Android Honeycomb didn’t have the best of starts in terms of performance, but Google is obviously dead set on fixing the issues as quickly as possible. The company already released the 3.1 update, which was a nice step forward and now, just five months after the XOOM was announced, we are getting a second Honeycomb update.

The update, which pushes the Android version number to 3.2, is already being seeded to Wi-Fi-only XOOM units. In addition to bringing further performance improvements and bugfixes the HTJ85B release brings the long-awaited SD card support. It will also allow apps that aren’t designed for the high-res Android tablet screens to be zoomed to fill the entire screen. Read more »

Nokia may not care much about MeeGo but they sure do care about the N9 a lot and are doing their best to keep interest alive in the product alive. Their recent effort in achieving this goal involves creating a series of six ultra quick and interlinked nine second ads for the N9. Nokia claims these are the world’s quickest ads.

Each of the six ads are based around one of the N9′s key feature, such as the swipe gesture, web browser, social media connectivity, maps, camera and the all-screen design. All six ads are on YouTube now and after watching them all, I must they didn’t make a lot of sense. But I guess they are not supposed to make a lot of sense. Read more »

Today we’re joined by the Sony Ericsson Xperia ray to talk about small smartphones. It measures just 9.4mm in thickness and the 3.3″ screen makes for a very compact phone overall. Sony Ericsson didn’t skimp on the resolution though – the screen packs 480 x 854 pixels, which means nearly 300ppi pixel density (the iPhone 4′s Retina display has 326ppi).

Aside from low-res screens, small smartphones usually get stuck with an old chipset – that’s not the case with the Xperia ray either. It has a 1GHz CPU and can record 720p video from its 8MP camera. Read more »

We already told you the iOS 5 beta 3 was just released last night and I already updated my iPhone 4. One of the most notable new features in this release is the new on-screen menu that can do the job both of the hardware Home button and that of the regular touch gestures. It’s been devised for people who can’t execute all iOS gestures properly for some reason and it’s first of its kind on a mobile phone for sure.

The new feature is an upgrade to the previously available option into the Accessibility Menu – Assistive Touch. Activate the feature in the iOS 5 beta 3 and you get a new on-screen key that stays available throughout the UI, even on the lockscreen and in games. It’s shaped as a homescreen icon and offers a few useful menus.

Read more »

Nokia is really going hard into the augmented reality game. Just last week they unveiled their Nokia 3D World Gaze app and now we are getting a public beta of Nokia Live View.

The Nokia Live View certainly seems like the more useful of the two augmented reality browsers. Unlike the 3D World Gaze, which focused only on giving you information about the world around you, Live View also lets you interact with it. Read more »

The iPhone Dev Team has scored yet another point in their fight against Apple for keeping iOS free of its chains. It only took them a few hours after the latest iOS 5 beta was released to prepare the Snowbreeze update, which jailbreaks it.

Unfortunately, owners of the iPhone 3GS units with the old bootrom are the only ones, who will get untethered start-up for their devices after the jailbreak. iPhone 4, iPod Touch, iPad and newer-bootrom iPhone 3GS owners will have to hook up their device to a computer every time they need to boot into jailbroken state. Read more »

Microsoft’s CEO took the stage during the company’s Worldwide Partner Conference, which is held this week in Los Angeles, and revealed some interesting bits about the company’s mobile platform. Steve Ballmer admitted that Windows Phone 7 hasn’t been particularly successful yet and in a year its market share has gone “from very small to… very small”.

And while those are hardly the words Microsoft partners were hoping to hear, Ballmer remains optimistic about WP7′s prospects. Expectations are that more users and developers will be drawn to the platform in the years to come and it will be able to compete with the Android and iOS behemoths. Read more »

Apple has released the third beta of the iOS 5 for developers. Along with performance update and bug fixes, this new update also adds a lot of minor changes across the OS.

For starters, you now have the option to enable or disable location services while setting up the phone. You also have more options to choose from for enabling or disabling location services. There is an option of disabling voice roaming now along with data. Read more »

Taking a screenshot on Android continues to be a massive pain in the posterior. After three years and five versions Google still hasn’t incorporated this feature in the OS. And if that wasn’t bad enough there is no solution in the form of a third-party app on the Android Market, at least not without rooting your phone first. If you don’t want to root your only other option is using the Android SDK on your PC.

CyanogenMod has announced that they will be adding the ability to take native screenshots by long-pressing the power button in v7.1. It also brings back touch-to-focus on HTC phones. The v7.1.0 RC1 is currently available for you to try and has been deemed stable enough for daily use. Read more »

Asus has just spilled the beans of the pricing of the 3G-enabled version of their Transformer tablet. The Taiwanese company will charge you an extra €100 for the SIM card slot of the popular Android slate with an optional keyboard.

So the 16GB Transformer with 3G connectivity will set you back €500, while a 32GB unit will go for €600. Seeing that the Transformer was somewhat cheaper than most of its competitors, we were hoping that Asus won’t stick to the usual practice and demand €100 for the network connectivity, but alas. Read more »

This Sunday the US citizens will witness the birth of yet another eBook ecosystem. The iriver Story HD is the first e-reader integrating direct Wi-Fi access to Google’s eBooks open platform and it’s bound for a Sunday release over at Target stores all over the country.

The iriver Story HD, will retail for $139.99 and will offer over-the-air (Wi-Fi) access to hundreds of thousands of Google eBooks for sale and more than 3 million for free. Read more »

The HDMI Organization intends to stop the production and sales of the Mini Display Port to HDMI cables. The reason is very simple – the cables don’t meet the HDMI specifications.

Since this kind of cables is not defined in the HDMI specifications, they weren’t tested according to the Compliance Testing Specifications. This means they are not licensed and can’t be sold. Read more »

Surely many of you already saw the Microsoft’s Arc Touch Mouse and a lot more are eager to get their hands on the Touch Mouse that’s coming next month. It seems however that Microsoft is preparing another mouse for production – a hybrid between the Arc Touch and Touch models called Explorer Touch.

The Explorer Touch Mouse inherits the haptic touch scroll pad from the Arc Touch and vibrates the same way when you use the scroll. Read more »

While there were plenty of people charging to get into Google+, only US users get to try the Android app. Not any more – you can download the APK file and install it manually, regardless of where you roll.

You will need a Google+ account for that and most people report that the loophole, which allowed many to sneak in despite not having invites, has been closed. Read more »

Here’s a juicy rumor for all the Android purists out there. The next Nexus phone (reportedly called Nexus 3) will be manufactured by HTC and it will be packing a dedicated Google+ button. Supposedly that button will work much like the Facebook button on the ChaCha and Salsa HTC smartphones.

This means that you will be able to share content from your smartphone just by clicking the button, rather than having to through numerous menus on the touchscreen. Read more »