The Samsung Wave S8500 started shipping recently in Germany and those who purchased it could be in for a surprise as it is believed many of the devices have been infected with a virus. The virus is on the microSD memory card that ships with the smartphone and it contains the Win32/Heur virus that effects computers that use autorun.

It isn’t known how the virus got there although we suspect that it was put there in the factory when the memory cards were perhaps tested. Maybe one of the machines used to test cards contained a virus, or perhaps they were purposely planted on there by someone. [Read more…]

If you follow the progress Google [GOOG] has made with the Google Android OS, you will notice that they release updates quite often. Many smartphones are about to get an update to Android 2.1 although Android 2.2 is due out any week now. Also many are still on 1.5 and 1.6 with a few on 2.0. In total, eight releases were made in the first 18 months.

All this fragmentation has happened due to the quick updates that Google has made and now it seems that they are now beginning to slow down over the next few months.

Andy Rubin from Google said that the slow down would bring it down to about two updates per year and eventually on to just one update per year which basically follows in line with what Apple pretty much do. [Read more…]

Some people have reported problems with their HTC Legend smartphones. The problem appears to be the way it shows grayscale colours in that it cannot show them properly.

The HTC Legend uses an AMOLED display which was criticised for the problems which prompted Tweakers to investigate further.

To do this the website used colour-testing equipment where the could test to see exactly what was happening under a microscope. The screen on the Legend did show problems with pink, grey, brown and green showing up rather than just grayscale (seen in the larger image below). [Read more…]

Verizon [VZ] has announced that the BlackBerry Bold 9650 will be launching on it’s network on June 3. The Bold 9650 can be ordered this Thursday with the device showing up in stores on June 10.

Features on the BlackBerry Bold 9650 include an optical trackpad, WiFi that can connect to 802.11b/g networks and Push to Talk functions.

The phone it’s self measures 4.4 x 2.44 x 0.55 inches and weighs 4.8oz. It has a glossy black finish with chrome highlights. As can be expected from all BlackBerry devices, there is mobile and messaging capabilities on this smartphone allowing users to easily have access to emails whilst on the move. [Read more…]

The Motorola FLIPOUT has been spotted a couple of times in the past. After a few months of details here and there, we now have official word from Motorola about the FLIPOUT and what it exactly is.

The Motorola FLIPOUT runs the Android 2.1 operating system. It has a smaller 2.8 inch QVGA touchscreen and a unique keyboard that flips out by rotating the device around the top corner.

Features include a three megapixel camera that is fixed focus. 3G connectivity is included. It has 512MB of memory built in and this can be expanded by a microSD card.

The device is square and measures 67mm by 67mm and is 17mm in thickness. It has an 1170mAh battery. For music playback, regular headphones can be used in the 3.5mm headphone connector. [Read more…]