Technology News And Reviews » android

RIM And Apple In Driving Position To Dominate The Smartphone Segment

admin — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:35:37 +0000

Analyst Canalys has released figures for global smartphone shipments in the third quarter of this year, and it’s good news for RIM and Apple.

Nokia remains No 1 in terms of market share, shipping 16.4 million smartphones in Q3, 39.7% of the market. That’s up from 38.9% in the same quarter last year. I wonder how much longer can Nokia maintain its leadership in this segment at the rapid pace RIM and Apple is eating into its market share not forgetting the release of more Android smartphones in the coming months.

However, Research In Motion is on the charge with BlackBerry, whose 8.5 million Q3 shipments bagged it a smartphone market share of 20.6% – up from 15.2% in Q3 2008. That means it’s overtaken third-placed Apple, which shipped 7.4 million iPhones in Q3 for a 17.8% market share, up from 17.3% in the same quarter last year. Fourth-placed HTC shipped 2.2 million smartphones in Q3, giving it a market share of 5.3%.

Overall, smartphone shipments rose just 4% year-on-year to 41.4 million. While growth has undoubtedly slowed, it is still outperforming the overall mobile phone market by some margin, as well as driving data revenue for operators.

Microsoft is the big loser in that chart, with WinMo shipments down 33.1% year-on-year. The full stats can be seen here.

Tags: android, hot, Iphone, microsoft, mobile

Video: Motorola Droid Vs. IPhone 3GS

admin — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:18:25 +0000

Technobuffalo puts the Motorola Droid & Android 2.0 head to head against the iPhone 3GS.In this video they cover stuff like the web browser, speed, GPS, scrolling speed, text entry etc. Guess who is the winner…. Its a pretty long video but i m sure you will find it quite useful if you are thinking of buying either one of the device.

Tags: android, buy, Iphone, player, tech

Xperia X10 – The Android Device From Sony Ericsson

admin — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 03:33:31 +0000

Sony Ericsson had just released the official specifications and photos of the final product and judging from those, it might be the Android device that’ll give the other device manufacturers a run for their money.

Specs :

- 4-inch capacitive touch display

- 480×854 pixels wide

- 8.1 megapixel camera with LED flash

- 1GHz Snapdragon CPU

- 8 GB microSD memory card included, with the possibility of extending that with larger memory cards

– WiFi, Bluetooth, Micro USB, A-GPS, HSPA

Check out the promo video below :

Tags: android, hot, player, sony

Rogers Wireless First To Offer LG Eve GW620 In Canada

admin — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 03:33:21 +0000

LG and Rogers Wireless announced the LG Eve (GW620) Android smartphone, featuring an application called Social Network Services (SNS) Manager, which brings together a user’s Facebook, Twitter and Bebo networks into one place, letting them check status updates in real time. The SNS Manager leverages social networking by putting a person’s address book contacts as the central reference and launching point for a variety of social media tools.

Also designed for easy social networking are the 5 MP camera for taking high quality pictures that you can view and edit on the LG Eve’s 3-inch touch screen, and the 5-line QWERTY keypad, which is ideal for email and messaging. Additionally, the LG Eve features a Face Recognition application which means that once a person is tagged in a saved photo, the device will automatically recognize the person’s face and tag him or her in other photos.

Other key features of the LG Eve include:

A 3D gallery for viewing and sorting photos, with the ability to quickly and easily find photos by tagging favourites or using the filtering tool to sort photos by tags, face recognition or date
5 line QWERTY keypad
Video Recording: MPEG4,H263@QVGA24fps
Video Playback: MPEG4, H264 @ HVGA 24fps, WMV, DviX
5 megapixel camera with auto focus, LED Flash
Micro USB
Bluetooth 2.0 EDR

The LG Eve is available at Rogers for $49.99 with 3 year voice and data activations.

