Last but not least, Dolphin Browser comes to iPad
In late August, software developers MoboTap released Dolphin, the popular browser formerly exclusive to the Android platform, on iOS. Today, the tablet-specific version called Dolphin Browser HD is available for free in the iTunes App store.
Though Dolphin has a number of useful browser features such as tabs, sidebars, speed dial, desktop mode, and auto-completing URLS, there are two features that make this browser remarkable: Gesture browsing and Webzine mode, which launched on Android back in July.
MimoPlug: The touchscreen is a feature, not the main driver
REVIEW: To me, plug computers are exciting because they can perform low-to-mid-level computational functions at an extremely low overall energy cost. They are sort of like fanless PC's of the smallest order...General purpose computers that have the small physical and ecological footprints of embedded systems without the usage case limitations.
A couple of months ago, the people at Mimo Monitors released a bundle called MimoPlug that combined a touchscreen version of their famous USB mini-monitor with an equally miniature plug computer based upon Marvell's SheevaPlug platform that booted Debian off of an included SD card.
German ban on Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 sticks
Two weeks ago, German courts awarded Apple with a preliminary injunction on Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1, saying the tablet looked too much like the Community Design for handheld computers Apple registered with the European Union (shown above, Design Number 000181607-0001). Friday, that preliminary injunction was upheld in Düsseldorf regional court by Judge Johanna Brueckner-Hofmann.
The ban does not even consider the software or technology behind the two devices, and really only pertains to the design of the chassis, which Brueckner-Hofmann reportedly described as "minimalist" and "modern."
Google buys esteemed restaurant review guide Zagat
Google today announced it has purchased Zagat, the 32 year-old ratings guide considered to be a definitive standard of quality for restaurants, hotels, transportation services, and public attractions.
Marissa Mayer, Vice President of, Google Local, Maps and Location Services, said Zagat will become the cornerstone of Google's local offerings.
Colossal change to U.S. Patent system nears with today's 'America Invents' vote
The United States Senate is scheduled to vote on House Resolution 1249 at 4:00pm today; the bill also known as the "America Invents Act," which will begin a major overhaul to the US Patent System.
In a Senatorial debate last night, a bipartisan majority voted to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed, or in other words, to summarily end the debate and move along to the voting stage.
Motorola Droid Bionic: What's the big deal?
Verizon Wireless and Motorola Mobility on Wednesday announced the Droid Bionic will go on sale nationwide on September 8. It will be Verizon's thinnest LTE smartphone, and the second Motorola smartphone (after the Atrix 4G) to utilize a Lapdock and Firefox 4-based Webtop environment on top of Android.
Who could forget the Motorola Atrix 4G, right? That Android smartphone that could fit into a notebook dock or an HDMI dock and turn into either a netbook computer or a set-top box?
AT&T debuts $30 Android smartphone
Last March, I said low-end Android handsets had already begun their market takeover, and cited a half dozen companies that had released, or were planning on releasing mass market Android smartphones in 2011 and 2012.
One of the companies I mentioned, Chinese telecommunications equipment maker Huawei, had just released the Ideos X3, which had a consumer-friendly unsubsidized price of $199, falling in line with the company's tradition of releasing cheaper mass market handsets and modems.
Yahoo CEO Bartz: 'I've just been fired over the phone'
About to enter her third year as CEO of Internet services company Yahoo, Carol Bartz on Tuesday reportedly sent a message to all Yahoo employess stating that she had been fired.
Bartz ascended to the rank of CEO of Yahoo in early 2009, after the departure of the company's co-founder Jerry Yang.
Google says Gmail has been up 99.99% of the time in 2011
Google has set a pretty high bar for itself, guaranteeing 99.9% availability of Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, Google Docs, Google Groups and Google Sites to its Google Apps customers. If it cannot meet that level of availability, all of its customers are entitled to a certain amount of free days worth of service in each billing cycle.
In a somewhat self-aggrandizing blog about Google's cloud services today, Google Apps product manager John Collins reiterated that Gmail was up for 99.984% of 2010, and revealed that it's currently at over 99.99% uptime for the first half of 2011.
