The Windows Phone 7 powered Samsung Focus, which was announced last month will finally go on sale from November 8th. This handset comes with an amazing 4 inch Super AMOLED display, 1 GHz processor and 8 GB internal storage. Samsung Focus will be available exclusively on the airwaves of AT&T in the U.S.
Samsung Focus features:
4 inch Super AMOLED display
Windows Phone 7 Operating System
1 GHz processor
Wi-Fi
3G Connectivity
A-GPS
Bluetooth
5 megapixel camera with flash and auto-focus
HD (720p) video recording and playback
3.5mm audio jack
8GB internal storage
MicroSD card slot and
Much more.
Samsung Focus will come with a price tag of $199.99 on a two years contract agreement. This handset will be available on AT&T stores from November 8th.
When Android 2.2 was released by Google, HTC had promised that most of their phones launched in 2010 will be getting the update. However, after that only the Desire Android 2.2 update was the most talked about. Now since the Desire Android 2.2 update has already been rolled out or is being rolled out in certain regions, the company has moved on to the small brother of the Desire – the Legend.
HTC Legend
HTC has confirmed via their Facebook account that they will be rolling out the Android 2.2 update for the Legend in the ‘coming weeks’. Owners of unbranded/unlocked Legend will be among the first one to get the update with operator locked owners getting the update once it has been approved by their carrier.
It’s nice to see HTC offering Android 2.2 update for the Legend. Being a Legend owner myself, I had almost given up hope of the phone getting the Froyo update.
Our Inbox is flooded with complaints from frustrated Google Voice users who are unable to login to their accounts. Navigating to Google Voice via the browser simply yields a 502 error and trying to access GV from the ; the reports began to flow in about 30 minutes ago. Sound off Google Voice users. Is it working for you?
Google Voice
UPDATE: Google Voice seems to have just come back up. We’re not sure what caused the outage, but we’ve reached out to Google and will update this post with any response.
via bgr
Samsung has a hit in Japan, albeit with something already a hit globally. The Samsung Galaxy S smartphone, only one week old in Japan, has reached the top of the sales charts. It knocked off former No. 1, the iPhone 4. The report came via Japanese market research firm BCN.
The iPhone 4 was at the top of the charts for 18 weeks. While it was the first week the Galaxy S was offered for sale, it is also, therefore, only one week's data. Additionally, if the two different iPhone 4 models (16GB, 32GB) are added together, the iPhone still has the edge.
It was the 32GB model which was the more popular of the two iPhone 4 versions. It remains to be seen if Samsung can sustain this momentum or not, but "conquering" cell phone-living Japan in your first week is a great first step.
The idea of Google Instant is simple – Show you the search result as you type. At that time, Google Instance is only available for desktop browser. But today, Google brings the Instant feature to mobile devices including iPhone, iPod touch and Android.
To try out Google Instant on iPhone or iPod touch, you’ll need to have iOS 4.0 or up. Simply point your mobile Safar to google.com and you’ll notice an option below the search box. Click “Turn On” to enable the Instant (beta) feature. Once Google Instant is activated, you’ll see an instant result as you type the search. While you are typing the search keyword, Google predicts your search and shows the possible keywords. You can also select any of the predictions to get the search result. This should save you a few keystokes and speed up your search.
As Google Instant is still in beta, it’s only available in the US. If you do not see the “Instant (beta)” option beneath the search box, make sure you point to the US version of Google.
According to Google, the Instant feature for mobile works best on 3G and WiFi network. So far I tried Google Instant on my home WiFi network and it works pretty good. In case you do not like Google Instant after your trial, you are free to disable it via the same “Instant (beta)” option beneath the search box.
To see Google Instant for Mobile in action, check out the official video (though it’s demonstrated on Android, not iPhone):
What do you think about Google Instant for mobile? Does it improve the speed of your search?
Nokia has started shipping its third Symbian^3 device on the market beginning from today – the Nokia C6-01. The C6-01 is the cheapest Symbian^3 handset from the Finnish giant. The phone sports a 3.2-inch AMOLED screen with the new ClearBlack display (CBD) technology. This new technology from Nokia is apparently capable of rivaling Samsung’s Super-AMOLED screen. The phone also features 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS with A-GPS, microSD card slot (expandable up to 32GB) and accelerometer.
