photonics

Doran Else bought his Photon 4G last October, lured by the fast dual-core processor and by the close relationship between Motorola and its new owner, Google. Motorola had recently joined the Android Upgrade Alliance, promising to release operating system updates to all its phones for 18 months following their release.

But for Else and thousands of others, those operating system updates turned out to be a mirage. