7/02/2010 12:07:00 PM
kenmouse
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Apple
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iPhone 4
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Mobile News
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The article by PJ Jacobowitz "Is the iPhone's LCD the Best?" on PCMag.com with lab measurements comparing four high-end smartphone displays is especially interesting because it has the first published lab results for the iPhone 4 Retina display. Below are my own comments for some of the PCMag article results.
The iPhone 4 is 25 percent brighter than the iPhone 3GS, which was the previous record holder, so the iPhone 4 is now the brightness king for smartphones.
Steve Jobs promised a Retina display Contrast Ratio of 800 and PCMag measured 1097, 37 percent more than the Apple advertised spec. That's very impressive because you seldom ever see manufacturers conservatively understate their specs to that degree - but then see my widely reported (and often misquoted) comments on the iPhone 4 Retina Display, where it falls short on that spec. The iPhone 4 is a tremendous improvement over the iPhone 3GS, which only had a measured Contrast Ratio of 138. But note that the Motorola Droid remains the Contrast Ratio king of mobile LCDs with 1436, which I measured in our own DisplayMate Lab tests.
7/02/2010 12:07:00 PM
kenmouse
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Technology
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Toshiba Libretto W100
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The Toshiba Libretto W100 made a guest appearance on the Engadget Show last week, and since we got to spend a bit more time with the dualscreen laptop we thought it was only right to release some more impressions into the ether. We also got confirmation from Toshiba that the somewhat-of-a-concept-PC will be hitting retail channels in August, including Amazon, and will cost $1,100. It may be one of the only dualscreen tablets on the market, but no matter how you break it down that price seems a little outrageous. But you wouldn't make up your mind before reading some further impressions and watching a close up video of the screens working in tandem, would you? Well then, we'll see you after the break.
7/02/2010 12:06:00 PM
kenmouse
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E-Asian
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Park Yong Ha
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1 Comment
It has been an agonizing past few days for those who knew Park Yong Ha in one way or another. On July 2nd, most of them gathered together to send him off on his last journey after he commited suicide two days ago.
At about 6 this morning, the funeral procession for Park Yong Ha was held at Seoul’s St. Mary Hospital and among them was his ill father, who couldn’t help but wail in grief when the procession started, leaving everyone in further sorrow.
Park Yong Ha’s best friend, So Ji Sub who has not left the hospital since the tragedy, held his portrait and fronted the procession while fans numbering 200 from Korea, Japan, etc started murmuring, “He is smiling so cheerfully…” before getting teary.
7/02/2010 12:05:00 PM
kenmouse
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Apple
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iPhone 4
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Mobile News
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Verizon
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1 Comment
Today, The Loop’s Jim Dalrymple wrote an interesting article that should give a lot of confused people some perspective on this whole Verizon iPhone business. Not surprisingly, Dalrymple reports that Apple already has a fully functional CDMA iPhones, lurking in the shadows of 1 Infinite Loop, that is ready to go into production at a moment’s notice. The problem, according Dalrymple, is that Apple and Verizon have yet to finalize a deal. Having the iPhone hardware lying on a shelf waiting to be mass produced is beneficial for both companies; as it won’t have to scramble to make up for lost time once the deal is struck. Apple also has a long history of developing products well in advance — a good example of this was its Intel-compatible version of OS X. So why then did Bloomberg so confidently report that Verizon will have the iPhone in January? That could simply be a negotiating tactic, something which would not at all be out of the ordinary.
7/02/2010 12:02:00 PM
kenmouse
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Google
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Technology
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In a move that will hopefully nudge other companies into following suit, Google is planning to increase the pay of gay and lesbian employees to cover a tax on their benefits that straight employees are exempt from.
The tax, which stems from employer-provided health benefits for domestic partners being counted as taxable income, doesn't apply to straight, married employees, who's benefits aren't taxable. Because of the tax, employees with domestic partners pay about $1,069 per year more than a married employee with identical coverage.
Google is simply bumping up affected employees pay to cover the tax, making their benefits fair and equal to all. Good on you, Google. Hopefully other Silicon Valley companies will follow suit. Or, optimally, the tax code will be changed so it's no longer unfairly taxing gays and lesbians.
[NY Times]
7/02/2010 12:01:00 PM
kenmouse
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Mobile News
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Sidekicks
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T-Mobile
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It's truly remarkable to see almost every trace of a successful, well-established Valley start-up's work wiped out in the span of 24 hours, but here we are: T-Mobile's discontinuing the Sidekick line as of tomorrow, July 2, which effectively means that the Sidekick LX 2009 will no longer be available. As a refresher, the latest Sidekick LX was the last product holistically engineered by Danger as it got shoehorned into Microsoft -- square peg in a round hole, as it were -- before repurposing the team to work on the just-killed Kin line. In a way, it's a miracle that the LX ever went back on sale following the nightmarish data issues they'd gone through last year, so we suppose it's a silver lining that they made it this far -- but still, it's sad to see Danger's years of design effectively vaporized without a trace like this. For what it's worth, T-Mobile says that it's working "on the next chapter of [its] storied Sidekick franchise" and to "stay tuned" for a "fresh" experience, but since T-Mobile owns the Sidekick brand (not Danger / Microsoft), we've got every reason to believe these new products will be based on Android considering the carrier's huge investment in its myTouch line. Adios, Sidekick -- we'll do one last screen flip in your honor.
