Chupa, a top marketplace for getting and selling supply code and components for Mobile Development, is giving away class="xn-money">ten thousand dollars in prizes in the Chupa 10K Developer Competition.Powered by Amazon and backed by international sponsors such as Airpush, Photo Cloud, Magic Solver, Nexmo, Appannie, Bugsense and Mashape, the grand prize is valued at class="xn-money">$ 6500, and runner-up prizes valued at class="xn-money">$ 3,000 and class="xn-money">$ 1,000 respectively. href="http://www.appcraver.com/app-news/chupa-to-give-away-10k-in-worldwide-mobile-programming-contest-entries-now-accepted/" class="more-link">(far more…)

AppCraver | iPhone Apps, iPad Apps and iPod Touch Apps

On many occasions I have seen individuals ask for an application that will back up SMS messages to e-mail. A new app on the marketplace from Value Apps called Text Message Backup does specifically that, and it couldn’t be simpler to use. Basically install the app, enter your e-mail address, and save. As soon as enabled, all incoming and outgoing SMS messages will be backed up by way of email, so even if you lose your BlackBerry, you won’t miss a text. All BlackBerry smartphones are supported, which includes the new BlackBerry 7 devices. You can pick up Text Message Backup for $ 1.99 in the CrackBerry store or in BlackBerry App Globe.

Contest: Value Apps has given us 40 free copies of Text Message Backup to pass on to you guys this week! To enter, leave a comment below. 1 entry per individual please, and the contest ends Sunday at midnight PST. If you prefer to not try your luck with the contest, you can pick up Text Message Backup for 50% off in the CrackBerry store with coupon code CB99TMB. (Should purchase on device for the code to function.)

More details and to obtain Text Message Backup from the CrackBerry store
Far more info and to purchase Text Message Backup from BlackBerry App Globe

CrackBerry.com‘s feed sponsored by ShopCrackBerry.com. Contest: We have 40 no cost copies of Text Message Backup to give away!

CrackBerry.com blogs

I am a huge fan of mobile software and appreciate all of the hard work that developers put into their applications. I received an email from Paul Hinrichsen regarding a project he has been working on in his spare time for quite a while now. GPS navigation is fantastic on Nokia devices and Paul is working to bring indoor navigation to the platform with his current target being the monstrous Mall of America location in Minnesota. The Mall of America has over hundreds of stores so you can imagine why you need help getting around the place.

I do not live near there so I can’t help Paul test out his application in real-life situations. He is particularly interested in seeing how it works with the Nokia Astound. If there are any Nokia Experts readers in Minnesota or who play to visit the Mall of America, please read below and consider helping give feedback to Paul on his application.

I developed a liking for Flash Lite programming and this has since become my hobby. My particular interest lies with the problems of indoor navigation. I entered an indoor navigation app in the Nokia Calling all Innovators Africa competition in 2009 and came 10th out of 125 entries. This app did not provide turn-by-turn directions along the shortest route but simply static map graphics for a 4-level mall having 320 stores.

I have since developed an indoor navigation app targeted at the Mall of America (4-levels and 520+ stores). The app provides turn-by-turn directions along the shortest route as well as reporting on the distances to walk for each leg of the journey – rather like your motor car gps. I haven’t added voice but this will be the next upgrade to the app. Also – being man-alone I don’t have the expertise to research mobile device tracking in an indoor environment so to locate themselves the user simply enters the name of a store at their location. Glad to see though that Nokia are developing a dynamic tracking system. Hoping to one day hook into their technology.

Having developed this in South Africa I haven’t had the opportunity to test it in the Mall itself – however I have confidence in my construction. I don’t claim it will bring you right to the very door of the store that you are seeking but it will bring you close enough to see the store front. I am DESPERATELY looking for someone to test the app in the Mall. I have contacted the Mall itself but they seem rather closed-minded and are not even interested to look at it since it is a “third party app”. I am not necessarily asking you to test the app as I am certain you are very busy and you are probably nowhere near Bloomington Minnesota.

You can find his application for free in the Ovi Store and if you do get a chance to try it out, please leave a review with feedback on its performance. Here are a couple videos so you can see how it works.

