Samsung i8510 INNOV8 officially announced
08.22.08 (10:13 pm) [edit]
Samsung’s ultra-powerful Symbian S60 based i8510 smartphone has been officially announced as the Samsung INNOV8. The 8 megapixel camera equipped device is ready to go head-to-head with Sony Ericsson C905 and most probably leave it far behind thanks to the open OS it runs.
Let’s recap the specs:
* Network: HSDPA 7.2 Mbps (900/2100), EDGE/GPRS (850/900/1800/1900)
* OS: Symbian OS v9.3, S60 v3.2
* Display: 2.8-inch QVGA 16M TFT LCD
* Camera: 8 megapixel CMOS with AF and dual-power LED. Smart Reader, Image Stabilizer, Auto-Panorama Shot, Smile Shot, Blink Shot, Wide Dynamic Range (WDR), Face Detection, QVGA video recording at 120 fps / VGA at 30 fps
* Memory: 16GB Flash + microSDHC memory slot
* Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0, Wi-Fi
* Other features: A-GPS, optical Mouse, accelerometer, FM radio with RDS, 3.5pi output
* Battery: 1200 mAh
* Size: 106.5×53.9×17.2 mm
In a nutshell, the INNOV8 is the best camera smartphone announced to date. Symbian OS gives it more power than C905 could possibly have.
08.22.08 (10:11 pm) [edit]
BIC phoneOrange has teamed up with BIC to launch the easy-to-use, ready-to-go BIC phone. Manufactured by TCL (Alcatel), the entry-level device comes with 60 free minutes, the battery charged, and the SIM card already in place. Once you spend the free minutes, refilling is done using prepaid cards called "mobicarte."
The idea seems to reach those users that don't care about high-end features of today's smartphones, but rather prefer simple phone for texting and calling. Additionally, the France Telecom owned mobile operator may push the device towards a large number of tourists, who in most cases just need a cheap solution to stay in touch while visiting France.
That being said, the two companies will push the BIC phone through over the counter channels, major supermarkets and local convenience stores. Starting from August, 7th, BIC phone will be available in citrus orange and lime green in metropolitan France for 49 EUR with all the taxes.
The idea seems to reach those users that don't care about high-end features of today's smartphones, but rather prefer simple phone for texting and calling. Additionally, the France Telecom owned mobile operator may push the device towards a large number of tourists, who in most cases just need a cheap solution to stay in touch while visiting France.
That being said, the two companies will push the BIC phone through over the counter channels, major supermarkets and local convenience stores. Starting from August, 7th, BIC phone will be available in citrus orange and lime green in metropolitan France for 49 EUR with all the taxes.
Samsung i8510 Symbian S60 smartphone with 8 megapixel camera in works?
08.22.08 (10:09 pm) [edit]
Samsung is sooo serious when it comes to Symbian S60. Apparently, the Korean giant is preparing to launch the first smartphone with 8 megapixel camera. The so called Samsung i8510 will have the following specs:
* 2.8-inch QVGA (240×320 pixels), 16 million colors
* 8.0 megapixel camera with auto-focus and Xenon flash. Videos recording at 120 fps.
* HSDPA, WiFi, GPS, TV out, DivX support, dedicated 3D graphics chip
* Optical mouse, which we've already seen in earlier Samsung phones (i780 &and i900 Omnia)
* 1200mAh battery
* Metal casing, measuring 106.5×53.9×16.9 mm
* 16 GB internal memory, though some sources mention 8 GB version as well
Sony Ericsson Patty aka W902, is a 5 megapixel feature phone
08.22.08 (10:07 pm) [edit]
10 pictures of the Sony Ericsson codename Patty leaked, the supposed model number is W902. From the images we can tell it has a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash and … that's it really.
The end of the dream
08.22.08 (10:01 pm) [edit]
No matter how it works out in the long run, the purchase of Symbian by Nokia marks the end of a dream -- the creation of a new independent OS company to be the mobile equivalent of Microsoft. Put a few beers into former Symbian employees and they'll get a little wistful about it, but the company they talk about most often is Psion, the PDA company that spawned Symbian.
