UPenn students invent Manhacks

Sweet Jupiter’s Loins! Look at this thing. It’s a quad rotor flyer with 20 independent cameras designed to blow through windows and sneak around tight spaces nary a whisper. I’m not sure what’s scarier – the device itself or the sounds it makes. The folks at the GRASP Lab at Penn created this robot. You [...]

Motorola releasing two new Droids, “leaks” notwithstanding

According to the WSJ, Motorola president Sanjay Jha said that “We will introduce new Droid products in the Verizon franchise.” This probably means something like the Droid Shadow that “appeared” in a toilet recently. We can also expect about a dozen new phones from Motorola this year, although not all of them will run Android. [...]

Man shoots AT&T employee, is killed by off-duty cop

A 79-year-old man from Utica, NY entered an AT&T store with a hit list of names and a 357 Magnum. He opened fired, hitting one employee, before an off-duty police officer who was shopping at the store pulled his own gun and shot the attacker dead. The shooter, Abraham Dicken, had held a grudge against [...]

Hi Lux Pico Projector phone for $174? OK, I’ll bite

This Chinese phone is trying desperately to look like a Vertu but features one of the most massive pico projectors I’ve ever seen. The NCBC 888 phone with a built in pico projector takes media on a mobile phone to the next level. Anyone who has ever had to stare at a smallish screen (even [...]

Exploded Andy: A t-shirt for Android fans

Are you totally into Android? Then you’re totally in luck. The folks who brought you Exploded iPad and Exploded iPhone present Exploded Andy, the Android android cut down to his component parts, including a fat, fleshy brain. You can pick up a poster or t-shirt of Andy. Both are available right now at the product [...]

Old cranks now learning to love their iPads

Remember when everyone was like “I’m returning my iPad? It’s the garbage?” That was SO early Spring 2010. The new hotness is increased iPad affection with a soupcon of wistful disappointment that comes to the folks who originally attacked the iPad and are now smitten. It was so fun to have a flat, glassy enemy [...]

CrunchGear hits the big time: Our “Getting things built” panel at #tcdisrupt

If you haven’t been watching Disrupt today, you’ve missed out. The best panel ever? Ours. I talked to Liam Casey, Adam Hocherman, Chris Hawker, and Bre Pettis about open source hardware, manufacturing, and entrepreneurship in the manufacturing space. I won’t spoil anything for you, but I recommend you watch it. If you take anything away [...]

Effectology recreates the Dr. Who theme

If you’ve ever watched old-timey Dr. Who, you probably wondered how they made the music for that series. It’s simple, really: In 1963 Delia Derbyshire working for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop created one of the most significant and innovative pieces of electronic music, even before the availability of commercial synthesizers. Starting with a score written [...]

mTouch: An affordable multi-touch web table

It’s hard out here at Disrupt for gadget geeks, but we just got lucky. Merel Technologies is showing off a very cool multi-touch web table that uses gesture recognition, object recognition, and multi-user multi-touch to create a new way to interact with media and kiosk apps. The best thing? It costs $3,200 for the 32-inch [...]

Super Mario Bro. Crossover gets Ryu from Ninja Gaiden

Can you dig it? Ryu from Ninja Gaiden on the NES was a real badass. He could climb on walls and he had unlimited shuriken, a big plus when you’re going against hordes of anti-ninja forces on the NES. But how is he against Koopa Troopers? Our favorite game, SMB Crossover, just announced they’re adding [...]

Confirmed: Dell Streak coming to O2 in the UK

You’ve been waiting for it! It’s the Dell Streak and it’s coming to a Carphone Warehouse near you! Wait, what? The Streak, Dell’s 5-inch Android tablet, will arrive in June with O2, price to be announced. The device will come with 3G connectivity and should be subsidized by the carrier. Want the Streak in the [...]

Foxconn’s CEO speaks out against suicide, 11th employee dead

A cluster of suicides has hit Foxconn, painting the factory in a horrible light and essentially drawing outrage just about everyone. Yesterday Foxconn CEO, Gou Tai-ming, officially spoke out against the suicides and today another potential suicide occurred at about 6:30 AM in Shenzhen. Those are the facts and it’s a tragic situation. Something in [...]

