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Samsung: Water-powered cell phones by 2010

(Credit: Samsung)

Samsung has developed a new kind of cell phone battery that's powered by water and is aiming to bring it to market by 2010.

Here's how it works: When the handset is switched on, reaction between metal and water in the phone produce hydrogen gas. This is then channeled to the fuel cell, where it reacts with oxygen in the air to generate power.

Samsung says the new battery could last for up to 10 hours. Based on four hours of use daily on average, the hydrogen cartridge would have to be replaced about every five days.

The next development would be to eliminate the hydrogen cartridge altogether and to rely only on water. While all that sounds promising, we guess it'll be hard to persuade people to adopt it en masse. After all, we've been trying to keep our phones away from water.

(Source: Crave Asia)

Leaked video of the HTC Desire HD

We’ve had numerous leaks of the HTC Desire HD for some time now, but at last the latest in HTC’s top-end Android smartphones has been caught on film. The Desire HD is indeed alive and well and is due for release around October 2010 – just in time for Christmas.

It’s packing some seriously cool features as well, and is certainly a worthy successor to the original and best-selling Desire, which itself was based on the Google Nexus One, and which HTC couldn’t make enough of before they all sold out!

So what does the new Desire HD offer?

1.2GHz HTC QWERTY phone leaked

This big beauty is a new HTC Android phone set for release in early 2011. As you’d expect from a phone from next year, its specs are a step-up from the current crop of 2010 phones. No 1GHz Snapdragon processor for this little monster – it’s packed with a 1.2GHz 2nd generation Snapdragon for screaming performance.

It also comes with a 4″ display, CDMA and GSM connectivity, meaning it’ll be sold across the world, and a full physical QWERTY keyboard.

Which is an interesting feature in more ways than one…

LG and Samsung’s next-gen User Interfaces

When you think of Korean phones from the likes of Samsung and LG, you think of marvels of technology, with phones crammed full of features, but with pretty ordinary user interfaces.

The superb Samsung Galaxy S, for example, has a crystal clear Super AMOLED display that even outshines the iPhone 4, yet its user interface isn’t quite on a par with the likes of HTC or Sony Ericsson’s redesigned Android interface.

It’s the same with LG. Although they’ve tried over the years, they’ve never quite come close to the aesthetics on offer from the likes of Apple, Palm and HTC.

Not any more, though. Realizing the world has moved on, and that the user experience is now just as important as the hardware underneath, both Samsung and LG have pulled their socks up and are working like mad on completely revamping the user interfaces of their next gen phones.

Dual-core HTC Glacier and Qualcomm’s next-gen Snapdragons revealed

HTC have something big lurking in the depths of their R&D department. Currently called the HTC Glacier, it’s a smartphone so powerful, its CPU is three times faster than its current fastest phone, the Evo 4G. Rumour has it it’s heading for T-Mobile as part of their mysterious Project Emerald device, details of which are extremely sketchy.

In fact, details are so sketchy, it’s driving the blogosphere nuts! People are reporting that the Glacier is actually the HTC Vision, or maybe the HTC Desire HD or even the T-Mobile G1 Blaze, which at least links in nicely with T-Mobile’s Project Emerald.

Project Emerald, apparently, is a top-secret HTC Desire-like Device that HTC are apparently developing solely for T-Mobile. But it’s so top-secret, that’s all we know!

But as for the HTC Glacier, well we can deduce a few things from the rumours swirling through the mobile phone blogs. Just what can we expect from it? What kind of CPU will it have and what sort of features can we expect from such a fast phone?

Leaked pics of the HTC Paradise and Fiesta

Never known for slowing down, HTC have yet more Android phones in the pipeline for us. The HTC Paradise and Fiesta are mid-range devices, which will help bring the benefits of Android to even more people.

As you can see, the Paradise (top picture) comes with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, while the Fiesta (below) is a simple touchscreen phone with no physical keyboard and a 3.2 megapixel camera.

