Nokia Windows Phone 7 – Sneak Peek At Components

The Mobile World Congress at Barcelona has witnessed the components of the new Nokia Windows Phone 7. New slim and sleek Nokia devices that would run on Windows phone 7 OS were unveiled for a preview at the MWC. Two slides which contained the new Nokia devices were made available to the public. While the first phone is a slim one with rounded corners and contains a standard headphone jack at the top, a speaker grill at the bottom, a camera shutter at the back and a volume rocker to the side. The second phone that was unveiled looked a higher-end device with three standard Windows 7 buttons, a camera with a flash and a power button.

Nokia has also not revealed if the upcoming devices were going to be exactly the same. Also, an exact launch date of the devices is not out yet. For now, Nokia definitely wants to release their new phones by the end of 2011.

Apple Introduces Jailbreaking Detection Back

If you were just happy that you jailbroke your iPhone using the GreenpoisOn hack iOS 4.2.1 successfully, hang on. There’s a twist in the tale. Apple has apparently introduced a jailbreak detecting API on iOS 4.2.1 which is blocking jailbroken devices from opening ebooks. This inherent API which was supposedly dropped by Apple in iOS 4.0 has found its way back and is blocking the iBooks 1.2.1 app from reading purchased protected DRM content.

The following message is being showed on iOS 4.2.1 devices when trying to open protected DRM content -

“There is a problem with the configuration of your iPhone . Please restore with iTunes and reinstall iBooks.”

The hacker dev community is quite upset with this move from Apple and has criticised saying that it is beginning to attract many to dislike them. Jailbreaking has been deemed legal, so now we have to wait and see if Apple is going to be sued for not allowing purchased content on a jailbroken device.

Enhanced MotoBlur Unveiled At The MWC

The push-based user interface developed by Motorola – MotoBlur has now three added features to it. These new features are aimed at increasing the connectivity with the various social networking services like Facebook and the associated contacts. The three new features which have been added are Aloqa, Connected gallery and Connected Music and these new features are sure to enhance the users connectivity with the device.

Aloqa is a location based feature which will allow third party applications to feed users with the local data like restaurants, cinemas, deals, places etc. Connected Gallery integrates photos and videos from various softwares like Picasa, Flickr etc. and allows the user to browse through all the photos at once rather than having to open them individually. Connected Music allows users to tell friends visually what song they are listening to, buy tracks and also stream lyrics while playing tracks.

Motortola Atrix and the Cliq 2 users can upgrade their MotoBlur software for these added features.

LG Unveils Optimus 3D At MWC

LG has unveiled its new smartphone -Optimus 3D at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The smartphone which presently runs on Android 2.2 or Froyo would later be upgraded to Android 2.3 or Gingerbread. The phone comes with a first of its kind tri-dual configuration with the duo triplet being dual memory, dual channel and dual core. The other specs of the phone are an impressive 4.3″ wide display, 1GHz dual core processor, 3D viewing without the need of glasses, 5.0 mega pixel camera with a dual lens, high-def video recording and playback at 720p in 3D, high-def recording and playback at 1080 p in 2D, 8GB memory and a 1500mAh battery.

Optimus 3D enables multitasking allowing the user to switch between programs and also enables playing games at a higher frame rate. LG has not yet announced the price and the date of availability of the handset.

Dropped Cell Phone In Water – What Do I Do?

Oops, did you just drop your cell phone accidentally in water? This can prove to be a real disaster at times for many people as getting your cell phone wet usually makes you replace it with a new one with possible loss of critical data. But this is not the case if you are quick enough to take a suitable action in time.

Listed here are some of the most common steps to follow when a such a situation occurs :

Step 1 : The Phone Battery and Sim Card.

Always save the battery first, immediately remove it from your phone followed by the sim card. You can use a soft cloth or a paper towel to carefully remove it. If your phone does not show any signs of recovery, you can still use the battery and sim card in a new phone as well as any data present on your sim (contacts, messages) will still remain untouched.

Step 2 : Try blowing in some air.

A hairdryer can come to the rescue helping you speed up the drying process, but please be very careful as bringing the dryer close to your phone will cause severe damage.

“Don’t press the hairdryer [to the phone] or it will melt, keep it on low and cool, not hot,”

says John Gallie, owner of Ontario based JTG systems, that repair damaged cellphones. You can also use in a can of compressed air as an alternative if your not comfortable with the hairdryer method.

Step 3 : Use Rice.

A bowl-full of uncooked rice with your phone fully submerged in it will help it become fully dry but this process may consume only a day or last one whole week depending on the amount of moisture present inside. To speed up the moisture removal process, one can keep it near a heater or a dehumidifier.

Step 4 : Other Alternatives.

