Apple preps phablet and Retina MacBook Air, according to DisplaySearch

iPhone will get big. A lot bigger, display analyst predicts.
(Credit: Apple)

Apple appears to be planning a phablet, a Retina MacBook Air, and a 1.6-inch iWatch in its 2014 lineup, according to a research note from NPD DisplaySearch.

In addition to the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 (some are calling it a 4.8-inch design), DisplaySearch anticipates a phablet-sized 5.7-inch iPhone with a 1,920x1,080 display (see chart at bottom), based on data from the supply chain of manufacturers in Asia.

That's the same resolution in many 10-inch-class devices and would match the 5-inch resolution of Samsung's Galaxy S4.

Other goodies expected from Apple include:

• Big iPad : a 12.9-inch iPad with a 2,732×2,048 resolution display.
• iPad Mini 2: sporting a 7.9-inch 2,048×1,536 display, matching the resolution of the larger 9.7-inch iPad.
• Retina MacBook Air: Finally, a Retina version of the popular Air. The new MBA may have a smaller 12-inch screen boasting 2,304×1,440 resolution. (Or slightly larger if you compare it to the current 11.6-inch MacBook Air.)
• iWatch: 1.3-inch and 1.63-inch iWatch with 320×320 flexible AMOLED display.
• Apple TV: 55-inch, a 65-inch 4Kx2K screen.

More details can be found in the DisplaySearch chart at bottom.

The note from David Hsieh does not begin on a high note, however.

"Over the past several years, Apple has been an early adaptor of display technology as well as a critical part of the supply chain...However, rapid developments in technology and manufacturing of LCD and OLED displays have challenged Apple's leadership in display adoption," Hsieh said.

In other words, lots of mobile players can match or beat Apple's Retina display technology now.

"Other smart phone brands like HTC, Huawei, Nokia and Sony are all gearing up with higher resolution, larger displays, as are the tablet PC makers, led by Google and Amazon," he said.

Via CNET

Dortmund cannot run like robots - Subotic

The Schwarzgelben defender hailed the mentality that Jurgen Klopp has forged at Signal Iduna Park, while insisting he has no intention of leaving the club

Neven Subotic has revealed the work rate demanded by Jurgen Klopp at Borussia Dortmund, although he admits his side "cannot run like robots".

The defender, 24, joined the Schwarzgelben in the summer of 2008 from Mainz along with coach Klopp, and has gone on to form an integral part of the BVB first team in recent seasons.

Dortmund currently sit top of their Champions League group and one point behind Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga, and Subotic puts the club's success down to their tireless efforts in matches.

"We have a tactic that we always try to put on the pitch and we want to fill this tactic with life," he is quoted as saying by The Daily Mail.

"We cannot run like robots so we are just doing our job. Klopp wants us to do our job plus five or 10 per cent more to really do more than the other team."

Subotic has been linked with a move away from Signal Iduna Park, with Manchester United rumoured to be among the defender's admirers, but he insists that a move away is extremely unlikely.

"I wouldn’t move to any other club," he continued. "I'm still growing with this club at a very great rate where it would be silly for me to go somewhere and try to grow faster with a big chance of then maybe sitting on the bench."

Subotic has nothing but words of praise for Klopp, who has signed the Serbia international twice in his career, and claims the 46-year-old cares immensely about Dortmund and his squad.

"You go into a room and see people laughing and you know he is in the middle just being himself," he added. "He is very friendly, very funny but then as a coach he has that serious side too.

"He stands out in the way he gets people to want to be on his good side, everybody wants him to be proud of them because he does so much for us.

"You see him always working and thinking about this tactic and that. He puts a lot of work and effort in and we all try to at least match that, if not top it.

"He is very emotional because he is very heavily invested in this team. You can tell he cares so much that he acts on it. If something happens to a family member that we care so much about we would cry and for him it is kind of the same thing."

Dortmund face Arsenal on home turf as they look to replicate their 2-1 win at the Emirates Stadium a fortnight ago in Wednesday's Champions League encounter.

Xiaomi's first batch of WCDMA Hongmi sells out in just over 4 minutes

(Credit: Xiaomi)

Xiaomi made its first 100,000 units of its China Unicom-compatible WCDMA Hongmi phones (also known as Red Rice) available for purchase today on its Web site. Expectedly, the smartphone sold out, and the Chinese smartphone manufacturer tells CNET Asia that the WCDMA version of its entry-level smartphone was scooped up in just 4 minutes and 5 seconds.

In true Xiaomi fashion, co-founder and CEO Lei Jun first announced on Sina Weibo that the smartphone would go on sale November 5.