Tags: android, hot, hp

Naming The Coolest Technologies

admin — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:22:52 +0000

Pentium

When Intel had developed the successor to the i486 and was getting ready for its launch, they had the name i586 in mind for the new processor. Intel wanted to trademark this name because of competitors using similar names with the numbers (such as Am486 from AMD), but US courts would not allow numbers as trademarks. Intel asked Lexicon Branding to create a brand that could be trademarked for their new processors. The name Pentium was suggested as it contained “Pente” meaning five in Greek and “ium” which is the Latin ending for neutral nouns.

Walkman

Who doesn’t know about the Walkman? Ever since the first one was launched in 1979, the name has become synonymous to a personal stereo player. The device was designed by Sony audio division engineer Nobutoshi Kihara for Sony co-chairman Akio Morita who wanted to be able to listen to operas during his transatlantic plane trips. The name Walkman expresses the freedom to listen to music while walking down the street. Although it was marketed as Walkman only in Japan, it was known as Soundabout in many countries including US, Freestyle in Sweden and Stowaway in the UK. The name Walkman eventually was found to be more popular and hence the other two names were dropped.

iPod

While the development of Apple’s MP3 player was in progress, Steve Jobs expressed his vision of the MP3 player as a hub to other gadgets. Freelancer copywriter Vinnie Chieco, whom Apple had hired to help arrive at a name, brainstormed hubs of all kinds and eventually decided to come up with something related to spaceships, where you can leave it for some time, but will have to eventually return to refuel. The plastic front of the prototype MP3 player inspired him with the word “pod”, while the ‘i’ gives it the Mac connection. The MP3 player was thus christened iPod.

BlackBerry

In 2001, Canadian company Research In Mobile asked Lexicon Branding to give a name for its new e-mail device. Research suggests that the word “e-mail” can increase your blood pressure, so the consultancy asked RIMs founder to distance the name of this new device from that word. Rather, they tried to come up with a word for a name to evoke feelings of joy and peace. Just then, someone made a comment that the keys on the device looked like seeds, which got Lexicon team to search for words such as melon, strawberry and various other vegetables. Finally, they arrived at ‘BlackBerry’, which is a word that is both pleasing as well as brought up the black colour of the device.

Android

As you may already know, Android is Google’s newest operating system for mobile devices with Open Handset Alliance supporting this platform. But do you know how it got its name? When work started on this project in 2005, Google quietly acquired a mysterious startup named Android Inc. According to the BusinessWeek, this startup had been working under “a cloak of secrecy” on “making software for mobile phones”. Leaked news and internet hype combined with Google’s secrecy resulted into the name “Android” getting stuck to this.

Firefox

Mozilla did have its share of problems naming its famous browser. An early version of Mozilla’s browser was called Firebird, but since that name was already being used by another open-source project, the browser was named Firefox instead. Firefox is another name for red panda. When asked why this browser was named so, the reply of Mozilla elders was, “It’s easy to remember. It sounds good. It’s unique. We like it.”

Twitter

The only thing that came to cofounder Biz Stone’s mind when he saw the application created by Jack Dorsey in 2006 was the way birds communicate – “Short bursts of information…Everyone is chirping, having a good time.” Stone responded by “twttr” and they eventually added a few vowels to come to “Twitter”. Thus, what started as being described as merely trivial bursts of bird communication, has become one of the most popular and powerful means of social networking, news, etc. You can now find “Follow on Twitter” links on practically every website today.

ThinkPad

The highly reliable and respected lineup of notebook computers from IBM was launched in 1992. But before they could launch it, they just could not come up with a name to give it. While the pen-computing group of IBM wanted to keep it simple and thought about ThinkPad, the corporate naming committee didn’t like it. IBM products always had a number in the name and they wanted to carry on that tradition with this new notebook range. Also, they wondered how the word ThinkPad would translate into other languages. “ThinkPad” eventually won due to the clout of the IBMer who unveiled it and went on to become a huge hit.

