Samsung Galaxy Nexus to be announced October 19th

We've all been aware of the continued partnership between Samsung and Google with regard to the birth of the third Googlephone, following on from the Samsung Nexus S, for some time now. The Nexus Primeor Galaxy Nexus as it has more recently been known, was set to take center-stage alongside the official launch of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, the latest edition of Google's mobile OS.

Unfortunatley, we encountered a slight snag as the Unpacked event at the CTIA conference in San Diego, intended to pose at the platform for the October 11th annoucement, was cancelled by Samsung, apparently out of respect after the death of Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs.

So with the event now turning its back on us, we were left wondering when Google's next 'chosen device' would officially get to show its face. After rumors and speculation we received the word; October 19thwas to be the new date.

Google Q3 profits beat estimates, 190M Androids activated

Larry Page, who not so long ago took over as Google's CEO, handed in the company's Q3 financial results with a big smile on his face. Revenues were up 33% Year-on-Year (YoY) to $9.72 billion.

Of that cool 31% transferred into operating income ($3.06 billion) and 24% ($2.21 billion) went to advertisers. The same numbers for last year's Q3 were 35% ($2.55 billion) and 26% ($1.81 billion).

The number of paid clicks on Google's ads increased 28% YoY and 13% compared to the previous quarter of this year. They were 5% more expensive too, both YoY and consecutively.

Larry Page also boasted on Google+ that there are now 190 million activated Android devices around the world. Last time, that number was 135 million. The Google revenue from mobile devices also grew 2.5 times over the last year.

Google+ (which Page used to do the bragging) has hit 40 million users who have uploaded 3.4 billion photos. Another Google project - Chrome - is doing very well too, breathing down Firefox's neck for second place in the browser market with 200 million users.

If you want more numbers, check out Google's press release and have a look at Page's Google+ posttoo.

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Sony Ericsson Q3 results: 0 profit, smartphone-only portfolio in 2012

Sony Ericsson is still walking the line of profitability and has crossed it a few times in the last few quarters. The third quarter of 2011 saw a decrease in most of the major stats year-over-year (YoY), but the company did perform better than it did in Q2.

The most interesting figure of the press release is the net income - 0. Income before taxes was €31 million but none of that made it to the company's coffers. Still, the company seems to be recovering from the Japan earthquake which affected its Q2 results quite strongly.

The number of shipped units was down YoY - 9.5 million vs. 10.4 million in Q3 2010, but the sales remained pretty close at €1.586 billion compared to €1.603 billion.

That was mostly due to increased shipments of the Xperia line of smartphones, which compromised 80% of all shipments. This pushed the average selling price up to €166 (up 8% YoY). 22 million Xperia phones have been shipped to date.

Interestingly, Bert Nordberg (president and CEO of Sony Ericsson) said that they will be shifting their entire portfolio towards smartphones in 2012. He didn’t specify an OS, but there are no strong indications for now that Sony Ericsson will be joining the WP7 team (except a canceled prototype from a while back).

You can read the full press release here (PDF) for more details on Sony Ericsson's performance in Q3 of 2011.

Source (PDF)

Photos from the Samsung Galaxy Nexus found on Google+

It would appear that shots found on Picasa albums shared between two Google engineers, Roman Kirillov and Chris Yerga, are taken from the camera of the yet-to-be announced Google phone, the Nexus Prime.

The photo's EXIF data states that the cameras used to take these images are in fact from the 'Galaxy Nexus' or as we've been calling it, the Nexus Prime. Unfortunatley, whether the cameras have been purposfully set to a lower resolution or uploading from the Google+ app has lowered the quality automatically, the images in question are fixed at 3 megapixels, making photo comparison somewhat impossible.

With the Nexus Prime's launch event whipped from beneath our feet, we still don't know when the phone's new grand unveiling will be re-scheduled for, although a source from Verizon allegedly hinted at a November 3rd date change, this is one point however we are wary to trust entirely.

Originally the 'Unpacked' event's cancellation was supposedly linked to the recent passing of Apple's former CEO Steve Jobs, but serial blogger Eldar Murtazin actually ties the Prime's delay to changes and the removal of features from the upcoming build of Android Ice Cream Sandwich, which is intended to launch simaltaniously with the Nexus Prime at the aforementioned Unpacked event. The tweaks and changes being carried out are as a result of the ongoing patent war between Apple and Samsung.

Despite the compression, we already have a rough idea of the camera setup the Prime would bring to the table. A 5 or 8 megapixel snapper capable of full HD 1080p video tied into a 4.65" Super AMOLED HD display, which should keep everyone happy, with of course plenty of Ice Cream Sandwich to go around too.

Check out the source to see just how the EXIF data came to light. Also it's worth noting that the photos in question have disappeared off Picasa, somewhat promoting their legitimacy that little bit more.

Source | Via

Impressive real-life demo of Siri on the iPhone 4S

One of the key selling points Apple have used to drive the newly announced iPhone 4S is its voice recognition software, Siri. The software itself goes beyond pre-designated voice commands and uses speech pattern recognition along with articificial intelligence applications to allow users to search the net, write messages, set alarms, check the weather and generally access the plethora of features available on their iPhone, all by voice.

The company in charge of Siri were until recently, independant of Apple, with their iOS app being one of the first major products out of the company. Following Apple's procurement Siri from SRI International in late April last year, any possibility of these advanced voice-recognition features coming to Android or Blackberry were scrapped, a shame considering there was serious talk of the service extending in those directions prior to the takeover.

But now we have the Siri we got a brief taste of in Cupertino just the other week. The software has been assimilated into the iPhone infrastructure and is ready to show off just what it can really do.

