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Archive for the ‘Industry News’ Category
Wednesday, April 6th, 2011
What do you know, Android’s in-app billing has finally gone live and to celebrate the launch, two major publishes are releasing games previously popular on Apple’s iOS platform for free on Android with hopes that the Android Marketplace new in-app billing system will fund the game completely. Dungeon Defenders: First Wave which originally cost $3 on iOS and is powered by the Unreal Engine as well as Gun Bros and Tap Tap Revenge 4 are all available on the Android Marketplace for free as we speak.
While traditional PC and console game manufacturers have shied away from releasing their games for free, many cellphone and now tablet game developers have been using the free option as bait to lure in prospective customers. Usually, core features in a mobile game will be unlocked in a free version with more advanced features requiring the purchase of an item in order to use said features.
This can be a more effective way of getting prospective customers as they will be more likely to try something that is free and purchase in-game items. Zynga has been doing this with much success on the ever-popular Farmville app on Facebook.
That said, in all likelihood, Android’s in-app billing service will provide a more streamlined environment for the purchasing of digital content and not require developers to come up with their own payment systems to collect money after a game an app has been purchased.
Thanks to these and many other features, Android’s Marketplace is slowly evolving from the eyesore it used to be. Now if only Google could come up with a device specific app store thus making the hassle of apps that work on certain devices and not others a lot easier.
Source: Joystiq
Tags: Android-Apps, Dungeon-Defenders, google-android, in-app-billing
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Tuesday, March 29th, 2011
You remember Ainol don’t you? That Asian technology company which back in 2008 and 2009 were responsible for releasing some 7, 8 and 9 inch tablets. Well the company is back on the scene, this time with the power of Android behind them. While Ainol might not be well known in these parts of the world, over in the Orient, they have released a slew of successful media players which did everything from videos to music to internet access, mobile TV etc.
This time however, Ainol is planning to bring their Android love to the light of day. The picture you see above is of a tablet by said company which is supposedly running Android 3.0 Honeycomb. That being said, the device will feature an ARM Cortex A9 processor, although we have no idea of a clock speed, as well as 3G and 802.11x Wi-Fi connectivity.
Another cool feature of the device is it’s screen which will be an IPS display that has a resolution of 1280 x 800 although we are not sure what size the display could be. If we had to guess however, you’d guess something in the 8 to 10 inch region.
Last but not least, as you can see from the photo above, there are a slew of buttons of which will be used to search, control the volume of the device, and anything else the standard Android buttons can be used for. As for the black dot above the power button, we’re not exactly sure what it is but most likely it is a front facing camera for the device.
Mums the word on pricing, however we do understand that the tablet will be making an official release sometime next month, so stay tuned. We’ll be interested to see if Ainol can compete with the likes of the Motorola Xoom, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the LG Optimus Pad.
Source: Engadget
Tags: Ainol, Android-3.0-Honeycomb, google-android, tablets
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Tuesday, March 29th, 2011
 To date, American Express has been behind their two major competitors, Visa and Master Card, in authorizing online payments and moving into an era of cardless payment systems. However, today, that all changes as the company will be launching a new payment platform that is not only set to take on the likes of Master Card and Visa, but PayPal as well.
PayPal which has long established itself as the premier payment method for online transactions has so far received very little if any steep competition from the likes of MasterCard, Visa or American Express. For the most part, Visa and MasterCard have been busy expanding into other areas of payment such as contactless payment systems, i.e. NFC tech, while American Express has been doing Gog knows what. However, thanks to the launch of the Serve digital payment platform, American Express will hope to challenge PayPal on their own turf.
The platform which is provided by American Express Travel Related Services Company Inc. is mainly aimed after those who are looking to conduct business on the move. Users of the service can register for Serve and once registered will be able to send and receive money from friends and relatives as well as request money from individuals or groups, split the bill for group purchases, add funds to a Serve account and check balance and manage sub accounts.
Serve currently has apps for the iPhone and Android operating system and plans to introduce more features on a rapid basis. Currently it is only available to U.S residents but plans are underway to launch in Europe in the near future as well as other parts of the world. If American Express can leverage this well with NFC, we just might have a winner here!
Source: Engadget
Tags: American-Express, Apple-iPhone, Apps, google-android, PayPal
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Tuesday, March 8th, 2011
Believe it or not, the British Broadcasting Center is planning on offering it’s iPlayer at a cost for international subscribers. While this might sound nice idea for many users who are fans of the media powerhouse but are across the seas or land, at £6.13 it might strike many as a bit steep.
The player is set to be launced later this year on the iPad and according to Mark Thompson, the player will be “a small number of dollars per month, definitely fewer than 10.” Mark Thompson, who spoke at the FT Digital Media and Broadcasting conference in London on Wednesday, went on to say that “We’re exploring internationally what the right pricing and models are … the most important thing is the consumer pricing is right.” According to Mark, this would allow the BBC to “sell directly to consumers” without the rebranding of shows which occurs very often when UK programs are bought by international blockbusters.
