On the course of working on the latest beta builds of Adobe Flash and Adobe AIR 2.5 for Android smartphones, Adobe dropped a tingling teaser. their FlashTime video chat app. Still not included in the beta software builds, the playfully named video chat runs real-time between two Nexus One phones on the video demo following the break.

FlashTime for Android is far from a finished product/service but it serves as a nice proof of the power of the Adobe’s platform. What can I say, I sure hope I see that P2PChatMobile.swf application freely running on Android smartphones out there.

Adobe Flash was designed to bring rich media content (eg. cool games and videos) to the web, it provided a medium for developers and designers to create amazing web content and deliver to multiple platforms.

By the very nature of it Flash based content would slow down a web page because it it using rich content. Now take this logic to Mobile. Mobi sites loaded faster because there was no rich content for mobile it would just use more bandwidth and was not feasible.

But now with Adobe looking at creating software that allows content to go to any platform the logical next step is to take rich content to Mobile.

If you are not stupid then you would already know that naturally a web mobile page will load slower if there is rich content on it. Alot of mobile phones come with a YouTube app, have you tried loading up a video on it? It’s really slow!

The idea is to get your head out your bum and realize that the early stages of any new development is always the shakiest. This is when the bugs get ironed out and when you start building on the development to create a master piece.

Adobe Flash on Mobile is exactly the same. Give the platform a chance and you will see objectively whether it is worthwhile or not.

Motorola is so keen on working on its upcoming devices that it seems to have forgotten about its currently available ones. According to James King, the company's European marketing director, it is not quite sure whether the MILESTONE will ever get the eagerly anticipated Android v2.2 update.

like many other Motorola MILESTONE owners, have been thinking that this update is in the oven and is coming any moment now. But apparently, the Motorola team hasn’t started working on it yet. As James King says, the decision whether the Motorola MILESTONE is getting a Froyo treatment or not has not been made yet. Here is James King’s post on Facebook:

Next European Milestone and 2.2 (Froyo). I have expressed over the last few days that the decision is pending. The team here has been collating key pieces of information and views from this community in the last month and providing input to relevant teams in Motorola so they are aware. I am pushing for that decision to be made as quickly as possible, and we can then all go from there. Some others ask why the decisions on upgrades take so long, and why does implementation then take much longer still. What I can say and have stated recently is that upgrades are not a walk in the park. Sure there are shortcuts that people can take, but when you have to integrate software to a specific hardware, then test it and integrate with third-party applications, let alone any innovation from ourselves, plus then get approvals to make this all official and safe… it’s is a big undertaking that requires planning and resource and third-party coordination to see this all through. As I say, once we have decision, we will inform. JK

So, if Motorola decides not to update their Android-based smartphone to the latest (so far) OS version, the company will lose plenty of its fans. This could also mean that the same scenario will repeat on and on with other (future) Motorola devices starring in the main role. That sounds like a serious turn-off to me. I think I’ll go for an HTC smartphone instead of Motorola’s next time I’m shopping Android.

Skype is now updated for iOS4 and supports multi-tasking. If this is not enough for you, then you should know Skype has no intention to charge you for 3G calls.

Skype for iOS4 allows the app to continue working while it's closed. You will be able to receive IMs and calls in background, even when your device is locked. All that means Skype is capable of multi-tasking for real (only on iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4).

Skype also announced that they have no intention to charge for Skype-to-Skype calls over 3G network. All calls over 3G are free for everyone.

To Get your Skype for iPhone, visit Apple's AppStore.

Whenever a new software keyboard comes out we hear the inevitable catchphrases of it being the best ever, of it being 'revolutionary', etc. Some of them turn out to be pretty good to be fair, but this latest effort, BlindType, actually looks like it might just live up to those buzzwords. The chaps behind it describe it as being 'extremely tolerant to typing errors' or in other words you can have the shakes and it will still throw out a passable sentence. Whatever their algorithm for predicting text is it looks to be bang on the money as you will see in the video below. BlindType gets its name from another feature, the ability to dynamically adjust to however the user is typing i.e. the size and orientation of the keyboard change to suit the user. Hence the name 'BlindType' in so far as it's meant to allow for blind operation.

BlindType is being submitted to the Android Market and Apple's App Store, however, whilst Android users can look upon getting this as a certainty iPhone users may not be so lucky. BlindType's designers have confirmed that they will require Apple's default button slate to be replaced. 

Nokia just announced their Q2 financial results. To summarize - sales are up, profits are down, shifting currency exchange rates didn't help and smartphones have sold more units and have gotten cheaper, compared to previous periods.

The net sales for the Nokia Corporation 10 005 million euro (12.842 billion US dollars) and the net operating profit is 660 million euro. Net sales are 1% higher than the year ago quarter and 5% higher the previous quarter. However, operating profit has fallen.
Looking at just the mobile phone division, it has net sales of 6 800 million euro (3% higher YoY and 2% higher QoQ) and 643 million euro operating profit - 16% down YoY and 23% down QoQ.
"Converged mobile devices" (that is smartphones and mobile computers) accounted for just over half of those sales. That's 12% more sales than converged devices managed in last year's second quarter.
This is likely due to the noticeable drop in the average selling price for smartphones - it's 143 euro (184 USD) for the second quarter of this year, down from 181 euro (232 USD) for last years Q2. That's a 21% drop. Feature phones have a mostly stable average selling price of 39 euro.
Nokia attributes the falling gross margins to "price pressure" in the high-end segment and depreciation of the euro. Industry-wide shortages of some components had a negative impact on sales and Nokia predicts those shortages will continue into the third quarter as well.
For much more numbers and details, check out the full report.

Yesterday it was the Curve 9300, today its the turn of the 9800. Yes that's right folks its time for another Blackberry handset to leak on video. The 9800 is RIM's forthcoming flagship and as yet the actual name of the device isn't known i.e. will it be the Bold 9800 or the Torch 9800, etc? At any rate today's video is a bit shorter than yeterday, coming in at just a minute and a half, but that's just enough time for us to see the Blackberry OS 6 boot sequence in all its primal glory. We also get the chance to see some web browsing on the device and there's some pinching and zooming to boot. Its not the first time the 9800 has been seen in the wild of course and going on previous leaks the specs list is said to include a 5 MP camera, 3.2 inch touchscreen with 360x460 resolution and support for 3G and WiFi. 

Check video Up

We have a little something thats You Need to see. It's a phone with a screen so gorgeous that it easily puts to shame the current best. Blacks are immensely deep, the colors are vivid and the viewing angles are mind-boggling. Here's it compared to the iPhone 4 (both screens set at maximum brightness):

samsung wave on left, iPhone 4 on Right!

That’s actually the Samsung Wave display up there. So which one is Better in your eyes point-of-view ??

it has a Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
resolution of 480 x 800 pixels, 3.3 inches  and its include Also

Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate
- Multi-touch input method
- Proximity sensor for auto turn-off
- Scratch-resistant surface
- TouchWiz UI 3.0
- Handwriting recognition
- Smart unlock & 5MP camera

A proper MeeGo device is still nowhere in sight, but the Aava phone is the next best thing, it's a developer platform, meaning intended mostly for MeeGo developers rather than customers, but it gives us a look at how the MeeGo OS and MeeGo-powered devices might look.

There’s a lengthy video review along with an extensive photo shoot of the Aava phone running MeeGo 1.1. A lot of the things aren’t working yet, but there’s still quite some time before the market launch…

Like I said, this Aava phone is not meant for consumers and it shows – many things (volume keys included) still aren’t working. The software needs plenty of work too – but the things that work look rather impressive.

The Aava phone is powered by the Moorestown platform with a 1.5GHz Intel Atom based processor – so, in terms of computational power it’s about equal to a netbook. The Firefox Mobile browser (ex Fennec) goes through the SunSpider JavaScript test in about 4.2 seconds, while a netbook running Chrome manages it in about 2 seconds (of course, Chrome is much faster than desktop Firefox, so it’s not really a fair comparison).

While promises of MeeGo are stealing all the spotlight, Maemo is not forgotten - certainly not by Opera. They've released an update for their Opera Mobile browser bringing it up to speed with the other platforms.

Sun Spider JavaScript benchmark results, possibly from the Nokia N900 (it doesn't say) and its 600MHz CPU
Opera Mobile 10.1 beta for Maemo brings faster JavaScript, geo-location support and power management support, among other things.

Last week, there was an unofficial port of the Opera Mobile 10.1 for Maemo, but this is the real deal. It's not complete yet and has some issues (check the Opera Labs post for more details) but the new version brings some shiny new features to the browser.
The JavaScript engine uses JIT, which is what practically every desktop browser other than IE uses to achieve their blazing speeds (the Android 2.2 Froyo browser too). Opera Mobile 10.1 for Maemo works on the Nokia N800 and N810, as well as the Nokia N900.
Geo-location on mobiles was limited to the iPhones and the Android phones, but Maemo users can get a piece of the action too. Geo-location is used for near-me-now types of searches and other things (if you've heard the phrase "location-based services", this is it, right there in the web browser). You can test how new feature works here or using Google's mobile page.
The power management support sounds good too, though Opera didn't share numbers on how it impacts the battery usage. You can get the Opera Mobile 10.1 beta for Maemo from the Opera Labs page. Don't forget to report any bugs you might find - it will help the developers iron out any issues they've missed for the final version of Opera Mobile 10.1.

we have a pair of independent leaks seemingly confirming that the second coming of Moto's QWERTY-sportin' Doer will be running Android 2.2 right out of the gate. Droid Life has a tipster that's apparently spent some quality time with the device, describing its keyboard as "phenomenal" and pointing out that it feels notably snappier than the original. The Froyo connection is reiterated by Phandroid's sources, which provide images of Verizon's device database indicating once again that Android 2.2 and Droid 2 will be an appropriately matched pair when the launch codes get entered (last mooted for August 12) and this thing finally hits retail.

Over the weekend, one of our fantastic readers had the opportunity to sit down for a few minutes with a semi-mysterious future Droid family member that is expected to drop in August, the Droid 2.  When I say “semi-mysterious” I’m simply referring to all of the questions surrounding the device and it’s operating system, Blur or no Blur, feel, weight, Froyo or no Froyo, etc.  From what he’s told us, a few of those questions should now be answered…

• Android 2.2 – The phone was definitely running Froyo as you can see from the screenshot above.  As expected, the phone with its 1.0GHz processor was “noticeably more responsive” than his D1, but could have had something to do with 2.2 as well.

• MotoBlur - The phone had the same Blur skin that we have on the Droid X.  You can actually see that the notification bar is the same as the DX if you look closely.  He mentioned only 5 screens though which matches the current Froyo launcher, but had the new arrow drawer button with the persistent phone and contact buttons a la Blur.  He also pointed out the bundle of bloatware including the Blockbuster app, mobile hotspot and all of the Blur widgets.

• Keyboard - He had nothing but great remarks for the keyboard.  In fact, these comments stuck out above the rest especially when the word “phenomenal” dropped.  Sounds like Motorola fixed one issue at least.

• Feel/Look/Weight - Overall feel simply reminded him of the Droid 1.  Same weight, same screen, just a new snazzier silver color and a “grill” on the back.  Must have meant the speaker which is no longer gold.

So does this answer a few of our questions?  Maybe.  The one thing we all really wanted to know was whether or not the phone would actually release with Android 2.2 on it.  That answer should be pretty close to a definitive “yes” at this point.  To see the D2 running Froyo that has already been masked with the new Blur means we’re close.  This also means that Motorola and Verizon should be on schedule to deliver it to the DX and D1.

It’s too bad they couldn’t have slapped an HDMI port in there and a front facing camera and we’d have arguably the new king of Android.

Google warned the users that the Nexus One was approaching the end of its days. Sure enough, Google's official online store for the phone now just shows an ominous message that "the Nexus One is no longer available for purchase directly" from the company which leaves users had to go to any other retrial online store or vodafone UK to order this phone But How google sold 500K unit in this short time. So, on that note, Nexus One: for your straight-shooting stock Android ways and your unlocked radio, you'll be dearly missed -- and we hope your legacy lives on, even though your retail model does not.

We have just got some News that Nokia is now getting a New Community project by Nokia developers for making a New Mobile phone from the Nseries Family but that can Take Nokia to the top Again. The New Phone will have a Full QWERTY Keyboard and 8MP camera with Dual-LED flash, a 4.0 TFT Capacitive touch screen and with Symbian^4 on it. All that beside the Default Features as Bluetooth 3.0 + EDR, WiFi 802.11b/g, A-GPS, FM Radio, USB-on the-GO and Many Other Features that will make this phone in the top for All People who looking for High-Performance Full-option Mobile Phones. But we don’t have any confirmation about the CPU or RAM of this Device but I thought it will have 512MB RAM, 256MB ROM and an ARM-Snapdragon 1GHZ processors. 

Wait for Our Full Review of the Upcoming N9

Apple may just have posted its best ever earnings, but it's not all good news on the financial front over at Cupertino. The ongoing 'Antennagate' debacle has resulted in the company promising free bumpers to its iPhone 4 customers, a move that will cost Apple somewhere in the region of $175 million. That's the figure from Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's CFO, who said that's how much the free bumpers would cost.

"We will be deferring revenue corresponding to the value of the cases that have yet to be ordered by or delivered to eligible customers under this offer as of the end of the September quarter. We expect the cost to be $175 million and we expect the September quarter deferral to be recorded as revenue in the December quarter."

$175 million is a huge amount of money, but it's dwarfed by how much analysts estimate a full recall would have cost Apple ... around $1.5 billion, or 8.5 times the cost of the bumpers.  Even so Apple are unlikely to pleased at having to spend $175 million, especially when it appears many, perhaps even a majority, of customers are still not satisfied. 

The Droid X has not had the best of starts in life what with some people reporting problems with its screen. Essentially some screens are experiencing flickering and banding issues and now Verizon have issued a statement on the matter in the hopes of taking it head on.

"Verizon Wireless and Motorola are aware of a very small number of DROID X units that have experienced a flickering or banding display. Motorola has resolved the issue and is continuing to ship the phones. Any consumer who experiences a flickering or banding display should contact a Motorola customer support center or Verizon Wireless."

Short and sweet to say the least. It's interesting to note the phrase 'very small number of DROID X units' because the statement itself doesn't actually elucidate that point, however, Engadget are reporting that the actual figure is somewhere in the region of 0.1% of Droid X's experiencing these screen problems. At any rate the statement claims Motorola have fixed the issue and that customers with this problem should contact either Motorola or Verizon. Case closed (hopefully). 

RIM's forthcoming Blackberry Curve 9300 has been putting on a show for the cameras again, but this time in much more detail. The 9300 isn't exactly anything to get terribly excited about in terms of specs, it is after all essentially your bog standard Blackberry with 3G thrown into the mix, but it should at least be a bit less expensive than the top tier models so no doubt it will attract its share of fans. The 9300 has been out and about before, but usually in blurry pictures. Well here we have it on video for a glorious 7 minutes thanks to the chaps at Mainguyen, a Vietnamese mobile site. The video is pretty good quality and crucially offers a fairly extensive look at the handset and confirms some of the specifications that have already come to light such as the 3.2 MP camera. The video is, as you would expect, in Vietnamese, but you can still get a good feel for the device just by watching

Apple announced iPhone 4G on june,2010 and for the first time Apple has changed the iPhone Design or as I can say (Famous Design) and made it different in a little strange way as some popel think its like a Cheap Samsung but one of its Great features that Attract Apple fans & Consumers is the 5MP camra and the A4 CPU 1Ghz the same CPU that apple has put on the iPad.

The iPhone 4G is a new product in Apple world and they sold about 2M Device until now and still selling. But is it great as people is buying it or just because many people are just used to buy any New phone that come out to be Up-to-date with the latest technology ONLY . But to be True 256MB Ram & 1Ghz CPU can do a lot of Multi-tasking on the 3.5” HDNA Capacitive Touch Screen . But Should I buy an iPad or get the iPhone 4G!!?

Ans: if you want something is in the same performance of the ipad but has two cameras and can be used like a Mobile phone and fit in your pocket…Get an iPhone 4G and Don’t worry about the Antenna problems it will be solved on the OS 4.01 as it’s a Software issue Not Hardware issue (According to Apple)!

Samsung are on a mission to save your screen! The South Korean manufacturer is working on a new type of Super AMOLED display, one that will be very tough to break. OLED-Display.net are reporting that within the next two years Samsung aim to have in place ultra-rugged, nigh on unbreakable smartphone screens shipping out to OEMs. Interestingly the report doesn't make mention of the digitizer. Why is that interesting? Well the digitizer is the part of the display that registers touch input when you make contact with the screen.  At any rate you can get an idea of just how tough these new displays will be from the video below. Two screens, one ordinary and one super tough, are put through their paces using a mallet and there's no prizes for guessing which one passes muster.

The new screens use plastic AMOLED panels with polyamide protective film. It seems this works well enough.

Samsung expects to push the new AMOLED into mass-production within the next two years.

University and Nokia Research Center, Palo Alto, have created and released a new, open-source digital photography platform, called Fcam, (short for 'Frankencamera'). It allows developers to create new capabilities for digital cameras, and users to take advantage of a whole new class of photography apps. The platform is available as a free download for the Nokia N900, starting today, at https://garage.maemo.org/projects/fcam/.

Fcam allows the creation of new digital camera applications that help users overcome some of the shortcomings of their devices or create interesting new types of imagery. It is part of the Camera 2.0 project, created in collaboration between Nokia, Stanford, and other partners.

Nokia Fellow Kari Pulli said: “The N900 is a camera phone, but it runs a version of Linux almost as complete as that installed on personal computers”. For this reason, it was chosen as the host device for the Fcam platform.

The researchers have already created a series of new photography apps for the platform, some of which will also be free to download. These three will be available from the Fcam project page:

Fcamera is an example camera application that uses Fcam libraries and drivers. It is released in source code to serve as a starting point for programmers to create their own camera applications.

Low-light Assistant helps in situations where there is not enough light to avoid the choice between a quick exposure that will look sharp, but dark and noisy, and a long exposure that will have enough light, but likely be blurry. Instead, the app captures two images in rapid succession and then automatically combines them, resulting in a photo that is both bright and sharp.

HDR Capture helps in situations where there is too much light, such as a portrait of a person with a bright sky behind her. The camera takes up to three images with different exposure settings and combines them to an image that shows the details of both the foreground and background objects, without under or over-exposing any of them.

Photo-trickery is also on the cards. One of the applications described in a research paper captured the position and trajectory of playing cards thrown into the air with complete clarity through the use of two flash units, each behaving independently. The paper will be presented next week at the SIGGRAPH conference in Los Angeles.

The hope, though, is that once Fcam is in the public domain, Nokia developers and camera programmers will work to create a whole new class of programmable camera applications which will be gathered together on the project web site.

What other applications would you like to see emerge if your device's camera had a bit more brains behind it? Personally, a slimming effect on selected subjects (me) would definitely be of interest.

Apple seems to have really gone to lengths to prove that it's not just their own wayward progeny experiencing dropped signal issues, but smartphones from a variety of manufacturers. Nokia had already come in for a pasting from Apple at their press event, but Apple are apparently not content to leave it there as they also made a video showing the Nokia N97 Mini dropping from a full seven bars of reception to a scant two bars. Mind you the video doesn't say whether that resulted in a dropped call or lost data as has been the case with the iPhone 4. It also flies in the face of Nokia's claim to put antenna performance over a handset's design. Watching the video you'll notice that it's another tight grip of death, not exactly what many iPhone 4 users have been doing to be fair. Lets Wait and see How Nokia will reply to this Video!

Sasmung introduce the New Epic 4G the First Android phone that support WiMax 4G and has a 1Ghz CPU. the phone will be availabel in August this year (2010) or later in September. the phone has a good 5M camera and a flash too and it runs Google Andorid 2.1. Check the Full specs Down and wait for more info and reviews on this phone Soon!

Full Specification:

2G Network CDMA 800 / 1900
3G Network CDMA2000 1xEV-DO
Announced 2010, June
Status Coming soon. Exp. release 2010, August
SIZE Dimensions 124 x 65 x 14 mm
Weight 155 g
DISPLAY Type Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
Size 480 x 800 pixels, 4.0 inches
- QWERTY keyboard
- TouchWiz 3.0 UI
- Multi-touch input method
- Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate
- Touch-sensitive controls
- Proximity sensor for auto turn-off
- Swype text input
SOUND Alert types Vibration; MP3, WAV ringtones
Speakerphone Yes
- 3.5 mm audio jack
MEMORY Phonebook Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall
Call records Practically unlimited
Internal 512 MB RAM, 512 MB ROM
Card slot microSD, up to 32GB
DATA GPRS No
EDGE No
3G Rev. A, up to 3.1 Mbps
WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n; WiMAX
Bluetooth Yes, v2.1 with A2DP
Infrared port No
USB Yes, v2.0 microUSB
CAMERA Primary 5 MP, 2592 x 1944 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
Features Geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection
Video Yes, 720p@30fps
Secondary Yes, VGA
FEATURES OS Android OS, v2.1 (Eclair)
CPU ARM Cortex A8 1GHz processor
Messaging SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Mail, IM, RSS
Browser HTML
Radio Stereo FM radio with RDS
Games Yes
Colors Black
GPS Yes, with A-GPS support
Java Via third party application
- Social networking integration
- Digital compass
- MP4/DivX/WMV/H.264/H.263 player
- MP3/WAV/eAAC+/AC3/FLAC player
- Organizer
- Image/video editor
- Document editor (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF)
- Google Search, Maps, Gmail,
YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk, Picasa integration
- Flash Lite v3.1
- Voice memo/dial/commands

According to a leaked slide from a private RIM presentation a new BlackBerry Storm is on the way. It will be slightly updated Storm2 with twice more RAM capacity and better camera. The new Storm3 will run the latest BlackBerry OS 6.

