Tag Archives: smartphone - Page 3

Intel and Safaricom announce Yolo, Africa’s first Intel-Inside smartphone

Intel and Safaricom have announced Africa’s first Intel-powered smartphone, the oddly-named Yolo. The handset is being launched in Kenya, and is aimed at customers who are looking at buying their first smartphone with a budget in mind. The Yolo will be priced at Kshs. 10,999, and will include 500MB of free data. Yolo will be

Read The Full Story
SlashGear

A Dual-Screen Smartphone

When is a smartphone like a tablet?

To quote the immortal lines of Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) in Jurassic Park: “your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”







New on MIT Technology Review

JVC announces new MirrorLink Receiver with smartphone integration

In-car audio and video systems are becoming more and more integrated these days, and with the growth of smartphones, companies are making it easier to use and control in-car stereo systems with mobile devices. Today, JVC announced a new in-dash multimedia receiver equipped with MirrorLink, which allows Android, Symbian, and iPhone users to control various

Read The Full Story
SlashGear

iPhone wins 51 percent of U.S. smartphone sales, says report

Apple snared more than 50 percent of U.S. smartphone sales last quarter, says Kantar, though Android remained dominant across Europe and the world. [Read more]


CNET News

Sony smartphone display photo leak tips Galaxy Note competitor

This week we’re seeing no lack of Sony on the mobile front, with a relatively massive component leaking from what its sources say is a plant creating a 6.44-inch phablet for this Summer season. This machine, if proven real, would be a real competitor for not just the Samsung Galaxy Note, but the LG Intuition

Read The Full Story
SlashGear

Huawei 2012 results: $2.5 billion profit, smartphone penetration ‘still way too low’

Huawei 2012 results $  25 billion profit, smartphone penetration 'still way too low'

Huawei has announced some pretty respectable numbers for the year just passed, with the company taking $ 35.4 billion (CNY 220.2 billion) in revenue and turning that into a $ 2.48 billion (CNY 15.4 billion) profit — both figures show an improvement over their 2011 counterparts. CFO Cathy Meng, daughter of Huawei’s founder, said that despite the money coming in, “smartphone penetration is still way too low and there is a lot of room for growth.” Meng also brought up the ongoing trust issues with the US, which she doesn’t expect to hamper growth. Huawei is certainly maturing its international business regardless — 66 percent of overall revenue came from other regions. All we know is that Huawei’s becoming increasingly visible at international trade shows like CES, and it will undoubtedly have more to share at the upcoming MWC, where we can only hope to hear more about that mouth-watering eight-core chip.

Show full PR text

Huawei CFO Announces 2012 Financial Results
Achieves Effective Growth, Says ICT Sector Opportunity Is Growing

[Beijing, China, January 21, 2013]: Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, today released its 2012 financial performance results.

Cathy Meng, Huawei Chief Financial Officer, said the company achieved effective growth in 2012 by focusing on customers, streamlining management and improving efficiency. Ms. Meng is positive about the industry’s future growth prospects.

Huawei expects its 2012 global sales revenues to reach CNY 220.2 billion, an 8% year-on-year increase, with a net profit of CNY 15.4 billion, a 33% increase from the previous year. The earnings disclosure today is part of Huawei’s ongoing commitment as a private employee-owned company to be more open and transparent with stakeholders. The 2012 results audited by KPMG will be outlined in the company’s annual report, which will be released in April.

Ms. Meng explained that Huawei’s success in 2012 can be attributed to maximizing value for the customer.

“We insist on strictly controlling G&A expenses and allocate more resources to bolster the front line and ensure continuous improvements on customer delivery and service quality,” said Ms. Meng. “In addition, Huawei continued its ongoing management transformation, raising combined operating efficiency with an integrated financial services program.”

Continuous innovation focusing on customer needs is also an important driving force for Huawei’s growth. The company has cumulatively invested CNY 120 billion in R&D over the past 10 years, including a CNY 29.9 billion investment in 2012, accounting for more than 13% of the year’s revenue.

