No-contract Windows Phone 8.1 Nokia Lumia 635 for AT&T and T-Mobile available for pre-order from Microsoft

Microsoft has begun taking pre-orders for the AT&T and T-Mobile Nokia Lumia 635. The budget smartphone is one of the first Windows Phone smartphones to ship with Windows Phone 8.1.

Nokia's entry-level Lumia 520/521 has been the most successful Windows Phone smartphone. The budget handset is offered pre-paid from carriers like T-Mobile and AT&T in the U.S. The handset can be purchased for well below $100 and offers users a Windows Phone smartphone that offers some impressive specs and features at a very affordable price and no contract.

The smartphone can also be upgraded to the upcoming Windows Phone 8.1 OS; we created a guide in case you're looking to try out Windows Phone 8.1 on your current Windows Phone 8 smartphone.

If you were interested in what is sure to be another big hit for Nokia, the Microsoft Store is now taking pre-orders for the T-Mobile and AT&T Nokia Lumia 635. Microsoft hasn't revealed just when those pre-orders will ship, but considering Windows Phone 8.1 is expected to be released in the coming weeks, an official launch can't be far off.

The Nokia Lumia 635 features a 4.5-inch 480 x 854 Gorilla Glass 3 ClearBlack display with a pixel density of  218 pixels per inch (ppi). It's powered by a 1.2 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, Adreno 305 GPU (graphics processing unit), and 512 MB of RAM. It has 8 GB of internal storage.

The Nokia Lumia 635's camera capabilities include a 5-megapixel rear camera that can record 720p HD video. Its removable 1830 mAh battery will provide up to 14 hours of talk time and up to 648 hours of standby time. The  dimensions of the 635 are 129.5 x 66.7 x 9.2 mm, 78.5 cc (5.10 x 2.63 x 0.36 in) and it weighs 134 g (4.73 oz).

The Nokia Lumia 635 also benefits from having a 4G LTE radio, which will allow users to access AT&T and T-Mobile's 4G networks.

Interested customers can pre-order the no-contract AT&T Nokia Lumia 635 from Microsoft for $99, while the T-Mobile Nokia Lumia 635 is priced a little higher at $129. We'll keep you updated once we hear any information on an expected ship date.

Fire OS vs. Android: Can Amazon’s new Fire Phone justify its ostentatious price tag?

Everyone has been wondering what Amazon would do when it finally got into the smartphone game, and now we can stop wondering — it’s the Fire Phone. Unimaginitive name aside, this is Amazon’s attempt to expand its custom Android build (called Fire OS) from tablets to phones, which keeps Amazon’s content and shopping experience in your pocket all day. The smartphone’s specs are high-end, but it’s the experience that matters most. The $200 on-contract price tag is a premium price point for a smartphone – does Amazon’s first foray into Android phones justify that price?

If you’ve never spent time with a Kindle Fire tablet, you might not even realize that Fire OS is a version of Android. There are still hints of the little green robot peeking through Amazon’s tough gunmetal gray Fire OS theme. However, one aspect of Android you won’t find on the Fire Phone is the part everyone associates with Android — there are no Google apps or services. Amazon is forking Android for each of its devices, usually grabbing one of the newer versions of Google’s software from the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) when the time comes to develop. The open source build of Android comes with none of Google’s framework built-in because those parts are proprietary. That’s fine, and maybe even preferable for Amazon’s purposes.

When you buy a Fire Phone, you get Amazon’s services in place of Google’s. That means no Chrome, Play Store, Google Play Music, Google Drive, or Gmail. Instead you get Silk Browser, Amazon Appstore, Cloud Player, Cloud Drive, and Amazon’s generic email client. Depending on how deeply embedded you are in Google’s ecosystem, that might not be the end of the world.

Since Amazon is using Android as the base of its platform, the apps in the Appstore are just Android apps with a few small tweaks for Amazon’s distribution system and DRM. However, just because developers can put their apps on Amazon doesn’t mean they will. That might be the biggest issue with the Fire Phone as a premium device — the Amazon Appstore can’t hold a candle to Google Play. The Appstore only has fifteen of the top twenty free Android apps and games, and just nine of twenty top paid apps and games.

Amazon is doing much better when it comes to other types of content. Fire OS has built-in support for Amazon’s video library, which you still can’t get on regular Android devices. There is also a vast selection of music with cloud storage. However, Google now has an excellent subscription music service in Play Music. If you want to read on a smartphone, which isn’t really ideal, the Kindle ecosystem built into the Fire Phone is far superior to Google Play Books.

Amazon spent a large part of its event talking about how its massive selection of products would tie into the Fire Phone via Amazon Firefly. This is a software feature that uses the camera to instantly ID products and link you to them on Amazon. It can also figure out music and video content for you. It’s undeniably neat, but you have to wonder how much use it will get. Similar apps and services already exist for Android, though in a more limited fashion. Will Firefly be a killer feature or just a gimmick? Time will tell.

