10Jan

The Phantom Menace: Is Your Windows Phone 7 Device Sending Out ‘Phantom Data’?

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The jury is still out as to whether or not 2011 will be the year of “traitorware,” but so far it seems to be the year, at least from Microsoft‘s point of view, of “phantom data.” For some unknown reason several message boarders have started to complain that their Windows Phone 7 phones are automatically sending out anywhere from 30MB-50MB of data every single day. That could be problematic if you’re working with a relatively tiny data cap.

Microsoft has said that it’s currently checking into why this is occurring, which is exactly the response concerned users should have hoped for. At least Microsoft didn’t say something along the lines of, “We’re currently unaware of any ‘phantom data’ allegations, must be user error.”

Of course, people are speculating all over the place as to what could be causing phones to send out so much data. The big guess right now is that the phones are “phoning home” to Microsoft, sending information about phone performance at the like back to Microsoft HQ. You don’t want your gadgets phoning home without fair warning, particularly if you’re on a data cap.

But yes, Microsoft is investigating, which is all you can ask for right now.

Followed by a fix, of course!



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07Jan

Videos: Sony’s Playstation Phone Demonstrated Exhaustively

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At this point, Sony’s as-of-yet unannounced Playstation Phone (or whatever it’ll end up being called) might just be the worst kept secret in recent history. We’ve seen spy shots; we’ve heard hands-on reports.

And now, we’ve got a big ol’ whopping set of hands on videos, demonstrating everything from game performance to the (Chinese) menu system. You can check’em out over at Chinese tech site IT168, but they’re buried a bit deep in a sea of characters that even Google Translate seems to be having trouble with; fortunately, the guys over at Gizmodo were kind enough to rip the clips and put’em in a more navigable view.



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07Jan

[CES 2011] LG Revolution a new LTE Android phone form LG

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Available via the US Verizon carrier, the LG Revolution is a GR LTE or Long Term Evolution Android 2.2 Phone with a stunning 4.3” touchscreen and tethering mode supporting up to eight Wi-Fi devices. This device is also DLNA compliant comes with a 5Mpix camera mode, 16GB of internal memory HDMI-out and is powered by a unknown LG proprietary CPU that deliver enough power to kick some serious as to any Snapdragon powered devices out here.

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06Jan

Hands-On Video: LG’s First Verizon 4G Phone, The Revolution

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There’s only so much we can say about the just-announced LG Revolution, given that Verizon’s still staying mum on the pricing and release date (outside of “sometime before the second half of 2011″). With that said, one thing’s for sure: as I am with all of the 4G Android phones Verizon has announced this week, I’m pretty sure I’m in love.

  • This is the only one Verizon was letting anyone actually touch this evening — a bit odd, as this one was probably the chunkiest of the bunch.
  • It’s a bit thick. Now, it’s no Zach Morris phone — but after a few months of holding supermodel-thin handsets like the EVO and the Droid X, the LG Revolution feels a bit on the hefty side.
  • Of the three announced today (The Revolution, the HTC Thunderbolt, and Samsung’s currently unnamed 4G handset), this one is perhaps the least visually striking. The Thunderbolt has the crazy speaker-hidden-under-a-kickstand thing, and the Samsung 4G handset at least has some curves. The Revolution is just very.. plain.
  • On the upside, the Revolution seemed to run like butter. There didn’t seem to be an ounce of lag, even in this early development stage. There was a slight hang up getting the NFL Mobile app to recognize that we were trying to click on videos — but once it did, they started streaming in almost instantly.

LG Back
LG Front
LG Left
LG Right



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05Jan

Highlights from Microsoft’s CES Keynote: Windows Phone 7 edition

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I know that most of you can’t bring yourself to sit through the hour of power that is now available online, or just can’t stand the hype music that CES keynotes bring (I know I can’t), so I’ve condensed and brought to you all the Windows Phone 7 highlights from Microsoft’s keynote in handy blog post form. Nice of me, eh?

Microsoft are clearly choosing an entertainment spin on Windows Phone 7 at the moment (also reflected by their upcoming Mango update sitting in the “entertainment” code branch), and, as such, the keynote focussed on this aspect, looking heavily toward Xbox Live integration.

The first interesting announcement from Big-B Ballmer is that Fable is coming to Windows Phone 7… in the form of golf. The game will be called Fable Coin Golf, and the neatest feature of it is that all gold earned in the game will be immediately available to your Fable III character on your Xbox 360.

This was shortly followed up by a video showing off some of the games coming soon/available on Windows Phone. The list includes (in order of appearance):

  • Rise of Glory
  • Full House Poker
  • Zombies!!!
  • Pac-Man
  • Fable Coin Golf
  • Halo Waypoint
  • Fruit Ninja
  • DeBlob Revolution
  • Parachute Panic
  • Tetris
  • Game room: Centipede
  • Game room: Shao Lin’s Road
  • Game room: Asteroids Deluxe
  • Assassin’s Creed
  • Monopoly
  • Pocket God
  • Zombie Attack! 2
  • Butterfly
  • PES 2011 (Pro Evolution Soccer)
  • The Sims 3
  • Need for Speed Undercover
  • Star Wars: Cantina

They also showed off Avatar Gadgets, which are simple little things that your avatar can do, like flipping a coin.

If you like numbers, Steve also gave us the latest WinPho 7 stats:

  • There are currently around 5,500 apps available on the Marketplace
  • 100 new apps added every 24 hours
  • 22,000 registered developers
  • Most customers are downloading a new app every day
  • 9/10 Windows Phone 7 customers on AT&T would recommend it to a friend

Finally, Steve B-fresh outlined the update that will automatically be pushed to customers soon. As we mentioned yesterday, the update will bring Copy/Paste support, CDMA support, bug fixes, and “significant” performance improvements when opening and switching apps.

The rest of the demo showed of the 7 best features of Windows Phone 7. We’ve seen them all before, but, for the curious, they were:

  1. The dedicated camera button and easy sharing of photos
  2. Interactive lock screen and tiles
  3. Voice search, with location awareness
  4. Dedicated search button and Bing integration
  5. Hubs, including the Office Hub and OneNote support
  6. Apps, including those from Bank of America, Travelocity, Fandango, Amazon.com
  7. Xbox Live, where they showed a demo of Fruit Ninja

And, sadly, that’s really it. No big news on new hardware, or any surprise features coming in Mango. I guess we have to wait until MWC for that info.

But don’t take my word for it, you can watch the whole event here.



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