Huawei has strategically focused on developing sophisticated communications network infrastructure, or “pipe.” Huawei has invested in and developed its Carrier Network, Enterprise and Consumer businesses in order to provide faster, broader and smarter information services to its customers, while addressing the challenges and opportunities in the era of big data. About 70% of Huawei’s revenue was generated from serving leading telecommunications operators, including 45 of the world’s top 50.

One of the key factors for Huawei’s success is that the individual interests of Huawei employees are combined with the company’s sustainable growth – meaning everyone works hard to ensure Huawei’s long-term development. Huawei’s management team highly values integrity and self-discipline. The personal income of each member of the management team, from board members to middle-level managers, is limited to their salary, incentive bonus and stock dividends provided by the company, with policies to ensure that no one in the company abuses their power for self-serving purposes.

Huawei’s three business groups continued their steady growth and achieved performance in line with expectations. Huawei’s Carrier Network business group, a traditionally strong business group, continued to be a leader in the industry, with sales revenues of CNY 160.3 billion. Huawei’s Consumer business group recorded robust sales revenue of CNY 48.4 billion, with sales continuing to grow in developed markets including Europe and Japan. Huawei’s Enterprise business group further developed its portfolio and won contracts, generating sales revenue of CNY 11.5 billion.

66% of Huawei’s overall revenue came from outside China. Among the overseas revenue, the Asia-Pacific region saw revenue of CNY 37.4 billion, while Europe, Middle East and Africa recorded CNY 77.4 billion and the Americas contributed CNY 31.8 billion. The domestic market China recorded CNY 73.6 billion.

The convergence of mobile internet, smartphones, the digital and physical world is likely to generate hundreds of times more data in the coming years, which presents tremendous challenges as well as unprecedented opportunities for development of the ICT industry. Huawei believes that pipes with large bandwidth that can transmit and process massive data flow are the key to addressing these challenges and also Huawei’s key growth driver in the future.

Ms. Meng concluded with a projection that Huawei expects its overall revenue to grow 10-12% in 2013.

Filed under:

Comments

Source: Huawei

Engadget

Backed Or Whacked: The Highs And Lows Of Smartphone Companion Devices

backed-whackedEditor’s note: Ross Rubin is principal analyst at Reticle Research and blogs at Techspressive.

Some say the cloud has replaced the PC as the digital hub. That may be true for data, but devices that create that data often need to make at least a pitstop before being distributed, and, increasingly, that interim destination is an app on a smartphone. Information and video can now be applied from sources that range, at least figuratively, from the Heavenly Father’s purview to the depths of the ocean.
TechCrunch

A Smartphone Negative Scanner

The smartphone giveth, and the smartphone taketh away.

Yesterday, in the depths of a desk drawer, I found a crumpled sheet of negatives. To use that word as a noun these days is so rare as to require clarification: I’m talking about photographic negatives, the technology that a decade ago, in my Introductory Photography class, we still used. I held up the negatives to my window and recognized some scenes from a visit to downtown Washington, DC, with a friend about six years ago. I reckon it was one of the last two or three times I ever shot on film.







New on MIT Technology Review

Smartphone world to get two new OS’s in 2013

Smartphones running Mozilla Firefox and Jolla Sailfish will launch separately in 2013 amid a crowded smartphone market.
Computerworld News

Flexible Smartphone Batteries

A discovery from a Korean research team gets us closer.

The road to a bendable smartphone has proved, perhaps fittingly, long and winding. Most efforts so far have focused on making flexible displays (see “Towards Flexible Mobile Screens”), with interesting advances from the likes of Samsung. But even if you succeeded in making the screen of a smartphone flexible, you’d still have to tackle the phone’s innards, too, if you ultimately want to be able to roll up the thing like a sheet of paper. To tackle that problem, you’re going to need to have a flexible battery.







