Przedstawiciel PLAY LUBLIN

Liście spadają z drzew zatem czas na jesienne wydanie nowego Experta. Szczególnie gorąco polecam Wam króciutki tekścik autorstwa naszej Asi Uważni czytelnicy szybko zauważą, jakie nowości pojawią się w najbliższym czasie w PLAY. Która nowość Waszym zdaniem jest najbardziej hot?

Liście spadają z drzew zatem czas na jesienne wydanie nowego Experta. Szczególnie gorąco polecam Wam króciutki tekścik autorstwa naszej Asi Uważni czytelnicy szybko zauważą, jakie nowości pojawią się w najbliższym czasie w PLAY. Która nowość Waszym zdaniem jest najbardziej hot?

Have you heard of our new feature called Extended Standby Mode, which became available for Xperia P earlier this autumn? With Extended Standby Mode, you can increase your standby time with up to four times. Now it reaches Xperia U, Xperia sola and Xperia go with the Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) software upgrade, and we thought we would give you some more details about how Extended Standby Mode really works, and how much power you can save. Read more after the jump!

How it works
Extended standby mode increases the standby time by reducing the background activities when the phone is in standby mode. This is especially useful nowadays, since many popular apps are actually synching in the background all the time, which consumes quite a lot of battery power while your phone is resting in your pocket.

Extended Standby Mode is enabled through the settings in your phone. It’s turned off by default, but you can easily turn it on in the Power management menu.

Turning on Extended Standby Mode on Xperia™ go.

With Extended Standby Mode enabled, most scheduled background activities will be prevented. Fifteen minutes after the screen has been locked, the data is automatically turned off and the background activities will be prevented from waking up since there is no data coming in.

However, you can still receive phone calls, SMS and MMS notifications even though you have enabled Extended Standby Mode. The preinstalled Calendar app and Alarm notifications will work as normal, while the LED will only illuminate to indicate low battery.

When you turn on the screen, the activities will start again. This way, your Xperia™ smartphone will save power by only bringing you notifications when you have time to look at the screen.

Unlike most power save apps available for Android that just turn off data traffic, Extended Standby Mode also prevents your apps from trying to synch data. This is handled in the Android™ AlarmManager, which will not allow apps to schedule wake up alarms during Extended Standby Mode. This method saves more energy than simply turning off data traffic, since it actually pauses all activity in the apps.

How effective is Extended Standby Mode?
Before releasing Extended Standby Mode, we obviously put it through lots of tests – and we found some interesting results. With Extended Standby Mode, stand-by time increased with up to four times. For a heavy user profile, with lots of syncs and downloads, the generic calculated stand-by time is thirteen hours for Xperia™ P, without having Extended Standby Mode enabled.

With Extended Standby Mode enabled, the same user profile as above results in a generic calculated stand-by time of 65 hours for Xperia™ P. This is a substantial increase, which will be clearly notable for you as a user (but please note that these are calculated generic figures that depend heavily on your individual usage).

If we look at some graphs, it’s quite notable that your phone’s CPU is woken up all the time as different apps polls the CPU. The graph below show the power consumption of Xperia™ P in standby mode and Extended Standby Mode disabled. The white spikes represent peaks in the current consumption, which occur for instance when apps are waking up for activities like syncing email, fetching RSS news or publishing location information, just to mention a few examples. Spikes in the current consumption also occur when the modem switches between different base stations on the cellular network, or when it switches between 3G and 2G networks.

Xperia™ P generic power consumption when having Extended Standby Mode disabled.

If we look at the same measurement for an Xperia™ in standby mode, but with Extended Standby Mode enabled, it clearly shows that the power consumption is much reduced as the peaks are much less frequent, since most apps are prevented from waking up. The few spikes that still remain are caused by things like the modem activities mentioned above, and by apps that are allowed to wake up, for example the calendar.

Measurement showing the current consumption for Xperia™ P with Extended Standby Mode turned on.

Now you’ve seen how much power you can save with Extended Standby Mode. So, for all you users of Xperia™ P, Xperia™ U, Xperia™ sola or Xperia™ go, will you turn on Extended Standby Mode? Try it out and let us know what you think in the comments!

