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The June Tsunami has begun.

matthew bennett — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 05:59:39 +0000

Tonight I had the privilege of attending an event hosted by Nokia in San Francisco. I had extensive hands-on time with the Nokia N97, the Samsung i8910, the T-Mobile MyTouch, and the Palm Pre. These are all very nice devices.

The June Tusnami has begun.

Samsung i8910 walkthrough I was given a Samsung i8910 to try out for...

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Palm Pre Launch Video

matthew bennett — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 16:24:37 +0000

The June Tsunami is kicking off, and there’s yet another lusty new device that does everything right, the Palm Pre. I wandered down to the Sprint Store in San Francisco to talk to the earliest adoptors of all, the folks in line at 6am.

The first person in line was tnkgrl of tnkgrl Mobile. After tnkgrl purchased and activated the Pre, we had a nice breakfast with some Nokia friends visiting from Finland, who were packing N97s. We ran into Joshua Topolsky of a site called Engadget. San Francisco is Blogger Hollywood, lemme tell you.

tnkgrl and I headed over to Emma’s Coffeehouse to film Talking with tnkgrl EP#11, featuring a Pre unboxing and more. I’ve included the unboxing in this video.

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Prepare for the June Tsunami!

matthew bennett — Tue, 19 May 2009 18:38:00 +0000

The entire planet is about to enter the next cycle of Human Communication. The June Tsunami’s effects will be felt by every human on the planet. This revolution will be bigger than the Personal Computer, and it will be pocketable. And it’s all starting in two weeks.

Advanced mobile users have always had a tough time finding the perfect device. Historically many devices have needed to make great sacrifices to remain pocketable in size. Gadget lovers have long been forced to choose between a mixture of 3G, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, A2DP, Removable Storage, a great camera, 3.5mm headphone jack, QWERTY keyboard and/or large touch screens.

In their search for the Perfect Mobile Device, many advances users were forced to import unlocked devices not sold by their carrier of choice. This meant the devices were expensive without carrier subsidies. The worse downside was that often the 3G frequencies of imported devices weren’t the same as the carrier, so Expensive Imported Devices were trapped in modem-like network speeds with EDGE.

The Nokia N95 was one of the first devices that didn’t make compromises. Sporting most of the above listed features, save the touch screen and qwerty, The N95 was the singlular choice among most bloggers and media creators prior to the iPhone. Remember that Nokia has sold over 10 Million N95′s in less than one year.

The iPhone has kick-started the revolution of well-equipped devices with full carrier support. While many Nokia users would scoff at the iPhone (and many also switched!), many iPhone users were upgrading from a crap-phone like the RAZR. To these users, the iPhone experience out-of-the-box is mind-blowing.

Two Thousand Nine is the year that all US carriers will (Finally) offer wide choices of very powerful pocketable computers, many US exclusives. The Palm Pre, iPhone 3.0, Sidekick LX, Nokia N97, Nokia E71x, Samsung i8910 are all new devices delivering on this promise starting in June. at&t recently launched six qwerty “messaging phones”, and Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile all have Tsunami-compatible devices in their near-future lineup.

The next infobit to consider is the mainstreaming of Social Media. Oprah’s on Twitter, your Boss is on Facebook, and your little brother is a star on YouTube. In the very near future a device *will not sell* if it does not support Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter out of the box. Many of these devices will support widgets, which will deliver updates without requiring launching a dedicated app. Some of these devices will pull the phone directory from these online services, as well as profile pictures. Sporting full QWERTY keyboards, typing a quick status update, instant message or email is no longer an annoyance, it’s downright easy.

Most of these new devices not only record decent quality video, you can upload the videos to YouTube with just a few clicks. The user becomes the media creator overnight. After an initial period of shyness, the wave of video publishers will be big. Having a camcorder in your pocket will also bring social justice. The people are watching the watching men. The camera is the new gun.

Yes, the June Tusnami is the effective end of CrapPhones as we know it. It is the beginning of much higher expectations from most users. From taking great pictures and video, to instant communication, the next round of devices are evolutionary, and will start a Media Revolution.

Communication barriers are shattering all at once. In your pocket. Right Now!

Truphone Local Anywhere launches with international SIMs Truphone, an awesome VoIP company which has long supported S60...

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Palm Pre Exclusive walkthrough, from CTIA 09

matthew bennett — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 07:42:13 +0000

The Palm Pre is a real game changer.

There, I’ve said it. And I mean it.

The Pre is a really great device. The screen looks like bright paper. The battery is a champ. The touch interface is very well thought out. The hardware is smooth and sleek. The charging system is super cool.

Oh, and did I mention it seamlessly integrates Facebook, Gmail and Exchange out of the box?

Check out tnkgrl’s video from CTIA 09,filmed and later uploaded with the newest version of Qik. This video is 35 minutes long, so be prepared. Make sure you check out tnkgrl Mobile for *a bunch* more CTIA videos, photos and more!

