Hey– stop playing Temple Run 2 and dive into this week’s tech updates!

Speaking of phones, Nokia is doing research that has nothing to do with phones–yet.  Nokia received a grant from the European Union to research and develop a material called “graphene.”   Graphene is the hardest, thinnest and lightest material found by man. It is 300 times stronger than steel and measures one atom thick.  Could Nokia want to eventually create a smartphone out of this material?  As we all know, Nokia phones are very hard to damage.

Remember this date: Feb. 20 at 6 p.m. This could be the day that the PlayStation 4 is revealed. Sony has released a teaser video calling this, “The Future of PlayStation.”  Could it be the PS4, a new smartphone or even a new handheld?  Just wait until then.

Speaking of games, have you heard of the Ouya?  Well, it is the most successful project that was funded by Kickstarter.  It is an Android-based console that will now go on sale in June for $99.  GameStop, Best Buy, Amazon and Target will sell the system with one controller.  The system is an easy console to find indie games.  Developers say it is about as powerful as a PlayStation 2.

BlackBerry is back with two new phones.  First we have the BlackBerry Z10.  This is a full 4.2-inch touch screen device.  It also has WXGA HD screen resolution.  The phone design looks similar to the iPhone 5.  It has both a Micro-USB and Micro-HDMI ports.  The operating system is similar to Windows 8 in that you can swipe all the edges to do certain tasks or view open apps.  It sports an 8-megapixel camera as well as a 2-megapixel front-facing camera.  It will be available around April.

The other device, the BlackBerry Q10, is more of what we expect from the company.  It looks like the BlackBerry Bold with a 3.1-inch touch screen and a QWERTY keyboard.  Internally it has a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 Plus processor, 2GB RAM, and 16GB of internal storage.  It has a longer battery life than the Z10 and is also expected in April.

I hate those T-Mobile commercials saying that they have the largest 4G network. They do not have 4G LTE– it is basically super 3G.  That could change on March 27.  An alleged T-Mobile road map listed that the BlackBerry Z10, Samsung Galaxy Exhibit and Sonic 2.0 LTE were all being released on this date.  If this is true, then all major U.S. carriers would have 4G LTE.

“Hello, thank you for calling Dell services.”  Sound familiar?  Dell has announced that they have been taken private to avoid shareholder scrutiny.  Silver Lake has acquired Dell, along with a loan from Microsoft.  This means that hopefully Dell will become a better PC maker and better their customer services.  I have a Dell XPS 630i, and I have never had any issue for the five years I’ve owned it.

Come back next week for more Spec Tech.  My question this week is, “are you even still interested in BlackBerry and what they have to offer?” E-mail your answers to smsetser@valdosta.edu