Wireless Archive

Palm Launches New Phones, Offers Native App Development

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-07 Wireless 16 Comments

So, today at CES, Palm held its big keynote thing. Palm's CEO, Jon Rubinstein, aided by several others, had a whole lot to talk about for just one hour, and boy, is this good stuff or what. We've got a boatload of stuff to talk about: two new phones exclusive to Verizon, tethering, video support, Flash 10, native application development, the official launch of the completely open app distribution model we've talked about before, and much more.

Freescale Launches Tablet Reference Design

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-04 Wireless 19 Comments

Apple certainly isn't going to be the first to announce a 7-10" thing tablet computer. We already had the Joo Joo, and now Freescale has joined in on the fun with a 7" tablet reference design. Let's talk about Freescale's tablet, and as hinted at during yesterday's podcast, let's spend/waste (pick one) a few words on Apple's tablet as well.

Songbird 1.4.x Released

Eugenia Loli 2009-12-31 Wireless 71 Comments

Just before Christmas Songbird 1.4.0 was released, and a new fix versions was released today as 1.4.3. Songbird now supports MSC storage devices and CD ripping, bringing the app one step closer to replacing iTunes for some users. What's particularly interesting is that Songbird now specifically pushes their product against users of Android, Nokia and Palm smartphones -- which is something I also suggested a few months too. Hopefully Google, Nokia, and Palm will get behind the small team in San Francisco to help out the cause, since it's also on their best interest too.

Palm Updates webOS, Drops Hints at What’s to Come

Thom Holwerda 2009-12-30 Wireless 17 Comments

Lots of news regarding Palm's webOS the past few days. Not only did Palm release webOS 1.3.5, the company has also laid out a number of hints on what's to come at CES coming January: OpenGL is here.

Fighting ‘App Spam’

Thom Holwerda 2009-12-22 Wireless 9 Comments

One of the many issues plaguing the App Store for Apple's iPhone platform is that of 'app spam'. Now that Palm is busy dotting the i's of its own offering, the App Catalog, discussions have erupted about how Palm should combat this problem - if at all.

Palm Unveils Browser-Based IDE, Quarterly Results

Thom Holwerda 2009-12-18 Wireless 13 Comments

We have lots of Palm new for you today, since the company released its quarterly results yesterday. The company also opened up public beta access to Ares, its browser-based integrated development environment for the webOS. Which to me, as a non-developer, looks totally awesome. webOS 1.3.5 is also on its way, which will bring battery life and performance improvements, among other things.

Submitted by narramissic 2009-12-15 Wireless 10 Comments

Over the weekend Barnes & Noble's Nook was rooted and the hacking and developer community is hard at work bringing new functionality to adventurous Nook owners.

Guest post by KLU9 2009-12-10 Wireless 12 Comments

UMPCPortal reports on a new 3G-connected handheld computer called the PsiXpda: PsiXPDA UMPC Launches in UK, US, Europe. Apparently, PsiXpda is made by a former Psion engineer with rights to use the Psion 5 series design, which explains that familiar sliding clamshell shape.

The Droid Has Been Rooted – Now What?

Thom Holwerda 2009-12-09 Wireless 13 Comments

"Verizon's Motorola Droid is a brand-new phone today. Like many smartphones before it, the Droid has been rooted so that owners of the Android 2.0-based smartphone can install multitouch support (including pinch-to-zoom gestures), enhanced themes and other previously forbidden goodies."

Submitted by poundsmack 2009-12-09 Wireless 24 Comments

Samsung has finally lifted the veil a bit on its new mobile platform, Bada. While some of us were expecting a whole new mobile operating system (perhaps built on Linux), reality is a little different: Bada is actually a platform (APIs, programming tools, etc.) which can run on top of different mobile operating systems.

Google Announces New Location-based Services

David Adams 2009-12-07 Wireless 10 Comments

Google had a media event at the Computer History Museum today to announce new mobile computing services, and seem to have brought to light the kind of "jetpack and flying car" futuristic functionality that mobile computing aficionados have been talking about for years. I'm sure it will all be a little creaky at first, but today may prove to be an important mobile computing landmark.

