Oct

29

Православни икониПодаръципочистванеmonkey_on_iphone.jpgколи под наемHouse members in the next Congress could get Apple’s iPhone as their newest communication gadget.

The Chief Administrative Office (CAO), which oversees the communications systems for the House, has begun testing a small number of iPhones within its ranks to see if they are compatible with the working needs of lawmakers and staff.

“The reason we’re trying them out is because we heard a lot of people wanted the option to have them,” said Jeff Ventura, a spokesman for the CAO.
The iPhone has garnered tremendous attention since its release in July 2007. In addition to being heralded as one of the greatest modern inventions, it’s received its share of criticism for its touch-screen keyboard and slow connection speeds.

The CAO plans to decide whether to give members the option of using the phones, which are offered exclusively under AT&T contracts, by the beginning of the next Congress in January.

The cell phone of choice in the House is currently the BlackBerry, with nearly 8,200 in active use.

If the CAO decides to offer members the option of using the iPhone, BlackBerrys are likely to remain the primary tool of communication on the Hill. If lawmakers opt for the iPhone over the BlackBerry, they will be required to pay for it out of the Member’s Representational Allowance.

But switching to the iPhone will be a costly investment.

The House’s e-mail is set up in a way that all the messages are delivered via a BlackBerry Enterprise server. That server is not compatible with the iPhone, so the only way people could get their e-mail would be to plug the iPhone into their computer. Because the iPhones would require a new server, the CAO is testing it before making the investment, according to the CAO officials.

Read Full Story at The Hill

Oct

23

Read Full Story: “After months of delays, Research In Motion on Wednesday finally announced a November 4 launch date in the United States for the BlackBerry Bold smartphone.

Nearly four months behind schedule, the Canadian smartphone maker might have lost momentum. The result is that many customers tired of waiting may have instead opted for the  popular iPhone.

‘Hopes for Bold are fading given time-to-market,’ wrote Cowen & Co. analyst Matthew Hoffmann in a note to clients.

RIM had first announced the launch of the 3G phone with built-in GPS, its answer to Apple’s iPhone, in July. That came  around the time Apple was releasing the iPhone 3G. But the launch was postponed until August because of battery life issues and overheating problems, and then it was postponed again.

RIM tries to justify the delay with mentions of the detailed attention given to the product.

‘The development of the BlackBerry Bold smartphone was an ambitious undertaking, and we focused intensely on the things that are most important to mobile customers,’ said Mike Lazaridis, RIM’s president and co-CEO, in a statement.

Wall Street took notice of the delay, and its concerns have reflected on the company’s shares, which have plunged in recent months–the stock lost nearly half its value in October.

Investors appeared displeased Wednesday by the news. In midday trading,  shares plunged $3.49, or 6.9 percent, at $47.04.

While the Waterloo, Ontario-based company was intensely focusing on things ‘important’ to mobile customers, Apple hurried and stole the show.

Apple sold 6.9 million units of its 3G touch-screen phone compared with 1.1 million in the year-ago quarter, the company said on Tuesday, when it announced its fourth-quarter financial results.

RIM sold 6.1 million BlackBerry devices during the same period.

‘We sold more phones than RIM,’ Steve Jobs, rubbing salt in the wound, said on the conference call.”

(Via .)

Oct

13

Sep

22

adapter2-sm.jpgApple has ordered a recall of its ultracompact USB power adapters.
The adapters, originally packaged with the Iphone 3G, apparently contain flimsy metal prongs that are susceptible to snapping.
According to Apple, the broken prongs could “remain in a power outlet, creating a risk of electric shock”.
The flawed adapters were reportedly sold in the U.S., Japan, Canada, Mexico and South America. Club Cupertino recommended that customers in the affected countries stop using their adapters “immediately” and exchange them for new ones. The company also confirmed reports of “detached” prongs but emphasised that they had caused no known injuries.

