Toshiba prepping to show an OLED display reference tablet at CES, possibly waterproof

Apart from the thinnest, lightest 10.1" tablet (perhaps a variation of the Toshiba Excite), and an affordable 7" one, Toshiba is said to announce a waterproof slate prototype with OLED display, and wireless charging.

The waterproof claim comes from Toshiba's own announcement, which, however, has been translated by Google Translate, so we hope we are reading "organic EL panel with high brightness thin tablet and display such reference can be powered wireless tablet waterproof" correctly.

The "waterproof" part is mentioned once again in a Japanese newspaper article regarding Toshiba's announcements, so this adds some more water to the rumor mill, no pun intended. The article also mentions that the LED panel is very thin and bright, so let's see what will come out of this announcement come CES next week. Japan is certainly accustomed to thin waterproof phones, as almost all high-ends in the DoCoMo lineup, for example, are impervious to liquids, even the thinnest ones.

Toshiba is no stranger to the OLED technology, and has even shown a flexible display prototype of its own, but this area has been almost entirely engulfed by Samsung in the last two years, especially for mobile devices, so we are as curious as you what Tosh will unveil at CES. After all, the company managed to craft the thinnest and lightest 10-incher out there, so the engineering prowess is certainly there.

President Obama’s crackdown on excess mobile devices

As the United States looks for additional ways to control spending, President Obama is demanding that all federal agencies examine mobile device usage and cut back on unnecessary spending.

The White House has found that some employees are given more devices than they actually need to do their jobs. When that happens, cell phones, smartphones, air cards, and tablets go unused, while the taxpayers continue to pay for service to these devices in addition to the initial cost of the hardware.

The White House provided some examples of success by citing that the Department of Homeland Security now conducts annual audits and has saved $10.5 million. Also, the Department of Commerce is expected to save $3 million by the end of this year by disconnected 2,648 wireless lines that have not had any usage for the last three months and optimizing the rate plans for the phones that are in use.

President Obama has signed an executive order, which gives agencies 45 days to construct a plan. Each agency’s plan must reduce spending in several specific categories, including mobile devices. The plan must show a 20 percent total reduction of the 2010 fiscal year budget that can be executed by the 2013 fiscal year.

The President said that he couldn’t wait for Congress to act. He said, “We’re cutting what we don’t need so that we can invest in what we do need.” Vice President Biden reiterated the importance of the order by stating, “Today’s executive order will stop wasteful spending and make sure we use taxpayer dollars efficiently and responsibly.”

Lotus Glass by Corning and Japanese non-reflective glass to herald a new era in outdoor visibility

Manufacturers of mobile display panels are very in vogue right now, and the final cover of the display package - the thin glass layer that protects it - is even getting mainstream attention with marketing names like Gorilla or Dragontrail glass.

Corning, the maker of Gorilla Glass, have developed a new generation with its proprietary fusion process, called Lotus Glass, which, as the name suggests, is thinner and allows for more light to come through, thus reducing the power consumption requirements of the backlight in the case of LCD, and lowering reflectance in the case of OLED displays.

Since low reflectance is almost as important for good outdoor visibility from a smartphone or tablet as high brightness, we welcomed another piece of news about a new glass type, this time coming from the Nippon Electric Glass company. By plastering over 30 layers of special film with nanometers thickness on each side, the researchers have managed to achieve the so-called "invisible glass", i.e. one that reflects almost no light, so you don't even know it's there.

Modern smartphones and tablets' glasses reflect about 8% of the light that passes through them, making for unpleasant glare and/or reduced visibility in direct sunlight. Better relfectance ratios are in phones with Super AMOLED displays - less than 6% - which contributes to outside visibility being on par with their brighter LCD counterparts.

The reflectance ratio of Nippon's "invisible glass"? Only 0.5% of the light doesn't make it through, which means improving outdoor visibility by leaps and bounds. The glass was shown at the FPD 2011 International expo in Japan last week, and we hope the tech will be commercialized as soon as possible to find its ways into smarpthones and tablets.

BlackBerry trade-ins up 80% at trade-in site Gazelle

You know that trade-in site Gazelle, you know, the company that wants to buy the iPhone in your pocket so you can buy the new iPhone? Well ever since RIM experienced server outages around the globe they have seen an 80% increase in BlackBerry trade-ins.

Gazelle doesn’t really ask why users are trading their BlackBerrys in, but the timing of the spike of trade-ins with the server outages cannot be ignored. It is also possible that users just wanted to get their hands on some of the new devices coming out and wanted some cash to help with the cost.

Some of the trade-in values for BlackBerrys aren’t too bad at all. However, most of the devices that have the highest trade-in values are probably new enough that the owner is still locked in to a contract. Older devices such as the BlackBerry Bold 9000 will only net you $43 if it is in perfect condition while a new handset like the BlackBerry Torch 9810 will add $222 to your bank account if it is pristine.

