Archive for April 9th, 2008
 Motorola and Carl Icahn have made nice and the beleaguered handset manufacturing once-giant can return to trying to save the company from a slow death. The latest move to help right the horribly listing ship that is Motorola is the appointment of a new Chairman of the Board. Ousted CEO Ed Zander has been serving on as Chairman since his departure from the company's executive payroll. As planned, his retirement from the Board will be succeeded by former AT&T CEO David Dorman.
Come May 5, David Dorman will take over as a non-executive Chairman of the Board. As and MD and senior adviser at Warburg Pincus and Co, let's hope that Dorman's experience on Motorola's Board and the boards of CVS, Yum! Brands, and the Georgia Tech Foundation is just the thing that Motorola needs to turn their wayward ship towards greener pastures (to mix a couple metaphors). Slicing out the tumor that Zander represents is a good start. The next step would be to get Brown to embrace technology and actually have an understanding for the mobile space.
[Via: MocoNews]
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 And the 3G iPhone rumors keep coming in.
The latest rumblings in the Apple community hint toward Australia getting the iPhone in June. According to MacTalk, Apple resellers down-unda have started to get word from Cupertino on how to handle the iPhone launch at the end of June.
A June launch of the iPhone in Australia coincides with widely held beliefs that the 3G (Infineon powered) iPhone will be launching in June or early July. We could see Australia even launching the 3G iPhone straight out of the gates, leap-frogging over the current, EDGE-only iPhone. All major wireless network in Australia already have 3G HSDPA networks in place, with the exception of Telstra's EDGE network - making a 3G iPhone most likely for Australia. Unless Apple has already cemented deals with Telstra, it would make more sense to roll out the 3G iPhone on other networks.
The iPhone launch rumors for Australia are also timed quite coincidentally with the grand opening of the first Apple retail stores in Sydney and Melbourne.
We'll keep our ears to the ground on this one folks. Hopefully, we'll see the iPhone hit Australia in a couple months.
[Via: MacTalk]
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 Following on previous rumors that the next-generation 3G iPhone will be powered by a 3G cellular communications chip (cellular baseband) from Infineon, the new iPhone SDK beta reveals that the 3G chip powering the 3G iPhone may indeed be sourced from Infineon. The makers of ZiPhone have found, after drudging through the new iPhone SDK code, references to the Infineon SGOLD3 chip. The Infineon S-GOLD3H is a member of Infineon's S-GOLD cellular communications chip family and succeeds the S-GOLD2 chip that allows for GSM and EDGE communications on the current iPhone.
The S-GOLD3H chip (PDF link) from Infineon, code named “PMB8878,” provides for application acceleration and media-playback in addition to allowing the faster 3G data transfer rates. And, not to be outdone by other 3G handsets, the S-GOLD3H boasts 7.2Mbps HSDPA which trumps the 3.6Mbps HSDPA data rates that other 3G chips allow. The S-GOLD3H chipset will also support WCDMA, 5 megapixel camera, live video recording (finally!), and two-way video communications.
Support for WCDMA is essential if the iPhone is to succeed in markets like Japan and South Korea, where WCDMA is the cellular standard used. But, more interesting is the possibility that the 3G iPhone will come to market bearing a 3 to 5 megapixel camera that can record video. And, two-way video calling would essentially prove Kevin Rose correct in his predictions for the next-gen 3G iPhone.
Unfortunately, the 3G iPhone's S-GOLD3H chip won't be hitting any speed limits in the US. AT&T's ongoing 3G network upgrade will only bring HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access) access - boosting 3G upload speeds but leaving the 3.6Mbps HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) download speeds unchanged. However, the S-GOLD3H chip should be able to take advantage of 7.2Mbps 3G networks elsewhere.
On the other hand, AT&T's HSUPA network rollout should allow for the two-way video communications that’s supported by the S-GOLD3H chip. Processor speed on the 3G iPhone should remain the same with the S-GOLD3H chipset as the current, S-GOLD2-powered iPhone.
[Via: Apple Insider]
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Chinese have certainly proved they have the ability to clone anything. After mastering the dual-sliding mechanism of Nokia N95 and N95 8GB, they are moving towards the “world of Windows Mobile.” Their target - HTC TyTN II. And what a job they've done. It took me a minute to figure out it's not an original device. The letters (fonts) are just wrong and so are the icons on the screen. Other than that - the phone is practically the same, and even runs Windows Mobile! Plus, it seems there are two SIM slots! Don't believe me? Check out additional pics after the jump.
