It used to be that the industry was thinking it’s the Near Field Communication (NFC) that is the leading contender among technologies to enable mobile payments. However, NFC has developed more slowly than anticipated, and will not offer viable large-scale mobile payment solutions for at least six years. In the meantime three existing technologies —…
HTC MAX 4G Reviewed, Hurts for Lack of Coverage
If you were considering transplanting to The Motherland in order to get a hold of the gorgeous WiMAX-enabled HTC MAX 4G, be warned, coverage may be an issue. Obviously WiMAX technology is still in its infancy, even over in the United States where Sprint’s XOHM is still gathering momentum. Still, it’s a worthy evolution of…
New Nokia patent promises E71 with swivel touchscreen
Nokia keeps experimenting with form factors. Dual-slider was first unveiled on their N95 model and we liked it. However, what we have here today is an awkward idea, to say the least. As you can see from the image above, the device that is discussed in Nokia’s latest patent sports large portrait touchscreen that is…
ABI Research: Capacitive touchscreens not the wave of the future for most mobile phones
Despite the fact the Apple iPhone disrupt the industry with great user interface that relies on capacitive touchscreen and the fact that Google Android-powered T-Mobile G1 uses the same technology, it’s the resistive (rather than capacitive) touchscreens we’ll see in most devices being released in the future. According to ABI Research’s director Kevin Burden, the…
Telstra’s HSPA Evolution network coming in early 2009!
While most of the world is still trying to get properly into “3G game,” Australia’s Telstra is about to make its Next G network HSPA Evolution-enabled, allowing network speeds of up to 21 Mbps! Ericsson provided all the equipment, know-how, and all other “things” required. From Ericsson’s press release: This enhancement adds a new dimension…
AT&T to trial 3G femtocells next year – In-home cell towers coming to AT&T
The femtocell push has hit the US GSM ecosystem. Sprint’s Airave femtocell is already on market and ready to boost Sprint’s CDMA signal for customers with weak signal reception in their homes. Today, we are hearing that AT&T is looking to trial their own 3G GSM femtocell solution next year. Femtocells are essentially miniaturized cellular…
LG demonstrates LTE cellphone chips with 60Mbps speeds!
Chalk up another world’s first for LG. The South Korean cellphone manufacturer has announced that it has successfully tested the world’s first mobile phone LTE chip with impressive results. The world’s first 3GPP LTE chip was designed for use in mobile applications like handsets and data cards. LG managed to pull down a maximum of…
New Production Method Cuts Flexible OLED Costs
You might remember Sony showing off that crazy super-thin, super-flexible screen last year, all thanks to emerging OLED technologies. OLED promises to bring higher brightness, more colours, thinner screens and lower power consumption. Definitely the next generation of mobile displays, but the biggest hurdle to date has been prohibitive production costs. Luckily the ROLLED Project…
Broadcom’s latest combo chip BCM4329 to bring 802.11n WiFi to mobile devices
Broadcom unveiled its newest wireless combination chip, BCM4329, which integrates 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth and FM technologies on a single silicon die thus providing significant cost, size, power and performance advantages over discrete semiconductor implementations. Broadcom continues to raise the bar for mobile connectivity by delivering one of the industry’s first solutions to offer 802.11n for…
GPS receiver packed in a SIM card
German smart card maker Sagem Orga has teamed up with BlueSky Positioning to integrate A-GPS receiver on regular SIM cards. The idea is more than sound, as it will allow users with handsets that don’t come with an integrated GPS receiver to use location based services. Carriers could bundle the special SIM card with some…