Tech Newz

Usually, when an ISP posts service downlink and uplink speeds, you have to take them with a grain of salt. Like a 20 MPG rating on a Hummer H2, your real world results “may vary.” It is, however, a great sign when an ISP says their network tests were, “faster than we’ve ever suggested” and that their, “network team is shocked.” Those were the words Verizon spokesman Jeffrey Nelson had to say about Big Red’s latest LTE network tests. Verizon’s ..read more

…and we use the word refine very loosely. In the last 30 days, Apple has dropped the App Store ban-hammer on applications that display images of scantily clad women and Wi-Fi scanning/stumbling applications. The bare-naked ladies were removed because, as Apple VP Phil Schiller put it, “the needs of the kids and parents” had to come first. Wi-Fi scanning applications got the boot for making calls to a private API, which raises the obvious question… why were these applications ..read more

The Duo seems to have been a failed experiment for battery maker Energizer in more ways than one. Sales of the USB nickle-metal battery charging station never really took off, and now, via a press release, the company has announced the monitoring software distributed with the Duo packs a fairly nasty Windows trojan. The rogue code, according to Computerworld: “listens for commands on TCP port 7777… can download and execute files, transmit files stolen from the PC, or tweak the ..read more

Last night was easily the best night of the year for the celebrity-crazed paparazzi. It also turned out to be a pretty darn good night for the smartphone paparazzi as well for two upcoming T-Mobile handsets were given the star treatment on their very own red carpet. First up was the HTC HD2, the infinitely lovable Windows Phone with a 1GHz Snapdragon processor and gargantuan 4.3″ WVGA display, which looked as stylish as ever in Sense UI by HTC. Never ..read more

Microsoft’s Charlie Kindel was ambushed spoke with CNET on a quaint San Francisco sidewalk this week about Windows Phone 7 Series. Among the topics covered were Microsoft’s commitment to improving the developer experience with Windows Phone 7, Xbox Live integration in the new OS, and a few UI walk-throughs on a phone Kindel just happened to have in his pocket with WP7 on it. We’ve got the video for you after the break. The magic begins about two minutes into ..read more

It’s been out in Canada for a little under three weeks now, but the Motorola MILESTONE has already proven itself to be quite the popular handset thanks in part to all of the Canadians watching American TV and witnessing Verizon’s huge media blitz for the DROID. For a device that has been on sale in one form or another for many months, we have to wonder — is the MILESTONE still worth it? Put on your reading glasses, sit back ..read more

Starting today, AT&T customers with a penchant for Android can point their browser to AT&T’s website or hoof it to their local AT&T store to snag the Motorola BACKFLIP. Now available for a mere $99 after rebate and a two year agreement, the BACKFLIP features quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz), tri-band 7.2Mbps HSPA 3G (850/1900/2100 MHz), a 3.1″ HVGA touch-screen display, Android OS 1.5 (upgradeable to 2.1), 5 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi b/g, Bluetooth 2.0, aGPS, 3.5 mm headphone jack, ..read more

Remember the Opus One, the Android-powered iDEN handset from Motorola we scooped and then spec’d just before Christmas? Well apparently it’s going to be made official sometime in the next few weeks (hello, CTIA!) and will feature one added but obvious goodie: MOTOBLUR. Since we know most of you don’t have encyclopedic memories, here’s a bit of a refresher on what we’ve been told this phone is all about:

Skype users that own a Symbian-powered Nokia handset will have to go the extra mile to install Skype on their handset. As noticed following Wednesday’s debut of Skype in the Ovi store, Skype is reportedly not available for Nokia owners in the US. In response to an email from Venture Beat, Sravanthi Agrawal, a member of Skpye’s corporate communications team, said the following:

“Skype has made a decision in the United States to not promote the Skype for Symbian app through ..read more

We don’t have a whole lot to go on, other than a couple of emails that were bounced around by some curious customers and some rather knowledgeable reps, but it certainly looks to us as if Verizon has begun training — at least some of its employees — on an EV-DO variant of the Google Nexus One. A tentative release date has not yet been communicated trough the chain of command, but apparently this sucker will be sold in Big ..read more