Psion never got much attention in the US, but it was a pioneer in the PDA market in the UK, and even to this day I think the Psion Revo is one of the two coolest-looking PDAs ever made (the Palm V is the other one).
Psion explored many ideas that eventually turned into major new consumer electronics categories, but it failed to follow up on them. The company was effectively dismembered when Symbian was formed, and many of its best people drifted off to other companies. Now Symbian itself is transitioning to something very different, with most of its people absorbed into Nokia. What the Psion veterans talk about wistfully is how many smart people worked at Psion, how many great ideas the company fumbled, and how successful many of the people have been in the tech industry post-Psion. In this sense, Psion is similar to many other tech pioneer companies that assembled staffs of very bright people, taught them how to work together, and then blew apart like exploding stars, scattering the elements of new companies across the industry. This process dates back at least to Fairchild Semiconductor, which trained the founders of many of the most prominent semiconductor companies (link). You can find similar networks of former employees from places like Apple, Netscape, and Palm. I think Yahoo is in the process of forming a network now, and some day there's going to be a dandy one made of former Googlers.
What makes the Psion story different is that many of the Psion veterans had to leave the UK, or join non-UK companies, in order to become successful. Some are in other parts of Europe, some are in the US, and some are in London but working for foreign companies. This is a source of intense frustration to the Psion folks I've talked with. They feel like not only their company failed, but their country failed to take advantage of the expertise they had built.
There's a big body of academic research on why Silicon Valley has been successful in sustaining itself, and part of the reason is that the Valley recycles companies very efficiently. Failing companies do not last long, but in the process the brightest people and ideas are rarely lost, they are just shuffled around into new configurations.
About a year ago, Andrew Orlowski of the Register wrote an amazing article on the history of Psion, and how company culture and government philosophy failed to take advantage of it to grow a new industry. It's the longest piece I've ever seen in the Register, almost the nucleus of a book, and it's well worth reading. It didn't get enough attention when it was published, and I'm embarrassed to say that I never posted a link to it. So I'm glad to remedy that now. If you want to understand the context what happened to Symbian, and learn a bit about how the tech industry works, go read it here.
If you want to hear more about what Symbian is morphing into, two of its executives have just started personal weblogs in which they are commenting on the migration to Symbian Foundation (among other things). It's an interesting move, and it seems symbolic of the transition they're trying to make into the open source world. Previously Symbian had a company blog that several execs contributed to; now the execs have personal blogs where they talk directly to the industry.
Psion explored many ideas that eventually turned into major new consumer electronics categories, but it failed to follow up on them. The company was effectively dismembered when Symbian was formed, and many of its best people drifted off to other companies. Now Symbian itself is transitioning to something very different, with most of its people absorbed into Nokia. What the Psion veterans talk about wistfully is how many smart people worked at Psion, how many great ideas the company fumbled, and how successful many of the people have been in the tech industry post-Psion. In this sense, Psion is similar to many other tech pioneer companies that assembled staffs of very bright people, taught them how to work together, and then blew apart like exploding stars, scattering the elements of new companies across the industry. This process dates back at least to Fairchild Semiconductor, which trained the founders of many of the most prominent semiconductor companies (link). You can find similar networks of former employees from places like Apple, Netscape, and Palm. I think Yahoo is in the process of forming a network now, and some day there's going to be a dandy one made of former Googlers.
What makes the Psion story different is that many of the Psion veterans had to leave the UK, or join non-UK companies, in order to become successful. Some are in other parts of Europe, some are in the US, and some are in London but working for foreign companies. This is a source of intense frustration to the Psion folks I've talked with. They feel like not only their company failed, but their country failed to take advantage of the expertise they had built.
There's a big body of academic research on why Silicon Valley has been successful in sustaining itself, and part of the reason is that the Valley recycles companies very efficiently. Failing companies do not last long, but in the process the brightest people and ideas are rarely lost, they are just shuffled around into new configurations.
