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Samsung Romania's Twitter account either leaked the next Nexus or just reposted some blog rumors
So far rumors of the next Nexus phone have been mostly whispered and unverifiable, but they appeared to get a strong confirmation when confirmation and specs were spotted on the Samsung Romania Twitter account (@SamsungMobileRO). Romanian business paper ZF grabbed the tweets saying the Nexus Prime would feature a Super AMOLED HD (1280 x 720) screen and Android 4.0 when it ships later this year, however when contacted, Samsung reps deleted them and claimed the information originated from an outside source. That outside source could be a rumor posted on the Boy Genius Report the day before mentioning the same specs, as well as the possibility of "halo" Ice Cream Sandwich phones from HTC and Motorola at the same time. For now we'll lean towards believing the company line, but if any of the Samsung social media accounts ever cough an accidental DM or two (who hasn't done it?) we'll consider them more carefully. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Microsoft announces Windows Phone 'Mango' update, coming in autumn (updated)
Mango may no longer be a secret in and of itself, but we doubt Microsoft would've set up an entire event to preview its big Windows Phone update if there was nothing hidden up that Redmond sleeve. To that end, we've just come across an official press release from the company, released on its Romanian website. The machine translation awaits after the break. Update: We've now swapped in the natively English press release. There's also confirmation that Mango will indeed be known as Windows Phone 7.1. Update 2: Turns out Microsoft "had to give [the SDK] a name" and dubbed it 7.1, so Mango retains its formal WP7 moniker. The first thing to note is that the update will be "freely available" to all current Windows Phone handsets, something Microsoft already committed to, and will be ready for download "at the beginning of this summer." (Update: it looks like our translation machinery betrayed us, tipsters are saying it's actually the beginning of autumn.) Naturally, the new goodness will also figure in new devices and from new partners, including Acer, Fujitsu, and ZTE. Those fresh faces join Nokia and the incumbent partners of Dell (maybe) HTC, Samsung, and LG to expand the WP ecosystem. A Beta SDK of the new Windows Phone free tools will be available within 24 hours, we're promised, for developers to sink their teeth into. In the communications department, Microsoft is introducing conversation threads, which seamlessly transition between MSN Messenger chats, SMS, and Facebook messaging to keep you talking to the same person irrespective of the method. New contact group tiles are also incoming, with the ability to send quick emails or IMs to entire groups. Twitter and LinkedIn contact integration is mentioned, though we expect this go a lot deeper in Twitter's case, as Microsoft has already demonstrated. Speaking of more in-depth integration, Microsoft has improved the Live Tiles to allow the display of more dynamic information from apps, which will of course be able to multitask beautifully. Internet Explorer 9 is also joining in on the Mango fun with support for HTML5. Jump past the break for all the details. Update 3: Would you look at that, Bing search has gotten a thorough sprucing up as well. Video of all the new goodness follows after the break -- or you can click here to hit up Microsoft's own video library, which is loaded to the gills with feature overviews. %Gallery-124305%
Samsung Romania likes March 20th for Galaxy S Gingerbread update
Remember that Android 2.3 update for Samsung's i9000 version of the Galaxy S that leaked out late last month? Well, it's looking more real -- and more imminent -- than ever thanks to a Facebook post from Samsung Mobile's Romanian team a few days ago. Basically, it's sounding like the Froyo update will be online until the 20th of this month, at which point the Gingerbread update will start rolling out from the 20th until the end of March... which could ironically stand to make the Galaxy S one of the first non-Google devices to get an official Gingerbread update anywhere in the world. No word on how this timeline corresponds to dates for other countries and SKUs, but it's a good sign regardless. [Thanks, Scott]
Romanians in spandex base jump the Intel theme chimes
Oh, nerds. If we weren't one of you, we wouldn't have the faintest idea why you do the things you do. But we are, so we do, even if you're from another country. In an attempt to best Finland's record for World's Largest Intel Chime (done with human cannonballs), five employees at the chipmaker's Romanian branch learned how to base jump from the top of their office onto huge airbags to "hoot" the ubiquitous tones. A charmingly-accented software validation engineer named Iulian project-managed the whole thing -- here's hoping he makes VP sooner rather than later. Slightly disturbing video of humans being dropped after the break.
