Google are planning on releasing their own phone, as their monopoly expands. The 'Google Phone' will run a separate version of Android, which is unlike any of the others. 

Gizmodo states:

Over the next few weeks, Google Phones (most probably in early, prototype form) will flood the Mountain View campus. They'll don large LCDs while running a new version of Android—either Flan or the version of Android beyond it—which our source spotted running on Google's handset as well as a laptop. (Whatever the software was, it most certainly wasn't Chrome OS, we were assured.)
But maybe the most intriguing bit is what someone said to our source offhandedly, that the current Android, the we all know and love, is not the "real" Android. So what makes for a "real" version of Android?

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A pub owner in the UK has been fined £8,000 ($13,000) for someone illegally downloading copyrighted content from their free WiFi hotspot, says Graham Cove, the managing director of hotspot supplier The Cloud.

Graham believe this case to be the very first of its kind, yet will not identify the pub concerned, because the owner has not allowed him to reveal the details of the case yet.

This is just a start to some pretty serious issues that could begin to affect the idea of free WiFi – it's almost as if this was set up to crush the idea of freedom and being able to access WiFi anywhere. It's funny that someone would get punished for supplying the public with something free. Also, it's like arresting a shopkeeper because someone stole from their store. Doesn't work like that.

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Still stuck on what to get for Christmas? Time running out? Here’s a collection of devices we feel are irreplaceably ingenious.

#6: USBCELL

Probably one of the most amazingly simple yet somewhat complicated and yet still easy-to-use devices I’ve seen this end of the decade. USBCELL is a USB-powered battery – that is, the battery recharges when it is connected to a computer or laptop, connected in the same way you shove memory sticks inside your machines.

I really feel these are probably some of the most amazing gifts you can get for someone who uses batteries a lot – XBOX/PS3 gamers, TV channel hoppers, etc. Or, they’re pretty awesome for the novelty of charging a battery through a computer. Yeah, that too.

Details

Price: £10.99 (Estimate $18)
Type:  Rechargeable AA Battery/USB Device
Retailer: USBCELL
Buy: http://www.usbcell.com/product/1

#5: Apple’s Magic Mouse

Hell, this is probably the best mouse I’ve ever seen – ever. It’s actually something that’s impressive and easy to use, and it’s multi-touch. I’ll explain. You can click anywhere on the mouse to generate a click, and it has a right click button, too – it detects whether the click was on the right-hand side of the mouse. Moving one finger down anywhere on the mouse scrolls downward, and swiping two fingers goes back and forth in Firefox and Safari Mac, flicks through photos in iPhoto and does various other tasks in Windows and Mac, too.

Details

Price: $69/£55
Type: Multi-touch Wireless Tracking Device
Retailer: Apple
Buy: http://www.apple.com/magicmouse/

#4: All Edges Brownie Pan

Scientifically perfect brownies can be created with this clever pan – it’s an ingenious way of making sure that nearly all the brownie is touching the edge of the pan. Each square of brownie is guaranteed 2 sides of edge and 2 of chewyness – perfect! No more burnt outsides and raw gooey centers. As ThinkGeek says, it conducts heat better than an average baking pan, resulting in even cooking and perfect brownies.

The world will be at rest with delicious brownies.

Details

Price: $34.99/~£30
Type: Baking Pan
Retailer: ThinkGeek
Buy: http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/kitchen/a1aa

#3: The Power Shelf

A shelf to store devices, or even laptops – American outlets only, sorry others – is another one of the more ingenious things I’ve seen. Basically, it clips just above your plug, and you can wrap cables around it to store the cables – meaning that you have limited space wasted by thousands of cables that tangle with each other, much like the setup at my house, where everything is everywhere. Well, anyway. This is pretty amazing, and there’s a laptop case add-on – and it clips right around your plugs.

Here’s some promo pics:

Details

Price: Hook: $11.99 Laptop: $39.99
Type: Cable Holder
Retailer: ThinkGeek
Buy: http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/travelpower/bf46/

#2: The iPhone Stylus by Pogo

The iPhone has a remarkable feature that’s also a hindrance – it’s the fact that it requires a finger to activate the screen – and most people’s fingers are thick and clumsy, and can’t write well or click ultra-tiny items. That’s why an ingenious invention that mimics the electron transfer in digits – no idea how, but it’s still genius. Great for writing stuff on your iPhone, too – like signatures, I guess. Whatever.

Details

Price: $15/£11
Type: Stylus
Retailer: Pogo
Buy: http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/a31f/

#1: Optimus Maximus Keyboard

Okay, first things first: You probably can’t afford this or won’t buy this because it costs too much. Second thing – it’s amazing. I want it. Yet I can’t really have it. It’s a bloody expensive contraption – and it’s basically a keyboard with high-definition screens instead of keys – meaning you can change keyboard styles for different keyboard layouts, and have different keyboard styles for different functions – like a Photoshop key, or a Firefox key – and the icon changes automatically for each time you reassign the key – and you can have different layouts for different programs, which works very well for gamers.

