News

Here’s some eco-friendly news if you’re a New Yorker or plan on visiting New York City in the near future. AT&T is rolling out charging stations that aren’t connected to the electricity grid. Instead those stations will be powered by our local star – the Sun.

Liquid Daffodil should be a name many of you know by now. They’re one of the more pervasive and popular developers for Windows Phone, having made such unique apps as glƏƏk!, Add to Contacts, flyby! and JamTiles, to name just a few.

When a developer creates so many apps and values customer feedback as much as Liquid Daffodil, sometimes the Windows Phone Store just doesn’t cut it, hence the creation of the forthcoming ✿+☮=❥. By the way, we can just call that app ‘Liquify’, which is the name users can search for in the Store (or by the developers name, of course).

So what is this mysterious app? Check out our video preview after the break...

Taptitude is a game of games, if you will. The title sports numerous mini-games that each offer hours of entertainment. We've covered the popular Windows Phone game in the past, including the report of the two developers (who are brothers) making $1,000 a month from advertisement revenue. Now the team has published a rather in-depth report that details the last two years of supporting Windows Phone and where there are still areas of improvement.

Our colleagues over at Android Central are at today's Huawei event in London. Why are we bringing you this news on our website? Well, there's the slim chance we could well see new Windows Phone hardware from the company. Remember the Ascend W2 that has appeared numerous times? Huawei has already teased a mysterious smartphone on social networks, so it wouldn't be such a far-fetched idea that the handset maker could have one with them today.

The FCC recently approved the Nokia RM-877 that is compatible with AT&T's LTE bands, pentaband HSPA+/WCDMA and quad-band GSM/Edge. The FCC documents also not the device has NFC, Bluetooth and dual-band Wi-Fi.

Beyond that, there's not much more to go on but there is a strong possibility that this is the EOS Windows Phone aka 'Elvis' for AT&T. Nokia has requested all the juicy documents that have device photos, schematics, the user manual and device specifications to remain private.  So for now, it's pure speculation that the RM-877 and the EOS are one in the same.

Back in March, upcoming changes to the backend of Bing and its voice capabilities (aka TellMe) were revealed with the promise that those improvements were coming to all Windows Phones. Those changes included significantly faster searches, more accurate transcription and improved accuracy in noisy environments.

Microsoft has just let it out that these changes are now official. That means if you pick up your Windows Phone right now and try to transcribe a text message or do a voice Bing Search, you should noticed the improvements. As these updates come from Microsoft’s servers, there is no OS update needed.

Good news for those in Russia and China who are yearning for the cool metal that encases the new Lumia 925 from Nokia. Both territories can now send in their pre-orders for that device, which promises to be lighter and thinner than its 920 sibling.

We told you about the unofficial Vine app called 6Sec and made by Rudy Huyn a few weeks ago. The app is currently in a private beta and progressing nicely with daily updates. The latest brought with it the much coveted upload ability, allowing those with a Windows Phone 8 device to finally create and share actual Vines with people.

The system is much like Instagraph in that it doesn’t “hack” any APIs but it does use a relay server to pass on your six second creation to Vine’s servers for posting. Rudy had to wait until he got the hardware to handle the process and today, along with an app update, it was all put together.

We tossed together a short video tour of the app’s current status, which you can take a peek at after the break...

Ah, the Nokia Lumia 820 (see our review). A device so overlooked, I forgot I even had one (seriously, I just found one in my living room last week). It’s a shame really, as the device has a solid heft to it, gorgeous 800x480 4.3” display, a great 8MP camera and is just an outstanding device (save for its measly 8GB internal storage, which can be expanded with a microSD card).

So if you’re looking for a deal, the unlocked, non-carrier version can be found for a fairly good price of just $301 from the site SaleTab.com (and yes, they ship worldwide). We have no experience from buying a device from them, but they seem on the up and up and $300 for one a top performing Windows Phone 8 device is nothing to ignore.

Although you can still find the Lumia 521 for $129.95 at other shops, like your local Walmart (if it’s available) or on occasion a Microsoft Store (if you live near one), HSN.com is still selling the phone at what seems to be a great pace—plus it’s actually in stock.

The low-cost phone, which we reviewed here, runs normally for $149.95 at the popular online shop but perhaps for the holiday (Flag Day today, Father’s Day on Sunday), they’ve dropped it to an even more enticing $130. Mind you, that’s the no-contract, no strings attached price for the T-Mobile locked handset.

The Nokia wireless charging pad is once again available for an incredible price over on Daily Steals. The Nokia DT-900 enables Lumia owners (with compatible Windows Phones) to take full advantage of wireless charging. With 75 percent off and a price tag of just $25, who wouldn't want to look at this accessory?

After their Windows Phone 7.5 handset, the Allegro, came onto the scene last year with little fanfare, Acer maintained that they were still committed to Microsoft's Windows Phone platform. But after hearing nothing but crickets chirping from Acer's neck of the woods in 2013, many of us are wondering if they have wavered in that commitment. As it turns out, the answer is "yes, but..."