Dear Aunt TUAW: From Earth to Romania
Dear Aunt TUAW, I have a late 2008 MacBook Pro and a 4 year old MacBook Pro that I will be taking to Romania next month to give to my in-laws so we can video conference with them. Seeing as they are not very computer literate, I want to be able to perform remote control / screen sharing in case the need should arise. I know that OSX has built-in screen sharing capabilities on a local network, but over the Internet is something else altogether. I know that there are several services, such as LogMeIn, that provide this service for a fee, but I was wondering if I could do this without paying for a service. Can you direct me to some documentation as to how to set this up? ssh configuration, port forwarding on the firewall, etc.... that might be able to get me started? Or make a recommendation that would be how you would do this. Love, Your Nephew Chris M.
Palm Pre coming to Romania (and the rest of Europe) in September?
It boggles the mind that Palm is still totally silent on the issue of global Pre availability; yes, granted, Apple employed similar foot-dragging following the original iPhone's launch, but the difference there was that Apple was under way, way less pressure from consumers and investors to immediately deliver a monster hit. We've heard rumblings as recently as late May that Telefonica has signed a deal to deliver the Pre on its various networks around the world, but since then, nothing -- and that's where some scrappy little distributor in Romania comes into play. A company called IRIS -- a smartphone distributor for years and Romania's authorized Apple outlet -- says that the Pre will be hitting shelves over there in September for something in the range of $550 unsubsidized, putting it right in range with what Sprint is charging off contract. Of course, by September, the Pre will be fighting a readily available iPhone 3G S and gobs of new Android sets, but webOS itself already proves that the new Palm knows how to work under pressure.[Via GSMArena]
iPhone 3G rolling worldwide, Russia coming soon
Thanks to the magic of time zones, the iPhone 3G is already on its worldwide march across 21 countries. Tipster Lawrz let us know that the handset is on sale in the Philippines from Globe Telecom, after a sold-out party that started at 10 p.m. local time counting down to midnight August 22. It's already Friday in India, and midnight is just now crossing Europe, as of this writing. Also, tipster Efthymios tells us that Vodafone Hellas is distributing unlocked iPhone 3Gs, as is the law there. 8GB models are €499 and 16GB models are €569. Contracts plans for the handsets have not been announced, but should be available in the next few hours. (Update: and here they are.) However, Efthymios notes that Greek character input is not yet available for the iPhone, with many people having to resort using "Greeklish" instead: Greek words typed with English characters. Reuters notes today that Russia will also be getting the iPhone 3G in October. Apple struck a deal with the country's largest mobile provider, MTS, which has nearly 84 million subscribers. Thanks, Lawrz and Efthymios! [MTS details via Macworld]
August 22: Big day for iPhone abroad
Mark your calendars for August 22, when many countries will start offering the iPhone 3G for sale. Here's a list of the countries that are expecting launches that Friday (and their associated carriers, in parentheses): Argentina (America Movil) Chile (Claro/America Movil, Movistar/Telefonica) Colombia (America Movil) Czech Republic (Telefonica O2, T-Mobile, Vodafone) Thanks, Luke and Tom! Ecuador (Porta/America Movil, Movistar/Telefonica) Thanks, Andy! El Salvador (America Movil) Estonia (TeliaSonera, EMT) Guatemala (America Movil) Greece (Vodafone Hellas) Honduras (America Movil) Hungary (T-Mobile) India (Bharti Airtel, Vodafone) Latvia (TeliaSonera) Lithuania (TeliaSonera) Paraguay (America Movil) Peru (Claro/America Movil, Movistar/Telefonica) Philippines (Globe Telecom) Poland (Orange, Era) Romania (Orange) Slovakia (T-Mobile, Orange) Thanks, Hannah and Bulu! Uruguay (America Movil) Apple said last month that 20 countries would be getting iPhone 3G on the 22nd. Singapore is also rumored to be releasing the iPhone 3G that day, but SingTel hasn't confirmed their participation yet. In other news, Virgin Mobile is now offering iPhone 3G service in Australia. This addition gives the country four providers to choose from: Vodafone, Optus, and Telstra are the other three. Sadly -- according to this article, they're already out of stock. [Compiled with help from setteB.it, VentureBeat and AppleInsider.]
