Recently in operating systems Category

The BlackBerry Storm operating system upgrade known as 4.7.0.75 is currently available for download at Crackberry.com.

It appears to be popular because it was busy when we tried to reach it.

There have been reports that this upgrade will be available over the air soon.

Crackberry advises to install at own risk and install only if you're comfortable doing so.

Yesterday, Boy Genius sang praises of the next version of the OS 4.7.0.76.

Plese note you download the update from a third-party website, it might void all support from Verizon.

Nokia released the new software development kit (SDK) for its Series 40 6th Edition mass-market mobile devices. It provides application developers and network operators with new tools to create unique applications and services for the high-volume feature phone market worldwide. 

Qualcomm is offering  and new software development kit (SDK) for the Company's new Brew Mobile Platform (Brew MP).

Samsung Mobile will offer their TouchWiz user interface in the U.S. market. This customizable interface has been made popular by Samsung's international products, including the SGH-F480/TouchWiz and Samsung Omnia.

Samsung Mobile's TouchWiz user interface has specially designed widgets to customize and personalize phone use.. The icons provide a one-touch access point to a user's favorite and most commonly used applications and features.

Computer World  reports that there is a a Google Android kill switch, not to be confused with killer app.  It was discovered after reading the fine print:

"Google may discover a product that violates the developer distribution agreement...in such an instance, Google retains the right to remotely remove those applications from your device at its sole discretion."

The Android Store also offers a one-day money back guarantee return policy. The T-Mobile Android G1 is set to launch October 22.

Android developers will be able to distribute content through Android Market—an open content distribution system that will help end users find, purchase, download and install various types of content on their Android-powered devices.

It will be powered by Google’s expertise in infrastructure, search and relevance to connect users with content created by developers like you.

Developers will be able to make their content available on an open service hosted by Google that features a feedback and rating system similar to YouTube.

Eric Chu at  Android blog wrote “We chose the term “market” rather than “store” because we feel that developers should have an open and unobstructed environment to make their content available. Similar to YouTube, content can debut in the marketplace after only three simple steps: register as a merchant, upload and describe your content and publish it. We also intend to provide developers with a useful dashboard and analytics to help drive their business and ultimately improve their offerings.”

According to Reuters, Symbian said on Wednesday it could expand its collaboration with Google  to the operating system level as it moves to grant free and open access to its software platform.

Symbian was formed in London 10 years ago by of top mobile handset makers looking for a standardized way of building software to run hones.

It was the descendant of software on Psion electronic organizers.

Nokia announced that it will purchase the remaining stock it doesn't own in Symbian and then migrate the solution to an "Open" platform.  ABI Researchers have some interesting comments on the move.
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• ABI Research vice president Stuart Carlaw says, "There has been financial pressure on Nokia to move in this direction at some point. The sheer economics of the number of devices it ships with the OS versus the value it gets out of its historic shareholding clearly indicated that such a `rescue' was inevitable at some point."
  
  
• Also according to Carlaw, "The real spice in this announcement is that Nokia is stating that it will offer the OS in a more 'open' way. Perhaps this is an admission that the pressure from the Linux industry is really forcing Nokia and Symbian to change their game. Questions remain as to whether the solution will be truly open and what the cost of a Symbian Foundation membership will be."
  
  
• Research director Kevin Burden adds, "There are also questions on where the up and coming mobile Linux platforms would be today had Nokia taken care of this purchase several years ago. It's very possible that Nokia will eventually position the Symbian platform for mid-tier devices with another platform powering its high-end devices - a position that Sony Ericsson has already taken."

LiMo Foundation, a global consortium of mobile leaders delivering an open handset platform for the whole mobile industry, announced the addition of Infineon Technologies, Kvaleberg AS, Mozilla Corporation, Red Bend Software, Sagem Mobiles, SFR, SK Telecom and Verizon Wireless as new member companies. Expanding LiMo’s membership to 40 since the foundation’s launch in January 2007, these companies join with existing LiMo members to collaborate on the LiMo PlatformTM-the world’s first globally competitive, Linux-based software platform for mobile devices.

“This latest group of new members demonstrates the rapidly expanding reach of the LiMo ecosystem, and we are very excited by their commitment to further enrich the LiMo Platform and accelerate its adoption within all markets,” said Morgan Gillis, executive director of LiMo Foundation. “It is now clear that LiMo’s transparent and participative governance model and total focus on the handset operating system-which are designed to avoid value-chain distortion-are proving to be very attractive to the whole industry.”

According to Dow Jones Newswire:

At the Wireless Innovations 2008 conference in Redwood City, Calif.,  Joe Sims, vice president and general manager of T-Mobile's broadband and new business division, said he had already seen prototypes of the company's Android-based phone, which are scheduled to ship in this year's final quarter.

Motorola, Inc. through Motorola Ventures, its strategic venture capital arm, announced today it made an equity investment in VirtualLogix, a maker of virtualization software for communications devices and infrastructure equipment. Financial terms of the investment were not disclosed.

VirtualLogix is enables the mobility of applications from the desktop to devices, improves quality of service and security in an open mobile world, and will enable a new generation of dynamic individual user experiences. It is believed that it may enable mobile phones to switch between operating systems such as Windows and Android.

