Mobile

New Dragon Dictation iPhone App Is Free (For Now)

Dragon Dictation, the market leader in voice to text dictation software has just released an iPhone app, which integrates with the device's messaging, email and clipboard functions. All speech to text processing by the app is carried out in the cloud on the developer's servers. Functionality of the app is straightforward: you press the button and start talking.   After recording, you can edit the resulting text before sending or saving. Since the processing is carried out remotely, ...
READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

Square Offers Smartphone-based Credit Card Processing

Square is a new credit card payment processing system for use on smartphone devices (currently only the iPhone) that is now in beta testing. The physical unit, seen in the picture above, is a one-inch diameter slim plastic box that plugs into a device's standard 3.5 mm audio jack. The software allows for payment approval, records signatures and can email or sms a detailed receipt (as below) The system can accept payments up to $60.  Square gets a percentage of every transaction charged th...
READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

Acer To Release Ten New Android Phones Next Year

Beginning with the Acer A1 Liquid smartphone, which was announced last month, and which should ship before the end of the year, Acer has now announced that it will be releasing a total of 10 new Android phones in 2010.  The company is hoping to capture 6-7% of the world smartphone market next year. The Liquid A1 will run Android 2.0, have a 1GHz processor, 3.5-inch WVGA touchscreen, 5-megapixel camera, aGPS, and a standard 3.5mm headphone jack. via New Cell Phones
READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

Ringback Tone Service Muzicall Raises €9 Million In Latest Round

Muzicall, the European ringback tone (RBT) broker, which  offers third party RBT services through many of the leading operators in Europe, including Orange, Vodafone and T-Mobile, raised €9 million ($13M) in its latest round of funding from BlueRun Ventures, GP Bullhound, Orkos Capital, Thule and Veddis Ventures. The international RBT market (the busines of replacing the sound that is heard after a call is placed and before it is answered - generally with a musical work) is estimated to be ...
READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

picoChip Raises $20 Million For Femtocell Technology

picoChip, the largest producer of femtocell wireless access point systems for mobile telephone networks, announced yesterday that it has raised an addition $20 million in funding from Atlas Venture, Highland Capital Partners, Pond Venture Partners, Scottish Equity Partners, and Rothschild as well as strategic investors AT&T, Intel and Samsung. ABI Research forecasts the total available femtocell market in 2010 will reach 2.3 million units, rising to 40 million units in 2014.  In 2009,...
READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

Nokia Release N900 ‘Pocket Computer’ in US

Nokia's N900 smartphone is now in stores in the US and is already shipping to pre-order customers. The phone, which is referred to as a 'mobile computer' by Nokia, is powered by an ARM Cortex-A8 600MHz processor with up to 1GB of total available application memory.  The phone has a 3.5-inch 800 x 480 touch screen and a slide-out qwerty keyboard. Size-wise, the phone is a beast. It measures 4.4 by 2.4 by 0.7 inches and weighs 6.4 ounces. There’s up to 48GB of storage space, a 5-megapixe...
READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

Nokia E72 Launched – Same Looks As E71 With More Under The Hood

The Nokia E72, the new top of the line Nokia business phone, has finally been released. Visually, the E72 is identical to its predecessor, the E71.  The differences are mostly under the hood. Most importantly, the E72 now has a 600 MHz CPU, up from 360MHz CPU in the E71. The new version also has 250MB of built-in phone memory. The camera is improved to 5 migapixel, up from 3.2 and supports 640 x 480 (VGA) video recording resolution. The software has also been updated, with re-wo...
READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

ST To Release Single Chip 3-Axis Gyro Sized And Priced For Mobile

STMicroelectronics, the first company to produce single-package 3-axis accelerometers will soon be the first company to produce a single package 3-axis  analog gyroscope (according to Benedetto Vigna, General Manager of STMicroelectronics’ MEMS and Healthcare division). The company's announcement on November 11 says that the single-chip 3-axis analog gyro will be suitable for a wide range of mobile devices. The package is sized at 4.4 x 7.5 x 1.1mm, and will cost $3.60 each for bulk or...
READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

Sony Ericsson Completes Nortel Unit Acquisition

Sony Ericsson announced yesterday that it has completed its acquisition of Nortel's divisions related to CDMA and 4G LTE technology in North America, for $1.13 billion. "Ericsson will enjoy new access to North American CDMA customers and can better support CDMA networks that will transition to LTE, "said Angel Ruiz, head of Ericsson's North American operations. From the press release: The acquisition includes the transfer of important CDMA contracts with North American operators including...
READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

Walmart Releases iPhone App

Walmart has just released a free-download iPhone app, which has some pretty cool features.  As expected, it's got a service for locating the nearest Walmart and browsing items on sale. (For now, only electronics items are listed.) On the more creative side,the app integrates with the iPhone's camera to help you estimate the size of an area where you plan to place a TV - you take a picture of an area where you plan to place a tv, drag borders to the appropriate size and the program will re...
READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

Nokia Rumored To Be Planning Takeover Of Palm Inc.