More information

• Read about Extended Standby Mode on the Product Blog.
• Check out Xperia P.
• Read more about Xperia U.
• Have a look at Xperia go.
• Get the details on Xperia sola.

Ahoy ahoy developers! Here’s a short note for you – there are some parameters in class android.os.Build which are manufacturer and brand dependent, and as of now we are changing our manufacturer ID from “Sony Ericsson” to “Sony” in the parameter called android.os.Build.MANUFACTURER. Read on for more information on how to handle this.

We are aware that some applications are doing checks towards the android.os.Build.MANUFACTURER parameter, so if you are using this parameter, make sure to check for “Sony” to catch both instances of this manufacturer ID. This will ensure that all future and current devices are supported. Here’s a code example showing how it can be done:

    private boolean isSonySmartPhone() {
        String manufacturer =  android.os.Build.MANUFACTURER;
        if(manufacturer.toLowerCase().contains("sony")) {
             return true;
        }
        return false;
    }

For further information regarding the build parameters in Android, please see http://developer.android.com/reference/android/os/Build.html.
Over and out!

I’m bringing you a special interview today from Alexa, who has been one of the many triallists in our trial a Nokia programme. Enjoy!

Thanks for joining me today Alexa, I hope you are well.

You’re very welcome Paul! I’m good, hope you are well also.

Certainly am! So, for the benefit of those who don’t know, can you tell us how you found the trial a Nokia programme?

I was ranting on Twitter about my BlackBerry because the LCD had lines on it. I was planning to buy a new phone or a new screen and to my surprise, someone from @Nokia_Connects replied and asked if I would like to trial a Nokia Lumia for 2 weeks.

What was your first reaction after being contacted on Twitter?

At first I was sceptical because I hadn’t heard of such programme. But as I read their email, I felt lucky to be given the opportunity. Out of the blue somebody chose me to participate in a phone trial, so I started to get excited!

Had you considered a Nokia Lumia before you heard about the programme?

No, I was not at all familiar with the phone before the trial.

Which phone did you decide to go for and how was the trial experience, did you decide to #SwitchToLumia afterwards?

The Lumia 800 was the one sent to me. At first I was trying not to get too attached to the phone since I only had it for 2 weeks, I didn’t want to end up missing it afterwards. That was before I started to browse the Internet, send & read emails, tweet, visit Facebook, watch videos on YouTube and download different apps and games.

Overall I enjoyed using the phone. Browsing is really fast and I had a chance to compare it with an iPhone4. The Lumia 800 is 4-5 seconds faster when surfing online.

Yes, I decided to #SwitchToLumia! Again I felt really fortunate because I could keep the phone in exchange of my BlackBerry. It’s all worth it! Lumia is way better than BlackBerry.

We noticed that during and after your trial, many of your friends came to us for a trial too. Was this because you wanted to share the experience with them or were they a bit jealous?

I really wanted to share the experience that I had when I trialled the Lumia. The thrill of waiting for the phone and the excitement of opening the box and trying out a new OS was brilliant. I also wanted them to experience first-hand the difference of using a Lumia compared to other smartphones.

Are you now recommending Lumia to people, if so, how many of your friends have you convinced to #SwitchToLumia?

Yes. I’ve been recommending the Lumia to my friends and family and also to my twitter followers & Facebook friends, who are tired of using their smartphones. I learned that four of my friends are already using Nokia Lumia while some are anticipating the Lumia 920.

How did you feel about Nokia before your trial and how do you feel about Nokia now?

Before the trial, I saw Nokia as a company providing cell phones that are plain & simple to use, but I never thought that they also had smartphones like the Lumia Windows Phone. And now, I feel that Nokia is a breath of fresh air when it comes to smartphones. Nokia is back in the market and brings good competition to other cell phone companies.

If somebody reading this is considering the #SwitchtoLumia what would your advice be to them?

Go for it! Don’t think twice about choosing the Lumia because I can assure you that you will love it. The phone looks classy, sleek and it’s built to last. The screen is big and clear, even if you’re outside you will not have a hard time reading your messages. Plus you will have all the apps and games that you need. It runs smoothly with no lag and is very easy to use.

Thanks for your time today, really appreciate it. Enjoy your Lumia 800!

