Sony Ericsson Z-System: the PlayStation Phone’s gaming platform?
A bumper crop of circumstantial evidence surrounding the Android-based PlayStation Phone is starting to come together today -- when it rains, it pours, as they say -- and one particularly interesting thread suggests that the ecosystem surrounding the device might be called "Z-System." An astute tipster notes that the term appears in the upper left of one of our shots, which maps to a domain -- z-system.com, naturally -- that's owned by Sony Ericsson. Turns out the company also holds trademarks for Z-System in the US and Benelux trademark offices (among others, presumably) that were filed (and approved) this year, and the filing category includes "software for interacting or playing with electronic or video games," not hardware, so that strongly suggests we're looking at a platform here. We suppose it's possible that this specific device will be called Z-System, but we're going to float the theory that its actually underlying gaming platform that'll bear that name -- possibly a premium game store and set of software libraries that together will earn a device the Z-System badge.
Categories: Android, Mobile Phone, Other Tags: circumstantial, ecosystem, filing-category, games, gaming, phone, playstationphone, rumor, sony, theory, video
T-Mobile myTouch redubbed ‘myTouch 4G,’ landing on November 3rd
Ooh, Sprint's just going to love this. T-Mobile just announced the launch details for its latest HSDPA+ handset, with a November 3rd touchdown date (possibly to go along with new data plans ?) and a $200 pricetag (after $50 mail-in rebate).
Categories: Android, Mobile Phone Tags: 200-pricetag, 3rd-touchdown, entry, handset, launch, mytouch, result, right-moment, spice-things, the-original
Sprint fails to impress Wall Street with Q3 2010 earnings, still notches 644k net adds
Sprint certainly isn't out of the woods yet, but at least it's picking up customers from somewhere. The company's Q3 2010 earnings were ushered out today, and while its stock fell around ten percent on the news, a few silver linings were present. The carrier saw postpaid subscriber losses of 107,000, but that's an 87 percent improvement compared to Q3 2009.
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: 2010, 2010-earnings, cdma, earning, earnings, linings, network, news, operator, q32010, quickly-fade, specifics, still-notches
Google exec calls Android acquistion its ‘best deal ever’
It's easy to forget at this point, but Android wasn't a Google creation.
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Palm Pre 2 for Rogers in the wild
Curious where Palm model number P102UNA -- the North American UMTS variant of the Pre 2 -- might be headed?
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: entry, france, hspa, latest-handset, moving, number, p102una, palm, pre 2, strutting-its, umts, webos, wild
Google lets you search Androi… er, make that iPhone apps from your iPhone
We'll admit, we didn't see this one coming: pull up Google on your iPhone's browser, and you'll now discover there's an "iPhone Apps" option that lets you search the App Store . Looks pretty much like any other type of Google search, but results contain apps' star ratings and the first few lines of their descriptions; tapping on a link boots you right into the App Store itself.
Categories: Android, Mobile Phone, Other Tags: appstore, boots, contain-apps, iphone, iphone app, iphone-apps, iphoneapp, iphoneapps, itunes, mobile, phone-apps, ratings, result, star-ratings, store
Apple, Gemalto working on integrated SIM for next iPhone?
Moving from regular SIMs to micro SIMs for the iPad and iPhone 4 was a fairly user-hostile move on Apple's part, seeing how it made moving between an iPhone and virtually any other GSM device quite a bit more difficult; the official explanation (for the iPhone 4, anyway) was that there simply wasn't room for a regular SIM, but that seems unlikely considering that you're only saving 10mm of length, 3mm of width, and 0mm of thickness. A more plausible scenario is that Apple viewed micro SIMs as a way to get ahead of the industry curve a bit and make it unpleasant for users to try to share an iPhone line with other devices, a concept that gets at the core of Apple's mantra of owning the entire ecosystem from end to end. But could they be trying to take that concept another step further?
Categories: Mobile Phone, Other Tags: apple, countries, gigaom, ipad, iphone, iphones-as-well, result, scenario, Sim, sims
LG Octane texts its way onto Verizon for $100
You might think $99.99 on contract after rebate is a little pricey for a phone with such a tiny display, but the new LG Octane's got a secret: it's a bit like the enV series with a secondary display inside the landscape clamshell accompanied by a full QWERTY keyboard. Other features include a 3.2 megapixel autofocus cam with flash (yes, autofocus, not fixed), a new email client, microSD expansion up to 16GB, and Bluetooth 2.1. Look for it online and in stores starting tomorrow
Categories: Mobile Phone, Other Tags: autofocus, autofocus-cam, clamshell, entry, landscape, tiny-display, vzw
Sprint’s Hesse commits to phasing out iDEN
Echoing sentiments of Sprint's senior VP of networks from last month, CEO Dan Hesse has said that the company will be saying goodnight to its aging push-to-talk network -- iDEN -- that it inherited from its Nextel acquisition several years ago, "just like 1G was shut down." Of course, the difference between 1G cellular and iDEN is that iDEN still holds a very unique position in the wireless marketplace: even though it sucks for data, it's really the only popular, successful way to route push-to-talk over a cell network of any kind. To that end, the company is actively soliciting bids to build out CDMA 1X Advanced right now, which may allow the company to have another go at moving its PTT services over to a CDMA-based technology (the first attempt, QChat , already failed).
Categories: Mobile Phone, Other Tags: acquisition, already-failed, ceo, efforts, engadget, entry, hesse, marketplace, ptt, result, sentiments, services
HP contracts 5 or 6 new Palm devices for 2011?
Underwhelmed by the feeling of sameness with the Pre 2 ? Well, you may or may not be in luck; Chinese-based CENS.com is reporting that manufacturers Foxconn and Compal now have contracts to manufacturer up to six new Palm devices for 2011. That boils down to one for Compal, and either four or five for Foxconn.
Categories: Mobile Phone, Other Tags: chinese-based, Compal, form, guess, hp palm, hppalm, non-pebble-form, palm, palm pad, palmpad, rest-assured, the-feeling, web os