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Dell UltraSharp U2412M now available: A budget-friendly IPS panel for the masses
Mac OS X Lion review: A new beginning, but a bargain too
Did Samsung sell more smartphones than Apple this quarter?
Apple iPad 3 concept includes Retina display and full HD video
RIM cuts 10 percent of its workforce: Houston, we have a problem
Facebook for iPad: locked, loaded and hidden in your iPhone app!
Best Android apps of the week
Stream live Premiership football on your phone now: How fans are snubbing Murdoch
Samsung Galaxy R and four other budget alternatives
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 UK launch: get it early from PC World

Dell UltraSharp U2412M now available: A budget-friendly IPS panel for the masses

Posted: 25 Jul 2011 10:50 AM PDT

The latest in Dell's UltraSharp displays, the 24-inch U2412M, is now alive and kicking on the company's website in the US and Japan. The U2412M joins the U2410 as Dell's affordable 24-inch UltraSharp flagship and features the same 16:10 widescreen aspect ratio, IPS panel, and anti glare with hard coat 3H.

The dynamic contrast ratio has been bumped from 80,000:1 to 2,000,000:1, but the brightness is down from 400 cd/m2 to 300 cd/m2 and the response time is 8ms instead of 6ms. We'd say those are minor concessions considering the generous 33 percent price cut.

As you can tell from the intro, not much has changed between the U2410 and U2412M. Native contrast ratio is still 1,000:1, pixel pitch remains 0.27mm, and with the exception of the built-in memory card reader in the U2410, the connectivity options are the same.

Where you will see a difference (other than brightness and response time) is AdobeRGB coverage which is down from 110 percent to 96 percent. Also, the Dell U2410 color support is 1.07 billion versus the 16.7 million of the U2412M. In the US, the Dell UltraSharp U2410 is priced at $599.99 and the U2412M is $399.99, representing a 33 price difference.

With the U2410 commanding £555.60 in the UK, we could be looking at price of £372 for the U2412M before factoring in any sort of promotions or instant rebates. Compared to the 24-inch 16:9 aspect ratio Dell P2411H, the U2412M brings better specs and features to the table, along with a 16:10 aspect ratio.

If you've been eyeing a new 24-inch Dell monitor, keep your eyes peeled for the Dell UltraSharp U2412M.

Coming Soon | Dell UK | TBD

Mac OS X Lion review: A new beginning, but a bargain too

Posted: 25 Jul 2011 09:20 AM PDT

The last time Apple launched a new version of Mac OS X into the world, we were living in a time before the iPad and it was somewhat humble about its efforts advertising Snow Leopard as “the world’s most advanced operating system. Finely tuned”.

This time, it’s very different. Mac OS X Lion is stuffed full of user-facing features, and promoted by Apple as “the power of Mac OS X. The magic of the iPad” and across the operating system features from the tablet have taken root. For unabashed iPad fans that’s likely to be a cause for celebration but for long time OS X users, there could be a steep learning curve. Does the iOS world with its grids of icons and rampant use of gestures work well now it’s migrated back to the Mac? Let’s find out…

Installation

The Mac OS X Lion installation process is incredibly simple. As long as you have an up-to-date version of Snow Leopard on your machine, you simply head for the Mac App Store, hit buy and watch the download jump into the dock. Once the 3.74GB file has downloaded, you’re greeted by a very minimal installer app. And it really is minimal, the only option open to you is choosing the disk location. Lion’s licence covers all the Macs in your home but if you want to avoid having to download the installer for each one, make sure you copy it to a USB drive before you open it as the file self-destructs after use.