Nokia C6-01
The back of the phone packs an 8MP snapper with auto-focus and dual-LED flash to assist night photography. The C6-01 is capable of recording videos in 720p resolution as well. The phone is powered by an ARM11 680MHz processor and packs 340MB of internal memory and 256MB of RAM. The phone also has free worldwide navigation through Nokia’s very own Ovi Maps.
The C6-01 is one of the greenest and eco-friendliest handset from Nokia as well. The phone has been made from bio plastics and recycled metals. Readers should not confuse the C6-01 with Nokia’s C6-00. The latter is a slide-out QWERTY based S60v5 phone.
The Super AMOLED displays on Samsung's Galaxy S smartphones are one of their best features, and it was disappointing that Samsung couldn't come up with a 7" version for the Galaxy Tab tablets. That said, the news that Samsung has developed a 7" Super AMOLED screen might make early Galaxy Tab buyers think twice.
Samsung Mobile Display is reportedly set to unveil a new 1200 x 600 7" Super AMOLED panel at the FPD-International exhibition in Japan in two weeks. However, full production will not arrive until mid-2011. The current tab has a 1024 x 600 display, by the way.
There's not much more known right now, but probably more will be revealed at FPD-International. For those wanting a 7" Android tablet, mid-2011 (and likely, a lot longer to incorporate it into actual products) is a long ways off if they want to wait for Super AMOLED.
Will this affect your decision on the Galaxy Tab? Post your opinion in the comments.
Diwali is one of the biggest festival celebrated all over India on this occasion I would love to share my Diwali greetings to all of you by sharing a windows 7 theme made by myself. All the wallpapers are by santabanta.com.
To use this theme pack just unzip the file to location \Windows\Resources\Themes and click on it. Don’t forget to share this Diwali greetings with your friends and family. once again wish you all a happy Diwali.
AT&T is launching a Samsung 'texting' phone on November 7th. The big deal about this phone is that it caters to people for whom being environmentally friendly is important. The Samsung Evergreen is made out of 70 percent recycled post-consumer materials, and its packaging is made from 80 percent recycled post-consumer paper.
Not green enough? Get this. The ink on the packaging is soy ink and instead of a paper manual, the instructions come on a CD (which aren't really green though).
The Evergreen is a 3G capable phone, with a 2.4 inch display, QWERTY keypad, 2 MP camera with video recording capability and Bluetooth connectivity.
The Samsung Evergreen will sell for $29.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate. In addition, Samsung has promised to donate $1 to the nonprofit Cell Phones for Soldiers, up to $100,000 (we're helping the earth AND fellow humans. WIN!).
Orange recently announced the launch of Samsung’s first tablet device, the Samsung Galaxy Tab in the U.K. This powerful device is available immediately for purchase through selected Orange retail shops and Orange telesales. The Samsung Galaxy Tab is available on one month and 12 month price plans from Orange.
“The Galaxy Tab is the perfect complement to our smartphone and mobile broadband device portfolio, and we’re giving our existing customers the best value packages on offer. We believe that with Christmas fast approaching, and these great offers, the Galaxy Tab will prove popular with UK consumers,” said, Pippa Dunn, VP of Propositions for Orange.
Samsung Galaxy Tab comes with a 7 inch TFT-LCD touchscreen display, 1024×600 pixels resolution, Android 2.2 (FroYo) OS, TouchWIZ 3.0 UI, 1GHz processor, 3.2 megapixel camera with HD (720p) video recording and playback, 1.3 megapixel front facing camera, Wi-Fi, 3G Connectivity, 512MB RAM, 16GB of internal memory, 32GB expandable memory, Bluetooth 3.0, A-GPS and 4000mAH battery.
Galaxy Tab is priced at £529 for one month plans, and at £499 for 12 months options. On select Dolphin price plans, customers will receive an additional 1GB “quiet time” data allowance (from midnight until 4pm), and have the option of unlimited data through BT OpenZone public WiFi. Samsung Galaxy Tab is also being sold by Vodafone, Orange, O2, Talkmobile, Carphone Warehouse and Amazon in U.K.