Read Full Story

Apple Support article

Sep

17

Apple’s iPhone 3G has won a public vote to find the year’s best gadget, beating strong competition from three games consoles, a budget laptop and a balloon-shaped iPod speaker system.

The latest version of the mobile that combines a phone with a music and video player was chosen by readers of Stuff magazine in its annual Gadget of the Year awards.

The magazine described the iPhone 3G as “a faster, cleverer version of an already remarkable phone”. The phone’s first incarnation, launched in Britain last year, won the coolest gadget prize at last year’s ceremony.

Other nominees included Sony’s PlayStation 3, Microsoft’s Xbox 360, Nintendo’s Wii Fit and the B&W Zeppelin iPod speakers.

Stuff’s Editor Fraser Macdonald said the nominated products were judged on their performance, design and value, as well as “that elusive cool factor”.

“Having our readers vote for a number of the awards has been fascinating,” he said. “They are the ones out there on the street buying gadgets and so they are a great barometer.”

The magazine’s own gadget of the year prize, chosen by its editorial staff, went to the Asus Eee Pc, a no-frills laptop that costs less than 300 pounds.

The judges said it had made more of an impact than any other device and marked the start of a “laptop for everyone” era.

Read Full Story

Sep

17

Anyone expecting the Google mobile operating system to change the market as Apple’s iPhone has over the past year will probably be disappointed – for now.

Industry insiders who have worked on Google’s Android system say it will struggle in the near term to match the consumer enthusiasm generated by the iPhone, which redefined the touch-screen phone market and greatly improved mobile Web surfing.

Instead, Google sees Android as an open source platform for designing mobile devices and says it will encourage innovation by allowing outside software developers to tinker with the system and create better mobile programs and services.

But these things take time, and the first phone using Android, code-named the Google “Dream” phone, is unlikely to wow consumers. The device is made by HTC of Taiwan. Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile unit reportedly intends to introduce it in New York on Tuesday.

“I’m not sure the consumer experience is significantly better than that of the iPhone,” said Rajeev Chand, a wireless analyst at the investment bank Rutberg, who has tried out an early version of Android. “When the iPhone came out, the experience was several orders of magnitude better than anything that was out there.”

Read Full Story

Sep

15

Google is everywhere, with its ubiquitous Web search engine, Google Maps for navigation, Google Docs online office suite, Google Checkout shopping and most recently, Google Chrome Web browser. Next up: Google’s Android operating system for mobile phones, likely to debut in the weeks ahead.

googles-android.jpg

The first mobile device built around Android will be carried by T-Mobile in a still-unnamed handset designed by Taiwanese smartphone powerhouse HTC. The Android phone will go up against Apple’s iPhone, Research In Motion’s BlackBerry and a host of devices powered by Nokia’s Symbian and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating systems. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)

While every market Google has entered is highly competitive, none may be more so than the mobile phone market, specifically the market for smartphones, which can handle e-mail and Web surfing.

Story continues below ↓
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Symbian-based phones s led in worldwide market share for smartphone mobile operating systems, with 57.1 percent of sales in the second quarter of this year, according to Gartner Research.

That likely reflects Nokia’s status as the world’s largest cell-phone maker. Next in line were Research In Motion, 17.4 percent; Windows Mobile, 12 percent; Linux, 7.3 percent; Apple’s Mac SO X, 2.8 percent; and Palm, 2.3 percent. Another 1.1 percent included Sharp Sidekick devices based on the Danger platform.

In the United States, Research In Motion’s mobile operating system dominates the smartphone market, with 41 percent, according to a February 2008 report by Canalys consulting, with Apple capturing 28 percent, Windows Mobile, 21 percent, and Palm, 9 percent.

Read Full Story

Sep

15

Given Apple’s super-secretive ways, it’s quite a shock to find a company engineer disclosing something about the iPhone’s future innards on a public social networking site.

Wei-han Lien, the senior manager of Apple’s chip team, dished out the morsel on LinkedIn, saying he’s busy at work crafting an ARM processor for the next-generation iPhone.