New on MIT Technology Review

Big-screen smartphone shipments to surge this year, says iSuppli

Shipments of smartphones with screens 5 inches or larger will more than double this year, as consumers are increasingly attracted to the large screen sizes offered by the phones, according to a prediction from IHS iSuppli.
Computerworld News

Why a smartphone may not be the best choice for everyone

In this edition of Ask Maggie, CNET’s Marguerite Reardon advises against expensive smartphones for consumers who don’t use their phone’s capabilities. And she offers some affordable alternatives for unlimited data packages. [Read more]


CNET News

Huawei G520 outed as an inexpensive, quad-core smartphone for China

Huawei G520 outed as an inexpensive, quadcore smartphone for China

Huawei put its best foot forward (twice) last week at CES, but it seems that the company has yet another smartphone up its sleeve: a 4.5-inch Android device known as the G520. According to Gizchina, the phone is said to wield a quad-core 1.2GHz Mediatek MT6589, but its key selling point will be the price — it’s said to be in the neighborhood of ¥1,399 ($ 225). The specific resolution of the G520 is currently known, and the same is true for the version of Android it’ll ship with. That said, Ice Cream Sandwich seems most plausible, as the smartphone includes just 512MB of RAM. The Huawei G520 also includes a 5-megapixel rear camera and is said to go up for sale on January 21st within China. Hopefully by then, we’ll know a bit more about this one.

Filed under: ,

Comments

Via: Unwired View

Source: Gizchina

Engadget

The Underdog Operating Systems Set to Shake Up the Smartphone Scene

Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android rule the fast-growing smartphone market, but upcoming operating systems want to muscle in on their turf.

The next time you go shopping for a smartphone, you might see some unfamiliar software on the screens lining store shelves.







New on MIT Technology Review

Samsung boasts 100M Galaxy S smartphone sales

Sales of Samsung’s two Galaxy S smartphones have topped 100 million since the first version sold in May 2010, the company reported via its Flickr page.
Computerworld News

Do You Really Need a Voice Plan with That Fancy Smartphone?

With even Facebook adding free calling to its mobile app, voice plans are starting to seem outmoded, but an experiment shows it’s hard to let go.

Talking and texting may have been the first things we used mobile devices for, but they’re hardly the only ones anymore. And when it’s just as easy to place a video call via Skype, send an instant message through WhatsApp, tweet, or check in on Facebook, summoning a phone’s dialer tends to be an afterthought. So could we could be approaching a time when it makes little sense to even have a voice or text plan.







New on MIT Technology Review

Mobi-Lens smartphone / tablet camera attachment hands-on

MobiLens smartphone  tablet camera attachment handson

Here’s the sort of thing Kickstarter is all about: those ideas that are so head-bangingly simple you get genuinely angry you didn’t come up with them yourself. Someone from Mobi-Lens popped by the Engadget stage this week to show off the company’s new crowdfunded creations, lenses for smartphone and tablet camera than clip onto the side of the device.

The company brought by the macro and fisheye versions, which we got to play around with a bit. After a bit of adjusting on our handset, we were more than happy to take them for a ride, shooting some shots of Tim’s Ken Block interview. We didn’t get the greatest shots in the world for the few minutes we played around with it, but what the company has managed to get over on its site give you a decent idea of what’s possible. The macro took some interesting shots as well, but you’ve really got to get in extremely close to get it to work as intended.

The lenses aren’t cheap, at $ 40 bucks a pop, or $ 65 for two, but they’re definitely cool additions for those looking to mix up their own smartphone photography a touch.

Filed under: ,

Comments

Source: Mobi-Lens

Engadget

Chinese Smartphone Invasion Begins

snydeq writes “Tech giants Apple, Google, and Microsoft were no-shows at CES this week in Las Vegas, which worked out just fine for Chinese vendors looking to establish a name for themselves with U.S. consumers. ‘Telecom suppliers Huawei and ZTE, in particular, have set their sights on breaking into the U.S. market for smartphones and tablets. … Whether these Chinese imports can take on the likes of Apple and Samsung remains to be seen, but as Wired quotes Jeff Lotman, the CEO of Global Icons, an agency that helps companies build and license their brands: “The thing that’s amazing is these are huge companies, and they have a lot of power, but in the United States nobody has heard of them and they’re having trouble gaining traction, but it’s not impossible. Samsung was once known for making crappy, low-end phones and cheap TVs. Now they’re seen as a top TV and smartphone brand.”‘”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.




