Microsoft Unveils Windows Phone 7 Global Portfolio (HTC's Windows Phone)

Posted: 11-Oct-2010 [Source: Microsoft]

[The first Windows Phone 7 handsets are promised soon from leading mobile operators.]

Redmond, Wash. -- Microsoft Corp. today joined its partners in revealing nine new Windows Phone 7 handsets that will be available this holiday season from leading mobile operators in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. With more than 60 mobile operators in over 30 countries worldwide committed to bringing Windows Phones to market, the millions of people around the world looking for a phone that plays as hard as it works will have a variety of phones from leading device-makers to choose from.

Learn more about Windows Phone 7

“We have a beautiful lineup in this first wave of Windows Phone 7 handsets,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer at Microsoft. “Microsoft and its partners are delivering a different kind of mobile phone and experience — one that makes everyday tasks faster by getting more done in fewer steps and providing timely information in a ‘glance and go’ format.”

Global Portfolio

Microsoft and its partners have worked together closely to create a different kind of phone with new experiences that bring together what people care about most. Windows Phone 7 will be available in a variety of sleek form factors from device-makers such as Dell, HTC Corp., LG and Samsung, and from mobile operators including América Móvil, AT&T, Deutsche Telekom AG, Movistar, O2, Orange, SFR, SingTel, Telstra, TELUS, T-Mobile USA and Vodafone. All Windows Phone 7 phones will include the high-performance Snapdragon™ processor from Qualcomm. A broad selection of phones will begin shipping in holiday 2010 with more arriving in 2011, including phones from Sprint and Verizon Wireless. In addition, select models will be available at Microsoft Store locations and from Amazon.

Windows Phone 7, Glance and Go

In today’s busy world we are spending more time heads-down on our phones than interacting with the people we’re sitting next to and missing out on important life moments. Windows Phone 7 was designed to deliver a mobile experience that has the phone working better for people, bringing together the things they care about most and helping them to get things done faster.

Windows Phone 7 breaks the current smartphone convention to help people quickly and easily find and consume data, information and services from the Web and applications. The new phones are distinguished by unique design and integrated experiences built from Microsoft’s deep portfolio such as Xbox LIVE, Microsoft Office Mobile, Zune, Windows Live, Bing and more.

For example, the customizable Start screen with Live Tiles is a personal experience, showing people their own content. The Live Tiles come to life with real-time updates from the Web such as news, appointments or the status of friends. New Live Tiles can be easily created from whatever content a consumer wants, such as applications, websites and music.

Fueling New Experiences

Windows Phone 7 marks a new era in mobile gaming as the first phone1 to put the power of Xbox LIVE into the palm of people’s hands with a blockbuster lineup of game titles from award-winning publishers. In addition to the titles already announced earlier this year, Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) today announced the first wave of EA games coming to Windows Phone 7 this fall. As part of Microsoft’s managed portfolio of Xbox LIVE titles, all EA games for Windows Phone 7 will be Xbox LIVE-enabled. EA will deliver a portfolio of titles that offers something for every mobile gamer, from casual to core, including “Need for Speed™ Undercover,” “Tetris®” and “The Sims™ 3.”

Windows Phone 7 is also the first to offer the Zune music experience on a phone: People can play their music collection, synced wirelessly from their PC, or stream or download new tunes from Windows Marketplace. An optional Zune Pass subscription is available.

Search is made easier with a dedicated button to help people find what they need, whether in contacts, in Marketplace, in e-mail or on the Web. From the Start screen, the Search button delivers Bing for mobile, delivering Web results, local information, maps, directions and more.

The Windows Live solution helps people manage pictures, Windows Live calendar, Office OneNote Mobile and more. The free Find My Phone service new on Windows Live can remotely ring, lock, erase and show the location of your phone on a map. Complete information about Windows Phone 7 features and capabilities can be found at http://www.windowsphone.com.

HP Introduces webOS 2.0 (HP's Palm Pre 2)

Posted: 19-Oct-2010 [Source: HP]

[HP announces webOS 2.0 Pre 2 Smartphone and the Palm - first in France early Friday and arrived at Verizon Wireless in the U.S. and Canada in the coming months]

Palo Alto, CA - HP today announced HP webOS 2.0 to transform the most significant update of the platform since its launch in 2009 and an essential step in HP's vision of how people think, feel and connect.

The first device to run webOS 2.0, HP's new Palm Pre 2 smartphone, will be available Friday in France by SFR and is expected to be available in the coming months in the United States by Verizon Wireless and in Canada.

"With webOS 2.0, we advance the innovations we introduced 16 months ago and expands on the features that make webOS great for consumers, businesses and developers," said Jon Rubinstein, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Palm Global Business Unit at HP . "We have tremendous progress since the platform is launched, and now we are among our biggest leap forward with powerful new features that make it easier to do more things with your webOS device."

webOS 2.0 offers consumers compelling application experience on any other platform, while providing developers with an unprecedented degree of openness to integrate their applications and services. The next generation of webOS makes it easier to do more:

* True multitasking - Pause a game, you tap an email notification, check your calendar, write to read a restaurant, answer please e-mail, then go back to the game without closing anything (1.2) webOS allows you to easily manage multiple open applications. and applications using natural touch gestures. New in 2.0 webOS, stacks grouped logically your open applications, so it the way you want to work. Whether you read e-mail or plan a night on the town, keeps stacks of words you together so that the management of multiple tasks is even easier.