“As virtualization moves out from the datacenter and into everyday front-end connected devices, our connected world will require the delivery of efficient, secure and customizable user experiences,” said Peter Richards, CEO of VirtualLogix. “To meet this demand, leading electronics manufacturers are looking to leverage the VirtualLogix technology to create products with improved security, manageability and customization.”

Motorola joins VirtualLogix’s current investors Atlas Venture, Cisco Systems, DFJ Esprit, Index Ventures, Intel Capital and Texas Instruments.

The LiMo Foundation, a global consortium of mobile leaders delivering an open handset platform for the whole mobile industry, announced today the on-schedule availability of LiMo Platform Release 1. The LiMo Platform is the world’s first globally competitive, Linux-based software platform for mobile devices.

The LiMo Platform—leveraging standards and open-source projects—is a modular, plug-in, hardware-independent architecture built around an open operating system, with a secure run-time environment for support of downloaded applications. All of the enabling technology within Release 1—created by the foundation’s Founder members—has now been commercially deployed and proven within multiple handsets enjoyed by consumers today, as well as in several reference and pilot devices that will be on the market later this year. This represents hundreds of millions of dollars of technology investment to date.

Release 2 of the LiMo Platform is now being specified and developed within a collaborative process involving a range of LiMo members and is planned to be completed in a late 2008 timeframe.

Apple launched its iPhone SDK on Thursday.  Apple will update the iPhone software to allow motion sensing  iPhone games and Microsoft Exchange(licensing Activesync from Microsoft), giving it the enterprise edge and helping it to compete with RIM's BlackBerry. 

Apple will also be adding push email/calendar/contacts , support for certificates, identities, Cisco IPsec VPN and WPA2/802.1x and tools for remote security administration, device configuration and even remote wipe capabilities.

The software developers kit is available at http://developer.apple.com/iphone/.

There has been a firmware upgrade for the bugs in the AT&T Tilt. The software update provides:

• Enhanced Bluetooth performance.
• Enables DTMF tones for the slide-out QWERTY keyboard.
• Improves overall device performance and stability.
• Includes Microsoft Adaptation Kit Update (AKU) 0.4.4.

WARNING: During the upgrade process, do not attempt to make/receive calls, press any buttons on your device or disconnect the device from the USB cable as this will stop the update and your device will be rendered inoperable!!!

The upgrade process takes up to 10 minutes. It is recommended that you close all programs on your PC prior to starting the update program and do not open any applications or files while the update is in process. All personal data stored on the device will be lost. Make sure you save all pictures, videos, and important files to your PC prior to performing the update process.

To get the upgrade go to htc.

The Korea Times reports that Samsung and LG will reveal Android, (google) phones by the end of the year.  

The LiMo Foundation announced 18 phones based on its platform, including some that are already on the market, on Monday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The phones are made by LG Electronics Inc., Motorola Inc., NEC Corp., Panasonic Corporation of North America, Samsung Electronics Co. and others. Some of the mobile Linux phones already used by consumers are Motorola’s Razr2 and Motorokr.

The LiMo Platform is being readied by mobile leaders working in unison to deliver an open handset platform for use by the whole industry,” said Morgan Gillis, executive director of the LiMo Foundation. “The first release of the LiMo Platform combines technologies already extensively market proven within an array of leading handsets. This will enable initial LiMo handsets to register in the marketplace far more rapidly than handsets based on unproven technology. In addition, we are now making the platform APIs freely available to the public in order to begin the widespread engagement of developer talent and innovation that will shape the new mobile consumer experiences of tomorrow.”

ARM, maker of most of chips for mobile phones in the world will demonstrate Android running on an ARM-based handset at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, next week.

"ARM will be demonstrating Android on an early prototype device to show how the platform works on their processor," Google spokesman Barry Schnitt said, "there will also be more Android phones being demonstrated at the congress."

The Linux Phone Standards (LiPS) Forumannounced completion of the LiPS Release 1.0 specifications, fulfilling the commitment announced in June of this year.

With this release, LiPS enables mobile industry players to achieve basic interoperability for applications and services deployed on Linux-based phones, benefiting Linux-based software stack suppliers, mobile device OEMs and regional and global telecom operators. These specifications include the LiPS Reference Model, Telephony, Messaging, Calendaring and Scheduling, Presence, User Interface Services, Address Book and Voice Call Enablers APIs.

Google announced the formation of The Open Handset Alliance that opens up the development of handsets with an open source mobile phone platform called, “Android” to allow for innovation.

The alliance is made up of  34 companies who have worked together for 3 years to build the platform, with five different categories of companies, semiconductor firms, hardware manufacturers, wireless operators, software companies and commercialization partners.

Companies in the alliance include Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Nividia Motorola, LG, HTC and Samsung, as well as Sprint and T-Mobile. The SDK (the code for developers) will be announced on November 12th and handsets will be available by the first half of 2008. The members claim that the opening sourcing makes it easier to develop better mobile phone experiences with more capabilities.  The platform supports advertising which may lower the cost of mobile service.