Walmart to sell iPhone 5s for $189 or iPhone 5c for $79

In a rare twist Walmart will be offering discounts on the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c at launch day. You can pre-order the iPhone 5c starting tomorrow, but you'll have to go to the store to pick it up. The iPhone 5s is only available in store.

The 16GB iPhone 5s will cost $189 at Walmart, $10 less than the official Apple pricing. You'll have to opt for a two-year contract on AT&T, Verizon or Sprint, of course.

The 16GB iPhone 5c gets a $20 price cut and you can have it for just $79 with a two-year contract. The iPhone 5c will be available on pre-order tomorrow, but you'll still have to go to a store personally to sign your contract and then once again to pick up your phone on September 25.

Walmart is also slashing the prices of the older generation iPhones starting tomorrow. The already discontinued iPhone 5 model now costs $79 with a two-year contract until supplies last.

Walmart is also treating Apple's older fleet of iPhones to a discount. As of today, the 16GB iPhone 5 drops in price to $79 from $98. The 8GB and 16GB iPhone 4S now are priced at just 97 cents. And starting September 16, the iPhone 4 will cost you a dime and come with a $100 Walmart gift card. All of those prices naturally require a two-year agreement.

Buyers who prefer an unlocked iPhone can purchase the iPhone 5 for $549 and the iPhone 4 for $349 through Walmart's Straight Talk prepaid plan. Both represent a savings of $100 from the previous price and will be available to customers starting Saturday.

Nokia tested Android on Lumia devices before the Microsoft deal

A report by the New York Times sheds light on what Nokia’s future could have looked like without Microsoft in it. Allegedly, the Finnish company was testing Android on Lumia devices before the deal with Microsoft was announced.

Nokia had the option to get out of the Microsoft partnership in late 2014. Testing out Android devices was preparing the company for such a future. According to NYT’s sources, getting Nokia devices to boot Android was an easy task to accomplish from an engineering perspective.

Microsoft executives were apparently aware of the Android project inside Nokia. However, its existence wasn’t part of the acquisition negotiations.

A potential switch to Android by Nokia would have had massive consequences for Microsoft. The software giant would have taken a particularly serious hit, as Nokia accounts for over 80% of all Windows Phone devices sold. Nokia would have certainly gotten the better part from such a deal (the company’s current share of the smartphone market is 3% for the first half of 2013, down from 32.8% in 2010) – Android powers about three quarters of all smartphones sold globally.

So, there it is, folks. Nokia smartphone with Android was indeed a real possibility. Considering the new reality for the Finnish company however, we doubt it will actually happen.

IIT graduates plead Google to name Android's next version as Lassi

Google has depended on sweets when it comes to naming the various versions of its Android mobile operating system. With it naming the next version KitKat after a popular confectionery brand, some Indians now believe the next update could be named after one of the two popular Indian desserts.

If the efforts of these groups bear fruit, the next update for our Android phones may well be called Ladoo or Lassi!
A group of students from IIT-Kharagpur have written an open letter to Google's Android boss Sundar Pichai, requesting the internet giant to name the next OS version as Lassi.
In their letter, the students of IIT Kharagpur (which also happens to be Pichai's alma mater) have written: "We would like to suggest that the very next version of Android be named on one of the most popular Indian dessert, Lassi. Lassi, the humble Indian sweetened yogurt based drink, is a traditional chilled beverage of India served with an assortment of flavourings. Lassi symbolizes the purity and delicacy of Indian culture. This explains the huge cult following that Lassi commands all over India."
The group also says that "it would be very logical to promote the interest that the Indian population shares with Android and strengthen that valuable bond."
According to them, naming the next Android version Lassi would be acknowledgement that Google is "aware of and wants to appreciate the customer support it has in this vast country."
Quoting IDC figures, the letter says, 68.8 percent of the smartphones shipped in the country in 2012 were powered by Android OS. This is three times more than the number shipped with Apple's iOS (18.8 percent) and dwarfs BlackBerry OS (4.5 percent) and Nokia's Symbian (3.3 percent).
Google too is said to have claimed in 2012 that Android adoption rate grew by over 500% year-on-year in countries like India, Brazil and others. And what better acknowledgement then an Indian name for Android.
Incidentally, IIT-GP students are not the only ones asking Google to give a desi name to Android. Another group of some 500 Indian tech start-ups too has launched a campaign to convince Google to name the next version of Android as Ladoo. The same group had last year unsuccessfully campaigned to name the OS Kaju Katli.

