T-Mobile offering coupons for 50% discount on an accessory purchase

T-Mobile customers are getting a nice holiday present from the carrier-a coupon good for a 50% discount on an accessory purchased at a T-Mobile store. Starting today, fans of the carrier on Facebook can pick up the coupon in their news feed and the coupon will also be posted on the carrier's Facebook wall. The Facebook coupon expires on July 31st 2011.

Additionally, 14 million T-Mobile customers will receive an insert with their latest invoice mailed July 1st, also offering 50% off an accessory purchase. This coupon can also be obtained through a customer's SCOOP email and expires August 31st 2011. While the Facebook offer is good only in T-Mobile owned stores, the coupon that comes with the invoice or obtained from SCOOP email can be used at T-Mobile retail and branded stores. Each coupon is good for one accessory purchase only.

The information came from a leaked photo of a T-Mobile Field Sales News Update. The Update says that the idea behind launching the coupons is to increase traffic into the stores by as many as 140,000 potential customers, each one a target for a T-Mobile salesman to sell or cross-sell to. One bad news for T-Mobile reps was mentioned in the Update; because the 50% discount requires a price override, no commissions will be paid out from this promotion. It sounds like a bummer if you're a salesman for the nation's fourth largest carrier. But don't worry. T-Mobile says that this promotion is a great way for reps to build relationships with potential customers for future sales.

Besides the lack of immediate commission dollars for T-Mobile salesmen with this promotion, reps using the discount for their own purchase will have the 50% applied to the sticker price of an accessory, not the employee discount price. Sounds like someone is trying to get his house in order before the new homeowner moves in.

source: TmoNews

This News Update leaks out the information behind T-Mobile's 50% off accessory coupon

Nokia 3D World Gaze puts the World in the palm of your hand

If you happen to have a Symbian^3 smartphone like the Nokia N8, for example, this neat app will probably keep you occupied for quite a while. Nokia 3D World Gaze lets you roam the Earth, albeit only virtually, by giving you a three-dimensional, see-through view of the planet, which you can “travel” back and forth across with a touch of a fingertip.

Now, some of you will probably think that the app is a Google Earth wannabe, but that does not seem to be the case. Nokia 3D World Gaze is a tool that lets you browse recent geotagged media from the regions that you are viewing, and according to its developers, its would suit those who are interested in exploring and learning new things about the world that we live in. That being said, see if the video that we have embedded for you below might not wake up the explorer that hides inside of you.

Nokia 3D World Gaze is still in its beta stage so it may not be perfect just yet. However, that does not stop you from giving it a try if you are interested. We have provided a download link for you below so feel free to check it out.

Nokia 3D World Gaze [download page, registration required]

source: Nokia

HTC sees a 87.8% year-to-year increase in its June sales

Last month we reported that HTC has more than doubled its May sales year-on-year, and it seems the company is keeping up with this impressive performance. Not really over 100% better, but for the month of June, HTC has again achieved some pretty good sales figures, with a reported 87.8% increase, compared to last year's June.

Most of HTC's success in recent history is attributed to its wonderful Android-based smartphones, which are renowned for their premium construction, competitive specifications and polished software in the form of the Sense user interface, which has also managed to differentiate the company's products from those of rival Android phone manufacturers.

Will HTC continue to impress us with such great results? Do you find offerings like the HTC Sensation 4G and EVO 3D good enough to compete with the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S II and LG Optimus 3D? Don't miss to tell us in the comments!

source: Electronista

Russell Brand promotes the HP TouchPad

The HP TouchPad is facing some tough competition in tablets – the ubiquitous iPad, heaps of Android pretenders, and even small yet promising BlackBerry PlayBook. You might think that's as serious of an environment as it gets for HP's webOS tablet, but that's when British comedian Russell Brand pops in to do some of the explaining and promoting.

First, you'll get to deeply understand how flicks and swipes on a tablet are different than dealing with boogers, but then you'll also learn how to handle multitasking and get informed about Brand's only great idea. If that's not enough, a brilliant line explains notifications on webOS: “Here's a message now, I'm just ignoring it.” And quite frankly, with mails, notifications from social networks, microblogs and just about every other website, ironically, that seems more important than ever.

Finally, if you're thinking “I'm bored now, breathing in and out, on a planet with the Amazonian rainforest, animals, natural wonders, the pyramids,” you know what you can do, right? Brand suggests to grab an HP TouchPad, but we'd advice you to stay tuned for our in-depth review which is coming soon.

source: HP via ElectricPic

Sony Ericsson Xperia ray listed online for pre-order with August 15 shipping date

The Sony Ericsson Xperia ray was among the trio of smartphones that the manufacturer announced a few weeks ago, and thanks to its slim profile and attractive design, the handset probably managed to grab the attention of the ones who prioritize style over substance when it comes to their gadgets. Little was said, however, regarding the smartphone's availability, and all that we knew after the announcement was that the Xperia ray would hit the market at some point within the third quarter of 2011.

Fortunately, the British online retailer Play.com can shed some light on the matter as it already has the Sony Ericsson Xperia ray, unlocked and contract-free, up for pre-order. The smartphone has an expected shipping date set for August 15 meaning that it will most probably be available through the U.K. and maybe even some other European countries around that time. Purchasing the smartphone in advance would set you back about 560$, which some would argue that is a bit too high of a price to pay for a device with somewhat average specs. However, the Xperia ray seems to be made to impress with looks and design rather than breaking Quadrant high scores.

As far as the Sony Ericsson Xperia ray's availability in the U.S. goes – all we can do is hope to see the smartphone launch along with its European counterpart.

source: Play.com via Android Authority

Tablets to completely replace textbooks in South Korea by 2015

Wave goodbye to your paperback textbooks if you're a student in South Korea – the country's Ministry of Education approved the digital revolution replacing them with tablets or ebooks completely by 2015. The initiative translates into $2 billion of spending, but the end result will mean that all textbooks will be digitalized and additional multimedia resources be made available.

To access the textbooks, students will get free tablets, while the books themselves will just be a download a way, much like the way books are now sold on online retailers like Amazon or Barnes&Noble. And while the initial investment might seem big, after all it will free parents of the growing burden of pricey textbooks. 

“It will be up to schools to decide which digital textbooks to choose for students in what year in what subject. We don't expect the shift to digital textbooks to be difficult as students today are very accustomed to the digital environment,” a ministry official said. There were no details about the devices that will be used, but Korean companies like LG and Samsung look like the most likely candidate brands. 

While such a transition is not widely planned stateside, we've seen some states like Maine already approve spendings of some $200,000 bringing iPad 2s to kindergarteners in an attempt to increase literacy.

source: Chosunilbo via ITProPortal

LG Optimus Black likely headed to Sprint, U.S. Cellular, Alltel and Virgin Mobile

The LG Optimus Black has been available in the U.K. for nearly two months now, yet little has been said regarding its launch in the U.S. Well, what if we told you that we have a few reasons to believe that the smartphone is almost definitely coming across the ocean and that it might be up for sale on the shelves of four different wireless carriers?

The first clue to back up that claim comes from the Tera-WUFRL database where the LG Optimus Black is already listed with a US855 model name. For those of you who do not know what the Tera-WUFRL database is, it is an online catalog containing technical information about pretty much every cellphone that can connect to the Internet in some way. Although we cannot be absolutely sure at this time, the US prefix of the model name may mean that U.S. Cellular is planning to launch the Optimus Black at some point this year. The database entry itself does not reveal any spicy details except for the fact that the smartphone is listed with Android 2.3 Gingerbread as its operating system, which is great news considering that its European counterpart still runs 2.2 Froyo with no official update available yet.

However, while digging through the FCC, the guys at PocketNow revealed three additional LG smartphones with similar model names – LS855, AS855, and VM855, which appeared to be variants of the Optimus Black tailored for Sprint, Alltel, and Virgin Mobile respectively. Unfortunately, our search showed that only the Sprint-bound model is listed right now so you might want to take the existence of the other two devices with a grain of salt.

With its single-core TI OMAP3630 chipset, the Optimus Black may not be capable of competing with all the latest Android heavyweights, but it stands out with its low weight and its bright and beautiful NOVA display. Feel free to take a look at our LG Optimus Black review and see whether it might not be the next smartphone that will make its way to your pocket.

Thanks, anonymous tipster!

source: Tera-WUFRL, FCC via PhoneDog

Now you can get an early prototype iPhone 4 on eBay

If you've ever wondered how a possibly early build of the iPhone 4 looks like, despite not being able to activate it or operate it in any way, now you can get yours on eBay for over $1,700. 

The device carries a product number DF1692, a unique identification given to each Apple employee, so you might also expect to get contacted by Apple, but for the time being the auction is alive and well.

Visually, the prototype iPhone 4 mimics the looks of the final device with the only notable difference being the lack of “+” and “-” signs on the volume buttons. No activation also means that the amount of memory on the handset is a guessing game. The seller, Jtmaxo, claims to be a licensed phone repairmen, registered on eBay since March 2004. Feel free to place your bids at the source link below, but don't get your hopes too high – the price goes up quickly.

source: eBay via Thisismynext

More evidence writes off possible cancerous cell phone radiation

Just over a month ago, the World Health Organization shocked pretty much everyone with a scary message declaring cell phone radiation “possibly carcinogenic to humans.” There was no conclusive evidence then as there isn't now, but the journal of Environmental Health Perspectives argues:

"Although there remains some uncertainty, the trend in the accumulating evidence is increasingly against the hypothesis that mobile phone use can cause brain tumors in adults." 

