With great power, comes a great number of lawsuits - and Google is certainly no stranger to finding itself in sticky litigation disputes.
Now European antitrust regulators have received a formal complaint about Google's Android for mobile, filed by Fairsearch Europe, a group that includes Microsoft, Nokia and Oracle.
According to the group, Android is giving Google anti-competitive and "deceptive" advantages, acting as a vehicle for the company to control consumer data and using its free model to give it a leg up.
Can't we just talk it out?
In the complaint, Thomas Vinje, a lawyer for the group, said:
"Google is using its Android mobile operating system as a 'Trojan horse' to deceive partners, monopolise the mobile marketplace, and control consumer data."
Big words, it seems. But does Fairsearch have a fighting chance here? The group's problem seems to be that, while Android is free, users must download a number of apps in order to "register" with Google.
This means things like YouTube and the Google Mail app get prime position. However, registration is not mandatory. But the fact that Android is free does make it difficult for rivals to compete.
"Failure to act will only embolden Google to repeat its desktop abuses of dominance as consumers increasingly turn to a mobile platform dominated by Google's Android operating system," Vinje added.
This also comes as Google is facing a separate EU investigation made by six countries, after a failure to make proposed alterations to its privacy policy.
After announcing that it would be doubling the speed and capacity of its 4G network, we were hoping EE would also give its data allowances a boost - but, alas, that's not the case.
Olaf Swantee, the CEO of EE admitted during a press briefing that "people are using more data on 4G than on 3G" (which is no big surprise), but defended the caps on its contracts revealing that on average heavy-use 4G customers get through 1.3GB to 1.4GB of data per month.
Swantee explained the network was "continuing to monitor feedback from customers on tariffs", but didn't suggest a change was in the works.
4G to get affordable?
EE has been criticised over its lofty tariffs which require users to shell out at least £31 per month to enjoy 4G - although that only gives you 500MB of data, while 1GB will set you back £41.
A reprieve may be on the horizon however, with Swantee confirming that "in the next couple of months you will start seeing devices hitting other price points in the market" - suggesting affordable options are on their way.
We already know that EE will be ranging the Facebook Home-toting HTC First, but it's not clear what other mid- and low-end devices will join the fray.
Numero Uno
The UK's first 4G network has set it's sights high as Tom Bennett, EE's director of network services, told TechRadar: "We want to be the benchmark for 4G services worldwide.
"Our rollout plan has been aggressive, but it's not stupid and we expect to have 8 per cent of our customers on 4G by the end of the year.
"That's impressive growth as on average 4G networks around the world have seen 10 per cent of customers switch over during the first 24 months, and we'll have 8 per cent in just 14."
EE is certainly taking the fight to the likes of O2, Three and Vodafone who won't be launching their rival LTE services until later this year, but we'll have to wait and see whether this early work pays off.
Speculation was rife yesterday that messaging app WhatsApp was reportedly in talks to sell itself to Google for a nice little (billion-dollar) sum.
But the company has now denied that this is the case - although it's not clear whether the fact is that talks have ended or that talks were never happening.
Neeraj Arora, WhatsApp's business development head, told AllThingsDigital that the company is in fact "not holding sales talks with Google", though declined to say more than that.
Is it or isn't it?
This could mean several things. Yes, it could all have been nonsense. Or, Google and WhatsApp may have been in talks at an earlier point, but after the app demanded more than was offered, as rumoured - said to be around $1bn (£653m/AUS$963m) - Google walked away.
Or, Arora is just throwing us all off the scent. Certainly, Google's interest in the app makes perfect sense right now.
Especially as we're hearing a lot about Google's Babel service (previously known as Babble) which will allegedly place its messaging, chat and VoIP services on the same platform.
If a deal were to take place with Google, we'd expect to see WhatsApp also sharing the same roof. And given the cross-platform success of WhatsApp, that could be a very good thing indeed.
Getting out into the great outdoors can be a fantastic stress reliever, but one big problem these days is that you generally have to leave your gadgets behind. But what if you could get instant power anywhere, with just water as fuel; no electrical socket, sun or wind required?
Enter the PowerTrekk hydrogen fuel cell charger.
What is a fuel cell?
The PowerTrekk is being marketed by myfc as the 'world's first portable fuel cell charger'. A fuel cell is an electrochemical device that turns chemical energy stored in a fuel, be it methanol, gas, petroleum, or any energy-rich compound, into electrical energy.
Of course, in this case we're talking about hydrogen, and the chemical energy locked up in water.
Hydrogen fuel cells essentially create water, reacting pure hydrogen gas with oxygen from the air to produce good old H2O. During the reaction, chemical energy from the formation of chemical bonds between one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms is released.
The fuel cell harnesses that energy to push ions from one electrode to another, a lot like a traditional battery, generating a flow of electrons and therefore electricity in the process. That electricity can then power whatever you happen to have hooked up to your fuel cell.
The problem is that hydrogen isn't the most stable of elements, and is highly combustible, so it's dangerous to store in a pure, gaseous form. The PowerTrekk, therefore, uses another chemical reaction first to generate the fuel we need, one with water and sodium silicide, which produces aqueous sodium silicate and the all-important pure hydrogen gas.