The information we can salvage from the blurry slide is not much. Obviously the doubled 512MB RAM is needed to run the new BlackBerry OS 6. Besides the more RAM, new OS and refreshed UI, we can expect a better, 5 megapixel camera, Wireless N connectivity and a modern Webkit-based web browser.

Storm3 will also feature the 3G Mobile hotspot functionality, which is already available in Pearl 3G.

BlackBerry Storm3 along with a rumored Curve3 are hinted for release later this year in an "…ember" month (sorry, blame the guy's head).

Source

If you've been following the ongoing saga of Dell's Streak, you've probably already read our review of O2 UK's version -- thing is, the British perspective can be very different from the Yankee one (we didn't see eye-to-eye during the War of 1812, for instance). To that end, we wanted to circle back now that the gargantuan Android beast is finally coming close to a US release and get another quick take.

As a refresher, this thing matches or exceeds the specs you'd expect to find on any modern high-end smartphone in most respects, starting with a 1GHz Snapdragon core, a 5 megapixel camera with dual LED flash, 850 / 1900MHz 3G for use on AT&T, Rogers, Bell, and Telus, and 2GB of internal storage coupled with a bundled and pre-installed 16GB microSDHC card. Where the Streak sets itself far, far apart from the crowd, though, is with an absolutely enormous 5-inch capacitive touchscreen at 800 x 480 resolution. Needless to say, it's a polarizing feature -- and for many, it'll singlehandedly determine whether the phone is a buy or a no-buy.

Our original review ultimately concluded that the Streak was a promising device in need of an update from Android 1.6 to Froyo. On second look, does our American reviewer agree? Read on.

The Streak's display is fantastic. It's not quite as vibrant or bright as an AMOLED device or an iPhone 4, but it's exceptionally usable outdoors and has some of the best touch sensitivity we've ever experienced -- there were actually a couple cases where we had to prove to ourselves that we were even making contact with the display with our fingertips when taps were being registered (turns out they were, but just barely). Dell makes great use of the screen's real estate, too; even though its 800 x 480 resolution is no higher than, say, a Nexus One, the Streak uses lower-resolution screen elements (icons and the like) so that you can fit far more on the screen at one time -- and because it's five inches across, you can really take advantage of it. Sure, you can make out individual pixels in some of the fonts and icons, but so what? We'll take being able to see twelve Gmail items on the screen at once with message body previews (pictured above on the right, versus a Droid X on the left) any day over higher pixel density.

Cellphone concepts are a dime a dozen, but a couple of particularly interesting ones have cropped up in recent days, including Andrew Kim's HTC 1, and this so called Nokia Kinetic concept from British designer Jeremy Innes-Hopkins. Obviously, the most eye-catching aspect here is that prominent base, which is not simply a design flourish but actually houses an electromagnet that allows the phone to spring up on cue when an alarm goes off, for instance, or during a hands-free video call (simply flip the phone back down to dismiss the action). It's also not quite as chunky as it might look  Jeremy tells us that the top half of the actual prototype is just 8mm thick, while the bottom is 18mm, and he notes that the base also conveniently doubles as a more camera-like grip for taking photos. 

See More pictures:

After breaking the 1GHz barrier just three weeks ago, dauntless modder unixpsycho is back with yet another insane hack for the aging Palm Pre. What's new? Why, this "SR71 Blackbird" custom kernel, which simply pushes the poor little OMAP3430 processor up to 1.2GHz -- that's twice the original clock speed, just so you know. 

If you dont know how to recover your phone then DO NOT install!
(I can keep repeating this but people will still not read it and complain that it bricked their phone)

• 1.2GHz
• NextGen Screenstate with temp monitoring
• Memory tweaks in kernel (no more TMC errors)
• No compcache (unlike previous F10x kernels)
• Only with Screenstate governor. Scales from 500MHz

• Temp monitoring. Over 55C it scales down to 500MHz (or at least it should)
• Wall charging (1000mA) and Touchstone will scale to 500MHz, USB charging stays at max speed.
• LCD off: scale to policy->min, LCD on: scale to policy->max

Nokia Siemens has just announced that it will be purchasing Motorola's wireless network for $1.2 billion. This comes on the heels of an announcement by Moto that it would be splitting the company in two, one for Mobile Devices and one for Broadband and Mobility Solutions.

It's clearly the company's strong showing in both WiMAX and CDMA that Nokia Siemens is after, although The New York Times points out that integrating the 7,500-strong staff, manufacturing, supply lines, and multiple product lines will be quite a challenge. The deal will hopefully be finalized by the end of the year.

It seems the Vivaz fella is selling quite well in all the four colors, because Sony Ericsson is launching a new pink version.

Sony Ericsson Vivaz in Light Pink will be available in the selected markets by the end of September.

Vivaz is one of the best sellers this year and definitely a huge success for Sony Ericsson. The manufacturer claims all the colors are well accepted by the users and that’s the reason they are launching a new one, specifically targeting the ladies.

Watch the Video up there. its a short video of the new Light Pink Vivaz and the Vivaz product manager herself, Maiko Ishida, talking about the Vivaz design.

It looks like Motorola are getting set to release another member of their Droid family upon the world and in a smaller package than we've seen before. Some blurry pictures (what else?) have appeared on Chinese forum, Hiapk, showing what appears to be an Android QWERTY slider destined for Verizon in the U.S. Notice the glowing red Droid eye in the shots. Check out the pictures below in all their blurry glory. We are Sorry for the BAD Quality of the images!

Concept 'HTC 1' is the phone we wish HTC would make : Designer Andrew Kim has cooked up a concept smartphone for HTC dubbed the "1" that makes the company's current offerings look, well... last generation. The device, built from a brass housing (coated in silver) eschews the phone-maker's recent crop of fairly standard looking mobile devices for something decidedly more sophisticated -- and cans the familiar Sense interface in the process. Not only is the shell of the phone rethought, the new UI (Sense mono) takes a cleaner,

More thoughtful, high-end approach as well, joining Synergy like functions (combined messaging) with a Helvetica heavy interface that looks streamlined and mature. Some notable features of the hardware include stereo speakers (located at the top and bottom of the phone), a kickstand which is actually the bottom portion of the casing, and the lofty concept of a built-in UV light which kills germs on the surface of the phone while you charge up. As far as concepts go, this is one of the finest we've seen, so hit the source link below and take a look at the full spread.

Froyo is barely out the door, but attention is already turning to the next Android version - 3.0 Gingerbread. It will impose minimum hardware requirements, the UI is getting overhauled and Android is splitting into two.

Android 3.0 Gingerbread, says Eldar Murtazin, edotor-in-chief of Mobile-review.com, will be for high-end devices only. A 1GHz CPU and 512MB RAM at minimum plus a display over 3.5" inches in diagonal. Android 2.1 Eclair 2.2 Froyo will remain and run on mid-range and low-end phones.

This will officially lead to the Android platform splitting into two. With so many complaints about platform segmentation now, we can only imagine what it will be when this happens.

Anyway, Android 3.0 Gingerbread will add support for a new resolution - 1280x760 (just over 720p) for screens 4" and bigger (the iPad has a 4:3 1024x768 screen). This should mostly benefit Android-based tablets, which have only recently started cropping up.

The new version will also bring the end to 3rd-party UIs - still, HTC, Samsung, Motorola and the rest will be able to keep their mods for the 2.1/2.2 branch of Android. The new UI for Android 3.0 Gingerbread is said to take its cue from the Gallery App on the Nexus One - the feel, the transitions and so on.

Android 3.0 Gingerbread is expected in mid-October - and we expect the first phone to get it to be theNexus One (it meets the requirements). Unless the oft rumored Nexus Two beats it to the punch.

And as always unofficial ports will become available for current phones. But let's not put the cart before the horse - all this is still rumors, there's no official word from Google just yet.

And so ends Microsoft's brief spell as a phone manufacturer. The company has just announced that it's terminating its KIN line and focusing all of its resources on the development of their upcoming Windows Phone 7 OS.

Here comes the official statement:

"Microsoft has made the decision to focus on the Windows Phone 7 launch and will not ship KIN in Europe this fall as planned. Additionally, we are integrating our KIN team with the Windows Phone 7 team, incorporating valuable ideas and technologies from KIN into future Windows Phone releases. We will continue to work with Verizon in the U.S. to sell current KIN phones."

So the KIN duo never lived to see it GSM-supporting versions become available. It only made it to Verizon's CDMA network in the US (where it has been available for just under two months), but its sales didn't even reach 10 000 units milestone.

After that and the universally negative reviews that the KIN handsets got after their release it's hardly a surprise that Microsoft decided to give up on it. When you spend so much time and effort (and mostly so much money) and you end up with a product often described as one of the biggest flops in history, simply giving up seems the right thing to do.

Trying to bring the project back on the right track would be a really demanding task (if at all possible with so much catching up to do) and Microsoft simply cannot afford to waste resources on it. Not with the Windows Mobile OS market share dropping into irrelevance and its future hanging by a thread.

With the fierce competition from Android and iOS, Windows Phone 7 has to be (close to) perfect to regain some of the past glory of the Microsoft smartphone platforms. So if dropping the KINs is what needs to be done to make it perfect, we wholeheartedly support the Redmond-based company on this decision.

Source

One of the biggest areas for growth in smartphones has been gaming with numerous titles having emerged over the past couple of years. The iPhone especially has proven itself a very powerful, and attractive, platform for gaming. Android has been making an increasingly good showing in the gaming arena too.

However, there exists a rather bizzare aberration in all of this, which sees very little cross platform gaming between Android and iOS despite them being at the forefront of smartphone gaming. There are a couple of titles outt here that offer this sort of cross platform option including Raging Thunder 2 and Homerun Battle 3D. Well gamers on both platforms can now add Skies of Glory to that list. The game has been ported to Android (2.0 and above) and can communicate with its iOS brethren over Bluetooth, WiFi and 3G should you be unable to resist the urge to show your friends just which OS really is king.

A Leaked internal documents Shows the Verizon's 4G plans, and it's mostly stuff we've already heard 5-12Mbps down, aircards before smartphones, and plans to roll out in 30 cities in 2010

This documents dated this week show the company's still on track to serve up 100 million connections by the end of the year, and a pair of independent tipsters have just sent us pics of Verizon computers ready and waiting for those precious LTE SIM cards. Furthermore, the docs also claim that the planned LTE isn't just fast, it's got a lag-destroying 30ms latency too, and fans of wider wireless computing can expect 4G tablets of some sort in 2011 as well. 

source

LTE (Long Term Evolution), is the latest standard in the mobile network technology tree that previously realized the GSM/EDGE and UMTS/HSxPA network technologies. It is a project of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), operating under a name trademarked by one of the associations within the partnership, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute.

After the Apple Conference, it was about time for the respond of the companies affected by Apple's statements from company's press conference that took part last Friday. Well, here is what these companies has Commented Officially on the Apple State of their own phones Antennas One-ByOne:

While the South Koreans have no official statement about the Antennagate, a Samsung spokesman did answer some questions concerning it."The antenna is located at the bottom of the Omnia 2 phone, while iPhone's antenna is on the lower left side of the device. Our design keeps the distance between a hand and an antenna," Shin Young-joo said.

"We have fully conducted field tests before the rollout of smartphones. Reception problems have not happened so far, and there is no room for such problems to happen in the future,"

As for Motorola, Sanjay Jha, the company's co-CEO, responded that "consumers don't like being told how to hold the phone ... It is disingenuous to suggest that all phones perform equally". He also added that unlike Apple, Motorola avoids placing the antennas on the outside of their phones since that could cause reception issues.

HTC when asked about the number of complaints coming from HTC Droid Eric customers, the company's global PR and online community manager, Eric Lin, said that only 0.016 percent of all HTC users have complained about the Droid Eris and only a few of them have experienced with the device's antenna and signal.

Even if none of Nokia's phone has been mentioned during the conference, the company has a statement concerning that matter as well: "Antenna design is a complex subject and has been a core competence at Nokia for decades, across hundreds of phone models. Nokia was the pioneer in internal antennas; the Nokia 8810, launched in 1998, was the first commercial phone with this feature.

Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying human behavior, including how people hold their phones for calls, music playing, web browsing and so on. As you would expect from a company focused on connecting people, we prioritize antenna performance over physical design if they are ever in conflict.

In general, antenna performance of a mobile device/phone may be affected with a tight grip, depending on how the device is held. That's why Nokia designs our phones to ensure acceptable performance in all real life cases, for example when the phone is held in either hand. Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying how people hold their phones and allows for this in designs, for example by having antennas both at the top and bottom of the phone and by careful selection of materials and their use in the mechanical design."

The Co-CEOs of Research In Motion (RIM), Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, share their indignation at Apple's move. It was Apple itself who decided to use this antenna design. So, it should stand behind that decision and deal with it alone and not involve RIM in "Apple's self-made debacle". After all, it isn't the BlackBerries that need a case to maintain proper connectivity. Here is RIM's Co-CEOs whole joint statement:

Apple alleged a press conference today to address troubles with the iPhone 4's antenna.

Admitting that neither he nor his flagship mobile handsets are surefire, Steve Jobs made a 15-minute presentation to the press before fielding questions.

The CEO made a point to show video of other handsets (including the Blackberry Bold 9700 and HTC Droid Eris) revealing the same drop in bars that iPhone consumers have faced.

Citing 22 days of “working our butts off,” Jobs settled that Apple’s topical change in the algorithm that gauges signal strength was part of their solution.

One slide on the presentation read “phones aren’t perfect.” He reported that only 0.55% of iPhone consumers called Apple to report the crisis, and that only 1.7% of patrons returned early units to AT&T, as compared to the iPhone 3GS’s 6.0%.

Apple is remedying the state of affairs by providing a free case to all iPhone clients through September 30. iPhone holders will be able to pertain for a case on Apple’s website. These comprise both Apple’s bumper cases in addition to a few others, which were not exposed. Those who are still unhappy can return their iPhone 4 for a full refund in the next 30 days.

Trillian is already available to Blackberry and iPhone users and now the Android crowd are set to get in on the multi-network messaging action too. Cerulean Studios, the chaps behind Trillian, have announced that they're brining the popular messaging client to Google's finest in the near future, indeed the beta versions of the Android client are all set to launch within weeks. It will be available for a lot of Android users too, not just those running the latest version as it will work on Android versions 1.6 and upwards. In case you aren't familiar with Trillian it's a multi-network messaging app that ties in chats across disparate paltforms such as Facebook, MSN, GTalk, Jabber and more. The Android version will also allow you to sync contacts, avatars, status and so on with Trillian supported desktop apps and of course it will support Android notifications. In fact the Android app will be tailored for Android with Cerulean promising that it won't just be a 'clone from the iPhone'. So you can expect a separate look and feel for the app.

That was one hell of an odd press conference on Friday. Typical Apple. Instead of just admitting its faults Apple decided to point a finger at the other mobile phone manufacturers and accuse them of selling devices with bad signal reception. And here comes their response!

Apple admitted that the iPhone 4 isn't perfect (we already knew that… there isn't such a thing like a perfect phone) and then the moment was ruined by a series of images and videos demonstrating that the iPhone 4 wasn't the only one with reception issues. How NOT cool is that?

Apple showed that RIM's BlackBerry Bold 9700 as well as the HTC Droid Eris and the Samsung Omnia II are affected by that problem, too, and that you can make their signal strength bars go down by just holding the phone in a particular way.

Apple Started the "Antenna wars" and the Other Companies (RIM, HTC , Nokia, Samsung and Motorola ) won't just stood still but they'll speak and response to apple statement on the antenna gate conference on 16/7 Friday and this will start a War between these big Companies to prove that their own phones aren't bad like Apple Has Showed the users!

It's been a while since we last heard something on Symbian^4. While ^3 is yet to roll out, its successor already showed its face. The shots are taken from an emulator of the OS, but there's no wow factor yet.

The shots below clearly demonstrate the new homescreen, pop-up menus, widgets, dial pad, etc.

Here is some other Lower Resolution screenshots The things we still miss here are some 3D effects or transparency. At this stage we can’t simply put Symbian^4 to its current rivals. BTW Nokia is Leaving MeeGo for High-end devices ONLY!

Check our Previous Post About Symbian^4

If you want to check out the Apple iPad in action before spending the thick end of 500 US dollars on it, please head to the company website right away. Apple has uploaded a host of guided video tours of their latest device that demonstrate most aspects of its interface in detail. people thinks that iPad is just a way that apple can make money…others just says why I would buy a Huge iPhone…I am with you its Big to carry around its gonna take both hands.

Here are 5 Reasons you should buy an (iPad) :

1. The iPad is very thin & you’ll not notice its Weight when holding it.


2. The iPad can fit Easy in your Bag with your books (if you are a student) and you can use it to view E-books in its Big Screen instead of the mobile phone.


3. The iPad is so cool to use with the iPhone OS 4 and its big Screen and has a battery that last up  to 10 hours with the Wifi ON.


4. The iPad is better than a Netbook if you want a device that does your needs without carrying your heavy Notebook with you all the time.


5. The iPad has So many accessories like a leather carry and a Wireless keyboard.

So that’s All…If you are convince with these Reasons just go and buy one the iPad is Available in two versions (Wifi) & (Wifi + 3G) and with various Memory Accept (16GB, 32GB & 64GB). Apple iPad is now available on pre-order and if you really, really want to be among the first ones to have it, you might wanna order it right now!

Head for the Apple Store to Pre-order one

One of Nokia's next full touch smartphones, the Nokia C7, which posed for some photos a couple of weeks back is for real. The confirmation comes from Nokia itself - the C7-00 UA profile surfaced on the company's website. Sadly, there are still plenty of unanswered questions concerning the upcoming device.

However, the Exclusive Nokia C7 images above gave a clear answers to some of the questions. The phone features an 8-megapixel snapper and comes with a large touchscreen and no hardware keyboard

Nokia C7-00 Specs:

DISPLAY

Type: TFT resistive touchscreen, 16M colors
Size: 360 x 640 pixels, 3.5 inches
- QWERTY keyboard
- Proximity sensor for auto turn-off
- Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate
SOUND: Alert types Vibration; MP3, WAV ringtones
- 3.5 mm audio jack

MEMORY

Phonebook: Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall
Call records Detailed, max 30 days
Card slot: microSD up to 32GB

DATA

GPRS Class 32
EDGE Class 32
3G HSDPA 3.6 Mbps
WLAN
Bluetooth Yes, v2.0 with A2DP
Infrared port No
USB Yes, v2.0 microUSB

CAMERA

Primary 8 MP, 3264x2448 pixels, autofocus, dual-LED flash
Video Yes
Secondary Yes

FEATURES

OS: Symbian ^3 OS
Messaging: SMS, MMS, Email, Push Email, IM
Browser: WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML, RSS feeds
FM Radio stereo
Games: Yes + downloadable
Colors: White, Black
A-GPS
Java Yes, MIDP 2.1
- MP3/WMA/WAV/eAAC+ player
- MP4/H.264/WMV player
- Document viewer (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF)
- Flash Lite v3.1
- Voice command
- T9

Market research firm comScore has released some very interesting figures that show Google's Android platform surging up the U.S. market share rankings with an increase of 4% in the first 3 months of this year. A 4% increase is notable in and of itself of course, but what makes this increase particularly interesting is that Android is the only major smartphone OS in the U.S. that didn't see a decline in its market share during the same period. RIM, for example, saw its 42.1% share dip 0.4% to 41.7% and Apple saw a larger decline of 1% in the same period. Of course Android's market share as a whole still lags behind both RIM and Apple, indeed Apple commands almost double the share of Android and RIM is still by and far the leader of the pack. However, these figures would seem to suggest a significant swing in favour of Android, but caution is also advised due to the fact that these figures are pre-iPhone 4. When the next set of quarterly results are made known later in the year the iPhone 4, along with major Android releases like the EVO, may have had enough of an impact to see these figures turned on their head, or perhaps not if the figure of 77% of iPhone 4 buyers being existing iPhone owners is to be believed

Samsung Captivate is a high-end Android smartphone has a Great 4 inch Super AMOLED screen, 5 mp camera, #d sound support, 3d graphics accelerator, HD video 720p recording and 1GHz Hummingbird core and its the latest android phone from samsung.its available in black but more colors will come up soon and the unlock price is 499$ and 199$ with 2-yr contract and with FREE SHIPPING as well. Want one ? you're only two clicks away from adding the Android 2.1 handset to your virtual shopping cart on AT&T click on (source) link to buy. Good luck!

source

As an explanation from Apple for the poor signal of the iphone 4 and the antenna issue we all know bout. apple has showed this video in her press conference to make people know that /not only apple have this problem but HTC, samsung & blackberry as well. The video above shows the antenna performance of (iPhone 4 vs HTC Droid vs BlackBerry Samsung vs iPhone 3GS) ALL together so watch the video and see who is the slowest phone to lose signal (it will be the iPhone 4G).

Here are Photos/Pictures of my iPhone DSLR Prototype 1.0 This is my first attempt at putting together an iPhone DSLR. You might ask why pair an iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, or iPhone 4 with a DSLR lens? Why not!

As we know Apple has updated its iPhone 4 camera and now has 5-megapixels still frames, HD video, and an LED flash. Put that together with a DSLR lens, and you’ve got a device that can shoot amazing images/video with SLR lenses, edit them on the fly, and share them on the internet all in one device.

Mount:
The mount currently fits only Canon EF lenses. Eventually, with the right adaptors, I should be able to fit Canon FD lenses, Nikon lenses, and M42 lenses.

Housing:
The housing is a solid piece of anodized billet aluminum. It weigths about 1.1 lbs, has two handle grips, and 4 x 1/4″-20 female threaded mounting holes so you can actually screw this thing into a standard tripod. The housing can fit any iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, or iPhone 4.

