Technology Effect

Thinking of picking up one of those new Verizon iPhones? Take a look at this infographic first. Here’s a comparison of two Verizon-bound smartphones recently introduced at CES 2011, with Verizon’s iPhone 4 rolled out last week sandwiched in between. Created by one of Skatter Tech‘s student reporters, it’s remarkably comprehensive. When you compare the Motorola Droid Bionic and HTC Thunderbolt to the iPhone 4, the iPhone starts to look like last year’s model. Well, that’s because it is. However, the iPhone 4′s screen resolution is still higher than the other two, and then there’s that iTunes App Store App Store with 300,000 choices for the iPhone, as opposed to the Android Market’s 200,000 apps (and counting fast) for the other two phones (sorry, kid, but you got that number wrong in your infographic). What we really wanted to see in this comparison was the darling of CES, the Motorola Atrix 4G, that R2-D2-like smartphone that’s powerful enough to be the brains of a laptop, plugging...

The power of HTC and 4G speed of Sprint, with a killer keyboard thrown in for good measure We couldn't have asked for a better way to review Sprint's new EVO Shift 4G than by battle testing it at CES in Las Vegas. Four days of use among more than 100,000 nerds, in press conference after press conference, with smartphone news breaking every minute (or so it seemed). The Shift, as it's lovingly referred to by Sprint, is Sprint's third 4G-enabled Android smartphone, and the second with a slide-out keyboard. It runs Android 2.2 Froyo but doesn't have all of the whiz-bang specs as some of the other phones we saw announced during CES. And as the second phone in the EVO line (see the original EVO 4G), it has a lot to live up to. So is it worthy of the EVO name? And did it survive the nerd crunch in Las Vegas? Find out, after the break. The EVO Shift 4G hardware Sprint's already done 4.3- and 4-inch phones with the original EVO 4G and the Sa...

U.S. Cellular is giving all its customers an early Valentine’s Day treat by way of a buy-one-get-one-free sale, starting now - yes you read it right NOW until Feb. 17. So, if you’ve been planning to score a new Android phone from U.S. Cellular, you have until Feb. 17 to do so. Take note, you’re not only getting one but two of those Android phones, with the other one for free. Now, that’s a great offer, right? How good? Well how about if we tell you that aside from Android phones such as Samsung Mesmerize and Galaxy S, you’ll be able to score a Galaxy Tab as well? Make that two Samsung Galaxy Tabs. What’s the deal? Well, for the Samsung Mesmerize, you can score this nice Android phone for only $149.99 and get another one for free after mail-in rebate. As for the Samsung Galaxy Tab, you can score this Android tablet for only $399.99 after $100 mail-in rebate and get another one for free. All you need to do is to sign-up for U.S. Cellular’s $54.99 Belief Plan on both devices....

If recent reports are to be believed, Apple’s second generation iPad will begin shipping somewhere around the end of February 2011, which is around 100 days from now. Initial shipments will range between 400,000 and 600,000 units from Foxconn, which is Apples manufacturer for the iPad 2. Still unconfirmed, but the report claims that mass production of the iPad 2 was expected for January 2011, but has now been pushed back to February as Apple is still testing the iPad 2′s firmware . Apple devices are said to be undergoing more rigorous testing since the highly publicized defect of the iPhone 4 , which is now more popularly known as the Antennagate . The delay is specified to issues with the iPad 2 firmware, which could mean that Apple is eliminating final issues out of the new software whilst also depleting inventory of the current generation iPad. Speculation has indicated that the iPad 2 will include a front-facing FaceTime camera, Retina Display and a gyroscope, all very...

  Hot off the CES PlayBook whirlwind DevCon Asia is just getting started. To start things off RIM has just announced the availability of the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK (beta) for tablet OS as well as some new services for smartphones. The WebWorks SDK will allow developers to use web development tools with which they are already familiar and implement them on the BlackBerry tablet OS. The WebWorks SDK will provide: RIM's powerful WebKit web rendering engine (which is at the core of WebWorks) supporting the latest web technology standards including HTML5, CSS and JavaScript Deep access to device capabilities and components such as native dialogs, application invocation and system information A simple command-line tool that allows developers to use their favorite web development environment to develop WebWorks applications The capability to automatically transform a W3C widget archive file containing w...

