Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Sprint releases HTC EVO 3D & HTC View 4G
Sprint has released the HTC EVO 3D, the successor to the highly successful EVO 4G. The new device, which Sprint touts as "America's first glasses-free 3D phone," is $199.99 with a new two-year contract or eligible upgrade.

Also available is the HTC EVO View 4G, which Sprint calls the first 4G-tablet to hit the U.S. The EVO View is $399.99 with a two-year contract.

The EVO 3D takes everything that made the EVO 4G such a huge hit and upgrades it to 2011's hottest technology. That means the device has a 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor, dual 5-megapixel cameras for capturing 3D images and videos, and a 4.3-inch qHD 3D display. It runs on Android 2.3 (Gingerbread).

The EVO 4G was one of our favorite phones from 2010 so if the EVO 3D is half as good, it'll be a great device.

As for the HTC View 4G, it's a 7-inch touchscreen tablet that's basically the WiMax version of the HTC Flyer. That means it has a single-core 1.5Ghz processor, runs Android 2.3 and has a 1024-by-600 resolution display.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Motorola to launch Triumph: A High-End Prepaid Android Smartphone
Motorola is all set to launch a high end prepaid android smartphone. That is Motorola Triumph. And when it goes on sale July 19 for $299, it'll be one of the most powerful prepaid Android smartphones out there, on Virgin Mobile's network or any other.

The specs of Motorola Triumph:
he specs of Motorola Triumph:The Motorola Triumph will have a 1-gigahertz single-core processor and 512 MB of RAM, making it roughly equivalent to a high-end Android smartphone from 2010 like the HTC Evo. It will have a 4.1 inch screen, much larger than the iPhone 4's and closer to other large Android smartphones'. And it will only have 2 GB of internal storage, but will support up to 32 GB of additional memory through its MicroSD slot - so if you already have a fingernail-sized memory card from another phone, just plug it in and you're good to go.

The Triumph will run Android 2.2 "Froyo," a recent version of Android that's basically par for the course for a modern smartphone. It will also have advanced multimedia capabilities, like a 5-megapixel camera that can record 720p video, plus a front-facing camera for video chat. Finally, an HDMI out port will let you plug it in to your HDTV so you can watch videos on the big screen.

The Motorola Triumph is a prepaid smartphone, meaning you don't sign up for a two-year contract with it. Because of that, you have to pay the phone's full cost up front, and it's pretty hefty at $299.

On the plus side, though, not only do you not sign a contract, but you can get unlimited data and texting for $25 a month. Virgin Mobile's basic "Beyond Talk" plan also includes 300 voice minutes per month, and its $40 per month plan includes 1200 minutes. ($60 a month gets you unlimited everything, period.)

The Upshot:
Virgin Mobile is easily the cheapest of the prepaid mobile carriers, like MetroPCS and Cricket, and it uses Sprint's network to boot. The LG Optimus V is Virgin's flagship phone at the moment, and it costs half as much as the Triumph but has decidedly low-end specs.

The Motorola Triumph just might be the phone you've been waiting for, if you want a decent smartphone without a 2-year contract. And it'll cost more than more powerful phones will up-front, but the cheaper, contract-free wireless plans might make it worth it.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Archos unveils 10-Inch Tablet for $349
Faster, better, cheaper: Pick any two. Archos seems to have chosen better and cheaper for its upcoming "G9" Android tablets, where "better" means "more powerful" and "more storage space." But will that make either of them a better choice than the iPad 2?

The Archos G9 will come in two flavors, the 8-inch and the 10.1-inch. Both will have a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor, which may make them more powerful than similarly-priced PC laptops. These are Android tablets, though, so you're not going to be running PC apps on them.

Archos' pedigree involves making media players, and the G9 tablets are designed for heavy-duty HD video watching. Both can supposedly play 1080p video without breaking a sweat, unlike the iPad 2, and will be able to output it through their HDMI ports without needing a special adapter.

A 16 GB iPad 2 can hold about half a dozen 720p HD movies, depending on filesize, and that's if you don't put any music on it or take any pictures with it. The Archos G9 Android tablets will have 250 GB hard drives, letting them hold up to 40 movies in full 1080p.

Downsides:
The G9s' biggest downside may be in the apps department. First off, the Android Market doesn't have nearly as many tablet-specific apps as the App Store does. And no, the G9s won't be able to run the 65,000 iPad apps; only an iPad can do that.

Second, app loading times. Think of how long it takes for an app or game to load on your smartphone. Well, the bottleneck isn't processor speed; it's how fast it can load the data off of whatever it's stored on. And the flash memory used by the iPad and most smartphones and memory cards is a heck of a lot faster than your laptop's hard drive.

The Archos G9s will be using hard drives instead of flash memory. So while it may be too early to tell, it's probably a safe bet that games and apps will take longer to load than on other tablets.

More downsides to the tablet:
Another thing to consider is that Archos has never been known for its devices' quality. They're harder to quantify, but they can be the difference between a tablet you love and a cheap piece of junk that won't do what you want it to.

Archos' previous devices had their fans, but they didn't have Android Market access and tended to have resistive touch screens; Nintendo DS-style single-touch screens that you used with a fingernail or a stylus. Neither of these design decisions screamed "quality."

With prices as low as $349 for the 10-inch tablet, and $279 for the 8-inch model, one has to wonder what design tradeoffs were made.

Neither tablet will ship with 3G capability, but 3G wireless Internet access can be added via a $49 adapter and a pay-as-you-go plan. The tablets will be available at the end of September.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Laptops could be powered simply by typing
Battery life can be a deal maker or a deal breaker when shopping for a new electronic gadget, and laptops are especially notorious for over-promising and under-delivering when it comes to how long they can last between charges. A new twist on an old technological advancement might change all that by turning your keystrokes into power. Using a thin film that exhibits piezoelectric properties, the pressure of your fingers hitting each key could potentially generate enough energy to keep a notebook battery charged.