Nokia Experts

Want to win a free copy of Fancy Widgets? We have 30 copies to give away! Details below.

Welcome to this week’s BlackBerry App Roundup! This week we have 30 copies of Fancy Widgets to give away! We have searched high and low and found some neat apps to share with you this week, so head on past the break to check them out and enter the contest! If you have an app you want to see featured in the roundup be sure to check the end of the post for information on submitting it to us.

read more

CrackBerry.com‘s feed sponsored by ShopCrackBerry.com. BlackBerry App Roundup for June 24, 2011 – 30 copies of Fancy Widgets to give away!

CrackBerry.com blogs

There has been a lot of uncertainty about the DROID Bionic. It was a much-anticipated phone, and then there was rumbling that it might never see the light of day. The most recent rumors were that it would make an appearance, but might not be exactly the phone we wanted. Sadly, we still don’t know MUCH for certain, but Motorola did promise us all via Twitter today that there will, definitely, be a phone released that they deem worth of the Bionic name.

Hang tight, DROID Bionic is coming and slated for summer release. Our team is working on some new updates

We just saw the first day of Summer, so they have approximately three months to finish up their updates and bring the phone to market, if this promise rings true. And I, for one, eagerly await more info! Leave us your thoughts in the comments, and we’ll bring you more news as soon as it comes to light.

Motorola: “DROID Bionic is Still Coming, Don’t Give Up Hope!”

Android News, Rumours, and Updates

We have 25 copies of Labyrinth 2 by BerryBlowApps to give away! Keep reading to find out how to win!

Welcome to this week’s BlackBerry App Roundup! We have searched high and low and found some neat apps to share with you this week, so head on past the break to check them out! If you have an app you want to see featured in the roundup be sure to check the end of the post for information on submitting it to us.This week we have 25 copies of Labyrinth 2 by BerryBlowApps to give away! Keep reading for details on how to enter and check out the other contests running this week on the blogs and be sure to enter to win them on their respective posts. To everyone in the United States, have a safe and fun Memorial Day weekend! Don’t forget your sunblock.

read more

CrackBerry.com‘s feed sponsored by ShopCrackBerry.com. BlackBerry App Roundup for May 27, 2011 – We have 25 copies of Labyrinth 2 to give away! Happy Memorial Day!

CrackBerry.com blogs

We all like to experience the finer things in life once in a while and Louis Vuitton has long been known as a leader in that category. Now you can put LV on your BlackBerry 9650/9700/9780 running BlackBerry 6 with Louis Vuitton for Him and Her from BBin. Hot LV icons and wallpapers throughout, a custom font, and new notification icons all tie together to make this a fabulous theme. Louis Vuitton is available for $2.99 in the CrackBerry store. (There are versions for the BlackBerry Torch available as well.)

Contest: BBin has given us 25 copies of each version of Louis Vuitton to pass on to you. To enter, leave a comment below telling us which version you want. One entry per person, contest ends this Sunday at Midnight. Good Luck!

Note: This contest is only for those running BB6 on their 480×360 device. 

For more information/video and to purchase Louis Vuitton for HER
For more information/video and to purchase Louis Vuitton for HIM

CrackBerry.com‘s feed sponsored by ShopCrackBerry.com. Louis Vuitton by BBin now available for devices running BlackBerry 6 – 50 copies to give away!

View full post on CrackBerry.com blogs

Sprint spoke out recently about the Froyo updates for their devices that are still awaiting it, and they have made similar statements via Twitter. So it’s not surprising that they have an internal document that has basically the same bullet points. It seems like they are distributing this to agents in their stores and at their call centers to use for an answer to the “When I will I get the 2.2 update on my phone” question. The standard response will be the usual company lines of “Sprint works closely with our manufacturing partners to deliver updates,” and “We bring software updates to our customers as quickly as possible.” Clearly Sprint is trying to reinforce the exact same message on every front.

While this answer may not be what customers want to hear, at least Sprint is addressing the issue head-on after months of silence. The document states that the update will be announced when it is ready directly from Sprint, and that the Epic 4G, the Transform, and Sanyo Zio are all being prepped for update. Stay tuned, and we’ll bring you that information the day it’s available.

