It has not even been a fortnight that the BlackBerry  Unlocked Torch 9800 was launched, and already RIM is ready to bring to the market, a new smart phone having the new operating system. BlackBerry’s 9670 Oxford Clamshell, has been seen previously seen in plenty of live shots before and now, developers who are registered have been given access to a device simulator which shows that a launch is not too far away and might be made available in the market much earlier than you thought. A quick glance through the qualities of the phone reveal a HVGA display, as also a lower resolution external display, a 5 MP camera, which is the standard for a BlackBerry now, 512 MB RAM, along with 4 GB of internal memory and the phone runs on OS 6.

From what has been revealed, the Unlocked Blackberry ( 9670 ) will be available only on CDMA and BlackBerry Torch that was released earlier in the month. The best business strategy would be to release it before the end of summer, after which the kids will be returning to their schools. The Mulroney-grade chin is very predominant in this model also, as it was in BlackBerry’s last flip model. However, the keyboard is very much in the mold of the Curve, and not like the Bold. The laying of the menu and other the other few keys are also very different. Though, it is not expected that the company will overhaul the hardware and hence, it can be ascertained that the simulator might have been made available much before and the designs represent what it might have looked like at that point of time. Overall, the latest offering from BlackBerry does not look too bad; however, one can only be sure when it is finally released.

Samsung’s latest offering, the Epic 4G will be releasing on the 31^st of August, 2010 becoming only the second Android powered WiMax handset in the United States of America, and it was said in a press release made by Sprint. The pro variant of Unlocked Samsung’s Galaxy S, the handset will have a full QWERTY keypad, and the technology of 4G connectivity and these two features makes it a class apart from its predecessors in the galaxy S series. The Epic 4G is only the second 4G Android device in Sprint’s repertoire, along with the EVO 4G and no time was wasted in comparing the two devices, and it must be said that the Epic 4G came out with flying colors in the comparison.

The following list includes some of the qualities that put the Epic 4G right on top with the other brilliant devices in the category:

• Touch screen display and that too in 4 inch super AMOLED
• The keyboard slides out horizontally
• A 5 MP camera with integrated flash, zoom technology, autofocus and the capacity to record 720p videos in the back
• A VGA camera in the front of the phone
• It has a built in RAM of 512 Mb as well as a ROM of 1 GB
• A 16 GB micro SD card but the phone can support up to 32 GB
• It also has 2.1 Bluetooth, along with EDR
• It weighs only about 155g
• Powered by Android 2.1
• The price of the phone is only $249, which is what was expected

Sprint has made provisions for all its customers to reserve the phone starting from the 13^th of August till the 31^st night, but purchases will have to be made within 6pm on the 1^st of September.

Nokia Listings is the new application offering from the Nokia Beta Labs for the emerging markets. Still in its beta phase, this new app is designed specifically to connect consumers and sellers, targeting at the same time the huge job seeking population and prospective employers. It is also supposed to allow service providers to promote a product directly to users of this app.

A majority of job hiring and normal consumer based transactions, such as apartment rentals, within emerging markets occur through either a word-of-mouth system or via middlemen that charge a hefty service charge for their role in the transaction. Nokia Listings is an attempt to wipe out the function of the middlemen and allow the total benefits of the digital emerging marketplace to basic cell phone users. The best part of this service is the fact that it doesn’t necessarily need a GPRS or EDGE connection as most communication is done through a simple SMS system.

The ingenious system does not even require users to register as it can be pre-activated from the dealer. Furthermore each listing on this app is smartly geo-coded such that a user can easily access services located within close proximity to their location. The best function involved with the application is that once the listings are sent to you, you can either contact the person involved with the listing via calling or if you wish you can simply forward the listing to a friend.

The beta period of this app has resulted in the services related to Nokia Listings being made available to only select regions of India. However the good news is that a full release is expected any time soon now. The possibilities this application produces are endless and a successful run for this service may well result in a world changing effect. Here’s looking forward to Nokia Listings on your phone.

A global supply manager for Apple was arrested on Friday. The man named Paul Shin Devine was arrested with charges of money laundering, kickbacks and wire fraud after he was indicted for leaking iPod and iPhone trade secrets to suppliers in Asia. Paul Devine has been accused of receiving over $1 million from Asian suppliers for exchanging secret trade information about the iPhone4 unlocked handset and iPod touch. The information provided by Paul Devine was used by the Asian accessory maker to negotiate a lucrative deal with Apple.

