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Samsung Wave shipping with infected microSD card (confirmed, limited to first run)
Did you get a Samsung Wave today, or perhaps early last week? You might not want to connect it to your computer, just in case. We're hearing anecdotal reports that the 1GB microSD card shipped with certain German units includes a nasty surprise: it automatically installs the trojan Win32/Heur using the file "slmvsrv.exe." While we're not sure exactly what the virus does or if it's widespread, there's no point in finding out the hard way, right? Install a good antivirus program and then format that sucker, or better yet, simply drop in a larger microSDHC card. Don't forget this thing plays DivX HD, people -- you're going to need more than a single gigabyte of storage. Update: Samsung HQ got in touch with MobileBurn to confirm the existence of the virus in shipping S8500 Wave handsets, but said that the outbreak was confined to the German market's initial production run and all other shipments are A-OK. Still, there's no harm in disabling autorun before connecting one to your PC, eh?
Samsung Wave brings Bada to Europe today, everyone else told to wait
Samsung's Wave (otherwise known as the S8500) may not be coming to Vodafone UK until June 1st, but it's available somewhere in Europe starting today. According to a new release from the outfit (seen in full after the break), today marks the first day in which its first Bada-equipped smartphone is available in Europe, with Germany, France and the UK mentioned in particular. We're also told that the "complete Bada SDK 1.0.0 will be available for download shortly," and while pricing details weren't discussed, the Wave should ride to Southeast Asia, China, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America in short order. Don't everyone cheer at once, okay?
Samsung Wave hits Vodafone UK on June 1, free on £25 a month plans
The UK is about to get its first taste of Samsung's Bada OS courtesy of the Wave, which is launching with Vodafone on June 1. Already announced amid the carrier's list of "coming soon" devices, this Super AMOLED-sporting phone has now been slapped with pre-order availability and some pricing info. Should you opt for Voda's £25 ($36) per month two-year plan, which also furnishes you with 300 free minutes, unlimited texts, and a 500MB data allowance, you can have the Wave for free. Prices start to climb from there, though strangely enough, no 12-month or partially subsidized options are on offer. And before we forget, buying this phone will also get you a Vodafone McLaren Mercedes rucksack as an extra freebie -- how's that for value?
Google Wave opens doors to public, asks old friends for new chance
To think, it was about this time last year that Google first unveiled its collaboration tool Wave, and today the company's taking out the invitational step and opening it to the public at large -- which begs the question, did anyone not have an invite that wanted one at this point? It'll also be now available in the enterprise-centric Apps suite for no extra charge. On the developer side of things, expect some more open source code be unleashed, including most importantly the rich text editor. Can't say we've really dug around in the service ourselves since its beta launched, but co-creator Lars Rasmussen tells us we should be giving it another go. He further acknowledged that they've got some work to do on educating users on the best ways to use the service, which at this point seems to be mid- and small-scale collaboration. To that end, expect some new tutorial videos, and with any luck, some amusing animation. %Gallery-93295%
Novero's Bluetooth headset doubles as neckwear, savings destroyer
Can't say we've ever heard of Novero before today, but after watching the undoubtedly mesmerizing homescreen loop linked there in the source, we can safely say we'll never (ever) forget about 'em. From what we can gather, this company specializes in overpriced jewelry, and given that Bluetooth headset use is rising stratospherically, seeing a new necklace-slash-BT headset hit the market just makes perfect sense. All sarcasm aside, the new Victoria line actually is fairly edgy, and if the light hits you right, it's actually palatable. The collection consists of the Victoria Lapis, Pearl, Stripes, Wave and Victor, all of which purportedly boast the same innards but different exteriors. Specifications are unsurprisingly hard to come by, but considering some of the more blinged out models are priced at around $120,000, it's not likely to matter. Video's past the break, richy.
Samsung Galaxy S and Wave 'coming soon' to Vodafone UK
Perhaps eager to steal some of the thunder from Everything Everywhere's recent debut, Vodafone has updated its Coming Soon page to show a selection of new handsets, which is highlighted by Samsung's pair of Super AMOLED beasts, the Wave and Galaxy S. The Wave brings the new Bada sensibility to British shores, while the Galaxy S will be pretty much the most advanced Android handset the UK has yet seen. It runs version 2.1 with Samsung's own skin on top, but it's the hardware behind it that'll be pushing Brits to upgrade. Hit the source link to peruse the full list, which also includes the new BlackBerry Pearl 3G, but do remember to be patient -- an Amazon pre-order listing for the Wave (priced at £350, or 521 greenbacks) indicates a one to three month waiting period.
