Philips Xenium W9588 Android Clamshell Arrives in China

Philips seems to focus its smartphone business on the Chinese market. The company has just announced the immediate availability of the Xenium W9588 in the Mainland. The Xenium W9588 is not a standard Android phone, as the device features a clamshell form factor and costs no less than 5,000 yuan off contract, which is about $825 or €600. UnwiredView reports that the smartphone comes with a decent 1.2 GHz quad-core MediaTek processor on board, along with 1GB of RAM and 4GB of internal memory. No word on which version of Android the smartphone runs, but Philips has confirmed that the Xenium W9588 sports an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera and a high-capacity 2400 mAh Li-Ion battery. We don't expect Philips to bring the Xenium W9588...

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Motorola Updates Touchless Control with Support for More Commands

Motorola has made available for download a new flavor of its Touchless Control application for the owners of Android-based devices, adding support for more commands to it. Basically, this means that users will be able to enjoy increased control of their handsets even when they haven’t been unlocked. “More Google Now commands now work without having to unlock your phone first. Personal information such as emails, messages, and contacts are still protected by your PIN or password,” the app’s release notes unveil. Following the update, uses will be able to speak their PIN to unlock the smartphones, and they will also enjoy a new listening tone when they say “OK Google Now.” Motorola’s Touchless Control application also received a...

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Nokia Reportedly Kills Current Android Plans

An Android-based smartphone coming from Nokia might never arrive on shelves, despite the fact that the vendor has been working on at least one for some time now, new reports on the matter suggest. Nokia is currently the largest provider of Windows Phone devices out there, but the company has been recently rumored to be designing its own Android devices as well. However, it seems that the Finnish mobile phone maker has finally decided to kill all of its plans for the release of an Android smartphone or of any device running under Google’s platform, for that matter. The info comes from C Technology, which suggests that Nokia already has some Android-based prototype devices, including a 7-inch tablet PC, and that Peter Skillman, head...

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Android 4.3 Jelly Bean Fixes Xperia Z1’s Bootloader Camera Issue

Today, Sony Mobile started the delivery of the Android 4.3 Jelly Bean operating system upgrade to the owners of Xperia Z1 smartphones out there, and it appears that it has managed to resolve a camera issue with the device. The problem appeared only on handsets that had their bootloaders unlocked, but the issue has been finally patched in the 14.2.A.0.290 update that is now rolling out to the smartphone. As XperiaBlog notes, it appears that the problem has been resolved even for those who unlocked their bootloaders before the update, and that they can now resume camera functionality. Info on the patch comes from XDA-Developers forum member DooMLoRD and suggests that those who were looking to unlock their smartphones to install unofficial...

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MSI R9 290X TwinFrozr 4S Gaming OC Graphics Card Comes With BIOS Switch

You'd think that a gallery of hands-on photos of a video card would be accompanied by some specifications, especially since they were taken at a public press event, but that's not the case for the Radeon R9 290X TwinFrozr 4S Gaming OC. Instead, Micro-Star International allowed people to take shots of it, and confirmed some of the perks, without saying how well the board ran. So no, we don't know what the base clock frequency of the Radeon R9 290X TwinFrozr 4S Gaming OC is, or the GPU Boost top setting. We also don't know what frequency the 4 GB of GDDR5 VRAM has, but usually, the memory is left alone even if the GPU isn't, so it could be of 1250 MHz (5000 MHz effective). Anyway, the newcomer is definitely factory-overclocked, and...

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iOS 7 Untethered Jailbreak Being Forced Out with Crowdfunded Reward

The Device Freedom Prize, a crowdsourced effort to reward the first developer who releases an open source iOS 7 jailbreak, is now accepting donations. The initiative is likely to speed up the launch of the first untethered jailbreak for iOS 7. Judging the binaries will be Chris Maury (prize proposer and accessibility advocate), Cory Doctorow (co-editor of Boing Boing, author, and DMCA activist), iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens, and Biella Coleman (professor and author of Coding Freedom). The organizers say the jailbreak must work for multiple iPhone models (4S, 5, 5c, 5s) and support the latest version of iOS (7.0.4). The jailbreak must be untethered and shouldn’t pose problems to “the average user.” Once a jailbreak meets these criteria, it...

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Three New Xperia Z1 Models/Variant Emerge in AnTuTu Benchmarks

Sony Mobile has been rumored to launch new versions of its Xperia Z1 smartphone for quite some time now, and it appears that it might be finally nearing an official announcement on the matter. Three Xperia Z1 models have made an appearance in AnTuTu recently, allegedly confirming Sony’s plans. One of these is said to be the Xperia Z1s (which might arrive on shelves as an Xperia Z1 refresh), spotted in AnTuTu with an impressive 35,485 score next to it. The phone should come on the market with about the same specifications as the current variant, though with a different outer design, as XperiaBlog reports. The second Sony smartphone that emerged in AnTuTu features model number D5503 attached to it, and is said to be the smaller...

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