Death of GPS (moment of silence)

      I recently saw a video on youtube.com, of the Google Navigation and the Nokia Ovi maps in action, if you dont know what those are, those are the gps systems that come FREE with the device. I asked myself, with the boom in smart phones, and the cheap and most of the time free availability of GPS, would the GPS market die out? Not to long ago not many people had GPS systems, on the respective armed forces of countries and the ubber rich. Now its easy to get a TomTom or a Garmin, or, if you drive a Chevy, use Onstar gps system. I asked myself this question cause i saw Noah, editor of phonedog.com , and friend navigate through the SF Bay Area using Google Navigation and Ovi Maps. To my surprise the phones were on point, doing everything from recalculating the route to monitoring the speed of the vehicle. So i think to myself, why spend possibly hundreds on a GPS when i can use it for free on my phone? Could this kill the GPS market? I'm just a speculator, not a professional, but the same way the cellphone did away with the pay phone, mobile GPS will do away with GPS systems. Let us know what you think.

Tech Talk : M11x

 Imagine a stealth fighter.....thats made for gaming. Thats what the M11x is. For those of you completely lost the M11x, formally known as "phantom", is the all new laptop by AlienWare. Alienware is known for their devices being great for gaming, and this falls right in line. It comes with a brand new NVIDIA chip set to go along with a ULV core 2 DUO processor. Not only does it run like a charm, but its very aggressive looking.

It has these afterburner looking lights on the front. These very cool, very mean looking indentations on the top of it, and this MEGA MASSIVE hole in the bottom so the fan can keep it cooler longer, and keep you gaming without worrying that your CPU will catch fire . This machine is bad, yes in the good way. There are many different models of the machine, its very customizable. It beautifully built, very solid, almost mac book-ish in its build quality. It starts at around $800.00 and can cost much much more , just depends on how fast you want it to run, the faster the processor, the more your gonna have to shell out for it. Overall its a great machine, something im personally thinking about buying.

Tech Talk : Moto Devour

When i first saw the device i thought it was made buy Apple, it has that mac book kind of look with the all silver body and black keys. It looks very solid, almost like the Droid. In fact its almost an exact replica of the Droid(minus the ugly D-pad). In pictures the device looks rather small due to its small screen, but as stated before, Its just like the droid, a very large piece of equipment(thats what she said). Lets talk specs: its dimensions are 61.0 x 115.5 x 15.4 mm, with a 3.1 in 320 x 480 65k color HGVA touchscreen, 3mp camera with the usual features, runs Android 1.6, wifi enabled, comes with 8Gb microSD with up to 380 mins of continuous use, 1400 mAH Li ion battery.

The Devour, like most new moto devices comes with motoblur, the new all-in-one social networking widget. As stated in previous post, motoblur makes things very cramped an cluttered on the screen, but its so freaggin awesome that you don't want to turn it off. Rumor, well fact now, is the Devour will hit the shelves this Thursday at Best Buy locations for $150 and Verizon  locations in March for $150 after $100 dollar mail in rebate. Verizon does have new smart phone plan restrictions, basically forcing you to get an unlimited data plan, which is the best thing to do, cause you really wont be able to use the phone to its full potention with a limited data plan. Buyers of this phone might stray to the Droid seeing how its only about 50 bucks more and has a larger screen newer version of the OS and looks a bit sexier, if you can call a phone that........anywho i like it, that means you all must like it, so kids hit up the parental units for some dough and all you working adults, hit up the savings account, cause this is a hot piece of metal, if i do say so myself.