Details

Price: $1700/£1050
Type: Keyboard
Retailer: Art Lebedev
Buy: http://store.artlebedev.com/computer_add-ons/optimus-maximus/

More soon.

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Now I’m in an angry mood. And I was browsing my Technology section in RSS, and once again, more spammy irrelevant news that was posted in other sections hours ago. In fact, this particular story was over by the time Mashable posted it. And look at the DISQUS comments? Very few positive ones. And yet everyone seems to share the same idea – the website is losing it’s focus as an Internet news site. They’re trying to attract visitors with crap that doesn’t correlate to technology.

I’m not complaining… well, actually, I am. Too many internet news sites are falling to popular media, then becoming ‘just another news site’. It’s really quite a sad fate.

Mashable is normally a source for entertaining news about social media, but recently it’s been posting mainstream news.

What about you? What do you think about Mashable’s new aims?

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It’s been something that many people can argue over its triviality – why’d you need a laptop with 2 screens? Why would you need anything with two screens?

It’s something I don’t personally understand, but I guess over time I’ll appreciate – why not just get a bigger monitor? Anyway, what it is, is a low-tech laptop at a high price. Yeah, it has two screens. So?

I’m not saying it’s not bad, it’s overpriced and it’s disappointing.

Stats:

• 1GB RAM
• 120GB Hard-disk Storage
• 1.6GHz Processor
• Dual Screen
• ATI Radeon HD 3200
• Linux Ubuntu
• 1.84kg
• WiFi
• 1.3 megapixel camera
• 4 hour battery life

Not only does it lack some features that other $1000+ laptops have, but it runs Ubuntu – most laptops have Windows 7 preinstalled for their <$1000 price.

It’s $1,111. Check it out here http://www.geekstuff4u.com/kohjinsha-dual-screen-dz-series.html

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Alright, you may have noticed a bit slower updates recently – that’s because I’ve had exams for the past 2 weeks and I’m the only writer. All my other spare time is going into optimizing the website – making it better. For example, try browse with an iPhone or a iPod Touch – or your mobile. Nifty, no?

Anyway, these are all the outlines. We’ll bold the ones yet to do.

• Fix IE incompatibility.
• Fix Opera incompatibility.
• Create/install Mobile and iPod themes.
• New searchbar.
• New content box (fadethrough)
• New standard contents (staff-only)
• Subscription options in sidebar
• Install automatic backup device
• Create a TekCube management machine synced with the server
• New multiple content box (scrollthrough)
• New header
• Customize iPhone theme
• Optimize theme
• Improve content specification
• Employ writers (Positions ARE open, you know)
• Drink soda
• Improve searching & navigation, make site easier through use of drop-down menu.

And various other ideas. So as you can see, we’re working bloody hard to supply content for you. So our apologies for the lack of content, but this site will be brilliant. I know it will be. Everything I strive to do is going to be amazing in the long run. You can’t imagine how proud I am of this website.

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First thing I’m going to ask is: Have you ever learned a programming language? If the answer is no or yes, keep on reading.

Programming comes in various shapes and forms, although the most common to learn are the web languages, and the one that most people who know a programming language will know is Hyper-Text Markup Language, commonly known as HTML. Currently in the 5th revision, as well as xHTML 1.0, it’s a powerful language that is also easily shared and entirely supported.

You also get more difficult web languages. The next hardest after xHTML is CSS, used for theming web pages. Then PHP used for various things to do with databases and processing information – disadvantage being you have to be able to have a server to test on, you can’t test on your own computer.

Then there’s the software programming languages, like Ruby, C/C++/C#, and Java. These are renowned for being difficult to learn and hard to understand – for example, Ruby is the simplest and easiest but is object-orientated. The C languages deal with various things such as dealing with memory storage and allocation – which is confusing!

But on a rainy day, learning a programming language isn’t a bad idea. I’m fluent in the easiest, HTML, xHTML and CSS, Ruby, some Javascript, and I’m learning PHP and considering learning C. That’s a bit of a broad spectrum, which means I don’t know some of them as much as I should.

Anyway, here’s a list of great tutorials for learning web languages, and links to great books for that same purpose.

HTML: http://www.html.net/tutorials/html/
CSS: http://www.w3schools.com/css/
Ruby: http://www.ruby-lang.org/ (click ‘Learn Ruby in 20 minutes’ – best tutorial I’ve ever used to getting the grips.)
C: http://www.cprogramming.com/

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Starting a blog is now incredibly simple – back in the old days, you’d have to code it from scratch yourself! But, thanks to people like Google and the Wordpress community team, blogging is now even easier to do, as they supply the code to you.

