- Layar back to augmenting your reality on the iPhone after 3-month hiatus
- Skype for Symbian lands on Ovi Store = more than 200 million possible users
- Mobile Boarding Passes Take Off With 1200% Usage Increase In 2009
- Leaked BlackBerry slider photos – man, that's ugly
- Nokia Ovi store now seeing 22 app downloads per second, plus other stats
- Viper SmartStart now lets you start your car from your BlackBerry, too
- Palm webOS 1.4 SDK released to developers, allows apps to record video
- Concept art: the iPhone 4G
- Pricing details for the T-Mobile HTC HD2, and Motorola CLIQ XT leaked
- The Complaint: Apple's Patent Lawsuit Against HTC Is All About Android
- Apple goes for HTC's throat, sues for infringing 20 patents
- Mister Gruber looks at the Winphone
- Nokia releases the "social" C5
- Apple Goes After HTC In Lawsuit Over 20 iPhone Patents
- TomTom's iPhone app to get real-time traffic alerts and Google local search
| Layar back to augmenting your reality on the iPhone after 3-month hiatus
It's been quiet since, but an update for the app just popped up on my iPhone (iTunes link), with the concise and crystal clear description: "We're back!" The company claims that its Reality Browser app now features an entirely re-engineered engine, rendering the app more stable, lightweight and faster. In addition, language support has been broadened to include French, German, Dutch and Italian (with promises of more languages coming soon). The app also appears to sport a new logo. The startup, which recently secured $3.4 million in financing as well as a global distribution agreement with an unnamed handset manufacturer, just sent out an e-mail to its users saying that the app is available on the App Store again. In it, the company claims there are now over 400 'layars' users can view through the camera browser. |
| Skype for Symbian lands on Ovi Store = more than 200 million possible users
If I were a carrier, I'd probably be feeling rather nervous right now – and / or infuriated. Skype for Symbian, which you can also download the app straight from the Skype website, will run on any Nokia smartphone using Symbian^1, the latest version of the Symbian platform (see list below). It's not the Skype wasn't already available for Symbian, but its appearance in the Ovi Store will certainly increase awareness of its existence – as well as that of the Ovi Store, for that matter. We recently reported that Nokia's Ovi Store now serves more than 1 million downloads per day as of January 2010 (yesterday they said that number increased to 1.5 million per day or 22 downloads per second), and if the success of the Skype app for the iPhone is any indication, the addition of Skype will lift those numbers up significantly. The app does everything you'd want a Skype app to do, as it includes support for making free calls to other Skype users over Wi-Fi and 3G, instant messaging, picture and video sharing – the whole nine yards. This is the long list of phones that can now accommodate the installation of the Skype Mobile app: Nokia N97, Nokia N97 mini, Nokia X6, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and Nokia 5530 and the following non-touch devices: Nokia E72, Nokia E71, Nokia E90, Nokia E63, Nokia E66, Nokia E51, Nokia N96, Nokia N95, Nokia N95 8Gb, Nokia N85, Nokia N82, Nokia N81, Nokia N81 8 Gb, Nokia N79, Nokia N78, Nokia 6220 classic, Nokia 6210 Navigator and Nokia 5320. Skype says it will even be updating the app soon to make it function on Symbian mobiles from other handset makers, including Sony Ericsson. Bad news for carriers, good news for most everyone else. |
| Mobile Boarding Passes Take Off With 1200% Usage Increase In 2009
Alright, lets pat the pockets and run through the mental checklist one last time before security: Passport? Check, front pocket. Headphones? Definitely in your backpack. Boarding pass? Uh oh. Where'd that boarding pass go? Oh, that's right! It's on your phone – because you, like a rapidly increasing number of other people, opted to have it sent straight to your handset. Security scans the barcode right off of your handset's display, and you're on your way with one less thing to lose. Trinity Mobile, one of the leading companies behind the mobile ticketing push, is today announcing a 1200% year-over-year increase with their mobile boarding pass offerings.
In 2008, Trinity Mobile saw 50,000 users opt-in to receive mobile boarding passes rather than the more traditional options. In 2009, this number shot up to 600,000. That's still a drop in the bucket compared to the number of people flying with ol' fashion boarding passes each and every day – but considering that that growth is almost entirely driven by users picking the option when its offered to them (without any real marketing push by Trinity or the airlines they've partnered with), it's pretty impressive. Jupiter Research backs up the fact that the trend is skyrocketing; according to their 2010 Mobile Ticketing report, over 2 billion mobile boarding passes will be sent out in 2010, with that number expected to blast up to 15 billion by 2014. Anecdotally, I can honestly say I've also noticed a massive uptick in mobile boarding pass usage. As someone who travels somewhat frequently, I've seen at least a handful of people going that route on each trip I've taken over the past few months – especially on flights in Europe. I've yet to be offered a chance to do it myself – but given that I'm the type of person who clutches on to their boarding pass like it's ice water in Hell, I'd jump on it on a heartbeat. What about you? Have you used a mobile boarding pass yet? What were your experiences? [Image Credit: Paramount Pictures] |
| Leaked BlackBerry slider photos – man, that's ugly
Woo! Man, that thing is not looking good. At least the Storm 2 is a good-looking piece of hardware.
