on Google News for mobile
Google News for mobile lets you keep up with the latest news, wherever you are. Today we’re excited to announce a new feature in the U.S. English edition called “News near you” that surfaces news relevant to the city you’re in and surrounding areas.
Location-based news first became available in Google News in 2008, and today there’s a local section for just about any city, state or country in the world with coverage from thousands of sources. We do local news a bit differently, analyzing every word in every story to understand what location the news is about and where the source is located.
Now you can find local news on your smartphone. Here’s an example of a “News near you” mobile section automatically created for someone in Topeka, Kansas:
To use this feature, visit Google News from the browser of your Android smartphone or iPhone. If this is the first time you are visiting Google News on your phone since this feature became available, a pop-up will ask you if you want to share your location. If you say yes, news relevant to your location will appear in a new section called “News near you” which will be added at the bottom of the homepage. You can reorganize the sections later via the personalization page.
You can turn off the feature at any time either by hiding the section in your personalization settings or by adjusting your mobile browser settings. Please visit the Help Center for further details.
So, go to news.google.com from your smartphone and get the latest news from wherever you are.
Google Nexus S Now Available at Best Buy
ReplyDeleteIf you’ve been eyeing Samsung’s latest Android smartphone, the Google Nexus S, take notice: the device is now available in subsidized form with an AT&T contract, exclusively at Best Buy.
The device sports the latest Android variant, Gingerbread or Android 2.3, as well as a 1 GHz Hummingbird CPU, a 4-inch, 800×480 touchscreen display, a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus, and 16 GB of internal memory.
It also brings the whole connectivity shebang to the table: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB 2.0, as well as NFC, the technology that allows simple wireless transactions, poised to become widely supported in the near future.
The unlocked version of Samsung/Google Nexus S costs $529, but it will only set you back $99 with a two-year contract with AT&T.
T-Mobile Offers iPhone Users Micro SIM Card To Access Service
ReplyDeleteT-Mobile this week began offering a Micro SIM card that lets iPhone users access the network.
The card, available here, carries a $9.99 suggested retail price, but is free with a two-year contract with the carrier. iPhone users have been able to access T-Mobile with an unlocked iPhone since June.
Roger Entner, an analyst with Recon Analytics, says iPhone users can access T-Mobile by getting a normal SIM card cut to a Micro SIM card at phone shops.
iPhone users on T-Mobile don’t get access to a 3G network and can’t use Apple’s visual voicemail. Despite those limitations, T-Mobile claims to have more than 1 million iPhone users on its network.
Meanwhile, AT&T is in the process of purchasing T-Mobile. Even if that comes to pass, T-Mobile promises to offer the same plans it does now — rather than AT&T’s service plans — for a year or so. Piper Jaffray analyst Chris Larson also said earlier this month that the iPhone 5 will be available to T-Mobile and Sprint.
Verizon Activated 2.3 Million iPhones in Second Quarter
ReplyDeleteVerizon Friday reported a strong second quarter with earnings of $3.6 billion on total operating revenues of $27.5 billion, a 2.8% year-over-year increase.
The company, which introduced Apple’s iPhone in February, reported 2.3 million iPhone activations in Q2 2011, a slightly better result than 2.2 million activations in the first quarter. Verizon also sold 1.2 million 4G LTE smartphones and Internet data devices during the second quarter. All in all, smartphones now make up 36% of Verizon’s retail postpaid customer phone base.
On the wireless front, Verizon added 2.2 million new connections (this includes devices such as the iPad), of which 1.3 million were retail postpaid users, bringing the total to 106.3 million total connections, a 6.6% year-over-year increase.
Verizon’s chief rival, AT&T, Thursday reported it activated 3.6 million iPhones (although that figure includes the older model, iPhone 3GS), adding 1.1 million wireless subscribers to its user base.
Review: Droid 3 Smartphone Does It All [PICS]
ReplyDeleteThe Motorola Droid 3 is an improved, high-performance smartphone that introduces new features to an already extensive feature set. It’s a world-traveling, dual-core, HD machine that fits in your pocket, offering the best Android experience yet. Here’s our review.
Like many of its Droid predecessors, there’s an excellent sliding keyboard hidden beneath its screen, though with the current “Gingerbread” Android 2.3 software, its on-screen keyboard is a pleasure to use as well.
The Droid 3 ($199.99 with a 2-year contract on Verizon, available now) has a 4-inch screen that feels big and bright, larger than an iPhone’s screen thanks to a wider 16:9 aspect ratio. Made of damage-resistant Gorilla Glass with an antiglare coating, it isn’t particularly fingerprint resistant.
In addition to the 8-megapixel sensor on the back, there’s a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for self portraits and video chat. Unfortunately, there are few functioning video chat apps for this particular Android phone — as of this writing, the most glaring omissions are Skype and Google Talk).
If you’re a world traveler, this phone would be an exceptional traveling companion. One of the best features of this phone is its multi-network radio, allowing the phone to attach itself to a variety of CDMA and GSM formats around the world (alas, there’s no 4G). The phone comes preloaded with a Vodaphone SIM card, but that can be replaced so the phone with the international provider of your choice. Motorola reports the GSM bands on the phone are only compatible with non-US networks.
Another useful feature is the addition of numerous social logins under the account screen. Built-in, without any separate app download, one can login to Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, MySpace, Photobucket, Picasa, Twitter and YouTube in addition to the expected email systems, Google, Yahoo and corporate email.
Verizon’s Backup Assistant offers yet another means to protect your data (and give unscrupulous newspapers access to it). It’s an extensive feature set, but the implementation is lacking basic functions for each of the incoming streams, necessitating the need to seek out the standalone apps anyway, for many power users.
Included ringtones, notifications and graphics are decidedly techno in nature. My vote for most cacophonous is DROID Incoming Call. It should win an award.
An optional car kit ($60) makes use as a GPS easy. Setting the phone in the cradle immediately launches the phone into a simplified interface with just 4 buttons on each screen and enables noise and echo cancellation. It’s handy, unless you have an exceptionally aerodynamic car with a dramatically raked windshield.
If that’s the case, you’re not going to be able to reach the thing while you’re driving. I also worry about having the phone exposed to full sunlight for extended periods of time, potentially damaging the battery when temperatures exceed 120º. The kit also includes an adhesive mounting pad for permanent placement elsewhere in the car. A multimedia dock ($50) is available for simplified home entertainment use, too.
Summing up, the Motorola Droid 3 does it all in a sleek package and for an affordable price. It’s especially useful for travelers and road warriors. It has advantages over other smartphones and has enough capabilities to keep up with technology for a while.
Want to know more? Here’s the Motorola Specs page for the Droid 3.
Smartphone
ReplyDeleteA smartphone is a high-end mobile phone that offers more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary feature phone (i.e. a modern low-end phone). A smart phone combines the functions of a personal digital assistant (PDA) and a mobile phone. Today's models typically also serve as portable media players and camera phones with high-resolution touchscreen, GPS navigation, Wi-Fi and mobile broadband access.
A smartphone runs a complete mobile operating system. Widespread examples are Apple iOS, Google Android, Microsoft Windows Phone 7, Nokia Symbian, Research In Motion BlackBerry OS, and embedded Linux distributions such as Maemo. Such systems can be installed on many different phone models. They can run third-party applications, using an application programming interface (API).
According to an Olswang report in early 2011, the rate of smartphone adoption is accelerating: as of March 2011 22% of UK consumers had a smartphone, with this percentage rising to 31% amongst........
Pakistan city of Karachi hit by factional 'bloodbath'
ReplyDeleteAt least 24 people have been killed in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi in violence since Saturday, police and hospital sources say.
Most violence was reported from the eastern and central parts of the city, police say.
Hundreds of people have been killed in ethnic violence in this sprawling metropolis in recent months.
Much of it has involved activists of the city's dominant parties such as the MQM, the ANP and PPP.
The latest round of violence started when members of the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) resisted attempts by a breakaway faction to come out of hiding - after a decade under cover - and enter areas of the city.
The MQM is mainly a party of Muslim Urdu-speaking people whose families moved to Sindh province at the time of the partition of India in 1947.
The MQM(H) broke away from the MQM in 1991, and since then the two have had a history of mutual violence and armed hostilities.
'Armed terrorists'
The top leaders of MQM(H) were jailed in 2002-03 on various charges, and the bulk of its activists went into hiding, fearing persecution by members of the MQM who were then in power.
Six people on a motorcycle in Karachi A ban on pillion riding has been introduced to reduce drive-by shootings
The MQM is still a part of the ruling coalition both at the centre and in Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital.
The failure of the prosecution to obtain a conviction against Afaq Ahmad, the top leader of the MQM(H), prompted his party activists to return to their areas of the city.
Witnesses told BBC Urdu service that violence erupted in Malir district of Karachi on Saturday when some MQM(H) activists tried to enter the area. The activists were among those who had been in hiding for nearly 10 years after their leaders were jailed on various charges.
A spokeswoman of MQM(H), Rida Fatima, told the media on Sunday that at least four party activists had been killed when they returned to their homes on Saturday.
She said that the houses of three MQM(H) activists were also burnt down.
Meanwhile, the London-based chief of MQM party, Altaf Hussain, in a statement on Sunday blamed "armed terrorists" and "criminal elements" for causing a "bloodbath" in some areas.
Police and paramilitary rangers have been put on 24-hour patrol duty in some tense areas of Karachi, where weapons were recovered and arrests made, police official Naim Baroka told the media.
Meanwhile the administration has banned pillion riding on motorbikes to reduce the number of drive-by shootings.
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