If you’re an American and you’ve noticed that you’re texting more than you’ve been calling your friends then you’re part of the rising number of Americans who are beginning to prefer to text people rather than call them.

Based on a study made by Pew Internet, nearly thirty-one percent of Americans now prefer to communicate with their friends and relatives through text messages using their mobile phones instead of calling them up and speaking to them over the phone. The group that has the most prevalent use of text messages is the youth, which average about 110 text messages a day. The median for the same group was pegged at 50 text messages daily. Ten percent of people between the ages of 18 to 24 have been reported to send or receive about 200 text messages daily. The next age group, people between the ages of 25 to 34, have an average of about 42 text messages a day. Succeeding age groups show decrease in the number of daily text messages as they grow older, with the oldest group – the ones from 65 years old and older – average about 5 text messages a day.

One of the reasons text messages is on the rise is its apparent immediacy. Small text messages to socialize with friends is something that is most common among the youth and a phone call is just too much compared to just simple text message. Communication that is being broken down into small fragments seem to be reflective of the way communication and socialization works in an internet age where everyone is virtually connected, and text messaging is just one manifestation of this.

To say that Apple’s iPad has been dominating the tablet market is a gross understatement. It is practically bulldozing its way through its competition that most competitors are already saying “uncle” even before their respective products get a chance to stay long in store shelves.

A great example of this domination is what happened to Hewlett-Packard. The well-known tech company waved the flag when its HP TouchPad tablet sold dismally in the market. RIM’s own Playbook tablet is also exhibiting anemic sales and Samsung – arguably Apple’s biggest tablet competitor – has reported very weak sales for its 7-inch Galaxy Tab. Now you can add Sharp to the list of also-rans. The Japanese company has announced that it is going to discontinue two of the three Galapagos tablets it has released to the market less than twelve months ago. More →

Samsung Galaxy S2 comes with TouchWiz, a custom UI layer that makes the device stand out among other smartphones running Android OS. Besides its noticeable benefits, TouchWiz has another advantage which is less known by users: it supports many shortcuts and commands that help you get more out of your device. Next you’ll discover 10 cool tricks that will make you like your Galaxy S2 even more. More →

This will definitely rattle Apple’s cage, even for just a moment.

According to study conducted by ComScore, a digital research company, the Android mobile operating system has increased in popularity in five significant European markets, overtaking Apple’s iOS, and becoming the second most popular mobile operating system in the area.

The ComScore study revealed that Android usage has dramatically increased over the year and is now firmly entrenched in second place behind Nokia’s Symbian OS, which is still the top mobile platform in many areas in Europe. More →

The results of a study made by IDC, a market analysis company, revealed that by 2015 more people will be connecting to the internet using smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices compared to people who use the internet through their desktop computers.

The study revealed that smartphones will become the standard mobile phone people will use, completely replacing the “vanilla” phones that only offer standard features. Additionally, the sales of tablets is expected to hit the roof. The growing sales of smartphones and tablets will be so significant that internet users on the PC will hit a wall and then slowly go down. The report also said that this trend will begin in the US, with western Europe and Japan following in short order. More →

Google has made a tradition of naming its various Android OS iterations after various desserts or sweet treats – you had Cupcake,Éclair, Froyo (which stands for frozen yogurt), Gingerbread, and the latest version to market Honeycomb. There is already talk of the development of the successor to Honeycomb, called Ice Cream Sandwich, which Android fans are waiting for. Talk is that it will be released sometime during the last quarter of this year. But even with Ice Cream Sandwich still on the horizon, there is now a rumor that a version that will succeed Ice Cream Sandwich is already being developed.
More →

Google Music is still in its beta and not a lot of people are getting it as yet. It’s not even available in other countries. But the guys at Google still want more people experience what they think may be a game changer in entertainment and cloud computing so they have finally released a version that is compatible with Apple’s iOS.

The new version of Google Music can be accessed on devices that carry iOS. But this is not a completely separate app – the access will go through the Safari browser. This is a mixed bag for some people. Others prefer a separate app so they can access Google servers even without the browser, while others want their access to be done through the browser so they won’t have to install any extraneous apps.

The browser interface actually acts similar to an app. Users can slide between the songs and as a nifty feature, the songs you are playing will continue to do so even when the browser is closed. Of course, browsing through the library and searching for songs can be done through the browser as well.

Google Music is not the first to market with a music streaming service – it already has competition from Spotify and other music streaming services and soon from Apple’s own iCloud service. Google Music has to make unique product decisions to distinguish it from its competitors.

China is one of the great untapped markets on earth and any company who does not set their eyes on the Chinese market will only be left behind.
At least that is the common belief that has been passed on for the last few years. There is truth to this because China is an exploding market with consumers that are fast to latch on to trends and have the buying power to follow those trends.

American computer manufacturer Dell is making additional inroads to the Chinese market by partnering with Baidu, one of China’s biggest companies. The agreement is for the manufacturing of smartphones and tablets that will use Baidu’s own Android-based operating system, Yi. More →

The company VMware, a leader in the virtual machine segment, has introduced new technologies allowing employees to use personal mobile devices for work. At the same time, the applications on these phones that are related to work will be controlled by means of a number of novel security settings. One example of one such state of the art device is Horizon Mobile, which the company introduced last week. This device can operate a virtual machine of a work Smartphone that is inside your personal phone. Other devices, thanks to which you can benefit from a work phone inside your personal one, include applications that can deliver a virtual desktop image to your desktop computer at work and applications that can deliver other work-related graphics and designs to your Smartphone or tablet. More →

An almost universal computing environment. This is what the future will look like if reported information about Windows 8 is true.

According to Nvidia CEO Jen Hsun Huang, he thinks that Microsoft’s next generation computer and tablet operating system, Windows 8, will be able to recognize and run apps that have been developed and coded for the Windows Mobile Phone 7 operating system – which is the new mobile operating system developed by the software giant. More →