Mobile Devices - Page 181

Nokia's entry-level value-priced Windows Phone is currently rolling out across the world: Lumia 710. It has virtually the same insides as the Lumia 800, sporting a 1.4GHz Qualcomm MSM8255 (WCDMA) processor, 512MB RAM, a rear-facing 5-megapixel camera with LED flash, 3.7-inch CBD LCD display and weighs in at 126 grams.

The task the Lumia 710 has is to allow greater penetration of the Windows Phone platform into the middle segment of the market. And since it shares hardware with the Nokia Lumia 800, it can be considered a second-generation Windows Phone, from the best value for money.

Because the Lumia 710 uses a plastic design, it cuts off some of the weight the usual premium handsets have, but with no consequences to build quality. It also features swappable back covers, in case you want to change things up, old-school Nokia style. You could have black or white Lumia 710 with back colors ranging from blue, pink, yellow and others.

RIM have taken a leaf out of HP's book and dumped their Android-powered BlackBerry Playbook to $299 in the U.S. and that's not all. The PlayBook is on sale through to February 4th.

RIM's official webstore is offering the 16, 32 and 64GB versions of the PlayBook for just $299. Yes, that's $299 for any size. Who would want to buy a 32 or 16GB model for $299 if you're able to get your hands on the 64GB model for the same price?

On top of this, if you want to access the proper Android Market on the PlayBook, the people over at CrackBerry have been good enough to detail the process, which requires a rooted PlayBook, WinSCP, the latest version of Cyanogen Google apps and a tad sprinkle of patience. Not all Android-native apps will work, but there are a bunch that you'll get access to.

Samsung's bulky, but sexy Galaxy Note smartphone will arrive in the U.S. sometime in the next 6 months. The Galaxy Note AT&T model will sport something a little surprising when compared to its European brother from the same mother, NFC.

The Galaxy Note sports a 5.29-inch Super AMOLED screen with a Full Touch Bar, Google Android 2.3 Gingerbread (and not Android 4.x Ice Cream Sandwich), an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera with LED flash, a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, the usual BlueTooth, USB, Wi-Fi, and then, NFC (Near Field Communication).

The most surprising thing in that spec list is that a premier Samsung product launching in 2012 not including Ice Cream Sandwich, but this may change between now and release. At the moment, the processor type is unknown, another strange thing about this release. For a full spec list:

Originally, I didn't want to use the headline with a swear word in it, but it does look catchy. Now that you're reading this news, the latest news out of the UK will interest you in regards to Apple's iPhone 4S personal assistant, Siri.

A demo version of the phone was on display in Tesco, where a 12-year-old kid was testing it and asked Siri "How many people are there in the world?" Siri replied with "Shut the f**k up, you ugly tw**." Wow. Just wow, Siri.

UK-based newspaper, The Sun, had an exclusive story, where the mother of the child is obviously rather shocked and annoyed with Siri's response. She told The Sun:

DigiTimes are reporting that Apple is going to unveil its next-generation iPad in January, where it will also unveil two different versions of the iPad. DigiTimes' sources claim that it is scheduled for iWorld which is being held on January 26, 2012.

The new models are set to join the existing iPad 2 to demonstrate Apple's iPad series targeting the entry-level, mid-range, and high-end market segments, the sources claimed. The sources said:

Apple's biggest competitor, Samsung, will reportedly launch the Galaxy S III, the successor to the most popular Android smartphone on the market, Galaxy S II, at Mobile World Congress in February. At the same time they're said to be launching a new 3D-capable range of devices in the first quarter of 2012.

Almost a year after they launched the Galaxy S II, could Samsung really do it again? How could it be much better than the Galaxy S II? Well, it's expected to sport a quad-core processor and possibly even include 3D technology as Samsung look to differentiate their phone from the iPhone.

With 3D photo and video recording capabilities being baked into additional Samsung-branded smartphones next year, coming to a device being referred to as Galaxy S 3D, which helps users deliver 3D content to their 3D TVs. This device could be launched in Q2 2012. Right now, of course, the usual pinch of salt is required.

In a surprising move, The Pentagon have just officially certified an Android-powered device, alongside Android 2.2 for use on the Defense Department networks, which marks the first move away from RIM's BlackBerry. This is the first smartphone since the BlackBerry to receive approval.

The approval went to Dell's Venue, with Dell's now discontinued Streak tablet being the previously approved device. Other Android-based manufacturers such as Samsung, Motorola, HTC and others were not covered in the recently published document. DoD employees only have limited access to the device's feature set, of course.

