Das Boot

Here’s a pretty interesting story I stumbled across whilst navigating precariously between the age old dichotomy of online tech journalism and girl on girl porn. Mozilla officially launched their Boot to Gecko mobile OS, which is kinda sorta not a mobile OS at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year.

Boot to Gecko running on a Samsung Galaxy SII

The whole thing is a pretty cool idea indeed and one which holds an intriguing amount of promise. The entire premise is that the OS runs exclusively through the web, like some kind of wonderfully malformed browser accessible through a clean and simplified UI that incorporates all the usual mobile phone jazz such as the dialler, SMS service and contact list.

Also apparently due to a built in API that let's the phone know when a web page goes offline the device itself will remain functional without an internet connection. Just how well this will work is unknown but it'll be interesting to test drive that's for sure.

As I said I think this is a pretty cool move and certainly a unique and interesting take on the current mobile OS ecosystem. With the phone's UI connecting directly to HTML 5 without the need for any kind of intermediary. Mozilla have again succeeded in pioneering open web operation allowing for what essential will be a solid user experience at a lower price that will also no doubt lure the thousands of devs already creating their apps for web use. Mozilla also stated that we're likely to see these phones in Q4 2012 as they announced support deals with Telefonica and Deutsche Telekom.

Anyway, enough of that. Back to porn.

Until next time.

Picture Perfect

41 Megapixels! 41! Megapixels! 41 Mega….I could go on but I won't. It seems a new benchmark has been set for mobile phone camera technology for Finnish giants Nokia have indeed revealed the Nokia 808 Pureview, one of the last smartphones that will be running the veteran Symbian OS.

Now if I'm honest I'm not particularly one for happy-snapping on my mobile phone. Unlike the majority of girls I know, I don't take nine thousand and seven pictures every time I go to the pub on a Saturday (despite it being the same pub and my company consisting of the same congregation booze-addled morons) so that I can upload them onto Facebook and tag each one with disturbingly inane bylines such as 'Look at Gemma flashing her underwear. She's so mental lool.' I'm just not that guy.

But despite this obvious contemptible idiosyncrasy, even I can see that a whopping 41 Megapixels housed in the bosom of my phone is nothing to scoff at. Now unfortunately as nobody reads this blog (I think my mother actually clicked on a link I sent her once but soon lost interest in the endeavor when she found it was in fact penned by her "Timewaster" of a son) there's no chance of me being invited to an event as prestigious as Mobile World Congress. I don't think I'd fit in much anyhow. I'd likely do something retarded like breathe on the back of Steve Ballmer's neck and cause convention-wide panic.

What was my point? Ah yes. My point being that as I'm not invited to these things I haven't had a chance to actually use the Nokia 808 Pureview but from what I've read it doesn't actually take 41 Megapixel images and has a maximum resolution of 38 Megapixels. How this doesn’t instead make it a 38 Megapixel camera I don't know but I'm sure one of you guys will let me know with extreme vitriol and the world noob thrown in for good measure…Oh wait that's right. No one reads this thing.

Anyway the camera all shoots video at 1080p and at 30/fps and it performs a little ditty called 'Oversampling' which works by shoving 7 pixels into one when selecting standard 5 or 8 Megapixel pics. I really do want to hear more about the phones 4-inch 640x360 inch screen to see if it does the 41…no wait…38 Megapixel pics justice. In the rest of the device you'll find a 1.3GHz single-core processor, 512 MB of RAM, 16GB of storage, NFC and a 1,400mAh battery. All of that should suffice considering it's a Symbian device.

Well it's good to see Symbian going out with quite the bang indeed. Will I be picking up one of these bad boys? Almost certainly not but nonetheless I appreciate the leap forward in camera tech. Besides, the majority of my friends are hideously repellant so it's probably better for the world that I keep all pics taken of them within the 5 Megapixel range.

Until next time

Quad Core; You know the score

With Mobile World Congress 2012 in Barcelona well underway, as expected we're seeing a plethora of quad core devices making their way into mobile space. I don't know about you but I'm tiring of the hearing the term 'Quad Core' already. Over the next year it's clear that these powerful chipsets will become the standard for both phone and tablet technology yet I'm am firmly of the belief that it will take more than simply doubling the process power to really win over consumers.

I understand that Android needs more power to function as well as it's competitors simply due to the nature of the beast but if we analyze this brute strength approach we find that maybe this shouldn't be the case. I'm not suggesting for a second that Android phones and tables migrate toward a more closed off ecosystem ala Windows Phone 7 or iOS but if Google were to focus on first providing a clean, reliable user experience across all platforms there would be less need for all the battery-sucking processing power. After all, Less is more.

LG were first to jump on the Dual Core bandwagon way back when and whilst I will admit that the Optimus 2X was a fast and powerful phone I was left more than a little under-whelmed with the device. This is also true for a host of Dual Core mobile phones that were released in the following months. It seemed manufactures had lost all touch with what it actually was that the majority of users wanted in favour of flashy tech, convoluted UI skins and uninspired hardware. As loathe as I am to say it, what sets the likes of Apple, and now Microsoft apart are their philosophies. It's these philosophies that are etched into every facet of their OS' and which appeal to users the world over because they are weaved with love and genuine care.

