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The world of mobile technology today is astounding. If you told somebody 50 years ago about what you could do now on the latest smartphones then you would get a few funny looks to say the least. One of the major downfalls of having all this technology is that the batteries have not really kept up with the pace of development. This leaves some people having to charge their phone two or three times a day, which is a huge hassle. However, reports that have surfaced recently suggest there may be a mobile phone in development at the moment that could have a battery life of fifteen years! Here, we will explore a bit about this rumour and battery life in more detail.

What is the Right Balance?

In the very near future we will see more efficient batteries produced that will last much longer. However, at the moment this problem is a real issue. It was not too long ago that phones like the Nokia 3210 were in existence. While these phones were basic to say the least, the battery lasted an eternity. The latest smartphone deals like the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy S2 need charging once a night and that is if you have not been using it rigorously. It seems the needs of many are not being met by the current batteries we have in place.

Is There A Solution Now?

Well, there are several solutions. Firstly, the phone that you have at the moment could probably be optimised slightly better. Disabling features like WI-FI or turning the backlight down on the display are options that can save hours of battery life. Secondly, there are solar and kinetic chargers on the market at the moment, but this really does not solve the problem of short battery life, it just provides an alternative option to make things a bit easier. On the other hand, if low battery life is a real pain to you, and you are fed up with phones offering too much, why not revert back to the old style phones that had more reliable battery packs?

Is There A Phone With A Battery That Can Last 15 Years?

Yes, in the United States a phone has been invented that uses the power of one AA battery. It is said that the Spare One can last for 15 years if it is on standby, and will give 10 hours talk time. That is quite a dramatic drop in performance but considering that you can buy AA batteries at a very low price in many high street stores, this would reduce the likelihood of you ever being caught short again.

When Will We See the Change for Smartphones?

Android has made a very big point of focusing their time and research on feasible battery performance for 2012. These improvements are hoped to be introduced on the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S3, and it has been suggested by the vice president of product innovation at the company that this battery will run all day with moderate to heavy usage, which is all many people are looking for at the moment. Android is perhaos the most resource hogging of all the major smartphone operating systems, but even iOS has shown it is not immune to battery woes with the performance issues of the iPhone 4S. Even though Windows Phone is the least demanding and provides the best battery life, it too is a little too much to run off a single AA battery any time soon.

With this being said, a bigger and better solution looks to be just around the corner, but smartphone battery life is likely to remain less than perfect for some time to come.

A Scottish holidaymaker returned from his travels to find a bill from T-Mobile for £1,200, despite having not made one call from his iPhone while away.

Jeff Craw, 41, managed to run up the huge bill from his iPhone while using his hotel’s wireless internet system to view web pages and watch videos, according to a report in the Daily Record. The Scotsman didn’t realise his iPhone’s data roaming function kicked in once he left an area not covered by a wireless signal, despite regular horror stories in the press about holidaymakers running up eye watering bills while out of the country.

The cost the data he received while away is almost as much as the £1,500 he paid for his winter break to Thailand. Mr Craw said he can’t afford to pay the bill, despite T-Mobile offering a 25% discount as a gesture of goodwill.

Mr Craw’s tale serves as another in a long line of salutary stories which should be getting through to smartphone owners. Those that don’t want to be met by a huge bill after their adventures abroad should turn off their handset’s data roaming function before they leave the UK, whether they’re using an iPhone, BlackBerry, Samsung, or any other type of mobile.

New EU laws to cap the amount networks can charge for data roaming are due to be introduced over the summer months, which should go some way to reducing the number of phone users who are caught out in Europe. These changes would have had no impact on Mr Craw’s sorry situation though, as his bill was run up while outside of the EU. O2 customers benefit from an automatic cap of £40 on data downloaded abroad, a feature campaigners would like see rolled out by other providers.

Although roaming charges are viewed by many as extortionate, phone users receive regular warnings from consumer groups and phone networks themselves that they will be charged for downloading data abroad automatically if they fail to deactivate the data roaming function on their handsets. The method for doing so is usually very simple on most mobiles. Phone owners should check their smartphone’s user guide if they’re unsure how to turn off their data roaming function.

