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Nokia is throwing a celebration of its music prowess next Wednesday, May 15th in Toronto to show off “the next chapter of music discovery in Canada.”

It’s expected that Nokia Music finally land here, the free streaming radio service offered to select Lumia devices in the U.S. and around the world. Another hint of its pending arrival is buried within the “Phone Features” section of Koodo’s Nokia Lumia 520 listing, where it offers Nokia Music as an option.

Samsung is poised to release a camera-focused Galaxy S4 model with the Zoom title affixed to the end. The device is expected to be visually similar to the upcoming Galaxy S4 Mini, but thicker and with a retractable 10x optical lens attached to the back.

The smartphone will have mid-range specs for a modern device, including a 4.3-inch qHD Super AMOLED display (960×540 pixels), 8GB internal storage, 1-2GB RAM (most likely 1GB) and a dual-core processor. It will be running Android 4.2 Jelly Bean as well. Of course, the biggest focus will be a 16MP rear shooter with an optical zoom, something that few phone manufacturers have been able to properly implement.

The Nokia PureView 808 is an example of a high-profile camera-focused phone, but it lacked an optical zoom lens. Instead, it had a 41MP sensor and a fixed-focus lens that offered relatively lossless digital zoom. Using a combination of sharpening algorithms and a technique that combined several pixels into one, it produced sharp 5MP photos that suffered little when zoomed.

Samsung doesn’t need to utilize such a high-resolution camera sensor, though 16MP is still denser than the Galaxy S4. It will be interesting to see whether the company uses a sensor with larger individual pixels than the Galaxy S4, something more akin to its Android-powered Galaxy Camera.

Speaking of the Galaxy Camera, the Galaxy S4 Zoom is expected to take a bunch of cues from the point-and-shoot, including a dedicated camera button and a highly-optimized photo and video UI. The Galaxy S4 Zoom, which has been outed by the certification body Bluetooth SIG, will go by the model number SM-C101.

Samsung’s S4 strategy — releasing a flagship model and then a variety of more focused variants — is intriguing, as its capitalization of the ‘Galaxy’ brand may have the undesired affect of diluting its reputation. With a Galaxy S4 Active and Galaxy S4 Mini on the way as well, it will be interesting to see how the company markets these various devices.

Source: Hi-Tech@Mail, Bluetooth SIG
Via: SamMobile, UnwiredView

A few days ago reputable device leaker Evleaks showed an unknown LG smartphone. It had an incredibly thin bezel and a large display, reportedly 5.5-inches in size. It’s expected that this device will be a follow-up to the LG Optimus G, aptly called the LG Optimus G2, but no other details are currently known. The device has once again surfaced online, now revealed in a different angle and giving another glimpse of how thin the bezel really is. Overall, it seems that LG is taking design notes from the success of the Nexus 4 and Optimus G. Of course, this is still considered a rumour until something officially is announced.

Source: Evleaks Twitter

BlogTO has added a companion iPhone app to its torontofoodtrucks.ca portal. The locally-designed app allows frequenters of Toronto’s now-famous and ubiquitous food trucks to locate their favourite cuisine, be it cupcakes or tacos, across the city.

The interface is sleek and responsive, and the various food trucks are well distinguished from one another with high-resolution images, contact numbers and other important details. You can add favourites to quickly access the location of your ideal take-out, or browse through the growing list of fare.

Because Freshdaily, the curators of BlogTO and creators of the Toronto Food Truck portal, are pushing for the service to be a bit like an independent social network, you can take a photo or your food or the truck itself, add filters to your image and post it to the relevant section. All comments and photos are linked up to your BlogTO account, and you can share photos to Facebook or Twitter.

While it may have a limited audience, it’s a loyal one, and we’d love to see it hit Android sometime soon.

Download Toronto Food Trucks for iPhone.

Via: BlogTO

When Samsung released the Galaxy Note 8.0 in Canada a month ago there was a “Limited Quantity Available.” The same quantity is available today, but the price has been dropped by a few bucks. If you’ve been waiting for a sale to hit this tablet then Best Buy or Future Shop are game to save you $30, which takes the 8-inch Jelly Bean tablet to $400 outright.

The Wi-Fi only Galaxy Note 8.0 runs Android OS 4.1.2, has an 8-inch display (1280×800 resolution), sports the S Pen stylus, 1.6 GHz Exynos quad-core processor, 2GB RAM, 5MP camera with a 1.3MP front-facing camera, 4,600mAh battery, 16 GB Internal Storage (holds up to 64GB with a microSD card).

This is a 1-day sales blitz that ends today.
Source: Best Buy & Future Shop

That blood-spattered recurring nightmare you had as a kid may have been formed by playing too much Carmageddon. The 1997 game has been resurrected for mobile devices after earning over $400,000 on Kickstarter from the company’s founding studio, Stainless Games.

All the carnage, swearing and pedestrian-maiming mayhem is intact here, though the on-screen controls are a bit too finicky for my liking. The game doesn’t stray too hard from the original premise, but there are new goals and plenty of updated HD graphics including “buckets o’ gibs” that shine on HD screens.

I noticed a bit of frame dropping on the HTC One, but for the most part performance stayed solid; the little human sprites are not detailed, but things can get hectic onscreen when there are multiple cars vying for a piece of you.

The game’s economy revolves around Profit, a generic currency that can be used to repair your car and buy new items or unlock vehicles. Repairing your car, which you will inevitably repeat throughout the match, is easy — one tap on the top right corner — but in later levels it costs more and Profit is less freely available.

Carmageddon is free for a day to promote its launch, but is (and will continue to be) available for $1.99 on Android and $3.99 on iOS.

Via: Android Central

Google Earth for Android has been updated with some nice interface tweaks and support for Street View.

While the main Maps app has had Street View support for a long time, Google Earth offers a far more comprehensive data set, with more of an exploration slant and less focus on directions. Its 3D Maps are considered some of the most accurate in the world, and it’s always great fun seeing how close you can get to your favourite landmarks around the world. The addition of Street View allows users to get even closer — floating down the road — in many major cities.

Google Earth for Android now has a left-side navigation menu to quickly toggle various map layers. It’s a great update to an under-utilized tool.

Download Google Earth for Android.

Apex Launcher was one of the first custom launchers to come out of the Android 4.0 era, and has since slowly but surely improved both its performance and feature set.

Apex 2.0 emphasizes some Pro-only features, but increases its usability for users of the free version as well. Notably, the Settings workflow has been significantly updated and simplified; double-tapping anywhere on an unused portion of the screen brings up the new menu options. Users can adjust the vibration duration of most tappable objects, too, so for users of a device like the HTC One, which has an annoyingly-powerful motor, things can be a little more tolerable.

Apex Launcher Pro users get a few bells and whistles thanks to integration with Apex Notifier and Dashclock. While the latter portion is limited to users running Android 4.2 or higher due to lockscreen widget limitations in earlier builds, Apex Notifier is still extremely handy for the average ICS and Jelly Bean 4.1 user. It puts a little badge on top of compatible app icons — Gmail, SMS, Calls, etc. — outlining any missed or unread pieces of information you may need to look into. You can customize the look and frequency of badges on an individual app basis, and there are lots of ways to make the launcher look more personal.

The update also allows for folders in the app drawer, something that Sense 5.0 introduced on the HTC One. While this may have a limited use case, it’s significant for those who keep their home screens clean or empty.

Apex Launcher Pro goes for $3.99 and is well worth the investment, but the free version works quite well on its own.

Download Apex Launcher [free], [pro]

Via: Android Police

If you’re into saving a few bucks and want a ‘lightly loved’ – also known as slightly used and refurbished – then WIND Mobile might be your next stop. The wireless carrier has organized a huge sale on devices that have been returned. For example, the Galaxy Nexus is $169, LG Optimus 4X HD is $199, Galaxy S III is $299, HTC Amaze is $229, and the Galaxy Note II is $349.

WIND notes that “Our Lightly Loved phones have been returned within 2 weeks of purchase, 30 minutes of talk or have been refurbished by the experts… All Lightly Loved devices are final sale and non-returnable to WIND. Offer only available while quantities/supplies last. Cannot be combined with WINDtab.”

Certainly something to think about.
Source: WIND

A thinner Nexus 7 with an HD display has been rumoured for months now. This news was first unearthed by DigiTimes in January, then Reuters jumped on board with the same claims, noting that Google and ASUS will launch a “higher screen resolution, a thinner bezel design and adopt Qualcomm’s chip in place of Nvidia Corp’s Tegra 3.”

Now days before Google I/O, another overseas analyst is backing the same rumours. Ming-Chi Kuo from KGI Securities has compiled a list of specs that new Nexus 7 will encompass, namely 7-inch 1920 x 1200 high-res display, 1.5Ghz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, 5MP camera on the back, plus run Android OS 4.3 Jelly Bean. Here’s some more notable specs, but no indication if the second-gen Nexus is thinner