Research in Motion has long-held a stranglehold on all things mobile with the U.S. DoD. Time goes on, and things change. After being turned down by Apple to have access to the iOS codebase, both the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), have announced the release of separately developed hardened versions of the Android operating system (OS) in the past year. More notable was the related DARPA pilot program that deployed smart phones running the hardened version of Android to be tested in Read More

How quickly do things change when it comes to HP this year. Just earlier this year they were talking about emulating Apple’s strategy of end-to-end control of both software and hardware where webOS would be HP’s equivalent of iOS. Fast forward to now and under the guidance of the new CEO they are giving it up to the open source community, hoping other device makers pick it up and use it. The reaction of the technology press has varied from proclaiming this as the beginning of the end for webOS Read More

The first tablet running the brand new Android 4.0, also known as Ice Cream Sandwich, is priced at only $99 USD. The tablet is called Novo7 and is made by Ainol Electron from Hong Kong. At such a low price we might expect modest specs, but this tablet actually delivers respectably. It features a 7-inch capacitive touch screen, a front facing camera and a 2 megapixel back camera, both WiFi and 3G connectivity, USB 2.0, HDMI 1.3, and a microSD slot. Its internal architecture is a bit of a novelty Read More

After having trouble competing with Android and Apple smartphones Nokia today came out with the new Nokia Lumia phones in hopes of bringing back some of its former glory. Nokia calls these the first “real” Windows Phones, and they’re a product of a partnership it recently struck with Microsoft. The star of the Lumia line is Lumia 800 with an almost identical design to that of N9, a 3.7-inch screen, a single-core 1.4Ghz CPU, 512Mb of RAM, 16GB of storage (no SD card slot), and an 8 megapixel camera capable Read More

Google just released the Android 4.0 mobile operating system, and launched Galaxy Nexus, the first smartphone to be powered by the new OS. Android 4.0 is a major revision bringing a large number of new features and changes giving it a slicker user interface, more functionality, and some improvements to existing functionality. It is the first Android version meant to support both tablets and smartphones, and has some similarities to the existing Android Honeycomb tablet-oriented OS. Unfortunately, I couldn’t play with it, despite being an Android user. My HTC Desire Read More

Apple enthusiasts across the world are having a big week as Apple releases the long awaited iOS5 update, and the iCloud service in one go. Apple also released a fairly bulky Mac OS X upgrade, which in addition to iCloud support also includes a few other improvements, like the ability to rearrange spaces in Mission Control, and bigger icons in Launchpad. Both iOS5 and the iCloud are major milestones for Apple. In addition to the iCloud support the iOS5 brings with it over 200 new features, most popular of which Read More