This is the third time mobile number portability in India has been delayed. Previously scheduled to roll out by November 1st in Haryana, the Department of Telecom has said that the service will be in effect by November 25th. They've said that all the networks are placed in order to implement MNP but haven't given a reason for the delay. "Though there had been some delay in the launch of the service, it had been ensured that the service was provided to all subscribers sans any technical glitches," said Sachin Pilot, Minister of State for Communications and Information and Technology.
The truck's not stopping here yet
The plan is still as planned though. MNP will be implemented in Haryana first and the rest of the country is divided into 22 zones which are clustered into 11 service areas. MNP will roll out over these as well over the course of a few months.
Ever wanted to say something which you could not fit in 140 characters on Twitter? Well, there are tons of services which allow you to tweet more than 140 characters. However, those services will basically trim your tweet to a smaller length and then add a URL for users to see the rest of the tweet.
Tall Tweets
Tall Tweets, is a similar service, which allows you to send tweets which are longer than 140 characters. However, instead of adding a link to view the whole tweet, this service trims the content and fits it in multiple tweets.
You can try out tall tweets and send out longer tweets from within the browser to see how it works, or visit the developer’s detailed post to know more.
Back in August, we noted some online rumors that Microsoft was seriously cutting back on Silverlight, pushing internal folks to work on HTML5 instead. Our comments were filled with people saying that we were crazy and that Microsoft was betting more and more on Silverlight. So it's interesting to see that, after noticing barely any mention of Silverlight at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference, Mary Jo Foley asked someone at Microsoft what's up, and was told that Microsoft's "strategy has shifted," and the company is betting on HTML5 for its cross-platform efforts. It's true that it's still pushing Silverlight in specific platforms -- with mobile being a big one (and, I'm sure, Netflix movie delivery remaining another), but it does seem like Microsoft is drastically scaling back what it plans for Silverlight.
I’ve talked to quite a Microsoft employees who’ve been a part of Windows Phone 7 and they are all genuinely excited about what they’ve come up with. Microsoft will be handing out Windows Phone 7 devices to all its employees. Paid attendees at Microsoft’s developer conference – PDC 10 were given LG WP7 handsets. Some brilliant sleuthing by Daniel Rubino of WPCentral he found out that Bill Gates uses the Samsung Focus:
The Focus will be launching in the US on AT&T starting November 8 and is considered as one of the better WP7 device by reviewers. The AMLOED screen and light weight make it a nice phone to own and now that it has got Bill Gates’ approval, Samsung and AT&T better stock their inventory.
[source Techie-buzz]
Google has sued the US government for using only Microsoft products. According to Google, the Department of Interior is restricting competition by not considering alternatives like Google Apps. The complaint in this case is regarding a quotation by the department for its messaging needs. The DOI (Department of Interior) said that the solution should be a part of Microsoft’s BPOS suite since it offers unified and consolidated email along with better security.
Google contested these claims but were ignored by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) since they did not have a GSA contract. The GSA (General Services Administration) is an independent organization that helps with the functioning of the federal agencies.
Call of Duty: Black Ops will launch on November 9. It will be available on Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, and the Nintendo DS. Activision has just released the official launch trailer.
Although the YouTube video says it was uploaded on Oct. 29, it was done then so it could render in HD and be tested properly. It was only publicly revealed about an hour ago at the time of this writing.
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Call of Duty: Black Ops is the seventh installment of the Call of Duty series and the third game in the series to be developed by Treyarch. It is a sequel to the Treyarch's previous title in the series, Call of Duty: World at War. It is the first Call of Duty title set during the Cold War era. The MSRP of the Xbox 360, PS3 and Windows editions is $59.99. The Wii version is $49.99, and the <,strong>DS version is $29.99.
"Hardened" and "Prestige" limited editions for PS3 and Xbox 360 will be available, just as with Modern Warfare 2. The Hardened Edition includes a SteelBook case, a medal with its display case, four exclusive co-op levels and an Xbox Live or PlayStation Home avatar outfit. MSRP is $79.99.