RIM's allegedly forthcoming Blackberry tablet has once again been discussed in public. There was also the prediction that Marvell (not the comic books company) who created the reference designs for the OLPC tablet will be using its components in the making of RIM's tablet. Such components would seemingly include

• 1 GHz Armada processor, 512 SDRAM
• 1080p video playback
• 14 MP camera
• support for 3D graphics
• 8.9" TFT touch screen

That's quite Excellent specs and we all very hungry for battery power it has to be said, so how much of that will make it into the finished product is anyone's guess at this stage. It's worth pointing out at this stage that these specs, whilst fitting in with the previously revealed notion that the Blackberry tablet's design was in something of a state of flux. RIM also saying that the release schedule is being brought forward so that the tablet will be on sale before the year is out.

Nokia N8 has a brilliant AMOLED screen and we are talking about unmatched racing experience with Asphalt 5 here. Asphalt series has been here for a while and we've been playing it on our older Nokias but its going to be a totally different game on Nokia N8 with accelerometer controls, large touchscreen to view the cars race through those 12 different maps and a cute little on-screen NoS button.

The game has both day and night racing modes, 29 different vehicles to drive in 12 unique locations around the world. See the Demo video.

source

App Inventor for Android lets you create new mobile applications, even if you don't have a programming background.  With it, you canexplore communication, location-awareness, social networking, and massive Web-based data collections.

Google will probably be hoping that this software sparks off a greater interest in app development and that that will have a knock-on effect with the the Android Market, which is already seeing spectacular growth. However, another possibility is that this software might be used by individuals and local organisations to create highly speciliased apps that aren't submitted to the Market, but rather shared on a hyper-local scale. For example, a school might create an app for itself giving access to certain services etc or perhaps a local church group.You are going to need a Google account (I am sure that you have one...or even a Gmail) if you are interested in trying this out for yourself and you will have to apply via the web for App Inventor. There are some tutorials to help you get up and running and you can also check out the video up there on the first of the article.

Visit https://appinventor.googlelabs.com/about for information on App Inventor.

It's very frustrating and confusing nowadays to choose a mobile phone to buy. Some people just stick with a specific brand but others Not they want to change the brand every time they change their own cell phones. But the Question is if you are either of these people How you gonna Choose your Next Mobile Phone??

Easy!...I’ll tell you the Top Most selling Brands and every feature that this brand have in this Way (Price-Quality-Options) in a Scale of (VeryHigh-High-Mid-Low) and then you have to decide what's fit your Needs as after all its YOUR Decision to make !!

Nokia corp. logo with Nokia N8 picture

Great Company we all Know! nobody hasn’t have a Nokia phone or even wanted one. This Company offers you all the technology but in Style…Nokia Style which attract many of Youth and Businessmen but Special Youth. BUT Nokia like to offer the technology to the users in a STEP-by-STEP way Not giving all available technology and that's why its still the TOP on the Mobile Market.

Price= Mid-High, Quality=VeryHigh, Options=Mid

Choose your Nokia Phone Click Here

Samsung logo with Omnia1 picture & New Samsung JET

This Company is the Best in the world for LCD & LED Tv's but Also its making Amazing mobile phones that suites All Budgets and giving you latest technology according to your region. Samsung is always have something new its First to release an AMOLED mobile screen, Projector Mobile, TV Mobile and More.

Price= Low-Mid, Quality=Mid, Options=High

Choose your Samsung Phone Click Here

Sony Ericsson logo with X10 picture

A New Company starts early in 2001-2002 but it's a Cocktail of Two big Companies (Ericsson Ltd.) & (Sony corp.) and as we know Sony is famous with its Cameras (Cyber shots) and Ericsson is one of the biggest Communications Systems Companies and that's makes here Mobiles phones the No.1 in Photographing.

Price= Low-Mid, Quality=Low-Mid, Options=VeryHigh

Choose your Sony Ericsson Phone Click Here

The white version of the iPhone 4 isn't available just yet but its first luxury edition has already surfaced. Covered with a handful of shiny diamonds, only fifty of those will be made so you better hurry up if you want to get one.

The black version of the Apple iPhone 4 has been available for a week or two now and already got its exclusive edition thanks to Gresso, but now it's the white one's turn to get the same treatment. The unimaginatively named iPhone 4 Diamond Edition is delivered by luxury designer Stuart Hughes.

The iPhone 4 Diamond Edition frame and its solid platinum Apple logo at the back are encrusted with a total of approximately 6.5 carats of diamonds. Underneath you'll find yet another unlocked iPhone 4 32GB in white.

Along with the phone itself you'll also get a thin ostrich foot leather wallet large enough to accommodate up to 4 credit cards. Only 50 units of the iPhone 4 Diamond Edition will be produced and sold worldwide and each will cost 13 000 GBP (around 20 000 US dollars). Expensive! haa ??

With the Kin duo now gone for good, and the WinMo 6.5 market share bordering on insignificance, Microsoft have all their eggs in one WP7 basket. As it seems though they will do everything they can to make sure they stay on the smartphone market. Today they revealed more information about theWindows Phone 7 synchronization and remote access capabilities and those certainly look impressive.

Much like the just announced BlackBerry Protect, Windows Phone 7 will get you the full suite of services you'll need in case your phone gets stolen or lost. You get remote wipe so you can protect your valuable private information, plus you can locate your device wirelessly and hopefully get it back. A remotely activated ringer is also available to help you find the phone if you have misplaced it. Maybe Windows Phone 7 isn't quite as useful when you lose your phone as the recently announced BlackBerry Protect, but it still does a pretty great job at it.

Besides it will offer another valuable feature that should give it an edge against its competitors. Windows Phone 7 will support offer synchronization between all your Microsoft devices (those being your Windows PC, your Xbox and, of course, your smartphone). You can transfer everything from contacts to OneNote entries and images, allowing you to continue where you left off each time you alternate those gadgets. Cool right?

Microsoft are joining the high-end smartphone market with competition at its highest, but they sure as hell won't give up without a fight.

Nokia's looking to ride the mojo of any negative fallout from today's Apple press conference, slipping out a rather fascinating statement this afternoon. The gist of it is that Espoo's keen on letting everyone know how much blood, sweat, and tears they've poured into perfecting their antenna design strategy over the years, going so far as to say that they "prioritize" it over the physical design of the phone if they need to in order to optimize its call performance Follow the break for the full statement. 

"Antenna design is a complex subject and has been a core competence at Nokia for decades, across hundreds of phone models. Nokia was the pioneer in internal antennas; the Nokia 8810, launched in 1998, was the first commercial phone with this feature.

Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying human behavior, including how people hold their phones for calls, music playing, web browsing and so on. As you would expect from a company focused on connecting people, we prioritize antenna performance over physical design if they are ever in conflict.

In general, antenna performance of a mobile device/phone may be affected with a tight grip, depending on how the device is held. That's why Nokia designs our phones to ensure acceptable performance in all real life cases, for example when the phone is held in either hand. Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying how people hold their phones and allows for this in designs, for example by having antennas both at the top and bottom of the phone and by careful selection of materials and their use in the mechanical design."

It's not surprising that after Apple finished explaining the iPhone 4 antenna issues to the press today, the company wanted to go one step further and say "yes, actually, we do test the hell out of these phones before we release them to the public." Though Steve Jobs went over the lengthy and intensive kinds of radio evaluation that goes on at Apple's headquarters, it didn't seem to be enough for the folks in Cupertino. And that, we suspect, is why we were invited (along with a small group of other journalists) to take a brief tour of Apple's Infinite Loop labs. Though we weren't allowed to shoot video or take pictures, we can tell you about what we did -- and what we didn't -- see and hear behind closed doors. 

After Jobs wrapped the nearly hour and a half presentation, we were pulled aside by Apple PR and ushered through the center of the Infinite Loop campus -- a new experience for us, since we'd never been deeper than one of the company's small theaters. Once all the attendees had been gathered (folks like Jason Snell from Macworld, Daring Fireball's John Gruber, and a smattering of mainstream journalists from places such as Wired, USA Today and the New York Times), we were led further into the campus (and eventually across a street) into a separate building. After a series of double doors and long, anonymous hallways, we entered a large, warehouse-like lab cluttered with test equipment amid large tables covered in mysterious black cloth (and no, we couldn't look under the cloth). Awaiting us was Phil Schiller, Greg Joswiak, Bob Mansfield, and engineer Ruben Caballero. The latter employee has become a somewhat controversial figure over the last few days, as he was alleged to have known about and communicated concerns over the new antenna design (according to a Bloomberg article which Jobs lambasted as a "crock" during today's press conference). Oh, and there was also an assortment of PR folks, lest the nosey journalists get out of line and require a tasing.

Symbian^4 is clearly going to be a bit of a departure from the versions that came before it. The Symbian Foundation has posted the first handful of home screen UI shots on its developer wiki recently showing redesigned widgets, app categories and search, pop-up menus, and a standard-issue numeric touchscreen keypad -- and unlikeNokia's concept videos from before, these are from a real emulator running real code. Nokia's expecting to use Symbian^4 in at least some of its devices by early 2011 and knowing how these guys like to go big with global roll-outs spanning tens or hundreds of millions of devices.

Source

Apple just finished off its press conference dedicated on the iPhone 4 reception issues leaving us quite puzzled, to say the least. At one point Steve Jobs was saying that every phone has a weak spot, then he claimed everybody makes mistakes but Apple is quick to fix theirs so that's why they have loyal users. Apple wants its users happy and since everyone cries for free cases, they will give away free cases. But not because they've messed up, but only because "they loves their users".

How about that? Apparently the problem with the iPhone 4 antenna had been blown way out of proportion by the "bad press". The iPhone 4 reputation obviously has been ruined by its incorrect signal representation (now fixed in today's 4.0.1 update) and the easily accessible weak spot.

"There is no perfect phone." - says Apple's CEO, Steve Jobs. This may very well be true, but we never heard of another phone dropping calls when held in the most natural of ways.

  
The iPhone 4 antenna issues were the press conference main topic

Afterwards they treated us to several slides, suggesting that only a minor portion of users were troubled by the iPhone 4 flawed antenna design.

 
According to Apple, the iPhone 4 issues are only troubling a small percentage of its users

Okay, let’s explain how this works – when it’s a design issue, it means that EVERY user will have it. Of course those lucky enough to live in an area with very strong signal will be less affected by it, but that’s a whole different story.

Obviously only about 0.5 percent of all customers complained directly to Apple about reception issues. But how about that everyone who opened a tech site for the past two weeks (or knew a guy who did) was perfectly aware what was going on and knew that this call will do them no good.

At least Apple decided to do the decent thing and give a free case to every iPhone 4 user. Plus they are willing to waive the restocking fee for everyone who wants to return the handset in the next 30 days. Just bear in mind that it’s not the Bumpers that Apple is giving away but some other type of cases by another manufacturer. User will even have some kind of choice.

Every iPhone 4 user is eligible to receive a free case or a full refund

Steve Jobs also mentioned the other big issue with the iPhone 4 – its faulty proximity sensor. He promises they are already working on a fix for that and it will be coming with a future software update. Not much of a consolation really, as proximity sensor problems, unlike antenna issues have been troubling even people in areas with great coverage.

 
The proximity sensor is the next thing they are going to fix on the iPhone 4

Now you can bet that being treated like fools and being told that there is no problem when it’s pretty clear that a problem exists is not our favorite thing. Still we cannot see Apple doing much better than this – you didn’t really expect them to recall all phones and replace them at an indefinite time in the future when they come up with a better design, did you?

