The mobile OS is said to align closely with Chinese apps such as the Twitter-like microblogging platform Sina Weibo, and is scheduled to launch before the end of this year. Certain smartphones running the OS are reportedly being tested now, with some prototypes already sent to the Chinese government.

HTC Chairwoman Cher Wang is said to be in talks with Chinese government officials, which plays well into a wider government policy encouraging the development of a local software ecosystem, as China’s technology ministry seeks to reduce its dependence on Western companies — in particular Google, as the Android operating system has dominated China’s mobile market.

The WSJ report says it isn’t clear whether the mobile OS will be entirely proprietary or built on top of Android — as just like Acer, HTC is part of Google’s Open Handset Alliance, and that means it needs to abide by certain rules laid down by Google.

The ambitious reported move by HTC comes as it has been struggling financially. CEO Peter Chou said in the company’s recent second-quarter earnings call that HTC is expecting Q3 revenue to decline as much as 29.3 percent from the amount of revenue it posted in Q2.

The company has also noted that in China, competition at the mid-tier sector of the smartphone market intensified despite improved sales of its high-end models, which could be adding a sense of urgency for HTC to diversify its product range — and the development of a mobile OS is clearly an attempt to boost its overall strategy.

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Symbian might currently be the world’s most popular mobile OS, but the Finnish manufacturer is clearly concerned about the onward march of Google’s Android platform. The launch of the open source Symbian 3 is a direct retaliation and will present programmers and developers with a potentially lucrative new market.

Symbian aside, the N8 has a specification to impress. The real headline grabber is its built-in 12MP camera and the quality of Facebook snaps should improve, particularly with the addition of the Carl Zeiss optics and Xenon flash.

Even more impressively, the N8 supports high-definition (HD) video capture which can be played back on HD TV sets thanks to its HDMI support.

The sturdy 135g N8, braced by an aluminium frame, was shown off in five colour options – including fun lime green, orange and blue schemes.

However, despite its promising credentials, the N8 won’t arrive in shops until the third quarter of this year which is – crucially – after the next generation iPhone is expected to launch.

Ernest Doku, mobile phone expert at Omio.com, reckons Nokia is on to a winner.

He said: “The Finnish manufacturer has finally weighed in with their bid for smartphone supremacy and it’s looking good.

“Introducing a host of features and functionality that Nokia’s handsets have been sorely lacking for some time. Multi-touch and gesture support for pinch-to-zoom makes the N8 more finger friendly than ever before, with a 3.5-inch capacitive display proving the perfect home to prodding and poking.”

Nokia has quoted a retail price of around £320 and Omio.com is predicting the handset will be available on £35 a month contracts.

Resource:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/

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RIM, whose low-key public relations style is the polar opposite of Apple’s iPhone hype, still hasn’t made a formal announcement about the new OS, but RIM co-chief executive Mike Lazaridis showed a brief video about it at the company’s annual Wireless Enterprise Symposium in Florida. Lazaridis said the new OS represents one of RIM’s biggest upgrades in years.

Stock analysts at the meeting were favorably impressed and gave a round of spontaneous applause when they were shown the video, according to reports.

Particularly good news for BlackBerry users is Lazaridis’ comment that the firm is working to ensure that the new OS will accommodate existing BlackBerrys. “We are going to try and do our best to allow people to upgrade to 6.0,” he said.

RIM’s other co-chief executive, Jim Balsillie, said that more powerful phone cameras and easy-to-navigate displays will appear in BlackBerry models soon. “You are going to see very powerful extensions on our part,” said Balsillie. “I don’t think you have to be too patient either.”

In recent months Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android phones have stolen much of the publicity thunder from RIM, but the BlackBerry maker still leads in smartphone deliveries. A new OS with a fast browser along with an improved touchscreen would help the firm’s image.

Earlier this week, RIM announced new phones for carriers and users on GSM and CDMA networks.

Resource:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/handheld/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=224700089

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The new OS will be launched in the next calendar quarter. Some existing devices can also upgrade to 6.0 although the exact details are not yet known. Blackberry 6.0 also has a new web browser, which is capable of multiple sessions and tabbed browsing, and is based on the open source WebKit engine, which is used in iPhone, Android, and Symbian handsets.

The WebKit engine is capable of rendering HTML5, and CSS, and can be used to create applications and widgets for BlackBerry handsets.

Blackberry Bold 9650 and Blackberry pearl 3G

RIM announced two new handsets on Tuesday — the BlackBerry Bold 9650 and the BlackBerry Pearl 3G. RIM doesn’t like to play the spec-to-spec game against Android and iPhone offerings, which have higher resolution screens and faster processors. Compared to the iPhone 4G, whose specs have been leaked by Gizmodo, the difference is quite marked.

