Archive for 2010

Apple’s iPad has brought a significant decrease in Kindle sales. In light of this Amazon worked hard to revamp its eBook reading device. The result of their hard work, the third generation Kindle, was very recently revealed.

Compared to the older model, this Kindle is 21% smaller and 15% lighter. Despite its smaller size and lighter weight, the third generation Kindle offers a lot more than its predecessors. The model uses a new E-ink Pearl display; this display delivers 50% better contrast and 20% faster page turns than its older versions. With wireless off, the device can last up to a month on its battery and 10 days with wireless on; that is a nearly twice the battery life of the older model.

As cellphones turned into smartphones and began replicating the features of a computer, hackers quickly turned their attention to new ways of collecting people’s information. But thanks to security firms like Lookout, malicious tools are soon detected often without causing any large scale damages.

Chatr Wireless will soon expand to include Canada in its covered areas. The carrier is entering Canada carrying a great new package that offers unlimited talk time and text messages for a fixes monthly fee.

Currently the unlocked 8GB iPhone 3GS is already being sold in Canada for $549 CAD ($532 US). Soon Canada will be getting the unlocked iPhone 4 sets from Apple, news that Apple has now confirmed.

In case you are unfamiliar with the term ‘unlocked’ it means that Apple will not be restricting the Canadian iPhone 4 owners to a specific service carrier. Instead, owners will be free to use their handset with whichever cellphone carrier they see fit. Of course this carrier-free package will come with a price.

We already know that Motorola is designing is a 10-inch tablet that will ship in the Fall of this year. We also know that the tablet will run on Android. The latest news related to this is that he Motorola tablet might feature Android 3.0.

A check of online analytics revealed some sets running Android 3.0 and even 3.1 and 3.2. The 3.0 sets indicate that Google has already finished the OS and is testing it out. The 3.1 and 3.2 versions are believed to be examples of concurrent development which will branch out once the 3.0 version is finished.

Earlier this month, AT&T’s 3G users started reporting serious problems in upload speeds. Most of the problems were being faced by owners of the iPhone 4 and other devices that support faster HSUPA upload speeds. The speed dropped from 1Mbps or more to often just a fraction of the regular speed.

According to the latest leak on Samsung’s set Galaxy Q, it will be similar to Galaxy S in a number of ways.

The phone will run on Froyo (Android 2.2) but that does not make much difference as Galaxy S will soon be getting a Froyo update itself.

The processor, storage, and connectivity options remain more or less the same: 1GHz Hummingbird CPU, 16GB storage, Bluetooth 3.0, and Wi-Fi 802.11n.

So far, Apple’s customers had been unlocking and jailbreaking their devices to get the most of out of them. Many iPhone owners considered it ‘wrong’ or ‘illegal’ to jailbreak or unlock their devices. Apple certainly did because if the warranty became void in case you had jailbreaked or unlocked your device.

You will find many iPhone jailbreaking guides on the web. But most of them are unreliable and might present troublesome problems for new iPhone owners.

If you are not familiar with Cydia, it is the store for apps not authorized by Apple. Basically, Cydia is what you jailbreak your phone for. Recognizing that there were many iPhone owners unable to find reliable jailbreaking guides and unable to take advantage of Cydia, Cydia’s owner (Jay Freeman) decided to take matters into his own hands.

Freeman recorded the video regarding the iPhone 4 jailbreak being developed by @comex, @musclenerd, and @planetbeing. His mention of this jailbreak makes it reliable. Check out the video to find what Freeman had to say about the jailbreaking process.

Hackers and tweakers are usually working on ways to get rid of problems. But over at xda developers, on tweaker with the name of rolle3k took the road less travelled.

I hope most of you are familiar with Samsung’s unimpressive TouchWIz user interface. It is quite an inconvenient thing and users try out different ways to avoid it via hacks. Hence it made no sense when rolle3k developed a hack that ported the TouchWIz interface over to the Android running Nexus One.

Today’s smartphones have become a necessity for many people who need technology to get their job done. Resultantly cellphone sales have gone up. This was recently proven by Amazon during its Q2 earnings call.

The problem with latest smartphones is that they are overambitious and released fast. Resultantly the first batches of the phone present problems that were overlooked in testing. Droid X is a perfect example of this.

A competitor to the iPhone 4, Droid X offers a number of impressive features to its users including a high resolution 4.3-inch screen, an 8 megapixel camera, and a high definition video recorder. After it was launched, a number of buyers reported flickering and bands of light on their LCD screens. But this problem was by a very small percentage of phone buyers – Engadget reported it to be less than 1%.

There have not been many updates about the upcoming BlackBerry OS. The people behind BlackBerry, RIM (Research In Management), recognize this and are revealing new bits about the next OS of the phone.

RIM gives us a look at new multimedia features, a new photo gallery, a brand new podcasts app, and a YouTube app. New camera controls will also be features; these controls will include a face detection mode, amongst other features. Pinch-to-zoom will be included.

“Cult of Mac” reports that a highly placed source at T-Mobile revealed what he believed where the chances of Apple and T-Mobile joining hands. The source said there was an 80% chance of T-Mobile getting the iPhone 4 in the third quarter of this year.

Of course what 80% exactly means in this scenario is indeterminable. However this rumor only further supports what most of already know: Apple is looking to end the AT&T exclusive relationship and looking for other carriers. Sprint is not an eligible candidate. T-Mobile is a GSM network and an interesting proposition.

iPhone 4 was one of this year’s highly anticipated smartphones. When it was released, many buyers reported a loss of reception when the held the phone the normal way i.e. their palm covering the lower back of the phone. Since iPhone 4 had merged the antenna with the casing, the palm covering the casing affected the antenna’s performance.

After weeks of testing, Apple held a press conference at which Steve Jobs admitted that iPhone 4 had a problem. He went on to say that this was a physics problem and was present in all smartphones to different degrees.

Currently Verizon, the massive telecommunications company, offers a mobile broadband package with a 1 GB limit and costs $50 to its users. The 1 GB limit expires after 30 days.

Now Engadget reports that Verizon will be launching a new mobile broadband plan in August for smartphone users whose browsing or downloading needs exceed the 1 GB limit. This new plan will offer a 5 GB limit. If the 1 GB package costs $50, once would guess the 5 GB package would go for $250. Fortunately the package will not be that expensive – it will cost subscribers only $80.