About a year ago, Andrew Orlowski of the Register wrote an amazing article on the history of Psion, and how company culture and government philosophy failed to take advantage of it to grow a new industry. It's the longest piece I've ever seen in the Register, almost the nucleus of a book, and it's well worth reading. It didn't get enough attention when it was published, and I'm embarrassed to say that I never posted a link to it. So I'm glad to remedy that now. If you want to understand the context what happened to Symbian, and learn a bit about how the tech industry works, go read it here.
If you want to hear more about what Symbian is morphing into, two of its executives have just started personal weblogs in which they are commenting on the migration to Symbian Foundation (among other things). It's an interesting move, and it seems symbolic of the transition they're trying to make into the open source world. Previously Symbian had a company blog that several execs contributed to; now the execs have personal blogs where they talk directly to the industry.
08.22.08 (9:57 pm) [edit]
At Google we're very excited about the promise of location technology to drive innovation in the mobile industry. We of course use this location technology already in Google Maps for mobile with the My Location feature. However, we wanted 3rd party developers to also have access to the same location technology across multiple platforms. Gears for Windows Mobile and Android already contain location APIs and we expect to see an explosion of mobile applications that use location technology, particularly on the iPhone starting this month.
Some have wondered: How does it work?
Google Maps for mobile version 2.0 launched last November with a new feature called My Location. My Location enables users to pinpoint their approximate location on a map even if their phone doesn't have a GPS chip. My Location is now available in more than 200 countries and across many different platforms, including BlackBerry, Nokia Series 60, Apple iPhone/iPod Touch, Windows Mobile, and many Java phones. Here's a video that explains what it does. Since the launch, we've seen accelerated growth in the adoption of Google Maps for mobile and have received lots of enthusiastic user feedback on My Location.
We're happy to lift the covers and give you a peek into the inner workings of the Google location server, which powers the My Location feature.
Wireless phones can make and receive calls because they are connected over the air to a nearby cell tower. The phone knows the ID of the cell tower that it's currently using. If the phone has GPS, the Maps application on the phone sends the GPS coordinates along with the cell ID to the Google location server. Over millions of such updates, across multiple phones, carriers, and times, the server clusters the GPS updates corresponding to a particular cell ID to find their rough center. So when a phone without GPS needs its own location, the application on the phone queries the Google location server with the cell tower ID to translate that into a geographic location, i.e., lat/long coordinates. Nifty, huh? We think so.
We're working hard to further improve our location platform and making it more widely available. Stay tuned!
Some have wondered: How does it work?
Google Maps for mobile version 2.0 launched last November with a new feature called My Location. My Location enables users to pinpoint their approximate location on a map even if their phone doesn't have a GPS chip. My Location is now available in more than 200 countries and across many different platforms, including BlackBerry, Nokia Series 60, Apple iPhone/iPod Touch, Windows Mobile, and many Java phones. Here's a video that explains what it does. Since the launch, we've seen accelerated growth in the adoption of Google Maps for mobile and have received lots of enthusiastic user feedback on My Location.
We're happy to lift the covers and give you a peek into the inner workings of the Google location server, which powers the My Location feature.
Wireless phones can make and receive calls because they are connected over the air to a nearby cell tower. The phone knows the ID of the cell tower that it's currently using. If the phone has GPS, the Maps application on the phone sends the GPS coordinates along with the cell ID to the Google location server. Over millions of such updates, across multiple phones, carriers, and times, the server clusters the GPS updates corresponding to a particular cell ID to find their rough center. So when a phone without GPS needs its own location, the application on the phone queries the Google location server with the cell tower ID to translate that into a geographic location, i.e., lat/long coordinates. Nifty, huh? We think so.
We're working hard to further improve our location platform and making it more widely available. Stay tuned!