In their campaign, the start-ups have posted this message for the Google fraternity: "We are Indians. We have a big heart. We understand that there might be commercial pressures to do so (about Google naming the next as KitKat). Or may be our voices were just not loud enough to make KajuKatli Android a reality."

"We still love Android and we are committed to see a version of Android that is dedicated after an Indian sweet. With enough advance notice this time, we request you to name the next version of Android as Ladoo."
Apart from drumming up support on the internet and social media for naming the next Android OS as Ladoo, both the groups plan to send out these Indian delicacies to key Google executives.

It is said that Google dumped plans to name the next Android as Key Lime Pie ostensibly because the dessert was not well-known globally. This reasoning may not be a good reference point for Indian campaigners as Ladoo and Lassi are exclusively Indian.

The only factor to have given them hope is the Indian origin of Pichai. They must be hoping if Pichai likes their reasoning, he may consider the proposal.

Apple looking to enter Internet Radio Market

A decade ago, Apple transformed the music business with its iTunes store. Now what the music industry expects from Apple is less of a revolution than a helping hand. 
Apple's newest music feature, iTunes Radio, will be released September 18 as part of its iOS 7 system update, the company announced. The service is a sleek take on internet radio, and Apple's ability to place the app on millions of its devices gives it an enormous potential audience from Day One. 

"It's a huge opportunity on a global basis to accelerate the transition of radio listeners and advertising dollars from terrestrial to digital," said Stephen Bryan, the executive vice president for digital strategy at the Warner Music Group, which releases music by Green Day, Bruno Mars and hundreds of other acts. 

The service is a threat to Pandora Media, which dominates internet radio. But music and advertising executives say that the magnitude of that threat is unclear, given Apple's relatively late entry into streaming music and Pandora's strong market position. Both offer free streams of music tailored to a user's taste and supported by advertising. In August, Pandora had 72.1 million active users - almost all in the United States - who streamed 1.35 billion hours of music, according to data released by the company. 

"At this point Pandora is one of the leading recipients of mobile advertising revenue, and is one of the most popular apps, period, across devices," said Clark Fredricksen, a vice president at eMarketer, a research firm. "It's tough to see it getting killed." 

Instead, record labels and music publishers hope that Apple's immense marketing power will attract more advertisers and help popularize internet radio around the world. iTunes Radio will at first only be available in the United States, but it is expected to be introduced internationally soon. Apple operates iTunes stories in 119 countries. 

"It's hard to say that Pandora hasn't helped make internet radio mainstream already," said Glenn Peoples, the senior editorial analyst at Billboard. "But iTunes Radio can help it grow and can change the impressions of it in the minds of advertisers and sponsors." 

Apple is the single largest retailer of music, its downloads providing labels a crucial source of revenue as sales of CDs drop. One feature of iTunes Radio that music companies are particularly grateful for is a prominent button to buy a song as it streams. Subscribers to Apple's iTunes Match feature, for $24.99 a year, can have that song instantly linked through the cloud to all of their Apple devices. 

In the economy of digital music, one 99-cent download can be worth more than hundreds of streams. Apple's deals with labels call for it to pay 0.13 cents for every song streamed on iTunes Radio during its first year of operation, according to reports in Billboard and elsewhere based on Apple's licensing contracts. That is more than Pandora's current rate of 0.12 cents, and Apple will also pay music companies a portion of the service's advertising revenues. 

Apple is entering an already crowded internet radio market, which besides Pandora includes Clear Channel Communications' iHeartRadio app; radio functions offered by on-demand services like Spotify; and others like Songza that supply ready-made playlists for various occasions, like working out or hosting a dinner party. This week Microsoft expanded its Xbox Music service, which includes a radiolike function, to work on Apple and Android devices. 

So far Pandora's investors have not fled. Since news of Apple's plans first emerged a year ago, Pandora's stock has roughly doubled. On Tuesday it closed at $20.35, up 1% for the day. 

