Now that Maxis has finally taken the covers off its HTC One phone bundling, as always, check out a telco price comparison from us. The flagship HTC smartphone that boasts an impressive design, a whole list of new features, as well as the one-of-a-kind Ultrapixel camera is now available in Malaysia, as well as from major local telcos – DiGi, U Mobile, Celcom and Maxis. Get it from as low as RM1,269 from DiGi, as low as RM1,488 from U Mobile, as low as RM1,428 from Celcom, or as low as RM1,299 from Maxis, when you sign up for a 12-, 18- or 24-months contract from the telco; contract duration differs from telco to telco.

We’ve broken down the price according to monthly commitment so depending on what you can afford on a monthly basis, so hit the break for the comparisons.

Rumors have been brewing for quite some time now that major companies such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! were interested in buying out Tumblr, and it looks like Yahoo! has gotten it, for USD$1.1 billion, cash. Earlier yesterday, it has been reported that the Yahoo! board has approved the deal and the CEO of Yahoo!, Marissa Mayer, will be hosting an event later today in New York, to make the official announcement.

We don’t know for sure what Yahoo! plan to do with Tumblr, but according to reports, David Karp, the CEO of Tumblr, will receive a load of cash, stay at Yahoo! for at least 4 years, and retain control over the service.

Whatever it is, we should be finding out for sure later today.

(Source: AllThingsD, Engadget)

Your smartphone could be powered by the latest and greatest processor, run on the most updated operating system and pack the most powerful camera, but none of them is useful if you do not have an equally good battery to compliment them. Over the weekend, Intel announced the winners from the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair and one of them is an 18-year old Eesha Khare (leftmost), who won USD$50,000 for creating a Supercapacitor that could charge up a battery in a matter of seconds.

Don’t get too happy yet though, at its initial stage, the Supercapacitor only works on LED lights, according to Eesha Khare, all she did was place the battery to charge for a mere 20-seconds, it was able to light an LED device. On top of super fast charging, it also allows for 10,000 recharge cycles, 10 times more than normal batteries.

Alright now, somebody please hire her so they can utilize this technology on phone batteries, as soon as possible.

(Source: Gizmodo, Intel)

Google tries very hard to get more users into its social platform, the Google+. At the on-going Google I/O, the internet search giant introduced quite a large number of new and cool features on its Google+ like better integration with other products such as Google Maps and Google+ Photos, as well as a new interface design. If you visit your Google+ page now, you will be greeted with a new design that features a multi-column layout, larger images as well as animations to make the site livelier. The new layout is applicable for both web and mobile, giving a familiar feel across a family of devices.

Another new feature in Google+ is the ability to automatic hashtag selected keywords, leaving out the clutter and making it easier for you to discover things of your interest. When you update your Google+, Google will tag whatever you write automatically and when you click on related hashtags, it will flip the card and let you browse related content.

Visit Google+ now to find out more.

It looks like high-end flagship smartphones isn’t the only thing Maxis added to its phone bundles, appearing in the list of devices the telco offers is the new Sony Xperia E that was announced just a couple of weeks ago. Maxis is offering the entry-level Android smartphone (single SIM version) from as low as RM0 when you sign up with a contract under the telco.

The Sony Xperia E is available in selected Maxis stores. Visit Maxis for more information.

Finally, it looks Maxis has decided to start offering the HTC One with its phone bundle, quietly. Maxis has updated its Devices page with the flagship HTC smartphone, going off from as low as RM1,299 when you sign up for a contract with the telco. Available with a 12- or 24-months contract, you can opt to pick either a SurfMore plan or a TalkMore plan.

The HTC One phone bundle from Maxis is as follows:

You can purchase the HTC One at selected Maxis Centers (KLCC, Pavillion, Gardens, TTDI, Sunway, e-Curve Cheras, Danga Bay, Queensbay, Penang i-centre), or even at the telco’s online store. Visit Maxis for more information or find out more about HTC One in this link.

One of the many cool things Google announced at its Google I/O event includes several new features on Google+ Photos – Auto Enhance, Highlight and awesome Auto Awesome editing tools within Google+ Photos. First up, Auto Enhance well, will automatically enhance your photos such as adjust the exposure, soften skin, minimize wrinkles, reduce noise and such, so your pictures are perfect before you share them on Google+.

Using Highlight, Google will automatically select the best pictures in an album and highlight it to you. This means that it will only pick out unique and clear shots, hiding away all the blurry and duplicated ones. Highlight can also recognize smiling faces and highlight those, minimizing the effort on your side to pick out the best photos to share.

Finally Auto Awesome is as its name suggest, awesome, to me at least. Auto Awesome can automatically create collage, HDR, panorama, smile and motion GIF images. This means that if you have a continuous shot of your pet running towards you, Auto Awesome will group those images together to create an animated GIF for you. All these editing tools are reversible by the way, so if you don’t want an enhanced image or the stitched panorama picture, you can easily revert back to the original picture.

Now, Google’s move to integrate the storage space from Gmail, Google+ Photos and Drive suddenly makes so much more sense. Google+ Photos now allows you to automatically upload camera shots into it in full resolution however, I have a feeling that 15GB will not be enough. If you use Google+ Photos, do downsize your picture to smaller than 2,048 pixels so that they don’t count towards that storage limit.

Visit Google+ Photos to test out the new features now.

(Source: Engadget)

Google announced quite a number of new, as well as improved products at the on-going Google I/O 2013 but most of them are either not available in our country or not available yet like the Galaxy S4 that runs on stock Android, Google Play Music All Access, the new Google Maps, and such, so let’s focus on something new that we can get our hands on right now, immediately – the all new Google Hangouts.

The new Google Hangouts is the unified messaging service we’ve previously seen but it will not be called Babel, Google is sticking to the name Hangouts. Instead of having various messaging services, the new Hangout integrates everything – group conversations, video calls, together. If you’re a Gtalk user, everything works pretty much more or less the same except, you can now use group video chat right within the messaging platform; it has a whole list of new emoticons for your chat conversations.

Google+ is now live on Chrome, Google+ and Gmail though, you might need to wait a little more before the Hangout option reaches your Google Mail; I’m still waiting for mine. For mobile users, you can download it immediately on iTunes or Google Play Store.

(Source: Engadget)