Windows 7

There was a whole lot of speculation as to what the newest iteration of Windows will be named as. Windows Vista has been disappointing for Microsoft, so they did not want to go with any similar naming convention. Meanwhile, Windows releases preceded by a numeral have done remarkably well. The reason can be anything, but the name became clear when Microsoft’s Mike Nash announced, “Simply put, this is the seventh release of Windows, so therefore ‘Windows 7′ just makes sense.” As has been seen thus far, this is probably on its way to become the most successful OS from Microsoft since a long time.

Amazon Kindle

Amazon Kindle is arguably the device that revolutionized the way e-books are read. Kindle was named by a husband and wife team of designers from San Francisco, Michael Cronan and Karen Hibma. Cronan was asked by Lab126 – an Amazon.com company, to name this device. According to Hibma, Michael came up with the name through the usual practice of exploring the depths of what the potential of the new product could be and how the company would like to present it.

Hibma says, “We didn’t want it to be ‘techie’ or trite, and we wanted it to be memorable, and meaningful in many ways of expression, from ‘I love curling up with my Kindle to read a new book’ to ‘When I’m stuck in the airport or in line, I can Kindle my newspaper, favorite blogs or half a dozen books I’m reading.” Kindle means to burn or set alight, to arouse or be aroused, or to make or become bright. It has its roots in the Old Norse word kyndill, meaning candle.

Hibma says, “From Voltaire: ‘The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others and it becomes the property of all’.”

Tags: android, microsoft, mobile, mp3, player, Software, sony, tech, vista, windows 7

Spring Design Files IP Lawsuit Over Barnes & Noble Nook

admin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:09:09 +0000

Barnes & Noble’s nook hasn’t even seen the light of day yet (it’s pre-order only), and it’s already embroiled in a lawsuit. In this case, Spring Design, which has its own e-book reader, is claiming B&N has used IP garnered from meetings with Spring Design in its nook.

The lawsuit addresses Spring Design’s “Alex” e-book reader, which features two e-ink displays with capacitive touchscreens as well as the Google Android operating systems. This is all very similar to the nook.

Spring Design claims in their press release that they and Barnes and Noble had been meeting since the beginning of this year, with B&N noting very favorable impressions of the device. It seemed there was a possibility that B&N and Spring Design would work together on a device, but the nook emerged instead, without warning.

Here’s what Spring Design said in an emailed press release:

Since the beginning of 2009 Spring and Barnes & Noble worked within a non-disclosure agreement, including many meetings, emails and conference calls with executives ranging up to the president of Barnes and Noble.com, discussing confidential information regarding the features, functionality and capabilities of Alex. Throughout, Barnes & Noble’s marketing and technical executives extolled Alex’s “innovative” features, never mentioning their use of those features until the public disclosure of the Nook.

Alex has been in development since 2006. It was (post-nook) recently announced, and its similarities to the nook were lost on none. It’s unclear what effect this lawsuit will have on the impending launch of the nook, or on any such launch of the Alex, as well.

Tags: android, hot, hp, tech

Space Alert (tutorials)

admin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:08:39 +0000

Space Alert is one very unusual game. It is cooperative and real-time. It is by Vlaada Chvatil from the Czech Republic, who designed Through the Ages and Galaxy Trucker (both of which I like a lot), and often has very innovative and interesting ideas for games. In Space Alert, you and your teammates need to defend your spaceship for 10 minutes. If you survive, you win. The “real” part of the game is played in real-time. You listen to a sound track (there are many to choose from to provide some variety) which tells you about enemy attacks, ship malfunctions, communications downtimes, etc. During these 10 minutes, you plan your actions using your hand of cards. It sounds simple – you are just putting cards down onto 12 spaces, but it is actually quite tricky, requiring good coordination among the teammates in real-time. It’s very chaotic! Once the soundtrack is over, you do an evaluation round, basically reenacting everything that had happened step by step, to see whether you survived.

