Canonical looks to raise $32 million via crowdfunding to develop Ubuntu Edge phones

Canonical, the firm behind Ubuntu has announced a crowdfunding campaign to build the first batch of Ubuntu Edge phones.

The company hopes to raise $32 million in 30 days to manufacture a limited batch of 40,000 devices that will run both Android and open source Ubuntu Touch operating systems. Canonical is using the Indiegogo crowdfunding service, which is similar to the more popular Kickstarter, for the campaign and the Paypal electronic payment facility to collect the contributions.

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu, said in a press note, "Ubuntu Edge is the ultimate convergence device - challenging established norms for PCs and smartphones. The crowdfunding approach is a new way to prove demand for cutting edge technologies and new classes of devices, supporting the Ubuntu Edge is the best way to catalyse the next generation of personal devices from the industry."

The innovative Ubuntu Edge phone is said to support dual-boot with Ubuntu phone OS and Android, and will transform into a PC when docked with a monitor with full Ubuntu desktop with shared access to all phone's files.

The Indiegogo project lists the specifications of the Ubuntu Edge phones. The phone will be powered by a 'multi-core' processor coupled with 4GB of RAM and would include 128GB of storage. It will feature a 4.5-inch HD display with a resolution of 720x1280 pixels and would sport a sapphire crystal display. There will be an 8-megapixel rear camera with low-light feature and a 2-megapixel front camera. Other features would include GPS, accelerometer, gyro, proximity sensor, compass, barometer and active noise cancellation. The Ubuntu Edge phone is said to feature stereo speakers with HD audio and dual-mic recording. Connectivity options include LTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and NFC. However, the site clearly mentions that the specifications are subject to change.

As of filing this report, the campaign has already raised over 3 million dollars, less than 24 hours after launch.

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Download FIREFOX For Windows, OS X, Linux And Android Released

Mozilla has just dropped version number 22 of its popular Firefox browser and with it, brought a whole host of new and exciting features. Included in this release is support 3D gaming, video calls, and file sharing, affording developers enhanced compatibility with less requirement for plugins and other unnecessary third-party installations. Further details, as well as information on how you can get the latest version of Firefox, are coming up right after the break!

With these regular release cycles Mozilla has been rolling out for Firefox over the past couple of years in order to keep the browser fresh and competitive, we’ve become accustomed to number releases delivering rather minor alterations. While, to the end user, that would seem to be the case here once again, this new support for 3D gaming and such will certainly benefit the consumer in the long run.

With Google’s Chrome still making good headway in the browser game, Mozilla’s resolve has certainly been tested to the limits, but the company has kept fighting and continues to push updates on what is still to be considered among the best in the business.

There’s no doubting that Firefox 22 is, by and large, a dev-centric release aimed at making things just that little bit easier for the development world. With that said, these changes will be crucial in helping Firefox continue to improve and evolve, and with WebRTC and asm.js support now at the heart of the process, Firefox is very much in the here and now.

Notably, Google began integrating WebRTC, or Web Real-Time Communications, back in October of last year, but with preliminary testing having begun with Firefox version 18 beta, the feature is now apparently ready. It will, according to Mozilla, “integrate seamlessly with a users’ mobile phone and make voice or video calls and share files,” and with Web chat services has popular as they’ve ever been, this is a milestone in the timeline of Firefox.

As well as keeping regular updates for Windows, OS X and Linux, Mozilla has long since been maintaining a focus on the mobile game, and as such, Firefox for Android has also been bumped. The new features should work for the mobile iteration as well as the desktop versions, although Firefox for Android does note in the change log that new version doesn’t include WebRTC or asm.js support just yet.

You can grab Firefox 22.0 right now from: mozilla.org and also, the Android version of the app has also been bumped up to version 22, which you can grab right now from the Google Play Store.

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Samsung Galaxy Note II sales hit One Million in Korea

Samsung Galaxy Note II is a successful smarty and today it has hit over one million consumers in South Korea, and today Samsung announce it has exceed five million units globally and expected to hit 10M globally in Q1.

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Nokia Lumia 800 and 710 get Windows Phone 7.5 update, finally get to Tango

We’d heard that the Lumia 800 and 710 were to get Windows Phone 7.5 a software update bringing fresh features sometime soon, but the time has officially arrived for these two to Tango. Today Nokia announced that the fresh code has already started rolling out, bringing hotspot and flip-to-silence functionality to the handsets. Plus, once you’ve updated via your Zune desktop software, access to the nifty Camera Extras software — already promised to Lumia 900 owners — is but a download away. As a refresher, those Extras allow Lumias to take Scalado-powered Smart Group Shots, provide a better burst mode for action pics, plus add a self-timer and panorama mode as well. Want to see the new camera features in action before taking the plunge? Check out the video after the break.

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Jelly Bean port passes the butter to the Galaxy S III, ROM-flashing required.

It took only one day for devs to unleash Jelly Bean 4.1 from its server confines and out into the eager underbelly of Android’s community. And those enterprising hackers haven’t wasted any time getting that buttered up OS running on Galaxy Nexus handsets (yes, even for Verizon subs). Now, good news is also on the way for any consumers who forsook the pure Google path in favor of Samsung’s TouchWizzed way. That’s right, a (mostly) working port has been made available to Galaxy S III (I9300) users that should see some of that point upgrade’s features successfully implemented. Feel free to take it for a test run if you’re skilled in the ways of flashing, but bear in mind you’ll lose access to the camera, WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC, storage and audio. It goes without saying that this build is far from the perfect ROM for a daily driver, but if you’re curious to check it out first-hand, there’s no harm in trying. Hit up the source below for the step-by-step how-to.

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OTECH F1 Quad-SIM Mobile Phone

If dual-SIM is just not enough for you, look at this OTECH F1 with FOUR SIM card slots. More exciting is that all four SIMs are active at the same time, making the F1 a true quad-SIM phone. The phone, at the same time, is a Blackberry-copycat with QWERTY keyboard and a Blackberry-like UI.





The OTECH F1 has a 2.4-inch color display and a so-called 12.1 Megapixel camera on the back. It packs also built-in TV tuner, FM tuner and Bluetooth.

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Sprint getting Samsung Galaxy Tab on 14 November

Sprint announced that it is going to sell the Samsung Galaxy Tab Android-based tablet device starting on 14 November with a price tag of $399.99 with a new line or eligible upgrade and two-year service agreement on a 3G Tablet Mobile Broadband plan.

As you may already know, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab is a 7-inch tablet device running Android 2.2 OS. It is powered by a 1GHz Hummingbird processor and 512MB RAM. It packs 2GB onboard memory, 3 Megapixel camera with video recording and flash, a front 1.3 Megapixel camera for video calling, GPS, WiFi 802.11b/g/n, stereo speakers and a preinstalled 16GB microSD memory card. The Tab comes with a 4000mAh battery.

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Verizon’s Samsung Galaxy Tab coming on 11 November

While Sprint will release the Galaxy Tab on 14 November, Verizon Wireless will have it three days earlier on 11 November. The Galaxy Tab will be available for a full price of $599.99, meaning there’s no data plan and contract needed. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab is a 7-inch Android 2.2 tablet device with 1Ghz Hummingbird processor, 3 Megapixel camera, 7-inch capacitive touchscreen, 1.3 Megapixel front camera, GPS, WiFi and 2GB internal memory.

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Acer will throw in a Froyo-fonk nicknamed Liquid Metal handset at end of October

Acer’s iPad rival has yet to be launched, and they’re already so excited in telling the world that they’re gonna release a new handset with both Windows Phone 7 version and Android version. Known as the Liquid Metal handset (surely not designed and developed by Apple’s liquid metal arm), it might hit stores in the end of October. That’s purely speculations thought.

The unconfirmed specs include the same 800MHz Qualcomm MSM7230 as inside the T-Mobile G2, a 3.6-inch display with 800 x 480 resolution, Bluetooth 3.0 onboard, and the handsome backplate you see above, which seems to have been made out of brushed aluminium, or liquid metal. Looks awfully like a Nokia N70 with a ‘misallocated’ camera thought.

Gosh, the smartphone market is getting extremely packed. Guys, I need a gas tank!

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Nokia’s next generation smartphone is also your credit card, nearly.

Nokia Swipe from bob haarmans on Vimeo.

Nokia has shown to the rest of the world their latest software called Espoo, which integrates NFC payments with instant digital receipt uploaded to your phone, instead of a printed copy. Sound very ‘green’ indeed. They also ‘promised’ that their entire smartphone line starting next year will embrace this technology.

Perhaps even cooler, though, the system reads the receipt once it’s back on your phone and makes a note of the product’s return period so that it can remind you when time’s running out, perfect for getting maximum usage out of that N8 before flipping it back from whence it came. If we had to guess, this might be unveiled in full at Nokia World, which just happens to kick off tomorrow. Excited? Well, digital wallet is somewhat very 2008 thought. Hope Nokia can include a Bluetooth-enabled compact receipt printer as an optional accessory.

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Now Nokia has a reason to fire back at Apple. Let the Smartphone war begins!

While Nokia claims that it always prioritizes antenna performance over physical design when developing a phone, that doesn’t stop it from being another victim of Apple’s ‘Hey their phone also got antenna problem’ show. The video below shows Apple demonstrating that the Nokia N97 Mini going down for the count on their antenna’s reception, from a full seven bars to two. Sure gives enough reason for Nokia to start the Smartphone war, and get their lazy bums moving and make good smartphones to fight Apple, though I had to admit that currently Nokia doesn’t have what it takes to give a good fight to Apple, looking at how awful their Symbian OS is. Apple makes a better touchscreen smartphone than Nokia, and RIM makes a better QWERTY smartphone than Nokia. Despite the big Symbian app community, there’s no strict control over it, and the OS itself is such a lag-fest. Hey, hey Nokia! Yeah, you! The N8 is ugly!

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BlackBerry Curve 9300 spotted in the wild, examined!

Yet again, another smartphone found in Vietnam. It seemed that Hanoi is the IN-place to get your stuff lost. Vietnamese site Mainguyen has somehow gotten its hands on a unit of RIM’s upcoming BlackBerry Curve 9300, and dived into it to have a look at how it workout. The new 9300 resembles more of a higher-end Curve 8900 that has now been discontinued, even though it’s supposed to replace the Curve 8250. There’s also a 3.2-megapixel camera. Sadly, the supposed video that described it has been taken down from YouTube.

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Blackberry’s 6 teased, not so earth stomping…

Blackberry has said that they will be releasing new phones and redesigned BB OS in the 4th quarter this year. As a counter to Apple’s successful iPhone 4, RIM said that their new phone and OS will be so mindbogglingly awesome that it will stomp the earth. But then, let’s have a look at the video below to judge it for ourselves, the teaser video of the new BB OS 6.0.

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Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X8 goes official, comes with Android 1.6

Sony unveils new member for their Xperia series lineup. The X8, codename Shakira (no, not the one that’s in Africa right now) is the new member of Sony’s smartphone series. Its 3-inch wide, and runs on Android 1.6, with obvious customizations to its interface, for example Sony’s own Timescape and Mediascape. The UI seemed to be from the same class of X10 Mini.

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iPhones and Android, meet your challenger!

Yep, it’s named the Gunpla alright. As you can see in the screen, it’s a flip phone, with the gigantic camera at the back. It even comes with EFSF (*Earth Federation Space Force in the U.C.). But the most important thing to all gunplas is that it comes with a 1:100 RX-78-2 Gundam!

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James Bond’s painting is up for sale!

This doesn’t seemed to be what common civilians would really need, unless you do have a friend that really annoys you with his/her nonstop texting habit. Then this little ugly painting might just be what you really need in your living room.

Dub the Painting Cell Phone Jammer, this somewhat generic piece of so-called art does more than just sit there and increase your house’s luxury points by few. It also comes with frequency blockers, which allows you to block specific cell phone frequencies, either on full mode, or just for a moment. All this can be done with a niche remote, allowing you to be rather inconspicuous about things. At $150, this expensive and yet ugly piece of art works in an 80-metre radius. Finally you can be part of the Secret Service! Though I can assume other evil bosses will also love this ugly painting for some other reasons.

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HTC Wildfire

HTC Wildfire is powered by Qualcomm MSM7225 processor running at 525MHz and comes with a 3.2-inch QVGA touchscreen, a 5 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash, 802.11b/g WiFi, GPS/AGPS, Blueooth 2.1+EDR, 512MB Flash and 384MB of RAM, and microSD expansion. It should be in the store around Q3. More pictures after the break.

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LG’s First Android Phone in Korea

LG is introducing its first Android phone in Korea Andro-1 aka LG-KH5200. It has full QWERTY, a 3” HVGA screen with a 320×480 resolution, GPS, HSDPA, HSUPA, EDGE, GRPS, SNS (Facebook, Twitter etc.), 2.0-megapixel camera, Radio Tuner, Mp3 player and a card slot that support up to 32GB.

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Nokia N8

Nokia has announced its new Symbian ^3 powered phone, the Nokia N8. It comes with a 12.0-megapixel with Xenon Flash. Priced at 370 Euros and choose from dark grey, silver white, green, blue and orange. According to the Nokia, the xenon flash on the N8 is 30% smaller compare to the usual one but yet it is capable of producing the similar level of flash power. The auto focusing speed has also been improved as well as a fast 150 milliseconds latency in the shutter release. Besides shooting a 12 megapixel still image, it is capable of recording 720p HD video and can be player on your HDTV via its HDMI connector. Hmm…it looks a bit like the Sony Ericsson Aino. Check out the specs and videos and pictures after the break.

Tech spec:
• Network: WCDMA 850/900/1700/1900/2100
• GSM/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900
• Size: 113.5 x 59.12 x 12.9 mm (L x W x H)
• Weight: 135g
• Display: 3.5 inch widescreen (640 x 360 pixels) capacitive touch screen
• Battery: 1200mAh BL-4D
• Media Storage/Memory: 16GB internal mass memory + micro SD card slot, 135MB internal memory, support up to 32GB memory cards.
• RAM256 / ROM512
• FM radio
• Camera: 12 megapixels Carl Zeiss optics, Xenon flash
• Video capture: HD 720p
• WLAN IEEE802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth 3.0 with support for stereo headsets
• Positioning with GPS, A-GPS, WLAN and Cell-ID
• Micro-USB 2.0
• 3.5 mm headphone jack
• Talk time (GSM/WCDMA) –12/5 h 50min
• Standby (GSM/WCDMA) –390/400 h
• Video record –3 h 20 min
• Music playback –50 h
• Video playback –7 h
• Video playback with HDMI –6 h
• Web TV –3 h 20 min

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BlackBerry Pearl 3G

Check out the new BlackBerry Pearl 3G, for those who complaints Blackberry is too big here’s one suitable for you. The Blackberry Pearl 3G comes with small body, small screen and small keyboard with 802.11n Wi-Fi, GPS, a 3.2-megapixel camera with autofocus and flash, an optical trackpad, a microSD card slot, Bluetooth 2.1, and a 624 MHz processor with 256MB of RAM. Pricing is not available.

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