Year in review 2011: February
It's the end of the year, but before we get too excited about what's to come next, lets take a breather, let those mince pies break down and glance back at 2011.
In the world outside of tech, the Irish were busy taking to the polls for a General Election, football fans everywhere were mourning the retirements of possibly the greatest moustache-wearing right-back of all time, Gary Neville, and North Korea was warning that it would take military action against South Korea...again.
But February 2011 will really only be remembered for one thing.....
Year in Review:
| January | February | March | April |
| May | June | July | August |
| September | October | November | December |
Google plays its part in Arab Spring
And the Big G was on hand to help out those Egyptian protesters. Egyptian authorities had banned the use of Twitter as the protests against president Hosni Mubarak intensified but Google used the SayNow service to let Egyptians tweet via their phone lines. "We hope that this will go some way to helping people in Egypt stay connected at this very difficult time," said AbdelKarim Mardini, Google's product manager, Middle East & North Africa. Let's hope it did. Read more
Apple whips up iPad 2 frenzy
The iPad 2 rumour mill actually began life at 10.07am (PST) on 27 January 2010 - exactly one minute after Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPad. So imagine the frenzy of fanboys worldwide when they saw this, the first official confirmation that the second coming was upon us. How we couldn't wait to see the Retina displayed, super sequel to the original unleashed. Oh.... Read More
MWC unleashes the Samsung Galaxy S II
A February round-up wouldn't be complete without tipping our cap in the direction of Barcelona and the Mobile World Congress expo. And undoubtedly, with the benefit of hindsight, the star of the show was Sammy's latest flagship smartphone which went on to sell by the bucket-load (buckets capable of holding millions of smartphones that is). A phone so exciting it literally made Pocket-lint's Dan Sung spew his guts up. Read More
And a rather podgy Galaxy Tab 10.1
But MWC wasn't a complete rip-roaring success for Sammy. Oh no. Despite the fact that the company has expo goers cooing at its latest tablet - the device actually proved to podgy and its 599g weight-load was trimmed to 565g for launch, with 2.3mm of thickness shaved off. We have an inkling that a certain Cupertino based tablet launch may have had something to do with the prompt redesign. Still, it was plane sailing for Samsung with the 10.1 after that..... Read More
The PlayStation phone finally gets its game on
After years of speculation and months of intense rumour mongering the PlayStation phone finally became a reality....kind of. Rather than the PSP-like phone that we were all hoping for, Sony Ericsson actually chucked out a fairly standard Android smartphone with some PlayStation controls botched on. Definitely a let down. Read More
HTC's tablet ambitions get off to a Flyer
Or rather, it didn't. Whilst fandroids across the world getting all hot an flustered with a barrage of Honeycomb flavoured tablet releases, HTC decided to throw out a 7-inch Gingerbread machine, albeit a very HTC Sense-tastic one. And one that came with a pen. Read More
LG banks on 3D for Optimus range
LG went 3D mental at MWC. Aside from launching the LG Optimus 3D, it announced the UK version of the T-Mobile G-Slate - the LG Optimus Pad - which, rather than packing a screen that allowed you to watch 3D without glasses, outputed in anaglyphic 3D. That’s right, whilst the company’s 4.3-inch Optimus 3D smartphone gave you the 3D experience without glasses, the tablet required you to don a pair of blue and red glasses, like people have been doing for over 100 years to get the 3D experience.Read More
The Facebook phone finally dials in....sort of
Like the PlayStation phone, a Facebook handset had long been the material for techno folklore, existing only in our minds. That was, until the INQ Cloud Touch touched down. The Facebook-centric Android phone put to rest a rumour trail as long as Facebook’s reach although Facebook was quick to stamp on any "official" Facebook phone suggestions. Read More
Murdoch tries to prove he's not out of touch
Rupert Murdoch had a funny old 2011 and, in the grand scheme of things, the launch of The Daily; an iPad newspaper, probably won't score too highly on his cock-up-o-meter. But it hasn't exactly been a hit (just a quarter of the subscribers anticipated) and is further proof ($580 million for MySpace, anyone?) that Uncle Rupert is out of touch with the modern media. Read More
Sky crosses the pond for Atlantic action
February was the month when Sky Atlantic hit our screens and we haven't looked back since. We haven't been able to you see, our neck stiffened after sitting through a Sky +ed session of Boardwalk Empire, Mad Men and The Sopranos all in one long week where we didn't get changed out of a dressing gown and ate only Honey Nut Loops straight out of the box (with water, we had no time to buy milk). Read More
Nissan plugs its Leaf into the UK
Electric cars, no longer a novelty item, arrived in Blighty on a cold and wet day in Sunderland when the first shipment of Nissan Leafs for Europe arrived on board the (energy efficient, of course) City of St. Petersburg carrier. We didn't check the weather that day, we just guessed it was cold and wet - this is Sunderland we're talking about here. 27,000 pre-orders worldwide proved the Leaf had gone mainstream. Read More
Microsoft and Nokia, sitting in a tree......
