With the dust from its Microsoft partnership having somewhat settled, Nokia is reportedly looking to kick off its forthcoming line of Windows Phones with a major marketing campaign. As we’ve seen with their latest marketing strategy on their latest N9, it seemed that Nokia will be heading the Apple method of advertising.
According to Marketing Magazine, Nokia have already devoted some £80 million to the six-month ad endeavour, which is expected to launch in October. And yet we though the WP7 Nokia handsets will only come in 2012.
Considering all the job cuts and downwardly revised corporate forecasts, an advertising refresh would seem like a logical way for Nokia to embark on a new era. Cut some skin from there and mend it here, a common strategy in business’s logic. But the company is remaining rather mum on the subject, saying, “We are excited about the Nokia with Windows phone, but it’s not our policy to comment on specific campaigns for unannounced products.” Awkwardly executed “leaks,” on the other hand, are an entirely different matter.
It’s been a very long ongoing debate regarding cellphone-cancer, and perhaps a freshly released scientific review might just do the trick. In the paper, published Friday, a panel of experts from Britain, Sweden and the US conducted a thorough survey of previous studies, before concluding that existing literature is “increasingly against” the theory that cellphone use causes brain tumors in adults. The researchers also questioned the biological mechanisms underpinning this hypothesis, while acknowledging some lingering uncertainties, since data on childhood tumors and longer-term research are still lacking.
The results come just a few weeks after the World Health Organization released its own literature review, in which it claimed that cell phones should be considered “potentially carcinogenic.” But Anthony Swerdlow, a professor at Britain’s Institute of Cancer Research and leader of the most recent investigation, said his group’s work doesn’t necessarily contradict the WHO, since the latter was simply seeking to evaluate cancer risks according to its own “pre-set classification system” — under which things like pickled vegetables and coffee are also considered “potentially carcinogenic.” Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that the debate will die down anytime soon, though Swerdlow expects more definitive conclusions within the next few years — assuming, of course, that all of our brains haven’t turned to oatmeal by then.
Computex is just around the corner, but there’s still time for some leaked photos and rumours. Asus teased us with a PadFone tablet-with-a-dock, and now the leaked photo which seemed to be a leaked press photo shows the tablet with no shadows.
The tablet seems to have a hinged cover that pop up upon releasing the latch, to have a compartment for a smartphone. You can also just about make out the two ports inside which are likely to be HDMI and micro-USB — one for driving the larger display, and the other for taking care of touch input while possibly sipping juice from an extra battery somewhere.
Indeed this product looks very odd, and what is Asus playing with at here? A tablet with no guts, and can be powered by an Android smartphone?
We already know that Asus will be unveiling a new tablet at Computex, but it seem that tablet won’t be the only thing shown here. Asus has just posted two teaser pictures at their Facebook fanpage, which can be seen above. The left is actually just a reminder of the Eee Pad MeMO’s June launch, though the words “A Tablet That Jumps Out at You” could also imply a device bearing 3D functionality of some sort. Maybe ASUS managed to upgrade said 7-inch Honeycomb tablet just in time? Well, we’ll know very soon.
What’s new here is the next image, which comes with the “Pad or Phone” teaser. Hopefully it’s not a phone that can transform into a tampon, because the next line “How about both?” really suggest so. The image seemed like a docking-system, yet looking like a tablet. Could this mean Asus is toying with the idea of an Atrix-like docking combo, except the lapdock is instead just a tablet?
Microsoft gave their 1-year-old Windows Phone 7 platform a proper update in the form of ‘Mango’ v7.1, and most of the changes are actually ‘under the hood’. What’s unique this time is the Bing search function, as the crew at Engadget managed to have a chat with a Windows Phone representative to talk about the changes made.
Clicking the dedicated search button from the Windows Phone home screen takes you to a familiar Bing page, offering the visual, audio, and voice options, along with a city scape icon. That skyline represents Local Scout, a function that focuses your queries on the neighbourhood you’re in, providing location-specific results that highlight important information about establishments and events in your immediate area.
Clicking through on any link brings up general information as well as reviews gleaned from popular user-generated sites. That’s not all that’s new, however, as Mango also offers some nifty tricks in its visual search. Instead of just snapping a barcode, you can actually use a shot of the product itself to bring up information about pricing, availability, and relevant apps, though how accurate that is, we’re not sure.
Of course, the interface looks more robust and responsive than ever too. Watch a video of the new update in action below.
