Microsoft Reveals Windows 8 Phone

Adding  a slate of pivotal new features, ranging from NFC, to MicroSD expansion support, and more, Windows Phone 8 Looks Spectacular.

Microsoft unveiled Windows Phone 8 yesterday, that loosens Microsoft’s previous hardware restrictions, and adds a slate of pivotal new features, ranging from NFC, to MicroSD expansion support, and more. Microsoft has previously limited Windows Phone to single-core processors – long after the rest of the world had gone dual-core (or even quad-core, and whilst many had gripes with this descion, it allowed them to release low-end/budget (but more than competent) phones like the Samsung Focus 2.

However, Microsoft announced that Windows Phone 8 will support dual-core processors (as well as quad and beyond – all the way up to 64 cores), meaning Windows Phone 7 phones won't be eligible for the Windows Phone 8 update, but they will receive an incremental update to Windows Phone 7.8.

Windows Phone 8 will also come with support for three resolutions:

WVGA, at 800x480px
True 720p, at 1280x720px
WXGA, at 1280x768px

Microsoft’s new home screen is the most obvious change, with tiles now coming in three sizes, and each user will be able to customize sizes as they please. Developers will also, for the first time, be able to custom design the larger tiles.

NFC (or Near Field Communication) will also be supported in Windows Phone 8, allowing users to pay for things with the swipe of their phone, and Microsoft has announced Mobile Wallet to pay for apps and such like.

We'll have more on Windows Phone 8 soon!

App Review: PressReader

If you enjoy reading newspapers, then PressReader may be for you; with access to over 2100 full content newspapers from 95 countries in 54 languages, it's certainly an interesting addition to your app collection. Interested? Read on!



You may remember our interview with Ray Wang from PressReader, the largest digital newspaper kiosk app for iOS (and also Android, BlackBerry, Win7 Tablet PCs and Windows Phone 7)and if you don't, high-tail over to read it now.


PressReader not only helps you to gain access to newspapers around the world but it’s also helping the environment. PressReader have saved over 281029 trees from being chopped down and being used for printing. According to their blog, it takes about 12 trees to produce 1 tonne of paper, so, you get your newspaper, and the environment stays a little greener.

Upon launching the app, the homepage gives you the latest news from newspapers around the world at the top with news under different categories of different countries at the bottom, along with the ability to change to39 different languages if you do so desire.

That's all well and good, but what really sets PressReader apart from other reader apps, is that it does actually gives you the feel of reading a real newspaper (not physically, obviously). After selecting any of the newspapers, PressReader takes you to a new window where you can read the newspaper at ease. Fonts, pictures, graphs, tables etc all looks exactly the same to the original one. Although it is not possible to read at this resolution, you either can magnify the paper to read or just simply click on the article to open a pop up with the full article in the text format, with a nice animation which shows the paper rolling to a new page.

Pressreader, is a fresh and exciting prospect for newspaper readers, which allows the experience of reading the real newspaper, with the only difference between the real thing and the digitised version is the, well, the paper.

Check out PressReader here!

iTunes 

Blackberry App World

Google Play (Android)

Windows 7 (tablets)

Windows Phone 7

Tech Beever Interview: Ray Wang, PressReader App

We were lucky enough to catch up with Ray Wang from PressReader, the largest digital newspaper kiosk app for iOS (and also Android, BlackBerry, Win7 Tablet PCs and Windows Phone 7), and we interviwed him about PressReader, the latest edition to the PressDisplay family. Read on, womt you!



What exactly is PressReader?

PressReader is an application that provides readers with access to over 2,200 full-content newspapers and magazines from 96 countries available on iOS, Android, Windows and Playbook operating systems. Millions of tablets also come preloaded with PressReader from a growing list of leading manufacturers including Microsoft, ASUS, BlackBerry, HTC, Kobo and Samsung.

What does PressReader offer that other news applications don’t?

Unlike other mobile news applications or aggregators that only provide a selection of top stories, PressReader offers readers access to over 2,200 full-content publications from 96 countries—all available through the world’s largest digital newsstand, PressDisplay.com.
Every newspaper presented on PressReader is an identical replica of the current day’s printed edition, including each section, article, advertisement, editorial and comic strip shown in its original content.
Moreover, PressReader provides users with features dedicated to enhance the traditional news-print experience with functionalities like instant translation, on-demand audio, article sharing and our exclusive SmartFlow (a horizontal news-reading feature) and SmartZoom technology (allowing you to automatically zoom in to the beginning of an article).

What was the original reasoning for PressReader?

PressReader was developed as the companion reading application to PressDisplay.com, the world’s largest digital newspaper and magazine kiosk. Essentially, we wanted to provide our subscribers with a means of reading their favorite publications anywhere, anytime on any device.

The layout and UI in PressReader seems very clean and fresh, offering a number of sources, and even lottery number results, but will there be a feature to add RSS Feeds, such as Tech Beever's own news feed, for example?

Today, PressReader provides digital replica editions of printed newspapers and magazines to our subscribers with advanced digital navigation and reading features. That being said, we believe PressReader’s SmartFlow horizontal reading stream would be a perfect way to consume other types of content from sites such as Tech Beever.


What kind of syncing functions are there, I.E, could I sync my publications to other devices, including E-Readers?

Once a publication is purchased or downloaded from either PressDisplay.com or PressReader, users are free to download that same publication across multiple devices free of charge, including eReaders like the Kobo Vox running Android.

Will there be a support for magazine publications?

PressReader already has more than 250 magazines available such as Inside Golf, Cosmopolitan, National Geographic, UNO Magazine and La Revenu to name just a few. We’re making a strong push to broaden the list of magazine available through the app in the months to come!

We've all had a play with the app, and we found it to be very responsive and fresh, especially on tablets. What's the response been to PressReader from the app world?

The response to PressReader from the app world has been tremendous. Subscribers love the fact they can get their favorite newspapers and magazines in one location on their favorite tablets and smartphones regardless of where they are in the world. In fact, some users told us that their reason for buying the iPad was for apps just like PressReader which makes us feel great!


Check out PressReader here!

iTunes

Blackberry App World

Google Play (Android)

Windows 7 (tablets)

Windows Phone 7

Calling All App Developers

Tech Beever is calling all App Developers! We're looking for someone/a group of developers, to help develop an app for Tech Beever, to cover all our news on the go! iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone 7 we want it all!

If you're a developer and would like to help in the development of the Tech Beever app, contact us via the embedded form below.

The process will be (relatively) painless, consisting of 3 parts:

Part 1: Contact Us!

Part2: (Assuming you're successful) We'll reply to you asking for a CV, but, in all honesty, we just want app history, so you don't have to go typing up a full life story, just Application Development History and other skills/qualifications.

Part 3: Let's talk development! (Including fee's)

So, what are you waiting for?

Windows Phone 7 goes fruity with Mango

Apparently, Windows Phone 7 is set to get an update of some sort early next year. According to Engadget sources, the update is codenamed "Mango," and it will effectively amount to Windows Phone 7.5. That update will apparently bring Silverlight runtime and HTML5 support to the OS, along with Far Eastern language support, and some other unspecified features and functionality. It will also presumably be the most significant update until Windows Phone 8, which Foley says is codenamed "Apollo," and is on track for a release in late 2012.

source: Engadget