Although there's no official word, rumors that Nokia is planning on acquiring Palm Inc. supposedly sent shares of Palm up 8% today. This rumor's been popping up from time to time for months -buying Palm would give Nokia the Pre, Pixi and probably most importantly - WebOS. and Nokia apparently has the cash, over $9 billion - more than enough to finance a takeover.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

NASA Ames Scientist Working for Homeland Security Turns Your Iphone Into A Tricorder

Nasa recently announced that Jing Lee, a scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center, along with other researchers working in the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate, developed a proof of concept of new technology that could mean compact, nanosensor-based chemical sensing capabilities to cell phones. The device is about the size of a postage stamp and can detect low concentrations of ammonia, chlorine gas and methane. And if you add tricorder sounds to all of...
READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

Dell Anounces Android-Based Mini 3 Smartphone – To Be Available Only In Brazil and China

Not a lot of information here, but it looks like Dell is releasing its Mini 3 smartphone in Brazil through the national carrier Claro (42 million subscribers and in China through China Mobile (500 million subscribers). The phone definitely runs Android 2.0, but it looks like it will be running China Mobile's Android-based Ophone platform in China. No word on specs yet, but we'll let you know as soon as those are released.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

Too Little, Too Late, Too Expensive – TomTom IPhone App Gets Upgrade

TomTom's $99 Iphone Navigation App should be getting a much needed upgrade soon, once the new version is approved by Apple. New features include Text To Speech for spoken navigation, the ability to play  and change songs without having to leave the navigation app, and the inclusion of a 'safety camera database' to let drivers know when speed traps are approaching. The app met with considerable ridicule when it was first launched for its high price point - there are standalone navigatio...
READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

Google Latitude Now Has ‘Location History’ Feature

Latitude, Google's location-aware mobile app, which allows consenting users to keep track of each others' locations, now has a cool  new feature:  it allows users to keep track of and map their own location history. Off the top of my head, this is going to come in extremely handy for sleepwalkers, alcoholics, murder suspects and people who lost their car keys. Here's an excerpt from today's announcement on Google's Mobile Blog: Google Location History Whether you're taking a road trip ...
READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

Clearwire Raises $1.56 Billion From Investors

Clearwire, the 4G Wi-Max Network now in development announced today that it has raised an additional $1.56 billion from its key investors Sprint, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Intel, Eagle River Holdings and Bright House Networks. They are purchasing new Clearwire shares priced at $7.33 each in the following amounts: Sprint $1.176 billion. Comcast $196 million. Time Warner Cable $103 million. Intel $50 million. Eagle River $20 million. And Bright House $19 million. Notably ...
READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

Canada Getting GSM Version of The Droid With Multi-Touch In 2010

Canadian mobile provider Telus has agreed with Motorola to offer the Motorola Milestone, essentially a GSM version of the Droid with a multi-touch screen, in early 2010. The device has already been released in Europe, with a hefty €550 price tag.  No word yet on pricing for the Canadian version, but we expect it will be lower with a 2 year or more contract from Telus. The Milestone, which looks physically identical to the Droid, will feature Android 2.0 and 3G+ network access on Telus'...
READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

Google Aquires Admob For $750 Million

Google announced today that it has acquired mobile display ad platform, Admob.  The company specializes in mobile display ads, served in websites viewed on mobile browsers as well as in downloaded games and applications.  Their primary market and greatest success to date has been on the iPhone, but the company also recently launched an Android ad platform. With AdMob, Google will also be acquiring a suite of mobile tools including their ad marketplace, analytics and metric tracking.  Acce...
READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

Creative’s Zii Released: The World’s First 1080p Blu-ray Quality Handheld Media Processor

Creative spinoff ZiiLABS has cooked up a new system-on-a-chip architecture for high-demand, low-power, mobile media applications. Expect to see this chip in portable media players, e-book readers, smart phones and netbooks in the near future. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW9rUfejLss] The Press Release: ZiiLABS Introduces ZMS-08: The World's First 1080p Blu-ray Quality Handheld Media Processor New ZMS-08 StemCell Processor Offers Faster, Lower-Power Single Chip Solut...
READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

Motorola Droid Goes On Sale Today

If you've been anywhere near a TV or tech blog in the last month, you know that Motorola's Droid is the company's newest smart phone, and the latest contender in the struggle to compete with the iPhone.  Built with the active involvement and oversight of Google, the phone runs the latest version of Google's Android operating system.  Its got a touch screen, a slide-out keyboard, a cool mouse-type thumb controller and can run any app on Android's 3,000 strong (and growing) app store. The p...
READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>
« Older Entries