Samsung launches Bada mobile platform

Samsung hopes to extend its app store offering to a wider range of handsets, including less sophisticated feature phones and entry level smartphones.


The Korean technology giant said Bada -- which means "ocean" -- was a new addition to the company's mobile ecosystem and would give users a "fun and diverse mobile experience".
Samsung said it chose the name to "convey the limitless variety of potential applications" that can be created using the new platform, and to demonstrate the company's commitment to "a variety of open platforms in the mobile industry".

It also offers mobile operators an easy-to-integrate platform that can be used to provide "unique and differentiated services to their customers", said Samsung.
“By opening Samsung’s mobile platforms we will be able to provide rich mobile experiences on an increasing number of accessible smartphones,” said Dr Hosoo Lee, an executive vice president at Samsung. "Bada will be Samsung's landmark, iconic new platform that brings an unprecedented opportunity for operators, developers and Samsung mobile phone users around the world.”
Samsung's current smartphone range runs the open-source Symbian operating system and the Google-backed Android platform. Carolina Milanesi, a research director at Gartner, said Samsung's decision to develop and use its own platform for entry-level smartphones was its attempt to "differentiate its products from the competition."
But Geoff Blaber, an analyst with CCS Insight, questioned Samsung's thinking: "The big question is, does the mobile phone world need yet another operating system?," he said.

nokia N 900 brief walkthrough

Blackberry app to world

RIM is certainly on the offensive this year and its also taking the Indian market seriously. Many new handsets in GSM, CDMA and now another service is being launched. We first heard about Blackberry App world during the launch of the 8520 curve back in August and now App World is finally available to Blackberry users in India

App world is RIM’s answer to the App Store game. Its the official App Store for BB smartphones to download free apps to their handset and there are some india centric apps too ( we’ll try getting more details of that soon)

India-specific applications at launch include Hungama MyPlay, CNBC TV18 Moneycontrol, Mundu Radio and Arrowmatics.

Users can get Blackberry AppWorld on their BB but hitting mobile.blackberry.com or www.blackberry.com/appworld from the phone browser.

Users will be automatically presented with apps compatible with their BB. Good news is that the app store will work over Wi-Fi and Cellular networks.

“The BlackBerry platform provides a truly unparalleled mobile experience for millions of people and we are thrilled to enhance that experience with BlackBerry App World,” said Frenny Bawa, Vice President, India, Research In Motion. “Consumers in India can now easily discover and download a wide variety of applications, including a range of ‘made for India’ apps, directly from their BlackBerry smartphone.”

Requirements to run App World

• BlackBerry smartphone that includes a trackball, touch-sensitive trackpad or touch-screen
• BlackBerry OS version 4.2 or higher.
• Users require an active BlackBerry data service plan with Internet access to access BlackBerry App World. Data charges may apply for customers that have a limited data plan.

Acer launches three new touchscreen phones in India, starting at Rs. 11,900

Mobile phones with touch-sensitive screens seem to be getting cheaper by the day. Nokia, Samsung and LG have already joined the bandwagon, and it seems that it’s Acer’s turn now, with the launch of three new phones – two in this lower segment and one premium model.

The company has tied up with Tata Docomo to offer initial buyers free download data of 500MB per month for the first six months.

beTouch e101

The lowest end of the new series is the beTouch e101, which comes with a 3.2-inch resistive touchscreen TFT (65K colours, 240x320 pixels), complete with a scroll wheel under it for easier navigation. Running on Windows Mobile 6.5, the device comes equipped with a 2-megapixel camera (albeit without flash or autofocus), 256MB RAM, 512MB ROM (expandable via microSD), and the complete Pocket Office suite. Since it doesn’t have 3G or Wi-Fi, EDGE and Bluetooth will have to suffice for connectivity. The 1140mAh battery claims to last for 5 hours of talk-time and 400 hours of standby time.

The Acer beTouch e101 retails at Rs. 11,900.

beTouch e200

For a little more cash, users might want to check out the beTouch e200, which sports a smaller 3-inch touchscreen (65K colours, 240x400 pixels), and comes with a 3.15-megapixel camera. The screen also slides up to reveal a full numeric keypad, which can be quite handy for those who do a lot of text messaging.

Apart from adding 3G and Wi-Fi to the mix, the beTouch e200 does not vary in features from the features of the beTouch e200, and is appropriately priced at Rs. 17,900.

neoTouch

Acer has also launched its premium mobile handset in India, the monstrous neoTouch. Why monstrous? Well, for starters, there’s the 1GHz Snapdragon processor that powers the Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system. Additionally, Acer has overlaid the operating system with its customised Acer UI 3.0 for easy touch-based navigation. And all that can be used on the large 3.8-inch resistive touchscreen (65K colours, 480x800 pixels), which comes complete with an accelerometer for auto-rotation, proximity sensor and ambient light sensor.