Scrolling

The first thing you notice when starting Mac OS X Lion is a message from Apple that scrolling has changed. Inverted scrolling is now the default which means pushing up scrolls down and vice versa. The move has caused lots of debate and moaning online but actually it does make sense. Rather than moving the scroll bar, you’re now moving the content in the window just as you do on the iPhone and iPad. That doesn’t mean it feels right straight away though. On a touchscreen device where you are interacting directly with the screen, the scrolling method immediately makes sense but with a trackpad and screen it can take some time to get used to, especially since you can still see the scroll bar moving the other direction. You can change back to the traditional scrolling method in settings but give it time before you retreat to your comfort zone – we think Apple has made the right move here, especially since so many OS X machines are laptops with built-in trackpads. Speaking of which:

Gestures

The range of multitouch gestures deployed in Mac OS X is quite baffling. The horizontal three-finger-swipe – previously used to flick through pages in lots of apps – moves through desktop spaces and full-screen apps, a vertical three-finger-swipe activates the new Mission Control feature while LaunchPad is accessible via an awkward pinch using three fingers and your thumb. A spreading gesture with your thumb and three fingers still clears the screen to reveal the desktop below. On a built-in trackpad or the Magic Trackpad, they’re relatively easy to execute but attempting most of them on a Magic Mouse is a recipe for RSI. If you're buying an iMac anytime soon, for pity's sake choose the trackpad as your bundled accessory.

Mission Control

In Mac OS X Lion, Exposé and Spaces have hooked up to give birth to Mission Control. A bird’s eye view of all the windows on your current desktop grouped by application, it also shows a list of additional desktops and full-screen applications. Adding new desktops is as simple as dragging an application window to the top of the screen. Desktops and full-screen apps shuffle in with each other so you can flick through them with a three-finger horizontal swipe. It’s great for inveterate multitaskers but if you weren’t already using Spaces, you probably won’t find yourself relying on Mission Control any time soon.

LaunchPad

LaunchPad is the most direct lift from iOS in the whole of Mac OS X Lion. It takes over the screen presenting your applications in the same grid format used by an iOS homescreen. You can then flick through pages and group apps in folders in exactly the same way as on an iPhone or iPad. That’s brilliant if you’ve got a reasonably small amount of programmes and buy most of them from the Mac App Store but if you’ve got a lots on your machine it becomes a lot less useful. It gets tiring having to page through screens to find the app you’re after and organising a lot of icons is tiresome. You can only remove apps directly from the LaunchPad if you bought them from the Mac App Store. Apps you purchase from there automatically pop up in LaunchPad. Based on a few days use, LaunchPad really does feel like a gimmick at the moment rather than a transformative way to access your applications. If you're used to pressing command+space and then pressing a letter or two to quickly launch an application, you'll never use it.

Full-screen apps

Application windows work differently in OS X Lion. There are small tweaks (the trio of close/minimise/maximise buttons are a lot smaller) and major ones (scroll bars only show up when you scroll or hover over the right edge of a window or scroll on your trackpad). The loss of a permanent scroll bar can feel slightly odd in some applications, particularly text editors and iTunes. Meanwhile the ability to manually resize windows by dragging at any edge is very welcome and incredibly overdue. Biggest of all the changes though is the arrival of fullscreen apps. Windows users may scoff that it has included that feature for eons but in the case of Mac OS X Lion, fullscreen means a little more.

In Lion-optimised apps, a new button in the top right hand corner activates full-screen mode. At a basic level it hides the dock and menu bar allowing the app to encompass the whole screen but results vary depending on what programme you’re using. In iCal, the changes are minimal but iPhoto and GarageBand both rearrange the layout of the whole app. It’s visually appealing and definitely helps you focus on whatever you’re working on but it can feel a little odd having to hunt around to find the rearranged controls. When you’re running a full-screen app, it acts as a space in its own right so you can flip between it, any other full-screen app and your open desktops.

iMac or Cinema Display users may scoff at this, and to be frank, for heavy Photoshop editing with multiple windows it's useless, but after testing OS X Lion on a new 11-inch MacBook Air, we're sold on it. More casual users will love being able to swipe through a small handful of applications (Mail and Safari, say) this way.

