Wii Controller Demo brings your Wiimote and Android phone 2gether, 4ever

Ryan Frawley still has a fair bit of work ahead of him, but his Wii Controller Demo app for Android sure holds an awful lot of promise. Available now for no charge (though a $1 paid version is available for those who dig his work), this here software allows Android users to create a Bluetooth link between their Wii remote and handset, and then log input information on the mobile's display. As of now, there's not a whole lot of value outside of Wiimote troubleshooting, but it's a few lines of code away from being able to act as a controller for gaming. Just think -- a Wiimote, your Android phone, an emulator, an HDMI output and four other nerds surrounding your television. Needless to say, we'll be keeping a close eye out for updates coming to this one.

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Marvell pitches $99 Moby Tablet as textbook alternative

When chipmaker Marvell told us its technology would power $99 smartphones, we took the company at its word. We weren't expecting a sub-$100, 10-inch tablet PC, however -- and we definitely weren't expecting Marvell itself to build it. Marketed at students looking to lighten their textbook load, the Marvell Moby will be an "always-on, high performance multimedia tablet" capable of full Flash support and 1080p HD playback -- thanks to those nifty Armada 600 series processors -- and supporting WiFi, Bluetooth, FM radio, GPS and both Android and Windows Mobile platforms for maximum flexibility. No release date has yet been announced; like the OLPC, Marvell will introduce the Moby in pilot programs at participating at-risk schools. While it's far too early to say if the Moby will be the universal educational e-reader Marvell hopes (that depends on software), it's certainly an intriguing device for the price, and we'll admit we're a touch jealous of those kids who'll first get to try one.

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Samsung SHW-M120S to be first Android phone with Bluetooth 3.0?

Samsung's all about records: firsts, biggests, smallests, thinnests, you get the idea. Indeed, it was just a few weeks ago that the company managed to slip the very first Bluetooth 3.0 certified handset through -- but these guys never rest, and it looks like they're already prepping to follow up that feat by throwing Android into the mix. The Bluetooth SIG is showing certification for an SHW-M120S model that apparently features a 3.3-inch WVGA AMOLED display, 5 megapixel autofocus primary cam plus VGA secondary, WiFi, GPS, HSDPA, and -- yes, you guessed it -- a Bluetooth Core Version of 3.0, meaning you'll likely be able to fling files around to your house full of Bluetooth 3.0-capable devices with the greatest of ease. The presence of a T-DMB tuner means this sucker is targeted squarely at the South Korean market, but we've no doubt Sammy plans on taking 3.0 global so that it can... you know, have the world's most Bluetooth 3.0 devices. PuntoCellulare seems to have a pretty good shot of it, and it looks pretty much how you'd expect any self-respecting Samsung smartphone to look in 2010 -- in other words, there's nothing that screams "I can wirelessly transfer data short distances at heretofore-unknown speeds" just by looking at it, and that's totally fine by us. Rumor is we'll see this launch "in the next few weeks."

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Samsung SHW-M120S to befirst Android phone withBluetooth 3.0?

Samsung's all about records:
firsts, biggests, smallests,
thinnests, you get the idea.
Indeed, it was just a few weeks
ago that the company managed
to slip the very first Bluetooth
3.0 certified handset through --
but these guys never rest, and it
looks like they're already
prepping to follow up that feat by
throwing Android into the mix.
The Bluetooth SIG is showing
certification for an SHW-M120S
model that apparently features a
3.3-inch WVGA AMOLED
display, 5 megapixel autofocus
primary cam plus VGA secondary,
WiFi, GPS, HSDPA, and -- yes,
you guessed it -- a Bluetooth
Core Version of 3.0, meaning
you'll likely be able to fling files
around to your house full of
Bluetooth 3.0-capable devices
with the greatest of ease. The
presence of a T-DMB tuner
means this sucker is targeted
squarely at the South Korean
market, but we've no doubt
Sammy plans on taking 3.0
global so that it can... you know,
have the world's most Bluetooth
3.0 devices. PuntoCellulare
seems to have a pretty good shot
of it, and it looks pretty much
how you'd expect any self-
respecting Samsung smartphone
to look in 2010 -- in other
words, there's nothing that
screams "I can wirelessly transfer
data short distances at
heretofore-unknown speeds" just
by looking at it, and that's totally
fine by us. Rumor is we'll see
this launch "in the next few
weeks."

