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Windows Phone 7 Series. It’s a mouthful, but it’s something I’d expect from Microsoft.  Today, Microsoft announces it’s most ambitious, and revolutionary project. It’s getting introduced now, at the MWC in Barcelona (here) and it seems as if Microsoft is at the top of the line of the mobile game.

The new OS scraps all the crap from previous OS’s, and old Windows Mobile apps are not compatible with WP7S.  They started from a blank slate, every thing is brand NEW. With a sexy and completely redesigned interface, it comes with Zune and X-Box LIVE integration, and cloud based Office 2010. It resembles the Zune HD interface, but that’s better than *gasp* Windows Mobile 6.5.

Microsoft also has everything locked down, in a good way. Before, Microsoft gave phone makers a software kit, and the phone makers did whatever. Now, Microsoft is dictating everything. They’re going to be picky on who makes WP7S phones, and all phones must have a capacitive screen, a “Bing” button, a FM radio, etc. This promises robust and competitive phones. All skins for OS’s, such as HTC SENSE, are banned, and the phone makers really only decide the shape and the optional keyboard.

Carrier partnerships are far and wide, including AT&T, Deutsche Telekom AG, Orange, SFR, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telstra, T-Mobile USA, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone, while hardware partners include Dell, Garmin-Asus, HTC, HP, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Qualcomm. We’re told that we likely won’t get to see any third-party devices at MWC, though Microsoft is showing off dev units of unknown origin.

For more info check out this links:

Gizmodo

Engadget

Props to Gizmodo.com for the image. Great site.

I know we haven’t been updating much, but there’s been a ton of stuff going on in the Pwnagepickle HQ. Now, time for what you’re reading this for. Apple just announced the iPhone 3GS, a new update to the iPhone line with double the memory and more features for a base price of $199. There’s also Apple’s older Phone 3G that they’re willing to keep on the market, for a cheaper price. While, at Palm HQ, John Rubinstein, also known as father of the iPod, brewed up what could be a device that could bring Palm, called the Pre. Its most loved features are the physical keyboard, meshing of accounts (Synergy), and the easy app multitasking. T-mobile’s newest Android phone has been leaked and the specs are already out, thanks to Vodafone, who grabbed the so called HTC Magic earlier this year. It’s a big step from the G1 in terms of form factor, quality, and just looks. RIM also got some ‘oohs; and ‘ahhs’ with it’s first ever touchscreen Balckberry, labeled the ‘Storm’. The only major smartphones left are just the flimsy ones running Windows Mobile and Symbian, but those aren’t very ’satisfying’ choices to the common intelligent human. The question, though, is, which one should you buy?

Gizmodo created a article similar to this, but I just wanted to plant my own opinion and a little more inbiased info on this matter. Here is Gizmodo’s comparison chart, as shown:

The hardware specs tend to be what the carriers and makers boast the most about the phone they’re trying to sell. The first 3 phones got internal storage for their memory, while the last phones tend to use microSD card. Let’s hope T-mobile is as good of a sport as Verizon and offer a 8GB+ card with their phone. In terms of being a smartphone, Apple and Palm got it right, because as little mini computers, we need a good amount of space. Most microSD cards are a little too much to spend on after buying a an expensive phone. Just have it built in. It makes the customer’s life easier. But software matters the most. If you got jesus-phone, in terms of hardware, with Windows Mobile running on it, most wouldn’t buy it, if they were in their right mind:

In other words, the Pre is really slick and it’s multitasking ability is great, but their app store lacks items and the SDK is restrictive. The iPhone claims ease of use with it’s great multi-touch and popular app store, but is restrictive on the app content and lacks good multitasking. The Magic and the Storm have an attitude of ‘Do whatever the fuck you want’ when it comes to apps. It isn’t really restrictive, which is great, but the app stores, like Palm’s, lack content. Only Android has a good enough amount to compete with Apple’s app store. Both phones lack multi-touch, but Androids is a very robust platform, and the Blackberry OS never fails business men and women.