Samsung Wave is world's first DivX HD phone, Galaxy S in a hurry to be world's second
Want some DivX-encoded 720p goodness on your fancy new superphone? Samsung will be the way to go, at least in the short term. The Korean company has announced that its Bada-infused Wave handset will be the first phone with certified support for DivX HD playback, with the freshly announced, Android-driven, Galaxy S following up at an unspecified point in time. Guess we're finally going to get the content to do justice to those spectacular Super AMOLED displays. Hit up Engadget Spanish for the full PR while we get to work on transcoding our entire DVD collection.
Samsung's Super AMOLED-packin' Wave S8500 priced in Germany: €429
Samsung's world-beater -- you know, that Wave S8500 that debuted back at Mobile World Congress -- was revealed without one of the most vital statistics, but that's being remedied today courtesy of a product listing over at Amazon's German portal. The Bada-equipped device, complete with a Super AMOLED display that's supposedly viewable in broad daylight, has found a €429 MSRP across the pond, which equates to around $579 using today's highly volatile exchange rates. Granted, that's a contract-free (read: unsubsidized) price, but we're still going to hold out for a late-night session with the new OS before pinging our importer. Plus, those funky European AC adapters do nothing at all for us. Sorry.Update: Looks like some other German outlets have it priced even lower. Huzzah!
Samsung Wave shows what's Super about its AMOLED display by going outdoors (video)
Direct sunlight -- is there anything more terrifying for an OLED screen? Up until now, you had to sacrifice some outdoor performance from your phone's display in order to get the spectacular contrast and viewing angles on offer from OLEDs. Up until now. Samsung's Wave has been taken for a quick spin by Dutch publication portablegear and while we've no idea what their feedback on the phone was, the moving pictures speak for themselves. The phone remains entirely readable and usable in spite of the bright environment around it -- if you question how much light is hitting it, just take a look at the hand of the person holding it -- and color saturation is maintained throughout. Samsung promised us a great media experience on the handset, but this quick demo places its Super AMOLED tech a clear step above... well, every other display out there. The wildly impressive video awaits after the break, and you can find more imagery and our hands-on impressions here.
Samsung's Wave gets the preview treatment
What, our hands-on with video wasn't good enough for you? Fine, Eldar at Mobile-Review.com has a rather lengthy preview of Sammy's 1GHz Bada phone, the Wave, including so many macro photos you could probably make yourself a compelling reproduction of Mr. Murtazin's thumbprint. Impressions of this pre-production phone were very positive, coming to the conclusion that it will "definitely become one of the milestones not only for Samsung, but also the whole industry." Yeah, it's looking that good, but we do have to wonder just how warmly the buying community is going to welcome yet another mobile OS. We'll find out soon enough, as the phone is set for release in April.
Samsung Wave first hands-on: Bada-packed and super fast (video!)
Well, we just had our first encounter with Samsung's new Bada-sporting Wave handset. We'll say this to start... the screen is gorgeous, and the phone itself is super fast. No hesitation almost anywhere, but it's hard to make a judgment call at this point. A lot of the software seemed unfinished, and we saw a few crashes and weird behavior. Still, it's clearly a device capable of handling some pretty intense work, and a Samsung rep we spoke to wanted to emphasize its ability to multitask. We were also told that the phone has more than 512MB of RAM, which is notable for a device of this type. We're going to play with it a bit more and flesh out our impressions, but for now feast your eyes on the gallery... and check the video after the break! A few more takeaways (with some input from senior editor Thomas Ricker): Overall the device feels like a glorified feature phone, and speaking to some other tech folks here, that feeling seemed to be common. There just doesn't seem to be a lot to it that we haven't seen in other Samsung devices, especially considering the TouchWiz integration. There was an issue with flipping the keyboard from portrait to landscape -- as we said the phone is early, so this may change, but we had to leave an app and reopen in the other orientation to get it working. We also noticed that there doesn't seem to be word prediction in place right now. The browser is redirecting to WAP pages, so it was hard to see what the results were. We also thought the buttons were in a very odd place, making it a bit hard to navigate. The display wasn't always responding to touches, and at least one unit completely froze on us. For those asking, from the looks of things (and the press release) there is no multitouch on this device. Correction... we just tried pinching and zooming on the phone and while it did create some kind of zoom result, it also kept giving us an error! Furthermore, when we tried to load an image heavy site, it forced the phone into its task manager mode and made us close all applications before we could proceed with using the phone. Clearly there is work to be done. %Gallery-85462%
Samsung Wave: 3.3-inch Super AMOLED, Bluetooth 3.0, and new Bada OS (updated)
How's about a little smartphone love on Valentine's Day? Samsung's press conference just got underway in Barcelona, and one of Mobile World Congress' first smartphones to debut this year is a real doozy. The Wave (S8500) that we've heard so much about lately is finally official, and it's the first handset to ship with Bluetooth 3.0. It's also packing 802.11n WiFi, TouchWiz 3.0 and the company's own Bada mobile platform. You'll also get a 3.3-inch "Super AMOLED" (saywha?) display, and while the 800 x 480 resolution is just dandy, the lack of multitouch is a real buzz kill. Digging into the internals, you'll find a 1GHz processor, 5 megapixel camera, aGPS, accelerometer, 2GB or 8GB of internal storage space, a microSD expansion slot, multi-codec support for DivX, XviD, MP3 and WMV, and support for virtual 5.1 surround sound and 720p recording / decoding. The company's also touting its mDNIe (mobile Digital Natural Image engine) technology, which is already used in its LCD and LED TV lineups; in other words, this phone is probably one of the better ones for multimedia viewing (so long as you don't venture under direct sunlight, of course). It'll be available worldwide starting in April, but unfortunately pricing remains a mystery. Full specifications and press release are after the break. Update: Check out our hands-on with the device! The at-show prototypes do respond to multi-touch pinch and zoom... with an error. But at least they detect it. %Gallery-85459%
Samsung S8500 Wave caught in a spigot of leaks
Trust in yourself, son, the increase in smartphone news that you sense is not imagined, it's very very real. Mobile World Congress is about to kick off in Barcelona which means we're just hours away from being knee-deep in the stuff. One of the most anticipated devices is the Samsung Wave, first spotted on billboards around Barcelona yesterday. The anticipation is warranted for 2 reasons. First, this 3.3-inch candybar slate is presumably sporting Samsung's new Super AMOLED which should help with outdoor viewing. And b, it's the first phone to run Samsung's new Bada smartphone OS... yes, another one, developers. According to Daily Mobile, the Wave S8500 brings a1GHz processor, 5 megapixel autofocus camera with flash, 720p video recording to 2GB of internal memory or microSD expansion, 802.11b/g/n WiFi and HSDPA data, DivX video support, and a 3.5-mm audio jack in a device measuring 10.9-mm thick. Unfotunately, we can't confirm any of those specs yet (wait until Sunday's press event) -- the pics, however, certainly match up with what we've already seen. We've dropped in a few choice shots after the break, the rest are at Daily Mobile in the link below. [Thanks, Daniel]
Samsung Wave launching Bada onto its very first handset at MWC
There's something nice and unequivocal about a huge billboard popping up in the host city of major tradeshow, and Samsung's Wave handset is making just such an entrance at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The previously unannounced handset will be running Samsung's brand new Bada platform, and appears to be a full touchscreen handset from the look of things. Enough touchscreen for a 3.3-inch 800 x 480 Super AMOLED display? We sure hope so, and we'll be finding out in just a few days. [Thanks, Danijel]
Breakfast Topic: Catching the perfect Warcraft wave
If you've been around the World of Warcraft community for any length of time you've probably found and participated in some of the myriad of different game related communities. If you go to the blog search page and search for Warcraft you'll see over 8 million related entries. There are also tons of additional podcasts on iTunes other such services. And then there are the forums. Besides the official forums, you have other sites that have created forums. There are forums like MMO Champion, WoW Raid, Elitist Jerks to just name a few. We haven't even touched the Facebook fan sites or Twitter #wow or #warcraft discussions. But yet, now we have another way to talk about our favorite game. Google has a new collaboration tool out for use (by invitation only at the moment), Google Wave. Right now it's still in Alpha and is full of bugs and performance issues, but it's a tool that seems to have a lot of possibilities. For example, if you search for waves by using "with:public Warcraft" you get a number of public waves ranging from general WoW discussions to server or class specific debates. Personally, I've seen it used for Instant Messaging about patch 3.3, collaborating on documents, and even being used by people to play a role playing game. Basically, it seems like a tool that has a ton of potential. (Please understand that none of us here at WoW.com have any wave invitations to hand out.) So here's what I'm wondering. What communities do you participate in? Do you participate in the WoW related Twitter, Facebook, blog or podcast community? Which ones? How about Wave? Are you using Google Wave to talk about Warcraft? We'd love to know what communities you're using and think people need to use also. So grab a cup a coffee and let's talk about it.
Google making Waves across all its Apps?
We just received a set of screengrabs from an anonymous source giving us a glimpse at what appears to be Google's (and thus, the world's) future interface to its web applications, Gmail in particular. While we were originally tempted to ignore them, communications with the tipster would indicate genuine insider knowledge. Regardless, we can not independently confirm the authenticity of these images. Having said that, the pics demonstrate a more unified apps interface based on Google's Wave and accessible from any browser (as they are now). Specifically, we're told that "the goal is to provide a consistent experience throughout all Google Apps and blur the line between the browser and the website (e.g. drag and drop, right-click, etc.)." Something that certainly makes sense to us based on what we know about Google's tender approach to its Chrome browser and its future "lightweight" Chrome OS. If true then this "work in progress" also hints at the importance of Wave to the future of Google. Then again, it could be just one of many possible interface concepts from Google's burgeoning developer's sandbox.%Gallery-77775%
Waveboard on the iPhone, Google Wave access slightly better than Mobile Safari
If you're lucky enough to have a Google Wave account, you may be familiar with Waveboard. I started out using Wave via a Fluid SSB, running Wave Growl for Growl notifications and Dock badges. Then I found Waveboard, and it made things smooth enough that I haven't looked at Wave any other way since. So, obviously, I'd been anticipating the iPhone version of Waveboard. It's here, and it's, well, moderately interesting. The desktop app is essentially a Single Site Browser, like a Fluid app, but it adds handy, Mac-like keyboard shortcuts, Growl notifications, Dock and Menubar notifications, etc. The iPhone app is the same, a webkit browser showing what Google already provides, but there just wasn't as much potential integration to take advantage of on the iPhone. They took advantage of the shake gesture to reload or log out. Websites can be opened in the same browser or sent to Safari. Landscape mode is supported. And you can kind of get push notifications, by using Prowl (which Aron has mentioned before). Setup instructions are available on the Waveboard blog. That's about it, for now. Google hasn't offered an API, which seriously hampers a developer's ability to do cool things. More features are reportedly in the works, so we'll see if it turns into a truly useful counterpart to its desktop cousin over time. Waveboard for iPhone is available on the App Store iTunes link for $0.99US. Under a buck, and it might be worth a look for avid Wavers (which I would be, if enough of my clients and cohorts had accounts to make it truly useful). [via TechCrunch]
Google Wave to have its own app store
We're still not entirely certain what Google Wave is for -- or even if humans are capable of comprehending it -- but we do know that we're super-intrigued by the idea of third-party extensions that hook into the fledging messaging platform, and it sounds like the folks in Mountain View are as well. Google's planning to launch both an extension gallery and extension store in the coming months, which would allow users to easily find, buy, and share apps for Wave. It's not clear how the sharing will work, or how much Google expects extensions to cost, but it's certainly an interesting way to capitalize on Wave's flexibility. Our first request? An extension to kill live-typing. Let's make it happen.
Nokia N900 can ride the Google Wave
We're not talking about some mobile version here à la iPhone, no sir. MobileDeveloperTV has itself a Maemo-powered Nokia N900, and sure enough, it runs the full version of Google Wave. There looks to be some lag between the keyboard and text box, but if you're hankering to mash up Espoo's latest and greatest with the G man's latest and greatest, there's nothing standing in your way. See for yourself, victorious laughs and all, in the video after the break. [Thanks, Welly]
Missed the Google Wave beta? We've got hands-on!
Google Wave started limited beta testing today, but chances are you'll miss out on an invite, since the 100,000 open slots will fill almost instantly. Not to worry, though -- our in-depth impressions of El Goog's innovative new IM/email/everything service are still right here if you want to get in deep. Will Wave change the world? Only one way to find out. Read - Google Wave beta testing begins Read - Our hands-on impressions from last month
