SmartPhones

Even those of us not lucky enough to put our lives on hold to travel to Beijing or sit glued to our TVs can still keep up with all the latest goings-on at this year's Olympics with their smartphones.

Thanks to Google (of course) anyone with an internet-enabled smartphone can visit Google's summergames page for mobile devices and get all the updated information they could possibly want on almost 40 Olympic events. Among the information listed there is the full schedule of each event and the winners (once known). Best of all, the mobile site is available in more than 60 countries and in 36 languages.

Video coverage of the 2008 Summer Olympics is also available for people on a BlackBerry or a Palm OS or Windows Mobile device, through MobiTV.

Alternatively, sports fans can also hook themselves up with a SlingMedia Slingbox and redirect any program coming through their television to their smartphone device - including NBC's coverage of the Olympics.
The Slingbox, however, is the only option with an extra up front cost (for both the box and the mobile software), and is available on Windows Mobile, Symbian S60, and Palm OS devices.

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: 2008 Olympics, 2008 Summer Olympics, Blackberry, Google, MobiTV, NBC, Olympics, Palm, Palm OS, Slingbox, SlingMedia, Symbian S60, Windows Mobile

In this face of broad-sweeping success with their HTC Touch Pro and HTC Touch Diamond series handsets, the smartphone maker has announced that they are still on course to release their first (and possibly the first) Google Android OS powered device by the fourth quarter of this year.

Expected to be called the HTC Dream, the new smartphone from HTC flies in the face of recent rumors about possible delays in the launching of any Google Android powered smartphone.

Promised to bear both a large touchscreen and a complete, slide-out or swivel-out QWERTY keyboard, the HTC Dream will be about 5” long and 3” wide with controls for online navigation placed on the handset itself, beneath the touchscreen.

The HTC Dream is readying to face its biggest competition, at least initially, from Samsung, which seems poised to put out the 2nd Google Android smartphone to be scheduled for release (with Motorola not far behind).

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: Google, Google Android, HTC, HTC Dream, HTC Touch Diamond, HTC Touch Pro, Motorola, QWERTY, Samsung, touchscreen

The CEO of Symbian, the company, producer of Symbian, the operating system, OS for such popular smartphones as the LG Joy, Motorola MOTORIZR Z8, Samsung SGH series, several Sony Ericsson smartphones, and dozens of Nokia smartphones, has suggested that collaboration with search giant Google, and makers of the long-awaited (by users) and feared (by competitors) Android mobile OS, would be more than welcome by him.

Avoiding specifics as to whether the releationship would remain in the realm of applications or venture into OS territory, chief Symbian-ite Nigel Clifford points out that Google and Symian have already been working closely together for a while now, mainly on search and mapping applications for Nokia smartphones.

It would be quite difficult for the two to merge their operating systems, so the likes of RIM and Apple don’t have too much to be nervous about, but the mutual back-scratching of the two giants in their respective industries leaves a lot for fellow partners Motorola, LG, Samsung, and others a lot to be excited about. Only time will tell however, what such a collaborative venture will produce.

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: Android, apple, Google, LG, Motorola, Nokia, RIM, Samsung, Symbian

It was last November that Google announced their entry into the smartphone OS battle (alongside Symbian, RIM BlackBerry OS, Microsoft Windows Mobile, and of course the inimitable iPhone) but we have yet to see the first Google Android smartphone on the market. Well that is soon about to change.

A British chip maker named ARM has released a prototype of its unbranded handset running the Google Android operating system, equipped with:

• email (provided by Gmail)
• text messaging
• multimedia apps
• internet browser (with Google as the default home page)
• Google Calendar functionality
• GoogleMaps software

Meanwhile, Google's own engineering director has unveiled an Android smartphone prototype as well, this the Google branded GPhone. While Google won't be manufacturing the GPhones itself, it aims to design the basic handset in such a way that manufacturers of all capacities can still deliver a quality, Google-worthy product. The first of these looks to pack the equivalent power of the iPhone into a smaller, tighter package (and that includes the screen size).

The first Google Android smartphones are expected to hit markets later in the year.

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: Android, ARM, BB OS, Blackberry, British, Gmail, Google, GoogleCalendar, GoogleMaps, iphone, Microsoft, RIM, Symbian, text messaging, Windows Mobile

With smartphones rapidly overtaking cell phones in the mobile market, it's only logical that smartphone makers are looking ahead to what will keep consumers coming back for more. As such, Information Week recently published a stellar article on the subject, peeking into the innovations popular manufacturers of the devices already glued to our collective, cultural ears are planning for making their products even "stickier".

Technology advances fast, and that's why today's experts see many amazing advances in smartphone technology in store for us in just two years from now. A chief Motorola executive summarizes it this way, by pointing out the three key trends that will alter the very "role and nature" of mobile devices to come:

• content digitization
• ubiquitous, global broadband
• PC miniaturization

This combination of elements will define what's to come in smartphone innovation in just a matter of 24 months or less, namely in the way of:

• hardware
• operating systems
• the internet "ecosystem"

Already, in the way of global broadband, companies like Verizon and Sprint have spread their 3G networks across the whole of the United States, with T-Mobile and AT&T not far behind.

In terms of sheer processing power and the placing of the computing power of the PC into your pants pocket, industry leader Intel is readying the new Moorestown chip, promising smartphone users even greater access to the power these increasingly faster networks offer.

And as for the world of the worldwide web, already corporate giants in other areas of technology are seeing the value of getting into the smartphone game. Consider web search giant Google, whose upcoming mobile platform Andriod is poised to revolutionize the smartphone market, engendering the creation of whole new smartphone devices by all the major manufacturers.

There's much more ahead for smartphone users, and not very far ahead at that. Stay tuned, because it's all coming soon to a smartphone near you.

written by SmartPhoneWizard \\ tags: , Andriod, AT&T, broadband, Google, Information Week, InformationWeek, Intel, Sprint, T-Mobile, verizon