Motorola Droid Review

You have perhaps already had a sneak peek at the full technical specification of the latest Android phone from Motorola. Google is also in the scenario, because they were behind all the necessary changes done on the device - after all, this is going to be their first Android 2.0 Eclairs Device! The co-operative attempt of Google and Motorola to capture the mobile phone market is destined to be a sensation and yes, Motorola Driod Android Mobile Handset is THE sensation even before its launch as its is said to pack in some extraordinary specs like the biggie 3.7 inch 480 X 854 pixels display (which is, by the way, the biggest display on a mobile handset we’ve seen), the lightening fast processing speed along with its on board 3G connectivity from Verizon Wireless and full touchscreen along with a full sized QWERTY keyboard. You want more? Then it has a 5MP camera with image stabilization, WiFi, GPS, 3.5mm headphone jack to connect your favorite headphones. Satisfied? Lets take a detailed look at these features of this iPhone Killer, or should I say BlackBerry Killer?
Design

The phone packs in a huge touchscreen but still it has space for an actual hardware keyboard. What iDoesn’t .. the Droid does! It is just slightly thicker than the iPhone at 0.5 inches but still manages to pack a full QWERTY Keyboard which makes it the thinnest QWERTY keyboard mobile available in the market. The only comparison that can come in its way is the Nokia N97 but it too can’t match up with its huge screen and its interface offered by Google.
Operating System and Interface

No MOTOBLUR here as you would expect from the previous Android handsets like DEXT or CLIQ. But, as they say, Droid is targeted at users who are seeking to communicate and connect to their world living at a fast pace, taking risk and embracing change. It is made for those who are exited about the new technology producing new mobile handsets with latest range of mobile applications. It is expected to set new standards of smartphone with the Google Search genius going deep into the phone and all the application. Type or speak what you want to search and you’ll not only get the search results from the Web but also from within your phone and it’ll learn from what you search and will give more intelligent search results the next time you use it.

There are all of the Google’s service such as Maps, Search, Talk Voice, Contacts, Gmail, Calender as you’d expect from an Android Device.
moto-tao1
Browser

Mobile internet browsing is the most interesting feature of this handset. The browser is top quality one supporting Flash and HTML 5. They have said that the it will support Flash 10 from 2010.
Display

The display size is a whopping 3.7 inches showing 480 X 854 pixels in 16 : 9 aspect ratio. which makes it the biggest display of its class. The touchscreen is also capacitive unlike the less responsive resistive touchscreens which need some pressure to register the touches. There is a unique docking station which can turn this into a bedside clock or a movie player or just a digital picture frame whatever you like.
Camera

The camera has 5MP resolution and some advanced features like image stabilization along with Dual LED Flash and Autofocus. The DVD quality video capture capability at nice 720 X 480 pixels at 24 fps makes it an alrounder in the camera department.
Memory

The phone can support 32GB Micro SD Card to store all of your favorite music and videos and it comes with a 16GB so that you don’t have to rush to the shops to buy a memory card as soon as you buy the device.
Connectivity

It has EVDO rev A on board for super fast 3G Connectivity on Verizon Wireless. There are GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and a USB 2.0 port to connect it to whatever you can think of.
Battery Life

The system comes with a 1400 mAh battery which is not bad at all but we expect that it won’t deliver the rated 270 hours standby time or 6 h 25 min talktime, especially remembering the previous CLIQ.

It will be available to every people in North America from 12/1/2009 exclusively on Verizon Wireless. Hey Apple honchos, start scratching your head right now to device a new plan to take on Motorola Droid.

Mobile phone giant Nokia sues Apple over iPhone

HELSINKI — Nokia, the world's biggest mobile phone maker, took on the iconic iPhone on Thursday by suing US rival Apple for infringing 10 Nokia patents on mobile phone technology.

"The patents cover wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption and are infringed by all Apple iPhone models shipped since the iPhone was introduced in 2007," Nokia said in a statement.

Nokia said it had filed the complaint against Apple on Thursday with the Federal District Court in Delaware in the United States.

Nokia earlier this month posted its first quarterly loss in a decade amid falling sales. Analysts said the poor results were partly due to the growing popularity of Apple's iPhone and RIM's Blackberry over Nokia models.

"By refusing to agree appropriate terms for Nokia's intellectual property, Apple is attempting to get a free ride on the back of Nokia's innovation," Ilkka Rahnasto, deputy head of Nokia's legal department, said in the statement.