While it’s a minor revelation, Lien’s statement would confirm what many have expected ever since Apple acquired chip start-up PA Semiconductor in April for close to $300 million.

PA Semi had assembled an all-star cast of chip engineers, including Lien, and Apple confirmed that it bought the company for that talent. In a June interview with The Times’ John Markoff, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs went one step further, saying the PA Semi team would work on designing brand-new processors for future iPhones and iPods. The only question was which kind of processors.

The current iPhone includes ARM processors, which are very common in the mobile device industry. ARM Holdings is a British firm that licenses out its processor designs to other companies, who tweak the chips to suit their needs. While Apple refuses to confirm it, the company uses ARM processors made by Samsung in the iPhone, according to numerous analysts.

By developing its own ARM variant, Apple could create a processor that meets the specific needs of the iPhone and iPod, building support for functions such as the touch screen or scroll wheel into silicon and possibly savings on costs by reducing the number of processors needed in each device. In addition, Apple’ will be able to maintain tighter controls on who knows what about its future products by disposing of an outside chip supplier.

“They could put software accelerators on there or maybe do something like a graphics engine,” said Fred Weber, the former chief technology officer of Advanced Micro Devices and current chief executive of memory specialist Metaram.

Such a move, however, comes with challenges.

“You are taking on that internal risk of making sure this design goes well,” said chip analyst Linley Gwennap of the Linley Group. “Even with a good team, there’s always a risk that things will be late and delay the release of something like a new iPhone. By outsourcing that part, you have the opportunity of going to another company if the first cannot deliver what you need.”

The construction of a bespoke mobile chip sees Apple returning to its historical roots. For years, Apple relied on more specialized processors from I.B.M. and Motorola rather than using the more common Intel processors adopted by the major computer makers. It eventually abandoned that strategy in 2005 and moved over to Intel chips, leaving Apple’s software as the only major difference between its machines and rivals’.

The engineers at PA Semi specialized in crafting processors with strong performance and very low power consumption. Before shifting to Intel chips, Apple flirted with the idea of placing the PA Semi processors, which were similar in architecture to the I.B.M. and Motorola chips, into its laptops and desktops. PA Semi officials were, in fact, shocked when they learned in the press of Apple’s decision to go with Intel. Apple’s choice crippled PA Semi’s business overnight and forced it to go after new markets such as networking and storage gear.

While hunting for new customers, PA Semi also managed to attract the attention of military equipment suppliers who were intrigued by the low-power qualities of PA Semi’s chips. (They consume less than 20 watts apiece.)

People familiar with the Defense Department’s intentions say that PA Semi chips are set to go into missiles, computers in fighter jets and surveillance equipment.

“By all accounts, the PA Semi chip is meritorious,” said Will Strauss, an analyst with Forward Concepts. “There really was nothing else quite like it.”

When Apple bought PA Semi, it had no intention of morphing into a military supplier. The Defense Department, however, received push-back from suppliers who had already committed to long-term designs based on the microprocessor. These equipment makers urged the Pentagon to pressure Apple into continuing to supply PA Semi’s chips for several years, according to people familiar with the negotiations, who declined to comment on the record because of Pentagon restrictions. Apple eventually caved.

“We are extremely confident and pleased with the direction of PA Semi’s silicon availability,” said Bret Farnum, a vice president at Extreme Engineering Solutions, which makes specialized computing systems, some of which go to military suppliers. “We have many customers that are going to continue to deploy it for the next four to five years.”

via: Read Full Story

Feb

5

Jan

31

2215285685_17d7427547.jpgI was filling my car up with gas in the sharp cold gusting winds we’ve had here in Kansas lately. I had on a light jacket and as I was getting out of the car to go around and begin pumping, I figured I’d put on my heavy winter coat. I took my phone out of my lightweight jacket and set it on the trunk of my car and switched to my heavier coat. I went inside to prepay for gas, forgetting all about my phone. When I came back out, I pumped my gas, walked around the front of my car, got back in and drove off.