Slashdot

Smartphone Dictionaries Go Gangnam Style

Swype’s Living Language feature adds slang to its auto-complete dictionary by watching what users type.

On the surface, the crowdfunding website Kickstarter, Indianapolis Colts coach Chuck Pagano, and Fukubukuro—a Japanese New Year’s custom whereby merchants sell grab bags of goods—seem completely unrelated.







New on MIT Technology Review

Hands-On With The Lockitron, The Easiest Way To Control Your House’s Locks With A Smartphone

lockitron1Lockitron’s Cameron Robertson stopped by our CES booth for a little demo. It doesn’t take much to demo the Lockitron. It’s a little wireless device that slips onto a deadbolt and can be controlled by a smartphone. Put it on your house. Put it on a rental property. Put it on your cat.

To be honest, the story of Lockitron is much more interesting than the Lockitron itself.
TechCrunch

Samsung previews foldable, rollable 'Youm' smartphone displays

Flexible OLEDs that can be rolled up or wrapped around the sides of smartphones are getting closer to reality. Samsung Electronics showed some of its prototype flexible displays at CES Wednesday and launched a new brand name for them, Youm.
Computerworld News

Lenovo unveils K900 smartphone on Atom chip

Lenovo’s new IdeaPhone K900 smartphone, shown at International CES, is a big phone with a 5.5-in. display that’s also very lightweight at 5.7 ounces.
Computerworld News

Your Smartphone Dictionary Goes Gangnam Style

Swype’s Living Language feature adds slang to its auto-complete dictionary by watching what users type.

On the surface, the crowdfunding website Kickstarter, Indianapolis Colts coach Chuck Pagano, and Fukubukuro—a Japanese New Year’s custom whereby merchants sell grab bags of goods—seem completely unrelated.







New on MIT Technology Review

Ubuntu Smartphone Aims for Success in Developing Economies

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of the company behind the Linux distribution, says the smartphone version will find a niche in countries where Ubuntu is already popular.

The man behind the world’s most popular Linux-based operating system, Ubuntu, has given new details about his plans to compete with Google by releasing a version of the software that runs on smartphones.







New on MIT Technology Review

Huawei Ascend Mate 6.1-inch smartphone arrives to rival Note II [Hands-on]

Huawei‘s impressive new smartphone hasn’t been a very well kept secret, but today in Vegas for CES 2013 they’ve officially unveiled their new Ascend Mate 6.1-inch smartphone to rival the Galaxy Note II. We’re pretty sure they won the battle for largest smartphone. We were lucky enough to snag a few quick pictures with the

Read The Full Story
SlashGear

Smartphone Shipments To Top 1B For the First Time In 2013, But The Definition Of ‘Smartphone’ Is Slipping: Deloitte

The smartphone boom is continuing apace, but with growth comes mutation: new figures out from Deloitte estimate that 2013 will be the first year that the industry collectively ships 1 billion smartphones worldwide, taking the total installed base of smartphones to nearly 2 billion. However, at the same time, the definition of smartphone is changing, perhaps in some surprising ways.

TechCrunch

Lenovo sets stage for rumored K900 smartphone with Intel processor

Lenovo showed several smartphones on Sunday at International CES that recently went on sale in China, a prelude to a rumored Intel-based IdeaPhone K900 smartphone.
Computerworld News

Ubuntu to Offer Smartphone Operating Software

The software looks cool, but will need handset maker support to succeed.







