A new Blackberry ad takes a literal shot at an Apple while introducing the first touch screen Blackberry device.
“The world’s first touch-screen Blackberry. Nothing can touch it”
The ad is not officially from RIM. Its a “spec” spot meant to drum up business for an ad agency or production house. This ad was made by “GUAVA,” out of New York City.
A new photo claiming to be of the next generation Apple Mac mini has surfaced online.
The photo shows the rear of a Mac mini with 5 USB ports instead of 4, mini DVI and mini DisplayPort connectors, and FireWire 800 instead of 400.
AppleInsider comments that this is the second picture of a Mac mini seen by AppleInsider with such a port makeup, the first of which we were asked not to publish. While we cannot vouch for the authenticity of this new photo, it shows a Mac mini that is identical in every way to the system in the unpublished photo, which was said to be a prototype from last fall.
Vic Gundotra, VP of engineering at Google has demonstrated an offline version of Gmail for the iPhone 3G.
The app relies on HTML5 standards which allow for a local database and app cache. These standards allow your device to save a copy of your Gmail locally for access while your phone is in Airport mode or out of service. When you go back online the database could sync back with Gmail.
For more information you can watch Gundotra’s presentation below…
Apple has discontinued their 20inch Cinema Display and pulled it from online stores, according to AppleInsider.
With immediate effect, the following products are ‘End of Life’ (EOL); Apple 20″ Cinema Display,” the Cupertino-based company wrote in a worldwide bulletin to its sales and service channels. “All backlog will be cancelled and there is no automatic order conversion.”
Apple discontinued ithe 23-inch Cinema Display last fall and replaced it with the new LED-lit 24-inch Cinema Display which uses a Mini DisplayPort connector instead of a DVI connector.
This move to discontinue the 20-inch display renews hope that Apple will also discontinue the 30-inch display which has not been updated since 2004!
Nokia has officially announced the N86 8MP mobile phone which is expected to ship in the second quarter of 2009.
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When Nokia set out to make the best mobile imaging device, it combined wide-angle Carl Zeiss optics and an 8 megapixel sensor, resulting in performance comparable to a stand alone digital camera. The Nokia N86 8MP is designed to excel in both bright and low light conditions, and it’s optimized for both video and still imaging. Its high-speed connectivity ensures easy and convenient sharing. The Nokia N86 8MP is expected to begin shipping in the second quarter of 2009 with an estimated retail price of EUR 375, before taxes and subsidies.
“People demand mobile cameras that take excellent pictures in all light conditions,” says Juha-Pekka Sipponen, Director, Nokia Nseries. “That’s why the aperture of the Nokia N86 8MP is comparable to that of a high-quality, stand-alone digital camera. Whether it’s running with the bulls in Pamplona or capturing the panoramic beauty of a sunrise over Sydney, the Nokia N86 8MP will take brilliantly clear, wide-angle images
that are instantly geotagged to be uploaded onto sites like Ovi Share or Flickr.”
Easy enough for a novice to use, the Nokia N86 8MP packs enough punch to impress an experienced photographer. This includes a wide-angle Carl Zeiss Tessar lens for panoramic pictures, shorter latencies and variable aperture for super sharp photos in challenging bright and low light conditions. The fast mechanical shutter ensures pictures with less motion blur while the dual LED camera flash is powerful enough for
excellent photography and video capture.
“When it comes to taking the best digital photos, it’s the quality of the lens and the sensor that count, not just the quantity of pixels. The Nokia N86 8MP is the first mobile device with variable aperture, adding to the Carl Zeiss Tessar lens for excellent results. It has never been easier to capture special moments in such a great quality,” says Helmut Heier of Carl Zeiss.
Every detail of the metal-framed Nokia N86 8MP is thoughtfully designed with photography in mind, including 8 GB of internal memory for up to 4,000 images. Like any high-end digital camera, the memory can be increased with an exchangeable 16 GB microSD card. The device also offers a bright OLED screen with scratch resistant hardened glass, easy photo management, full sync capability with a PC and TV-out support for slide shows.
Shipping with the latest version of Nokia Maps and full Ovi integration, the Nokia N86 8MP gives a personal dimension to photos and videos. People can share their location with personal content like geotagged photos. The Nokia N86 8MP comes with a built-in compass, along with an integrated 3-months license for full voice and pedestrian navigation so that happy snappers don’t lose their way when capturing life through the camera lens.
Multimedia features – music, games, video
The Nokia N86 8MP, with its integrated kick stand, is ideal for watching videos and playing games. Each Nokia N86 8MP can play up to 25 hours of music on one charge which can be enjoyed with the Nokia Bluetooth Stereo Headset BH-214 also announced today. People can build a personal music collection from the millions of tracks and playlists available from the Nokia Music Store, where available.
The iPhone Dev-Team has posted a video demonstrating the use of a dongle to boot a jailbroken iPod Touch (Second Generation).
Currently the jailbreak for the iPod touch requires connection to a computer each time it boots. By using a dongle to boot the jailbroken iPod touch you can easily boot your iPod Touch on the road without worrying about having your computer.
