Belongs
to the 17-in MacBook Pro, proclaims Ryan Faas (computerworld.com). “The
brightness and color brilliance is out of this world,” he says. What’s
more, the system “delivers all of the processing power, RAM options and
storage capacity of an iMac — along with approximately the same screen
real estate,” making it “a desktop replacement in virtually every sense
of the word.”
Early
users of Nokia's N-Gage gaming platform discovered phrases in the
licensing agreement that said users would be unable to transfer
purchased games from one handset to another. Nokia initially confirmed
that discovery. Today, it clarified that there had been
miscommunication and that users will be allowed to transfer games. The
mechanism to do so, however, is not yet available and Nokia has not
said when it will be ready.
Today
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin made public the agency's plans to hold
another auction for spectrum. This new auction, called AWS III, would
sell off a 25MHz chunk of airwaves in the 2155-2180MHz range. The
winner of this spectrum would be required to offer free broadband
services to 50% of the population within four years, and 95% of the
population by the end of the license term. The FCC did not provide any
details on when this auction might occur, but it is scheduled to vote
on the matter June 12. There is also no word whether or not this new
auction would affect the terms of the unsold 700MHz D Block from the
recent spectrum auction. The FCC has asked the public for ideas on what
to do with that block of spectrum.
Today
Alltel Wireless announced that it has formed an agreement with Best
Buy, which will begin selling Alltel wireless phones and services.
Alltel's products will only be available at 40 Best Buy retail stores
located within Alltel's coverage footprint. Customers will be able to
buy new phones and activate new service plans, as well as make changes
to existing plans. The agreement goes into effect May 25.
A
new Nokia phone has recently been approved by the FCC. This slider seen
in the documents could be the Nokia E66, which is an expected update of
the E65. These filings do not reveal too much information, nor do thy
confirm, exactly which model it is, but it will likely run the latest
version of the S60 platform. It has quad-band GSM/EDGE radios, as well
as three separate 3G configurations. One version will have just 2100MHz
for Europe, another will nave just 850 for Australia, and a third will
have 850/1900 for the U.S.
A
new bar-style phone from Motorola has cleared the FCC's approval
process. The EM30 is very similar to the MOTOROKR E8, but it loses the
omega wheel navigation scroll bar and replaces it with a standard
D-pad. Similar to the E8, it has the morphing keypad, which changes
depending on which application is being used. Other things confirmed by
the FCC documents and accompanying photos are the GSM/EDGE radios,
stereo Bluetooth, full 3.5mm headset jack, microSD slot, large internal
memory, as well as Motorola's Crystal Talk technology. No carrier
branding was seen on the EM30, but it could work on most GSM/EDGE
networks.
The Sony Ericsson R306 Radio will be available in Q3 2008 in two color combos
- Coffee Black and Champagne White. We had the pleasure of the Coffee Black
version.
thursday Sprint said that the Samsung Instinct will start becoming available in
its online and retail channels beginning on June 20. It may not be 100%
available everywhere, but it will begin stocking its channels on that
date. Sprint has not yet settled on a price point for the Instinct,
which is a touch-based device and Sprint's flagship phone for 2008.
Nokia
has moved its Maps 2.0 application out of beta and it is now available
in its final form. Maps. 2.0 provides both walking and driving
directions, as well as pints-of-interest data.
