SOME FLASH NEWS

1.Google Designing 'X Phone' to Rival Apple, Samsung

2...It seems we are going to see quite a few $99 Android tablets in the New Year. After the $99 Nexus tablet rumours, we are now hearing that Acer is also planning to launch one. Several reports confirming the same have come out in the last 72 hours.

Digitimes, which is the latest one to throw in its information from supply chain makers, states that Acer will launch a 7-inch Android tablet for only $99 in the first quarter of 2013.

If we go back a little, an Acer Iconia B1 was recently spotted passing through FCC, in a forum and also on a benchmarking website. These three sources have revealed the press renders as well as specifications of the tablet.

The Iconia B1 will come with a 1.2GHz dual-core Mediatek SoC, PowerVR SGX 531 GPU, 7-inch 1024x600p resolution display, 512MB RAM, 8GB internal storage, GPS, Bluetooth, microSD card slot, and Android 4.1.2. The FCC documentation had also showed some kind of cellular connectivity on board, but not much is known.

The pricing was the only part left, which has been revealed by Digitimes today. The publication report also confirmed the MediaTek SoC presence in the tablet.

That’s about all we know so far about Acer’s Iconia B1, but not much is left and we will have to wait for CES 2013 to hear an official announcement about the tablet.

3.Facebook’s new Poke app – borrowing the name of its “remember me?” digital jab to the ribs, but the functionality of “sexting” app Snapchat – is an interesting start, but ten seconds sells it short. The headline grabbing purpose of flaunting your undercarriage (and the one to which Facebook coyly and obliquely refers to with a reminder that you can report anything you’re uncomfortable with) will undoubtedly get plenty of use from teenagers and cheating spouses, but with some timer tweaking Poke could become a legitimately useful “Getting Things Done” style tool.