No plans to enter SMARTPHONE Business - Michael Dell

Fresh from winning a shareholder vote that secured a $24.8 billion buyout of the PC company he founded, Michael Dell told there are no plans to compete against the likes of Apple and Samsung in the smartphone space.

“We’re not getting in the mobile phone business,” he said.

Dell added that the five areas of focus for the company are enterprise, expanding sales capacity, emerging markets, PCs and tablets, and providing an “improved customer experience.”

“Dell will participate in tablets and all sorts of client devices,” he continued. “This is the Dell that many of you are very, very familiar with, and you’re going to see it in all its glory.”

The PC market is, of course, not as attractive as it once was, but tablet sales are booming. According to IDC research, worldwide shipments of tablet devices will start to exceed PC shipments during Q4 2013.

Commenting on the buyout, Yankee Group VP of Research Carl Howe noted that Michael Dellneeds time to invest in the company as a mobile cloud infrastructure vendor, and the returns on those investments will come in future years, not future quarters as public shareholders would demand. 

Simpleness abaft the design of iPhone 5C

In recent times, we saw Apple launched a new plastic iPhone. Why plastic? For the reason that it is cheaper as compared to other material available in the market. But it's also one of the smartest industrial design decisions Apple has ever made. 

Manufacturing the 5C: Harder, better, stronger
I can't put a dollar figure on what Apple's bill of materials for the 5C is, but it's safe to say that by going with plastic, they're saving a lot. And not just on material costs-also on time and labor. An aluminum iPhone has to undergo multiple stages of CNC machining and anodizing. These are very time consuming processes that require an enormous number of man hours to oversee them. In contrast, an injection-molded plastic shell can be produced in just one or two operations. 

But the real key to the 5C design isn't just injection molding it out of plastic. It's injection molding it out of a single piece of plastic. This creates a stronger, simpler part-and it's going to produce much faster yield rates than Apple can currently get with the iPhone 5/5S. 

This efficiency is the key to reducing costs on the iPhone 5C compared to aluminum iPhones. In the time it takes Apple to produce just one housing for the aluminum iPhone, they can make multiple plastic iPhones. The ability to produce iPhones quicker is a key feature for Apple as they try meet demand, especially in developing countries. 

So yes-the iPhone 5C's plastic housing is cheaper because the material is less expensive. But the primary cost reduction is due to the fact that it takes fewer steps manufacture, which reduces the time and labor involved. I have no doubt that the 5C will become the best seller in Apple's iPhone lineup overnight, if for no other reason than that they can produce so many more of them. 

Cheap chic

Is Apple's design team giving up much, in terms of the 5C's aesthetics? Plastic is cheap, but it also feels cheap, right? Well, that depends on the quality of the plastic, but more crucially, the injection molding process. In this area, Apple is world class. Just look at the quality of the plastic housing on Apple TV, AirPort routers, or the EarPods. 

The iPhone 5C's hard plastic back gives us a glimpse into Apple's design process. Most plastic cases are made using a mold that includes holes for the speakers, buttons, and the camera. But with the 5C casing, Apple is choosing to use a CNC machine to create these holes after the shell has already been made. Why? First of all, this yields a stronger part. If those holes were included in the injection molding process, hot plastic would have to flow around them. This creates weak points in the plastic. By machining those holes out, the plastic around the holes is just as strong as the rest of the shell. These cases will be stronger than the norm. 

Second, the CNC solution allows Apple to focus on making the housing as seamless as possible. In most plastic products, you can see a faint line-called a "witness line"-that reveals where the two parts of the mold came together. By not molding the holes, Apple only has to make sure they eliminate one witness line-along the glass display edge of the housing. In fact, you can see the CNC polishing wheel process they use for eliminating that witness line here: 

Third, CNC machining these holes gives them a much tighter tolerance than if they were simply molded into the part. Visually, this makes them look crisper and makes the fit between components like the SIM card tray and buttons feel very precise. 

Apple also added an additional step of spray coating the backplate with a clear lacquer hard coat. This gives the plastic some of the qualities glazing gives pottery: It helps prevent scratching, makes the shell look extremely glossy, and completely changes how it feels in our hands. Instead of feeling like glossy plastic, the 5C should feel like ceramic. 

Even the most minute elements of the 5C were designed to reduce the amount of detail found on the body of the 5S. The volume and lock buttons are the same color as the plastic back, which means they blend into the housing. The headphone jack, lightning connector, and screws have all been tinted black to match the black display glass, too. I'll say it again: Less. Visual. Clutter. 

