Day: April 1, 2008

The Boy Genius Report has posted a pile of screenshots depicting Manila new tactile interface. The pictures are made with a VGA-communicator, probably with HTC Advantage X7510 (not yet released). The company will install Manila to new HTC communicators powered by Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional. In technical aspects Manila doesn’t present TouchFLO 2.0 – the latter being a slight update of the original version with improved scrolling capabilities and so on. Like TouchFLO, Manila is optimized to finger control without stylus assistance.

“LiMo Foundation announced the on-schedule availability of LiMo Platform Release 1. Release 2 of the LiMo Platform is now being specified and developed within a collaborative process involving a range of LiMo members and is planned to be completed in a late 2008 timeframe.Third-party developers can use LiMo’s application programming interface (API) specifications-available now at www.limofoundation.org-to build new applications. Middleware components for the LiMo Platform can be implemented in either C or C++ programming languages. Software Development Kits for Native, Webkit and Java operating environments will be released from the second half of 2008, further empowering mobile application developers.” via slashphone.com

Symbian Limited, the market-leader in open operating system for smartphones, today announced Symbian SQL and an advanced Location Based Services (LBS) architecture – two new technologies that herald the next generation of mobile computing by offering dramatic enhancements in the vital areas of mass data handling and LBS.With analysts predicting smartphone shipments to reach approximately 30% of all mobile phone sales by 20131, and with a third of mobile phones launched on Symbian OS now GPS-enabled, Symbian is pushing the envelope of innovation by including advanced desktop and positioning technologies in its portfolio. Symbian SQL and the new LBS architecture will help Symbian licensees develop handsets that handle very large amounts of data, and which provide users with relevant information based on their current location, in tune with consumer demand.Mobile phones featuring Symbian’s LBS offering were recently launched in Japan. In Europe, Symbian’s LBS architecture will appear in mobile phones later this year. Symbian SQL will be featured in phones shipping in the second half of 2008 and be available to application developers via a download in Q2 2008.SQLite, an established open source technology widely used in products such as Mozilla’s Firefox, has been implemented by Symbian to create Symbian SQL, a robust and highly scalable database management system for Symbian OS. Symbian SQL makes retrieving and sorting terabytes of data and multimedia fast and efficient without compromising performance. Application developers can also take advantage of Symbian SQL by using a standard query language when working with databases on Symbian OS, helping to reduce maintenance costs and application footprints. To support the open source community, Symbian is contributing technology improvements back into the SQLite open source project and is a charter member of the SQLite Consortium launched in December 2007.”When I authored SQLite in 2000, I never imagined that it would one day be used in mobile phones to host databases with millions of searchable entries,” said Dr. Richard Hipp, architect and primary author of SQLite. “The advanced design of Symbian OS meshes well with SQLite, resulting in a stable and robust platform for supporting new applications. I look forward to seeing the innovation that Symbian SQL sparks from developers across the world.”Symbian’s LBS architecture offers the most extensive LBS-rich solution of any OS, supporting multiple positioning technologies including A-GPS, network-based and Wi-FI to provide fast and accurate location information. Handset manufacturers do not need to invest separately in developing location support, dramatically reducing the time it takes to create GPS-enabled devices. Developers can cost-effectively target their LBS applications across multiple Symbian OS platforms, including S60, UIQ and MOAP, due to the consistent set of APIs offered by Symbian’s LBS architecture. The architecture enables:

Tracking by emergency services (as mandated by government legislation in some regions

Providing the quickest route – getting from A to B as quickly as possible

Accurate pin-pointing of current location

Geotagging images and videos – location stamping images and videos

Finding the location of people in a contacts list

Locating the nearest services

Providing proximity alerts when near a specific location

“Palm, Inc. today announced that it has sold its one-millionth Palm Centro smartphone, demonstrating the $99 product’s mass appeal to customers ready to get all the power of a smartphone at the price of a traditional mobile phone. Palm is now shipping Centro in 10 countries worldwide, including Hong Kong, Singapore, India, the UK, Germany, Spain, Ireland, France and Italy, and its already-rapid momentum is set to grow as Palm debuts the product in additional countries around the globe. “The Palm Centro is flying off the shelves because users who want to step up to a smartphone see it as the perfect first choice,” said Brodie Keast, senior vice president of marketing for Palm, Inc. “It has everything a person needs to stay organized and connected with everyone who is important to them. We’re very excited about the Centro’s near-instant popularity in the U.S. and think it’s going to be a huge hit as it continues to make its way across the globe.” First introduced in the United States last September exclusively with Sprint, and more recently introduced on AT&T in February, the fully featured Centro smartphone is available from both carriers for $99.99. Centro has reached more young adults and women, as well as a broader range of household income, than any prior Palm smartphone. It offers customers an affordable, simple and fun option for staying connected and doing more with their mobile phones.“Smartphones are certainly not new to business professionals; however, now more than ever we are seeing consumers migrate toward these types of devices as form factors have become more appealing and price points are now competing with traditional mobile phones,” said Ryan Reith, senior research analyst with IDC. “Palm’s Centro plays right into the hands of the consumer looking for a more robust experience on their mobile phone. We definitely expect to see this trend continue worldwide.” Increasingly, consumers are making the shift from traditional mobile phones to smartphones, motivated by the desire to do more with their phones and the arrival of lower-cost devices. Smartphones accounted for 11 percent of all mobile phone sales in 2007 in the United States, and this is expected to increase to 35 percent by 2011. A recent Palm survey of Centro customers highlighted this trend, indicating that 70 percent are first-time smartphone users. When compared to other Palm smartphones, Centro also is reaching almost double the number of women, more than double the number of customers under age 35, and nearly three times as many customers with a household income of less than $75,000. Centro’s full QWERTY keyboard and color touch screen make it easy to quickly type text messages, respond to emails, start instant message conversations, browse the web and more. It offers all of the great organizer functionality for which Palm is renowned, such as a detailed and integrated contacts list and a simple and handy calendar for juggling business meetings and get-togethers with friends. ” Buy this device here:

The launch of the Z10 was pretty much predefined, and what’s more, they originally planned to release late in 2007 (in October or November). As is usually the case with Motorola they couldn’t meet the deadline, so the Z10’s launch slipped into Q2 2008. Motorola is trying to position its new product as an imagining-centric solution, however, in my opinion, that’s not the best idea, now that the Nokia N82 and Sony Ericsson C902 and others are in the forefront of the market. It turns out that Motorola is touting a 3.2 MP device whereas the mass-market is already enjoying 5 MP cameraphones with even better specs. The reason behind this is that Motorola is now working on new models equipped with decent camera modules; however, they need to maintain their sales with something available today. ” Read more here: