Posts Tagged ‘smartphone’

We were wondering when Google would have something to say about Apple's patent lawsuit against HTC , since the majority of the claims appear to implicate Android itself , and while the knives aren't out yet, we just got a short-but-sweet statement from a spokesperson: "We are not a party to this lawsuit. However, we stand behind our Android operating system and the partners ... Full story

Filed under: Cell Phones We have no sympathy for criminals who slip up because of sheer stupidity (like the guy who took a time-out mid-burglary to play around on a little girl's Nintendo DS). But, in the case of one 15-year-old thief in Wilsonville, Oregon, it was a backup security app that led to his eventual arrest. Shortly after the suspect broke into a ... Full story

Filed under: Audio/Video , Cell Phones Remember back when you just couldn't escape that iconic Nokia ringtone? Not only were those descending triplets softly cascading out of everybody's pockets and purses, once you heard it, it was pretty well near impossible to erase from your brain. Now, in the smartphone era of BBM beeps and iPhone Marimbas, this catchiest of catchy ringtones has become ... Full story

Faced with an agency-wide phone upgrade that left fifty older HTC devices homeless, UK-based Lost Boys International decided to act on instinct in the most natural of ways: by turning each device into a cog in a musical mobile that hangs just inside the entrance of its Brick Lane studio. Even better, all those phones are connected in a way that turns each one ... Full story

Manufacturers and carriers are showing commendable restraint in avoiding totally bastardized, walled-garden versions of Android on their handsets ( for the most part ), but they're not avoiding it altogether -- take Sony Ericsson here, for instance. The company has announced that it's expanding the reach of its PlayNow app store to cover Android in concert with its launch of the X10 , which ... Full story

Of the many trends in consumer electronics, today's announcement by Lenovo highlights two of the biggest: 1) PC makers are desperate to get in on that handheld smartphone action, and 2) China is the place to do it with its 700 million mobile subscribers. That's why Lenovo is putting up $200 million in cash and stock to reacquire its former mobile business sold to ... Full story

Filed under: Cell Phones , Web In our quest to discover just how nerdy we are, we continue to head to New York's Times Square to ask the crowd to define the terms we use at Switched every day. Most flunked on Flickr but many could talk about Twitter , so we kept the faith that, just because we knew what a "tweet" was ... Full story

Filed under: Cell Phones , Web Wikileaks normally deals in sensitive information from whistle-blowers inside governments and companies. But its latest project, a collection of pager and text messages sent on the morning of September 11, 2001 , crosses from simple news dissemination and political activism to a work of art. Starting the morning of November 25, at 3 a.m., Wikileaks began "broadcasting" over ... Full story

Filed under: Cell Phones , Computers , Web Seeing as, here at Switched, we make our livings online, we're at the Internet's beck and call to an even larger degree than your average Web junkie. That being the case, whenever we travel some place or another, our first question is, "Do you have wireless?" All too often, the answer is in the negative. So ... Full story

Filed under: Cell Phones , Editor's Picks , Reviews , Holiday Gift Guide Motorola's DROID may be the largest threat to Apple's stranglehold on the smartphone market to date, and for good reason. Available starting tomorrow for $199 (with a minimum $70 voice and data monthly plan), the DROID offers lots to like: a sturdy, angular, all-black design; a crystal clear, high-resolution display (854 ... Full story

Filed under: Cell Phones , Celebrities James Bond (played recently by Daniel Craig) and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) are tough guys, but apparently not intimidating enough to silence a cell phone . In a recent production of Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig's 'A Steady Rain' on Broadway , an audience member's phone began ringing, prompting Jackman (without missing a beat or dropping character), to ask ... Full story

Filed under: Cell Phones , Computers Geeks will endlessly argue about a number of things (e.g., Captain Kirk vs. Captain Picard, 'Lord of the Rings' vs. 'Harry Potter,' 'Star Wars' vs. 'Star Trek,' and QWERTY vs. Dvorak). Dvorak is an alternative keyboard layout (as opposed to QWERTY) that was designed in the '30s by August Dvorak (no relation to Ol' Cranky Pants ) in ... Full story

Filed under: Software , Palm , webOS We know that Palm's hard at work implementing desperately needed payment infrastructure for its App Catalog , and we might now be getting some of the first glances of what it -- and the non-beta App Catalog as a whole -- will look like. Major new features include the aforementioned support for credit card payments, some sort ... Full story

Filed under: Handsets , LG , GSM , EDGE , HSDPA , UMTS , Android Though it already broke cover at IFA out in Germany a few days ago, LG's just sealed the deal on its very first Android phone -- the GW620 landscape QWERTY slider. Interestingly, the "Etna" name seen at IFA is missing from the official press release, but otherwise, the 3-inch ... Full story

