Google working on voice translator phone, redefining synergy

Posted By: wraggster

Okay, so Google has this expansive online translation service, which we all know, use, and sometimes even love. Google also has its own branded phone, with a voice recognition function that we frankly adore. So what's a brave new age company with bottomless pockets to do but try to splice the two together into some kind of omnilingual instant translator? Speech-to-speech translation -- long the exclusive plaything of fanciful sci-fi writers -- is said by Franz Och, Google's head of translation services, to be a viable possibility within a measly couple of years. The Mountain View approach to overcoming the inherent problems of variable pitch, tone and accents in speech will be to use each person's phone to accrue data on his or her linguistic idiosyncrasies, so that the more the phone's voice recognition is used, the more accurate it becomes. Sounds tres bien to us.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/g...ining-synergy/

0 comments - Last Comment By wraggster

Google's Nexus One, a Steal At $49 Unlocked?

Posted By: wraggster

I initially posted a piece ragging on the Nexus One. But then a commenter pointed out a problem with my initial logic, and after doing some math I concluded that the $529 unlocked/unsubsidized Google Nexus One gPhone is much cheaper than it appears to be. In fact it's only $49 over two years — and that's unlocked! Google likes to say that the Nexus One represents 'Our new approach to buying a mobile phone.' But it actually seems as though T-Mobile deserves most of the credit by providing a $20/month discount to customers who purchase an unsubsidized phone, a fact that didn't seem to get much attention when T-Mobile created the plan last October.

http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/10/...At-49-Unlocked

0 comments - Last Comment By wraggster

UPDATED!~Roaring Lucky Lunar New Year Sale starting now!

Posted By: wraggster

New competition from Play Asia:



Kung Hei Fat Choi! It's Lunar New Year again! Some of you may be wondering what this Lunar or Chinese New Year is about: The Traditional Chinese Calendar is based on Moon cycles and starts a few weeks after the western New Year. This festival is the most important, and joyoys time in Chinese societies. People buy new clothes, sweep their house and children get red pockets.

Every lunar year is represented by an animal. Last year, it was the ox that represents hard work, and this year is the year of the tiger, promising adventures and dynamic. These big cats are natural leaders, we certainly hope that they'll lead everybody to a happy and prosperous year.

To welcome the Tiger, Play-Asia.com will start into the New year with the Roaring Lucky Lunar New Year Sale, with thousands of brilliant bargains and a chance to win awesome prizes.

Look for the goodies left on your Christmas wish list, there's a good chance that they're now available at a lower price. We have carefully reviewed our inventory and the result is a total of around 5,000 in-stock items, we have around 2000 games, 200 console accessories, 400 toys, 200 books, 800 music CDs and around 1000 movies.

We just added, and restocked more bargained items, some of them are real hot actioners such as Left 4 Dead 2, Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway and Turning Point: Fall of Liberty. The greatest thing about these products is that they are Asian versions, they are not only cheaper and are region free. We know that some countries censor and cut games and we know that real gamers don't want to settle on a copy with reduced content.

Other goodies, such as Tekken 6 [Collector's Edition] gets another price cut, it falls from US$ 129.00 to $99.00. A real good deal, you get both the official fighting stick and the game in one beautiful package. Another Collector's Edition worth taking a look at is the Batman Arkham Asylum which comes with bonus DVDs and the batarang, the price just fell from US$ 99.00 to US$ 69.00.

For more details on the bargain items, please take a look at our bargains section!

But this is not all! Like we've done with our sales in the past, you will again have the chance to win fantastic prizes such as consoles, games and store credits. So what are you waiting for?

And this is how it works:

Now Tiger will guide you to where the Sales and the Lucky Draw are. The cheerful big cat will stop by the bargained products between February 2nd and February 11th, snap up the goodies and there you go, entered into the Lucky Draw. The more you buy, the more you save and the higher your chances of winning our prizes.

The winners of the 30 main prizes will be announced in this news post during the last week of February 2010 and will also be notified by e-mail.

Yet, be aware. Some products are restocked regularly, so the tiger comes back time and time again, yet for limited versions, such as toys and music, once the tiger leaves (out of stock) he never returns. Set your priorities and plan your shopping strategies.

