Treeduck

When Microsoft launched its mobile app store last month, Windows Marketplace for Mobile was only available for Windows phones running operating system 6.5. Although highly anticipated among users, the execution of the app store nevertheless put Microsoft on wobbly competitive footing. Here was Microsoft, a year and a half behind Apple on producing an app store, and the company had already dropped a boulder on its big toe by limiting the storefront to its brand-new operating system, which a bulk of its users didn't have.

Thankfully, Redmond seems to have recovered, and on Monday, Microsoft opened up its Marketplace app to more Windows phones. If yours runs version 6.0 or 6.1 of the operating system, you can now download the free Marketplace application by sending yourself a link from Microsoft's Web site.

Microsoft boasts approving more than 800 applications for Windows Marketplace for Mobile as of November 16, a little over a month after launching the digital storefront. But the figure pales in comparison to Apple's announcement of its 100,000 app milestone just two weeks before. Microsoft's has some serious work to do if it wants to attract more developers and attempt to reach Apple's benchmark. Making the Marketplace available to more users is a necessary first step.

Related: Microsoft opens online mobile Marketplace
Originally posted at The Download Blog

To picture the next-gen microscope, don't picture a microscope at all. Aydogan Ozcan, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA, is adapting cell phones to sample biological images.

This is no iPhone app. Ozcan, who formed the company Microskia (on the heels of the UC Berkeley team that developed CellScope), has built a prototype whose cell phone camera sensor can detect a slide's contents at a cellular level--reading, for example, an increase in white blood cell count that might indicate a new infection or injury. That information can then be forwarded wirelessly to a lab or hospital.

The brilliance of Ozcan's design is that magnification is done electronically, requiring no lens. (CellScope, on the other hand, takes a more conventional approach as a miniature microscope with expensive lenses.)

Ozcan simply added LEDs to the phone, and those diodes direct light over the sample, which is analyzed in front of the camera sensor. The resulting hologram is recorded by the camera as a collection of pixels, and can be analyzed through Ozcan's software for diagnostic decisions.

The applications for this kind of affordable and mobile device abound. Screening for malaria is a big one, or monitoring someone's white blood cell count throughout chemotherapy.

Viruses such as HIV and H1N1 are currently too small to detect at this point, Ozcan told me by phone: "They are so small compared to the wavelength of light that their scattering is not going to help. But there are ways to get around this through optics, that we are working on."

When the technology does get there, he says, you could "photograph" your own nasal swab, upload it to a Web site that compares images for diagnosis, and know whether you have the flu without ever leaving bed. Because let's face it: the last place someone with a compromised immune system should be is a crowded emergency room.

Just a couple weeks ago we reported at Unwired View that Sony Ericsson has a couple new handsets in the works that will be rugged and waterproof. At the time we had a couple drawings or mockups of these devices, but just recently we found some more official-looking pics and videos showing them off.

Here’s what we knew going into today: Susan is a candybar, Sunny is a slider. Both phones have 5 MP cameras with LED flash, though neither would likely be a Cybershot device.

Today, however, we saw the pics and videos of the device in a lot more detail, but the only additional thing we truly learned was that there is some kind of new UI platform on these devices. It’s not the traditional style for Sony Ericsson, so we are left speculating on exactly what it could be, and if it will make it into the final versions that get shipped out.

So check out the pic and videos we dug up and see what you think of these new devices.

sony-susan1

via PhoneArena

Motorola might be getting ready to pick itself up off the canvas and rejoin the smartphone fight.

Motorola's first Android phone could look something like this. (Credit: Boy Genius Report)

The Boy Genius Report got its hands on some information and photos of Motorola's supposed first Android phone, codenamed Calgary. If the information is correct, it's a slider phone with a QWERTY keyboard that will appear on the US Verizon network at some point later this year.

Motorola has been essentially sitting out the last year or so of the smartphone market as the company tries to figure out whether or not it actually wants to be in that business. But the company was an early backer of Google's Android project, and has been rumoured for some time to be working on Android-powered handsets.

The Android news keeps getting better and better. The latest rumour from the US is that the soon to be released Motorola Droid will run Android OS version 2.0. Phones available currently run the 1.6 version of the software, affectionately known as Cupcake.

The Moto Droid next to a screenshot of car-mode from Android 2.0

The Boy Genius Report (BGR) has posted numerous photos of the Moto Droid handset, which sports a large WVGA touchscreen and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and according to the BGR it is the fastest Android handset it has used to date.

The upgraded Android OS reportedly brings a swag of new features. Along with updated menu icons (visible in the screenshot above), version 2.0 also brings greater built-in social networking functionality, MS Exchange support, a universal search option which searches your phone and the web simultaneously, and a car mode that simplifies the UI for easier use when driving.

The Droid is Verizon exclusive in the US and in preparation for the big launch the company is playing some cheeky anti-iPhone ads on TV. The ads don't show the phone itself, but reminds customers of various tasks an iPhone won't do, with the tagline "Droid does".

A compact classic

Slim, elegant, with a back-lit keypad and large screen; you can access the most used functions in one or two steps and talk and surf at the same time.

