Verizon and Samsung See Life’s ‘Brightside’

Verizon Wireless and Samsung today announced the March 1 availability of the Brightside, a touch phone that also has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. The display measures 3.1 inches and the Brightside runs Qualcomm’s BREW MP operating system that incorporates social network and messaging apps. It includes Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, GPS, an HTML web browser, and EVDO Rev 0 3G. Other features of the Brightside include a 3.2-megapixel camera, corporate email support, the ability to view Microsoft Office documents, and support for microSD storage. The Brightside costs $99 after a $50 rebate. ...

Samsung’s Tizen Updated as Huawei Joins the Effort

Samsung today announced that an updated version of Tizen and the Tizen SDK are available to developers. Tizen is Samsung’s open-source, standards-based mobile operating system that is currently in development. The new version of the software is being offered as a beta, and adds an updated user interface framework, web APIs, and support for Windows and Ubuntu. In addition to the updated mobile operating system, Huawei today indicated it has joined the Tizen Foundation Association Board of Directors. Its new membership gives Huawei access to the mobile platform and Samsung’s ...

Unlocked Sony NXT series Xperia smartphones headed to U.S. Sony stores this summer

At Mobile World Congress 2012, we learned that we can expect to see the three members of the Sony NXT family of Xperia Android smartphones, the Xperia S, Xperia P, and Xperia U, made available unlocked for purchase at Sony stores and online in the U.S. in the June/July time frame. The Sony Mobile executive we spoke with also hinted that we could well see the phones available from a big box retailer or two later this year, though no particular chains were mentioned. Sony did say that it was going to be “aggressive” with distribution of the new devices, and that it is working ...

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet video demo from MWC 2012

Samsung had relatively few things to announce at MWC 2012 this year, but one of them was the Galaxy Note 10.1, a larger version of the original Galaxy Note. The Note 10.1 uses the Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1) as its design inspiration (it looks nearly identical), but it adds S Pen capabilities to draw and notate on the screen. The Note 10.1 is powered by a dual-core, 1.4GHz processor and runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich with Samsung’s TouchWiz enhancements. ...