"Designed in Broadcom's proven 65 nanometer CMOS process, the new '3G phone-on-a-chip' and RF solution enables manufacturers to build low cost, low power, next generation 3G HSUPA phones with breakthrough features, sleek form factors and very long battery lives. Utilizing an integrated ARM11® processor that is capable of running popular open operating systems (such as Windows Mobile® and AndroidTM), the Broadcom® BCM21553 HSUPA baseband processor can run innovative new applications and download media files at a much faster speed, resulting in sophisticated and affordable handsets, and a more satisfying smartphone experience."

I guess there's really nothing not to like about this. Low cost, high speed, and long battery life. I like each of those features in a smartphone. From what I read it sounds like the graphic's chip will be powerful along with support for at least an 8 megapixel camera. I'd like to see all this sooner than later. Now we just need to figure out what the statements "low cost" and "long battery lives" actually mean. I suppose time will tell but for the most part the future sounds pretty good.

"Hand-held devices could soon have pressure-sensitive touch-screens and keys, thanks to a UK firm's material that exploits a quantum physics trick.The technology allows, for example, scrolling down a long list or webpage faster as more pressure is applied."

Samsung has just licensed a new hardware technology that allows for greater pressure sensitivity in screens and keys. So what's so special about "quantum tunneling composite"? The two biggest knocks on resistive screens are that they're not sensitive enough to use easily with your fingers, plus the screen registers touches as either on or off with no in-betweens. On the other hand, you can use practically anything to interact with it. Capacitive screens on the other hand are great at touch sensitivity, but you need a special stylus/pen to get pressure sensitivity. QTC might just be capable of combining the best of both technologies - use anything you like, plus pressure sensitivity, plus touch sensitivity - all in a package as thin as a human hair. Now won't that be worth seeing? Samsung is already using QTC in hardware keys in a limited way on some handsets. Hopefully the technology will have progressed enough to put into screens in the near future.

"It's not news to say that we attracted some criticism for this on the X1 and we're not going to go there again with the X2. So, for the record, this is what X2 customers can expect in terms of software upgrades."

In an attempt to be upfront with consumers, Sony Ericsson has announced the software update schedule for the XPERIA X2. According to the company, March should bring a major update: Windows Mobile will be upped from 6.5.1 to 6.5.2, most applications will receive tweaks, and there will be added support for video telephony, an FM radio, and faster GPS fixes. Then sometime in May, it'll get the Windows Mobile 6.5.3 treatment. Of course, the value of all this is heavily dependent on the device making it into the hands of consumers in a timely fashion, which we're sorry to say, is not happening.

I can't understand a word of the dialogue, but the video speaks for itself - the Aspen looks like one nice device if you're the kind of person who likes the front-facing QWERTY messaging devices (and until the HD2 came my way, that was my #1 preferred device style). Oh, be prepared for some psychedelic white balance issues in the video...it's trippy!

"I was just going off about this on twitter and I felt it was worth posting about too. I downloaded the beta for FourSquare on Windows Mobile. However, the application requires .Net Compact Framework 3.5 on the device. At first, I figured that a new HTC HD2 running Windows Mobile 6.5 should already have the 2 year old version of the Compact Framework installed in the ROM. Guess what I found out - No .NetCF 3.5 on the device. While that's just short sighted and stupid on Microsoft's part, the solution is pretty simple. All I need to do is download the CAB from the web and I'm good to go. Sadly, it's just not that simple. You see, the .NetCF 3.5 installer is a 33MB desktop installer that contains the CAB files inside of it. So you can't simply download it to your device and install. Now I'm really wondering what the hell Microsoft is thinking. Have they lost sight of the end user in all this?"

Thoughts Emeritus Mike Temporale has a good point about the .NET Compact Framework that you may be wanting to install (in order to run other programs). I found out the same thing Mike did last summer when I wanted to install an app and had to hook my phone up to my computer, download the framework, and install it, all while having the CAB for the actual program sitting on my phone waiting. It used to be (e.g., 2003) that only expert geeks knew about CAB installations to their phones, of course that was also when every device shipped with a cradle and it was expected that the device would be docked a considerable amount of the time. Nowadays docking is mostly an annoyance, and the lack of a CAB for the .NET CF is annoying.

