Samsung Galaxy S series shipments surpass 100 million

It's no secret that Samsung's Galaxy S series of smartphones has been a game changer, for the company as well as for Android smartphones in general. Now the series has reached a new landmark, with the total worldwide shipments exceeding 100 million units since the first Galaxy S device shipped two and a half years ago.

The Galaxy S III has been the biggest and fastest contributor so far, with 40 million shipments coming in the first seven months after launch and currently shipping close to 190,000 units every day. The venerable Galaxy S II, which has been around for almost two years now, has managed to ship 40 million units in 20 months.

With people now eagerly looking forward to the next flagship in the series, we don't see the popularity of the Galaxy S brand waning any time soon.

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Sony Xperia Z to hit all major Australian carriers

Sony is definitely determined to bring the Xperia Z flagship as in many countries as possible and, of course, as soon as possible.

Australia is the next major market the Sony Xperia Z is going to hit this March. Telstra has already opened forms where you can register your interest of buying the device.

According to the Head of Sony Mobile Oceania, the Australian Optus and Vodafone should also be offering the Xperia Z as well. This means that all major carriers in Oz will be offering the latest Sony flagship.

There is no info on the pricing and the exact launch date, but we guess the price tag on contract won't be that different from its competitors.

The Xperia Z was announced at CES in Las Vegas a few days ago and we already had our first meeting with it. You can check out our hands-on right here.

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Phil Schiller dismisses rumors of Apple making a cheap iPhone

We have been hearing rumors of Apple working on a cheaper iPhone, something that is backed by both The Wall Street Journal as well as Bloomberg. But it seems that may not be the case after all.

In an interview with China's Shanghai Evening News, Senior Vice President Worldwide Marketing at Apple - Phil Schiller - said that ?Despite the popularity of cheap smartphones [in China], this will never be the future of Apple?s products".

While this comes across as a clear dismissal of the rumors, it won't be the first time when Apple said that they were not going to do something and then basically do that thing later on. Then again, with Apple's strategy of selling previous generation iPhones at a lower cost, one does have to wonder where this 'cheap iPhone' would fit and if it is even necessary.

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Digg's native iPhone App arrives

Digg's new native iPhone app set to launch this week

[UPDATE - the new Digg app for iPhone is now available at the App Store]

Digg's highly anticipated native iPhone application is set to hit the Apple App Store at some point later today.

Mashable got the exclusive tip on the launch of the new Digg application for iPhone, which is sure to be a hugely popular news app for the hardcore news junkies amongst us.

Search, bury, comment

Digg's Kevin Rose first mentioned that they were planning an iPhone app late last year, with the new app supporting browsing popular, upcoming, and recent stories across topics and giving users the chance to dig and bury stories from within the app.

The app also offers users options for navigating comments and related stories.

Digg has offered an iPhone-optimised version of its site since 2007, so the app is sure to be a welcome addition to most Digg-er's iPhones

We'll be sure to keep an eye on the App Store for the new Digg app and let you know when it finally arrives.

Via Mashable

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Samsung Galaxy S III mini officially gets four new colors

A few days ago there was info that the Samsung Galaxy S III mini will be getting new colors and today it's official. The new colors are Garnet Red, Onyx Black, Titan Gray, and Amber Brown (which the earlier info missed). That's in addition to the original Ceramic White and Pebble Blue.

With these new colors, the Galaxy S III mini has the same color options as the full size S III (well, except for the La Fleur special edition).

The new colors are available only on the French Samsung site for now, they are not available in the UK, Spanish or German sites, for example. The Taiwanese site (the original info came from Taiwan) has a picture of the Garnet Red version, but there's no trace of the others.

We suspect it will take a bit until Samsung updates all its sites and then a while longer before the new color versions of the Samsung Galaxy S III mini become available in stores.

Source (in French) | Via

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ZTE to bring a Firefox OS smartphone to Europe this year

ZTE and Mozilla are on track to reveal a collaboration effort that would be debuting in Brazil and later come to Europe. The two companies are working to bring the first Firefox OS-powered smartphone and are in talks with an unknown European carrier.

The information comes directly from Cheng Lixin, Chief Executive Officer of ZTE USA. He also shared that ZTE could unveil a Firefox OS smartphone in the US, depending on the demand and interest. ?If that is ready and if consumer studies support that data, then we may launch one in U.S. also this year.?, he said.

Jay Sullivan, Vice President of products at Mozilla, shared that the software company is working with China-based manufacturer TCL (which owns the Alcatel One Touch brand), ZTE and Qualcomm on making devices with Firefox OS. Chairman of TCL, Tomson Li Dongsheng confirmed that the company is in business with Mozilla. These reports align with what we previously heard.

Firefox OS will first launch entry-level smartphones with the intent on tackling the dominance of Android in that market. We've already seen promising early shots of the OS and its app Marketplace. We even managed to do a hands-on, complete with video back at MWC 2012, but we are still curious to see how the actual Firefox OS smartphones turn out.

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Full-res Sony Xperia Z camera samples surface from CES

Lucky fellow journalists got the chance to smuggle out an Xperia Z outside the CES grounds for a short photo shoot and they've published the results.

Sony made a real splash with their Xperia Z and ZL announcement at CES this year. Besides the 5-inch 1080p screen, the Xperia Z features a 13MP camera with an Exmor RS sensor, which is supposedly improved over last year's Exmor R lineup. There is also a built-in real-time HDR mode for shooting video, which sounds intriguing, to say the least.

According to the guys over at BestBoys.de, who got to shoot with the Xperia Z, the auto focus is incredibly responsive both in continuous and in touch mode.

From what we see, image sharpness is not ideal at 100% magnification but other than that, we definitely see improvement over last year's Xperia T. The noise levels are lower and the exposure metering seems correct.

Sony Xperia Z camera samples

We even got a video with the new HDR video mode. The effect is visible when shooting backlit or dark subjects. The "HDR" algorithm opens up the shadows to create a more evenly illuminated scene without blowing up the highlights.

Video quality (sharpness, especially) is really good though the continuous auto focus is on the slow side (which can be an advantage in certain situations). So we are definitely witnessing an improvement over the Xperia T. Reportedly, however, the camcorder strangely lacks the option for video stabilization, unlike the Xperia T.

Here's the camera sample and don't forget to open the video fullscreen and turn on the 1080p mode. Oh, and don't mind the Asian dude that's doing standing pushups.

Check out even more camera samples at the source link below.

Thanks for the tip, kurtdean! Source

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