Smartphones

Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha set big expectations this week when he promised that his company would have an Android phone with a 2Ghz processor by the end of the year. But is such a goal really possible? We're not so sure.

Conceivably Tech first reported that Jha made the pledge while speaking Thursday at the Executives Club of Chicago. As the publication didn't quote Jha directly, we wondered if his comments were open to interpretation.

Today, however, Moto spokeswoman Juli Bruda confirmed with CNET that Jha promised such a device to his Chicago audience. We would have loved … Read more

Danny Pier wants to send a smartphone into space. An Android smartphone.

Why? Well, because. Also, he is concerned that U.S. space exploration might not be progressing apace. His parents and grandparents got to witness an astronaut land on the moon, while Pier, 25, worries that he will have to wait until 2035 to see a man step on an extraterrestrial surface (Mars, according to plans laid out by President Obama).

So while Piers waits for middle age, he wants to try shipping the first smartphone into the stratosphere as a symbol of his belief in the importance of … Read more

A handful of images showing a Motorola Droid 2 ready for production appeared online Thursday. The handset appears to retain much of the look and feel of the original Droid, but it shows new and different elements.

From what we can tell, Moto has changed the four buttons across the bottom of the display to be more in line with what the company has been putting on its recent device. The most notable difference comes when you slide the handset open: gone is the directional pad on the right side in favor of a more spacious keyboard with slightly raised … Read more

When is Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday? What is the currency used in Kiribati? If you've got a short question burning a hole in your brain--and an Android, WebOS, or Android phone in your hand--Google may be able to help.

On Thursday, the search giant opened its ability to surface short answers to definitive search queries to select mobile platforms. Search in English for a well-documented query, like a country capital or president, famous composer, or movie release date, and you should see an answer--and its Web sources--surface near the top of the search results page.

Not every … Read more

Boost Mobile's new Motorola i296 won't win any beauty contests, and its feature set is hardly dazzling, but we can almost guarantee that you'll get a durable phone with reliable call quality. We're basing this assumption on the previous Motorola i335, which resembles the i296 in many ways. Even two and half years after it went on sale, the i335 remains one of our favorite handsets for both Boost and Nextel.

As with most iDEN devices, the i296 is built to military specifications for the usual elements like dust, salt fog, and humidity. It also has … Read more

Though LG is a founding member of the Open Handset Alliance, the manufacturer has introduced just a handful of Android phones so far. Only one model, the Ally for Verizon Wireless, has landed in the United States and even that was just a few weeks ago.

That will soon change, however, as LG CEO Nam Yong recently announced that his company would introduce 20 Android-powered devices by the end of this year. Though the new models will be on a global scale, and the number doesn't take into account the same phone being rebranded for other carriers, it's … Read more

In recent years, you may have seen a story or two about how toilet seats are cleaner than your cell phone. Well, there may not be an app for eliminating those teeming germs from your mobile, but Violight, a company that specializes in UV toothbrush sanitizers, has developed something called the Cell Phone Sanitizer to execute microbes.

Violight says it's the first UV sanitizing device designed to "eliminate up to 99.9% of germs and bacteria on your cell phone," as well other small electronic devices, including earbuds and Bluetooth headsets.

According to the company, the germicidal … Read more

Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha isn't a "great believer" in video conferencing on mobile phones, but regardless, he said the company will bring two to four new handsets that support the feature later this year.

Jha revealed this little nugget of information after an Executives Club presentation in Chicago, but didn't mention any specific models, simply stating that they would all have front-facing cameras that would allow for video chats.

The move is, no doubt, spurred by the recent launch of the HTC Evo 4G and Apple iPhone 4, which both offer video conferencing.

Also, despite the … Read more