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Cottagers: Bell rolling out Muskoka LTE coverage

Ian Hardy — Thu, 17 May 2012 02:08:47 +0000

Bell has been working hard on transforming the Muskoka landscape by disguising the standard and hideous looking cellphone towers as beautiful trees. What they haven’t been communicating is that they’ve been actively testing their LTE network in the area. Effective May 17th, Bell will once again expand their HSPA+ and LTE coverage, this time taking care of all the Summer vacationers in the Muskoka region.

First, by July 1st, Bell will be improving the HSPA+ coverage to 42Mbps. Now, according to an internal doc we received it states that LTE download speeds will reach “up to 75 Mbps,” unfortunately we don’t have a coverage map yet, but a link on the Bell site will go live tomorrow (Bell.ca/muskoka). However, what we do have for you is the future rollout schedule. Apparently by July 1st the LTE coverage “will expand to include over 90% of the shorelines on the largest lakes, over a dozen resorts and golf clubs, and several key communities.” Here’s what you can expect:

Lakes: Lake Muskoka, Lake Joseph, Lake Rosseau, Lake of Bays, Six Mile Lake, Honey Harbour

Communities: Gravenhurst, Port Carling, Rosseau, Milford Bay, Minett, Port Sandfield, Honey Harbour, Baysville, Dorset

Resorts & Golf Clubs: Taboo, Rocky Crest, Touchstone, Delawana Inn, Windermere House, Severn Lodge, Bigwin Island, Lake Joseph Club, Muskoka Lakes Golf & Country Club, Port Carling Golf & Country Club, Muskoka Bay Club, Muskoka Woodland Golf, The Rock

Bell’s LTE coverage currently reaches over 7 million Canadians and with this addition it’ll give it a slight boost. Muskoka will join other LTE area such as Guelph, Hamilton, Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Quebec, Calgary and Edmonton.

Summer is already looking good: Sun, golf, beers, LTE.

(Thanks tipster!)

Videotron to launch the Nokia Lumia 710

Ian Hardy — Thu, 17 May 2012 01:00:55 +0000

Well the recently launched HTC Radar won’t be their only Windows Phone powered device. They too will make the uber affordable Nokia Lumia 710 available. This device was once a Rogers exclusive and eventually made its way to Wind Mobile and Mobilicity. There’s no word yet on the launch date, nor the pricing, but you can expect it to be priced between the $250 and $300 outright.

(Thanks tipster!)

Bell and Virgin HTC One S pricing revealed

Daniel Bader — Wed, 16 May 2012 23:34:46 +0000

The HTC One S will be officially available tomorrow from several Canadian carriers. We’ve already seen TELUS’ pricing of this Android OS 4.0 device (ranges from $99.99 to $569.99) and now we can confirm the pricing that Bell will launch with. We happened upon a Source store who was willing to sell us the device a day early on either Virgin Mobile for $99.99 on a 3-year term, $599.99 outright or Bell for $0.05 cheaper.

We’ll have our full review up in a few days, but in the meantime check out our quick hands-on. Check after the break for some more hands-on photos with the blue and grey version that will be coming to multiple carriers.

Rogers launches ‘Next is Now…More than Ever’ video to showcase the ubiquity of the internet in our lives

Daniel Bader — Wed, 16 May 2012 21:43:07 +0000

Rogers has launched a follow-up to its successful ‘Next is Now‘ video from 2010 titled ‘Next is Now…More than Ever’. The idea is to highlight the many ways in which the internet, especially on our smartphones, has changed the world we live in for the better.

To do so, Rogers got together with production company Thornley Fallis to create a series of vignettes — organic projections of facts on walls around Toronto — that speak to our reliance and emphasis on the internet in our lives.

Some stats, like the majority of tablet owners watch TV and use their tablets at the same time, speaks more to the frenetic ADD-type nature of society, in that many find it difficult to sit down and focus on a single task at hand. According to Cisco, internet speeds are expected to rise by nine times in the next four years as LTE is adopted on a global scale. As a result, 90% of entire internet traffic is expected to be video within three years. These are staggering numbers, and show how much we are moving towards a mobile lifestyle in almost everything we do.

The video, which is just over three minutes long and has a great soundtrack, is embedded after the break.

Source: YouTube

Video: Google traces an email’s trajectory in “The Story of Send”

Daniel Bader — Wed, 16 May 2012 21:01:02 +0000

Google’s never been one to shy away from cute, whimsical stories — see this Rube Goldberg ad for Chrome as an example — and its latest creation is called “The Story of Send.” The interactive web page, created in HTML5, traces the trajectory of an email from your Gmail account through their back-end routers all the way to your recipient.

It’s an interesting and fun look at something we do every day but may know very little about.

Check it out as part of Google Green, a new web page dedicated to showing off the company’s ecologically-sound endeavours. Video below.

Source: Google
Via: Daring Fireball

WIND Mobile now has “well over 430,000 active customers,” celebrates by giving new activations a free add-on

Ian Hardy — Wed, 16 May 2012 20:13:45 +0000

Yesterday WIND Mobile Q1 2012 results were reported and at the of March their subscriber base reached 415,364. Today, in a press release promoting a new offer revealed the last 6 weeks WIND has managed tally up a few new subs to “well over 430,000 active customers.” No word on their ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) but it should still be somewhere around $27.30/month.

