Gadgetory

today on techna buffalos rumor roundup sprint and Motorola are throwing a party in early June but why how many phones is nokia having the hopper for their big windows phone come back this fall and our Google and Apple about to engage in the war of all wars the war to turn this into this and how do I manage to bend my debit card anyway it's techno buffalos rumor roundup hey what's going on everybody I'm Noah crabbits editor-at-large for TechnoBuffalo calm welcome to rumor roundup for the week ending Friday may 27th 2011 happy Memorial Day weekend everybody whether you've got monday off or not here's to the beginning of summer and whatever you do don't run your debit card through the dryer when you're doing your clothes after your big holiday party this weekend it won't work afterwards trust me on that one so sprint and motorola send out invites to a party they're throwing in new york city in early june june nine they're getting together the CEOs from both companies will be on hand to unveil their latest collaborations they use the word any little quotes there because they use the word collaborations plural in the invite indicating that will be showing off more than one device now safe money is on a sprint version of the motorola xoom android tablet this is a 10.1 inch screen tablet computer running Google's Android Honeycomb the tablet-optimized version of Android that came out on verizon earlier this year we're looking probably at a sprint version of the zoom that supports sprint's 4g wimax network being unveiled at the event but some inside sources have confirmed to us that the headliner at the show is going to be a smartphone that turns into a laptop kind of like the motorola atrix 4g that came out earlier this year on AT&T that's the one you've probably seen the TV commercials where the guys going through airport security and all the security guards gather around because they're not sure is this a phone is a computer what does it do what's this crazy thing well the craziness is coming to sprint apparently as a device called the photon 4G this will be a dual-core an NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual processor dual core power smartphone with a 4.3 inch high res display a kickstand on the back for your multi multi media needs all kinds of goodies wimax support and then an atrix tile optional laptop dock so check for that in early June will be there TechnoBuffalo reporting on whatever it is sprint motorola have up their sleeves earlier this week microsoft unveiled the forthcoming update to Windows Phone 7 code named mango a lot of 500 features all kinds of new integration with Bing voice search and visual search all kinds of goodies under the hood they had a big press event New York City they did not announce any hardware but Nokia who we all know now is in a partnership with Microsoft kind of a last ditch effort really for both companies to stay in the hunt in the in the mobile game nokia announced it they'll be they'll be unveiling not one but again multiples that plural thing devices I got stop doing this device is later this year again unknown what device is what form factors how many but more than one apparently kicking around the nokia labs can't wait to see those because nokia makes great hardware i happen to be a fan of the design language of Windows Phone 7 but you know both companies really need a shot in the arm if they want to compete with the likes of Apple and Google who are you know really just pushing the mobile race ahead and ahead speaking of Apple and Google what are they up to with this whole getting rid of my credit card thing earlier this week two giants of the tech industry Apple and Google were both involved in announcements regarding this whole thing coming to be known as mobile wallets now this is a google nexus s smartphone this is one of the very few smart phones you can buy in America that has what's called an NFC chip inside of it NFC stands for Near Field Communication and as the name might imply to you it's a wireless system that lets devices communicate to each other when they're very very close together near field so literally when you wave them in from each other or tap them against each other magic happens the magic that Google wants to happen is going to take your phone and link it up to your wallet using something called wait for it Google Wallet Google an event just yesterday Thursday in New York City where companies like spring and MasterCard and Citibank and a lot of heavyweights of the tech and financial industry is join them to talk about Google Wallet and google offers basically the idea which is already very popular in Japan goes like this your phone has this NFC chip in it your phone also has software that links it to your banking accounts your bank account your credit card account your debit card all that kind of stuff when you go to buy something if the retailer has a compatible system like MasterCard PayPass system which is going to be on board actually they're already trialing this in San Francisco to New York apparently is going to spread throughout the country starting later this year probably in time for the old holiday shopping system shopping season there in the in the winter but basically if there's a compatible device at the storm you've got a compatible phone when you want to buy something you literally just wave your phone in front of the cash register and the payment is made you can already do this now with some mastercard paypass credit cards and others similar systems for their competitors but the idea is everything will be linked to your phone and that's it a couple possible benefits for this you don't have to reach into your wallet to get your credit card if you're like me and you run your debit card through the dryer and it's warped well you know I'm not going to run my phone for the dryer actually there are statistics saying that people notice when their phones missing almost immediately within you know matter of minutes but it can be hours if not days before you realize your credit cards gone so not only is there a convenience factor but also an added layer of security or so proponents say for consumers and retailers alike now apple's announcement was not actually an apple announcement but it was an announcement from a startup company in San Francisco called square squares been out for a while selling these systems that plug into Apple devices in the headphone jack and allow retailers to use their iOS device as a credit card terminal so you literally plug this thing into your you know your iOS device and it's got a slot to swipe credit cards through and then their software that lets you accept credit card payments from consumers their announcement this week they kind of rolled out a more expanded system that includes customized iPad with software to basically turn an iPad to a cash register complete with Google Analytics style data that retailers and perhaps small businesses especially should really be interested in because it can help them predict trends and see when people are buying what and you know set up smarter promotions coupons that kind of stuff and then also there's a consumer app an iOS app that again will turn your device into a wallet now the iphone doesn't currently have NFC so there's one for the Apple rumor mill will the next iPhone the eye for a store the iphone 5 whatever it's going to be called will it have an NFC chip i'm thinking probably yes but in any rate the app right now the way it is it again links to you know as many of your credit and debit cards that you want it to and then it's got a software that's a virtual wallet complete with what they call tabs and cards and so you have a tab set up for each merchant that you visit and let's say you you frequent the TechnoBuffalo cafe i heard they make a good latte you go there you open up your app you pull up the TechnoBuffalo card and there's a menu and you you choose on your phone while you're waiting in line what you want to buy so you get a coffee you get a buffalo burger you know whatever it is may throw a cookie in there and by the time you get up to the register the transaction is complete so you've paid wirelessly the people on the other end see on their terminal what you ordered so they can get your order ready and there you go all you have to do is say hey how are you good morning get your food you don't have to exchange money easy as pie or again so the proponents say we should see this stuff rolling out in a wide scale like I said later this year and we'll leave you with one more rumor since we mentioned the iphone and i mean really what's a rumor show without an apple mention more information this week or maybe misinformation about the so called apple iphone 5 or like i said is it the iphone 4s I don't know gonna have an edge to edge screen so even less of the bezel I'm showing you this on a on a nexus s but you get the idea less of a bezel the screen taken up more and more of the actual front of the device which you know gives you more screen real estate and also makes it look cooler and then also just just yesterday some comment from the UK that Apple PR in the UK is apparently purportedly in fighting UK journalists to fly out to San Francisco for the WWDC conference apple's big developers conference that happens in early June now this is a little fishy or a little interesting because everybody's been talking about how we're not going to have a new iPhone this year in the June July timeframe but instead it's going to get pushed back to a September launch but if the Apple iPhone PR team is inviting journalists to fly from the UK to San Francisco for WWDC that would make you think there's got to be something big worth making the trip for like the next iPhone but you know that's why they call them rumors our job is to track them and report them your job is just to get excited or think they're silly or do what you want to do with them there you go it's the rumor roundup for this week my name is Noah Kravitz the website is TechnoBuffalo com whether you like video whether you want to read articles whether you want to look at pictures we've got you covered everything for your digital lifestyle until next week I will see you later bye bye