Sketch-a-Search is an application built by Yahoo! that allows you to search for restaurants nearby by drawing a line on a map around the area you want to search in.

By using your GPS or cell tower co-ordinates the application searches within the area you draw around. The restaurants once listed can then be filtered by distance, type of restaurant as in romantic/family/casual/formal and also by it’s 1 – 5 star rating in terms of how much of a recommendation the restaurant is.

Switched managed to do a brief hands on of the application and although it worked relatively well, it did feel a little laggy in points where drawing was concerned. Also the filtering wasn’t up to scratch due to the lack of data in certain areas. [Read more…]

The Samsung Galaxy i9000 has been announced. The new smartphone when launched will run the Android 2.1 operating system, feature Samsung’s own Super AMOLED screen in a WVGA resolution of 800 x 480 pixels that measures 4 inches. The Samsung Galaxy will also run a 1GHz processor to keep things running smoothly.

The new Galaxy is what Samsung are aiming to be their flagship smartphone to tackle the likes of the Google [GOOG] Nexus One and the Motorola DROID in terms of features and an almost matching operating system (still waiting for that DROID 2.1 update).

Feature include assisted GPS, Bluetooth 3.0, USB 2.0 as well as wireless connectivity that sees the phone connecting to wireless 802.11b/g and n networks. Storage capacity can be increased by utilising the built in microSD card slot. Standard storage is optional at 8GB or 16GB with the microSD card slot allowing a further 32GB of data to be stored which provides quite a bit of space for music, photos and video to be stored. [Read more…]

StyleTap iPhone has finally been released. The StyleTap application is designed for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch and allows you to run the Palm OS interface on your Apple [AAPL] device.

Before you go ahead and purchase/install it you need to note a few things. First off, it requires you to jailbreak your device (if you haven’t already) and needs virmware v3.x or above to run. Also note that if you are running iPhone OS 3.1.3 then you can’t currently jailbreak your device. Also if you decide to install an official update you’ll also loose the jailbreak and loose access to the software. With that in mind lets take a look at what it does…

SkyleTap Platform allows you to run 30,000 applications that were written for Palm OS on your iPhone or iPod Touch. Applications that were written for the Palm OS 5.2 platform or earlier are compatible with StyleTap and this includes programs that use native ARM code (PNOs or ARMlets). [Read more…]

The HTC EVO 4G has been announced today. The new EVO was formally known as the HTC Supersonic that we have mentioned a few times in the past.

The phone will be launched on to Sprint’s 4G WiMAX network and has some impressive specs. To start off with it has a huge 4.3 inch TFT screen that is capable of showing 480 x 800 pixels. The processor inside is a Snapdragon running at 1GHz. From looking at the specifications and the device it’s self, it looks to be the HTC HD2 Android equivalent.

Other features include 1GB of memory and 512MB of RAM allowing for more applications to be stored. The device is capable of 720p video, has a front facing 1.3 megapixel camera and also has a camera on the back that has an 8 megapixel sensor. [Read more…]

Sprint [S] are launching the LG Remarq that is built of 19% recycled plastic and when finished with in a few years time, 87% of it can be recycled.

LG have made an attempt to make the phone as green as possible. Other features to add to the environmentally friendly status is the charger that is also a low energy device to help save energy used.

The phone it’s self is relatively basic offering a 1.3 megapixel camera, media player, microSD card slot and a speaker phone. For connectivity the phone has Bluetooth. [Read more…]

Back in early February we mentioned details that had leaked about a Nokia N8 smartphone which was expected to have 720p capabilities and a 12 megapixel camera. A few pictures have now leaked with what we believe to be the Nokia N8-00 device.

The phone is believed to have a 3.5 inch capacitive touchscreen, a 12 megapixel camera with the usual Carl Zeiss optics lens and a HDMI output to play the 720p content stored on it. Another post indicates the screen could be closer to 4 inches rather than 3.5 inches, but we have no official word on that.

The phone is believed to run the new Symbian ^3 OS and from what we see on the pictures it’s a touchscreen phone only with no slide-out QWERTY keyboard. [Read more…]

Kyocera have unveiled a new Android powered smartphone called the Kyocera Zio M6000.

The Zio M6000 has a 3.5 inch capacitive touchscreen, a trackball for navigation and also has a 3.2 megapixel camera. The handset is compatible with CDMA2000 1x EVDO Rev A networks. Other connectivity options include Wi-Fi that can connect to 802.11b/g networks. A Bluetooth chip can also be found in the phone.

The battery has a capacity of 1130mAh and is good for about 6 hours of talk time, 432 hours of standby, 4 hours of Wi-fi browsing and about 3.5 hours of browsing over a CDMA network. [Read more…]

Recently a few phones were displayed at a Windows Phone 7 Series event. One of them was a Samsung device that was later confirmed to be a Samsung Omnia HD that was capable of running Windows Phone 7 Series.

Rumours are now saying that Samsung could be getting four Windows Phone 7 Series devices for launch sometime in the summer although if we look at the release dates that are tentative at the moment, we expect it will be closer to September or even October that the devices will launch. This information comes from a Russian site Mobile Review. [Read more…]

After what seems like a long wait, Opera Mini has now been submitted to the Apple App store for approval. If approved it will bring a very fast mobile browsing experience to the Apple [AAPL] iPhone. Speed tests indicate that pages load up to five times faster than the current standard Safari browser that comes supplied with every iPhone.

The mobile phone browser achieves the high speed by doing server side compression before the page is downloaded. The Opera Mini servers are capable of compressing down images and HTML by up to 90% before the data is transmitted to the phone. This saves both the time it takes to download the page as well as using far less amounts of data saving money in some situations. [Read more…]

It is expected that the HTC Supersonic will be announced today officially. We first heard of the announcement last week where we mentioned it would be likely getting announced this week, and today is the day that this is supposedly happening.

The HTC Supersonic is Sprints first 4G handset that will use the WiMAX network. When launched it will run Android 2.1 and have the Sense UI overlayed on to it. The screen on the Supersonic measures 4.3 inches and is a capacitive touchscreen. [Read more…]

Sprint [S] have announced the Motorola i1 smartphone that runs the Android operating system. The new i1 is actually the first phone handset to feature a push-to-talk function that allows it to function like a walkie-talkie device.

The Motorola i1 has a 3.1 inch HVGA screen that is capacitive touch enabled and uses glass that prevents dirt, dust etc… adhering giving an always crystal clear image. The phone also is rugged to military 810F standards allowing it to weather well when shock, dust or water hits it.

For connectivity the phone has Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The device runs Android although it isn’t known just yet which version of the OS. We hope for 2.0+.

On the back of the device is a 5.0 megapixel camera that can be used for capturing both video and images in a fairly decent resolution. A microSDHC card slot is also found on the device allowing for more storage space to be added if needed. [Read more…]

The Apple iPhone 3G and 3G S is now available in the US contract free costing $499 (8GB 3G) and $599/$699 for the 3G S 16GB/32GB respectively.

The Apple [AAPL] device can be purchased without a contract and without having an AT&T account although the phones are still locked to AT&T’s network. If you want to put another SIM in from another network then you’ll need to Jailbreak your iPhone with a tool such as Blackra1n and then apply an unlock.

There is a limit of 1 iPhone per day that you can purchase with a maximum of 10 phones in a life time. [Read more…]