News

Surf’s Up – Samsung announce new wave of Waves

Following news that the original Samsung Wave has sold 1 million handsets worldwide, the chaps from Seoul have seen fit to bless the world with a raft of new Bada-powered devices.  The device you see here is the catchy monikered Wave 743, looking part Tocco and part iPhone 4, and it and its new brethren will be running Bada’s latest revision, Bada 1.1.  Sadly though it seems that Super AMOLED is no longer riding the Wave, with the 743 sporting a 3.2" TFT screen (touch type undetermined), 5mp camera w/ LED flash, microSD slot and WiFi.  The new Wave, like its Galaxy S cousin is also packing Bluetooth 3.0 – the more the merrier.

Read on for more Bada bling

A new HTC Android device?

BGR has managed to get hold of some new photos showing off a HTC device that we can only presume will be an Android one. I say this as on the rear of the device it says ‘With HTC Sense”.

The device clearly has a kick stand as well as an 8 megapixel camera with dual-LED flash, kickstand, 3.5 mm headphone jack, and, wait for it. a front facing camera.

BGRs source says  “It makes the Droid 2 look like a kids toy!”

It looks real nice doesn’t it?

More pictures after the break:

There’s gold in that there code! Global apps market worth over $2 billion

You’ve all heard the stories of app programmers getting super-rich off of super-small programs, and now research2guidance.com has shown just how much cash is swimming around the app game.  In the first half of 2010, the smartphone application market was valued at rather staggering $2.2 billion, up from $1.7 billion of the previous year, and app downloads themselves rose 0.8 billion to 3.9 billion.  Now lets look at that again – the figures represent the first half of 2010, a period that doesn’t include several important factors – most noticeably, no iPhone 4.  Plus it just misses the releases of arguably the most successful Android handsets yet with HTC’s Desire and EVO, Sony’s Xperia X10 and Samsung’s Galaxy S family.  It’s also just on the cusp of Froyo’s release, so while these are extremely impressive figures, if we take into account the news of Android handsets outselling the still ridiculously successful iPhone 4, the second half of 2010 could see an even more impressive growth.  One thing is for sure, there’s an App goldrush and it shows no sign of stopping.

Posted by: Ian

Watch out Skype – Google Voice is offering 2 cent calls

In their never ending quest for total world information domination (or something like that), Google have now added calls to regular telephones from your Gmail account.  For some time you’ve been able to have voice chat and video chat through Google Talk but this is the first time the Googleplexers have stepped their Google communications suite out of the G-bubble and into the real world of telephone calls with Google Voice. Presently you can call for free only in the US and Canada (and only until the end of the year), while in the UK, Germany, France and interestingly China will have to pay 2 cents a minute (pre.) Clearly this is a big stab at the heart of Skype but it’s yet to be seen whether Google can topple the world’s best known VoIP provider with some 550 million or more users.  Google Voice does have some interesting features though, including allocation of a Google Voice number which you can set to ring any or all of your contact numbers.  Smart.  Currently this is all still through a desktop browser but it’s not a great leap of imagination to think that Google will filter their new technology to their own Android mobile operating system.  It does however remain to be seen how this will work in China – will the communist government allow encoded communications or has a deal with the big red and the big G already been struck?

Google Voice is currently only in the US but will be rolling out to the other test nations in the near future.  Watch Google’s video here for an animated overview.

Posted by: Ian

Nokia C6 available from Vodafone

If you saw our unboxing video of the Nokia C6 and were thinking about getting one you now can. The device has today gone live on the Vodafone site.

Available from free with contracts starting at £20 per month the C6 will offer you  a pretty decent specced phone with the bonus of having the OVI Store at hand. Free Sat Nav anyone!

Want a reminder of the Nokia C6 Specification?

Phone-to-Console as standard on WP7 phones

One of Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 trump cards – Phone to Console – will be standard with WP7 handsets BUT not at launch.  Coming across a little like the combination play between the Gamecube and the Gameboy Advance, it heavily integrates your Xbox Live account into your mobile gaming including your avatar (editable on the phone), messages and achievements.  Additionally, if you have a game on the phone that integrates with a sister title on the 360 (Assassin’s Creed for example), it’ll add achievement points to your Live score and, game dependant, open up parts of the main title.  There’s also phone-to-phone for free (Silver Live) on turn-based games (chalk one up for Tower Defence games).  Clearly MS playing this card for all it’s worth and could prove interesting with Apple and Android having no comparable technology.

Check out RGBFilter’s comprehensive video interview with Greg Milligan of MS Canada here, with plenty of WP7 and Live action.  You also get a good look at an LG WP7 handset that’s not the E900.

Posted by: Ian

BT’s 20 meg broadband ad banned

We all know that “up to 20 meg broadband” is rarely that, unless you live in your local exchange and have a one meter phone line.  So someone had to get into trouble for promising the on-line earth and not living up to it, and first for the slapdown is everyone’s favourite telephone infrastructure monopolist, British Telecom.

Amazingly their Adam and Jane advert has not been banned for being teeth-grinding tat, but for saying that even at peak time you’ll still be able to browse the web at full speed.  Of the 17 complaints (including rivals Talk Talk, Virgin and Sky Broadband), some complained that ‘Jane’ was browsing at near LAN speeds, and this sort of speed was certainly not available to them.  Indeed, the Advertising Standards Agency pointed out “because we had not seen sufficient evidence to support the claim that BT’s new broadband service was consistently faster than its existing 8Mb service even at peak times, we concluded that the ad was likely to mislead”. Ouch.  Next up – ‘Unlimited’ mobile broadband promises and why the purveyors should be beaten with large fishes.

Posted by: Ian

Angry Birds comes to WebOS

If you are a Palm Pre or Pixi user you may have been jealous when you have heard all the iOS users talking about Angry Birds. Good news as now you can pick up this addictive game on WebOS.

I know on the iPhone there is a free lite version but not sure about on WebOS. However for $1.99 the game is more than worth it and I can pretty much guarantee that your Palm Pre or Pixi will be getting some extra attention.

I give Angry Birds a 9/10 rating on the tracyandmatt games score rating. ( I just invented that!)

Posted by: James

Out of this world? Samsung’s Galaxy Tab nears launch

Accompanied by a moody soundtrack, Samsung have made the much-rumoured Galaxy Tab official with a teaser video you can see here.  While the video offers few surprises beyond conformation of Froyo from the get go and a big iPad-style keyboard, it certainly gets the juices flowing ready for the September 2nd date in Berlin.

The Galaxy Tab (or GT-P1000) has been the subject of some speculation recently, with the recent video of the Tab being used on a Sydney train making its way onto YouTube yesterday.  Giving no further clues beyond conformation of the now-obvious capacitive screen, the user claimed it was ‘different’ to an iPad.  Chinese site ifanr.com however does give further details with an anonymous tipster having enough hands on time to even take a few cheeky snaps.  Describing it as ‘"thicker than the Streak" and armed with a 1024 x 600 screen and 3.2mp camera, it’s also described as "plasticky".  How well Android translates to a proper, mobile data enabled device is yet to be seen, and will it still feel like a big Galaxy S in the same vein of the iPad/iPhone.  Not long to wait now.

More pics Sir?

Another HTC Windows Phone 7

Check out this super sleek dude. Engadget have reported that this HTC bad boy is coming to AT&T and it is currently going under the name of the HTC T8788 although it will obviously get a proper flashy name.

And yes it is a landscape slider but that isn’t a keyboard you can see poking out, but instead a great big speaker!

If you are into your media then this could well be the Windows Phone for you?

No official word from HTC on this one but it looks really nice. Well i think so. I like shiny!

Posted by: James