Author: Amarnath Natarajan

The days of spending $600 for an Android Hioneycomb tablet are nearly done on April 28th, the Acers Iconia Tab A500 will wash that price away with waves brushed aluminium. The Wi-Fi only version of Acers Android 3.0 tablet will hit best buy and online retail $450 Sans contract, but with the same basic of specification as Wi-Fi only Motorola Xoom: a dual-core 1GHz Terga processor, 250 SOC, a 10.1-inch 1280*800 LCD screen, 1 GB of RAM, 16GB of flash storage, and a 5MP camera around back and 2MP camera on the front, HDMI out, not to mention 3260mAH battery that Acer claims are capable of eight full hours of life while playing HD video. Its somewhat heavier and thicker too. But if you are attracted to shiny things, than here it is.

Blackberry smartphones come under a new attack targeting their SMS feature according to security firm Trend Micro. The ZeuS Trojan, identified as BBOS_ZITMO.B, removes itself from the list of applications to be able to stay undetected rather than displaying any GUI. Once it is installed ZeuS sends you a confirmation message App Installed OK, to the administrator number, which is a U.K number, to signal that it can now receive commands.

For: Design, Nice keyboard, Good and Solid Battery LifeAgainst: Mediocre display, Camera, Not a global phone, Windows Phone 7 still behind the competition with iOS and AndroidThe HTC announced its first Windows Phone 7 devices, the HTC Arrive is finally available from Sprint, is the first Windows 7 Phone available on a CDMA network. Its unusual for an HTC handset to make it long o the subscribers after the announcement. First of all Microsoft havent supported CDMA initially, which explains why both AT&T and T-Mobile have been enjoying the models from Samsung, LG, Dell, and HTC alike while Sprint and Verizon have been patiently twiddling their thumbs.

Googles answer to Amazons cloud music player, it takes Android based Music apps. The Tech From 10 website leaks out the Android Music app, they got it as a message received from a insider that developer version of Android Music is on, which allowed them to download Android3.0 and try it out on themselves. But in terms of appearance it seems to be the usual Android Music player, while the settings menu had expectedly been augmented with various streaming-related options. Android Market also apparently tweaked slightly, and the developer version included a few surprise as well, including a new camera and desk clock apps.

Now Nokia E7 is available in Amazon for the price of $649, features QWERTY keypad, Email setup, Touchscreen, GPS, 8MP camera and many more. Its somewhat cheaper than the pre-order price $679 and its available now on $649 in Amazon. This buys a 4-inch 640*360 AMOLED display and camera is EDoF with dual LED flash, a pentaband 3G radio, and the coolest high mechanism on the block.

Nokia is fighting back now to get back well in the competitive World. The handset manufacturer has increasingly feeling the heat that the growing mobile market players have been fanning towards it. Nokia is in the midst of planning to aggressively with its new launches. This year they planned to launch 40 new models in the market, 12 of which will be Smartphones category. This move from Nokia, expects that retain or rather regain its dominance in the smartphone category with the launch of its 12 models in the same. The price range of these models is yet to be disclosed.

Panasonic will launch the worlds largest Rewritable Blu-Ray Disk this month. The BD-RE XL Blu-Ray disk will have a capacity of 100 GB and costs around US $118 a piece. These Blu-Ray Disks will be available on April 15 in Japan. This new Blu-Ray disk is already supported by the BD players from Pioneer and Buffalo.

Chris Walsh, a developer of ChevronWP7 jailbreak for Windows Phone 7 has released a hack that lets you bypass Microsoft and carriers to download WP7 updates on your own. According to him this tool is created, to address issues that raised during the recent Windows Phone 7 Update caused in Samsung smartphones.

Google Nexus S, which has been applauded for its up-to-date hardware with NFC (Near Field Computing) chip for mobile payments, is getting released for Sprint with compatibility for Sprints 4G WiMAX network. Google Nexus S 4G will be shipping for sprint from April 6 2011. This high-end Google Experience smartphone will feature ‘Gingerbread 2.3.3 and is manufactured by Samsung. According to the recent listing by Best Buy, Google Nexus S 4G will be priced at $199.99 with a 2 year contract.

You dont need to carry H.264 live streaming encoder to capture more life moments, here comes the solution. In NAB show 2011, the Minicaster is capable of encoding and delivering a number of streams while recording at the same time, those settings can also be tweaked directly on the unit. The company recommends using it with Wowza Media Server.

Rogers has now started accepting pre-orders for both the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play and Arc each of which will run you $99.99 on a 3 year contract and there is no indication of off-contract pricing yet. The current offer will end on May 2nd, which is the possible indication of the actual release date, or the beginning of a different offer. Rogers also revealed a small surprise it will take both balck and white versions of Xperia Play.

HTC havent told much about the Flyer tablet in MWC, they said its not to choose the OS for the tablet because it didnt have the time to customize it with its sense User Interface. Its finally came to the matter again, it replied to a question in Twitter by saying that it will be offering Honeycomb upgrade when its made available. The statement lacks the specific date of announcement and the users had to wait for the HTCs official announcement of the Honeycomb upgrade.

Sonys streaming subscription service, Music Unlimited, is headed to both the PlayStation and Next Generation Portable and Sony Erricssons Xperia Play. Sony Network Entertainment VP Shawn Layden, who spread the news readily, confirms that the service would be activated on the Play Station Portable in a matter of weeks. Android phones including the infamous PlayStation will get the Music Unlimited this year and SNE will make it happen on NGP too. The company reveals when its beast of portable game station will actually come out.

Amazon wants you to think it does not care about licensing the music that it will let you store in the cloud. The Wall Street Journal cites a pair of anonymous sources who says Amazon wont confirm such a thing. They say Amazon may move to the system that compares users uploaded songs with a database of those tunes its managed to license should the deal go through – a system much like Sonys Music Unlimited, by the sound of it. It shouldnt come as any surprise, than the Journal quotes the Sony Music Chairman Martin Bandier in its final paragraph, told

Asus has introduced its new Eee Pad Transformer Tablet with a full size mobile docking station that allows the device to be used as a notebook. The tablet runs Android 3.0 Honeycomb update with new Asus MyWave User Interface on top on it. A 1GHz Nvidia Tegra2 Processor has 10.1-inch touchscreen display, dual cameras and an HDMI out. The Asus noted that the tablet would be available in 16 GB and 32 GB storage capacities and prices range from $400 and $700 approximately.

Yet another low cost Android tablet seems to be HCLs. The HCL ME tablet, an Android 2.2 Froyo tablet, expected at a starting price of Rs.14,990 according to the reports in Hindu Business Line. It is the same manufacturer bagged to provide the 1 lakh units of Rs.1,500 or $35 for the university students.

Google announced that it will delay the distribution on Android Honeycomb, its newest source code, for the foreseeable future. Designed to run on tablets, the Honeycomb Operating System is already powering Motorolas Xoom tablet and is expected to appear in other devices too. But Google, said Honeycomb is not yet ready for the public release as open source software for the people to tweak and customize their gadgets.

You can now get use of Motorola Droidphone with Android 2.3 Gingerbread. The latest release of Android 2.3 builds for Droid X and Droid 2 from My Droid World makes it happen for Motorola Droidphones. Droids life got all the details, including videos and complete instructions for your device and downloading the Android OS. Gingerbread brings you the new blue blur, a customizable dock, an app management shortcut, an overhauled camera app, super-fast navigation speeds, and lot of Android apps to use. So, if you are not waiting for the official release, follow the source link below to feed your phone with the new Android 2.3 Gingerbread.