Yahoo Spot

New information on Verizon’s third Android-based smartphone has come to light. This includes a new image of the device — which may be called the Motorola Droid Devour — plus some wireless features it does and doesn’t have.

Details on this model have been leaking out for months, but not everything has been revealed.

Previous reports have given the code-name, Calgary, and said the official name will be Motorola Devour. Still, Verizon’s other smartphones are all part of the Droid series, so that may also be part of its name.

In the earlier pictures, this phone has a black casing. In the new one, it has a silver casing.

Android + Blur
The new image also help confirm the earlier report that this Android-powered device will run Blur, Motorola’s proprietary user interface.

It will supposedly debut with debut with Android OS 2.1, an upcoming version of Google’s mobile operating system, and have the standard suite of software for connecting to Google services.

On top of this will be Blur, Motorola’s software that gives easy access to consumer and business e-mail accounts, as well as social-networking services like Facebook and Twitter. Read the rest of this entry »

New B.C. rules aimed at distracted drivers

As of today (Jan. 1), it is illegal to use a hand-held phone or electronic devices while driving in B.C., though drivers have a month to adjust before the penalties kick in.

While police can pull people over for violating the ban now, they will start cracking down in February with $167 fines for the use of a hand-held phone and three demerit points for texting.

British Columbia is tied with Saskatchewan as the fifth and six provinces to ban hand-held phone use while driving, led by Newfoundland in 2002. Around 50 countries and half the U.S. states have some level of restrictions on electronic device use while driving.

Uniquely B.C. is also completely banning the use of all cellphones and electronic devices — including hands-free — for new drivers under the graduated licensing program.

The new restrictions have sent the sale of hands-free devices through the roof in recent weeks as people scramble to find ways to keep talking and driving. Read the rest of this entry »

If Joe Wilcox ran the computer industry, we’d still be using typewriters.

Wilcox has a lengthy post today on BetaNews saying that the world doesn’t need an Apple tablet. And while Wilcox does have some decent general points mixed in with some bad ones, this is hardly a new thought. In fact, it’s little more than an extension of a concept that has been around for a while, but has been reinvigorated recently as the hype around Apple swirls: That tablet computers are a niche product. Of course, it’s easy to argue that when you have history on your side up until this point. But Wilcox’s post completely overlooks what is likely to be the larger point, and in general is a dangerous way of thinking.

Now, let me just state right off the bat, that Wilcox’s conclusion could absolutely be right: That Apple’s tablet device may well turn out to be a bust. While Apple has a great recent track record, a new product is still always going to be somewhat of a crapshoot, even for them. That said, Wilcox seems awfully close-minded about the product’s potential, and frames his argument around that. He argues, for example, that an Apple tablet will be little more than a less-compelling version of the iPhone because it is less portable. Meanwhile, users who want more computing power will continue to use laptops. Again, that’s the basic premise behind the most of the recent arguments against Apple’s tablet. But Wilcox doesn’t even for a second imagine something that is very obvious to most people who follow Apple closely: The likelihood that they’re going to release a product exactly as we’re currently thinking about it, is very small. Read the rest of this entry »

The idea of working at Google is a dream job for many engineers all around the world. So where better to go to get ready for this career than the Googlle Institute of Software of Software Studies, right? Hold on a second. Read that name again.

Yes, it appears that some jokers in India are attempting to leverage not only Google’s name, but their logo and even favicon to trick people into thinking they their quite-possibly-bogus online university is related to the real Google somehow. Dubbed the “School For Future Software Engineers,” the Googlle Institute has a website that looks like it could some sort of legitimate online training school — if it weren’t for the sketchy naming, branding, and plethora of dead links. Read the rest of this entry »

Palm’s App Store has reached a milestone. According to WebOS School, Palm now offers 1000 apps to its mobile users on its App Catalog. Of course, this number has to be taken with a grain of salt. Apple’s App Store has over 100,000 apps and the Android market has over 16,000 apps, making Palm’s achievement a little less thrilling.

The relatively small amount of apps for Palm isn’t surprising; Palm has had a lag in adding apps to its store for some time now and has not been able to match the speed or breadth of Apple’s App ecosystem. But it’s safe to assume that Palm may be adding apps more quickly now, after the company announced an easier approval process for apps and the ability to allow developers to fully distribute their apps via the web. What this means is that developers can simply submit their apps to Palm, and Palm will return to them a URL that they can then blog, tweet, do whatever they want to share it. When a person then clicks on that URL they can easily install the app, bypassing any kind of store. Palm realizes that it has to play nice with developers in order to get them to build on top of its software. Read the rest of this entry »

Now that the aughts are behind us, we can start the new decade with a bang. So many new technologies are ready to make a big impact this year. Some of them will be brand new, but many have been gestating and are now ready to hatch. If there is any theme here it is the mobile Web. As I think through the top ten technologies that will rock 2010, more than half of them are mobile. But those technologies are tied to advances in the overall Web as well.

Below is my list of the ten technologies that will leave the biggest marks on 2010:

1. The Tablet: It’s the most anticipated product of the year.  The mythical tablet computer (which everyone seems to be working on).  There are beautiful Android tablets, concept tablets, and, of course, the one tablet which could define the category, the Apple Tablet.  Or iSlate or whatever it’s called.  If Steve Jobs is not working on a tablet, he’d better come up with one because  anything else will be a huge disappointment.Why do we need yet another computer in between a laptop and an iPhone?  We won’t really know until we have it.  But the answer lies in the fact that increasingly the Web is all you need.  As all of our apps and data and social lives move to the Web, the Tablet is the incarnation of the Web in device form, stripped down to its essentials.  It will also be a superior e-reader for digital books, newspapers, and magazines, and a portable Web TV. Read the rest of this entry »