Facebook Paper is the social network's latest mobile app, taking your news feed and recrafting it into an elegant book-like experience.

As anticipated, it takes strands of Flipboard's web-reading experience letting you flick through posted links quickly and comfortably, while also reworking your friends' photos into a more album-like style and using a very un-Facebook like horizontal scrolling style.

Gone is the standard app's traditional slide-out menu pane, instead you customise a grid from your news feed elements, then smoothly swipe through it.

Share at will

The publishing options are also pretty swish - photos and text appear together so you know what you're uploading rather than the current system which leaves you a little bit blind.

There are elements of the original Facebook app that aren't present in Paper, but Facebook isn't wary about having too many apps on your phone - if anything, it wants to create more and more.

The bad news is that this is a pretty limited release: Facebook Paper will only be available in the US and only on the iPhone from February 3.

Is Facebook's decline coming?

Source : techradar[dot]com

As we patiently wait for Samsung to spill the beans on the Galaxy S5, internet tipsters continue to do what they do best: speculate wildly, successively raise and then lower our expectations and build the bubble of excitement surrounding Samsung's next flagship to an Android-addled apogee.

What's getting Sam-fans (we just made that up, feel free to use it) so frantic, we hear you ask? Well, talk of a 2K QHD screen for starters, an iPhone 5S-rivalling 64-bit processor, and a 16MP camera to boot.

The list is extensive, so for the purposes of convenience we've stuck them all together into one handy roundup video (see below). Check it out, then let us know what you think in the comments.

Source : techradar[dot]com

The immensely popular Android Swiftkey keyboard makes its way to iOS today, letting anyone with an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch get in on the smarter prediction technology.

However, you won't be able to replace your standard iOS keyboard entirely. Instead Swiftkey is arriving as a free note-taking app, Swiftkey Note.

Like the Android version of the keyboard, Swiftkey Note suggests words as you type, gradually learning your typing style over time and generally making note-taking a lot faster.

Note also integrates tightly with Evernote so it can hone its personalisation even further by scouring your Evernote archive, as well as letting you sync notes between the two apps.

You can also share your notes via Apple's AirDrop, or its Messages or Mail apps. The app also requires iOS 6 or later, in case there are any stragglers out there.

The swift and the furious

Apple doesn't allow for third parties to replace the standard iOS keyboard, which is why Swiftkey isn't arriving in its full-blow form.

Still, there's a good chance you'll soon be choosing this over Apple's own Notes app if the standard keyboard gets your goat.

News of the app was leaked several days ago and it turns out that @evleaks was on the money again.

You can download the Swiftkey Note app from the App Store right now, completely free.

• Another weapon for iOS 7 - but how good is Apple's latest OS?

Source : techradar[dot]com

While much of the world is feverish with expectation about the flagship HTC Two, the Taiwanese company clearly hasn't forgotten about the lower end of the market, as it's cooking up a budget blower with quad-core credentials.

The phone, called the Desire 310, was spotted on HTC's official website, so it's unlikely to be the figment of someone's imagination.

While the listing was quickly pulled, Japanese site Blog of Mobile was able to get some information on it before it disappeared.

The headline feature is its quad-core processor, but don't expect HTC Two or even HTC One levels of performance from it as it's clocked at 1.3 GHz and uses a relatively cheap MediaTek chipset rather than the Snapdragon chipsets that HTC usually uses.

The HTC Desire 310 also only has 512MB of RAM, so we're actually looking at a fairly low end handset.

Not particularly desirable

Rounding out the main specs it has a 4.5 inch 480 x 854 resolution display and just 4GB of built in storage, though there is a microSD card slot.

It also has a 5 megapixel camera with no flash, a VGA front-facing camera, dual-SIM support, a 2000 mAh battery, it comes in black and white and it runs Android 4.2.2.

The inclusion of dual-SIM support makes it clear that the HTC Desire 310 is aimed squarely at emerging markets. That doesn't mean it won't hit these shores too, but right now we have no word on if or when that will happen.

HTC looks to be making a real play for the mid and entry level market as this is the second budget HTC handset that we've heard about in the last few days, with a slightly higher-spec octa-core phone popping up at the beginning of the week, packing 1.5GB of RAM, a 5 inch 720p screen and an 8 megapixel camera.

Chances are we'll see all of these at MWC 2014 - so stay tuned to check out whether they're worth considering or just a half-hearted attempt from HTC at capturing the budget market.

• Can't wait for the Desire 310? Check out the budget HTC Desire 500.

Source : techradar[dot]com

If you play chess, you'll know that it isn't always obvious what your opponent's up to from a single move.

What looks like a minor play or even a rookie mistake often turns out to be a significant part of a strategy that ends with them shouting "checkmate!" and you throwing the board in their stupid gloating face.

Or maybe that's just my house - but anyway, I think Google's offloading of Motorola Mobility is something similar.

On its own, the sell-off looks bad: Google's ditched most of Moto - it's keeping the research and patents - for a fraction of what it paid. As Ian Fogg of IHS reports, "Lenovo's $2.91bn barely covers the cash acquired as part of Motorola Mobility." The purchase price of $12.4bn wasn't all Google spent either: it "supported the loss-making Motorola business for over two years."

Not the best investment of all time, then. But you need to factor in two other news announcements. Earlier this week we saw Google and Samsung form a patent alliance to fight iOS, and just yesterday it emerged that Samsung is going to make its Android interfaces considerably less Samsung-y.

In that light, Motorola is the pawn that Google's sacrificing to save a much more important piece: all of Android.

Different goals, common purpose

Google and Samsung may have different goals - Google wants to ensure that its services don't get kicked off mobile, and Samsung wants to sell hardware - but they have a common purpose in pushing Android.

Despite this common purpose, from time to time they appear to be frenemies. When Google bought Motorola it instantly became a rival to Samsung as well as a partner, and when Samsung started messing with the Android UI, it could be said to have diluted the Android experience and brand.

It isn't hard to imagine Google telling Samsung something like, "We'll get out of the phone business if you stop messing around with our OS and share some of your patents."

There's another angle here too, and that's Lenovo. Assuming regulators don't block the sale, which is unlikely, Lenovo's just boosted its smartphone business by acquiring a brand that still has a lot of weight in the US market.

As Larry Page said, "Lenovo has the expertise and track record to scale Motorola Mobility into a major player within the Android ecosystem".

When you take all of these things together, it's hard to see selling Motorola as a disaster.

Google retains the R&D and the patents, and gets shot of the loss-making hardware division; potential dilution of Android has been halted; Samsung's been brought closer to the mothership; and in Lenovo's hands Motorola could become a serious US rival to Samsung - which would further dilute Samsung's power and makes it much less likely that Samsung could hold Google to ransom in the future.

As a result, Android is stronger and more focused than ever before.

Some failure.

• What does Lenovo buying Motorola mean for your next smartphone?

Source : techradar[dot]com