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Tuesday 04 May 2010

Sprint Heros Getting Android 2.1 Update This Friday? [ 04-05-2010 18:03 ]

Author: Irina Turina Source: Engadget Translation by: Paul Smith

The rumours are growing ever stronger that Sprint's Hero customers could very well be seeing an upgrade to Android 2.1 on the 7th. As evidence of the forthcoming update Engadget presents a screenshot from bestBuy claiming that the update was delayed and that it will be available at last this week, indeed the screenshot claims that it will be available by this Friday, which would be the 7th. It's important though to point out the wording used because the update is said to be "... in all stores ..." by this Friday. That's a curious phrase to use and Engadget, reasonably so, are speculating that this may in actual fact refer to the Hero handsets being sold in BestBuy stores having Android 2.1 onboard. BestBuy are apparently giving their staf finstructions on how to help customer supgrade though although any update would also be available from HTC themselves one imagines.

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Intel Promises 10 Day Phone Battery With New Chip [ 04-05-2010 17:17 ]

Author: Irina Turina Source: Pocket-lint Translation by: Paul Smith

Battery life is one of the biggest let downs of the current generation of mobile phones. Sure they can do a lot of very cool things and sport ever more powerful features, but the juice that powers them always seems to run out far too quickly. Well now Intel have come along promising hat its new Moorestown processor, re-christened the Atom-Z Series, can bolster battery life in handsets to 10 days from a single charge. The new chip focuses on conserving power, as you migh have guessed from that 10 day battery claim. A little clarification is needed at this point though because the 10 days refers to standby time, actual talk time is being put at 6 hours for 3G networks and a figure of 2 days was given for continous music playback. Intel explains that the power savings come from only activating the parts of the chip that are necessary for a given task rather than utilising the whole chip. The new chip also boasts some impressive graphics performance too, being able to run multiple 5 MP sensors, HDMI out and supporting 1080p video playback.

Initial support includes Android and Intel's own MeeGo platform, which is base don Linux. There is also talk of Windows Phone 7 being supported at some point down the line too. In terms of availability we're probably looking at the first handsets using the new chip to roll out in the second half of this year.

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New Media Controls in iPhone OS Beta [ 04-05-2010 16:55 ]

Author: Irina Turina Source: IntoMobile Translation by: Paul Smith

Having released the latest beta edition of their iPhone OS to developers ahead of the full release in the summer Apple proceeded to recall it pretty sharpish. However, Apple didn't pull it fast enough to stop some people having a rummage around and rummage around is just what they did! Lurking within the beta 3 release was a new feature, namely a ne wimplementation of the media player controls, as you can see from the picture below. Incidentally, the new controls are activated by swiping your finger to the left. There may be more goodies lurking within the depths of the beta 3 release, but for now we'll just have to wait and see ...

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Nokia-Microsoft Launch 1st Joint App [ 04-05-2010 15:39 ]

Author: Serge Novikov Source: Reuters Translation by: Paul Smith

Nokia and Microsoft have taken the wrapper off the first project to bear fruit in their software collaboration designed to challenge Blackberry maker RIM's hold on corporate wireless services. The partnership between Noia and Microsoft was struck up in August of last year and the idea was to roll out Nokia handsets sporting Office at some point this year. Well today the two companies announced 'Communicator Mobile', which allows people to check on the availability of colleagues. Beyond simply seeing whether someone is available the software allows for communication between parties (as the name suggests) usng e-mail, IM, SMS or a good old fashioned phone call. What makes this a little different to the average run of the mill IM app is that it's effectively embedded in the handset's contact list so that status displays show up right there and there. Availability wise E52 and E72 users can head on over to the Ovi Store and pick it up from today.

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Use Your Own Voice In Ovi Maps Directions [ 04-05-2010 13:44 ]

Author: Serge Novikov Source: Engadget Translation by: Paul Smith

A rather interesting (and fun) way of using turn-by-turn directions in the car has come bolting out of the Nokia stable. Up until now you've been stuck with whatever voice the manufacturer decides to provide for your turn-by-turn directions, which is a bit boring to be honest. Nokia have decided to change that by letting you record your own voice and use that instead. Pretty sweet eh? Well that's not all, you can also share your voice with your friends. All you need is Nokia's Own Voice app, which partners up with Ovi Maps. You record your voice (or you doing an impression of someone) and the app gives you a voice pack to use or share. No doubt much hilarity will ensue. It's that easy and it makes you wonder why we haven't seen more of this sort of thing before. Turn-by-turn directions will never be the same again!

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Google Releases Android User Stats [ 04-05-2010 13:20 ]

Author: Irina Turina Source: Pocket-lint Translation by: Paul Smith

New statistics released by Google give a breakdown of Andrid usage and the results are pretty much what most would have expected and perhaps a bit of a headache for Google. The largest share of Android users at 37.2% are using 1.5, the next biggest share is the latest 2.1 release with 32.4%. In between w have everything else. 1.6 takes a 29.6% share and 1.1, 2.0 and 2.01 together make up around 1%.

Most 1.5 users are no doubt Hero owners who haven't had a 1.6 upgrade and 1.6 users are again most probably HTC customers, this time with the Magic. 2.1 users will be running around with the Desire, Legend or Nexus One. Google will be looking closely at the breakdown these stats give because fragmentation of Android is becoming an increasing prblem, especially when so many users are still using older versions of the OS

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Apple Facing Possible Anti-Trust Investigation [ 04-05-2010 12:31 ]

Author: Serge Novikov Source: Reuters Translation by: Paul Smith

Apple's decision to mandate that developers use certain programming tools when coding for the iPhone, iTouch and iPad has taken another turn with the news that American regulators are now looking at whether this is anti-competitive practice. The most prominent front in the war has been Apple's spat with Adobe over Flash, which Apple describes as 'closed' and a 'battery drain'. Apple maintain that the use of such third party platforms results in sub-par apps and a poor customer experience, but critics are charging that Apple is simply abusing its position. According to the New York Times both the American Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission are looking into whether or not to investigate Apple and just which of the two should do so since they both enforce anti-trust law in the U.S. David Balto, a former policy director at the Federal Trade Commission summed it up, saying "What they're (Apple) doing is clearly anticompetitive ... They want one superhighway and they're the tollkeeper on that superhighway."

Speaking about the effect Apple's change of rules will have on the developer community Michael Chang, CEO of mobile ad network Greystripe, said "For us and the whole developers community, it really locks us into a single platform." He went on to say that creating a basic iPhone app from scratch might cost somewhere in the region of $75,000 and that to completely rebuild it for a non-Apple platform would cost a similar amount again. That's in contrast to the 'few thousand' dolalrs it might cost at the moment to convert it to another platform. Change explained "For a small or medium-sized company, it becomes a real financial issue, and that's how it becomes anticompetitive."

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The Shadow Appears as Possible Droid Successor [ 04-05-2010 11:32 ]

Author: Irina Turina Source: recombu Translation by: Paul Smith

Motorola hasn't officially announced a successor to the hit they had last year with the Droid, but speculation is rampant that just such a successor will arrive in the form of the Shadow. A device going by the name of MB810 was submitted to the WiFi Alliance for approval at the weekend and this is said to be the mysterious Shadow. In terms of specs we should be looking at a 4.3" (yes 4.3"!) capacitive touchscreen; 512 MB memory, HD video playback (1080p) and recording (720p). The handset is also said to include a mini HDMI jack. Looking at those specs one can't help but wonder if the Shadow might not give the N8 a run for its money, even if the N8 does pack a few more megapixels into the camera; 12 MP for the N8 versus 8 MP for the Shadow. Oh and it will be running Android 2.2!