Of course come to think of it, I've never had a good time installing ANYTHING .NET... so why should the CF be an exception? <sigh>

"It is always good to have a big battery in a smartphone, so that you can work for longer without having to charge the phone. Larger batteries often mean a larger overall size, which isn't for everyone. However, sometimes the need outweighs the shape, aesthetics and weight of the product. So if this is the case for you and you own a HTC HD2, this extended 2300mAh battery will be ideal. An official extended battery for the HTC HD2, this 2300mAh battery comes complete with a replacement back cover, that has a kickstand (allowing you to stand the device up - perfect if watching a film)."

It adds significant bulk to the HD2, but it nearly doubles the battery power, so if you're using your HD2 as a portable entertainment system on a long flight, this would make a great solution. Leigh Geary from CoolSmartPhone has snapped a couple of real-life photos as well. I wouldn't use this often, but it would be great to have for the times I needed extra battery run time.

"Spinballs is an exciting puzzle game with brilliant graphics, rocking music and great sound effects that introduces an unique gameplay. Seven discs with six coloured balls on each of them make up the playground. Each disc can be rotated clockwise or counterclockwise. Try to connect balls of the same colors by rotating those discs but never forget that time is running!"

Looking for a way to pass some time? This graphically-intense game is one way to do it. I'm always happy when I see game designers put real effort into the user interface and graphics of their game - Spinballs looks great. The game is a mere $3.99 in our MobiHand affiliate store, so if you're interested, grab it before the sale ends!

"Verizon Wireless, provider of the nation's largest and most reliable 3G network, today announced the launch of VZ Navigator® 5.0, the newest version of its award-winning map, navigation and local search service, which helps users find their way around town. Powered by TeleCommunication Systems, Verizon Wireless' VZ Navigator is a GPS-enabled service that transforms a wireless smartphone or handset into an all-in-one powerful navigation and communication device, enabling customers to find useful information and discover new places and destinations."

$9.99 a month (or $2.99 a day) will give you access to, well, something Google is giving away for free. But those who don't have an android phone to switch into for navigation may appreciate big V's offering. It runs on Win Mo (hence this post) and also on blackberry. The attractive part may be the traffic updates that are provided by the network in response to what actual users are experiencing. So heavy commuters who are perpetually late (But have enough time to power up a GPS for a route they know by heart) may be interested.

I'd have thought that WM6.5.3 would have first turned up in some nice top range models featuring capacitive screens, before going down the line to more mass market handsets. Instead we have the SE Aspen and this Garmin-Asus effort - not much of a bang, huh? The M10 features a 600MHz Qualcomm processor, 3.5" WVGA resistive screen, 4GB onboard storage and a 5MP camera that appears to be fixed-focus (in this day and age?). For pics and more details, check the Google translation of Mobile01.com's review.

"Regardless of the desktop application that you play your digital music with, or how much storage capacity you have on your phone, Didiom Pro seamlessly scans your computer for audio files in the most popular formats, and maintains an encrypted channel between your computer and phone. What's more, when you add new audio files to your computer, Didiom Pro makes them available for wireless streaming and downloading to your phone in seconds."

Being able to access all my music and podcasts on my Windows phone is somewhat appealing, but I don't get grasp their business model - the app is sold on a 99 cent per month subscription, of $9.99 per year. If the desktop component of their app is installed on my system, transcoding the audio to 128 kbps, uploading the bits to my phone...why the subscription fee? There's typically a subscription fee for applications that involve a server-side component; some sort of Web-based storage or service. I've tried a few of these audio streaming programs in the past, and while they're fun to use, ultimately the battery drain from a constant data stream takes most of the fun out of them.

