Xperia Ray Available Exlusivley To Telus Customers On November 2

I got a message from my “new best friends at Sony” who let me know that the Xperia Ray which I’ve previously written about is going to hit the streets on November 2nd via Telus. A few new details about this smartphone have appeared:

• Camera enhancements –Sony’s 3D Sweep Panorama lets you capture the full picture in vivid quality. Connect your Xperia ray to your 3D TV and wow your friends with your sensational 3D images.
• Sony Entertainment Network– Tap into the Sony Entertainment Network with Video Unlimited and instantly access thousands of movie titles directly on your phone.
• Facebook inside Xperia– See, share, like and comment on tracks, and photos straight from your music player or library. This unique to Sony Ericsson application also includes integrated contacts and photo albums to tag, comment and see which photos your friends like without having to open another app.
• View phone content on your TV–Connect your Xperia ray and your DLNA-enabled TV to the same wireless network and view your videos, photos or slide shows directly on your television.
• Gesture input– Swipe the words you want and reply to your messages faster. Start on the first letter of the word then drag your finger to the next letters without taking if off the keyboard.
• Screen Capture–Push the power off button then press “screen capture” to share your screen via text or on your favorite social networking site.
• Android 2.3– Giving you access to the more than 200,000 applications available on the Android Marketplace.

I’m planning to get a look at the phone on the evening of the 2nd and I hope to be posting my impressions later that night. On paper this looks like it’s a nice phone. We’ll see how it stands up to reality on Wednesday.

Review: DriveSafe.ly Pro For Blackberry

RIM has been giving away free apps to make up for the fact that their network kept Blackberry users offline for days. One of the apps in question is DriveSafe.ly Pro which speaks text and email messages aloud so you can concentrate on the road. A great idea on the surface as I sometimes find it really tempting to either take a quick glance at my Blackberry or worse message and drive. So I downloaded it and installed it. At first I was impressed, the app worked as advertised and had a very neat feature where it activated itself when I turned on my Bluetooth headset. However here’s what I found to be problematic with this application:

1. I noticed that my battery consumption skyrocketed.
2. It stopped working after three days. I did a search of the reviews on Blackberry App World and found that I wasn’t alone in terms of having this issue. #fail

This app fills a hole that needs to be filled when it comes to using your Blackberry while driving if you can’t afford not to be aware of what messages are sent to you. However it is clearly a half baked application. It needs some major fixes before I would consider using it again. It’s a good thing that it was free, because if I had to pay for it, I would be kind of upset.

CRTC Says Rogers Violates Internet Rules… Shock, Not…

If you get your Internet from Rogers, this will not come as any great shock to you. According to the CRTC, Rogers violates federal rules because of the way it slows traffic and has decided to look into the matter further:

The probe stems from a complaint by the Canadian Gamers Organization, an advocacy group for people who play video games, that Rogers has been hindering online games.

You might remember that Rogers had been caught throttling World Of Warcraft users a while back, though they said that they fixed the problem. Of course the fact that the CRTC wanted them to stop throttling likely had something to do with that. But then, nobody believed that they had fixed the problem anyway. In any case, here’s what the CRTC is going to do:

The CRTC informed the gamers group on Thursday that it has referred the matter to its enforcement division, meaning commission staff consider Rogers to be violating the Telecommunications Act or CRTC regulations. Those rules allow throttling of peer-to-peer file sharing programs like BitTorrent, but not of time-sensitive internet traffic like video chatting or gaming.

It means that penalties could be on the way, which won’t be good for Rogers. Here’s what they could be facing:

If the CRTC confirms Rogers is in violation, the regulator can go so far as to order the company to partially reimburse customers and to change its practices.

I’ve been extremely critical about Rogers over the years because their traffic management system has proven to be such a #fail. If there was ever a time for Rogers to come clean and deal with this issue in an honest and forthright manner (which up until now they haven’t come close to doing), now would be the time. I don’t expect them to, so I hope the CRTC for once slaps them silly and shows that they aren’t just the pawns of the telco industry.

