Hasta La Gadget!

We weren’t expecting much out of RIM’s presser here at MWC this morning, but the company managed to bust out one surprise — a demo of the company’s new WebKit-based BlackBerry browser. We’re assuming this is what came out of that Torch Mobile acquisition, and the early build shown off on-screen looks pretty solid, rendering Amazon.com quickly and scoring a full 100/100 on the Acid3 test. Unfortunately, there’s no word on when BlackBerry users will actually be able to get their hands on this, but rest assured we’re digging for more info. Video after the break.

Continue reading RIM demos new WebKit-based BlackBerry browser at MWC — it’s fast!

RIM demos new WebKit-based BlackBerry browser at MWC — it’s fast! originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Looks like the rumors we heard were true: august cordwainer Puma has teamed up with Sagem to make a phone — and it’s quite a looker, too. The Puma Phone (as it’s called) is a lightweight little guy that boasts an integrated solar cell for charging and charge indicator to let you know how you’re doing on juice, a QVGA TFT 2.8-inch capacitive touchscreen, plus a 3.2 megapixel cam with LED flash and 6x zoom. It also packs in GPS, a compass and geotagging, plus it’s got a host of ‘sporty’ features (pedometer, stopwatch and GPS tracker)… if you’re into an active lifestyle. This bad boy can be strapped to your arm when you’re on the go, but don’t blame us if it doesn’t score you any points with the passersby. The Puma Phone will be available throughout Europe in April of this year — no word on pricing or availability elsewhere yet. The full press release is after the break.

Continue reading Puma joins forces with Sagem to birth the Puma Phone

Puma joins forces with Sagem to birth the Puma Phone originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The LG GW990 got the lion’s share of the attention, but Intel showed off a second Moorestown-based MID (or giant smartphone, if you like) back at CES from Finnish startup Aava Mobile — more a prototype reference design created to show off Moblin 2.1’s capabilities than a retail-ready product — and it’s back in force here at MWC this week. What’s really striking about this thing is just how much smaller it is than the GW990, probably a good 70 percent smaller by surface area while still managing a shell just 11.7mm thick. Besides Moblin, the proto fully supports Android (though we only saw it on Moblin at Intel’s booth) and will naturally support MeeGo going forward. It’s got a front-facing cam, noise cancellation, compass, GPS, WiFi, and 3G plus that next-gen Atom core, but don’t plan on buying it any time soon — Aava’s stressing that this is just a starting point to get carriers and VARs off the ground. That’s probably just as well, though, because the Moblin implementation on here was totally useless; the UI looked like little more than a proof of concept with awful, stuttery performance, bugs left and right, and… well, a distinct lack of features. Maybe we can get a sweet skin over MeeGo down the road, but shorter term, this could make a killer high-end Android device without totally encroaching on the Mini 5’s large-and-in-charge attitude. Follow the break for some video!

Continue reading Aava Mobile’s Intel Moorestown prototype hands-on

Aava Mobile’s Intel Moorestown prototype hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Barcelona — Short of tacking a cellphone onto a compact camera, the best we can hope for is less megapixels and better chips. OmniVision has announced a new RAW-capable CMOS sensor for cellphones.

A cellphone makes a great emergency camera. While even the cheapest, crappiest point-n-shoot will take a better picture than the best tiny-chipped cellphone, you pretty much always have a phone in your pocket, and that’s better than no camera at all.

The new chip keeps to just 5MP, plenty for cellphone use, and offering better light gathering due to bigger photo-sites. And because it shoots RAW, recording all of the image data from the chip without processing it, you’ll get much better pictures than if the puny CPU in the cellphone converted the image to JPEG. Or imagine something like this in an iPhone or Droid, with a photo-editing app to let you tweak things right there.

The OmniVision chip is also great in low-light (if you must know, it manages 680-mV/lux-sec) and can shoot HD-video: 720p at 60fps or 1808p at 30fps. It goes into full mass production this July, so we should see it showing up in phones soon after that. I can’t wait.

(The photo above, by our handsome Wired.com photographer Jon Snyder, shows a Micro Four Thirds chip alongside a typical compact camera chip. Amazing, right? And remember, cellphone chips are even smaller than that).

OmniVision Introduces 1/4-inch, 5-Megapixel RAW Sensor [PR Newswire]

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired

Let’s be honest, we’d scorch the Earth to eke just one more hour of power from our superphones. Fortunately, as residents of the western world we’ve got plenty of juice to power all of our gadgets. Still, we can definitely see the attraction of a solar-powered cellphone meant for the peoples of developing nations living off the grid. Throw in a flashlight and you’ve just changed somebody’s life. That’s what we’ve got in the ZTE S316, a dead simple candybar with color display and torch. Also announced is the S101 charger with its own built-in flashlight that can be used to charge select, non-solar devices and costs just $12 to $13, maybe less on volume. The third solar device comes from China’s OKWAP and is built by Inventec. The $40 GS109 (pictured above) feature phone is destined, believe it or not, to be an object of ultimate desire when slung from the neck on a lanyard as proof of ones prosperity. Spec-wise, this dual-SIM solar-powered phone packs a video camera, color display, microSD slot, MP3 player, and even Bluetooth 2.1 — a lot of features for a solar phone.

Linking the three devices is Intivations SunBoost solar conversion technology allowing the devices to charge in conditions less than ideal. The ZTE S316, for example, draws a max of about 113mA when on a call, while the solar cell pumps out about 50mA to 60mA of juice depending upon the natural lighting conditions (it even charges when cloudy). That’s about two minutes of natural light exposure required for every minute of talk time to keep the device going. The solar cell on the GS109, meanwhile, produces about 70mA in direct sunlight to keep the device humming. Remember, the idea isn’t to charge a phone from 0% to full but to keep a device continually charged at about 70% to 80%. Intivation is so confident in its tech that it claims to provide “a far better charging experience than anything else on the market today.” Both the S316 and S101 charger will be available in April while the relatively swank GS109 will hit next month. See them all in the gallery below.

ZTE and OKWAP team with Intivation to deliver next generation solar devices originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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