The Bold 9650 is the first Bold series handset for CDMA networks. It has a 3.2 MP camera, Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth, an integrated optical trackpad, QWERTY keyboard, and a 480W360 resolution display. The Pearl 3G is an update of the Pearl series, and touted as the smallest BlackBerry yet. The new Pearl series supports 802.11n, and is the first handset to incorporate it.

Sleek, small and fast, RIM considers it to be the sports car of BlackBerry smartphones. The phone will be available in two keyboard versions — the Pearl 9100 which has a 20-key condensed QWERTY keypad and the 9105 one with a traditional phone keyboard with 14 keys.

Superapps

BlackBerry App World, RIM’s app marketplace for BlackBerry smartphones, was launched in March last year. It currently has 6,500 applications, and is available in six languages in 52 countries.

“We’re looking at a high level of integration and sophistication. Instead of hundreds of apps that you use once, we’re looking at creating ten applications you can’t live without,” said Mike Kirkup, director of Developer Relations, RIM, in an interview with ET.

While Blackberry’s App World is a channel for apps, it’s not the only channel. “There are non-RIM BlackBerry stores, and many ways to get in beside BlackBerry’s App World. This is a big benefit for developers,” said Mike. For example, BlackBerry apps can be downloaded from GetJar.com, which now has a solution for Reliance Communications.”

Updated mobile voice system

Blackberry also announced an update to the BlackBerry Mobile Voice System (MVS), which provides business users the ability to use their regular desk phone number and extension from their BlackBerry smartphone over cellular networks.

Expected to be available later this year, MVS version 5 will let employees make and receive enterprise calls on their BlackBerry smartphone over a Wi-Fi connection. “The interest for this solution has been incredible.

We’ve started taking steps to test MVS with a particular company in India,” said Frenny Bawa, vice-president, India, RIM.

Resource:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/infotech/hardware/RIMs-evolutionary-OS-Phone-Update/articleshow/5870374.cms

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Opera 10.52 boasts a more Mac-like interface, but this new beauty is not just skin deep. More of the browser has gone Cocoa for better integration with Mac OS X and other apps, which means it now supports Growl and multi-touch gestures. As with Safari on recent MacBooks, Opera 10.52 users can pinch-to-zoom, use two fingers to scroll, and three fingers to navigate back and forth through pages.

Opera 10.52 also gained Firefox’s “Awesome Bar” feature of searching from the address bar. Other additions include customizable search engines, private browsing per window or tab, and dialog boxes that are displayed as page overlays instead of dialog boxes so you can still switch tabs or windows to do something else.

Opera 10.52 for Mac is a free download that requires Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger or later on an Intel Mac.

Resource:
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/195077/opera_1052_brings_new_mac_interface_other_enhancements.html

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The Synaptics Gesture Suite for Linux can also be applied to Google Chrome OS in devices that range from small remote controls, through netbooks to notebook PCs and other custom OEM devices. Other supported Linux-based operating systems include Fedora, Millos Linpus, Red Flag, SuSE, Ubuntu and Xandros.

Resource:
http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/Synaptics_bring_multitouch_to_open_source_operating_system-nid-67477.html

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ORLANDO, Fla.—Research In Motion President and Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis met analysts’ expectations April 27 by unveiling the BlackBerry 6 operating system and a new Web browser fueled by WebKit, the same open-source platform on which Google’s Android OS is based.

The executive, speaking at RIM’s Wireless Enterprise Symposium here, also said there are more than 41 million BlackBerry users, and vowed to double that number and eventually reach 100 million. The company plans to make this happen partially through the new user experience afforded by BlackBerry 6 and the new browser.

Calling BlackBerry 6 the “biggest step forward for the BlackBerry experience in our history,” Lazaridis told the packed crowd that the user experience will feel fresh but familiar.

In other words, BlackBerry 6 offers some of the functionality popularized by Apple’s iPhone, which was in turn imitated by smartphones running Android.

Multitouch functionality such as pinch-to-zoom browsing is one of the features users can expect when BlackBerry 6 appears between July and September. It is not yet clear what devices the new operating system will run on, but RIM confirmed that it will run on some existing BlackBerry models.

During the demo, which users can watch on YouTube here, Lazaridis showed off a media-intensive user experience, highlighted by crisp graphics and easy, pan-and-zoom scrolling from screen to screen. Applications highlighted included Twitter, YouTube and several other social media, instant messaging and e-mail tools.

The OS will allow users to access more than one Web page at a time. Users will be able to search right from the homescreen and see bookmarks and other info in different views. All of the core applications have been redesigned, such as messaging, calendar and contacts. BlackBerry 0S 6 adds a new application for managing social networking tools and RSS feeds.