It’s been a real pleasure talking with you Paul! And thank you also for giving me the opportunity. I really enjoy using my new Lumia 800!

That wraps up our interview! Please remember that switching to Lumia has never been easier, if you are considering changing your current phone, tell us all about yourself and you may end up getting a breath of fresh air too.

Accessibility is extremely important to Nokia – we’re a business with ‘connecting people’ at the core of our company culture. Not just people in a particular geography, the young and healthy, or those who are financially well-off, but everyone. We talked to Nokia’s accessibility director, Petteri Alinikula, to find out more.

It’s a good time to catch up. This week we’re holding the ‘Nokia Accessibility Update’, twelve months on from its initial meeting at Nokia World 2011. Petteri explains that the point of the summit is to talk to larger customers and organisations that represent disabled people about what Nokia is doing to make its phones accessible. It’s also a listening opportunity so we can better decide priorities for future development.

Three important announcements were made at the update:

First, there’s very good news for partially-sighted people when it comes to our forthcoming Lumia smartphones. The Windows Phone 8 operating system on the Nokia Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 expands on the options available for users who struggle with a regular phone. There are four text sizes available and a screen magnifier. There’s also a high contrast display mode that makes reading text easier. Voice commands and screen reading options are also available, of course, as they are with current versions of the software (though there is not yet a full-blown screen reader).

Nokia Lumia 920 and Lumia 820

Our first Windows Phone 8 smartphones.

Be a part of it.

That said, the second announcement is that the Nokia Screen Reader app has been improved with a new version and is now being made available for all newer Symbian phones and 19 more languages. This app, as the name suggests, reads aloud whatever appears on your phone’s screen, and was previously only available for a subset of devices.

Third, and perhaps the most exciting at this point, is the release of a new Nokia Wireless Loopset (LPS-6). If you’re not familiar with these devices, they’re designed to make using a phone easier by coupling audio directly to a T-coil equipped cochlear implant or hearing aid.

It uses Bluetooth to receive audio from the phone and transmits it to the hearing aid, allowing hands-free operation. The audio fidelity on this new product has been considerably improved, to the extent that we now recommend it for listening to music as well as phone calls.

Since the LPS-6 Loopset is Bluetooth compliant, it will work with any Bluetooth compliant phone, including devices from competitors. Additionally, it allows for Near Field Communication (NFC) pairing, so you can just tap your (NFC-enabled) phone and the LPS-6 together to connect them.

It now also offers USB charging and audio, a better volume and frequency range, and a significantly longer talk time between charges than its predecessors.

If you’re having difficulty imagining how it works, here’s a video we produced about the forerunner to the latest product:

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Ongoing mission

Continually improving accessibility features isn’t just something for those who are physically challenged in very severe ways, though.

Using your phone is sometimes tricky for all of us – when it’s raining and you’re carrying two bags of shopping; if you’re driving; or maybe it’s just too early in the morning.

So another reason accessibility is important is that, in Petteri’s words, “we all have disabled moments sometimes”. Good accessibility features improve the usability of phones for everyone. It’s about good practise, not special cases.

Petteri notes that while there’s still plenty of work to be done, the outlook is positive and efforts are accelerating. “Our ambition is to provide the best portfolio of phones for accessibility across the range.”

image credit: daveynin

It might feel strange or even slightly anachronistic to be playing classic board games on your Nokia Lumia. After all, why play chess on your smartphone when you could be checking out your social networks, listening to music, watching videos or surfing the web?

You could even argue that there are plenty of more exciting games to be found in the Windows Phone Marketplace and on Xbox Live.

However, there is no denying the fundamental truth that the great board games are enormously good fun, are universal in their appeal and can reduce us all to child-like delight with a simple roll of the dice.

So, it is no surprise that many board games are continuing to prosper even in the digital age. Who can resist a potent mix of nostalgia and cutting edge technology?

Plus, the great thing about playing these games on your Lumia is that there is no danger of losing pieces or having to put it all away again when you’ve finished.

To help you get in the mood, there are five classic board games that you can download for your Lumia in the Windows Phone Marketplace.

It seems only right and proper that we begin with the two elder statesmen of the board game world, chess and checkers (or draughts as it’s also known.) 