Although Ice Cream Sandwich is a major leap forward for Google's OS it's still a way away from having any sort of identifiable personality, the sheer power of it's ever evolving processors being the only thing segregating it from it's peers and when it comes down to it, brute strength simply isn't enough. I've been keeping a close eye on the Mobile World Congress coverage so far and everything I've seen is pretty much what I expected. Sure phones are becoming more powerful, screens are more visually impressive and whatever else but if you really dig deep you wouldn’t be remiss for believing that very little had actually changed in the smartphone world.

Damn-asonic!

Crap pun for the title, I know, but leave me be, it's still early in the week. Anywho, this one's just a quick update for you guys. I know this is a blog and not a news site but hell I found this story pretty interesting, if brief. Tech veterans Panasonic are set to make a pretty exciting return to the mobile game with the super-thin Panasonic ELUGA, set to land in Europe in the spring time.

The handset is said to measure a mere 7.8mm thick and sport a 4.3" qHD display, a 1GHz dual core TI OMAP processor, HSPA+ Connectivity, 8GB of memory and an 8MP camera. It's also said to have what is called an IP57-Certified body, supposedly making the device impervious to dust and even liquids.

Now as I'm sure some of you have heard Panasonic were lining up to demo a phone at Mobile World Congress that is rumored to sport LUMIX camera tech under the hood and seeing as the Panasonic ELUGA doesn't even boast a flash it's likely that they'll also release a "high end" phone boasting beefier specs and the aforementioned camera technology. Not to mention it may even be an LTE device considering the trend although that is pure speculation and may not prove true if the device opens with a limited Europe-only release.

With MWC only around the corner, I'm sure we'll find out all this and much more very soon.

Mobile World Congress 2012 Preview

The largest gathering of geeks ever (ComicCon, E3 and Mark Zuckerberg's house parties not withstanding) is about to take place with the 2012 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. From the 27th of February through to the 1st of March, smartphone aficionados everywhere will congregate at the mobile world's largest trade show event in order to get a glimpse at industry's latest offers. Many of these we have of course seen through various leaks courtesy of our old pal the internet and others are expected simply through educated guesses made from an evolutionary standpoint. Here's a run down of what to anticipate from some of the major players in the game.

No Galaxy S3. Cue sad face emoticon. I'm afraid that this much is certain. Sammy have indeed decided not to hold a press conference at MWC this year, a major blow for fans of it's flagship Galaxy S2 device which wowed the world last year. Samsung have said that they will still be introducing new devices but I think we can all agree that this is of little consolation. 

With the Taiwanese giants finally realising that less is indeed more, their 2012 mobile strategy is focused on concentrating on high-end devices instead of cluttering the market with a arbitrary release after arbitrary release, each barely different than it's predecessor with a name twice as daft.

Undoubtedly the most exciting of the expected HTC line-up is the HTC Endeavour. This bad boy is rumoured to be a quad-core Tegra 3 device sporting a 4.7 inch display, 4G LTE connectivity, 1GB of RAM, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 and an incredible 312 ppi display. Now that's a spicy meatball!

Another noteworthy addition is the HTC Quattro tablet, another quad core device sporting a 10.1inch 1280x768 display, 1GB of RAM and 16GB of internal memory. There are also rumours regarding devices thus far known as the HTC Edge, the HTC Zeta, the HTC Ville and the HTC Primo however there hasn't been much in the way of substance regarding these offerings so I guess we'll just have to wait until the show.

Having already demoed the Lumia 900 at CES it is unclear what Finnish Manufacturer Nokia intend to bring to MWC. It's expected we'll see another Windows Phone device of some sort and I've even heard tell of a tablet in the works though I very much doubt we'd see it at the show. There is also news of Nokia's Asha series, a slew of mid-range, affordable Windows Phone devices set to be unveiled.

LG have indeed promised to showcase a range of revolutionary smartphones for 2012. We're already anticipating the LG Miracle, a rumoured Windows Phone handset and leaks have revealed the LG Optimus 3D 2, successor to the Optimus 3D (Thrill 4G) however we're unsure if this is likely to be shown off at the event. There is of course also the LG P880 which is rumoured to sport the LG X3 quad core processor and 4.7inch a 720p HD screen. This could be one to watch.

There really isn’t much worth commenting on with Japanese tech powerhouse Sony. We expect to see more of their Xperia line, with the Xperia Ion and the Xperia S and likely a couple of other phones with random alphabet titles such as the Xperia P and the Xperia U. The worrying thing is that these phones are failing to really excite brining Sony's woeful presence in the mobile space into full view. Here's hoping that the end of their collaboration with long time partner Ericsson spells a bright new era for the long established tech company. Only time will tell.

Little is expected from struggling Canadian tech company RIM at MWC however what we do expect to see is a little more info regarding the Blackberry 10 OS and maybe even confirmation of the Playbook OS 2.0.

Other events worth mentioning are that of Microsoft, who we expect will demo the much anticipated Windows 8 OS and Nvidia who are expected to showcase their quad core Tegra 3 processor in a mobile device.

Stay tuned to The Phone Groupie for more Mobile World Congress 2012 info as it unfurls.