Ignorance is no excuse. While network’s will usually offer a discount when a bill like Mr Craw’s looks like it might be picked up by the press, the amount left to pay will still be substantial if large data roaming fees are built up.

Those who do want to use the internet on their iPhone while abroad should contact their network provider to ask about roaming charges and prepaid travel data allowances. Most UK phone networks offer add-ons that allow their customers a daily data allowance while out of the country. Failure to get on top of your data use when abroad can quickly cost you a small fortune, as Mr Craw and others will testify.

After several months of waiting the world was greeted by the first collaboration between Microsoft and Nokia at the end of 2011. The Lumia 800 exceeded most peoples’ expectations. It is a stylish phone that shows off the best that Windows Phone and Nokia have to offer to the current phone market. While utilizing the finest features of Windows Phone Nokia also threw in some of their own features like Nokia Drive and Nokia Mix Radio.

Nokia had promised many more Windows Phones in 2012, and just a few days into the year it appears that they are sticking to their word. Although news about the Lumia 710 has been around for as long as the Lumia 800, the phone is due to become available shortly. Nokia is probably not going to spend as much money marketing this phone as it falls into a more affordable price bracket (Nokia spend more money marketing the Lumia 800 than it has done for any other phone in its existence).

The Lumia 710 looks more like a traditional Nokia phone than the Lumia 800 did. It has a vague resemblance to the N97, and many diehard Nokia fans may find this appearance to be comforting. On the whole, the Lumia 710 offers the same excellent software features that the 800 did – including Windows Phone Mango and all its social networking prowess, along with Nokia features like Drive and Mix Radio.

What is different is the hardware in use. Although it has the same 1.4GHz processor and GPU, the 710 comes with less internal storage (and once again no memory expansion) at just 8GB and a less impressive 5mp camera. Still, this camera is good enough for everyday use. It is tied in with all of the software features such as Twitter and Facebook, and also comes with 720p video recording. Like the 800, the Lumia 710 does not have a front camera.

The screen is the same size as the Lumia 800′s, with the same WVGA resolution, ClearBlack display and Gorilla Glass. It is just a standard TFT screen though, rather than AMOLED like the 800, so it is a little bit less vibrant but probably better suited for outdoor use.

With much of the hardware, aside from the camera, being fairly similar to the Lumia 800 this phone could be a good bargain. It will be on offer through more affordable cheap mobile phone contracts and the only major difference is the physical appearance and build quality. The phone is due to be released in the coming weeks.

In a cunning move to pull customers away from the iPhone, Microsoft has launched an Xbox LIVE app onto the Apple App Store. Xbox LIVE is currently one of the best features of Windows Phone, and a feature that allows Windows Phone owners to connect their smartphones up to their favourite games console.

But Microsoft is not sacrificing one of their best features just for the sake of some App Store sales – the Xbox for iPhone app is available for free. The app is instead intended to show the many Xbox owning iPhone users what they are missing by not owning a Windows Phone.

The app, known as My Xbox LIVE, allows users to connect with their Xbox and edit their profile and avatar. They can also add new friends and compare achievements with other Xbox players. The app stops short of providing the sort of functionality available on Windows Phone. iPhone users cannot interact with the content on their console, play games or purchase content from the Xbox store.

In fact, the My Xbox LIVE app is fairly useless and impotent, but for many iPhone owners who are also keen Xbox gamers, it may give them something to think about when their iPhone contract is about to expire. Buy another iPhone, and be stuck with the likes of Cut the Rope and Angry Birds, or buy a Windows Phone and be blessed with all the goodness of their Xbox?

Sneakily, the My Xbox LIVE app also resembles Windows Phone, with its Live Tiles interface. This is also to get people more familiar with Microsoft’s mobile OS – as lack of exposure is perhaps one of the main reasons that Windows Phone has not performed as well as Microsoft would have liked. That could be about to change with the launch of the new Nokia Lumia, as the Finnish phone company has promised to spend an unprecedented amount of money on marketing this phone.