The Android Market will be banned, and all web browsing must be done through a DoD proxy server. On top of these restrictions, classified information cannot be sent, received or accessed using the Android handsets. On the fruity side of things, Apple's iPhones and iPads are currently being tested for use on DoD networks, but the DoD are not making any comments on when the iOS-powered devices might get approval.

Intel is set to smash into the system-on-a-chip (SoC) market in 2012, where they are going to be "becoming mobile" in quite a serious way. Intel went through an internal reorganization and merged four distinctive business units into one: Mobile Communications, Mobile Wireless, Netbook & Tablet PC and Ultra-Mobility.

The new group is called "Mobile and Communications" and is lead by Mike Bell and Hermann Eul. The first product to come from the fancy new group is the 32nm chip called Medfield. Medfield is Intel's codename for their first SoC and first true highly-integrated-solution. Intel have in the past, talked of "vertically integrated platforms", without talking about how many chips were required in order to have a functional platform. This marks a new direction for Intel.

Intel's Medfield is competition against Apple's A-Series, NVIDIA's Tegra range, Qualcomm's Snapdragon, Samsung's Exynos, Texas Instruments OMAP and others. Out of the ranges just explained, Samsung's Exynos is the only SoC currently built on a 32nm process, just like Medfield.

Samsung have a duo of products to release before Christmas, in the form of two new dual-SIM Android-powered handsets. The Galaxy Y Duos sports a 3.14-inch QVGA (243x320) touchscreen, 834MHz processor, HSDPA, a 3-megapixel rear-facing camera, and software wise we have Google's Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

The Galaxy Y Duos Pro is the same handset inside, but features a smaller 2.6-inch LQVGA TFT screen so make space for its physical keyboard. The new devices will hit Russia in January 2012, with the Galaxy Y Duos rolling out to Europe, CIS, Latin America, Southeast and Southwest Asia, Middle East, Africa, and finally, China.

Galaxy Y Pro Duos will arrive in Europe, CIS, Latin America, Southwest Asia, Middle East and Africa. Both phones sport the great feature of dual-SIM, which can be handy for those who want to either have one side for business, one for pleasure. Alternatively, if one carrier has better offers at certain times (or more data allowance), and then you could switch to the other SIM for everything else.

Amazon released version 6.2.1 of its Kindle Software. The aim of this update seems to be improving UI performance, which is something people have wanted since the Kindle Fire went on sale. The update is set to be delivered over-the-air, but for those who haven't received it OTA, you can download it manually, with some instructions below.

Amazon say that the 6.2.1 contains the following:

Enhanced fluidity and performance - The user interface felt choppy, especially with items like the coverflow or "carousel" feature. This update aims to improve that.

Usually when in a plane, all electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets and the like, are required to be turned off. Including the cockpit and its pilots. Not for American Airlines pilots in the cockpit, who have now been approved by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to use electronics, and more specifically, iPads in the cockpit.

The FAA announced on Tuesday that American Airlines pilots in the cockpit will no longer require the use of paper-based flight manuals during those times, and could now use Apple iPads instead.The FAA came to this decision after they conducting a test of the use of electronics in the cockpit, in an effort to potentially replace the use of paper manuals and charts.

Some are left wondering why the FAA didn't run the same tests for passengers, which would see passengers having the ability to use their electronic devices before and after takeoff, instead of having to wait until the plane reaches an altitude of 10,000 feet before the use of electronics is allowed. The New York Times called the rule that passengers needed to wait until the plane reached 10,000 feet "outdated," and even bought up the idea that the rule may just be used to keep passengers' attention during takeoff and landing announcements.

Ah, Nokia. Your days of being the king of the mountain are behind you, for now. Nokia's director of Portfolio, Product Marketing & Sales, Niels Munksgaard, has come out and said in an interview that young people are baffled by Android and are fed-up with iPhone's.

Here's a direct quote:

Android owner? Malware victim? Like free stuff? Well, all you'll need to do is tell Microsoft about the problems you've had with malware on your Android-based phone.

Microsoft's latest social media marketing intiative, is not to push their own Windows Phone-based products, but to take a stab at Google and their malware woes. Ben Rudolph, Microsoft Windows Phone "evanglist", is behind the scheme, which uses the hashtag "#droidrage" on Twitter.

Linking followers to current news articles about Android malware, Rudolph says he will give an "upgrade" to a Windows Phone to the "5 best" stories of being a victim of Android malware.

We know it's coming, but building the excitement is part of the ride, isn't it? Apple's Asian part supplier believe that Apple is gearing up to release another iPad in just 3-4 months time. According to DigiTimes' sources, iPad 2 production is already beginning to wind down, to allow parts for a new tablet to begin making their way through the supply chain.