Piezoelectric materials, many of which are man-made ceramics, actually generate electric current when impacted. The science behind it has been used for many years in things like mechanical actuators and sensors, but has seen limited application in consumer electronics. Australian researchers at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology have been testing a piezoelectric film that could, in theory, be applied underneath a notebook keyboard. It would absorb the impact of each keystroke and use the electric current generated to charge the device's battery.

There are currently no plans for a consumer-level device that would employ the technology, but the research is promising. According to the scientists, other applications for piezoelectric material might also be on the horizon, including running shoes that could charge your cell phone and pacemakers that are powered by blood pressure alone.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Best Buy announces own Music Cloud service
It seems like everyone has their heads in the clouds these days. With a growing emphasis on synchronizing media purchases and applications on multiple mobile devices and computers, retailer Best Buy is launching Music Cloud.

The service is available for devices powered by Apple's iOS, Google's Android, and Research In Motion's BlackBerry operating systems and requires downloading software that enables music streaming.

The desktop app copies libraries and playlists from iTunes on a home computer and puts them in an account to be accessed on multiple mobile devices. It's powered by Catch Media's Play Anywhere service.

"With Best Buy Music Cloud, your digital music lives in one place but you access it from wherever you are," according to the Best Buy web site. "Enjoy all your music when you're at a friend's house, in the car, on the bus, walking to work ... virtually anywhere."

"You can store your favorite songs and playlists for when you're offline," it adds. "You can select just a single song, a playlist, or even an artist, allowing you to continue listening when you don't have coverage."

The premium version is available for $3.99 and, a demo version is available with 30-second playbacks of your songs.

Best Buy's Music Cloud comes on the heels of Apple rolling out iCloud to synchronize media purchases across computers and its mobile devices. iCloud was the major announcement by CEO Steve Jobs at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference this month. Google and Amazon.com have also launched cloud music services.

Earlier this month, at the E3 conference, Best Buy announced a Reward Zone Gamers Club that offers points toward purchases.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Sony Ericsson eyes Android market, launches two new phones
Mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson has unveiled two new Android models in a bid to grab more of the burgeoning smartphone market.

The company, a joint venture between L.M. Ericsson and Sony Corp., plans to launch the Xperia ray and Xperia active models during the third quarter, said Chief Marketing Officer Steve Walker in Singapore.

The new models should help the company expand its 11 percent market share of the Android segment, Walker said.

"Android smartphones is a rapidly growing part of the market, and we see our share within that market growing," added Walker.

London-based Sony Ericsson, which saw its phone unit sales drop 23 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, is moving away from cheaper phone models and seeking to take on Apple Inc.'s iPhone, Research in Motion's Blackberry and Nokia Corp.'s N9 in the higher-priced smartphone market.

By 2015, about 60 percent of mobile phones sold in the Asia-Pacific region will likely be smartphones, up from 20 percent in 2010, Walker said.

"We made quite a fundamental shift in strategy and decided to focus a large part of our efforts into smartphones, to focus on the mid- and high-end part of the business," Walker said. "In many markets, we see a dramatic shift from feature phones to smartphones."

The company said in April that smartphones accounted for more than 60 percent of its sales during the first quarter.

Sony Ericsson's latest models that run on Goggle Inc.'s Android platform, the Xperia ray and active, will likely be priced below the high-end Xperia arc.

Xperia active is water resistant and works if fingers are wet or sweaty, while the Xperia ray seeks to combine a sleek design with a device that is 9.4 millimeters thick.

Sony Ericsson also plans to introduce a less expensive model that highlights texting service and is aimed at teenagers.
Arnova 7 Android tablet coming for $99
It is expected that the broad availability of Android tablets would eventually trigger a race for the lowest price point in the market, and newcomer Arnova seems to be getting a jump on the competition with the Archos-designed Arnova 7, a 7-inch Android tablet running Android 2.2 Froyo that the company plans to offer for $99. The Arnova 7 lacks some features in higher-end tablets, but if you’re looking for a basic tablet that won’t give you a heart attack when it falls out of your bag into a puddle, it’s hard to argue with a $99 price tag.

The Arnova 7 features an 800 by 480-pixel 7-inch touch screen display with a virtual keyboard for basic messaging and text-entry needs -the Arnova 7 is 12mm thick and weighs about 340 grams. The tablet runs Android 2.2 Froyo on an unspecified processor, and can handle 720p high-definition MPEG-4 and Realvideo video playback at 30fps. The tablet offers 802.11b/g Wi-Fi connectivity, microSDHC removable storage, USB 2.0 connectivity, and a built-in speaker and microphone. Folks looking to take pictures or video chat will lament the lack of cameras, but remember the key feature here: a $99 price tag.

The Arnova 7 also doesn’t connect to the Android Market, opting instead for getting apps through the AppsLib application store.

Arnova hasn’t yet announced availability dates or retail partners for the Arnova 7; however, the systems launched at European retailers last month.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Nokia unveils new smartphone N9
Finnish cellphone maker Nokia has unveiled its N9 smartphone in Singapore, its only bet on the MeeGo platform.

The commercial launch will be later this year, said CEO Stephen Elop. Nokia dumped plans to use MeeGo in its future smartphones when in February it picked Microsoft's Windows Phone as its future software choice, but it decided to unveil one of the models it was working on before closing the business line.

The N9 model, Nokia's first and last to use MeeGo, comes with a large touch screen and is available in black, cyan and magenta. The MeeGo platform - a newcomer in the market dominated by Google and Apple - was born in February 2010 when Nokia and Intel unveiled a merger of Nokia's Linux Maemo software platform with Intel's Moblin, which is also based on Linux open-source software.

