TechStew

Metro UI - live tiles in 'action' Live tiles? Not so lively So the as whole array of various new iterations of MS Windows hit your screens, be it your desktop, cell phone, or laptop you may be wondering what live tiles are. Essentially, live tiles are just graphically simplified widgets. There sn nothing ‘live’ about them; the fact that different tiles display a number of newly arrived text messages, emails, and missed calls is nothing new, better looking widgets on iOS or Android do the same thing. The so-called ‘People’ tile keeps flipping pictures of your contacts incessantly without a single purpose; no relevant information is being displayed. Microsoft wants you to think that picture flipping is somehow ‘live’ whatever that may mean. The weather hub on HTC Windows phones does not update the weather information so the ‘live’ status here is a mute one. In Windows phone 8 you can resize the tiles and move them around anyway you wish which results in your screen beco...

Nokia unveiled its new flagship phone on September 5, this time running Windows Phone 8 platform to a great fanfare of tech enthusiasts. Some would say that Microsoft/Nokia is arriving too late to the mobile party; I would rather like to believe that better late then never. But I may be wrong on this one. Notoriously tardy, Marilyn Monroe would often arrive a couple of hours late to a glitzy Hollywood event but no matter how late she was her appearance would always trigger a big stir. I don’t think that Lumia is Marilyn Monroe. Yes, some stir and commotion was made but given what was announced I reckon no that not too many people will want to touch it, much less purchase it whenever it actually comes out. Which makes this whole event a giant marketing failure; announcing a product without any indication as to its price and availability is nothing short of vaporware. I doubt that a couple of months after iPhone 5 and a score of other WP8 or Android devices hit the market that peopl...