06/14, 6:20pm
iMovie for iPhone most demanding mobile video tool
iMovie for iPhone will be one of the most demanding mobile video editing apps to date when it's released, contacts within Apple said today. The software will need an iPhone 4 as only the A4 would have enough power for both the 720p video and real-time transition effects. iPads were also ruled out by TidBITS' informers, as the tablets aren't designed to adapt to the iPhone 4's 960x640 resolution; the lack of a camera is also a major factor.
more
04/21, 9:10am
LG Q1 2009 Results
LG on Tuesday reported results for the first quarter of 2009 that reflected a phone business that have at least temporarily dropped year over year. The Korean firm's cellphone division generated a profit of $187 million between January and March but sold 7 percent fewer phones than it did a year earlier, sinking to 22.6 million units. The reduction is an unusual drop for the company and is blamed on both the typical post-holiday drop as well as the world economic crunch.
more
04/20, 11:05am
LG Viewty Smart
LG on Monday officially took the wraps from the Viewty Smart. Unofficially known as the Viewty II, it has the same 480x800 capacitive touchscreen and iPhone-like S-Class 3D interface as other 2009 LG phones but centers on an 8-megapixel camera that can record video in widescreen 480p and can handle light sensitivity up to ISO 1,600. It carries an LED flash and supports modes often reserved for dedicated cameras, like continuous shooting and panorama stitching.
more
09/29, 11:05pm
LG KP500
LG this evening planned to cement its hold on touchscreen phones with the KP500. Unlike LG's normally high-end full touch devices, the new handset is designed to be inexpensive enough for those who would opt for a conventional phone without sacrificing some of the core touch features: it has the same three-inch touch display as the Prada, Viewty, and similar phones but a simpler design that has multiple color choices, including brown and gold. LG implies a 5-megapixel camera and an accelerometer that auto-rotates the display.
more
08/22, 11:30am
LG KC910
LG this morning surprised the phone market with an early look at the KC910. Considered a spiritual successor to the KU990 Viewty, the new device has both LG's highest-resolution camera at eight megapixels but is still thin enough at 14mm (0.55in) to fit comfortably in a pocket. The new camera sensor is also said to lose nothing in image quality over the Viewty with full speed, 30FPS 640x480 video capture, a special 120FPS slow-motion mode and an ISO 1600 light sensitivity comparable more to dedicated point-and-shoot cameras than cellphones.
more
07/31, 1:45pm
Nokia Cuts Phone Prices
Nokia has been cutting the prices of its media phones in a bid to stay competitive with rivals, according to sources speaking to Reuters. The news organization points to industry and market research leads which say that Finland-based Nokia is dropping prices across much of its lineup but is making the most substantial cuts to music- and video-friendly phones, including the N81 8GB smartphone as well as mid-range devices like the 5310 and 5610 XpressMusic. These devices will allegedly see price reductions as steep as 10 percent.
more
07/29, 4:25pm
Sony Blames Loss on Phones
Sony today reported that its profit had dropped approximately 47 percent in the spring quarter versus the same quarter a year ago, representing one of the company's steeper drops in recent history. The Japanese company chiefly attributes the company-controlled aspects of the shortfall to poor Sony Ericsson results, which saw the company's cellphone sales virtually flatten as customers turned away from its mid-range and high-end phones, which target the same camera and music fields as devices like Apple's iPhone, LG's Viewty, and Nokia's Nseries.
more
07/21, 7:55am
LG Sells 7m Touch Phones
LG on Monday revealed that it has sold about seven million touchscreen cellphones since the company first introduced a full touch device through the Prada Phone in early 2007. The company claims to have the "leadership" of the category and notes that two million of these are the KU990 Viewty cameraphone; the next most popular devices are the North America-focused Venus and Voyager at 1.6 million and 1.3 million examples each, according to the company. The remaining 2.1 million are split between the Vu as well as models that are largely only available in Europe or Korea.
