IBLOG SPACE

Nokia Siemens Networks announced today that it will begin it’s planned layoff of 1,500 employees. The decision comes following its acquisition of Motorola’s networking business for $1.2 billion. The employees to be axed will come primarily from the WiMax and GSM departments of the former Motorola unit. The action became necessary after the Motorola network acquisition got stalled when Huawei filed a lawsuitseeking to halt the transaction for fear that NSN would obtain its trade secrets and intellectual property, which Motorola had access to. This, in turn, caused the unit’s products and services to fall into lower demand. Hence, not only will 1,500 of the 6,900 employees from the Motorola WiMAX and GSM units be let go, but another 1,200 will be transferred to its LTE and WCDMA units, which are currently seeing more success. The first batch of workers to go will be 150 of mostly research staff from Nokia Siemen’s Swindon facilties.

Android continues to dominate the mobile landscape with a 40% share of US mobile subscribers, according to the latest ComScore report. However, wouldn’t it be interesting to see how it maps out across the US? Well, mobile ad network Jumptap has done just that. The company issued a report today along with a map showing which platforms are most popular by state. The report found that the majority of states that over-indexed for Android subscribers were in the South and Southwest regions, including California, Texas, and Florida. States that over-indexed for iOS subscribers are generally in the Midwest and New England areas with the exception being Louisiana. However, there were also states that turned up neutral, which all seem to sit in the lower half of the country interspersed between Android-dominant states. And surprisingly, there’s still plenty of demand for BlackBerries up north in states such as Oregon, the Dakotas, and New York.

It’s being alleged today that Apple may be disabling devices that are running iOS 5 betas that have been acquired through unauthorized means. iOS 5 beta is meant for Apple’s registered developers, but since those developers get UDID identifications for up to a hundred devices, some have unscrupulously sold these slots for profit. The report first came from Karthikk.net, which claimed that many developers have received a letter from Apple saying that their accounts are being shut down for selling the iOS 5 beta slots and that the associated UDIDs with their account will be disabled. This means that anyone who is using iOS 5 beta on their device attached to a flagged UDID could see their devices disabled. It’s said that once Apple locks the iOS 5 beta on a device, that the handset will enter initial setup mode and ask to connect to WiFi, but nothing more happens after that. However, many other sites, including TUAW and 9to5 Mac, believe that this report is false. They first question the

Before we begin speaking about this cool new masterpiece, I must warn you that it is still a concept. This means it’s not in production yet, and if there is a unit out there working, it’s still just a prototype. That said, we sure as heck wish this particular model was out for purchase, as immediately on the lens it certainly would go. This is the HoodCap Flower, a DSLR camera cap that twists to unfold and provide the camera then with a hood for sunshine blockage. With a clever little gear system in place on this invention comes a simple twist to open, a flower that reveals the lens in a series of transformermers. So simple it’s hard to believe that such a thing hasn’t already been created for the good of humanity. Imagine using such a worm gear system and Thermoplastic Elastomer to block the sun while you take your ultra high-quality photographs and videos without needing the super expensive equipment that the super pros use. This design is a winner of one of the 2011 Spark Awards and

Welcome to our look at Samsung’s newest work with Android, this being made specifically for the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and called Samsung TouchWiz UX. What TouchWiz amounts to is a custom user interface that sits on top of and beside Android 3.1 Honeycomb, working to improve the way you work with Android and your tablet in general as well as opening your pathway to Samsung’s new movie collection interface and ability to work with Mini Apps on top of your everyday full-screen apps and home screens. The big question many users are having at the moment is: “should I update?” and we aim to answer that question here. Before we go any further, here we have a hands-on look at the majority of the new features you’ll find working with Samsung’s TouchWiz UX as seen on a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Wi-Fi edition. This device was upgraded to TouchWiz UX today and all features are part of this first iteration of Samsung’s UX. Below this video are each of the main pieces of this new puzzle in a bit mor

Say Hello to the smallest offering I’ve seen in a while from HTC, this little device is small enough that anyone can carry it no matter how small the hands are. It would feel comfortable for your 10 year old, and would make a great starter phone too. The Wildfire S comes in a few different colors, its an amazingly great device for a mid-range offering and it’s only like $79 or so over on T-Mobile — interested yet? Before I start posting up all the pictures of this cute little phone here is our hands-on unboxing post and the video is below. HTC Wildfire S Hands-on & Unboxing video Hardware To start off this thing is tiny, it only has a 3.2″ 480×320 resolution screen, comes in with a 600 Mhz processor, 512MB of RAM and ROM as well as an included 2GB SD card but for the price the specs and quality are quite nice. I’d put the Wildfire S in my top 3 for best mid-range offering that is for sure. Here are some photos for a better idea. This isn’t the first or the last device that will com

