Nokia unveils Lumia 505 with Windows Phone 7.8, 8-megapixel camera

 

The Nokia Lumia 505 sports a 3.7-inch 480x800 display, 4GB internal storage and a paltry 256MB RAM. There's no word yet on the processor inside the Lumia 505. The standout spec of this otherwise modest smartphone is perhaps its 8-megapixel camera that is also capable of recording 640x480 video at 30fps. There's no front camera on the Lumia 505.

Nokia claims 7.2 hours of talk time and 600 hours of standby time (both over 3G) from the 1300mAh battery that the Lumia 505 sports.

iPhone 5 crossed 2 million sales in China in the opening weekend

Apple Inc sold more than 2 million of its new iPhone 5 in China during the three days after its launch there on Friday, marking China's best-selling iPhone rollout ever, the company said late on Sunday.

"Customer response to iPhone 5 in China has been incredible, setting a new record with the best first weekend sales ever in China," Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said in a statement.

BlackBerry maker dropped out from Nasdaq as part of annual revision process

Canadian company Research in Motion, the makers of BlackBerry telephones, will no longer be part of the Nasdaq 100 index, the market operator said Saturday on its web site.

The index which includes the 100 largest non-financial companies listed on the electronic exchange said Research in Motion (RIM) was one of ten companies to be removed from the index in its annual revision process.

Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos and Galaxy S II Plus surface online

There have been rumours in regards to the Korean handset maker working on Samsung Galaxy Grand   Duos and Galaxy S II Plus.

Samsung Galaxy S II

Both Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos and Galaxy S II Plus are expected to feature Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

According to Unwired.com Samsung Galaxy S II Plus is expected to feature a 4.3-inch WVGA display, dual-core 1GHz processor, 8-megapixel rear camera with flash, and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. Earlier reports had indicated the Galaxy S II Plus will come with Android 4.0, 4.52-inch qHD display, 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 8-megapixel rear camera and 16GB of internal storage.

Blackberry 10 kept abide from Whatsapp

RIM has been doing its part to keep the excitement and the anticipation levels high for the upcoming release of BlackBerry 10 next month.With the launch of BlackBerry 10 imminent the big question that most people want to know is which of the big, popular apps will be supported. 

Unfortunately, WhatsApp will not be one of those applications. WhatsApp is a nicely executed cross-platform instant messaging service that provides delivery confirmation.  It also has proven to be a consistent performer and has about 20 millions users.

WhatsApp is the best selling iPhone app : Apple

According to the 'best of 2012' list, messaging app WhatsApp was the best-selling iPhone app of the year, while Apple's Pages word processor was the best-selling iPad app of the year.

Tech giant Apple has released a list detailing the best selling apps of the year as well as the firm's own favourites.   The number one free iPhone app of the year was YouTube app, released in September after Apple dropped the version of the app which came pre-installed on the iPhone until iOS 6. 

The top free app for the iPad was Skype, the video calling service, the Telegraph reports.

Facebook for Android goes native, Now twice as fast

Facebook for Android has always  struggled with performance issues and particularly laggy scrolling due to its dependence on web views instead of native code. The company has now finally rolled out a native build of the app for Android which promises to double the performance of the application. The application is expected to be twice as fast at looking at photos and opening up the timeline.

Launch timings to have been worked at according to Phillip Fung, a Facebook engineer. The popular social network has decided to keep the interface the same while making extensive under-the-hood changes to create a solid foundation for the app moving forward. There’s much improved memory efficiency and garbage collection to ensure that the performance is right in line with the updated iOS application which shipped a few months ago. Facebook has built its own scrolling engine and is using it instead of the one built into Android. The update will go live later today on the Play Store and should show up on your devices as well.

Eric Schmidt: Android is winning the war with iOS pretty clearly

In an interview with Bloomberg yesterday, Google's CEO Eric Schmidt said Android is quite clearly winning its war against iOS. Schmidt compared the rivalry between Android and iOS in the mobile OS space to the Microsoft versus Apple debacle 20 years ago.

This is a huge platform change; this is of the scale of 20 years ago -- Microsoft versus Apple. We're winning that war pretty clearly now.

He also added that now new users are activating more than 1.3 million Android devices a day. In the third quarter alone, Android took 72 percent of the market, while Apple's iOS managed just 14 percent.

"The core strategy is to make a bigger pie," Schmidt said. "We will end up with a not perfectly controlled and not perfectly managed bigger pie by virtue of open systems."

Sony Xperia V goes on sale in Russia

The Sony Xperia V, a water-proof version of the international Sony Xperia T flagship has gone on sale in Russia today.

The smartphone's initial pricing is pretty steep, though. It will set you back 24999 Russian rubles (around $815/€623/£505) off contract, though.

The black Xperia V can be ordered online right now and shipped to your doorstep tomorrow. The phone will also arrive in the brick and mortar stores of the seller starting December 16.

The white Xperia V is still on pre-order with no word on when it will beging shipping.

The Xperia V was already delayed in France and is expected to launch with Jelly Bean in January. It also has launched as Xperia VL and Xperia AX in Japan.

The smartphone runs on a dual-core Qualcomm MSM8960 Snapdragon chipset with two 1.5 GHz Krait CPU cores, the Adreno 225 GPU, 1 GB worth of RAM and a 4.3" 720 x 1280 screen at the front.

LinkedIn for BlackBerry v2.1 update brings features of Groups and Contact Sync

LinkedIn has updated the BlackBerry app to version 2.1 that brings new features including option to sync and merge LinkedIn connections with existing BlackBerry contacts, Groups and More tab to view saved and recommended jobs and access, add, view and participate in the groups. The LinkedIn for BlackBerry v2.0 update brought major UI changes and new features back in October.

New features in LinkedIn for BlackBerry v2.1

• Groups and More lets you access saved jobs and browse ones that are recommended for you
• Access groups, join in new groups, view pending group memberships and view recommended groups from Groups and More
• Connect and Sync your existing BlackBerry contacts with your LinkedIn connections with Contact Sync

Download LinkedIn for BlackBerry v2.1 (only for BB OS 6 and later) from the BlackBerry App World for free.