Instead of bringing us a new Android version, last week's Google I/O instead introduced a whole load of updates to Google services, giving the platform a refresh without requiring a full-on new Android build. A big chunk of those improvements centered on Google+, including a number of improvements to how the service handles photographs. Today an updated version of the Android Google+ app arrives to finally give you access to these new features, numbering 41 in total. Google+ will now let you automatically backup photos to the cloud, and introduces all those automatic tools we learned about ...

HTC seems like they want to be "number one" -- at least they want people to associate them with that level of prestige. Why else would they name their devices "One" and "First" when everyone else is rapidly iterating their model numbers? Recently the hardware maker teamed up with a social networking service to do something bold and creative: they released a smartphone that was "Facebook centric". When you turned on your phone you got Facebook first. Finally, the much rumored "Facebook phone" had arrived -- but they were bold enough not to call it that. And now, just a few months later, ...

Samsung Galaxy S 4 vs HTC One vs Apple iPhone 5 vs Nokia 808 PureView; that's the comparison we've been waiting to do ever since this year's flagship Android models came out. That also happens to be the camera comparison most requested by you. So, here it is! We've reviewed all of these phones and, at that time, we compared them against other competitors; this time it's them playing against each-other. While we know that the Apple iPhone 5 is the oldest amongst the best-sellers -- with a refresh due soon -- and the Nokia 808 PureView is more than a year old now, but still regarded by many ...

Last month, Samsung announced the first Galaxy Tab 3 model, a seven-inch tablet. Obviously, more Tab 3 options would follow, and at the time we heard rumors about a few other hardware configurations. One of those included an eight-inch model with some nice specs like an AMOLED screen. As we wait for official word, some new specs have leaked for the Galaxy Tab 3 8.0, along with a possible render. Bad news first: this falls way short of those rumored specs. That means a regular old LCD screen (1280 x 800) and instead of a quad-core SoC, only a dual-core 1.5GHz component – no word on if ...

A few days back, BlackBerry had a big announcement to share, revealing that it was finally opening up the membership ranks of BlackBerry Messenger, and would start making the app available to smartphone users running iOS and Android. If you were a BlackBerry die-hard for years and have only recently transitioned to another platform, this was great news, letting you easily keep in touch with all your old contacts. We already heard that the iOS and Android apps would become available sometime this summer, but now a new limitation about those releases comes to light, with news that the ...

Heat is a problem that many electronics are forced to deal with, to one extent or another. Push enough power through chips, and they're going to get hot: the trick is what you then do with that excess heat. Many devices use a combination of fans and vents in order to deliver cooler ambient air to chips, but those solutions don't exactly translate well over to smartphones. Instead, we're largely forced to put up with phones that can get quite hot to the touch when running at full throttle. NEC might just have a workable solution to that problem, upon news arriving of its plans to release ...

Late last month we brought you the bad news about Samsung, the Galaxy S 4, and its NFC TecTiles. Users who picked up some TecTiles to use with their GS3 last year could scan the NFC stickers in order to trigger certain actions on their phone. Problem was, the GS4 uses a new NFC controller that doesn't work with those old TecTiles, rendering them pretty useless. We were understandably miffed at Samsung for that bad decision, but at least it wasn't killing-off TecTiles altogether: we'd get new, modern TecTiles 2 stickers that would work with the GS4 and future Samsung phones. Today that ...

At the opening Google I/O 2013 keynote, Google revealed that it would be taking a much different approach to the developer conference than it had in years past. It was less about consumers and consumer products, and more about services and developers – as it should be. Many were upset over the lack of new hardware and the lack of a true point update to the Android operating system. But as I explained in an editorial on Wednesday, there was much more to the keynote than what initially met the eye. It was about updating the OS in a way all existing users (or every user on version 2.2 and ...