Prizes:


1st Prize: A: PlayStation3 Slim- Final Fantasy XIII Lightning Bundle (250GB Model Asia version)


2nd Prize: Nintendo Wii™ Console [Black or White] (Japanese Version) + 2 Wii™ Games of your choice*


3rd Prize: A: Nintendo DSi™ LL Console + 2 NDS™ Games of your choice*
OR
B: Sony PSP™ Slim & Lite Console + 2 PSP™ Games of your choice*


4th Prize: GP2X Wiz Game System + Leather Case


5-10th Prize: A store credit voucher worth US$ 50 each, redeemable for any purchase at Play-Asia.com


11-30th Prize: A store credit voucher worth US$ 20 each, redeemable for any purchase at Play-Asia.com

http://www.play-asia.com/SOap-23-83-...-2b2-84-n.html

1 comments - Last Comment By osgeld

Use a Sixaxis Controller to Play Emulated Games on Your Nokia N900

Posted By: wraggster

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tON2g...layer_embedded


You've made a PS3 controller out of a Nokia N900, but all you really want is to use a Sixaxis controller to play emulated games on the device. Thanks to these instructions, now you finally can.

http://gizmodo.com/5464531/use-a-six...our-nokia-n900

0 comments - Last Comment By wraggster

RAMblow keeps RAM free on your S60 phone, and more than ever before

Posted By: wraggster

RAMblow from CellPhoneSoft aims to maintain a healthy amount of available RAM memory to help running the phone smooth for a long time. The application provides automated memory management, as well as manual termination of running programs. The memory boost feature can blow RAM up to amounts never before seen. RAMblow is very simple to use, just let it run in the background, and you will never again find your phone lacking memory.

Major features:
* Unattended and manual management of running apps.
* Maintaining a healthy amount of free RAM for smooth phone operation.
* Memory optimization for executing large programs.
* Automatic memory cleanup after set idle time.
* Examination and manual closing of unwanted programs.
* Reporting the results of memory cleanup.
* Compatible with all Symbian S60 3rd and 5th edition phones by Nokia, Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson.

http://my-symbian.com/s60v3/software...Auto=779&faq=1

0 comments - Last Comment By wraggster

ABBYY FotoTranslate - OCR translator for S60

Posted By: wraggster

ABBYY FotoTranslate is an innovative solution for travel and business trips. Translate words with a single button push, wherever you are - you don't need to type unknown foreign words by hand. The program automatically recognizes the words taken on the camera of your smartphone and shows the translation. Snap a foreign word - get an instant translation using OCR (optical character recognition) - almost 30 language combinations are available!

http://my-symbian.com/s60v3/software...to= 780&faq=3

0 comments - Last Comment By wraggster

Symbian Going Open Source From Today

Posted By: wraggster

Don't shy away at the sound of that "S" word. I've got some reassuring news for anyone who's ever thrown their N95 across the room in horror. Starting today, Symbian^2 will be offered as a free open source download for anyone wanting to tinker with it. The details are a bit thin on the ground so far, but at least it shows Symbian is finally starting to view Android as a threat.

Once Symbian^3 is launched later this year, it won't be quite as attractive fooling around with Symbian^2 behind its back, so best to start early and get in a few months of quality time together before the jealousy sets in.

http://gizmodo.com/5463970/symbian-g...rce-from-today

0 comments - Last Comment By wraggster

Sony interested in challenging Apple's iPad

Posted By: Shrygue

via Computerworld


Sony hinted on Thursday that it's preparing a challenger to Apple's upcoming iPad.

"That is a market we are also very interested in. We are confident we have the skills to create a product," said Nobuyuki Oneda, Sony's CFO, who was speaking at a Tokyo news conference held to announce the company's quarterly financial results.

Oneda didn't provide any details of any planned products but did say Sony is eyeing a similar market to the upcoming Apple gadget.

"Time-wise we are a little behind the iPad but it's a space we would like to be an active player in," said Oneda.

Sony said in October that it plans to launch a number of new mobile products that are built around network-based services.