There is no analog in Google’s Android for Amazon’s head-tracking “Dynamic Perspective” tech. The company is promising a more immersive shopping and gaming experience that lets you change the view perspective simply by moving your head. If it works, that’s a good thing. If not, you might wish Amazon had skipped the quartet of IR-sensitive cameras and kept the price lower. Mayday is also unique, and the ultimate mom-friendly feature. Tap this one button and you get instant live support for your Fire Phone.

Amazon is trying to get away from selling devices so cheaply that it eats all the profit, as it does with the Fire tablets. The Fire Phone is being sold in a very traditional way on AT&T with a two-year contract (it’s $650-750 without one). The retailer is probably making money on every device instead of just hoping it hooks more consumers of its content with a cheap device. The free year of Amazon Prime does sweeten the deal, but more capable devices like the Galaxy S5 and LG G3 are selling for the same up-front price. Amazon might be paddling upstream here.

Apple Recalls Unsafe IPhone Adapters That Overheated ...

Smartphones: Have They Become an Addiction?

From the moment people wake up in the morning, they are attached to their phones. They are constantly surfing the web sharing videos, posting pictures, texting and updating their status on social media. According to International Digital Times, a report from Locket; an app that gives users a personalized lockscreen according to their habits and interests, individuals check their smartphones more than 100 times a day, and many of them will accept that they are addicted to their phones.

Smartphones are mostly used for checking social media and texting, not making calls. According to Tech Radar, making calls on these cellphones is the fifth most popular use of the device. The need to be connected through social media is very important, especially among teenagers and young adults. Users of smartphones feel socially disconnected if they cannot relate to topics talked about over Facebook and Twitter accounts. People constantly share videos that go viral, trending memes and hashtags over the internet.

Smartphones have also become an addiction because they give people what they need right in the palms of their hands. Many individuals’ use their phones as an alarm clock, making it the first object that they use it the morning and the last one that is seen before heading to bed. Many users download applications to get notifications on the latest news, stay up to date on what their friends are doing, and even share their location. Users also use it as their primary navigation system, and many do not even own a watch anymore as their phone can give them the time with just a swipe or click of a button.

In addition, smartphones have trained people’s brains. A person can set their social media accounts to make a noise or vibrate every time someone comments, or likes a picture or status. Emails are constantly popping up on the screen, and even a small light blinks when there is a notification pending. This is similar to Pavlov’s dog experiment. The scientist noticed how his dogs salivated every time they saw food, and conditioned them to learn that every time he wore a lab coat or rang a bell, food would be on its way. This is comparable to how smartphones are constantly giving people the satisfaction that if it blinks or makes a noise, something is waiting and they must check it.

People are also stimulated by the likes and comments other users make on their social media accounts. It gives them a sense of gratification that others are interested in their daily lives. This makes users want to constantly check their phones and get involved through social networks. In a mini questionnaire to users of smartphones given through Facebook, replies were seen posted within the first hour. Individuals expressed how they use their cellphones within just a few minutes of waking up to check text messages and social media accounts. Smartphones have become such an addicting device that many people cannot even fathom that thought of not having theirs with them at all times. Antonio Marquez, a Galaxy S3 owner, even expressed that his smartphone is his truly companion in life. The dependency people have on their smartphones truly shows how addicting these devices have become.

Android owners still face risk of Heartbleed bug

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THE Heartbleed bug that has been causing security nightmares for IT professionals — and may have been used by the National Security Agency to enable snooping — is present on specific versions of the Android operating system, according to Google.

ISSUES: Heartbleed bug causes serious woes

In a blog post, Google product manager Matthew O’Connor details the Google services that are susceptible to the Heartbleed bug, which allows malicious interception of encrypted user data.

The good news is that the vast majority of Google services you probably use every day — mail, maps and search — are either immune to the bug or have already been patched.

Warning ... if you have an old Android phone, Google says you could be at risk of the Heartbleed bug.

The bad news is that there’s a version of Android that’s specifically still vulnerable to the bug. If you’re running a handset on Android 4.1.1, it needs patching to overcome the issue.

O’Connor notes that “patching information for Android 4.1.1 is being distributed to Android partners”, but there’s a significant issue here for Australian Android users.

Still at risk ... here’s a version of Android phone that’s specifically still vulnerable to the heartbleed bug. Source:Supplied

If you are on an older Android handset running Android 4.1.1, it’s not a matter of being able to download the patch yourself. It would have to pass certification from both the handset manufacturer and the carrier in order to ensure that the patch doesn’t break other functionality or adversely affect the network it’s running on.

That’s typically a very slow process, and one that historically hasn’t been followed up for many Android handsets in Australia which are left to linger on older Android versions.

While outside the power user set you’re not likely to run a server on your Android handset, it’s still a significant worry, because a handset could be sent to a web site running malicious code, and through that give away personal data.

Google’s own statistics suggest that around 34 per cent of Android handsets are on “Android 4.1.x”, but it doesn’t differentiate between the potentially compromised 4.1.1 version and the safe 4.1.2 release.