T-Mobile's new G1 looks promising, if lopsided
T-Mobile's G1 is without a doubt its most hyped product launch. Practically all the information about the phone was "unconfirmed fact" one month ago, and today's release brings into perspective what the first "open" phone has to offer.
Thanks to FCC regulatory filings, we already know the general design specs and radio arrangement of the G1 (155mm x 55mm, 3.2" 480 x 320 HVGA screen, Quad-band GSM, UMTS, HSDPA 1700/2100, SUPL, 802.11b/g, GPS, non-A2DP Bluetooth). We also found out that at the heart of the G1 is the same CPU that the HTC Touch Diamond carries, the 528 MHz Qualcomm MSM7210A.
Sony's latest lightweights will have SSDs, play and burn Blu-ray
The smallest Sony devices to show Blu-ray movies on big and small screens aren't PlayStations. They're super-small, lightweight Vaio computers, and like a certain banned iPhone app, they have "I Am Rich" written all over them.
There have been, and continue to be, two classes of customers for small computer devices. One class is interested in making functionality portable enough to achieve true data mobility, and it's that class to which the latest rounds of MID and netbook form factor computers are being pitched. The other is interested in seeing how much hardware can be shrunken down to a minimum form factor -- oftentimes without regard to cost -- and it's that second class to whom Sony is playing today, with its latest miniaturized Vaio notebooks, slated to roll off the assembly lines this fall.
First thoughts: CS4 twirls, and occasionally sparkles
The parts of a product usually featured on a launch day demo may not always be the parts that will satisfy a day-to-day user. But as Angela Gunn reports, the parts of CS4 it chose to show off this morning could genuinely sway opinions.
[ME's NOTE: Today, we welcome into the BetaNews family of journalists the former USA Today correspondent and Tech_Space blogger, and the former co-host of public television's Digital Duo...and more importantly, someone I've been proud for years to call my friend and colleague: Angela Gunn.]I don't generally trust product demos when my own hands aren't on the keyboard -- not that every company does hinky things to make new software look faster or slicker or more stable than it is, but enough do so a person winds up suspicious.
HP to absorb Voodoo PC's catalog, re-org appears likely
Is one of North America's most prolific builders of ostentatious, custom PCs going the way of the Atari ST and the Exidy Sorcerer? The man in charge says no, but the way it's being said has not been filling folks with confidence.
A blog post from the usually forthright Rahul Sood, the CTO of the Voodoo business unit that was incorporated into Hewlett-Packard last year, is being interpreted by the hardware enthusiast community as a thinly-veiled, euphemistic notice of deep setbacks at the former VooDoo PC, and what had up until recently been called the Voodoo Business Unit.
Charm City awaits Xohm: Baltimore could be among Sprint's first
So we've seen Sprint's Xohm trucks driving around downtown Baltimore during most of September, in anticipation of the service's impending launch. But as the month nears its end, there's still no launch announcement.
BALTIMORE (BetaNews) - Rumors have recently circulated that Sprint's Baltimore Xohm network would be announced as soon as this Friday, with availability beginning on October 6 and with Baltimore, Maryland being an early rollout target. Sprint told Betanews this morning that the September launch for Xohm in Baltimore is still firm, so at most we've got one week before getting Sprint WiMax.
T-Mobile Android G1 phones priced at $179, launch Oct. 22
Google's two founders appeared on stage this morning at T-Mobile's launch event for the G1 phone, describing it as essentially a smaller laptop computer that isn't too much trouble to carry with you.
NEW YORK, NY (BetaNews) - At the T-Mobile G1 launch event, executives announced the launch date for the G1 Android-based phone in the US will be October 22. November is the scheduled month for the European launch, though a specific day has not been mentioned.
Adobe creates a suite launch with CS4
In what CEO Shantaru Narayan describes as his company's largest-ever product launch, Adobe on Tuesday formally unveiled all six flavors of version 4 of its Creative Suite, ranging in price from $999 to $2499 and slated to ship next month.
