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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”