Mobile – Page 15 – rgbFilter

Full 3D gaming on Microsoft’s Windows Phone demoed

March 10, 2010March 10, 2010 Doug Groves Microsoft, Visual Studio, Windows Phone, WP7S, Xbox, XNA5 Comments

Engadget managed to get a hands on of a couple of Windows Phone 7 games built with XNA Game Studio 4.0. Although they weren’t allowed to take any video of the games in action, they said it did work, including unlocking achievements. The more impressive of the two was a top down sci-fi looking dungeon crawler called The Harvest, running at the full 800×480 Windows Phone 7 resolution. The other is called Battle Punks and is a one-on-one fighting game. Although there’s no in-game action of either, they did post…

Apple sues HTC over 20 patents… war is on?

March 2, 2010March 2, 2010 Doug Groves Android, Apple, google, HD2, HTC, iPhone, Microsoft, Nexus One, Sense UI, Touch FLO, Windows Mobile4 Comments

The news broke this morning that Apple is suing smart phone manufacturer HTC, maker of many popular Google Android and Windows Mobile devices. In their 700 plus page ITC filing, Apple lists a whole slew of specific HTC devices running both operating systems, including the Nexus One, HD2, Touch Pro, Hero, Touch Diamond, Touch Pro2, Tilt II, and quite a few more. It’s interesting that Apple is going after HTC as opposed to either Google or Microsoft and their operating systems. There’s precious little, on first blush, in the patent…

Palm sales ‘lower than expected’… it wouldn’t be the ads would it?

February 26, 2010February 26, 2010 Doug Groves palm, Palm Pre, Pixi, Verizon2 Comments

Well, this doesn’t spell good news for the future of WebOS. Palm’s ‘re-entry’ into the smart phone market has been less than spectacular. In fact, even with the launch of the ‘Plus’ versions of their Pre and Pixi devices, Palm still hasn’t managed to pull out of a sales slump. Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ:PALM) today indicated that it expects that revenues for the third quarter of fiscal year 2010 will be in the range of $285 million to $310 million on a GAAP basis and in the range of $300 million…

Canadian carriers complete trials of two-way wireless video calling

February 24, 2010 Doug Groves Bell, Rogers, Telus, video calling0 comment

More news from Canadian carriers today, as Bell, Telus and Rogers have finished the trials for inter-network video calling. Each of the ‘big three’ had their own video calling solutions, which allowed 2 way video between customers on the same carrier, which severely limited the functionality. This development suggests that at launch it “…will create North America’s largest two-way mobile video calling community…” at least according to the press release. The new video calling tech makes use of the open 3G-324M Video Telephony standard, which should enable compatibility with international…

Rogers introduces DRM free music… sound familiar?

February 24, 2010February 24, 2010 Doug Groves digital download, DRM, Music, OTA, Rogers6 Comments

(UPDATE: fixed incorrect URL and graphic – where’s that editor-in-chief when you need him? Oh yeah…) With services and pricing structures being almost identical between the ‘big three’ Canadian wireless carriers, it’s hardly surprising that Rogers has followed Telus’ lead, and has introduced a new DRM free music service. Two wIn keeping with the theme, individual tracks will cost between $0.69 and $1.29, with $0.99 being the sweet spot. Albums will also generally be priced at $9.99. To help differentiate itself, Rogers is also the first to introduce pre-orders. “Customers…

Rogers brings Acer Liquid e, Android 2.1 to Canada

February 22, 2010 Doug Groves Acer, Acer Liquid, Android, Android 2.1, Rogers0 comment

Rogers bringing the Android 2.1 packing Acer Liquid e is an interesting development on a couple of fronts. It’s the first time a North American carrier to bring an Acer smart phone to market. It’s also the first official phone to be running 2.1 Android in Canada, although Telus’ recently released Milestone is upgradeable from 2.0. “Rogers is very excited to be partnering with a highly respected global brand like Acer to bring the Acer Liquid e to Canadians consumers,” said John Boynton, Executive Vice-President, Marketing, Rogers. “By exclusively launching,…

Mobile World Congress Part One

February 19, 2010 Doug Groves Microsoft, Mobile World Congress, MWC, Show, Windows Phone, WP7S0 comment

Mobile World Congress is the biggest cell phone event of the year, and in this first look at it, we talk about Microsoft’s newly announced Windows Phone 7 Series, which makes a clean break from it’s Windows Mobile past.

Windows Phone 7 development details surface

February 18, 2010February 18, 2010 Doug Groves HTC, Microsoft, Sense UI, Windows Phone 7 Series, WP7S, XNA0 comment

Recent interviews, as well as leaked developer docs for Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 Series help put together some interesting pieces of the puzzle left in the wake of the Mobile World Congress announcement a few days back. A few of those questions included multitasking, backwards compatibility and partner customizations. It’s clear in the documentation that WP7S will be capable of multitasking, both full background applications and a background notification system. Although the functionality does exist, to what extent can developers make use of it is another matter. Also, as for…

Motorola Milestone now at Telus

February 16, 2010February 16, 2010 Doug Groves Android, Motorola Milestone, Telus6 Comments

Telus has announced, a couple of days ahead of schedule, the availability of the Motorola Milestone, which is better known as the Droid in the US. The phone features an 854×480 screen and despite a rather thin 13.7 mm packs a slide out QWERTY keyboard. It’s also part of the new Telus 3G network so data should move quickly. No word on whether it has Android 2.0 or 2.1. The pricing is reasonable, ranging from an outright buy of $599 to $199 for a 3 year contract. It’ll be interesting…

Windows Phone 7 Series – has Microsoft pulled it off?

February 15, 2010February 15, 2010 Doug Groves Microsoft, Windows Phone, WP7S, Xbox Live, Zune6 Comments

Probably the most anticipated event at Mobile World Congress has finally passed, and with it, Microsoft has announced a whole new direction with it’s mobile platform, which has been rebranded Windows Phone 7 Series. Although WP7S devices aren’t expected to start shipping until near the end of the year, the folks at Redmond have definitely taken a ground up approach with the new OS, UI and hardware. Microsoft will be much more strict on the minimum hardware specs, which is a good thing, since in the past there were some…

Telus BlackBerry Storm 2 Review

February 14, 2010February 16, 2010 drsquid Blackberry, phone, review, RIM, Storm, Telus3 Comments

Introduction The enormous success of the iPhone, since its release in 2007, sent a lot of phone competitors back to their drawing boards to create a competitor that included one of the iPhones primary features, a large touch screen. Though none of them would admit to trying to create an iPhone killer, the media quickly dubbed them as such. Research in Motion (RIM), the Canadian creators of the ‘Crackberry’ had already made major in-roads into the consumer smartphone market with their Curve and Pearl entry level phones, but the meteoric…

WindowsPhone – what Microsoft needs to do at Mobile World Congress

February 12, 2010February 14, 2010 Doug Groves HTC, Microsoft, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone, Xbox Live, Zune3 Comments

We rarely delve into outright speculation here at rgbHeadquarters, but over the past month or two, there have been a number of rumours regarding what is going to be a major update to the Windows Mobile platform with version 7, and the rebranding to Windows Phone. With Mobile World Congress starting next week, those rumours have increased, and many have solidified somewhat. What to expect from Microsoft at MWC is largely dependent on what they need to fix, and a little reading of the tea leaves.