I was traveling down the interstate when this happened. The gas station I stopped at was a little rest area in the middle of the turnpike. So as I left, I merged back onto the highway, accelerated hard, turned up the stereo, and got moving. About 5 minutes later, I reached for my phone, but couldn’t feel it. Then it hit me. I’d forgotten to grab it off the back of my car when I was filling up at the gas station. A feeling of panic and anger washed over me instantly and I started screaming and yelling in my empty car. Because I was driving on a toll-road, there was no way to turn around and just go back. I had to drive another 15 miles to the next exit, pay my toll, get back on the highway, and race the 20 miles back to the rest stop.

I pulled back up to the pump I filled up at but there was no sign of my phone. I remembered a lady filling up next to me in a silver BMW – but she was long gone. My first move was to go inside and ask if she or anyone else had turned it in. No such luck. I scoured the parking lot and on-ramp I used to get back on the highway – no sign of the phone anywhere. After about 30 minutes of searching, I finally gave up. It was 11pm and it was 19 degrees outside. I was exhausted, cold, angry, frustrated, and just decided I’d have to start using the Treo 750 I had as a backup.

As I slowly merged back onto the highway, I kept my eyes open for the remote possibility that the phone had stayed on my car for a longer distance than what I’d searched on foot. Still, no luck. I got up to speed, giving up for good, and about that time (1/4 mile from the gas station) I saw a glimmering light from the lane next to me. As I sped past the object, I knew it was my phone – still alive and working! I slammed on the brakes and pulled over, waiting for the passing cars and trucks to go by so I could run across 2 lanes of 75mph traffic to retrieve my poor phone. As the last pair of headlights approached, the semi got over to the far outside lane because he saw me standing on the side of the road. I knew this was trouble. As I watched helplessly from the shoulder, the semi plowed my phone at full speed, throwing it to the ditch on the other side of the highway. At this point, I figured I’d retrieve it just for the purpose of seeing the crushed iPhone in disarray, mangled and crunched lifeless in the grass.

Much to my surprise, as I approached, I heard the familiar sound of my ringtone — the iPhone was alive and ringing! As I picked it up and cradled it gently in my hands, I saw the screen displaying my caller ID — the screen still worked! I slid my finger gently over the answer slide and paused as I held the tattered and torn device to my ear — my heart must have skipped a beat when I heard my mom’s voice at the other end of the phone — the phone still worked!

I ran back to my car and sat on the side of the road for about 15 minutes inspecting it, testing it, and looking it over — how in the hell had it survived being trounced by an 18-wheeler at 70mph?!?

One day later as I’m writing this, I don’t have an answer to that question. It makes and receives calls, sends and receives text messages, browses the internet, plays music from the iPod feature, connects to my wi-fi network, syncs with my computer, and charges the battery. The camera even takes perfect pictures still!

I’ve spoken with Apple’s customer relations department – they’re interested in using it in an iPhone commercial; I mean come on, this is the ultimate crash and durability test out there! I’ve banged this phone up many times since I bought it the day they were released last June. I’ve dropped it down a flight of concrete stairs, slid it across a parking lot, dropped it on cement, and even partially submerged it in water and this little phone just keeps truckin!

There are a few bad spots on the display now, but the screen is still responsive to touch in those bad areas! The glass covering the screen doesn’t have a mark on it – I have no idea how. The phone would have first had to topple off the back of my car and based on where I found it, I’d have been going well over 60mph when it fell off — that alone would kill most phones. But then being ran over by a semi — I don’t know what to say! I know that approximately 1 hour went by between the time I knew I lost it and the time I recovered it — who knows what else happened to it during that time. When the semi ran over it, the phone was sitting dead in the middle of one of the lanes — it wouldn’t be too hard to imagine it getting hit more than the one time I witnessed!

Read Full Story with more photo’s

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