Leaked Pics of the HTC G1 Blaze

Remember the HTC Vision leaked photos we showed you a while back? The latest rumour now suggests the phone is real, it’ll be coming to Europe on T-Mobile, and it’ll be branded the T-Mobile G1 Blaze.

As well as the full-size QWERTY keyboard you see in the pic, the G1 Blaze will have a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 3.7″ WVGA screen, and of course, will be running Android.

In many ways, then, it’ll be the true successor the original T-Mobile G1, the first Android phone ever released.

Now if only HTC will release an Android phone with a full QWERTY keyboard, a 1.5GHz processor and Android 3.0 (typical, I’m never satisfied!)

Next-Gen HTC Desire HD leaked

Mmmmm, tasty leaked details of a new HTC Desire HD have surfaced showing one seriously super-packed Android smartphone. The Desire has been one of the best selling smartphones on the market since it’s launch, and has been a huge hit for HTC.

News of an even better Desire, with a release date of October 2010, is mouth-watering – and even more mouth-watering is the feature list of this marvel.

So just what can we expect from a Desire HD? Find out after the jump…

Video teaser of new Blackberry OS 6.0

With all the news of Apple and Android lately, Blackberry has been a little bit lost. So they’ve decided to rectify that by showing a sneak peek of their new up and coming smartphone OS, Blackberry OS6.

The video reveals an OS that pretty much has everything in place that you’d expect from a smartphone in 2010. There’s a great browser (Webkit based, of course), multitouch support, pinch zooming, and lots of support for social media apps like Twitter and Facebook.

In addition, the overall look of the OS is looking pretty slick. The transitions and effects are reallty smooth. Although this sounds like superfluous fluff, such effects really add to the overall user experience of using a smartphone (something that Nokia should remember when working on Symbian^4).

Blackberry OS6 will first surface on the Blackberry 9800, which will be released later on this year.

Sony Ericsson Windows Phone 7 device leaked

Tantalising news reaches us of a new Sony Ericsson device using the brand new (and yet to be released) Windows Phone 7 OS from Microsoft. Regular readers will know that Windows Phone 7 is a complete rewrite of Microsoft’s ageing (and pants) OS, Windows Mobile, and by all accounts actually looks rather good.

Of course, that all depends on Microsoft not screwing it up, which is dangerously close to becoming a reality. They created, then immediately cancelled, the Microsoft Kin, which itself was a competitor to Windows Phone 7. Worse, though, was the underlying reasons for this, which have been revealed in all their inglorious glory over on Engadget (well worth a read).

It’s proof, if proof were needed, of how bloated, fractious and cumbersome Microsoft has become, with political infighting seemingly more important than beating the competition.

But I digress. Sony Ericsson’s new phone is currently codenamed the Sony Ericsson Jolie. What can we expect from it?

Video of Nokia MeeGo in action

All future Nokia N-Series phones will soon be running its brand new MeeGo OS. As I reported a few days back, MeeGo is a brand new OS formed from a collaboration between Nokia and Intel, and based on their Maemo and Moblin OSes respectively.

All very well, but what does it look like you ask? We already know what Nokia’s Symbian phones can do, as well as Maemo, thanks to the Nokia N900, which currently is the only phone to run Nokia’s heavy duty OS. But what about MeeGo? How good is that shaping up to be?

New 3D user interface coming to Android 3 GingerBread

After the giddy delights of Android 2.2 FroYo, with its superb range of new tweaks tha tmake Android phones even better to use than ever, we now hear that the next version of Android won’t just feature new tweaks – it’ll be an entirely new beast altogether, complete with brand new user interface.

FroYo offers many new additions to Android that makes the platform complete. It’s dramatically faster than previous versions, it turns your phone into a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot, it’s got dozens of user interface tweaks, and so many other new additions that I wrote a complete post on 21 of the best FroYo features – and still could have written more!

Now comes GingerBread, and it seems we ain’t seen nothing yet!

