Canonical recently announced Ubuntu for Tablets which will initially run on ARM chips. Ubuntu Tablets will support screen sizes from 6 to 20 inches with resolutions from 100 to 450 pixels per inch. The video below shows you what Ubuntu can offer from smart phones, tablets to full PC.
Have you ever watched a horse race with two horses running neck to neck while a third horse lags far behind? Yea, that third horse is Windows Phone, trailing behind the iPhone and the Android by a wide margin.
It’s hard enough to play second fiddle. How much more a third wheel. I think the sooner the better it is for Microsoft to realize that this gap is too wide to make up to make this a competitive race.
Dropping out of the race might be a smarter option for Microsoft, but then again smart choices and Microsoft sometimes don’t belong in the same sentence. Microsoft has made many flopped ventures. Who hasn’t!
Clearly this is a two-horse race, and it’s not changing anytime soon.
An AT&T smart phone upgrade fee will now cost you $200. If you recently signed a 2 year commitment with AT&T and you decided after a couple months later that you want a new smart phone, it’s going to cost you $200. As I recall, the AT&T early termination fee is $350.
In my case, I’m out of contract. I still haven’t decided which phone to get or what carrier to go with. Typically, you can get a great deal by jumping to another wireless provider than the one you are currently with because usually wireless providers consumers tantalizing offers to get you to jump ship.
It’s a good possibility I may just do that.
Mozilla just released Firefox 4 Beta for Android phones. This is awesome news for Firefox admirers. Firefox 4 will be available for download on any Android 2.0 or newer based smart phone and the Nokia N900. From Yahoo/PC World:
The beta versions include a feature called Sync, which synchronizes a user’s tabs, history, bookmarks and passwords between the Firefox browser on a desktop PC and that on the smartphone. The browser also comes with what Mozilla calls the Awesome Screen, which gives the user access to recent browsing history, bookmarks and tabs by tapping on the browser’s address bar. The start screen shows tabs from the last time the user accessed the Internet, tabs from the PC and suggests add-ons to the browser to personalize it.
Firefox for mobile is available for the Nokia N900, or for phones running Android 2.0 or newer. It has been tested on the Nexus One, HTC’s Desire and EVO 4G, and Motorola’s Droid 2. The browser should work on other Android-based smartphones from Motorola and HTC, as well, including the Desire Z (T-Mobile G2), Droid Incredible, Droid X and the Milestone (Verizon Droid), but hasn’t been tested on these devices. The Samsung Galaxy S, and its various different U.S. versions, is also included in the latter group, according to a list of compatible phones on Mozilla’s Website.
To improve speed and responsiveness, the browser runs the user interface in a separate process from the one rendering Web content. The split allows Firefox to react faster to user input while pages are loading, according to Mozilla.
If you are curious in how much radiation your wireless phone emits, check out the EWG or Environmental Working Group website. They give out a list of smart phones and PDAs based on radiation emitted. The phone with the least radiation is the Samsung Impression (SGH-a877) tested at 0.15 – 0.35 W/kg. The worst offending phones are the Motorola MOTO VU204 and Kyocera Jax S1300, both tested at 1.55 W/kg. Several dozens phones do not yet have any data. If you’re looking for a brand new phone, this is a good site to check, especially if you are one of those people who love to pin the phone to their ears. The best advice still, is to get one of those comfortable headsets, because even bluetooth devices emit radiation as well.