One of the year’s most anticipated motorsports events will return to Malaysia once again, as the Japan Super GT will be making its way to Sepang International Circuit for the 13th consecutive year come June. This time, organizers JPM Motorsport are promising one of the largest ever edition for this year’s third round of the 2013 AUTOBACS SUPER GT Series.

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So “the other half” has been revealed. And, after speculation from fans that went a little over the top, it was perhaps somewhat deflating to know that this “other half” Jolla is referring to is…you. Ahead of its Jolla Love Day launch event in Helsinki, Jolla has revamped its website and finally showed the world its first-ever Sailfish smartphone. Simply called the Jolla, the company expects to ship the device by the end of this year.

Article continues after the break.

Last week in Japan, NEC announced the Medias X 06E smartphone. Only available for the Japanese market, the NEC Medias X 06E sports a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro 1.7GHz quad-core processor, a 4.7-inch 720p OLED screen, a Sony Exmor RS for Mobile 13MP camera, and is liquid-cooled as well.

Wait, what?

Similar to the pricey high-end desktops for enthusiasts, the Medias X 06E has a heatpipe that funnels heat away from the processor – possibly making it the first ever liquid cooled smartphone. Also, the graphite sheet placed parallel to the motherboard further reduces the heat emanating from the NEC smartphone.

Funny thing is, the Medias 06E isn’t the most powerfully-specced smartphone in the market. The decision to add this liquid-cooling feature becomes a little more bewildering when one considers the fact that NEC is marketing this smartphone as a female-oriented device – complete with the dangly charms that looks like they fit into the 3.5mm audio jack.

Welcome to Japan.

(Sources: NEC, Mashable, The Verge)

Last week at the Google I/O developer conference, Google announced a revamped Google+ featuring a brand new Hangouts app which now becomes a full-featured messaging service, integrating the current Google Talk app with support for emoji, video calls and group chats.

And, in true Google style, the developers have added six Easter Eggs that can be used in any Hangout chat. With the Easter Eggs, users can trigger a shy dinosaur to hide behind a house, an angry mob or even a pony to run across the chat box. Also, users can use the Easter Egg commands to change the background colour of the text box.

On the other hand, what Google gives it also takes in equal measure. It appears that those who have upgraded to the new Hangouts app have lost the ability to make or receive Google Voice calls within the desktop Gmail client. Gmail users in the US have been particularly hit hard by the omission, as Google Voice also supported free calls within the US. One workaround for this would be the option to revert to the old Google Talk service, which should buy the company some time as it goes ahead with its promise of adding support for new features to the Hangouts app.

(Source: The Verge (1), (2))

Last month, Samsung was rumoured to be “worried” about increasing criticism on the Galaxy line’s build quality and design, especially after its biggest rivals, HTC produced arguably one of the best-looking Android smartphones in the market. The company was rumoured to be strongly considering a radical shift away from the design language first used in 2012′s Galaxy S III, and debut a metal chassis to go with a new design for the Galaxy Note III.

Unfortunately, it looks like somewhere along the way, ruthless business principles got in the way. SamMobile’s insider within the company has said that the company has dropped plans for the new design and chassis material, simply because they will result in longer production times, which will impact the delivery of the new device. Samsung is anticipating yet another record sales amount for the Galaxy Note III, and it appears the company is prepared to rehash the Galaxy S III design once more to avoid a HTC One-like shortage in stocks.

In addition, Samsung will once again out-spec the competition with the Note III. Like the Galaxy S4, the Note III is rumoured to have top-tier specs such as an Exynos Octa processo, 13MP rear camera and 2MP front facing module. The only difference so far? A larger 5.99-inch Full HD AMOLED screen and the S Pen support. The Galaxy Note III is expected to be announced in the second half of this year.

(Source: SamMobile)

Is the sun setting on MeeGo, or merely rising to welcome Sailfish?

In three days, a fire shall be rekindled. In three days, the dream shall be relived. In three days, the other half shall be revealed.

In three days, Jolla will announce its first-ever smartphone. The mobile world may never be the same.

Imagine searching on Google using only your voice. Imagine, instead of typing out key words in your search query, you ask a sentence – just as how you would ask a friend. With Google’s latest addition to its already-powerful search engine, soon everyone will be able to perform the most natural of searches, further breaking down the barrier between man and machine.

This new conversational search feature, announced early this morning at the ongoing Google I/O developer conference, will soon not only be available for those performing searches on mobile devices, but also on laptops and desktops using the Chrome browser. Utilizing the same hotword detection as found on Google Now (where users say “Google” to activate the voice recognition software), those on desktops and laptops can perform conversational search queries by only saying “OK Google”, and a voice recognition icon appears. What’s more, Google is now also able to understand context from the previous search. For example, if the user asks for the weather in, say, London, before then asking “what about here”, Google’s search algorithms will be able to produce the correct reply.

In addition, Google has also been working on providing better answers to simple queries, and even tries to answer any follow-up questions before the user asks. For example, if the user asks “what’s the population of Canada”, Google will provide a graph featuring the population of the country in recent years, as well as other lines showing the population in other countries usually associated with Canada. Also, Google’s Knowledge Graph, the company’s map of real-world people, places and things, has been expanded to support Polish, Turkist, as well as simplified and traditional Chinese.

Finally, Google has also added more cards to Google Now. The most interesting addition is the Reminders card, which features geofencing capabilities. It allows reminders not only to be triggered by the time, but also by the location the user is in. Also, Google even triggers a reminder if you’re running late to catch a train or other public transportation. Best of all, users can set most reminders on Google Now using only their voices.

Google is also working on making the ubiquitous search box even more powerful. At Google I/O, Googlers also demonstrated the ability to draft emails on the search box with simple and natural commands – much like how iOS users are accustomed to with Siri. However, Google’s execs admitted that the feature is still some way away from seeing a public release – but the I/O demo certainly proves that we’re not too far away from that reality. Perhaps that is why that part of the keynote was called “The End of Search as We Know It”.

(Source: Google Search Blog)

At the ongoing Google I/O developer conference, the company is announcing a slew of new features across its many products. Among them is the announcement of the Google Play game services, which is Google’s attempt at making mobile games more social.

At its core, the Google Play game services makes full use of cloud services and cross-platform integration to take social gaming to the next level. With game services, game developers can now incorporate cloud saves via simple and streamlined storage API that sync between devices (so user who complete one level in a game do not have to replay the same level again on another device). Also, game devs can now add achievements to increase user engagement and promote different styles of play.

In addition, the new game services also seamlessly integrate a user’s Google+ circles to create specific friends-only leaderboards as well as a global public leaderboard. But perhaps the most crucial addition to the game services is the real-time multiplayer for online competitive or co-operative play on Android devices. Currently, the real-time multiplayer feature only supports up to four players (again using Google+ circles) but Google is working on adding support for more players soon.

At the announcement of the game services, there are already 32 games that utilize the new game services, including World of Goo, Eternity Warriors 2 and Super Stickman Golf 2. Also, developers can now add the feature via native SDKs for Android and iOS, while Web and other platform developers can use corresponding REST APIs with libraries for JavaScript, Java, Python, Go, Dart, PHP, and more.

(Source: Google Developer)

(Image Credit: The Verge)