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Flow Songs: Pure lets you buy songs from the radio
Best Android phone
Dell Streak accessories unboxed: photos
BBC Red Button: World Cup beaten by the Winter Olympics
Pure digital music service: 3 big predictions
Facebook TV: Five on demand hits your news feed!
Football Manager 2011 adds pushier agents and moodier players
iPhone 4 jailbreak: ultrasn0w unlock kills battery life?
HP webOS tablet: coming Q1 2011
Best apps on any platform

Flow Songs: Pure lets you buy songs from the radio

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 09:39 AM PDT

Pure has launched its digital music service, Flow Songs, letting you click and buy tracks straight off the radio. Read on, and get all the info on Flow Songs.

Flow Songs is a cloud based service that lets you click and buy tracks that you hear on the radio. Click the flow button on one of Pure’s DAB and internet radios and it’ll analyse the track using technology from Shazam, identify it and give you a price and option to download through 7Digital. The service is cloud-based, so it doesn’t end when you download a track, as is the case with the likes of iTunes.

Flow Songs links up to a central, cloud-based account, and there’s the option to flick back to the station, or listen to the track again. What’s more, if you buy a track on one radio, and you can listen to it on any of Pure’s Flow range of Internet radios.

The service is based on underlying connectivity technologies from Imagination Technologies, and Pete Downton, director of connected services, explained: “flow songs is the first part if the digital glue that we’re trying to put into the market.”

There’s no DRM slapped on tracks from Flow Songs and the track can be downloaded to your computer, and used across all your portable devices.

Flow Songs is currently in beta and is UK only while Pure takes feedback from early users. It’ll launch officially on Monday August 16. What do you think? Will you use flow songs? Does the prospect of buying tracks as you hear them on the radio excite you, or do you fear for your wallet? Shout up in the comments section below.

Best Android phone

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 08:40 AM PDT

The best Android phone. Toughie, isn’t it? Ask anyone on the street a year ago and things would have been easy – there would have only been about two to pick from. In the months since though, Google’s mobile OS has exploded in popularity, with scores of high end phones from almost every manufacturer under the sun now available. Which one should you pick? Our Top 5 Best Android phone list will tell, right here.

Roll those pupils over to the right of the screen and you’ll see our up to the minute Top 5 best Android phone countdown. It’s got all the details you’ll need on the very best Android smartphones around – you can check out reviews, or even skip through to search out a great deal on your network with the Buy It button.

Of course, the best Android phone is a title that’s constantly changing hands, and we’re constantly reviewing this list and updating. Every time, a new Google blower claims the top spot, we’ll let you know. But for the meantime, check out the best Android phones in the world right now with our guide.

Disagree with our Top 5 Best Android phone roundup? Let us know which phones you think make the cut in the comments below.

Dell Streak accessories unboxed: photos

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 08:26 AM PDT

If you caught our Dell Streak review earlier this Summer, you’ll know we were really quite taken with the giant Google slab. We’ve now tracked down the complete accessory line for the super tablet, and we’ll be going into them in more detail soon, but in the meantime, check out the photos of the official case, HDMI dock and car kit right here, plus bonus first impressions!

The Dell Streak accessories don’t come cheap (Even the USB charger is an eyewatering £23.99) but if you want to use your smartphone slate in certain scenarios, they could come in handy.

First up, we’ve got the Dell Streak Home AV dock kit (£54.99) which you can use to hook up your Dell Streak to your HDTV for video playback. It’s an impressively built bit of gear that looks polished and sturdy. Conveniently, the HDMI slot is a regular one rather than a mini one – which should help since no HDMI cable is included at all, and you’re more likely to have one of these lying around already. Whether it’s a better solution than simply having a HDMI port on the phone like some other new Android phones (The Acer Stream and Motorola Milestone XT720) or using a DLNA app remains to be seen.

Read our Dell Streak review now

Next up, we’ve got the Dell Streak car dock kit (£54.99), and while we’ve yet to take it for a spin, we’re not sure we’re going to like it. While Google Maps Navigation works a treat on the Dell Streak, this windscreen connector is absolutely enormous. We’ll be taking it for a test drive shortly however, so we won’t write it off just yet.

Finally, we’ve got the Dell Streak leather wallet case (£32), which uses an interesting hinge design. It’s not like Griffin’s Elan passport holders for Apple gadgets – flip it open and there’s a hard case connector, which will hold the Dell Streak at an angle, which could be useful for video watching or when you want to hook up a Bluetooth keyboard and type.

We’ll have a full Dell Streak accessory review roundup shortly, but in the meantime, check out the unboxing pics right here in our gallery – needless to say, if there’s anything in particular you want to know about them, just drop your queries down in the comments below.

Out Now | £varies | Dell

BBC Red Button: World Cup beaten by the Winter Olympics

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 08:01 AM PDT

The latest BBC Red Button figures have been released and they make interesting reading. Despite a massive publicity drive, interactive World Cup coverage on the Red Button was beaten out by the Winter Olympics which topped the chart way ahead of other events including Glastonbury and T in the Park. Read on to see which events got our fingers flying for the Red Button…

An average of 12 million viewers a week have hit the BBC Red Button service in the last year. It Curling, The Skeleton and all those other weird and wonderful sports had a surprisingly big appeal with 9.9 million viewers tuning in for BBC Red Button coverage of the action.

The World Cup managed 8.9 million viewers with with almost two weeks more screen time while Wimbledon racked up 7.2 million checking out the extra content to keep their mind of Andy Murray's inevitable defeat.

Extra performances from the Glastonbury Festival drew in 4.1 million while T in the Park racked up 2.4 million. Curiously, the last Red Button event bigged up by the Beeb is a concert featuring 80s stars including Gary Numan and Heaven 17 which picked up 1.3 million viewers. That’s a lot of people desperate to hear Cars again.

Let us know: are you surprised that the Winter Olympics proved more popular than the World Cup when it came to feasting on BBC Red Button extras? Do you even stray from the main channels into the extra content or do you just stick to the occasional visit to iPlayer?

Out now | £free | BBC

Pure digital music service: 3 big predictions

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 07:35 AM PDT

Update: We’ve just heard Pure’s music service will be called Flow Songs and will be in beta for the time being. More info coming soon.

Update: We’ve got the skinny on Flow Songs now. Check it out, and tell us what you think!

Pure, the company best known for DAB radios, is launching its own music download service tonight. We broke the news on the story last month, and since then we've had a good chance to mull over what might be on its way. Read on, and we’ll spell out why you should prick up your ears and pay attention as Pure moves into the cloud.

You’d be forgiven for thinking Pure is a small company, but it has enormous backing as a subsidiary of chip company Imagination Technologies, and the radio portion of its business is essentially a shop window. Most of Imagination Technologies’ work is in devices you’ve heard of, but probably never associated with Pure’s parent firm. In short, it's got more weight to throw behind a new project like this than you'd first expect. Here's three things we're hoping for from the service….

1. Massive integration with existing services
Pure has more sense than to roll out another service identical to that of any of the major players, namely Amazon and iTunes. These two services operate primarily via MP3 downloads, and dominate the market.

Whatever Pure rolls out tonight, we'll be baffled if it doesn't have integration or compatability with iTunes and Windows Media Player, and wouldn't be surprised if it hooked up to Spotify and Last.fm, on top of all your social networking accounts. Pure has dabbled with integrating online services with physical products too, letting its digital radio owners sync their product’s preferences to its internet radio service, The Lounge.

2. Something different to iTunes
This isn't going to be solely an MP3 download service. Pure has already said that its service will be a “move into the cloud”, probably in a similar way to existing cloud services, which carry a locker system so you can access your music wherever you are, and on multiple devices.

Whether that will involve buying and downloading tracks, or buying them and storing them in the cloud will be in the detail of today's announcement. However, it's only a matter of time before download services like iTunes and Amazon these shift over to the cloud. Is Pure looking to get in there first, and provide a digital music cloud to mop up all those wanting everything in one virtual place?

3. Some interesting launch partners
The man who's orchestrated the Pure digital music service is Pete Downton, Director of Connected Services at Imagination Technologies, who comes from a background in music, technology and business, and is a former VP of business development at Warner music. He's got his finger on the pulse, and has been involved with Imagination Technology's backing of UK startup Audioboo.

Downton has said in the past that what's relevant is "how you combine networks: broadband, broadcast and community based platforms like social media that allow people to find content they have a passion for." We think that’s a sign Pure’s move into the cloud will involve some unexpected launch partners.

Which all adds up to…
What are we going to be looking at this afternoon? From what we can tell, it's a cloud based music service to let you access music anywhere you like, probably with in-service purchasing for tracks to own and store locally, plus some location-based targeting (gig tickets, anyone?) and a raft of social media hook-ups. What else, we don't yet know, but we get the impression there'll be more on top of this. Stay tuned, and we’ll bring you the news from around 5pm GMT.

Facebook TV: Five on demand hits your news feed!

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 07:03 AM PDT

Five is the first TV Channel to strike a deal with Facebook to host content. The Five on demand player, Demand Five, will be embedded into facebook, bolstering the Five on demand service through likes and shares from Facebook's 26m UK users.

The Facebook Five service is reportedly ready to roll out, and will be launching in the next "week to ten days", according to sources.

The deal could have a big impact on the Demand Five ad revenue, and be a massive audience pick me up for Demand Five audience figures. This will please media tyrant Richard Desmond, who has just bought the channel for £103m. Desmond’s portfolio also includes the Express, and TV channels Television X and Red Hot TV.

Desmond is on a cost cutting spree at Five, having already cut seven of its executive board directors earlier today, out of a possible nine. He's also revealed that he’ll be inflicting £20m worth of brutal cuts, which includes a 25 per cent cut of the Five workforce. After hacking its staff to bits, he’ll then invest £300m in the channel.

