Friday, February 25, 2011

Froyo Pulled from Samsung Epic 4G Due to Connectivity and SD Card Issues

Samsung Epic 4GFroyo, or Android 2.2, is the hot topic around the mobile phone world right now and everybody is wondering whether or not their phone is getting it. While a ton of phones are getting it, there is one that just pulled the update due to a few problems. That's right, if you have the Samsung Epic 4G from Sprint and are waiting for your upgrade, then keep waiting.

Samsung handset owners have been swimming in the bad news this week while awaiting their updates. Just a mere three days after the hotly anticipated Android 2.2 (Froyo) update began making its way onto Epic 4G phones, the code has been pulled from the update servers. Sprint is working on finding the root cause for several annoying problems after a rash of support calls.

According to a moderator's forum post, "The issues being reported are related to data connectivity following the upgrade and SD card issues when attempting to access photos, music, etc... If you are experiencing these issues, a hard reset has been reported to resolve the problems."

A hard reset doesn't sound too friendly and there is currently no word on who or what is causing these problems. There is also no word on when exactly the update will be ready for download again. Needless to say, this has not been a good week for Samsung and Samsung smartphone customers.

Source: BGR - Sprint pulls Samsung Epic 4G Android 2.2 (Froyo) update; data connectivity, SD card issues reported

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Friday, February 18, 2011

Is Your Android Getting Froyo?

It seems like everybody with an android smartphone these days is eagerly awaiting Google's Android 2.2 operating system known on the streets as "Froyo". Froyo is slowly making its way onto handsets around the world, but there is a lot of confusion about which phones are receiving the update and which ones will be left behind.

Many manufacturers have been slow to reveal details about their plans for the 2.2 upgrade, but if you piece together all the little snippets of information that we do know about, then you craft a pretty nice picture of what is happening in the Froyo universe. So check out the following list and see if your phone made the cut for the Froyo treatment.

HTC Aria - Southeast Asian carriers are receiving th update now. No word on an official U.S. release date.

HTC Wildfire - Started in Europe in late December and is expected to be complete around the world by end of February 2011.

Samsung Acclaim - Made available on January 13, 2011 but as a manual download.

LG Ally - Officially began January 18, 2011 and is still running.

Samsung Galaxy S - All Samsung Galaxy S handsets will be receiving Froyo including: Samsung Captivate (AT&T); February 16, Samsung Epic 4G (Sprint); February 21, Samsung Vibrant (T-Mobile); January 21, and Samsung Fascinate (Verizon) February 22.

Other phones expected to get Froyo include:

Motorola Mileatone

Motorola Defy

Samsung Transform

Nook Color

Samsung Galaxy Apollo

Samsung Continuum

Samsung Apex

Sanyo Zio

If your phone wasn't listed here, chances are it either a.) already has the update, b.) is still iffy on the subject or c.) isn't getting the update at all. ComputerWorld has the full list of all the phones getting the update, all the ones that got it and all the ones that are iffy or not getting it at all, so check to make sure your phone is on the list and when you are expected to get it, if at all.

Source - ComputerWorld - Android 2.2 upgrade list: Is your phone getting Froyo?

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Yahoo’s Livestand Digital Newsstand Coming Soon

To start things off at the Mobile World Congress on Wednesday, February 16, Yahoo offered a demo of its Livestand digital newsstand app which the company plans to release soon. The executives at Yahoo have promised that the app for tablets will offer personalized content in an elegant format which will cater to the millions of Yahoo users who access the company’s content via their mobile devices.

"We have 630 million users who come to Yahoo on a monthly basis, and we noticed that our users are going more and more mobile," said Cris Pierry, senior director of Yahoo Mobile. "What Livestand is designed to do is to facilitate that transition from the PC to mobile [so they still] have a compelling way to consume content from Yahoo."

