Nokia, HTC, Motorola and more take to Twitter to rain on Apple’s big day

Not everyone was all that happy to let Apple have its day in the spotlight and leave it at that. Of course, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that competing companies would take to Twitter to try to draw a bit of attention away from Apple and its iPhone announcements. Some worked well, some didn’t, and some were just odd, so let’s round up the most notable.

Our favorite was likely Nokia, but that’s mostly because we freaking loveBreaking Bad, and we definitely agree that “Real gangsters don’t use gold phones.” Motorola used the time to simply link to its recently released “Lazy Phone” ads with TJ Miller. The official Windows Phone Twitter account went the GIF route to show off the Lumia 1020 camera. Then, there was Denny’s which you certainly wouldn’t expect, but that was definitely a good one.

HTC bombed the day, in our opinion. HTC didn’t have any images prepared, and didn’t even seem to have a good writing team on the job, so rather than pithy, it just came off as mean-spirited. Oh well. They can’t all be winners.

Install Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean on your PC

Learn2Crack is providing us with an easy tutorial on how to install Android on a PC! You don’t have to be a four-eyed geek to do so, or have a masters degree in Computers Science, all you need is a little bit of free time and the ability to follow steps 1 through 10, simple as that. Oh, and don’t worry about doing something illegal, because Android is based on Linux, which means that is has an open source. Tweak all you want, dig deep, play with the interface, install apps, change settings –everything that you can do on a phone or a tablet you can now do on your computer. So, let’s get to the nitty-gritty, or the guide on how to install Android Jelly Bean 4.2.2 on your PC:

DOWNLOAD:

1. Oracle VM VirtualBox

Download the latest version of VirtualBox from https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

2. Android x86 4.2 Image

Download the Android 4.2 image from https://android-x86.googlecode.com/files/android-x86-4.2-20130228.iso

 

Judge accuses Apple, Google of using courts as ‘business strategy’ instead of settling

Apple and Google-owned Motorola aren’t showing any signs of interest in actually settling their patent disputes, said one federal judge in Florida. Instead, the two firms are more interested in using the courts as a business strategy.

U.S. District Judge Robert Scola said in Miami on Thursday that the two firms are abusing the court system with their increasingly complex patent case, according to Bloomberg. The patent struggle between Apple and Motorola involves more than 180 claims related to 12 patents, as well as the meaning of more than 100 terms.

Each party has accused the other of infringing on patents related to wireless technologies. The initial suit was filed in 2010, but it has since grown.

“The parties have no interest in efficiently and expeditiously resolving this dispute,” Scola said in an order dated Wednesday, “they instead are using this and similar litigation worldwide as a business strategy that appears to have no end. This is not a proper use of this court.”

Google gets patent for advanced display settings based on battery life

This patent is a pretty cool one, because it’s finally something that’s at least a little bit different. It’s not just a patent for something that we’ve all seen, but rather Google has been granted a patent for advanced display settings based on battery life. And, “advanced” is the key word here, because we’re not just talking about brightness.

According to the new patent granted for Google, there would be three different “operating modes” that would be implemented for OLED displays based on the batterylevel. On the first level, blur and animations would be disabled. On the second level, the resolution of the display would be lowered. On the third level, the display would only show black and red colors (the most power efficient colors for OLED displays).

Google begins allowing all developers to respond to user comments and reviews on Google Play

Google is continuing to encourage the connection between developers and users and now the company behind Android has allowed developers to respond to user reviews on Google Play.

“The feature originally rolled out to top developers, and we’re gradually expanding it to additional Google Play developers,” a Google spokesperson said.

The feature first launched for top developers in June 2012, and now all developers are getting the privilege to reply to users’ comments.

Ballmer: Android is wild, uncontrolled and malware prone; Apple is overpriced

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was being interviewed by Reid Hoffman on Wednesday night, and the executive made some unflattering comments about both Android and Apple. Talking about Android, Ballmer said that the OS is”wild”, “uncontrolled” and “susceptible to malware”. As for Apple, the Microsoft executive calls it “high priced” and “highly controlled.”

On stage, Steve Ballmer is interviewed by Reid Hoffman

Ballmer’s goal is to gently position Windows right in between the twoto make a success of Microsoft’s mobile OS. Ballmer says that Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and Microsoft Surface have all been done right and unlike Apple and Android, Microsoft is talking closely with developers. Talking about Windows, he says, “It just works,” a comment usually directed at Apple’s smooth as silk iOS. Ballmer also got in a shot at the Apple Maps debacle.

Android dominates smartphones in Q3 2012, Samsung widens its sales lead

Android continues expanding its dominance of the smartphone market, Samsung keeps on increasing its lead as the biggest smartphone maker and Nokia slips catastrophically in Q3 2012. That is a quick summary of what happened in the third quarter of 2012, according to the latest numbers by Gartner.

The analytics company concludes that while overall phone sales dropped slightly, smartphone sales are growing rapidly rising by 46.9% in Q3 2012.

Samsung cemented its position as the most prolific phone manufacturer selling nearly 98 million devices in the quarter.

Apple ranked world’s most innovative company

After last year it won the title of the world’s most innovative company, this year Apple not only won, but actually widened its lead, according to Booz’s research for Global Innovation 1000 companies.

With $2.4 billion spent for research and development, Apple is far from being the company that spends most. Samsung, Microsoft, Nokia and Google all outspent the company from Cupertino. Yet, 70% of the respondents for the study preferred to name Apple as the one where innovation happens. In comparison, Google that ranked second for innovation got only 43% of the votes.

The Google Nexus 7 has a meltdown

Note to self: Never leave a device charging while unattended. Why, you ask? Because there’s always the off chance that something like this could happen.

What you’re looking at are images of one user’s Nexus 7 after it was left charging — unattended — for a good couple of hours. When the owner returned to where the Nexus 7 should have been sleeping peacefully, she was greeted with a room with smoke and the Nexus 7 melted to a toasty Pop-Tart.

Nexus 4 review round-up

The first Nexus 4 reviews are in and they have the expected verdict. If I would have to sum up all the Nexus 4 reviews that I have read in last one hour or so – the phone has a great display, great performance, so-so battery life and a decent design. I am not talking about LTE because it does not really matter much outside US right now, yes Europe is getting 4G, Korea has already it and blah blah, but I think you can manage decent browsing and other data experience on HSPA+, which is supported on LG Nexus 4.

Hardware

Yes, let’s start with that, as you would have seen in the images, there is nothing extraordinary about design. It is elegant, nice looking and but it is clearly uninspired, personally I have no issues with that. Unless you are looking for a work of art, LG Nexus 4 seems decent enough.