All about Motorola Moto X Phone

The force is strong with this one. The rumor mill and the hype machine, both running at maximum revolutions, coupled with some inside information and leaked specs place this particular smartphone, the Motorola X, on a higher than usual "IWant" scale. In this article you can read all about the rumored specs, price and release date of the Moto X smartphone.

The excitement and the drama surrounding Google's Motorola upcoming Moto X is at it's highest these days. Why? For this to work you will have put on your tin foils now. Look at the picture above. Do you see that guy jumping in the lake? Doesn't he look like a human X? Yes, it does. What about the women, doesn't she look like a big I letter or the one number to you? So what, you may ask, we have like a human "XI" or something like that, that doesn't mean anything...not so fast, cowboy. The Romans ( yes, the Romans from Roman Empire) used these symbols to count and these 2 symbols put together form a number and that  number is...11! Motorola announced a big event for 11 of July 2013 at which were invited just a few carefully selected journalists. Well, it remains to be seen how things will unfold. Will we get the new Moto X or it will be just another publicity gimmick, only time will tell (3 days from now to be more precises).

Tin foils off gentleman's, time for some true facts now. Let's start with Motorola X Phone specs:

Motorola Moto X Smartphone (picture courtesy of GSMArena)

• 4.7 inch display with a resolution of 720p
• 1.7 GHz dual core ARM processor
• 2.0 GB of RAM
• Adreno 320 GPU graphics processor (a special one as you will see)
• 10MP rear camera and a 2MP front facing camera
• 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of storage space
• Android Jelly Bean 4.3 (not 100%, maybe will see Android Jelly Bean 4.2.2) 

At first glimpse this looks not at all so impressive, more like middelish smartphone specs for 2013. But don't forget for a second that Motorola is a Google owned company now. Back in 2012 all mighty Google acquired Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billions. You don't invest so much if you don't have a carefully layout plan to dominate the market (and the world!). Maybe the new mobile Android ecosystem that Google has envision for the future doesn't require top of the line hardware, maybe Google is focusing more on providing a context aware, adaptative and anticipatory smartphone. So, how smart can you make a smartphone? Very smart, according to Google and Motorola:

• Motorola X will make good use of Google's advanced voice recognition technology and will know that you are in your car, driving to work for example, and will automatically turn on voice search and voice commands 
• take your Moto X out of your pocket and hold it like you gonna take a picture and the camera app will automatically open  for you. You can evean film slow motion videos with MotoX phone
• are you speeding on the highway with over 80 miles? Motorola X is smart enough to not let you open the messaging app, for your safety, of course

To be able to achieve this kind of software-hardware integration Motorola X phone will make good use of the so called "ultra-low power sensors" that won't consume much of smartphone’s battery. The Moto X will  use a couple of processors on the GPU that enable “always-on” sensors, like always on gyroscope or microphone for voice commands, so that your phone will remain contextually aware of what’s going on around it.

Another first in smartphone industry is that  Moto X phone will allow customers to completely customize the look and feel of the device. You will be able to choose from a palette of different colors -at least 12 of them- for your back cover, trim of the phone or front cover, you will have the possibility to engrave text or signs on your Motorola X and all of this personalized devices will be delivered  to buyers all over the world within a couple of days after placing the order.

Motorola X Phone Press Release Photo

Instead of the usual closing words for my articles i will leave you with what seems to be a very patriotic and uplifting promotional campaign:

“The first smartphone designed, engineered and assembled in the USA is coming.” 

A bit too cheesy? Or maybe is just me? Ok, it's just me.
What are your thoughts on the new Motorola X Phone? Are you excited, will you sell your Samsung Galaxy S3 or S4 and buy a Moto X instead?

L.E. According to Huffington Post, Moto X could be launched "in the coming weeks". Until then i leave you with a picture that captures Motorola X Phone in the wild ( at the ear of a prominent CEO )

What better way is there to promote Motorola X then Eric Schmidt, the CEO at Google, holding it at his ear?

By Aleman Adrian

A few changes

For the next week or so i will be making some changes for Android Bureau "user interface". This means that i will test different themes and designs, font and layouts. All for the better good. I apologize in advance for any inconvenience that this changes may cause but i really want for you, my dear reader,  to have the best experience both visually and regarding the quality of articles that you will find on this blog.

Thank for your patience.

Leaked Android 4.3 Jelly Bean

Android 4.3 Jelly Bean ROM leaked last week and the most interesting fact is that it wasn't for a Google Nexus device. This leaked ROM was for the Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Play Edition. It must be sad that this leaked Android 4.3 is an early build and changes may be present in the final build.