Chess4All

This is, by some distance, the highest rated chess app in Marketplace so it’s a good place to start. There is a free version, which is supported by ads, or you can buy it for £2.29.

You can play against the phone, against a friend or even online against a complete stranger on the other side of the world. Other great features include the ability to save games and email them afterwards to a friend or competitor for review.

I love the very idea that there more possible games of chess than there are particles in the universe. I’ve never counted or tried to verify that myself but if you’re so inclined here is more about this startling fact. 

Checkers Pro Free

Most people learn to play checkers before they move on to chess, but it would be foolish to think that therefore this is automatically the inferior game.

With Checkers Pro Free (again, you can pay to remove the adverts) you can choose the theme of your boards and pieces, play online, chat with people and work your way through the seven difficulty levels. It claims the final level is ‘impossible’.

If neither chess nor checkers is your thing, then you might want to give Backgammon Pro a try. 

Monopoly, £3.99 

It still strikes me as odd that a game about the buying and selling of property could have become such a massive and enduring success.

This version of Monopoly was designed especially for Windows Phone and has some rich graphics and wonderful animations. If you want to keep a really close eye on your property then you can pinch, zoom and spin your way around the board.

As this is an Xbox LIVE game, there is also the competitive element with other players and see if you’re able to match or better their achievements.

Snakes and Ladders, Free

This is another of those games that goes by a couple of different names. I always grew up with it known as snakes and ladders, but others might know it better as chutes and ladders.

Whatever it is called, this is an amusing and addictively simply numbers game for all members of the family.

On this app, up to five players can play against each other; or if you are short of bodies, then the game can also take up the playing positions of 5 different ‘people’.

I would like to think that the inventor of snakes and ladders always intended it be a moral lesson for young children, which revealed that, in the end, life can just come down the simple roll of a dice.

ThinkGo, Free

Appropriately enough we finish with Go, which dates back over 2,500 years and is generally considered one of the first board games ever. In the West, it is still something of an unknown quantity but Go is still widely played in East Asia.

This app has a tutorial, so you can learn to play Go and from then on it is you against the phone. The idea is to use your stones to surround a larger area of the board than your opponent is able to. You can also capture your opponent’s stones by surrounding them.

This sounds easy but Go is a game of complex strategies and just like chess, there are almost an infinite number of games that can be played.

To unlock larger boards, and thus more complex games, you will need to pay for the app (£1.49) as this free version only supports the 9×9 board.

Let us know if you’ve played any of the board games here, or if you’ve got another favourite board game on your Nokia Lumia.

Image credit: Will Folsom

You don’t have to go far to have a photographic adventure. In fact, there’s a world of opportunity right outside your door. Street photography has been around for nearly 100 years and it remains a genre that touches upon all aspects of our lives; ethics, humour, tragedy, creativity, fashion, architecture, technology. The list goes on and on. Maybe that’s why it’s still so popular.

Thank tech for that

The genre first ‘appeared’ as a direct result of technological advances: small, portable 35mm cameras with rapid exposure times enabled photographers at the start of the 20th century to escape the cumbersome restrictions of tripods and studios and explore the streets in a quick and practical manner.

Reality in action

Street photos capture people and places at their rawest. Studio photos may be better lit, and staged shots may have more beautiful people in them, but nothing is as alive as street photography. Think photojournalism in the comfort of your home town.

Street photography has the capability to grab conflicting stories and juxtapose bizarre narratives. Sometimes those tales are witnessed – or better still – predicted as they begin. But at other times, it is only when back in the dark room (or on the computer) that one notices the echoes in shapes or the ironic detail somewhere within the frame.

An ethical act

As a street photographer, there are serious ethics to consider too. Is it fair to photograph someone you don’t know, without their consent? Another perennial aspect of the genre is photographing the homeless. Where is the line between exploitation and generating sympathy or raising social awareness?

Tradition dictates

There is a long tradition within street photography of working in black and white and a web search will quickly demonstrate this trend continues as strongly today as ever. Although images can always be converted on the computer, it is worth sometimes shooting in black and white because then you’ll start thinking in black and white.