Finder

Apple loves messing around with the Finder to see how stripped back it can make it. This time that means the row of icons in the left hand menu have been turned monochrome, following in the footsteps of iTunes 10 which first introduced the desaturated approach. As with the jukebox app, the change has simply made the menu harder to navigate at a glance. It’s one of those aesthetic decisions by Apple that really doesn't make very much sense.

The other big change to Finder is the new default view, All My Files, which sorts your files into Cover Flow-style rows. Apple appears to be attempting to encourage you to see your files as one big soup of information to sifted through rather than a stack of folders. If the new view doesn’t appeal to you, and for us, with our thousands of word docs, it does not, it’s easy to navigate through the Finder in other more familiar ways.

The search function in Finder has also had a significant upgrade. Type a word and it suggests a search category to apply to it, making it far easier to quickly drill down to the item you’re after. It’s smart too: if you type in a date or file format it will recognise the type of information you’re giving it. The same kind of intelligence has been applied to the Quick Look function which now allows you to preview videos and audio directly in Finder as well as letting you take a close a look at them and other files using the Quick Look button. The ability to add frequent file searches as well as locations to the left hand menu is also a great new addition.

Spotlight

Like Finder, Spotlight has been tweaked in Mac OS X Lion. You can now drag and drop files straight from the Spotlight drop down menu and Quick Look has migrated there too. That’s really handy for quickly finding an image or music file you’re after and it even includes websites as the search now extends beyond what’s just on your system.

Resume, Versions and AutoSave

Resume, Versions and AutoSave are three of the quietest but potentially most revolutionary new features in Lion but they’re not without their issues. Resume means that the OS remembers its state, so that when you restart or turn on your machine again you’ll find the applications that were previously open ready to use just as they were before. That’s a familiar experience from modern browsers like Chrome and Firefox but with your whole desktop in play, it can feel slightly claustrophobic after being used to a clean slate when you first switch on your machine. If you’re concerned web pages you’d rather the world didn’t see will automatically be restored, don’t worry – Restore respects private mode in web browsers and can be switched off entirely in settings. Whew.

Versions takes the Time Machine concept of being able to roll back your hard drive to a previous state and applies it to individual files, even using a version of the same UI. Rather than saving over the previous incarnation of a file when you hit Command-S, you’re now saving a version of it. You can then go back and review previous versions and even revert to them. The feature is only present in a few applications at the moment (notably Preview, Pages and TextEdit) but third-party developers will be able to easily add it using Apple’s SDK. Versions will become really useful when iCloud launches making it easy to keep track of editing you’ve done across different devices. One slight concern is the way versions multiply in the Finder, quickly cluttering up the list view.

AutoSave is the third part of Apple’s new approach to saving files in Mac OS X Lion. In addition to manually-saved versions of files, OS X periodically saves a version of documents you’re editing. In applications that support AutoSave, that means the slow death of the Save dialog. Instead, if you close an app that includes AutoSave, it will just shut down, keeping the active document as you left it.

Safari

Home advantage makes Safari the best browser on Mac OS X Lion, for now. While other options including Firefox and Chrome have lost gestures they previously used to allow you to whip around the web, Safari has gained pinch-to-zoom and double tap-to-zoom plus the ability to navigate between website with a two-finger swipe – moving back a page has never been so seamless. It’s also had a speed boost and is more stable thanks to sandboxing which separates the processes at work in a particular tab from the application as a whole. Hopefully though, rival browsers will gain the same gesture support in their next updates.
One side note: Flash, which Adobe readily admits is only in beta for OS X Lion, barely works at all right now. We've only got one YouTube video to load so far – but you can bet Adobe will be patching this up sharpish.

Mail, iCal, Address Book

Mail and iCal both take their cues from their cousins on the iPad. The updated version of Mail now dedicates the entire left hand side of the screen to a message listing with two-line previews (which can be extended via system preferences). Emails are now grouped together in conversations and search has been powered up just as in Spotlight and Finder. Curiously with Address Book and iCal, Apple has decided to continue its taste for celebrating dying analogue formats. By default iCal goes for the tear sheet design first shown on the iPad and Address Book is literally an address book though the addition of iPhoto importing and the ability to make FaceTime calls straight from the app makes it a lot more useful.