Tech Talk : Moto CLIQ XT

    I like this device, much like i did the original CLIQ. Very comfortable in the hand due to its rounded shape, very nice to use, so lets talk specs.Its a 3g device(edge on at&t), 320 x 480 3.1" HGVA capacitive touchscreen with 65k colors, has a talk time of 360 mins, so about 6 hours, 3.5 mm headphone jack, 5.0 megapixle cam with video cap, auto-focus, geo tagging ans many other extras, runs Android 1.5 and is wifi enabled. Price in unknown, but i'm guessing around 499.99 directly from Motorola

 
    Overall its an awesome device, and has, what i think is my favorite feature, motoblur. Honestly the greatest social network widget to come on a mobile device, although it came make things a little cluttered at times if you keep all options active. Google Android is my favorite OS, its so easy to use and is aesthetically pleasing ( yeah, i got vocab). The only draw back i find on this device is the giant button in the middle, maybe a trackball or optical sensor could have been better, but yet again, i don't get paid the big bucks to design these things, but thats just my opinion.

Mobile phones become pocket banks in poor countries

BARCELONA, Spain (AFP) – An Afghan police officer gets his salary in a text message on his mobile phone. A Kenyan worker dials a few numbers to send money to his family.

The rise of banking transactions through mobile phones is giving a whole new meaning to pocket money in parts of the developing world that lack banks or cash machines.

Mobile money applications are emerging as potent financial tools in rural and remote areas of the globe, allowing people with no bank accounts to get paid, send remittances or settle their bills.

"One billion consumers in the world have a mobile phone but no access to a bank account," said Gavin Krugel, the director of mobile banking strategy at GSM Association, an industry group of 800 wireless operators.

"We see it as very big opportunity," he said this week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, the industry's annual four-day event that ended on Thursday.

Mobile banking began to emerge six years ago in the Philippines and South Africa, where 8.5 million and 4.5 million people, respectively, use such services.

Today, 40 million people worldwide use mobile money, and the industry is growing, according to the GSMA.

"Africa and Asia are the most active regions right now," Krugel said. "We expect Latin America pick up this year."

There are 18,000 new mobile banking users per day in Uganda, 15,000 in Tanzania and 11,000 in Kenya, he said.

Mobile phones can offer a wide range of banking solutions, from sending transfers to a relative to buying goods in a store or putting money aside for a rainy day -- all by dialing a few numbers on one's handset.

Mobile banking can also make life easier for people in parts of Africa where paying a simple bill can be time-consuming, said Reg Swart, regional executive of Fundamo, a company that makes banking applications.

"It takes one day to pay one bill. You have to physically go to the bank, then you must queue, a long queue," he said.

In Afghanistan, the national police has been testing a service from mobile operator Roshan to pay its officers -- a system that helps to limit corruption, the company said.

"We are currently moving from a trial to a full launch in paying the Afghan national police," said Roshan's head of mobile commerce, Zahir Jhoja.

Every month, police officers receive a text message in the language they prefer informing them they have received their salaries, Jhoja said.

A voice message is also left on the phone "because a lot of them are illiterate and cannot read," he said.

The officer can then go get his money from an authorised Roshan agent.

"The benefit is that police and police officers don't have to carry cash anymore: from their post they are able to send their money home, buy items, and take whatever cash they want from an agent, or to store for future," he said.

The system has helped officers who were not receiving their full salaries due to "corruption and skimming.

"The police officers who received the money electronically were very surprised to learn that they earn so much money. When they were getting cash they were receiving 25 to 30 percent less," Johja said. by Celine Cornu

iPad vs Dell Mini 5(prototype)

     OK, there is one attribute that the mini 5 has that the iPad doesn't, it can make calls, now that we've gotten this out the way, lets begin.

