Gadget Venue

Official details of the HTC Desire HD have not been made available yet. There is a small possibility that the phone will be revealed on September 15 at an event being held by HTC. This didn’t stop Amazon in the UK posting details about the smartphone (briefly) yesterday. The page is now pulled but it provided a few details about the HTC Desire HD along with a confirmation that it is coming.

Amazon in the UK priced it at £415 which will be off contract and not subsidised. The product was listed with the following title… “HTC 99HLZ001-00 ACE/Desire HD” with the ACE part being heard of before. [Read more…]

Qualcomm towards the end of this year will start shipping dual-core chips for smartphones. The new chip runs at 1.5GHz and is a dual core device numbered QSD8672.

As well as working in smartphones, the new 1.5GHz chip is expected to also arrive in tablets and low-cost laptops.

Release dates are mentioned as being next year although it is expected that manufactures of smartphones (if aggressive enough) might be able to get them shipping by the fourth quarter of this year. [Read more…]

We already know that Apple [AAPL] will be working on an iPad 2 as well as a CDMA iPhone. We have seen details before showing this and mixed with a bit of logic, it’s kind of obvious that they would be testing it.

However, we still like to see when more evidence is uncovered. The latest evidence confirms that new Apple devices are being tested out. The first bit of code looks to be related to a CDMA iPhone which is more than likely a Verizon iPhone. The next bit of code is related to an iPad 2.

The reasons for believing this is that the code found has a way for the devices to bypass the iTunes activation sequence. This is a common thing to happen when Apple tests out new phones and devices such as the Verizon [VZ] iPhone and iPad 2. [Read more…]

BGR has posted some interesting screen captures from Verizon Wireless systems [VZ] that show a few new devices are incoming.

The first smartphone mentioned is the Motorola DROID Pro that has a 4 inch display along with a fast 1.3GHz CPU. This device has the A957 model number and is apparently launching in November of this year.

The Motorola DROID 2 World Edition is also mentioned which will have a global roaming feature. This device is numbered A956 and will be available in either black or white. [Read more…]

Nokia has opened up pre-orders for the Nokia N8 for those in the US. The cost of the smartphone is $549 and it doesn’t have free shipping for some reason.

The N8 has a release date of the end of September 2010 listed which puts it a month or so behind the current UK launch although we have heard rumours that the UK has also moved a little closer to October although that isn’t confirmed yet.

The N8 is available to pre-order over at the Nokia site available here. [Read more…]

Apple [AAPL] only just released the iPhone 4 within the last couple of months which of course naturally leads us on to speculating what will or wont be made available in the iPhone 5 when it launches next year.

Recently, Apple hired an NFC expert (Near Field Communications) as a Product Manager for Mobile Commerce.

Most recently Vigier was product manager for mobile wallet, payment and NFC at US mobile payments specialist mFoundry. There he conceived and managed both the PayPal Mobile service and Starbucks’ barcode-based mobile payments service and was also responsible for the development of mobile wallet applications for two top US mobile network operators and an NFC wallet application for a top three US bank.

[Read more…]

Pleco is releasing an updated version of it’s Chinese Dictionary software. The new version makes use of the camera on the iPhone and uses OCR to track Chinese characters and provide the meanings of them on the screen.

To look up with a symbol means, you hold the camera over it and the software recognises it and instantly pulls the description from the dictionary.

The app is version 2.2 and will be launching next month assuming approval goes successfully. The price of the app isn’t known just yet but the company behind it say it wont be too expensive. [Read more…]

S.N.A.P is an app for iOS devices (iPhone, iPad and iPod touch) that has been designed to analyse the privacy settings on your Facebook page.

SNAP means Social Network Analyzer for Privacy and works by logging on to Facebook with it. At that point, it checks the settings on your account and provides a grade based on what your privacy settings are.

S.N.A.P. stands for Social Network Analyzer for Privacy. Working with Facebook, S.N.A.P. gathers privacy information about your profile then grades you on how visible you are to the outside world.

S.N.A.P. also features an in depth search of your Facebook profile for any keyword. Not only will it tell you how many times the word is found, but will show you exactly where, when, and how it was posted.

[Read more…]

Google [GOOG] will soon allow PayPal to be another method to pay for Android apps from the Android Market. Currently there are two options available with the first being Google Checkout and the second being carrier billing (which is slowly rolling out). Adding PayPal to that mix opens up more chances of developers to pay for apps with a more common billing system.

Although adding PayPal as a payment method wont suddenly make developers in to millionaires, good apps are needed for that, it will still open it up to people who do not want a Google Checkout account, but already have a PayPal account. [Read more…]