Continuing the discussion concerning mobile broadcasting in the country, Thompson said that “I believe that there’s a strong case for the UK’s broadcasters, mobile phone operators, Ofcom and government to come together to develop a roadmap for the introduction of mobile TV in this country.”
While the price for such an app appears a bit steep for many, it should be noted that the app would offer access to many of the BBC’s archived shows as well and it would be a one stop destination for almost everything shown on the BBC both past and present. However, the job of convincing subscribers that $10 is reasonable for such a service can be easier said than done. Only time will tell if this pricing model is correct or not.
Source: Guardian
Tags: Apple, Apple-iPad, BBC, BBC-iPlayer
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Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011
NEC is not really known for smart, thin and sexy phones, but if the latest leaks prove to be true, those words could all be used to describe the Medias E-04C which we understand is heading to Japan.
The device will feature Android 2.2 Froyo and it is expected to hit Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo on February 24th (this week for those rusty in the math department). The insanely slim device is rumored to have a 4-inch display as well as a 1-Seg digital TV tuner, something that is a big deal in Japan, and will be available in white and black. This device will easily beat the Sony Ericsson XPERIA Arc in thinness (Arc is 8.49mm thick) and to make matters worse, the Arc does not support NFC.
Other than the regional launch in Japan, we have no word whatsoever on an international launch, but with these specs, we think, NFC would be quite crazy if they decided not to bring such a phone to say Europe or the rest of Asia and thanks to a smartphone market that is heating up with Android as it’s captain, NEC had better start making some long strides to rival it’s Korean and Japanese rivals such as LG, Sony, Samsung and HTC (Taiwan).
All in all, we think this phone has some great potential, but we will save our judgment for when we actually get to play around with the device, which should not be too much time seeing it is being launched this week. So until such a time, stay tuned for more info.
Source: Draft Life with Blog
Tags: google-android, NEC, NEC-Medias-E-04C, Sony-Ericsson-Xperia-Arc
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Friday, February 11th, 2011
 Rumors have been flying for quite some time now that Facebook would be releasing a device that was dedicated to the website. Unfortunately, time and time again the company denied that this would ever happen. However, it looks like either the company told a white lie or it had no idea that INQ would be releasing the INQ Cloud Touch and INQ Cloud Q phones. Believe what you will but we are inclined to believe the former. Then again, the phone isn’t exactly “Facebook-branded”, so maybe they were technically telling the truth.
Anyway, just like the rumors claimed, the device runs Android, but has a heavy integration with Facebook, in fact Facebook has taken over the phone. That’s good because based on what we see it looks like INQ and Facebook have nailed the design and implementation of this device.
There will be two devices, the Cloud Touch which is a touch screen device and the Cloud Q which has the exact specs as the former except for the addition of a QWERTY keyboard, hence the name “Q.”
There is triband HSPA support for us Europeans as well as a 3.5 inch touch screen that happens to be capacitive and a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus for all your picture and video recording needs. There is support for every mail client you could think including Microsoft’s Exchange servers.
As you can see from the photos above, the phone has heavy doses of Facebook including quick links to Notifications, Places, Events and People.
We’re interested in giving the device a test so stay tuned as we will be checking in from Barcelona in a couple hours and hopefully we’ll have some impressions of the device.
Source: Engadget
Tags: Facebook, facebook-phone, INQ, INQ-Cloud-Q, INQ-Cloud-Touch
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Tuesday, December 21st, 2010
 There are a great number of reports that are both proving and disproving the concept that mobile phone signals are able to affect health. For the most part, no one can prove that the iPhone 4 will give you cancer if you use it too often. At the same time, there is no harm in keeping the Dell Streak away from the baby carrier.
The end game here is that most people are actually addicted to a good urban myth –or worse, a good tech related scare. But while warnings about viruses that fish out credit card details and the need to keep one’s social networking account private are all exciting and practical, the warnings about mobile phones are not as scientifically sound.
Just because a so-called doctor is quoted as saying that the next breed of Android smart phones could raise the number of cancer victims (HTC Desire HD, Desire Z anyone?) the fact is that there is no solid scientific proof –in both controlled and open environments that would help justify the conclusion.
For the most part, mobile phone users should simply stick to what works –if encouraging “phone radiation safety” protocols are cramping the way you live your life, stop it. There is no point in having to twist around that iPhone on the desk so that the ‘radiation does not head towards you’ if it means that you and your spouse will have to argue about it in the morning. On the other hand, if it gives everyone a real peace of mind, then you should do so by all means.