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HTC announces the Nexus One’s slightly cooler twin, the Desire

What’s in a name? Would a Nexus One by any other name still be as sweet? Yep. In fact, it might just be a bit sweeter.
Though it lacks almost any indication as such, Google’s Nexus One is actually made by HTC. HTC reserved the rights to the hardware design, and today they’re making good use of that decision with the announcement of the HTC Desire. It’s essentially the Nexus One reflavored to HTC’s liking.
After the Nexus One launched, a good number of gadget geeks went clamoring to HTC in hopes that they (or Google) would release a compatible port of the custom user interface overhaul that can be found on nearly any recent HTC-made Android handset. Alas, it’s not going to happen – the Nexus One is Google’s phone, and thus will always be 100% vanilla Android, just as Google intended.
The HTC Desire, however, is a different story. Sure, it may look almost identical to the Nexus One – and sure, it might be an almost spec-for-spec match. But the Desire is HTC’s phone, and thus, it runs Sense. Its got everything you might expect from a Sense-enabled handset, from multi-touch all around the OS to Flash in the browser.
Like the Nexus One, the Desire runs Android 2.1 on top of a palm-meltingly fast 1 Ghz CPU. Its got the same (stunning) 3.7″ AMOLED touchscreen, and the same 5 megapixel camera. The only real physical change is the jump from a standard trackball to an optical trackpad, just as we saw with the also-just-announced HTC Legend.
While HTC’s not sharing any details on when us folks in the US can get our mitts on it, Europe and Asia should see it hit by sometime in April.


-- Post From My iPhone

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Anti-theft tech for mobile handsets

Three archetype pieces of technology, designed to cut down on mobile-handset offence, have been revealed by the Home Office and the Design Council.
The prototypes, proclaimed on Thursday, are aimed at guarding handset customers against individuality deception and gadget theft, and making phones more secure for contactless electronic payments. The designs came out of a Home Office-sponsored contest called the Mobile Phone Security Challenge.
The chief of the designs is the i-migo, a key fob that has a wireless Bluetooth connection to the phone. If the handset and gadget are unglued by over a preset distance, the handset is locked and the i-migo sounds an alert.
Conferring to the Home Office, 228 mobile handsets are reported stolen in the UK every hour.
The i-migo also offers Bluetooth-based backup for important data held on the phone.


-- Post From My iPhone

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Samsung WAVE launches on Valentines Day!

No, Samsung isn’t hurling any social networking site for lovers. Wave is the latest name they have given to their first Super AMOLED handset, which is extensively speculated to be launched at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, in less then 24 hours from now.
Guys at Engadget came across a teaser on the Samsung Unpacked site that speaks “on Feb 14, a new mobile from Samsung is born. See it First in Barcelona”. There is a sturdy speculation that this novel mobile may well be Samsung’s first smartphone with its own OS – the Bada OS (“bada” means “ocean” in Korean).
Precisely, it’s called S8500 Wave. And one of the revelation features is its support of USB 3.0 (& bluetooth 3.0), which is yet to go mainstream. The Super AMOLED here refers to the 800 X 480 resolution and is claimed to have better discernibility, when used out in the open (20% higher than competing phones).
Here are some other specs :
1 GHz processor
5 megapixel autofocus camera with flash
720p video recording
2GB of internal memory (or microSD expansion)
802.11b/g/n WiFi and HSDPA data
DivX video support
USb 3.0 / Bluetooth 3.0
a 3.5-mm audio jack (in a device measuring 10.9-mm thick)


-- Post From My iPhone

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