Investigation revealed many schemes involving international and US banks where accounts were opened using Devine’s wife’s name. The mediation of many transactions were made by, CPK Engineering, a fake company from which he received bribes. He even devised a secret language where leaked information was written as “samples” so that his co-workers couldn’t find about the transactions.

Another accused in the case is a resident of Singapore named Andrew Ang. He was the receiver of some of the leaked information. The names of the Asian companies that were involved were not disclosed but it was revealed that they were suppliers for iPod Touch and unlocked iPhone4. These companies were located in Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and China. The investigation was jointly conducted by the FBI and IRS.

On top of the federal indictment, a civil case was filed against him by Apple, in order to get compensation for damages. The nature of the information that was leaked remains unknown and so does the amount of damages. Apple’s response to the arrest of Devine was harsh. The Spokesperson for Apple Steve Dowling said publicly that, Apple maintains a high moral standard in their manner of business and they do not tolerate any dishonest behaviour.

This is the first time in the company’s 34 year long history that an employee is arrested for giving out trade secrets.

The HTC Corporation, formerly known as High Tech Computer Corporation, is mainly the manufacturers of smartphones. This Taiwan-based company now uses the devices that are based on Android operating system instead of using the Windows Mobile software of Microsoft. HTC, a member of the Open Handset Alliance, devoted them in giving a platform to the Android mobile device.  HTC Dream was the first phone to use this Android device which was marketed by T-Mobile as the T-Mobile G1.

HTC has launched their new product – Bee. But for most of the people it remains a mystery. Bee is basically a CDMA  phone. It is made of Android 2.2 device. It contains Qualcomm MSM7625 processor of 528 MHz, a 3.2 inch display which has the resolution of 240 x 320, RAM of 348MB, and a 512MB ROM. The Bee has got a wonderful photo snapper of 5 megapixels which includes flash and auto-focus. There will be a micro SD memory card slot for additional storage and a 2 GB memory card will be attached with the package. This new device will be supposedly implemented by Verizon Wireless.

But this handset, based on 2.2 Android devices, has a leakage including the other two products of HTC – Lexikon and Spark. To tell you the truth, one cannot have much option speculate about the original identity of HTC Bee. It’s not your fault. HTC has revealed the brand name, Bee, for the first time. An entry level offering was not mentioned in the road map which has been disclosed in recent times. Now you can tell yourself that it can replace the DROID  Eris, but it will be nothing more than a speculation! Verizon does not sell the Eris after Android entered the market. Thus HTC Bee still remains a mystery for all of us.

RIM remains in the limelight as the drama continues regarding The Blackberry cell phones. RIM succumbed to pressure by the government of India to access its data. Ministries and Govt officials of Saudi Arabia and UAE have clearly declared their intentions about Blackberry’s role in security matters. RIM responded by saying that they will discontinue to provide services to those countries, but in the end they had to succumb to the pressure in order to expand internationally.

India had given the Canadian company an ultimatum that stated if they don’t allow access to their services by 31st August their services will be terminated. This created immense pressure as India is one of the largest markets for cell phones with a population of nearly 1.2 billion.

According to a source RIM has assured that they will find out some solutions for enterprise mail and messenger by next week. The govt will then decide if it works.

The source who gave information on a condition that his name is not mentioned said that the govt will also express its concerns over internet telephony and will discuss these matters with companies like Skype.

It’s not only one company falling under the strict new guidelines; many Indian companies will also face it in order to import cell phones and other equipments.

The government of India has already made leading operators like Bharti Airtel, to abide by strict rules regarding import of equipments.

Chinese manufacturers like ZTE Corp and Huawei Technologies have been banned temporarily, from transporting network equipment because spywares might be embedded.

So not only Blackberry, Skype and Google are facing the same trouble due to India’s concern over cyber security.

SHW-A250 is another cell phone by Samsung made only for Korea. Resembling the full touch  screen Corby, it has a 2.8 inch screen, Bluetooth connectivity, 2 megapixel camera, a micro SD card  slot and media player. On top of this, it also has the country wise differing features such as maps, TV receiver, and SOS function.

The A250 will be sold by Korea’s top two operators, KT and SK Telecom. While SK Telecom will be offering the Black and White versions, KT will also sell the brown and pink versions. The Price will be around $423 which is about 50,000 won; presumably it is the contract free price.

Again, it’s neither a thing that the people residing in the West would be able to get their hands on nor something that they need. If Unlocked Samsung (A250) sounds good, it’s better to grab the original Corby, it is essentially the same device barring the mobile TV facility and subway maps which is unlikely to be used anyways. This is a huge move for Samsung as Korea is a high consumer of electronic goods specially handsets and given The Corby’s track records in other countries Samsung should have high expectations from SHW-A250.

The Samsung groups headquarter is situated in Seoul, South Korea and it is South Korea’s largest chaebol or business conglomerate and world’s largest conglomerate in terms of revenue thus the launching of the new phone in Korea does sound like the beginning of another success story.

The brand new Unlocked Blackberry Curve 9300 3G, which is capable of running the OS 6, have already been marketed by Rogers and Bell. Now it is time for Telus, a national telecommunication company in Canada, to launch the Blackberry 9300. Telus is famous of providing a vast range of communication products which includes voice, Internet protocol, entertainment, data, video etc. The features of this phone are not, at least, extraordinary. It includes display of QVGA along with 3G, Wi-Fi, a photo snapper of 2 megapixels, and a memory slot of 256 MB. These were also the features of the last Blackberry product, Curve 8530. But there lays a difference from the Curve 8530, which is it can run the OS 6. Pearl 9100, Bold 9650, and Unlocked Bold 9700 – these three models also are capable of running the OS 6.

Torch 9800 from Blackberry introduced the OS 6 in the market and no doubt, it is technologically much more advanced than the new  Unlocked Curve 3G 9300. It takes us by surprise that Telus decided the market value of this model to be 199USD on a contract of three years. In comparison with the Blackberry 6, it is too high a market price for the Curve 3G. The HPSA roaming, introduced by Blackberry 6, received a good response from the audience. It is difficult to understand why Telus sets 199USD for Curve 3G while the Blackberry 3G costs 175USD. Moreover Bold 9700 which is much more admirable than the Curve 3G costs $100 only. Moving on to the prices set by Rogers and Bell, Bell sets the market price of 49.95USD and Roger is offering it for 79.99USD.

If you are already convinced to have a Curve 3G 9300, you will have to go to the online store of Telus.

Dell, entering the competitive world of smartphones, was something that everyone dreamed of and it seems as if their dreams are about to come true, and that too in a big away not too far in the future. The company is planning the release of a Windows Phone 7 handset and a leak few months back revealed the company’s plans of launching a few devices that will be powered by Android. It seems like the competition to get us to but smart phones just got even hotter.

The Dell Thunder is supposedly going to have a 4.1 inch OLED screen, but after HTC’s recent enforced change to Sony’s Super LCD because Samsung was not being able to cope with the demands for OLED screens, we can never be too sure until it is actually launched. The Thunder is also going to have an 8 MP camera that will have the capacity to shoot 720p videos, on the lines of the Droid X from Motorola, the Unlocked iPhone4 and almost all the new smart phones that are being launched in the market.

The model that was leaked was seen to be running the Android 2.1 but the actual release will probably have the Froyo or the Android 2.2, it was revealed by a source close to the company. However, when it will be launched and how much it will cost was not revealed.

However, with the lack of production of the Dell Aero which was released in March raises the question if Dell will actually be able to meet the demands if it does actually launch the phone into the market. The company has won over many hearts with its PC’s and laptops, but people and experts are already very skeptical about the long term success of the company in this market.

The statistics of the usage of an application that is very popular on Foursquare and available for the Unlocked Palm Pre cell phone and Pixi revealed the existence of an unknown device that has the code name of ‘Roadrunner’ and with webOS 2.0. The developer of the application, Zhephree, found only one a solitary entry from this unknown ‘Roadrunner’ device, and also a new column for the webOS 2.0 as there was research going on about the rate of adoption of the webOS version 1.4.5.

Clear and concrete details have not been found about the device, but according to experts, it is most likely to be a phone. A new screen resolution entry was, however, not generated by the device, which makes it easier for experts to understand that the device has a resolution that is similar to the resolution of those devices that are already in existence now. But it must be remembered that the resolutions of the Pre and Pixi have no compatibility whatsoever with that of a tablet. However intriguing this discovery of the ‘Roadrunner’ might be, it has been pointed out by the developer that the Foursquare code is a very open source and anyone can hack in to change the user agent string that the metrics tool for his application is presented with. But this process is very complex and there is no feasible reason to waste time by hacking into the Foursquare application in spite of the presence of other easily accessible targets.

The possibility of an emulator generating the entry can also not be ruled out. Another possibility might be the fact that a prototype of the webOS 2.0 phone might be undergoing tests conducted by an employee of who might also be a Foursquare user. HP/Palm had promised new hardware recently and it is possible that this was the first glimpse of a webOS 2.0 in action.