     Lets start with the specs of the Mini 5. Its a full 3g phone, comes with Android 1.6 (most likely will come with 2.1), it has a 5 inch 800x480 capacitive screen, snapdragon QSD8250 chipset  blue tooth and wifi. Including the battery its 152mm x 78mm x 10mm at 8 ounces. 405 MB of RAM and 1.63 GB of internal memory with space for microsd if wanted. The iPad is larger at 242.8mm x 189.7mm x 13.4 mm at 1.6 lbs( btw were doing the wifi + 3g model), it has a 9.7 inch 1024 x 768 display 64GB with a 1GHz Apple A4 chip (very uncommon for apple to use there own chipset).
   It's evident that the ipad is larger more powerful for its size, but both the iPad and Mini 5 have the same basic functionality. Both using standard OS's not mobile, you can argue that android 1.6 is mobile but it runs just like an OS on a pc or mac, both are lightning fast on the web and can access the web anywhere. unlike the iPad, the mini does come with a web cam, but thats cause its basically a phone. The iPad does have multi touch, unlike the  mini and has the option of a key board attachment. So, the question is, which one to buy? Honestly, i would go for the mini mainly cause it has the everything you need in a mobile device, internet and phone, in a easy to use tablet device, and cause i think the iPad is just apples way of making up for the mac book air. So WDCTechTalk final verdict, pick the mini, its better, but there is one draw back....it hasn't been released yet. So have patients

Dell Mini 5 prototype impressions -- Engadget

Dell Mini 5 prototype impressions -- Engadget

SK Telecom shoves Android onto a SIM, we check it out -- Engadget

SK Telecom shoves Android onto a SIM, we check it out -- Engadget

Apple bumps up 3g download capacity

Apple has increased the cap for downloads over 3G networks on the iPhone from 10MB to 20MB, in what some think is a sign of heavier multimedi a content appearing for the upcoming iPad.

By now, every time you wanted to download a podcast or application from the App Store that was over 10 MB, you got an annoying message asking you to use Wi-Fi because the file was too large. But not anymore.

Apple lifted the 10MB cap, only to double it to 20MB, which should be a more reasonable figure for video and podcast downloads when out of Wi-Fi range. If you try to download files over 20MB though, a message will prompt you to switch to Wi-Fi.

Besides giving iPhone users a wider variety of content they can download over 3G networks, the cap increase may be a sign that the iPad will require larger file downloads over 3G because of higher resolution graphics and more complex applications.

The initial 10MB cap was put in place so that iPhone downloads won't put too much strain on wireless networks, such as AT&T, which is struggling to handle the traffic. For example, AT&T iPhone tethering, which would produce even more traffic on the network, hasn't been adopted yet, despite operators around the world enabling the option.

But despite difficulties with the AT&T network, Apple decided to forge a deal for 3G connectivity with the carrier again, this time for the 3G-enabled iPads arriving late this spring. Also, Sling Player 3G streaming has been enabled on the iPhone this week, after AT&T allegedly held back this feature because of fears of increased traffic.

AT&T must be under pressure to keep up with Apple's traffic-demanding products because the carrier's exclusivity with the iPhone in the U.S. is soon coming to a close.

Daniel Ionescu, PC World

Revolution 2.0 :Mobile

          It seems that technology is making a turn for the best. Since the inception and release of the iPhone it seems the mobile market has been about one thing, killing the iPhone!!!!!! There has been countless attempts by mobile GIANTS like HTC ,  Motorola, Samsung, etc...... But now there is a legitimate chance in that happening in the Nexus One by HTC and Google. With all that one-upsmanship happening over the past 5 years, do you think the mobile industry has gotten better with it, or worst? Everything seems to be the same, hi-res touch screen, no buttons( physical or optical ), hi res camera with video capture, and wi-fi connectivity. I know parody is common amongst rivals, but soon every device on the market will be exactly the same.
        So i ask you, when does it end, or has it come to an end already? What is the next revolution in mobile devices, and most importantly, will the technology be available to everyone? Can the ever changing mobile market maintain its growing rate, and still be able to keep the consumer in mind? let me know what you think.

Things are Heat Up Between Apple and Nokia

Apple is one step closer to potentially taking a bite out of Nokia's U.S. market share. The U.S. International Trade Commission on Thursday said it will review the iPhone maker's complaint against the Finland-based mobile-phone giant. The ITC is also reviewing a similar complaint from Nokia against Apple.