[Via: Just Another Mobile Phone Blog]
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After years of hype, mobile Location Based Services (LBS) are finally gaining traction among mobile phone users. This growth is driven on the supply side by a growing number of GPS-equipped handsets, and on the demand side by surging consumer interest in personal navigation functionality. According to a new report from ABI Research, LBS revenue is expected to reach an annual global total of $13.3 billion by 2013, up from an estimated $515 million during 2007.
 Even though personal navigation is expected to remain the most popular consumer application over the next several years, other services like friend-finder, local information searches, family tracker applications, and enterprise applications - will all find niches under the LBS umbrella.
ABI Research industry analyst Jamie Moss argues that personal navigation and enterprise services are projected to be the highest revenue-generating services of the five LBS categories profiled, and are forecast to be worth about $4.3 billion and $6.5 billion respectively, per annum, by 2013.
However there are still important service-related developments needed to ensure LBS's future success — the wider availability of unlimited data plans will spur service usage. In addition, the cross-network interoperability of services is also important. Once services provided by one carrier are capable of seamlessly incorporating users from other networks, then the usage of LBS will be driven virally by the desire to respond to and interact with friends and family on other networks…
More information about ABI Research's “Mobile Location Based Services” report could be found on their website.
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Recently, we spotted the Samsung SGH-i788 listed by the FCC. Immediately, after seeing the familiar images, we thought that's got to be some special version of the already existing i780 model.
As you're probably already aware, the Samsung i780 is one of the ideal Windows Mobile smartphones, sporting all acronyms you can images — including HSDPA, WiFi and GPS. As for the i788, we're not sure whether it will follow its older brother's full-blown specs. However, it's kinda safe to bet touchscreen will stay on the new model and the device will most likely run the latest version of Microsoft's mobile OS - Windows Mobile 6.1. We'll keep watching closely for this one. Something tells us any carrier that gets the right to carry it, won't save on marketing to brag about it…
[Via: the::unwired]
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Nokia has recently announced the launch of its digital music stores in Ireland and Netherlands. The Firefox-unfriendly stores (I'm wondering when they'll fix that), sport millions of tracks from major artists, independent labels and local bands. Individual tracks cost 1 EUR, albums begin from 10 EUR, while the monthly subscription Personal computer streaming service is priced at 10 EUR.
Nokia is celebrating the launch with special offers. On its Dutch store, first 10,000 registrants who buy five tracks at once will get additional five tracks for free. On the other hand, in Ireland, the Finish giant is giving away 24,000 free music vouchers for the store at NokiaFreeMusic.ie - each worth from EUR 1 to EUR 10. In addition, everyone who claims a voucher is also entered to win a Nokia N95 8GB, Bluetooth speakers, plus one year of unlimited streaming music from the Nokia Music Store.
Irish people hop on here and the Dutch here. That's in case you're running Internet Explorer 6 or higher…
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Folks behind the Snapture application obviously don't like iPhone's built-in camera app. Scrap that, they're calling most of the Apple built apps “mediocre and overly simplistic.”
So, they've decided to make their own camera application that’ll be much better. And Snapture was born. Some of the features included in the application:
- Easy Self Photo - when you want to take a photo of yourself, simply tap anywhere on the iPhone screen or use the volume button.
- Digital Zoom - that's 3x digital zoom.
- Multishot Mode - capture three frames in a row.
- Multiple Image Sizes - three different sizes are supported: large (1600
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Folks behind the Snapture application obviously don't like iPhone's built-in camera app. Scrap that, they're calling most of the Apple built apps “mediocre and overly simplistic.”
So, they've decided to make their own camera application that’ll be much better. And Snapture was born. Some of the features included in the application:
- Easy Self Pic - when you want to take a pic of yourself, simply tap anywhere on the iPhone screen or use the volume button.
- Digital Zoom - that's 3x digital zoom.
- Multishot Mode - capture three frames in a row.
- Multiple Image Sizes - three different sizes are supported: huge (1600
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Just recently, we spotted new stylish iPhone cases by Griffin called Wave for iPhone. What's one-of-a-kind about these colorful accessories is their wave-shaped closures on the sides that make the iPhone easily fit inside the shell. From Griffin's website:
Place your iPhone into the Wave case, press the two halves together with a satisfying click, and your iPhone is protected inside a durable polycarbonate shell. The one-of-a-kind wave-shaped closure provides greater interlocking surface area, so you can carry your iPhone with confidence.
Waves are available in translucent Red, Pink, Orange, Green, Blue and Black, and could be yours for $24.99.
[Via: textually.org]
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