Microsoft announced Windows Phone 7 handsets from nine manufacturers that will run on 60 carriers in 30 countries worldwide, including Verizon and Sprint next year in the U.S. Here’s the list of what’s launching in each country and on which carriers. Read more »
Smartphone maker Modu has won the Guinness World Record for producing the lightest touch phone. The Modu T is a tiny phone that is the core of the company’s modular system. Modu phones slip into “jackets” that allow the phone to serve different purposes. Read more »
Motorola released not one but six new Android phones this week. These cover a wide range of forms and target audiences, and the Droid Pro looks like a winner. This week hackers discovered the new T-Mobile G2 has hardware that detects and removes unapproved software modifications. Read more »
The first beta version of mobile Firefox for Android has been released and is now available in the Android Market. We have taken it for a test drive and while it shows good potential, it may be solving a problem that doesn’t exist on Android. Read more »
Cold season is upon us, based on the number of GigaOM staff members currently afflicted. A search of the Android Market for an app that offers medical advice turned up the app iTriage. I’ve testing it and find it is pretty good for a free app. Read more »
The latest release of the free Ubuntu Linux operating system scheduled for this Sunday includes an expansion of its personal cloud service to iPhone and Android devices as well as a new netbook edition made for smaller screens. Read more »
Android doesn’t offer a complete solution especially when it comes to video content. Sony is trying to correct the problem with the release of a new Crackle video app, but it only points up the need for a more comprehensive solution, something hopefully Google is working… Read more »
The T-Mobile G2 is a phone that may have a first for such handsets: an internal cop that detects if the user “roots” the phone and if so, undoes it. Hackers working the G2 have rooted the phone, but the modification gets removed automatically. Read more »
Motorola isn’t content to rest on the success of its Droid line of Android phones; it’s announced six Android phones to join its ranks. The phones cover a wide range of form factors, from the square Spice to the Flipout with a rotating screen. Read more »
We’ve been closely following HP since its acquisition of Palm to determine the direction the company will be taking with the webOS platform. A company official has confirmed that HP will be producing phones early next year to capitalize on the webOS platform. Read more »
I spend a lot of time checking RSS feeds for news that affects my work. I follow thousands of websites through the feeds, and those generate many thousands of posts that need my attention. My Android app of choice to do this is gReader Pro. Read more »
Gesture Search allows searching for information on Android phones by spelling words a letter at a time on the screen. A recent demo of the app made it clear that many Android owners have never tried it. Here’s a review of the useful utility. Read more »
VoIP calling fans are having a good day with the release of both Skype and FringOut for Android. Skype is available for Android 2.1+, and non-U.S. customers are not restricted to 3G calling. FringOut allows users to make cheap calls to any phone. Read more »
The tablet space is hot currently, and those anxiously waiting for a good model to appear generally fall into the Windows or Android camps. The folks at Tegatech have unveiled the first tablet to unite both groups by offering a Windows 7 and Android dual-boot tablet. Read more »
You can do many things with your iPad, and investing is now added to that list with the release of Kapitall. The iPad app is a portal into the Kapitall website, a simple site designed to build and track investment portfolios online. Read more »
The dust has barely settled from Mobilize, but what did we learn from the event? These insights and stats, shared by the mobile thought leaders, put the industry in perspective and show how quickly it has grown over the past decade — and is still growing. Read more »
Microsoft sued Motorola this week, claiming its Droid line of Android phone violated intellectual property of the company in Redmond. Researchers discovered that many Android apps that collect location data are sending it to advertisers. Twelve countries were added to the Android Market, doubling its reach. Read more »
You folks in Silicon Valley who are waiting for Sprint to light up the 4G network are going to like what I have to tell you. I’ve been in San Francisco for four days and have tested the 4G coverage all over the SOMA area. Read more »
Microsoft has legally declared its belief that Android uses technology covered by Microsoft’s intellectual property by suing Motorola for patent infringement. Motorola is one of the top sellers of Android phones, and the suit sends a clear message to Android phone makers. Read more »
When thoughts turn toward the big app stores in the U.S., Apple’s store and the Android Market come to mind. Nokia needs to be included in that list, as the Ovi Store is currently seeing 2.3 million downloads per day. That’s big by anybody’s standards. Read more »
The dust has barely settled from Mobilize, but what did we learn from the event? These insights and stats, shared by the mobile tech’s thought leaders yesterday, put the industry in perspective and show how quickly it has grown over the past decade — and is still growing. Read more »
