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Death Rally Review – Android (Video)
Oracle Reveals that It Wanted to Buy RIM or Palm; Trial With Google Continues!
Apple and Samsung Finally Reach an Agreement on Their Lawsuits
HTC One X Has Display Issues in Camera Mode; Just Received an Update that Should Fix it… (Video)
First Intel Smartphone Coming This Week, According to CEO

Posted: 18 Apr 2012 02:33 PM PDT

There’s a nifty free game called Death Really out there, that we just reviewed on the HTC One X. We’re dealing here with a racing game that also has a shooter experience included. It’s basically a remake of a 1996 game of the same kind, but with revamped graphics and gameplay. You can download it from here.

The title allows you to race against 5 other opponents and try to get to the podium or hopefully first place and shoot your rivals on the way, using shotguns, gatling guns, missiles and more weapons. At the end of each race you get cash and during races you’ll find pickups, such as nitro, health or parts for various cars, weapons and tracks to unlock. There are about 5 tracks available, but there are also reversed and rotated versions of them, so you’ll get more variety than it seems.

Death Rally is excellent in small doses, too, since a race lasts around one minute and 30 seconds or so. There’s also a Destruction Derby-style competition that lasts 3 minutes, doesn’t involve a race, but instead you get to shoot a lot of cars and compare scores with a main rival. Speaking of which, every race has a main villain, a car with the picture of the driver attached and taking him down will give you extra points. More details in the video below:

Oracle Reveals that It Wanted to Buy RIM or Palm; Trial With Google Continues!

Posted: 18 Apr 2012 02:22 PM PDT

This week the officials of Oracle and Google came to court to testify in the case of Oracle versus the search engine giant, on account of the trademark breach for Java tech. Oracle sued Google in 2012 for infringing patents on the Java programming language. Today, as the Oracle CEO spoke about the issues he has with Google, he also casually mentioned that the company he runs wanted to buy RIM or Palm a couple of years ago, in order to get into the smartphone biz.

However, at that time RIM was deemed too expensive, while Palm ended up with HP… and look how “well” things turned out there. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is present in court this week, together with Larry Page and Eric Schmidt from Google, trying to clear the entire Java patent breach mess. Reuters also reports that Oracle wanted to partner with Samsung, one of the main Android handset makers, but the idea didn’t come through in the end. Larry Page also had an interesting statement, saying that at some point he even considered working with Microsoft and its mobile software, instead of using Java.

Page’s deposition also mentions that Google considered licensing Java and discussions happened, but things never got further. Judge Williams Alsup reminded everyone that this NOT a case of Java versus Android, but rather a small portion of the open source platform. Oracle’s CEO says that in 2010 he tried to convince people at Google to give the newer Java version a go in Android, but the talks ended with nothing happening. I guess that we’ll hear a verdict soon and see if the search engine giant has to pay up or not.

Apple and Samsung Finally Reach an Agreement on Their Lawsuits

Posted: 18 Apr 2012 11:14 AM PDT

Apple and Samsung have been battling it out in court for almost two years now and their duel may have reached an end. US District Judge Lucy Koh has just sent Apple and Samsung representatives to a magistrate, who will mediate talks between the companies. They’ve agreed to the mediation, that will also involve the two CEOs, Tim Cook from Apple and Choi Gee-sung of Samsung.

The order requires the companies to meet within 90 days to discuss the settlement and if that doesn’t solve the problems, they will submit a streamlined version of claims and defenses. The scandal began when Apple accused Samsung of copying the iPhone design and then Samsung sued back, saying that Apple is violating some of its precious patents. Ever since then the Galaxy Tab series of tablets has suffered a lot, being accused of copying the iPad and some of its models being banned in Germany and Australia. The Aussie ban was lifted quickly, though…

Of course, the settlement could still end bad, but with Tim Cook being so elegant about these matters, I guess they’ll reach an agreement. Also, I have a feeling Samsung would want to get on Apple’s good side, now that the Samsung Galaxy S III is coming next month and they don’t need any bad publicity surrounding it.

HTC One X Has Display Issues in Camera Mode; Just Received an Update that Should Fix it… (Video)

Posted: 18 Apr 2012 08:00 AM PDT

The guys of Mobilissimo.ro, our sister site just filmed the HTC One X they’re testing as they spotted a problem with its display in the camera UI. As you can see, there are some strange green lines at the bottom of the screen and this is certainly no first, since the guys of XDA Developers have discovered similar issues with the screen.

You must know that the guys of Mobilissimo who found the problem did it when the handset’s battery was almost discharged, in case it matters. Also the issue was singular and didn’t repeat itself after the camera app was closed and opened again. In the meantime, HTC has already rolled out an update that corrects the issue and some more problems that the initial One X units have. This is the OTA 1.28.401.9 update, that fixes the Sense Calendar widget crashing, double dates issue from the calendar, improves the overall speed and fixes screen glitches.

Tegra 3 games are also optimized, the gallery is smoother and Beats Audio is also improved. There are still some people over here saying that this is a hardware issue of the first batch of HTC One X handsets and not one that can be fixed by a software update. I guess we’ll have to wait and see if the problem repeats after applying the update…

First Intel Smartphone Coming This Week, According to CEO

Posted: 18 Apr 2012 03:19 AM PDT

We’ve seen an Intel CPU-based phone back at CES 2012 and it would be about time to see the likes of the Lenovo K800 launched on the market. During a Q1 financial earnings call, Intel CEO Paul Otellini told investors that the first smartphone with Intel CPU on board will launch later this week.

If it’s the Lenovo K800 he talked about, then don’t get your hopes up, since this 4.5 inch smartphone is scheduled to debut in China. It’s packing a 1.6 GHz Atom Z2460 processor and runs Android 4.0, but is this really the model that’s coming? Rumors say that we should in fact expected another Medfield-based unit, the Lava Xolo X900, coming to India on April 19th. This is an India-only product, that will come with a 1.6 GHz Medfield processor and Android 2.3.7 Gingerbread as the OS.

It’s also said that this device will have a 3.5 inch or 3.7 inch display and an 8 megapixel camera. People who saw the phone in action weren’t that impressed. It supports a 1024 x 768 resolution, it’s very light for a modern smartphone, but it also has physical keys that are clunky. The capacitive buttons are too short and narrow, sadly. No info on pricing and I’m really curios to figure out the identity of the REAL Intel phone.

Mobile Updates

19 April 2012

GSM Dome - Mobile Phone News

GSM Dome - Mobile Phone News

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