The ITC is an independent federal agency that, among other things, reviews complaints against unfair trade practices involving patent, trademark and copyright infringement. It has the authority to order U.S. customs officials to block goods from entering the U.S. If Apple wins its bid, it would effectively block Nokia from bringing its handsets into the U.S.

"Obviously there is a lot of money to be made in mobility. Over time, if it turns out there are legitimate claims on anyone's part, usually there is some sort of licensing deal," said Michael Gartenberg, a vice president at Interpret. "This does show that companies like Apple will continue to be targets because you don't sue companies that don't have money."

Mobile Tit for Tat

Both Apple and Nokia are alleging patent infringement. Nokia took the first swing in October when it filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Delaware accusing Apple of infringing on its patents for GSM, UMTS andwireless LAN (WLAN) standards. The patents cover wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption, and Nokia said they are infringed by all Apple iPhone models shipped since its introduction in 2007.

Apple sat quietly for about two months before launching a counterattack against Nokia in December. Apple's countersuit charged Nokia with infringing on 13 Apple patents. That led to an escalation, with Nokia proceeding to file its complaint with the ITC and Apple quickly following suit.

The ITC's Busy Agenda

The ITC has its hands full these days with mobile-market complaints. Beyond the Nokia-Apple brawl,Eastman Kodak filed a complaint with the ITC on Jan. 14, resulting in an investigation of both Apple andResearch In Motion.

The complaint alleges violations of section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 in the importation into the U.S. and the sale of certain mobile telephones and wireless communication devices featuring digital cameras and components that allegedly infringe Kodak patents.

"By instituting this investigation, the ITC has not yet made any decision on the merits of the case," the ITC said. "The ITC's chief administrative law judge will assign the case to one of the ITC's six administrative law judges who will schedule and hold an evidentiary hearing."

Kodak's Licensing Push

Within 45 days, the ITC will set a target date for completing its investigation. Kodak also filed separate lawsuits against Apple and RIM. Kodak Chief Intellectual Property Officer Laura Quatela said the company has held discussions with Apple and RIM for years in efforts to resolve the issue amicably and did not reach a satisfactory agreement.

"Our primary interest is not to disrupt the availability of any product but to obtain fair compensation for the use of our technology," Quatela said. "There's a basic issue of fairness that needs to be addressed. Those devices use Kodak technology, and we are merely seeking compensation for the use of our technology in their products."

Kodak has a winning record, having licensed digital imaging technology to approximately 30 companies, including such leading mobile-device companies as LG Electronics, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson. Most recently, an ITC judge ruled in favor of Kodak against Samsung for infringing on the camera maker's patents.

With the arrival of the iPad, Intel is getting ready for release its tablet via PC world

Intel is going after the tablet market for its low-power processors, including an upcoming Atom processor designed for mobile phones, the company said.

Earlier this week, OpenPeak released a reference design for a tablet using one of those upcoming chips, code-named Moorestown. The tablet will have an Atom-based CPU. The OpenTablet 7 tablet comes with a touchscreen is designed for multimedia and video communications, the company said. It is as slim as a photo frame, and weighs 1.15 pounds (0.52 kilograms), the company said.

Tablets are a potential growth area for newer and upcoming low-power, low-cost Atom processors, said Suzy Ramirez, an Intel spokeswoman.

"But it is by no means confined to Atom -- Intel has a range of products that will enable various tablet computing designs," Ramirez said. She did not specify which chips.

Smartphones with the Moorestown chip have already been shown. At the Consumer Electronics Show in January, Intel's CEO Paul Otellini showed LG Electronics' GW990 smartphone, which uses that chip and is scheduled to ship later this year. Finnish company Aava Mobile also showed a smartphone prototype with the Moorestown chip at the Mobile World Congress this week in Barcelona.

The OpenTablet reference design will ship in the second half of this year, OpenPeak said. Intel has pegged release for the Moorestown chip at around the same time.

