Australians Addicted to Mobile Devices

Blogger and ABC contributor Peter Ryan has a superneat post on a new report confirming what most of us  already knew: Australians are addicted to their smartphones. The survey of smartphone users by tech behemoth Cisco reveals that the daily ritual for Gen Y Aussies kicks off with a quick txt.

Many of the survey participants admitted that they checked for messages, emails and updates at least twice an hour, many becoming anxious when their phone goes astray.

Kevin Bloch isn’t alone, our favourite news agency – Reuters – has an ubercool post on our latest addiction, Social Media.

Social media is now apparently a recognised addiction, a study undertaken last year by the University of Chicago found that Liking and Tweeting can be even more addictive than cigarettes or alcohol. The research showed that social networking sites gave users a burst of the addictive neurotransmitter dopamine. Check the Reuters Video :: Read the full article »»»»

SMARTEN UP: HTC One Family 2012

HTC’s new series of flagship smartphones in the form of HTC One X, S and V have overshadowed the competition in their launch at Mobile World Congress 2012. The quad-core smartphone from HTC apparently has almost everything to be the most desirable device on the smartphone market today? Among the three models showcased during the event, HTC One X is absolutely the top model of HTC’s trio of One series. HTC has packed an absolute monster in HTC One X delivering extraordinary performance. But can HTC take on the stalwart behemoths of mobile?

HTC launched the One Series in the hope of taking the fight to Samsung and Apple, the One Series, with it’s überfast graphic chips and advanced music and photography functions is hoped to dent a stitched up market. It’s a fight that HTC has been losing, sales slumped and investors dumped shares late in 2011 on concerns the firm had lost its edge.

The Taiwanese mobile tech maker is confident it’s new models – coming to market in April 2012 –  will turn around the ailing fortunes of the world’s No.5 smartphone maker, and help to boost its annual sales volumes above last year’s level. ”We are confident this year will be … a much better year,” Florian Seiche, chief of HTC’s European operations said, referring to the number of smartphones sold. ”Even with the Q1 not being the ideal fast start right out of the gate in January, which of course we would have preferred, even with that we are very confident,” Seiche told Reuters in an interview on sidelines of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Surprisingly the Ice Cream Sandwich operating system has jelled well with the phone and improvements to HTC Sense has made it a much cleaner, easier to use experience than the previous version. Read the full article »»»»

Samsung to Double Smartphone Sales in 2012

Samsung Electronics mobile chief said the consumer electronics behemoth aimed to nearly double its smartphone sales in 2012 from last year, stepping up its battle with nemesis Apple. J.K. Shin, president and head of Samsung’s Mobile Communications Business, made the comment to reporters ahead of the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona. His remarks were later confirmed by a company spokesman. Samsung topped global smartphone sales rankings last year, more than quadrupling smartphone sales to 97.4 million from 2010, according to data from Strategy Analytics.

In 2011 Apple finished a close second to Samsung, with sales of 93 million smartphones. J.K. Shin also said Samsung aimed to boost its total handset - including non smartphones -  sales to 380 million this year, which would mark 16 percent sales growth for the world’s No.2 handset maker. Samsung Electronics last year sold 327.4 million handsets, up from 280.2 million in 2010, according to Strategy Analytics. Those foxy Fins, Nokia, though battling to get a foot into the smartphone market, sold 422 handsets in 2011, up from 150 million in 2010.  Read the full article »»»»

Sony Launches New Experia Smartphone Range

Kazuo Hirai is due to formally take over as Sony CEO on April 1, replacing Howard Stringer. Hirai said that while some management changes had already been identified there was still a long way to go to “explain to everybody who’s doing what.” Sony has declared a return to the smartphone business, unveiling its first smartphones under the Sony brand, but warned the group’s painful transition would not be as fast as rebranding.

“People have these lofty expectations that we’re going to have all the answers to all the problems that plague the world on April 1,” Hirai said in an interview at the Barcelona Mobile World Congress. “We’re not going to have that.”

The once-stellar consumer electronics brand is heading for what it has warned would be a much bigger-than-expected $2.9 billion annual loss, its fourth in a row. The surge of red ink has put Hirai under intense pressure from investors and ratings agencies to quickly staunch losses at the sprawling electronics group. Read the full article »»»»

Motorola Wins Apple Wireless Patent Fight in Germany

A German court has found Apple in violation of a Motorola Mobility patent, ruling that Apple’s iPhone and 3G model iPads infringe on cellular communications, patents owned by Motorola Mobility that relate to General Packet Radio Service – GPRS – data packet transfer technology. The patent-in-suit is European Patent 1010336 [B1] on a “method for performing a countdown function during a mobile-originated transfer for a packet radio system”. This patent is one of the two patents at issue in the action in which a default judgment was entered against Apple Inc. It was declared essential to the GPRS standard. It’s the European equivalent of U.S. Patent No. 6,359,898, a patent against which Apple raised a FRAND defense in the United States and which is being asserted in an action that was just transferred from the Western District of Wisconsin to the Northern District of Illinois. Motorola said the ruling validated its “efforts to enforce its patents against Apple’s infringement”

Olive The Movie: Shot Entirely on Nokia N8 Smartphone, Olive Gets Cinema Release

Getting a clue is often the first stumbling block for creatives, all the skill in the world is next to useless without a great idea. Hooman Khalili first got the idea to make a feature film shot entirely on a smartphone in January 2010. A little less than two years later, his film Olive, shot on a Nokia N8, is going to be shown in a Los Angeles theatre for a week. The film simply put is about a little girl that transforms the lives of three people without speaking one word. The movie stars two time Academy Award nominated actress Gena Rowlands (The Notebook, A Woman Under the Influence). While it all sounds too simple, it wasn’t, the impressive inventiveness from techs shines through in the quality of this flick. The movie was shot using the Nokia N8′s 12-megapixel camera and a customized 35mm lens adapter – attached with double-sided tape. The mobility of the phone also made for a shallow depth of field and easier maneuvering. Khalili attached the N8 to ladders, remote control helicopters, and motorcycles to capture some of the shots in the film. READ MORE