Microsoft's been playing it really cool with the nascent Windows Phone 7 hacker community so far, which is winning them friends in all sorts of important places -- not the least of which is the ChevronWP7 team itself. The first guys to split the platform open for homebrew apps were recently invited up to Redmond for a powwow with the guys in charge, and it seems the meetings were fruitful to say the least; though much of what they saw was under NDA, they say they're "genuinely excited" by what Microsoft has in the works. Furthermore, Microsoft was kind enough to give the team a heads-up that an upcoming platform update would break the existing ChevronWP7 tool, though they say they're "collaborating with Microsoft on an interim solution that will continue to support homebrew developments after the update." Considering that they've already reached out to jailbreaker extraordinaire Geohot as well, it's clear that Microsoft doesn't believe this is a black-and-white situation -- the ChevronWP7 guys seem to think homebrew has a place somewhere in the platform's future, it just remains to be seen how that's going to play out.
1.25.2011
Samsung Gem Touchscreen Smartphone
Samsung has announced the Samsung Gem that allows you to post photos, messages or emails to all your favorite social network sites with the touch of one button. It keeps track of contact info and email addresses which can be scanned in a single view. And with its built-in calendar, you can organize all your social and business appointments.
The Gem comes with many of the features of more expensive phones, at an affordable price. It's the smartphone at a very smart price. The screen on the Gem is made with advanced anti-scratch, anti-smudge, anti-reflective glass. You'll be able to type with Swype, the innovative one-fingered system that allows you simply slide your finger from key to key and only raise it between words. You'll also be able to drag and drop various widgets and icons to personalize your own one-of-a-kind start-up screen.
The Gem comes equipped with the fastest processor in its category. Web browsing is faster, downloads are faster and uploads are faster, thanks to the 800 MHz central processing unit. No word as yet about which carrier to have the Gem.
Virgin Mobile Lining Up LG Optimus
The phone is currently available on Sprint as a mid-range smartphone with a 600MHz processor and Android 2.2 and also features mobile hotspot support for an additional fee. Should Virgin Mobile go through with releasing the Optimus as available on Sprint, it would mark the first Android device with support for mobile hotspot access on the virtual operator and follows its recent implementation of a soft cap on its Broadband2Go mobile broadband service.
1.24.2011
Palm Topaz Tablet Revealed
The Topaz will feature a 1.2GHz Qualcomm-based processor with an integrated Adreno 220 GPU, 512MB of DDR2 memory, 9.7-inch capacitive display at XGA (1024 x 768) resolution with an oleophobic (germ resistant) Gorilla Glass front , Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, a front-facing 1.3 megapixel camera and dual-band 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi radio.
Additional features will include 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of internal storage, optional mobile broadband, accelerometer, gyroscope, light sensor, microphone and an eight hour battery. A WiFi-only model is also planned and will be released as well with HSPA, LTE and CDMA variants also being rumored with carrier SIM locks and A-GPS support.
Read More for the improvements to Touchstone, known as v2
Wireless charging
Wireless picture sharing
Wireless website sharing
Wireless audio streaming via Bluetooth to speaker dock
Wireless map and directions
Wireless music sharing from Palm smartphone to Topaz
Wireless contact sharing
Wireless printing
Wireless video streaming from Touchstone video dock to VGA or HDMI out
Wireless video game playing via Touchstone video dock
Other major functionality being planned includes “tap to share” which would allow for the above functionality with the new coil design. To close out, the last major feature being developed for the tablet is a suite of cloud services based off of HP’s current suite which includes the following:
Snapfish photo sharing and management
Melodeo music integration
HP Cloud Drive
HP Cloud Canvas, which has yet to be elaborated on and is rumored to be the backbone behind the Touchstone v2 sharing capability.
The Topaz is expected to be announced next month during Mobile World Congress after its original CES announcement was delayed.
Vodafone OneNet tops 10,000 UK users
Vodafone claims UK sales of OneNet have passed 10,000 users and 1,000 business contracts; the operator is upping its marketing spend to help emulate international success
Vodafone Partner Services told UK dealers today (January 24) that sales of its unified communication product OneNet have hit 1,ooo customers, and more than 10,000 individual users.
Vodafone informed dealers it wants to emulate in the UK OneNet’s success in its international markets. It said Vodafone Spain and Vodafone Portugal are signing 50,000 new users to OneNet each month.
Vodafone OneNet launched in the UK in September 2009. The majority of Vodafone’s top dealer partners have only had the ability to sell the product in the past six months, however.
Vodafone said it will beef up awareness of the product with significant advertising from the second week of February. It said it will spend around 1.5 million in the month.
