HTC has posted a mysterious photo on its official Facebook page, which promises ‘something fast’ is coming this Sunday.

The monochrome picture displays the outline of a HTC phone with the number five in the centre.

It is accompanied by the caption: "This Sunday you’ll discover something fast."

The ‘fast’ teaser seems to confirm that HTC will indeed launch quad-core smartphones at Mobile World Congress.

The ’5′ however is more of a mystery. Does it refer to a 5-inch device? The launch of five phones? Or simply the amount of days until devices go on show at MWC?

HTC MWC line-up

With no major Samsung launches planned for MWC, much of the speculation has revolved around the devices that HTC and Nokia plan to unveil at the annual mobile expo.

Most observers believe that HTC will launch its first quad-core Tegra 3 device, set to be named the HTC One X. The HTC One S (formerly known as the Ville) is another rumoured device.

Both phones are likely to come loaded with Android Ice Cream Sandwich.

HTC’s line-up is one of the most eagerly anticipated following its vow to focus on a smaller amount of hero devices after losing its way slightly in 2011 by flooding the market with handsets.

View full post on Techradar – All the latest technology news

HTC has posted a mysterious photo on its official Facebook page, which promises ‘something fast’ is coming this Sunday.

The monochrome picture displays the outline of a HTC phone with the number five in the centre.

It is accompanied by the caption: "This Sunday you’ll discover something fast."

The ‘fast’ teaser seems to confirm that HTC will indeed launch quad-core smartphones at Mobile World Congress.

The ’5′ however is more of a mystery. Does it refer to a 5-inch device? The launch of five phones? Or simply the amount of days until devices go on show at MWC?

HTC MWC line-up

With no major Samsung launches planned for MWC, much of the speculation has revolved around the devices that HTC and Nokia plan to unveil at the annual mobile expo.

Most observers believe that HTC will launch its first quad-core Tegra 3 device, set to be named the HTC One X. The HTC One S (formerly known as the Ville) is another rumoured device.

Both phones are likely to come loaded with Android Ice Cream Sandwich.

HTC’s line-up is one of the most eagerly anticipated following its vow to focus on a smaller amount of hero devices after losing its way slightly in 2011 by flooding the market with handsets.

View full post on Techradar – All the latest technology news

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DUBAI (Reuters) – Millions of Iranians have experienced disruption to email and Internet access, raising fears Iran’s leaders have been testing new ways to step up control of web traffic ahead of a parliamentary election.

The disruption has been to the most common form of secure connections since Monday, including all encrypted websites outside Iran that depend on the Secure Sockets Layer protocol, which display addresses beginning with “https.”

Students and traders have voiced frustration, saying they are unable to study or do business effectively, while computer experts point to a growing trend of government control.

Iran holds a parliamentary election on March 2, the first time Iranians will go to the polls since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election in 2009.

That was followed by eight months of popular protests, met with a forceful response from the government. Protesters used

social networking sites to voice their anger over what they said were rigged results and to organise street protests.

Many Iranians use virtual private network, or VPN, software to get around government filters that block access to a wide range of websites including many foreign news sites and social networks such as Facebook.

Unsecured access to the Internet has also been widely affected in recent days, with many users reporting sporadic access.

Service providers have not given a reason for the disruption and are unable to say when services will return to normal.

An Iranian computer technician, who asked not to be named, said authorities were carrying out “trial and error” exercises.

“What they’re trying to do is to control Internet traffic from inside Iran to the outside. They want to control access to secure sites, those are the sites that worry them.

“Blocking secure sites means that government offices and banks also have no access. So they’re trying to act selectively and allow access to some selected sites.”

Canada-based Iranian computer scientist Arash Abadpour, who blogs under the name Kamangir, expects Tehran to implement more disruption because of its increasing suspicion of the Internet.

“They’re practicing cutting off the only remaining communication means left for Iranians with the outside world,” Abadpour said, referring to his correspondence with bloggers inside Iran.

TOTAL CONTROL

“A lot of people are not noticing it but Iran has also been developing cyber-army initiatives and their range of disruption is growing. From above, there is a growing trend of the Internet becoming more controlled,” Abadpour said.

Millions of Iranians have faced difficulty in getting online in recent days and many are becoming increasingly frustrated.

“I need the Internet for my studies to download articles, and in the past few days I’ve been unable to do that,” said Mohammad, a physics student in Tehran who did not want to give his family name. “If it continues like this I’ll fail my exams.”

“I don’t know what my phone bill will be this month because I’ve only been able to contact my partners abroad by telephone,” said Babak Rezaian, the owner of a small import-export company.

“It’s harmed my business badly because I cannot check any data or exchange information with my customers.”

A spokesperson from Internet giant Google said the company’s transparency report, a collection of graphs that monitor the flow of online information, showed Internet traffic was severely affected on Monday and faced some disruption on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The earlier cut-off affected users of encrypted websites for several days from February 10.

Next week’s election will be contested by supporters of Ahmadinejad and those loyal to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who accuse the president of reckless handling of the economy. Reformist candidates have boycotted the election, saying the vote is not free and fair.

Concern is also growing over the national Internet system which many Iranians fear will give the authorities total control over what content users are able to access, thereby cutting them off from the outside world.

On Monday, the Iranian Telecommunications Minister Reza Taghipour said its launch had been delayed from February to May or June. The government says the national Internet project is designed to speed up the system and filter out sites that are regarded as “unclean.”

