Photo apps come along almost daily and I enjoy trying all the different filters and features. Momentsia is refreshingly-different and along with Instagram, it's my my favourite photo app of the ...er, moment!

Momentsia is actually a photo-collage maker and available in both iPad and iPhone versions. And it's so simple to use that you hardly need me to show you how, but I'm going to!

'Use the buttons along the bottom to select a collage design from two to fifteen coloured tiles, select a tile by tapping on it, point your device at the subject and tap the tile again to take the photo. Next, drag the photo to crop or pinch to zoom it if desired and repeat the process until all the tiles are full. To use existing photos, hold a tile down to bring up your Camera Roll. Finally, share to your preferred social network or save it!'

The app is not going to bog you down with the same filters that you'll find on most other photo apps, and for me, that's the appeal. It's fun putting the photos together and sharing your adventures, and that's the way photo apps should be.

It’s January 30^th and why is that a significant date to the World in 2013? It's a month past the use-by date on the turkey leftovers and three weeks since the hangovers and maxed-out credit cards of the CES Vegas jaunt. But remember this day because it belongs to Research In Motion (who now call themselves Blackberry) and the official launch of the new Blackberry 10!

In a multi-location event that was staged in New York and beamed to press conferences in Toronto, London, Paris, Dubai, Johannesburg, Jakarta and Delhi, Blackberry's chief executive Thorsten Heins took to the platform amidst rapturous applause and hair clippings (these from a guy from the Blackberry fan site ‘Crackberry’who had vowed to not cut his hair until the new BB handsets hit the market.)

I guess that beats queuing for a couple of freezing nights outside an Apple store.

Both the Q10 (Q for Qwerty) and Z10 release dates were announced (UK tomorrow from all the usual providers, next month for Canada and March for the US) but it’s the Z10 model that most people will be interested in. Can it rival the iPhone or Samsung Galaxy S3 in terms of looks, style and performance? As soon as I get mine I will let you know but, in the mean time, here are the stats:

The BlackBerry Z10 specifications

Size (L x W x D)

130mm x 65.6mm x 9mm

Display

4.2”, four-point multitouch LCD display, 1280 x 768 resolution at 356dpi, touch on lens (Gorrilla Glass?)

Software

BlackBerry 10 OS

Memory

2GB RAM, 16GB Flash, hot-swappable Micro SD slot (up to 32GB)

Processor

Dual core 1.5 GHz

Battery life

Talk time:

Up to 10 hours on 3G

Standby time

Up to 305 hours on 3G, up to 316 hours on 2G

Audio playback

Up to 60 hours

Video playback

Up to 11 hours

Camera

8MP rear-facing camera, autofocus, 5x digital zoom, 1080p HD video recording, 2MP front-facing camera, 3x digital zoom, 720p HD video recording

GPS

Assisted, autonomous, and simultaneous

Bluetooth

Bluetooth 4.0 low energy

Wi-Fi

802.11 a/b/g/n enabled, 4G mobile hotspot

Advanced sensors
Assisted, autonomous and simultaneous GPS accelerometer, magnetometer, proximity, gyroscope, ambient light sensor

Earlier this week Twitter, the micro blog site, launched Vine, the micro video site. Currently only available for iOS via the App Store, it allows users to record six second looping videos (think animated gifs, only longer) and share them with the online World.

Believe me, when I say that Vine will become as essential to your daily life as Twitter already is, and Dom Hofmann, co-founder of Vine sums up the appeal perfectly in two sentences:

"Posts on Vine are about abbreviation — the shortened form of something larger.

"They're little windows into the people, settings, ideas and objects that make up your life."

So there. It's an abbreviation! Much in the same way that Twitter is an abbreviation of Blogger or Tumblr, Vine is an abbreviation of YouTube or Vimeo. Vine also holds up well as a stand alone social network with thousands, and soon no doubt millions, of videos just waiting to be explored, liked, shared and commented on.

How videos are made on Vine (will they be called Vines?) are also really clever. Just place your finger on the screen and release when done, the progress bar will let you know how much time you have left. You will be offered the choice of sharing via Twitter and facebook, as well as a copy being saved to your iPhone's camera roll.

So what are you waiting for? Grab hold of your Vine and swing in to action!

Never seen a biplane hurtling toward you at 200 mph before? Me neither. Neither had the women behind the camera or the chap on the quad bike, but we all have now!

Spare pants at the ready!

Video courtesy of ThoseCrazyTexans (YouTube)

I find that the easiest way to review a product is to compare it to rival products already on the market, in this case I’m going with the Samsung Galaxy S3 and the HTC One X+. I might have chosen the Google Nexus 4 but it’s never in stock, and the new Blackberry is yet to be released.

Performance

Straight off the bat, I want to say that the iPhone 5 does not perform any better or worse than the Samsung Galaxy S3 or HTC One X+. In the same way that my BMW does not drive any better or worse than an Audi or Volkswagon. (Except maybe in the snow!) Some readers might argue the quad core ARM Cortex-A9 processor in the Samsung beats the Nvidia Tegra 3 quad inside the HTC, or they both lord it over the iPhone’s dual-core A6 chip but the truth is, all three’s engines are so advanced that any slight difference in performance is hardly noticeable, if it’s noticeable at all. Geeks have clocked the HTC’s chip speed at 1.7GHz, the Samsung’s at 1.5GHz and the iPhone at 1.2GHz. But like I said, you will not notice any difference between either phone.

Styling and Construction

The iPhone 5’s outer shell is constructed from aluminium and glass, and it’s so jaw-droppingly beautiful to look at and use, it actually turns heads. The styling is spot-on, but at over £120 more for the 16GB model than the other two, it had to be. I’m not saying that the other two look or feel cheap but they do have plastic bodies. I hugely prefer the look and feel of the iPhone.

Display

If size matters, the HTC has a 4.7 inch screen, the Samsung’s screen is 4.8 inch and both boast 1280x720 pixel resolution, super AMOLED Corning Gorilla Glass 2 displays. Apple’s is a 4 inch IPS panel, which stands for In-Plane Switching technology, giving it a 1,136 x 640 resolution on their new Retina Display. It’s not better or worse than super AMOLED, it’s just a different technology. By increasing the height and not the width, texts can still be sent from the iPhone 5 with one hand, although I don’t recommend it. Not that the phone’s surface is slippery, but it’s too expensive to risk it slipping with a single grip. Needing two hands to send a text might annoy some people, but all three screens, regardless of size, will take your breath away.

Storage

The IPhone comes in non-expandable 16GB, 32GB and 64GB variants, same as the S3, whilst the One X+ comes in 32GB or 64GB models. The S3 can be expanded by inserting a MicroSD card for up to 32GB extra space and a high capacity (SDHC) up to 64GB card. There’s no card slot on the One X+ or iPhone 5. My 16GB iPhone is actually enough for me, I can use The Cloud, my iPad, laptop or external hard drive for bulk storage. I like apps on my phone, but I don’t need to watch movies on it. But if I wanted to, it can hold about a dozen, depending on your apps, photos and music of course, so ample for most trips on public transport.

Operating System and Applications

Samsung uses Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with their TouchWiz tweak, the HTC uses the same but with their Sense version 4+, while the iPhone 5 has their new IOS 6. It’s like comparing Virgin Media to Sky, or Tesco to Sainsburys, it’s just your preference. Most designers build versions of their apps for both platforms, but slightly more choose Apple, at least for now.

The Verdict

To sum up, the iPhone 5 is as stunning to look at and as it is to use. And at 123.8 mm high, 58.6 mm wide and 7.6 mm deep, it still feels like a phone. But if you want to spend less, prefer Android, super AMOLED or expandable memory slots then get a Samsung or HTC but remember this …

Anything else is just not an iPhone. 

Winter's here and you have to buy this sucker! New Universe doesn't just bring you reviews on the gadgets that you want, sometimes it's gadgets that you just plain need.

The new year has arrived and so is the dreaded condensation. In my place with it's old double-glazed windows they literally run with water, often leaving pools on the window sills. If only there was a gadget that could replace the squeegy and sheets of Plenty ... Come in, Kärcher!

After my first use it was clear, (quite literally) that at £47 it was money well-spent. The KWV 50 Window Vac won't be consigned to just another gadget to use a handful of times before shoving in the garage, because it actually does what it promises. It sucks the water effortlessly from the windows, leaving them streak-free and virtually dry to the touch.

The technology used here isn't new or ground-breaking, it's a handheld, light weight vac with a rubber squeezy attachment on the end, so why has it taken so long for Kärcher, Black and Decker or any other manufacturer to bring one out? I hope they have a patent!

So give the neighbour's curtains something to really twitch about, get your Window Vac today!

Bloggers, website designers, YouTube Partners - You'll know how important it is to have an eye-catching banner, but there's no need to buy Photoshop in order to make one. Here's my pick of the best of the free, online banner makers, chosen for their ease of use, choice of options and the fact there's no need to enter any email addresses or other personal details.

Bannerfans

I usually head to Bannerfans first as it serves most of my needs, it allows me to upload my own background, or input my own dimensions, or use their preset sizes. If you don't upload your background, you can choose either a solid colour for your banner or to gradient between two colours for a professional look. A choice of basic borders can then be applied. They allow up to six lines of text per banner and there are several hundred fonts to choose from, all of which can be altered to your taste in the Shadows and Effects section, before downloading in your choice of format. It's a pretty good, all round banner maker but it's not perfect - you cannot download in transparency, plus I would prefer to have a gradient effect on the lettering to give that extra professional look, and I know there will be some people that may prefer to have to built in graphics to pick from, if that's the case then my next choice might be your answer.