If a customer were convinced not to buy one of these phones, it most likely would be because of the carriers:

After looking at this chart, I can make the conclusion that Sprint and T-Mobile have the best prices on their phones. In terms of service though, Sprint and Verizon are the best, according to where I live (Chicago). AT&T is overpriced and actually has a slower network than it says. T-Mobile has the slowest out of all 4, but it still handles user traffic a lot more well than AT&T. Sprint’s Everything plan gives the Pre the biggest bang for the buck, and the Everything plan includes every single service Sprint offers (That’s mobile TV, AT&T! TV on your phone. Such a fucking fast network, isn’t it, guys?). The Storm and the 3GS pretty much tie for most expensive, and if T-mobile or Sprint has some low life service in your area, just wait when Verizon is rumored to get the Pre next year, and AT&T will probably have an Android soon. If AT&T has crappy service where you live, you’re out of luck ’till around 2012. That’s when AT&t’s contract with Apple is over, so you might get an iPhone on T-Mobile, if T-mobile wants it…

Would you rather have none of these phones? Or maybe one we didn’t list? Just list it in the coments with your reasons!

I used to be a member in the exclusive private beta of Grand Central, this new Google technology that tied in the web with your phones. The company was originally bought by Google. But Google didn’t do much with it, which is one reason I kinda stopped using it. But, just a little while ago, Google unveiled Google Voice for some special Grand Central members. I apparently was picked for an early upgrade, and so far, I’m loving the hell out of it.

Some New Things.

First off, Google gives all Voice members a $1 credit for international calls, which was lacking Grand Central. In Google Voice, there is also free texting (w00t!). The interface has more of Google-ish touch. In Voice, there are features similar to Gmail, where you can ’star’ messages, and call people from your Gmail contacts.

Lifehacker rounds up everything you would want to know about Voice here: http://tinyurl.com/c2jlhj

Yes… out of all places… the copyright-crazed video mega site, Youtube, will be messing around with the idea of full-length films being streamed on Youtube. They said it will start within the next 30-90 days, so let’s keep an eye out for that.

The thing that gets me here is how are they going to do this? Would the film companies actually be up to it? I mean, this place takes down videos using over thirty seconds of a song because the stupid record company doesn’t like it. How will the movie companies resopnd to their films being streamed on the internet for free when they should be getting money from DVD/Blu-Ray sales or from people seeing it in theaters? I guess only time will tell…

Are you a windows user? If you are, do you sometimes swear at your computer and wish it had more useful things or get free apps that are as good as the ones that cost? If so I have brought you a treat alright. Here are the top ten must have free windows downloads:

#10:
7-Zip- A file archive manager that replaces winRAR and winzip. It accepts all common zip formats and is an easy to use manager that is also open source. Download here: http://7-zip.org/

#9:
Foxit-Reader- If you wait and wait for Adobe Reader to load up your PDF’s while taking up system resources, this is perfect for you. It’s light and speedier than most PDF readers. Download here: http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

#8:
SyncBack- Regardless of what platform or size, this utility backs up anything you want. Keep your data safe with the thought of it never going away. It’s light and speedy. Download here: http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html

#7:
Picasa- This lightweight photo manager developed by google is by far one of the best photo managers out there, regardless of it being priced or free. Organize, tweak and publish your photos with amazing features and a slick UI. Download here: http://picasa.google.com/

#6:
Notepad++- Don’t ever subject yourself to Notepad’s anemia again. Notepad++ is a free, open source, tabbed editor that handles much more than just plain text. Download here: http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm

#5:
foobar200- If you have been searching for the most lightweight, skinnable amd pluggable free music player, you WANT foobar200. In reviews from famous gadget blogs, they say they would pick this over WMP or iTunes. Download here: http://www.foobar2000.org/

#4:
Trillian- if you have multiple chat accounts and don’t like logging in completely different websites, you should take a look at Trillian. You can log into AIM, MSN, Yahoo! and IQC IM accounts on this one application. You can also skin it to make it look the way you want it to from the available skins on their site. Download here: http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/

#3:
Paint.NET- If Windows default Paint application was a paper airplane, Paint.NET would be a fighter jet. Get powerful image editing features associated with expensive photo editors like Photoshop for free with Paint.NET. The required free .NET framework installation is worth it for multi-image support, layers, and advanced effects. Good Photoshop substitute. Download here: http://www.getpaint.net/download.html