Hamburger and steak

What will be missing from the 5C, though, is the feeling the 5/5S has when you pick it up. Even a year later, the aluminum iPhone feels impossibly thin and light. But comparing the plastic iPhone to the aluminum iPhone is a bit like comparing a gourmet hamburger to a gourmet steak. Both use the highest quality ingredients, but they're designed for different audiences and occasions. 

I prefer hamburger. In white, thank you. The iPhone 5C has fewer speaker holes, no dual-sided chamfers, no secondary glass pieces at the top and bottom, and no thin plastic dividers on the sides to make the external antenna work. It's almost like Apple decided to use one of those simplified, outlined icons in its "Made for iPhone" program as the basis for this design. 

It's this simplicity that makes the 5C a much cleaner option compared to the aluminum 5S. By making the manufacturing process cheaper and more efficient, Apple has found a brilliant way to actually improve the design of the iPhone.

SONY to Launch Sony BRAVIA Smart Stick as a Dongle

Sony will be announcing the sony bravia smart stick on this Sunday. The device is so called named as  Sony NSZ-GU1 Google TV device, but this stick is nothing else but an MHL Dongle  that runs both Google TV and Sony's own BRAVIA apps. The features are just like Google TV boxes Sony has released before, with a remote (that the FCC filings showed is at least similar to the previous ones) that has QWERTY and voice search support. Additionally, its "picture-and-picture" feature lets users see a browser in one window and TV in another. Since it's a true Google TV device it can install and run Android apps from the Play Store, but any other details will have to wait until it's officially announced on Sunday.

 Now the Question arises is that whether SONY is going do just deliver plain HD TV's and rest app support will come from Simple plug-in Dongles?.Its also been said that these Dongles will only support 2013  HD tv Models and later on. Now Lets keep an eye on this sunday and for the features to reveal

Upgrade, repair, and modify your smartphone bit by bit with Phonebloks

 

What is more important to you in a mobile phone, looks or upgradability? If you picked the latter, then you’ll probably get excited about a new phone concept called Phonebloks. It’s a modular smartphone made up of separate, interchangeable blocks that are easily upgraded or replaced if they break. You can design your phone with the components you care about or need, leave off those you don’t, and you only have to upgrade bits one at a time. An awesome idea, right? Yeah, but you’re going to need to put up with one ugly phone to get it.

Look-aside, the basics behind Phonebloks are solid. The whole venture is very Maker-inspired and will appeal to Do-It-Yourselfers and hardcore phone geeks. Consumers will be able to buy pre-made phones or assemble their own, blok by blok, using components found in the Blokstore. Here, both large and small hardware makers will get the chance to sell you components ranging from processors and internal storage to cameras and speakers. It’s akin to an app store, not just because of consumer choice but because anyone will be able to make hardware bloks. The entire platform is open source.

A Phonebloks phone is based around a single pegboard. To add components, you have to fit them, puzzle-like, on the back. The display goes on the front and is also modular and easily replaceable. Once all your components are on, lock them in place with two screws. Some have pointed out that this kind of construction is likely to mean a phone that will easily fall apart if dropped. This may or may not be true, but if you put a case on it, you’re probably fine.

Cases may end up being the real key component. Like it or not, phones are fashion statements and status symbols. But under that case, does it really matter the exact model of phone you’re carrying? Generally, no. Gather some licensing deals and a handful of great designers together, commission some great-looking cases, and most people won’t care if the Phonebloks itself doesn’t look that great.
In fact, this is the perfect type of phone for people in low-income communities or places with a small but growing economy. The idea that smartphones should only last a year or two before you replace them because they’re obsolete or break is pretty ridiculous, if you stop and think about it. Most of the time, the obsolete or broken bits could be replaced and the phone itself would still work just fine. But good luck upgrading the CPU, adding more RAM, or getting a bigger battery. With Phonebloks, you can do exactly that.

