Top 7 Cell Phones

1. HTC Droid Incredible

The Droid Incredible by HTC is the future of computing in the palm of your hand. The super-sleek phone is less than half an inch thick, and yet it packs powerful components such as a 1 GHz processor, 8-megapixel camera, and a large high-resolution screen. Featuring the Android OS with Google, the Droid Incredible gives you access to all your social networks, websites, and thousands of applications, including Google Navigation with turn-by-turn directions.


2. HTC EVO 4G

The speedy HTC EVO 4G packs in some powerful specs and a variety of multimedia features into a stylish, minimalist design, but not everybody will get to enjoy one of its best features--4G connectivity.

3. Google Nexus One

Representing the next stage in smartphone development, the unlocked Google Nexus One phone from HTC offers supercharged power with one of the fastest processors currently available in a smartphone, a 3.7-inch AMOLED touch display, and access to all your contacts and most important data from a variety of Google tools via the Android 2.1 operating system.

4. Motorola Droid

The first Android-powered phone for Verizon Wireless, the 3G-enabled Motorola DROID smartphone offers a full package of powerful mobile connectivity--from easy access to all your social networks and viewing of full Web sites to spoken turn-by-turn directions thanks to the new Google Maps with Navigation Beta app. One of the thinnest full-QWERTY slider phones available, the Motorola DROID also features a high-resolution 3.7-inch touchscreen display and a virtual onscreen keyboard that auto-rotates depending on the phone's orientation. And you'll be able to capture high-resolution images and DVD-quality videos on the go with its 5-megapixel camera with flash.

5. Apple 32GB iPhone 3GS

Performance enhancements distinguish the otherwise evolutionary step-up iPhone 3GS from its previous iterations.

6. Motorola Cliq

The CLIQ 3G-enabled touchscreen phone for T-Mobile, is Motorola's first Android-powered device, and the first to feature the innovative MOTOBLUR overlay to the Android OS, which manages and integrates e-mail and social networking activity including Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. In addition to a brightly colorful 3.5-inch touchscreen, the Motorola CLIQ also offers a side sliding full QWERTY keyboard for quick typing of tweets, status updates, and e-mail.

7. BlackBerry Bold 9700

The BlackBerry Bold 9700 smartphone has a large, hi-resolution screen that displays over 65,000 colors; creating a vivid viewing experience for all your photos, videos, files and websites. Access what's important with trackpad navigation based on how laptops are designed. Glide your finger over the trackpad to scroll through menus and icons. A slight press and click lets you select an item to navigate where you want to go. Enjoy music, videos, photos and documents in great color and sound. Easily sync data and audio files from your desktop to the BlackBerry Bold 9700, and get up to 35 hours of music playback time.

Top 7 Cell Phones

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Viruses Planted in Windows Smartphone Games

Hackers have planted viruses in video games for smartphones running on Microsoft Corp's Windows operating system, according to a firm that specializes in securing mobile devices.

The games — 3D Anti-Terrorist and PDA Poker Art — are available on sites that provide legitimate software for mobile devices, according to John Hering, CEO of San Francisco-based security firm Lookout.

Those games are bundled with malicious software that automatically dials premium-rate telephone services in Somalia, Italy and other countries, sometimes ringing up hundreds of dollars in charges in a single month.

Those services are run by the programmers who built the tainted software, Hering said Friday.

Victims generally do not realize they have been infected until they get their phone bill and see hundreds of dollars of unexpected charges for those premium-rate services, he said.

Hackers are increasingly targeting smartphone users as sales of the sophisticated mobile devices have soared with the success of Apple Inc's iPhone and Google Inc's Android operating system.

Officials with Microsoft could not immediately be reached for comment.

[via Reuters]

Viruses Planted in Windows Smartphone Games

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Android Tablets on Show by Foxconn and Hardkernel

Two 10.1-inch touchscreen tablet designs that run Google's mobile Android software are on display at the Computex electronics show in Taipei, one from Foxconn Technology and the other by Hardkernel.

The tablet from Foxconn is a reference design made to show vendors what kind of tablets could be put into production quickly, and uses Nvidia's Tegra chipset inside. Few details about the reference design were available. Foxconn is the trade name of Hon Hai Precision Industry, the world's largest contract manufacturer of electronic devices.

The other tablet is a product from South Korea's Hardkernel named the Odroid-T, and uses a Samsung Electronics' S5PC110 1GHz chipset. The devices includes external GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0, a Micro-SD slot, standard SHCH slot and more. The company's Web site says it will be available in June, but does not list a price.

Both devices used Android version 2.1 and the Hardkernel model ran more smoothly. The company appears to have tweaked the Android software to run better on tablets. Android was designed by Google for smartphones.