Now, this does not mean that Yahoo will be disappearing from the Web. The company said that it will not only be offering a tablet version of the Livestand app, but a little later in the year, a smartphone version and Web version will be made available. For now though, the company really wants to focus on catering to the tablet industry and more specifically to the iPad and Android-based devices. Recently there has been quite a bit of buzz about publications being built explicitly for tablets including Rupert Murdoch’s “The Daily” and Richard Branson’s “Project” magazine; however, Pierry says that Yahoo isn’t looking to compete with those publications but instead to compliment them.

"I consider them a potential partner," Pierry said. "I consider Livestand as a platform where 'The Daily' content can also be published and distributed. For us this is really about creating this eco-system to enable publishers ... to distribute that content through a variety of devices."

Since Yahoo wants to be consider a “potential partner,” this means that Livestand will feature content from both Yahoo properties and other outside publications. Livestand itself is very easy to use. On the iPad, if you tap on the app, you will be brought to a screen that shows one main story on top and three or four smaller stories on the bottom. All of the stories include fantastic pictures to go along with the articles, and all of the stories that show up are customized based on the preferences that have been determined by your previous Yahoo activity.

As you continue through the story, Livestand will organize advertisements and comments that are customized to you. Say you decide to post a story to Facebook, if someone comments on it, that comment could appear as an in-line box in the story, and you can simply click to discuss it further. There are also interactive ads that make things a little more interesting.

Now if you’re concerned about privacy at all, Pierry said that all of your Yahoo data is completely secure.

"We take privacy very seriously; we're not sharing that information with third parties," he said. "We're basically using the same technology that we use today. The idea is that the publisher will take all their content, they'll submit it into the Yahoo content repository, and then we're going to [take] what we know about the customer and the content the publisher [submits] and then we'll mix and match. We're not really sharing your personal information; we're just using what we know about you to deliver content for you."

Pierry said that as of right now Yahoo has no plans to charge for their content on Livestand. Later on though, publishers may have the option for a subscription model for access to their content.

On Wednesday at a keynote presentation at MWC, Yahoo’s chief Carol Bartz said that Livestand really offers content with a “unique blend of science, art and scale.”
"We all know that the world's entire content is going digital; it has to," Bartz said. She said that she really pushed the concept of "content in context" as the "sweet spot" for Yahoo. She said that it is definitely something that Livestand will highlight.

"We want your content to be personal," she said. "We've tailored a solution and the whole concept is that it's built from the ground up ... publish once, run on any device and have it actually be tailored."

Pierry said that the solution is to simply have a algorithmic page layout (ATL). The layout decides how Yahoo wants to lay out the Livestand pages "based on a variety of different signals," he said. "Some of it is on the relevance of the content to me, some of it is based on popularity across the platform." ATL also will take into account if there is any multimedia that is associated with the story.

This app is really cool. It caters completely to the user. Yahoo really did a fantastic job. It will be very interesting to see what they do with the smartphone and Web versions later in the year.

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Friday, February 11, 2011

10.1-inch Honeycomb Tablet Coming from Samsung this Sunday?

Samsung Galaxy TabWhoa, whoa, whoa, hold the phones! Could Samsung be launching a Galaxy Tab 2 with Honeycomb this Sunday? If so, it is definitely a bit of a surprise to the tech world.

According to sources from Pocket-lint, Samsung will be launching a 10.1-inch tablet on Sunday night complete with Honeycomb as the start of Mobile World Congress. According to what we know so far, the device will be thinner and lighter that the current Samsung Galaxy Tab, will have a bigger screen and be featured in black as opposed to white.

Running Honeycomb, (Android 3.0) Samsung is hoping the new tablet will be able to hold its own against some of the more popular devices out there like the Xoom from Motorola and the dominating iPad from Apple. Pocket-lint sources also believed that Samsung was considering launching a 9-inch tablet at the same time, making it appear that Samsung didn't really have a full plan laid out. However, it appears now that this is untrue.

Specifications are scarce on this device. What we do know is that it will have a dual-core Qualcomm chip as well as an 8-megapixel camera. It has also been released that this Galaxy Tab will be physically smaller than Apple's iPad, even though it has a moderately larger screen than Apple's device.