The Prestige Edition will offer everything that the Hardened Edition does, but adds a real RC-XD remote-control vehicle modeled after the in-game Killstreak reward, which gives video and audio feedback to the controller.
Facebook has scheduled a "mobile event" next Wednesday, Nov. 3rd. Obviously they don't mean an event that's moving, but rather one around mobile devices, and thus, the recent (and quickly denied) Facebook phone rumors heat up again.
On Friday, the company began sending out invitations to members of the press for a mobile-focused event on Nov. 3rd at its headquarters in Palo Alto, CA. When the rumors of a Facebook-branded phone emerged in September, it was quickly denied by the company, which said that "building phones is just not what we do."
Of course, they don't need to build the phone for it to be Facebook-branded. Recently, Facebook noted that that more than 150 million of its 500 million active members use the site from their mobile phones. The company has both a mobile-friendly version of its site and native software applications, and it could be that better integration with iOS or Android, or possible changes for Gingerbread or Honeycomb could be the focus of the event, instead of a phone announcment.
That said, a possible phone announcement is what has the Internet buzzing.
[source Tech-Ex]
Enlisting the help of an ‘ethical hacker’, Life Assistance company, CPP is working to raise awareness of the threat from ‘Wi-jacking’. Many of us use wifi networks to access the internet everyday, but are we doing all we can to make sure our personal information is safe when browsing or transacting online? CPP’s experiment covered six cities in the UK to gauge just how many insecure networks are out there.
Shown as a series of videos the Wi-jacking story begins with Jason Hart, senior vice president of CRYPTOCard, conducting an experiment that reveals the number of unprotected wifi networks open to fraud in central London. In research conducted by CPP to support the experiment in October, it was also revealed that nearly a quarter of private wireless networks have no password attached, making them immediately accessible to criminals.
To test the vulnerability of personal information further the second part of the story focuses on how identity fraud can occur should private details be compromised due to Wi-jacking. “Once a wifi network has been Wi-jacked, the risk of the identity theft increases”, explains CPP’s Identity Fraud expert, Michael Lynch.
In the third and final video, ‘Have you been wi-jacked? ’, Jason Hart simulates a malicious attack via a wifi network to show just how easily identity fraud can be committed with just a few pieces of personal information. The ethical hacker is given permission to gain access to a personal email account and describes just how quickly fraudulent activity could take place.
This series demonstrates just how risky accessing public and unprotected home wifi networks could be. Wi-jacking is just one in a very long list of how your identity could be stolen and result in identity fraud. If we’re all aware of the risks posed by this and other forms of ID fraud, we can begin to stamp out criminal activity.
enTourage launches the Pocket eDGe dualbook, a dual-screen e-book reader running Android OS. The Pocket eDGe, as its name tells, is a smaller version of the original eDGe, replacing the 9.7-inch e-ink display with a 6-inch 800×600 e-ink screen, and the 10.1-inch color LCD screen with a 7-inch 800×480 one.
The Wacom penabled e-ink display is for low eye strain and glare-free reading of books and newspapers in ePub and PDF format while the resistive touch color LCD display is for users to enjoy music and video, surf web, viewing photos and pictures, using the Google Android OS. The Pocket eDGe has 4GB internal memory, a 2 Megapixel camera with video recording, WiFi connectivity, Bluetooth, built-in microphone and stereo speakers and a microSD/SDHC card slot.
Apple has a mixed record when it comes to adopting industry standards. For example, the company was the first OEM to install USB and Firewire on its desktop machines but has yet to include HDMI connectivity in its laptop line; the recently refreshed Mac Mini line were the first Apple products to sport an HDMI output. Now, Mr. Jobs has provided us with his two cents in an email response to a request for Apple to adopt USB 3.0:
We don’t see USB 3 taking off at this time. No support from Intel, for example.
The optimist in you might be hoping that Apple is holding off in favor of Intel’s upcoming Light Peak technology. Light Peak will feature an optical cable with a bandwidth of 10Gb/s (that’s gigabits) and will be a universal replacement for SCSI, SATA, USB, FireWire, PCI Express and HDMI. Are we hoping for too much?
source:[bgr][9to5mac]
