All those looking to pick up the HTC Flyer will be glad to know that the company has made the official release date known to the public. Those looking to pick up HTC’s stylus sporting tablet will be glad to know that come the 9th of May, they will be able to do so. Granted you will have to wait a bit longer before you get Honeycomb on the device as it will be sporting Gingerbread at launch, but you do get some cool specs.
A 1.5GHz processor comes standard along with 1GB of RAM and 32GB of Flash storage. The display is 1024 x 600 and it carries a version of the Sense UI that is optimized for tablets. In case you’re wondering, yes there will be a 1.3 megapixel camera up front and it will be perfect for capturing vain images of yourself or chatting with your buddies across the room or across the sea and of course everything in-between.
Now if only we could get a price and an official date for when the Honeycomb update will arrive.
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.
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.
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!
Here goes one of those ideas that you’re probably asking yourself how come no one has thought of it before. While Amazon has been working on dominating the eReader arena as well as making sure that the Kindle app is available for every major internet connected device, the company is also expanding its tentacles in the Android region.
As you might have heard, Amazon launched their AppStore last week and to celebrate the company offered a free download of Angry Birds Rio to whoever downloaded their app store app. We’ll be prepared to be a bit more amazed as the company has decided to up the ante against Google’s Marketplace by offering a feature that we’re sure will be duplicated in many other app stores in the near future.
Thanks to the Test Drive feature, prospective app buyers will be able to use an app they are interested in within a virtual device and thus can make a decision on whether they want to actually use the app or not before actually purchasing the app. Amazon explains the feature as follows:
Clicking the “Test drive now” button launches a copy of this app on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), a web service that provides on-demand compute capacity in the cloud for developers. When you click on the simulated phone using your mouse, we send those inputs over the Internet to the app running on Amazon EC2 – just like your mobile device would send a finger tap to the app. Our servers then send the video and audio output from the app back to your computer. All this happens in real time, allowing you to explore the features of the app as if it were running on your mobile device.
Unfortunately the feature is only for U.S customers at the moment, but it should be rolling out for everyone shortly including us here in the U.K.
RIM has had to make some serious adjustments in recent years thanks to the onslaught of Android and iOS and while it has been pushing more touch oriented phones in the past months as well as the BlackBerry PlayBook which is set to compete with the likes of the iPad, Xoom and Galaxy Tab, they have still been losing market share. That said, it looks like the company could be making an about face in some sorts by offering one the most popular features from the Blackberry line on its competitors operating system.
That’s right folks, according to closes sources to the company, RIM is planning to offer a version of BlackBerry Messenger for the Android and iOS platform, albeit a stripped down version. In any case however, this would be great for many individuals who were loyal BlackBerry fans until recently when they decided to defect to the camps of Android and iOS.
According to the same sources, the Android version of the software is expected to hit the Android Marketplace before the end of the year while the iOS version is slated for some time next year due to Apple’s excessive rules and regulations.
While many analysts see might look at this as a sign of defeat, if played right, RIM could not only play both sides of the game, but they could influence many users on other platforms to try their software without having to use one of their devices. If this is the case, just like Microsoft which has taken a nonchalant approach to hardware, RIM could than use the extra leverage from the new base of loyal users to market new BlackBerry products to. Of course, all this is speculation and only time will tell if the rumors were true, but at any rate the idea of BBM on another platform does sound cool.
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.
LG has made it known in no uncertain terms that they intend to launch the Optimus 3D at their keynote in Barcelona Spain next Monday at the premier of this year’s Mobile World Congress. However, that does not mean that new videos that tickle ones fancy cannot be leaked before the event, such as the video that was leaked a few days ago.
In the video the phone is shown in a series of shots from as many possible angles as one could imagine. More importantly, it is clear to see that there are 2 cameras on the rear of the device which can only lead us to speculate that the phone will not only be able to view 3D content, but record 3D content as well. There is also a voice that comes along saying: “Finally, a smartphone that sees the world like we do.” The video ends with the same voice saying: “Entering a new dimension with LG Optimus” and “No longer just an idea.”
So far, the rumored specs have been claim there will be HDMI support as well as DLNA, sensors will be limited to accelerometer and compass while the internet browser will support HTML 5 and Flash, thanks to the Android operating system.
The processor has been confirmed to be NVIDIA’s new dual-core Tegra 2 CPU with a clock speed of 1000MHz as well as 3D graphics hardware acceleration. Surprisingly, we’re hearing that Froyo, Android 2.2 and not Gingerbread will be coming to the device. But thanks to a 4 inch display and a 480 x 800 pixel density, even if those facts do turn out to be true, at least the prospect of viewing your phone’s content in 3D will be none too boring.
It has been known for some time that LG is planning a huge announcement at Mobile World Congress regarding its intentions and plan of action regarding its future in the mobile arena. Those plans includes the announcement of a 3D cellphone that will run Gingerbread (Android 2.3) as well as a full range of other mobile products, most of which will come under the Optimus moniker.
That said, the Korean company has confirmed that not only will it announce cellphones at Mobile World Congress, but an LG Optimus Pad is on the table. The tablet is expected to be the European version of the G-Tablet, one that was announced for T-Mobile earlier this year at Consumer Electronic Show back in January.
If this is the case, more naturally, the tablet will feature a Tegra 2 processor from NVIDIA and a version of the ARM architecture chip as well as an 8.9 inch capacitive touchscreen with a 6.400 mAh batter. Last but not least, we’re sure it will be running Androids latest OS, Honeycomb, which is specifically designed for tablets, although Google has hinted that they intend to bring the OS to smaller screens in the not so distant future.
Thanks to the fact that Motorola is releasing their tablet later this month on Verizon in the United States and HP planning an event this week where they will announce their latest products which is said to include a webOS tablet among webOS 2.0 cellphones, the tablet sector is really heating up and has been cannibalizing the sales of netbooks which have seen a sharp decline in consumer interest since the iPad was launched last year and multiple vendors have been showing off their plans for the mobile space. MWC is planned for the 14th of this month and we will be bringing you the latest as it happens.
While Samsung has been busy challenging the likes of Apple, Motorola and other monsters in the mobile arena, the company is fortifying its feature phone base. Such fortification can be seen in the newly leaked low-end Samsung Ch@t 350 which will run Samsung’s propriety operating system that features some version of the company’s TouchWiz UI which has been incorporated in its higher end phones such as the Galaxy S line.
Details are few at the moment but from what we know, the phone will be quadband GSM and support a 2.4-inch display that supports 262k colors and a resolution of 240×320. The phone will be aimed at heavy texters and as such will feature a horizontal sliding QWERTY keyboard.
The phone will feature a couple not so baseline features such as Bluetooth 2.1, FM radio tuner, microUSB 2.0 port, microSD slot that supports cards up to 8GB, and a 2MP camera on the back of the device. Talk time is rated at 12 hours.
Currently there is no word on a price or the availability of said device. However, seeing that the phone will not be under one of Samsung’s major announcements, it could well be announced next month.
Samsung, one of the world’s biggest cellphone manufactures as well as the biggest supplier of mobile displays has been busy bringing its high end mobile department to the public with the release of it’s Samsung Galaxy S line which has beat company’s expectations with over 10 million devices sold since it’s release back in the holiday season of last year.
Samsung is set to announce the successor of its Galaxy S line at MWC next month as well as the roadmap to its Galaxy tablet which has also received great success sales wise as cellphone carriers worldwide have picked up the device.
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.
It has been known for some time that 
While Samsung has been busy challenging the likes of Apple, Motorola and other monsters in the mobile arena, the company is fortifying its feature phone base. Such fortification can be seen in the newly leaked low-end