Account management

Along with tweaking Mail, Apple has also brought account management into the heart of the system. Head to System Preferences and you’ll find a dedicated menu for adding in your Gmail, Exchange, MobileMe, Yahoo! and AOL accounts. This will also eventually be home to your iCloud account and allow you manage all your syncing and remote storage from one place.

AirDrop

One of our favourite features in Mac Os X Lion is AirDrop. It’s an incredibly simple way to swap files between Macs which doesn’t need you to be on the same network to do its stuff. Rather than using a Wi-Fi network as a middle man, AirDrop makes a peer-to-peer Wi-Fi connection between Airports. Clicking AirDrop in Finder activates a search for Macs running Lion within 30ft which it identifies with the owner’s Apple ID. To share a file you simply drag it onto the other user’s icon and they’ll receive a message asking if they want to accept the file. If they do, an animated image of the file you’re sharing leaps straight into their Downloads folder. The transfers are encrypted and very speedy according to our tests with a 53MB file making the leap in just under a minute.

Hidden gems and odd additions

Apple has trumpeted 250 new features in Mac OS X Lion and there are plenty you’ll just stumble upon. It took us a few days to realise that the forthcoming iOS 5 Twitter integration has already been presaged by the option to tweet any text you select and the new low-power wake mode that allows you to remotely access files without switching on your Mac’s screen is a welcome addition. The craziest new feature we stumbled upon though was in Preview which now allows you to add a signature straight into a PDF using the iSight camera. Open a PDF, click the annotations button then the signature button and you’ll be greeted with a window encouraging you to sign your name on a piece of white paper and hold it up to the camera. Bingo! A reusable digital signature. Microsoft, you need to steal this.

The addition of system-wide AutoCorrect may seem a little less welcome. The bane of many an iPhone user’s life and star of its own internet meme, Damn You AutoCorrect, has graduated to the Mac and while it’s not as wild as its mobile cousin, you might want to switch it off. It doesn’t capitalise the first word in every sentence or randomly decide that a reference “reading” must mean the city of Reading but does make small corrections automatically. Netbooks are netbacks. What the hell is a netback? It does highlight corrections with a blue underline and offer up suggestions for alternatives but if you still have nightmares about being lectured by Clippy back in the day, it’s another feature that can be switched off in settings.

Compatibility

Installing onto a clean system worked like a dream but on our 13-inch MacBook Air, which had previously had the contents of an old MacBook Pro migrated to it, we did notice some issues. The main one was multiple versions of Apple apps clogging up LaunchPad. It seems if you’ve squirrelled away applications in folders of your own choosing the Lion installer can get a little confused. Beyond that the only obvious compatibility issue is the death of Rosetta and with it the end to support for PowerPC applications. If you still need to rely on them you’ll have to stick with Snow Leopard for the time being.

Conclusion

At £20.99, upgrading to Mac OS X Lion makes sense but with its many new features and changes, it feels like things start to get complicated once that ultra-easy installation process is over. If Snow Leopard was Apple grooming an established product to get the best from it, Lion often feels like it’s been thrown into a room full of funhouse mirrors. You have to rewire your brain to get used to the new approach and may even need to switch off some of its most jarring features. Ultimately though, this is still an excellent OS with lots to recommend it. AirDrop and Versions are worth upgrading for alone and Apple is bound to smooth off some of the rough edges with its next update.

Did Samsung sell more smartphones than Apple this quarter?

Posted: 25 Jul 2011 09:05 AM PDT

According to research firm Strategy Analytics, the answer to that question is yes. Samsung sold between 18 and 21 million smartphones in the second quarter, beating Nokia's 16.7 million and Apple's 20.3 million iPhones. The firm believes sales of the Galaxy S II sealed the deal and that Samsung will be walking away as the number one global smartphone manufacturer when the dust settles.