Intel has little presence in the mobile space beyond netbooks, most of which carry Atom chips, said Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research. Because the growth rate for PC sales continues to slow, Intel has to look at new markets like tablets and smartphones to grow, McCarron said. A year ago, Intel said would spend US$7 billion over two years to revamp manufacturing plants in an effort to make smaller, more power-efficient chips as it tries to enter new markets.

Tablets and smartphones require low-power processors, so Atom is the chip for the company to use to jump into new markets, McCarron said. The Atom processor is based on the x86 architecture used in laptop and desktop chips, and Moorestown is perhaps Intel's first low-power x86 chip that can fit into devices out laptops and netbooks, McCarron said.

"Ultimately that's Intel's goal -- not world domination, but x86 domination," McCarron said. "They want to push x86 down to as many market segments as they can."

However, Intel faces a big challenger in rival Arm, whose processors go into most smartphones and are quickly making their way into tablets. Many tablets shown at CES in January use Arm processors. Companies like Dell and Lenovo have already announced tablets with Arm chips. Apple's iPad tablet contains an Apple A4 chip, which is also rumored to have an Arm processor.

Despite Intel's efforts, Arm is a step ahead in developing lower-power processors that may be ideal for tablets or smartphones, McCarron said. Intel has attempted to reduce Atom's power consumption, but it could take years for Intel to come close to catching up with Arm, McCarron said.

Mac Pro Audio Update firmware cuts performance lag - James Galbraith

A firmware update usually doesn’t grab much attention—particularly if it’s released in the midst of Macworld Expo. And yet, last week’s release of Mac Pro Audio Update 1.0 brings welcome relief to many Mac Pro users. Our tests found that the firmware update improves the performance of the desktops Apple released last March when they’re running the latest version of Snow Leopard.

To recap, the audio update firmware rolled out a week ago is meant to fix a problem where processors in 2009 Mac Pros seemed to go into overdrive when doing something as seemingly simple as playing a song in iTunes or writing data to an external hard drive. We had heard some grumbling about the problem in our Macworld.com forums, where folks complained that their processor temperature spiked whenever iTunes was playing, but it was unclear whether or not this higher temperature posed any kind of real threat to processor or system health. A post on Ars Technica indicated that performance times were adversely affected when music files were being played—as much as a 20-percent hit, according to users.

To find out what kind of performance hit the Mac Pro Audio Update 1.0 was trying to address, and how well it did at correcting the problem, we conducted a couple of tests on a stock 2.66GHz Mac Pro running Mac OS X10.6.2 with 3GB of RAM installed. Then we downloaded Mac Pro Audio Update 1.0 and ran the tests again.

Before the update, running an Aperture 2 import test took 19 percent longer to complete when iTunes was playing in the background than when Aperture ran alone. After installing the update, we saw just a one-second time difference.

Similarly, a Compressor encode test took 16 percent longer when we ran that program at the same we were running iTunes before we installed the firmware update. Afterward, the gap also narrowed to one second after the update.

For the purposes of comparison, we ran the same tests on a 27-inch iMac with a 2.66GHz Core i5 processor. (Just once this time, as there’s no firmware update to install.) We recorded a one-second difference between running the applications alone and with musical accompaniment via iTunes.

We installed iStat menus on the Mac Pro to help get an idea of what was going on under the hood. (iStat menus is a set of monitoring tools for your menu bar; you can read more about it at MacOSXHints.com.) You can see from the table that the CPU temperature sensor readings averaged around 120 degrees when running Aperture and iTunes before the update. After the update, the Mac Pro’s temperature was cooler—around 90 degrees. iStat’s CPU power monitor reported drawing around 72W before the update, but dropped to around 30W after the firmware update was in place. Similarly, iStat’s Power Supply monitor showed the desktop drawing 165W before the update and 105W after installing the update.