Sprint’s Official Answer for Techs to Give on the “Where’s Froyo” Question

View full post on Android News, Rumours, and Updates

We’re geeks. We love giving geeky, technology-related gifts. We don’t (always) like being the default technical support for said gifts.  If you’re familiar with the “For Dummies” series of books, then you might just have an out on the tech support this holiday season with a subscription to “Tech Support For Dummies.”

I was sent a wrapped package with Alka-Seltzer pack attached to the ribbon. On opening the package, there was an Asus netbook with a flash drive – the instructions were to play the PowerPoint slide show and enjoy the music. The problem: the sound didn’t work. The next step was to call Tech Support for Dummies, give them my special code, get the problem fixed, and blog about the experience.

Why Alka-Seltzer? Because Tech Support for Dummies would solve my problem without any heartburn…well, before calling I could see what the problem was so I enlisted the help of my wife (who was very eager to try out a netbook). She called the number and gave the (first) person the special code. Charlie was very helpful even in the midst of struggling to find out who the account was registered to…which did take some time.

My wife was put on hold for a couple minutes and then registered. She was put on hold again before being transferred to another person. This person took some basic info and started working to resolve the issue. The first thing that the second-level person wanted was to take remote control of the computer. However, with the instructions I was given, the netbook was not attached to any network when the she called.

The person worked through the script and then struggled to figure out the problem without having a network connection. He pushed a couple of times for them to stop troubleshooting the sound problem so that the network could be set up. My wife played along saying “I think we have a Lexus router” (really a Linksys router) and finally said it was not going to be possible to set up the network.

The problem did get resolved and the person was very helpful (although he never once got my wife’s name right). Once the reason for the call was resolved, he again pushed to get the network set up and their remote control app installed. My wife declined.

I ran a stop-watch from the moment she called until she hung up. It took twenty-three minutes. How did those twenty-three minutes break down?

• six non-consecutive minutes getting registered
• seven non-consecutive minutes on hold
• ten minutes troubleshooting and resolving the issue (including attempting to get the remote control app installed)

My wife thought the two people she worked with were helpful and pleasant.

As a test, I disabled the sound again on the netbook and she Googled a fix. The Google search, the reading, and the trying out the resolution took five minutes. My guess is that the support analyst would have also taken about five minutes to resolve the issue if he had been able to follow his script (including not having to install the remote control application).

Our overall thoughts… Tech Support for Dummies was helpful, the people were nice that she spoke to and they did flex to the situation. My impression is that they might be a good back-up or additional gift if you’re giving a less-than-technical person a gadget this holiday season. Tech Support for Dummies supports a wide range of devices/items/software that include:

• PCs and Laptops and peripherals
• eReaders, mp3 players, digital cameras, and game systems
• operating systems
• Internet connectivity and home network hardware
• security devices and software

For the holiday season, they are running a special. If you go to Tech Support for Dummies and enter the code of “HOLIDAY CHEER”, you get unlimited 24×7 phone support for three months for $19.99 (usually a nearly $45 cost if purchasing three months at the regular $14.95/mo). $20 may just be the sanity-saving factor for your own holiday season.

Wired: nice, helpful support staff; 24×7 phone support; decent holiday price promotion for their service.

Tired: the push to have a remote control app installed on the device.

View full post on GeekDad

We’re all about giving today: Zuck’s giving away his virtual fortune, Costco’s giving up Apple products, Apple’s trying to give Steve Jobs a small check, and Chinese housewives are trying to give the gift of black market iPads.

View full post on Macworld

In light of recent situations with Tony Parker, MBLware, the makers of BlackBook 3 have decided we needed to have a contest to give away 50 copies of their app. For those of you out there unaware of what the BlackBook 3 does.

BlackBook 3, will keep your private information such as your contacts, calls, and messages away from prying eyes with BlackBook’s hidden contact list. Sensitive contacts and messages stay completely hidden on your phone.