“Today we see that the Internet has been a very powerful tool, which has been used in revolutions,” Taghipour said, adding the Internet was a threat to Iran.

Iranian authorities routinely bar access to thousands of websites regarded as immoral or a threat to national security.

(Reporting by Marcus George; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Article source: http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/12987595/iran-internet-disruption-points-to-government-control/

Samsung Galaxy Ace 2: 10 things to know

Samsung likes a good refresh and the trend continues as the Galaxy Ace gets a dust down and some energy drinks to transform it into the Galaxy Ace 2.

The Galaxy Ace 2 arrives along side the Galaxy Mini 2 (yep, another update on a previous handset) just in time to strut its stuff on the catwalk at MWC 2012 in Barcelona.

We will be in Barcelona to bring you all the latest, so keep an eye out for our hands on: Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 review. In the mean time take a gander below at our top ten things you need to know about the Galaxy Ace 2.

1. What is the Samsung Galaxy Ace 2?

The Galaxy Ace 2 slides into Samsung’s mid-range Android handset offering and looks to build on the previously successful Galaxy Ace mobile.

Expect a reasonable price tag and a monthly tariff of somewhere around the £15-£20 per month mark. Although affordable you can get the beefy Motorola Razr for around the same money, after its price was dropped to encourage sales.

2. Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 screen

You’ll get a (bigger than the iPhone 4S) 3.8-inch WVGA TFT touchscreen with a 480 x 800 resolution on the Galaxy Ace 2 which Samsung says with provide "high-quality graphics for even the most demanding applications and games".

This is an improvement on the 3.5-inch screen found on its predecessor and very slightly larger than the 3.7-inch screen found on the HTC Desire S.

3. Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 power

The Galaxy Ace 2 packs a dual-core 800MHz processor backed up with 768MB of RAM.

This should provide enough power to run Android and the associated apps without too much of a fuss, but don’t expect the lightning quick experience you get with the likes of the Galaxy S2.

Power-wise the Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 finds itself able to compete with the mid-range competition of the Desire S, which does boast 1GB of RAM, but only a single-core 1GHz processor.

4.Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 OS

We were not overly surprised to learn that the Galaxy Ace 2 will ship with Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) instead of Google’s latest Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) offering.

Although the Galaxy Ace 2 does come with a dual-core processor we reckon it slips just below the acceptable threshold of ICS at the current time and the RAM does not help the cause.

Don’t rule out an upgrade to ICS in the future however, as Samsung’s mobile boffins may be able to work some magic and provide a suitable version for the Galaxy Ace 2.

Samsung Galaxy Ace 2: 10 things to know.

5.Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 camera

The Galaxy Ace 2 sticks with the 5MP camera found on the original Ace, but a nice addition is the boost in video recording capabilities with the handset able to capture video in 720p HD format.

Once again we can draw comparison to the HTC Desire S which boasts the same camera and video recording specifications. While the higher-end Nokia Lumia 800 and HTC Desire HD both have 8MP, they too deal in 720p video.

6.Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 body

Measuring 62.2 x 118.3 x 10.5mm the Galaxy Ace 2 is marginally wider and longer than the Galaxy Ace to accommodate the bigger screen, but Samsung has managed to compress the depth by 1mm.

Due to the larger size there is a slight weight increase, up by 9g to 122g – which is heavier than its big brother the Galaxy S2 which weighs just 116g.

7. And the rest…

So what else has Samsung chucked into the Galaxy Ace 2?

Well there’s the standard 1,500mAh battery which will require a nightly charge if you’re a heavy user and Samsung will stick its bloat-ware in too with the likes of the Social Hub, Music Hub, Game Hub and Samsung Apps.

Connectivity wise the Galaxy Ace 2 keeps its bases covered offering Wi-Fi b/g/n, GPS, Bluetooth 3.0, USB port and 3.5mm headphone jack.

You get an adequate 4GB of internal storage and there’s also a microSD slot if you feel the need to expand.

8.Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 release date

There is no firm release date as of yet for the Samsung Galaxy Ace 2, but TechRadar sources have hinted that we could see it hit UK shelves as early as April, but that could get pushed back to May.

We expect to see a lot of the handsets unveiled at MWC 2012 to go on sale in April and May, so the Galaxy Ace 2 which be launching straight into the thick of it with other mid-range handsets such as the HTC One S and One V.

9.Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 networks

TechRadar has spoken to all the big UK networks and has received confirmation from O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Three who all say that they will be offering the Samsung Galaxy Ace 2.

Three has even written a blog and produced a video on the Galaxy Ace 2 (and Galaxy Mini 2) – if you fancy taking a sneak peak.

Vodafone is the only carrier we spoke to who confirmed that it will not be taking the Galaxy Ace 2 on board.

10. Worth a look?

Early indications suggest the Galaxy Ace 2 will be a capable handset which will offer you an affordable, if somewhat average, smartphone experience. It will be interesting to see how it matches up against the likes of HTC’s One V and One S.

We will bring you a hands on: Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 review next week once we’ve had some time with the handset, providing you with a better idea on how it shapes up.

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The Apple Earphones with Remote and Mic take the acclaimed Apple iPod Earphones and add a control capsule, located on the cable of the right earpiece, that includes a microphone and three buttons.

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