SpecTech's #4 Favorite Video Game

Welcome...to the Power Stone World!

Come back October 18th for my third favorite video game of all time!

Apple iPhone 5 Revealed

Anything that is in RED will take you to the product page to learn more information!

This week Apple announced the next iPhone, Amazon has found a new Fire, and I look into the beta of the new Xbox Dashboard.

                Big news! The new iPhone was announced by Apple yesterday.  The iPhone 5 has all the features I’ve talked about for the last few weeks, except NFC.  The new phone has a 4-inch screen with a 16:9 aspect ratio.  It has a glass and aluminum body at 7.6mm thick, which is 18% thinner than the iPhone 4S.

                You can now have five rows of Apps on the Home screen, rather than four.  Touch sensors are now built into the screen, rather than a sensor under the display.  It now has 4G LTE for AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint! It has a new A6 graphics chip, which is twice as fast as the A5X chip.

                You will get 8 hours of 3G talk time, LTE browsing, and 3G browsing time.  There is 40 hours for music and 225 hours of standby time.  The camera has a new low-light setting for two more f-stops and Panorama mode.  You can take photos while recording video, like the HTC One X.  The front camera is now a FaceTime 720p HD camera and has moved above the ear speaker, rather than next to it. 

                There is a new “Lightning” dock connector.  It is now an 8-pin connector, not 30-pin. It can be plugged into the phone with either side of the connector, making it easy to plug it into the phone.  There is also an adapter for 30-pin to 8-pin which costs $29.   

                The phone will come in white with a silver back and black with a slate back.  You can pick up the 16GB version for $199, 32GB for $299, or 64GB for $399. You can preorder September 14^th and it will release September 21^st.  The iPhone 4 is now free and the 16GB iPhone 4S is $99. iOS 6 will release September 19^th.

                The 7^th generation iPod Nano is here. It is 5.4mm thick, which is 40% thinner than the last generation.  It is back to being long like the originals, but it has a 2.5-inch touch screen.  It comes in seven colors and has a FM tuner.  It will also have Bluetooth with 30 hours of music playback.  16GB will cost you $149. You can pre-order on September 14^th and will release in October.

                The new iPod Touch 5^th generation has with the same size screen as the iPhone 5 and is 6.1mm thick.  This also has the new Lightning port.  It has the A5 chip found in the iPhone 4.  You will get 40 hours of music and 8 hours of video playback.  There is a hidden button on the backside called “iPod Touch Loop”, which lets you attach a wrist strap. 

                The back camera is 5-megapixels with a FaceTime HD front facing camera. The new Touch now gets Siri!  It comes in silver, black, blue, yellow, and red.  A 16GB version will cost $199, 32GB $299, and 64GB for $399 and be available in October but you can pre-order on September 14th. 

                The rumored redesign of the earbuds was true! Apple revealed the EarPods.  They are available today and are packed in with all these new devices.  They are supposed to be more comfortable and sound better.

Amazon revealed two new Kindle Fires. The Kindle Fire HD comes in a 7-inch body with Android 4.0 in 16GB and 32GB storage for $199 and $249 respectively.  The other tablet, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 comes with better screen resolution, a 8.9-inch screen, and the ability to have 4G. A normal 8.9 16GB will cost $299 while a 32GB will cost $369.  The 8.9-inch 4G 32GB will cost $499 and a 64GB version will cost $599.

                I would like to end this article by taking about the new beta for Xbox 360’s Dashboard update.  I was lucky enough to be one of the beta testers for Microsoft.  The beta comes with a few new additions, as well as apps.

                On the home screen, there is now a new row of content, for easier access.  There is a feature called “Pins” where you can pick videos, games, demos, or apps to launch from the Home screen. 

                The big new App that is usable is Internet Explorer!  This thing is awesome! I love using this App more than I like using IE on a PC.  It was easy to save webpages, zoom, scroll, and search.  I’m not sure if there is a copy & paste action yet.  IE was flash enabled, but I did not try to play any flash based games.  I will say that I had crashing issues while using IE, but I’m not sure if that is because it was in beta or because I did not have a good connection at that time.

                Overall, this is not a huge improvement over the last few updates, but the addition of IE is significant.  Xbox SmartGlass was not part of the beta, so I was not able to test it.  I’m hoping that it will be available to test before it is launched in November.

                Well, that’s it for this week Spectators, join us next week for another exciting issue.  The question for this week is, “Would you rather buy a new iPod Touch or the iPhone 5?”  Send your responses to smsetser@valdosta.edu or post them at www.vsuspectech.blogspot.com 

Apple readies new device

This week has some new devices announced. Valve is in the hardware business and Apple confirmed rumors!

To start off, the launch date and price of the Nintendo Wii U may have been leaked! The next-gen console is rumored to launch Nov. 11 with three different bundles. These bundles had no other details other than the prices of $249, $299 and $349. Nintendo will officially reveal more details for the console on Sept. 13.

Popular PC gaming service Steam has posted job offerings for a hardware development team.  Steam said it was, “frustrated by the lack of innovation in the computer hardware space, so we’re jumping in.” No other details were given.

Wal-Mart this week tested out a new App called “Scan & Go.” This App would allow a customer to scan items in store with an iPhone and then pay at the self-check-out register instead of having to scan the items there. Best Buy, Target and Lowe’s are working with an App development company to create the same product. This would save these companies millions of dollars.

 Acer, a popular PC and tablet maker, is now interested in making Windows 8 and Android phones.  It reported that six phones are in the works.

Leaked images and video have surfaced about the upcoming BlackBerry 10 phone-- the London.  This phone is not expected to arrive until 2013, but it has a full touch screen, removable battery, dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB memory and an 8-megapixel camera.

Google has half-way announced that a 3G model of the popular tablet the Nexus 7 is coming in about six weeks.  Asus is reported to already have revamped the production of the devices.

Apple finally announced the event for a new device.  The new device will be revealed Sept. 12. I say “new” device because it is expected that the iPhone 5 will be revealed, but also new iPods and possibly the iPad Mini.

 A Vietnamese tech site might have its hands on the new standard earphones for future iPhones.  These fit in your ear the same but have speakers on the side of the earbud.  It could also be that this is a third-party accessory, but we will find out next week.

 Nokia also showed off the new Nokia Lumia 920 and 820 phones. The Lumia 920 looks like the Lumia 900 that launched a few months ago but now in better colors.  It has a better HD display, Windows Phone 8 OS, a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, NFC, wireless charging and an 8-megapixel rear camera that has some interesting features.               

The camera can take clear images during low light or while your hand is shaking. It also has augmented reality in the camera. When you hold the camera up to a building, it will tell you what building it is. It can also tell you if some of your friends are inside the structure.

The Lumia 820 is a mid-range phone. It does most of the things the 920 does but not as well.

The question of the week is, “Do you like the standard earbuds that come with an Apple device?” E-mail your answers to smsetser@valdosta.edu or post a comment on www.vsuspectech.blogspot.com