Of course to have a balanced article, I’m supposed to point out the flaws. No homebrew software, apparently. No expandable memory. Tied to Sprint’s CDMA network in the US. The cool charging stone costs extra. But that’s about it.

Legal disclaimer : After reading such high praise from Serko over at MobileDivide, I bought some palm stock. Me and Jimmy Fallon are getting rich, suckas!

Extra special thanks to Sprint for including bloggers in the agenda for the launch of the Pre. The Sprint Pre lounge was arguably the most comfortable place to chill at CTIA. It was off the beaten path, and they had yummy yogurt and granola. Proper!

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Rasta Monkey – iPhone Game $1.99

matthew bennett — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:44:59 +0000

iPhoneFreaks posts regular app and game reviews for the iPhone. As there are 20,000 (or was it 25k?) apps and games available in the Apple App Store, we human need some way to filter out the noise, and find The Good Stuff.

Rasta Monkey looks like a really fun game, and I’m loving the graphic style. Combining the happy/super-flat colors of Katamari Damacy, the speed of Sonic (but not too much speed) and delivered on a mobile platform, Rasta Monkey is sure to impress. And it’s only $1.99. Here’s what iPhoneFreakz say:

Rasta Monkey is by far the best iPhone 2D action platformer out there. With perfect physics based gameplay that you will love. You play an extraordinarily happy Rastafarian monkey. One day, Your old father asks you to help the family out: “You need to collect dem fruits for mi special fruit-shake before mi head go CHAKA CHAKA!…”

Download Now from the App Store for $1.99

Let us know if you’ve played Rasta Monkey, or if you’re a Rasta Monkey yourself.

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Dodgeball founders release FourSquare

matthew bennett — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 06:30:48 +0000

There once was a company called Dodgeball. They had a fun, early social app which would let you SMS your location, and see how physically close your contacts are to you.

Google bought Dodgeball, and it’s founders left with the thumbs-down salute after far-too-long of Google not updating the app.

Which brings us to today. FourSquare was announced at SXSW, and it’s been updated to use Real Data instead of SMS, and much better socialized… data. They’ve also announced an iPhone app, which is free. I tried to download the iPhone app to get some nice screenshots, but it needs 2.2.1 firmware, but I’m on 2.2. Dangit, guess I’ll need to upgrade and rejailbreak to get FourSquare going. Cause I WANT it! via Laughing Squid

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Lenovo’s sexy Pocket Yoga sighted

matthew bennett — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:58:35 +0000

Electric Pig has dug up photos of the unannounced Lenovo Pocket Yoga UMPC. It’s a netbook, it’s a tablet, it’s tiny and sexy, it’s leather. It’s unknown how much this sexy beast will cost, but if it’s less than $1500, I think it’ll be a hit.

I wonder how much longer consumers will accept stand-alone computers without always-on network connections? When I look at the Pocket Yoga, I wonder about tethering it through my Nokia N95. If it fits in your pocket, it needs to be able to perform tasks very quickly while you’re standing around talking to “your peeps”. Wouldn’t it be easier if these sexy devices ran a phone-like OS intead of a Windows-like OS?

Electric Pig is also reporting that the Yoga’s belt/waistband thingie is also a mouse??? My belt can’t do that!

via Boy Genius Report

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Engadget on Jimmy Fallon demos Palm Pre

matthew bennett — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:57:20 +0000

Late Night tv show host Jimmy Fallon (when did that happen?) is a big gadget nerd. Engadget editor Joshua Topolsky was invited to the show, and they spent seven minutes talking about the Palm Pre. Oh, yes. The full on media blitz is on!

They slid in a little bit of bad news at the end of the demo; the Pre’s charging “stone” is not included with the Pre. You’ve gotta buy it seperatly.

Jimmy Fallon’s drummer is ?est Love from The Roots, which I also love. ?est appears to be in charge, as they’ve got the drumset front and center, which I find unique. I always buy every album from The Roots sight unseen. Listen to The Roots. Big Ups!

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I made the 30 Mobile Experts on Twitter list!

matthew bennett — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 20:33:29 +0000

Mobile Royale has posted a list of 30 mobile Experts you should be following on Twitter. I’m excited about this, because the list includes many great folks in the Mobile community, and because I was included in the list! Unfortunatly I wasn’t using a real picture of myself, so I’ve got an empty image on the list. Shame on me. I’ve updated my Profile picture on all the social networking sites with a real picture.

Head on over to Mobile Royale and start Following your favorite Mobile Bloggers on Twitter.

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FP2 Battle Royale N79 vs N85 vs N96

matthew bennett — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 04:03:01 +0000

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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Feature Pack 2 Battle Royale. This is not intended to be a full review. Oh, no. That’s been covered by other sites much earlier. I’d like to take you for a quick tour of the hardware on these hot little Nokias, and give you a nice close up look.