Orange lands broad iPhone distro deal too
We'll make this brief. Orange spokesperson Therese Wenger told the SDA news agency that it has secured rights to release the iPhone (3G version, presumably) in Switzerland and more than 10 other countries -- take that Swisscom! Other countries include Austria, Belgium, Poland, Portugal, and Romania. And France of course where it's already on sale. See, that was quick and leaves room for a dozen or so other iPhone related announcements today.Update: Official Orange press release now out.[Via 20minuten, thanks Pascal M. and Pae]
Germany: Give us back our $60.5 million, Nokia
The German state of North-Rhine Westphalia wants its €41.3 million (about $60.5 million) back. The reason? Germany wants the corporate subsidies given to Nokia back in 1998 and 1999 for its plant in Bochum. The very plant Nokia is about to shut down at the cost of some 2,300 German jobs. Nokia responded to Germany's demand saying that it is "astonished" and "Based on the facts available to the company and Deutsche Bank, its advisor throughout the entire period, both parties feel strongly that such an attempt is without merit." Of course, Nokia won't hurt too badly if forced to pay out. Nokia's new Romanian plant is expected to cost just a tenth of the Bochum plant to operate. Nokia also posted a staggering $2.6 billion in profit from the last quarter alone. The German authorities know a cash cow when they see it. Read -- Reuters' takeRead -- Nokia response in full
Romanian prez to Gates: Windows piracy built this country
Many of us have a reason to give thanks to Bill Gates, whether it be for the PowerPoint presentation that got us our last promotion, the Word spell checker that helped us avoid an embarrassing double entendre in our thesis paper, or the ol' Xbox 360 that has drained our productivity, consumed all of our free time, and driven our sweethearts into the arms of other men. But Romanian president Traian Basescu has a bigger reason than most to owe the Microsoft founder a debt of gratitude: he claims that rampant software piracy in the Eastern European nation was the single biggest factor in developing a healthy IT industry. Yes, believe it or not, a head-of-state actually stood up in public -- at a press conference to celebrate the launch of a Microsoft global technical center -- and told Gates face-to-face how illegal copies of Windows "helped the young generation discover computers...set off the development of the IT industry...[and] helped Romanians improve their creative capacity..." Indeed, nearly 70% of all software used in Romania today is pirated, according to some experts (pirates even peddle their wares to legitimate businesses, reportedly), despite the anti-piracy legislation passed some ten years ago. Amusingly, Basescu justified his countrymen's ridiculous levels of IP theft by claiming that "it was an investment in Romania's friendship with Microsoft and Bill Gates." Being the experienced political that he is, Gates chose to keep his mouth shut instead of using the president's provocative comments to launch into an anti-piracy tirade -- though we're sure that the world's richest man had to practically bite off his own tongue to do so. Still, after the press shindig -- while the two men were in private enjoying some traditional placenta pie pl??cint?? -- Gates reportedly dropped the Mr. Niceguy facade, stared Basescu coldly in the eyes, and uttered a single word: "Viodentia?"[Via The Inquirer]
RoadRover ENV1200 will guide you through the Middle Kingdom
RoadRover, RoadRover -- send some GPS right over! This Chinese navigation company has just released the ENV1200, a new navigation device that comes in a sporty (and Commie) red color. It's got some pretty good hardware too, with a 400MHz processor, 128MB of NAND flash memory, and 64MB of RAM. Further, it'll keep you headed in the right direction with its P30 GPS receiver, which apparently is very similar to the SiRF Star III that we've come to know and love, says Navigadget. As you'd expect, the ENV1200 plays the normal host of media files, including AVI, MPEG, WMV, MPEG-1/2/4, WAV, MP3 and WMA as well as the standard still formats. However, a new feature that seems pretty simple to add, given that its running Windows CE 5.0, is the ability to display text files, PDFs, and even Microsoft Office documents. And finally, as expected, all the maps come loaded up on a 1GB SD card. Despite the fact that the specs appear to be more or less standard, there are a couple aspects of this that we're a bit confused about. First, Navigadget reports this device will not be available in North America or Europe for the time being, although the map on the screen clearly shows the eastern part of Romania and the northern part of Bulgaria. Second, the site also says that the ENV1200 comes in a trio of colors: silver, grey (are those two really all that different?), or black -- but makes no mention of the red that's pretty obvious in the press photo. Once we find out what's going on here, including the ENV1200's price, we'll let you know.[Via Navigadget]