"With the power of mobile phones more and more people want to watch movies on them. The problem is, a lot of people don't know where to begin. There are a few different routes you can take to get a movie on your phone. The main two are to buy them from various vendors or you can create them. It is pretty easy to buy them and add them to your phone using Amazon Unbox so let me help you with this one first."

Those of you looking for some interesting videos to watch on your Windows Mobile Device may be interested in this piece detailing how to add Amazon Unbox videos to your SD card, to then play in your WinMo device!

With the announcement of the Sony Ericsson Aspen, Windows Mobile 6.5.3 gets its official unveiling - because it's a dotdot release, Microsoft isn't making any big announcements about it. It does bring a few important updates to the table, though the cynical among you (and some days I count myself among you) will no doubt say they're about two years too late. Regardless, 6.5.3 is more touch friendly than 6.5, and that's a good step forward. 6.5.3 adds official capacitive touchscreen support, which is fantastic - hopefully this means well see more capacitive touchscreen Windows phones in the future. I initially wasn't a believer in the superiority of capacitive over resistive when it came to touch input, but after using the HTC HD2, there's no going back. It's just that much better.

Also added is code to enable multi-touch, so we might see some developers start to take advantage of this - assuming there are enough multi-touch Windows phones out there to matter to developers. Actually, that brings up an interesting question: is multi-touch a hardware + software feature, or purely software? As in, do you need to have multi-touch screens in order to implement multi-touch? Someone smarter than me please answer that question.

They've added touch controls throughout the system - but when I look at the screen shot above, the buttons on the bottom look a bit...un-balanced. What do you think? It looks a bit tacked-on to me, which is pretty much exactly what it is. It's hard to incrementally change a UI element, and radically changing it can break application compatibility. A simplified out-of-box experience is also part of 6.5.3, though I didn't think that the current device setup was very difficult. A built-in magnifier also brings touch support to "legacy applications".

Things in the browser have gotten better as well - Internet Explorer Mobile 6 has decreased page load times, improved memory management, pan and flick gestures have been "smoothed out" somehow, and the zoom and rotation speed has been increased.

Figure 2: Looks like they've enhanced the status bar as well - those icons are much easier to tap on.

Figure 3: Want to move a program icon? Press and hold on it...

Figure 4: ...then drag it upward...

Figure 5: ...and let it go. Finally! Exactly what we should have had in 6.5.

Figure 6: Notice the left/right pivot function above. Easier to use!

The real travesty in all this is that the odds are pretty good that regardless of what device you own, the OEM you bought it from probably isn't going to release a 6.5.3 update. The more things change, the more they stay the same...

After the break, a bunch of high-res images of the Aspen. Enjoy!

"Today sees the announcement of Sony Ericsson Aspen, the business mobile phone with green credentials at its core. The newest edition to the successful Sony Ericsson GreenHeart portfolio, Sony Ericsson Aspen, allows easy multi-tasking combining the touch experience and a real QWERTY keyboard. Organise and adapt panels to change during the day and use Slide View for quick access to common features. With Sony Ericsson Aspen, view and edit office files easily and comfortably with one touch operation, or just access the internet in one click. The QWERTY keyboard is made for fast and easy typing. Simple email set up allows for a maximized messaging experience on the go. Secure the phone's contents through the Microsoft MyPhone service, which remotely erases phone data when the handset is lost or stolen."

Sony Ericsson has done what Microsoft has been avoiding for months: it's made Windows Mobile 6.5.3 official, courtesy of its latest handset, the Aspen. The QVGA touch-screen device supports quad-band GSM/EDGE and market-dependent dual-band (900/2100 MHz) or tri-band (850/900/2100 MHz) HSPA. Alongside that, there's Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, A-GPS, an FM radio with RDS, a 3.2-megapixel camera, USB mass storage support, a 3.5 mm headphone jack, and a microSDHC slot supporting cards of up to 16 GB. Available in either black or white, the Aspen should hit store shelves in the second quarter. And we sure hope they're right about that, considering that their other Windows Mobile device has suffered massive delays beyond public comprehension.