Something that Tony Parker, Tiger Woods and many other celebs out there could make use of apparently. That said, if Tiger or Tony wants to hit MBLWare or us up for a free copy we’ll gladly to accommodate the situation, although it seems they may have waited too long. For all you CrackBerry readers out there though, you’ll need to enter the contest as per normal. Just leave a comment here, on this post and we’ll pick 50 of you all to win a free copy of BlackBook 3 on the house. Just in case you can’t wait, BlackBook 3 is available now for only $1.99.

• Click Here To Learn More And Purchase BlackBook 3 For Your BlackBerry smartphone>>

CrackBerry.com‘s feed sponsored by ShopCrackBerry.com. BlackBook 3 give away – Win 1 of 50 copies, we even got a copy for Tony Parker!

View full post on CrackBerry.com blogs

Most of us, when we’re grateful for something, say “thank you” like our parents taught us to. If we’re really grateful (or our parents were particularly good at training us) then we’ll even send a thank-you note. Dallas Clayton, in a particularly grateful mood, decided to write a book about it.

You may remember Clayton as the author of An Awesome Book. It’s a book he originally wrote for his son and when he decided to self-publish it, it really took on a life of its own. It even changed Clayton’s life: he formed the Awesome World Foundation and decided to give away a copy of his book for each one sold, traveling around the country and giving away books. It’s a fun and inspiring story, and at the heart of it is Clayton’s childlike wonder and appreciation for both the big and the little things in life.

An Awesome Book of Thanks! is Clayton’s thank-you note to all the people who bought his first book, the people who read it, the things that inspired it, people he hasn’t even met yet. It’s full of fun drawings and a poem about giving thanks, and is equal parts sincere and silly. This time around Clayton was picked up by Amazon Encore, a new program to find and promote “exceptional yet overlooked books,” and I think this is the first kids’ book in the program. Like his first, it’s a lot of fun to read out loud and his drawings are filled with oodles of tiny details that you and your kids would have fun exploring. It’s also a bit longer than An Awesome Book, though still short enough to make a good bedtime story.

The whole book is a lot of fun, but here’s a page that’s one of my personal favorites:

"And thanks for books to fill my brain." Can I get an "amen"?

You can read the entire book online at Clayton’s website, and watch this very goofy video he made about the book.

An Awesome Book of Thanks! from Dallas Clayton on Vimeo.

Disclosure: GeekDad received an advance reader’s copy of the book for review.

View full post on GeekDad

Just for fun, put a little fur (or fin) in your photos with Picture Perfect Animals, a photo app that lets you frame your subject alongside a variety of selected animals. This iPhone app by MilkDrinkingCow, is a different, but whimsical kind of photography app that allows you to create photos with animals. Choose from 60 different animals in air, water, or on land and frame your subject to be silly or serious.

With Picture Perfect Animals you can create comical photos of people doing impossible things, like kissing a lion, high-fiving a panda, or holding a humming bird. Rather than editing in an animal, Picture Perfect Animals puts the animal on screen before you take the picture. While it’s not much use for pictures already on your camera roll, it does make creating new photos fun. (…)
Read the rest of Give in to Your Animal Instinct with Picture Perfect Animals

All App Reviews © AppCraver.com, 2010. |
Give in to Your Animal Instinct with Picture Perfect Animals | Best iPad Apps | Best Free Apps

View full post on AppCraver

Nokia and AT&T Give Developers 10 Million Reasons to Create Apps
SAN FRANCISCO, September 23, 2010 — Calling All Innovators Contest Highlights Mobile Content for North America Developers now have 10 million more reasons to create their next great app on Nokia smartphones. Nokia (NYSE:NOK) and AT&T* announced today an unprecedented developer contest with USD 10 million in cash and prizes. Winning applications are selected by Nokia, AT&T and, for the first …

Read more on ThomasNet

A couple of weeks ago, I featured Belicious in the weekly Theme Roundup, and Alex from Ahaz tipped me off to another of his themes, Black Out. Both themes are clean and great-looking, chock full of custom work. If you want to read a little more on Belicious, catch my original write up here. Where Belicious is geared toward the female audience, Black Out is one for the boys, featuring a fully skinned "blacked-out" look that’s easy on the eyes. I particularly love the message lists, which are fully black with a light focus. The theme includes a full set of custom white icons, which show extremely well against the dark background.Simple and straightforward, the main addition to the homescreen’s function is a hideable weather slot that is controlled via hotkeys.Both are available in the CB store for $2.99 each for multiple devices including the Storm, Bold and Curve series.