Vodafone and HTC Corporation today announced the HTC Magic smartphone, Vodafone’s first Android-powered mobile, which will be available in the spring.
The stylish new handset is exclusive to Vodafone in the UK, Spain, Germany and France (SFR) and available on a non-exclusive basis in Italy. Customers can ensure that they are the first to receive information about the HTC Magic’s availability, pricing and pre-ordering by registering their interest via their local Vodafone website from today.
The introduction of the HTC Magic is the result of a successful relationship between Vodafone and HTC, and Vodafone’s joining, late last year, of the Open Handset Alliance.
A tablet-style device, with a sleek design and unprecedented compactness for a smartphone featuring the Android platform, the HTC Magic enables a superior mobile internet experience, providing broad flexibility for personalisation via the application-rich Android Market. Available in white in the UK, Spain and France, black in Germany and in both colours in Italy, the HTC Magic will be for sale in several other Vodafone markets over the next few months.
“Delivering an unbeatable mobile internet experience for our customers is a priority for Vodafone, so we are very excited to be introducing our first Android-powered smartphone in the spring,” says Patrick Chomet, Global Director of Terminals, Vodafone Group. “Following our joining of the Open Handset Alliance, we have worked very closely with HTC to bring this cool new phone to the market. Our customers want to access a wide range of the most attractive mobile devices to help them make the most of their time – the HTC Magic helps meet that need.”
“The HTC Magic embodies the compact style and sophistication for which HTC has come to be known, with the powerful and intuitive internet experience for which the Android platform was designed,” says Peter Chou, president and CEO, HTC Corporation. “We are proud of our partnership with Vodafone and excited about making the Android-powered HTC Magic available to Vodafone customers in Europe.”
“The announcement of the HTC Magic is an important step for Android and the Open Handset Alliance,” says Andy Rubin, Senior Director of Mobile Platforms at Google. “With it, Vodafone is opening up the mobile web for consumers across Europe and giving more third-party developers a platform on which they can build the next wave of killer applications.”
Available from free on various price plans, the HTC Magic has a 3.2” HVGA touch screen display and features a trackball and navigational buttons for quick, easy access. The HTC Magic includes a variety of email options such as Google Mail™, POP3 and IMAP as well as Google Talk™ for instant messaging.
The HTC Magic has a variety of powerful mobile internet capabilities beginning with an Android-optimised Webkit browser. It also features the popular Google™ applications, Google Maps™ and Google Search™ as well as favourites like YouTube™. In addition, Android Market allows for quick and easy downloading of games and applications utilising Vodafone’s fast and reliable network.
Full details of availability and pricing will be available in the future in local Vodafone markets.
If you read Gizmodo, the odds are good you’re carrying one of these two pieces-they’re among our favorite 3G smartphones right now. Today let’s learn how to tether ‘em up to your laptop.
Note: while data tethering is possible on each phone without any additional tethering plan, you’ll want to be careful that you’re not accidentally seeding a bunch of torrents or something when you’re connected via your cellphone. While we’re pretty sure you’ll be OK doing standard surfing, we can’t guarantee you won’t get slapped with some charge, somehow.
So let’s get started.
What You’ll Need
• For G1: USB cable, Tetherbot App, Android SDK, Firefox
• For iPhone: iPhoneModem app, Jailbroken phone
G1 Tether
This guide is based on the instructions and Android app written by Graham Stewart. Many huzzahs to Graham for figuring out this easy tether setup. This one, however, is a SOCKS proxy instead of a true modem tether, so it’s limited to Firefox browsing-you won’t be able to use any other apps unless you can configure them to connect via a proxy yourself. We’ve tested with Firefox though, and it works great.
1. Go here on your G1’s browser and install the Tetherbot app. If unknown sources are not enabled on your phone (under Settings -> Applications -> Unknown Sources) do that first.
2. Turn on USB Debugging under Settings -> Applications -> Development and connect your phone via USB.
3. Get your Android SDK set up. If you’re on Windows, you’ll need to download and install a driver.
4. On your phone, fire up the Tetherbot app and tap the “Start Socks” button.
5. Now, the SDK incantation. In a terminal window on Mac or a run window on Windows, navigate to the “tools” folder within your SDK directory and then type the following:
Mac:
./adb forward tcp:1080 tcp:1080
Windows:
adb forward tcp:1080 tcp:1080
6. Now, in Firefox, go to Options -> Advanced -> Network, and click to configure how Firefox connects to the Internet. In the window that pops up, choose “Manual proxy configuration” and clear out everything that might be there. Under SOCKS host, type “localhost” and change the port to 1080. Hit OK, and you should be in business. Easy right?
iPhone Tether
For this, you’ll need to jailbreak your phone. All you need to know to do that can be found in this post on the iPhone Dev Blog. If you’re running OS X, I STRONGLY recomment using Pwnage Tool instead of QuickPwn to manually create a jailbroken software image and install it via iTunes-I have yet to get QuickPwn to work with my phone, and I have no idea why.
One caveat: there are two iPhoneModem apps-one, found at iPhoneModem.de is free, and comes with a utility that makes tethering on a Mac easy. That’s the tutorial we’re following here. They claim it’s possible to use on Windows, but there is no companion app and, unfortunately, no Windows instructions.