These days smartphone is all about faster and faster processors. We’ve seen plenty of Nvidia’s Tegra 2 dual-core SOC processors, and also Apple’s A5 dual-core SOC. Qualcomm is also going to debut their dual-core Snapdragon in HTC’s Sensation 4G. But there’s another processor coming from Qualcomm which is blazingly fast.
Sitting in Pantech’s 5-inch Android 2.3.3 smartphone (yes, 5-inch!) is Qualcomm’s dual-core 1.5GHz MSM8660. Apart from the extra 0.7 inches of screen size, what we have here is essentially the same package as the Vega Racer: 800 x 480 LCD, 8 megapixel 1080p camera, front-facing camera, 1GB DDR2 RAM, 16GB of memory, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, and 14.4Mbps HSPA+ connectivity. Yes, a full fledge notebook already, save for a CD-ROM and a full fledge keyboard.
No word on international availability, but expect this slate to hit the shops in Korea later this month.
It’s a rare scene to find devices that support the GLONASS system, which is Russia’s equivalent to the US Government’s GPS. Russian provider Skylink is launching a new Android tablet called the Xpad, which is a 7-inch tablet with support for both GPS and GLONASS, which means that you most probably won’t get lost anymore with this new system.
The rest of the specification for this tablet is quite normal. It’s a 7-inch Froyo tablet running on an 800MHz processor, sporting 512MB of RAM, and a 3.2 megapixel camera. It’s going into Russian shelves for 14,000 Rubles in winter, which is around $500, if you’re interested.
It’s been rumoured for quite a long time since last year, and finally it’s official. RIM has officially unveiled its new QWERTY handset, the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930, aka the Bold Touch, at the BlackBerry Bold World event in Orlando.
Much of the information is accurate to the earlier rumours. The phone comes with a 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor that has only a 2.8-inch VGA touchscreen with a 287dpi pixel density to worry about. That’s about twice the power of Nokia’s N8. On the back is a five megapixel camera and inside is 8GB of internal storage (with microSD expansion) and NFC circuitry, which will be needed for your new BlackBerry Balance.
The phone is only 10.5mm thick, making it RIM’s thinnest handset yet, featuring a stainless steel circumference and a fiberglass back, while up front of course it makes room for a full QWERTY keyboard. There are two variants, the 9900 supports HSPA+ connectivity to get its 4G on, while the 9930 is the world variant, adding dual-band CDMA and quad-band GSM to the mix, and both do 802.11a/b/g/n along with Bluetooth 2.1.
Both the 9900 and 9930 will of course come with the new BlackBerry 7 OS, which has a faster browser, voice-activated search, and many other new features. Both phones are said to come in summer.
If you’ve not known, the white iPhone 4 is thicker than the black ones by 0.2mm. Now why would anyone make a fuss out of 0.2mm? Well, many.
Apple’s own spec page doesn’t highlight the change in thickness (measured at 9.5mm by TiPb). Instead it still shows a 9.3mm depth with a tiny disclaimer stating, “Actual size and weight vary by configuration and manufacturing process.”
But this has caused several issues, most notably with quality cases. Expensive cases are made with extreme accuracy and will fit black iPhone 4 perfectly with no sweat, and are extremely tight tolerance. However, try putting a white iPhone 4 into the old cases, and you’ll need quite some brute force.
But why is the white iPhone 4 thicker? Phil Schiller mentioned that Apple needed to add extra UV protection among other tweaks, in an attempt to reduce the “unexpected interactions” between the white cover and the internal components. As such, Apple apparently needed to sacrifice some slimness for a better functioning white phone.
So now there are four types of cases that case manufacturers have to manufacture, and also four types for consumers to choose from. You’ve got your white iPhone 4, black iPhone 4, white Verizon iPhone 4, or black Verizon iPhone 4. All with slightly different dimension or button location, so be careful when purchasing a case.
Remember the hype of Apple suing their parts supplier Samsung over their smartphones’ resemblance? Well, we’ve got good news for you (or bad news, however you like it to be). The Korean giant has strike back with loaded ammo with ten patent infringement claims to Apple. These include five patent infringements in South Korea, two in Japan, and three in Germany, mainly involving power reduction during data transmission, 3G technology for reducing errors during data transmission, and wireless data communication technology.
It’s been a very long ongoing debate regarding cellphone-cancer, and perhaps a freshly released scientific review might just do the trick. In the paper, published Friday, a panel of experts from Britain, Sweden and the US conducted a thorough survey of previous studies, before concluding that existing literature is “increasingly against” the theory that cellphone use causes brain tumors in adults. The researchers also questioned the biological mechanisms underpinning this hypothesis, while acknowledging some lingering uncertainties, since data on childhood tumors and longer-term research are still lacking.
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