The news was announced at a Vodafone Partner Services event in Warwick, with around 140 Vodafone dealers attending, including a mix of those in its gold and silver tiers.
The event was hosted by Vodafone UK enterprise marketing director Peter Boucher.
The event runs again tomorrow (January 25) for its platinum partners.
Boucher told dealers Vodafone will make a number of changes to its OneNet offer to make it simpler to sell, including minor changes to tariffs. Details have yet to be announced.
Vodafone will increase the maximum number of users on OneNet, which has to date targeted business accounts of 1-30 seats, to around 130 later this year.
This will also facilitate the ability for customers with multiple sites to have a single OneNet package across different locations.
HTC Arrive and Kyocera Echo bow for Sprint?
Okay, armchair sleuths, this one's for you -- we've got two very legit-looking logos here, but not a lot of proof. Our tipster tells us that both of these high-quality vector graphics are the names of upcoming devices for Sprint, with the HTC Arrive (née Ruby) allegedly an upcoming Windows Phone 7 device, while Kyocera Echo is apparently the retail name for the phone internally known as the Sanyo Orange. It just so happens that the trademark for "HTC Arrive" was registered the very same day we received this logo, so we think we're onto something here, but the truth of the matter is that all of these codenames are falling on virgin ears.
[Thanks, anonymous]
Samsung Forcing US Carriers to Pay for Android Froyo on Galaxy S?
An anonymous poster on XDA-Developers has broken silence (and several possible NDAs) in order to explain why the long promised updates to US carrier versions of the Samsung Galaxy S have yet to see updates to Android Froyo. Read more for his words.
To explain the political situation, first, a primer on how phone firmware upgrades work for carriers. When a carrier decides to sell a phone, a contract is usually written between the phone manufacturer and the carrier.
In this contract, the cost of updates (to the carrier) is usually outlined. Updates are usually broken into several types: critical updates, maintenance updates, and feature updates. Critical updates are those that resolve a critical bug in the phone, such as the phone overheating. Maintenance updates involve routine updates to resolve bugs and other issues reported by the carrier. Finally, feature updates add some new feature in software that wasn’t present before.
Critical updates are usually free, maintenance updates have some maintenance fee associated with them, and feature updates are usually costly. In the past, most phone updates would mainly consist of critical and maintenance updates.
Carriers almost never want to incur the cost of a feature update because it is of little benefit to them, adds little to the device, and involves a lot of testing on the carrier end. Android has changed the playing field, however – since the Android Open Source Project is constantly being updated, and that information being made widely available to the public, there is pressure for the phone to be constantly updated with the latest version of Android.
With most manufacturers, such as HTC, Motorola, etc. This is fine and considered a maintenance upgrade. Samsung, however, considers it a feature update, and requires carriers to pay a per device update fee for each incremental Android update.
Now, here’s where the politics come in: most U.S. carriers aren’t very happy with Samsung’s decision to charge for Android updates as feature updates, especially since they are essentially charging for the Android Open Source Project’s efforts, and the effort on Samsung’s end is rather minimal.
As a result of perhaps, corporate collusion, all U.S. carriers have decided to refuse to pay for the Android 2.2 update, in hopes that the devaluation of the Galaxy S line will cause Samsung to drop their fees and give the update to the carriers.
The situation has panned out differently in other parts of the world, but this is the situation in the United States. Some of you might have noticed Verion’s Fascinate updated, but without 2.2; This is a result of a maintenance agreement Samsung must honor combined with Verizon’s unwillingness to pay the update fees. In short, Android 2.2 is on hold for Galaxy S phones until the U.S. carriers and Samsung reach a consensus.
Some might wonder why I didn’t deliver this over a more legitimate news channel – the short answer: I don’t want to lose my job. I do, however, appreciate transparency, which is why I’m here.
PhoneNews.com has an email out to Samsung regarding the above claims and will update when a response is received.
T-Mobile confirms Galaxy S with 4G, Android-based Sidekick 4G are coming
Whoa, this is kind of out of the blue: on top of the Vibrant 4G that we've already had leaked ad nauseam (though he refers to it as a "Galaxy S 4G"), T-Mobile USA CEO Phiipp Humm mentioned at an event this morning that the company is preparing an HSPA+ Sidekick -- yes, a Sidekick -- albeit with Android slotted in place of the defunct Danger Hiptop operating system. For the record, T-Mobile hasn't had any Sidekicks in its lineup since the middle of last year, though it does own the Sidekick brand -- not Danger / Microsoft -- and would undoubtedly love to bring it back to relevance. Coincidentally, Mister Android himself, Andy Rubin, came from Danger -- so the Sidekick's starting to follow him around. Kind of like... you know, a sidekick. Both products are said to be "coming soon."