We've just picked the winners of our SBSH PhoneWeaver 2 and SBSH GoNews 1.3 giveaways, and without further ado, here they are, in alphabetical order:

• PhoneWeaver Winners: Antal, fbeiderb, geneb, jrjordan, maxnix
• GoNews Winners: bystander, Cyberdude007, fromamerica, jeffaitken, jlhorng

If you're one of the lucky ten mentioned, keep an eye on your inbox (and your spam folder, just in case) for an e-mail detailing how to claim your prize. A big thank you to SBSH Mobile Software for their generosity.

"In the New World, computers are task-centric. We are reading email, browsing the web, playing a game, but not all at once. Applications are sandboxed, then moats dug around the sandboxes, and then barbed wire placed around the moats. As a direct result, New World computers do not need virus scanners, their batteries last longer, and they rarely crash, but their users have lost a degree of freedom. New World computers have unprecedented ease of use, and benefit from decades of research into human-computer interaction. They are immediately understandable, fast, stable, and laser-focused on the 80% of the famous 80/20 rule. Is the New World better than the Old World? Nothing's ever simply black or white."

This is a really great "think piece" that's well worth reading if you're the kind of person that likes to think about where computers - and that includes mobile devices - are going to be moving in the next decade. As such, I'm posting it across all our sites to get the widest possible take on the topic. I want to hear from you!

Steven Frank, the author, posits that new world computers are task-centric and secure, and that's the future of computing. For many types of scenarios, I think that works really well - but Frank doesn't seem to acknowledge that in order to do anything involving real content creation, an "old world" PC is still required. I'm happy to have a limited-in-functionality Web-pad style device next to my couch for Web surfing, tweeting, etc., but when I need to process raw files on a colour calibrated monitor, or edit HD video? Old world computing rules those scenarios.

I also have to wonder how sophisticated the software can get on these New World computers - ever noticed how so many iPod Touch games are the same? Screen size and touch-only inputs are significantly factors on what developers are able to do.

In some ways this boils down to the "appliances" vs. "computers" argument that has been going on for years. Appliances are more reliable, but they only do very specific things. Computers do infinitely more, but are generally less reliable than appliances. Which would you rather have, and why?

The HTC HD2 is one of the gadgets up for Engadget's "Gadget of the Year" award - jump over to the voting page and cast your vote. We can't let the iPhone 3GS win! ;-)

David over at Nuevasync was kind enough to let me know about Nueva's Yahoo! Contacts sync feature a month or so ago when they were testing it. My reaction was (almost embarrassingly) "Yahoo! has contacts?". Yes, it has been a long time since I used Yahoo! Mail for anything and didn't realize that their address book had been fleshed out in recent years. If you're a Yahoo! lover or just user, and want to sync your Y! contacts with your Windows Mobile (or other Activesync compatible smartphone), Nueva has a new feature for you!

"SPB Time is an advanced, skinnable time toolbox for your Windows Mobile phone. Analog and digital clock modes, World clock, timers and stopwatches, and advanced alarms. A lot of time-related functions in this world's bestselling application!"

Spb Software has just released Spb Time 3.2. It adds a digital clock widget for Spb Mobile Shell, updates the database, and includes widespread enhancements and bug fixes. If you're a registered user of Spb Time 3.x, this is a free update. Otherwise, head over to our affiliate software store to try or buy.

"Before the Nexus One and the HD2, there was the Toshiba TG01, sprinting along with a 1GHz Snapdragon in its belly and a 4.1-inch front end. Alas, that phone was hamstrung by a resistive touchscreen and a poorly thought-out skin atop an even worse OS (WinMo 6.1), but even by today's standards its hardware spec is top notch. Color us intrigued, then, to find its successor finally making its FCC debut -- with Bluetooth, GPS and WiFi (802.11b/g) connectivity in tow and a case outline suggesting some earlier leaked shots might still be accurate."

Well, looks like the TG01 is getting a successor. Toshiba is the little OEM that could, and as we've all seen, sometimes they can produce quality devices. But let's just hope the TG02 makes a bigger splash than the TG01.