Hasta La Gadget!

Huawei has been kicking for well over two decades, and while a great deal of its business revolves around the enterprise, the company still has a presence in the consumer arena (most recently with its S7 tablet). But for whatever reason, it’s having one bear of a time breaking into the US acquisition game. According to a pair of people sourced by Bloomberg, Huawei wasn’t selected as the winning bidder of two large US assets in recent months despite having offers of “at least $100 million more in each case.” Ouch. As the story goes, the sellers (2Wire and Motorola) “doubted Huawei’s ability to win US government approval,” possibly because of the founder’s prior role as an official of the People Liberation’s Army. It’s also not the first time that Hauwei has been deterred in the US; the outfit dropped a bid in 2008 for 3Com after America began “investigating whether a deal would give China access to anti-hacking technology used by the Defense Department.” ‘Course, given the existing legal trouble between Huawei and Motorola right now, we’re not sure a +$200 million bid would’ve sealed the deal on its recently hawked wireless equipment unit. Hit the source link if you’re down for a serious read. Mystery, drama, deceit — it’s all there.

Huawei bids high, loses hard on two major US assets originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Aug 2010 04:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yeah, it may look like the Dell Aero when peeking it head-on, but Motorola’s Glam is apt to be far more sophisticated that the self-proclaimed “world’s lightest Android phone.” Launched today over in South Korea, this Android 2.1-based handset (which we toyed with earlier in the year when it was known as the XT800) boasts a 3.7-inch capacitive multitouch panel (854 x 480), dual LED flash, a 5 megapixel camera, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, 3.5mm headphone jack, USB 2.0 connectivity, an HDMI socket, 1GB of NAND Flash, 512MB of SDRAM, an 8GB microSD card, inbuilt GPS and support for a multitude of multimedia formats. Mum’s the word on a price, but it should be shuffling over to SK Telecom — high heels and all — by the end of August.

Motorola Glam brings Android 2.1, plenty of ritz to South Korea originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Aug 2010 04:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BlackBerry maker Research In Motion unveiled a new smartphone Tuesday that offers iPhone-like features to “crackberry” addicts — while adding a few unique touches.

The BlackBerry Torch is targeted at general consumers rather than BlackBerry’s traditional base of business users. It includes an updated version of the BlackBerry operating system, called OS 6. The phone will be available Aug. 12 for $200 with a two-year contract on the AT&T network.

The Torch is a big step forward for RIM, which has been working for nearly 16 months with AT&T to create a device that can compete not just with the iPhone but also with a host of snazzy Android devices that are fast gaining market share. RIM’s earlier touchscreen phones, the Storm and Storm 2 on Verizon Wireless, were popular, but drew criticism for their buggy OS, browser and hardware. Meanwhile, in 2009 RIM launched its app store and attempted to attract developers to build software applications for the phone.

The Torch helps brings all those efforts together. The device includes a new web browser, which AT&T has called a “generational shift” from previous BlackBerry browsers. For instance, the Torch offers tabbed browsing. And unlike most other BlackBerry devices, the Torch will have the BlackBerry app store, App World, pre-loaded.

Instead of just a touchscreen, the Torch includes both a touchscreen and a slide-out, physical keyboard. The design is evocative of the Palm Pre.

The Torch has three times the input options of the iPhone: You can tap on a virtual keyboard on the 3.2-inch, 480 x 360 pixel display, you can slide out the hardware keyboard preferred by most BlackBerry users, or you can use an optical trackpad to select menu items.

Overall, the Torch is slightly larger than the iPhone, even with the keyboard tucked in, and weighs 5.6 ounces to the iPhone 4’s 4.8 ounces.

BlackBerry 6 also sports a universal search feature. When you search, the BlackBerry Torch not only queries e-mail, calendar, and apps on the device, but also external services such as Google and YouTube. An API lets developers make other services searchable here, too.

Hands on With the BlackBerry Torch

I managed a brief hands-on during today’s press event. We will reserve final judgment until we get unfettered access to a unit for a full review. But in my quick test, the device was comfortable, especially if you’re used to BlackBerrys. That said, it failed one early test: Swiping my finger to the side to bring up a new screen of apps, I noted way more lag time than I did on my first-generation iPhone.

If it takes off, the Torch has implications for web advertisers and publications. Its new web-browsing feature, Autowrap Text Zoom, reformats web pages with a more-suitable fonts for easier viewing. In the process, it strips all ads and images from web pages — something I confirmed during my demo.

The new BlackBerry Torch sports a virtual keyboard.

Gone are the days when folks used their smartphones only for e-mail and SMS. Now you also need to be able to link to Twitter, Facebook, IM and so on. BlackBerry Torch integrates multiple social feeds into a single dashboard, organized by time. Likewise, a native RSS reader and podcast manager handle the same tasks for your newsfeeds and podcasts. It’s about time the BlackBerry got these features, because most Android phones today do this out of the box.

RIM took several steps Tuesday to attract more app developers to the BlackBerry. RIM’s strategy for growing its app selection, according to software CTO David Yachs, is to make it easier for customers to find apps and to pay for them. RIM also wants to make it easier for developers to build both native Java apps and web-based, HTML5 apps using the company’s “web-kit platform.”