I have played six games of this, and I have not even played a real mission yet! I am still playing the tutorials, and still failing them! There are three levels of tutorials – Test Runs, Simulations and Advanced Simulations. They introduce the game to you bit by bit, with new elements and new challenges being added at each new level. For now I have only reached Simulations. And I am not even beating the game yet! In fact, even for my very first Test Run, I (well, we) lost the game. I had thought the Test Run was designed to be impossible to lose.

So what do you do during a game? To summarise, you move and you press buttons. As simple as that. There are 6 rooms on the spaceship, each having 3 buttons performing different functions. The A buttons are for shooting. Each room has a different cannon, with different fire-powers, ranges and power sources, and also pointing in different directions. You often need to coordinate with your teammates to shoot at an approaching enemy at the same time, because it is much more effective in damaging your enemy. B buttons are all related to managing energy – for charging up defensive shields, moving energy cubes to where they are needed, and charging up your energy core. This is a very important aspect, which we learnt the hard way. There was one game when we (Afif, Sui Jye, Jing Yi and I) planned a very well coordinated shooting, only to find that our cannons had run out of energy cubes. Click! Click! We failed to destroy the approaching enemy, and lost the game miserably.

Then there are the C buttons, which do different things. Some allow you to control combat robots, which are needed to fight enemies which are on board. One allows you to fire homing missiles. One simply allows you to score additional victory points, but I think in this game that’s the last thing I’m going to care about. I need to learn to survive first. There’s even one C button that is for making sure that the computer screensaver doesn’t come up to interrupt your actions. Apparently the operating system of the spaceship computer was sponsored, and thus has a screensaver with advertising content.

There are many different types of enemies in the game, which approach at different speeds, attack at different strengths, and have different shield strengths. There are also internal threats – sometimes enemies that board your spaceship, sometimes systems malfunctions. In each mission, these are randomly drawn, and you only see a few of them. This gives the game some replayability. There are some time tracks that vary how quickly enemies approach and how often and how soon they attack. Four time tracks are drawn randomly to be placed at different parts of the ship. This too increases variety.

In the foreground, the 12 time slots where you can place your action cards. The three long tracks leading away from the game board are used for determining how quickly an enemy approaches and when and how frequently it attacks.

Starting set-up of a Simulation game (which I call Level 2 Tutorial). Player characters start at the bridge – the upper white room. Green cubes are energy cubes. Green cylinders are energy capsules, which are used for recharging the central reactor. The cannons are purple, and the boxes next to them tell you the cannon range and fire-power. There are homing missiles in the background too. You only get 3 per mission.

Space Alert is a game that needs a dedicated group of players. It is actually not easy to beat, and requires good cooperation among the players. You need players who are interested enough to play it multiple times and work through the tutorials to get to the real missions. If you only play with casual players, you may never reach the real missions. I wonder whether the game will lose its appeal after you win a few real missions, the way some PC or console adventure games lose their appeal after you beat them. But even if this happens, I think I would have gained a lot of value from the game. I suspect the game will continue to be interesting even after I learn to beat the normal missions, like how Galaxy Trucker (also by Vlaada Chvatil) and Pandemic are.

Space Alert is probably a game that needs 4 or 5 players. With less than four, you need to introduce android characters, which are ordered around by the other human players. This is not very ideal when you are still trying to learn the game. There are enough for you to worry about without androids. You probably want to play with less than four after you are familiar with the game. But I think the game is meant for 4 or 5, because the fun is in overcoming the chaos of many players trying to coordinate their actions to save the spaceship.

There is one thing which I wonder whether I have been doing right. When I play the game, I don’t try to move the pieces on the board much. I only sometimes move my character, to remind myself where I am. I don’t remove energy cubes spent, I don’t move enemy markers, I don’t mark the damage done to my spaceship or to the enemies. I think I probably should do that, because that would help a lot in visualising what’s happening. That would take some effort from everyone, because you need to synchronise the changes made to the board with your teammates. Else it may cause even more confusion, or worse, cause wrong planning. I should do this next time I play, and let’s see whether I will fare better.