Small is beautiful…

Street photography is always a balance of man and machine. The photographer has to get themselves into situations but at the same time remain invisible. And the camera has to be of a type good enough to capture the moment but equally small enough to be discreet. Pro size DSLRs rarely make good street photography cameras since they alert everyone to the fact that a photo is being taken!

  … but invisible is even better!

Where the smart phone has now come into its own is in its total ubiquity. The fact that such a huge percentage of people have them has made them almost invisible. So whipping out your Nokia 808 PureView doesn’t stop people acting naturally in the way that pulling out a ‘normal’ camera might. This is an absolute gift for street pictures.

Shoot from the hip

One of the joys of street photography is the discovery of serendipitous compositions. When shooting in the street it is often necessary to not hold the camera up to you face and in many instances you are, literally, shooting from the hip.

Inevitably, this creates wonky horizons, buildings darting off at odd angles and people cropped at the knees or across the neck. But what this way of shooting teaches you is that these oddities sometimes make for enormously strong and dynamic pictures!

Top tip for starting on the street

Street photography takes some courage – and does involve risks. But a good place to start is in environments where people are otherwise distracted. Parades, spectator events, crossing the road… at these times your subjects are not looking at you and their concentration is elsewhere. Great photographers like Joel Meyerowitz started in just this manner.

If you’re looking to try something different, why not give it a try. You might just find it’s right up your street.

Nokia launched the world’s most innovative smartphone, the Nokia Lumia 920, in New York just a few short weeks ago. Since then, consumers and onlookers have been wondering when the Lumia 920 and the Lumia 820 would be coming to the United States. 

Today, AT&T announced that the Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 will be part of its fall lineup of phones, arriving in November.

The Nokia Lumia 920 brings a lot to the table, starting with our amazing PureView imaging technology and Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) for clear photos, even when your hands aren’t steady when taking the picture. Also, the PureView camera on the Lumia 920 lets in an amazing amount of light, allowing it to take bright and clear photos in low-light indoor conditions.

Nokia City Lens, the latest addition to Nokia’s suite of location apps, brings augmented reality to your Lumia 920. With Nokia City Lens you can use your smartphone to see inside the world around you and locate local facilities with ease.

The Nokia Lumia 920 has wireless charging built in, making it possible to charge up quickly and easily. Also, with cold temperatures about to set in, the super sensitive 4.5-inch PureMotion HD+ display will come in handy – allowing you to use the touch screen even with gloves on.

We’ve had tons of comments on Twitter and Facebook asking about a cyan Lumia 920. Well, we’re happy to be able to say that the Nokia Lumia 920 will come in many colors to AT&T including cyan, yellow, red, white and black.

The Lumia 820 also comes to AT&T

Joining its big brother on AT&T’s 4G LTE network is the stylish Lumia 820, showing the power of Windows Phone 8 on a large 4.3” OLED screen with ClearBlack display.

The Lumia 820 makes it possible to use interchangeable shells to add functionality and style to your phone, no matter what the situation calls for. In fact, the Lumia 820 also supports wireless charging via the charging shell. 

Got a huge music collection, a vast picture library or feeling the need to bring a good collection on movies for an upcoming trip? You can add extra storage to the Nokia Lumia 820 via a Micro SD card, which comes in sizes up to 32 gigabytes.

Nokia Lumia 920 and Lumia 820

Our first Windows Phone 8 smartphones.

Be a part of it.

The Lumia 820 will be available in black from AT&T in November with interchangeable wireless charging shells available in colors such as yellow, red, and cyan, black and white.

The new Lumia phones will be joined by a plethora of accessories such as the Nokia Wireless Charging Pad and Wireless Charging Stand, as well as the JBL PowerUp Wireless Charging Speaker.

What could be better than hiking in some of Canada’s most beautiful scenery? How about hiking said scenery with a Nokia 808 PureView to capture the stunning views? In a dress.

That’s what Dustin did recently, all in support of Do It In A Dress and he has some excellent photos to prove it. He also reviewed the phone over at Too Many Adapters, and he reckons as far as the camera goes it is

‘well beyond the other smartphone competition.’

And to prove it:

I love the great outdoors, and given half a chance, I’d be out snapping pics like this with a Nokia (possibly not in a dress), but what about you? What would you do? Fill out the trial page and we could be sharing your best snaps here soon!