Posted 03/12/10 at 08:49:07 PM by Ryan Whitwam

Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing said on Friday that he sees mobile internet devices making up the vast majority of the company’s profits, possibly as much as 70-80%, in as little as 5 years. Currently, most sales come from the Thinkpad and Ideapad line of notebooks.  Lenovo plans to accomplish this changeover by expanding into emerging markets. Devices likely to make up these sales are tablets, smartphones, and smartbooks.

Lenovo is currently the world’s number four PC maker, having purchased IBM’s PC division in 2005. The China based company just released their first touchscreen smartphone, the Ophone O1, in China. Lenovo also plans to release another phone called the LePhone sometime in mid 2010. Most of Lenovo’s energies are being focused on the China market as part of their “protect and attack” strategy. After they feel more secure in China, Lenovo may more into underserved markets like Latin America and Eastern Europe.

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Posted 03/12/10 at 08:02:28 PM by Ryan Whitwam

In January 2009 Vodafone made what seemed like a good investment buying mapping software maker Wayfinder for about $30 million. A year later it’s looking like a pretty awful deal in the wake of free navigation solutions from both Google and Nokia. Facing the inevitable, Vodafone is closing Wayfinder saying, “We could not charge for something that others gave away for free.”

Vodafone has also invested several million additional dollars in Wayfinder, so it can’t be easy to walk away. It’s unlikely they’d do so without being sure they could not compete with Nokia’s Ovi Maps. This really isn’t much of a surprise, especially considering Nokia’s huge presence in Europe. Google Navigation isn’t even available yet in Europe, but clearly Vodafone wasn’t going to sit around and wait for two free solutions to start eating their lunch.

This may be the eventual fate of all the carrier branded navigation apps. Considering the poor quality of many of them, that might not be a bad thing. Would access to a free navigation app from Google or Nokia sway you in your next phone purchase?

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Posted 03/12/10 at 09:16:15 AM by Paul Lilly

MSI is pretty stoked about the latest entry to its gaming notebook line, the 17-inch GE700. The new notebook couples an Intel Core i5 processor with ATI Radeon HD 5730 graphics (with 1GB GDDR3 memory), along with a few other noteworthy goodies.

Among them are two "cinema-class" speakers and a subwoofer, an HD webcam capable of 720p video up to 30fps, two hard drive bays for up to 1TB of storage, MSI's exclusive GPU Boost technology (switch between the integrated and discrete graphics solutions), HDMI output, eSATA, 4-in-1 memory card reader, 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Windows 7 Home Premium.

MSI put a bit of attention into the GE700's styling, including a "super-cool exterior" with a glossy black finish. You'll also find luminescent touch-sensitive hotkeys.

No word yet on price or availability.

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Posted 03/12/10 at 08:02:29 AM by Paul Lilly

Nobody really talks a whole lot about Nokia anymore, not with sexy smartphones like the Motorola Droid and Google's  Nexus One stealing all the spotlight. Part of the problem is that Symbian, even though it dominates the market, hasn't kept pace with other OSes. Look for that to change with Symbian 3.

According to Nokia, "it is about renewal" with the upcoming OS and the new phones that will be built around it. Symbian 3 should be "functionally complete" by the end of Q1. It will include a more polished UI that's easier to use, an improved homescreen, a podcast manager, and a bit more pep, among other features. According to David Rivas, a vice president at Nokia, Symbian 3 will help get his company back on track.

And as for Android? Rivas claims his company has a more "open" stance around Symbian and MeeGo than Google does with Android.

"Anyone can go to the Symbain website and see what features will be coming months in advance," Rivas explained. "Show me where you can do that with Android."

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Posted 03/12/10 at 07:36:19 AM by Paul Lilly

Opera Software on Thursday announced the immediate availability of Opera Mini 5 in beta form for the Android platform. According to Opera Software, you can expect significantly improved page loading and speed with the latest browser.

"Android users should not have to compromise when it comes to surfing the Web on their phones. Opera Mini will give Android users a fast and cost-efficient access to their favorite websites and services," said Dag Olav Norem, Vice President of Opera Products, Opera Software.

Opera Mini boasts a streamlined interface with a "desktop-like Web browsing experience." It includes features such as Speed Dial, tabbed browsing, password manager, and bookmarks.

We gave it a whirl on our HTC Dream (T-Mobile G1) and found it to be as good as we remember it, and a definite improvement over Android's stock browser.

You can download Opera Mini by visiting m.opera.com/next on your Android smartphone, though you might have better luck (we did) by searching for Opera Mini 5 in the Android Marketplace.

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Posted 03/11/10 at 04:04:51 PM by Bart Salisbury

Connecting people to what they want (or alternately helping people more easily spend their money), just got a bit easier with Google’s new “in stock” notifications.

The process is simple. If you do a search for a product that is sold by participating retailers, and one of those retailers is nearby, and has that item in stock, the search results will be displayed with a blue dot. With “My Location” enabled, you’ll even know how far you have to drive to acquire your coveted item. Google’s partners in this venture include Best Buy, Sears, Williams-Sonoma, and Pottery Barn.

According to Google’s Mobile Blog: “If you have an iPhone, Palm WebOS phone, or any Android-powered device, and you're in the US, just go to Google.com in your mobile browser, tap on the "more" link, and then select "Shopping." Or look for the "Shopping results" section in Universal Search results when you search on Google.com.”

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Posted 03/11/10 at 07:22:19 AM by Paul Lilly

Want to make waves in the mobile market? Slap a Core i7 Extreme Edition processor into a 15.6-inch chassis and call it the "world's most powerful" mobile workstation in its size class.

That's exactly what Dell has done with its just-announced Precision M4500. In addition to the super fast processor, the M4500 also boasts Nvidia Quadro FX 1800M graphics, an optional SSD MiniCard (another first for 15.6-inch mobile workstations), an optional HD+ sRGB LED screen, optional 3MP camera, and support for 32-bit and 74-bit versions of Microsoft Windows 7, Vista, and XP, as well as Red Hat Linux 5.3 64-bit support.

"The Dell Precision M4500 establishes new heights for performance and mobility for a workstation," said Greg Weir, senior manager, Dell Precision workstations. "This system provides the freedom to discover, create and imagine on your terms, wherever creativity takes you. Top that off with the assurance that you are backed by our robust ‘eco system’ of ISV partners and our ability to deliver the application performance you need to be productive…now that’s getting it done!"

No word yet on price or availability.

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Posted 03/10/10 at 08:42:50 PM by Ryan Whitwam

Get ready to toss your gaming console out a window. Well, maybe not, but according to Imagination Technologies you might be carrying a phone as powerful as a PS3 in three years. Imagination makes the PowerVR mobile graphics chips found in phones like the iPhone and the Droid among others. The chips are licensed to hardware makers that must incorporate them into hardware. This takes about three years from start to finish. That bit about the PS3 level graphics? They know because they’re developing that chip right now.

Imagination claims that this level of performance will be possible with the usage of multiple processing units. In theory, three to four can be added to a phone without causing too much more power draw. Current PowerVR chips have the theoretical potential to do hardware accelerated Flash and GPGPU computing. Imagination say that internal tests have shown a 300% increase in Flash performance when hardware accelerated. Yeah, we’ll take that.

Let’s hope that Imagination Technologies was being straight here. Of course, much of this relies on hardware makers using the chips. But if the near future holds 720p gaming on our mobile phones, flying cars and jetpacks can’t be far behind… right?

Image via Gizmodo

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