While people are wondering if they should make their children learn Chinese, for if any nation is going to dominate the economy of the next century, chance are it will be them, Google has now made it easy for international users to use Google on the go. Today Google Mobile now supports 38 languages in…
French operator SFR solves mobile broadband problems with fiber to the tower
In what may be known as the most “why didn’t I think of that?” moment in mobile telecommunications history, French operator SFR got around the problem of mobile networks being slow and latency prone by stringing fiber directly to the cell sites. With HSPA, better known as 3.5G in Europe, and 3G in America (3G…
Motorola Aura “Celestial Edition” celebrates 40th anniversary of the moon landing
None of you are going to buy this phone and I’m only writing about it to hit my post quota for the month so I can get a paycheck that will help feed my alcoholic tendencies and hedonistic weekends. With that nugget of knowledge out of the way, let it soak in for a moment…
Europe: Today is the first day of cheaper roaming
Thanks to the European Commission, today EU nations can jump for joy at reduced roaming prices. I’m not going to bother rephrasing this Reuters article, since these paragraphs sum up everything you need to know: Operators will be allowed to charge customers a maximum of 11 euro cents per roamed SMS, excluding sales tax, compared…
Blurry Video: Nokia 6790, the Surge, assaulted with multiple branches from the ugly tree
Update: Video has been taken down. He probably got an angry call from Nokia or AT&T. This happens. No I did not back it up, but you really are not missing anything. Quick recap of the specs of the Nokia 6790, which will launch on AT&T in July under the name “Surge”, pricing unknown at…
Help me learn: Is there something like OpenID out there, but for money?
A few days ago, one of my favorite online services, Spotify, launched a new feature for premium users. I wanted to sign up to become a premium user, but my credit card does not work on their site. This got me thinking about decentralizing payment systems. Today there are several groups of people pushing federated…
HD Video: iPhone 3G vs. iPhone 3GS OpenGL performance
The iPhone will soon start experiencing the trouble that most other platforms have had for a while now: varying hardware capabilities. Below is a video produced by “Real Racing” that is meant to show off the OpenGL performance of the new iPhone 3GS. With a regular iPhone, Real Racing can handle 6 cars on the screen at…
Nokia rewrote Java J2ME for S60, finding a person who cares results in failure
J2ME is the most highly deployed application platform that exists today. Any mobile phone with a color screen and two soft keys, even the one that has been living in that back of your desk drawer since Clinton’s second term, probably has support for J2ME applications. Some of the best J2ME apps are Google Maps,…
New UI to be built on top of Symbian, S60 to be taken behind the barn and shot in the face?
Scott Weiss, User Interface Technology Manager for The Symbian Foundation, recently said that S60 5th edition, the version that you see on current touch devices shipping from Nokia such as the N97 and 5800, is a temporary solution and things will change rather soon. Back in April, the Symbian foundation blog said these two things…
Nokia N97 to get new firmware tomorrow
The proof is in the tweet from Nokia Conversations: Will the keyboard still suck? Yes. Will the UI reach closer to iPhone parity? Hell no. Will Nokia issue a press release saying how awesome it is that new software can be downloaded wirelessly to expand the features of their flagship multimedia computer? Maybe. [Via: Nokia…