Day: January 24, 2008

“Folks looking to win in our Rumortastic Treo 800w giveaway have some more fodder to work with trying to guess the date and win that Treo. A new user in our forums, the mysterious anonuser, has two posts to his or her name, but they’re interesting and sound pretty darn legit. Anon claims to have seen an internal document that fills us in on some new deets.The first gives us plenty of reasons to be excited, as it confirms some previous rumors and gives us hope that Palm has finally seen the light and is dropping their horrendous “Athena” connector: The Treo 800w (from Sprint) will have a mini-USB plug on the bottom of the device. It’s about as thin as a Centro, and actually feels quite nice in the hand. It will ship with WinMo 6, and will be compatible with WinMo 6.1 once an update is released. Not a whole lot of feature upgrades, but does make it compatible with Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008. Along with the classic on/off switch for the ringer, there is a convenient WiFi on/off button. I tried the camera out, and at 2.0mp, it took decent pictures, though I didn’t have a chance to upload them to my PC to look over. It also comes standard with an EvDO Rev. A radio, bluetooth 2.0 +EDR, and 802.11g WiFi. […] This device is slated to be released in April of this year. Nice, eh? The second post confirms that we will indeed get aGPS on this baby plus adds some specification goodness: The Treo 800W has MicroSD and 256MB memory. I believe there is another 128MB for something else, but I can’t remember what the document said. […]Oh, and there’s no more headphone jack on the device, you’ll have to utilize the mini-usb plug with an adapter, or use bluetooth wireless. We don’t know anonuser (he or she is, after all, anonymous, but we will say that the info has the ring of truth to it. April is quite a bit later than we’d hoped for, but for a thin, touchscreen, GPS, WiFi, 320×320 power-device like this, we’re willing to wait!” via wmexperts.com

“Nokia Corp., the world’s No. 1 mobile phone maker, on Thursday said that fourth-quarter net profit surged 44 percent to $2.6 billion and that it had reached its long-term goal of 40 percent market share in handset sales. The company’s stock soared.Finland-based Nokia said that net sales in October through December grew 34 percent to 15.7 billion euros ($22.9 billion), and that it sold more than 133 million handsets — up 27 percent from the same period in 2006.”Nokia’s excellent fourth quarter contributed to a year of high growth and increased profitability for the company,” Chief Executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said.In Helsinki, Nokia stock surged 12.4 percent to $33.81 after the announcement.Nokia’s strong performance was in stark contrast to that of closest rival Motorola Inc., which saw shares plunge more than 23 percent Wednesday after new CEO Greg Brown said the recovery of its ailing handset division will take longer than expected.Schaumberg, Ill.-based Motorola said net profit fell 84 percent in the fourth quarter and mobile phone sales were down 38 percent.Nokia, which is based in Espoo near the Finnish capital, Helsinki, has sales in 130 countries. It employs some 130,000 people worldwide.” More here:

“Trolltech and Red Bend Software have formed a partnership to bring over-the-air software component management to Linux mobile phones that use Trolltech’s Qtopia application platform. Red Bend and Trolltech have integrated Red Bend’s vRapid Mobile solution for software component management into Trolltech’s Qtopia application platform. The joint solution has been implemented and tested on Qtopia-based handsets, including Trolltech’s Qtopia Greenphone. It showcases how the software assets in Qtopia-based mobile phones can be customized for different consumer segments, creating new revenue opportunities in delivering software features, applications and services easily and securely over-the-air.“With the addition of Red Bend’s vRapid Mobile in Qtopia, Trolltech customers will gain unprecedented ability to manage core software and features on-demand,” said Benoit Schillings, Trolltech CTO. “In addition, the broad community of software vendors that provide middleware and applications to Qtopia will be able to update or add software to phones already in the hands of consumers, increasing their competitiveness, improving time to market, and expanding the addressable market for their software products.”To see a live demonstration of the integrated solution at Mobile World Congress 2008, February 11-14 in Barcelona, visit Red Bend in suite 4.3HS50 in Hall 4, or Trolltech in stand #2C72 in Hall 2.” via slashphone.com

“As the capabilities of mobile devices are getting closer and closer to that of portable computers, the only thing limiting their use as such is their size. It is simply impossible to replicate the possibilities of good sized QWERTY keyboard for data entry in a small mobile device.Various workarounds has been thought up to deal with that. And one of the more interesting and promising is virtual keyboards or even virtual input displays, projected on the working surface. There is already a number of such virtual keyboard devices on the market and Samsung has a patent pending for use of projected virtual display in a phone.But Nokia now has an even better idea described in a patent application called “Mobile device with virtual keyboard”.The digital camera on the phone is used to capture the movement and position of user fingers, and project them on a virtual keyboard shown on the phone display, in real time.The phone is also equipped with the sensors to capture the sound or vibrations, generated as the user taps on the working surface (e.g. desk or table) and convert them into an input commands.The phone itself can come with a cradle to hold it in upright position while user is typing on a table. But that is not necessary. The user can just be holding the phone in one hand and typing with another. And if no working surface is available, the user can just imitate the tapping sound with his voice.Why do we need additional projectors at all? Most of the mobile phones already come equipped with optical sensors and cameras. Let’s use them to give us virtual keyboards:” via unwiredview.com

“The wait is over! After watching just about every other Windows Mobile 5.0 user get the upgrade to Windows Mobile 6.0, Samsung BlackJack users can finally expect to play in the same sandbox that their BlackJack II-toting counterparts have been enjoying for quite some time.Samsung has finally seen fit to endow the old-school BlackJack (well, it’s old-school compared to the Samsung BlackJack II – but we still think it’s hip-cool) with the same Windows Mobile 6.0 OS that graces the device’s successor. Come 5PM EST today, a quick trip to Samsung’s update-site will score any BlackJack user a brand-spankin’ new Windows Mobile 6.0 ROM here.So, unless you really, really need an integrated GPS receiver in your BlackJack, hold off on buying the BlackJack II – this WinMo6 update should freshen up your BlackJack’s aging mug.” via intomobile.com

“Vodafone Spain and RIM announced the upcoming release of the BlackBerry Pearl 8110 smartphone. It is peculiar for a GPS-receiver onboard. This is a candy bar handset with the SureType keyboard (a kind of a hybrid – numeric plus QWERTY). According to the company, the BlackBerry Pearl 8110 is one of the smallest and lightest smartphones on the market. Travelers will enjoy extra advantages with the GPS-functionality and Vodafone GPS Navigator service.The device features a 2-megapixel camera with 5x digital zoom, Bluetooth 2.0 interface with A2DP/AVRCP and microSD/SDHC storage card support. Besides corporate users might find useful BlackBerry Enterprise Server, which ensures integration with IBM Lotus Domino, Microsoft Exchange and Novell GroupWise. BlackBerry Internet Service allows working with 10 e-mail accounts. Vodafone Spain offers the BlackBerry Pearl 8110 for €89 on a service plan.” via mobile-review.com