Would it buddy up with Android, would it sell out to RIM or would it just go pop? The answer was none of the above actually as Nokia decided to walk down the Windows Phone path with Microsoft forming a "broad strategic partnership that will use their complementary strengths and expertise to create a new global mobile ecosystem". Indeed. So far the only fruit is the Lumia 800 and the Lumia 710 and we await the revolution. Read More
But it's not all good news for Windows Phone 7
Bad news followed good as Microsoft had to pull the first Windows Phone 7 update for the Samsung Omnia 7 and Samsung Focus, after users of the new smartphone found the update was buggering up their handsets. Luckily, Microsoft got it all sorted eventually and we all looked forward to a Mango-flavoured future. Read More
HP's big Palm ambitions seem so long ago
Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear as the brothers Chuckle would say. What seemed such a significant launch only months ago quickly turned into one of the biggest tech balls-ups in recent memory. HP hasn't killed webOS as such, more like emotionally scarred it so badly that it will probably never recover. What a waste of talent. Read More
iPlayer fun for iPad arrives
Our favourite iThings got all cosy in February, meaning that we could finally catch up on Bargain Hunt without disturbing Mrs Pocket Lint whilst she slept. No 3G fun at launch, which was a bit of an inconvenience for when out and about, but this has since been rectified. Be nice to have a download option on board as well... Read More
Nikon unleashes a barrage of Coolpix cams
Nikon went Coolpix launch crazy with not one, not two, not three....we're bored of that - it was nine. Nine new Coolpix cams all in one hit. It was like a tidal wave of cameras, only smaller and less wet. The highlight of the bunch was the Nikon Coolpix P300, designed to take on the Canon PowerShot S95 although we also liked the price-tag of the L23 compact...just £50 or so. Read More
MacBook Pros Thunderbolt in new features
Thunderbolt and lightning very, very frightening. At least for our wallet as Apple ushered in the latest generation of its top end notebook line. Packing the new Thunderbolt I/O technology, the 13, 15 and 17-inch models also included a FaceTime webcam for the first time and boosted CPUs. £999 - £2.099 mind, so not cheap. Read More
BlackBerry Curve tickled pink for Valentine's Day
Not content with rubbing Apple's nose in it by releasing a couple of white handset variations when Cupertino Computers was struggling to do so, Research in Motion also arrived at the table with another coloured device - a pink version of the BlackBerry Curve 3G that hit the Carphone Warehouse in time for Valentines day. So, if your lady loved a bit of RIM-action then you knew exactly what to get her. And if she wasn't up for that, you could have got her pink BlackBerry Curve 3G instead - boom, boom.
Pocket-lint pins its hopes on Android
We always knew that Mobile World Congress 2011 was going to be a big year for Android and Google told us that there were, in fact, 86 Androids appearing at the show this year. But wait - we're not talking about phones or tablets, but Android collectable badges! That's right, we got our hands on these limited edition Android pin badges and couldn't help but go "aww". Read More