Many of us may be familiar with lightweight interchangeable lens cameras such as with the micro four-thirds technology. But Ricoh has been offering something slightly different since 2009, when it introduced its GXR series modular cameras that swap out not only the lens but also the camera sensor. The company today announced a new module for the GXR series that will work with Leica M-mount lenses. Ricoh recently announced it was purchasing Pentax to expand its consumer digital camera business, specifically in the lightweight interchangeable lens camera department. But that doesn’t mean that Ricoh will discontinue its own GXR series cameras, which are preferred by some for the ability to swap out not only the lens but also the camera sensor so that they can better adjust for varying shooting conditions. The new GXR module is called the A12 and it uses a 12.3-megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor with a Leica M mount. It also comes with its own focal plane shutter so that it can be used instead of

Apple released its new OS X Lion for Mac computers recently, and there was one controversial change that had the technorati chatting nonstop. In the new Lion OS, Apple changed the direction of scrolling. I use a MacBook Pro (among other machines, I’m OS agnostic). On my MacBook, I scroll by placing two fingers on the trackpad and moving them up or down. On the old system, moving my fingers down meant the object on the screen moved up. My fingers are controlling the scroll bars. Moving down means I am pulling the scroll bars down, revealing more of the page below what is visible. So, the object moves upwards. On the new system, moving my fingers down meant the object on screen moves down. My fingers are now controlling the object. If I want the object to move up, and reveal more of what is beneath, I move my fingers up, and content rises on screen. The scroll bars are still there, but Apple has, by default, hidden them in many apps. You can make them reappear by hunting through the sett

We haven’t heard much recently about the rumored Amazon tablets codenamed Hollywood and Coyote, but that’s because it’s the calm before the storm. The tablets are indeed brewing and new supplier information suggests that Amazon expects to ship as much as 3 million units this fall. According to Taiwan Economic News, Amazon has already placed orders with contract manufacturer Quanta Computer, which was responsible for RIM’s PlayBook tablet that recently received FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standard) certification. This honor will mean increased business from government procurement. Quanta will also be manufacturing Sony’s S1 and S2 tablets. It’s reported that Quanta’s production line has already begun rolling since July for Amazon, which is demanding 800,000 to 1 million units per month starting from August through October. This falls in line with a previous reportthat Amazon’s Q3 shipments would be around 1 million. But that would also mean the launch is coming very very soon.

A new 10-inch Android tablet to be looking out for is the HTC Puccini. The tablet’s been keeping low, but its imminent launch can’t be missed with the recent FCC approval and some leaked press shots. Today, however, we get even an even closer look with leaked screenshots of its custom HTC Sense tablet UI. The HTC Puccini could be the very first 4G LTE tablet for AT&T, but given that AT&T may have at most 15 4G LTE markets by year-end, that may not be a huge deciding factor for many folks. The tablet is expected to come with a 1.5GHz Qualcomm dual-core processor running Android Honeycomb. However, no official details have been confirmed yet. But as for its custom interface, it looks like the HTC Puccini will have plenty of AT&T bloatware preloaded, including AT&T Code, AT&T Family, AT&T MyText, and AT&T Navigation. It also appears that HTC has added its own stylus icon on the bottom of the screen where we typically expect the multitask switcher icon. This con

The much anticipated Motorola Droid Bionic is expected to be one of the first 4G LTE handsets with a dual-core processor. Now that we’re getting close to its arrival, pictures of the device have begun surfacing. And not just one blurry shot, but a whole series of photos that clearly show off a complete revamp. The leaked images obtained by DroidLife reveal that the new Droid Bionic has a more squarish design than the one shown back at CES, looking rather simlar to the Droid 3. It also appears to have a larger screen, which supports rumors that the handset now sports a 4.5-inch screen instead of a 4.3-inch screen. The below image was tweaked by Androidandme to compare just the screens between the Droid Bionic and the Droid Charge. The screen on the Droid Bionic appears clearly larger than the 4.3-inch screen of the Droid Charge. After several months of delays, the handset has finally been confirmed for a September launch, and a leakedinternal Verizon document has it down for September 8