Pentax Optio M90: 12 megapixels, 5x zoom, stonking bargain

Pentax has been taking risks with its designs lately, giving us the charmingly retro H90, E90 and I-10. In comparison, the Pentax Optio M90, announced today, is a straight-up compact camera, but with some decent specs and a very tidy price tag.

It’s a 12.1-megapixel point and shoot, packing a 5x optical zoom. The focal length is 28-140mm, equivalent to a 35mm camera. That’s not a bad wide-angle or zoom figure for a compact this size.

Halo team’s new deal excites PlayStation, Nintendo, PC and iPhone gamers

Bungie, the developers of the hugely successful Halo series, has surprised the video gaming world by closing a ten-year deal with Activision for the development of a new franchise intended to find “the largest possible audience on the platforms and devices of their choosing.”

This latest revelation gives hope to owners of the PlayStation 3 or even Nintendo Wii, as the fantastically popular Halo games (25 million copies sold) were limited on console to Xbox and Xbox 360, pivotal as they were to driving sales of the machines.

Sony Ericsson Elm review

We’ve seen plenty of the recent razzle dazzle in the mobile phone market revolving around tech-loaded touchscreen smartphones like the HTC Desire and their eye-catching budget feature-phone stablemates like the Sony Ericsson Vivaz.

By contrast, handsets that are marketed primarily on their eco-friendliness have, so far, been a relatively unimportant sideshow. And the few choices that have been available have mostly been worthy-but-unexciting designs with modest features, like the Nokia 3110.

Sony Ericsson has taken a step towards adding a bit of eco-appeal to its range with the release of the Elm. The Sony Ericsson Elm is part of Sony Ericsson’s new GreenHeart portfolio of mobile phones that major on their green credentials.

This includes CO2-light production – it’s made from recycled plastics and is free from hazardous chemicals – and comes with a low power consumption charger, reduced packaging, some eco-aware apps and an e-manual on the phone instead of a printed guide.

But instead of a low-key set of features and a bland design, Sony Ericsson has produced a handset that has distinctively curvy bodywork that chimes with a credibly-attractive features run-down.

Catering for eco-conscious mobile buyers who don’t necessarily want a bare-bones austere phone, the Sony Ericsson Elm arrives with built in Wi-Fi and A-GPS technology, HSPA high-speed mobile network data capability, a 5-megapixel camera and a full complement of multimedia features.

While it doesn’t offer touchscreen manipulation, the Elm does offer plenty of functionality for a conventional candybar handset – and there isn’t a huge premium to pay for its eco-awareness.

It’s initially available on pre-pay from between £120-£200, depending on network and retailer, or is free on contract deals.

Design and handling

From the front, the Sony Ericsson looks like a regular kind of candybar handset, with an unassuming matt black front panel.

The side and rear view is where you get the bodywork flourishes – it has an elegant convex curve bowing along the silver back panel and edges that give it a smooth, classy feel that works well with the workmanlike front furniture.

Measuring up at 110 x 45 x 14mm at its thickest, and weighing 90g, the Elm feels slim in-hand and pretty lightweight.

The Elm is kitted out with a large numberpad with rounded convex buttons that are tidy to look at and easy on the fingers.

Its display is an average Sony Ericsson mid-level 2.2-inch QVGA (240×320 pixels) 262K-colour LCD, so is smaller than you’ll find on the average touchscreen device, but it’s adequately bright and clear enough without really wowing.

The buttons are familiar Sony Ericsson, with an efficient rectangular central navigation D-pad flanked by more comfortably curved buttons.

There’s a pair of softkeys, Call and End buttons plus a Clear key, and an Activity Menu shortcuts button that fires you straight into a tabbed list of useful shortcuts to functions and apps (such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi), browser bookmarks and other information.

Although it comes with decent music player software, Sony Ericsson hasn’t built in a standard 3.5mm headphone socket on this model, relying on its usual proprietary multi-connector socket on the side.

That means the plug in connector for the in-box earphones is relatively bulky and awkward compared to other more widespread connector alternatives – and it’s not so easy to upgrade to higher quality headphones.