One of the best features about Windows Phone is the Xbox LIVE support that comes as standard. The iPhone may have its Game Center, and Android has some N64 and PlayStation emulators, but aside from the rather slapdash Sony Ericsson Xperia Play there has not really been any smartphones that fully utilized gaming from the world of consoles.

Now news has emerged that Microsoft is putting one of its best smartphone features onto the iOS App Store for iPhone owners to use. However, the new My Xbox LIVE app does not offer the same sort of functionality as Xbox on Windows Phone, as it only allows users to redesign their profile, edit their friends list and compare achievements.

The app does not allow iPhone owners to play games or interact with content on their Xbox console. The primary motivation behind Microsoft’s decision to release this app for iOS appears to be to tempt iOS users over to Windows Phone. This can be seen by the fact that Microsoft has designed the app to resemble Windows Phone in its look and feel, thus making people more familiar with the overlooked mobile OS.

Microsoft recently launched an online simulation of Windows Phone that people can use on Android and iPhone, so they can see roughly how the system works on a touchscreen device. This simulation and the new Xbox LIVE app appear to demonstrate that Microsoft is really quite keen on upping its presence in the smartphone market.

Since it was launched in 2010 Windows Phone has not managed to get much more than around 5% share of the smartphone market. Compared to iPhone, which is roughly 30%, and Android which is usually floating around the 50% mark, Windows Phone has been largely ignored due to criticisms of a lack of features and apps. Windows Phone is a much younger OS though, and its app store is growing at a rapid rate. Features like Xbox LIVE offer something to phone users that Android and iPhone cannot compete with, and Microsoft hope that this will help to win over many Xbox owning iPhone users over the next year when there will be plenty of new Windows running Nokia phone deals on offer.

Nokia had put a lot of its hopes and dreams into the new Lumia 800. The company, once undisputed kings of the mobile phone industry, have been having a hard time for the last few years. Since the launch of the first iPhone back in 2007, the industry has changed dramatically and consumer demand has shifted with it, and Nokia has not managed to adapt as well as some other companies like Samsung and HTC.

The decision made earlier in the year to partner with Microsoft and exclusively produce Windows Phones was a big gamble, and its first Windows Phone, the Lumia 800, was bound to set the tone for all future Nokia Windows Phones. As Nokia and Microsoft have signed their deal for the next few years, it is important that it gets off to a good start, and Nokia decided to push the boat out and spend more money marketing the Lumia than it has done for any phone it has previously produced.

While Nokia claim that the first week of sales for the Lumia have been the best for any new phone they have released, there are also reports that Nokia have cut their expected sales figures for the new phone by more than half. Nokia had expected to sell 2 million by the end of the year, but now expects to sell less than a million – making this a slower phone launch than the Nokia N8 Symbian phone.

Part of the problem may be that, while the Lumia has entered into the public consciousness through a large dose of television advertising, the phone has been experiencing severe battery issues much like the new iPhone 4S. But while Apple were at least quick to appear to try and solve the problem, Nokia have stated they will not be launching a software patch to fix the issue until well into 2012.

Not only is this highly annoying for people who have already purchased the Lumia and are having to charge their new phone several times a day, but it is also going to be quite off-putting for people had been considering the Lumia as their next phone. If Nokia really have so much riding on this phone it would be in their best interests to get these battery issues sorted out as quickly as possible – certainly before the mad shopping rush that will take place in the week leading up to Christmas, when many people will consider a smartphone contract with free gift as an ideal way to get two Christmas presents in one.

The battery problems have blighted an otherwise excellent product from Nokia, which is certainly their best smartphone to be released in recent years. It adopts the same design as the earlier N9, which was a hugely popular phone, although it comes with a much more intuitive and feature rich operating system in the form of Windows Phone – the most socially oriented phone OS on offer, that comes with great entertainment features through Zune and Xbox LIVE.

