Mobile Devices - Page 350

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 The New York Times called the rule that passengers needed to wait until the plane reached 10,000 feet "outdated," and even bought up the idea that the rule may just be used to keep passengers' attention during takeoff and landing announcements.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: