Nokia MWC 2012: 41-megapixels and cheap Windows Phones - by aby benedict

If there was a “Phoenix From The Ashes” award at Mobile World Congress it’s hard to argue that Nokiawouldn’t be the most worthy recipient. Twelve months ago the company was apologetically admitting it had no new devices for MWC 2011, and today it revealed a bevy of phones that opened new doors in developing markets, pushed the envelope for Windows Phone pricing, and busted the smartphone camera segment right open. We’ve a whole lot of Nokia coverage, so head on past the cut to get up to speed.

Nokia Lumia 610

Nokia’s entry-level Windows Phone may not have the ClearBlack AMOLED display of the Lumia 800 or the LTE of the Lumia 900, but it does have a bargain price tag. At €189 pre-tax and subsidies, it’s a new low for Microsoft’s platform – in a good way – with the promise of unlocking new markets for the company and the OS as well. 

Nokia Lumia 900 DC-HSPA

Although the Lumia 900 is no stranger to us – we played with it in AT&T LTE form back at CES – this new DC-HSPA variant is fresh to MWC 2012 today. Out goes LTE and in comes Dual-Cell HSPA, using carrier aggregation in the downlink with networks that support it, with the promise of up to 42Mbps downloads, in theory at least.

No user will ever actually see that speed, but they will get to use the huge display, 8-megapixel camera with 720p HD video capture, and polycarbonate chassis in black, cyan, magenta and – fresh to MWC today – glossy white.

Nokia Asha 202, 203 and 303

Nokia opened up the Asha range at Nokia World 2011 last year, and has three new models today. While phones “for the next billion” might not have the instant allure of the Lumia line-up, they’re testament to Nokia’s remaining strength in pushing down product pricing and delivering smartphone-style functionality in what would traditionally be feature-phones.

Nokia Reading and Groupon

Nokia Reading joins the existing Nokia apps preloaded to Lumias, pulling in news feeds in an easy-to-consume way on your smartphone. The Groupon deal, meanwhile, integrates the daily-deals service into an updated version of Nokia Maps.

“We have changed the clock-speed of Nokia” CEO Stephen Elop said at the opening of his keynote. From the look of today’s line-up, that certainly seems to be the case.

AT&T planning to charge app developers data fees - by aby benedict

AT&T has revealed plans to launch a new service that would give mobile app developers the option of paying for the mobile data used by their app subscribers. Although this sounds ludicrous, AT&T’s network and technology head John Donovan likened it to offering a 1-800 Toll-Free option for apps, where developers could motivate users to download and use their apps if the data involved in using the apps didn’t count towards the users’ data plan limits.

“A feature that we’re hoping to have out sometime next year is the equivalent of 800 numbers that would say, if you take this app, this app will come without any network usage,” revealed Donovan during an interview with The Wall Street Journal. For instance, if a user is tight on data, they may be more motivated to download a movie or some other digital content from an app if they know that it won’t go towards their monthly data.

Donovan may be explaining the system in simple benign terms, but if implemented, it could have a drastic affect on both large app makers like Facebook, Spotify, and Netflix as well as on small developers wanting to develop bandwidth-heavy apps. With data plans becoming ever more limited, added overage penalty fees could drive customers wanting to avoid paying extra to seek out these “toll-free” apps.

Once users become accustomed to seeking apps that have free bandwidth, this could force more app makers to adopt the service, driving up the cost of developing and pushing forth mobile apps. This would give AT&T a nice double-sided fee model that would help drive up revenue from data charges without increasing subscriber bills.

Nokia 808 PureView first sample shots -- feast your eyes (update: GigaPan them!) - by aby benedict

This is it. Here's an exclusive first look at some sample shots taken with Nokia's freshly minted 808 PureView imaging powerhouse -- and wow, just wow! The collection contains photos taken at different resolutions in various conditions that show exactly what the 41-megapixel camera is capable of. Feast your eyes in our gallery below -- we'll have a ZIP file with the original pictures for you to download shortly. Also, stay tuned for our upcoming interview with Damian Dinning, program manager for imaging at Nokia.

Update: Our very own Andy Yang of Engadget Chinese slapped a few of these shots on GigaPan for your zooming pleasure -- check it out after the break. You can also grab the originals (a 31.8MB download) from Nokia Conversations.

Visa certifies Intel's Smartphone Reference Device, payWave hits Medfield - by aby benedict

Sure, if you're running a Google Wallet-having device you're already down with Visa's payWave wireless payment service, but we can now confidently say that Intel-based smartphones will also be similarly enabled, even if they haven't been blessed by the Big G. At its Mobile World Congress press conference, Intel just announced that its Medfield-based Smartphone Reference Device, the one we saw previously at CES, is now Visa-certified. Users will be able to tie their credit card to their handset and, once done, make secure payments to retail terminals over NFC. Your wallet of the future just got a little bit lighter. 

Angelina Jolie’s Right Leg Poised to Supplant All Creative Arts Forever - by aby benedict

A study on the speed meme-ing: In under 24 hours, Angelina Jolie's dramatic right leg has taken over the internet. As we speak, America's most powerful meme factories are pumping their pistons as fast as they can:What if Angelina's leg had a Twitter feed? What if it got peppersprayed? What if she showed both her legs? What if Al Roker did this pose? What should we call it? Jolie-ing? Angelegging?