08.22.08 (9:49 pm) [edit]
The Samsung U900 Soul has dimensions of 105 x 49.5 x 12.9 mm. This sleek dimension provide the mobile a very compact shape. The phone is light and weighs only 112 gms. It can work on 3 G networks and can connect the people throughout the globe as it supports GSM networks. The large memory and the excellent battery are what make the phone an incredible device.
The 128 MB memory of the Samsung Soul is sufficient for storing innumerable ringtones, games, software, videos and pictures. These can be downloaded from the internet with ease. The handset’s efficiency increases with its TFT screen that gives 240 x 320 pixels resolution. So, this screen is very effective for playing of games and watching videos. These really entertain people in their leisure time. The other entertainment option includes the music player that can play on formats such as MP3, AAC, eAAC+ and WMA. Its FM radio is great for playing of various types of entertaining programs. This radio brings entertainment in other forms too. A radio jockey may be hosting entertaining programs such as hilarious comedy; the same can be easily heard on the handset. The user can also play games that are high definition ones on this mobile.
The 128 MB memory of the Samsung Soul is sufficient for storing innumerable ringtones, games, software, videos and pictures. These can be downloaded from the internet with ease. The handset’s efficiency increases with its TFT screen that gives 240 x 320 pixels resolution. So, this screen is very effective for playing of games and watching videos. These really entertain people in their leisure time. The other entertainment option includes the music player that can play on formats such as MP3, AAC, eAAC+ and WMA. Its FM radio is great for playing of various types of entertaining programs. This radio brings entertainment in other forms too. A radio jockey may be hosting entertaining programs such as hilarious comedy; the same can be easily heard on the handset. The user can also play games that are high definition ones on this mobile.
Sony Ericsson W902
08.22.08 (9:47 pm) [edit]
Mobile-review have posted an article about the Sony Ericsson W902. Here is their final impression. The W902’s camera module is nothing to write home about, as it has been carried over from the Sony Ericsson C902 along with auto-focus and LED flash. Its 2.2-inch display is pretty decent and doesn’t get washed out in the sun. But the real question is price – retailing for 330 Euro at the minimum, the W902 will be a dead weight for the maker's portfolio. And the reason for that is pretty simple – that Nokia-branded phone will offer more punch for the same money: 3.5mm audio jack, dedicated DSP inside and an 8Gb memory card in the box along with a remote controls and Maps application. So I don’t really get it – what’s the point of stealing ideas from other phones that are obviously better than the W902. If you have picked up something, then go ahead, enhance it and sell for the same money. All in all, I’m supremely disappointed – Sony Ericsson is turning into an imitator, although it wasn’t that long ago when they were at the cutting edge of the industry. A pity, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise. P.S. If some of you think that I’m being harsh in this write-up – you are spot on. I just can’t stand what they have done to one of the market’s finest line-up in no time after 5 years of development and hard work. They had a wake-up call back in 2007. Apparently, they didn’t hear it.
Nokia 8800 features & details
08.22.08 (9:44 pm) [edit]
Photobucket Nokia announced its latest premium mobile phone. Just to give you a recap on the phone's specs-Apart 262,144 colors TFT/TFD display 208x208 pixel, Nokia 8800 mobile phone offers innovative design features and robust multimedia functionality like xHTML support. Planned With 64MB built-in memory it measuring just 107 x 45
Nokia 7360: Charming, graceful and compact
08.22.08 (9:42 pm) [edit]
Materials, graphics and color palette ensure this charming mobile phone stands out in a crowd. Trend-conscious men and women will appreciate the Nokia 7360's mixture of patterns and textures, which are perfectly complemented by elegant accessories, including straps and carrying pouches. PhotobucketThe Nokia 7360 is also available in the two signature L'Amour Collection color schemes, coffee brown and warm amber. Each model has a distinct set of graphics, screensavers and accessories. Key features: - Integrated VGA camera - Stereo FM radio - MP3 ring tones The estimated retail price of the Nokia 7360 is expected to be approximately €200, excluding taxes and subsidies