The new browser appeared to load Websites such as that of The New York Times quite quickly and sported a bigger font size for better reading. This is a testament to the new rendering engine, developed by programmers who joined RIM in the company’s August 2009 purchase of Torch Mobile.

Sensitive about the criticism that RIM’s BlackBerry App World store only has 6,500 applications (compared with almost 200,000 in the iPhone App Store and 50,000 in Android Market), Lazaridis claimed: “Success in wireless will depend on who has the best apps, not the most apps.”

As evidence of quality, he said BlackBerry App World has 20 million users and logs 1 million downloads each day.

In case anyone missed the fact that RIM was trying to make the BlackBerry, traditionally a device designed for corporate road warriors with major e-mail requirements, look cool, Lazaridis turned the stage over to Will.i.am, frontman for the Black Eyed Peas hip hop collective. Will.i.am professed his love of using the BlackBerry for both work and play.

“If I make music, I shouldn’t send it to someone that’s going to take it to a pressing plant, I should just send it from my BlackBerry to all of the millions of fans that the Black Eyed Peas have,” Will.i.am said.

Such street cred gives BlackBerry a boost, but the proof will come later this summer when the OS appears on smartphones.

Broadpoint AmTech analyst Mark McKechnie predicted in an April 27 research note that BlackBerry 6 will close the gap between BlackBerry and other operating systems, including the iPhone OS, Android and Palm OS, albeit with the advantage of three to five times the bandwidth efficiency.

“We think the UI [user interface] will improve access to the BlackBerry apps store,” McKechnie wrote. “The new OS will come with a browser that includes multitouch, kinetic scrolling and pinch to zoom. Further checks suggest the OS and browser will be ported to recently shipping models, including the Bold 2, pending technical hurdles.”

Resource:
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/RIM-Expects-to-Top-100M-Users-With-Blackberry-6-OS-WebKit-Browser-798207/

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The N8 phone has a 12 megapixel camera and allows people to record and edit High Definition video clips, as well as watch web TV services.

Analysts said the phone was a “pivotal device” in efforts “to make Nokia’s high end phones credible again”.

It is also a chance for Symbian to prove itself alongside Google’s Android operating system and Apple’s iPhone.

Despite being the world’s most popular smart phone software, Symbian has lost “mindshare” against more high-profile software, according to industry experts.

Analysts at CCS Insight described the Symbian 3 software as “evolutionary not revolutionary” but said it was a “key first step if it proves reliable”.

Cinema support

It is the first version of the software since the Symbian foundation announced that it had made its code open source in February.

The Foundation – which includes Nokia, Motorola and Samsung amongst others – gave away the code to developers for free in the hope that it would help speed up the pace of improvements. Any organisation or individual can now use and modify it.

The software in the N8 allows the phone to have multi-touch and multi-tasking, meaning more than one application can be open at any one time.

The device will be Nokia’s flagship smartphone. It can be plugged into home theatres and supports surround sound as well as high-quality video.

Social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook, can be displayed on the home screen in a single application.

Lee Williams, executive director of the Symbian Foundation, said he was “stoked” that Nokia had chosen to use the operating system on its phone.

The phone will ship in the third quarter of 2010, following delays.

Resource:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8646715.stm

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Garmin plans to release through T-Mobile this year a navigation-focused smartphone that would be the successor to the long-delayed Nuvifone A50 that shipped late last year.

The new Garminfone, like its predecessor, would run Google’s Android operating system. Layered on top of the OS is Garmin’s navigation user interface.

The latest phone would offer voice-guided and on-screen directions with automatic rerouting. The device, which has a 3.5-inch display, can be mounted on a dashboard to provide directions to motorists. In addition, Garmin also offers maps and navigation to people on foot.

Other features offered through Garminfone’s UI include real-time traffic, weather, and gas prices. The Garminfone also has a 3-megapixel camera, built-in support for 3G and Wi-Fi networks, and some internal storage, although Garmin has not said how much.

The smartphone will be available through T-Mobile, which could release the device as early as this spring, according to reports. Pricing has not been disclosed.

Garmin is hoping for a smoother launch of its latest Android phone than its Nuvifone predecessor. Garmin introduced the device in January 2008, expecting to release the smartphone in the third quarter of the year. Instead, the Nuvifone didn’t hit the market until late last year.

The device was Garmin’s first attempt to combine its personal navigation service with a cellular phone and mobile Web browser. At the time, the strongest features were the personal navigation capabilities, such as turn-by-turn directions that weren’t available on Apple’s popular iPhone.

Since then, similar navigation capabilities have been made available on the iPhone using Apple’s GPS technology and applications built by third-party developers offering iPhone applications through Apple’s App Store.