Multimedia is a breeze with this one, as the neoTouch packs a 3.5mm headphone jack and stereo FM radio support to keep music aficionados happy, while pleasing the shutterbugs with a 5-megapixel camera (with autofocus, LED flash, geo-tagging and VGA video recording). Filled with all the connectivity options you would need and enough software add-ons for work and social networking, the Acer neoTouch is now available for Rs. 35,000.

Adobe launches Photoshop Mobile for Android handsets

Just last night we were messing about with our Android phone, trying to make the best of the photos we'd taken of fireworks exploding overhead. Of course, the image editing on most phones is pretty atrocious, and a far cry from the awesome tweak-fest of Photoshop on a proper computer. Luckily, Adobe wants to help us out, and has followed up its iPhone Photoshop app with one for Android phones.

The catch, and there usually is one, is that the application is currently only available to Americans and Canadians. Which means us Europeans are bang out of luck. Of course, if you've got a rebellious streak in you, you could probably hunt it down through other methods and install it manually, but we'd never condone that.

The Android Photoshop application gives you a very generous set of features. To start with, it trawls through your phone finding any images you've got stored on the SD card. In our test, it managed to locate every single photo from our Twitter client, which meant there were lots of low-quality avatars clogging up the gallery. Scrolling through everything is easy enough though, and the app is fast, responsive and has yet to crash once.

Once you find an image you want to work with, doing so is a simple matter of selecting it on the home screen and pressing the 'edit' button. From there, you can tweak the crop, adjust light levels, colour and contrast and do the usual tricks of converting photos to black black and white. You can even add sepia tones to your images, you know, in case you miss the days where cameras rendered everything in shades of brown.

Because the Photoshop app comes under the photoshop.com banner, you also get the opportunity to upload your pictures directly from the phone interface. Of course, you'll need to have a photoshop.com account for that to work. Accounts are free, or paid, depending on how many photos you want to store, but everyone gets 2GB included, which should be more than enough for mucking around with a few camera phone photos.

A good effort from Adobe. It's just a shame that it doesn't seem to care about the world outside the US and Canada.

Famed hacker betters Apple, cracks the latest iPhone 3GS and iPod touch

A then teenager who made headlines with the first-ever hack of the original iPhone is back with an updated software that can jailbreak and unlock the latest iPhone 3GS and iPod touch hardware.

A hacker known as George Hotz has updated its ingenious software tool dubbed “blacksn0w” earlier this week. The new version of the free of charge app, available for Windows and OS X, lets you easily unlock and jailbreak the iPhone 3G and 3GS, in addition to the iPod touch.

More importantly, the program can successfully jailbreak and unlock the iPhone 3GS running the iPhone OS 3.1.2 and baseband version 05.11.07, including a slightly revised iPhone 3GS and iPod touch models that Apple shipped last month. Due to hardware changes made to the October 2009 iPhone 3GS and iPod touch units, the procedure involves a so-called “tethered jailbreak.” As a result, Hotz said, users can only hardware-reset their jailbroken device by connecting it to a computer via USB.

Jailbreaking is a procedure that counters Apple’s software measures in the iPhone OS designed to block unsigned third-party apps from reaching the homescreen. Jailbroken devices can run Apple-sanctioned apps, both free and paid, that can be found on the web. Unlocking tackles the so-called baseband software on the device that prevents its use with unauthorized carriers.

Apple is warning users that jailbreaking and unlocking voids their warranty. The company had refused to service jailbroken and unlocked iPhones in the past. Jailbreaking had been hugely popular prior to the App Store, when you could only put unofficial programs on your iPhone. After Apple had released the iPhone SDK in March 2008 and opened the floodgate for third-party apps, the interest in jailbreaking amongst average users has subdued.

However, Apple is aware that a certain percentage of iPhone users unlock their phones for use on othernetworks, while others only jailbreak their device to run sanctioned apps. That’s why the company is still actively engaged in a cat and mouse game with hackers, namely George Hotz and the iPhone Dev Team. I have no doubt in my mind that Apple will update both the iPhone OS and the BootROM in order to address the latest version of the “blacksn0w” tool

nest genration i-phone

China Ontrade calls this the iPhone 4 Generation Midboard. Not very exciting, but the last time they announced a next-generation iPhone part, they were right. A month later, theiPhone 3GS appeared with exactly those parts. What could this mean?

The iPhone 3GS display

Let's review what we know: When we first covered China Ontrade's iPhone 3G 2009 parts—back in May 2009—we thought they looked real. Since they didn't have any track record, we treated it as a rumor. Potentially true, but a rumor. The iPhone 3GS announcement was going to happen that summer, so it was logical that factories had already manufactured parts for the assembled iPhone 2009. That is, in fact, what China Ontrade claimed in their site:

This is great honor for China Ontrade (HK) chinaontrade.com to be the 1st started to supply iphone 3gen 2009 parts directly from factory

In June 2009, the actual iPhone 3GS teardown confirmed that China Ontrade's parts were indeed the real McCoy. Somehow, the Chinese wholesaler's ninjas—who sell spare parts for all Apple iPod and iPhone products—got the next generation pieces one month beforethe product reached the streets.