New on MIT Technology Review

Strategy Analytics: Samsung To Extend Lead Over Apple’s iPhone In 2013, And Take 33% Of Global Smartphone Market

samsung-logoSamsung will increase its lead over Apple in the smartphone space this year, according to analyst Strategy Analytics. Speaking to Reuters, the analyst said it expects the Korean electronics giant to achieve 35 per cent year-on-year growth in smartphones in 2013, fulled by its broad portfolio of handsets. This is slightly higher than the 33 per cent growth it’s projecting for Apple.
TechCrunch

No, we don’t really need another smartphone OS

Ubuntu, Tizen, and Firefox OS are all around the bend, but with more established platforms struggling, can the market support the noobs? [Read more]


CNET News

Tizen-based smartphone could come in 2013, reports say

Japan’s biggest cellular network operator, NTT DoCoMo, is working with Intel and Samsung on development of the Tizen operating system and the first smartphone based on the platform could be out in Japan in 2013.
Computerworld News

Best of 2012: PlaceRaider: The Military Smartphone Malware Designed to Steal Your Life

In September, the US Naval Surface Warfare Center created an Android app that secretly records your environment and reconstructs it as a 3D virtual model for a malicious user to browse







New on MIT Technology Review

Engadget’s 2012 holiday giveaway: last chance to win an AT&T smartphone!

The new year is upon us, and that means our holiday 2012 giveaway is about to wrap up. If you haven’t stopped by our gift guides and left a comment on each to win one of 14 AT&T smartphones, well, you might want to think about doing that now. We’re accepting entries till today, December 31st, at 11:59 PM EST — so get on it!

Filed under:

Comments

Engadget

Unlock your Hyundai with a tap of your smartphone by 2015

An NFC-enabled smartphone is the key to the Hyundai Connectivity Concept, both unlocking its doors and powering its infotainment system via MirrorLink. [Read more]


CNET News

LG bringing high-res tablet, smartphone, and TV screens to CES

LG is doubling down on high-res displays at CES 2013. The company will be showing several TVs, monitors, smartphones, and tablets. [Read more]


CNET News

Fujitsu to bring its senior citizen-optimized Raku Raku smartphone to the US, Europe

Smartphones are a lot of things — convenient, powerful, and feature-rich. They’re also exceedingly complicated to many older users who are accustomed to 12-button panels and curly phone cords. This past summer, Fujitsu revealed that its Raku Raku smartphone, a handset designed specifically for senior citizens, would be arriving in Japan via NTT Docomo. Now

Read The Full Story
SlashGear

Flurry: Christmas Day 2012 Smartphone And Tablet Activations Top 17.4M, 2.5X The Record Set In 2011

NewDevices_XmasDay_2012-resized-600Christmas Day is increasingly the day that a flood of new phones and tablets come online; it regularly sets and breaks records for new device activations. This year was no exception, according to mobile analytics firm Flurry’s annual study, which found that 17.4 million devices activated on December 25 this year, a 332 percent increase over activations covering December 1 – 20, and a 156 percent increase on the numbers from a year ago.

TechCrunch

New Smartphone Or Headphones? Here Are A Few Tips To Prevent Hearing Loss

43433812_d19a33b38fThis holiday season, many of us will be tearing the cellophane off of a hot new pair of headphones, a new smartphone, or music player. Before you decide to test the limits of OSHA’s volume regulations on your eardrums, we thought you’d want to know some helpful tips so you can keep on jamming for the rest of your life.

TechCrunch

Cloud-Powered GPS Chip Slashes Smartphone Power Consumption

A Microsoft Research project offloads data and calculations to save battery life.

If you’ve used location services on a phone for any length of time, you know they can quickly drain the battery. A Microsoft Research project suggests that there’s a way for location chips inside smartphones to use far less power.







New on MIT Technology Review

Do you need a case for your smartphone?

In this edition of Ask Maggie, CNET’s Marguerite Reardon offers some advice on smartphone cases and also helps a reader decide between the iPad Mini and the fourth generation iPad. [Read more]


CNET News

TransPhone modular smartphone / tablet goes Pro, still looks like a beginner

TransPhone smartphone tablet hybrid goes pro, gets ICS and a bump in specs

ASUS’ PadFone 2 may be the only notable contender in the phone-in-tablet space, but it does have a cheapo me-too in TransPhone. The latest “Pro” version of this budget hybrid comprises a 7-inch 1,024 x 600 TransPad dock, which swallows up a 3.5 inch 960 x 540 smartphone powered by a dual-core 1 GHz MediaTek chip. The set carries a $ 240 price tag on pre-order, though since this company doesn’t have much of a track record, you may want to hold on to your cash until it becomes a real entity sometime in March 2013 — even if it’d set you back an extra $ 50 at that point. There are more details in the PR, if you’re up for a gamble.

