News tagged ‘SD’

Today, Apple has released iOS 4.1 beta for developers. The SDK and a beta OS install for iOS devices is now available via Apple developers site. We will update with new features as we find them, including antenna fixes.

This Thursday Larry Page and Eric Shmidt (one of Google founders and its current CEO respectively) gave an interesting interview at the Allen & Co. conference.

According to Reuters, Page said that Jobs' opinion about animosity between Apple and Google that was caused by the latter (because it was Google that decided to compete with the iPhone by creating Android mobile platform) is "a little bit of rewriting history".

"We had been working on Android a very long time, with the notion of producing phones that are Internet enabled and have good browsers and all that, because that did not exist in the market place. I think that characterization of us entering after is not really reasonable."

Shmidt also added there are no "zero-sum games, which are battles to death", as the market is large enough for Google and Apple to thrive. Besides, Google still remains to be an important strategic partner for Apple by being the default search provider and powering Maps and Youtube application on all iOS devices.

When the iPhone 4 was introduced at the WWDC, Apple especially noted the capabilities of the device, putting emphasis on its camera. The company said that, even though the iPhone 4 had only 5 megapixels, while 8 megapixels was beginning to be the norm for the latest smartphones, the iPhone 4 would have a far superior performance thanks to some special features that go far beyond the simple megapixel count.

Now the iPhone 4 is finally on the market, and so are samples of the new Droid X from Motoralla introduced on Wednesday. This made camera tests possible and this is what Macworld did in their series of tests aimed to compare 4 devices: the iPhone 4, it’s predecessor 3GS, the Droid X, the HTC EVO 4G, Samsung HZ35W and Galaxy, as well as basic Sony and Samsung point-and-shoot cameras. For the video test, the devices were also compared to the Flip Video M2120.

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Yesterday AT&T suddenly entirely stopped accepting iPhone 4 preorders. The company said that it was the busiest online sales day in its history.

Meanwhile AT&T's site started to show old information on iPhone 3GS prices, that was actual before iPhone 4 was announced. Some people also claimed they were shown info that wasn't theirs on AT&T's and Apple's site (the latter sometimes pulls information from AT&T's site to verify shipping address).

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Today Best Buy announced that as of Tuesday, June 15, every customer will have an ability to visit one of its retail stores (including  Best Buy Mobile standalone stores) to make an order for a new iPhone 4 and then take it on June 24. Both 16GB and 32GB models will be available for reserve.

President of Best Buy Mobile Shawn Score is glad to propose customers pre-order feature:

- Adding the iPhone 4 to our stores alongside other great smartphones like the HTC EVO from Sprint and HTC Incredible on Verizon, gives customers a great opportunity to view each side-by-side and get the mobile phone that works best for them.

Best Buy will become the second iPhone 4 retailer after Radioshack, which confirmed last week that it was authorized by Apple too.

As we wrote before, on June 24 iPhone 4 will also be available at Wal-Mart locations, but the company will not take pre-orders on the device.

AT&T, which will also sell new handsets, didn’t give any information on taking pre-orders.

A group of hackers found a security flaw on the web servers of AT&T and after obtaining users’ 3G iPad SIM addresses (also known as ICC ID) from the web made an automated script attack to receive their email addresses.

According to Gawker report, now hacked users may "be vulnerable to spam marketing and malicious hacking". SIM addresses are easy enough to obtain, because many people have already posted their ICC ID numbers in photos published on Flickr for instance. But most of them have their e-mails published too, so it is likely that they have already received such spam.

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Thanks to Engadget we now have a spec comparison between the iPhone 4 and the older model iPhone 3GS.

iPhone 4

iPhone 3GS

As you remember, few weeks ago the police broke into Gizmodo journalist’s home and seized 4 computers, 2 servers and a number of different devices. But it was not allowed to search for information until yesterday because officials had been waiting to determine whether Jason Chen (the journalist) was protected as a journalist or not.

This Wednesday Cnet received information on the situation from Stephen Wagstaffe, who is a chief deputy district attorney for San Mateo County, California.

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This Tuesday Adobe revealed its new digital viewer technology for creating e-magazines that can be viewable on touchscreen devices like Apple's iPad.

The technology was first demonstrated when the iPad version of Wired magazine was introduced. We wrote that Adobe had to rewrite the software in Objective-C for Apple to approve it. Since the release iPad Wired edition stays near the top of the App Store sales chart with its price $4,99.

Here's what the vice president of Creative Solutions at Adobe David Burkett said about new technology:

"We aim to make our digital viewer software available to all publishers soon and plan to deliver versions that work across multiple hardware platforms. It's safe to say that if you are already working in InDesign CS5, you'll be well on your way to producing a beautiful digital version of your publication."