7/02/2010 12:00:00 PM
kenmouse
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Apple
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iPhone 4
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Steve Jobs
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Technology
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If you've been anywhere near the internet in the past few hours, you've undoubtedly heard about a Steve Jobs email conversation in which he told an angry iPhone customer to "calm down" and that the iPhone 4 was "just a phone." That email chain, which was published on Boy Genius Report earlier, was also reportedly shopped to AppleInsider a few days ago -- for a price. Well, now Fortune is reporting that they've been told by a "a top Apple spokesman" that the emails are fake, and the exchange never happened. Of course, emails are notoriously easy to fake, and Apple has not been in the habit of commenting on its CEO's online wanderings, so our ears pricked up when we saw this article. We've reached out to Apple and they have independently confirmed to us that the conversation is indeed a hoax. So as usual, take all of these Jobs-uncensored dialogues with a healthy grain of salt.
7/02/2010 12:00:00 PM
kenmouse
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BoA
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E-Asian
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Kangta
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SMTown Live
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SNSD
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Super Junior
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0 Comments
SM Entertainment will start its SMTown Live concert tourn on 21st August starting in Seoul and moving on to big cities like LA, Tokyo, ShangHai etc.
For ‘SMTOWN LIVE ’10 WORLD TOUR’ this time, the tour will go outside the Asian region, and sees the participation by SM artistes like Kangta, BoA, UKnow YunHo, Max ChangMin, Super Junior, So Nyeo Shi Dae, SHINee, f(x) and TRAX etc. And a concert performance is going to last for about 5 hour, packed with grand performances.
More of the concert performances details under the cut.
The original Droid made a powerful statement. Actually, make that statements, plural: for Motorola, it was the largest single affirmation that it was going all-in with Android (after having already released the far less memorable midrange CLIQ on T-Mobile) and that it could play in the very highest rungs of the smartphone elite. For Verizon, the Droid was the carrier's very first Android device, period -- announced to great fanfare in collaboration with Eric Schmidt and crew -- serving as a pretty spectacular exit from the Windows Mobile / BlackBerry doldrums that the carrier's smartphone lineup had historically suffered. By almost any measure, the phone went on to serve its purpose; it let customers (and potential customers) know that Verizon could release a "cool" phone, and they responded. The Droid's an unqualified success. Today, Verizon's involvement in Android has never been greater, and Motorola -- by all appearances, anyway -- seems to be on its way back from the brink.
Time stops for no phone, though, and we're now halfway through 2010. Motorola's success as a competitive phone manufacturer is ultimately going to depend not on its ability to produce a single hit, but to produce a never-ending string of hits, each better than the one before it. It's a tall order -- and that's exactly where the Droid X comes into play. Featuring a 4.3-inch WVGA display, 8 megapixel camera with 720p video capture, a reworked user interface, and a significantly improved processor, this phone apes the first Droid in at least one critical aspect: its ability to immediately steal the spotlight from anything else in Verizon's lineup. Specs don't tell the whole story, though, so let's dig in and see what this beast is all about.
7/02/2010 01:02:00 AM
kenmouse
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Apple
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iPhone 4
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Mobile News
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Steve Jobs
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0 Comments
Of all the things you might expect Steve Jobs to say about the iPhone 4, “It is just a phone. Not worth it” probably isn’t the first thing that would come to mind. As the Apple CEO continues to respond to increasingly irate iPhone 4 owners, frustrated by their antenna experiences, his counter-arguments are getting more and more blunt. After posting a demo of the iPhone 4 reception problem on YouTube, being subsequently contacted by Apple, and then taking things up with Jobs and an Apple engineer directly, a BGR reader was told by the outspoken exec that he should “calm down” after “getting all worked up over a few days of rumors.”
Jobs suggested that the issue was being in an area of very low signal strength, and when that didn’t work somewhat cryptically explained that “You may be working from bad data. Not your fault. Stay tuned. We are working on it.” Then came the final, unexpected touch: an email saying “Retire, relax, enjoy your family. It is just a phone. Not worth it.”
7/02/2010 12:59:00 AM
kenmouse
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iPhone 4
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Mobile News
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The iPhone 4 shatters easily, and its tiny plastic bezel offers no protection. On top of that, touching its metal rim causes interferences. The Vapor4 bumper—made of aluminum—may solve most of these design problems. And it looks great:
7/02/2010 12:59:00 AM
kenmouse
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Android
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Android Smartphones
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AT-T
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Mobile News
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When the Moto Backflip launched we were a wee bit miffed that AT&T stuffed its ROM with what our esteemed Chris Ziegler referred to as "unremovable crapware." But, even more annoying was the handset being locked down to only accept apps installed via the Android Market, preventing users from the wealth of other goodies floating around these great internets. A few months on the situation is still the same for the HTC Aria and the company is responding directly to criticism with a statement that indicates it's all in your best interests:
AT&T selected Android Market as the exclusive source for applications because it forces developers to be accountable for the apps they submit. If the Android community has issues with an app, the app can be flagged and removed. This minimizes the risk of malicious apps harming customers and provides more protection to the customer's private data stored on the phone.
There, don't you feel safer now?
7/02/2010 12:58:00 AM
kenmouse
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MeeGo
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Nokia
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Technology
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We've heard the rumors, hell, we've even seen Intel reference designs (pictured) running the MeeGo OS. But now we seem to have confirmation that a proper MeeGo tablet built by Nokia is on the way. Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia's newly crowned chief of Mobile Solutions, said the following in an interview captured by the Wall Street Journal:
Due to the spread of cloud computing and new advances in electronics and network technology, mobile devices will increasingly move beyond smartphones to include other computer-like gadgets such as tablets, and the MeeGo platform will be an important asset for Nokia.
Remember, Nokia already makes a netbook and the smartphone qualifier would seem to remove any speculation that Anssi is referring to its Internet Tablet class of Maemo devices. So maybe, just maybe that rumored 7- or 9-inch Nokia tablet is real. Did we say maybe?
7/02/2010 12:57:00 AM
kenmouse
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E-Asian
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Hangeng
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Hankyung
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Having earlier revealed plans to release his debut solo Chinese album and a solo concert, Hangeng has now revealed the teaser for his upcoming album.
Ahead of his album release on the 27th of July, the teaser for his MV which was shot in New Zealand has been revealed, with a movie like storyline and high production values. Check it out below!
They say silence is golden. In this case, think Fort Knox golden.
A virtual unknown has landed the coveted lead role in the upcoming resurrection of the "Spider-Man" movie franchise, ending an intense search that attracted virtually every eligible actor in the business.
Like daughter, like mother?
We mean this with all due respect, but perhaps Kristen Stewart should quit acting. She really doesn't seem to enjoy the spotlight, does she?
Microsoft has started licensing a technology that could come in handy for anyone who as ever tried to put new batteries in a flashlight in the middle of the night.
In an explosive new audio tape, Mel Gibson is allegedly caught calling his ex-girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva, several obscenities, adding that she dressed too sexy and would get "raped by a pack of n***ers," RadarOnline.com has learned exclusively. On the tape, Gibson also calls Grigorieva lewd names, including "whore" and "c**t," and threats to burn her house down. For more details about the tape, go to RadarOnline.com
Chris Brown wasn't crying any real or fake tears yesterday afternoon.
One of our reliable Apple sources has just filled us in on some of the company’s iTunes plans, and they’re exciting. We have been told iTunes will be getting a huge cloud capability that many people have been asking for (and logically thought would happen sooner or later). These new capabilities are broken down into three groups:
Sit down, female readers. Stop operating heavy machinery. We have troubling news:
The real Kim Kardashian (she's the one on the left…we think) proudly strikes a pose next to her new wax figure Thursday during its big unveiling at Madame Tussauds in New York City.
Eldar Murtazin has a pretty decent track record when it comes to smartphone whispers, but his Android 3.0 Gingerbread morsels yesterday are now at odds with someone a bit closer to the dough -- namely, Dan Morrill, Android's Open Source and Compatibility Tech Lead (yeah, that's a bit of a mouth full). Here are a few highlights from his Twitter feed tonight: "I love it when people just make stuff up" (sarcasm, obviously), "rumors are not official announcements," and so on. Sure, he could just be playing coy here, but for now, this is more or less the final word on the matter -- until either Google or the rumor mill heat up again, of course. Guess that's how the, erm, cookie crumbles.
$68.5 million second only to 'Moon' for single-day haul
Well, hello, stranger!
Taiwan Mando-pop star Jay Chou's personal dance instructor has revealed that the singer has a strong urge to be in control, right down to how his pals dress when they go out together, reported Chinese media.
Jerry Yan and Vanness Wu, members of the now-defunct F4, went head-to-head earlier this year in their own respective idol dramas.
As if Nokia needed yet another wake-up call, self-declared ‘Nokia fanboy since 1999′ Ricky Cadden, aka Symbian Guru is so utterly fed up with the company and the products it releases that he’s quitting his blog (via Mobile Entertainment).
Crocodile tears?