Sylvia’s Super-Awesome Maker Show is GO!

This young lady is eight years old and produces something she calls Sylvia’s Super-Awesome Maker Show. Today she made a Drawdio, a pencil that plays music when you draw things. Mark at BoingBoing found her at Maker Faire and she seems to really enjoy what she’s doing and she has great production values, which is [...]

AppMakr adds features, now free for a limited time

We covered AppMakr a few months ago and found that they were a fairly cool way to make simple iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch apps with a minimum of fuss. They’ve just announced that they hit 1 million downloads onall of their custom apps and have also announced a number of improvements to the service. The service, to [...]

3DMark releases DirectX 11 demo

Have you ever wondered how they rate gaming laptops and desktops? Well, aside from a bunch of hand-waving and pseudo-intellectual discussion, most hardware reviewers depend on a few important benchmarks, including 3DMark 11. 3DMark traditionally pounds graphics processors and CPUs with all kinds of great stuff – I remember running 3DMark in 2001 and seeing [...]

Monster Diddybeats, for all your Diddy music needs

Dost thou love Diddy? Then do not squander Diddy, for that’s the stuff life is made of. Monster has just announced the avilability of the Diddybeats earbuds in black, white, and pink for $179. Best of all? Les Diddybeats includes a free track from Diddy’s latest album, Last Train to Paris. But wait! There’s more. [...]

Another watchphone, this time with GPS

Oh rapture! GPS 800G watch phone is here and it’s ready to rumble! This phone has GPRS tracking, an SOS button, and can record how fast you’re moving, allowing alerts to be sent to scared and frightened parents. But don’t take my word on it: 1.SMS & GPRS Tracking: Capable of text message (SMS) tracking [...]

Flash kills browsing in Android 2.2 Froyo

Brian at PocketNow posted a browser comparison video showing the iPhone, the Nexus One, and the HTC HD2 all viewing the same websites. He installed Froyo on the Nexus One and downloaded the Flash beta which allows him to run almost all Flash content. It’s really long.While I do enjoy a long video of a [...]

New footage of LittleDog found: Run away! Run away!

So you just woke up. You had some cereal, some coffee. Hit the old elliptical and then took a shower and went to work. You fire up the old PC, get the TPS reports ready, and while the FTOPS are loading you visit CrunchGear. You play the video above. You realize that your entire world, [...]

Complain about your dropped iPhone calls… with science

We just saw a great product at the TC Disrupt Hack Day. It’s basically a class action lawsuit generator against AT&T that uses your actual call drop data to tabulate how many times your phone crashed and how many times you’ve been generally hosed by AT&T. The site is worstphoneever.com and it searches for baseband [...]

Complain about your dropped iPhone calls… with science

We just saw a great product at the TC Disrupt Hack Day. It’s basically a class action lawsuit generator against AT&T that uses your actual call drop data to tabulate how many times your phone crashed and how many times you’ve been generally hosed by AT&T. The site is worstphoneever.com and it searches for baseband [...]

CrunchDeals: Final 15 Buscum Ducis BDIs for $149 each

Our buddy Sven at BD is offering his final 15 BDI watches at a considerably discount – $149, about $70 off the regular price. We reviewed the piece, a quartz with custom styling by Sven himself, back a few years ago. Beautiful watches at a great price. Sale Page

Quick look at the Sprint EVO 4G: OMG AMAZING

Guys. Seriously. This is a nice phone. This is like the HTC HD2 with a future and it has some amazing speed, screen size, and network capabilities. If you’re up in the air about the Droid and aren’t tied to a carrier, get this. I’ll do a full review next week. Music by Closely Watched [...]

Quick look at the Sprint EVO 4G: OMG AMAZING

Guys. Seriously. This is a nice phone. This is like the HTC HD2 with a future and it has some amazing speed, screen size, and network capabilities. If you’re up in the air about the Droid and aren’t tied to a carrier, get this. I’ll do a full review next week. Music by Closely Watched [...]

Review: Two smokeless cigarette solutions, Green Nicotine and Ploom

I’m a bit of a smoker – cigars, mostly, and only when I feel like alienating all my friends – so I figured I’d try out some of these “electronic” cigarettes. I’ve already reviewed one similar to Green Nicotine, the SuperSmoker. However, Ploom is a bit different. Ploom uses a little butane heater ignited by [...]

