KB-Technologies

EA and Microsoft have worked together to bring a Playstation Now-esque service for Xbox One owners called EA Access. For $5 a month or $30 a year, players will have the ability to have unlimited access to a selection of “vault” games. So what are the vault titles? Right now the number of gamess are pretty sparse: Peggle 2, Battlefield 4, Fifa 14, and Madden NFL 25. EA vows that more titles will make their way to the online gaming service, however, so if these games don’t tickle your fancy, you can always keep an eye out for the company’s offerings in the future. With EA Access you’ll automatically get 10% off all EA games, downloadable content, and in-game money, along with something a bit cooler: a chance to play the game publisher’s titles earlier than non-Access members. You’ll get trial versions of upcoming games, along with an option to save and transfer your progress over to the final version of the game. This includes the upcoming Madden, NHL, FIFA, and NBA Live titles...

Spooked that the NSA is snooping on your phone calls? Then you might want to try out Signal, the app that encrypts your iPhone’s calls. Developed by OpenWhisper Systems, Signal will encrypt your entire conversation using Amazon Web Services to re-route your data and using your same cell phone number; there’s no need for another one. What’s more is that your call’s metadata will be secure as well. What’s cool about Signal is that it is an open-source project and is funded by contributors. The team behind Signal is also working on encrypted text messaging apps, so you can send secure SMS messages without worry. Android users who are green with envy shouldn’t fret, as Signal will also be coming out for Google’s mobile OS as well. Does anyone want to beef up their device’s security with Signal?

We talked about the Bolt service a few days back. The app is now officially available on iOS and Android, but only in New Zealand, Singapore, and South Africa for now. Bolt lets you have a group of close friends that you can instantly send photos or videos to. Just tap on their contact name and it takes a photo and sends it. You can press and hold on the contact name to send a video. Just like with Snapchat, the photos and videos are not sent and are removed from your device when you swipe them away. While it was initially assumed Bolt would be similar to Snapchat, it is actually a lot closer in concept to Taptalk, where you also simply tap on contacts to immediately send a photo. So it seems instead of having two apps do the same thing, Facebook is letting Bolt take on Taptalk while Slingshot will go after Snapchat. Bolt will eventually be rolling out in other regions soon enough.

You own a Galaxy Gear and need to get somewhere but don’t know the way. While Google Maps integrates with Android Wear, your Tizen-powered Samsung Gear smartwatch can’t use Android Wear apps. How to get out of this conundrum? The free D.M.A. Navi Watch app. The app still uses Google Maps for navigation, but transfers the notifications put out by Maps onto your wrist. To do this it will need access to read your notifications. Here’s a video that shows how that’s done plus the rest of the setup process to get D.M.A. Navi Watch up and running. And here’s a video of the app in action: The app is available for free from the Samsung Gear app store. People have reported successfully running it on both the original Galaxy Gear and the Gear 2. You can get in touch with the app’s developer at the XDA Developers forum .

Nokia made its HERE Maps apps for Windows 8.1 available all around the world earlier today. As part of the wider release, the company has also included a bunch of cool updates to the app. Highlights include manual location settings, new City page design, and a weather forecast feature. HERE Maps now supports manual location set. It’s located under the settings menu and allows you to switch between manual and automatic positioning. The City pages features a new design, which should help you easily catch relevant information and push you to explore more than before, complete with a detailed weather forecast. There’s also a more extended control over routes as the app now supports selecting/de-selecting modes of transport, in case you want to avoid travelling in a ferry, for instance. Adding waypoints to the route is now possible, too. Check out the source link below to add the HERE Maps app to your Windows 8.1 system.

The HTC Desire 616 dual sim is like a smaller version of the Desire 816 but it has an attention-grabbing octa-core processor. And the processor has eight Cortex-A7 cores instead of big.LITTLE architecture. The Desire 616 has a large screen for a mid-ranger but with 720p resolution it won’t be fighting flagships any time soon. This fits the style of smartphone popular in East Asia – screen size takes precedence over resolution, dual-SIM is a must and the more cores the better. We won’t complain about the screen resolution, at nearly 300ppi it’s sharp enough. It’s not an IPS unit though and there’s noticeable contrast degradation and color shift, but the brightness is the real issue – we set it at 100% and wished the slider went further. As for what’s on the screen, Android 4.2 Jelly Bean draped in Sense UI feels outdated for a 2014 smartphone. Sense has traditionally good looks rescue the situation somewhat, however the older HTC Desire 816 (by several months but stil...

Samsung has patented three new smartwatch designs, all of which have a rounded display instead of that on their well-known rectangular Gear smartwatches. The patent number is US D709,873 S and covers the design of three smartwatches with slightly different displays and straps. All of them feature a camera on the strap, which may indicate the use of Tizen OS over Android Wear. The charging port has been moved near the strap closing mechanism, and the patent also covers gesture recognition from the camera. This means that the camera could recognize fingertips and use some sort of fingered gestures to control a TV, for instance. It’s possible that these designs (one of them that strikes a marked resemblance to the Moto 360) will never even see the light of day, but if they do, we now have a good assumption as to what Samsung’s future smartwatches may look like.