There have been too many recent studies that contradict each other’s results, -but for the most part, since nothing can be proven by any one study alone, it is generally accepted that mobile phone radiation is safe and will not cause harmful side effects –but worrying too much will.
Tags: health, mobile-phones, radiation, smartphones
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Tuesday, December 21st, 2010
 Mobile networks, through Ofcom, are going to be working together to get commuters on the Eurotunnel connected more easily –the team up will see both local UK network operators with their French counterparts as the tunnel will be covered from end to end with full network coverage. The result is that those of us travelling from the UK to France will be using local network signals for the first half of the tunnel, while the second half in France will require the use of roaming connectivity. The result is practically the same as getting the same signal as travelling overland –but only with the convenience of the Eurotunnel.
Retailer Tesco has confirmed that it will be opening a series of mobile phone stores across the high streets as the first one at Broadmead, Bristol showed very promising results. So far, there are no confirmed locations on where Tesco’s new stores will be opening, but the supposed ‘carpet-bombing’ pattern suggests that a high saturation of small stores in key areas will be the most likely pattern. In any case, expect to have the task of shopping for a brand new phone made easier than ever.
Apple is acknowledging Google’s Goggles app by coming up with their own: the Word Lens. While not exactly an app by the Cupertino based company, this little tool provides the Google Translate with a little AR competition. Developed by Quest Visual, Word Lens for the Apple iPhone has functions that are very similar to the Goggles app except for two limiting factors: first off, the lens calibration is not perfected so expect that any shaky-cam shots will result in errors.
Second, the number of language packs available in the app are not as varied as the one offered by Google. Of course, the biggest clincher is the fact that QV’s app is priced, not free like the Goggles app.
Tags: Apple, Apps, Eurotunnel, Google, Google-Goggles, networks, tesco, World-Lens
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Friday, December 17th, 2010
LG is launching the Optimus 2X Android smart phone in the UK. The big announcement just came in recently but has confirmed that LG is indeed on the top place for the speed race. This is officially the first smart phone in the market that is packed with a CPU clocked at a speed of 1.2 GHz. Thanks to NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 core, the Optimus 2X is able to provide users with superior performance –enough to handle the smoothest 1080p HD video recording. The device also comes with a 4 inch capacitive touch screen display.
Speaking of the Tegra 2 CPU, there is one major phone maker that firmly believes in the new NVIDIA technology: Samsung. The Korean phone maker has been confirmed as having ordered a generous amount of the new hardware and according to the most recent reports, the value of the order is about 223 million GBP.
And that is a lot of CPUs. As for what devices Samsung is planning is still not yet known. These processors could be used to run a myriad of tech gadgets aside from smart phones –which means that notebooks and tablets are also possible beneficiaries.
Apple’s embedded SIM card technology is not supported by local network operators, and plenty of folks are calling the idea a serious step backwards (after all, the first mobile handsets did not make use of SIM card technology). On the other hand, Apple believes that with our society’s current use of smart phones –these devices are becoming so personal that we might as well be tied down to just one device.
While many experts doubt that Apple will be able to standardize the feature, it does serve as a wakeup call for network operators to expand their services in order to earn more revenue outside of their usual means.
Tags: LG-Optimus-2x, NVIDIA-Tegra-2
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Friday, December 17th, 2010
 To say that this year saw plenty of big changes for the mobile industry would be an understatement. January opened up with what we can consider as a foreshadowing of how the year was going to be –the Nexus One launched within the first 5 days of the new year.
Indeed, this year, we witnessed the 1GHz Snapdragon CPU set a new standard for processor speeds. While there are still plenty of great new devices running with slower processors, there are now many apps and features that required the high speed CPU in order to run smoothly. Sony Ericsson’s XPERIA X10 –the first announced 1GHz Android phone, launched alongside other devices using the QSD CPU.
HD also became a new standard for video recording. The advent of HDTVs in homes has increased public awareness and acknowledgement of high resolution videos and thus, video recording in 720p is now pretty common. Even better is the fact that mini HDMI ports, such as the ones found in the Nseries Nokia N8 Symbian^3 smart phone, are also becoming a commonly found feature among the high end devices.
But it was not all hardware for smart phones, there are also many important events in 2010 that helped change the way we experience smart phones today.
The big Apple versus Adobe argument led to the near standardization of the Flash support in a wide variety of platforms except for the iOS. In the meanwhile, BlackBerry has taken a major change as RIM shifted the focus of BlackBerry OS 6 to multimedia playback and social networking.
Nokia’s MeeGo is now slowly going to take the main stage as the Symbian OS seems to be stepping out of the picture. Of course, Microsoft also unveiled (last February) and released (last October) the Windows Phone 7 platform this year as well.
Tags: Blackberry-OS-6, Nokia-N8, Sony-Ericsson-Xperia-X10
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