In an online presentation that went live this morning, John Loiacano, senior VP for the Creative Solutions Business Unit, divided Adobe Creative Suite 4's improvements into three categories: increased speed and efficiency, better Macromedia integration, and new "wow factor" features. Improved asset management is one of CS4's emphases, as are mobile application development and project collaborations, and Loiacano briefly touched on Adobe's trend toward hosted services such as Acrobat Connect.
One more iPhone app rejected for duplicate functionality
In an ongoing string of rejections by Apple's iPhone App Store, Angelo DiNardi's MailWranger is the latest application to get turned down, for much the same reason that Alex Sokirynsky's Podcaster was rebuffed about a week ago.
Apple officials have deemed that, like Sokirynsky's application, DiNardi's "duplicates the functionality" of an Apple tool built into the iPhone platform. As in DiNardi's case, Apple sees similarities with the iPhone's built-in Mail app.
Circuit City CEO resigns amid more looming bad news
Presaging dismal second quarter results for next Monday, Circuit City said today that its chairman, president, and CEO Philip J. Schoonover was stepping down, to be replaced by a retail turnaround artist named to the board in June.
James A. Marcum, who has served as vice chairman since August 18, has now been appointed to serve as acting president and chief executive officer.
SanDisk's slotMusic may have to survive a company takeover
The maker of microSD memory is a highly desirable property for both Samsung and Toshiba right now, and its newly-announced content delivery service slotMusic could almost be useful to either, at a stretch.
Since 2004, a full three years before Apple's iPhone became a reality, pundits predicted that the eventual "iPod killer" would be a phone. At that time, the predictor of things to come was the Samsung SPH-V5400, a music phone with a built-in 1.5 GB HDD. Analysts came to a consensus that the music phone would do for the MP3 player what the camera phone did for the point and shoot camera.
Can Tuesday's Android launch eclipse the iPhone?
Maybe T-Mobile doesn't have its own Steve Jobs, and maybe it's difficult to get worked up over something as nebulous as "Android." But some analysts do expect it to pick up considerable steam over the coming months and years.
At the most optimistic end of the scale, Strategy Analytics has predicted that the Android platform will grab a four percent share of the US smartphone market in the fourth quarter of this year. Yet the success of Android will hinge in large part on the impact of carrier subsidies on pricing, analysts at the firm acknowledged.
Users find PlayStation Network movie downloads are one-time only
A PlayStation 3 owner has brought to attention Sony's policies regarding movies purchased from the PlayStation Network: if one is deleted, it is rather difficult to obtain again.
According to Sony's licensing agreement: "Content cannot be redownloaded once it has been downloaded to either a PLAYSTATION 3 or PSP system. Content cannot be redownloaded once it has been downloaded to either a PLAYSTATION 3 or PSP system."
Comcast finalizes its network management strategy
In response to an order from the US Federal Communications Commission in August, Comcast Corp. released on Friday a "protocol agnostic" network management plan that could result in poorer performance for the heaviest users.
On August 1, the FCC found the cable operator in violation of net neutrality rules, meaning that despite Comcast denials the agency believed the company was restricting point-to-point traffic such as BitTorrent. Among other things, the report that Comcast released on Friday conceded that the company had indeed done that, though by way of protocols and not content.
Verizon Wireless offers alternative month-to-month contract
In a further gamble that its quality of service is enough to sustain its customer base, VZW this morning announced it will let customers pay for service month-to-month if they're also willing to pay full price for their phones.
Pre-paid contracts typically let customers acquire the phones they want for little or no up-front payment, and usually the best phones are paired with the longest contracts. Now, Verizon Wireless will let customers of its Nationwide Voice and Data plans either bring their own CDMA equipment -- which was an option expected since its historic announcement last November -- or purchase phones from VZW at full price.
Could SanDisk's plans for a music format get interrupted by Samsung?
SanDisk's potential acquisition, either by hostile Samsung, white knight Toshiba, or some other vendor, is likely to have little effect on its slotMusic product, said an analyst who has been watching the potential acquisition.
"Given that the acquisition, if and when it happens, is several months out, nobody can say," said Jim Handy, the Los Gatos, Calif.-based director of Objective Analysis, a semiconductor market research firm. "If Samsung is true to their word and allows SanDisk to continue to operate as a separate entity, then the service could continue."
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