Contest: We have 30 copies of these themes to give away, the winner gets their pick of which one they want! Just leave a comment on this post to enter. Contest ends this Sunday at Midnight PST. Please only leave one comment, multiple entries wont count. 

• More information and purchase of Black Out>>
• More information and purchase of Belicious>>

CrackBerry.com‘s feed sponsored by ShopCrackBerry.com. Give your BlackBerry a sense of style with Black Out or Belicious from Ahaz Designs – 30 free themes up for grabs!

View full post on CrackBerry.com blogs

Ever wish you could just call up some Adobe product managers and pick their brains with all sorts of questions on Flash and Air? Well you still can’t do that, but what you can do is ask those questions in our comments.

Adobe is hosting an Android summit in San Francisco on August 16th and have invited TalkAndroid to attend. Besides the topics of Flash 10.1 and Air, they will also be talking about Google TV and a bit of gaming as well.

So if you have some questions you’d like answered (Adobe / Android related) then feel free to post them in the comments and we’ll try to get them answered for you.

Adobe Android Summit on 8/16, we’re going… Give us your questions!

View full post on Google Android News Android Forums

Ever feel like something was missing from your native Android launcher? If you are like me and you did feel this way, please read on as we review the best damn home-screen launcher replacement out there: LauncherPro! LauncherPro (for 2.x handsets only) is a simple and stylish Android launcher replacement. It really does everything the native 3-D launcher should have done from the beginning.  Put simply, LauncherPro is the most effective launcher that has the most options on the Android platform. It makes your home screen so much better.

If you have used ADW.Launcher or even Helix Launcher in the past you will be familiar with the way that LauncherPro looks. There is a four icon “dock” at the bottom of the screen, with contacts, browser, phone and messaging app’s icons.  While these may look generic at first, not to fear, they are changeable with a long press of the icon.  You can replace each with whatever application or shortcut you choose. Pretty sweet!I should also mention that the dock itself is also customizable.  Total, you can have up to 3 docks that you can swipe through at the bottom of the screen. A truly great and useful feature.

Swiping between screens is also a real breeze.  Overall it is fast and fluid.  The scrolling is as smooth as scrolling through your contacts; there are barely ever any hiccups and it works well. When you are in the launcher and hit the back button, the launcher icons “fly-out” and you return to your home screen.  It is all extremely fast.  Personally, I think Google really should buy these guys.  Seriously.

Overall,  LauncherPro is a slamdunk. There is actually so much more to say, but we have to limit the size of the post. If not, I could write forever.  To help users we have even listed some of the best features below.

Best Features

• smooth home screen sliding
• up to 7 home screens
• fast 3-D Launcher
• HTC Sense “helicopter view” by clicking on the home button
• Customizable icons and dock
• Scrollable widgets(don’t even ask HTC Sense widgets will not work)
• LauncherPro Plus Calendar, People, and Bookmark Widgets (more to be added later)
• Home-screen back up and so many options we can’t even name

If I were you and had not tried LauncherPro, you can use this link to install it. The regular version is free and the plus version is $2.99.  Both are well worth it!

NOTE: App Review: Give Your Homescreen Speed and Style With LauncherPro originally appeared on AndroidGuys.

View full post on AndroidGuys

The new deluxe Star Wars AT-AT from Hasbro makes me envious of my kids. No, that’s not quite accurate: it makes the eight-year-old me, the one from 1981, pop up suddenly and want desperately to play with it.

See, I had a lot of Star Wars toys. If it wasn’t an obsession, it was at least around the corner from obsession. And one of the sets, probably my favorite after the Dagobah one, was the Hoth Ice Planet Adventure Set. Even at that age I could tell that the terrain was an exact copy of the Tatooine set from the first movie (you know which movie I mean), only white — they hadn’t even bothered to get rid of the Sandcrawler tracks. But the cardboard AT-AT that formed the back of the playset was so cool: I mean, it had an elevator that you could use to move characters up into the AT-AT and back down. It even had windows where the characters could look out.

