Google Android prototype previewed

First GPhones coming in February?

It's nearly the New Year, which means we're hurtling towards Conference season, with first CES, then the 3GSM Conference in Barcelona following hot on its heels. These exhibitions give us the first glimpse of what the major mobile phone manufacturers have in store for us in the coming year.

Amongst the rumours doing the rounds for 2008's 3GSM Conference is a report that Google might actually be showing off a GPhone or two, based on its new Android platform...

Stress-testing a Samsung D600 with a 44 tonne truck

Last Xmas, I gave my Dad a Samsung D600, which he was overjoyed with. It really was the perfect phone for him - tonnes of features, sleek masculine looks, and a compact form. I knew that my Dad would be a great tester for the phone as well, as he tends to be, well, rather hard on them!

What I wasn't counting on was exactly how hard he would be on the poor D600 - as you can see from the pic above, he insisted on stress testing it by running it over with a 44 tonne truck!!

Oh I do like to blog beside the seaside

It's Xmas Eve in the UK, nearly 3pm, just over an hour of daylight left, temperature falling, grey leaden skies closing in threatening to rain, and what am I doing? Standing on the beach in Torquay blogging!

No, I'm not trying to win geek of the year award, I'm testing just how mobile a mobile blogger can be! And I'm happy to report that with my trusty Nokia E90, I am indeed extremely mobile.

The only disadvantages at the moment are that I can no longer feel my fingers, due to the cold, and it's now starting to rain, and despite its seemingly never-ending features, waterproofness is not part of the E90's armoury! So I'm going back into my car to continue this post...

How to keep a girl quiet with a mobile phone

Ok, so this must rank as one of the more unconventional of my periodic how to articles, but I've inadvertently found another use for my increasingly indispensable Nokia E90 - keeping a girl occupied on long journeys :)

I've just travelled to Devon for the weekend, which took about 3 hours or so, and had a passenger with me with the attention span of a hamster with ADHD. Trying to find some way of fending off the constant "are we nearly there yet?"s, I was looking for some way to occupy her that didn't involve earplugs (too obvious) or a gag (even less subtle!)

With a characteristic flash of inspiration, I had it - my Nokia E90 and Facebook! Now all I had to worry about was how well the E90 would be able to hold its HSDPA connection as I travelled at, er, around 70mph! As road tests go, this would be the ultimate - how did the E90 fare?...

Leaked picture of 5 megapixel Motorola camera phone

Back in May 2007, Motorola announced that it was teaming up with Kodak to develop a 5 megapixel camera phone. Since then, every other mobile phone manufacturer has released their own 5 megapixel camera, each of which produces excellent results that are on a par with low-end digital cameras from a few years ago.

Every manufacturer, that is, except Motorola, who, despite their announcement over 7 months ago, still haven't produced an equivalent phone.

Now, though, a new leaked photo has emerged that shows what could be an actual Motorola-Kodak 5 megapixel camera phone - exactly what Motorola promised all those months ago.

Video Preview of Google Android game

The Google Android mobile phone platform announced recently gave rise to more questions than answers. After months of speculation about Google working on their own mobile phone, what we got instead was a series of mobile phone related technologies that left everyone with both a sense of anti-climax, and also the burning question of "yes, but what exactly does it do?!"

We were all yearning to see a few applications (not to mention a few mobile phones based on the new platform) to see what Android could offer that couldn't be done with existing mobile phones.

Fortunately, we haven't had to wait too long to find out, as a sneak preview of a new mobile phone game developed specifically for the Google Android platform has emerged.

You can see the video of the new Google Android game after the jump.

World’s first $85,000 mobile phone bill

Here's a story that made me sit up and take notice. Canadian Piotr Staniaszek has just been sent a bill by his mobile phone company, Bell Mobility, for a whopping $85,000!! How, you might be wondering, can anyone run up a bill so large? The simple answer, unfortunately, is data.

Data transfer in Canada is not quite as cheap as it is in Europe. For example, while I have an unlimited HSDPA connection for the flat rate fee of £27 a month, irrespective of whether I'm downloading data onto my phone or using my phone as a modem, in Canada, things are, well, slightly more expensive!

Unfortunately, Staniaszek didn't realise this, and so he used his phone as a modem, and downloaded several gigs' worth of content. What he didn't know was that his mobile operator was charging him by the byte!!

8 megapixel Nokia camera phone on its way for 2008

Nokia may be working on an 8 megapixel Nokia N-series camera phone for 2008, if this new patent is anything to go by. Not that we should be surprised by this - 2007 has already seen 5 megapixel camera phones become the norm for high end phones, while 3.2 megapixel cameras have made their way down to the mid-range. As such, 8 megapixels is simply the next level in the progressions of pixellage.

More details after the jump.

Samsung G800 stars in German opera

Samsung have come up with a somewhat bizarre way to promote their latest camera phone, the glorious Samsung G800. They've somehow managed to get it top billing in the German opera "Wagners Nibelungenring for children", in which the 5 megapixel 3x optical zoom camera phone is used to take a picture of Bruennhilde, which is then shown to Siegfried, making it "essential for the progression of the story".

Er, quite! Now normally this wouldn't be such great news, and would just be seen as a lame attempt to bring an existing opera up to date using "modern technology" that the kids use! However, Samsung are making a big deal of it, and have even got it mentioned in the official casting list, which the actual human cast must have been thrilled with!

Oh well, whatever sells your camera phones, I guess!

[Source: Aving.net]