One of the main gripes of Motorola’s latest flagship beast is it’s problem with getting a proper auto focus with its 5 Mp shooter. This has been the case since it’s launch and it now seems, to have been magically(through a silent over-the-air update actually) to have been fixed, until the 11th of December that is.  The strange thing is that according to Dan Morrill, from Google’s Android team, the bug is related to a time-stamp bug:

“According to Google Engineer Dan Morrill, there is an unfortunate bug in the Droid’s auto focus routine. It improperly rounds a timestamp used in the calculations, which somehow throws the entire focusing process off. Today it works, and tomorrow it will work…but 24.5 days from now, the bug will be back.”

Meaning to say that after the 11th December, if you do not update your droid, the camera’s autofocus will automatically go bonkers. But according to Verizon’s 5 page treatise on the Droid’s known issues, their firmware update will be coming with a permanent fix which should solve most of the droid’s software related bugs.

Still, its a little creepy in the way how the Droid got updated so silently and without the knowledge of the consumer. But for the year of 2009, were there an award for the weirdest bug, this auto-focus bug would surely win it…

Sources:

TechCrunch, Engadget

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Here are the unboxing pictures of the HTC HD2. These pictures are taken with an Apple iPhone 3GS by our good friend Centrinos. So credit goes to him.

The HTC HD2 is expected to hit Asia soon and from the hardware is damn impressive and looks like HTC has worked really hard on this phone. It runs Win mo 6.5 and its the best handset WinMo has to offer in the current market. We even saw a video comparing the HD2 to the iPhone 3GS and there have been numerous leaks before the handset was announced

Are you impressed by the unboxing photos of the HD2 ?  What do you think ?

• HTC HD2 Announced!
• Video : HTC HD2 vs iPhone 3GS
• Samsung Omnia HD Official Promo Video
• Nokia Phones to get HD Video Recording soon
• HTC Touch HD in India

Nokia Messaging Team has announced over their blog, that they have launched a new site messaging.nokia.com.

This site will capture everything related to Nokia Messaging i.e. Email, IM, Social Networking and Ovi Mail across S60, S40, and Maemo devices. The site also offers some helpful how-to videos and brings in content from user guides, the official Nokia support forums, BetaLabs, and from blogs and Twitter.

Also, the website is device and country aware, so you can choose your device and see exactly what’s available for you in Messaging.

Check it out today and let us know what you feel about the website.

• Hotmail on Nokia Messaging
• Nokia Messaging Gets HTML support for Touch Screen Phones
• Nokia Messaging Goes Social
• Nokia Messaging to get HTML and Kinetic Scrolling support
• Nokia Messaging Service Trial Ending this September

Samsung have announced the badaOS for their mobile phones. It will be a replacement to the Windows Mobile and Symbian platforms. The name “bada” is derived from a Korean word signifying “ocean”. The name was chosen as it represents the endless possibilities with the OS.

Samsung bada is a new open platform that enables a richer user experience in applications on Samsung mobile devices.

Right now no further information on the platform is available. Sasmung only gives us a sneak peek and slight info at an official site.

The official announcement should be in December when Samsung will officially launch the OS along with the SDK.

Here’s the link to the official site

Source

None Found

Rediff.com has now launched the uberfamous Diamond Comics classics on mobile phones so that all the Mobile Phone users will be able to enjoy their favorite comics on their cell phone no matter where they are.

To read all your favorite comics, simply head over to http://mobile.rediff.com/comic on your GPRS Enabled phone or send an SMS ‘Chacha’ to 57333 from your phone to access all of Diamond Comics titles exclusively on their mobile phone.

The Charges are Rs. 10 for a 24 hour session of unlimited access to all the comics from the library.

(via)

None Found

Earlier, we had published information and provided a leaked picture of the Sony Ericsson Kurara. Well now once again, we have some more leaked pictures of the Kurara. These are the live pictures posted by folks over at the SEMC Blog.

There has been some new information gathered:

• It runs on Symbian S60.
• It has a 3.5″AMOLED Touchscreen Display
• It has an 8.1Megapixl Camera with Portrait Mirror and it seems to lack the LED flash which we previously thought was present.
• It maybe capable of recording HD Videos.

While many rumours claim it to be an media centric device with good imaging capabilities, the lack of an LED flash causes doubt. The handset is set to be launched in 2010 at an unknown price.