Continue reading TransPhone modular smartphone / tablet goes Pro, still looks like a beginner

Filed under: , ,

Comments

Source: TransPhone International

Engadget

Acer V350 flagship smartphone leaks in benchmarks for CES 2013

It would appear that the folks at Acer have had a bit of a leak in more ways than one this week with a brand new smartphone popping up in the GLBenchmark listing environment complete with nearly all of its hardware specifications. The device goes by the code-name V350 and unless a higher-powered device appears

Read The Full Story
SlashGear

Smartphone Maker Xiaomi Tech Hints That Its Next Stop Is Hong Kong As It Seeks To Become “China’s Apple”

Xiaomi_logoChinese smartphone maker Xiaomi, which has been referred to as “the Apple of China,” strongly hinted at an expansion into Hong Kong on its official Twitter account. Though the tweet was cryptically worded, attached is a graphic featuring the company’s latest model, the Xiaomi Mi2, with specs listed in traditional Chinese characters (which is used in Hong Kong, but not mainland China), Hong Kong floral emblem the Bauhinia flower and a silhouette of the Hong Kong islands and peninsulas.
TechCrunch

BlackBerry Z10 smartphone leaks with two color combos

This afternoon it would appear that a brand new BlackBerry 10 handset has been leaked with a couple of images, one of them in an all-black setup, the other with a black bezel and a white body. This handset will be one of several (if it turns out to be legitimate) that’s revealed at the

Read The Full Story
SlashGear

FCC offers security advice to smartphone users

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is advising smartphone users on how to protect their mobile devices and data from mobile security threats.
Computerworld News

Give your smartphone Superman vision

A new low-cost, imager chip could give your average smartphone the ability to see through walls and objects Superman style.


FOX News

Alleged shots of Acer’s first Jelly Bean smartphone pop up on Chinese site

Alleged shots of Acer's first Jelly Bean smartphone pop up on Chinese site

As a brand, Acer doesn’t quite yet resonate in the mobile space. After all, it took the company the better part of a year to release the CloudMobile. But from the looks of these (very clear) leaks captured on Chinese site VR-Zone, it seems Acer may be prepping a mid-range device for that market. Allegedly dubbed the V360, the handset appears to be running Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean which, if true, would be a first for the OEM. It’s not clear if the UI is skinned, but if its previous work on the CloudMobile’s UX is any indication, expect this one to be very lightly skinned. Apart from that, there are a handful of unverified specs floating about, like a 4.5-inch qHD display, unknown dual-core processor clocked at 1GHz, five-megapixel camera and DTS sound (as indicated by backplate branding). As for the possible release and pricing for this mystery device, well, that’s very much up in the air. Acer would first have to confirm its existence before we move on to those market realities.

Filed under: , ,

Comments

Via: PhoneArena

Source: VR-Zone.com (Translated)

Engadget

Samsung announces Galaxy Grand; 5-inch Jelly Bean-powered smartphone

The Korean smartphone giant’s latest smartphone sports a 5-inch display and is powered by the latest Android operating system, but no word yet on pricing or availability. [Read more]


CNET News

Nokia rolls out Windows Phone 7.8-based smartphone

Windows Phone 7.8 is available on Nokia’s new Lumia 510, but the company still won’t say when existing phones will get the update.
Computerworld News

Smartphone Penetration In Europe’s Big-5 Markets Now At 55%, Apple Continues To Feel The Heat From Fast-Rising Samsung

apple-samsungEurope’s mobile market has reached a tipping point: the top-five markets in the region collectively now have a majority of consumers using smartphones, according to the latest numbers from comScore. France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK are now collectively reporting a 55% smartphone penetration, according to comScore’s MobiLens research — an online survey of “nationally representative” sample of mobile subscribers aged 13 and up.

TechCrunch