Por Homme – Men's Lifestyle, Fashion, Footwear and Culture Magazine

Facebook has opted out of designing a new phone and instead worked with the Google Android platform to create a new overlay that replaces your app icons with social info. The lockscreen’s replaced with Cover Feed and prioritizes updates from people instead of apps, whilst using an algorithm to determine the updates that are most important to you. Need access to your apps? Just swipe notifications off screen to dismiss them while using a long press can remove all notifications in one go. Full-screen images really give Home an engaging palette, with the end result being a blend between Android and iPhone social networking app Path. Plain text status updates are placed over a user’s cover photo, to keep the appearance consistent with photo-centric posts.

Chat Heads is Facebook’s new messaging app that’s featured in Home. It allows you to quickly and easily communicate with your friends without leaving the app yo’re in. Circular icons are featured on the right-hand side, with the ability to drag them to anywhere you like on the screen. Tap them and you open a pop-over chat dialog that combines IMs and text messages into a universal interface.

(more…)

Google’s Niantic Labs has dropped a new multi-player gaming platform for mobile users, dubbed Ingress. Your real-world location is turned into a virtual world, by way of virtual layering after your location’s been determined. Users fight for territory against opposing factions while the game is sure to take Augmented Reality to new heights. Complex capturing systems allow players to capture nearby building and areas located by using your GPS. Players can work together to capture a bundle of close-by areas to expand their faction territory, or fight to gain other factions’ territories.

Currently an invite-only beta application, you can gain access to Ingress by applying here.

(more…)

Google’s newly unveiled Nexus Q is essentially the internet giant’s answer to the Apple TV. It streams your favorite entertainment directly from the cloud to your living room but axes the onscreen interface. Everything’s controlled from a compatible phone or tablet with media streaming in from your Google Play and YouTube apps. The design is simplistic with a sphere-like shell and only a few discreet ports on the back to plug into your speakers, AV receiver or HDTV. Once you’re playing, you can control the volume from your handheld device, or simply by turning the top half of Nexus Q. Just touch the top LED to mute the sound completely. The Google Nexus Q is priced at $299 with availability via pre-order through Google.

(more…)

Google X, the California-based tech company’s low key development lab, has been developing this among several other creations for quite some time now and they’ve finally decided to let us in on what they’re cooking up. “A team within our Google[x] group started Project Glass to build this kind of technology, one that helps you explore and share your world, putting you back in the moment.” It’s a more vivid picture of what’s to come — augmented reality eyewear that puts the world at your eyelids. Imagine being able to ditch your beloved smartphone and go hands free while controlling and seeing navigation prompts through your shades. There’s a ton more we’ve yet to learn about Project Glass but atleast now our mouths are watering. Check the video below to see what the geniuses over at Google have envisioned thusfar. Dreams to reality, folks.

(more…)

Last week, Google opened their offices in Los Angeles just blocks from Venice Beach. They’re located at the former Chiat/Day Building, commonly called the Binoculars Building for an obvious reason. It was designed by Frank Gehry, whose next project in Los Angeles was the Disney Concert Hall. The space is quite inviting and we’re sure the company’s entire LA team will enjoy working here. There’s a big open cafe area that opens up to the outdoor patio area. Behind the sharply angled wooden walls are work area, giving the space an amazing balance of work and play. One of our favorite parts of the office is the Eames meeting room, which happens to be built with glass walls all around and just a single walkway connecting to it, giving it a floating, isolated feel.

More looks at the space below.

(more…)

Today’s a busy day in tech with the WWDC going down as we type and with that came the keynote given by Steve Jobs this morning. The Apple CEO made some major announcements and none more anticipated than the unveiling of the iCloud service that’s set to compete with similar services offered up by Amazon and Google. iCloud stores your content and wirelessly pushes it to all your devices. (more…)

Sprint‘s first WiMax/4G phone has been unveiled and no one is surprised it’s by HTC. What is surprising is this beauty’s power and versatility. The Touch HD2 was a looker and had a Snapdragon processor but didn’t pack the data speeds to keep users happy. The HTC EVO is special as it’s got the aesthetics, features and the horses to really be Sprint’s savior. AT&T and Verizon can keep comparing maps, but the fact is Sprint’s had the strongest data network for quite sometime. Now, with the company promising to get their 4G to nearly 120 million people by year’s end, this is the phone of 2010. So far.

Highlight features include a 4.3-inch screen (480×800 TFT LCD), 8MP camera, as well as a front-facing camera 1.3MP camera capable of HD video recording. Under the shell is a 1GHz Snapdragon processor and Google’s sleak 2.1 version of the Android OS. Oh, but wait, there’s more. The Evo is also fitted with 1GB of built-in storage, 512 RAM, HDMI output as well a kickstand for easy viewing of that 720p video. HTC’s latest creation will also work as a hotspot for up to eight devices, even your iPhone or Droid. Damn these guys. With the Nexus One and HTC Evo both coming to Sprint, other carriers might want to start paying attention.

More images after the jump. (more…)

Well, Google’s a fast learner. With their Wave client all but dead, they’ve come to realize that no one needs another email client when they already have Gmail. With this in mind, the internet giant’s released Google Buzz, a social networking service associated with Gmail and gives Gmail users the option of sharing updates, photos, videos and geographical location (integrated with Google Maps) to stimulate conversations. It can also be accessed through your mobile, which allows for sharing on the go. Some supported clients include Flickr, Picasa and Twitter (Facebook is a negative).

Videos after the jump. (more…)

So we’ve already shown you everything there is to see about the latest Android phone from HTC and Google, but now it’s time to check out something the masses have been yearning for but have yet to actually receive. Adobe’s been working on Flash 10.1 beta for quite sometime and they’ve finally got a decent build ready and Adrian Ludwig from Adobe’s Flash team shows us how the service will render on mobile devices. The one thing to note is that the Nexus One has a very powerful processor from Qualcomm, something proves to be handy when using a power-hungry service like Flash. Guess the mobile devices of 2010 and beyond will be smart and powerful.

Watch the video after the jump.  (more…)

After all the hands-on reviews and final build speculations, we’ve finally gotten an official release for the Nexus One from Google. So what sets this HTC-built Android phone from all the others before it? Well, for one, it’s got Android 2.1, the latest build of the rapidly growing OS. On top of that, it’s got a slim body with a whole lotta goodness – 3.7-inch AMOLED display, 1GHz Snapdragon processor, compass, GPS, accelerometer, light and proximity sensor, 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, 3.5mm headphone jack, and a multicolored LED under the trackball. Beyond the essentials, it’s also got two mics onboard, one on the bottom and one on the back, for the purpose of noise cancellation à la Motorola’s CrystalTalk.

The unit can be custom engraved with two lines of text at the time of order and can be bought today off contract with a T-Mobile compatible radio for $529 unlocked, with shipping to the US, UK, Singapore and Hong Kong, or with a two year T-Mobile US contract for $179 (both with free overnight shipping in the US).

More images after the jump.  (more…)