Hasta La Gadget!

Mozilla has officially named its “Boot to Gecko” mobile platform, which will now be known as Firefox OS, and has signed up a clutch of carriers who have promised to back the new smartphone competitor. Deutsche Telekom, Etisalat, Smart, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefonica and Telenor have all jumped on board with the HTML5-based OS, while ZTE and Alcatel One Touch will both be creating devices expected to launch in early 2013.

Inside those phones, Firefox OS will run on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processors, though it’s not been confirmed which generation of chips will be used. Still, there should be plenty of power to keep HTML5 apps running swiftly; one of the things Qualcomm has long been pushing with Snapdragon is browser-engine performance.

Brazil will be the first country to get Firefox OS devices next year, with Telefonica signed up to offer them through its Vivo brand. Mozilla is heavily promoting the new platform’s customization options, helped by the fact that there’s none of the pesky middleware that’s usually present on smartphones.

Fully open-source, Firefox OS is based on the underlying Linux kernel modified for Android, with a ‘Gonk’ hardware abstraction layer and then the multi-platform Gecko Web browser engine to actually run all the “local” apps. There’ll also be a ‘Gaia’ UI and app suite that’s hardware-independent.

What remains to be seen is whether Firefox OS can hold its own against Android, which has already made significant inroads into the entry-level smartphone market. More on the platform in our hands-on.

Firefox OS smartphones due 2013 as Mozilla reveals partners is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Verizon has confirmed availability and pricing for the long-teased DROID Incredible 4G LTE launched at CTIA, which will hit the carrier’s 4G waves come July 5. The new HTC smartphone includes Beats Audio, an 8-megapixel camera, and a 1.2 GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor inside, and while in many ways it’s similar to the HTC One S, you do also get a microSD card slot.

Up front is a 4-inch super LCD qHD display, the same as the One S, and inside there’s Sense 4.0 running on top of Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich. In fact, this is really just a rubbery One S, though that’s no bad thing; there’s plenty to like about that phone.

Verizon will be charging $149.99 (after a $50 mail-in rebate) with a new two-year customer agreement. You’ll obviously need a voice and data plan, and the Incredible 4G LTE’s mobile hotspot feature supports up to ten tethered clients.

There’s more on the Verizon DROID Incredible 4G LTE – including some benchmarking – in our full hands-on.

Verizon DROID Incredible 4G LTE drops July 5 is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Back in May, HTC published a long list of handsets that would be receiving an update to Ice Cream Sandwich, the Incredible S includes among them. According to reports the ICS update is now rolling out for the mid-range handset of old, arriving just in time to hit HTC’s own July timeline. We imagine that the unlocked GSM version will be seeing the update first with staggered updates depending on your region and carrier.

The update apparently comes in at around 250MB and is being delivered OTA, so there’s no need to rush to your computer and find a microUSB cable. If your phone hasn’t already pinged you about an update, it might be worth checking manually. Ice Cream Sandwich will bring some performance improvements, Face Unlock, and HTC has bumped Sense up to 3.6.

If you’re using an HTC phone with less than 512MB of RAM, you won’t be getting an ICS update. Other handsets such as the Desire S, the Desire HD, and Rezound are still due an ICS update though, with HTC’s schedule suggesting those handsets will see the upgrade between July and August. Hang tight in the meantime, HTC fans.

[via the::unwired]

HTC Incredible S ICS update rolling out now is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Microsoft showed off all the new features of Windows Phone 8 at its Summit event a couple of weeks ago, but is the company planning to introduce a new keyboard as well? WMPoweruser has been handed a picture of a new keyboard from a Microsoft Research presentation, showing a curved approach that would match the user’s thumb placement.

The keyboard has reportedly been designed for one-handed thumb typing, with the keys aligning with the natural resting angle of the thumb against the screen. Keys are placed together, almost like a T9 keyboard but using a QWERTY layout instead. A language option can be found at the bottom right corner, while oddly sized back and enter keys are off to the side.

WMPoweruser also notes that the keyboard is being demoed on an HTC Trophy, so it’s possible that the new feature could be destined for Windows Phone 7.8 and not just restricted to Windows Phone 8. Still, we’re eyeing this picture cautiously given the skewed “Curved to match thumb” text not aligning with the display, and there’s still the question of usability versus a normal on-screen keyboard.

Windows Phone may feature curved “Arc” keyboard is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Looks like the VideoLAN team is busy: this morning they updated the OS X desktop client to support the Retina display on the MacBook Pro, and now a beta version of VLC has landed in the Play Store. The team stress that this is a very early version of the software with basic functionality, with lots of work still needed before it will work on the wide range of Android devices available.

Still, we managed to download it to our Galaxy Nexus running Jelly Bean without any problems. Hardware acceleration for videos isn’t enabled by default, leading to stuttery video and decoding artifacts. Once you dive into the preferences and enable it, everything is nice and smooth, although it might not work on every device just yet. Another downside: video doesn’t fully occupy the display just yet, with the dimmed on-screen buttons still present off to the side even in landscape.

The team notes that the current version only supports phones with ARMv7 CPUs and NEON hardware support. That covers a lot of devices, but will leave some entry-level phones out in the cold. The Play Store description also details how the UI will change in the future, performance will improve, and you might run into some trouble with audio.

It’s nice to see VLC finally make the jump to Android, but there are a lot of video players already on the market with a wide range of hardware support, like BS Player, MX Player, and Dice Player. Make sure to hit up the Play Store to give VLC a whirl, but bear in mind the restrictions and maybe give some alternatives a look if you need perfect video playback on the go.

[Thanks, Armin!]

VLC Beta for Android hits the Play Store is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.