MoboTap the developers of the popular alliterative mobile browser Dolphin, have rolled out a new update to their Dolphin Browser on Android, which brings with it a number of great new features as well as voice-control. The new voice control features called Dolphin Sonar enables users to use their voice to carry out searches, share, bookmark, navigate and more.
The Dolphin Sonar speech recognition feature is available for free in the Android Market via the new 7.4 update. Which also brings with it an improvement in browser speeds, as well as additional add-ons for the browser. Yongzhi Yang, CEO of, MoboTap explains:
“Our gesture-based browsing function was a game-changer in terms of the way people browse on their mobile devices, and Sonar is the logical next step,” – “Just as sonar is used by dolphins to navigate, Dolphin Sonar interprets sound to get you where you want to be online.” Dolphin Sonar for iOS devices will be arriving sometime in the summer of 2012. Dolphin Browser for Android tablets:
Following the release of Firefox 9, the Mozilla Foundation has launched a new version of its Android web browser, previously known as Fennec.
Now known as Firefox 9 for Android, the latest release of the browser includes some impressive new features, with a revised user interface making the browser significantly more usable on large-screen portable devices like tablets.
As with previous releases, Firefox 9 for Andrid includes support for Firefox Sync to keep bookmarks and tabs synchronised across desktop, laptop and mobile platforms, while a left panel provides a thumbnail view for tabs to make switching between pages significantly easier.
For developers, the new Firefox build includes enhanced HTML5 tools - including the HTML5 Input Tag for camera access, which allows webapps to access the microphone and camera facility built in to many tablets and smartphones. A video demonstrating the new build is reproduced below, while the download is available here.
An Australian Court ruling lifted the ban on sales of the flagship Samsung GALAXY Tab 10.1 in that country. On December 9th, the court will decide whether or not Apple can appeal that ruling. In the meantime, Australian High Court Justice Dyson Heydon issued an order on Thursday, extending the ban on the tablet until the court meets on the 9th of the month. With the reversal, Samsung planned on offering the Samsung GALAXY Tab 10.1 tablet in Sydney starting at 4pm local time on Friday. The company was then going to import the tablet to deliver to buyers while ramping up a marketing campaign. With the extension, that is put off for at least a week as Samsung bumps up against a self-imposed deadline. The company has said that if it can't sell the GALAXY Tab 10.1 in time for the holiday shopping season, it would cancel its release in the country.
Tuesday's reversal essentially ended a court-ordered ban on the sale of the Samsung GALAXY Tab 10.1 that started on October 12th when the court ruled in favor of Apple. In that case, Apple sued Samsung claiming that the latter was stealing the design of the Apple iPhone and Apple iPad in producing its own models. Apple started things off with the original suit back in April and since then, the Korean based tech company has countersued claiming that Apple infringed on Samsung's FRAND patents, an exercise that has not been successful to date.
If Apple successfully appeals the reversal, Samsung might consider what it did to get around a ban of the tablet in Germany. Changing the design of the GALAXY Tab 10.1, Samsung moved the metal trim closer to the front of the device and renamed the product the Samsung GALAXY Tab 10.1N. By making these changes, Samsung was allowed to sell the revised tablet in Germany since the latter manufacturer successfully showed the court that the new revision eliminates the resemblance in design between the Samsung and Apple tablets.
Carrier IQ is the new hotness when it comes to creepy tactics to get a hold of user data, but there is a new app for Android phones which will let you know whether or not the software is running on your device. The app is courtesy of François Simond, a.k.a Supercurio, who put it together in just four hours. Unfortunately, the app will currently only detect whether or not Carrier IQ is on your device, but can't do anything about it. Of course, being the good samaritan that he is, Simond has put the code for the app on Github, so other developers will surely expand on his work. Simond also warns that anti-Carrier IQ fixes are not detected and can lead to false positives, but these issues should be ironed out going forward.
You may not be able to actively kill Carrier IQ, but this is a knowing-is-half-the-battle type of situation where you can at least be a bit more careful with your phone. Or, knowing that it's on your device, you can contact your carrier to complain about the software. If you want to give it a shot, the Voodoo Carrier IQ detector is available for free on the Android Market. And, if you're a developer looking to build on Simond's work, the code is at Github.
Since the inception of mobile gaming, Nintendo has been a dominant player in the market with multiple incarnations of its Gameboy and DS series. Late-arriver, Sony, also managed to garner success with the introduction of its PlayStation Portable, or PSP. It seemed unlikely that another player could even hope to rival these two giants, let alone significantly reduce their market share.
iOS and Android have done just that. Traditionally portable gaming software revenue was fueled by physical game purchases, often in the form of a cartridge or a UMD, for around $40 a piece. Now, that revenue stream is also being powered by digital downloads. Both Android and iOS offer a significant amount of high-quality, premium games for $0.99 as well as games which are distributed using the ‘freemium’ model, which is when a game is free to download but offers in-app upgrades and purchases for additional content.
Flurry, a mobile applications analytics company, released a report today that shows the distribution of U.S. portable game software revenue over the last three years. Even though iOS and Android games typically cost much less from a price per unit standpoint, they have managed to expand from comprising 19% of the revenue in 2009 to a whopping 58% in 2011. Conversely, Sony and Nintendo have dropped from 11% and 70% in 2009 to 6% and 36% in 2011, respectively.
This dramatic shift in revenue source has caused some to question whether or not Sony and Nintendo can remain viable in this space at all. Despite including a 3DS store with its latest portable system for digital downloads, poor sales caused the manufacturer to slash the retail price of the 3DS and now Nintendo is anticipating posting their first fiscal year loss in over 30 years. The PlayStation Vita, which is set to be released in the U.S. on February 22, 2012, will feature a reduced rate, digital download option for all of its retail games.
MoboTap the developers of the popular alliterative mobile browser Dolphin, have rolled out a new update to their Dolphin Browser on Android, which brings with it a number of great new features as well as voice-control. The new voice control features called Dolphin Sonar enables users to use their voice to carry out searches, share, bookmark, navigate and more.