Sprint files antitrust lawsuit against AT&T, T-Mobile merger
On the last day of August, the U.S. Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit in the District of Columbia to block the proposed merger of national wireless network operators AT&T and T-Mobile. Tuesday, competing national carrier Sprint Nextel announced it had filed a similar antitrust suit in federal court, saying the $39 billion merger is, in short, illegal.
"Sprint opposes AT&T’s proposed takeover of T-Mobile,” a statement from Susan Z. Haller, vice president of litigation at Sprint, said today. “With today’s legal action, we are continuing that advocacy on behalf of consumers and competition, and expect to contribute our expertise and resources in proving that the proposed transaction is illegal.”
No more waiting for annoying cell phone salesmen to configure your new gear while they try to sell you accessories
While the short-range wireless technology known generically as Near-field communications (NFC) is still in its early stages of consumer adoption, the technology is already in its seventh year of development and it is maturing beyond the point where it can be used simply for exchanging small bits of information or payment authorization. Imagine if companies could make a single production run of smartphones, tablets, or notebooks without having to regionalize the software on it, and that was done the moment the machine was purchased.
Switzerland-based semiconductor company STMicroelectronics on Tuesday launched a new dual-interface EEPROM memory unit (M24LR64) that is specifically designed to make a system's data available via NFC at all times. EEPROM is a non-volatile form of memory commonly used in microcontrollers in industrial machinery, and can often be found in digital sensors and timers.
AT&T's T-Mobile buy could repeat mistakes of Verizon and Alltel merger
This week, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a civil antitrust lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia against national wireless carrier AT&T, who is attempting to acquire T-Mobile USA. The Department of Justice says the attempted acquisition is a violation of the Clayton Antitrust Act, shrinking the market for nationwide wireless coverage from four competitors to just three.
"Although smaller providers exist, they are significantly different from these four. For instance, none of the smaller carriers’ voice networks cover even one-third of the U.S. population, and the largest of these smaller carriers has less than one-third the number of wireless connections as T-Mobile," the lawsuit complains.
5 smokin' Android tablets launched this week
As it stands right now, there are no fewer than 50 different Android tablets on the international market, many from competitors you've probably never heard of unless you regularly shop in Chinese electronics shops, so differentiation is of crucial importance.
At IFA 2011 in Berlin this week, quite a few new Android tablets were either announced or launched, and each of the top-tier manufacturers who debuted a new product seemed to have homed in on a specific quality that they've improved over previous generations or over their competitors.
HTC unveils Mango phones: Titan and Radar
Taiwanese smartphone veterans HTC today unveiled their new Windows Phones, Titan and Radar, which are powered by Mango, the latest version of Windows Phone. They both come in familiar HTC shapes, but offer some improvements in performance and design.
Titan, as the name suggests, is rather big. With a 4.7" screen, it's actually HTC's largest smartphone to use the company's 9.9mm aluminum casing. HTC drew inspiration from Apple's Macbook laptops, and originally debuted these aluminum shells on the Legend early last year, but that was a single machined piece, and the phone was considerably smaller.
Trash that rooted Nook Color, Lenovo A1 is cheapest brand name Android tablet
Barnes and Noble's Android-powered e-reader, Nook Color, gained considerable popularity in the Android community for being a relatively cheap device ($249) that could be rooted to become a full-fledged Android tablet that runs surprisingly well, considering the device's somewhat limited 800MHz processor.
But today, Lenovo just completely smashed the Nook Color by revealing to the media at IFA Berlin the price for its baseline model IdeaPad A1 Android tablet will be just $199.
Tim's Bio
Tim Conneally was born into dumpster tech. His father was an ARPANET research pioneer and equipped his kids with discarded tech gear, second-hand musical instruments, and government issue foreign language instruction tapes. After years of building Frankenstein computers from rubbish and playing raucous music in clubs across the country (and briefly on MTV) Tim grew into an adult with deep, twisted roots and an eye on the future. He most passionately covers mobile technology, user interfaces and applications, the science and policy of the wireless world, and watching different technologies shrink and converge.
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