After Nokia pulled back from the project four months ago other vendors have become more interested in the technology as Nokia's dominant role in the project had held back others from adopting it.
Your social networking slipups to be stored for 7 years
In a world where potential employers will almost certainly toss your name into a search engine before considering you for a job, we should all be very careful about what we put online. However, sometimes we slip up, leaving a nasty smear on an otherwise pristine social networking persona. Now, thanks to a ruling by the FTC, background checking services can store those unfortunate moments for up to 7 years after you've deleted them from the web.

A company called Social Intelligence - which provides background checks for companies during the hiring process - recently drew ire from would-be employees due to its practice of building detailed files on applicants. The company keeps these records, which can contain embarrassing pictures or comments that have long since been deleted, in case they are requested by other potential employers in the future. The FTC, after taking a microscope to Social Intelligence's information gathering methods, declared that the company fell within the guidelines of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Individuals who believe their social record is tarnished through no fault of their own are welcome to dispute the firm's findings. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people affected have no idea what information Social Intelligence has on them until they are denied a job. So before you update your Facebook, Twitter or other social networking status, remember that the information you put forth can come back to haunt you, years after you've wiped your web slate clean.

Monday, June 20, 2011

ICANN approves Corporate Web Suffixes
The Internet's global coordinator has approved the creation of website addresses ending in corporate names, triggering one of the biggest ever shakeups in how the web operates.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) voted overwhelmingly in favour of the proposal at a meeting in Singapore despite fears the shift would cause some confusion and favour large companies.

"This is the biggest change to domain names since the creation of '.com' 26 years ago," said Theo Hnarakis, chief executive of Melbourne IT Digital Brand Services, a California-based company that provides online branding advice.

Under the changes, businesses will no longer be restricted to the list of generic top level domains (gTLDs) that include .com, .net and .org when they apply to register a website address.

Industry observers say global giants such as Apple, Toyota and BMW could be in the vanguard of launching websites with their own domain names, ending in ".apple", ".toyota" and ".bmw", as could a city or a trademark.

ICANN chairman Peter Thrush said at a news conference the new naming system will be a "tremendous opportunity for people to take control of this aspect of their branding and develop it in their own way."

The ICANN board voted 13-1 in favour of the change with two abstentions, a spokesman said.
George Sadowsky, the lone board member who voted against the move, said "I believe that it is not ICANN's job to influence the choice of winners and losers in such competitions, and that is implicitly what we will be doing."

ICANN chief executive Rod Beckstrom said applications for the new web suffixes will open on January 12 next year and close 90 days later.

"The first possible time at which some of the applications could be approved would be late in 2012," said Beckstrom. He said about 120 parties have publicly expressed their interest in the programme.

"If you scroll through one of those lists, you'll probably see some major brand owners, some major companies in the world, some major brands, cities, regions and other different types of communities," Beckstrom said.

Adrian Kinderis, chief executive of domain name registry services provider AusRegistry International, said the new system will allow companies to protect their trademarks in cyberspace. "It will be an exciting period ahead," he said.

ICANN board member Sebastien Bachollet, who was in favour of the change, said "some people feel that the new gTLDs will cause confusion." "I trust we have the tools to ensure the phase of stress will be brief," he added.

ICANN, a non-profit body managing the Domain Name System and Internet Protocol addresses that form the technical backbone of the Web, is holding a global meeting in Singapore this week to discuss a range of matters.

The corporate domain names won't come cheap. It will cost a company $185,000 just to apply and there are a number of criteria that must be met before ICANN will give the nod for a firm to own the domain name of its choice.

The fee is needed to recoup the costs associated with the new gTLD programme and to ensure that it is fully funded.

It would also weed out opportunistic applicants seeking to resell domain names for a profit after buying them cheaply, a problem in the earlier days of the Internet.

Only "established corporations, organisations, or institutions in good standing" may apply for a new gTLD, according to ICANN guidelines. ICANN will not consider applications from individuals or sole proprietorships.
Huawei unveils MediaPad to take on Apple, Samsung
China's Huawei Technologies unveiled a new tablet computer called the MediaPad that it hopes could take on market leaders Apple and Samsung Electronics.

The launch would be part of an aggressive push by Huawei, the world's second-biggest supplier of telecommunications equipment behind Ericsson, into the consumer space.

"With the Huawei MediaPad, we are demonstrating yet again that design, functionality and performance is within anyone's reach," said Victor Xu, chief marketing officer of Huawei Device.

Huawei Device is a division of Huawei Technologies that makes cellphones, smartphones and tablet PCs.

Huawei said the 7-inch MediaPad will run on the Android operating system from Google Inc and use a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor from Qualcomm. It will also come with pre-installed applications such as Facebook and Twitter.

The global tablet PC market is now dominated by Apple's iPad with about 80 percent of market share.

In China, apart from Apple, Huawei's tablet PCs also compete with Lenovo and ZTE.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Oracle wants a share of Android’s ad revenue

Oracle is known for some epic lawsuits, often throwing its weight around in California courtrooms over software licensing and patents. Coming off a recent victory against SAP, Oracle’s throwdown against Google is just getting warmed up, as the software maker seeks billions in damages over claims that Android software uses technology related to the Java programming language. It’s a drama that’s been building its plot since Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems, and Java along with it. The full extent of Oracle’s claims were finally disclosed in a San Francisco federal court, when the company sought to prevent Google from filing under seal documents in the case stating Oracle’s monetary claims.



Google’s fighting back, especially since Oracle’s looking to get royalty payments from Android-related ad revenue. The mobile platform owner has called out Oracle’s expert testimony as inflated, saying that “Oracle’s ‘methodology’ for calculating damages is based on fundamental legal errors and improperly inflates their estimates.”

