Electricpig.co.uk - tech news fast!

Twitter founders to headline Mobile World Congress 2011
Flow Songs: the pros and cons you need to know
Star Wars Xbox Live avatars: new Empire Strikes Back options revealed!
BlackBerry Curve 3G makes our Top 5 Best BlackBerry list
Dyson recruitment drive bags 100 new engineers – but what is it planning?
Apple AA battery: Sanyo Eneloop in disguise? Shock news!
Dell Thunder specs: smaller Dell Streak sibling detailed
Camera+ iPhone app: breaks the rules, gets pulled
Best plasma TV
Lunchtime Lowdown: Apple iTV, a Sony Ericsson Android PSP and iPhone 4 jailbreak patched

Twitter founders to headline Mobile World Congress 2011

Posted: 12 Aug 2010 08:35 AM PDT

Mobile World Congress is the biggest event of the year for smartphone fanatics, and while the next Barcelona shindig isn’t scheduled until February of next year, the organisers have given word of the keynote speakers already – and they include two of Twitter’s founders, and under different banners. What are they going to say?

The big name speakers at the Mobile World Congress 2011 conference have been announced, and while some of them come as no surprise (Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who spoke at this year’s expo as well, the CEO of US network AT&T and Qualcomm boss Paul Jacobs), we’re surprised to see two Twitter co-founders on the list, and for separate keynotes.

Evan Williams, current CEO of Twitter, will be giving a speech at Mobile World Congress, and so will Jack Dorsey, a Twitter founder and ex-CEO, but the latter will be flying the flag of his new start up Square, which allows for credit card payments on an iPhone.

Twitter has made a big push of late in the mobile space, serving up its own first party apps for Android and iPhone, so it’ll be interesting to see what Williams has to say come February. Will Square have more platforms to announce too?

This year’s Mobile World Congress saw the launch of HTC’s flagship Desire and Legend phones, the Samsung Wave, Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X10 Mini family, BBC’s iPhone apps and much more, so you can expect plenty of juicy phone headlines emerging at next year’s event – you can bet we’ll be bringing you all the news from it once more.

Flow Songs: the pros and cons you need to know

Posted: 12 Aug 2010 08:15 AM PDT

Flow Songs, the new service that lets you download songs direct from your radio, will be launching on Monday. It’s a service which brings together radio broadcast and digital music sales, in theory into a neat, functional service. We took a closer look, and weighed up some of the major pros and cons of Flow Songs, to ask you whether you’d use it…

The first important thing to note is that Pure is not looking to compete with iTunes et al with Flow Songs. Pete Downton, Director of Connected Services, stressed that this was very much the beginning of the project for Pure, and not the end, and said: "We're not setting out to create a global service to dominate the market." For the moment, the service works only through Pure's internet connected radios, which is a five strong range. We asked Pete if this was going to change in the future: "We can and want to extend it, but we want to do that at a pace that the industry can keep up with."

But what are the pros and cons? We've weighed them up, before Flow Songs launches on Monday, to give you the lowdown.

Pro: It's easy to make a purchase through Flow Songs
Really easy. It's just a couple of clicks on your radio interface to identify and buy a song. The only fiddly bit (depending on the radio you're using) might be entering your account password to authorise the sale. Its one click to identify, one click to buy, and another to either stream it right there and then, or flick back to the station you were using.

Pro: 7Digital
Flow Songs is powered by 7Digital, which puts it in good stead. 7Digital generally has high quality tracks. It ingests content at a ridiculous rate too, and rakes over existing content to grab better versions as and when they become available. 7Digital has a good reach, and gets quite far into the outer circles of obscure or unknown music, meaning that in theory, the gaps between radio play and availability are at a minimum.

Con: The fee
It's a small con really, but after the 90 day free trial of Flow Songs, you'll be asked to pay £2.99 for the annual service, which gives you unlimited allowance with the service. On top of this you still pay for individual tracks, priced up at whatever 7Digital charges. While £3 is a drop in the ocean for a service you might use a lot, what powers the service is Shazam, which is free. And while it's expected that Pure need to take a cut at some point down the line to monetise the service, and might cause some people to turn their nose up.

Con: You need a Pure internet radio
Pure has five internet connected radios, which start at an RRP of £100. You have to have this hardware to run the service, which is going to be one of the major stumbling blocks for Flow Songs. Pete Downton reckoned that there were 50,000-100,000 devices already in the marketplace, which is a small proportion, but like he said, this is about creating a service which can be built upon and expanded. There's no intention to take on the might of Apple, Pure are using their niche and expertise, to merge radio with digital music sales.

What do you think? Will you use the service or not? Why? Click and tell…

Star Wars Xbox Live avatars: new Empire Strikes Back options revealed!

