Surur

Site Admin and Windows Phone enthusiast, he has been using Windows Mobile devices since before they were called PocketPC’s. He is currently sporting a HTC 7 Trophy.

Flo-Rida using a Nokia Lumia 710 in latest video

February 10, 2012 | By Surur

The Nokia Lumia product placement continues, this time in Flo-Rida’s latest video, Wild Ones, where he is sporting a Nokia Lumia 710 and clearly using twitter, showcasing both the clean lay-out of the software and the easy to use keyboard.

Another Nokia handset, the Nokia Lumia 800, recently showed up in another music video, this time on the other side of the Atlantic, in Tinchy Stryder and Pixie Lott’s Bright Lights. See that video after the break.

In both cases the devices get an impressive amount of screen time, which must have cost a bundle. Hopefully more than us fans are noticing.

Continue reading →

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According to game data, in Europe the Nokia Lumia 800 is dominating all other WP7 handsets

February 10, 2012 | By Surur

europesessions

We all know Microsoft is expecting Nokia to bring volume to Windows Phone 7, but the OEM was meant to lift all boats and cause a general improvement in the sales of Windows Phone 7 devices.

More predictably however it seems, at least according to game data, that Nokia’s Lumia 800 is racing ahead of all other Windows Phone 7 handsets, and according to SurvivalCraft’s game analytics, is dominating the market with 31% of all handsets.

In USA, where the handset is yet to launch (and where Nokia is not a massive brand name of course) SurvivalCraft sessions are dominated by older generation handsets, though the Samsung Focus Flash is starting to make an appearance, indicating that the European phenomena is not just an artefact of getting a new handset.

nasessions

The implications are of course interesting. The Nokia Lumia 800 is just getting into its stride, while the marketing for the other Gen 2 Windows Phone 7 handsets have all but disappeared. Will we in 3 months see a world where 90% of the Windows Phone market are Nokia handsets, and would this be a good thing or a bad thing? surivalcraftqr

Let us know your thoughts below.

Read more at Kaalus, Survivalcraft’s developer’s website here. Survivalcraft is $1.99 with a free trial and can be downloaded here.

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Google’s NFC Wallet comes with fatal flaw which could lose users their credit card numbers

February 9, 2012 | By Surur

Security researches have found that it is as easy as pie to unlock the Google Wallet app on NFC equipped Android handsets.

Due to the nature of the 4 digit PIN, it is extremely easy to brute force the password from the handset, exposing sensitive information such as not only transaction history, but also credit card numbers.

To get the PIN users need the hash value stored in isolated storage, so this is only a problem if the handset is rooted (unlikely) or stolen or lost (much more likely), making losing the phone akin to losing your actual wallet.

A bigger danger is of a rogue app entering marketplace with a method of achieving privilege escalation. Given the malware problem on the Android marketplace this is more likely than it may at first appear, making it possible for thousands of credit card numbers to be stolen in the future, and of course making Android handsets an even more attractive target for hackers.

The Register reports the issue is very difficult for Google to fix, which may explain Verizon’s concern about security issues with Google’s Wallet app on the Verizon Galaxy Nexus.

The next version of Windows Phone 8 is expected to support NFC, and is expected to support carrier implementations of mobile payments, which are claimed to be more secure than Google’s version.

Microsoft undertakes not to withhold standard-essential patents

February 9, 2012 | By Surur

In a statement on their website Microsoft has promised to license any standard-essential patents on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms to any comers. The move comes in the wake of Apple complaining that the FRAND system is being abused in Europe, where Samsung has been fighting back against Apple claims by using their own library of standard-essential patents, which would normally form part of a patent pool.

Microsoft writes:

Like other leading high-tech firms, Microsoft regularly contributes to the development of industry standards. Industry standards are vitally important to the development of the Internet and to interoperability among mobile devices and other computers. The international standards system works well because firms that contribute to standards promise to make their essential patents available to others on fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms. Consumers and the entire industry will suffer if, in disregard of this promise, firms seek to block others from shipping products on the basis of such standard essential patents.