The hydrogen then passes safely up into the fuel cell to react with the oxygen in the air, producing water, electricity, and a little heat. So, in essence, the PowerTrekk turns water into hydrogen and then back into water again, releasing energy in the process.
Powering up your gadgets
So, we know how it works in theory, but how does it perform in practice? The PowerTrekk has three components: a tiny water reservoir; a puck which contains the sodium silicide, and the green plastic fuel cell top.
Simply fill the tiny tank up with water, slap a puck in the slot, and lockdown the fuel cell to pierce the puck and start the reaction generating electricity. It starts up pretty quickly, and can immediately start charging anything hooked up to the USB port.
Of course, when you punch a hole in the puck and start the chemical reaction, there's no way to turn it back off, so the PowerTrekk has a built-in lithium-ion cell too, which can be charged from the fuel cell when nothing's hooked up to the USB port.
The hybrid battery- fuel-cell system also has the added benefit of being able to augment the 2W- charge, provided purely by the 5.6 Watt hour fuel cell, up to the 2.5W normally demanded by your average smartphone. You can always charge the internal battery via microUSB, so you don't even need to initiate the fuel cell if you're just topping up your phone's battery, but where's the fun in that?
Using it is straightforward; charging LEDs on the side show you the state of the internal battery, and there's a button to initiate charging over the USB port. A green-glowing emblem of the fuel cell lights up on the side when the fuel cell is producing electricity, and flashes when the puck is nearing depletion. It will turn red and buzz if there's a problem, like the internal battery is fully charged and you haven't hooked anything up to the USB port.
The pucks are one-time use and disposable. During operation the fuel cell gives off a little heat, but nothing more than a smartphone that gets warm while playing a game. The biggest downside to the PowerTrekk is, however, that you have to keep the thing upright and clear of obstructions while in operation.
That means you can't just fire up the fuel cell and sling it in your bag to charge whatever you need. It also emits quite a pungent smell, and buried deep in the safety instructions it tells you that you must use it in a well-ventilated area. But, let's face it -- you're not going to be using this thing unless you're out in the great outdoors anyway.
Once the puck nears depletion, you have to wait for all the hydrogen to be released before you can take the fuel cell off and dispose of the puck, which in our testing took quite a while. The puck can also get quite hot so you have to wait for it to cool before chucking it in the trash. However, we were only given review samples with 'limited capacity', which probably means your mileage will be different.
Verdict
It's quite pricey, at around the $230/£150 mark for the fuel cell, with a pack of three pucks running you about $12/£8, but it's light, rugged, and will charge more or less anything that has a USB plug instantly with just the power of water, anywhere.
The PowerTrekk is a useful piece of kit if you happen to be journeying out into the wilderness anytime soon, and marks one of the first consumer-available steps towards a hydrogen-powered future.
How big is too big for a smartphone? The Galaxy Note 2 would like a word
New Galaxy Mega 5.8 and Galaxy Mega 6.3 leaks today revealed some specs for the rumored massive Samsung devices.
Whenever Samsung decides to add new members to its line of generally stellar Galaxy devices, new details always seem to fly around at lightspeed.
But according to the latest leaks, the 5.8-inch and 6.3-inch Galaxy Mega devices will not offer anything more impressive than what we're already seeing in other Galaxy hardware.
These specs are far from confirmed, but they seem reasonable enough to at least give some airtime.
Galaxy Mega specs
The Galaxy Mega 5.8 (codenamed GT-I9152) specs come from SamMobile, which claimed today to have received a specs sheet for the phablet.
According to the site, the Galaxy Mega 5.8 will be a dual SIM smartphone with Android 4.1 or 4.2: Jelly Bean and a 5.8-inch 960 x 540 display, 2- and 8-megapixel front and back cameras, 1.5GB of memory, a 2,600 mAh battery, and a 1.4GHz processor.
Those internals will reportedly be housed in a 164mm x 83.8mm x 9.7mm chassis, slightly bigger than the Galaxy Note 2 (keep in mind, the Mega 6.3 may have appeared first as what we thought was a 6.3-inch Galaxy Note 3).
The Galaxy Mega 6.3 specs, on the other hand, come by way of the Korean website Daum.
According to Unwired View, the site reported that the Galaxy Mega 6.3 will also feature 2- and 8-megapixel front and rear cameras, plus a dual-core Exynos processor, and will come initially in black and white.
Those specs are a little more sparse, but what can you expect from a leak?
Throw the book at them
And by book, we mean the dictionary, because Merriam-Webster is going to have to change its definition of "portable" if and when Samsung's Galaxy Mega phones surface.
Samsung already stretched the definition of the word with the massive Galaxy Note and Galaxy Note 2, but if the Galaxy Mega 6.3 really comes in at 6.3 inches, it's going to be in a whole different class.
Specifically, it will be in iPad mini and Nexus 7 territory, making it basically a tablet.
A 6.3-inch phone would put many pants pockets to the test (come on, no one wears cargo pants anymore), though at least "Mega" is a much more appealing moniker than "Galaxy Fonblet."