|
| Nokia Ovi store now seeing 22 app downloads per second, plus other stats
If you're trying to keep track of how all the app stores are performing in relation to each other (or are otherwise just a stats geek), this one ought to make your day. Nokia has just released a pocketful of statistics regarding their app store, Ovi, detailing just how well it was doing as of the end of February.
The Stats:
Solely for the sake of perspective: between September of 2009 and January of 2010, the iPhone App Store averaged about 30.5 million application downloads per day, or 350 per second. In other words, the App Store is pushing out downloads at about 16 times the average rate of the Ovi Store — but, being that Apple's store launched in July of 2008, it also had nearly a full year head start. So what do you think – given Nokia's massive hardware presence around the world (outside of the US, especially) whilst factoring in the relative newness of their App Store, how well do you think Ovi is performing? |
| Viper SmartStart now lets you start your car from your BlackBerry, too
A few months back, Directed Electronics launched an iPhone app that, when paired with Viper remote start system, would allow you to start your car from just about anywhere on earth. For the bargain price of just $500, you'd never again have to worry about your car being too hot, too cold, or too not on when you got in. Alas, not everyone has an iPhone – what about the remaining chunk of the world that wants to look like James Bond and/or scare people? Today, Direct Electronics is letting another big group of people in on the slightly-extraneous fun with the release of Viper SmartStart for BlackBerry.
Depending on what sort of car you've got and what features it makes available to the SmartStart system, the free BlackBerry app can fire up the engine, toggle the door locks, enable and disable the security system, pop the trunk, ring the panic alarm. It can't pick up your dry cleaning or drop your grandmother off at the airport, but we can probably expect that from a (distant) future model. The module that makes your car friendly with the free iPhone app will set you back $200 bucks, which is on top of the $300-or-so security system that you plug it into. That said, if you've already got a compatible remote start system from Viper, Clifford or Python, you'll only need the module and the free app.
|
| Palm webOS 1.4 SDK released to developers, allows apps to record video
It's a bit different than the "developers get the new firmware first" mentality we've grown used to from those other guys, but Palm has now released the SDK for webOS 1.4. The flagship feature of webOS 1.4 (besides Adobe Flash support, which isn't available just yet) is its new found ability to record video. With this latest SDK, access to video recording has been extended to third-party applications — which, as Electronista points out, could open the doors for the likes of Qik, Ustream, and other live video broadcasting applications.
There are a handful of other bug fixes, performance upgrades, and little dev-centric features thrown in the mix – but unless you're an uber geek (and I mean that in the most loving way), you probably don't care too much. If you are an uber geek, however, you can find the full SDK changelog along with the SDK download right here. You don't even have to sign an NDA! |
|
Who doesn't love a good concept piece? Spaziocellulare forum user "Seraphan" just posted his render of what the iPhone 4G could look like, and his ideas aren't too shabby. Of course, it's one man's idea of what the phone of the future should look like, including an expanded color pallet, built in microSD slot, and front and rear cameras complete with a built in flash on the back. |
| Pricing details for the T-Mobile HTC HD2, and Motorola CLIQ XT leaked
Why hello there, Mr. Inventory Screen! How kind of you to pop by and spill all the pricing details on the T-mobile HTC HD2 and Motorola CLIQ XT. Wait – the HTC HD2 will be how cheap? TmoNews just got their mitts all over this screen grab, which clearly shows the pricing details for the slightly underwhelming (but still Android powered!) Motorola Cliq XT along with the awesomely overwhelming (but still Windows Mobile 6.5 powered [frownie face here]!) HTC HD2. The HD2 appears to be coming in at just $199 on contract ($449 off contract), which is a damned awesome price for a phone packing a mammoth 4.3″ display, a 1 Ghz processor, and a 5 megapixel camera. I mean, compare that to last years T-Mobile Touch Pro 2 – that was a far lesser phone (albeit one with a great slide out keyboard, which the HD2 lacks), and it went for $349 — on contract! The CLIQ XT will be going for $129.99, bringing it in at $20 less than the original CLIQ (which, while an older model, has a keyboard). The same tipster also spilled the pricing beans on the Nokia Nuron, essentially a US Version of the Nokia 5230, which should launch on March 17th for $69.99 or $179.99, depending on if you sign a contract. |
| The Complaint: Apple's Patent Lawsuit Against HTC Is All About Android
