NTT DoCoMo’s ion-generating phone is literally a breath of fresh air
Sharp has been working on miniaturizing its so-called Plasmacluster line of ion-generating products as of late, most recently with the pocketable IG-CM1 . Well, imagine if you took an IG-CM1 and duct-taped it to the back of a Japanese-style flip phone...
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: booths, ceatec, commercialization, down-the-road, functional, ntt, nttdocomo, prototype
Vlingo bows to Google Voice Actions, makes Android version free of charge
When Google Navigation hit the scene, it sounded the death knell for paid GPS on Android, so you can imagine the doom and gloom at Vlingo HQ last week when Google released the similar Voice Actions for free. As it turns out, however, Vlingo's not going to give up that easily; Vlingo for Android, once a $10 download, is now free as well. In a surprisingly gracious blog post that genuinely congratulates Google on the accomplishment, CEO Dave Grannan explains that he wants Android users to be able to freely compare the services as Vlingo adds features further down the road, and makes one valid point in his firm's favor -- you can try Vlingo now if you've got Android 2.0 or above, but Google's service only runs on Froyo
Categories: Android, BlackBerry, Mobile Phone Tags: accomplishment, apps, down-the-road, eclair, google voice search, knell, nokia, result, services, vlingo, voice, voicecontrol, windows
Clearwire puts its money where its mouth is, announces LTE trials for later this year
In spite of its pretty healthy (and growing) WiMAX footprint, Clearwire's been saying for at least a year now that it's seriously technology-agnostic -- undoubtedly a bid to assuage investors' fears that WiMAX could end up losing the 4G race in light of LTE's global momentum. Well, it's finally more than mindless fluff for an earnings call, because the company's getting real with both FDD and TD-LTE trials in Phoenix starting this Fall running through early 2011 that will allegedly push downlink speeds as high as 20Mbps and "showcase unique advantages" of Clearwire's "vast" reserve of spectrum. They'll also be testing LTE's ability to coexist with WiMAX in the same band, presumably in a bid to show that it can migrate down the road without leaving its existing customers high and dry.
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: clearwire, down-the-road, earnings, investors, mindless, phoenix, speeds-as-high, verizon, wimax
Motorola’s i1 hitting SouthernLINC Wireless, Georgians and Alabamians rejoice
Moto's i1 went from rumored device to ready for retail over the span of just a few weeks, and now we're finding out just where it'll be available -- though the news isn't exactly good. Motorola is announcing that the iDEN device will be hitting SouthernLINC first, a rural carrier that you may not have heard of if you're outside of Alabama, Georgia, or the western half of the Florida panhandle
Categories: Android, Mobile Phone Tags: down-the-road, entry, florida, motorola, motorola i1, news, swype, though-the-news
Bitbop hands-on: is this the Hulu of mobile?
Fox Mobile unveiled its Bitbop venture this week that promises to provide a wealth of TV and movie entertainment from a variety of top-tier studios, and if you can get past the fact that you're actually going to have to pay for this content, it's shaping up to be a pretty promising system when it launches later this year.
Categories: Android, BlackBerry, Mobile Phone, Other Tags: ctia 2010, down-the-road, fox mobile, fox mobile group, girl, gossip, gossip-girl, mobile-video, payment, Promising, result
Samsung Galaxy Spica comes to Rogers
Granted, they got off to a slow start -- but every since the Dream and Magic originally launched, Rogers has done a pretty commendable job of leading the Android charge north of the border. Latest in the line is Samsung's venerable i5700 Galaxy Spica , a phone that won't win any awards for running up-to-date firmware (it still rocks Cupcake ) nor any medals for being high-end (the camera's just 3.2 megapixels with no flash), but at the very least, it makes an interesting, cheap Magic alternative with a high likelihood of an Android 2.x upgrade down the road.
Categories: Android, Mobile Phone Tags: being-high-end, down-the-road, engadget-mobile, entry, galaxy-spica, galaxyspica, i5700, magic, result, rogers, rogers-wireless
Aava Mobile’s Intel Moorestown prototype hands-on
The LG GW990 got the lion's share of the attention, but Intel showed off a second Moorestown -based MID (or giant smartphone, if you like) back at CES from Finnish startup Aava Mobile -- more a prototype reference design created to show off Moblin 2.1's capabilities than a retail-ready product -- and it's back in force here at MWC this week. What's really striking about this thing is just how much smaller it is than the GW990, probably a good 70 percent smaller by surface area while still managing a shell just 11.7mm thick. Besides Moblin, the proto fully supports Android (though we only saw it on Moblin at Intel's booth) and will naturally support MeeGo going forward.
Categories: Android, Mobile Phone Tags: atom, attention, design, distinct, down-the-road, intel, meego, moblin 2.1, mwc, performance, proto, really-striking, surface
Sony Ericsson answers your nagging X10 questions, ‘newer version’ of Android will come
While we all continue to twiddle our thumbs in anticipation of the X10's general availability, Dutch site Tweakers took some time out with Sony Ericsson's Jacob Sten to get a few pressing questions from the community answered. It's quite a test -- Sten fielded over 80 questions in all -- and there were a few big takeaways that should be of interest to anyone who's got even glancing interest in putting this thing in their pocket in the next few months.
Categories: Android, Mobile Phone Tags: anticipation, before-the-end, down-the-road, entry, framework, jacob, jacob-sten, phone, result, sony-ericsson, sonyericsson, takeaways, words, xperia-x10, xperiax10
iPad won’t handle GSM voice calls — or will it?
Like the camera references , this could just be another case of vestigial SDK weirdness -- but for whatever reason, devs have noticed (and we've been able to reproduce ) a "Touch to return to call" bar in the iPad emulator just like you'd expect to find on an iPhone during a traditional GSM call. It certainly seems like Steve would've bothered to mention during today's festivities if you could do something crazy like pair up a Bluetooth headset and go to town (and you'd need a voice plan on top of that $29.99 data anyway), so who knows: either Apple's just made every UI element as adaptable as possible regardless of whether it's applicable to a particular device, they're planning a higher-res iPhone down the road, or they're integrating the bar into some VoIP action . Or..
Categories: Mobile Phone, Other Tags: another-case, apple, bluetooth, down-the-road, element, friend-via, gsm, iphone, iphonesdk, voicecalling, voicecalls, whatever-reason