Judging by the Wired iPad edition, new digital viewer technology can offer integrating videos, 360-degree rotatable images, slide shows and more directly into the magazine.

Jesse Rosten, who is a storyteller and filmmaker from Northern California, decided to demonstrate how the iPad can be used in any situation with a help of Velcro fasteners only. The latter can be used to mount the device in almost any place without purchasing dedicated stands.

The idea may look silly but people say the video is so inspiring that they would love to make something similar at home.

Yesterday Associated Press reported that a 19-year-old Li Hai, who had worked for only 42 days in Foxconn, which is responsible for iPhone manufacturing, jumped from a building and died on Tuesday.

This is a tenth death in a row for a last year among Foxconn workers. This and eight other suicides were commited at Foxconn's plant that situated in the southern city of Shenzhen. That was also the place for two feeble attempts when the workers have survived.

Terry Gou, who is a Foxconn Chairman, told reporters on Monday (beofre the tenth death):

"Foxconn is not running a sweatshop. We are confident we'll be able to stabilize the situation soon."

Last week Southern Weekend reported that employees are signing "voluntary overtime affidavits" to earn more than $132, which is a local minimum wage that a worker can earn through a 36-hour workweek. One of the employees explained:

"Without overtime, you can hardly make a living."

Days later, on Friday a 21-year-old Foxconn employee jumped from a 4-story building.

One of the heart-rending stories reveals a suicide committed in July of 2009, when one of the workers jumped from a 12-story building because he was allegedly responsible for one of the sixteen next-gen prototype iPhones disappearance.

Yesterday Dell officially announced its first 5-inch Android tablet. The announcement was made on the company's official blog.

So the device is now called the Streak. Previously it was shown at Consumer Electronics Show 2010 as a concept and called the Mini 5. The tablet has a 800x480 pixel capacitive multitouch screen, 1GHz Snapdragon processor from Qualcomm, VGA front-facing camera for video chatting, 5MP autofocus camera with LED flash, removable battery, 3.5mm headphone jack, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and MicroSD-card support. The Streak runs a customized version of Android OS with multitouch support and "Dell UI enhancements".  The system allows accessing to 40,000  apps in the Android Market, navigation with Google Maps, support for Google Voice and Microsoft Exchange Connectivity.

Blogger from the Round Rock company in Texas Lionel Menchasa thinks the Streak may be very perspective:

"I've been at Dell for 16 years, and I don't think there's ever been more buzz around a single Dell product than this. In my view, that's for good reason. Hardware and design-wise, this thing impresses. Add the ever-increasing capability that Android brings to the equation, and you've got a mobile device that offers a ton of flexibility while looking cool in the process."

The device will be shipped to the UK on June 4 and will be exclusive to the O2 network. Still there is no information on prices, data plans and American partners, but Menсhasa said everything will be soon announced.

In a video above one of the device developers Kevin Andrew tells and shows how useful the Streak may be in the everyday use.

According to a new report revealed by Silicon Alley Insider on Wednesday iPhone OS 4 may possibly have built-in integration with Facebook.  The feature will probably be presented on June 7 at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference conducted by Apple.

An author of the report Dan Frommer says he doesn't have any details on how it works.

"...We also hear that Apple could be integrating Facebook Connect directly into its software developers kit so programmers can more easily add Facebook 'social' features to their apps".

There is also information about bringing Facebook messaging features to the upcoming versions of iPhone OS making it possible to send messages via Facebook Chat as easy as sending an SMS.

An idea of integration with Facebook was already implemented by Google in its OS Android 2.0. Windows Phone 7 is also expected to support strong Facebook connectivity.

This Wednesday HTC accused Apple in infringing of five their patents. The countersuit was filed with the International Trade Commission and now asks to halt the importation of the iPod touch, iPhone and iPad into America.

Vice President of HTC in North America Jason Mackenzie says the action was taken to protect its partners and customers.

"HTC believes the industry should be driven by healthy competition and innovation that offer consumers the best, most accessible mobile experiences possible".

The press release given by HTC underlines that the company created the most advanced smartphones in the world for the last 10 years.

At this moment there are twelve HTC phones available in America, including the HTC HD2 for T-Mobile, the HTC EVO 4G for Sprint and the Droid Incredible for Verizon.

Still there is no information revealed about the patents that are involved in the suit.

As you remember, last week Steve Jobs posted a letter about his thoughts on Flash and that same day Adobe’s CEO commented on it.  Sometime later chief technology officer Kevin Lynch also expressed his opinion on the situation:

"It's not about HTML5 vs. Flash. They're mutually beneficial. The more important question is the freedom of choice on the Web."

In the meantime, Instead of using plugin-based technologies like Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight, Apple created a new client-side framework Gianduia to produce quality online applications for retail users.

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