Here's Apple's official Siri promo video:

Of course seeing it running in an edited, professional commercial, the service looks great, but what about in real-life testing? Well, the team from Stuff.tv managed to get a pretty lengthy demo at what appears to be the Covent Garden Apple Store in London, take a look.

Not only did it have no trouble working with either a British or American accent, but it could reply in them too. The technology behind Siri really does appear to work and honestly we can't wait to put it to the test ourselves.

Despite the advancement in personal voice recognition that we're seeing on the 4S, just how likely do you think you are to use this feature in day to day use? Checking the weather by talking at your phone on a busy train carriage and it then talking back to you might come across as a little odd to say the least, but who are we to judge.

Let us know what you think, is Siri a feature you're glad to have, or are Apple using it to side-step any shortcomings fans might have felt there were following the announcement of the iPhone 4S? Post your thoughts in the comments.

Samsung-Google Unpacked event allegedly rescheduled for 19th

After Steve Job's death, Samsung and Google decided to postpone their 'Unpacked' event, saying that 'it wasn't the right time to announce a new product'. However, no information was given as to which date the event was postponed to.

But we are now hearing that it won't be far from now. According to Engadget, the event has been rescheduled to October 19 and the venue has been shifted to Hong Kong and will coincide with theAsiaD: All Things Digital event that will also be held in Hong Kong.

We are looking forward to an official announcement from Samsung/Google, which should be coming any time now, considering the proximity of the event.

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Nokia 800 ad leaks, confirms the name of the WP smartphone

More proof that the Nokia 800 is going to be announced at Nokia World at the end of this month just came from India. It was brought by a leaked poster, advertising the availability of the Windows Phone Mango-running smartphone on Airtel.

The Nokia 800, which will share its design with the Nokia N9 (but for the three keys that have replaced the bottom part of the display) was previously said to be named Nokia Sun, but that name is nowhere to be seen on the poster. It was either a codename (though we also saw Sea Ray as the codename for this device) or the name of some carrier-specific edition of the smartphone.

The new leak brought no new information about the Nokia 800 specs, but those are pretty clear already. The Nokia flagship for Windows Phone will come with a 3.7" AMOLED of WVGA resolution, a 1.4 GHz CPU and a plastic unibody (that will hopefully be in-depth colored as the one of the N9).

We also got word of the availability of the Nokia 800 in India. The Asian country won't make it into the first wave to get WP7.5 devices by Nokia and it will have to wait until Q1 of 2012.

Just two week until the official unveiling, so we'll know everything else there is to know pretty soon.

Thanks, Sushant for sending this in

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ComScore: Android widens its lead on iOS in the US

comScore have tallied the numbers and have come up with a report on phone usage in the US for the three month period that ends in August. They surveyed 30,000 people for the report of the 234 million American phone users over the age of 13.

Let's start with the smartphone OSes. According to comScore, Android is the leading platform by a wide margin. A margin that keeps growing no less. Apple's iOS is a solid second and is the only other OS that saw its share grow in the US.

An old time favorite, BlackBerry OS saw a 5% drop over the three month period. Microsoft's mobiles OSes combined mustered up only 5.7% and the barely there Symbian OS fell to 1.8%.

Top Smartphone Platforms 3 Month Avg. Ending Aug. 2011 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending May 2011 Total U.S. Smartphone Subscribers Ages 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens
	Share (%) of Smartphone Subscribers
	May-11	Aug-11	Point Change
Total Smartphone Subscribers	100.0%	100.0%	N/A
Google	38.1%	43.7%	5.6
Apple	26.6%	27.3%	0.7
RIM	24.7%	19.7%	-5.0
Microsoft	5.8%	5.7%	-0.1
Symbian	2.1%	1.8%	-0.3

Apple is fourth by number of phones in the US market, counting feature phones and smartphones. They jumped from 8.7% to 9.9% over just three months. Samsung is holding fast to the first place and saw a 0.5% increase in market share.

All others lost market share. Motorola for one will soon be in danger of losing its third place to Apple, as the buffer between the two shrunk with 2.2%.

Top Mobile OEMs 3 Month Avg. Ending Aug. 2011 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending May 2011 Total U.S. Mobile Subscribers (Smartphone & Non-Smartphone) Ages 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens
	Share (%) of Mobile Subscribers
	May-11	Aug-11	Point Change
Total Mobile Subscribers	100.0%	100.0%	N/A
Samsung	24.8%	25.3%	0.5
LG	21.1%	21.0%	-0.1
Motorola	15.1%	14.0%	-1.1
Apple	8.7%	9.8%	1.1
RIM	8.1%	7.1%	-1.0

comScore also studied how people in the US use their phones. Changes were pretty small, but it's interesting to note that all categories grew - which suggests that Americans are spending more and more time on their phones.

Mobile Content Usage 3 Month Avg. Ending Aug. 2011 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending May 2011 Total U.S. Mobile Subscribers (Smartphone & Non-Smartphone) Ages 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens
	Share (%) of Mobile Subscribers
	May-11	Aug-11	Point Change
Total Mobile Subscribers	100.0%	100.0%	N/A
Sent text message to another phone	69.5%	70.5%	1.0
Used browser	39.8%	42.1%	2.3
Used downloaded apps	38.6%	41.6%	3.0
Accessed social networking site or blog	28.6%	30.9%	2.3
Played Games	26.9%	28.5%	1.6
Listened to music on mobile phone	18.6%	20.7%	2.1

You can read comScores full report for some more details on their study.

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