• Sony Ericsson Kurara Exclusive Pictures and Information!
• Sony Ericsson Satio (Idou) Photo Gallery
• Sony Ericsson K810 Cyber-shot Cameraphone launched
• Sony Ericson Xperia X1 & HTC Touch HD Fusion
• Sony Ericsson to set R&D unit for mobile phones in Chennai

Yes, apple have released a WiFi-less iPhone, something that I consider very important since the iPhone’s software is kinda designed to always work best on WiFi networks. But if you Chinese guys(and ladies) can live without WiFi then you can always pick them up at 4,999 yuan($730) and 6,999 yuan($1,025). This pricing is quite strange since a regular iPhone 3GS(with wifi) can easily be bought for $835 in the black.

But this WiFi-less version of the iPhone may soon disapear considering that this initial batch was built when the Chinese government had it’s WiFi ban in force and since this was recently lifted I guess it won’t be soon before we see WiFi coming to these chinese iPhones. Maybe this is why the folks over at 163.com are reporting that there aren’t many people rushing to buy the iPhones.

Sources:
http://mashable.com/2009/10/30/china-iphone-wifi/

• Apple iPhone China launch on 1st October
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• China Unicom and Apple bring iPhone to China , India is still waiting for 3GS
• iPhone Flops in India now onto China
• 3G iPhone Coming

Nokia has just released a new firmware 31.0.101 for Nokia 5800. However there are no major changes in the the phone after the firmware upgrade and the much touted kinetic scrolling is still missing in the phone.

Important features of this new firmware are:

• An Advanced e-mail application
• An improved navigation experience
• An enhanced version of Ovi Maps 3.0
• Lots of Bugfixes.

This update is currently available to only certain Asian & European Product codes  and will be available to everyone very soon.

Though 5800 has UDP (i.e. User Data Preservation) and none of your data will be affected with the firmware upgrade, it is always better to take a backup of all your data.

Just Key in *#0000# into your phone´s home screen. Select Options -> Check for updates, and follow the on-screen guide. Alternatively, you can also upgrade your phone’s firmware via Nokia Software Updater.

• Nokia 5800 gets a new firmware upgrade, reaches v31.0.008
• The Updates Continue to Roll from Nokia: E63 AND 5800XM get new firmware and Nokia Maps Updater goes to V1.08
• Nokia 5800 XpressMusic New Firmware v21 !
• Nokia 5800 XM Firmware v30.0.011 Out. So What’s New?
• Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Firmware Update – v20.0.012

Nokia has unveiled the Nokia 6788 which is the first Nokia device with TD-SCDMA. It is made especially for China’s high-speed 3G standards.

The Nokia 6788 runs on Symbian S60 and has the following features:

• 2.8″ QVGA Screen
• 5 Megapixel Camera with Carl-Zeiss Optics, Dual-LED Flash, Autofocus and Sliding Lens Cover
• 4GB Internal Memory

The phone will be available in two colour variants:

• Black with Red Highlights
• Brown with Gold

It is expected to be launched into the market in December at an unannounced price.

Source

• Nokia announces 3 new CDMA handsets – 6316s, 3806, 1506
• Nokia 2608 CDMA Photo Gallery
• Reliance Communications ties up for Nokia 1255 priced at Rs.2000
• Airtel and Bird to laucnh 1399 prepaid offer
• Nokia 6102 6103 with bluetooth

Mobbler, one of the most popular Last.fm radio player and scrobbler for S60 phones just got updated to a new version 0.07(6187).

The big important thing in this new update is the scrobbling support for S60v5 devices like Nokia 5800/Nokia N97. Yes! Mobbler can now scrobble all the songs that you play on the Music Player.

There is no official Changelog as yet. However if you have tried the new version of Mobbler and found out any new feature, do tip us via the comment form.

You can download the latest version of Mobbler with Nokia 5800/Nokia N97 scrobbling from here.

• Adobe Flash Lite gets another update for Nokia 5800
• Nokia 5730 vs Nokia N97 Photo Gallery
• Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Firmware Update – v20.0.012
• What does the Firmware v11.0.08 have in store for your Nokia XpressMusic 5800
• Retroclock – A Cool Standby Clock for the Nokia 5800