A camera button is included on the side, along with volume keys, while the camera lens peeping out of the back panel is accompanied by a small LED flash.

A quick flip open of the back cover reveals a MicroSD slot – cards of up to 16GB can be slipped in to supplement the 280MB of onboard storage. No card is supplied in-box, however, and the back panel can be fiddly to take off.

Devs have mixed feelings on Mac taking back seat at WWDC

When Apple announced this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference, there were two major differences compared to WWDCs past. One is that Apple waited until the end up April to announce that the conference would take place in early June, giving developers just over five weeks to clear schedules, book flights, and secure hotel rooms. The other is that Apple is clearly focusing this year’s conference on iPhone OS, and for the first time since Apple started giving awards in 1997, the company won’t be awarding any Apple Design Awards for Mac applications. Combined with the recent retiring of the Mac Downloads page on Apple’s website, many Mac developers feel shunned or ignored, though the overall community seems divided on what the changes mean for the future.
High costs: a great equalizer?

The first problem—the “late” notification—seems universally upsetting. Previous WWDC dates were announced in March or early April, giving developers two months to plan. This year, developers not only face a price increase for tickets, they also have to book flights and hotels at much higher prices.

“I think it’s going to damage attendance, particularly for developers outside the continental US,” Instinctive Code’s Matt Legend Gemmell told Ars. “It’s much harder for people to book an entire week off when the event is so soon, and the cost of flights and accommodation obviously skyrocket too.”

It’s not just international users that are affected, though. The value proposition is a tough one, even for those already located in San Francisco. “$1600 on WWDC ticket, or a new 13″ Macbook Pro and the [next-gen] iPhone?” mused Springs and Struts’ Colin Barrett via Twitter.

However, Apple may be using higher ticket prices and (by virtue of the later notice) higher prices for flights and hotels, to offset the huge demand that the last two WWDCs saw, both of which sold out. “There’s supply and demand at work,” explained Iconfactory’s Craig Hockenberry. “WWDC is not a profit center for [Apple], so this isn’t some evil plan to dig deeper into developer’s pockets.”
It’s time to shine for the iPhone OS

On the issue of iPhone versus Mac content, developers seemed less surprised. “It’s obvious that, for the moment at least, iPhone OS is the focus at Apple,” Rogue Amoeba’s Paul Kafasis told Ars. “iPhone OS 4 is a big update, and there’s a lot of new things for developers to see.”

“I’m neither surprised nor upset that it’s all about iPhone OS 4.0,” agreed Connected Flow’s Fraser Speirs. “I don’t believe it says anything about the future of the Mac except that the Mac won’t have a major OS release before the iPhone, and we knew that already.”

Hockenberry noted that last year’s WWDC was too crowded, and covering both Mac OS X and iPhone OS topics “was too demanding for both developers and Apple.” We know that work on Mac OS X 10.7 is already under way, and most developers believe that it is still in the very early stages of development.

“The Mac will have its year,” Flying Meat’s Gus Mueller told Ars. “WWDC 2009 was mostly a rehash of stuff from the year before, which was sort of a bummer; I can’t imagine the same 10.6 topics for the third year in a row would be much fun.”
No Mac ADAs for Old Men

The thing that developers seem most upset by is that Apple has left Mac OS X out of its annual Apple Design Awards. Apple began giving these awards for outstanding Mac applications beginning in 1997. The awards have varied in the last 12 years, with Apple creating and dropping arbitrary categories like “Best Automator Workflow” or “Best Scientific Computing Solution” to highlight new technologies. This year, Apple is only awarding the top five nominated iPhone apps and the top five nominated iPad apps.

“It’s often observed that the ADAs are not so much about rewarding excellence as about encouraging developers to adopt the latest and greatest technologies,” Red Sweater’s Daniel Jalkut told Ars. “This move by Apple sends the message that they would prefer all Mac developers stop what they’re doing and work on iPhone stuff instead.” Jalkut believes Apple is missing an easy opportunity to keep Mac OS X developers excited about the platform, even though there might not be many new Mac OS X-related topics to discuss. “Combined with the late notice, it reeks of disrespect.”