“Developers using the web-kit platform get all the capabilities our Java developers do,” said Yachs.

And the universal search feature certainly makes these apps easier to find.

To solve the problem of how customers will pay for these apps and how developers can hope to make money, RIM is working with AT&T to add a charge to a customer’s AT&T bill. Customers will also be able to pay for apps using Paypal or a standard credit card.

In addition, RIM allows developers to charge subscription fees and offer apps on a “try before you buy” basis. All of those options seem aimed at giving developers more options than Apple does, which controls all iPhone app payments through its iTunes store.

Music fans will be pleased to note that the BlackBerry Torch’s native music app carries metadata representing every song in your home computer’s library — a unique feature, as far as I know. No matter where you are, you can tag songs for downloading to the Torch by Wi-Fi, and the next time you’re on your computer’s network, it will transfer over automatically. That means you can use your downtime to prune and add to your mobile music library — a nice touch.

Other noteworthy inclusions: a 5 megapixel camera with flash, geo-tagging of all photos, two-fingered tapping for the selection of multiple onscreen elements (for instance to batch-upload photos to Facebook) and seamless switching between apps.

From what we saw, the BlackBerry Torch justifies AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega’s claim that this is “the best BlackBerry to date.” But I am not sure it can attract those who already have an iPhone or Android in mind –- and, crucially, the app developers that could draw them.

See Also:

• BlackBerry Maker Overhauls Phone Operating System
• RIM CEO Offers a Peek at New BlackBerry Browser
• 5 Things RIM Needs to Fix in its BlackBerries
• 5 Things RIM Needs to Fix in its BlackBerries
• Research In Motion Woos BlackBerry Developers

Photos: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.com

Judging by the fact that our lovely planet is home to the Libretto W100, the Kno, Onkyo DX and oodles of prototypes that utilize twin panels rather than a panel and a keyboard, Sharp’s newest microchip is likely to draw some serious industry attention. Improving on an idea that began in 2008, the company has recently shown off a new chip (dubbed LR388G9) that can control two mobile LCDs and can simultaneously display a pair of different 1,024 x 480 pixel clips on a pair of screens; moreover, it can output full 1080p to any source connected via HDMI. Since ’08, Sharp has increased memory capacity from 16Mbits to 32Mbits while boosting the image processing speed, and the company now intends to hawk this new guy to outfits who manufacture smartphones, e-readers, digital photo frames and even netbooks. If all goes well, the chip will ship within a 261-pin WFBGA package this September, with volume pricing pegged at around ¥2,400 ($27).

Sharp microchip enables dual-screen smartphones, e-readers and netbooks originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Jul 2010 06:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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San Francisco passed a new law last month that requires all retailers to display the amount of radiation a cellphone emits. Predictably, that law is now coming under fire from CTIA, the wireless industry group. CTIA has filed a lawsuit to block enforcement of the ordinance.

“The ordinance misleads consumers by creating the false impression that the FCC’s standards are insufficient and some phones are safer than others based on their radio frequency emissions,” says CTIA, which seems geared up for this battle.

CTIA has already canceled plans to hold future conferences of its ‘Enterprise and Applications’ show in the city. The event this October will be the last one CTIA will have in San Francisco in the “foreseeable future,” it has said.

The effect of radiation from cellphones on users has become a highly contentious issue. As consumers become increasingly glued to their phones, researchers, environmental organizations and cellphone industry groups are debating the question of what exactly is the impact of the radiation emitted from the phones. So far, there has been no conclusive answer.

In the U.S., the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) sets the acceptable radiation standards for cellphones. As part of the device certification process, all handset makers have to use an independent lab to test radiation emissions from the phone. The certificates and radiation levels are displayed on the FCC’s site along with the product details but they are not easily accessible to consumers.

Earlier this year, a non-profit organization called the Environmental Working Group created a database where customers can look up the Specific Absorption Rate–the rate at which energy is absorbed by a mass of tissue, a measure of radiation emitted–for their phones. San Francisco’s ordinance steps it up by requiring retailers to display this information in stores.

That doesn’t help consumers, says CTIA.

“The problem with the San Francisco ordinance is not the disclosure of wireless phone SAR values–that information is already publicly available,” says CTIA Vice President of Public Affairs John Walls in a statement. “CTIA’s objection is that displaying a phone’s SAR value at the point-of-sale suggests to the consumer that there is a meaningful safety distinction between FCC-compliant devices with different SAR levels.”

“The ordinance is not only scientifically unsupported, it violates the Supremacy Clause in Article VI of the United States Constitution and must be stricken,” says CTIA.

San Francisco city officials are fighting back.

“I am disappointed that the association representing the wireless communication  industry has decided to challenge our landmark consumer information law in court,” Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco says in his statement. “This law is not an attack on the wireless industry or their products.”

See Also:

• Study Reveals How Much Cellphone Radiation You’re Getting
• Inside a Cellphone Radiation Testing Lab
• Video: Cellphone Radiation Pops Popcorn
• Cellphone Use Changes the Brain, Say Scientists
• Inside Apple’s Antenna Design Lab
• Nothing to Fear From Wi-Fi Radiation

Photo: Inside a cellphone radiation testing lab (Priya Ganapati/ Wired.com)