Microsoft’s approach is straight-forward:

Microsoft will always adhere to the promises it has made to standards organizations to make its standard essential patents available on fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms.

This means that Microsoft will not seek an injunction or exclusion order against any firm on the basis of those essential patents.

This also means that Microsoft will make those essential patents available for license to other firms without requiring that those firms license their patents back to Microsoft, except for any patents they have that are essential to the same industry standard.

Microsoft will not transfer those standard essential patents to any other firm unless that firm agrees to adhere to the points outlined above.

Presumably Microsoft is hoping for similar reciprocation from other companies as it moves into the tablet market, and to influence the law makers in Europe while Apple argues the case.

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Zune lives on in Windows 8, but for how long

February 9, 2012 | By Surur

windows8

Neowin was surprised to discover an icon for a Zune app in the Microsoft store. The music and video client is rumoured to be not long for this world, and has been speculated to be ripe for replacement before Windows 8 launches.

Neowin notes that rumours of the demise or at least rebranding of Zune for Windows remains, with a dedicated Windows Phone 8 synching app rumoured as a replacement, so while the client is here today it may still be gone tomorrow.

Windows On Arm started on a Windows Mobile phone (pictures)

February 9, 2012 | By Surur

Microsoft has finally released more information about Windows 8 on ARM, and it included this interesting titbit:

As we mentioned, a portion of Windows is generally built with code that can be made to work on ARM in a technically straightforward manner. These subsystems include the Windows desktop and applets and supporting APIs, though we needed to significantly re-architect all of them for better resource and power utilization. In fact, here is an early photo of an ARM device (an early Windows phone) running the full Windows desktop. Early in the development of WOA, the only hardware we had were existing ARM devices such as phones (ARM tablets didn’t yet exist). We just thought you would enjoy a few fairly early photos I captured of debug WOA all loaded in RAM (unretouched). Note: This is not a product plan or even a hint at a product.

Given that full Windows was made to run on an older generation Windows Mobile phone, I think the arguments that Windows Phone 8 will be too heavy to run on Gen 1 Windows Phone 7 hardware has just taken an arrow to the knee.

Manos drew our attention to the task manager from the picture above, which shows Windows 7 running in 256 MB RAM with 90 MB free. Pretty impressive and another sign that Gen 1 handsets will be able to handle Apollo.

Via MobilityDigest.com

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Do the Dark Forces Team have their hands on Tango?

February 9, 2012 | By Surur

8750

The Dark Forces Team are teasing on their forum a new build of Windows Phone 7 with number 8750, which is believed to be the Tango branch of the operating system.

They have released the screen shot to the left, which, if genuine, suggests that Tango will continue to be marketed as Windows Phone 7.5.

Tango is meant to expand the addressable market of Windows Phone 7 with support for more languages and geographies and lower price points.

According to previously leaked road maps we can expect to see devices running the OS by the middle of the year, and it is widely expected that Microsoft will be talking about the OS at Mobile World Congress which starts on February 27th.

Of course there is no way to know if the screen shot is not simply faked, and so far, besides teasing the build number, no more information was forthcoming on the DFT forum.

Feel free however to have a sniff around in the 15 pages of the topic here.

Via WPCentral.com

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Nokia Lumia 710 arrives on Vodafone UK

February 9, 2012 | By Surur

Vodafone UK will now be offering the Nokia Lumia 710, Nokia’s cheaper Windows Phone 7 handset.

The phone will be selling for £20.50 on 24 month plans – including 100 minutes, 500 texts, and 250MB of mobile data.

Users will be able to pick up the handset from Vodafone stores, where their contacts, photos etc can be transferred directly to the handset using Vodafone’s RED Box service, currently being promoted using the Nokia Lumia 800.