Leaked pictures of Nokia N9

I do love leaked pictures of mobile phones, and this one seems particularly tantalising. It’s rumoured to be a leaked pic of the Nokia N9, a new flagship feature phone from Nokia.

As you can see it comes with a QWERTY keyboard, and should also come with an 8 megapixel auto-focus camera, Wi-Fi, GPS, HSDPA, 3.5″ screen and Symbian^3.

It is, in many ways, a classic Nokia smartphone. That’s not a bad thing – Nokia’s features are always usually first rate – it just doesn’t do much to bridge the gap between Nokia and the iPhone.

Still, we’ve not seen it in action yet, so we’ll wait until its details become more concrete until we pass judgment.

More pics of the Nokia N9 after the jump.

Video preview of Sony Ericsson Xperia X8

Sony Ericsson are continuing their love affair with Android by announcing this, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X8. Similar in size to an Xperia X10 Mini, the X8 is designed as a budget Android phone with smart looks and all the functionality you’d expect from Google’s legendary mobile OS, but without the high price tag.

So how much are we talking? Less than 200 Euros, which makes it an absolute bargain.

You can check out the video of the Xperia X8 after the jump.

Five new Samsung phones to be announced tomorrow

Samsung’s about to hit us with five brand new smartphone tomorrow featuring pretty much every mobile OS you can name!

At the CommunicAsia 2010 event tomorrow, the company will showing off the Bada-based Samsung Wave 2 and Wave 2 Pro (same as the Wave 2, but with a QWERTY keyboard), the Omnia Pro 4 (which could be the first Windows Phone 7 device), and several Android devices, including the Samsung i8520 Beam, which comes with a bui;t-in projector.

Leaked pics of Sony Ericsson’s biggest ever phone

Sony Ericsson are rumoured to be working on a huge phone (or is it a tiny laptop), similar in dimensions to the new Dell Streak. The as yet unnamed phone boasts a full QWERTY keyboard and a huge 5″ screen. It’ll also be running Android 2.1 underneath, just like the Stealth.

Altek Leo reignites the cameraphone wars

It seems like years ago that the major mobile phone manufacturers were engaged in the war of the camera phones, with each company upping the ante with bigger and better megapixels, xenon flashes, and all manner of optical zooms.

All that changed, of course, with the rise of the smartphone, when the overall user experience (not to mention touchscreens) replaced the camera as the main selling point of the mobile phone.

Now Altek has decided the time is right to reignite the war, and is about to unleash the 14 megapixel Alte Leo onto an unsuspecting world.

Yup, you read right – 14 megapixels, plus 3x optical zoom and HD video recording. And that’s not the half of it!

Leaked pic of HTC Vision shows a QWERTY Desire

At last, I’ve found my perfect smartphone! Regular readers will know I’m hooked on Android, and with the release of the latest version FroYo, I’m even more hooked! My little T-Mobile G1 is now looking decidedly old (and large, too!), and I’ve been itching to get a new phone since the start of the year.

The problem? I’m hooked on QWERTY keyboards. I just love the speed with which you can use your phone when it’s got a full physical QWERTY.

Unfortunately, 2010 hasn’t been the year of QWERTY phones – at least not Android ones – so I’ve had to sit back and wait as some seriously tasty Android phones have been released, all without keyboard.

Now, though, all that looks set to change – behold the HTC Vision!

Secret super-Motorola set to launch in Autumn

Motorola have obviously been busy. Latest rumours suggest the company is hard at work bringing a top secret new superphone to UK shores with blistering specs in the next few months.

The new phone will be based on the Motorola Motoroi, an Android phone that launched last February in South Korea, but with significantly enhanced specs.

Leaked pictures of the Motorola FLIPOUT

A new Motorola Android phone has been leaked in the form of the Motorola FLIPOUT. The new phone’s most obvious unique feature is its form factor. No staid candy bar or clamshell design for Motorola – they’ve gone bold with the FLIPOUT and developed a completely square phone that slides out to reveal a physical QWERTY keyboard.