The Samsung S5830 Android 2.2 smartphone seen a couple of days ago is actually called Samsung Galaxy Ace – not Galaxy S Mini, as I previously thought. An official image of the Galaxy Ace has just appeared over at EuroDroid. Although the image is small, there’s no doubt that the Ace is the S5830, so it should feature a HVGA (480 x 320 pixels) touchscreen display, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0, and a 5MP camera. Another unannounced Android handset that EuroDroid is showing is the Samsung Galaxy Suit S5670, of which we don’t know much about – it seems to be another mid to low-end device anyway. Both the Galaxy Ace and the Galaxy Suit should be officially unveiled by Samsung at MWC 2011 next month, alongside the Galaxy Mini S5570 and the Galaxy S2. We’ll be there to check them all out!

Motorola Droid 2 A new, somewhat less-than-shocking study has been done involving the major carriers (AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon) and device manufacturers. The results were taken from 2009 though 2010. The study examines how many devices were updated to Android 2.2, and how long it took to receive the update. The study also took into account the devices that are still waiting to receive the froyo update. According to the study HTC has delivered more 2.2 updates than any other wireless handset manufacturer, coming in at 50% of it’s handsets. Don’t count Motorola out just yet though, they were the fastest to get updates out to their handsets. The updates were sent by Motorola just 54.5 days after froyo was announced. As far as the aforementioned mobile carrier – Verizon is king – taking only an average of 58 days to push 2.2. Rounding out the list was Sprint, T-mobile and AT&T. The report also states that AT&T did not upd...

Recent rumors have suggested Apple will give the second generation iPad a much higher resolution screen, although short of the ppi density of the Retina Display of iPhone 4. New graphics discovered within Apple's iBook app suggest this is true. Last summer, iPhone 4 doubled its screen resolution in both directions (from 320x480 to 640x960), resulting in four times the pixels and an industry-leading pixel per inch density of 326. Apple called the new screen the "Retina Display," because it exceeded the typical resolution of the human eye, making individual dots all but impossible to discern. The original iPad offered a 1024x768 resolution (at 132 ppi), leading many to guess that the next version might also get a similar Retina Display. However, a 300+ ppi display covering a 9.7 inch screen would require a fantastically high resolution. Instead of aiming for a specific pixel density, it appears Apple will instead simply quadruple the iPad's native resol...

Android has been seeing lot of Browsers coming up to enhance the browsing experience, thanks to open source approach from Google. We have earlier seen about Dolphin Browser , Surf Cube 3D Browser for Android and now its Miren Browser. Miren Browser has the standard features which other browsers offer, but its really fast, its integration with RSS feeder and Widget support makes it better. Features of Miren Browser Full tabbed browser with smart full-screen mode Top site navigation and smart suggestions Flash Support Multi-touch Pinch Zoom Bookmark management with folders Bookmark import/export via SD RSS Integration Widget Integration Gesture Support Miren has included a very user friendly and functional widget. You get your RSS feeds on one tab and your bookmarked websites and top sites on the other. You get the same information when you first launch the browser, but a widget is pretty handy. Download Miren Browser by scanning the QR Code below from you And...

Android is the highly customizable Mobile OS, which brings in lot of features and UI customization via standalone Apps. My Launcher beta is yet another cool Home Replacement App for Android which features customizable themes, Dockbar with 4 icon, 3D Home screen, 3D menu and much more. Earlier we have seen stunning Home Replacement Apps for Android like ADW Launcher EX, Go Launcher and Slide Screen Beta. On the line we have now My launcher which brings in lot of cool features My Launcher Features 1. Customizable themes 2. Dockbar with 4 icon 3. 3D home screen(Cube,Scale,Page turn) 4. 3D main menu(Page in/out,Fly in/out,fade in/out) 5. Icon tips like iOS(Missed call,Unread message,Unread Gmail) 6. Multi style app icon highlights 7. Customizable home screen number 8. Customizable main home screen 9. Customizable menus 10. Home screen indicator It was published to the market about 10 days ago and has received ...