The company stressed that it had spent 40 billion euros (60 billion dollars) in research and development over the past two decades.

"The ten patents in suit relate to technologies fundamental to making devices which are compatible with one or more of the GSM, UMTS (3G WCDMA) and wireless LAN standards," Nokia said.

Analysts noted it was not the first time a mobile device maker started a court battle against its rival to protect its valuable patents.

"This does not come as a surprise. Nokia has likely been negotiating with Apple since it revealed the iPhone and has failed to reach an agreement," Ben Wood, director of research at CCS Insight, told AFP.

"They (Apple) have sold dozens of millions of phones, and if they haven't paid the patents it could be a several billion euro deal or at least hundreds of million euro deal," analyst Greger Johansson from Redeye explained.

The Finnish firm's net loss in July-September was 559 million euros and its sales shrank by nearly 20 percent to 9.8 billion euros on a 12-month comparison.

Nokia last week said its share of the global mobile device markets remained flat at 38 percent, but in smartphones like the iPhone its market share dropped to 35 percent in the third quarter from 41 percent in the previous quarter.

Industry specialists said Nokia had failed to improve its smartphone selection to attract customers to choose Nokia models instead of iPhone or Blackberry.

The Samsung Intrepid has some great e-mail and messaging capabilities, but navigating its interface can be difficult.

The Samsung Intrepid ($150 with a two-year contract from Sprint; price as of 10/19/09), successor to the Samsung Ace, features a touchscreen and a sleek design, measuring just 4.9 by 2.4 by 0.5 inches. The cover is soft black plastic, and at 3.2 ounces the phone is light. As far as looks go, it's definitely an attractive device--usability, however, is a different story.

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Samsung Intrepid Test Scores

* Overall 74
* Features 75
* Design 72

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The Intrepid has a full physical QWERTY keyboard as well as a 2.5-inch, 320-by-240-pixel touchscreen. That might seem like the best of both worlds--the convenience of a touchscreen with the typing power of physical keys--and it would be, except for the fact that the commands are split between the touchscreen and the keyboard. It's hard to know when you can use just the touchscreen, when you can use just the keyboard, and when you have to use both in order to get anything done. For example, to set a photo as the background, you can use the touchscreen to select the photo and choose its transparency, but then you must press the physical OK button on the keyboard to set the photo. This procedure is not intuitive; figuring it out cost me an hour of frustration.

Another annoyance: The Intrepid doesn't seem to have a Clear (or similar) button to press to go back. Instead, I ended up having to exit out of whatever app I was running and start over again. I tried pressing the power button (which only set the phone to sleep mode), the delete button (which did nothing, except when it started deleting text), and the phone-off button (which exited the app). I may be missing something, but this was really annoying.

Windows Mobile 6.5, to put it mildly, doesn't have the slickest user interface. It definitely slowed down the phone--I saw as much as a 2-second lag in some cases--and unfortunately it still requires users to go through several steps to perform tasks. You do get a customizable home screen, which is convenient; you can set it to show anything from new messages in your inbox to the time. The start menu is somewhat haphazardly arranged (the icons are in an every-other-square type of grid, which Microsoft has dubbed a "honeycomb interface"), but it is touch-friendly and easy enough to navigate.

The Intrepid supports Adobe Flash Lite (YouTube videos played easily, but somewhat choppily), and it has the Internet Explorer Mobile browser, which works reasonably well. Most pages were fairly quick to load, even if they had a lot of images. The Intrepid has a built-in 802.11 b/g wireless modem, too, for connecting to the Internet without using the network. Music plays well in the drab Windows Media Player, which supports the MP3, AAC, AAC+, WMA, and MIDI formats. The audio was pretty true over headphones, and just slightly tinny on the speakers.

The Intrepid's camera is only 3 megapixels--average, for a cell phone--but it took some decent-quality photos, even under low light. It does not have a flash, but it does have a little mirror on the back for self-portraits.

Call quality on the Intrepid over Sprint's 3G network was fantastic. It did a great job of filtering out wind noise (a plus in San Francisco), and none of my calls dropped--not even in the tunnels on Caltrain (the Intrepid is, in fact, the first phone I've tried that did not drop my calls in those tunnels). Voices sounded clear and not at all tinny on both sides, and the phone was comfortable to hold for long periods of time. According to Samsung, the Intrepid has a talk-time of approximately 6 hours, which is decent for a smartphone.

One thing that worked really well was Microsoft's TellMe application. To activate it, all you have to do is press a button (with a picture of a talking person on it) and tell the phone what you want. For example, if you want to know where the nearest Starbucks is, you can just tell the phone "coffee," and it will pull up a listing (via Microsoft Bing) of coffee places near you (the app uses GPS to determine where "near you" is). You can also use the app for basic phone commands, such as "Call Ron" or "Text Mom." In my tests TellMe was fairly good at recognizing words, even when I spoke with my mouth full, or when other people were talking around me. It recognized words such as "enlightenment," "entrepreneur," and even "Sarah Jacobsson" (though it spelled my name wrong). The only drawback was that if it didn't recognize a command, it went straight to the Bing search engine. For example, when I asked for for e-mail, it didn't give me my e-mail account, but rather a search result for Yahoo Mail.

The Samsung Intrepid is an improvement over the Ace--if not such a great phone otherwise. Like the Ace, it supports CDMA and GSM networks, which is perfect for the international traveler. It syncs up quickly with Microsoft Outlook, and setting up e-mail accounts is easy. While the touchscreen and keyboard combination is not fantastic, the keyboard itself is responsive and easy to use, even for people with large hands. While you can find phones that make similar touchscreen/keyboard combos work (see the HTC Touch Pro 2, also on Sprint), the split-up commands on the Intrepid had me feeling a bit schizophrenic.

cell phone history

Nokia N97 Mini Mobile Phone

How many of us live under the shadow of an elder sibling? Too many to take stock, right? Nokia, the ever daring has come out fearlessly with a younger brother to the celebrated N97 – The Nokia N97 mini. Perhaps given birth to compensate the N97’s bulkiness, its mini version is more than 10grams lighter. Starting with the camera, the N97 Mini sports a top notch 5-megapixel camera capable of recording DVD-quality video with Carl Zeiss optics, auto focus and dual LED flash. Though you might miss the N97’s memory of 32GB, the fact that Mini’s 8GB can be expanded is good enough. You can store a good lot of videos and images even without the need of microSD cards, actually.

This bro of the N97 is equipped very well in the navigation front. Ovi Maps and A-GPS being the reason. So incase you suffer from Mazeophobia, this handset could well be your métier! The touch screen display measures about 3.2” across which tilts to give way to a full QWERTY keyboard. The size of the screen makes web browsing a sheer delight, with the web-pages displayed is full across the display. Also, browsing is fast using the 3G connection with HSPDA high-speed data or Wi-Fi. You can also customise your home screen, adding short cuts of your choice.

The Nokia N97 Mini sports a 3.5mm audio jack which along with Nokia Music Store’s endless array of tracks, makes it perfect for any music lover. Here is a mobile phone that is almost a PC which is capable of satisfying a wide range of users including mazeophobics, lovers of music, photography, messaging, browsing and keeping in touch with friends no matter where they are. Phew, that’s a long list. This hand-held is currently available for preorder for £429. Now, does the N97 overshadow its brother? Some might feel so, but it can’t be denied that despite the feature trim, the Nokia N97 Mini stands out in its own way.

Nokia CORE

It’s been a while since we last saw a Nokia concept phone we really liked and the device pictured below can fit this category perfectly. Nokia CORE is a cool design, based on the Star Wars universe and the core of a solar system. The interface of the handset is the most important feature, since it allows it to control a PC.

Nokia_Core_concept_phone_1

Nokia CORE also serves as a mouse and it can transfer its interface to any PC nearby, via WiFi and Bluetooth. You’ll then control the new device by using CORE’s interface, as if it were the one on the PC. There’s also a camera aboard the phone, plus an OLED display covered with an anti-scratch layer.

All of the contents stored on the Nokia device and its interface get immediately transferred to the PC it connects to, so it should have a pretty cool UI, or else it would look strange on the big screen.

Nokia_Core_concept_phone_2

Nokia_Core_concept_phone_3

Nokia_Core_concept_phone_4

[via Concept Phones]

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5. Nokia N85 and Nokia N79 Available Now in the United States!

