Looks like some of the Skype crew might’ve had a sleepless night to please owners of the Nexus S 4G. If you’ll recall, June 30th saw a major update to its Android app enabling video chat on four devices; although the Nexus S was part of the club, its door was locked for Sprint’s 4G variant. That’s quickly changed, however, as the team’s set loose a hotfix to grant it access — this despite initially stating we’d have to wait for a “future release.” You can grab the app from the Android Market if you haven’t yet, and be sure to let us know how it goes in comments. Oh, and for those anxious Thunderbolt owners? We’d recommend not holding your breath until after the 4th of July holiday.
Back in April, Samsung slapped back at Apple’s claims of patent infringement with a healthy helping of ten claims of its own. Now Bloomberg is reporting that Samsung quietly dropped its countersuit against the Cupertino-based company on June 30th, in an attempt “to streamline the legal proceedings.” Of course that doesn’t mean the saga is over: Apple’s smartphone infringement accusations stand, as do legal battles in South Korea, Japan, Germany, and the UK. Samsung says it will also continue to fight Apple’s accusations in the US in the form of a counter-claim. One down, one to go?
Update: To clarify, this does not mean that Samsung has abandoned its own infringement claims against Apple. Those claims have been rolled into counter-claims in the original suit.
Jack Wong is a very lucky guy. Or you can say he’s very unfortunate. On one hand, his eight-year-old Meizu label — literally meaning “the captivating tribe” — has rapidly become one of the most popular brands amongst Chinese gadget lovers, yet all he’s producing right now is just the one phone: the M9. On the other hand, the now-discontinued M8 had notoriously caught unwanted attention from Apple, and even the recent M9 launch saw accusations of Meizu hiring people to stand in line. But the latter points are irrelevant for now — what we’re really interested in is how a teensy MP3 player factory managed to outpace its numerous competitors to become a reputable smartphone maker with a huge fan base. To help us understand what drives the company, we decided to pay Meizu a visit. Go on, you know where to click.
BARCELONA, Spain (AVING Special Report on ‘Mobile World Congress 2011′) — 3D Recording-Viewing-Sharing of Life’s Precious Moments Anytime, Anywhere
At this year’s Mobile World Congress, LG will unveil the LG Optimus 3D, the world’s first 3D smartphone offering consumers a full 3D experience right in the palm of their hands.
The LG Optimus 3D addresses the lack of 3D content issue — one of the biggest problems facing the 3D market — with a complete platform for a one-of-a-kind experience on a mobile device. LG’s most advanced smartphone to date will feature a dual-lens camera for 3D recording, a glasses-free LCD panel for 3D viewing and diverse connectivity options such as HDMI and DLNA for 3D content sharing anytime, anywhere.
DALLAS, USA (AVING) — Experian Automotive today announced it has launched AutoCheck® Mobile for Business(SM), providing automotive retailers with more timely and convenient access to AutoCheck® vehicle history reports directly from iPhone and Android devices. The application will allow automotive retailers to more quickly evaluate the history and condition of vehicles that they review at auctions or as customer trade-ins.
“AutoCheck Mobile for Business is one more way we can support automotive retailers by providing quick and convenient access to all the important vehicle history information included in AutoCheck,” said Scott Waldron, president of Experian Automotive. “Timely information is an important element in obtaining the right used vehicle inven…
SEOUL, Korea (AVING) — Zenus(representative Kim Kwang-mi, www.zenuscase.co.kr) recently released ‘Smart Touch Pen 2′ for smartphone and iPad users in winter.
This electrostatic touch pen makes users can use iPhone4, Galaxy S and iPad etc. wearing gloves and silicon material at touching part makes no noise.
It is available even on protection film and on tilt angle of over 35 degree. With low pressure of 10g, users can drag, character input and draw.
‘Smart Touch Pen 2′ is available in two colors, black and gray and price is 17,000won.
A researcher at North Carolina State University is warning of an Android 2.3 security vulnerability that gives attackers access to your personal information, further proof that Gingerbread isn’t all sugar and spice (to be fair, that SMS issue has since been remedied). According to Xuxian Jiang, the bug allows malicious websites to access and upload the contents of a user’s microSD card, including voicemails, photos, and online banking information to a remote server. The flaw apparently resembles a similar bug in previous version of Android, thought to have been addressed with Gingerbread. However, as Jiang points out, that fix is easily bypassed. Apart from removing the microSD card, disabling JavaScript, or switching to a third-party browser, Android 2.3 users have little recourse in squashing the bug. The folks at eWeek reported that Google is working on a solution to the problem, but there’s no word on when we can expect to see an update.
The UN’s International Telecommunication Union predicted last fall that the number of internet users worldwide would hit two billion by the end of 2010, and it’s now issued its full report that confirms just that — 2.08 billion, to be specific. As the ITU’s Hamadoun Toure notes, that number represents a huge leap from the mere 250 million internet users that existed a decade ago, and it means that roughly one third of the world’s population now has internet access of some sort — of those, 555 million have a fixed broadband subscription, and 950 million have mobile broadband. Just as impressive as that (if not moreso), are the number of cellphone subscriptions worldwide, which has now crossed the five billion mark. That’s up from 500 million at the beginning of the year 2000, although the agency notes that it’s only accounted for “subscriptions,” and not individual users. Any way you slice it, however, that’s quite a record of growth for the first decade of the 21st century.
You like numbers? Good, because it’s the season and amid all these lovely financial reports we’ve been hitting there are some broader trends to look at. IDC has released its mobile phone report for 2010 and has concluded that, worldwide, the industry grew 18.5 percent over 2009, shipping a massive 1.39 billion units. That’s nice and all, but check out this bit about ZTE. The manufacturer boosted its annual shipments by 94 percent, stealing Apple’s recently-won fourth place position globally and, in doing so, knocking RIM straight into the dreaded “others” category. Can RIM make it back? Will Apple recover? Will Siobhan and Lucky ever reconcile their differences? Tune in next quarter to find out.
SAN FRANCISCO, USA (AVING Special Report on ‘Mac World 2011′) — Just in time for the MacWorld Expo 2011, Pointer Software Systems releases Snoring U 3.2.1 for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.
Snoring U is a sleep monitoring application that helps people who suffer from snoring. Basically, Snoring U performs a “nudge”, which is triggered by a set of complex rules that are applied to the noise level, noise pattern and desired user behavior. It can also be used for monitoring purposes, allowing you to view how loud and how often you snored during your sleep, and even listen to a recording of your sleep and compare a history of your sleep session.
Snoring U was developed under the guidance of Dr. Naveh Tov, M.D., Ph.D., who specializes in internal …
Looks like some of the Skype crew might’ve had a sleepless night to please owners of the Nexus S 4G. If you’ll recall, June 30th saw a major update to its Android app enabling video chat on four devices; although the Nexus S was part of the club, its door was locked for Sprint’s 4G variant. That’s quickly changed, however, as the team’s set loose a hotfix to grant it access — this despite initially stating we’d have to wait for a “future release.” You can grab the app from the Android Market if you haven’t yet, and be sure to let us know how it goes in comments. Oh, and for those anxious Thunderbolt owners? We’d recommend not holding your breath until after the 4th of July holiday.