So you may be interested in starting a blog? Some people fall into a trap very early on, in which they feel a blog will run itself and minimal effort has to be put into the blog. This is not the case. Countless hours of my life go into this blog, and if you wish to start a serious blog, take this warning: To have readers, you must have content.

All clear? Let’s get started.

So, what do I start with?

For blogs, you’ll start with a blogging platform. If you own your own hosting or plan to buy hosting, it’s a good idea to download Wordpress from Wordpress.org and install it on your server. If you don’t, and have no intention – or wish to have the site do it for you, you can make a free account over at Wordpress.com – which will do the installing for you, all you have to do is select a theme.

Wordpress.org – FTP Install

For this example, we’ll be doing Wordpress that you install on your server. If you are not installing on your server, skip to the ‘Setting Up’ section, below.

Wordpress is famous for it’s ‘5-minute-install’ – that is, it’s incredibly simple to install and should work easily – all you need is to add a few details to MySQL and add a few settings – here are the official instructions:

1. Download and unzip the WordPress package, if you haven’t already.
2. Create a database for WordPress on your web server, as well as a MySQL user who has all privileges for accessing and modifying it.
3. Rename the wp-config-sample.php file to wp-config.php.
4. Open wp-config.php in your favorite text editor and fill in your database details as explained in Editing wp-config.php to generate and use your secret key password.
5. Place the WordPress files in the desired location on your web server:
   • If you want to integrate WordPress into the root of your domain (e.g. http://example.com/), move or upload all contents of the unzipped WordPress directory (but excluding the directory itself) into the root directory of your web server.
   • If you want to have your WordPress installation in its own subdirectory on your web site (e.g. http://example.com/blog/), rename the directory wordpress to the name you’d like the subdirectory to have and move or upload it to your web server. For example if you want the WordPress installation in a subdirectory called “blog”, you should rename the directory called “wordpress” to “blog” and upload it to the root directory of your web server.
     
     Hint: If your FTP transfer is too slow read how to avoid FTPing at : Step 1: Download and Extract.
6. Run the WordPress installation script by accessing wp-admin/install.php in your favorite web browser.

• If you installed WordPress in the root directory, you should visit: http://example.com/wp-admin/install.php
• If you installed WordPress in its own subdirectory called blog, for example, you should visit:http://example.com/blog/wp-admin/install.php

This makes it pretty easy, but what if you don’t understand? Here’s a step-by-step:

• Download and extract the Wordpress package to your computer.
• Rename wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php
• Edit your database details into wp-config.php
• Upload via FTP to your server.
• Run the installation at http://your-site-name-here.com/wp-admin/install.php

And you’ll have your site set up. Everything should be in order, and you can start to post by logging in and using the dashboard (there should be a link in the theme.)

Wordpress.com – Sign-up

Wordpress.com is pretty self explanatory. Head over to Wordpress.com, and sign up for an account. Enter in the correct details, and you are handed to a panel of controls. This is your dashboard. If you want a domain name and great stats and advertising, consider purchasing Wordpress.com Pro.

So you’ve learned how to set up a blog. Well done! Tune in this time next week for the second installment – theming.

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Opera was once a web browser heavily used by Chinese users – that is, the international version of the browser, due to a small error that allowed Chinese users to access Facebook and Twitter, essentially breaking the Chinese Firewall. Now it’d appear that China has forced Opera to make sure all the users can no longer do this – by forcing them to switch back to the Chinese version.

It’s a sad thing to think that the new superpower in the world is one in which demotes freedom of speech and sharing. It’s one that doesn’t want news, especially negative news about the politics in the country, and opinions of the country to be shared about. English businessmen inside China have found that they can’t post to Twitter at all – thanks to a lovely ban by China of any news sharing site, whether it be Facebook, Twitter or MySpace.

Personally, any kind of ban like this is ignorant. But China can’t see it that way. “The difference between the Chinese and the international version is that the former connects to compression servers within China…..benefits are higher speed, lower costs and an overall improved mobile web browsing experience,” Opera released in a statement, but they were not prepared to discuss the “background for this decision”.

China was incredibly likely to have direct involvement, as many people already speculate.

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Have you got a friend or family member who’s simply passionate about technology? (a closet geek?) Or are you, yourself, interested in some great gadgetry to ask for on Christmas? Look no further, we’ve compiled some of the hottest stuff. We’ll start with the ridiculous one, first.

#5: Microsoft Surface

These things are nifty, and at a punchline of $7-8,000, you can’t go too wrong with one of these. A multi-touch computer that could pack more of a wham on the power and graphics side, it’s very interesting – especially with Windows mobiles that can connect through the surface. Not too mention nifty party tricks such as bubbles appearing around glasses or the unique ability to order from your table.