The other iPhoneModem is nagware ($10 to get rid of the nags), and does include a Windows config app, which we have not tested. If you’re running windows, try that one, and let us know how it goes in the comments. There is also another method using an app called 3proxy that requires lots of manual configuration, but that one may also be worth a try. Update: Commenters are also recommending PDANet for Windows tethering, which is in Cydia as well.
1. Once you’re jailbroken, open up Cydia and install the package called “iPhone Modem zsrelay” – you can find it by searching “modem.” Also install OpenSSH – find it by searching “SSH.” BossPrefs is also recommended, so you can make sure SSH is running.
2. Download the iPhoneModem.de helper app and run it, and go to “Settings…” under the little iPhone icon that just appeared in the status bar.
3. Fill in the following fields:
IP-Address of Mac: Leave the default value (192.168.100.1)
Password of Mac: Your admin password
WLAN Name: The name of the ad-hoc network that will be created – your choice
WLAN Password: It must be 13 characters-your choice as long as it’s 13
SOCKS Port: Leave default (9999)
iPhone root Password: alpine (as long as you’re running 2.x firmware)
iPhone Mac Address: Found under Settings – General – About – make sure you use the wi-fi MAC address.
4. Once your config is saved, go to “start connection” and follow the prompts. Your Mac will create an ad-hoc network, which you will then join with your iPhone (make sure you get an IP address on your iPhone before continuing). Everything should go smoothly, and voila, you’re tethered!
Hope you enjoyed our how-to.
via. Gizmodo
Microsoft Corp. announced on Tuesday that David Porter will join the company as corporate vice president of Retail Stores. He will lead Microsoft’s efforts to create a better PC and Microsoft retail purchase experience for consumers worldwide through the development and opening of the company’s own retail stores. Porter will report to Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner. He is joining Microsoft from DreamWorks Animation SKG, where he was head of worldwide product distribution.
“I am delighted to welcome David to Microsoft,” Turner said. “This is an exciting time with our strong lineup of upcoming product releases including Windows 7 and new releases of Windows Live and Windows Mobile. We’re also working hard to transform the PC and Microsoft buying experience at retail by improving the articulation and demonstration of the Microsoft innovation and value proposition so that it’s clear, simple and straightforward for consumers everywhere. David’s unique and diverse background, coupled with his deep retail roots and distribution understanding, will be an invaluable asset in this long-term effort.”
“There are tremendous opportunities ahead for Microsoft to create a world-class shopping experience for our customers,” Porter said. “I am excited about helping consumers make more informed decisions about their PC and software purchases, and we’ll share learnings from our stores with our existing retail and OEM partners that are critical to our success.”
Defining the time frame, locations and specifics for planned Microsoft-branded retail stores will be Porter’s first order of business. The purpose of opening these stores is to create deeper engagement with consumers and continue to learn firsthand about what they want and how they buy.
Porter, whose new role and focus will complement the work Microsoft is already doing with its retail partners, will work in close partnership with leaders of existing retail programs in Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices Division.
Before joining DreamWorks Animation in 2007, Porter spent 25 years at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in roles of increasing responsibility and seniority in store operations, merchandising and information technology. In his last role at Wal-Mart, Porter was vice president and general merchandise manager of Entertainment, where he served as a strategic point of influence throughout the Wal-Mart business.
Porter’s first day at Microsoft will be Feb. 16, 2009.
Samsung today unveiled the innovative solar powered full-touch screen phone “Blue Earth”. Designed to symbolize a flat and well rounded shiny pebble, Blue Earth is the first solar powered full-touch screen phone. By charging with the solar panel located on the back of the phone, users can generate enough electronic power to call anytime anywhere.
Blue Earth is made from recycled plastic called PCM, which is extracted from water bottles, helping to reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions in the manufacturing process. The device, including charger, is free from harmful substances such as Brominated Flame Retardants, Beryllium and Phthalate.
The latest in a series of eco-friendly products, Blue Earth comes with a unique user interface which is designed to draw attention to preserving our fragile environment. Simple to set screen brightness, backlight duration and Bluetooth to an energy-efficient mode, this new user interface allows the user to be energy-efficient with just one click of ’Eco mode’. Through the ‘eco walk’ function the user can count their steps with an in-built pedometer, calculating how much CO2 emissions have been reduced by walking as opposed to motor transport. This unique function allows user to calculate the value of this footprint through the number of trees that have been saved.
The packaging for Blue Earth is designed to be both small and light, made from recycled paper, and comes with a 5 star energy efficient charger which uses standby power lower than 0.03W. As part of the Voluntary Agreement of European Commission IPP (Integrated Product Policy) pilot program, Samsung has agreed to start using rating on energy consumption on the no-load mode of the mobile device charger.
“Samsung’s ‘The Blue Earth Dream’ demonstrates our small but meaningful commitments for the future and our environment,” said Mr. JK Shin, Executive Vice President and Head of Mobile Communication Division of Samsung Electronics. “We are committed to achieving the highest eco-status with our customers and business partners by providing the best eco-products and promoting eco-activities.”