So that’s about it for now, we’ll keep you posted when we get more info about those promised cases. And of course we will continue hoping that Apple come up with a solution and fix the problem in some future batch of handsets.

P.S. Steve Jobs confirmed they're right on track with the next wave of iPhone availability scheduled for the 30 July. 17 more countries will get the iPhone 4 then. Plus the white iPhone 4 is expected to ship in the end of July too.

iPhone 4.0.1 software update has just been released by Apple. It comes along with some bug fixes as well as the highly discussed improved signal strength formula that is expected to magically solve iPhone 4's reception issues.

There are also some other bug fixes brought by the iOS 4.0.1. The iOS 4.0.1 is only compatible with iPhone 3G (though that doesn't work particularly well), iPhone 3GS and the recently launched iPhone 4.

Source

The Nokia N8 has been causing a bit of a stir. This week, Damian Dinning has been taking us through a step-by-step guide to the camera. We’ve been asking you to vote on polls galore and we’ve heard the tech blogerati are itching to get their hands on the device. We already know the basic specs and the price, but is there more to the Nokia N8 than meets the eye? Here's a run-through of some of the other things in the N8 that makes it one of this year's most hotly anticipated phones.

Aluminium
The Nokia N8 is crafted from a single piece of anodised aluminium. The process of anodising the aluminum increases its corrosion and wear resistance. With the casings’ ultra scratch-resistant powers, you can scratch a set of keys on the back of the device and with a quick wipe the mark will magically disappear. The anodised aluminium doesn’t just banish scratches, it also means it's possible to bring the N8 to the market in a rainbow of colours.

Buttons
Not one to scrimp on the detail, Nokia has made sure that all the bases – or more to the point, buttons – are covered. All the buttons along the side of the device are cut-outs from the same piece of aluminium, adding to the luxury feel of the device. Also, for the clumsy amongst us, the moveable buttons have been rubberised to save your digits from mishaps.

HDMI
Showing off your mobile content at home has never been easier. The HDMI connector allows you to connect your N8 to your TV and share all the pics from your travels. Alternatively, you can watch side-loaded true HD quality content in real time via HDMI at up to 30fps. Add to this Dolby Digital Plus Surround sound capabilities, and you’ve got the complete package. In the box, the N8 will come with HDMI adapter for you to connect with a standard HDMI cable.

Screen
With the capacitive touchscreen on offer on the N8, there's the capability to pinch zoom in applications like Photos and Browser. Did you know that capacitive touchscreens will only respond to materials that are conductive? Handy if you’ve got sticky fingers and need to give the screen a quick wipe with a cloth. It also responds to just a touch rather that a press on the screen. No worrying about oops-a-daisy inputs here. With a 3.5 inches screen estate, AMOLED, 16M colours and a resolution of 640 x 360 pixels, it's perfect for watching widescreen movies too.

Battery Life
Within the Nokia N8 is an integrated battery that’ll keep you in juice for days. Talk-time at its maximum is 720 mins (GSM) and 350 mins (WCDMA) and standby time comes in at 390 hours (GSM) and 400 hours (WCDMA). Not bad for a smartphone, we think.

Social Networking
We’re accustomed to keeping in touch with Ovi, on the Nokia N8 it's even easier. Social networks can be accessed from multiple places such as the homescreen, maps and contacts. Live feeds from Facebook and Twitter are directly pushed to the homescreen for easy viewing. Also, you can comment, read and send messages, update your status and share your location, photos and more. Calendar events from social networks can also be added to the device calendar, so you’ll – hopefully – never miss an important date again.

Flash Support
YouTube fans and gamers rejoice – Flash is supported on the Nokia N8. It's a Flash 10.1 compatible Flash runtime (ActionScript 3) and player, called Flash Lite. A point to note: the device does not support all of Flash 10 features for graphics but all video-related features are supported.

Email
Nokia N8 features a completely new email client combining several accounts into one. In addition to Ovi Mail, there is a large amount of supported email clients with POP3/IMAP. There is also support for the business email solution, Mail for Exchange.

WebTV
WebTV is another new weapon added to the Nokia N8's arsenal. The Web TV application delivers TV programs, news and entertainment from channels like Paramount, E! Entertainment, CNN and National Geographic. Locally relevant Web TV content will also available from the Ovi Store.

Sensors
The Nokia N8 has backlighting and ambient light sensor, magnetometer (compass), orientation sensor and a proximity sensor. Both the orientation sensor and magnetometer come in very handy for finding your way around using Ovi Maps. The proximity sensor and ambient light sensor, on the other hand, are your battery's best friend. The proximity sensor will switch off the screen every time you bring the phone to your face to answer a call and the ambient light sensor will adjusts the display's brightness dependent on your surroundings.

Introduction

Luxury phones are having a tough time being unique nowadays. The Sony Ericsson XPERIA Pureness is having a hard time being luxurious. But that's no way to start a proper review now, is it?

There we go again then. Rare metals and precious stones are commonplace, but a transparent screen? Now, that's a first. The Sony Ericsson XPERIA Pureness keeps only the essential phone functions and that explains the Pureness moniker. And just like a proper luxury phone, it comes with a concierge service.

You can access the concierge service 24/7 via a phone call or email and have them book you a hotel room, buy tickets for a game or ask for advice. But it's not just a simple booking service – going through the concierge service has some perks, like free room upgrades in some hotels, discounts (well, well), complementary champagne and so on.

You see, the luxury of owning a Sony Ericsson XPERIA Pureness doesn’t just come from what's in the phone itself. But since we’re not going to be using the concierge service anytime soon, let's focus on what the phone has to offer:

Key features:

• Quad-band GSM support
• 3G with HSDPA and HSUPA support
• One-of-a-kind transparent greyscale display (1.8", 240 x 320 pixels), scratch-resistant surface
• Very lightweight, only 70 grams
• FM radio with RDS and TrackID
• Bluetooth with A2DP and USB (Fast Port connector)
• 2 GB internal memory
• Smart dialing
• Excellent audio quality

Main disadvantages:

• Small screen is poor on legibility
• Looks cheap and poorly built
• Fast Port instead of 3.5 mm audio jack means limited use as a music player
• Fast 3G connectivity with HSDPA/HSUPA is only usable for tethering
• No camera
• Non-removable battery
• Internal memory not expandable

A phone with a transparent screen is nothing short of unique. But the display certainly is a liability in terms of actually using the Sony Ericsson XPERIA Pureness. It limits the physical space available inside the phone, leaving Sony Ericsson engineers with very little room to work with.

Plus, the low-resolution greyscale display makes a camera (even just a video call camera) and proper web browsing pointless. This leaves tethering as the only reasonable use for the fast 3G data.

Instead we’ll stick to the new stuff. And Apple promised lots of that: multitasking, homescreen wallpapers, a revamped email app, and more. Here is our brief scoop on all the new stuff and all that's still missing.

What's new:

• Homescreen wallpapers
• Folder organization of the homescreen icons
• Multitasking and fast app switching
• Google/Wikipedia search in Spotlight
• Bluetooth keyboard pairing support
• SMS character counter
• SMS search
• Email threading
• Unified Email inbox
• Email archiving is now available when you setup Gmail
• Spell checker
• iPod music player can now create, edit and delete playlists
• 5x digital zoom in still camera
• Touch-focus in video capture (for video enabled iPhones)
• Keyboard layouts span over QWERTY, QWERTZ, and AZERTY
• Minor icon design facelifts
• Video call support (only in iPhone 4 and only over Wi-Fi)
• iBooks e-book and PDF reader

What's still missing:

• No Flash support in the web browser
• No true multitasking for all applications
• iOS4 for iPhone 3G has limited new feature set
• Poor performance on iPhone 3G
• No quick toggles for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or 3G
• No social networking integration
• No info widgets on lock screen or homescreen
• SMS tones are still not customizable
• No mass mark emails as read
• No proper file browser or access to the file system
• No USB mass storage mode
• No vibration feedback when touching the screen
• No Bluetooth file transfers to other mobile phones
• Contacts lack a swipe-to-delete or mass delete feature
• No SMS/MMS delivery notifications
• No smart dialing (but Spotlight is a somewhat of a substitute)
• No DivX or XviD video support and no official third-party application to play that
• The whole iPhone is too dependent on iTunes - you cannot add the same type of content (video, photos, apps) to the phone from two computers, a regular file management interface would have been much better.

With the iPhone it's never about what the phone can or cannot do. The iOS 4 however seems finally determined to catch up with most of the today's smartphones. You’re not to expect miracles though – such as a file browser, USB mass storage mode, web Flash support, and other stuff that seems irrelevant to Apple.

SMS search and character counter, Email threading and archiving

Steve Jobs mentioned nothing at the unveiling (and with very good reasons), but this doesn’t mean the messaging app hasn’t got any new features.

The first one is the SMS character counter, which honestly just took too long. It's there finally, but to use it you need to activate it in the messaging settings first, because it's disabled by default. Strange, isn’t it?

SMS counter • Message options

The second upgrade brings SMS search. The search bar is placed above all your conversations and works like a charm. This was another missing feature that earned Apple much criticism.

iOS 4 packs some major modifications in the Email department – an aggregated inbox, thread support and email archive.

The aggregated inbox (called All Inboxes) brings all messages from all your email accounts in one place. Some may find this feature useless, or at least messy – there’re no account labels. It has its uses anyway and we are happy to see it in iOS 4.

The aggregated email view

Email threading is also enabled and works just like the conversations in the Messages app. All emails you exchange with a given contact are grouped in a single thread. A numeric indicator on the Email main screen shows the number of emails stored in every thread.

Gallery displays Albums, Events, Faces and Places

If you use iPhoto software on any of the Apple computers, you are now able to sync your Events, Places and Faces image holders. In iPhone's gallery you will notice four tabs available at the bottom – Albums, Events, Faces and Places.

As usual, Albums holds all of your synced, downloaded and captured images.

Photos in Events and Faces can be uploaded only if you’ve pre-created them on your computer with iPhoto photo organizer. Unfortunately, you can’t populate them with photos from your iPhone's camera.

All geotagged photos (saved from web or shot with the iPhone) appear in Places where they show up as pins on a map. Tapping a pin shows a small thumb with basic information.

iPhone gets touch focus in video recording, digital zoom also available

iOS 4 brings digital zoom up to 5x to all iPhones. Unfortunately, it only works in still camera mode. We find it rather useless honestly – at least in still imaging where the camera already maxes out the resolution of the sensor. Digital zooming usually makes much more sense in video recording.

Headline says it all folks. Obviously the company is going to be getting out in front of this antenna drama (finally).  It all happens TODAY at 10AM PT, Friday the 16th. We\'ll put a Report tomorrow of What this conference has of NEWS & Surprises too and see if Apple will comment on the iPhone Antenna issue and when the iOD 4.1 will be released to users of iPhone 4 and other versions too.