Right now, Phonebloks is still in the concept stage. So concept-y that the inventor isn’t even asking for money yet, just attention. He’s gathering people for a crowdspeaking campaign (like a small version of Kony 2012) that will send out a huge burst of social media noise about the phone all at once to prove there is great interest. The thunderclap is scheduled to happen on October 29. The website and YouTube video aren’t too clear on the next steps. Will they try a Kickstarter campaign? Raise venture capitalist money? Bring the idea to an existing manufacturer? Maybe all of the above.

Top 5 must have apps for phablets

Got a big screen device? Make sure you have these applications on your device.

Smartphones today have grown big in terms of display and processing speed. But the bigger size makes it difficult for many to operate the device in one hand.
So here are some free applications that certainly will help you get the best possible experience from your big screen devices also called as phablets.

Swiftkey
Swiftkey keyboard application is one of the most popular input applications on Google Play owing to its user friendly functionality and ton of customisations.












Featuring natural language technology, the app learns your typing style through SMS, emails and posts on social networks. Based on the way you respond and post text online, the smart engine suggests, to a high degree of accuracy, words that you might have meant to type.



The application senses your words and places them for reference or as suggestions as you type on the keyboard. The app also has a split keyboard version for phablet and big screen device owners and is certainly a boon for most of them. And for those who love single handed typing the portrait and landscape size of the keyboard can also be altered as per desire.
The best part of this keyboard is that it can be personalised based on the app you are using - Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, or even blogging apps. It is smart enough to learn your typing style for different services, suggests words, and also supports multiple languages that include Hindi, English and even Hinglish. The app though is paid, it comes with a free trial versions for those who love testing it before buying.


Turn off the Screen
One of the key disadvantages of the big smartphones (called phablets) is the odd placement of the power off/ standby key; especially top-side placement is the worst. But not to worry as the 'Turn off the Screen' application is just what you require to control the standby function right form the device's home screen.

This application comes with a neat widget that adds the standby/display turn off key right on the home screen. So the next time you need to turn off your device you will not have to use both your hands to hold and find the hardware key. Just a simple tap on the widget will lock your display and put it to standby.
The application is available for free.


VLC Media Player
VideoLAN is one of the most popular media players globally for computers and now the same is available for Android users as well. Though the app is in its beta build, the VideoLAN mobile team managed to add a good set of features such as network streaming, multiple audio/subtitles tracks selection, multi-core decoding, support for subtitles - external and embedded, and even headphone control with gestures.

The app supports almost all the compressed and raw video and audio format in addition to support for artwork and automatic shuffle as well. The media scanning of the device takes less than 2 minutes to finish and the player sweetly categorizes each file for easy and simple access.

Big screen users can lock the player while in action to prevent accidental stops and also can use swipe gestures such as swipe form downwards to upwards on right hand side to increase volume or swiping form left to right on the lower half of the screen to skip the video and so on.


Screebl Lite
Reducing display timeout on big screen devices can seriously help save battery life. But at times when we need to access longer emails or reading something on the ebook reader the shorter time-outs becomes a nuisance.

Well there is an application that can help you to overcome this problem as well. Screebl Lite is the application that makes sure the device stays on as long as the user holds it in their hands. Well not something as advanced as the 'Stay Awake' feature on the Samsung Galaxy SIII but something much smarter and functioning too.

The application has a selection of angle that a user would generally hold the device on while reading something and it keeps the display awake as long as the device stays in that angle or range. The free application gives users control over brightness and angle in both landscape and portrait modes. There is also a paid version that offers the same support without advertisements as well but the free mode also is not annoying at all. Very legitimate user of advertisements through referral system only.


Speaker Boost
The bigger display size is surely a good thing as it allows users to share stuff such as videos and even video calling. And since the devices are big and the screen is too there is no need to keep the device up close to the subject and can be safely put up on the desk to do such things. But if the loudspeaker of the device is not powerful enough everything can go bad.

But not to worry as the Speaker Boost application is there to help the users in similar situations. The application can help increase the volume of the loudspeaker even more than what the stock volume control application supports.



The application comes with a safety feature that can prevent damage to the application and in addition to that the application can also set a safe limit for the loudspeaker so that it does not go over the threshold.
Now you can enjoy videos with a small group of users and boost the volume if the need be.

UK gets Ascend P6 and India gets Huawei Ascend Mate

In a span of couple of hours rising Chinese handset maker, Huawei, showcased two different smartphones-Huawei Ascend Mate and Ascend P6.