* Enter - Create start an e-mail message, update your status, check your favorite sites - all before you even have an app (1) WebOS 2.0, whenever you want something open on your mobile phone -. Whether it's e-mail, SMS, users, or nearly everything - except the type. And you simply open to developers, allowing them to integrate with the search function and add their own user-definable keyboard shortcuts called Quick Actions.

* HP Synergy - webOS was the first mobile OS will seamlessly connect to multiple Web services. With the Synergy feature, you must only to register even to your Facebook, Google, Microsoft ® Exchange, LinkedIn and Yahoo accounts and your information will automatically fill your mobile phone. (3) webOS 2.0 will extend support for Synergy, so that developers can easily plug new messaging, contacts and calendar application sources directly into the core experiences webOS (4).

* Exhibition - A new way to use your webOS phone, you can run exhibition apps specifically for the Palm Touchstone designed cradle, turning charging time in a reasonable time (4.5) Set your phone on the dock and show starts automatically and displays. Something from today's agenda to a slideshow of your Facebook photos. Exhibition allows developers to display aspects of their existing app experience or create specialized applications to be used when searching their webOS device during charging have on the charger.

* Adobe ® Flash Player 10.1 Beta - With version 2.0 webOS now a beta version of Adobe Flash Player 10.1 support in the browser, allowing access to the rich, Flash-based web content (6).

webOS 2.0 includes many new features, including the following:

* Favorites - with WebOS 2.0, you can tag your favorite contacts so they appear as a favorite in telephone and address book views. In the search for them by name, they immediately show at the top of the contacts, e-mail, messaging and phone applications. Favorites make it easy to get in touch too fast.

* Skype ™ Mobile (Verizon Wireless) - Verizon Wireless customers, webOS 2.0 supports Skype-to-Skype calls and messages, while calls in the United States anywhere in the world, and low-rate international landlines and mobile phones.

* Text Assist - webOS 2.0 provides greatly expanded opportunities to check, auto correct magic, setting up and customizing macros in the dictionary.

* Quick Connect Mobile Office Suite - A completely new document viewer from the leading provider of mobile document viewer adds support for Microsoft Office Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents, and enables integration with a variety of services, including Google Docs and Dropbox.

* Facebook 2.0 - 2.0 available on the Palm App Catalog, Facebook is Facebook Chat via Synergy support in the messaging application, (4) and stack status updates via quick-action, and the exhibition feature.

* Browser - The browser offers support for more HTML5 features, including support geolocation. makes OpenSearch plug-in support makes it easy to add your favorite websites Enter Web search.

Messaging - Unified Messaging App webOS 2.0 Yahoo! adds IM and buddy management. Customers can now connect their friends via SMS, MMS, Google Talk, ICQ and Yahoo IM.

* VPN - webOS 2.0 supports the most popular ways to connect to a corporate network, including Cisco IPsec and AnyConnect VPN optimized for mobile devices that use SSL (TLS and DTLS) supported.

* App Catalog - The redesigned Palm app catalog makes finding and discovering great applications even easier (7) and the new software manager helps you keep your apps up-to-date ..

* Launcher - A redesigned App Launcher allows you to add a mark to identify and assign launcher sites.

* Phone - webOS 2.0 phone app you can easily select your favorite and offers reverse lookup area code and Skype Mobile Integration (Skype Mobile for Verizon Wireless only).

* Accounts - the new accounts App provides a central place to manage all your accounts Synergy.

* Bluetooth ® Keyboards - webOS now supports SPP Bluetooth keyboards and peripherals, applications such as barcode readers and object data lockers.

* A variety of developer features - In addition to fair, just type and Synergy APIs adds webOS Node.JS 2.0, enabling developers to create services in JavaScript. Moreover, now with the plug-webOS combine in Development Kit (PDK) C / C + + and web technologies in a single application.

More information on the characteristics of webOS 2.0 software update at www.palm.com / available.

Introduction to Palm PRE 2

HP also introduced the Palm Pre 2 smartphone, the latest development on the Palm Pre lineup. Prior 2 is the first Palm phone with one gigahertz processor and has a 5 megapixel camera, a glass panel and a slim, sleek design that is still the user the perfect combination of a vibrant touch screen and a pull-out keyboard.

More information about Palm Pre 2, including features and specifications is available at www.palm.com/Pre2.

Availability

Palm Pre 2 of which is available with 2.0 webOS Friday in France by SFR and is expected to be available in the coming months in the United States by Verizon Wireless and in Canada. WebOS the 2.0 update will be delivered to existing customers in the coming months, with exact timing to be announced later.

Developers can purchase UMTS versions before two in the United States unlocked as a canvas to the next generation of WebOS applications and services use to build. For more information about the program to purchase available at http://developer.palm.com/devdevices.html.