The chipsets on both devices were both designed for high definition and 3D video, which companies believe will be important for the tablet market because people will watch a lot of video on the devices.

Over a dozen tablets designed to compete with Apple's iPad are on display at Computex this week, mainly with Android or Windows 7 software.

[via PCWorld]

Android Tablets on Show by Foxconn and Hardkernel

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Google is Leapfrogging Apple

Google is done playing catch-up. Today they're setting the agenda: With Android Froyo, Google TV, mobile ads and streaming media, Google isn't just matching Apple — they're taking the lead.

The I/O conference for Google has been so dense it could make you dizzy, with announcements from nearly every corner of Google's ever-expanding apparatus. The meatiest news comes direct from Google's most intense battlefronts: Android Froyo (version 2.2); a bevy of clever new cloud services; and a mobile ad platform paired with Google TV marching into battle with competing products from Microsoft, and much more pointedly, Apple.

During the last 18 months, Google has been going through a period of frantic catch-up, in which we saw Android reach feature parity with iPhone OS, the Android Market explode, and Google's confidence slowly build. Apple had been setting the terms of the battle, baiting Google into action. The competition was fierce, but the fight was on Apple's terms.

Google is tired of that. In the space of two days, they've leapfrogged Apple spectacularly: They've matched Apple's mobile OS in predictable ways, and embarrassed it in others (Flash on mobiles may not be as horrific as Apple has implied); they've invaded the living room with a dedication and vigor that makes Apple TV look like a jokey experiment; they've steamrolled the mobile ad market with as solid a platform as Apple's and, more importantly, hundreds of thousands of advertisers; they've taken massive steps into the cloud, and into streaming — the kind of stuff nerds talk about, but didn't expect to see so soon.

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Google is Leapfrogging Apple

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Google Unveils Android OS Version 2.2

Last Thursday Google announced that the Android OS Version 2.2, code-named Froyo, is right around the corner. Android 2.2 is the seventh platform to be released since the initial launch of Android 1.0 back in September 2008. There were five areas in particular that they thought needed to be addressed and include the following:

Performance & speed: The new Dalvik JIT compiler in Android 2.2 delivers between a 2-5X performance improvement in CPU-bound code vs. Android 2.1 according to various benchmarks.

New enterprise capabilities: We’ve added Exchange capabilities such as account auto-discovery and calendar sync. Device policy management APIs allow developers to write applications that can control security features of the device such as the remote wipe, minimum password, lockscreen timeout etc.

Faster, more powerful browser: We have brought the V8 JavaScript engine to the Android browser as part of 2.2. This has resulted in a 2-3X improvement in JavaScript performance vs. 2.1.

Rich set of new APIs and services: New data backup APIs enable apps to participate in data backup and restore, allowing an application's last data to be restored when installed on a new or a reset device. Apps can utilize Android Cloud to Device Messaging to enable mobile alert, send to phone, and two-way push sync functionality. Developers can now declare whether their app should be installed on internal memory or an SD card. They can also let the system automatically determine the install location. On the native side, a new API now gives access to Skia bitmaps.

Additions to Android Market: Android Market provides Android Application Error Reports, a new bug reporting feature, giving developers access to crash and freeze reports from users. Developers will be able to access these reports via their account on the Android Market publisher website.

Google Unveils Android OS Version 2.2

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Apple TV Embarrassed by Logitech's Google TV Box

Google TV, the new Android-based OS for the big screen, will power Logitech’s new set-top box, the still-not-properly-named Google TV companion box.

The sleek black Apple TV–sized box will run on a 1.2-GHz Atom processor with 4 GB memory, 802.11n Wi-Fi, dual HDMI-out ports, Dolby 5.1 surround sound and a pair of USB ports. If you hook up a webcam, you can even video-chat at 720p.

The box, which will launch in the fall, will at first be U.S.-only. It will hook up to your TV and then pull in content from cable, satellite and compatible DVRs. In short, you can Google the entire internet plus your home for TV shows and watch them wherever they may be.

Even the remote controls are exciting. While there will be some regular RF controllers available, you will be able to install an app on your iPhone or Android phone with a keyboard and a touchscreen D-pad. These will control not only the Logitech box but compatible TVs and set-top boxes, right from the phone.

Next to the Google TV, the Apple TV is starting to look less like a "hobby" and more like an embarrassing habit Apple is trying to quit. Video content is one place where more is better. Sure Apple TV can grab most things from the iTunes Store, but with a built-in Chrome browser, Google TV will grab content from anywhere that puts video on the web. The closest rival Apple has right now is probably the iPad. Maybe this is the kick in the pants Apple needs to finally update its own set-top box to something nearing useful.

