Hasta La Gadget!

Remember that iRiver MX100 we spotted a few weeks ago? Yeah, well it’s about to hit Korean retail shelves soon with a new name, more specs and a smaller Android-based smartphone stablemate. The marketing snapshots taken by Cetizen show off both the wildly titled Tab (really?) and little brother Vanilla (really?) rocking Android 2.2 like it’s still 2010. Clearly iRiver’s not employing the best in branding here, opting instead for a middle-of-the-tech-road, “Clear Glass Look” me-too approach. Just look at these specs: the 3G, Flash-ready, 7-inch LCD tablet’s running a rumored 1GHz Hummingbird processor with a 5 megapixel camera, up to 32GB of expandable storage and Bluetooth. While its handset bretheren putters in with a 3.5-inch WVGA LCD display, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, 4GB of storage and unknown processor. These new additions to the Google mobile army won’t be topping nerds’ must-have wish lists, but they should do for Moms and other less tech-obsessed denizens of our free world. Hit the source for additional shots of these white-washed beauties.

iRiver’s Vanilla Android phone and tablet leak out, a few cubes short of 80s infamy originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Jul 2011 12:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This just in: people really like touchscreens, and their tastes aren’t going to change anytime soon. That’s the takeaway from a new report from market research firm DisplaySearch, which predicts that revenue from touch panel sales will hit the $13.4 billion mark by the end of this year, before soaring to nearly $24 billion by 2017. Shipments of capacitive touch displays, in particular, are expected to increase by 100-percent over last year, accounting for a full 70-percent of all tactile revenues. The mobile market still accounts for most of this industry-wide growth, but demand for touch-based tablets is accelerating considerably, with more than 72 million panels expected to ship this year, and 100 million projected in 2012. Jonesing for more numbers? Better gallop past the break to get your hands on the full PR.

Continue reading Report: Touchscreen demand to grow by 90-percent, led by mobile, tablet markets

Report: Touchscreen demand to grow by 90-percent, led by mobile, tablet markets originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Jul 2011 06:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Android’s Market now has an entirely new user interface. Photo courtesy of Google

Look out, iTunes, the Android Market is getting a face-lift.

Google launched an entirely new user interface for its mobile platform Tuesday, completely changing the layout of the application portal.

“The new Market client is designed to better showcase top apps and games, engage users with an improved UI, and provide a quicker path to downloading or purchasing your products,” wrote Android developer Eric Chu in a blog post.

Navigating the differing app categories on the phone-based market requires a swipe left or right, which switches to new, tile-based menu screens. The name and price of a given app you’ve chosen moves to the top of the screen. In addition to apps and games, you’ll also be able to browse movies and books available for purchase from the Market.

Android has long faced platform criticism for its Market setup, as both users and developers alike have had difficulty finding the programs they want in the 200,000+ app-packed Android Market. Apple, by contrast, has long promoted featured and popular apps in its iTunes-based App Store, a one-stop shop for all things iOS. But Google is trying to counter the complaints: At its I/O developer conference in May, Google rolled out a streamlined, app-promoting look for the Market’s web store, with the inclusion of categories like “Top Grossing, Trending” and other ‘top’ apps.

Google claims its latest changes will appeal to developers’ bottom line. The new layout enables two-click purchases of apps, eliminating as much friction as possible so customers can purchase apps faster and easier.

Typically, developers have started creating apps in an iOS environment, perfecting the program their before eventually making it over to the Android ecosystem. But Android co-founder Rich Miner says that will be changing soon.

“It’s become clear that the market has definitely matured for Android,” said Miner at the MobileBeat technology conference in San Francisco on Tuesday. “Towards the end of last year I was recommending to companies that they focus on iOS mobile system — that has clearly flipped,” Miner said.

As a whole, the smartphone industry is growing at a rapid pace. 55 percent of U.S. mobile devices purchased over the last three months were smartphones, according to a Nielsen report published in late June. Android currently holds the title for the most used platform across U.S. smartphones with a marketshare of 38 percent according to ComScore. That’s a 15 percent bump up from February results. Apple edged out Research in Motion for second place, with shares of 26.6 percent and 24.7 percent, respectively.

But if Android wants to stay ahead of Apple and the rest of the pack, it needs to keep its app ecosystem attractive to both customers and developers alike. Beefing up the platform’s app catalog helps, but if customers can’t find the apps they want inside the huge pile, boasting big app numbers will be an exercise in futility.

The new landing page will roll out gradually to users running Android version 2.2 (Froyo) or higher over the next few weeks. If you aren’t keen on waiting, check out the video below for a peek at the Market’s new look.

Mosquito bites are perhaps the one thing that are worse than the heat in Japan during the summer. Not only do they itch the entire day, these pesky little blood-suckers annoy the general population with their loud buzzing and constant flying in circles. Sea’s Garden, a smart phone gaming and utility app maker, offers a solution to the terror that mosquitoes bring to man, without harming the environment.

The Mosquito Buster is an Android app (soon to be released for the iPhone as well) that acts as a mosquito coil, but instead of burning off insect killing smoke, it releases a high-frequency sound from your smart phone speakers which these insects detest.

The app is extremely simple to operate: users choose between 3 modes, each with corresponding frequencies. The first is obviously to avoid mosquitos, and the second, rodents. The third was what caught our attention and seemed particularly amusing. The third mode is titled “Avoid Children”, as it releases a frequency only detectable to children, as adult ears cannot hear the high pitched sound. It would be useful for parents who need a little bit of peace and quiet from their screaming, energetic toddlers. It’s nice to see useful utility apps like these that offer clever ways of solving consumer problems in an eco-friendly manner. Looks like I’m going to finally get a good nights sleep tonight without having to worry about pesky insects (or children for that matter) that bring a world of itchiness to my feet .

Related Posts:
Japan Mobile Marketing Round-Up: Part 4
Summer brings itchy groins, fun commercials
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Yesterday we got a preview of a new web-based jailbreak that worked with devices running iOS 4.3.3. But that version of JailbreakMe was unofficial and actually a leaked beta. Still, some users didn’t want to wait the extra few days for the official launch, so one developer named Ryan Vanniekerk got it working on his […]