Tags: Nokia concept phone, Nokia CORE, Nokia mouse, OLED display, transfer interface

Review: Blackberry Tour Not Ready for Prime Time

Whenever I travel I always take my laptop, and thanks to a Verizon USB wireless modem I can stay connected pretty much anywhere, although twice a year when I am in Chicago getting any signal is a challenge. While I am not such a dinosaur that I don’t have a cell phone, I had resisted the Blackberry temptation, at least right up until my cell phone found itself being left in the pocket of a pair of jeans that was then washed. Not surprisingly, that was the end of the useful life for my Motorola Krzr, which had been extremely dependable. So I decided it was time to at least consider a Blackberry, and when I went to Verizon I quickly gravitated to the Blackberry Tour, which is a handsome phone that allegedly offers a lot of functionality. The key being the word “allegedly.” I have since learned from several others that the problems I was experiencing with the Blackberry Tour are not unique, and indeed have been experienced by many. I realize this post is off topic, but attorneys and other professionals who largely make up the IPWatchdog Blog audience have to make up the overwhelming percentage of Blackberry customers, so I thought I would share my experiences, which were not at all good.

The first Blackberry Tour I obtained looked great, but just did not work very well at all. To be perfectly honest, I can’t even offer an opinion regarding the features of this first model because it was completely unusable. The trackball simply would not work, and it started having troubles just days after I acquired it and progressively got worse for the three weeks or so that I have the phone. The trackball would take many revolutions to even move one space, and eventually it got to the point where no number of revolutions would allow the cursor to move up and down.

It does not seem that I am the only one who have had difficulties with an inferior trackball. If you search Google using the phrase “blackberry tour trackball” you will find numerous articles and consumer complaints regarding the trackball just not working. For example, the blackberry forum has many consumers complaining exactly about this very issue dating back to July 2009. According to TownHall Investment Research as many at 50% of the Blackberry Tour units have been returned due to trackball issues. Both Sprint and Verizon dispute this claim, and instead say that the percentage of returns is consistent with other new products launched, and that RIM is known for quality, but based on my own experience, the experience of other customers I spoke with who were also at the Verizon Wireless store returning the Blackberry Tour and the legions of complaints easily available online, it seems that TownHall Investment Research is closer to being correct than Sprint, Verizon or RIM, all of whom have a vested interest in the Blackberry Tour not being a lemon. Interestingly, Sprint and Verizon will not confirm the return percentage, how interesting!

After returning my first Blackberry Tour, I got another, still not aware of the mountains of evidence that suggest the Blackberry Tour is the cell phone version of the Edsle. This second unit was not any better than the first, but for different reasons. The trackball never seemed to work as one would expect it should, but it seemed to work better than any of the other features of the phone. This second unit simply suffered from terrible reception, dropped calls constantly and callers would call and go straight to voice mail even when I was not on the phone and had what appeared to be a strong signal. On top of that, the pictures it took had a yellowish-green tint, which made every picture approximate the color scheme of a Van Gogh painting. Powering down and powering up the phone would take an extraordinarily long time. Downloaded applications never worked correctly, and then the last straw was the screen going blank and freezing on me, not allowing me to power it down. In short, this version of the Blackberry Tour was completely unusable as anything other than perhaps a paper weight.

I was starting to wonder why anyone liked owning a Blackberry, because my experience was anything but stellar. Nevertheless, when I returned this second Blackberry Tour I was not yet ready to give up completely, although I refused to accept another Blackberry Tour, which seems to be what many are finding to be the appropriate option. The Verizon Wireless sales representative in the store was a real pain, and kept wanting to try and fix the phone for me or show me how to use it. This went on, and on and on. It would seem that he couldn’t understand simple English — “I don’t want a Blackberry Tour because they are junk!” Finally, the manager agreed to take the Blackberry Tour back and exchange it for a Blackberry Curve. So far so good with the curve, and I am starting to understand why folks like a functioning Blackberry. They are quite handy when they work. I am now getting phone calls again, not dropping the calls and the trackball seems fine (knock on wood).

For a very long time people have stayed away from buying the first version of many high-tech gadgets, and that seems to be the appropriate way to deal with the enormously problematic Blackberry Tour. My advice would be to stay away from the Tour, at least until Research In Motion gets its act together and there is another version or two of the Tour that has worked out its many peculiarities.

Verizon's 'Droid' attack on the iPhone elevates Google in mobile air-wars

Competition in the mobile phone arena is about to really get real. Apple's iPhone -- available only on AT&T (T)-- has been the toast of the mobile world in recent years, but now Google (GOOG) is set to unleash a worthy challenger. Through its Android open-source mobile operating system and a pact with Verizon Wireless, the two companies have begun an all-out assault on the iPhone, starting with an in-your-face TV spot mocking the popular handset and introducing consumers to Droid.