More than 140,000 people came to CES this year. More than 30,000 attendees came from outside the US.  It will take me days to compile the information I think may be of value to the people I work with here at Global Research and at the business units. Pictured: Typical crowd entering the Main Hall on Friday. Saturday, I logged 8.2 miles, according to a borrowed pedometer, and Saturday was not as intense as the two prior days.  CES will test one’s stamina.  Since it is impossible to see everything, advance planning is critical.  The CES iPhone app, and other tools were very useful in making a prioritized list of key vendors / suppliers, and mapping efficient routes.  Even with exhibitor listings, it was easy to miss interesting and potentially useful items.  Random luck, along with networking at the show, played a role in finding new and interesting tools that show potential for use in my field of optical metrology. It was 4 days of hard work, and ...

In what can be termed as a big step towards the 3D revolution, one of the biggest Italian television broadcasters, Mediaset, has now announced the launch of an all new 3D TV service that is not only cheaper than other existing services, but will also be consuming a lot less bandwidth than other similar services. The all new service called, 3VOD, will provide the subscribers with their choice of movies from a selection of 50 films on offer and the entire service will be running through Bestv set top box from Motive. One of the most compelling features of the 3VOD service is the fact that against the conventional 3D TV services that till now were available only through high speed pay-tv on satellite and cable platforms. The incredible 3VOD service is able to accomplish the low bandwidth as the service send the huge movie files that are almost twice the size of regular 2D movies to the set to box in pieces 24 hours a day. The Bestv set top box then saves these files on its h...

If you’re like us, you’re using Dropbox for all kinds of unusual tasks. But we wanted to go further, so we asked the experts at Dropbox to tell us their most unusual, unexpected and crazy ways to use this versatile software tool.   If you’re not familiar with Dropbox , it’s free desktop synchronization software that lets you store a copy of a file on your computer and then access that same file from anywhere. You can store up to 2GB for free. Go over that amount, and it’ll cost you $10 a month for 50GB and $20 a month for 100GB. Here’s the scoop from our experts for three different levels of Dropbox users: For Beginners Only Before we get to the advanced techniques, one Dropbox expert suggested that we focus on the basics. Beginners, this is for you; advanced users, you already know all this stuff, go ahead and skip to the next section. Sync between two computers: This is the most basic task, where you install the Dropbox application onto two computers and synchroniz...

TextPics by Adorno is now available for BlackBerry smartphones and is a great way to liven up your messages beyond the standard symbols and smileys on your device. It uses ACSII characters to create pictures or art in an SMS/MMS, Email, IM, or PIN. If you're not familiar with ACSII art, its basically a text version of a picture and was widely used before pictures could be embedded or transmitted in messages. Back in college, my friends and I would send each other emails filled text versions of birthday cakes, cartoon characters, holidays and anything else that could be converted and love the fact that I can send them again with this app. TextPics comes with a variety of categories (Animals, Bunnies, Celebration, Food, Halloween, Weapons, People, Romance, and Other) that includes over 150 images to be copied into a message. Users can wish a friend a Happy Birthday with a personalized cake, tell...

It’s Monday and what better way to start off a busy work week than with a little rap about our favorite operating system? NOTE: This is extremely NSFW, and so bad it’s hilarious. The rap describes the excitement of a new Samsung Captivate owner as he talks down to iPhone fanboys. Behind all the harsh language, and $20 bills, it’s actually quite funny. Now only if his device would be seeing an update anytime soon…. ah, Samsung.

PlayStation Phone or also known as Xperia Play gets another hands-on video. Previously we have seen the device in action. But this time, a Taiwanese site called ePrice once again showing off the device ability in gaming. The device packed with Gingerbread and 1GHz processor. While featuring a 4-inch 854×480 display, a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, and dual speakers. As for its battery, they will provide you with a 1500 mAh battery. The main question is how will Sony Ericsson differentiate the device from any android devices?