Friday, June 17, 2011

100 years of IBM, 100 years of Think
Google, Apple and Facebook get all the attention. But the forgettable everyday tasks of technology - saving a file on your laptop, swiping your ATM card to get 40 bucks, scanning a gallon of milk at the checkout line - that's all IBM.

International Business Machines turned 100 on Thursday without much fanfare. But its much younger competitors owe a lot to Big Blue.

After all, where would Groupon be without the supermarket bar code? Or Google without the mainframe computer?

IBM dates to June 16, 1911, when three companies that made scales, punch-clocks for work and other machines merged to form the Computing Tabulating Recording Co. The modern-day name followed in 1924.

With a plant in Endicott, N.Y., the new business also made cheese slicers and - significantly for its future - machines that read data stored on punch cards. By the 1930s, IBM's cards were keeping track of 26 million Americans for the newly launched Social Security program.

These old, sprawling machines might seem quaint in the iPod era, but they had design elements similar to modern computers. They had places for data storage, math processing areas and output, says David A. Mindell, professor of the history of technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Punch cards carted from station to station represented what business today might call "data flow." "It was very sophisticated," Mindell says.

The force behind IBM's early growth was Thomas J. Watson Sr., a demanding boss with exacting standards for everything from office wear (white shirts, ties) to creativity (his slogan: "Think").

Watson, and later his son, Thomas Watson Jr., guided IBM into the computer age. Its machines were used to calculate everything from banking transactions to space shots. As the company swelled after World War II, IBM threw its considerable resources at research to maintain its dominance in the market for mainframes, the hulking computers that power whole offices.

"When we did semiconductors, we had thousands and thousands of people," says Donald Seraphim, who worked at IBM from 1957 until 1986 and was named a fellow, the company's highest honor for technical achievement. "They just know how to put the force behind the entrepreneurial things."

By the late '60s, IBM was consistently the only high-tech company in the Fortune 500's top 10. IBM famously spent $5 billion during the decade to develop a family of computers designed so growing businesses could easily upgrade.

It introduced the magnetic hard drive in 1956 and the floppy disk in 1971. In the 1960s, IBM developed the first bar code, paving the way for automated supermarket checkouts. IBM introduced a high-speed processing system that allowed ATM transactions. It created magnetic strip technology for credit cards.

For much of the 20th century, IBM was the model of a dominant, paternalistic corporation. It was among the first to give workers paid holidays and life insurance. It ran country clubs for employees generations before Google offered subsidized massages and free meals.

"The model really was you joined IBM and you built your career for life there," says David Finegold, dean of the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University. Transfers to other cities were still common enough that employees joked IBM really stood for "I've Been Moved."

The origins of the company's nickname, Big Blue, are something of a mystery. It may simply derive from IBM's global size and the color of its logo.

IBM's gold-plated reputation was based in part on ubiquity and reliability, as well as a relentless sales force. But its fortunes began to change as bureaucracy stifled innovation. Information-technology managers used to joke that nobody ever got fired for buying IBM. But by the 1980s, Big Blue found itself adrift in a changing technology environment.

IBM had slipped with the rise of cheap microprocessors and rapid changes in the industry. In an infamous blunder, IBM introduced its influential personal computer in 1981, but it passed on buying the rights to the software that ran it - made by a startup called Microsoft.

IBM helped make the PC a mainstream product, but it quickly found itself outmatched in a market it helped create. It relied on Intel for chips and Microsoft for software, leaving it vulnerable when the PC industry took off and rivals began using the same technology.

The PC's casing wasn't as important as the technology inside it, and IBM didn't own the intellectual property inside its own machines. In addition, the rise of smaller computers that performed some of the same functions as mainframes threw IBM's main moneymaking business into disarray.

With its legacy and very survival at stake, the company was forced to embark on a wrenching restructuring.

One of its major achievements turned out to be re-engineering itself during the upheavals of the 1990s. Viewed as too bureaucratic to compete in fast-changing times, IBM tapped an outsider as CEO in 1993 to help with a turnaround.

Louis Gerstner, a former executive with American Express and RJR Nabisco, had little knowledge of technology or IBM culture. In his first meeting with top IBM executives, he was the only one in the room with a blue shirt.

But he broke up old fiefdoms, slashed prices and eliminated jobs. IBM, which had peaked at 406,000 employees in 1985, shed more than 150,000 in the 1990s as the company lost nearly $16 billion over five years.

Gerstner resisted pressure to break up the company and instead focused on services, such as data storage and technical support. Services could be sold as an add-on to companies that had already bought IBM computers. Even barely profitable pieces of hardware were used to open the door to more profitable deals.

The shift allowed IBM to ride out two recessions: When times are tough, businesses pay IBM to help them find ways to cut costs and handle technology chores that would be more expensive to perform in-house.

The change in strategy was risky for a company that helped create the PC industry, yet IBM rose to become the world's biggest technology services provider.

With around $100 billion in annual revenue today, IBM is ranked 18th in the Fortune 500. It's three times the size of Google and almost twice as big as Apple. Its market capitalization of around $200 billion beats Google and allowed IBM last month to briefly surpass its old nemesis, Microsoft.

Though transformed, IBM remains a pioneer, the envy of the technology industry. Hewlett-Packard Co.'s new CEO, Leo Apotheker, says one of his primary goals is to strengthen the company's software and services businesses to compete better with IBM.

Some things haven't changed. The company still spends heavily on research, about $6 billion a year. It still comes up with flashy feats of computing prowess, most recently when its Watson computer system handily defeated the world's best "Jeopardy!" players.

And, just as in 1911, it's still in the business of finding data solutions.

While IBM's Watson attracted buzz by beating two human "Jeopardy!" champions, the company wants to put it to real-world use as a medical diagnostic tool that can understand plain language and analyze mountains of information. That's in line with IBM's focus on other big data projects, such as analyzing traffic patterns citywide to predict and stave off traffic jams.

The company that built its success making sense of millions of punch card records sees future innovations in the analysis of the billions and billions of bits of data being transmitted in the 21st century.

"The scale of that enables you to do discovery, whether it's in the case of drugs, medicine, crime - you name it," says Bernard Meyerson, IBM's vice president for innovation.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Apple selling unlocked GSM iPhone 4 at online store
Apple has began selling a GSM version of the iPhone 4 that doesn't require a contract with AT&T, making the handset available for the first time to T-Mobile users or those who travel internationally, where GSM is more common. The phone is currently available only on Apple's online store.

The unlocked device cannot easily be used on Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel or other CDMA-based carriers, since that requires a different chipset. Hacking the phone to use those networks, known as jailbreaking, voids Apple's warranty.

Without a subsidy from AT&T - worthwhile for the carrier since voice and data plans more than recoup the difference - the unlocked iPhone, available in black or white, costs $649 for the 16-gigabyte version and $749 for the 32GB version.

That's more than the cost of buying the subsidized phone at $199, jailbreaking it and paying AT&T's $325 termination fee to switch to another carrier, something the majority of customers won't do.

The iPhone isn't compatible with T-Mobile's standard data network. And switching from AT&T to T-Mobile could be irrelevant if regulators approve a merger that would make the combined company the nation's largest wireless provider.

There's no indication whether Apple will release an unlocked CDMA iPhone or a version that can switch between networks. The CDMA iPhone for Verizon began shipping in February.

The iPhone 5 is expected to be available this fall.
France launches 4G mobile license auction

France has kicked off auctions for frequencies to build high-speed fourth generation mobile telephone networks needed to keep up with the explosion of Internet-capable smartphones.



Bandwidth in the 800 megahertz and 2.6 gigahertz range are on the block, with minimum bids set at 2.5 billion euros.



Bids for 2.6 gigahertz frequencies close on September 15, with the licenses to be awarded before the end of the year.



Bidding for the 800 megahertz frequencies closes on December 15, with licenses awarded in early 2011.



Winners of 2.6 gigahertz frequencies have to cover 75 percent of the French population within 12 years, and winners of 800 megahertz frequencies have to reach 98 percent coverage within 12 years.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Acer introduces Windows desktops, 23-inch touchscreen display
Notebooks, netbooks, and tablets might be the must-have items in today’s computing market, but there are still plenty of places a desktop computer system makes the most sense -particularly if you’re after screen real estate. To that end, Acer is introducing new M- and X-series desktops designed to easily work in a home, office, dorm room, or other location, while the new 23-inch T231H touchscreen monitor brings Windows 7′s touchscreen interface to anyone who wants it without breaking the bank.

“Our newest desktop models and touch screen display provide our customers with leading technology in very practical form factors that can serve as an entertainment center for the entire household,” said Irene Chan, Acer America senior business manager for consumer desktops.

First up, the Acer M-series offer expansion capabilities in a more-or-less traditional desktop mini-tower. The systems are built around Intel Core i3 or AMD Athlon II X4 quad-core processors, support up to 6 TGB of RAM, super multi DVD drives, and tome with 1 TB hard drives for media storage. Some models are available with discrete graphics, but they all sport two open PCI-E ×1 slots and a PCI-E ×16 slot for a video card: perfect for folks who need RAIDs, add-on audio hardware, or advanced graphics. There’s an open 3.5-inch hard drive slow, and a total of 12 USB ports for peripherals.

The Acer X-series desktops are about one-third the size of a traditional PC tower, and are powered by Intel Dual Core or AMD Athlon II X4 processors and 4 GB of RAM. The systems ship with one open PCI-E ×1 and ×16 slot and either 512 or 1 TB hard drives; there are also six USB 2.0 ports for hooking up peripherals.

The Acer M-series desktops start at $499.99, while the X-series starts at $398. Both are available now.

The New Acer T231H Ergonomic touchscreen display integrates Microsoft’s Touch Pack is designed to bring Windows 7′s touch-based interface to desktop PCs: with it, users can tap into capabilities of touch-enabled applications to turn pages, rotate images, pinch-to-zoom, play games. and even draw and write on the screen with gestures. The monitor sports a native 1,920 by 1,080-pixel resolution perfect for HD entertainment and games, a 2ms response time, and a 50,000:1 contrast ratio. One downside might be that it offers a DVI (with HDCP) input rather than DisplayPort or HDMI, but it does feature an ergonomic base that can be tilted backward and adjusted from 5 to 60 degrees - and the stand can be folded out of sight for wall-mounting and other applications. The T231H is available now for a suggested price of $329.99.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Mobile developers prefering Android
According to new survey from Vision Mobile and Bluevia, Android is the most popular mobile platform amongst developers, with 67 percent of mobile developers indicating they’re developing for Android in 2011 - that’s an 8 percent improvement over 2010. However, Apple’s iOS was in a solid second place with 59 percent of mobile developers saying they’re targeting the platform and that’s up 9 percent from last year. However, the real surprise in the survey might just be the number-three spot: apps developed using HTML and browser technologies specifically aimed at mobile devices. In 2010, 40 percent of mobile developers said they were making mobile Web apps; for 2011, that number has shot up to 56 percent.

Java ME managed a fourth-place finish with 46 percent (down four percent from 2010), and RIM’s BlackBerry platform finished fifth with 45 percent of developers saying they’re targeting it this year - and that’s an increase of five percent over 2010. Symbian and Windows Phone took sixth and seventh place, with 38 percent and 36 percent of developers aiming at the platforms this year- both those figures represent net declines, with Symbian off 8 percent from last year. Interesting, Flash and Flash Lite took eighth place with a 34 percent share, but that’s a big increase from 22 percent last year - even though Apple’s iOS famously eschews Adobe Flash, platforms like Android are trying to make bank on supporting the platform.

The study found developers experiment, supporting an average of 3.2 mobile platforms at the same time.

According to Vision Mobile and Bluevia, Android’s popularity rests on it being the “easiest” platform for developers’ experimentation, because Android has fewer restricted APIs, the Android Market is essentially unregulated as opposed to the mysterious “curated” experience of Apple’s App Store, and its easier to sideload Android applications, which simplifies testing and ad-hoc distribution for beta testing.

However, things shifted then Vision Mobile and BlueVia looked at developers’ “Intentshare,” or where developers plan to invest going forward. There, Android was still out in front, but Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform captured the number two spot, apparently on the strength of its XNA and Silverlight development tools and the potential market momentum that could be achieved with its broad deal with Nokia to make Windows Phone devices. Number three in “intent” was actually Google’s Chrome OS, followed by a tie between iOS and MeeGo.

The study is based on an online survey of more than 850 mobile developers.
Apple recalling some Verizon iPad 2 tablets
Apple Inc is recalling some of its iPad2 tablets that is designed to run on Verizon's network for connectivity issues.

"Duplicate MEID codes were flashed onto an extremely small number of iPad units for the Verizon 3G network," an Apple spokeswoman has said.

MEID, which stands for mobile equipment identifier, is a unique number that is used to identify a mobile device when it connects to the network. Two devices cannot have the same MEID code.

Apple is replacing the affected units that were already sold with new ones.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Doordarshan DTH platform to Expand
With the Prasar Bharati board approving the expansion of DD Direct Plus to 200 channels, many popular television channels will be available to viewers on Doordrashan’s free-to-air direct-to-home platform.

The board had Tuesday approved the working plan for immediate expansion of the Doordarshan’s DTH platform to 200 channels by the end of the year.

The ministry of information and broadcasting said that several broadcasters were interested in airing programmes through Doordrashan’s DTH platform due to low cost of distribution and wide reach. The platform has 59 channels at present.

The clearence of the detailed proposal for e-auction of channels in the DTH platform was also cleared by the board.

It also approved cross channel advertising from other broadcasters and DTH operators on Doordarshan channels.

The board cleared the way for out of court settlements of the more than Rs.400 crore worth of arbitration issues involving Prasar Bharati. The task will be taken up by a special high-level empowered team.
Apple becomes largest chip buyer
Driven by the success of the iPhone and iPad, Apple Inc. has become the world's largest buyer of chips for computers and phones.

Apple bought $17.5 billion worth of chips last year, surpassing computer maker Hewlett-Packard Co. as the largest consumer, IHS iSuppli said. That was an increase of 80 percent from the year before, reflecting Apple's continuing sales surge.

An iPhone contains about $80 worth of chips, according to iSuppli. The chips include the central processor that acts as the brains of the device, radio chips that let it talk to cell towers and the audio chip that converts the owner's voice into a stream of data.

The finding that Apple is the No. 1 buyer cements its standing as a company that has the clout, and the cash, to buy chips and other crucial components such as touchscreens when other companies struggle because of supply constraints.

Apple said in January that it had spent $3.9 billion on long-term contracts to secure supplies for the next two years of a "very strategic" component it wouldn't name. Few other companies are able to commit that much money.

Last summer, high-tech manufacturers were scrambling to buy chips as sales started reviving after the recession and chip-makers had yet to ramp production back up. But Apple reported no chip supply problems; it blamed shortages of iPhones and iPads instead on limited assembly-line capacity.

IPhones and iPads use large amounts of expensive flash memory, accounting for much of Apple's chip consumption. Apple sold 48 million iPhones last year, up 89 percent from the previous year. Meanwhile, PC industry sales grew 14 percent, iSuppli said. IPads went on sale for the first time last year.

Samsung, Micron Technology Inc. and Intel Corp. are leading makers of flash memory.

The $17.5 billion figure means more than a third of Apple's "cost of revenue" - expenditures excluding corporate overhead - went toward chip purchases last year.

Samsung Electronics Co., which makes a wide variety of electronics, and PC maker Dell Inc. were the No. 3 and 4 chip buyers. No. 5 is Nokia Corp., the world's largest maker of phones. However, its output is dominated by cheap phones that don't use as many or as pricey chips as the iPhone.
ISuppli expects Apple to extend its lead this year by buying chips for $22.4 billion, compared with $14.8 billion at HP.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Siemens sues Samsung and LG
German industrial giant Siemens has filed suit against both South Korea’s LG and Samsung in Germany and the United States, alleging the companies are infringing on Siemens LED patents in both back-lit flat-panel LCD displays and in LED lighting. Similar suits are expected to be filed in China and Japan this week.

LED lighting applications are particularly in-demand, with the technology being applied to everything from conventional and automobile lighting to mobile phones, televisions, computer displays, and digital signage -industry watchers are seeing Siemens’ suits as a move to defend its technology from low-cost manufacturers in China and East Asia that are looking to undercut its business.

Philips and other large LED lighting makers license patents from Osram to manufacture their products; LG and Samsung do not.

The lawsuits also come just a few months before Siemens is scheduled to sell off a majority stake in Osram Opto Semiconductors, which is currently the second-largest lighting technology manufacturer in the world, following Philips. The lawsuits might be a tactic to pump up Osram’s value before the company goes on the public stock market in September.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Best HTC phones and devices

HTC has delivered some of the very first Android-based phones and they continue to produce well-reviewed devices with the latest versions of Google’s phone OS. At the recent Mobile World Congress, HTC described some of their upcoming Android releases, which includes new phones and a new Android-based tablet.

The company created a customized user interface for Android that they call “Sense”. And, for many users it makes more sense than the stock Android interface. Best of all, Sense makes it easy to find your apps.

The Best HTC Phones:

HTC Desire S

The follow-up to the popular Desire model, the Desire S sports the same 1GHz processor but features a new aluminum unibody case with rubber grips at the top and bottom, a 5-megapixel camera and flash, and the ability to record in 720p HD. Like HTC’s other phones, the Desire S runs their Sense UI. The Desire S supports DLNA technology that lets you stream content like video directly from your phone to DLNA-capable TVs and gaming consoles.

HTC Evo Shift 4G (Sprint)

Sometimes “best” means inexpensive like with the HTC Evo Shift 4G, currently only $99 with contract at Sprint. True, the phone doesn’t offer the highest end hardware – only 800MHz not a 1GHz processor and no front facing camera for example – but it still delivers great features.

The Evo Shift 4G features a sharp and bright screen with a slide out full QWERTY keyboard, a 5-megapixel camera and flash, 4G-network support and the phone will run as a Wi-Fi hotspot. As with other HTC Androids, this phone runs their friendly Sense UI.

HTC Thunderbolt

This powerful device boasts 4G capabilities to offer blazingly fast connectivity. It features a very large 4.3 inch LCD screen, front and rear cameras, and runs the latest version of HTC's Sense UI. But all that muscle comes at a cost: With all this technology and fast speed, the battery can become depleted quickly, so bear that in mind before buying. It's also a bit heavier than many of its bretheren, but its giant display and 32GB of storage space will certainly keep power users happy.

HTC Droid Incredible 2

The follow up to the hugely successful Droid Incredible, its new incarnation is more of a refresh of an older device rather than something groundbreaking. Still, it's a great choice for Verizon users until something new comes along. The Droid Incredible 2 has a smart, unibody design, improved camera, a slightly larger display, and a 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8655 Snapdragon processor which is also used in the HTC Thunderbolt. No 4G/LTE capabilities does set this device back a bit though, but it might work as a nice upgrade for many.

Magic Tablet Ride

HTC has launched into the Android tablet market with their new “Flyer” device. It features a seven-inch screen, a 1.5GHz processor, and HSPA+ wireless for high-speed Internet access. The Flyer supports Flash version 10 and HTML 5 so that you can browse all the fanciest websites without any issues.

Special to the Flyer is HTC’s new Scribe Technology for pen input. HTC says people will “rediscover the act of writing” by using the Flyer to sign contracts, take notes, draws pictures, even write on web pages. Also, the Flyer has debuted a new service called HTC Watch that allows you to download TV and movie content to your tablet. The tablet also supports an online gaming service called OnLive. OnLive promises the ability to play gaming console-class games on your TV by using the service’s “cloud” without any set-top box. Bestselling games like Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, NBA 2K11, and LEGO Harry Potter are on tap. The Flyer was released in the spring so is still relatively new to the market.

Making “Sense” of Android

HTC’s Sense UI tries to make Android’s overall look and feel, as well as app downloading, easier to use. First, with Sense, your Android’s home screen widgets pop and even animate in cool 3D. Next, there’s a tight integration between commonly used apps. For example, when you make a new calendar appointment – everything you do before selecting ‘Done’ will become part of the appointment, like extra notes or web links.

On many Android phones, newly downloaded apps just appear on your screens, usually in alphabetical order by title by default. It can be confusing and you may need to scroll around before finding an app you just downloaded. With Sense, you have special folders for Favorites and Recently Downloaded Apps. This is a great addition to the standard Android UI that allows you to find newly downloaded apps with just a couple of taps.

You’ll still use the Android Market to download all that apps you want. Just find the Market icon, tap it, then use the categories or search bar to find apps that interest you.

All in all, HTC produces exciting Android products that are available at several major carriers and retailers. HTC continues to innovate with their Sense user interface and groundbreaking new elements like the pen-input Scribe Technology.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Samsung and Toshiba to launch Honeycomb 3.1 tablets
News about the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 spread across the web yesterday, leading to more questions about the upcoming tablet’s actual release date, its supported Android OS version, and its interface. The Galaxy Tab is expected to hit some Best Buy stores on June 8, with widespread availability on June 17. With Wi-Fi and 4G versions, an NVIDIA dual-core processor and an even thinner design than the iPad 2, Samsung’s upgraded quite a few features in its latest tablet offering. But questions still linger around its support of Honeycomb 3.1, Google’s most recent version of Android, as rumors surface that the platform upgrade may be facing delays, and whether Samsung incorporated its own TouchWiz skin in order to ship the Galaxy Tab with Honeycomb 3.1.

Either way, it seems a series of last-minute changes were made to the Galaxy Tab 10.1 release, emphasizing manufacturers’ dilemmas in producing Android-based devices for the masses. It boils down to fragmentation and consumer demand for OS upgrades, whether they occur before or after purchase. For Google, Android’s had a bumpy road in executing its smartphone and tablet platforms, delaying product releases in the past.

Toshiba wants it on Honeycomb 3.1
Samsung has been a supporter of Android’s platform for some time, among the first to launch a tablet for Google’s mobile OS. But Honeycomb 3.1 is encouraging other manufacturers to jump into the tablet game as well. Toshiba is seeking a smooth diversification beyond the laptop market with plans to release the Thrive, a 10.1-inch tablet running Honeycomb 3.1. The Thrive will feature a 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera, and a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, though it’s on the thicker side at 0.6 inches. You have a built-in HDMI out port, USB, mini USB and an SD card slot to blame for the thickness of Toshiba’s tablet, incorporating many laptop ports into the Thrive.

Toshiba’s aiming the Thrive at laptop lovers and mobile workers, including a number of cloud-based services pre-installed on the tablet. It’s reportedly to come with Log Me In software, providing access to home computer desktops, along with a file manager built on top of Android for browsing files stored on a USB device or SD card. There’s PrintShare software also installed on the Thrive, enabling users to print directly from the tablet, a feature competitive with iPad’s AirPrint and Samsung’s MobilePrint. Expect three sizes for the Thrive, indicating Toshiba’s immediate ambitions to appeal to the entire range of consumers.