Over the weekend, TV watchers got their first glimpse of Verizon's Droid, an upcoming device the mobile giant hopes will give it enough presence to challenge Apple (AAPL) and AT&T's iPhone as well as Canadian smartphone giant Research in Motion (RIMM), which recently released a series of new feature-rich BlackBerry devices.

Verizon Wireless' gambit is nothing if not bold: The mobile giant is trying to convince consumers that while iPhones may be kind of cool for geeks, if you want to be a badass, get a Droid. The mobile giant licensed the name from Star Wars creator George Lucas, and the phones are scheduled to arrive in November.

The commercial, with happy hipster-pop and white letters set against a black backdrop intended to mock Apple's own ad campaign, lists all the things the iPhone "can't" do -- like no keyboard, can't "customize," no widgets, etc. "IDon't allow open development," the spot jabs, in a reference to Apple's closed, proprietary software environment. Then the video signal cuts out, and the camera jerks around, as if to evoke some kind of disruption. "Everything iDon't, Droid Does," the spot intones.


Dennis Crowley, founder and CEO of Foursquare, the red-hot mobile networking service, which boasts both iPhone and Android apps, says teaming up with Verizon Wireless is "a huge win for Android."


"The big question for developers is whether it's going to be as easy to keep building for Android as it's been for the iPhone," Crowley told DailyFinance. "With the iPhone, it's been one phone and one screen size. Until now, Android has been easy because it's been on two to three devices with basically one screen size. But when you roll a new operating system out across a ton of different phones with different screen sizes," it becomes more difficult for developers, Crowley said.

With the arrival of the new phones next month, the market dynamics will be changed in a big way. If Apple set a new benchmark for device design, Google is trying to establish a new standard for open mobile software platforms. And that should mean more innovation and more competition.

"The biggest threat to Apple is that the market is opening up to Palm and Android, with Nokia (NOK) floating around in the background," Charlene Li, a founding partner at Altimeter Group, a Silicon Valley-based tech consultancy, told DailyFinance. "What happens when you have that rich diversity in the space is that it's no longer Apple versus Google, it's Apple versus everybody.

"This is going to force Apple and AT&T to innovate even faster," Li said. "They've been doing a good job with the iPhone, but there are serious compromises people have had to make, from the network, which has been spotty, especially in New York City where the system is really hard to get onto, to features like simultaneous apps that have been missing for two years.

"Apple will try very hard to match the new phones," Li said. "And that will be great for consumers."

Consumers are already benefiting from new upstarts in the market, most notably HTC -- which until recently barely had any brand recognition in the U.S. The company is beginning to win market share with a sleek touch-screen device called the Hero. But whereas the iPhone runs on Apple's proprietary OS, the Hero, as offered by Sprint Nextel (S), runs on Android.

As Verizon Wireless enters the fray with Android, Google is set to become a major player in the smartphone market -- which is exactly where CEO Eric Schmidt wants to be. On a recent conference call, the Google chief said: "Android adoption is literally about to explode." Schmidt noted that Android had gone from being offered by one carrier on one device in one country to 12 devices in 26 countries on 32 carriers in less than a year. Android currently has 10,000 applications available -- not Apple's 80,000, but not too shabby either.

An additional benefit for Google is access to the very fertile mobile web advertising market -- a so-far largely untapped revenue source that is expected to explode in coming years. "We can make more money on mobile than we do on the desktop, eventually," Schmidt said last year.

With heavyweight service providers like Verizon Wireless lining up behind it and next-generation-now devices like HTC's Hero, Google is well positioned to gobble up some mobile market share in 2010. No wonder Schmidt stepped down from Apple's board and Art Levinson stepped down from Google's board, amid FTC scrutiny of Google-Apple board ties. Things might have gotten pretty awkward pretty quickly now that Google and Apple are going head-to-head in a high-profile area of combat.

samsung memory card

premium Samsung memory cards for sale.

“The market for memory cards continues to grow in leaps and bounds as consumers push for added storage in smart phones and other mobile devices,” said Dong Soo Jun, executive vice president, strategic marketing team, Memory Division, Samsung Electronics.