Fusion Garage Announces Joo Joo, Tells Their Side of the Story

Thom Holwerda 2009-12-07 Wireless 31 Comments

In what is certainly entirely expected, I was wrong about the whole CrunchPad drama. I suspected it was nothing more than a publicity stunt, but as it turns out, Fusion Garage's side of the story confirmed that the break between them and Arrington is real. During a press conference today, Fusion Garage told their side of the story, while also officially introducing the ~~CrunchPad~~ Joo Joo.

Fusion Garage Plans Media Event, To Show Off CrunchPad

Thom Holwerda 2009-12-04 Wireless 16 Comments

Earlier this week, we reported on the apparent death of Michael Arrington's dream, the CrunchPad. The CrunchPad was supposed to be a slick tablet, but according to an emotional blog post by Arrington the project had been more or less stolen from him by Chandrasekar "Chandra" Rathakrishnan, CEO of Fusion Garage. Rathakrishnan has announced to hold a press event Monday, telling his side of the story, as well as a brief demonstration of the actual device.

Submitted by poundsmack 2009-12-02 Wireless 71 Comments

Time. Coming. Long. Put these in the appropriate order, and you'll get my reaction to this news. Nokia has announced that it is planning a major overhaul of the user interface to the Symbian operating system, still the most popular smartphone platform in the world.

Crunchpad Project Implodes

David Adams 2009-11-30 Wireless 17 Comments

Michael Arrington's promising CrunchPad Tablet PC device was due for imminent launch, but, due to what Arrington claims was an attempt by his business partner to cut him out of the deal because of "pressure from shareholders," the ownership of the intellectual property is now in dispute. As a result, the project will almost certainly move into a the lawsuit and recrimination phase, and the CrunchPad will likely never be released.

Chip Designer ARM Leads Android Alliance

Thom Holwerda 2009-11-17 Wireless 1 Comment

"ARM on Tuesday announced the launch of an alliance of 35 tech companies to support development of Android-based products using its widely used chips. ARM-based chips power the world's most popular smartphones, including - in the US - the Apple iPhone, Blackberry Storm, Palm Pre, and Motorola Droid. The Solution Center for Android alliance will serve as a resource for designers and developers of ARM technology-based products running on the Android operating system, which is the software on the popular Motorola Droid smartphone and Acer Liquid."

Palm Launches Pixi, webOS 1.3.1

Thom Holwerda 2009-11-16 Wireless 24 Comments

This weekend, Palm launched its second webOS phone, the Palm Pixi. At the same time, the company also released webOS 1.3.1 for Pre owners in the US (other countries will follow later this month). At the same time, Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein talked to The New York Times about his company.

Is There Room for a New Mobile OS?

David Adams 2009-11-10 Wireless 25 Comments

Just when we were starting to worry that the OS world was becoming ossified around three increasingly-competent options, making it very boring for OS enthusiasts, along comes a re-energized mobile computing market and a furious land grab among established players and new entrants. Samsung, the #2 handset maker by marketshare, is releasing a new mobile OS called Bada and will be vying to become the seventh major mobile OS in the market.

Palm Working on Improving webOS Performance

Thom Holwerda 2009-11-04 Wireless 10 Comments

When talking about the webOS, one of the main complaints is often that the operating system feels sluggish, especially considering the Pre has the same hardware as the iPhone 3GS. At a webOS Developer Event in London, Ben Galbraith and Dion Almaer (the Mozilla guys who joined Palm) talked about why this is the case, and hinted that it will be fixed sooner rather than later. They also addressed The One Question: will Palm ever open source the webOS?

Submitted by Moochman 2009-11-02 Wireless 2 Comments

CNet interviews Niklas Savander, executive VP of Services at Nokia, to find out about the future of the Ovi store and Nokia's plans to steal back market share in America. He candidly admits to Nokia's past shortfallings, such as lack of integration between services, poor user experience, and Nokia's long lack of focus on the American market, and hints at what it is doing to rectify them, including the planned launch of a co-branded AT&T/Ovi app store.