Archive for the ‘News & Rumors’ Category

Samsung to replace its Bada platform with Tizen!

Samsung has announced its plans to replace its homegrown smartphone platform – Bada – with the Linux-based Tizen, which was recently created in collaboration with Intel.

Launched back in 2010, Bada was meant to feature on Samsung’s low-end touchscreen phones. Compared to the feature phone OS found on these phones, Bada was much better because it had an improved user interface and smartphone features such as proper multitasking and native third party application installation through Samsung’s own application store.

Now, however, with Samsung starting work on Tizen, it makes little sense to keep both the platforms existing simultaneously. Then there is also the fact that Samsung has Android and Windows Phone devices as well.

So starting this year, Bada will be replaced with Tizen and as such, will cease to exist on its own, outside of the devices that are currently running it. Samsung has said that the current Bada applications and the SDK will be backward compatible with the new OS. No mention of whether the current devices will be upgraded to Tizen, although we wouldn’t hold our breath for that.

Samsung has also mentioned that they will be launching one or two Tizen phones this year. Our guess is that they will be low-end or mid-range devices, since Samsung has already got the high-end covered with Android and Windows Phone devices. Hopefully we will find out more at MWC this year.

source

No Bada 2.0 for Wave 525 and 533!

Some bad news for Samsung Wave 525 and 533 owners. A little while back Samsung had announced that all its Wave devices running bada OS will be updated to bada 2.0 OS. But in a recent email sent to bada developers, Samsung has said that now Wave devices will be divided into two groups; ‘Wave (WQVGA)’ and ‘Wave (WQVGA) _1.1 only.’

The first group, Wave (WQVGA) will receive the much awaited bada 2.0 update supporting both 2.0 and 1.1 API. This includes the devices such as Wave 575, 578 and 723. On the other hand the second group includes Wave 525 and 533 and they will only support bada 1.1 API and not get the much awaited bada 2.0 update.

Not all Samsung Wave phones will get the bada 2.0 update. The two models that are not in the “lucky group” (of devices that will get the update) are Wave 525 and Wave 533, both of which are stuck on the version 1.1. However, not all is gloom and doom, with Korean giant preparing the so called “Value Pack” for these two devices.

And if you don’t know what Value Pack is all about, here’s what Samsung has to say about it:

“Samsung is offering “Value Pack” upgrade for devices that do not support bada 2.0 upgrade due to hardware limitations such as main chipset performance and available network speed. “Value Pack” is designed to offer the same bada 2.0 user experience and service as much as possible despite the hardware limitations.”

Finally, before I let you go I must add we’re not that surprised these two relatively old phones are stuck to the old version of bada — after all, there’s only so much Samsung can do to make things run smoothly on the old hardware…

source: intomobile.com

Samsung S8600 Wave 3 Released

Today Samsung announced that its new bada flagship, the S8600 Wave 3 is hitting the shelves around the world. The smartphone, which was announced at the end of August is making its market debut just in time for the holiday shopping spree.

Samsung didn’t quote the price of the Wave 3, but a quick search around online shops did the trick. The Samsung S8600 Wave 3 is currently going for about €280 after taxes in Europe, which seems like quite a decent bargain considering the package you are getting.

The Samsung S8600 Wave 3 is built around a 4″ Super AMOLED of WVGA resolution and runs bada OS 2.0 on a 1.4GHz Scorpion processor. A 5-megapixels auto-focus camera with LED flash and 720p video recording @30fps should cater for your photography needs, while a VGA front-facing snapper enables video-chatting.

Throw away your depression medication! Now all the old Wave owners can expect a bada 2.0 firmware upgrade soon!

source:- GSMarena

LED Flashlight Review

Tik tok tik tok….The silent ticks of the clock echoes through the air. A bead of sweat runs down your hair. With great desperation you open your eyes, only to find out that you have run out of ice. It’s Dark, It’s Cold, It’s Scary.  You can see nothing but pitch black darkness hanging in the moist air like a thick fog. You can barely make out your nose in front of your eyes. As the thick velvety darkness presses upon you, you realise that you are alone.  Its just been 60 seconds since the power cut.  You cant see anything. Too bad you had pulled thick curtains over the windows. All you can see is blackness and it stretches out as far as your eyes can see. You need a light.But where is your Lantern ? Where are all the things when you need them?

You sit in the chair trying to brave up yourself to go into the dark void vasts to find your fridge.The mere thought of it chills your spine. With shallow breaths you try to picture out the route you are going to take to your kitchen. There’ll be many dangers on the way.You could run into a table and puncture yourself with it’s edge, You could step on your sleeping cat/dog and get bitten. You could run into a wall and bang your head! Or worse, you could get lost. yes, you can get lost in your own house during a power cut. It’s all in your hands now. If you want the Beer, then you have to go and get it.

The journey to the kitchen is perilious, if only you had a bit of luck.  The urge for Booze grows and you finally make that Do or Die descision. You timidly place your foot on the floor to feel that icy shiver and as you get up, the cellphone in your pocket hits against your thigh. GEEZ! You had forgotten all about it!  You retrive your Samsung wave from the unknown depths of your pockets and power it on.  LIGHT! You finally have some light. You shine it around trying to get bearings, but the SuperLCD doesnt illuminate much. You need something a lot brighter than that half nude girl wallpaper. You need the application, you need the LED FLASHLIGHT!