Let's stick to the facts. Apple and Nokia have posted their financial results whereas Samsung device sales remain a forecast. Though total smartphone sales are uncertain, to Samsung's credit, the company did confirm it sold more than three million Galaxy S II smartphones in just 55 days. That well-known fact combined with a portfolio of Windows Phone and Android smartphones makes for a compelling case.

Once you factor in Samsung's partnership with Google for the Nexus S, Strategy Analytics' forecast becomes even more convincing. We'll know for certain once Samsung posts its second quarter results, but in the meantime Apple might want to push that lawsuit a little harder. As popular as the iPhone has become, Samsung's wider product portfolio has the advantage of variety. More devices on more carriers is the formula for smartphone success.

Anyone think Apple still pulled out the victory? Let us know in the comments section below.

via SlashGear

Apple iPad 3 concept includes Retina display and full HD video

Posted: 25 Jul 2011 08:00 AM PDT

If you're anything like us you can't stand waiting for new gadgets to drop. The iPad 3, due out later this year or early 2012, is at the top of our must-have list. Thanks to Guilherme Schasiepen, the same guy behind this incredible iPhone 5 mockup, we have our first glimpse at what could be the iPad 3. Ready to take a peek?

Touting a curve-glass back, the iPad 3 mockup embodies a similar design to our leaked iPhone 5. This curved back helps the device achieve an incredible .29 inch thickness. The rear camera has added a LED flash and now supports full HD video capture. Up front, the VGA-resolution camera has been upgraded to a FaceTime HD camera (1280×720 pixel).

Under the hood, Schasiepen believes we'll see a bump in RAM and a slightly more powerful dual-core processor. Of course, the real highlight to the iPad 3 will be its Retina display — you know, that screen confirmed by LG's CEO of Display units. Though these are only mockups of the iPad 3, we can't help but fall in love with its design.

Anyone else ready for an iPad 3 pre-ordered based on this mockup?

RIM cuts 10 percent of its workforce: Houston, we have a problem

Posted: 25 Jul 2011 07:12 AM PDT

Research in Motion will reportedly lay off 2,000 of its employees, or about 10 percent of its total workforce, according to a press release issued this morning. The move comes as part of a "workforce reduction" following the company's rapid expansion which lead to quadruple growth in its team over the past five years.

Spoiler alert: both of RIM's co-CEOs are safe for now as neither Mike Lazaridis nor Jim Balsillie was mentioned in today's release. Other top management positions on the other hand, will be reorganized. Although the layoffs come as a shock to many, the news actually stems from the cost optimization program the company announced on June 16th.

The program is set on "eliminating redundancies and reallocating resources to focus on areas that offer the highest opportunity of growth". As a necessary step in the company's long term success, 2,000 employees will be laid off this week and receive severance packages and outplacement support. Once complete, RIM's worldwide workforce will consist of approximately 17,000 people.

Only time will tell whether the workforce reduction was the smart play. The operating expense reductions will not be reflected until the Q2 results on September 15, 2011. We saw Wall Street's reaction after the Q1 results where RIM shipped 500,000 PlayBooks and net revenue rose 16 percent from the year ago quarter. Can today's move help the company turn it around?

Facebook for iPad: locked, loaded and hidden in your iPhone app!

Posted: 25 Jul 2011 06:44 AM PDT

The Facebook for iPad app we've been waiting for has been hiding under our nose the whole time. According to TechCrunch, the iPad code has been tucked away, hidden inside the current iPhone app and they've published screenshots to prove it. Ready to see Facebook for iPad in action? We've been told it's "spectacular".

Handcrafted with HTML5, Facebook for iPad takes full advantage of the slate's larger, 9.7-inch display. Like iPad's native mail client, the app uses the left side of the screen for navigation and the right side for content. To initiate Facebook chat, flip the tablet upside down or open the photo viewer for an experience identical to the native Photos app.