HTC has drawn the model its Sync application that had been placed late last week with support for sideloading of Google android applications on ATT's Aria, apparently simply by miscalculation. Click on "Application Installer" to install latest ROM version. You'll have to login by your HTC Account and register your phone too (by entering the IMEI on the back of the device box).

source

We all know how that storyended up playing out, but prior to HP's winning bid, RIM allegedly made a generous offer and could've ultimately come away with the prize had it not failed to re-up the bid (and may have even reduced it, looking at Palm's SEC filings) after HP made its move. 

Speaking of Apple, the company was said to be in it primarily for Palm's sizable patent portfolio -- but is claimed to have also been interested in keeping the platform alive, possibly in an effort to compete in the physical QWERTY market where the iPhone has not. Of course, if you look way back, it's important to remember that Mac OS X itself is based on outside work (if you consider NeXT "outside"), so we guess that keeping webOS alive in some capacity after an Apple acquisition wouldn't be totally unprecedented -- but it'd still be really, really weird at best.

Alright, we know that playing with the Firefox 4 beta has been a full-time job for you Mozilla fanboys and girls out there, but let's try something fresh on for size, shall we? Firefox Home has finally been whisked into the App Store on news that Apple gave it the green light, meaning you can now sync your bookmarks and open tabs between your desktop and your phone. Some of us can go a few minutes without browsing the web in the off chance we're away from our PCs... aw, who are we kidding? No we can't -- and neither can you, so you may as well grab it if you're using Firefox and an iPhone.

After Windows Phone 7's grand unveiling at Barcelona's Mobile World Congress last month, Microsoft has circled back during GDC and its own MIX10 conference to fill in many of the holes in this story -- in particular, details around the app development ecosystem and how third parties can take full advantage of it have been focal points. Of course, it makes sense: a modern smartphone is only as good as its software catalog, and Redmond's clearly keen to show that it knows how very true that is. XNA -- the technology that underpins Zune games and a host of Xbox content -- figures prominently into the equation, but Silverlight is a huge, unavoidable component as well, making development for WP7 devices a starkly different experience for studios and independent code monkeys than in versions prior. We're going to be periodically updating this post as we get new info on the platform, but for now, follow the break for everything you need to know -- so far -- about Microsoft's latest and greatest mobile platform. 

Windows Phone 7 is the successor to Microsoft's line of Windows Mobile phone operating systems. It's based on the Windows CE 6 kernel, like the Zune HD, while current versions of Windows Mobile are based on Windows CE 5. Microsoft announced the new OS at Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona, and says that the first handsets to run it are supposed to be released by the holiday shopping season of this year -- and the company is emphatic in saying that it doesn't mean December 24th -- you'll have time to place your order.

The visual and underlying differences in the operating system are almost too numerous to mention, including a completely (and we do mean completely) upended user interface, an emphasis on finger-based touchscreen input, deep social networking integration, fully branded and expansive Zune and Xbox components, and extremely strict hardware requirements for partners. A couple familiar touchstones from the past include plans for Outlook and Office support, as well as licensing to a wide variety of third party hardware vendors -- despite the name change, Microsoft still isn't building any phones itself. Microsoft says it's aiming the platform at "life maximizers," and it's come up with a fictitious 38 year-old couple named Anna and Miles who represent the target end users: people who need to get work done on their phones but still want to play games and don't want to fiddle around with settings. It's cute, we'll give them that.

Hubs and first-party apps

Pictures hub: An aggregate of your locally stored photos, cloud-based Facebook, Windows Live, or other connected picture galleries, and feeds of your contacts' recently updated images. The pictures hub will also allow you to upload and comment on photos on services like Facebook natively inside of the hub experience. Photo apps can also plug into the Pictures hub to offer editing and sharing functions as well. Like we said earlier, you can't order photo sources by priority or preference, so we're a little concerned that this hub will be quickly overrun, but we'll see how it works in practice.

Games hub: Integrates with Xbox Live, including the housing of a miniature version of your avatar (in 3D and everything), Xbox LIVE games and achievements, Spotlight feeds, and the ability to browse gamer profiles. Microsoft says it wants games that are easy to play in the "mobile minute," and is focusing on turn-based games to start, but we've now seen a few impressive 3D XNA games shown off, complete with Xbox achievements and other features pulled in from Live. Integration with Xbox and its ecosystem is being taken very seriously by the folks in Redmond -- you're not just going to be playing Sudoku here. This should be an easy one to not screw up.

Office hub: Microsoft's bread and butter, but so far we've just seen the hub itself -- none of its deeper functionality like document editing. There's an emphasis on OneNote and SharePoint Workspace that should be pretty interesting, however. Ultimately, based on the new UI paradigms and user experience directives of Windows Phone 7, Microsoft is going to have to rebuild these applications from the ground up. As long as they're able to make them super functional while keeping the Metro look intact, this should be a real win -- we're still curious as to how the company plans to cram all that information into a UI which is focused on doing away with visual noise, and the lack of system-wide clipboard functionality is going to be an issue here, no matter how much Microsoft insists users only want to view documents and add comments.

And all the rest... 

Email: Relies on swipes to switch between message views (unread / flagged / etc.), and has a color-coded system for differentiating between work and personal messages. We're hopeful there's an option to un-mix multiple inboxes as well, but it's unclear so far. Microsoft's focused the app on mobile "triaging" of email, so there are robust tools to manage multiple messages, but there's also a lot of negative space in the app, which is a bit of a concerning (if beautiful) trend throughout the UI. We don't expect any deep integration with services like Gmail beyond the contact syncing... though if Microsoft could pull labeling, archiving, and threaded messages off here, we can think of at least one editor who would be seriously inclined to switch to this platform.

Another member of the Nokia Cseries of no-nonsense phones just leaked. And the photos were published by no other but Nokia itself. Apparently the guys supporting the Dutch website of the company were a bit too eager to publish the details about the handset and forgot that it's still unannounced.

Carrying one of those confusing names that have become Nokia trademark as of late, the C6-01 is a slight upgraded version of the rather popular C6. The new handset brings an 8MP autofocus camera and dual-LED flash, compared to a 5 megapixel snapper with a single LED on the first C6.

The back panel has also been redesigned, but that's about all the changes that Nokia C6-01 brings. Even the user interface of the C6-01 is Symbian^1, rather than the upcoming Symbian^3.

The Nokia C6-01 will be available in black and white versions and will cost about 280 euro.

If you needed another reason to look beyond Maemo 5 to its successor, Maemo 6, set to be released in around twelve months time, then how about multitouch and gesture-based input?  Nokia have confirmed that Qt 4.6 will be optimized for Maemo 6 but also see a port to the upcoming Symbian 4, as well as bringing with it improvements to the WebKit browser and a reduction in the need for widgets

The Nokia N900 runs on the latest Maemo 5 operating system but we’re all aware that Maemo 6 is already in development. Now, a rumour has started to circulate that we may well get the first such device in the second half of the year. Join us after the jump to find out more about Nokia Maemo 6 devices in 2010 H2…

Got your Nokia N900 and happy with it? Of course you are but anyone with a love for the latest and greatest will no doubt already be keeping an eye on the developments of Maemo 6. So, when an article popped up this morning suggesting such a device would be here this year we were all ears. The big thing with Maemo 6 is that it will bring with it a whole host of new features, including multi-touch support, so we may well get the first capacitive Nokia Mameo device too.

Maemo5 on N900

Among the Nokia N8 neater tricks is its support for USB On-The-Go, which basically lets you connect USB peripherals (flash drives, for example) to the phone and have it act as a host — a duty usually reserved for heavier-duty devices like PCs. Though the N8 is still a solid month or three away from release, we’re getting a nice little video demo on YouTube today of an N8 being walked through the paces of connecting both a plain-vanilla USB drive and another Symbian-based Nokia candybar (brownie points for naming the model in comments, by the way). Basically, you can treat the connected hardware as mass storage and browse it just as you would the N8′s internal space, which basically means you’ve got unlimited music capacity as long as you’ve got a pocket full of USB sticks and a micro USB-to-USB adapter cord.

From NokiaN8Blog.com

The display is crisp. It is an OLED running at a 640 x 360-pixel resolution, and measures 3.5 inches diagonally. It’s a capacitive touchscreen, and I found it responsive, if a little inaccurate at the edges. Nokia told me that this isn’t the final version, so it’s possible that might improve before launch. he most immediate improvement is performance. Menus open smoothly and without delay. Nokia has dispensed with the too-slow transitions; transitions are there, but are actually so subtle you don’t notice them. And the N8 doesn’t break sweat when the phone is flipped through 90 degrees, even when this entails some reordering of the screen elements from portrait to landscape.”

Source

It requires a Windows PC. But PlayOn for iPhone actually works, slinging Netflix, Hulu, CBS and more to your waiting Apple device over WiFi and (occasionally) 3G. Using the same PlayOn desktop client that presently redirects video-on-demand to your game console or a mediastreamer attached to your TV, subscribers can download an app on July 15th that transcodes content for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad as well, and is today the only way to get Netflix on your phone. 

We spent some quality couch time with the program over the last couple of days, and with a powerful PC, fast internet and WiFi connection, we found video quite watchable on our iPhone 4, and there\'s no knocking PlayOn\'s breadth of content available, with loads of TV, a good deal of anime and your entire Netflix streaming queue available on the phone. The interface is barely there, though, just a series of poorly-spaced nesting menus, and it can take quite a few touchscreen presses and a bit of thought to find what you want to watch. There are a few bugs too, like one that kept shooting us back to the main menu randomly upon a button press, and another that locked us into a particular piece of content until both app and desktop server were restarted.

source

As if we needed any more drama in this situation, Bloomberg has someone "familiar with the matter" that claims Apple's own antenna expert, Ruben Caballero, told Apple management that the iPhone 4 antenna design could cause reception problems, dropped calls, and a serious engineering challenge. Caballero is a senior engineer for Apple with a large quantity of antenna patents under his belt, and while we certainly don't know the whole story -- perhaps his claims were somehow quelled by Apple's own testing -- it certainly adds a twist to this story if Steve Jobs and co. had been alerted to this very real problem during the design phase. The Bloomberg article also claims, from a different source, no less, that a carrier partner also raised antenna concerns before the release. Apple and Caballero naturally did not comment on this report. We're not really sure about the real-world implications of all this behind-the-scenes drama, but we suppose we'll see what Apple has to say for itself tomorrow.

While not technically a CEO, Microsoft chief operating officer Kevin Turner is not immune to a certain amount of executive level foot-in-mouth. Speaking at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference in DC and chatting up his company's upcoming slate of Windows Phones, he couldn't help a little iPhone bashing: "It looks like the iPhone 4 might be their Vista, and I'm okay with that." Should we point out to Kevin that attempting to criticize your competition by comparing it to your own flagship products is usually counterproductive, or leave him to figure it out on his own during some early morning magnificent moustache contemplation session? Apple may be got manything wrong on iPhone 4 Buy its still an iPhone!

So Whats you think ??

They prompted some public outcry from competitors and a preliminary antitrust investigation from the US government, but it looks like Apple isn\'t even enforcing those new rules on outside ad networks -- at least not yet. That\'s according to none other than AdMob CEO Omar Hamoui himself, who said at theMobileBeat conference this week that \"they haven\'t been enforcing\" the new regulations yet, and that he\'s \"very appreciative of that.\" If enforced, those regulations would prevent companies like AdMob from collecting some analytic data on ads placed in iOS applications -- data that Apple itself could collect with its iAd platform. Of course, it\'s not clear when or if Apple will start enforcing the rules, but Hamoui seems to be content with the current situation, and even went out of his way to praise Apple\'s own advertising efforts, saying that \"anybody getting advertisers interested in mobile is a good thing. It\'s not at all a zero-sum game.\"

Modu phone is now Available in UK for 130 pounds

Do you remember the modular phone announced back at the MWC 2009? It's been selling in some markets for a couple of months now, but now it lands officially in UK with several of its jackets.

Modu phone is one of the smallest handset out there with 1.3-inch OLED screen and only 7.8 mm. of thickness. It comes with a small keypad, 2GB non-expandable memory and Bluetooth.

Modu relies on the expandable and exchangeable jackets which can turn it into a photo frame, sport accessory, pedometer or just a fashion bar phone.

Modu will be sold exclusively by PurelyGadgets and costs 130 pounds (155 euro). Most of the jackets are priced on 30 or 40 pounds, while the photo frame goes for 80 pounds and the sport jacket is 50.

It was about time. Apple got quite a hit by the wave of user discontent about the iPhone 4 antenna issues. It's been 3 weeks since the premiere of iPhone 4, but it is tomorrow that Apple will confess. Or not.

And this is all we know so far. Apple sent invitations to select press representatives for tomorrow's press conference. It will start 10:00 AM Pacific Time (6 PM European GMT) and will surly concern iPhone 4. Whether Apple will admit the issues, offer free bumper cases or start a recall campaign - nobody knows. But this sounds surely as the first step into the right direction.

Meanwhile iOS 4.1 beta is already available to developers and here is a glimpse of what we should expect.

The reception bars now make use of both a new formula and a new size. The first reports show that a full-bars situation is now a rare event. The bars are also a bit taller than before, which sounds like a clever mind trick.

The Game Center has been redesigned too. It's now painted in green with yellow buttons.

Finally, there are some rumors of watermarking of jailbroken devices. If your iPhone 4 has joined the pirateland, it will have some watermark showing onscreen all the time. Don't worry just yet though, there's still no public jailbreak solution and it's all just a rumor for now.

The Dutch manufacturer of extremely expensive mobile phones BELLPERRE announced its latest phone today. Giving unprecedented customization options the BELLPERRE phone (the company obviously found it too hard to come up with a proper name for it) also packs a few nice features.

The highlights of the specs sheet include a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, quad-band GSM and tri-band HSDPA connectivity, GPS and Bluetooth. The display measures 2.2 inches and sports QVGA resolution. There is also FM radio and an accelerometer sensor on board.

BELLEPERRE offer 125 genuine leather options for the back panel of their handset. From "modest classic leathers" like black buffalo or brown lizard to vibrant colors and textures like pink crocodile or red shark - it's all there. There is also 14 different colors for the ostrich leather, known for its durability and fine texture, but we doubt many people will go for it.

But of course those luxury phones are all about the exquisite materials. In this particular case we have a solid metal frame and steel buttons and owners might pick the finish themselves, choices being brushed steel, polished silver, 18K rose gold and 24K yellow gold.

BELLERPERRE didn't reveal the target availability or the pricing of their handset, but interestingly enough called it affordable. Yet we somehow can't see ourselves affording it without having to sell our cars.

The iPhone 4G seems to attract problems. First, the phone was leaked long before Apple wanted it to be. Then, the iPhone 4G problems came in pre-ordering and delivery. Next, white iPhone 4G problems abounded. Now, the final straw, iPhone 4G reception is proving problematic.

iPhone 4G problems: Reception

Though the design of the iPhone 4G is geared toward actually improving the reception of the phone, many users have been discovering a quirk. The steel-band antenna around the iPhone 4G quickly kills all reception if a user touches the bottom-left corner of the phone. Apple’s solution to this problem is simply “just don’t hold the phone that way.” You could also spend money above and beyond the phone, iPhone apps, your data plan and your voice plan to get a case. Either way, the iPhone 4G reception problems appear to be an Apple-admitted design flaw. Perhaps duct tape would fix it?

iPhone 4G problems: Colors

Sure, there isn’t any difference in the technology behind the iPhone 4G black and iPhone 4G white, but there are “manufacturing issues.” The promised iPhone 4G white will not be available for at least a few more weeks, if not months.

iPhone 4G problems: Ordering and delivery

Though the problems with the iPhone 4G ordering and delivery are slowly working themselves out, it has been a long time coming. The promised delivery date for the iPhone 4G was changed several times. First, the online AT&T store crashed. Then, the Apple store shut down orders. Next, the delivery date was pushed back. Even still, some customers were told they had successfully pre-ordered a phone when they hadn’t, and visa versa. Finally, FedEx appeared to have iPhone 4G problems of its own — with delivery happening only sometimes.

iPhone 4G problems to come?

The iPhone 4G problems stem, partially, from the extreme demand for the device. However, there are structural problems that the iPhone 4G has which simply are not being fixed. IPhone 4G reception being killed by how most people hold the phone is a design “feature” that has existed since the last incarnation. Not having reception may be a good thing though — because AT&T’s new data plans are structured in a way that you will be able to download maybe 2 TV episodes before you go over data allowances for the month.

Are you having iPhone 4G problems? How have you fixed them?

The Bluetooth SIG has just announced that it has officially adopted the Bluetooth Core Specification Version 4.0. Low energy consumption is just one of the major improvements of v4.0 over the v3.0.

Having made that step, the Bluetooth SIG (short for Bluetooth Special Interest Group) is now ready to start qualifying all sorts of Bluetooth products to the version 4.0 specification and first devices with Bluetooth 4.0 support are expected to show up before this year ends.

The upcoming Bluetooth version will be optimized for low power battery operation which will help the technology to conquer new markets such as health care, fitness and sports where devices require low power and low cost wireless connectivity.

Lower power consumption will also allow the technology to be used in way smaller products than before such as tiny coin-cell battery powered devices and sensors. According to the Bluetooth SIG, thanks to the decreased demand for power, products will be able to run for years on standard coin-cell batteries.

The other improvements brought to Bluetooth by v4.0 include low cost, multi-vendor interoperability and enhanced range.

The mobile version of the popular YouTube website just got faster and touch-friendlier. It also got the HTML5 treatment all iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users have been waiting for so long. What this means is YouTube videos will be of highest-quality possible.

So, pages will now load faster, controls will be more thumbable and there will be some features known from the YouTube.com website (such as query suggestions, the ability to create playlists and to designate "favorite", "like" and "unlike" videos from the device itself).

The YouTube team also promises to bring any improvements made on the desktop version of the site to its mobile version much faster in the future. A lot faster than those updates come to the iPhone- and Android-compatible native YouTube apps.

And here is a short video demonstrating the latest YouTube Mobile website version. Enjoy!

The Android version of the world's most popular mobile browser, Opera Mini has just received an update. So far Droid owners only had access to the beta version of Opera Mini 5, but now they are getting an updated feature pack and the chance to enjoy a final version at the same time.

The optimized Opera Mini engine allows cutting on mobile traffic usage by as much as 90 percent, which should improve speed and decrease data charges at the same time. The latest 5.1 version is also designed to consume less system resources, being more suitable to low-end and mid-range handsets, wherehardware constraints are stronger.

Finally the Opera Mini 5.1 now gives the Android users the option to select it as the default browser. The Norwegian company hopes to match its success with the iPhone, who got its first official version not long ago. In the 24 hours following its release to the App Store, Opera mini registered over 1 million downloads topping the charts in every single country, where the Apple application store is available.

Android users, you can now head for the Android market and give the new version a try or follow this linkfrom your smartphone and get Opera Mini 5.1 directly from the developers webpage.

Some People Ask themselves Why Nokia Released the Cseries. Whats the point of this Series as its Not powerful than the Eseries or the Nseries. Nokia Released this series to give users Mobile phones that is not very priceless and in the same time it has a Good Quality and Many Features and Not just cheap phones but Great performance and Adorable Strong materials thats makes the phone live along. Like the C6, C5 & C3

These phones are Very Good for Home use or as a Back-up phone if your main phone stolen or lost this one can save you and do your Tasks too in a very good price mostly half the price of a Very optional Nseries phone. Also these phone Great for Children and Elder People who always lost their phones.

Both Nokia X6 and X3 have been updated from firmware v20.0.005 to v21.0.004. The S60-powered X6 gets many native apps updated, while the X3 is going with the modest improvement over battery charging notification and ring/alert tones.

The complete changelog for Nokia X6 includes:

• Browser update to 7.2
• Ovi Music
• Ovi Sync 2.0
• Ovi Store 1.5.6
• Ovi Contacts 1.50.8
• Shazam with 30-day trial
• Improved kinetic scrolling in Appshell
• Rihanna service launcher
• Gimlet Touch 2.2
• Flash Video Phase-3 - Flash Lite 3.1.7.x
• Enabled Side Lock Key functionality through Swipe UI
• Windows 7 Device Stage Support
• Updated Video Telephony
• Mail for Exchange v2.9.210
• Stability and speed improvement

Nokia PUSH N900 MENA (Middle-East & North Africa) has just launched their Own Facebook Fan page yesterday (16/1/2010) with Great insight and Have Some NEWS about an Arabic version of Maemo5 and an Update to the English Version (v1.2009.44.1) Also it will have a Download Center that is related to the Official Maemo Site (Maemo.org) to Direct Download For All NEW Application and Updated Daily Which Gives All Nokia N900 Fans & developers from All over the World a Chance to be Always up-to-date with All Everything New with the N900 and Maemo5 OS.

The Page is Still New and other sections is still Under construction But If you have a Facebook Account (I think you do!) and interesting of Nokia N900 I suggest to Check the Page Daily to be up-to-date and Also this Page is available in Both languages English & Arabic too.

Visit the Page

Nokia will Release a New Mobile Phone on Nseries Family Called the (N87) which will be the First Nokia Nseries with a 12MP Camera. This Phone is Expected to be released on the 1H of 2010. and here is a picture of the Phone and some Unconfirmed specification.

Phone Specification (Not-Confirmed):

• CPU ARM 600MHz Processor & 200MB RAM
• 3.2" WVGA Capacitive Touch Screen @ Resolution of (800x480)
• 16GB Internal Mass Storage
• Slide Style with dedicated Media key
• 12.1 MP Camera with CarlZeiss Optics
• Xenon & Dual-LED Flash
• NEW! Version of Symbian S60v5 UI
• VGA Secondary Camera for Video Calls
• Wifi & Bluetooth V2.1 with EDR & A2DP
• 7.2Mbps High Speed 3G HSDPA,HSDPU
• Accelerometer Sensor for auto Rotate
• Proximity Sensor for Auto Turn-off
• Light sensor for Auto light detection
• 2 Stereo Loud speakers
• MicroSDHC 2.0 (Up to 32GB)
• Mini USB & 3.5mm Jack