#2:
Quake III- This amazing yet old shooter game is now available as a free download. Walk through levels melting people with your plasma gun or blowing them up with your rocket launcher. Either way, you’ll have fun! Download here: http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,4100-page,1-c,action/description.html

#1:
Mozilla Firefox- This one is a must have. The most secure and speediest and coolest browser on the world should be downloaded if you don’t have it. It has great resources and blows IE7 out of the water. Download here: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

Honorable mentions:Open office- word processor, Opera-open source browser, Windows Blinds-windows skinning program, GIMP-photo editor. I’m not giving you download links for the honorable metions. I’m tired. Just google them.

Yes, all the Microsoft fanboys REJOICE! Microsoft’s rip-off of the slim PS2 has been somewhat confirmed! At a press event, Microsoft India said that the rumored Xbox 360 Slim is REAL and we should expect to get the announcement of it sometime in December, just in time for the holidays! I’m just waiting for Microsoft to deny it, then announce it in December.

Most of you have probably heard of photoshop before. If you have, you probably also heard how expensive it is. Well GIMP is here to save the day! GIMP is probably the best Photoshop alternative out there. It’s also a very light-weight program, meaning your computer wont run slow when yourun it, unlike Photoshop. Remove red-eye, balance shades, change light and texture, it’s all here. If you want it, download it here.

[pic courtesy of engadget.com]

New iPods

If you missed the news of Apple’s big announcement on Tuesday, here you go. Apple released a new revision of the ipod nano and touch line. The new Nano, as seen above, is the thinnest ipod Apple has made so far. The new iPod Touch probably comes in as second or 3rd thinnest. The Nano has a built in chip that detects movement like shaking. Because of this chip, if you shake the Nano, it automatically shuffles through your songs, and when you turn it sideways, it goes into Coverflow. The new Nano goes for $149 for the starting 8GB model. The new Touch has new differences at all compared the the old Touch except for the fact that it has a new curved back like the iPhone 3G, and it has a built in speaker. The Touch also has the nifty built in Nike+ feature that used to ipod nano exclusive. The Touch goes for $229 at starting price. The iPod Classic also now only comes in 120GB for $249. New ipod shuffle colors weren’t announced at the event, they are also official.

New version of iTunes

Apple also came out with iTunes 8. This new version has a very smart feature that conveniently can make Apple money. The new feature is called the Genius. Genius, when activated, goes through your library, and goes into itunes selecting songs that would go with the songs in the library. NBC shows are also coming back to iTunes after a lot of arguments between NBC and Apple over the year and a half.

iphone/ ipod Touch Software updates.

The iPhone and iPod Touch also got software updates from 2.0 to 2.1. 2.1 improves all the bugs and crashes the Touch and iPhone had. The 2.1 update is 10 dollars for iPod Touch owners who didn’t update to 2.0 before.

Google's logo

Thanks to Chrome and its subsequent pairing with Android, Google will extend beyond being the No. 1 search engine to being the premier Web applications provider in the world by 2018. Its application development for mobile and wireless devices will ramp up. Microsoft struggles to keep up but is very much alive. What, you didn’t expect us to say Chrome would kill Microsoft and Windows, did you? Sorry.Google turns the Big 10 years old on Sept. 7 and there are no shortage of stories about what the company has achieved in a decade, as well as comparisons to how Google fared compared to Microsoft’s first 10 years. 

As the leading search engine and the best executor of search advertising on the Web, Google earns about $16.5 billion in annual sales, its stock sells at $450 and the company boasts a market cap of $142 billion.

The Chrome Wars 

The most obvious place to start is with Google’s Chrome Web browser, which took 1 percent of the browser market within its first day of release. 

What will happen if more and more people choose Chrome over IE? There is no easy answer to that question. Media and bloggers like to say Chrome will break Windows but the fact is that you can’t get to the browser without having Windows or Linux boot up your machine. 

Here’s what I believe. Instead of going to Microsoft Office for word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software, users will increasingly go first to Chrome on Windows, Linux and Mac machines, and then to Gmail, and other Google Apps, such as Docs. 