Cool Text

Not a banner maker per se but I've included it as Cool Text has such an amazing array of preset logos and buttons, all highly customisable with just about every font ever invented. You can download your text and add to your own banner easily, especially as you can download with transparency! Some of the text is animated! The only drawback is that it only allows one line of text at a time, this is frustrating when you want to make a logo with a transparent background. It also will also give you an HTML code for your newly-created masterpiece, but only if you register, but you really should download it and upload it to your own hosting service, such as Photobucket instead.

Bannerbreak

Bannerbreak presently has around 50 preset banner backgrounds, diverse and well-designed, and are waiting for you to pick from one of fifty fonts to add your own personal text. Bannerbreak allows you to have that gradient effect on their lettering that I like, and you can have an HTML like without registration. The banners look great, but you cannot have more than one line of text, neither can you upload your own background. If you want to add some subtext, I suggest finishing your banner in Bannerfans.

Fiverr

If uniqueness is what you're looking for then head over to Fiverr, and for the paltry sum of $5 you can find thousands of designers who will happily design you a banner to your exacting requirements. We're big fans of the site, I highly recommend checking it out.

We've only got to wait another 30 days before we can finally get our hands on the new Blackberry phones, and yet more photos have been leaked to the web. 

Yesterday, Techcrunch published these clearer photos they lifted from www.n4bb.com  which are actually very similar to the publicity shots we already showed you in November. 

Look, I just want to say that I like Techcrunch a lot, they have a site that tech bloggers like myself can only dream of owning, but I hated the tone of their article:

In Case Anyone Cares? That's pretty unfair. Blackberry practically invented the smart phone and I agree with some of of the comments, their qwerty keyboard model looks outdated alongside the IPhone 5, the Samsung Galaxy S3 and Note 2.  

But remember back to that day in 2007 when the iPhone was launched, we all questioned the practicality of typing on a touch screen, and when Samsung launched their 5.2 inch phablet Note, we wondered how silly we would look when holding a massive phone to the side of our heads. 

Both were unfounded, and I would rather wait until I can actually get my hands on one before dismissing it out of hand.

When Apple launched the iPad Mini my first thoughts were: 'Cool! Apple are bringing out a smaller iPad! But it's going to be £100 cheaper than the iPad 4, and £100 more expensive than a Kindle Fire HD or Nexus 7, how's that going to work?'

 Priced at £269 for the 16GB version, will 7 inch tablet buyers choose it over cheaper competitors, and will it eat in to Apple's profits as buyers may choose the cheaper iPad Mini over the more expensive iPad 4?

The answers are Yes to both questions. I see more iPad Minis around than I do Kindle Fires or Nexus 7s and, according to Apple, sales of the full-sized iPad are only slightly down, but this is more than offset by the run away success of the Mini.

Performance
Surprisingly, the brand new device contains the old iPhone 4s's Dual Core A5 chip and, coupled with a paltry-sounding 512 MB of RAM you might now be dismissing the device out of hand. Especially when comparing to the more powerful-sounding NVIDUA Tegra 3 Quad Core processor which powers the Nexus 7. But dismiss it at your peril, let's not forget that the A5 chip is no slouch and that low-sounding amount or RAM is more than powerful-enough to cope with running all the apps that you desire. I can only guess that Apple choose the A5 over the A6 chip to keep the price low.

Styling and Construction
Apple could have just shrunk the size of the iPad by 2.2 inches and everyone would have been happy, but to take the easy option has never been company policy. The first thing I noticed about the iPad Mini is that it's seriously beautiful, front and back. Compared to the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire with their plastic bodies, it's back and sides are made from one sheet of aluminium, curved upwards to meet with a highly-polished chamfer edge before joining up with the screen. It feels light to hold and oozes quality from every angle. The modest width of 134.7cm means that you can type with both thumbs (although small hands might find this difficult) however I recommend resting your wrists on the desk as it feels awkward to balance the tablet in that way. Just a minor quibble, but I would have preferred the tablet to be slightly more weighty at the bottom.

Display
So that Apple could get a class-leading 7.9 inch screen size (almost an inch bigger than the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire) from such a small foot print, they drastically reduced the size of the borders on the two long sides. It may not boast the new Retina Display of the iPhone 5 or iPad 4 but it won't bother you at all, it's still stunning. Least we forget that at £269 for the 16GB model, it's £130 cheaper that the iPad with Retina, so something had to give.

Verdict
All Apple products are pleasing on the eye, great to hold and a pleasure to use, it goes without saying, but if I had to be critical I will mention the camera - a lack of a flash makes indoor shots look very grainy and also I want to mention the Smart Case. I know it's optional but it's really the best available, with it's magnetic edge and ability to fold as a stand, but at £32 it's easy money for Apple.