Don’t cry for the workers at Foxconn

I’ve been interested in gadget manufacturing for a while now and, as I reported a few months ago, things are pretty bad but they’ve been worse. Now, however, we’re seeing clusters of suicides at Foxconn as well as an undercover “report” from Foxconn’s “Hell Factory.” I’m calling bull. First, consider that Foxconn has 400,000 employees [...]

Review: Sony Vaio F Series Laptop

Short Version: Sony has always had a way with big laptops. Their F-Series, starting at $999 and going all the way up to about $1700 on a good day, is a monster but doesn’t feel huge and his heavy without being a boat anchor. With only about two hours of battery life you’re not going [...]

Zero Punctuation on Dead to Rights: Retribution

Baby sandwich.

10 things the iPad is good for… and 5 it isn’t

We’ve all had plenty of time to digest the iPad and all its magical wonders and in the few months we’ve had it it has sold over a million units. But that just means another few billion people are still on the fence about it! Here are a few things I’ve discovered about the iPad [...]

Barnes & Noble announces PubIt! for aspiring authors

Everyone has a book in them, right? Well Barnes & Noble wants to give you the opportunity to push that book in front of a few million people using their PubIt! service. The new service allows you to upload a document, convert it to epub, and sell it on their B&N reader system, including on [...]

Misogyny still alive and well in the Asian electronic accessories scene

Sigh. Click – or don’t – to embiggen. Slightly NSFW and really dumb. via BigBigBargain

Contest: 10 free copies of Armored Core: Last Raven for PSP

ARRRRREEEE YOOOOOU REAAADDY TOOOO play a copy of Armored Core: Last Raven on the PSP? Well I have 10 free download codes. I’m going to pick five winners at random and pick another five Twitter folk. Isn’t that so Raven? So I’m picking five commenters, below, and I’ll tweet a first-come-first-served code to twitter.com/crunchgear or [...]

Are you a citizen of the Roc Nation? Well, then your passport is these Skullcandy headphones

Skullcandy has officially announced the availability of their Roc Nation Aviator headphones, the only headphones officially sanction by Jay Z. Jay Z is a rapper who raps about, among other things, his 99 problems, New York, and detritus under your ear. The headphones actually look quite cool and they’re completely portable. You also have a [...]

iFixIt tears down the Kin Two

I know you’ve been wondering what’s in the Kin Two since it first came out and now you can see the phone’s delicious innards up close. iFixIt tore it up and found an Nvidia Tegra processor, which is nice, and “two very cool springs.” Where did they hide the magical unicorn hoof shavings? * The [...]

Penthouse “smallest” watch phone is neither the smallest nor related to Penthouse

This weird monstrosity is the Penthouse watch phone. It’s creators claim that it is the “smallest” watch phone available, which is, as we see, a lie. It’s not even smaller than the crazy Kempler & Strauss W Phone, another good idea gone bad. What’s worse, this has nothing to do with Penthouse, which was my [...]

Apple trademarks their retail stores and iDisk icon

Watch out, Joe’s Bait and Tackle, you better not have a big, open glass door with light wooden tables along the middle and light wooden shelves lining the walls on which you will display your wares, including, but not limited to laptops and computers. Apple has that entire color scheme and layout on lockdown, so [...]

Kisai Round Trip watch: All that’s missing is the fob and aluminum top hat

There’s an old O. Henry story, The Gift of the Kisai that recounts a tale of a young man who sells his Kisai Round Trip LED pocketwatch to buy his wife a hairbrush and his wife cuts and sells her hair to buy her husband a pocketwatch chain. The story, a classic in the oeuvre [...]

Freeloaders rejoice: Hulu will be free for a while longer

While the LA Times noted that Hulu would soon be offering Hulu plus by May 24, the $10 will apparently not be rolled out by next Monday, thus allowing you unfettered access to the intellectual produce of thousands of studio employees for a least a few more months. As you recall, Hulu Plus: … will [...]

This young man willingly gets an Apple tattoo. And you call us fanboys?

