Archives for July 2010

Apple Offers Free Case to all iPhone 4 Owners

Apple [AAPL] held a press conference today to explain the problems of the iPhone 4 specifically relating to the antenna. The company has been running tests and comparisons for the last 22 days to get to the bottom of what’s actually happening. A few numbers were shown which included that the iPhone 4 drops slightly more calls than the iPhone 3GS (ie, less than 1 more call per 100) and that all smartphones have problems when holding them. When speaking about those who have called AppleCare the numbers were just 0.55% of iPhone 4 owners with AppleCare service. Returns wise the company has seen just 1.7% of iPhone 4’s returned which is lower than the 6% of the 3GS.

So what is Apple going to do about it? As the title suggests, Apple will be giving a free case to anybody who buys an iPhone 4 right up to September 30 where they will re-evaluate where they are at.

The problem here is that Apple can’t make enough bumper cases, so instead they will be offering the bumper case for free or another case if the bumper is not available. Starting late next week you’ll be able to visit the Apple store, choose which case you want and have it shipped to you. [Read more…]

iPhone 4 Antenna Song Released

We are just a few hours away from a special Apple [AAPL] press event where it is believed the iPhone 4 antenna issues will be discussed. At least that’s what we are hoping for as Apple needs to do something to be a little more open about what’s going on.

While you are waiting for the next few hours for the press event to start, check out the video below that sums up the problems in a song. It also gives you guidance on what you can do if you are suffering with signal loss. Enjoy! [Read more…]

Motorola DROID Being Killed Off – Rumor

Reports are showing today that the Motorola DROID could be killed off. The information comes from a capture of an end-of-life document over at Verizon.

If the leaked document (pictured below) is correct then we could soon see the DROID sales come to a halt and support eventually be ceased.

The DROID was a big hit when launched last year, but since then a number of big Android phones have been launched which makes the DROID look a tad old now. The DROID 2 has been rumoured to be coming out soon and the DROID X launched just yesterday which are all worthy replacements for the original DROID. [Read more…]

Consolor Portable Games Console Concept

The Consolor is a concept games console designed by Joseph Dumary.

The console it’s self hasn’t been built and is simply a design although if made, it would certainly appeal to many people. It looks quite sleek. The front panel smooth other than where the controls are. The consolor looks slim and has the ability to connect up to 8 players together wirelessly to play against each other.

The most attractive feature about the Consolor is its capacity to support 8 players altogether. That sounds really tough to believe for one but very true that you and seven of your friends can get connected in a game via this console and enjoy a superb gaming experience. The wireless facility of the console too is strong enough to let the players transfer and receive files without any trouble.

[Read more…]

Bing Android Application Launching Within 6 Weeks

Microsoft [MSFT] is launching a new application for Android devices. The new Bing application will be able to do most of what the web application can do in that you can search images, maps, news, shopping or regular results from within the Bing App.

Bing is trailing behind Google by quite a lot in terms of market share. By pushing the Bing App out there on to a popular platform, it should give them a little boost although we suspect it wont go fixing any problems any time soon.

Part of the new Bing Android app will be based around mapping where location based search will play a big role. Search for a Zoo for example and it will load up the closest Zoo to you and show you where it is on the map along with contact details and other information. [Read more…]

Samsung Galaxy S – 1 Million Sold So Far – Shooting for 10M

Samsung is pushing the Galaxy S class of phones a lot. So far over 1 million of them have been sold globally. Samsung say that they will reach 10 million units which is some achievement.

When Samsung refer to the Galaxy S we assume they include all models such as the Samsung Captivate, Vibrant and the others that carriers sell in the US which all are classed as Galaxy S class phones.

The phone it’s self scored high in our Samsung Galaxy S review. It has a large 4 inch WVGA screen that uses Samsung’s Super AMOLED touchscreen that is very vibrant. [Read more…]

Nokia C6-01 Arrives in the Netherlands

Nokia [NOK] has introduced a new C-series mobile phone to the Netherlands. It is called the C6 but has the C6-01 name which brings a few updates to the older model.

New features include a slight new re-design along with an 8 megapixel camera. This is up from the original C6 that had a 5 megapixel camera.

As well as getting a higher resolution camera on the back, a dual-LED flash has also been included to help provide better picture quality in darker light situations. [Read more…]

HTC Aria Side-Loading Sync App Removed

The HTC Aria looked like it was going to get the HTC sync app as it appeared on their website recently. However, the app has now been removed which now would prevent non-android market applications from being installed on the device.

When the app first appeared on HTC, people were thinking that AT&T [T] were relaxing the rules a little and letting 3rd party apps be installed on the handsets it offers as a carrier. However, now that the side-loading app has been removed this is not the case. [Read more…]

Nintendo Wii 2 Will not be 3D

We are hearing reports today that the next generation Nintendo Wii console will not offer 3D gaming like previously thought.

The reason for this is that not enough people have 3D TV’s in their home which makes it a less viable idea. Also we hear that a successor to the Wii is not coming any time soon which could indicate we wont see it for at least another couple of years. We also have yet to hear of a PS4 or next gen Xbox 360 2 (or 720 as some refer to it as). [Read more…]

Game Gear Converted to Portable N64

A user over at moddedbybacteria has managed to squash an N64 in to a Sega Game Gear case. The portable N64 also has the controller squashed inside the casing too making it quite a small portable games console.

The left of the screen is the home to the joystick and to the right of the screen a number of controls. On the back top of the device is an N64 cartridge slot.

It actually appears to work very well from what we see in the video. You can check out more pictures over here along with some details and more indepth pictures showing the insides of the portable N64. [Read more…]

Brother Create Self-Charging Batteries

Brother has created a new battery sized generator that is capable of charging another AAA battery attached to it. The battery charged through vibration and when you shake the battery it creates enough power to charge the battery. The battery sized generator also comes in a AA battery size.

To get it to work, Brother have put “an electromagnetic induction generator and an electric double layer capacitor” inside. Although regular vibrations wont be enough to power a gadget such as a digital SLR camera, we could see some use for these in low powered devices like remote controls for the TV where chucking the remote around the room would actually serve a purpose and keep the batteries running. [Read more…]

Firefox Home for iPhone Launches

Mozilla has launched Firefox Home for iPhone. We have mentioned the Firefox Home application previously when it was waiting for approval in to the app store by Apple. That approval has now been granted and it is available for download.

What Firefox Home lets you do is sync up your tabs, bookmarks and history from other computers running Firefox. By installing a sync add-on on your desktop and setting up a new user account, you can then install Firefox Home on your iPhone and log in with the same username and password to sync up the features mentioned above.

For example, I have 10 tabs open on my desktop PC that I need to look over. I simply leave my desk, pick up my iPhone and load up Firefix Home. Those same 10 tabs are available on my iPhone to browse through whilst on the move. [Read more…]