Nokia Clone Devices Hitting New Lows
It's nice to see that Nokia phone designs have made such an impact on the entire world that some lazy-arse Chinese manufacturers are now copying some familiar-looking phones for their PMP devices.
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It's nice to see that Nokia phone designs have made such an impact on the entire world that some lazy-arse Chinese manufacturers are now copying some familiar-looking phones for their PMP devices.
Having lost the urge to battle the likes of Nokia, who announced it would acquire digital mapper Navteq for $8.1 billion dollars, GPS maker Garmin decided to push in its bid for the only other available company: Tele-Atlas.
Well, I was pleasantly surprised to find that DNS propagation is now almost instantaneous. The good news is that the Nokia Phone Blog has been migrated over to a speedy new host, and it looks like the site made it through in one piece.
Unfortunately for readers of the Nokia Phone Blog, I "forgot" to transfer over the images folder, so it looks like those great little pics on the bottom of every post are gone for the time being. Oh yeah, and other stuff on the site is probably broken too. Just to let everyone know.
So that's that. Your normally scheduled blog entries will start right about now.
(Happy Halloween!)
Thanks to reader MikeK for this one. The Thrrum Visual Browser takes the Nokia idea of Point&Find, a new-age technology that I have yet to write about, and makes it a reality right now instead of having to wait another five years for Nokia to get the software part right.
Matsushita today reported earnings for its second quarter, which included expenses for the infamous Nokia battery "advisory" recall.
David Dewhurst mailed in to let us know about his new Finnish language-learning game for phones equipped with Flash Lite 2.0, appropriately called Flash Finnish.
The latest version of Flash Finnish can teach basic vocab, colors, and numbers.
It's been tested on the Nokia N95, N93, E90, and 6300 handsets, and should work with any newer (Symbian Third Edition FP1) phones.
Looks promising for those of you seriously attempting to learn the official language of Nokia. And then maybe you can tell me what "Espoo" means.
Grab the latest version at David's official Flash Finnish web site: Flash Finnish v1.1
I'm feeling extremely lazy today, so you'll have to settle for a choice microSD deal instead of the usual Nokia banter.
Newegg is selling this Kingston 2 gigabyte capacity microSD card for $19.99 - $3 rebate = $16.99 with free 3-day shipping. The retail box also includes a microSD -> SD card adapter and a clear plastic case. Hard to beat this price without resorting to shady measures involving Google Checkout and Buy.com.
Apparently, this particular microSD card also won Newegg's Customer Choice award.
It looks like the offer expires by the end of the month, so get your orders in quick!
Kingston 2GB microSD Card for $17
Stefan at IntoMobile wrote up an in-depth review of the Nokia N81 slider (8GB version). He's got a hell of a lot of gripes with the phone, but his bottom line is don't buy it, it ain't worth the price.
Engadget's got the latest on the status of the rumored Nokia N82: a leaked, low-quality picture of an actual N82 in action.
It may not look like much, but the N82 hides a 5 megapixel N95-quality camera along with a Xenon flash. (it should go without saying, but that means Carl Zeiss, autofocus, 30 fps video recording)
Apparently more information on the phone will be leaked on November 2nd. Or is that the official announcement?
Check out Engadget for the full-sized pic in all of its blurry glory.
Nokia's 5 megapixel N82 with WiFi and GPS spotted? - Engadget
If you've been following the iPhone on ebay, then you probably know that prices haven't dropped by a whole lot, mainly due to the easy availability of unlocked models for users that aren't on AT&T.
Now, in an attempt to curb the reselling business, Apple has implemented some new changes to purchasing iPhones from Apple Stores: Customers are only allowed to purchase a maximum of two iPhones and must pay via credit card.
Apple previously allowed customers to purchase five iPhones at one time and to pay with cash. The company estimated in a recent conference call that around 250,000 iPhones were purchased to be unlocked and resold.
Apple Imposes New Limits on IPhone Sales - AP
Forbes put together an interactive map showing how many cell phone subscribers sign up each minute in some of the largest regions of the world.
It was earnings day for Motorola, which for the past couple of quarters meant lots and lots of Bad News. But today was different.
In other news that has nothing to do with third-quarter earnings, Qualcomm announced that it would begin selling its new laptop chip, code-named "Gobi".
The Gobi-ster can connect to both EV-DO and HSDPA networks, which means you'll enjoy high-speed surfing on Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, or AT&T. It also sports an integrated GPS just for kicks.
Qualcomm expects the Gobi chip to start shipping in laptops some time in Q2 2008.
In news that surprised no one, AT&T made a lot of money this quarter.
To be more specific, AT&T reported thid quarter profits of $3.1 billion dollars (compared to $2.2 a year ago), $30.1 billion in sales revenue ($15.6 last year), and 2 million more wireless subscribers (now 65.7 million).
Profits came mostly from the company's acquisition with BellSouth as well as continued iPhone-mania, which basically translates into more sales, more subscribers, and more money in AT&T's already-deep pockets.
In what was termed Big News for Research in Motion, maker of the ubiquitous Blackberry series of devices, the company announced plans to team up with Alcatel-Lucent to sell the Blackberry 8700 in China.
Alca-Lu will distribute the devices through China Mobile, the country's largest wireless service provider with a giganto number of customers - 350 million, to be exact. Even a small percentage of that number could mean huge profits and growth for RIM.
Meanwhile, investors in RIM are making out like bandits: shares of the company rose almost 10% on the news, and have almost tripled since January.
RIM Moves To Put Firm's BlackBerry In China's Many Hands
South Korea's largest tech company reported its latest quarterly results recently, and for the most part it was a good showing all around.