The new Buzz on Motorola

Valtteri Halla — Nokia employee and one-half of MeeGo’s Technical Steering Group — has blogged up a storm this week about the first baby steps that’ll get the platform off the ground from its Moblin and Maemo roots, and from the sounds of things, we’ll be able to get our first glimpse at it on production hardware before the month’s out. Currently, the plan is to open up MeeGo’s code repository to all comers “by the end of this month,” targeting both Atom boards and the N900. Now, we certainly wouldn’t say that MeeGo’s decision to use the N900 as an early target device is indicative of an official upgrade down the line — but this is particularly interesting in light of the fact that we’ve never gotten a commitment out of Nokia to bump its latest MID to Maemo 6. And besides, considering that the average N900 customer is a bit of a hacker in his or her own right, let’s be honest: a code repository that supports the phone is just about as good as an official gold build anyhow.

All credits and information was found on engadget.com

Eternal archrivals-to-the-death Samsung and LG have a tendency to match one another tit for tat in virtually every consumer electronic category, but for whatever reason, LG’s been far less interested in going for broke with Android over the past year — though a preoccupation with Windows Phone 7 Series is a solid guess at this point. Things may be changing, though, now that we’ve got news out of Telecoms Korea that they’re prepping a more brutal assault than the weakling GW620 could ever provide in the form of a so-called LU2300 for the domestic market (we’re assuming the actual thing will be a little more… well, “designed” than the snow-white mockup above). The site is playing up LG’s announcement that the phone will bundle a bunch of popular apps in ROM (awesome?) but the real news is the impressive spec sheet, which is said to include a Nexus One-like 1GHz Snapdragon and WVGA AMOLED display paired with Android 2.1 and a 5 megapixel cam capable of 720p video. It certainly sounds like it’s ready to give Samsung’s M100S a run for its money, but we’ll need to wait until its second quarter release to know for sure.

All credits and information was found on engadget.com

Last night during The Engadget Show, Aaron Woodman, the director of mobile communications business with Microsoft, showed of the first Windows Phone 7 series device, a prototype developed by LG.

Engadget said that the phone was slightly thicker than an iPhone, despite sporting a full QWERTY keyboard, as well as a 5 megapixel camera with flash, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and the standard hardware buttons you’d expect on a smartphone like external volume and camera keys.

Little else, including a model name or number, was revealed about the device.

All credits and information was found on boygeniusreport.com

Looking to fight an apparent outbreak of FUD, Adobe’s Flash evangelist Mark Doherty has posted some hard numbers (and accompanying video) on the effect Flash 10.1 has on the Google Nexus One — and put simply, it really doesn’t appear to have much effect at all. To back up his cause, Doherty plays a 17-minute embedded video in the full YouTube site then pops over to Android’s built-in battery use utility, which indicates that only 6 percent of the juice has gone to power the browser (of course, leaving the screen on to watch the video is another story altogether). He says that the company’s tests suggest they can get about three hours of H.264 playback over WiFi, which is theoretically enough to watch a movie or two; obviously the proof is in the pudding here, but this is a promising sign that these guys have taken battery optimization very, very seriously for this mobile push.

All credits and information was found on engadget.com

Today Verizon posted a note on its forums that says FiOS TV customers can use their Verizon Wireless Android powered Motorola DROID or the Windows Mobile powered HTC Imagio as a remote to control their FiOS set-top box. The software allows you to control channels, pause/rewind/face forward, set parental controls, record TV shows, and even transfer photos from your phone to your television. If a phone call comes through, your TV will be automatically muted.

The application for the phone is available in each respective application store, and you can set it up using your WiFi network at home.

Verizon says future handsets will be compatible with the software as well.

All credits and information was found on mobileburn.com

A huge leap forward in the Canadian smartphone world today as TELUS has started to sell the Motorola MILESTONE. The first Android handset to go on sale in Canada that’s actually capable of holding its own against the likes of the Bold 9700, iPhone 3GS and Touch Pro2, the MILESTONE goes for $199.99 on a 3-year voice and data contract with no term pricing coming in at $599.99. At these prices we can’t imagine TELUS will have a hard time selling the MILESTONE to smartphone crazed Canadians, but then again we know better than to expect Canadians to warm up to Android after the disaster Rogers had on its hands with the Dream and Magic. Anyway… Any Canadians tempted to unlock a few and sell them off to desperate AT&T users at exorbitant prices?

All credits and information was found on boygeniusreport.com

Apple and HTC might each be trying to patent a fancy capacitive stylus, but it looks like the good people of South Korea have stumbled on a decidedly more low-tech (and delicious) solution to using their phones in the winter: sausages. Apparently snack sausages from the CJ Corporation are electrostatically compatible with the iPhone’s capacitive touchscreen, leading many to use them as a “meat stylus” in the cold weather, rather than remove a glove. And it’s not just a joke; apparently South Korean snack sausage sales are soaring. We don’t know if anyone’s managed to combine this bit of amazing hackery with the bacon iPod sleeve yet, but we do know that we just registered meatstylus.com — anyone care to send in some local sausage test results?

All credits and information was found on engadget.com

Those that crave the latest and greatest handsets from LG will have to wait until Mobile World Congress is officially under way, but for now, two new handsets have been announced by the Korean company that should prove to be popular with the masses. First up is the GD880 Mini. As the name implies, the GD880 is very petite (LG is calling it the “smallest and slimmest 3.2-inch full touchscreen phone on the market today”), but it turns out the device hasn’t exactly been shortchanged when it comes to specs; LG has managed to shove a 5 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, A-GPS and 7.2Mbps HSDPA into the sleek device. Second we have the GT350. Essentially the successor of the KS360 aka Neon, the GT350 is improved by a four-line full-QWERTY sliding keypad as well as a a full 3? WQVA touchscreen. Both phones are capable of push email and browsing the web, but the Mini has two applications the GT350 doesn’t in Social Network Connect (”which makes keeping in touch with online friends even easier than on a desktop PC”) and Social Network Feed which has built-in access to things the youth are down with like Facebook and Twitter and is integrated with Social Address Book.

Pricing for each device has yet to be made public, but we do know the GD880 Mini will be available in Europe next month (to be followed by other markets) while the GT350 will be available come April.

All credits and information was found on boygeniusreport.com

Tired of waiting for the Xperia X10 for your first taste of Android and Sony Ericsson? Leave it to the gang at the XDA-developers forum to jump the gun. Last week marked the successful port of Android 2.0.1 (or Android 1.6, if you so choose) to the Xperia X1. No bluetooth, camera, or GPS — not yet, at any rate — but WiFI, GSM, resistive touchscreen, and all the other amenities should be functioning. Tweakers at heart can find all the necessary files and instructions via the source link, and as for the rest of us.

All credits and information was found on engadget.com

Verizon today said that its wireline and wireless customers can continue to call Haiti without long distance fees for two more weeks. The deal will last until February 14th, an extension from the original January 31st cutoff.

All credits and information was found on mobileburn.com