Eagerly awaiting more details to emerge of the Lumia 929? Leakster 'Falorin' has you covered over on our community forum. A new photo of the unannounced Windows Phone in white has been leaked (see above for previously released render), as well as some information on the size of the battery. You're looking at an impressive 2510mAh power plant.
Falorin also lightly touches on a mid to late December release and states the white variant is matte, just like its black sibling. Should you be hoping to snatch up the white version, it's believed to be the limited option so we'll have to see just how easy it is to purchase. See below another shot of the Lumia 929:
We'll accept the above as this is the same lucky leakster who was able to publish a quick hands-on of the Lumia 929 (now pulled), as well as showing exactly what the camera can do with a sample photo. Should you require a friendly reminder, the device is expected to feature a 5-inch, 1080p display. This display will be joined by 2GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage and a Snapdragon 800 processor

Seasons is a relatively new infinite runner game for our Windows Phones. You play the role of Ezra, a warrior who is in the middle of a heated battle with his brother Aton. You have to help Ezra race across the land, navigating him past various obstacles along the way.
Game play is not unlike other running games and graphics are well done. The storyline does get lost after the title scenes but is replaced by a fast paced, challenging game. You jump, slide and punch your way through obstacles to see how far you can run.
Add magic attacks, power-ups, multi-player support and the ability to fly and Seasons comes across as an attractive Windows Phone game, well worth a try.
The main menu for Seasons has options to play the game, purchase upgrades for your character, view your gaming achievements and access the game’s options. Gaming options allow you to set your screen name, mute the sounds and turn on the multiplayer mode. With multiplayer mode turned on your Windows Phone will be detectable for the local, multiplayer game.
When you first hop into the game, Seasons will walk you through a brief tutorial covering gaming controls. Your player will be constantly running and you control his avoidance maneuvers by a series of swipes; swipe up to jump, swipe down to slide and slide forward to punch.
As you avoid obstacles and progress through the game, you can collect leaves that can be used to purchase upgrades and magical items to help your character survive longer on his run. Items such as a magnet that will draw all the leaves to your position or the snatcher that is used in the multi-player game to rob your opponent of leaves.
The game screen has your distance and leaf count displayed in the upper right corner. Any magical items in your inventory will be displayed along the right side and bottom of the screen. A fly button rests in the bottom right corner of the screen.
Once you have traveled a set distance, your character will get the ability to fly. The flight mode will transition your character between the game’s different environments. As you soar through the clouds you’ll need to dodge boulders that are mysteriously flying the friendly skies as well. You control your flight elevation through swipes as well and after a short distance of flight, Ezra will gently glide back to the ground with a new environment to race across.
The multi-player mode is done over local Wi-Fi and has you racing against your opponent to see how far you can survive. Your player is running in the foreground while your opponent can be seen in the background running the course.
You also have a combat aspect to the multi-player mode in that you can use your magic to foul up your opponent. Your available magical items will be displayed along the bottom of the screen. The multi-player mode tests your multi-tasking skills in that you have to avoid all the obstacles as well as handle the combat aspects of the game.
The downside to the multi-player game is that game play doesn't give you enough time to search, host and settle into the two player game before tossing obstacles your way. It would be nice if once both players are connected, a countdown would sound and then you start game play.
Seasons is a decent infinity runner game and while graphics are nice, the game screen is zoomed in fairly close. This minimizes your reaction time to obstacles making it rather difficult to keep up with the pace of the game. This isn’t a major issue when you first start your run when the pace is more gingerly. However, the longer your run, the quicker the game pace becomes and reaction time gets tight. If you look away for just an instance you may find Ezra running head on into a boulder. I wouldn’t mind seeing the game view zoomed out just a little bit to give players a fighting chance.
Graphics are nice, game play challenging and the multi-player modes lets Seasons stand out a little from the other infinite runner games in the Store. There is a free trial version available with the full version of Seasons running $.99. You can find Seasons here in the Windows Phone Store. It’s available for both Windows Phone 8 and 7.x devices.
Update: While the game is listed and will load on Windows Phone 7.x devices, the game does not run properly. As noted by the developer in the comments below, an update to enable the Windows Phone 7.x version of the game is in the works and should be available next week.

For the past several years, I chased after an Android future that never really materialized. I went through a number of Android convertible tablets (like the Transformer TF101 and TF300), and I tried Webtop on my Motorola phones as a full PC in a Lapdock. Android came very close, but I kept feeling like the devices were coming up just a bit short. When Microsoft's Surface RT came out, I watched closely but was turned off by the steep price. A year later, when prices finally started to come down, I bought one from Craigslist.
Android devices never gave me the confidence to travel without a laptop. They were inherently limited by the fact that they had evolved from a mobile OS that wasn’t designed to do heavy word processing or render web-based apps and sites in full desktop mode.
Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, famously said, “You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those things are probably not gonna be pleasing to the user.” However, Surface RT was a different story. In fact, I've increasingly been using Surface RT more than any of my Android devices. Here are five reasons why.

1. Microsoft reimagined the OS

Windows 8 wasn’t a mature mobile OS, but the interface leverages mobile touch devices in a form that follows function. iOS and Android both took a classic icon-based desktop design, shrunk it down to smartphones, and then expanded it to run on larger tablets. Microsoft reimagined the OS to work around the device. Gestures take some practice to master, but they make navigation more intuitive. Windows 8 on a touch device gets out of your way. The actions become natural to interact with apps, to navigate through the OS, and to organize and customize the platform.
I recently talked to someone who said that when they go back to their non-touch Windows desktop, they find themselves reaching out to perform touch actions. I found the same thing when returning to Android tabs after using Surface RT. When you miss features that are absent, something is done right.