We are entering a time when many devices are connected to the web, and entrepreneur/author Mike Kuniavsky is promoting the use of “Service Avatars” to heighten the user experience for connected devices. Kuniavsky is the CEO of ThingM, and the recently released book “Smart Things”. Read more »
Google is not selling phones directly to consumers since canceling the Nexus One, but it is showcasing many of the Android phones available in the U. S. through the new Google Phone Gallery. The site gathers information about the top Android phones. Read more »
Your Android phone may be selling you out, as the GPS tracking ability integrated in most of them may be sending your personal information directly to advertisers. Location-based services (LBS) are useful applications that open up a world of information about your immediate surroundings. Read more »
HP has indicated since acquiring Palm that it will be moving forward with devices running webOS. This week, key HP executives let bits of information slip out about its plans, and it paints a good picture if you round all of them up. Read more »
Twitter for iPad gets attention due to the innovative way it displays multiple panes of information in landscape orientation. The latest version of Twidroyd for Android implements a similar landscape display that is a useful way to see previews of webpages linked in tweets. Read more »
RIM unveiled the BlackBerry tablet yesterday, and indicated it is aimed at the enterprise professional. Tablets make good e-readers, so RIM was showing off the Kobo e-book reader app on the new PlayBook. Amazon also announced its intention to put the Kindle app on the PlayBook. Read more »
RIM confirmed rumors of a tablet by introducing the BlackBerry PlayBook, a powerful 7-inch device that will offer a dual-core 1GHz processor, full HTML 5 browser, Flash 10.1 with video acceleration, 1 GB of RAM, 1080p playback with HDMI output and two HD cameras, all built… Read more »
Android has become popular with app developers, and with the Android Market now supporting paid apps in a dozen new countries it may become the platform of choice. Previously Google has restricted the countries where apps could be sold and customers were denied them. Read more »
Japanese consumer electronics giant Sharp has entered into both the e-book and Android tablet business with the announcement of the Galapagos cloud media service. Galapagos will launch initially in Japan in December, and will offer e-books, magazines and newspapers with automatic push delivery. Read more »
New data from Appcelerator and IDC suggests that with the coming rollout of new Android tablets and the launch of Google TV, combined with the strong momentum of Android on smartphones, developers are getting closer to switching their allegiance and throwing more support behind Google’s operating… Read more »
Android got a productivity boost this week, with both Verizon and Google offering new tools for smartphones. Verizon introduced developers tools enabling the creation of location-based apps for its VCAST app store. Google released Android support for real-time document collaboration in Google Docs. Read more »
Target will become the neighborhood electronic store with the addition of six models of the Apple iPad in stores. The models will start at $499 and will be joining the Kindle at the nation’s second largest discount chain. Target shoppers can get them at a discount. Read more »
The ability to replace a smartphone ROM with a totally different set of software has gone mainstream, and anyone can do it. It’s not without risk, and certainly not for the faint of heart. Even so, thousands of phone owners are flashing them with custom ROMs. Read more »
Join James, Matt and Kevin live for this week’s audio podcast where they’ll cover this week’s mobile technology news and share experiences with the latest software, hardware and web services. If you missed the live show, you can grab an MP3 audio recording and listen later. Read more »
E-books are growing in popularity, as Amazon is fond of pointing out. Despite that growth, pundits are boldly predicting the end of physical books, but looking at the numbers makes it clear that e-books aren’t replacing the paper variety any time soon. Read more »
A big draw to the Android phone is the ability to customize virtually everything on the phone to make it work the way you want. This customization reaches deep into the interface; here are 5 of them that are readily available in the Android Market. Read more »
Rumors say RIM will be launching the long-rumored BlackBerry Tablet early next week. The “BlackPad” is timed to help RIM compete with the iPad and the score of Android tablets expected to hit the market in the next few months. Good timing, or pure folly? Read more »
Verizon opened the Verizon Developers Conference (VDC) in Las Vegas today by announcing tools for developers to produce apps for the carrier’s VCAST store. Over 5,000 developers have signed on to create apps for the Verizon store, and the NavBuilder Inside SDK will help create them. Read more »
Road warriors with a lot of disk files can now carry 1.5 terabytes of them in a shirt pocket with the newly announced Seagate Freeagent GoFlex portable disk drive. The new GoFlex incorporates the faster transfer speed of USB 3.0 to better access so much content. Read more »