Posted: 12 Aug 2010 07:15 AM PDT

New Star Wars Xbox Live avatars to celebrate the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back have hit Xbox Live. There's a host of new characters and outfits available to geek out your avatar in honour of George Lucas's finest film, adding to the bunch released back in May. Head through for the new Star Wars Xbox Live avatar options. Warning: playing on your Xbox 360 while dressed like Princess Leia will not get you girls…

Major Nelson announced the new set of Star Wars Xbox Live avatars on Twitter. Head to the Xbox Live Marketplace and you'll find the follow outfits on offer (with most of them available in male and female versions):

R2D2, Slave 1, Empire Strikes Back 30th Anniversary t-shirt, Rebel Soldier Hoth uniform, a TIE Fighter pilot outfit, blue Luke Skywalker lightsaber, Leia Organa, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker Bespin fatigues, Xuckuss, Wampa and (best of all) an AT-AT walker.

The previous set of Star Wars Xbox Live avatars are still on offer with a choice of Imperial snowtrooper, Boba Fett, Lando, Chewbacca, Rebel snowspeeder pilot, Han Solo Hoth outfit, Leia Hoth outfit, Bossk, C-3PO, AT-AT pilot. There's also props: a tauntaun pet, a Yoda ears baseball bat and another lightsaber.

If you're after a move up-to-date geeky makeover for your Xbox Live avatar, Scott Pilgrim Xbox Live avatars have also hit the Xbox Live Marketplace. There's a selection of t-shirts and a guitar prop. They're nice but really there's no match for a lightsaber.

The new Star Wars Xbox Live avatar items and Scott Pilgrim schwag will set you back between 40 and 320 Xbox Live points.

Let us know which outfit you've grabbed for your avatar. We'd love to see the Star Wars-styled virtual you in the comments below. Hit us up with photo links.

Out now | £varies | Xbox Live Market

BlackBerry Curve 3G makes our Top 5 Best BlackBerry list

Posted: 12 Aug 2010 07:12 AM PDT

Caught our BlackBerry Curve 3G review yet? If you read it, you’ll know that we were more than impressed by its improved performance, extra connectivity, and the lure of a major update in the pipeline. How impressed? So much so that it’s gatecrashed our Top 5 Best BlackBerry phone list, which you can see on the right of the full post.

Check out the Best BlackBerry phone list to the right and you’ll know see that the BlackBerry Curve 3G has slipped straight in at number two, just below the BlackBerry Bold 9700.

We still prefer the Bold’s sharp screen and extra horsepower under the bonnet, which is why it still holds top spot, but for a budget smartphone, the BlackBerry Curve 3G certainly ticks plenty of boxes.

Read our BlackBerry Curve 3G review now

The inclusion of GPS and 3G this time around mean you won’t ever get lost, and the faster data speeds should make the revamped browser a pleasure to use when the big BlackBerry 6 update rolls around.

That its form factor is almost identical to the BlackBerry Curve 8520 while throwing in those extra features means last year’s model loses its place on our list to it while the models below – the Pearl 3G, sharper screened Curve 8900 and touchscreen BlackBerry Storm 2 – keep their spots.

Want to know more about the BlackBerry Curve 3G? Just hit the Read More button over to the right in our Best BlackBerry phone Top 5 list, or pop the Buy It button to check out all the best BlackBerry Curve 3G deals available now.

Dyson recruitment drive bags 100 new engineers – but what is it planning?

Posted: 12 Aug 2010 07:09 AM PDT

Dyson has recruited 100 out of a planned 350 new engineers to work on "upcoming inventions” at its Wiltshire base. It’s the first batch of recruits in the Dyson recruitment binge.

Dyson currently employs over 2,500 people worldwide, and the figures for the UK are set to jump to 1,600 after Dyson has found its 350 new engineers. Looking solely at its engineering, this drive will doubling the number of engineers Dyson employs in its Wilstshire labs.

50 of the Dyson recruits are graduate engineers, coming straight out of university, after a recruitment process which involves an engineering challenge. This means that hopefuls have to solve an engineering problem, build a prototype and test the solution to destruction.

It sounds like Dyson has some big plans afoot, although it's useless to guess at what mad direction the company might be moving in next. What we do know, is that Dyson is looking for engineers in microbiology, acoustic and software engineering, on top of the expected thermal, electrical, and mechanical engineering specialisms.

Dyson is pushing its R&D department, spending £1m per week on R&D, which might raise speculation that Dyson is moving into new areas, new problems, and new solutions. Last month we spotted a blurred out area in the Dyson Air Multiplier video. Could the two things be connected?

What do you think we'll see from Dyson in the next 12 months? Tell us your wildest speculations!

Apple AA battery: Sanyo Eneloop in disguise? Shock news!

Posted: 12 Aug 2010 06:33 AM PDT

The Apple battery charger is the most prosaic of Apple's new products, especially sat next to the Magic Trackpad which it's designed to feed with a constant stream of fresh juice. And now it seems the Apple AA battery is not so magical. In fact, it looks like it's a Sanyo Eneloop dressed in an Apple suit…

The obsessive Apple investigators over at Czech site Superapple have been pondering the Apple AA batteries that come with the Apple battery charger. They stripped off the plastic but couldn't find any physical clues that the cells are Sanyo Eneloop batteries dressed up but they then did some performance tests.