Here is hoping that Nokia get this issue sorted soon, as the Lumia is perhaps the biggest reason for people to consider purchasing Windows Phone deals right now, with HTC and Samsung not having produced Windows Phone handsets for quite some time.

Like Windows 7 Public betas Microsoft has made the first Windows 8 Developer Preview build publicly available for download to all Windows enthusiast.  Unlike Windows 7, Microsoft did managed to keep tight lied on Windows 8 leaks and it was worth the wait for first official preview build since all the new Metro UI and features can be seen on in this Windows 8 Developer Preview which Microsoft demoed today at Build conference.

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A lot of Microsoft users complain about Windows 7 crashes nowadays. Apparently, the system just crashes at random – sometimes after logging in, sometimes during intense games, sometimes while files are being worked, and sometimes even just while surfing the World Wide Web. Several users have even dubbed this glitch with a name: the black screen of death. This name has come about because the computer’s screen just turns black and crashes without warning. This crash can definitely be very frustrating, but the good news is that there are several ways to fix this particular problem. Here’s how. Continue reading »

Windows Phone 7 was Microsoft’s answer to the new touchscreen era with many critics of the older Windows Mobile claiming it was not fit for purpose. WP7 was designed from the ground up and truly offers something unique compared to Android and the iPhone. It has a much more social emphasis with excellent entertainment on offer with Zune and Xbox. Although it was first released over a year ago though, it has so far failed to make much of a splash.

That was true and looked likely to remain true until Nokia announced the new Lumia 800. To date only Samsung and HTC have released a small number of Windows Phone 7 devices, but Nokia’s partnership with Microsoft, announced at the start of the year, should bring a great deal more Windows Phones to the market. Nokia is investing a lot of advertising money to push Nokia Lumia contracts and it certainly looks like the most appealing Windows Phone yet.

At first glance the Lumia looks a lot like the MeeGo powered Nokia N9. It has the same brightly coloured design and identical physical proportions. The big thing about the N9 was that it operated on a purely touchscreen basis – with absolutely no buttons on the front. The Lumia does come with buttons though, Windows softkeys placed beneath the display. Because of this the Lumia’s screen is ever so slightly smaller than the N9′s – although this is the only recognizable difference between the two phones from the outside.

Of course, in the software department the two phones are entirely different. Although there was originally a lot of interest in MeeGo it has since been dropped by Nokia – meaning that future support for updates and apps will be limited. On this phone Windows Phone 7 actually looks a whole lot more appealing – and like a much more complete operating system.

Windows Phone 7 is not very customizable, and so there is not much about the Lumia’s interface that is very different to, say, the HTC Titan or Samsung Omnia W. Nokia has endeavored to include some of its more traditional services on its Windows Phones though, including its maps and navigation services. The Lumia comes with Nokia Maps, Nokia Drive and Nokia Music – helping to differentiate the Lumia from other Windows Phones somewhat.

The Lumia 800 comes with the new Mango update for Windows Phone 7, including all the new features for cloud computing and improved social networking integration. One new feature that was added into Mango is the support for front camera video calling – unfortunately this is not a feature that has made its way into the Lumia as it does not have a front facing camera.

On the other hand, it does have an excellent main camera. The 8 megapixel camera comes with Carl Zeiss optics, dual LED flash and 720p video – and is easily as good as the camera on the earlier Nokia N8.

It is make or break time – for Nokia and for Windows Phone 7 – which is evident by the amount of money that Nokia is spending to market the Lumia (more than any previous Nokia phone). The adverts look tantalizing, as does the phone itself – and this could easily become one of the best mobile phone deals of 2011. This could indeed be the start of a great new partnership between Nokia and Microsoft.

The new Windows 8 download has a number of features that will not only make it easier to use cloud computing, it will also encourage us to use cloud computing. There is no reason to fear cloud computing – are you getting ideas of calling your computer repairs professional already? Actually, the term does not do it justice. There is not really a cloud and when we understand that, we can see how much we can benefit. Here is a look at cloud computing and why the new Windows 8 operating system will encourage us to use it, and more importantly, seriously benefit from it. Continue reading »