There will be an 8GB, 16GB and 32GB tablet, priced at $429, $479 and $579 respectively. One major downside is all versions of the Thrive are Wi-Fi only.
Sprint and LightSquared nearing $20 bln LTE deal
With AT&T and T-Mobile looking to merge to usurp Verizon Wireless as the top mobile provider in the United States, it’s no secret that number three Sprint is going to have to make some serious moves if it hopes to remain a major player in the mobile industry. Sprint recently inked a $1 billion deal for wholesale access to Clearwire’s WiMax network and now Bloomberg is reporting Sprint may be on the verge of a 15-year deal that will see billionaire Philip Falcone’s LightSquared pay up to $20 billion in a broad network sharing and built-out plan.

Citing “two people familiar with the talks,” LightSquared could pay Sprint up to $2 billion a year in the early stages of the contract to help pay for build-out of network services to support LTE 4G mobile broadband; once the network is built out, LightSquared would pay Sprint for access based on the number of customers LightSquared brings to the network, as well as their overall usage patterns.

Reports of Sprint and LightSquared talking about an LTE partnership have been circulating for months. Sprint has committed to investing $5 billion over the next three to five years to upgrade its network of terrestrial base stations to support 4G services on multiple frequencies; the result may be that Sprint’s network could support both LTE and WiMax services with a single set of equipment on a cell tower.

LightSquared has been planning to launch wholesale 4G LTE services in the United States, and claims it is on scheduled to introduced commercial services in early 2012. The company agreed last year to FCC conditions that require the company to offer service to 100 million Americans by the end of 2012 as part of the Obama administration’s national broadband initiative. By 2016, that number needs to climb to 260 million. LightSquared’s existing network design involves using high-powered signals between satellites and ground-based stations, and has drawn criticism from the likes of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the U.S. Air Force Space Command over concerns it will interfere with low-power GPS systems that use nearby frequencies.

Industry reports have also had LightSquared in discussions with AT&T about leasing LTE network capacity.

Friday, June 3, 2011

T-Mobile to offer Low-Cost Samsung Smartphones

T-Mobile is rolling out two new Android-powered Samsung smartphones, the Exhibit 4G and the Gravity SMART, with post-rebate prices of less than $100 with a new two-year contract.


So T-Mobile will soon have two products that specifically target customers looking for rich connectivity and unique entertainment experiences at affordable prices. The wireless carrier also recently introduced new voice, text and data plans that let price-conscious consumers realize further savings, noted T-Mobile Senior Vice President Andrew Sherrard.


"T-Mobile is continuing to help families easily make the move to smartphones with these new Android-powered handsets, together with data plans as low as $10 per month, all running on America's largest 4G network," Sherrard said.


The Samsung Smartphones:

The Exhibit 4G integrates a one-gigahertz processor, a three-megapixel camera with flash and a camcorder, a front-facing camera for video chats, and a Wi-Fi radio. Powered by Google's Android 2.3, Gingerbread, the Exhibit is primarily aimed at consumers looking to access free entertainment programs from broadcasters such as ABC News Now, FOX Sports, PBS Kids, and Azteca America via T-Mobile TV as well as premium TV content and games.


The Gravity SMART is the latest addition to Samsung's Gravity portfolio of devices featuring social-networking and premium-messaging options. Powered by Android 2.2, Froyo, the smartphone has a spacious slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a three-megapixel camera with LED flash, digital zoom, and a camcorder.


Sporting a full web browser, the SMART has a 3.2-inch touchscreen with a simplified text-input technology called Swype, which enables the user to send messages even when the keyboard is closed. Another feature called pin-it notes enables users to retain important messages on the home screen for quick reference.


Both smartphones have access to Google's family of mobile services as well as the myriad applications available from the Android Market, and are slated to become available from T-Mobile later this month.


The new HTC Sensation 4G that T-Mobile previewed earlier this week is expected to be available beginning June 15 at a post=rebate price of $199.

Low-Priced Data Plans:

The low-cost Samsung smartphones are a big part of T-Mobile's subscriber growth strategy, along with a new suite of plans for families and individuals. Earlier this month, T-Mobile introduced high-speed data plans in 200MB, 2GB, 5GB and 10GB increments as well as an unlimited data plan.


For example, T-Mobile's new entry point for price-conscious consumers is priced at $10 per month for 200MB, while its family plan offers unlimited talk, text and data for $139.99 per month. The goal is to attract the 80 percent of U.S. wireless customers who don't have smartphones, noted T-Mobile Chief Marketing Officer Cole Brodman.


"We're providing customers with the 4G coverage they need, an exciting portfolio of 4G smartphones, and the value and flexibility to meet the diverse desires of their entire family," Brodman said.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Google launches +1 button, hits the Android Market
Google +1 has gotten a little more interesting, as the Digg-like recommendation button gets prime placement beyond search results. Yesterday Google announced the roll-out for Google +1 to websites, listing a series of destinations, including YouTube, Blogger and the Android Market. A mix between the Facebook “Like” button and Twitter’s “retweet” button, Google +1 is a great promotional tool for Android app developers. It’s another way in which Google is not only hoping to improve recommendations and discovery within the Android Market, but also encourage social sharing, as its own search endeavors still lack community appeal.

While Google continues to update the Android Market for usability and exploration, the Android OS continues to dominate the mobile scene. Nokia blamed Android’s success for its own demise, noting Android’s explosive growth in Europe.

Apple too, is seeking ways to circumvent Android’s dominance, possibly with a low-cost iPhone. The working class phone, most likely the 3GS, would compete with Android’s array of tiered devices, which have made Android the most accessible mobile OS in the world. Apple’s been content to keep iOS in the confines of its own devices, but tiering some of those devices even further would also widen Apple’s profits.

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