BSquare Launches Mobile Player For Android Phones

Bellevue, Washington-headquartered BSquare Corporation has announced the launch of a new mobile player software for phones running Google’s open-source Android operating system.

The application has been built upon Adobe’s Flash Lite, ver 3.1, which itself was launched for the mobile market just a few weeks ago. This Flash Lite version itself runs on the “cupcake” version 1.5 of Android.

Club this news with the announcement of Taiwan-based phone maker HTC Corporation, of its launch of a “Hero” smartphone that is based on Android, and it becomes clear that happy days are ahead for Google’s venture, with the ecology around it now coming close to the critical threshold.

Since BSquare’s application is tightly bound to Adobe’s Flash Lite, it will run on any mobile phone where Flash Lite has been ported. So while Flash Lite works quite well on Window’s Mobile and Nokia’s Symbian, the software is still not available for Blackberry or Apple’s iPhone.

A feature (or bug) with Flash Lite is that it lacks full compatibility with the currently available Flash 9 that runs on routine desktop machines. Adobe is expected to come out with Flash Player 10, an upgraded version of Flash Lite, later this year.

Read more about the latest software application written around Adobe’s flash for the Android, here.

Flash Technology Comes To Android

Certain developments are inevitable. They are bound to happen. It is just a matter of time. Like for instance, the porting of flash technology to mobile cell phones running Android OS.

San Jose, California-headquartered Adobe Systems Inc, the makers of Flash technology, has announced its availability on a mobile phone that runs on the Android operating system. The first Android-based mobile which will sport it is “HTC Hero”, a product of Taiwan-based HTC Corporation.

What this means to mobile customers who have Android on their device is access to all the media-rich applications that are now available on the internet, and that run Flash.

A future upgrade that is on the anvil is the availability of Flash Player 10 on mobile phones, making full web browsing possible for people on the go.

The new HTC Hero mobile has been designed keeping in mind the requirements of customers who like to be in touch with the internet at all times. Besides Flash, the device also has incorporated in its firmware codecs such as Sorenson and On2 VP6, so that non-Flash video is possible too.

The company has also announced its involved with the Open Screen Project, initiated by Adobe Systems.

Read more about the latest development in internet-centric mobile phones, here.

Delve – Mobile Phone From Samsung

The “Delve” (Model No. SCH-r800) mobile phone from Samsung is targeted towards the US Cellular market. In terms of features and properties, the mobile compares well with the competitor best-of-breed phones it jostles with on vendor shelves.

The mobile measures 2.17″ by 4.57″, and has a thin waist of less than half-an-inch, weighing fully 3.63 ounces. The system operates in the digital dual-band of EVDO 3G, and functions in the 800, 1,900Mhz range.

The internal display has a size of 3.0″ with 262K color TFT, while the external display has a resolution of 240X400, with 65K color TFT. The screen reacts to the touch of your finger.

The inbuilt camera has a resolution of 2.0Megapixel.

The phone has a built-in user memory of up to 150Mb, plus you can connect external memories through microSDs. This same memory allows you to save up to 500 phone numbers.

The mobile phone comes with 72 polyphonic ringtones and a music library where you can hold your favorite tracks. The facility to download java applications gives you unlimited access to fun and entertaining games. Bluetooth connectivity and an inbuilt HTML browser keep you hooked to the internet. Standard features such as the calendar, clock, worldtime, alarm, currency convertor, calculator, memo book and stop watch adorn the mobile, just as they do the others of the breed.

Read more about the Delve phone from Samsung here.

Samsung Is Numero Uno In Mobile Phone Sales In USA

The third quarter of 2008 saw Samsung notching up a top-of-the-rung position in the market for mobile phones in the USA, by grabbing 22.4% share of the pie. Their aggressive marketing strategy dislodged Motorola which had been the vendor of choice up until now for the US customers.

This result is all the more remarkable considering that, just a year ago, Samsung was struggling with a market share of around 18% in comparison to Motorola’s nearly 36%. The latter’s share has shown a consistent dip over the past few quarters.

A key motivator behind this performance has been Samsung’s focused strategic tie up with two major carriers, AT&T and Verizon, who are respectively number one and two in the US market, besides the other carriers. This, coupled with the varied bundles of offerings to customers at different price points appears to have wooed customers towards preferring Samsung over the other players.

Another interesting feature of the market survey, conducted by Strategic Analysts, is that mobile phone shipments have behaved contrary to the overall economic sentiment by clocking a 6% annual rise, reaching 47 million units in the third quarter of 2008 alone.

Read more results from the survey here.