Press Event Reawakening Facebook Smartphone Rumors

FaceBook SmartPhone

Facebook has scheduled to hold a media event on Tuesday, reawakening rumors that the social netowork will launch its own phone.

The event, set to be held at Facebook's headquarters on January 15, is prompting - for one more time - speculations that a Facebook smartphone is on the works.

Last November reports surfaced that HTC had been working with Facebook to develop a phone, code-named the Opera UL. However, the phone never materialized Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg had denied the rumors.

TechCrunch is now claiming that the launch of a phone is imminent, indicating that "multiple sources have told us that they expect some sort of Facebook Phone to be on display on Tuesday."

Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman review

Sony Ericsson Cell Phone

Sony Ericsson hasn’t had much luck when it comes to Android smartphones, and while their handsets tend to look nice on the outside, they rarely make the grade inside. In fact, for the longest time, Sony Ericsson phone owners had to wait for Android 2.2 Froyo to be released, with many of the older models still being stuck on Eclair even until today. I am glad to report that this is not the case with one of their more recent releases, the Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman.
Running on Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread right out of the box, you are greeted with a green theme – the packaging is minimal, and there is no styrofoam (yay!) to speak of. The bare basics are there – a charger, a product sheet, a pair of headphones, all crammed into a soy-ink printed box.
Before I begin, here is how I use the Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman – I turn on my 3G connection round the clock, check emails via Gmail, surf the net using the native browser for around 10 minutes each day, receive and reply on average two to three SMSes, and talk for around 10 minutes. Having said that, this kind of usage pattern managed to eke out around 16 to 18 hours of battery life each day, so depending on your pattern, your mileage might vary.
Being relatively small sized compared to other more powerful smartphones, the Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman comes with a rather diminutive 3.2” screen size that maxes out at 480 x 320 resolution – not the most impressive, but at least it is functional. I am quite surprised that there is no light sensor, so you will need to manually adjust your device’s screen brightness depending on the situation. There is a dedicated Walkman button on the opposite end of the power button, giving you quick access to the handset’s Walkman functions with but a single press of the button. Being a Walkman-centric phone, you can be sure that Sony Ericsson lives up to their reputation as the Walkman app works well enough for you to organize your collection of digital music. I would recommend getting a large capacity microSD memory card – the phone’s 320MB of internal memory is not going to be enough from the start, so it makes sense to stash all your favorite music on an external card.
The camera works decently in brightly lighted conditions as with what other decent camera phones would do, and you got to give it to Sony Ericsson for including an external shutter button that makes it infinitely easier to shoot self-portraits if you want a 5-megapixel shot – otherwise, there is always the front-facing VGA camera to fall back on.
Call quality proved to be decent at all times, although there is the issue of dropped calls from time to time. That is most probably the carrier’s fault, so it really depends on who you’re subscribing to, and the area where you live as it is different for everyone.
In conclusion, this is a decent enough handset if you are not looking for something extravagant. Functional, cheap, and hardy-looking. Does it fit your list of preferences? I would say that if you are so used to other user interfaces such as HTC Sense or Samsung TouchWiz, then you should give this a miss as going back to a stock Android user interface is going to leave you frustrated from the get go.
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Windows Phone 7 hits the one year milestone

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The Windows Phone 7 smartphone platform is now a yearling, today celebrating its 365-day anniversary of being on sale.

Microsoft’s Windows Phone guru, Joe Belfiore, phrased it like this on Twitter: “Hey — HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY WP7! Our very first phones started selling (Europe only) 1 year ago! A lot’s happened in a year, eh? :).” He is hardly wrong. For better or for worse, it’s been a big year for Windows Phone.
In fact, for the platform, the only thing that has not been big recently are its sales figures. Still, it’s hard to believe that just over one year ago the Kin was dead, and Windows Mobile 6.5 was still a very real thing. Now Windows Phone has established itself as a potential market competitor, and has scratched out a few fans. In fact, almost oddly, the phone line has generally fared better with critics than it has with consumers, although Microsoft is working to change that using targeted advertising, and employing last-mile OEM support to help push units.
From a different angle, Windows Phone has, in its first year, released two major updates, NoDo and Mango, and embarked upon a major hardware refresh for its second holiday season. It’s been busy, to put it mildly. And we have been chronicling every step. In fact, you could almost fault our nearly granular coverage of the smartphone line, but I would contest that it is hardly more voyeuristic than our handling of Android and the iPhone. Less so, even.
As it appears, Windows Phone is a long bet that Microsoft has placed, and the company is damning the losses. This holiday season is a crucial test for the software, as if sales remain lackluster, Microsoft might have trouble marshaling developer interest in the future. All is uncertain, but Microsoft can, at last, say that it has a seat at the mobile table.