I guess we will figure out more details concerning this tablet, which is still without a name, on Sunday. Samsung's first Galaxy Tab did o.k. but couldn't really hold a candle to the iPad. But then again, what device could? Maybe this next generation device will be different. One can only hope.
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Monday, February 7, 2011

What Does the Tablet Industry's Future Look Like?

There are plenty of people who are trying to predict the growth of the tablet industry in the next few years. Most recently, the glass makers have been the people that are rolling out the predictions. More specifically, it has been the president of Corning Glass Technologies Group that has been vocal about his beliefs concerning the tablet industry.

Now, you may not recognize the name Corning Glass Technologies Group right off the bat, but you will most likely recognize the name of the product that the company manufactures…Gorilla Glass. This product is the transparent panel that protects devices including Dell’s Streak tablet, Samsung’s Galaxy S, the iPhone 4, and a variety of other devices.

The president of Corning Glass James Clappin claimed that the demand for Gorilla Glass has really been off the charts since the launch of the product in 2008, but what does the future look like for the company and the product?

"Corning Gorilla Glass is the cover glass of choice for manufacturers of high-end mobile phones," Clappin said in a statement. "We expect the number of these devices using cover glass to quadruple over the next four years, presenting us with a significant opportunity for growth."

“Global innovation is at the heart of Corning today and has been for our 160-year history,” said Wendell P. Weeks, chairman, chief executive officer, and president of the company. “Our capabilities in glass and ceramics have the potential to deliver solutions across many industries that address significant global technology trends, driven by consumer desires to access and share information wherever they are, whenever they want,” he said. “We envision a world where technology enables seamless delivery of real-time information…a natural and intuitive interaction with the virtual world. This is a world of specialty glass with vivid displays, multi-functional ‘smart’ surfaces, and interactive devices.”

“Corning Gorilla Glass is the cover glass of choice for manufacturers of high-end mobile phones. We expect the number of these devices using cover glass to quadruple over the next four years, presenting us with a significant opportunity for growth,” Clappin said.

He has gone on to discuss how there is an even larger opportunity for Corning’s Gorilla Glass with the growth of the tablet industry. Corning goes on to estimate that tablet computer sales could grow from roughly 20 million units last year to almost 180 million by 2014. “What makes the tablet market so appealing for us is that all of these devices will likely require a highly durable, scratch-resistant piece of cover glass,” he will say.

If there really is an increase like what Clappin is predicting, there could be as much an 800 percent increase in tablet sales.

Now, although these are some incredible numbers that Clappin is throwing out, not everyone is quite that ridiculously optimistic. According to analysts like the Yankee Group, there will be a lower multiplier in terms of overall revenue growth. The Yankee Group feels that it is much more likely that the global tablet market will jump from 16 billion in total global revenues in 2010 to 46 billion in 2014. This is definitely a lot less than the 800 percent increase that Clappin is predicting. As far as physical sales, Yankee Group believes that tablet sales will triple between 2010 and 2015.

Clappin and Yankee Group analyst Dmitriy Molchanov may not agree on the final prediction numbers, but they both are saying that the tablet industry has a very bright looking future for consumers, manufacturers, and glass makers.

"The growth in this market is unprecedented," said Molchanov. "The tablet sales curve is rising faster than that of HDTVs, handheld gaming consoles or even MP3 players."

It will be very interesting to see how this market really does increase and whether or not Gorilla Glass will be a part of it.

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Saturday, February 5, 2011

Samsung's Smart Touch Android Remote App

Samsung Smart Touch appIf any of you reading this article are smartphone users and avid television watchers, then Android has an app for you. Samsung's Smart Touch Android remote app is finally available in the Android Marketplace as a free download. This download comes nearly nine months after it was originally released on iOS.

If you threw down a hefty amount of cash on a new model C Samsung TV recently and are eagerly awaiting the day your Samsung smartphone can replace yet another piece of your everyday technology, then today could be the best day ever. Based on reviews the app currently has an average 4-star review but there are a lot of reports about crashing and error reports.