If we've sold you on Facebook for iPad and you're ready to experience the app first hand, here's what you need to know. There's two guides on the Internet, the first is from iClarified and covers all jailbroken iPads. The second method, discovered by Schimanke, covers the rest. Surprisingly, the non-jailbroken method is easier and only eight steps (versus 13 for jailbroken iPads).

Anyone else ready to unlock the official Facebook for iPad functionality? Rest assure we'll be following the second guide later today. If you take the plunge be sure to let us know how you like the app, thanks.

Facebook for iPad guides: jailbroken iPads, standard iPads.

Best Android apps of the week

Posted: 25 Jul 2011 06:10 AM PDT

The Summer holidays are truly here, and we have a great selection of the best Android apps to celebrate! Because there’s going to be an awful lot of people out there with plenty of free time on their hands, we’ve picked a few awesome games to keep your thumbs busy during those long, leisure-packed days.

Using Barcode Scanner and your Android phone’s camera, you can scan the QR Codes shown below and download the apps and games quickly and easily. Should you lack this vital application, you can just click the link in the app’s title. Simple!

Captain America Sentinel of Liberty

Approx 60p

No doubt you’ve already been exposed to the groundswell of hype surrounding the latest comic book to big-screen adaptation, but whatever your thoughts are on the ‘first Avenger‘ then you should extract a fair amount of enjoyment from this tie-in game. It’s a 3D brawler boasting addictive action and a high level of polish, making it a solid candidate for our list of the week’s best Android apps and games. It’s also heartening to see Android getting some high-profile love at the same time as Apple’s iPhone – long-suffering Google lovers usually have to wait a few months before getting top-notch titles such as this.

Vipre Mobile Security

Free (public beta)

Although many mobile users remain blissfully ignorant of the fact, there’s a growing amount of evidence to suggest that smartphones are becoming just as susceptible to viruses and malevolent online threats as PCs. Although it’s somewhat tiresome to admit it, it’s likely that in the next year or so you’re going to have to seriously consider getting some kind of protection for your beloved handset. With that in mind, it’s well worth giving Vipre Mobile Security a spin. It’s currently in beta and is therefore free to download, and covers you for threats such as viruses, malware and spam. It also helps avoid other unsavoury elements such as ‘sexting’ and mobile bullying – handy if you’re concerned about the safety of your Android-loving offspring.

Herman the Hermit

Approx £1.22

Veteran video game developer Capcom – famous for its Street Fighter series – is now muscling in on the smartphone sector with a range of simple yet addictive games. Herman the Hermit is arguably one of the best yet and it doesn’t even feature Ryu or Ken, amazingly. Instead, you control a rather dishevelled hermit as he leaps from platform to platform in an attempt to cover as much distance as possible before the clock ticks down to zero. Special items speed up your progress and by performing truly amazing jumps you can add more time to the clock. It’s finger-friendly fun with a focus on chasing high-scores, making it the ideal way to waste time during the summer holidays.

Switch

Free

This free gem has been soaking up far too much of our time recently, and is a gloriously addictive entry in our top Android apps of the week run-down. The premise is simple – you have to guide your space ship along a 3D track whilst avoiding barriers and rival craft. Tapping left and right on the screen switches the lane you’re current riding in, and as the game progresses it gets faster, making it even more challenging. It’s a little rough around the edges at present (we noticed that the music skips occasionally) but we expect the developers will tighten things up over the next few weeks. What is immediately apparent is that Switch will remorsefully rob you of every spare second you possess.

Fruit Ninja Free

Free

We’re sure those of you that haven’t downloaded Fruit Ninja yet have a good reason. Perhaps you’re allergic to apples, and fear that even digital representations of the fruit could provoke a nasty reaction. Or maybe you’re attempting to appear aloof and cool by ignoring what is easily one of the best Android games ever made. Most likely you’re just careful with your cash and don’t want to spend any money on it. If the last excuse is valid in your case, then you’ll be pleased to learn that Fruit Ninja is now available for free. This gratis version comes with adverts (which mercifully only appear on the menu screens) and packs in all the content of the premium edition. Now you really have no excuse not to download it. And while we’re on the subject of slashing foodstuffs, why not check out out hands-on impressions of Fruit Ninja Kinect?

