Latest Gadgets, Tablets and Smartphones
Stephen Bates, the MD of RIM in the UK, has said “We’re going to deploy NFC in virtually all of our devices,”. This was clarified as being virtually all BlackBerry devices as well as tablets that are launched from now onwards.
When speaking about NFC the following was also said… “creates new businesses, new markets and new revenue streams”. [Read more…]
For those of you a little too impatient to wait for the Nexus One and Nexus S Android 2.3.3 update to arrive OTA, XDA Developers have you covered as they now have the roms available for you to download and install now.
The updates are the same as the OTA ones that Google is gradually pushing out over the next few days/perhaps weeks, and as they are official you “shouldn’t” have any problem running them. [Read more…]
The Android Developers youtube account has uploaded a video that shows the progress of Android activations. The graph shows data for every day from October 2008 to January 2011.
Although it starts off quiet, some noticeable action happens right when large products launch such as the Nexus One, Incredible and Galaxy S. [Read more…]
The FlexT9 is a virtual keyboard for Android smartphones. It has four ways to input data in to the phone which includes voice input powered by Dragon.
The four input methods include Speak: which allows you to say something along the lines of “text fred: whatever you want to say”. This function is said to be reliable.
The next input is Trace: that appears to be very similar to how Swype works in that you trace your finger over the keys. Next it’s the Write method that allows you to scribble letters and numbers down that are recognised and converted to text. Finally, you have the regular tap type keyboard where you can enter text the usual way. [Read more…]
Google has announced the launch of Android 2.3.3. Android 2.3.3 is a small feature release that extends Android 2.3 Gingerbread to give it some new NFC capabilities.
NFC (near field communications) was included in the Android 2.3 update. What the 2.3.3 gets is the following extras:
* A comprehensive NFC reader/writer API that lets apps read and write to almost any standard NFC tag in use today.
* Advanced Intent dispatching that gives apps more control over how/when they are launched when an NFC tag comes into range.
* Some limited support for peer-to-peer connection with other NFC devices.
New information today reveals that Google might be releasing a new version of Android as early as April. The new version will be designed for smartphones and will follow along with the 2.X branch being called Android 2.4. Here’s something interesting though as it is now believed that Google will call Android 2.4 Gingerbread even though Gingerbread already exists as 2.3.
The reasons for this seem to follow along with how Android 3.0 Honeycomb apps will work in that dual-core apps designed for Honeycomb will then be made compatible with single-core apps on devices running Android 2.4. This, apparently, is not possible with Android 2.3 in its current form. [Read more…]
Android 2.2 is gaining traction this month. Android Developers has shared details that reveal Android 2.2 now takes a 57.6% share indicating that more than half of the Android users now are on Android 2.3.
Following behind that is Android 2.1 which has a 31.4% share and then down to Android 1.6 and 1.5 which takes 10.4% between them.
Joining the group recently is the Android 2.3 update that can be currently found on Nexus S smartphones. This version accounts for just 0.8% although we expect updates will be incoming soon which will then significantly increase the numbers. [Read more…]
The HTC Wildfire Android 2.2 update will be pushed out this week for those in Europe. From what we understand, it will roll out to all European Wildfire smartphones.
After this initial roll-out is complete, it then moves on to the rest of the world and an estimated date of February 2011 is the time set for the roll-out to complete. [Read more…]
Google [GOOG] has acquired a company called Zetawire. This particular company focuses on mobile payments although little is known about the company.
An analyst revealed one probable reason why Google acquired Zetawire was actually related to a patent they owned which is titled… “mobile banking, advertising, identity management, credit card and mobile coupon transaction processing”. [Read more…]
The T-Mobile G2 has dropped in price and is now available from T-Mobile for $49.99.
The price drop is in preparation for the holiday season although it’s also probably dropping in price as the Nexus S is launching in the next few days. [Read more…]
Google [GOOG] has launched version 2.1 of the YouTube app for Android based smartphones. This new version takes YouTube out of the Android build allowing the app to be updated when needed rather than updated each time Android increases a version.
The new app also brings a number of new features such as in-page playback, posting comments, subscription updates as well as a full screen UI.
The aim of YouTube 2.1 for Android is to mirror the desktop version on smartphones. [Read more…]
The Sony Ericsson PlayStation Phone has been benchmarked at 24.4 frames per second by using the Qualcomm Neocore benchmark app. This number isn’t the best around when you compare that to the Nexus S that can achieve double that amount.
However, one thing to note is that the PlayStation Phone, or Zeus Z1 as it’s also called, is still a few months away from launching and that a lot of work can be done behind the scenes to bump that frame rate up a little. [Read more…]