2. Surface RT has a native interface for productivity

The Classic desktop is powerful. You can’t run traditional x86 code, but that may not be such a disadvantage. With Office and a full desktop version of IE, plus all of the traditional apps, accessories, logs, control panels, and services as Windows, Surface RT becomes an ideal traveling companion for productivity. The ability to drop into a native interface that is keyboard- and mouse-oriented gives Surface RT a huge advantage over Android and iOS for basic, traditional productivity tasks. You don’t have to find touch-oriented workaround solutions to cut and paste, drag and drop, manipulate the file system, input text, mouseover, and point, because it's all natively supported.

3. The Modern experience is improved in Windows 8.1

Windows 8.1 has improved the Modern experience tremendously. Apple and Microsoft both played with gadgets and widgets that are designed to bring a mobile-like experience to the desktop. The reason smartphones and tablets are popular with business users is because of the excellent digital assistant utility of those devices. Notifications and alerts (for calendars and tasks), instant access to contacts, and the ability to call up maps and navigation utilities -- these and other features are a traditional strength of tablets and smartphones and a liability for PCs. Business users would love to have those features consolidated in one device, but to gain one, the sacrifices on the other have remained too great. Surface RT goes a long way to address that. With Windows 8, I complained that the Classic desktop was used as a crutch too often. However, Windows 8.1 starts to bring Modern into the foreground of the experience, with more time spent in full-featured mobile apps.

4. Refresh and restore with greater ease

Surface RT refresh and restore are like a reset on Android or iOS. Windows on Intel is still vulnerable to all classic Windows issues, meaning that you may find yourself far away from home with a crippled OS and no reinstall media, no keys, and unable to recover. If something goes wrong, recovering the exact state may be difficult or impossible on a traditional PC, but it's far easier on ARM-based devices, including Surface RT. On the other hand, with a full desktop browser, things that have to wait until you're back at a regular PC on other ARM devices can be done immediately in the Surface RT Classic desktop. Google Drive, Dropbox, social media sites, blogs, and many online apps work on Surface RT just like a regular Windows PC rather than as a crippled mobile site or by the unreliable method of rendering a“mouse and pointer”-oriented site in desktop mode on a mobile browser.

5. The general freedom of an NT OS is baked into Surface RT

Surface RT offers the basic open freedoms of Windows. While you can’t install Classic apps, use alternate markets, or sideload apps, much of the general freedom of an NT OS is baked into Surface RT. You can browse networks and copy and manipulate files as much as you'd like. You can launch files or apps multiple ways and directed to multiple destinations. Peripheral support on Surface RT is also unmatched by Android or iOS, including keyboards, mice, joysticks, external drives, and (most significantly for me) printers. I’ve tried countless cloud printing solutions on iOS and Android, and they’ve all been unreliable and difficult to configure. Surface RT doesn’t support every Windows printer, but when it works, it's just like setting up one in Windows -- comfortable, familiar, and reliable. If you can’t print, you’ll probably find that your hotel’s business center or a Kinkos will take your SD card, load your document onto their PC, and print it out for you with very little hassle. Furthermore, the built-in USB will take a thumb drive or any size external hard drive. I’ve even hooked up an external USB DVD drive.
It isn’t that Android can’t do some of these things, it's that it can’t deliver all of these things as consistently or as well. Android still has a tremendous advantage as a leisure content consumption platform, which is why it's so popular on the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire. If that's what you're looking for in a mobile device, Surface RT may disappoint you. But if you want a hybrid device that places an emphasis on productivity in a corporate environment, neither iOS or Android come close to the solution that Surface RT offers.
Do you agree or disagree? Share your opinion in the discussion thread below

For those Android users lucky enough to have already received Android 4.4 KitKat on their preferred device, changing the default SMS app is possible, but very hidden.
After installing another SMS app you might be prompted by the app to set it as the default SMS provider. Doing so will allow the app to alert you to new messages, and handle any outgoing messages you compose via another app.
There are times when you either dismiss the prompt on accident, or you're not prompted at all, and thankfully Android 4.4 KitKat includes a system setting to change the default SMS app. Here's where to find it:

• Launch the Settings app on your device, and then tap on "More..." under the Wireless & Networks.

• The second option will then be "Default SMS App." Selecting it will present you with a list of all installed apps that are capable of being set as your default app.

• Select the app you want and go back to messaging away.

On one hand it makes sense why the SMS setting is under Wireless & Networks, since SMS is handled by the network. But on the other hand, I don't really understand it's placement. If anything it should have it's own listing under the Device section in the Settings app.

The social network giant Instagram, a company recently acquired by Facebook, is rumored to have a private messaging system incorporated sometime in an update before the end of this year. With the company just recently applying videos a few months ago, looks like the next step is  having the users being able to directly contact each other.
I for one don’t think this is a great move. I think part of the reason that plenty love Instagram is how basic and simple it is compared to Facebook and others. I feel adding messaging into it will just start turning it into another mini Facebook of sorts. Either way, it looks like it’s going to be implemented no matter what our idea on it is.
What do you guys think, any Instagram users out there happy that this is coming? Or would you rather have it be left out and keep Instagram the way it is?
source: GIGAOM