Details

Price: Between £5,500 and £7,500 ($7,000 and $9,000)
Type: Multi-touch Computer and Table
Retailer: Microsoft
Buy: You can’t actually buy it yet. You can apply for a commercial order to Microsoft.

#4: Apple’s iPhone

These, are also nifty, being another multi-touch smartphone that runs with the self-assigned reputation of being the smartphone all the others copy. These things aren’t too shabby, either – they have some of the best functions and well over 100,000 downloadable applications (programs) to run on the machine. Also functions as an 8, 16 or 32GB iPod, with space to store all your songs.

Details

Price: Varies
Type: Smartphone
Retailer: US: AT&T, UK: Orange/O2
Buy: http://www.apple.com/iphone/

#3: Motorola Droid

A powerful competitor to the iPhone, these are some of the first smart phones that make a good serious use out of Google’s Android OS. They’re an attempting at making the OS more popular and interesting, although a little too much like the iPhone. The only drawbacks with these is occasional lack of response when using, as with the iPhone. Motorola droid has a large app store that is constantly growing, as well – with more free software.

Details

Price: Depends on Contract
Type: Smartphone
Retailer: Various Networks
Buy: http://phones.verizonwireless.com/motorola/droid/

#2: Apple MacBook Pro

When considering a new laptop, many people – especially college students – have been making the decision to switch to an Apple laptop. And I can’t blame them – the OS is good, but the hardware is simply dreamy – the displays, mostly, are vibrant as nothing else. The software available is good and many good games run very smoothly on them. Not to mention the amazing look of the machine. Not to mention a 7-hour full-brightness battery life, equating to around 9 hours of low-power-usage use.

Details

Price: £899-£1799;/$999-$1999
Type: Laptop
Retailer: Apple
Buy: http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/

#1: Dell Latitude Z

For those of you who still want to stick to a Windows computer, then the Dell Latitude Z is amazing. A machine which charges through the surface of an electric plate means to charge you simply place it on the stand and it’ll charge through conduction. Take it off the plate and move about with a long 4-hour battery. The perfect laptop for an on-the-go constant mover, who doesn’t have time to faff around with cables.

Details

Price: $1799 / £1450
Type: Laptop
Retailer: Dell
Buy: http://bit.ly/1S1icD

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LinkedIn have jumped on the same bandwagon as Twitter and Facebook, and have opened their platform for developers. LinkedIn, for those of you who do not know, is a social network or business network designed to connect business people and help users find jobs and create CVs with simplicity. Over the recent few years, LinkedIn has boomed in its popularity.

This could be a major opportunity to expand the already popular business connection service, and Tweetdeck already look to expand their platform with Linkedin’s platform.

LinkedIn integration could open the path for many applications to start coming to the platform, now making it even easier to access. This means that we’ll probably finally be able to use Linked in desktop apps!

More on this soon.

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Stuck indoors? Pouring down with rain? Sitting with your laptop on your… well, lap? No longer fear boredom, as we prepared a list of things to do with a laptop, some of which good, useful ideas, others just plain silly.

When you consider it, a rainy day is probably one of the most dreaded experiences. No one particularly likes rainy, wet days, and it does mean hitting the town with mates is a no-go – and leaving the office for a cup of coffee at noon is also, a no-go.

Here’s our first suggestion to do.

Start a Blog

One of the best things to do on a miserable day is to start writing, we think. In fact, trivia here – TekCube was started during a thunderstorm!

Many blog platforms allow free blogging with free hosting and tools. The best ones are listed below:

1. Wordpress

   Wordpress is essentially the best for its wide diversity, incredible amount of apps and free editing of source files. No bars are put in the top of the page and you can pay to have your own domain and hosting supplied by wordpress.com. Also, by visiting Wordpress.org, you can download the source files and install in on a server you already own.

   http://wordpress.com – Wordpress set your blog and hosting

   http://wordpress.org

2. Blogger

   The Google-owned blogging service blogger is another famous one – although, you’re really limited. It’s great if you don’t intend to take the blog anywhere, and just wanna post for the sake of it, but if you’re interested in full-time blogging, Blogger is a very restricted platform that also forces users to have a bar at the top of their blogs with Google ads and a searchbar for the main Blogger site.

   http://blogger.com

3. Vanilla

   While Vanilla is essentially more focused towards forums, it’s a great platform for heavily discussion focused blogging ideas. Vanilla is a raw idea for a forum – it’s just posting. There’s nothing more to it. Vanilla is a simple community-powered system – and you can choose either you write all the content, or your members do. Brilliant.

   http://vanillaforums.org

4. TypePad

   Typepad is more of a rustic blogging service, and is very good, as ever, for quickly setting up blogs. It’s got a great theme selection, and everything’s ready for a new blogger.

   http://typepad.com

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