Several years ago, we broke the news that French portable media player peddler Archos was working on an Android smartphone. That never went on sale, but it has emerged in another form today: as a home phone running Google’s OS. Oh yeah, and there’s a mental web radio to go with it, that looks like a right Chumby basher.
Ready for your daily dose of evening tech news? In today’s US Update we’ve whipped up a full serving of smartphone news, covering everything from Apple’s latest patent to the Windows Phone-version of the Nokia N9 smartphone code named ‘Sea Ray’.
A patent filed in 2007 by Apple has just given the Cupertino camp a possible capacitive multi-touch monopoly. According to several sources familiar with intellectual property law, the patent could make it difficult to build a competitive smartphone.
We knew the Archos G9 Honeycomb tablets would have to be a little bit special to stand out, and from the first official details, we weren’t wrong. The Archos G9 80 and 101 slates will be the world’s cheapest Honeycomb tablets when they go on sale – and the first with mechanical hard drives too.
UPDATE: More images!
The HTC EVO 4G+, previously code named HTC Rider, has been confirmed for a July 1st launch on South Korean-based operator KT Corp. The smartphone looks to be a 3D-less version of the HTC EVO 3D coming to the US this Friday on Sprint. As surprising as this may sound, dropping the 3D display and cameras might just be the device’s biggest selling point.
The HTC EVO 4G+ packs a 4.3-inch qHD display, the new standard in high-end Android smartphones. A dual-core processor, 8-megapixel camera, HTC’s Sense UI and Android Gingerbread round are also standard. To earn the 4G+ surname, the smartphone supports South Korea’s 4G WiBRO network.
Well looky here. Rockstar Games, by way of Rockstar Leeds, has announced plans to bring its wildly successful crime thriller L.A. Noire to the PC this fall. The move from console to PC brings a world of customization, including keyboard mapping and enhanced gamepad functionality. Trust us when we say this is not your everyday port.
How do you take L.A. Noire to the next level? How about taking it to the next dimension. The PC version will add 3D gameplay, delivering “an even greater sense of interaction and immersion within a painstakingly detailed 1940s Los Angeles.” Life as Detective Cole Phelps will never feel so real.
It’s been six months since the Droid Bionic graced the CES showroom floor in Las Vegas. In that time we managed to get a hands-on of the device and pair it against its rival, the Motorola Atrix. In the months that passed the Atrix saw its launch and rather luke-warm reception while the Droid Bionic quietly sat out the first half of 2011.
Internally Motorola scraped its original design and decided that it needed to reinvent the phone, presumably to live up to its superhuman name. Meanwhile the qHD 4.3-inch display, Tegra 2 processor, 8-megapixel camera (vga front-facing), and 4G LTE connectivity remain unscathed.
Seen the news? CEO Stephen Elop just showed off the Nokia Sea Ray, the first Windows Phone from the struggling Finnish phone giant. And man, was the whole event odd.
But those shaky clips hitting YouTube are exactly what Nokia intended to get out however – and they give you some idea of how cursory this week’s Nokia N9 MeeGo launch really was.
Nokia has just released an availability checker for its upcoming MeeGo-powered N9 smartphone. Unfortunately the UK, US and India are not listed in the group of 23 countries on the pulldown. While this alone does not rule out launches in these countries, it may suggest a phased roll out with smaller markets leading the launch.
A Nokia smartphone launch without the UK is quite a shock. India has been sidelined before with Nokia device launches. Looking back at the Maemo-powered N900, it took ages for the device to launch. The US has also suffered similar setbacks since carrier support it limited and Nokia phones are sold almost exclusively SIM-free.