What if Angelina's leg wore bread on its knee? What if it knelt and prayed after touchdowns? What if we put a funny captions on top of it? What if it made friends with a cat? What a comedian threw Kim Jong-Il's ashes on it? What if it went to the moon? What if it had sex withJ.Lo's left nipple, and gave birth to a horrible nipple-kneed monster, which then drunk textedParis Hilton?

In the future, memes won't even need predicating events. One human will do one thing in front of a camera, once per year, and the memes will snowball onwards, forever. All creative conceits will be the products of repetition with variation, as in a Bach fugue. 

OS X Mountain Lion – One Week Later - by aby benedict

When Apple announced Mac OS-X – sorry, we don’t use the ‘Mac’ designation now, do we? – 10.8 Mountain Lion last week, we were all taken aback slightly. Well, all of us except the lucky few who found themselves summoned for a private briefing with Apple  SVP Phil Schiller that is.

We’re currently less than a year through the 10.7 Lion cycle and yet Apple seems ready to dump its latest big cat in favor of a new model, and one with more iOS in its veins, too. The developer preview was made available immediately and I’ve been using it on a late 2008 MacBook ever since.

Before I go into my experiences with Mountain Lion I’ll give you a little more information on the machine I have been testing it with so you have a better baseline for knowing how your own machine will perform.
As I said, this is a late 2008 MacBook, the first of the unibody Macbook line. It sports a 2.0 GHz Core 2 duo CPU and 4GB of RAM alongside a 60GB SSD for storage. It’s over three years old, but it’s still nippy enough for most tasks and that extra RAM and SSD help it along nicely. That said, it’s still packing an ageing CPU and is only just inside the specification list for running OS X Mountain Lion according to our friends at Apple.
Even with a machine that will probably get replaced at some point this year, Mountain Lion has been running with surprisingly few hiccups since I installed it last week. I’ve been using it as my main machine and so far there haven’t been any game-changing issues. Yes there has been the odd app compatibility problem here and there with some apps, namely Google Chrome, but considering how flakey pre-release software can be I’ve been impressed.

The new apps work as well as can be expected, and Messages behaves just as it does in Lion should you decide to install the beta of the software. The addition of Notification Center really brings Messages into its own, and I can see it becoming a firm favorite for many.
The machine as a whole does not feel any slower, more sluggish or indeed much different to when Lion was installed, which is a testament to how solid this developer preview really is. I’ve experienced a couple of oddities with Time Machine and Screen Sharing, but nothing that has proven too difficult to overcome and I’m sure these small issues will be rectified in a proper beta release of Mountain Lion long before the final shipping product.

I’ve also tried Mountain Lion on a friend’s 27" iMac and things felt suitably fast there, too. Notification Center makes even more sense on such a large screen, and there is even a case for it being visible at all times on such a large screen, though it is doubtful Apple would agree.
I’m going to continue using Mountain Lion throughout its development cycle and will report back as things change inside the OS. So far I’m pleasantly surprised at how eminently usable it is, which bodes well for the finished product.
Now I just need to get used to them dropping ‘Mac’ from the name, and that awful ‘Mountain Lion’ designation.

Apple To “Blow Our Minds” With Amazing Products This Year - by aby benedict

Apple’s new CEO Tim Cook held his first shareholder meeting yesterday, and it seems the guy is pretty bullish on what his company is going to offer to us gadget junkies over the coming months.
During the meeting, Cook teased that Apple is working on some mind-blowing products for 2012, with the money quote coming early on in proceedings.
“You can be assured we are working as hard as ever this year to deliver an incredible year and some products that will blow your mind.”
Well darn Mr. Cook, what could you mean by that?

We’re going to go ahead and suggest that an Apple leaf blower isn’t really what the man meant, though we aren’t going to say that wouldn’t be the best darned leaf blower we’ve ever seen.
Cook also made mention of the affect that Steve Jobs’ death has had on the company he left behind, saying that there is not a day goes by that those who knew him do not miss him. At most companies we would take that as a new CEO saying what he thinks everyone wants to hear, but this time we do actually believe it.
As is always the case the hour-long meeting was not streamed live on the web, nor were those present allowed to transcribe the event. We do however know that Apple’s huge $100 billion war chest was mentioned, and that the company us currently discussing what to do with it. The idea that shareholders may see some of that cash appears to be off the table, however.

It is the comment about blowing people’s minds that has understandably caused the biggest buzz, though, with everyone scrambling to try and work out what Apple could possibly have up its collective sleeve. We obviously expect new iPads and iPhones, but those probably won’t blow our minds in the way Cook proclaims. Could Apple be getting ready to revolutionize a new market in the way it did the music and smartphone industries? Talk of an Apple television just will not go away, and 2012 is rumored to be the year that such a device comes to fruition.
If an Apple television is not on the horizon, we can’t wait to see what Cook is talking about. Perhaps that new campus really is going to fly us all to Mars and this is the year we find out?

No, probably not.