Kafasis agreed that it seems like the Mac platform is getting short shrift from Apple lately. “The iPhone OS has grown enormously in the past 3 years, and that’s incredible, but that doesn’t make Mac OS X suddenly irrelevant.”

“Apple Design Awards now being iPhone-only is contentious,” Gemmell added. “ADAs are both very public and visible, and probably also very low-cost for Apple; there seems to be little reason to not have Mac categories alongside the iPhone ones.”

Other developers had less eloquent things to say about the lack of Mac OS X awards.
Maybe next year

Long-time Mac developers are definitely feeling the sting with Mac OS X taking a back seat at WWDC, and many worry that Apple’s newly defined focus on mobile devices might mean that Apple devotes less and less effort on its desktop platform. However, there is cautious optimism that next year’s WWDC will bring a renewed focus to Mac OS X.

Gemmel noted that the Mac isn’t going away, especially since it is required for iPhone and iPad development. “It’s indeed discouraging to see Mac seemingly sidelined, but I think it’s too early to tell whether it’s just timing and promotional preference rather than an actual shift in focus at Apple,” he said.

The expectation is that next year’s WWDC will highlight Mac OS X 10.7, though historically Apple has released a new version of iPhone OS every year following WWDC. “Hopefully, this is just an anomaly caused by Mac OS X 10.7 being slow, and iPhone OS 4.0 being a major update,” Kafasis said.

Mueller agreed that timing is likely a bigger part of the problem. “10.7 will come out eventually, it’ll be awesome, and we’ll learn lots of new stuff then,”

Mobiesta Intros New App for Localized Information

Mobiesta has launched a new application which runs on Java enabled phone through GPRS and enables consumers to get details of latest happenings and events in Delhi and NCR on a click.

The company is also planning to introduce this application in other cities including Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata. Mobiesta is looking to tie-up with handsets players and service providers like Nokia, Vodafone and Airtel to offer this service.

3G mobile phones as most preferred choice of UK phone users

The competition is at all time high in the UK mobile industry. Mobile players are leaving no stone unturned to come up with new and improved mobile phones to retain their existing customers and also to lure others. Now, it is the 3G mobile phones that are sending waves across the UK as they come up with latest applications and technologies.

So, be it a high powered camera, huge touch screen display, FM radio, awesome music player, bluetooth, WiFi, these phones have it all.

Wireless Vogue

The number of mobile connections increased by 25.9 percent to 13.9 million in 2009 from the year before, while fixed telephone lines fell by 0.5 percent to 3.4 million, the Central Bank said in its annual report.

This meant there was an overall growth of 19.6 percent to 17.4 million phone connections in 2009 when compared to that of 2008.

Nokia launches latest range of affordable phones

Entertainment just got a whole lot more interesting and affordable with the introduction of the new range of Nokia phones, the 2690, the 1800 and the 7230.

Nokia unveiled this series of full blown communications and entertainment devices in a launching event in the capital on April 13, where Ovi Chat, a free application to address Instant Messaging (IM) needs of consumers, was also launched.

Microsoft unveils Kin – its latest smartphone

Microsoft hopes to take on the growing importance of bitter rivals Apple and Google in the mobile phone market with a new range of its own mobile devices that focus on social networking.

Its new “Kin” range of mobile phones have slide-out qwerty keyboards – with the smaller device bearing an uncanny resemblance to the Palm Pre – and will be arriving in the US within weeks. British mobile phone users, however, will have to wait until the autumn when the Kin devices will be available on the Vodafone network.

Sony Ericsson Talks Tablets And Google

SonyEricsson President Bert Nordberg spent his first six months on the job slashing costs and paring projects to get the handset maker out of the red. The payoff came Friday: a first-quarter profit of $28.4 million that ended nearly two years of losses.

Nordberg, who previously headed Silicon Valley research and development efforts for Sony Ericsson parent Ericsson ( ERIC – news – people ), isn’t resting yet. In the coming months Sony Ericsson will launch smartphones with U.S. carriers, introduce a handset based on Microsoft’s ( MSFT – news – people ) new Windows Phone 7 software and tie its phones to parent company Sony’s TVs and computers, Nordberg told Forbes during a meeting in New York.