In a span of couple of hours rising Chinese handset maker, Huawei, showcased two different smartphones- Huawei Ascend Mate and Ascend P6, at different locations and both of the handset have the ability to become trendsetter.

In India, Huawei launched Ascend Mate for Rs 24,900 which is the cheapest 6.1 display bearing smartphone in the country. It has a 1.5 GHz quad core processor, Android Jelly Bean operating system and a big 6.1 inch LCD display with 1280 x 720 pixel resolution. It also, has a massive 4050 mAh battery, which can also double up as a power bank for charging other phones using a cable.

On the other hand, it showcased Huawei Ascend P6 in London which is the world's thinnest smartphone. It measures just 6.18 in thickness.

Huawei Ascend P6 flaunts a 4.7-inch high definition in-cell display, 1.5GHz quad-core processor, 5 megapixel front-facing camera, 8 megapixel rear camera and a sleek metallic body.

The reason for putting a 5 megapixel front camera in Ascend P6 is to capitalises on the growing popularity of the self-portrait shots. Also, to further enhance the snaps by front camera of Ascend P6, company has put auto facial-enhancing capabilities in camera app to beautify the pictures.

Ascend P6 is a dual SIM smartphones that runs on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean with Huawei's Emotion UI on top of it. On the battery front it has 2000mAh power pack. It doesn't support LTE network but has other connectivity options like HSPA+">HSPA, WiFi and Bluetooth.

Huawei Ascend P6 is expected to be made available in Indian market by August and will be available in black, white and pink colour with matching color cases.

It will begin shipping to China from June and to Western Europe from July through Vodafone, Telefonica, Orange, H3G, O2, Carphone Warehouse, TalkTalk, Media Markt & Saturn, TIM and online via Amazon and Discount.

Mobile skin and cover: a perfect way to personalise your phone

With touch screen only phones there is very little in terms of design that can be changed to make the phone look different. And this is where personalized mobile skin and cover comes into picture.

Smartphones nowadays offer very little in terms of design as the entire phone is dominated by just a touch display.

But for those who like to put a stamp of their personality on everything they use, this is not the ideal scenario.

For such people mobile phones skin and covers offer perfect option to literally design how the phone will look. And as an added bonus you also get protection for your phone from occasional drops.

The skin options include putting your own picture on the phones cover, you can also choose to select other pictures from pre built designs or your own choice.

Websites like wrappz.in, printbooth.in, printland.in and instantskin.com offers personalized mobile, tablet and laptop skins for all the leading brands.

The price for a personalized mobile skin starts from Rs 399 and goes up to couple of thousand. Local mobile accessories shops too, store a variety of mobile skins and covers and are generally cheaper, however most of them do not offer personalisation, but sell a wide variety of designs.

In case you want a picture on your phone's back and would like to change the picture regularly you can go for transparent covers that allows you to use it like a photo frame.

Mobile pouches can also be customized with your own signature or name or even prints of your choice. However, currently these stuffs are not available online. You can find shops selling such pouches in malls in major cities.

Sony reveals PlayStation 4 release date is November 29 in Australia

SONY says it will launch its latest video game console, the PlayStation 4, in Australia on November 29.

The console will go on sale in the US and Canada on November 15, and will launch in Australia and European countries including Austria, Germany, Sweden and the UK on Nov. 29.

The PS4 will also go on sale that day in 10 Latin American countries, including Argentina, Brazil and Chile.

The PS4 will cost $US399 ($435) in the US. Microsoft's rival Xbox One will cost $US499. Microsoft has not announced an exact launch date.

The two consoles will be the first major gaming systems since Nintendo's Wii U went on sale last November.

The PlayStation 4 will go on sale in November this year and it'll be cheaper than the Xbox One - $399 in the U.S., £349 in the U.K. and €399 - compared to $499 and £429.

It'll hit stores in the US on November 15 while European gamers will have to wait just a little longer until November 29.

Gaining favourable previews and plenty of pre-orders, the PS4 looks like the next-gen console to beat, and Sony says it was designed with an overarching theme of a "frictionless and seamless" gaming experience.

We've known that the PS4 will track both the controller in a gamer's hand, as well as their face, since the console's launch in February. But during his GDC talk Norden revealed some interesting ways that this technology will be implemented in games.