Rogers Rolls Out LTE Enabled HTC Raider

For those of you who wanted a smartphone on Rogers LTE network, Rogers has some news for you:

Just a quick note this afternoon to let you know we now have another smartphone to add to our growing LTE device lineup. HTC announced today the launch of the newest LTE smartphone, the HTC Raider.  Rogers will begin shipping today and the device will begin arriving in stores tomorrow.  The HTC Raider will be available for Rogers customers for $149.99 on select 3-year plans.

It’s got all the usual bells and whistles such as Android Gingerbread, dual core processor, 1080P video recording and a 8MP camera. So it’s clearly not lacking when compared to the iPhone 4S which is the gold standard in smartphones. I’m guessing that this will be the first of many LTE smartphones to hit Rogers this year and next. Of course these phones will only be truly useful when LTE coverage expands across Canada, but if you’re an early adopter you can get your LTE smartphone fix on Friday.

HP Does An About Face… Won’t Sell It’s PC Division

The new regime over at HP is clearly in charge as it’s reversed one of the big decisions of the old regime. Apparently the PC division which was up for sale is now no longer on the chopping block:

“HP objectively evaluated the strategic, financial and operational impact of spinning off PSG,” Meg Whitman, HP’s CEO and president, wrote in an Oct. 27 statement. “It’s clear after our analysis that keeping PSG within HP is right for customers and partners, right for shareholders, and right for employees.”

An HP “data-driven evaluation” revealed PSG as not only deeply baked into all of HP’s lines of business (including supply chain, IT and procurement), but also a significant contributor to overall brand value—too valuable, apparently, to divest and recreate as a standalone company, according to the tech giant.

That’s a plot twist. I have heard from some of my enterprise customers that they were unlikely to consider HP for anything else if their PC division was axed. So you have to wonder if those sorts of sentiments factored into the decision making process of Meg Whitman. One question I do have: What does that mean for WebOS? Is it still dead or could it make a comeback?

In any case, now that HP is keeping the PC business, does that change your opinion of HP? Post your comments below.

RIM Gets Hit With Bad News On Three Fronts

If you didn’t think things could get worse with RIM, it has.

First, there’s a delay in for the update for the Blackberry Playbook:

PlayBook users will now have to wait until February for a piece of software that brings e-mail, calendar and other capabilities to the tablet. Since its launch in April, the PlayBook has been criticized for not coming equipped with these features. RIM had originally promised an update in the summer, then pushed that date back to the fall, and now into 2012.

And to make matters worse, when it does ship, there will be no BBM:

RIM announced the latest delay on its official blog Tuesday evening. When the update does come out, the company said, it will not include BlackBerry Messenger, RIM’s ultra-popular instant-messaging application.

Seeing as the device was basically crippled from the day it shipped, this delay isn’t going to help RIM sell any more of the tablets. Sadly for RIM, the bad news doesn’t end there. They’re also being sued:

Montreal-based law firm the Consumer Law Group Inc. says it has filed a nationwide class-action suit against the smartphone’s developer, Research In Motion.

The lawsuit needs to be certified by a judge as a class action before it can go forward.

The suit claims that RIM failed to directly compensate BlackBerry users, who pay monthly data fees to wireless carriers.

Consumer Law Group claims that RIM also failed to arrange for service providers like Rogers, Bell and Telus to provide refunds.

The suit covers the BlackBerry outage which occurred around the world from Oct. 11 to Oct. 14, affecting some user emails, BlackBerry messenger service and Internet.

I guess giving away free apps to users isn’t working. Here’s the last piece of bad news. Their stock tanked by 9% today. I guess that confirms the fact that the halcyon days are truly over for RIM.

Time to buy an iPhone and an iPad. Many already have.