For now we have very few user-facing changes in this version, but we could see some modifications in the official Android 4.3 final build when it comes out. Listed below is what is new in leaked Android 4.3 found on Samsung Galaxy S4:

The Camera: this camera is the same with the one that we find on Google Play Edition Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One. For most part, there are UI changes and improvements on what is already a very good camera.  The big change here is the camera settings circle, which has gone from a full circle design to a semi circle. The interesting part is that you can already Download Android 4.3 Camera apk and install it on your non-Nexus device. It works flawlessly, i can tell you from my on experience. You can go ahead and download it from the link above.

Google Android 4.3 new camera user interface

New SunBeam live wallpaper: this was first seen this on Google Play Edition of HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4. Now it has a new name and it's called Phase Beam live wallpaper and like the camera, you can Download Sun Beam Live Wallpaper apk and install it on your smartphone. It's new and shiny!

New SunBeam Live Wallpaper

Always on Wi-Fi : hidden deep in advanced WiFi settings there is a strange option which states “Scanning always available”. This means that your Wi-Fi will always be turned on, enabling applications, and Google of course, to always get a position on you. But don't panic, this option has more to do with saving your precious battery juice than with invading your privacy. This method of determining your exact position is much more battery friendly than the other one, GPS always on. A big improvement if you ask me. But if you have privacy concerns than simply turn it off.

Low Energy Bluetooth: this feature has been talked about for a while now, and it appears that this option has finally made it's debut on this leaked Android Jelly Bean 4.3 build. The name "Bluetooth Low Energy" is telling us exactly what this feature will do for your smartphone. Yes, you guessed it,  it will go easy on your battery and it will enable a bluetooth frequency that consumes considerably less power.

Other Minor Changes: you will find some new developer settings as well as some renaming of different settings like “cell broadcast” setting which will be known from now by the name of “mobile broadcasts”.

Bellow you have a short video presentation of this build:

Conclusion: this particular build of Android 4.3 doesn’t have many user side changes, changes that are very visible for the end user but it seems that  Android 4.3 Jelly Bean will be more of an refinement rather than an big evolution. The revolution would be televised and will be brought to you by the next big thing from Google: Android Key Lime Pie.

When will we see it? Well, let me take here a wild guess...pretty, pretty soon! Internet rumors place the official launch of Android Jelly Bean 4.3 toward the end of summer.

So, what are your thoughts on this early leak, are you a bit disappointed, did you expected more from Android 4.3? What other changes/additions did you hope for? 

By Aleman Adrian

The evolution of Android sensors

What will the near future hold for smartphones? How much more data will they be able to collect from the world around us? Will they be a part of us? Is there a future for smartphones or will they be replaced by highly specialized gadgets? Read on and find out.

The facts: the present day hardware that we find on our smartphone will undoubtedly continue to evolve. Phones will have much more powerful processors, bigger, brighter and bendable touchscreens, more and more memory and graphical processing power and more of everything, in general.

Sensors! Sensors everywhere. This is where smartphones manufacturers and Android developers are heading to. You don't really see or feel this sensors (not yet anyway) but they are still there, in your phone, calculating and processing the information that is gathered from your smartphone's sensors for movement and velocity, gyration (a fancy word for rotation) or ambient light.

These overlooked and mostly ignored sensors - the proximity sensor, the global positioning system (GPS in popular terms),  accelerometer, the compass, the gyroscope, magnetometer, black illuminated sensor (a sensor that helps you make better pictures in poor light conditions)  - will soon be joined by other, more complex sensors. Samsung,  the South Korean electronics manufacturer giant, offers humidity, pressure and  temperature sensors for their latest and greatest flagship smartphone, the mighty Galaxy S4.

Futuristic Android Smartphone

At the same time with the introduction of this new sensors, the older and more mature ones got an completely overhaul and now, sensors like accelerometers or compass are able to collect and report much more data and information. Also sensors like GPS are more accurate now and consume less battery. So you see, we have improvements all over the line, the future is bright already.

The new sensors introduce this year by Samsung on Galaxy S4 are just the beginning. In the not so quite distant future you will have an air quality and health monitoring sensor on your smartphone. This sensors on your phone in conjuncture with other sensors from other smartphones will then be able to monitor the climate on a planetary level and record and share data about pollutants or allergens, through a mobile network of smartphones all over the world.

In addition to monitoring the air quality, humidity, velocity or temperature we will have health sensors built into the smartphone that can measure your pulse, blood pressure or even function as an EKG, transforming your smartphone into a extremely important medical device for everyday use.


Of course, this sensors must work together with specialized software, Android applications in our case. This applications are in their infancy and because of this there is a great demand of professional android application developers who really understand the in and outs of Android.

The telecommunication industry, included here being hardware manufacturers and software developers, is the new rising star of global markets. In the next decade or so, in this field, there will be huge opportunities for you and everybody else to be part of because there will be money, there will be evolution and revolutions, there will be academical research and scientific breakthroughs.

By Aleman Adrian