The app works with any Samsung Galaxy S smartphone as well as the Samsung Galaxy Tab as a remote for your television and uses Wi-Fi to connect to your Samsung television. There are a lot of cool features that come with this app that offer things a traditional remote cannot do. You can use the on-screen QWERTY keyboard to input information for TV functions, control settings and make it easier to navigate Samsung apps.

A 4-way directional pad allows you to easily navigate apps, and the application is compatible with a wide variety of 2010 Samsung TV models including the LED C6500 series and higher, the LCD C650 series and higher and the plasma C6500 series and higher. The app will also be compatible with select 2011 smart TVs.

This is the second television remote app launched by Samsung to date. Samsung made available a similar app for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad last year in order to allow users an easy way to navigate their smart TVs. The app is literally brand new so there are very few reviews out on it but, like I said earlier, it does have an average rating of 4 stars. The app is currently available now for Samsung Galaxy S smartphones as well as the Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Source: Engadget

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Wednesday, February 2, 2011

The Daily- A Subscription News App for iPad Users


On Wednesday, February 2 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, Rupert Murdoch, the founder, chairman, and CEO of News Corp., unveiled his newspaper called The Daily that is just for Apple’s iPad.

"In the tablet era, there's room for a fresh and new voice," Murdoch said. "The iPad demands that we completely reinvent our craft."


Murdoch went on to give a nice little overview of the new digital newspaper. He said that The Daily will feature close to 100 pages of brand new content each and every day in six different categories: news, sports, gossip and celebrity, opinion, art and life, and apps and games. iPad users that are interested in the paper can subscribe to the publication and decide whether they want to be billed each week for $0.99 or each year for $39.99. This comes down to about $0.14 a day. Once users have subscribed to The Daily, the publication will be automatically delivered to their iPad each and every morning.

"No million dollar presses, no trucks, and we're passing on that savings to the reader," Murdoch said.

The digital newspaper from Murdoch is really a fantastic idea, and not only does it provide a green newspaper solution for iPad users, but also it features bonuses like HD video and 360 degree photos. Users will be able to navigate through The Daily via a carousel at the bottom of the newspaper.

There were many different notable names at the event that was held on Wednesday. A few of these names included Apple's head of Internet Services, Eddie Cue; The Daily's Editor-in-Chief Jesse Angelo; and News Corp.'s Chief Digital Officer Jon Miller.

"It's the first national daily news publication built from the ground up for the iPad," Cue said.

The newly featured subscription for The Daily breaks new ground for the iPad. The new news app from Murdoch is one of the very few apps for the iPad that has a model. Most consumer magazines do have an app for the iPad, but barely any have a subscription model; however, Cue says that this is all about to change.

"[Subscriptions are] available today on The Daily," Cue said. "You'll hear an announcement from us soon for other news publications."

The Daily features content covering a variety of different subjects. Miller said that the digital newspaper is a very important tool to tell stories.

The Daily has been highly anticipated for a while now. Before Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, left on a medical leave, he was supposed to appear with Murdoch to reveal The Daily at an event at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art on January 19.

Obviously, that didn’t come about. The new launch was confirmed on Thursday, January 27 when invitations were sent out to journalists.

Reportedly, the delay with the release of The Daily was so that News Corp. and Apple could work out all of the kinks surrounding the subscription platform. News Corp. did confirm the delay but did not seem interested in expanding on any further reasons for the delay.

Murdoch said that, despite the absence of Jobs at the event, Apple’s CEO "has been a champion behind The Daily since day one."

While the delays with The Daily were going on, the 100-member staff of the digital newspaper, which includes journalists from publications such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Forbes, was hard at work. They have been working to produce mock versions of the issues for an exclusive email list of 1,000 readers.

So, right now, The Daily is solely for the Apple iPad, but this won’t last forever.

"As other tablets get established, we will develop the tech to go on them," Murdoch said. "We will be on all the major tablets."

Murdoch did add though that this will most likely not occur for another few years.

If you’re interested in The Daily app for the Apple iPad, News Corp. is offering a trial offer that you can download for a free subscription for the next two weeks.

This is definitely a really cool idea, and it will be interesting to see if digital newspapers for tablets become a growing trend.


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