“Our well-established leadership in the digital memory card space provides an ideal footing from which to launch premium memory cards that can match rapidly evolving high-end premium devices such as smart phones and high-performance digital still cameras,” he explained. “Our cards also provide consumers with more of the outstanding reliability that they have come to expect from Samsung semiconductor products.”

Today’s consumer electronics market is rapidly evolving to include more and more multifunctional, content-oriented applications and devices. Samsung already has a strong branded presence in these consumer markets, a presence that will provide a lot of synergy for the new card products.

The NAND flash-memory retail market is estimated to already have reached $12 billion in revenues annually. As a result of continued dramatic growth in the mobile phone market, digital memory card demand is projected to more than double between 2008 and 2011. According to iSuppli, by 2011 more than 61 percent of mobile phones will include a card slot for additional flash card storage, compared to 51 percent of mobile phones with card slots in 2008.

In previous years, Samsung manufactured “white-label” digital memory cards for a variety of leading electronics companies and memory card companies.

Samsung’s new premium “Plus” memory cards, which comply with the Secure Digital class 6 ratings for performance, are available in SD, microSD and Compact Flash (CF) formats with densities of 4-gigabytes (GBs) and 8GBs, with a 16GB density for an SD Plus card.

Designed to ensure that valuable data is not lost, Samsung memory cards are shock-resistant, water-resistant and protected from damage caused by magnetic interference.

Samsung memory cards feature a modern brushed silver metallic design or a natural beige epoxy compound casing, and full compatibility with devices that have memory card slots. Most of the premium Plus memory cards can read data at 17MB/s (megabytes per second), though the CF cards provide read speeds of up to 45MB/s.

The new Samsung memory cards are available in Taiwan this month, with sales in other select countries likely to follow at a later date.

About Samsung Electronics
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, digital media and digital convergence technologies with 2008 consolidated sales of US$96 billion. Employing approximately 164,600 people in 179 offices across 61 countries, the company consists of two business units: Digital Media & Communications and Device Solutions. Recognized as one of the fastest growing global brands, Samsung Electronics is a leading producer of digital TVs, memory chips, mobile phones and TFT-LCDs. For more information, please visit www.samsung.com.

samsung news

If this picture looks a little "off," yeah, we know what you're talking about -- it's hard to say how any graphic designer could've mis-rendered a mocked-up screenshot this badly -- but just squint your eyes a little bit and play along, won't you? This is apparently a conceptual view of Samsung's new SPH-M8400 for South Korea's KT, which will become just the manufacturer's second phone to feature WiBro (and KT's first) after the M830 / M8300. In fact, they've coined a fun little term for it -- 3W -- which means you're getting WiBro, WiFi, and WCDMA all wrapped up in one for the total 3G / 4G experience. Neither a date nor pricing are easy to come by at this point, but unless you happen to be around Seoul, that WiBro compatibility isn't going to do you a heck of a lot of good anyhow.

news from sony

Sony-Ericsson Lands Smartphone Financing

A $676 million financing deal, announced after a string of quarterly losses, will help promote its Satio and Aino phones.

By W. David Gardner
InformationWeek
October 16, 2009 11:33 AM

After five consecutive unprofitable quarters mobile phone provider Sony-Ericsson finally delivered some good news Friday: the company reported it has secured $676 million in financing to fuel a new round of advanced camera phones. The company, however, also reported a third quarter loss of $245 million.

The joint venture between L. M. Ericsson Telephone Co. and Sony Corp. has been hit by a one-two punch of the worldwide economic slowdown and slow sales of mid-range phones, which have been the firm's sweet spot. While Sony-Ericsson had predicted that worldwide sales of all mobile phones would likely to decline 10% in 2009, it said the decline appears to be slowing.

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Nokia shows off the new N900 device at Web 2.0 Summit 2009. This is the first tocuscreen mobile device (with phone capabilities) from Nokia that works on the Maemo operating system. Meru CTO Vaduvur Bharghavan provides a tutorial on the crucial new capabilities of 802.11n (which was just recently ratified), and explains why wireless may now be primed to replace the wired edge. Path Intelligence installs sensors in high traffic areas. Those sensors detect cell phones and can use that data to examine traffic patterns and behavior, which can be viewed & analyzed in real time.
Nokia shows off the new N900 device at Web 2.0 Summit 2009. This is the first tocuscreen mobile device (with phone capabilities) from Nokia that works on the Maemo operating system.
The new financing will enable the company to put some additional marketing thrust behind its new camera phones, the Satio and Aino, as well as its gaming-oriented phone, the Yari. The Satio has a 12.1-megapixel autofocus camera with 12 times digital zoom and Xenon flash, making it a pacer in the mobile phone-cum-camera category.