And compared to the new AT-AT that got delivered to my house a while ago, that old playset is as a TRS-80 to a Cray CX1, as William Hartnell to Matt Smith, as … you get the picture. The new AT-AT is gorgeous, with hatches everywhere, a winch to pull figures up the sides, a separate line to allow an action figure to mimic Luke’s lightsaber-grenade move, and even a speeder bike that comes out the back. And it has sound effects: a grinding clank-clank sound for movement, your basic pew-pew of the blasters firing, and lots of voices, from the AT-AT driver to Darth Vader himself.

Should you have any doubts about its playworthiness, see the above video I shot of my kids playing with it.

Hasbro’s Star Wars Deluxe AT-AT Vehicle retails for $108.99.

Wired: Just awesome. The only thing it’s missing is remote-control ability, and that might actually make it worse (I’m a big fan of hands-on toys).

Tired: Apart from the price tag, the only thing I don’t like about it is that it didn’t come out thirty years ago.

View full post on GeekDad

The CrackBerry Idol top 10 has been hard at work on their accessory reviews for the last week. They had some late nights and sore fingers and churned out some great stuff. We have a load of great reviews on the way, and starting today we’ll be posting one each day for you to check out. After all the reviews are posted we’ll once again be narrowing down the field to see who moves on. Watch each one as they are posted and then think about who did the best job. We’ll be asking for your votes as we did in the last round, so it’s ultimately up to you who will be crowned CrackBerry Idol. Stay tuned for all the reviews!

CrackBerry.com‘s feed sponsored by ShopCrackBerry.com. CrackBerry Idol back in action! For Round 2 the top 10 give us their accessory reviews

View full post on CrackBerry.com blogs

We just got word that QuickLaunch 3.0 is now available for all Storm devices. Unfortunately it’s not quite ready for trackball/trackpad devices just yet, but should available very soon. The new version includes a slew of new updates that continue to make QuickLaunch on the of the top apps for BlackBerry. Features of version 3.0 include:

• Border size – you can now speciry the border size of the menu to be the default size or ‘minimum’
  
• Background color – in addition to being able to set images for the menu background you can now specify a color
• Scheduled reboots – set a specific time of day to automatically reboot your device
  
• Larger font option – added a new font size option ‘Larger’. easier to read and select menu items
  
• Support for Lister, Pandora, Slacker, iHeartRadio
  
• Password toggle shortcut – toggle your device password setting on or off
  
• Opera Mini url launch support – you can now launch websites using either the bb native browser or Opera Mini

These are just some of the new features so head check out QuickLaunch in the CrackBerry App Store for a full list of whats new. Version 3.0 is available for $4.99, while anyone that purchased before February 1st of this year can snag it for $1.99. Hit the link below for more.

Contest: We have 25 copies of QuickLaunch 3.0 for the Storm to give away. Keep in mind this is not for trackball/trackpad devices (we’ll give that away upon release). Just leave a single comment to enter. Contest ends this Sunday at midnight PDT.

• More information/download of QuickLanch 3.0 for Storm >>

CrackBerry.com‘s feed sponsored by ShopCrackBerry.com. QuickLaunch 3.0 now available for Storm devices – 25 copies to give away!

View full post on CrackBerry.com blogs

Product: View Finders

Manufacturer: Roundup:

Wired Rating: 0

Forgot where you snapped that pic of a giant green French lady hoisting a torch? You need a GPS-enabled camera. We took the four newest models for a test drive.

1. Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX5V

If not for the picture of a satellite on the side, you’d never guess this camera is location-aware — the GPS functions are buried that deep in the menus. But once we activated them, the 10.2-megapixel HX5V geotagged our sharp shots with sniperlike accuracy.

WIRED Sweep Panorama mode intelligently captures oversize subjects — you know, the Grand Canyon, LeBron James. Just press the shutter and sweep the camera across the vista. Records 1080p video with stereo sound. GPS automatically sets the clock. Digital compass.