Now that's confusing. Who should you trust? Well, the latter study on one hand reevaluates previous research and stresses the fact that there is no conclusive evidence, nor there is an established biological mechanism explaining how could cell phone radio signals possibly damage the human brain. The WHO on the other exercises more caution. It did also note the possible carcinogenic effect of caffeine, working night shifts or even wrongly preserved vegetables. 

But you might wonder – if phones caused cancer shouldn't we be suffering a pandemic right now? Similarly, however, atomic bomb survivors in Japan showed no signs of increased brain cancer until some forty years after the war. This proves that carcinogenic agents might remain inactive for many years and only trigger cancer development after decades. This uncertainty is exactly what lies under the WHO's scary summation as its aim seems to be prevention and caution.

Finally, Anthony Swerdlow of the British Institute of Cancer Research concludes:

"We are trying to say in plain English what we believe the relationship is. They were trying to classify the risk according to a pre-set classification system."

Feel free to also check out our in-depth article looking at how cell phones might affect your health and what previous studies have concluded.

source: Reuters and Huffington Post

Amazon UK says the BlackBerry Bold 9900 will be available in white on October 15th

If the continued existence of RIM and its fabled BlackBerry name comes down to just one device to turn around the company, that device would have to be the BlackBerry Bold 9900. The sleek handset is the thinnest 'Berry ever manufactured and borrows its form factor and physical QWERTY keyboard heavily from the original Bold 9000. That should please both BlackBerry fans and those using another platform as the initial version of the Bold felt great in the hand and featured what many still consider one of the best physical keyboards ever to be placed on a handset.

RIM has really tried to make the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and its CDMA cousin, the BlackBerry Bold 9930, a handset that can compete with Apple and Android. Above the QWERTY keyboard is a 2.8 inch touchscreen with resolution of 480 x 640. A single-core 1.2GHz processor is expected to be under the hood, along with 768MB of RAM. The model should come with 8GB of memory that can be increased with the addition of as much as a 32GB microSD card. A 5MP camera  on back will capture video at 720p. BlackBerry 7OS is pre-installed on the phone and RIM has been blowing its own horn about its new WebKit based browser which is a big improvement over the WebKit browser found on the BlackBerry Torch 9800. Whereas prior BlackBerry browsers would choke on JavaScript, the new browser eats it up alive.

If you are going to produce a model to compete with the Apple iPhone, you need to make sure that every little thing about Apple's touchscreen phone, including color, is available for your device.. So it is not a surprise then that Amazon UK is already taking pre-orders for the BlackBerry Bold 9900-in white. According to the online retailer's site, Amazon will be launching the white variant of the Bold 9900 on October 15th at a price of  549.99 GBP, which is equivalent to $885 U.S. Dollars. But don't worry about the price because by the time the phone is rolled out in the U.S., it will be subsidized by a carrier just as long as you sign the two year contract.

source: AmazonUK via Crackberry

Amazon's UK web site already lists the BlackBerry Bold 9900 in white, available October 15th

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 getting TouchWiz soon with Honeycomb update

Having a custom skin on top of the vanilla Android build has often proven to be more of a hassle than a real benefit. But while Samsung's TouchWiz UI won't appeal to Android purists, even they'd admit it does extend Android's functionality. The skin is now coming to Samsung's ultra slim Galaxy Tab 10.1 bringing advanced copy-paste storing images and links in the clipboard for easy sharing, a panel for quickly controlling settings like Wi-Fi and notifications, but also a new visual approach to multitasking with mini apps tray and live panel widget for magazine-like view of your most recent updates including weather and email.

The update also delivers Media Hub, a service allowing you to purchase and rent movies and TV shows, which you can subsequently share with other Media Hub devices. Samsung's Social Hub message aggregator, Reader Hub and Music Hub are also on board. The latest version of Swype comes preinstalled as well. With even more accessories like an SD card adapter, which the tablet has been notably missing, the Tab 10.1 should look even more appealing. Finally, if you lose your device, you'll be able to look for it, lock it or wipe out personal information. The update is coming soon, so it might arrive even sooner than the 4G LTE Galaxy Tab 10.1, expected to ship in the next couple of weeks.

source: Samsung via Engadget

Windows Phone 7 version of the Samsung Galaxy S II could be on the way

We just reported that the Samsung Galaxy S II has been selling at a rate of 1 every 1.5 seconds and the Korean based manufacturer recently celebrated the 3 millionth unit sold (even without a U.S. launch)-a feat that took all of 55 days. So you can imagine what the conversation was like in the Samsung boardroom when someone came up with the idea of making a version of the device that runs on Windows Phone 7 instead of Android.