The press release promoted a new offer, specifically targeting “higher value postpaid segments,” will give new activations on the $40/month Unlimited talk/text/data plan a free add-on – either Voicemail plus or World Saver (usually $8/month). WIND stated the postpaid now accounts for over 40% of their customer base. The promo officially starts tomorrow until June 4th.

Flixel 1.2 for iPhone adds “Save to Drafts,” redesigns timeline for better living photos

Daniel Bader — Wed, 16 May 2012 19:31:07 +0000

It’s no secret that Flixel is one of my newest obsessions on the iPhone. Unlike Instagram, which recently moved over to Android and became a billion dollar Facebook plugin, Flixel is iPhone-only right now and reason enough for me to keep one on hand at all times.

The idea is simple enough: capture two seconds of video and “paint” parts of the scene you wish to move. Effects range from subtle to strange to magical, but they’re all ridiculously cool.

The latest version adds the ability to save a Flixel to drafts for future editing, something that was desperately missing from the first two releases. The timeline has also been redone for a cleaner, quicker glimpse at your followed Flixographers.

For older devices such as the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, Flixels now load significantly faster, and filters — yes, Flixel has filters — are applied much faster, too. I noticed the speed increase on my iPhone 4S, too, but the benefit should be felt more on legacy devices.

If you haven’t downloaded Flixel just yet, head on over to the App Store.

Via: Twitter

Android has 56.1% of the worldwide smartphone market share, says Gartner

Ian Hardy — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:25:34 +0000

Gartner Research has released their viewpoint on where the manufacturer smartphone OS market share stands. A year ago Gartner stated that Google Android OS will apture almost 50% market share by the end of 2012, however, this newest report that shows Q1 2012 stats reveals that Android now accounts for 56.1% of the worldwide OS market, up from 36.4% from Q1 2011.

The main reasons Gartner says that Android has taken a commanding lead is due to its ability to differentiate itself from others players. Anshul Gupta, analyst at Gartner, stated that “This is particularly true for smartphones based on the Android OS, where a strong commoditization trend is at work and most players are finding it hard to break the mould. At the high end, hardware features coupled with applications and services are helping differentiation, but this is restricted to major players with intellectual property assets.”

Gartner is also reporting that Apple’s iOS owns 22.9% share with 33,120.5 devices in-market, followed by Nokia’s Symbian with 8.6% of the smartphone market share (12,466.9 devices). RIM’s market share slipped from 13% to 6.9%, while Microsoft’s Windows Phone, which was mostly promoted through various Nokia devices, fell in market share to account for only 1.9%.

Source: Gartner
Via: Phone Arena

Videotron launches the Samsung Galaxy Q

Ian Hardy — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:18:44 +0000

The Samsung Galaxy Q is making the rounds in Canada. This entry level touchscreen/QWERTY Android first hit Fido, then WIND Mobile and Mobilicity. Now, Quebec-based Videotron is jumping in on the fun by making it available to their customers. Fido, WIND and Mobi all have this priced at $200 outright… Videotron is going a different route and upping its value by saying it’s worth $239.95. You could also score this on their “reduced price” of $39.95.

Check it out here at Videotron

LG’s Optimus UI 3.0 shown off with voice camera shutter and quick note abilities

Daniel Bader — Wed, 16 May 2012 16:21:55 +0000

LG’s Optimus 4X HD is a pretty powerful phone, with a quad-core Tegra 3 processor and a 4.7-inch TrueIPS 720p display. But none of that would matter if the software wasn’t up to scratch, so LG is doing an advertising blitz in the wake of the phone’s European release, showing off some of its more unique features.

For starters, as we previously told you, LG’s version of Android 4.0, dubbed Optimus UI 3.0, will support voice shutter abilities inside the camera app. This allows a user to set a specific voice command in order to engage the camera shutter. This solves a number of problems for phone cameras which are more prone to shakiness and don’t focus as quickly as full-sized cameras.

Another interesting feature that LG is adding is akin to Samsung’s S Memo app in its Galaxy Note. Called Quick Memo, it provides the ability to jot down notes with a finger whenever you need, from within any app. These thoughts can be shared to social networks or email in a flash.

Still cool but slightly gimmicky is LG’s addition of customizable app icons, which let you take a photo or a face and plant them on your favourite icon.

According to the press release, other features include

– the ability to unlock the phone by dragging anywhere on the screen;
– a new Pattern Lock that allows users to preset the most frequently used function, such as the camera, which automatically opens once the phone is unlocked;
– a simpler version of Optimus UI 3.0 for new smartphone users which organizes the main applications so that they are the easiest to access;
– a new Voice Shutter that allows users to capture photos using only voice commands;
– a special camera feature that enables users to pick up the best shot among multiple images including the moment just before the shutter button is depressed;
– an Icon Customizer that provides an additional level of personalization by allowing users to set their own photos as icons and shortcut images;
– the addition of a Download category to the menu for easier organization.

The LG Optimus 4X HD is being released in June across Europe, and is expected to come to Canada later this year.

Via: Phone Arena