TIRED GPS signal defeated by buildings and overhanging trees. Doesn’t display nearby place-names or points of interest during playback. Confusing menus. $350, sony.com

2. Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS7

The ZS7 not only embeds latitude and longitude data in your shots, it also displays city, state, and country — along with points of interest — right on the 3-inch LCD. Too bad it’s sometimes a step behind: When we were taking night shots of the East River in Queens, the ZS7 thought we were still in a Brooklyn park we had visited earlier. It had the best image quality of the batch, though, capturing crisp photos with bold, natural color.

WIRED Embeds location data in HD video, too. Fastest cam tested — blazing autofocus, no shutter lag. Landmark library spans 73 countries. 300-shot battery life.

TIRED Misidentified some points of interest. If you don’t reset the GPS, you get info from your last trip. Lots of menu-digging to activate GPS. $399, panasonic.com

3. Leica V-Lux 20

The main difference between this camera and the Panasonic ZS7 is the price: That red dot on the handgrip commands a $300 premium. Otherwise, the specs are almost identical: 12.1-MP sensor, 12X optical zoom, even built-in GPS that sometimes gets confused. On a positive note, the V-Lux 20 matched the superior image quality of the ZS7; on a sour note, it was a second (or two) slower on the draw. But maybe your subjects will be so dazzled by the Leica logo that they’ll hold their poses indefinitely.

WIRED Ships with Adobe Photoshop Elements 8. Snazzy all-black design.

TIRED Took up to a minute to initially locate GPS signal. Records 720p HD video in Motion JPEG format, which produces larger file sizes. Slightly bigger body than the ZS7. $699, leica.com

4. Samsung HZ35W

Is Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs in Kyrgyzstan? This 12-MP Samsung thought so, placing Coney Island’s culinary landmark in Central Asia. Luckily, iPhoto was able to decode the cam’s location-babble and tag the imported photos correctly. Even so, this chunky rig had the best GPS controls of the group, including a topside activation switch and a Map View mode to pinpoint your whereabouts on the 3-inch screen. Unfortunately our pictures suffered from oversaturated color and blurry edge detail.

WIRED 15X optical zoom pulls back as wide as 24 mm. Map View highlights nearby Starbucks cafè9s and BofA ATMs.

TIRED Map View maps must be downloaded from Samsung Web site and stored on the memory card. Slowest shooter in test. $349, samsung.com

View full post on Wired Product Reviews

Telstra is rounding out its Android library with the introduction of two new entry-level phones in the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini and HTC Wildfire. Not surprising considering they already play host to what could be considered the respective elders of each of these handsets, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 and HTC Desire. The X10 Mini Pro will be available in early August at an unspecified price, though chances are it will be free on some contracts.

The Widlfire doesn’t have any details to go with it concerning pricing or release date, but expect it in the late summer/early fall at the latest. Again, this one should be offered at a fairly reasonable price considering Telstra’s tendency to hand phones out for free on contract.

[via Unwired View]

View full post on Android Phone Fans

By now you should all know about the SlingPlayer Mobile App that was released on the 21st.

What you may not know is that TalkAndroid is currently conducting a review on the app and thanks to SlingMedia, is giving away three copies of the SlingPlayer Mobile app to our faithful TalkAndroid readers!

For full details on the rules and regulations of the contest, check out the official forum post

For more information on Android and the current Android mobile phones, check out our Android Guides

SlingPlayer Mobile App Give Away!

View full post on Google Android News Android Forums

Sencha Touch, the new mobile-website framework, shows off its multidevice mojo.

Apple’s campaign to make native mobile apps seem sexier than the temperamental world of the mobile browser has been very successful. Tens of thousands of developers have been lured to the company’s App Store as a result.

However, the rapid rise of a number of impressive client-side JavaScript frameworks make it possible to build cross-platform, fast and lightweight mobile applications that run in the browser and, in some cases, equal the functionality of native apps.