This will happen in the consumer sector, but thanks to new apps such as Google Video for businesses and increased reliability from Google’s cloud infrastructure, businesses will begin to live on the Web, too. 

This is already starting in small businesses but medium and large enterprises will start to adopt Google within 10 years. Internet Explorer will be rendered irrelevant as Chrome becomes the new IE and Google Apps becomes the new Office.

What will happen to Microsoft? Microsoft will revitalize Windows by battling back with Live Mesh and will look to pursue the mobile space, but as Microsoft Watch’s Joe Wilcox noted, the software giant is well behind in this area.

Chrome Comes to Android

Chrome is a hit, but Google co-founder Sergey Brin has also said Chrome will slip into Android.

Chrome and Android share the same WebKit rendering engine. With Google bringing the speedy JavaScript virtual machine from Chrome to Android, expect blazing fast access to Web applications. 

In the next few years, Google will successfully map the Chrome desktop experience to Android phones, which start to challenge Apple’s iPhone for quality user experience and mobile market share. A two-horse race for mobile Web consumption ensues between Google and Apple. 

Nokia and other phone makers will continue to make phones but their software will be supplanted by Chrome and other Google Web apps. 

Microsoft Windows Mobile market share begins to decline. Users will continue to access Chrome and Google Search and Apps from Android phones. 

The conversation around Google’s search ad business on the desktop remains strong, but Google begins to look less like a one-trick pony as Chrome and Android open up more mobile ad opportunities for Google.

OpenSocial, YouTube

OpenSocial becomes more prevalent on the Web, with programmers using the APIs to build applications that users can take with them to multiple Web sites. 

As an open-source project ceded to the greater Web community, this is not a key financial play for Google, but ties in to the company’s push to get more users online.

More users online, as Google likes to say, is good for Google because that means more people will be seeing Google advertisements. 

Unfortunately, at 100 million-plus users and counting, Facebook is and will be viewed as the premier social network. Facebook will benefit from advertising on its network.

Just as Google has shut Microsoft and others out of search advertising, Facebook will shut Google and others out of the majority of social ad market share. Microsoft, by virtue of its relationship with Facebook, may have an in here. 

Google, meanwhile, will ratchet up its display advertising focus by selling millions of ads on YouTube, the premier video-sharing site. Google begins to eat share from Yahoo’s display ad business. Or will it be Microhoo’s display ad business? 

2018

After laying the foundation for Chrome, Android and Google Apps with a vibrant search ad business, Google becomes the dominant Web applications company, powering both consumer and businesses, thanks to great strides in cloud computing reliability and security. 

Rumors of Microsoft’s demise were greatly exaggerated. Microsoft’s Web presence remains relatively small compared to that of Google. Windows continues to improve, and despite Google’s and the media’s attempts to lay it to rest, the OS remains the dominant desktop operating system. 

Microsoft finds traction with Live Mesh among consumers, most of whom are leveraging it through their mobile computing devices. It’s on-premise desktop software business declines thanks to Google Apps, but shops continue to use both Web apps for productivity and traditional Microsoft Apps. 

If Microsoft has 85 to 95 percent of that desktop software today, it will be more like 60 percent in 10 years.  

However, this might not mean much. By 2018, BlackBerrys, iPhones and Android smart phones will have gotten so advanced that they replace PCs andlaptops both in the consumer sector and in some businesses. Windows Mobile fades, while PC sales shrink. 

Ultimately, we will look back on 2008 as the year Google began to seriously derail Microsoft’s attempts to create a major Internet presence. Meanwhile, Facebook and other sites will begin to challenge Google in ways we can’t even begin to imagine yet. 

One thing’s for sure; our world will be a mobile one for work and play.

[info courtesy of eweek.com]

What the f**k Microsoft? New news report that the IE8 Beta is:

1: Microsoft’s attempt at trying to take some attention off Google’s Chrome and

2: It takes up more RAM then the WHOLE WINDOWS XP OS!

Yes, the new IE8 Beta has been tested and it takes up more ram then the entire operating system of XP. All I have to say is, WTF MICROSOFT? Good thing I got Firefox and Chrome…