Look, I love my iPad as much as the next guy and, just like the next guy, if I had to make the choice between food and water and the iWork suite, I’d probably go for the iWork suite. However, I would not tattoo the Apple logo onto my shoulder. Billy Hime, a self-professed “iPhone [...]

Mobile Devs: Get 20% off the Uplinq Conference

Qualcomm, makers of just about every comm chip in existence, are holding their annual Uplinq conference in San Diego this year and would like to invite you folks to roll on down for a bit of mobile fun in the sun. Check out their site and if you think the event is for you hit [...]

Spoiler Alert: Another iPhone 4G/HD appears

At this point in the game I’m pretty much bored with the whole iPhone HD leak meme. In a twisted way, the run up to Apple launches was a lot of fun. There was endless speculation but no real data and all of a sudden a guy in a turtleneck and jeans pops out and, [...]

Don’t let taste stand in the way of buying a crystal iPhone stand

Are you the kind of person who has to have the best of everything? Two-ply toilet paper? Nice plastic plates? The best mixture of Alpo and brown gravy spread liberally onto your chest as a libido suppressant? Then you’re going to need the Calypso Crystal iPhone stands. These stands, which range from $199 to $349 [...]

Do you play video games? Are you agoraphobic? Have we got a job for you

A “market-leading gaming console company” hired a contact center provider, Alpine Access in Denver, to provide phone support. But they can’t find 200 or so video gamers who are willing to walk parents through how to pull a grilled cheese sandwich out of the optical drive near Denver so they’re going to that hotbed of [...]

Apple beats Moto

Well if that don’t beat all. Apple sold 8.8 million iPhones while Motorola sold 8.5 million last quarter. The crazy part is that those are all, obviously, iPhones while Motorola’s entire line consists of smart and feature phones. Including Droid and Devour. 9to5 notes: Apple has eclipsed Motorola as the biggest mobile phone maker in [...]

Motorola is in the black and selling phones

Now here’s a turnaround I never expected. According to a recent results filing, Motorola is working its way back into solvency and is turning a profit and shipping devices like crazy. The company took a slight loss in mobile sales – about $192 million – but that’s far lower than $550 million last year. In [...]

Are you in line for the HTC Incredible?

A reader, Derek, writes: Not with a bang, but a whimper? I’m @ the VZN store with the earliest opening time in a major metro region, and I am the line. I feel a bit silly. Did you wait in line? Do you want us to get you coffee?

Nokia: Trust us, the N8 has a really nice camera

Nokia N8 first HD video sample from Nokia Conversations on Vimeo. After a heady excoriation of the N8 based on pre-release hardware surfaced this week, it looks like Nokia is trying hard to convince us that the N8 is still the phone to beat. Look: I love Nokia. I would even marry it if that [...]

The Nokia N8, Nokia’s new flagship phone, is official

Every year, like the swallows returning from Capistrano or the tourists returning to Disneyworld Paris, Nokia releases a flagship phone. Sadly, the boatwrights at Nokia haven’t dropped a winner in nigh on three years now and, if early reports are to believed, their new N8 is not looking seaworthy. The N8 looks like the Motorola [...]

Nokia N8 running Symbian^3 is the suck

Sigh. Nokia may be selling phones like hotcakes to the developing world and my father-in-law in Poland, but they can’t make a popular phone to save their life. The new N8, leaked and reviewed on Electronista is little more than a rehash of Symbian circa 2000. Mobile-Review’s Eldar Murtazin goes so far as to jokingly [...]

Ride the City bike routing service hits the iPhone

Friends of CG Jordan Anderson and Vaidila Kungys, creators of Ride the City New York just released their first Ride the City iPhone app [download] for NYC. The app, like the service, offers safe bike routes through New York and is based on the OpenStreetMap project. It costs $1.99. To use it, you simply enter [...]

A Calm, Reasonable Argument Supporting Apple’s Anti-Flash SDK Language

Gruuuuubeeer! Why do you force us to listen to your reasoned, intelligent arguments explaining the odd language in the new iPhone SDK guidelines outlawing outside iPhone compiling methods, including .NET and Adobe’s own Flash-to-iPhone tools? If we follow Godwin’s law to its obvious conclusion, we can only say that you are a collaborator with enemy [...]

Review: HTC HD2 on T-Mobile

Short Version: Pity the poor HD2. It’s one of the most amazing phones I’ve seen all year but like some ultra-evolved dinosaur at the end of the Cretaceous period, it was born just as a cataclysmic asteroid (Windows Phone 7) was about to change the entire ecosystem. Still, for someone looking for a great media [...]

Review: Motorola CLIQ XT

Short Version: It can be said that Motorola just got its groove back. The Droid is probably one of the best phones out there, followed by the Devour, and they’re constantly releasing a few good models every few weeks, which is better than some manufacturers can say. They’ve hit on a strong formula: build a [...]

WSJ: Verizon iPhone hitting this summer

The rumor mill is churning today as news of a CDMA iPhone running on Verizon will be manufactured by Pegatron in China while a whole new AT&T model, made by Foxconn, will also drop in the summer/fall timeframe. the Journal notes that the two new devices will be exactly the same except, obviously, the CDMA [...]

It is morning in America: GeoHot tells of untethered jailbreak that could work on iPad

Web video star GeoHot just did a quick demo of his untethered iPhone/iPod Touch jailbreak. That’s right – you just have to put something on your device – and not directly connect it to your computer – and it will jailbreak that heck out of it in a few minutes. It’s just like the old [...]

T-Mobile MyTouch to get wire-free charging

PureEnergy is selling their WildCharge wireless charging solution at select T-Mobile stores and will be offering a special charging pad for the MyTouch, T-Mo’s popular Android phone. This is one of the first wireless charging solutions out there and, in addition to the Palm line, one of the first carrier-approved wireless charging solutions. Click through [...]

T-Mobile MyTouch to get wire-free charging

PureEnergy is selling their WildCharge wireless charging solution at select T-Mobile stores and will be offering a special charging pad for the MyTouch, T-Mo’s popular Android phone. This is one of the first wireless charging solutions out there and, in addition to the Palm line, one of the first carrier-approved wireless charging solutions. Click through [...]

Quick Look: The HTC HD2 on T-Mobile

Here’s a quick look at the first US version of the HTC HD2, a really nice Windows Mobile 6.5 phone. We’ve have plenty of coverage of this phone over the past few months but now it’s available on T-Mobile for $200 with contract. It’s a really beautiful phone – and I don’t say that much [...]

Quick Look: The HTC HD2 on T-Mobile

Here’s a quick look at the first US version of the HTC HD2, a really nice Windows Mobile 6.5 phone. We’ve have plenty of coverage of this phone over the past few months but now it’s available on T-Mobile for $200 with contract. It’s a really beautiful phone – and I don’t say that much [...]

With Windows Phone, Microsoft is trying to win back the magic

I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes me a Mac guy as opposed to a PC guy and it seems that the Register may have hit on some very good points. Tim Anderson, the Register writer, notes that Microsoft has lost its edge when it comes to industrial design and even in during its [...]

Nokia N8-00 flops onto the scene

Nokia’s new flagship, the Symbian-powered N8-00, has HD video recording, a 12-megapixel camera, and a 3.5-inch capacative touchscreen. What doesn’t it have? A US release date or price. A Chinese site has all of the images if you want to check them out but this device is definitely on the Droid track and presumably the [...]

Dell Aero hits the big time on AT&T

Dell’s Aero is a decidedly odd duck. When we first discussed it a few months ago, it looked like it would be a non-US device. Now, however, it’s hit AT&T and it looks like a cross between the new T-Mobile CLIQ XT and a NeXT Cube. Dig those photorealistic icons! I think the most interesting [...]

Sugarsync gets an API

SugarSync, a file syncing product that we may have all forgotten in our rush to glorify Dropbox has been rolling out a steady stream of improvements and, as of 11am today, it will offer an API so mobile applications can use SugarSync shared storage. The API information will live at SugarSync.com/Developers when it goes up [...]

Palm now worth nothing

Woof. Analysts have placed a sell rating on Palm and are now valuing their stock, at least in hyperbolic terms, at $0. Quoth CNN: Shares of Palm (PALM) plunged 19% to $4.59 a share early Friday, a new 52-week low. Investors are becoming increasingly pessimistic about the company’s future and several analysts downgraded their positions [...]

Palm: We coulda been a contender

In Greek tragedy, the flaw of hubris was the decisive plot point that brought down many great men. Palm, then, is the Oedipus of a modern tragedy, their efforts to rebuild hampered by a failure to see past their own greatness and a refusal to enter the market on the market’s terms. To be honest, [...]

Sad Clown: Users having problems with the touchscreens on the AT&T Nexus One?

We’ve had a few interesting reports of folks having huge problems with the AT&T Nexus Ones. Here we see a lad tap-tap-tapping away, unable to get anything pressed. Anyone else having issues?

Blackberry 6.0 screens leaked?

I’m calling BS on these but it looks like these are screenshots for BlackBerry OS 6.0 complete with widgets out the wazoo. Clearly the thought here is to bring BB into the 21st century, a move that’s sorely needed by BlackBerry’s current sad sack OS. The fact that there are no other specs point to [...]

The new WinPho7 promo: Doot dee doot

From: The Windows Phone 7 Team To: The Windows Phone 7 Advertising Gnomes After months of deliberation, we hereby present the master plan for all modern mobile commercials. To acquire: Rights to Feist instrumental break Cute woman with curly hair (personable) Handsome, rugged man in vaguely military but alternative shirt Record shop (build) Shot-for-shot outdoor [...]

Sweet merciful Jehosaphat! Microsoft stole the WinPho UI from KLM!

Super sleuths at MS Mobiles (Motto: “Our small phone-shaped favicon is so outdated it’s popular again”) is accusing Microsoft of wholesale theft and battery in their new WinPho UI. KLM’s inflight whatsitcalled looks just like Microsoft’s whatsitcalled and the big blue buttons appear on KLMs entertainment whatchamacallit when you fly on their big, beautiful planes. [...]

Motorola to replace Google with Bing on Chinese Android phones

Imagine this with Bing inside. It’s easy if you try. If I were a spit takin’ man, I’d do a spit take right now. Motorola, stalwart of freedom, will work with Chinese carriers to add Bing to Chinese Android-based phones, ousting Google Search and Maps from the scene. Now this isn’t meanness on Motorola’s part [...]

Indian telecom releases AAA battery-powered cellphone

Olive, an Indian telecom, is releasing a phone that can be powered for a brief period using a single AAA battery. While it still has a main, rechargeable battery, this wonk-tastic phone has polyphonic ringtones, an FM radio, and a calculator! Best of all you can play Bollywood hits on it! Obviously this is for [...]

Project Pink Microsoft phones coming to Verizon

Remember Project Pink? Whatever Microsoft’s secret hardware initiative was? Well, it’s real and it’s coming to Verizon. You’ll see the Turtle, shown here, first, and it will be sort of a Sidekick that won’t run Windows Phone. Verizon will launch this like they did the Droid, aiming the might of their armies at flogging this [...]

Maybe it’s horrible customer service that’s hobbling Palm?

Dwight “The Houston Tiger” Silverman, like so many tech dudes, likes the Palm Pre and Pixi and, in a way, doesn’t understand why Palm is on the rocks. However, he got an email from a reader who described her Verizon experience as sub-par at best. It began poorly: My original salesperson, upon hearing me say [...]

Mister Gruber looks at the Winphone

Mmmm… there’s nothing better for lunch than a tasty sandwich of John Gruberisms. Today John looks at Windows Phone, noting his concerns with the platform in his usual calm, inimitable style. The bigger naming question: Why name it “Windows” anything? If Microsoft is going for a clean break, why not a new non-“Windows” name? I [...]

Nokia releases the “social” C5

So you’re looking for a Nokia smartphone that’s not too smart. Why not try the $183 C5, a candybar S60 phone with 2.2-inch display. It has Ovi Maps built-in and some messaging apps, but seriously, this is a meh-phone. Sorry, Nokia. Next? via Eng

Palm CEO talks about disappointing sales

Poor Jon Rubinstein. After a strong, early push, Palm’s sales have slowed and revenue has dried up with $300-$320 million in Q3. Their “guidance” to Wall Street AKA how much they expected to make? $1.6-1.8 billion. Bloops. The letter is over at WSJ but here’s an excerpt. This morning we announced preliminary results for our [...]

Review: Motorola Devour

Short Version: Hey ladies! Your Droid is here. The Motorola Devour (it’s actually DEVOUR but I refuse to shout at you) is a social media Android phone with enough style to beat down a million Droids. But is it just one more brick in the Android wall? Features: Amazing extruded aluminum case MotoBLUR UI Full [...]

Sony Ericsson turned down the Nexus One

A Swedish interview with Sony Ericsson CEO Bert Nordberg found the jolly head of SE’s floundering handset business reporting that he turned down making the Nexus One for Google because it would dilute the majestic Sony Ericsson brand. Here’s the weirdly translated money shot: But Google got turned down. Brand [Recital... awareness? "Varumärkesskäl vägde tyngre."] [...]

Shout for Android offers one-tap texting

Shout could save your life. It’s a voice-activated texting program for Android that listens to your message and recipient (“Text Joe ‘It’s herpes, it’s not transmittable right now’”) and Shout repeats the message and, after you press the big “Yes” button, sends the text message. I could definitely imagine using this in a car or [...]

RIM CEO pulls an AT&T: “We need to conserve bandwidth”

RIM CEO Mike Lazaridis started blabbering on in an interview about network applications for the Blackberry platform. Was he thankful that developers were creating rich applications for his phones? Was he excited for the future? No. He started horking about “conserving bandwidth,” just like AT&T’s CEO: “Manufacturers had better start building more efficient applications and [...]

I Am Legend: How the HTC Legend stacks up to a Hero

HTC Hero vs HTC Legend: Fight! The HTC Hero, available in the US from Sprint, is less than a year old but that doesn’t mean HTC can’t up the ante. The Legend, a 3G GSM phone not currently available, has a slightly faster processor and a few interesting – and telling – details that are [...]

Acer gets into the Android game

Even as Windows Mobile 7 is set to wow us, more and more manufacturers are heading towards Android. Case in point: the Acer Liquid e. This 786MHz Snapdragon device is as bog standard as they come with GPS, WiFi, and HSDAP support. It also runs Android 2.1 and should be nice and fast. It has [...]

Microsoft’s Pink concept phone becomes less of a concept, shows up on FCC

Remember when people were all excited about Microsoft’s weird tablet stuff? And the phone they were supposed to make? Well, it seems the FCC has released images of an upcoming “Turtle” phone, the PB10ZU. It runs on CDMA and has Bluetooth and WiFi. Sharp, who cut their teeth building the Sidekick way back when, should [...]

iPhone 3.1.3 firmware unlock coming soon

Been waiting to upgrade your iPhone? Can’t because it’s unlocked? Well, wait no longer. Sherif Hashim, an iPhone hacker, has discovered an exploit that seems to unlock the latest baseband. Not a lot of other information other than now the exploit is in the Dev Team’s hands and they will, like some creaky Soviet politburo, [...]

New Pwnage Tool for 3.1.3 available

Fear not, people who jailbreak your 3GSes! PwnageTool for the latest firmware, 3.1.3, is available and ready to crack, hack, and otherwise damage your iPhone. I’ve stopped hacking my 3GS simply because too many things break after unlock. You should also keep your “SHSH hashes” backed up (basically keep the keys to previous versions lying [...]

HTC Incredible leaks, is as red as Mr. Incredible’s suit

This is the so-called HTC Incredible running on Verizon. It has a Snapdragon CPU with 256RAM and a bold and beautiful screen a la the Nexus One. Interestingly, it has two rear LED flashes and appears to be clad in a red backplate which reminds me of butterscotch pudding although a video, now unavailable, shows [...]

Review: Crush the Castle for iPhone/iPod Touch

Every so often you find a game so addicting that you can’t stop playing it. I’m that way with two games on the iPhone: Fieldrunners and Civ Revolution. Close runners up are iShoot (there are only so many times you can launch nukes) and now Crush the Castle. Designed by Armor Games, CtC was originally [...]

Holy wow! AT&T admits NYC/San Fran 3G service sucked

A recent AT&T earnings call consisted of a lot of talk talk talk but one slide stands out: it essentially admits that 3G in San Francisco and New York sucked ween AKA were both far below their official performance objective. Although I can’t figure out what the actual “Performance Objective” truly is based on this [...]

Why carriers didn’t want to allow 3G VoIP before. And why they’re now setting it free

I’ve used VoIP apps on the past few iterations of of the iPhone as well as a number of other devices including some from Nokia, HTC, and Samsung. Those apps always only worked over WiFi and have mostly worked as advertised. Experience shows that if there’s one thing cellular companies are good at it’s ensuring [...]

Listen to FM radio on your CLIQ

The Motorola CLIQ is a nice phone. That’s point one. Point two is that it can actually play radio. Using a non-standard ROM, a user named Eugene found an FM radio binary and tried to run it on the CLIQ. After a little futzing, he was able to fire up the radio and listen to [...]

All I wanna do is zooma-zoom-zoom: Overclocking the Droid

Some crazy programmers have overclocked the Droid to 1.1GHz, making it faster than the Nexus one. The Droid usually runs at about 600MHz so bumping it up to 1.1 was fairly dangerous. However, with a little tweaking the boys at AllDroid were able to find a stable speed at about 800MHz. How do you do [...]

Is the iPhone getting Binged?

It seems that Apple may be inviting Microsoft’s Bing into the iPhone, at least according to BusinessWeek. In what could be some sort of bluff by Apple, Microsoft is apparently in talks to make Bing the default search engine on the iPhone, supplanting Google’s current position on the phone deck. This does not mention if [...]

Oh my sweet Cthulhu! Nokia has something big about to go down

Who knows what’s going on over in London right now but there are a few blolgers chilling out waiting for Nokia to launch something huge in 19 hours. The best thing? You can embed their little countdown thinger into your own blog, thereby completing the circle of blog wonkery. Writes symbian-guru: Nokia has begun sending [...]

Everything you need to know about Windows Mobile 7

MWC is a few weeks away – it starts on February 15 – and we’re expecting to see a new version of Windows Mobile, version 7, to be launched with hardware soon to follow. We’ve heard some rumors about potential improvements over the current 6.x codebase, but a developer has told us that this new [...]

Pluses Pre and Pixi priced

If you’re in the market for a WebOS Plus device then they’ll cost you $150 for the Pre and $100 for the Pixi whenever Verizon launches them. We’re pretty bullish on these updates but obviously you’re your own person now and can make your own decisions. via PhoneArena via Giz Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over [...]

3G GSM crypto hacked

Bloops. Researchers have figured out how to crack 128-but UMTS 3G technology, thereby putting almost all modern phones in danger. The paper, found here basically describes a 2-hour process and is more a proof-of-concept than anything else. However, it could be used to listen to conversations after the fact. As you’ll recall, old-fashioned G.S.M. was [...]

Why Google will win the smartphone race: Products in the pipeline

In the end, Google and Android will own the smartphone market. It won’t happen this year and it may not even happen in 2012 but the day is coming when Android becomes the de facto standard for smartphones. This we know: Multiple manufacturers have reported that Android phones are on the way including up to [...]

Review: Sprint Overdrive 3G/4G WiFi hotspot

Short Version: The Sprint Overdrive is a small, compact portable 3G/4G cellular data network to WiFi dongle designed for use by up to five people simultaneously. The best part is the ease of use and the worst part is the dearth of 4G networking outside of a few major cities. Features: Internal, replaceable battery Front [...]

Tingalin releases Jersey Shore iPhone app before MTV

Tingalin, the makers of the world-famous Tingalin app, have outdone themselves. Their new app, based on the magic of the Jersey Shore but not directly affiliated with the MTV show in any way features a number of useful tools for the Situation-in-training. While the upcoming “fake tan” system is not yet in place, the app [...]

Hands on with the MagicJack femtocell

We saw MagicJack’s femtocell design live in their suite and came away dazzled and slightly bemused. The device itself is far from finished – it’s basically just a PCB right now – but the concept is compelling. For about the price of the MagicJack ($40 or whatever) you stream your cellphone calls through their device, [...]