Stream live Premiership football on your phone now: How fans are snubbing Murdoch

Posted: 25 Jul 2011 04:03 AM PDT

With the new season kicking off in just a few weeks, we recently showed you how to stream the games straight to your laptop, tablet or phone, whatever the platform – legally. But that’s just one side to the story.

As you may or may not know, many people choose to stream games illegally over the internet, and increasingly, that’s become possible on phones too. Read on to find out how it’s done.

Live streaming of football games is nothing new. Not every football fan pays for a Sky subscription, and even if they do, you can’t watch every big clash as it happens: the current restriction on airing 3pm kick off games on a Saturday in the UK means many turn to foreign broadcasts of these games, streams of which can be found on websites with just a few searches.

Broadcasters and rights holders try to clamp down on these sites, but like an internet hydra, if you cut off one head, another pops up to take its place. And they’re multiplying.

In the last season for which figures were available, 2008-2009, the Premier League claimed to have dealt with 1,800 cases of illegal streaming.

Christopher Stokes, the CEO of NetResult, a London internet monitoring agency which enforces broadcasting rights for leading sports rights owners, wouldn’t give statistics, but did admit that the trend has continued to grow.

“The negative is that there are more people viewing illegal streams,” he says. “On the positive side there is a greater percentage in the number of streams that can be tracked down and dealt with.”

Increasingly though, with the advent of Adobe Flash video support on handsets and tablets, as well as mobile optimised versions of live streaming video sites, this is becoming possible on smartphones.

NetResult account director Tim Cooper concedes that more fans as a proportion are likely turning to these devices to watch games wherever they are.

“The large sites we deal with now are sites that users can upload their own stream,” he says, pointing to the likes of Justin.tv. “They’ve designed apps that you can have on your mobile phone so you can view the streams on them, so it is highly possible.”

Stokes is quick to point out that these sites are also the quickest to respond takedown requests and work with rights holders to remove illegal streams, but Electricpig has also spoken to fans who choose to stream live football games this way.

“I like to stream the footie mostly when its a 3pm Saturday game and there’s no other live coverage available,” one Chelsea fan who wishes to remain anonymous tells us. “I normally use my PC for this but have started to use my tablet more if I can get a good connection.”

Stokes points out that the solution to illegal streaming is more carrot than stick: legal alternatives.

“It’s great that more and more technology is available for people to watch (live football). On Sky, quite legitimately if you’re a subscriber, people can now watch matches on their mobile, and that’s fantastic. It gives real impetus to all these new applications and platforms. Hopefully that’ll take away any rationale for what is effectively stealing it.”

Until a legal means to watch those coveted 3pm games arrives however, it appears that problem isn’t going to go away.

How is it done?

Android

Many new Android phones and tablets support Adobe Flash 10.3, meaning that any video you can stream on your desktop PC will run on them too. One obstacle preventing this is that some of the most popular sites and technologies for illegal streams of live football, such as SopCast, require a desktop application to work.

One site we found however, Liveonlinefooty.com, for £1 per day or £27.99 per year through PayPal, requires no downloads, and works flawlessly on an Android device. Once we were logged in, we were watching a high quality feed of Sky Sports in seconds, and there were many other streams to choose from besides. That’s pocket money compared to the price of a Sky subscription.

iPhone/iPad

Apple’s famous stance against Flash support means these same sites simply don’t work on an iOS device, and using a Flash converting browser such as SkyFire didn’t work on Liveonlinefooty.com, but it’s not impossible to find the big games on stream through the Ustream (Free) and Justin.tv (£6.99) apps – though these are far more likely to be pulled.

Says Stokes of Justin.tv: “They provide very good support to rights holders…the numbers of people who will be watching it on their mobile is probably going to be very small because they get ripped away very fast.”

Windows Phone/Nokia
Neither platform offers (full) support for Adobe Flash, but both have Ustream apps available to download – which we’ve not been able to test ourselves. The Symbian app no longer appears to be supported by Ustream, but is still available for download at the Ovi Store.

HP/Palm webOS
Most webOS phones also support Flash streaming – while we’ve not been able to test this, any sites that work on Android phones also likely to run smoothly on your Palm Pre Plus or Pre 2.

Samsung Galaxy R and four other budget alternatives

Posted: 25 Jul 2011 04:01 AM PDT

Samsung's Galaxy R just leaked this morning, and it's a budget version of the five star Galaxy S 2. Perfect if you want the same awesome functionality on a slightly more modest budget.

It’s the latest in a line of slightly lower specced but still undeniably awesome Android phones that come super cheap. Can't afford the best? Check out the rest, with our guide to the budget alternatives to high end smartphones. Saving money has never been so much fun.

Money to burn: Samsung Galaxy S 2

Budget alternative: Samsung Galaxy R

Looking almost identical to the stellar Galaxy S 2, the R has a slightly smaller screen (4.2-inches to the S 2's 4.3), and it's not quite as bright as the Super AMOLED Plus on the S 2. But that's to be expected. Inside is a 1GHz Tegra 2 processor, and the same software – Android 2.3, with Samsung's own hubs skin on top. On the back: a five-megapixel camera with 720p HD video. So, apart from a slightly smaller and duller screen, marginally slower processor, and lower resolution imaging abilities, it's very close indeed.

Money to burn: HTC Sensation

Budget alternative: HTC Wildfire

The Wildfire S may be newer, but nowhere near as cheap. The original Wildfire is the budget offering from HTC stable, running Android 2.1, with a 5-megapixel camera on the back. The 528MHz processor may seem a bit dated, in these days of dual-core, and the Eclair version of Android isn't exactly cutting edge, but it still has HTC Sense on board. And if you want an HTC smartie without blowing a hole in your finances, this is your best option.

Money to burn: Nokia N8

Budget alternative: Nokia C7

This budget Nokia has plenty of extras to shout about, such as: an accelerometer, ambient light detector for giving you optimal brightness depending on your environment, and a compass. It looks like an iPhone with the corners rounded off, and there's a whopping 8GB internal memory (upgradeable to a total 40GB via microSD) – that's a lot for a budget phone. It even totes an 8-megapixel camera and 720p HD video. The N8's 12-megapixel camera and 16GB onboard storage just look excessive in comparison.

Money to burn: Sony Ericsson arc

Budget alternative: Sony Ericsson neo

The Arc may be by far the sexier of the two, but the neo comes packing the same 8.1-megapixel snapper and 720p HD video recording with HDMI connector, which aren't to be sniffed at. And it's no slouch in the looks department either, coming in a choice of three colours. Tough to believe this is a budget alternative and not the hero product, with specs like these.

Money to burn: LG Optimus 2X

Budget alternative: LG Optimus Me P350

The Me P350 may not have a dual-core processor like the 2X, but then at this price that'd be like complaining the bus doesn't accelerate like a Kawasaki Ninja. Specs are a bit more modest, with a 3-megapixel camera and a 2.8-inch screen, but it runs Android 2.2, which is newer than some budget offerings.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 UK launch: get it early from PC World

Posted: 25 Jul 2011 03:49 AM PDT

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is officially touching down in the UK on August 4 but if you want to jump the queue and nab the Wi-Fi only model early, you can get it the day before from PC World. The store, along with its fellow Dixons-owned stablemate Currys, has an exclusive on the Wi-Fi only model will have stock ready to sell from 5pm on August 3.

Reg Hardware reports that the PC World store on London’s Tottenham Court Road will have its stash of new Samsung slates ready then and we’d expect others stores to be similarly prepared. Check out our Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 preview to help you decide whether it’s worth an evening tech shopping trip.

Out August 3 | £399 | PC World (via Reg Hardware)