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Verizon Reveals More Open Access Details

Verizon Reveals More Open Access Details
As promised Verizon offered up some more details about its open access plans, though some questions were still left unanswered, such as the specific requirements for certification and the price of getting devices certified.

By the second half of the year, the program should be in full swing. All retailers and handset makers will have to do is get their devices certified by Verizon, which claims the requirements are only slightly stronger than industry standards. There will be no limitations on the phones or software that can be run, which means by the end of the year we're sure to see Android and other platforms working on Verizon's high-speed EV-DO cellular data system.

There were two very exciting revelations about Verizon's plans. One, that the open access system will be extended to the company's 4G LTE ultra-high-speed data network, which should enter testing phases by the end of the decade. And two, that Verizon is considering a multi-device flat-rate subscription, which would allow you to use multiple devices on the network for the price of one.

From Engadget and Reuters

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Hot New Phones Unveiled at Barcelona Congress

Mobile World Congress Coverage and Highlights

We couldn't make it out to the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona -- a big international cell-phone conference focused mainly on GSM-style world phones -- but our good friends over at Engadget were able to make the trek and are sending back reports from the front line of cellular and mobile computing technologies.

All the usual suspects are there, Samsung, Nokia, even Motorola are showing off some of their 2008 handset lineups. The most innovative stars of the show, however, are unquestionably the new Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 and the Google-backed, Linux based smart phone operating system Android.

Take a look at Engadget's comprehensive coverage, and check back here for some more selective highlights.

From Engadget

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Google Phones to Premier Next Week?

Google Phones to Premier Next Week?
Rumor has it that next week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona the world will finally get to lay its eyes (and hopefully hands) on the first cell phones powered by the Google-backed Android operating system. Google itself has bought up a lot of floor space at the expo, and ARM, maker of the most popular processors in the mobile phone market, is expected to demo its own hardware running the Android platform.

Andoid handsets (also called gPhones) being shown off at the premier mobile phone expo comes as no shock, but it's still exciting. gPhones are supposed to start shipping in the second half of this year, but outside of some videos posted by Google developers, we've yet to see it running on any real hardware.

From Times Online

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Google Announces gPhone? Not Quite.

Google Announces Android Mobile OS
Well after months, -- nay, years of rumors the Google Phone (or gPhone) is upon us... almost. On a conference call this afternoon, Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google; Andy Rubin founder of Danger, the company behind the Sidekick and founder of Android, a mobile software company gobbled up by Google; and representatives of Motorola, HTC, T-Mobile, and many others revealed an open-source mobile platform that may actually, finally, live up to the title "iPhone Killer."

Today's announcement was not the unveiling of an actual gPhone, but the announcement of a mobile platform, called Android, to be used by the 33 companies that make up what is called the Open Handset Alliance.

The Android mobile OS is built on Linux and comes packaged with a user friendly interface and applications. In addition, the open nature of Android means plenty of powerful third-party applications will follow.

The software will be made freely available within a week and we can expect to see phones sporting the OS in the second half of 2008. Part of the draw of Android is a "very robust HTML web browser," according to Eric Schmidt, likely based on Firefox.

Google Announces Android Mobile OSSchmidt also left the door open on the question of whether Google is still planning on developing its own branded cell phone. "We're not announcing anything, but this is THE (perfect) platform for building a gPhone."

Oh Google, will you ever stop playing coy?

Contrary to speculation, the platform will not be completely ad-driven (note the "completely"). Instead we expect Google is hoping that by giving away a full-featured OS with a "very robust" browser they can draw more users to their web services where they will be served advertisements.

Using Android will save handset makers money that would normally be used on purchasing licenses for Symbian or Windows Mobile, or for developing their own platform. We can only hope that this will allow them to spend more on phone hardware or cut the price of the handsets.

Android sounds promising, but only time will tell if Google has another Gmail on its hands, or a failure like its lagging social network Orkut.

From Engadget

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