The success of the Facebook deal is not guaranteed though, although it's been generally positively received. The quality of the video will be an important factor in its success or failure, and it will be interesting to see how propping up an on demand service that falls behind iPlayer and 4OD with Facebook will affect the programming at Five.

What do you think? If you don't watch Five, will you start now, because it's embedded in Facebook? Is the video quality important?

Football Manager 2011 adds pushier agents and moodier players

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 06:34 AM PDT

Football Manager 2011, the latest instalment of the enduring football sim, has been unveiled and it's packing a host of new features to ratchet up the realism. With a revamped training system and a perked up match engine, it sounds like you'll almost be able to smell the heady mix of Bovril and fake-tanned wags. Here's a rundown of the new features being fielded by Football Manager 2011…

Football Manager 2011 is headed for the PC, Mac and PSP in time for Christmas and Sega is promising a more polished experience this time. Real time contract negotiations are a big new addition with a range of pushy agents to battle with as you attempt to sign your preferred players.

We're also promised an enhanced training system in Football Manager 2011 with a new match preparation area where you can give your team specific areas to focus on and control 14 individual skill areas for players to focus on. It sounds like something Fabio Capello could have done with during the World Cup.

And if you find yourself facing a John-Terry-style public mutiny by a player, Football Manager 2011 adds new private conversations as well as new boardroom and backroom requests. The 3D match engine has also had been overhauled with 100 new animations.

Football Manager Handheld 2011 on the PSP is also set to include a souped-up tactics screen, a brand new skin, an updated player database and enhanced match graphics.

We're sitting down with Sega to take a peek at what it's got coming up. Hit the comments with your questions about Football Manager 2011 (or other games like Sonic 4 for that matter) and we'll put them to Sega for you.

Out late-2010 | £TBC | Football Manager 2011

iPhone 4 jailbreak: ultrasn0w unlock kills battery life?

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 06:03 AM PDT

If you grabbed the iPhone 4 jailbreak and the ultrasn0w unlock, have you spotted a sudden decrease in your iPhone 4 battery life? Forums are filling up with tales that the combination of the two is seriously sapping battery life. Read on for details and news on what the coders have to say about it…

The iPhone 4 jailbreak and the updated ultrasn0w were greeted with much rejoicing by Apple fans eager to crack open their phones and pop them onto any network. But some are now decidedly glum reporting battery life dropping on average by 5% an hour when their phones are on standby.

While some iPhone 4 users rocking the iPhone 4 jailbreak and ultrasn0w suggest the issue is down to other jailbreak apps, the unlock tool seems to be the consistent element behind the problem. Users who've removed ultrasn0w but stuck with the iPhone 4 jailbreak have reported that the battery drain issues have disappeared.

Others have gone even further and restored their phones to undo the iPhone 4 jailbreak entirely. Presumably they figured that the loss in battery life was not worth the ability to grab unofficial apps and deploy other tweaks.

Planetbeing, the iPhone Dev Team member behind ultrasn0w, said on Twitter that it is now investigating the claims. We'll keep an eye on developments and let you know if he reveals what's causing the iPhone 4 battery bother.

If you've used the iPhone 4 jailbreak and ultrasn0w, have you noticed a drop in battery life? Share you experiences in the comments below.

Out now | £free | iPhone Dev Team

HP webOS tablet: coming Q1 2011

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 05:28 AM PDT

Rumour has it HP has leaked to its employees that a web OS tablet will be arriving in Q1 2011, before March next year. Which leaves two more HP tablets on the horizon, with two more operating systems.

Todd Bradley, Personal Systems Group VP at HP, blurted out the date at an all-hands employee meeting. The project is dubbed Hurricane internally, but speculation still suggests that the device will be called PalmPad, after HP filed for trademark.

HP has two more tablet devices in the wings too, the Windows 7 based tablet, the HP Slate, which has been on and off, flip flopping for some time, although it currently seems to be on for the HP Slate. There's also the HP Zeen, a rumoured Android tablet device.

So that's three HP tablet devices to come, running on three different operating systems. Sounds like a lot to deal with, given the infancy of the tablet marketplace, but it also sounds like the heat will be on Apple by the beginning of next year, and HP will be giving all it’s got.

Which are you most hyped about? The HP Slate, the HP PalmPad or the HP Zeen?

(via Engadget)

Best apps on any platform

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 04:57 AM PDT

The best apps on any platform are a rare breed, with so many essential apps exclusive to say, iPhone or Android, but there’s a shortlist of utterly essential programs you need to download, whatever smartphone you own, and we’ve got them rounded up for you right here.

Cast your eyes over to the right and you’ll see our Top 5 Best apps on any platform list. These are the apps available on a wider variety of platforms, be it iOS, Android, BlackBerry or even Symbian S60.

Regardless of which phone you own, you owe it to yourself to check them out – do so using the list on the right hand side of the page. Read more about them or click on the Buy It button to be taken straight through to the download site.

If you’re mulling over smartphones, why not check out our best Android phone round-up too?