The sale of this budget smartphone, for just 799 yuan (US$131), marks the first version of Hongmi compatible not only with China Unicom, but also European 3G carriers due to its WCDMA support -- the Hongmi smartphone that went on sale in August uses TD-SCDMA, for use only in China. When asked about the number of European purchases of Hongmi, Xiaomi explained that its sales were exclusive to China.

While ex-Googler Hugo Barra is heading and strategizing Xiaomi's international expansion, and there is anticipation of the company's official Western debut, international fans are, for now, still left up to their own devices to snag the device through scalpers.

Xiaomi's 4.7-inch Hongmi sports a quad-core 1.5GHz Cortex-A7 processor, 4GB of storage and runs MIUI, the company's custom version of Android's 4.2 Jelly Bean.

The latest smartphone in Xiaomi's lineup, its Mi-3 smartphone, has yet to be sold as a WCDMA-compatible version -- the version that was sold out earlier this month is the TD-SCDMA variant. Rumors however suggest that the WCDMA version of Xiaomi's Mi-3 will be made available some time in mid-November or early December this year.

Ronaldo breaks Messi's record for Champions League goals in a calendar year

He equalised for Real Madrid in their 2-2 draw at Juventus and now has 14 goals in the competition in 2013 - one more than the Barca star in 2012
By Ben Hayward | Spanish Football Writer

Cristiano Ronaldo has broken the record held for Champions League goals scored in a calendar year after his second-half strike for Real Madrid at Juventus on Tuesday - overtaking the mark previously set byBarcelona's Lionel Messi.

Ronaldo latched on to a Karim Benzema pass in the 52nd minute and beat Gianluigi Buffon with a right-footed finish to level the scores at 1-1 after Arturo Vidal had blasted the Bianconeri in front from the penalty spot in the first half.

It was the Portuguese's eighth goal in four Group B games this term and his 14th in the Champions League this calendar year, a total which sees him surpass Messi's 13 strikes in 2012.

Ronaldo's goal was his 59th in the Champions League. The Portuguese now trails only Messi (63) and Raul (71). He also needs just one more strike to set a new group stage record currently shared with Hernan Crespo, Filippo Inzaghi and Ruud van Nistelrooy.

Messi, meanwhile, can add to his tally for Barca on Wednesday at home to AC Milan. The Argentine has hit seven goals in the Champions League in 2013, having been restricted by injury at the end of last season and also at the beginning of the current campaign.

Pep's Bayern equal Barca record

The Bavarians recorded their ninth straight Champions League win by beating Viktoria Plzen, matching the best-ever run set by the Blaugrana in 2002-03

Bayern Munich have equalled Barcelona's record of nine consecutive wins in the Champions League with their 1-0 away victory over Viktoria Plzen, which saw them qualify for the last 16.

Pep Guardiola brought on the Bavarians' top goalscorer this season, Mario Mandzukic, who scored the only goal of the game against the Czech side.

The last time the Bavarian giants failed to beat their opposition in Europe's top competition was when the succumbed to a 2-0 home defeat to Arsenal in the last 16 of 2012-13, when they progressed thanks to a 3-1 win at the Emirates.

Following the loss to the Gunners, they beat Juventus 2-0 both home and away before an impressive 7-0 aggregate win over Barcelona in the semi-finals.

They claimed a dramatic 2-1 victory over rivals Borussia Dortmund in the final and have started the competition well this term by beating CSKA Moscow, Manchester City and Plzen twice.

Barca set the previous record in 2002-03. They won all six of their games in the first group stage and took maximum points in the second one too, until Inter held them to a 0-0 draw at San Siro.

Juventus grateful to Mancini as Galatasaray blow their big chance

The Bianconeri went a fourth game without victory after squandering the lead against Real Madrid, but they still remain well poised after the Turks' failure in Denmark

COMMENT
By Kris Voakes

Juventus have still not won a game in the Champions League since seeing off Celtic in the last 16 of last season’s competition back in March. And yet eight months and six games on from that 2-0 second leg victory, they are clear favourites to qualify from Group B in second place and again reach the knockout stage. It doesn’t always turn out this well.

Tuesday’s 2-2 draw against Real Madrid looked decent enough in and of itself, but it was a scoreline which would have left them staring at the prospect of having to win both of their remaining group fixtures in order to progress were it not for Copenhagen’s shock 1-0 victory over Galatasaray at the Parken Stadion.

Thanks to the Danes’ win, the Bianconeri know that a victory at home to Stale Solbakken’s side in three weeks’ time will more than likely leave them needing just a draw in Turkey in their closing game in order to qualify for the last 16. In a competition in which 10 points is often considered the minimum target, Juve could still get away with only notching seven.