Since these frameworks deliver content through the browser, there are no bizarre App Store approval processes or installer packages to contend with, and you really can “write once, run anywhere.” Any mobile operating system with a modern browser is game — iOS, Android, WebOS, it doesn’t matter.

Sure, for most games and animation-heavy apps, native is still the way to go. But for all other kinds of content, even complex stuff like maps and videos, the mobile web may be the better choice.

The latest entry into the mobile-framework field is Sencha Touch, brought to you by the same people that created Ext JS, jQTouch and Raphael, all of which have been combined under the name Sencha.

Sencha Touch, released this week, bills itself as “the first HTML5 framework for mobile devices,” which isn’t quite true. Several other mobile frameworks make use of HTML5 APIs like offline storage, or companion APIs like geolocation. But Sencha is nevertheless well worth a look if you’re thinking of building a cross-platform mobile app.

Sencha offers built-in support for the geolocation API and the offline storage API, and takes advantage of CSS 3 for smaller, image-less design elements. Because all the major mobile platforms — iOS, Android and WebOS — use similar WebKit-based browsers, there’s little to worry about when it comes to support for cutting edge features like HTML5 and CSS 3. Even when Firefox arrives on mobiles, you should expect support to be on par.

Sencha has some demos available if you’d like to see what’s possible. The GeoCongress demo makes use of the geolocation API to find out where you are and then show a list of your senators and representative. There’s also a very slick Solitaire demo that shows how to preserve an app’s state using the HTML5 local storage API.

The Sencha Touch code is available under a GPLv3 license. If you’d like to experiment with the code, head over to the new Sencha Touch site and grab a copy.

If Sencha Touch doesn’t cover all your bases, there are several other frameworks out there that do similar things. Although not specifically geared to mobile-web apps, SproutCore can be used to create lightning-fast mobile-web apps.

SproutCore generated quite a bit of interest a few years ago, when Apple incorporated it into the company’s MobileMe tools like iWork.com. It’s also the framework behind Kiva’s Loan Browser tool.

If you’re used to jQuery-style JavaScript, SproutCore will look a bit strange at first. Like server-side frameworks such as Rails and Django, SproutCore is based on the model-view-controller (“MVC”) paradigm. As with other frameworks in this category, SproutCore cuts down on latency by moving business logic to the client, but in keeping the MVC pattern of server-side frameworks, SproutCore should make developers feel right at home.

On the downside, SproutCore does not degrade at all. If anyone shows up to your mobile site with JavaScript disabled, they’ll see a blank page. SproutCore also lacks support for WAI-ARIA, which means it doesn’t offer much in the way of accessibility tools.

SproutCore is written in Ruby. You can grab a copy from the SproutCore site, or install it as Ruby “gem.”

Another possibility is iWebKit, which offers many of the same features you’ll find in other frameworks, but puts more emphasis on Apple’s mobile devices. Unfortunately, while most iWebKit apps will work just fine in Android, the built-in UI elements are clearly iPhone-specific.

Like the others iWebKit is customizable. You can always dive into the CSS files and tweak things to your liking (though doing so may call in to question the benefit of using a framework in the first place).

Another framework worth noting is Apple’s own PastryKit. Although PastryKit’s UI isn’t cross-platform, it does have some nice tools for iPhone-specific web apps. Keep in mind, though, that PastryKit is not officially documented. Daring Fireball has a nice video overview, and developer David Calhoun has dug a bit deeper into how PastryKit works.

Before you rush off to develop a mobile-web app, it’s worth pointing out that there are definitely some significant advantages to native apps — whether its on iOS or Android. Native apps have access to lower-level system tools (in the iPhone’s case, that means stuff like the accelerometer, gyroscope and more). If your apps need those tools, then by all means, use native code.

If you’re not writing an app that makes heavy use of platform tools, the web is a viable option. And, thanks to frameworks like Sencha Touch, SproutCore and iWebKit, building a cross-platform mobile-web app doesn’t have to be a Herculean task.

See Also:

• All of Webmonkey’s mobile coverage
• All mobile-phone coverage at Wired’s Gadget Lab
• Early Version of Firefox Lands on Android Phones
• Build an iPhone-Optimized Website with iUI

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