So this is just an initial impression of Space Alert. Hopefully the next time I write about this game I will have beaten some normal missions.

Tags: android, game, hot, player

Android Accounts For 17% Of US Smartphone Traffic In September

admin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:08:01 +0000

Mobile advertising firm AdMob has released its September Mobile Metrics report, which outlines trends based on ad requests from the company’s network of apps and sites.

Globally, iPhone was the top handset in terms of requests, accounting for 16.9% of the traffic on AdMob’s network. It’s followed by iPod touch in second spot with 8.4%.

Focusing on smartphones specifically, the iPhone OS accounted for 43% of requests, followed by Symbian with 29%. Android is third with 10%.

However, in the US, Android is in second spot with 17% of ad requests in September – up from 13% in August thanks to growth fuelled by the HTC Dream and HTC Magic handsets.

Five of the top ten handsets in the US have touchscreens, six have Wi-Fi, and six come with embedded app stores, according to AdMob’s data. The full report can be downloaded here.

Tags: android, download, hot, Iphone, mobile

What’s Next, It’s Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Android Smartphone

admin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:07:51 +0000

Famously known as Sony Ericsson Rachael and Xperia X3, Sony Ericsson has officially introduced its first Android smartphone with the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 and 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. Just like what we have already saw in the videos, new user interface is used on the X10, mainly split to Sony Ericsson Timescape and Sony Ericsson Mediascape. The Xperia X10 will be available in selected markets from Q1 in the colours Sensuous Black and Luster White. For now, it is said to use an older Android 1.6 Donut. Will they not use Android 2.0 Eclair by Q1 2010?

Sony Ericsson Timescape will manage all your communication with one person in one place. Browse through your conversations to check out your Facebook, Twitter, photos, emails, and texts all in one go. The Sony Ericsson Mediascape can be used to organise the music, photos and videos you have.

While there is no mention of the Google Maps Navigation service supports, the Xperia X10 will comes with a Wisepilot turn-by-turn navigation solution in limited trial period before you have to make a purchase. It will also include a 8GB microSD card. It supports GSM GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900, UMTS HSPA 900/1700/2100 and UMTS HSPA 800/850/1900/2100.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Specifications

8.1 megapixel camera, auto focus, intelligent face recognition features, geo tagging, image and video stabilizer
Photo and video light
Smile detection
Touch focus
Sony Ericsson Timescape
Speakerphone
Vibrating alert
Auto rotate
Gesture control
A-GPS
3.5 mm audio jack
Bluetooth technology
Micro USB connector
Wi-Fi
4-inch 262,144 colour TFT touchscreen, WVGA resolution
Size: 119 x 63 x 13 mm
Weight: 135 grams
Phone memory: Up to 1 GB
Memory card support: microSD
Processor: 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8250

[via slashgear]

Tags: android, hot, hp, sony, tech

Sony Ericsson Made Xperia X3/X10 Official On YouTube

admin — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:11:56 +0000

Just 2 more days (November 3rd) till the official Xperia X3/X10 press event “What’s Next“, Sony Ericsson has started to promote its first Android smartphone on YouTube. It is not sure how many new products will be announced, but at least the new Xperia X3 or might be called Xperia X10 will be unveiled.

The video posted on YouTube did not reveal much on the specifications detail. Though, you can spot some of its hardware design in the video like USB connector with a cover, 3.5mm headphone jack, volume control buttons, camera button and power button.

The first Android smartphone from Sony Ericsson will be called Xperia X3 or Xperia X10. It should also comes with a big 4-inch touch screen in WVGA resolution, 8 megapixel camera, built in WiFi, GPS, bluetooth and support dualband 900/2100MHz HSDPA / HSUPA network.

Click here to view the embedded video.

[via Android Community]

Tags: android, hp, sony