Gadget Venue

A popular modder who created Cyanogen, the modded Android ROM, has been recently hit with a cease and desist from Google telling him to not distribute closed-source applications. This includes Gmail, Maps and Youtube that are often part of his roms.

Cyanogen is a ROM that runs on phones like the G1 which is already designed to run those applications, so it seems a little odd that Google are trying to prevent it. One other problem is that Android Market is supposedly closed source too, so even if the ROM was installed then you might struggle to actually get to download the applications. Maybe google and Cyanogen can work something out together. [Read more…]

The iPhone 3G S has got a new application being made available that uses augmented reality. It is called Bionic Eye and uses AR to overlay information on to a real-time camera view. Local information of the surrounding area is displayed from a POI database and it lets you see where your nearest restaurant is for example.

Other POI (points of interest) could include wi-fi hotspots, trainstations, hotels and many other categories. The current database has over 100,000 entries in there which covers various US cities along with the UK, France and Tokyo making it quite a cool application if you happen to live in one of those areas. [Read more…]

We hear today that the HTC HD2 is launching on October 12th. The HD2 was previously known as the HTC Leo and is a smartphone running the Windows Phone operating system (Windows Mobile 6.5). The HTC HD2 has a 4.3 inch capacitive touchscreen that runs at a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels.

The HD2 will run the TouchFlo 3D navigation overlay. The information comes from someone who tipped Engadget saying that the O2 intranet site lists the HTC HD2 as having a release date of October 12th. [Read more…]

The TomTom car kit for the iPhone 3G S is now available to pre-order from the Apple Store in the UK. It costs £100 but that does does-not include a copy of TomTom navigator for the iPhone which isn’t is quite bad. Shipping will start in 2 or 3 weeks.

The TomTom car kit allows you to secure your iPhone to the dashboard or windscreen of your car. The unit contains it’s own GPS unit that can provide a more reliable signal. Also a built in mic and loadspeaker are also included so you can make hands free calls as well as listen to directions as they are read out. [Read more…]

A Microsoft Executive has commented saying that more that 30 new Windows Mobile 6.5 devices will be launched before the end of this year. These will be made up from over 15 handset vendors which include HTC, Acer, Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba, HP as well as others.

As well as handset makers getting involved, a number of carriers have also shown interest which includes…”AT&T, Sprint Nextel, Verizon Wireless, Orange, T-Mobile, Vodafone, NTT DoCoMO, Softbank Mobile, SKT, Telstra and Telus, have also voiced support for Windows Mobile 6.5, the sources added.” [Read more…]