PS4 specs

AMD's technology is coursing through this new system's veins, and Sony recently told us that it believes the PS4 to be the most powerful gaming device every conceived. Sony revealed the system runs on a single-chip custom processor and utilises eight x86-64 AMD Jaguar CPU cores, with a next-gen AMD Radeon based graphics engine powering the way.

So it's very much a PC-based system then, which is great news for developers who will find it much easier to code games for the next gen consoles and for PCs. However, that CPU is hardly next-gen - it may have been heavily modified for this system but the AMD Jaguar platform is by no means the fastest of its kind - indeed it's slower than Intel's fastest by orders of magnitude.

However, with fewer redundancies than a PC has, the PS4 will certainly be able to make use of every single Watt of power it draws. And the games we've seen so far certainly look impressive.

The "highly enhanced PC GPU" is another AMD part - something along the lines of a Radeon 7850 card - and packs 18 GCN units. That may sound a like a lot of techy mumbo jumbo but what it essentially means is that the GPU packs 18 processing clusters, each packing up to 64 cores. That provides a lot of parallel processing power, and will thus handle the majority of the PS4's grunt work. It hits 1.84 TFLOPS of processing power, a good chunk more than the Xbox One.

The PS4 will also use GPU compute features to take advantage of the GPU's raw power - it'll be used for general computation tasks as well as making games shiny.

Memory

The PS4 will ship packing 8GB of GDDR5 memory. That's some super-fast stuff right there and should enable lightning fast performance.

Indeed, Sony has revealed that you will be able to power down the PS4 mid-game and then switch it on again in seconds and pick up right where you left off. That's the sort of loading power that this memory enables.

PlayStation 4 Specifications

• CPU: low power x86-64 AMD "Jaguar", 8 cores
• GPU: 1.84 TFLOPS, AMD Radeon™ Graphics Core Next engine
• Memory: GDDR5 8GB
• Hard Disk Drive: Built –in
• Optical Drive (Read only): BD 6xCAV, DVD 8xCAV
• I/O: Super-Speed USB (USB 3.0), AUX
• Communication: Ethernet, IEEE 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth® 2.1 (EDR)
• AV output: HDMI, Analog-AV out, Digital Output (optical)

DualShock 4 specifications:

• External Dimensions: Approx. 162mm x 52mm x 98mm
• Weight: Approx. 210g (tentative)
• Buttons: PS button, SHARE button, OPTIONS button, Directional buttons (Up/Down/Left/Right), Action buttons (Triangle, Circle, Cross, Square), R1/L1/R2/L2/R3/L3, Right stick, Left stick, Touch Pad Button, Touch Pad 2 Point Touch Pad, Click Mechanism, Capacitive Type
• Other Features: Light Bar, Vibration, Built-in Mono Speaker
• Ports: USB (Micro B), Extention Port, Stereo Headset Jack
• Wireless communication: Bluetooth® Ver2.1+EDR

PS4 camera specifications

• External Dimension: Approx. 186mm x 27mm x 27mm
• Weight: Approx. 183g
• Video Pixel: (Maximum) 1280 x 800 pixel x 2
• Video Frame Rate: 1280x800 pixel @ 60fps, 640x400 pixel @ 120fps, 320x192 pixel @ 240fps
• Video Format: RAW, YUV (uncompressed)
• Lens: Dual Lenses, F value/F2.0 fixed focus
• Field-of-View: 85 degrees
• Microphone: 4 Channel Microphone Array
• Connection Type: PS4 dedicated connector (AUX connector)
• Cable Length: Approx. 2m (tentative)

DualShock 4 gamepad

If you have an eye for details you may have noticed that the PS4's DualShock 4 controller has no Start or Select buttons. It has an Option button instead, as well as the much bandied-about Share button on the rear.

·         

The analogue sticks have been tightened up to be more precise, and the controller also features a brand new three-axis gyroscopic motion sensor with three-axis accelerometer which should be great for getting you immersed in the games. The camera continuously tracks all four controllers with precise accuracy. Rotational tracking is provided by the internal components.

The controller has a two-point Vita-like touchpad on the front with a 1920x900 resolution, and a tactile clicking sound letting you know you've pressed it. The light bar on the front will glow different colours depending on whether you're player 1, 2, 3 or 4 and will be tracked by the new PS Eye camera. The controller also has an Xbox-style headset jack and a mono speaker inside it.