Google TV companion box [Logitech]
Logitech’s Google TV companion box includes smartphone apps [Engadget]

[via Wired]

Apple TV Embarrassed by Logitech's Google TV Box

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46 Million Media Tablets to be Released by 2014

In a trend kick-started by the Apple iPad, more than 46 million media tablets are expected to ship in 2014. This is according to the new "Worldwide and U.S. Media Tablet 2010-2014 Forecast" released by IDC on Thursday.

Up substantially from the 7.6 million tablets likely to ship this year, that forecast points to a compound annual growth rate of 57.4 percent. Of course, that includes not just the iPad but other tablets following its lead and competing in the marketplace, including the new Archos 7 Home Tablet, a tablet from the likes of Intel, and a potential tablet from the team of Google and Verizon.

IDC's definition of a media tablet is one that sports a 7-inch to 12-inch display, is powered by an ARM processor, and runs a lighter operating system such as Apple's iPhone OS or Google's Android. Such tablets don't offer built-in hardware keyboards but instead ask you to use a stylus or your finger to navigate. That description sets them apart from tablet PCs, such as the Archos 9, which are powered by x86 processors and run full PC operating systems.

Demand for media tablets will be hugely fueled by the amount and variety of third-party apps that give users the content and services they crave, noted IDC.

"The availability of apps unique to media tablets and that differentiate the experience of using one compared with a PC or smartphone will be crucial for driving consumer demand," IDC program director Susan Kevorkian said in a statement. "As the category matures and more media tablet-optimized apps become available, IDC expects that media tablets will evolve beyond nice-to-have devices and become necessities for many consumers."

Beyond just tablets, touch screen devices in general are proving a hit with consumers, according to DisplaySearch's "2010 Touch Panel Market Analysis," released Wednesday.

Total shipments of touch screens hit 606 million last year, a 29 percent boost from 2008. Demand for mobile phones, MP3 players, and GPS units have driven much of that recent growth. Phones proved the biggest factor, with 376 million touch screens shipped for cell phones in 2009. But consumer appetite for all-in-one PCs, Netbooks, and tablets will also spur further gains, according to DisplaySearch.

[via CNET]

46 Million Media Tablets to be Released by 2014

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Google Partners with Sony and Intel to Create Google TV

Microsoft and Apple have been trying to get into your living room for years, with a variety of television-oriented products.

Now Google thinks it can succeed where other computer companies have seen only middling success. The company announced a new set-top box platform here Thursday: Google TV will marry television and the web, so users can search and view both TV and web videos with a single click.

Google TV, which is based on Google’s Android operating system, will have access to Flickr, gaming sites such as Club Penguin, and music sites such as Pandora and Rhapsody. It will combine that with a streaming media interface similar to that offered by companies like Boxee and Roku.

"There are three big limitations with the streaming media devices that exist today," said Rishi Chandra, senior product manager at Google, speaking at the company’s developer conference, Google I/O. "They try to dumb down the web for TV. They are all closed. Many of these devices have to choose between TV and the web."

Google has formed partnerships with Sony, Logitech and Intel to create hardware that will run this "smart TV" Android platform.

The Google TV software will be available on TVs, Blu-ray players and set-top boxes through Best Buy in fall this year. It will be independent of the cable service providers. All devices running the Google TV software will have Wi-Fi and ethernet connectivity, a keyboard and a "pointing device" or a mouse.

Google has also partnered with DirecTV to integrate Google TV into DirecTV’s digital video recorders (DVRs).

Google TV can also be controlled using an Android phone as a remote, says Chandra, and the mobile version of the Android market — Google’s marketplace for Android-compatible apps — will be accessible on Google TV.

[via Wired]

Google Partners with Sony and Intel to Create Google TV

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Verizon Wireless and Google Working on Tablet PC

Hoping to shake things up a bit in the world of touchscreen tablet computer technology and provide some competition for Apple's iPad, Google is set to launch a new device in collaboration with Verizon Wireless, hopefully soon.

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Verizon Wireless Chief Executive Lowell McAdam has confirmed this and says that the tablet is just part of a deepening relationship between them and Google, which has created much success in mobile devices with its Android operating system.

"We're looking at all the things Google has in its archives that we could put on a tablet to make it a great experience," he said.

Details including name, manufacturer, release date and operation system are still unknown, however McAdam also stated that, "We're looking at all the things Google has in its archives that we could put on a tablet to make it a great experience."

With Apple and AT&T selling over a million units of the iPad already in the first month alone, Google and Verizon are going to have to really step their game up if they hope to create some worthy competition.

Verizon Wireless and Google Working on Tablet PC

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