Garmin has partnered with computer maker Asus for manufacturing the Nuvifone, Garminfone, and Windows Mobile-based smartphones.

Resource:
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2010/04/22/google_the_server_chip_designer/

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The questions about whether or not Apple could produce a compelling tablet have been answered. PCMag gave it an Editors’ Choice award, and most other reviews have been positive to glowing. Yes, there are still some big questions about the iPad. Will consumers embrace it after the initial rush? Will publishers’ dreams of the “iPad as industry savior” be realized? I’d say we’re 6 to 12-months away from being able to answer those questions. Even so, Apple’s iPad is a tablet done right, and I think Apple’s plan of using and extending its mobile OS in ever-larger devices is pure genius and one that Microsoft would do well to mimic.

Right now, we’re all waiting for Windows 7-based tablets, such as the HP Slate, to arrive. There will be others, of course, but HP’s is the one Microsoft is touting. It appears to have the most potential for rebooting Microsoft’s tablet PC efforts. It’s built on the Windows 7 platform—a desktop and laptop OS that I use every day. It’s the best version of Windows since, perhaps, Windows 95. By that I mean that it’s new, fresh, smart, and light enough and intuitive enough to not get in your way.

All that said, it’s still a desktop OS. It carries with it all of the complications that are typically associated with running a relatively complex piece of technology. For what it’s worth, Apple’s desktop OS, Mac OS X, is only marginally less complex. This has relatively little to do with the hardware. We’ve proven in PC Labs that netbooks (which have hardware specs that are roughly equivalent to the upcoming Windows tablets), can run Windows 7, but Windows still shows you too much about the guts of your system. You still install drivers, there’s still a Control Panel, and even the nifty new Device Stage leads you to a hardware setup or configuration screen eventually. Windows Phone 7, like the iPhone OS, shields the end user from those complications. If Microsoft and its partners put Windows Phone 7 on these tablets, an end user might never have to see any of them. Yet, with access to the new Microsoft Marketplace, they’ll still be able to install whatever apps they need—all from one central place. Clearly, Microsoft has a lot of ground to make up in the Marketplace—it’ll have to get much richer and faster if Microsoft wants people to rely on it for their Win Phone 7 app needs. Web-based offerings could help here. Microsoft’s Office Web Apps, for example, could be the perfect tools for these Windows Phone 7-based tablets.

Before someone goes for my throat, let’s define some terms. Tablets is, admittedly, a broad term, and there’s a lot of confusion about what is and isn’t a tablet computer. For the sake of my argument, I do not consider products like the Apple iPad and HP Slate full-blown computers, and, while versatile, they’re not suited for all computing tasks. I don’t think video editing, intensive photo editing, and CAD work are what you want to do with them. Laptops that convert into tablets are, essentially, full-blown PCs stuffed with powerful, near-desktop-level (sometimes desktop-level) components. They’re ready to do virtually anything. All-in-one touch-screen desktops, such as the HP TouchSmart, are not tablets.

If you accept my argument—that true tablets need to work more like mobile phones and less like desktop computers—then Apple’s iPad strategy makes perfect sense. The astounding market success of netbooks helped Apple realize that most people only want to do a limited number of things with their computers. But Apple CEO Steve Jobs was loath to deliver a low-end portable computer to the market. Obviously, he figured out that Apple could serve the netbook market, with a product that’s sexier, simpler, and yet more powerful than many low-end netbooks. The iPhone and iPod touch are incredibly human devices that respond to your actions in an almost instinctive way. It’s not much of a leap to surmise that this think/do interface metaphor could also work in a form factor just shy of a full-blown laptop. There are more facets to the iPad than simplicity, but the choice of the iPhone OS as the iPad platform is probably the most important decision Apple made in the entire product development process.

Putting what is, essentially, a mobile OS into, for example, the HP Slate should be easy to do. It would allow Microsoft to replicate the Apple ecosystem’s success (i.e. the iPad, iPhone OS 4, iTunes, the App Store, and individual apps). Obviously, Microsoft doesn’t manufacture and control Windows Phone 7-based hardware the way Apple does its own hardware. That said, Microsoft is requiring certain key features in all Windows phones: GPS, touch screen capabilities, and an accelerometer. Now, Microsoft should extend that concept to tablets running its software (if it doesn’t already).

One company that may agree with my strategy is Google. I’ve heard more than a few rumors that the company is working on a tablet with its Android mobile platform—not its Google Chrome OS. This isn’t exactly a surprise. Other companies, including Dell, are thinking the very same thing.

I know this is a radical idea, but if Microsoft and its partners hinder these new tablets with a full-blown OS and the standard world of ad-hoc Windows applications and utilities bought from non-homogenous sources, Apple and the iPad will win.

Resource:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2362882,00.asp

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