Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Kids Comes to the US Ready to Ships November 10

With the increasing wave of kiddie friendly slates being released these days, Samsung couldn't just stay away. So today, the Korean tech giant announced the availability of its Galaxy Tab 3 Kids slate.

Vice President of Emerging Business, Nanda Ramachandran commented on the event saying that “today’s kids are incredibly tech-savvy and regularly use technology at home, at school and on-the-go.” “Studies show that 70 percent of tablet owners share their tablets with their children. The Galaxy Tab 3 Kids is engaging, encourages learning and fosters creativity in a safe environment that parents can easily manage.” That’s exactly what’s important when kiddie slates are involved, providing a safe, customized child friendly interface that parents can control. And Samsung offers all that. The tablet features a 7-inch screen with 1024 x 600 pixel resolution. It draws power from a 1.2GHz dual-core processor coupled with 1GB of RAM. It has two cameras, a 3MP rear one and 1.3MP frontal one. 8GB of onboard storage are provided with the possibility of adding more via the mircoSD card.

Samsung has bundled the slate with fun yet age-appropriate games like Toca Train, Wipeout, Fruit Ninja or Where’s My Perry. It offers educational content too, balancing the world of fun and learning with apps like Learn ABCs, I Learn with Ocean or Dolphin Reader. The tablet comes with a cheerful orange case to ensure the device will be kept safe in case of accidental drops or scratches. Parents and kids that are going to purchase the slate will also get a $10 / €7 credit for which they can get books, apps, movies or music from Google Play. But wait there’s more – customers will also get 12-months of Boingo Mobile Wi-Fi access, 3 month Hulu Plus membership for new users and 2 years of up to 50GB of DropBox storage. Quite an attractive offer.

The slate will become available for purchase from Samsung.com, Amazon, Best Buy, Fry’s Office Depot, Sam’s Club, Tiger Direct and Toys “R” US for $299 / €217 a pop. Samsung will commence shipping November 10, but pre-oders start November 1.

Samsung brings its kiddie slate to the US
Image credits to Samsung

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LG Nexus 5 Now Selling for €460 ($635) Ahead of Official Launch

With just a few days left until the alleged release of LG Nexus 5, the smartphone went on sale prematurely in the Netherlands.

Spotted by the folks over at GSMArena, the Nexus 5 is now available for pre-order at Dutch online retailer Belsimpel for no less than €460 ($635) outright. This is a bit overpriced in comparison with Nexus 5’s price on Google Play, but that’s common knowledge among Android users.

The retailer claims that the smartphone will ship in 2-4 days, but that’s subject to change, so there’s no telling if this is legit or not. In the same piece of news, Nexus 5 is also up for sale at Tele2, where customers can get it for free on €36 ($50) a month contracts, Hi HS Student Medium contracts at €35 ($48) a month.

LG Nexus 5
Image credits to Belsimple

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Li-Fi LED-Based Tech Reaches Wireless Speeds of 10Gbps

The primary colors are red, yellow and blue, but for electronics, they become red, green and blue, and it is those three colors that experts in “Li-Fi” technology used to achieve their latest milestone.

Li-Fi is the term people have started to use to refer to wireless transmissions achieved through visible light. It's Wi-Fi, but using the visual electromagnetic spectrum. The range of wavelengths that don't pass through walls, sadly. Still, that disadvantage can be offset by sheer data transferring potential. On that note, UK researchers have moved data via Li-Fi, through use of a micro-LED light bulb, at 10 Gbps (BBC report).

It's all thanks to the fact that white light can be broken down into red, green and blue (RGB). Each primary color achieves 3.5 Gbps. If ever there was a chance to use all lights in the world to form a wireless networking system, it's now.

Li-Fi illustrated
Images credits to Photonics.ac.uk

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MSI Z87M Gaming Motherboard Has Killer Ethernet Chip for Online Game and Streaming

Gaming motherboards abide by a standard rule: be overpowered or don't be at all. Thus, they have many things in common, which means that their makers need to put special effort into standing out. MSI chose the Killer gaming chip.

The new mainboard that Micro-Star International made is called Z87M GAMING and relies on Intel's 8-series Z87 chip, meaning it can welcome any of the latest Haswell fourth-generation CPUs. The basics are easily enough gleamed from the photos of the newcomer: two PCI Express 3.0 slots, two PCI Express mini slots, four DDR3 memory slots, six SATA III ports, various pin headers, many video/USB/audio ports on the back panel, etc.

The Killer network chip is more important here. It can prioritize games over anything else taking up networking bandwidth, kind of like QoS protocol but better. In addition to that, MSI included the Audio Boost technology (not much need for an explanation there). Add to that MIL-STND-810G military class components and voila! A black and red, overpowered mATX platform. You even get Click BIOS 4, and the “all new two-stage one-second overclocking OC Genie 4” technology.

MSI Z87M Gaming Motherboards
Images MSI

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BBM Video and Voice Coming to Android, iOS “Within Months”

Since BlackBerry Messenger made its debut on Android and iOS platforms, the Canadian company has delivered several updates for both versions, which were meant to fix some issues and improve the overall performance of the application.

Those who installed BBM on their iPhone and Android devices are already aware of the fact that the application lacks important features such as BBM Channels, BBM Voice and BBM Video. However, developers promised these features would be added in the future via updates. In an interview for CBC’s The Morning Edition, BlackBery’s Andrew Bocking confirms BBM Voice and BBM Video will be added “within months.”

Moreover, Bocking announces BBM Channels will soon exit beta testing and will be pushed to both BBM for Android and iOS apps in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for more updates on the matter.

BBM logo
Image credits to BlackBerry

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