Earlier today, Apple issued a press release stating that it has filed suit against cell phone manufacturer HTC for patent infringement. No mention of Android or Google was in the press release. But one of the actual legal complaints, which we've obtained and embedded below, makes no bones about it. As expected, this lawsuit is about Android. HTC, of course, is one of the largest manufacturers of Android handsets. The complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware targets: "certain mobile communication devices including cellular phones and smart phones, including at least phones incorporating the Android Operating System (collectively, "the Accused Products")." By going after the biggest Android manufacturer, Apple is putting all Android cell phone makers—and by extension Google— on notice. Is there any doubt now why Google CEO Eric Schmidt had to resign from Apple's board last year? The battle lines are now drawn. At least one of the patents (No. 7,479,949) lists Steve Jobs as an inventor, and describes a method to use a touchscreen as a graphical user interface "detecting one or more finger contacts with the touch screen display" (i.e. multi-touch). The complete list of patents the complaint says are being infringed include:
Another complaint was filed with the ITC and may include other patents, since there are only ten here and Apple claims 20 patents are being infringed altogether. [tc_docstoc docId="27230772" mId="274918" width="630" height="550" slideMode="false" showRelatedDocs="true" showOtherDocs="true" allowdownload="true" url="http://www.docstoc.com/docs/27230772/Apple-vs-HTC"]Apple vs HTC[/tc_docstoc] [crunchbase url="http://www.crunchbase.com/company/apple,http://www.crunchbase.com/company/htc" name="Apple,HTC"] |
| Apple goes for HTC's throat, sues for infringing 20 patents
Man – what a terrible way to wake up on a Tuesday morning. You roll out of bed, pop onto your favorite gadget blogs to catch up on all the latest news bits. New hardware coming next week.. some service is shutting down in a few months.. your company is being sued by Apple for infringing 20 patents… wait, what? That's what happened to HTC this morning, who only found out that the folks in Cupertino were dropping the lawsuit hammer when they saw the stories lighting up across the web. Apple had literally just filed all the papers when they sent out the press release.
Steve himself emerged from the Jobs-cave to put out a comment, and he had no nice words to say:
Engadget reached out to HTC for a response, who confirmed that they'd got wind of the suit by way of the Internet:
The phones allegedly infringing on Apple's intellectual property here are from all ends of the spectrum; from Android to Windows Mobile, from those running Sense/TouchFlo to those that are not. Name a popular phone made by HTC in the last 2 years, and it's called out here: Nexus One, Touch Diamond, Touch Pro2, Imagio, G1. Whether this is Apple's goal or not (and I have a hard time imagining otherwise), this could do massive damage to Android's momentum. HTC is and always has been the guiding hand that lead Android through some tough times — start throwing sticks in the Android machine that is HTC, and things will get tough for Google's OS. We're tearing through this mountain of papers (seriously – it's 700 pages thick) looking for details on exactly which patents HTC is allegedly tromping all over. With that said, I'd be willing to bet my finest pair of pants that HTC's use of multitouch in there somewhere. Update: Yep, looks like multitouch is in there. TechCrunch has torn through the documents and found a number of patents listed, including multitouch and a bunch of others.:
|
| Mister Gruber looks at the Winphone
He's not saying much we don't already know but he mentions something I forgot about, the Osborne Effect. If you've ever wondered why camera companies are such dicks when it comes to releasing news, it's because of this. If you have product in channel and pre-announce something, that previous product will be construed, in general, as garbage. Here's a fun example:
WinMo users: Will you get behind Windows Phone? |
| Nokia releases the "social" C5
|
| Apple Goes After HTC In Lawsuit Over 20 iPhone Patents
 Apple is using its strong patent portfolio to fight iPhone competitors in court. Its latest target is HTC. Apple has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against the cell phone manufacturer. The suit involves "20 Apple patents related to the iPhone's user interface, underlying architecture and hardware." Steve Jobs is quoted in a press release saying: "We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We've decided to do something about it. We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours." |
| TomTom's iPhone app to get real-time traffic alerts and Google local search
The addition of the new services pretty much replicates the services found in TomTom's GO Live models. Now users can get traffic reports along with local searches within the app, while dedicated iPhone apps can already get local fuel prices and weather. The dedicated GPS units still offer a bit more navigation goodies, along with larger screens, but the iPhone is nipping at their heels with the latest update.
|
Augmented reality app 
Pretty huge news in our book: 
0 comments:
Post a Comment