If it were to hit in 3-4 months time, it would launch perfectly in the spring time set by the two previous iPad launches. This news does come with an included pinch of salt, as Apple is quite the sneaky company when it comes to this type of news.

According to Apple's supply chain partners, production of the iPad 3 is expected to include just under 10 million units during Q1 2012. This is an expanded number, that has increased as its thought that most first-generation iPad owners will upgrade to the new iPad when it hits. iPad 2 production is said to drop to 4-5 million for Q1 2012, with the iPad 3 the reason of its declined production.

Earlier on today we attended a Qualcomm media roundtable in Taipei where we were introduced to a partner product of theirs from a Korean bookstore company called Kyobo.

Kyobo is famous in Korea and its digital catalog includes some 90,000 titles including regular ebooks, children's books, video books and video lectures. With almost a 100% literacy rate and an aggressive government very keen on high levels of education and parents with enough deposable income for youth learning gadgets, Korea is a perfect market for Qualcomm to spread its wings and work with its partners to bundle its mirasol display technology on mobile products.

The result of said above is the launch of the first color e-reader featuring Qualcomm's mirasol display tech. Mirasol is different to that of LCD, LED or plasma in that there are no harmful chemicals used in the production of the display and there is no back light, which some consider harmful to human eyes over extended periods of use. Mirasol reflects natural ambient light in your surrounding and uses it to create the color display. So, you aren't going to get the same quality display as LCD, but Qualcomm are not trying to compete with LCD and mirasol displays use less power. This is only going to result in a device with longer battery life at the end of the day.

OnLive have released a new update to its Android and iOS app which allows PC-quality high-definition gameplay to a very wide range of smartphones, tablets and media players. This includes the iPad, iPhone, iPod touch and Kindle Fire.

The app is available on Thursday, December 8 and will add complete gameplay support for any game offered through the OnLive service, which includes some of the latest AAA games on the market right now such as Batman: Arkham City, L.A. Noire, Assassin's Creed: Revelations and more.

The previous version of the OnLive app only allowed users to use the OnLive marketplace and access the social features of the service, but after tomorrow, you'll be able to play any game as long as you're connected to Wi-Fi, and if not, it'll also work over 3G and 4G LTE connections with a minimum speed of just 1Mbps.

Samsung's Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich phone may be available internationally, but U.S.-based fans are still waiting on the subsidized CDMA version to be sold by none other than Verizon and made available this Friday.

The Galaxy Nexus will be available for $199 on a two-year contract, which is something that has now been confirmed. The smartphone will also be the first Ice Cream Sandwich phone to officially arrive in the U.S. market. If you don't already know, the Galaxy Nexus sports the beautiful AMOLED display which comes in at 4.65-inches with a high-density resolution of 1280x720.

[edit] I have received some e-mails and comments on this article, after some more digging around - there are conflicting reports of a $199 figure, which could've been a Black Friday sale amount, and there is a $299 figure floating around too. It could all be a marketing stunt too, as the Galaxy Nexus is most likely going to be the biggest competitor against the iPhone 4S. I guess we'll see in just over a days time.

China, where all things like this seem to start, has done it again. A first-of-its-kind tablet, which sports Google's latest Android 4.0 OS is priced under $100 and for sale right now. It will reach the shores of other countries in the coming weeks and months.

The tablet comes from a company called Ainol, and is called the "Novo7". Novo7 sports a 7-inch capacitive screen and runs on just a 1GHz single-core MIPS processor. Battery life seems good, with claims of eight hours whilst watching video, seven hours if you're just browsing the web and six hours when playing games.

Software wise, Android 4.0 is the joy of this unit. For $100 its feature list is quite good: front and rear-facing cameras, 3D graphics capabilities, 1080p video decoding and an HDMI port.

Last week, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a set of patent applications from Apple that reveal another series of iPhone camera technologies. Patently Apple covered this, as they're a site dedicated to Apple patents and have said:

Patently Apple goes into some extreme detail regarding the new technology, so if you're an iPhone owner, or would just like to know what Apple are baking in the oven for the iPhone 4S, then take a look.

This is not something you'd expect from the can't-do-anything-wrong Apple, but during a flight in Australia, an iPhone spontaneously began smoking and emitting a red glow. Passengers aboard Regional Express flight ZL319 were welcomed to their destination in Sydney, Australia by a somewhat frightening ordeal.

Regional Express said that a passenger's iPhone began "emitting a significant amount of dense smoke" shortly after the flight landed, and the smoke was accompanied by a red glow. The device was extinguished by a flight attendant with no passenger's or crew injured. The phone itself was an iPhone 4, and not the new iPhone 4S model.

It has been taken by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau as part of their investigation. The full press release is quoted below: