There’s no arguing that students require certain tools to aid them in their quest to finish college, but seeing that tablets are becoming more prolific in the academic environment, it’s not uncommon to find schools handing them out like candy to certain students.

Well, if you happen to be a student participating in the Honors College pilot program over at the University of Southern Mississippi, then you might be one of the lucky ones to snag a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. Specifically, the school purchased 1,000 Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 units in the hopes of enhancing access the education of its students.

Naturally, there are plenty of case uses for the tablet, but they’re going to be preloaded with Blackboard Mobile, which intricately incorporates academic aspects to the tablet – like giving students and professors access to e-textbooks, grades, schedules, emergency notifications, and much more.

Indeed, the pilot program is aiming to revolutionize the total college experience, but as we all know, some might find the tablet as the perfect companion for killing some time.

source: Samsung

Verizon was the first one to bring it to market, then soon after came Sprint, but now it’s Cellular South’s turn to scoop up its own version of the high-powered portrait QWERTY handset in the Motorola DROID PRO.

Specifically, it’s called the Motorola Milestone Plus, and it is available for purchase starting today for the 2-year contract price of $199 after a $50 mail-in-rebate. Although its specs now deem it as a mid-range device, we’re certain that customers will nevertheless think of it as something in the upper echelon of the spectrum seeing that we don’t see too many dual-core handsets on the regional carrier’s lineup. In terms of specs, we greeted with the same old assortments – like its 3.1” display, 1GHz processor, 5-megapixel auto-focus camera with dual-LED flash, and 4GB of internal storage.

As much as we’d love to see smartphones nowadays being launched with Gingerbread from the onset, the Motorola Milestone Plus is still sporting Android 2.2 Froyo instead.

source: Business Wire via Android Central

A couple weeks ago, LG simultaneously introduced the LG Optimus Pro and Optimus Net, but those two Android powered smartphones are destined for the European markets.

Well, it seems that the LG Optimus Net will be making its way to the US in the form of T-Mobile’s Optimus Net seeing that the LG-P699 recently received its Bluetooth certification prominently showing off T-Mobile’s branding. Going by the model number LG-P669, it’s believed to be T-Mobile’s version of the Optimus Net because it shares many design similarities with the LG Optimus from a couple weeks ago. In fact, it utilizes the same overall styling, but it’s sporting a lighter colored backplate.

Strangely, the description given to the handset remarks that “this model will be available on North America AT&T Market around August 2011.” So far, we haven’t heard anything in regards to an AT&T launch, but there is always that possibility of course. If it does hold true, we should be expecting some sort of official confirmation very soon since August just recently arrived. Either that, or it could simply be nothing more than a typo.

source: Bluetooth SIG via Pocketnow

Phones like the Sony Ericsson Xperia ray, which we previewed not long ago, are boasting a svelte homescreen launcher, which is reserved for the new Timescape interface, but the .apk file has now leaked for anyone with an Xperia phone to install. There is a new feature called “Themes” and other little changes like a button on the right of the app drawer that allows you to directly uninstall apps from there.

There is also a Widget overview mode, where the widgets you’ve placed on your various homescreens are floating around in a grouped view, allowing you to spread them all over the display by shaking the handset.

The leaked .apk with the new Home Launcher has been tested on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, Xperia arc and Xperia Play already, and seems to work without any issues. Hit the source link if you want to try it out on your Sony Ericsson Xperia line handset.

source: Xperiablog

After watching the launch of the HTC EVO 3D and the LG Optimus 3D (soon to launch Stateside as the LG Thrill 4G), Sony Ericsson has decided to throw its hat into the glasses-free 3D ring with a handset of its own. The unnamed handset will feature a massive 4.7 inch display with a HD resolution of 720 x 1280. The joint venture is far from the only smartphone manufacturer entering the 3D arena. Samsung is said to be working on a Galaxy 3D model.

It’s way too early to determine if 3D smartphones are more than just a fad. The stereoscopic, glasses-free version used on handsets can lead to eye fatigue and headaches. And if you do not view the screen from the correct angle, the 3D effect will not be apparent to the viewer.

source: SEMCBlog via ElectricPig

There’s no kidding that Android users are presented with the utmost best Gmail experience, and to further strengthen the popular service, it’s being updated with some new features.

Version 2.3.5 of the Gmail app for Android is now available for download and literally will help cut down on power and bandwidth consumption – something that’s indeed nice for those on a budget. From the looks of it, you’ll have the ability to sync only priority emails, which in turn, will allow your handset to eat less power and data.

Additionally, we find other new features like a new option that allows you to set custom alert tones for the various labels, ability to set “Show Pictures” for specific senders, turn off sticky message actions, and better TalkBalk support for accessibility. And of course, it wouldn’t be an update if various “performance improvements” weren’t on board for the ride as well.

So if you haven’t done so already, you can download the latest version of the Gmail app for Android directly from the Android Market.

source: Android Market via Phonescoop

Google, which has a traditionally good relationship with IBM, has bought from Big Blue 1030 patents covering stuff “from the fabrication and architecture of memory and microprocessing chips, to other areas of computer architecture including servers and routers as well. A number of the patents also cover relational databases, object oriented programming, and a wide array of business processes.”

While some of the patents listed involve databases and search queries, which is connected to Google’s bread-and-butter search business, a lot of those will no doubt be used to fend off the number of lawsuits by Apple and others against El Goog’s Android mobile OS, after the saga with the failed bid for Nortel’s patents.

Microsoft already made HTC pay it $5 for each Android handset they make, and is on the way to bend the N1 Android maker Samsung as well. Should Apple succeed with its HTC lawsuit, it could actually earn a pretty good chink of cash from that stream as well. Cupertino already had a preliminary decision that HTC is infringing on two of its patents, and is engaged in a neck-and-neck battle with Samsung over the same patents, so Bernstein’s analyst Toni Sacconaghi thinks Apple stands a viable chance to cash in on its IP property:

• “We anticipate that Apple will push its legal claims hard and unrelentingly and believe that the company’s key goal is to upend Android’s momentum by forcing a work around on key essential features which, if successful, could have huge, positive financial implications for Apple. Given that Apple appears to have more to lose in any one legal case than they might gain (since Apple ships a much higher value of smartphones than any other player), logic suggests that Apple feels confident in its odds of winning patent disputes it initiates. Should Apple prevail in forcing Android to rework some of its functionality, resulting in market share shifts, it could have huge, positive financial implications for Apple: we note that a 10 percentage point shift in smartphone market share from Android to Apple (the current run-rate smartphone market share is 46% for Android vs. 18% for Apple) in 2013 is worth an estimated $30B+ in annual revenue and $10+ in annual EPS to Apple.

• Apple appears to have the strong upper hand in its legal battle with HTC, but we see the current rulings as only a warm up bout. A second Apple suit against HTC – as well as separate suits against key Android vendors Samsung and Motorola – involves its iOS multi-touch patents, which we believe are the key pieces of IP that Apple ultimately seeks to reaffirm at all costs, given their potential to undermine Android. While HTC (specifically, its recent acquisition – S3 Graphics) and Apple recently won preliminary judgments against each other at the US ITC, we view S3’s victory as limited in scope (unlike Apple’s claims against HTC) and not posing a credible threat to Apple. More importantly, however, Apple recently launched a second case against HTC claiming infringement of its key multi-touch patents. We believe this is the much more important battle, and one which courts have yet to rule upon. Apple’s legal suits against other key Android OEMs (Samsung and Motorola) also include claim violation of such patents. Consistent with the importance of this IP, Apple’s recent settlement of its patent dispute and accompanying licensing agreement with Nokia does not appear to involve these patents.“

Looks like Nokia might have made a wise decision to go with Windows Phone, after all, since going with Android might have invalidated the nice cash outlay and ongoing royalties it won against Apple recently, for infringing on its own patents – this kind of money is no small change for the troubled N1 cell phone maker.

via SEObytheSea & CNN

If Music Unlimited was not enough to satisfy your cravings for entertainment on the go, Sony’s Qriocity video streaming service might just do the trick. Starting August 1, owners of the Sony Ericsson Xperia mini and Xperia mini pro will be the first to give the service a try with a number of other Xperia smartphones, namely the Xperia arc, neo, PLAY, pro and acro, to receive the Qriocity app later this year.

Qriocity will land on your Xperia smartphone via a software update so you might want to keep an eye out for notifications. The service will let you buy or rent movies and TV shows from a list of movie studios, including NBC, Universal, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Bros so the selection of titles will surely be a broad one indeed. However, only nine markets will have access to video content from Qriocity initiailly – the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Australia, Japan, Canada and the United States, so if you happen to live outside of these countries, you will probably have to cross your fingers and hope for the service to land in your homeland as well.

This is pretty much all that we know about the upcoming Qriocity mobile video streaming service so we cannot say how much rentals and purchases will cost exactly. Besides that, it isn’t exactly clear whether saving content for offline viewing will be allowed. The answers to these questions will be known in a few days – enough time to stock on microwave popcorn.

source: Sony Ericsson Product Blog

Buried in the Sony Ericsson’s website an upcoming MT11i handset was unearthed, which seems to be another Android 2.3 Gingerbread handset that the company will be outing, besides the Xperia Ray and Xperia Active.

There aren’t many  other details in these types of files, except that the screen resolution will be 480×854, and the ScreenSizeChar is 44×32, which hopefully will be slapped on a larger display. The phone should be capacitive touchscreen-only, since the ones with a physical keyboard SE marks with a “K” in the internal codename. Moreover, under the keyboard section in the file below we have “phone keypad” listed.

Also, considering that MT15i is the Xperia Neo, MT11i might fill in the gap between the smaller 3″ screens on the Xperia active and Xperia mini and the 3.7″ one on the Neo, or even the 4.2″ on the Xperia arc, which is LT15i. The “M” in the codenames obviously stands for middle, while “L” might mean large, and “S” small, judging from the screen sizes of the actual handsets behind the SE codenames.

A relative disappointment is the ARM Cortex-A8 processor listed, which means we will have yet another single core 1GHz phone from SE, but we know the big guns are reserved for the Sony Ericsson Xperia duo, so no complaints.

Some specs actually coincide with the Sony Ericsson Xperia ray, which we previewed not long ago, and found out to be a very promising little Android handset. The Xperia ray, which, however, goes under the ST18i codename, so the MT11i is one more thing to look forward to from Sony Ericsson in the third quarter of this year.

source: SonyEricsson via IT168 (translated)

It is no secret that Apple’s iPad is the prime device on the tablet market today. Holding over two thirds of the market makes it the most popular slate out there with the competition still trailing far behind. However, how long will the iPad’s reign last for? Well, according to an estimate given by Informa Telecoms & Media, Android tablet sales will catch up with those of the iPad at some point in 2015.

Over 90 million iPads will have been sold four years from now, if the analysis turns out to be correct, which is only a fraction more than what the number of Andorid Tablets is expected to be by that same time – 87 million, to be more precise. Later on in 2016, Apple’s tablet is predicted to be overtaken in terms of sales by affordable, Android-powered slates.

It has been noted that the iPad’s success is greatly due to its brand recognition, wide availability, high product quality and the great selection of custom-tailored software. At this time, Android tablets still have some catching up to do, especially when it comes to the software part. As we all know, the number of apps optimized for Honeycomb is not something that Google brags about. However, with the increasing amount of manufacturers joining the game with an Android-powered device of their own and with Ice Cream Sandwich coming down the road, the Android ecosystem is bound to flourish and it wouldn’t be surprising if Google’s platform achieves dominance over the market in a few short years.

source: Informa Telecoms & Media via Android Authority