Technology company HP has agreed to purchase smartphone manufacturer Palm for a total of approximately $1.2 billion. It's a 'friendly' takeover that has been approved by the HP and Palm boards of directors. Palm shareholders will receive $5.70 in cash for each Palm share they hold when the merger is completed. The transaction is expected to close by the end of July.
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James Rosewell writes:
Back in January 2010 I wrote a brief review of the Google Nexus One that included my thoughts on the not-so-accurate voice dictation feature. From the marketing hype, I had expected to simply speak into the phone and a few seconds later my words would appear as a perfectly formed text message. The reality was somewhat disappointing. For all but the simplest short phrases it struggled to produce the intended words, making it inferior to even the touch-screen keyboard.
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Vodafone has announced a number of new own-brand products today, including the Android-powered Vodafone 845. It's Vodafone's first own-branded Android smartphone – running the latest Android 'Eclair' (version 2.1) software – and is expected in the UK next month.
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Nokia has announced the N8 smartphone, which is set to be the first device running version 3 of the Symbian operating system. There’s a 12 megapixel camera with Xenon flash, there’s HD-quality video recording, Dolby surround sound and a 3.5-inch organic LED screen in the aluminium body.
There's also social network aggregation, built-in video editing and the free Ovi Maps navigation service. Symbian ^3 includes support for multi-touch, flick scrolling and pinch-zoom on the touchscreen.
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NTT DOCOMO, Renesas Electronics, Fujitsu, NEC, Panasonic and Sharp have announced an agreement that'll see them working together to develop a new application platform for mobile phones. The new platform, which promises improved processing speeds for high-quality video and 3D graphics, is intended to cut development time and costs for the four Japanese mobile phone manufacturers.
The new platform will be compatible with both the Symbian and Linux operating systems, while Android compatibility hasn't been ruled out. Mobile phones incorporating the new platform are expected to be seen in late 2011 or early 2012.
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