Buyers will also be able to get up to £270 for their old phone with Vodafone Buyback, and use Vodafone Data Test Drive for 3 months, which allows users to accurately estimate how much data they really use before committing to a data plan.

Vodafone says that the 710 has, “All the amazing features of the Nokia Lumia 800, plus fun changeable back covers.”

Read more about the offer at Vodafone here.

Via GoMonews.com

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Build 7.10.8733 shows up on WPBench

February 9, 2012 | By Surur

wp bench 8733 A new Windows Phone 7 build number has shown up on the WPBench benchmarking site.

Build 8733 was added around 4 days ago, and is believed to represent the Tango branch of Windows Phone 7 development.

The latest post-Mango current build out officially pushed to devices is 8107.

While it is not confirmed, it is suspected that we will be seeing and hearing a lot more about Tango at Mobile World Congress, with the possibility of devices running the OS hitting market in the Q2/Q3 time frame.

Unfortunately at present WPBench numbers should be treated with caution, as hackers have found a way to contaminate the data again.

The build number does however also show up in the Lyn x Interactive database, where it is associated with the enigmatic Nokia Champagne.

WP Bench, which costs £0.99 with a free trial, it can be found in Marketplace here.

Via WindowsPhoneDaily.com

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Windows Phone Facebook app adds another 100,000 users, around 9 million WP7 users out there?

February 9, 2012 | By Surur

The integrated Windows Phone 7 app has added another 100,000 users since we last reported a change, now topping out at 1 400 000 users. Using our old multiple that means around half a million Windows Phone users were added in the last 3 weeks, bringing the estimated total to around 8.5 to 9.5 million users.

The number does represent somewhat of a slow down from the last jump, but that was of course around the Christmas shopping season, and as can be seen from the graph still represents a clear acceleration from the slow and steady rate over the preceding 14 months.

Hopefully as Nokia’s handsets and increased promotions expand to more countries we will see a further positive increase in this rate over the coming weeks.

Thanks Hil for the tip.

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Ported Windows Phone 7 to Windows 8 game demoed

February 8, 2012 | By Surur

Rick Walrond, the creator of Alphadrops, a popular word game on Windows Phone 7, has demoed a ported version of his Windows Phone 7 game on a Windows 8 tablet.

At the moment we do not know if Windows Phone 7 apps will be able to run without modification on Windows 8 tablets, but Rick demonstrates in the video above that it will not take too much effort to port Windows Phone 7 games to the new Marketplace, and with potentially a much larger market I am sure most WP7 Marketplace developers will be looking to do the same if it makes sense.

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Major Fail: Now even Microsoft is calling Windows Phone 7 Windows Mobile

February 8, 2012 | By Surur

majorfail

When carriers and Microsoft partners mistakenly call Windows Phone Windows Mobile we always say Microsoft should be a lot more involved in their promotions.

However ignorance can hardly explain why Microsoft Studios missed the memo, and decided to flash back to 2009 with their new initiative – Windows Mobile Wednesdays, “which will highlight a Windows Mobile game we love!”

As a commenter on the page said “Way to go with associating “Windows Phone” with the dead ‘n buried “Windows Mobile“.”

We could not have said it better…

See the page here.

Update: The page has now been pulled, but even better would be to avoid such silly branding issues in the first instance.

Update 2: A corrected version has been posted here.

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WIND Mobile announces the HTC Radar as coming soon

February 8, 2012 | By Surur

windmobile

WIND Mobile has just announced that they will be getting the HTC Radar 4G on their network. The AWS network has opened a page where users can register to be notified of the release date of the handset, which is their first Windows Phone 7.5 device.

Videotron, another Canadian carrier, had earlier also announced the availability of the handset, which at the time suggested strongly that the HTC Radar would also be coming to WIND. No pricing was announced yet.

It is believed that they will also get another Windows Phone handset in the future, possibly the Nokia Lumia 710.

Register your interest at WIND here.

Thanks Ian for the tip.

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