With more and more users dumping BlackBerry devices every day, it is easy to see why the once dominant company is struggling. Some specs and a mock-up of the BBX-powered BlackBerry Colt surfaced yesterday, so we will have to see if it is good enough to entice anybody to give them another shot. Tell us what you think.

Swype 3.26 released with better keyboard layout and additional languages support

A new version of the popular Swype virtual keyboard has come, and it introduces the long-awaited automatic updates, and adds more languages to the mix.

The nice part is that Swype has support for HD 720p displays now, like those on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, or the LG Optimus LTE, but support for devices with Android 1.6 and WQVGA resolution has been dropped. The company got acquired for $100 million by Nuance recently, the guys behind the speech-recognition technology used in the Siri voice assistant software in the Apple iPhone 4S.

Here is the full changelog, as explained by the guys from Swype:

" Automatic Updates have finally arrived! Once installed, this latest version of Swype will let you install updates on-the-fly via Swype Connect. When an update is ready, you'll receive an Android Notification informing you that an upgrade is available. Install the update right through the Swype Settings window. Your user dictionary and settings will automatically be saved during the update!

Improved Language Control gives you access to only the languages you use. From Swype Settings you can select which languages will appear when switching languages directly from Swype. Never cycle through a language you don't use again.

The Refined Key Layout brings a better overall user experience, more in line with what users expect. Numbers are now across the top row, and the symbols layer contains several new characters, and a button to switch between 2 pages of symbols.

Redesigned Settings & Help makes it easier than ever to control how Swype behaves, and learn how to become an advanced Swype user. Just long-press to go straight to the Swype Settings window! "

The Nuance acquisition is predominantly meant to add more functionality to the accompanying voice-recognition software, like it learning from your typing pattern the way you spell certain names, and acting accordingly when you out a voice command, for example.

Stories you shouldn't have missed this week

What a week this was, eh? Lots of interesting stuff going on, including the announcement of some of the hottest phones this year, along with the long-awaited Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android. In case you have been unfortunate enough to miss any of those stories, or would simply enjoy a quick refresher, this is the place to be! Let's quickly follow through the most interesting stuff that happened this week in the world of wireless...

To read more please click here..

Microsoft Hopes to Drop Windows Phone Cost by Half

Microsoft believes that by next year, the cost to produce Windows Phone smartphones will be half what it cost when the platform launched in 2010. Microsoft has cut new deals with component makers, such as Qualcomm, in order to drive down the cost to manufacture handsets. Andy Lees, head of the Windows Phone division at Microsoft, told BusinessWeek in an interview that the cost for building a Windows Phone device was $400 at launch, and it should be closer to $200 within a year. While Lees admitted that network operators set the final sales price, they should be able to offer them at lower prices. Lees said the company hopes lower cost phones leads to volume growth for the platform. Microsoft is in the middle of rolling out Windows Phone 7.5 Mango to the first generation of hardware.

BlackBerry's new BBX name might have started legal problems for RIM

Sometimes it seems that lawyers are the only ones making money in this economy-outside of Apple, that is. Earlier this week at DevCon, BlackBerry announced the new BBX name it is giving its one-size-fits-all QNX flavored OS for smartphones and tablets. Unfortunately, it would seem that someone at RIM didn't check to make sure that their would be no problems using that name. A small company called BASIS International has a cross-platform developers language called BBx which allows app developers to write a program once and have it run on iOS, Android and BlackBerry.

BASIS International in a release vowed to defend its trademark which was first used in 1985 as Business BASIS eXtended (BBx). For its part, RIM doesn't appear to be worried. In a release, the Canadian company said that they have not received the legal complaint that BASIS talked about in its press release. RIM says that since both companies are in different lines of business, it doesn't see where there could be any confusion. BASIS sees it differently. BASIS chairman and CEO Nico Spence said, "We have thousands of product licenses installed worldwide with the ‘BBX’ prefix that run on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and other proprietary UNIX OSs from IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and SUN, with mobile clients running Apple iOS, Google Android, and Windows Mobile. We are fielding numerous customer inquiries voicing their confusion about the RIM announcement.” Spence adds that ironically, BASIS' BBx could help RIM grab a bigger share of the online application market since the program allows apps written for iOS and Android to also work on BlackBerry devices.

Sprint taking the "unlimited" out of unlimited 4G mobile broadband plans

Sooner or later this day was going to come as Sprint has announced that they are putting an end to the all you can download buffet for all 4G mobile broadband devices such as tablets and mobile hotspots; smartphones however are still unlimited.

Sprint is the last remaining of the four main carriers to offer truly unlimited 4G data with no caps or speed throttling. Their mobile hotspots such as the Overdrive have been available on a monthly plan that included unlimited 4G data courtesy of Sprint’s WiMax network while a 5GB cap would be in place when in 3G areas.