Review: Mac OS X 10.7 Lion – Part 3: Performance And Wrap Up

In terms of performance, don’t expect any massive speed boosts. From what I can tell, OS X Lion runs at about the same speed as OS X Snow Leopard. One thing that I did notice is that when I was running graphics intensive applications (read: video games), my MacBook Pro didn’t as hot with Lion. I’m guessing that they optimized the graphics drivers to achieve that. I’m guessing that since Lion requires a 64-bit Mac, apps that are 64-bit should get a speed boost to some degree.

So is Lion worth upgrading to OS X Lion? Yes. I’m not sure that it’s the “most advanced” operating system, but there’s enough here for you to justify upgrading. Plus the changes are not going to upset your workflow all that much. There are some quirks such as the scroll direction, but nothing earth shattering. I give this OS X upgrade two thumbs up.

DSL Resellers To Be Unthrottled In November

Several websites are reporting that Bell is about to stop DSL resellers starting November 2011. Needless to say, Canadian Internet users are rejoicing. Why is Bell doing this now? On one hand, who cares? But DSL Reports offers one reason:

With Bell never able to adequately prove the throttling was necessary due to congestion in the first place, and the ratio of P2P service use declining, Bell apparently couldn’t hold up the illusion any longer — or didn’t like the cost of the added gear. It could also suggest that Bell lobbyists are making headway in getting the Canadian government to sign off on metered wholesale billing efforts, making wholesale throttling unnecessary and too costly.

I do know one thing. Canadians should keep an eye on Bell as I have a suspicion that this isn’t over quite yet.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus With Android 4.0 Announced

Samsung are quickly replacing Rogers as being my best friends as I got a second announcement from them in as many days. This time it’s about the Galaxy Nexus smartphone with the new Google Android 4.0 OS:

“Samsung and Google have closely collaborated to push the mobile experience forward. We are pleased to deliver the best Android smartphone experience for customers with GALAXY Nexus. We will continue to move forward with Android to provide the compelling consumer experience in mobile world,” said JK Shin, President and Head of Samsung’s Mobile Communications Business.

“Ice Cream Sandwich demonstrates the Android platform’s continued innovation with one release that works on phones and tablets and everything in between. Features like Android Beam and Face Unlock show the innovative work our team is doing, and GALAXY Nexus showcases the power behind Ice Cream Sandwich,” said Andy Rubin, Senior Vice President of Mobile for Google.

Here’s the key facts:

• 1.2 GHz Dual Core Processor
• 4.65” 1280X720 HD Super AMOLED Display
• Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich
• 2 Cameras    Main(Rear) : 5 MP AF with LED Flash with zero shutter lag and fast shot2shot, Sub (Front) : 1.3MP for Video Calls
• Video Playback : 1080p@ 30fps
• Video Recording : 1080p Full HD Video@ 30fps
• Google™Mobile Services    Android Market™, Gmail™, Google Earth™, YouTube™, Movie Studio
• Google Maps™ 5.0 with 3D maps and turn-by-turn navigation Syncing with Google Calendar™, Google＋ app
• Connectivity    Bluetooth® technology v 3.0 and USB 2.0
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n (2.4GHz/ 5GHz)
• Accelerometer, Compass, Gyro, Light, Proximity, Barometer
• 1GB(RAM) ＋ 16GB/ 32GB Internal memory

Sounds interesting. Perhaps Samsung can how much of a friend they can be to me by sending a review version my way when they’re available.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 LTE Coming Soon To Canada

Samsung sent me an e-mail today announcing that a new Android based tablet is about to hit the streets:

Samsung will soon be redefining tablet speeds with the introduction of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 LTE. The latest member of Samsung’s tablet family sports an 8.9” screen and promises better mobility and a longer battery for extended on-the-go use.

The Galaxy Tab 8.9 supports the latest data network (LTE) providing super fast download and upload speeds. A personalized home-screen, mini apps tray, and office oriented software come pre-loaded as do special “Hubs” dedicated to social networking, e-reading and music.

All of this and a slightly smaller design, meaning it easily tucks away into a small briefcase or even a purse!

Check it out here. I’m guessing that because it’s LTE enable it’s likely to appear on the Rogers network. Maybe Bell. We’ll see soon enough.