The Aino is packed with advanced features including video recording capability, Wi-Fi support, and a 3-inch touchscreen.

The company clearly turned to Sony to develop much of its consumer features. "Our business in the third quarter started to show the effects of our ongoing transformation program," said Dick Komiyama, outgoing president of Sony-Ericsson, in a statement."Having refreshed our brand we are now better positioned to support the launch of new products such as Aino and Satio in Q4 2009. We have cleared channel inventories, and have continued to realign internal resources and improve efficiency."

In keeping with the company's revolving management structure, Sony's Komiyama left his position Thursday and Ericsson's Bert Nordberg took over the president's post. At the same time, Howard Stringer, Chairman, CEO, and President of Sony Corporation and a member of the Sony Ericsson board, became Chairman of the Sony Ericsson board.


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12 Phones Strong, Android Army Mobilizes for Explosive Growth

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If you’ve thought about picking up an Android-powered phone but found yourself turned off by the hardware choices (ahem, G1), you may soon wish to reconsider.

“Android adoption is about to explode,” said Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, in an earnings conference call Thursday. “You have all the necessary conditions.”

Schmidt’s forecast may prove accurate with 12 Android-powered devices available in 26 countries on 32 carriers. Recent Android rumors, announcements and releases further fuel the rumble in the mobile community.

By handing out Android as an open source platform, Google aims to help manufacturers focus more time, money and energy on their hardware and specific usability for each device. Using the Android OS, there is no need to re-invent the wheel when it comes to the mobile software. Developmental resources can instead be allocated to innovation and quicker adaptation of emerging technology. This direction in mobile development does seem to create the “necessary conditions” for Android to appeal to an extremely broad range of users.

When the first Android phone, the HTC G1, was released in September 2008, some developers questioned how Google would address making the Android OS and third-party apps work smoothly with various types of hardware. Screen resolution was a primary concern among developers polled by Wired.com: How could an app designed to work with the G1’s resolution, for example, work with another Android phone sporting a different resolution?

Fortunately, the Android team at Google is working to ensure their platform is compatible with every mobile phone, specifically when it comes to screen resolution. The Android 1.6 SDK, the developer’s kit, allows a manufacturer or developer to add code in their application to conform to different handset’s resolutions. (For example, “Do this when the phone has a resolution of 320×480; do that when the resolution is larger.”) They have created three categories of resolution sizes that any given device will fall into, ensuring a single third-party app will work across all phones. There is also a “compatibility mode” developers can incorporate into their applications built prior to 1.6, aka Donut.

Excited by the Android mobile-nova? We’ve created a list of the 12 Android-powered smartphones so you can begin researching and deciding which one is best for you:

* Motorola Cliq (T-Mobile / Available October 19)
* Motorola Sholes (Verizon / Available October 30)
* Samsung Behold II (T-Mobile / Holidays 2009)
* Samsung Moment (Sprint / November 1)
* Huawei Pulse (T-Mobile UK / Available)
* HTC Hero (Sprint / Available)
* HTC Tattoo (Vodafone UK / Available)
* HTC Magic /myTouch 3G (T-Mobile / Available)
* HTC Dream/G1 (T-Mobile / Available)
* Dell Mini i13 (China Mobile / Confirmed, Release Date TBA)
* Acer Liquid (Unknown / Confirmed, Release Date TBA)
* LG GW620 (Unknown / Confirmed, Q4 2009)

nokia n900

N900 on the t-mobile network

Mark Guim from The Nokia Blog just got a Nokia N900, which has 1700 MHz 3G network used by T-Mobile USA. 2.26 Mb/s download, 0.34 Mb/s upload, ping time of 174 ms. That’s fast, almost double the speed of current fastest operator in America.

here some specifications of the nokia n900.

