brilliant for platform games such as Pokemon, Super Mario, Wario Land etc.http://digitalspotter.blogspot.com/2011/10/wow-samsung-galaxy-s2-overclocked-to.html

World's first Quad-Core Smartphone? ....Enter the HTC Edge

Recently leaked images, specs and rumours have appeared online over the past few days surrounding the HTC Edge. Potentially the first ever Quad-core smartphone, it will be running a 1.5GHz NVidia Tegra 3 processor, the same one used in the recently announced Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime tablet PC.

Rumours indicate the phone will be the next step onwards from the recently announced 4G HTC Rezound. This means we can expecet a whole host of top smartphone features, including a large 4.7" 720p HD display (simliar to the HTC Titan), 1GB of Ram, 32GB of internal storage, an 8MP camera with backlight and f/2.2 lens, and expected Bluetooth 4.0.

It is not clear what operating system the Edge will be running out-of-the-box, but with the Galaxy Nexus set to kick off Android 4.0  'Ice Cream Sandwich' on the 17th of November, it would be surprising if it didn't get Android's latest software version. With HTC's recent collaboration with Beats Electronics, it is also incredibly likely that the Edge will launch with Beats Audio.

Another Siri 'Blackout'

Yesterday saw frustrated iPhone 4S users due to Siri being '...unable to do that.' Users were left in the dark as Siri was incapable of processing any commands, despite people having full service on 3G or being connected to a WiFi network. The supposed 'network outage' lasted for approximately 5 hours, with problems first being reported at around 11am PDT and the service not coming back online until about 4PM. However not everybodys Siri 'servant' are back to their usual selves, with some users still reporting problems.

Apple were quick to suggest that there could be a 'network outage', but refused to imply there may be a problem with the service. Customers reported that when calling for tech support, Apple were suggesting there servers were overloaded, despite the fact no other Apple devices seemed to incur any problems.

I have mentioned before my personal opinion on how far is too far in terms of 'technical assistants' ? For example people who were relying on Siri yesterday, would clearly have had problems. Apple are not showing any sings of an official statement on the matter as far as we know.

The whole matter almost reminds you of a certain iPhone 4 antenna situation huh?