Never throw away those small little packets that come with the electronics that you buy as they contain silica gel which is a moisture absorbing substance and can be used very effectively instead of the lengthy rice soaking process. Just put your phone in a plastic bag along with the silica gel sachets.

Some Points to be noted :

• Avoid getting tempted to use extreme heating using a hairdryer or microwave with hopes that the cellphone may get well soon as this will melt the inner parts of your cell phone thus making it completely irrecoverable.
• Unless and until your phone gets completely dry, please don’t switch it on as water even in its minutest form proves to be a big enemy of electronics.

Intel Previews MeeGo Tablet Interface at MWC

While every other company has been busy launching their new smartphones and tablets, Intel, the largest producers of chips, has shown a preview of its tablet inteface MeeGo at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. MeeGo is a Linux based system which like Android, iOS, WebOS and Windows is a phone based OS. The MeeGo project was in the making for quite sometime now and both Nokia and Intel were involved in the development of this user interface. But now, Nokia is not involved with the mobile phone OS any more as it has now partnered with Microsoft and even abandoned its own phone OS Symbian and Intel did express its disappointment about the withdrawal at the MWC.

Apparently MeeGo is the only user interface that will enable dynamic panels on a mobile phone. We’ll have to wait and see how a new OS can fare amidst such fierce competition in the market.

HTC Unveils Desire S, Incredible S and Wildfire S Smartphones

HTC along with its tablet, Flyer, has also unveiled three new smartphones at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today. Along the lines of Flyer, these three smartphones Desire S, Incredible S and the Wildfire S will be running on Google’s Android 2.4 OS. As you can see these three smartphones are the upgraded versions of their respective predecessors, viz. Desire, Incredible and Wildfire. The videos of the phones have also been posted on the HTC website.

As far as the specs of the phones are concerned,

the HTC Desire S comes with a 3.7″ touchscreen display, 5.0 megapixel camera with flash, 1GHz processor, High-Def video recording at 720p and a 1450mAh battery,

the HTC Incredible S comes with a 4″ touchscreen display, 8.0 megapixel camera, 1GHz processor, High-Def video recording at 720p and a 1450mAh battery,

the HTC Wildfire S comes with a 3.2″ touchscreen display, 5.0mega pixel camera, 600mHz processor with flash and autofocus and a 1230mAh battery.

iOS 4.3 on Feb 28?

The latest buzz is that iOS 4.3 would be launched on the 28th of February. We also heard rumors last week that iOS 4.3 was going to be out on the 14th of February and later on the 15th, which apparently has not happened. According to earlier rumors, the iOS 4.3 upgrade was supposed to be launched at 10 am PST and for those who were waiting eagerly, the launch did not happen. The delay in the release could be due to the extension of subscription date for The Daily.

Wondering what does the subscription of The Daily have to do with the launch of iOS 4.3. We know that iPad 2 will be featuring The Daily. For The Daily can only be implemented on iOS 4.3 systems until which time, the subscription would remain useless not allowing any income. So, it is now in the hands of The Daily to release iOS 4.3.

Nokia-Microsoft Partnership Helps Microsoft Earn Billions

Now that the Nokia-Microsoft partnership is official and both Nokia and Microsoft are trying to cope up with the competition being offered by Google and Apple, arises the question, who benefited the most from the partnership. Apparently, it seems like Microsoft is the bigger beneficiary when compared to Nokia. Why? It is rather simple to answer. Nokia has let go off its phone OS Symbian and has embraced Windows as its new phone OS. For doing this, it has to pay an unknown number of billions to Microsoft for allowing the use of Windows on Nokia phones along with paying some hefty royalties to Microsoft.

Following the announcement of the partnership, Nokia’s stocks slid by 14 percent. Under the pressure of the current situation, Nokia is planning to release its first Windows based handset by the end of this year. The once king of mobile technologies is indeed going through a tough time.

Verizon Promoting iPhone 4 Along With FiOS

Over the past one week, we have been hearing that the sales of iPhone 4 on Verizon Wireless have been a little dull when compared to what AT&T had last year. Verizon Wireless has now come up with a new marketing strategy using which it is planning to boost the sales of iPhone 4 and the FiOS TV, calling the two “a perfect pairing”. As per the new plan, Verizon would be offering a 200$ rebate on the iPhone 4 to all the new customers who buy their TV, phone and landline packages along with a discount of either 5 or 20 dollars on their monthly plans.

Verizon’s utilities like the internet, landline and the FiOS TV are delivered via optical fiber cables making the internet speeds faster when compared to a DSL. Under the new plan, a custometrr can now get 180 channels of which 40 will be avialable in HD, 15MBPS internet speeds and unlimited landline calls at a discounted price of 95$ a month.