Big on business

Push email and PC synchronisation ensure you’re always on top of things; and it’s a high-speed modem to connect your PC to the Internet on the go.

Enjoy the small world

News and events are at your fingertips with RSS feeds, and you’ve got music, video and games to entertain you in flight or when you deserve a break.

Description

The K610i is a very lightweight and compact 3G phone equipped with video calling, a 2 megapixel camera, stereo music player and a memory card slot for storing plenty of music. It does suffer from a small keypad, no flash on the camera and some models have a tendency to freeze or shut down, so be careful when buying.

The Sony Ericsson K610i is a slimline featherweight 3G phone. Thinner and lighter than either the Motorola V3X or the LG U880, the K610i sets the standards for compactness in the 3G world (the Samsung Z510 is thinner but heavier). Available in red or silver, it's an attractive, conventional-looking phone with a nice keypad (large fingers watch out!) and thankfully a 5-way navigation key instead of Sony's horrible joystick that makes an appearance in some of its phones.

The K610i ticks most boxes, with its stereo MP3 player, 2 megapixel camera, video calling, memory card & Bluetooth. But still, we're left a little unsure what the K610i is for. It's not got the best camera, it's not a Walkman phone, it's not packed with business features - it's just small. Presumably it's targeted at women more than men. So if you're looking for a compact phone filled with features, but not the best in any particular area, the K610i could be your phone. It certainly does most things that most people want from a phone.

There are a few faults with the K610i: as mentioned above the keypad is rather small and fiddly (especially for man-size fingers); there's no flash with the camera, so forget photography at night; and it does seem to have a tendency to shut down or reboot, as reported by several users. The Sony Ericsson V630i is a Vodafone-exclusive version of the K610i with some additional music features such as Vodafone RadioDJ. For a more reliable alternative to the K610i, you might consider the clamshell design Z610i, which is highly rated, or the more upmarket W880i - the ultra-slim 3G Walkman phone.

The Sony Ericsson K610im is exactly the same as the K610i except that it also has i-mode. i-mode is a new and more convenient way to access the internet from a mobile phone. You can use i-mode to browse web sites or to send mail via iMail.

We still don’t know if the Samsung i5700 will be called Spica or Galaxy Lite, but one thing’s certain: this Android smartphone is really close to being officially announced.

A new video preview of the Samsung i5700 has just appeared over at the ai.rs blog, this time showing the black version of the handset.

It’s said that the features of Samsung i5700 are similar to the ones of Samsung Galaxy i7500, save for the fact that the unannounced phone has a 3.2MP flash-less camera and, apparently, only 100MB of internal memory.

If Samsung introduces the i5700 Spica / Galaxy Lite this year, the smartphone will probably come with Android 1.6 on board – like the Acer Liquid A1.

Launched in June this year, Nokia Ovi Suite has now reached version 2.0.0.10 and is out of beta.

The Suite was designed to include essential features from Nokia’s desktop applications like Nokia PC Suite, Nokia Software Updater, Nokia Music, Nokia Map Loader and Nokia Nseries PC Suite.

At the moment, Nokia Ovi Suite is compatible with 142 Nokia phones and requires users to have a PC with Windows XP SP2 or newer, or Windows Vista SP1 or newer. In the future, Mac OSX might be supported as well.

You can download Nokia Ovi Suite 2.0 directly from here (EXE file), or from Nokia’s website – where you can also find more info about it.

Via Nokia Beta Labs Blog

It looks like Apple is finally trying to put an end to jailbreaking the iPhone.

Reportedly, all the iPhone 3GS units shipped starting last week have a new botroom (iBoot-359.3.2) that makes jailbreaking impossible.

According to iClarified, iBoot-359.3.2 is not vulnerable to the 24kpwn exploit which is used by the Dev-Team (among others) to jailbreak older iPhones and iPods.

So if you’re getting a new iPhone 3GS and want to jailbreak it, you should look for old stock, or buy a refurbished unit.

The new iPhone bootrom may have other exploits than the 24kpwn, but it will probably take a while until developers find them.

Announced way back in February, the Samsung Blue Earth S7750 is finally ready to hit the market and it will be available in Sweden starting this month. Soon, the phone will also be launched in Germany, France, Austria, Italy, Portugal and other markets across Europe and Asia.

The S7750 is built from PCM (Post Consumer Material), which is basically extracted from water bottles, and it’s free from harmful substances such as Phthalate, BFR (Brominated Flame Retardants) and PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride).

Samsung Blue Earth comes with a unique UI (based on TouchWiz) that’s “designed to draw attention to preserving our fragile environment.”

The new phone comes with a solar panel on the back, which should allow you to charge it in the most eco-friendly way possible. Even if you don’t use the solar panel, the handset’s standard charger is quite eco-friendly as well, since it uses only 0.03W of power in standby mode.

Unlike most of the eco-friendly phones released until now, the Samsung Blue Earth isn’t a low-end device. Its features include a 3 inch touchscreen display with 240 x 400 pixels and 16 million colors, HSDPA, Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, stereo FM radio, 3.2MP camera, 130MB of internal memory, and MicroSD card support.

As for the price of Blue Earth S7750, Samsung still hasn’t announced it.

Via Press release