The Samsung SGH i-937 has been appearing on the Bluetooth SIG which has started speculation that this is the Samsung Galaxy S 2-the hottest smartphone currently known to man-but with Microsoft's mobile OS on board. Because it has the same exact profile as a Mango flavored Windows Phone 7 stack and has appeared on a list of Windows Phone 7 devices playing games from Occasional Gamers, it can be deduced that the SGH i-937 is a Windows Phone 7 powered handset. Add to this the fact that the model number is just 10 above the Samsung Galaxy S II, and you might have enough circumstantial evidence to start a decent rumor.

With the response that the Android powered Samsung Galaxy S II has received in the marketplace, it would be a good business decision to see if that success could be repeated with an OS that is looking for a jump start anyway. Of course, we wouldn't expect to see anything resembling a Galaxy S II with Windows Phone 7 running the show until after the Mango update takes the OS to the next level promised by the gang at Redmond.

source: Bluetooth, OccasionalGamer via WMPU

The Samsung SGH i-937 has been spotted on the Bluetooth Sig (L) and on Occasional Gamers list (R), fueling the speculation that the model is a Windows Phone 7 version of the Samsung Galaxy S II

HTC Sensation 4G is now selling at a cool $129.99 over at Wirefly

Just in time for the July 4th weekend festivities, Wirefly is celebrating the nation’s birthday by bringing down the price of the HTC Sensation 4G to an admirable $129.99 on-contract price – both for new and existing customers with qualified upgrades.

Indeed nice, especially when you consider the high-end goodness it brings along for the ride, the $130 pricing is undoubtedly easy to tolerate for most budgets – but even more as it stands as one of the best smartphones available right now on T-Mobile’s lineup. Of course, standard shipping via FedEx is included with the offer to ease the burden in purchasing the handset. Either way, it’s a very tempting offer that will appeal to many people.

In any event, those interested in scooping up a top-notch T-Mobile smartphone should take into consideration Wirefly’s astounding deal on the HTC Sensation 4G.

source: Wirefly

Samsung drops lawsuit against Apple

According to a report from Bloomberg, Samsung has dropped its patent infringement lawsuit against Apple which had claimed that the latter had taken many of its ideas from Samsung while infringing on the Korean firm's patents. The suit was dropped on Thursday, according to Bloomberg, and company spokesman Nam Ki Yung said the action was taken in order to "streamline" the proceedings.

As we had told you, Apple had originally sued Samsung claiming that the Galaxy line of smartphones and tablets "slavishly" copies the Apple iPhone and iPad. Samsung countersued and both firms demanded to see each others products. While Apple was allowed to look at the already released Galaxy S II and Galaxy Tab 10.1, the court denied the Korean manufacturers request to see the Apple iPhone 5 and iPad 3, both works in progress. Samsung wants to make sure that Apple is not infringing on any of its patents in the making of the two devices.

As we reported, just a couple of days ago Samsung filed a complaint against Apple with the U.S. ITC after the latter filed a suit against Samsung in Korean court. And while Apple remains one of Samsung's biggest customers, industry sources say that Apple is dropping the Korean firm as a manufacturer for its A6 chip and replacing the company with TSMC.

Samsung dropping the suit doesn't mean victory for Apple. Samsung says it will continue to fight for its patent rights through a counterclaim made against Apple in an earlier suit filed in San Jose.

source: Bloomberg via Reuters

Samsung Galaxy S II sells like hotcakes; 3 million sold in 55 days

It is one thing for everyone to proclaim that the Samsung Galaxy S II is the hottest smartphone around the globe. It is another to actually have the stats that back it up. According to Samsung, 3 million units of the Galaxy S II have been sold in just 55 days making it the fastest selling phone in Samsung's illustrious history. That beat out the 85 days that it took the original version of the handset to ring up 3 million in sales. At the current rate, a new Samsung Galaxy S II finds an owner every 1.5 seconds. In the U.K., Samsung has been the top selling handset manufacturer for 17 straight weeks.

As amazing as that sounds, we have to take into consideration that the device is not yet available in the U.S. where cell phone fanatics are eagerly awaiting the launch of the phone. As we reported, the device is expected to be available on 3 of the nation's top 4 carriers as the Samsung Function (Verizon), Attain (AT&T) and Within (Sprint).

While American citizens wait for the Samsung Galaxy S II, the demand for the phone grows sharply as the handset reaches almost mythical proportions in the States. And while that might have been Samsung's game plan all along, the unit obviously has done quite well overseas. Well played, Samsung. The goal Samsung set for itself to sell 10 million units this year certainly seems like it will be eclipsed very easily, especially if the U.S. launch happens as expected.

source: Flickr (Samsung) via Oled-Info

It has taken just 55 days for the Samsung Galaxy S II to sell 3 million units