Nokia's Meltemi OS for budget handsets gets the chop

It looks like factory workers and executives are not the only ones to get the hatchet by Nokia these days. The Finnish company has reportedly abandoned work on its Meltemi OS for budget smartphones.

Read More

Samsung responds to Galaxy S II / Note eMMC bug problem

If you own a Samsung Galaxy S II or the Galaxy Note and are a regular member of the xda-developers forum, you may already be aware of a bug with some of these devices where erasing the eMMC could hard brick your phone.

This problem would surface if the user tried to flash a custom ROM or kernel that used MMC_CAP_ERASE. Thankfully, developerChainfire came up with an app that would let you know if your device was shipped with a faulty eMMC.

Apparently, this issue has existed for a long time now and even though it was noticed a couple of months ago and was much talked about in the developer community Samsung did not respond to it, until now.

Read More

Motorola announces RAZR V XT889 for China

Motorola has announced a new version of the RAZR exclusively for the Chinese market. This version is called the RAZR V XT998 and has a completely new design compared to the current RAZR.

The front side gets new thin, long grilles on the top and bottom with the 4.3-inch display (probably the same unit as on the current RAZR) placed in between. You will also notice no physical keys on the front because the RAZR V XT889 runs on Android 4.0 and also uses the on-screen keys like the Galaxy Nexus.

Read More

Cognizant enters into $330 million deal with ING U.S

Information technology services provider Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp (CTSH.O) said it entered into a $330 million deal with the U.S. unit of Dutch insurer ING Groep NV (ING.AS) to expand the business process management contract between the two companies.

Under the deal, Cognizant will purchase ING's facility in North Dakota and sub-lease some of the insurer's offices in Iowa. More than 1,000 ING U.S. employees will be transferred to Cognizant under the seven-year deal.

Read More

T-Mobile US releases ICS update for the Galaxy S II

US users who have been waiting patiently for a (legitimate) way to upgrade their Samsung Galaxy S II devices to Android 4.0 will finally have their day in the sun, as T-Mobile finally released the official Ice Cream Sandwich update for the former Samsung flagship.

The update won't be a straightforward OTA update, however, as Samsung and T-Mobile are requiring users to upgrade using Kies software and a computer.

Read More

Head of Nokia US: PureView coming to Nokia Lumia phones

Another Nokia executive is teasing the addition of PureView technology to the Finnish company's Lumia line of phones and yet again there are no commitments when it comes to dates when such a device might get announced.

Chris Webber, President of Nokia USA and Head of Marketing for North America, talked about the future of Nokia and their plans to expand their market share. PureView is part of the plan and Nokia is working closely with Microsoft to make sure that the technology works exactly right (we approve as long as the phones don't look like this).

Read More

TomTom licenses its maps data to Apple for iOS6

Yesterday at WWDC 2012 Apple announced their new Maps app, boasting an entirely new look, crowd-sourced traffic info as well as turn-by-turn navigation. The announcement confirmed the rumors that Apple has now officially stopped partnering with Google for the iOS map application.

Read More

Samsung Galaxy S III receives its first OTA update

The Galaxy S III went on sale just a few weeks ago and it's already started receiving its first over-the-air update. We got it on our unit, too and were eager to see what was changed.

As it turns out, not that much. Samsung has only listed "improved stability" in the change log for the OTA update. And with the Galaxy S III being pretty stable to begin with, it's hardly surprising that the user experience hasn't changed dramatically.

Read More