It was only a couple of weeks ago that Sprint also took away unlimited data when using your smartphone to tether. This all comes after Sprint CTO Stephen Bye labeled unlimited data as a “differentiator” last month. Even though Sprint’s smartphones still will not be capped, this must be asked. How much longer until it is?

In addition to tablets and mobile hotspots, affected devices include netbooks and laptops with built-in WiMax support and USB connection cards. Sprint is making this change effective in November but dates will vary depending on the billing cycle. Once that change happens there will be three different plans to choose from; a 3GB, 5GB and a 10GB option. Instead of speed throttling Sprint is going the way of charging overages as every extra MB of data will cost $.05.

Unfortunately Sprint will not be grandfathering anybody into this plan. Once the change goes live everybody will be affected. It really only was a matter of time until this happened. What do all of you think of Sprint putting an end to unlimited 4G mobile broadband?

Two billion mobile processors to ship in 2016

Market research firm Jon Peddie Research (JPR) has predicted that there will be a whopping 2 billion mobile processors shipping worldwide come 2016.

Of those, 750 million will power smartphones and 869 million will ship in other handsets, such as feature phones.

The rest is made up of 300 million tablets, 100 million E-book readers and 91 million handheld games consoles.

In terms of what these processors are doing, JPR reckons that: "All will be connected all the time, and most will have 3D displays and cameras."

It also believes that more than 16 processor companies will be chasing the market in 2016, compared to the four or five who currently supply PC chips.

Killer device

In terms of convergence, JPR says that: "All of the devices will share some functionality and capabilities, no single device will kill any of the others...at least immediately."

It's an interestingly vague statement, especially in an age where the 3DS is suffering due to iPhone sales.

And although 2 billion may seem like a lot of chips, the same company points out that 1.5 billion will be shipped by the end of 2011 - so it's not a huge leap.

We're also not sure if feature phones will dominate the world market in 2016 - smartphones have already outsold them in the US, and it's a trend that's likely to continue around the world.

Amazon has all Verizon phones for a cent until October 17, including the Motorola DROID BIONIC

In case you haven't seen it already, Amazon has Verizon's whole cell phone lineup for grabs at the price of a penny each. Yes, that includes phones that are normally $299, like the Motorola DROID BIONIC.

So if you are planning to tie the knot with Verizon for the next two years anyway, Amazon's generous pricing scheme will come in handy. Moreover, you have the regular free two-day shipping treatment, and the whole "Penny-Pincher" offer expires on October 17.

Huawei Discovery Expedition hands-on

Old school style candybar phones have it rough in our society nowadays, especially when they’re considered to be dinosaurs by today’s standards, yet, some are able to evolve just a little bit thanks to their enhanced specialty.

Fortunately, the Huawei Discovery Expedition is able to go beyond being a simple candybar phone – that’s because it packs one tough exterior that will absorb the bumps and bruise dished onto it by users. Without question, its tough and rugged build enables it to handle even some strenuous accidents – such as being dropped from a height of 4 feet onto the hard floor. Additionally, the very narrow looking handset doesn’t seem to weigh down our hands as we’re holding onto it very dearly.

On top of being one tough handset, it’s also worth noting that the Huawei Discovery Expedition is water-resistant, and to show its ability to repel cool liquids, the handset was fully submerged under some water for an extensive time. Naturally, we’re amazed to find the handset still working properly while under water.

Needless to say, it you happen to be the outdoors type or a survivalist, the Huawei Discovery Expedition might be one useful tool in helping you in your excursions. And oh yeah, the handset is actually the result between the partnership between Huawei and Discovery Communications. Currently, there’s no word on an exact release date for this rugged handset, nor is there any mention about its price right now. However, it’s expected to become available by the end of the year.

Mac Funamizu's concept phone "Cobalto"

Mac Funamizu's "Cobalto" has taken the cell phone concept way into the future, with an almost all-glass design. The phone would feature 3D imaging that could make Google Maps even more useful, as demonstrated here.  It can left you mesmerized with the mere body and looks of that phone; with the transparent glass display, you have got to check that out. The deformable metal parts either allow you to use the numeric keys or give you an option of an I-pod like dial. The best feature is the ability of the phone go display 3D objects in thin air. ‘This’ truly proves how far we have gotten in terms of technology and design, and the designer has to be given a pat on the back to have thought of this innovation on a mobile phone.

Anastasia Zharkova's Awesome concept the “Leaf Phone”

Anastasia Zharkova's organic "Leaf Phone" melds aesthetic creativity with functionality. The handset resembles a natural leaf and uses an organic structure, plus eco-friendly plastic as its main material.  This phone is also a mini PC, since it serves multiple purposes and it’s even able to project a laser keyboard onto any surface, allowing you to access the Internet anytime. Leaf Phone doesn’t necessarily require normal batteries, since it can also run on solar energy, proving to be a sustainable communicator.

The winding stem of the leaves could be wrapped around a user's arm, wrist, neck, or other body part, like a very cool personal accessory.