The iPad Air 2 is coming this year, that much has been made obvious by the myriad of leaks about it. If you’re tired of seeing iPad Air 2 dummy units pictured and shown in videos, what about a couple of cases for the upcoming tablet? Both the image above and the one that follows are said to be from a Chinese case manufacturer, which has already published them in anticipation of Apple’s next full size tablet. One thing that’s obvious in these pictures is that the next iPad Air will in fact have a Touch ID fingerprint scanner embedded in its Home button. Not that this is surprising, though, for the many leaks of iPad Air 2 dummy units showed the exact same thing. This time, however, you get to feast your eyes upon that button while it’s surrounded by these cases. The next big iPad will reportedly be a small update compared to its predecessor. Aside from Touch ID, it’s been rumored to get the A8 chipset (which will also power the iPhone 6), and an 8 MP ...

The Tylt Energi 2K travel charger is a product of a successful Kickstarter campaign by the young company. The gadget brings together a typical USB charger and 2,200mAh battery in one bright-colored package. Founded in 2011, Tylt quickly established itself as designer and manufacturer of quality products with characterful design and quality ergonomics. Read on to find out about the company’s latest creation! ALL ABOUT IT… Tylt Energi 2K charger features 1 Amp circuit for rapidly charging a connected device. Its prongs fold away for when away from the power outlet. A universal USB port allows you to connect any device with a compatible cable (that’s most devices out there). Tylt Energi 2K charger live photos The charger’s built-in 2,200mAh battery is activated via a dedicated button. The latter has a light, which also serves as a battery level indicator. Tylt Energi 2K is available in the company’s four signature colors – bright red, blue, black, and screaming yellow with...

Samsung trademarked the Gear S name. The Korean giant filed the paperwork for the moniker in the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) earlier this month, on July 22. There is no word on what product will Samsung use the patented name.  Some sort of wearable device is more than a likely candidate for it. I reckon that a premium watch with that patented round design we saw earlier today would be a great match for the Gear S name. Don’t be surprised if you see one debut in the near future to complement theSamsung Galaxy Alpha.

The Mac mini hasn’t received any hardware update love for some time. But that might change soon though, as rumor has it that Apple is planning on refreshing its little computer-that-could. So what gave the alleged upgrade away? Well, a screen shot of the Boot Camp support page showed support for the “Mac Mini 2014″, that is, until it was updated and removed. Could it be a regular error? Probably not, considering that the Mac Mini hasn’t received an update since 2012. Also, since Apple has bequeathed its Macbook pro line of laptops with brand, spanking new Intel chips, an update to the Mac Mini line with top-of-the-line, core i7 Haswell processors doesn’t seem that out of the question. If the update doesn’t turn out to be true, then it could very well be that Apple doesn’t plan on keeping the Mac Mini around much longer. Without a proper refresh since 2012, the Cupertino-based tech giant may just consider phasing out the little computing box completely.

Shazam has released a desktop version of their popular mobile application for the Mac. The app has so far been limited to iOS, Android and Windows platforms. The Mac version of Shazam works similarly to the mobile version, except you can now have it running all the time in the background. It will constantly look out for music or other media such as TV shows or even advertisements in the background and will show a handy notification for you when it recognizes it. If you are already working on your Mac, you don’t have to fiddle with your phone and launch the app to find out what song is playing. This app runs in the background (if you allow it to) and would tell you what song is playing even before you can unlock your phone. As always, the Shazam app for Mac is free and can be downloaded from the link below. Download  •  Source

The round smartwatch field may heat up very quickly – Motorola is taking its sweet time to put the Moto 360 on sale, while Samsung has already patented three round smartwatch designs. OnePlus may also throw its hat in the ring as there are already 3D renderings for promo material of the OneWatch. A photo of what appears to be the product page of the OneWatch along with some sketches reveal the smartwatch’s specifications and that it might be close to ready. The sketches of the OnePlus OneWatch almost seem too good to be true – a titanium chassis, a sapphire glass protecting the round OLED screen, wireless Qi charging of the curved battery that’s built-into the leather strap. Notice the screen is truly round too, unlike the Moto 360′s, which has a small panel hiding the screen controller at the bottom. Of course, details like screen resolution, chipset or even platform are unknown. The OnePlus Onesmartphone is based on a special branch of CyanogenMod. That’s Android...

GENERAL 2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 - SIM 1 & SIM 2 3G Network HSDPA 900 / 2100 SIM Dual SIM Announced 2014, July Status Coming soon. Exp. release 2014, August BODY Dimensions 8 mm thickness Weight 141 g (4.97 oz) DISPLAY Type IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors Size 720 x 1280 pixels, 5.0 inches (~294 ppi pixel density) Multitouch Yes Protection Corning Gorilla Glass 3 SOUND Alert types Vibration; MP3, WAV ringtones Loudspeaker Yes 3.5mm jack Yes MEMORY Card slot microSD, up to 32 GB Internal 16 GB, 2 GB RAM DATA GPRS Yes EDGE Yes Speed HSDPA, HSUPA WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot Bluetooth v4.0, A2DP USB microUSB v2.0 CAMERA Primary 13 MP, 4128 x 3096 pixels, autofocus, LED flash Features Geo-tagging, touch focus Video 1080p@30fps Secondary 2 MP FEATURES OS Android OS, v4.4.2 (KitKat) Chipset Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 CPU Quad-core 1.2 GHz Sensors Accelerometer, proximity, compass Messaging SMS(threaded view), M...