This new PS4 controller won't accidentally fast forward when you set it down. Norden said this was one of the biggest complaints his team heard about the PS3's DualShock. The PS4's controller has triggers designed not to depress when set down. What's more, Norden even said he'd been dropping controllers without skipping a single frame.

That touchpad on the DualShock 4 will be capable of two simultaneous inputs. The light on the controller will glow blue, red, green or pink light, depending on whether you're player one, two, three or four.

The Share button

The PS4's hardware encoder always records the last several minutes of game play without using any additional resources from the game. By pressing the Share button you can then upload or save your gameplay, show your friends or keep it just for your own amusement.

Colours

The PS4's DualShock 4 controller will be available from launch in Black, Red and Blue.

DualShock 4 lightbar

The DualShock 4 controller, you will notice, carries a Move-like glowing light bar. This makes it possible for the PlayStation Camera to track the controller's position. This, it has been revealed, is a permanent fixture and cannot be turned off, so if you don't like controller-sourced mood lighting, think about getting a third party pad.

PS4 Streaming

PS4 streaming lets you stream out live gameplay to your friends. This is all built into the hardware and does not need to be supported by developers. Users can react to the video by typing comments in real time. You can do this to friends, or public.

PS4 user interface

The XrossMediaBar (XMB) interface of PlayStations past has been completely ditched in the PS4, with Sony instead choosing to design a new OS that looks a lot more like that of the Xbox 360 than the PS3.

Will the PS4 be 4K capable?

In a chat with Kotaku, Sony has revealed that the PlayStation 4 will be able to playback 4K/Ultra HD video. However, it will not upscale to 4K or play games at 4K resolution.

Sony has also confirmed that it will definitely launch a 4K movie service on the PS4 and is looking at ways it can get around the 100GB downloads required.

Backwards compatibility

The PS4 will definitely not offer native support for PS3 games. However, there will at some point be a service on the Sony Entertainment Network that offers server-side emulation and streaming of games from PS One classics right through to PS3 Platinum Editions.

PlayStation Move

Sony has confirmed that PlayStation Move will play a big part in the PS4 ecosystem. However, it has not yet been revealed whether the PS4 will launch alongside a new PS Eye camera and new Move controllers or whether the peripherals are staying the same with all the enhancements made console-side.

By tracking the light bar on the DualShock 4 pad and associating it with faces in the image, the game can identify which player face is connected to which game avatar. By using facial recognition the game can associate a face with a PSN profile.

·         High sensitivity, dual color cameras. Two cameras here.

·         1280x 800 12 bits/pixel, 60hz

·         Higher frame rates at lower resolutions

·         Wide angles – diagonal field of view is 85 degrees

·         3 axis acceeletromter, tilt sensor

·         Wide baseline 4 microphone array

·         Dedicated port, exclusive SCE connector

·         Game-loop sync can be changed, depending on framerate of game

PS4 Blu-ray drive

Not only will the PS4's 64-bit x86 architecture and 8GB of GDDR5 memory blow its predecessor out of the water, its Blu-ray drive will be three times faster.

"If you're coming from the PS3 you're probably quite used to the headache of having to split memory arhchitecture, you can't quite use all of it, the speeds are really wacky on some of it - we don't have that with PS4," said Norden.

PS4 Instant On

The PS4 will be one nippy device if Sony is to be believed. It will have an instant on/off feature allowing your to shut down during a game and then boot up from scratch in seconds and resume where you left off. The days of waiting 60 seconds as your console loads up are about to end.

What's more, Chris Norden has stressed that Sony has three tenets of PS4 design: simple, social and immediate. Gamers will be able to start playing titles before they've even finished downloading.

And with one button sharing, Norden says the goal is to make it so simple users will "do it without thinking about it."

PS4 launch titles

A number of games have been revealed for the PS4. They Are: Deep Down(Capcom), Destiny (Bungie), Diablo III (Blizzard), Driveclub (Evolution Studios), Final Fantasy (Square Enix), Infamous: Second Son (Sucker Punch), Killzone: Shadow Fall (Guerilla Games), Knack (Sony), The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (CD Projekt RED), Watch Dogs (Ubisoft).