After measuring the characteristics of the Apple AA batteries, Superapple concluded that they're Sanyo Eneloop HR-3UTG batteries. Apple says the cells it supplies with the Battery Charger are "high-performance AA NiMH batteries" which is exactly what the Sanyo Eneloop batteries are.

Now, it's not that surprising that Apple isn't making its own batteries. We didn't really expect it would. But with Sanyo Eneloop chargers and batteries going for substantially less than the £25 Apple Battery Charger, if you're looking to juice up your Apple Magic Trackpad, Magic Mouse and keyboard, there's a saving to be made.

Out now | £25 | Apple (via Superapple)

Dell Thunder specs: smaller Dell Streak sibling detailed

Posted: 12 Aug 2010 06:02 AM PDT

The Dell Thunder, a more pocketable take on the Dell Streak, has been popped up online again. It showed up on a leaked Dell roadmap earlier this year but this time it's in the form of an honest-to-goodness snap of the Android phone. If the size made you stop short of snapping up the Dell Streak, this slimmed down slate could be the one you've been waiting for…

The Dell Thunder sat beside the Windows Phone 7 Dell Lightning and the larger Dell Looking Glass slate in a leaked presentation that emerged back in April. The fact that it's been caught on camera seems to suggest that all three products should be headed our way in the next few months.

The Dell Thunder prototype that's been shown off today runs Android 2.1 and comes packing a 800 x 840 resolution 4.1in touchscreen, an 8MP camera with an LED flash and 720p video recording.

The Dell Streak Froyo update was recently delayed with a jump to 2.1 in September in its place. The Dell Thunder may also come with a slight delay before it jumps to Android 2.2 with whispers suggesting it'll come packing a new custom Dell interface on top of the standard Google OS.

While the 4.1in screen is still pretty hefty (putting it in the same weight class as the HTC Evo 4G), the Dell Thunder could definitely be an appealing slimmed-down option for Dell Streak admirers. It’ll be nice to have another option in the search for the best Android phone.

Hop into the comments and let us know what you make of the Dell Thunder. Do you think it'll go down a storm? Will it be a wash out? Should we use less weather puns?

Out TBC | £TBC | Dell (via Fonehome /Engadget)

Camera+ iPhone app: breaks the rules, gets pulled

Posted: 12 Aug 2010 05:35 AM PDT

Another case of contraband features smuggled into an iPhone app today, as Camera+ gets pulled, not for anything malicious, but for sneaking in a feature to turn the physical buttons on an iPhone into a shutter control.

The Camera+ developers, Taptaptap, issued an update to the iPhone app, which allowed the volume buttons on the iPhone to control the camera shutter, which could be secretly activated by visiting a mobile safari URL. The secret was revealed on Twitter, and the Tweet deleted just half an hour later. But half an hour was enough for word to get out.

The result of this back-door workaround? Apple pulled the app entirely from the app store.

Camera+ was pulled from the App Store just after its developers announced that the iPhone app had brought in half a million in two months. The iPhone app was marketed as the ultimate camera app, and sold almost 400,000 units. It's a shame, because it had some great features, like a touch controlled exposure function, which allowed you to drag the exposure around the screen, to get the lighting just right.

Did you download Camera+? Should it have gone for breaching Apple's terms, or has Apple been too heavy handed? Let us know!

Best plasma TV

Posted: 12 Aug 2010 04:57 AM PDT

If you’re looking for the best plasma TV, you’ve come to the right place. We’re always on the hunt for the best goggleboxes of every screen tech type, and you can check out our Top 5 Best Plasma TV list to the right of our full post.

Buying a new boobtube is a big investment, but we’re here to make the decision easier for you. Cast your eyes over to the right and you’ll see our Top 5 Best plasma TV chart, complete with Read More options and a Buy It button that’ll take you straight to the product page on Amazon.

It’s kept up to date, so you’ll always know which are the best plasma TVs to buy, so start grazing through the current crop right now. Tech’s always moving forward but you’ve got to take the plunge at some point, right?

Want to see what the best plasma TV you can buy right now is? Point your peepers over to the right of the page and check out our countdown.

Lunchtime Lowdown: Apple iTV, a Sony Ericsson Android PSP and iPhone 4 jailbreak patched

Posted: 12 Aug 2010 04:40 AM PDT

Lunchtime o’clock has rolled around again already, and we’ve got a mammoth meal for you, with all sorts of enticing news and upcoming rumours on top of it. Read on and tuck in to all the tech you could need right here!

First up, we’ve seen plenty of rumours and whispers in the last few hours that have pricked up our ears. Our alarm bells have started ringing over Nokia’s latest marketing stunt, while reports say Apple’s revised TV offering will be called iTV, and Sony Ericsson could be prepping that PlayStation phone at long last – and it’ll run on Android.

Elsewhere, we got a look at Samsung’s new accessory line for the Galaxy S phone, and Apple patched up the iPhone 4 jailbreak exploit – so if yours is unlocked, you might not want to update just yet.

Finally, don’t forget to have a peek at our Electricpig offers page – you could snag yourself a bargain.

Still want more news? It’s ready and waiting for you on the homepage right now!