It may not be as cheap as it's competitors, it may be a whisker slower, or it's screen may have a few less dots to the square inch, but it's an Apple product and it's beautiful, where as the others are, quite simply, not.

Every blog or website needs a contact form and this easy method, using Google Docs will work on any platform, be it Blogger, Wordpress or whatever you use. Here's how to set up your own:

First, go to your Google Drive account and open the page. 

Next, click Create, located top left, then select Form, as shown below:

Now you can construct your personalized contact form simply, by changing the text. At the top where it says Untitled Form, change to something like Contact Us. Next, where is says Sample Question 1, put 'Your Name' and click Done. Next, change the text for Sample Question 2 to 'Your Email Address', then click Done.

Then, click Add Item at the top left of the page, then select Paragraph Text which will add a box for your visitors to leave their questions and enquiries.

Finally, click the More Actions tab located at the top right of the page, select Embed and then copy and paste the code wherever you need it, like a Blogger page. You can alter the width value if need be.

So, it's done and now you can await your responses! Each time a response is left, you will receive a notification email and the details will be entered on a spread sheet in Google Docs.

If you need assistance, leave your comment below and I will try to help; to keep up to date with future posts and tutorials, enter your email address in the section below.

Whoa there, don't buy that laptop, tablet or ultrabook just yet. If you've just bought one, I hope you kept the receipt, and kids, don't be surprised if that package under the tree vanishes overnight.

You will be thankful. let me introduce to you the newest offering from Lenovo, I give you the Ideapad Yoga 13 Ultrabook.

This is not a computer with an identity crisis, it knows exactly what it's supposed to be, it's a convertible ultrabook. Unlike it's rival, the Asus Transformer, it's screen does not detach to become a tablet, the Yoga's hinge allows the screen to rotate a full 360 degrees and thus can lay flat against the back of the machine.

When I saw how the the screen could be folded back to effectively form a tablet, I wondered about the keys, if they would suffer damage when the machine is laid flat on a surface. But I really shouldn't worry, the build quality of a Lenovo machine is second to none, and now they have the innovation to go along with it ... I'm salivating to get hold of one!

While I wait (Lenovo, I'm still waiting for one to review!) here are the specs and features as stated on their website, followed by their publicity shots:


• Up to 3rd gen Intel® Core™ i7 processor
• Up to Genuine Windows 8 Pro
• 13.3” HD+ (1600x900) IPS display with wide viewing angle; 16:9 widescreen
• Up to 8GB DDR3 memory, up to 256GB SSD storage
• Integrated Intel® HD 4000 graphics
• Integrated Bluetooth® and 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi connectivity
• USB2.0, USB3.0 connectors & 3in1 card reader
• Integrated 720p HD webcam
• Integrated stereo speakers
• HD graphics support & HDMI output
• Energy Management protects the long-term durability of the battery and uses advanced energy-saving technology to increase time spent between charges
• Rediscover your computer with access to a world of entertaining
and useful apps like Lenovo® Companion and Lenovo Support
• Intelligent Touchpad-optimized for the Windows 8 Metro interface
with easy scroll, zoom and rotate functions
• Lenovo® Motion Control lets you flip through photos & pages or
rewind/fast forward music & videos with simple gestures
• Lenovo® Transition automatically switches open applications like
Power Point to full-screen mode when the PC converts from
normal notebook to tent, stand or tablet modes
• Long battery life for extended use on the move; 8hrs
• OneKey™ Recovery makes data backup & recovery simple
• Share media on any device from anywhere through Lenovo Cloud
• World’s 1st multi-mode Ultrabook™ providing the ultimate flexibility
between work & play – use as a notebook, tablet, stand or tent
• Leather-touch palmrest for extra comfort
• AccuType keyboard with individual rounded keys for accurate
typing
• Only 16.9mm thick and 1.54kg in weight

Google launched their LG-made Nexus 4 handset in November, but despite little fanfare it's been sold out ever since. Why? Because it's too-good a phone to sell for so little money!

Visit Google Play today and you will be faced with the same screen that I've pasted above, stating that they are 'out of inventory' and that you should 'check back soon.' There's no option to reserve one so I'm checking back hourly. I really want this phone.

Early models were distributed to the major phone review websites who applauded the phone's looks, feel and usability, and all for a lot less money than the Samsung Gallaxy III or iPhone 5, and with similar specs. It seems many people are buying the unlocked handset and getting a sim-only deal, rather than the costly 24 month hand cuffs that come with other phones.

I would too, if only I can get hold of one!

But while we wait, as Google blame LG for lack of supply and LG blame them back for not anticipating the demand, enjoy some shots of this gorgeous-looking piece of kit from the Google Play website.