The devices will connect into Sony's new online service, an Internet-based store that will bring music, movies, games and electronic books to a range of Sony products including Bravia TVs, Vaio PCs, Walkman music players and Reader e-book readers.

The launch of the iPad, due in March, isn't expected to impact the e-book reader market, which Oneda said is growing "exponentially."

"The [Sony Reader] Daily Edition with 3G network connectivity has received great acclaim and we plan to expand sales going forward," he said.

0 comments - Last Comment By Shrygue

Android and the Linux Kernel Community

Posted By: wraggster

An anonymous reader links to Greg Kroah-Hartman's explanation of a rift (hopefully mendable) in the development culture of Google's Linux-based Android OS and the Linux kernel itself.
"As the Android kernel code is now gone from the Linux kernel, as of the 2.6.33 kernel release, I'm starting to get a lot of questions about what happened, and what to do next with regards to Android. So here's my opinion on the whole matter ..."

http://linux.slashdot.org/story/10/0...rnel-Community

0 comments - Last Comment By wraggster

Gameloft: Mobile games market set to quadruple

Posted By: wraggster

Gameloft CFO Alexandre de Rochefort has said that he expects mobile game sales to quadruple over the next 3-4 years – even if actual mobile phone penetration remains the same as it is today.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz following Gameloft's release of its 2009 year-end financials, de Rochefort said that as Java handsets are replaced by the new generation of smartphones, game sales will increase exponentially simply because the games that can be made for those handsets are of such higher quality.

"If I look at the long term growth for Gameloft and for mobile gaming in general, what I see is that the attach rate on Java phones is around 3 per cent, whereas on the next generation of smartphones, beginning with the iPhone, the attach rate is above 10 per cent. On the iPhone several studies have shown it's even as high as 15 per cent," he said.

"My point is that, basically, there is absolutely no doubt that in the next 3-4 years all Java phones will have been replaced by the next generation of smart phones. And this means that even if we have a similar install base – I'm not even betting on the increased penetration of mobile phones in the world, I'm just saying at equal install base - we are capable of growing this market 3-4 times just due to the fact that because the games are so much better on the next generation smartphones than they are on Java phones, because of that the consumer experience is much better and therefore – and we are living and experiencing this as we speak – the tie ratio is much higher on these phones.

"Just keep in mind that a Gameloft Java game is a 1MB game whereas a Gameloft smartphone game like on the iPhone is 100 – 400MB. So there's no question that the consumer experience is much better."

Mobile game revenue accounted for 94 per cent of the company's total in 2009, while iPhone sales grew a staggering 231 per cent on the previous year. In total the company has sold over 10 million games through the App Store since 2008 – an achievement that de Rochefort puts down to Gameloft's focus on creating quality, 3D games for mobile phones early on, and also to its fearless approach to new platforms.

"When we started to work on the Nokia N-Gage, I remember a lot of analysts were quite dubious about our reasons for going there. The thing is, we've been preparing Gameloft to be able to develop 3D games since 2004. And the reason why Gameloft has such high market share on the App Store, along with EA, when Glu and the other companies are nowhere to be seen, is really because we've been preparing for this shift for years now," he said.

He adds that the company "isn't shy" about investing in new devices – even when it doesn't know how those devices are going to perform in the long term.

"Gameloft was, as far as I know, the only European company invited by Apple to present on stage for the launch of the iPad and, to a certain extend, I believe this was because we've shown to Apple that we were ready to invest on new devices really as ahead of the new device as possible," he said.

"We're not shy, we are not fearful of investing – even if we don't know what the output will be. We've been investing on Google phones, on the Palm, on the iPhone and we're going to continue doing this and clearly it is our will to be present on the iPad when it is launched. I don't know with how many games but we'll be there."

On the subject of the iPad, de Rochefort is reluctant to offer an opinion - "I personally have not seen the device myself," he says. But he offers some insight as to its potential in the gaming market.

"The processor seems to be more powerful than that of the iPhone, the definition of the screen seems to be even better than on the iPhone, and the size of the screen is obviously much bigger. So, all things considered, my guess is that it's going to be a good device to play games on."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...next-few-years

0 comments - Last Comment By wraggster