Mac Pro Audio Update 1.0 only works with Snow Leopard, though it’s worth noting that Mac users runningMac OS X 10.5 have also complained about the problem. Hopefully, help will be on the way to these Leopard users soon.

[James Galbraith is Macworld Lab director.]

School District sued for spying on kids?

Ive been reading about this story for a couple days now, the story is here , heres the gist of it. The Lower Marion School District gave the students school issued computers, 2,300 to be exact, equipped with webcams.The webcams were activated but only given the ability to take stills of the user and the desktop. The District maintains that it was done to find lost or stolen equipment, but the students and parents feel that they were being spied on, the district is accused of illegal wiretapping. So i ask you, would you allow this to happen to you or your children? Would you press charges against the school district? let me know what you think

Apple Reportedly Bans Overtly Sexual iPhone Apps -Ian Paul: PC world

Apple reporte dly has a new policy for its iPhone app store in which any application with "overtly sexual content" will be removed from the App Store, according to an e-mail obtained by TechCrunch. But just like countless previous times, this latest tweak to Apple's app rejection policy will have app developers scratching their heads trying to figure out what's going on.

Wobbly Policy

One app that has been removed from iTunes, called Wobble iBoobs, lets you take a selected image of a bikini model, add "wobble zones" to the photo, and then make those parts of the image move when you shake your iPhone. This app's function was apparently a little too hot for Apple, so the app's developer, Jon Atherton, received a removal notice from Apple, according to TechCrunch.

Referring to the Wobble iBoobs application, Apple reportedly wrote, " We have recently received numerous complaints from our customers about this type of content a nd have changed our guidelines appropriately. We have decided to remove any overtly sexual content from the App Store, which includes your application."

Other sexual apps that have disappeared from the App Store include SlideHer: Tera Patrick and Dirty Fingers: Screen Wash; it's not clear whether those apps were removed voluntarily or also received takedown notices.

The strange part is at the time of this writing there were still numerous apps with "overtly sexual" content available for your iPhone. A search in iTunes for the term 'boobs,' for example, turned up a plethora of sexy apps including Tight Body Perky Boobs, Epic Boobs, College Boobs, Adult Tennis Boobs and even the questionably named AwesomeBOOBS: Babies (it's not what you think).

Also found was an interactive strip game available called Strip Simon, and even one app with similar functionality to Wobble iBoobs called Shake to WOBBLE--albeit without the overt references to making an image of a woman's breasts shake. It's also worth noting that all of these apps, with the exception of Shake to WOBBLE, had the same 17+ age rating that Wobble iBoobs did.

How Hot Is Too Hot?

So if Apple is still allowing sexual apps on the iTunes Store, what's all the fuss about Wobble iBoobs and other "overtly sexual" applications? One possibility is that Apple is in the process of cleaning house, and it will take some time before the company can clear out all the apps from its store that it doesn't like.

Then again, the takedown notice for Atherton's app mentioned "numerous complaints from our customers." Perhaps Apple's new policy has more to do with responding to customer grievances about a particular app, than policing the prurient interests of iPhone users.

for more of Ian's stories follow him on twitter @ianpaul

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App Store launches in 13 new countries

App Store developers will now be able to reach customers in 13 new countries, according to an announcement on the iPhone Developer Program news page.

Apple has launched local versions of its App Store in Armenia,Botswana, Bulgaria, Jordan, Kenya, Macedonia, Madagascar, Mali,Mauritius, Niger, Senegal, Tunisia, and Uganda—which is sure to come in handy should you ever get the urge to grab that brand new app while you're climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, or while making your way across the beautiful Sahara desert.

Because of the way the iPhone SDK agreement works, inclusion in the new App Stores is not automatic—instead, developers need to log in toApple's iTunes Connect portal and request that their apps be added to the new distribution channels.

In Apple's quarterly financial conference call last month, the company said the App Store was available in 77 countries—this update brings that total to 90.

Via Macworld.com