Hardware Specs:

* GPS, along with an accelerometer.
* Dimensions: 59.7mmx111mmx18.2mm
* Weight: 180g
* 3.5″ 800×480 (WVGA) touchscreen
* OMAP3430 500/600 Mhz processor (Fun Trivia: Same CPU as the Palm Pre)
* Bands: GSM Quad-Band 850, 900, 1800, 1900. WCDMA 900, 1700/2100, 2100
* 5 megapixel Carl Zeiss camera with dual-LED flash, autofocus, and sliding cover
* Though the renders we’ve seen show two lens-like circles near the screen, we’ve got no word on what’s behind them. However, we feel safe in assuming that its a proximity sensor and a front-facing camera.
* 1GB total virtual runtime memory (256MB physical RAM, 768MB virtual memory)
* Wi-Fi, HSPA
* 32GB internal storage, expandable up to 48GB via external memory
* Keyboard variants: English, Scandinavian, French, German, South European, Italian, Russia
* In the box: Connectivity cable, headset, charger, battery (1320 mAh), Video-out cable, microUSB adaptor, cleaning cloth

* In all of the renders we’ve seen, it appears to be running Maemo 5.
* Multitasking: “Run all of your favorite applications simultaneously”
* Live Dashboard allows all open tasks and unread messages to be displayed in one view
* Browser: Firefox 3 with support for Flash 9.4
* Built-in automatic update software
* Contacts has some sort of status sharing built in, allowing you to share your status, location, and mood. Support for Contacts on Ovi and Google Talk.
* All SMS and IMs accessible from one view
* Cellular voice or VOIP both supported… maybe UMA?
* Captures video at 800×480 in AVC/H.264
* Image tagging and geo-tagging support
* Nokia intends to have at least a dozen add-on apps available at launch, including a game called “Bounce”, a Jaiku/Twitter app called “Mauku”, and a few widgets.

Via The Nokia Blog

e55 live short

about e55

Sometimes, a phone is nearly perfect, except for that one small thing you want to change. If you felt that way about Nokia E52, the E55 claims to have the answer. Don't get us wrong - the E52 has killer looks and specs. And the E55… well, like we told you, it's the same phone save for that one little thing.

If QWERTY keyboards are for heavy texters where does half-QWERTY fit? Some would say it's the same target but different goal. You know, like heavy texting is a bad habit and half-QWERTY is the therapy. Now, now, no need to be too smart. But does it really make typing faster or slower, and how hard it is to learn the new layout? We ran a test to find out.

But more on that later. Thanks to the excellent connectivity options and Office editing out of the box, the E55 keeps your office at arm's length - whether you're out to lunch or out of town. Emails, presentations, spreadsheets, memos - you can bring all that everywhere you go. But hey, we're not saying you should. Thanks to Modes, switching between Business and Personal homescreens makes sure you don't have to bring work home.

Texting and email go without saying, but the Nokia E55 is one of the best-equipped Symbian devices around. Here's the rundown:
Key features
Compact metallic body and extra slim girth (9.9mm)
Quad-band GSM support
3G with HSDPA 10.2 Mbps and HSUPA 2 Mbps
half-QWERTY keyboard
2.4" 16M-color display of QVGA resolution
Symbian OS, S60 UI with FP2
600 MHz ARM 11 CPU and 128 MB RAM
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, UPnP technology, DLNA support
Built-in GPS receiver, A-GPS support, digital compass
Accelerometer for screen auto-rotation and turn-to-mute
One-touch shortcut keys mean "business"
3 megapixel enhanced fixed focus camera with LED flash
Secondary videocall camera
60 MB of internal memory, microSD expansion, ships with a 2GB card
microUSB v2.0
Standard 3.5mm audio jack
Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP
FM radio with RDS
Class-leading audio output quality
N-Gage gaming support
Ovi Maps preinstalled with trial turn-by-turn navigation license (10 x 1 days, to be used within 3 months) and lifetime City Explorer license
User-friendly Mode Switch for swapping two homescreen setups
Office document editor (with free MS Office 2007 update)
Remote lock/wipe over-the-air
Comfortable keypad
Smart dialing
Great battery life
Main disadvantages
Disappointing camera features and performance
Video recording maxes out at VGA@15fps
No DivX or XviD support (can be installed, possibly requiring a purchase)
No TV-out functionality
Keyboard takes some time getting used to (not too long though)


Nokia E55 live shots

The Nokia E55 has something of a split personality. The business features are complete but wait till you see what it offers for recreation. N-Gage support gives you access to a host of games, the audio quality is up there with dedicated music players and the huge battery won't run out of juice until after hours of games and music.

The weekend getaway is also covered - just punch in your destination into Nokia Maps, and the E55 will take you there. It'll even suggest a list of local attractions.

Head to the next page where we open the box and share our experience with the Nokia E55 and its keyboard.

e55 official review