more
04/24, 8:40am
LG Secret Phone
As promised, LG this morning took the covers from its next phone in the Black Label series. The Secret (KF750) follows in the steps of the Chocolate and Shine, but focuses as much on its craftsmanship as it does on specifications. The slider design is partly made of carbon fiber that increases the strength of the phone body without affecting weight; tempered glass protects the LCD while also reportedly improving its image quality. A touch-sensitive navigation pad both adds to the upscale feel and also prevents broken buttons.
more
03/28, 2:35pm
LG Viewty T-Mobile at FCC
T-Mobile USA may get its first LG touchscreen phone without some of the features seen on others, if a new FCC filing proves accurate. Spotted as the KE990, the device bears initial similarity to the Viewty in its original KU990 form but makes unusual tradeoffs that suggest a release for the specific American carrier: while it supports US calling frequencies, 3G access has been removed entirely in favor of slower EDGE, which is T-Mobile's only option until its 1,700MHz access becomes active later this year.
more
02/15, 3:20pm
ATT Mobile TV Delay Reason
The delay in AT&T's mobile digital TV service has been confirmed, says a claimed source. While a company roadmap the tip suggests that both "legal issues" as well as technical troubles with the MediaFLO digital TV tuning processor have pushed the release back by as little as two or as many as eight weeks beyond existing delays, possibly resulting in a mid-April release. An initial release had been set for just after the Consumer Electronics Show in January.
more
02/04, 1:15pm
Kodak 5MP Ultra-Small Cam
Kodak today said it had developed a new camera sensor that could allow all phones, not just large models, to include a quality camera. The photography firm says it has successfully reduced the individual pixel sizes for a 5-megapixel camera from more than 1.7 microns to just 1.4. By using an enhanced CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) sensor, the advance allows smaller sensors to fit into extremely tight spaces without sacrificing actual image quality, according to Kodak. The camera maker also claims that more of the sensors will fit on a given production wafer, potentially driving down the costs of normally expensive cameras that are limited to devices such as the Nokia N95 or the LG Viewty.
more
01/29, 10:25am
Moto Samsung lead WinMo
Despite its reputation as one of the most prolific smartphone manufacturers on the market, HTC is shedding marketshare to more narrowly focused companies such as Motorola and Samsung, says internal info leaked from Microsoft. While the maker of phones such as the Touch and Tilt accounted for exactly half of all Windows Mobile smartphones during Microsoft's fiscal 2007, in recent months this has dipped as low as 30 percent; the company is now on roughly equal footing with Motorola and Samsung who both own between 20 and 30 percent on average, the leak claims.
more
12/27, 3:35pm
Samsung F490 and P720 II
Samsung's impending F490 and P720 touchscreen phones have been spotted outside of official press events with new details to match, says Russian site Mobile-Notes. The F490 (shown) is now known to include haptic feedback, vibrating the phone when a user touches a control on its 3.2-inch display; though slim, it has a 5-megapixel camera and (currently Europe-only) HSDPA 3G access. Its interface is better than that of the LG Viewty it will challenge on launch, the Russian report says.
more
12/21, 8:50am
LG Viewty versus iPhone
LG's Viewty touchscreen phone may well be outselling the iPhone in the UK despite the sheer amount of publicity, according to an update from the national phone reseller Dial-a-Phone. Also known as the KU990, the device has sold about 310,000 units since going on sale in Europe in early November, overlapping the same period as the British and German iPhone launches. The number amounts to about 6,300 phones sold per day and has outperformed sales of the already successful and less costly Chocolate and Shine lines during similar periods, according to LG.
more
12/05, 1:50pm
Nokia on HD Video Capture
Cellphones will have the option of not just playing but also recording high-definition video in as little as two years, Nokia chief technology officer Tero Ojanpera said in an interview today. The senior official explains that the technology strong enough to encode the sharper video on a handset in real-time is "a couple of years away" for practical purposes given the current state of video. The Finnish company only began shipping phones with NTSC (640x480) video capture late last year with the release of the N95, which is considerably smaller than the minimum 720p (1280x720) often considered the baseline for HD.
more