DOUBLE-FIGURE FAILURES | Teams knocked out of CL with 10 points
2012-13 2011-12 2006-07 2004-05 2003-04 2002-03 1999-2000	Chelsea Cluj Manchester City Werder Bremen Olympiacos Dynamo Kiev PSV Eindhoven Borussia Dortmund Dynamo Kiev

That they are still even mathematically in with any chance is a stroke of pure fortune. Yes, they have played well for large periods of their two clashes with Madrid, but it is only thanks to the convincing fashion in which the Spanish giants have polished off Copenhagen and Galatasary before now that Juve are in such a positive position.

Their third point of the group campaign came thanks to a Fernando Llorente equaliser after they had somehow managed to throw away a 1-0 lead garnered through hard work and great vigilance. Arturo Vidal’s penalty – awarded for Raphael Varane’s rash challenge on Paul Pogba – was a worthy advantage, yet all it took was two individual errors for the Italians to find themselves behind.

First Martin Caceres tried a criminal pass across the face of his defence which allowed Karim Benzema to slip in Cristiano Ronaldo, then Kwadwo Asamoah’s inexperience as a left-back was exposed by a great piece of footwork from Gareth Bale, with the Welshman slotting home confidently to put Madrid ahead.

Varane was again caught out when he turned his back on a Caceres cross, with Llorente making him pay, but by that point it was Galatasaray’s failures which were promising to be the most important of the night.

After conceding a wonderful early goal to Daniel Braaten, Roberto Mancini’s men simply never got going. Half-chances were made and wasted, but they rarely looked likely to come up with an equaliser, let alone a winner.

In their 2-2 draw at Juventus Stadium and then the comfortable home win against FCK, Gala looked more than capable of making Juve’s life hard in the race for qualification. But after their horror show in Copenhagen they will need to beat Real Madrid in the Santiago Bernabeu if they are not to hand the advantage to the Bianconeri ahead of the crucial matchday six clash at the Turk Telecom Arena.

Juve should be counting themselves very, very lucky. Plenty of teams have failed to reach the last 16 of the Champions League despite collecting 10 group points. The Italian champions cannot now achieve double figures and yet are set fair for qualification. That’s just the way it happens sometimes.

Question marks remain over whether this Juventus side are good enough to truly challenge in Europe. Tuesday’s game gave us nothing in the way of answers, and there’s a fair chance that Antonio Conte’s side will head to the last 16 without even coming close to delivering a riposte of any sort.

After starting badly last year they had to really get their hands dirty and were rewarded with the top spot in the group. This time around, the path looks likely to be a hell of a lot easier.

Epic Fail :D

Kolkata. Hours after Mangalyaan completed its first stage and started orbiting around the Earth, news is coming in that the Mars Orbiter has deviated from its path and has started circling over Eden Gardens, where Sachin’s farewell test series is in progress.

This unexpected behavior of Mars Orbiter has left ISRO scientists scratching their head, as they are unable to figure out whether it is a machine malfunction or a completely new level of frenziness for Sachin.

“We knew that Mars Orbiter was smart, but we did not realize that it was sentimental too,” the chairman of ISRO Mr. K Radhakrishnan said, “To me, it appears as a side effect of being developed in India.”

“You must consider the fact that Mars Orbiter is on a 300-day journey, and once it will leave Earth’s orbit, it will never able to see Sachin playing again,” Radhakrishnan told Faking News.

However, ISRO is expecting a correction in Mangalyaan’s behavior after the Kolkata test match is over. Reportedly, they have even contacted Sachin to leave a message for Mangalyaan to continue its journey and not come back again when the Mumbai test match gets underway at Wankhede.

Exclusive picture of the Mars Orbiter revolving around Eden Gardens

Meanwhile the news of Orbiter circling over Eden Gardens has generated a wave of madness across the nation.

Excited Sachin fans are seeing it as a miracle of God i.e. Sachin himself, while the Cricket Association of Bengal, which is already going overboard with their celebratory plans for Sachin farewell, is calling it a part of their “surprise gift” to Sachin.

News channels are going gaga over newly discovered “emotional side” of Mangalyaan.

One of the channels is running a show named, “Sachin ki yaad mein royaa Mangalyaan”. Reportedly, they saw some liquid coming out of Orbiter, which anchors spotted through a telescope that they have planted in their studio and concluded that they were tears.

The international community, including other space organizations like NASA and ESA, has congratulated ISRO for creating world’s first “Sentimental Satellite” and are hailing it as a milestone in the field of “Artificial Intelligence”.