Filed under: Handsets , Samsung We've been following the saga of the i5700 Galaxy Lite since early this month when it took the Wi-Fi Alliance's certification program by storm , and now it seems that French site FrAndroid may very well have exposed Samsung's second Google-ified handset to the harsh light of the real world for the first time. As its name implies, this ... Full story

Filed under: Cell Phones No matter how clean you keep your fingers, you'll be hard-pressed to keep the screen free of smudges and glares. However, scientists may have found a new way to combat, or possibly get rid of, the problem. Scientists at the 238th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society released a report Thursday, according to Cellular News , detailing a new ... Full story

Filed under: Cell Phones , BlackBerry , BlackBerry 101 RIM's BlackBerry is the standard when it comes to smart phones for the corporate workplace. RIM has built its reputation on building serious adult phones for serious adults. So it really caught RIM CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis off guard when, at a recent shareholders' meeting, a child asked them when they were going ... Full story

Filed under: Handsets , Palm , Sprint , EV-DO , CDMA , webOS With only days to go before at least four or five Sprint stores begin selling Palm's Pre , we're already seeing at least one employee with some time on his hands give the smartphone a go. Moral of the story? Right about now would be an awesome time to know somebody ... Full story

Filed under: Cell Phones When you market a cell phone to senior citizens by touting a "Live Nurse" option, you'd darn well better make sure that the 911 service works. We've gotten word from The Consumerist that Samsung is recalling a batch of its Jitterbug pay-as-you-go phones because they apparently cannot reach 911 when outside of a service area. Last Friday, the U.S. Consumer ... Full story

Filed under: Cell Phones According to the National Science Foundation (NSF), computers could cease being the only technology susceptible to viruses . Researchers at Northeastern University suggest that, as mobile networks continue to develop, cell phones could become the next mass-market to be targeted. Marta Gonzalez, one of the study's authors, told the NSF, "We haven't had a problem so far because only phones ... Full story

Filed under: Handsets , Palm , Sprint For staying as silent as they are about the product's details, Palm's doing an awfully good job of letting Pre rumors and speculation fly with wild, rampant abandon -- and we've got a new one here that should at least take you through the night. Full story

Filed under: Handsets , Others Take it from Garmin-Asus -- making a smartphone ain't exactly easy sauce . Full story

Filed under: Handsets , Nokia , Symbian , GSM , EDGE , HSDPA , UMTS It's been an awful long time in coming, but AT&T's customized remix of Nokia's lovely E71 -- the E71x -- is now available for sale direct from the carrier's site. As was revealed a little over a month ago, pricing comes in at just $99.99 on contract after rebate, ... Full story

Filed under: Multimedia , Software , Apple Why should you care about what Trent Reznor has to say about Apple or smartphones in general? Well, for one thing, the front-man for Nine Inch Nails is a digital music visionary who's gone it alone and found gold in the deep coffers of the Internet. And that little device in your pocket just happens to be ... Full story

Filed under: Handsets , HTC , T-Mobile Of all the names being bandied about for the T-Mobile launch of HTC's Sapphire , we have to say that "myTouch" was our least favorite nom de guerre. However, it has apparently won the market-testing deathmatch -- at least that's the case according to the above reasonably official looking image of a T-Mobile inventory screen acquired by ... Full story

Filed under: Handsets , HTC , Telus Mobility , Windows Mobile , GSM , EDGE , EV-DO , CDMA New inventory items in Telus' system are setting these old, weary interwebs ablaze, especially those parts of the interwebs where HTC devices are discussed with great love and passion. Specifically, the Snap and Touch Pro2 have made appearances -- not surprising, considering we know other ... Full story

Filed under: Handsets , RIM , ATT , GSM , EDGE , BlackBerry OS Ah, ha! So the rumors were true. Full story

Filed under: Handsets , RIM The handset might've been surpassed in functionality and looks by its Curve 8900 successor, but nothing's got an edge on the BlackBerry Curve 83XX series in smartphone sales. According to NPD, the handset overtook the erstwhile champ iPhone 3G in the category for the first quarter of 2009, while BlackBerry's own Storm and Pearl handsets took the third and ... Full story

Filed under: Handsets , Others After having its prototypes rejected a few times over by carriers here in America, it seems that Michael Dell is taking his smartphone initiative overseas. 'Course, he'll need something mighty special to outshine Lenovo's OPhone over in China, but we digress Full story

Filed under: Cell Phones , BlackBerry , Google , iPhone , Mobile Phones The Silicon Alley Insider is doling out a bit of advice that we heartily endorse: "Don't buy a smartphone until June." It's not like there aren't any quality offerings on the market right now. In fact, if you really want a Windows Mobile phone (though we're not sure why you would), ... Full story