James Cull

The UK carrier Three has announced that it will begin its 4G LTE rollout in four major UK cities starting in December of this year, with a further 42 cities due to be added by the end of 2014. According to its website, London, Birmingham (including the surrounding West Midlands), Manchester, and Reading will receive 4G coverage by the end of the year. Unlike other British carriers, Three is not...

Norwegian software company Opera Software ASA has released a brand-new WebKit-based browser named Coast for the iPad. The browser, which comes with the tagline "the browser that should have come with the iPad", is the product of one and a half years of software development at the company's headquarters in Oslo. Coast is Opera's attempt to build a browser actually optimized for a touchscreen...

Verizon Communications and Vodafone today announced an agreement that will see Verizon gaining full control over Verizon Wireless after buying Vodafone’s 45 percent stake in the company for $130 billion. The deal, which was unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies, consists of both cash and stock. It will give Verizon 100 percent ownership of the company, allowing...

Despite being delayed by six months in order to ensure "a great experience for players", it seems that the Mac version of SimCity is still experiencing a number of serious issues which prevent users from playing the game. Frustrated gamers have taken to EA's official forums and our own discussion thread to vent their annoyances, which range from installation issues to the game only running in...

Yahoo's image and video hosting website Flickr has released a major update to its iOS app, adding a number of features that will allow it to compete with the likes of Facebook's Instagram and Google's Snapseed. The update, which is live in the App Store now, introduces a "completely new photo taking experience" with live filters and editing.Live Filters let you see how your photo looks while...

The London-based luxury concierge service Lime&Tonic has released its first iPhone app, allowing users to browse and purchase recommendations on the go. The app, which was developed in collaboration with Czech-based developers adikt mobile, can help users of the service to personalize any recommendations suggested to them by posing a wide variety of questions, including coffee preference, how...

Apple is the number one target for "patent trolls", with 171 cases total in the last five years, according to PatentFreedom (via Fortune). This puts the company ahead of Hewlett Packard, currently in second place with 137 cases, and Samsung, with 133. Dell, Sony, HTC, and LG all made the top 10 with a combined 1,218 cases between them.A patent troll, or "non-practicing entity" (NPE) is defined ...

The developers behind Metro: Last Light, a popular first-person shooter game, announced yesterday that they will ship a Mac version of the title on September 10 via the Mac App Store and the game distribution platform Steam. The game's developers, 4A Games, have also announced that a Linux version is in the works, although it will not be ready until "sometime later" this year. The...

Swedish news agency Rapidus reports (via TechCrunch) that Apple has acquired AlgoTrim for an undisclosed sum. The company is based in Malmö in southern Sweden and specializes in data compression algorithms for mobile phones, which have been developed for lossless compression of processing instructions in operating systems and applications. These algorithms increase processing power and reduce...

After the latest update to Apple TV disabled the functionality of the popular PlexConnect plugin, which allows Plex to run on non-jailbroken devices, developer Paul Kehrer has posted a detailed tutorial on his personal blog providing instructions on how to fix the issue. The instructions, although somewhat technical, are fairly easy to follow. Users will require a copy of Apple Configurator ...

An unusual patent awarded to Apple today suggests that the company is looking into the possibility of integrating so-called "silent disco" technology into its upcoming devices, according to AppleInsider. The patent, No. 8,521,316, was first filed back in March 2010 and lists Sylvain Louboutin, a former Apple software engineer who now works at Roku as its inventor. It describes a "coordinated...

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has published a patent filed by Apple back in September 2008 which describes the "systems and methods for saving and restoring scenes in a multimedia system" (via AppleInsider). Patent number 8,519,820, which lists Alan Cannistraro, a developer who worked on the original iTunes Remote application for iOS devices, appears to show an...

A new set of images that appear to show the rear shell for the rumored second-generation iPad mini have been posted by Sonny Dickson. Although no additional information was posted alongside the pictures, it unsurprisingly appears that the new iPad mini will have a form factor almost identical to the present model, confirming previous rumors that the upgrade will be mainly incremental in nature...

The ongoing legal battle between Apple and Samsung shows no sign of abating and last night, U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh issued a ruling that denied Samsung a new trial over the 'bounce-back' patent, reports CNET. Apple originally accused more than 20 Samsung smartphones and tablets of infringing on its 'bounce-back' patent, which was filed back in December 2007. The patent, No. 7,469,381...

Microsoft has issued a press release stating that its CEO, Steve Ballmer, will retire "within the next 12 months", remaining in his position until a suitable successor is found. The precise reasons for Ballmer's departure were not given, though he was quoted as saying: There is never a perfect time for this type of transition, but now is the right time...we have embarked on a new strategy with a ...

According to a newly published Apple patent application (via AppleInsider), Apple is investigating methods to offer an iPhone status sharing system in which users can check the individual "status" of other iPhone users before calling them, similar to the "Away" feature already present in most instant messaging systems. The patent application, which is simply titled "Methods to determine...

The first seven exclusive "Steve Jobs schools" have opened their doors across a number of cities in the Netherlands. Starting from today, schools in the Dutch cities of Sneek, Breda, Almere, Emmen, Heenvliet and Amsterdam will start teaching students according to the principles of the O4NT, or Onderwijs voor een nieuwe tijd (Education for a new era), which emphasizes the role of the iPad in an...

Google announced in a blog post today that it is implementing some of Waze's features in the Google Maps applications for both iOS and Android. Beginning today (the update is rolling out gradually), users of both devices will be able to view real-time incident reports from Waze users, including accidents, construction zones, road closures and more. The rollout is currently limited to 13...

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published a newly-granted Apple patent (via AppleInsider) addressing a means for extending the multi-touch input present on Apple's touchscreen devices to the airspace above the screen, allowing for 3D manipulation of objects via 3D gesture inputs. The patent, which was filed in July 2012 and is entitled "Working with 3D objects", describes a system ...

The Wall Street Journal reports that Taiwanese manufacturer Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., better known as Foxconn, is ramping up its television production through an exclusive partnership deal with 7-Eleven, a convenience store chain. The move comes after a report earlier this year indicated that Foxconn was at least partially pushing its television production forward in anticipation of landing ...