TECHNOLOGY

It promises to be a busy 2013 for Samsung as the company reportedly lined up strings of gadget releases in the year’s first half alone, apparently to build up more attention on the Galaxy brand before the rumoured Galaxy S4 crashes into the scene.

Samsung is said to be planning a Q2 2013 release of its latest high-end smartphone, which blog reports suggest will largely assume most of its rumoured specs save for the brand name Galaxy S4.

We’ve heard of the possibility that Apple will bend a bit to market dictates as part of its 2013 roadmap and send out to store shelves two smartphones by second half of the year – the iPhone 5S for its traditional market base and the iPhone Mini for mass market release.

The South Korean company, LG, confirmed that their flagship smartphone Optimus G will be sold in Australia exclusively by Telstra. But the device is not yet available until March, and its launch has been delayed due to required network testing.

Temple Run's success led to the release of its sequel, Temple Run 2, in the Apple App Store. The game has been downloaded more than 20 million times since its initial release. It became the number 1 Free App within six hours and third-highest grossing app.

Mozilla Foundation has taken the fight to the next level as it previewed two smartphones operating Firefox OS. The company has invited developers for its new open-source mobile operating system that will challenge both Android and iOS.

Nokia is gradually delivering the so-called Portico updates for international owners of the surprise-hit Lumia 920 some weeks after the same patch were made accessible to U.S.-based users of the Windows Phone 8 handset.

Some countries where the iPhone 5 is being released are coming up with likely contenders to challenge Apple’s smartphone supremacy. In India, the Micromax Canvas HD is set for market launch on February and is touted as the first quad-core handset from the leading Indian phone maker.

Samsung has confirmed that it will unleash a new challenger to test the mettle of the popular tablets out there. It will be called the Galaxy Note 8.0, which easily can be lumped with the mini tablet class.

Samsung has once again spiced up its Galaxy S3 Mini serving, this time including near-field capability (NFC) to the small Galaxy S3 sibling, the tech giant said in a press release issued this week.

Among the Nexus line of gadgets that Google unveiled last year, it is the Nexus 10, made by Samsung, that gets the least attention. The tech giant aims to change that by boosting the large tablet’s specs for its second coming later this year, a new report said.

Lifestyle, which varies from person to person, was introduced as a term in the 1950s which defines the way a person lives. A specific lifestyle reflects an individual's attitudes, values, or world view and it means the forging of a sense of self and creation of personal identity.

A report from the Centre for Internet Safety of the University of Canberra said that Australians are among the world's heaviest Internet users, which makes them the most vulnerable to virtual stalkers.

Samsung seems to be full of surprises packed with many new devices this 2013. Before, the question was "Is it a phone, a tablet?" but this time it is "What is it that is sort of a phone and sort of a tablet?" Well, the answer would be Fonblet.

Will HTC really unbox the M7 anytime soon? Another image leak, purportedly “an accurate depiction of the HTC M7,” just came out, again driving up speculations that the One X/Droid DNA replacement is set for a Q1 2013 market debut.

Flurry of leaks is driving deserved attention to the upcoming BlackBerry 10 handsets, the initial pack of which Research in Motion (RIM) intends to unveil on January 30.

Java fault-finder Adam Gowdiak found a vulnerability to the Java 7 update 11 and claims that Oracle should "bring security research to the new level." The Oracle's most recent patch shows vulnerability to hackers which may affect users without their knowledge that their computers or mobile devices are being hacked or penetrated by another individual.

Samsung has nudged most of its tablet stable into the JellyBean 4.1 fold, announcing last week that the Galaxy Note 10.1 and the all the Galaxy Tab 2 variants will be updated to the not-so-latest Android flavour.

Facebook recently got an update and it features Voice Messaging in its app for Android. The users can expect full support for voice messages and faster image rendering. Facebook users can also share their friends' stories directly on their own timelines which before was exclusive to the desktop version.

To mark the first year anniversary of police storming into the Auckland mansion and arrest of former Megaupload owner Kim Dotcom over online piracy, Mr Dotcom launched on Sunday a new portal - mega.co.nz.

Nokia is opening up new market fronts for the Lumia 620, hoping to stumble on fresh revenue sources by bringing the Lumia-flavoured Windows Phone 8 handsets to wider audience reach.

The fourth Galaxy Note is on the way. It will be known as Galaxy Note 8.0 and Samsung intends to debut the new small tablet via the Mobile World Congress scheduled for Barcelona staging in late February.

Apple’s iPhone 5S, according to KGI Securities, will come out by Q3 2013 sporting the A7 28 nanometre chip architecture. While the forecast is not pointing to a sure-fire iPhone release, it should be interesting to pit the likely specs of the refreshed iPhone against Google’s flagship smartphone, the Nexus 4.

South Korea’s LG appears all prepped for a major 2013 push as rumours intensified that the Nexus 4 manufacturers is gearing up for a salvo of Nexus gadget releases, which could include a 5-inch serving of the Google smartphone plus a Nexus 7.7 tablet.

Facebook dashed this week rumours that it will roll out a smartphone which will possibly challenge the iPhone. Instead, the most popular social networking site rolled out the graph search. Despite the denial of a Facebook smartphone, speculations would likely go on and these features are what many FB fans would want to see in such a device.

It's usual for Apple devices such as smartphone and tablets to be cloned by Android-based ones, but this new China-made tablet was probably inspired by Asus and Google-made Nexus 7.

Sprint Galaxy Nexus just received an Android 4.2 Jellybean update available live from Google servers.

Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus is getting the Android JellyBean 4.2 update but the patch needs to be downloaded manually and at the moment intended only for Sprint subscribers.

Apple is heavily inclined for a third quarter refresh of the iPhone 5 by Q3 2013, by that time to be known as iPhone 5S, centred on A7 chips and retaining the 4-inch screen size, a new report said.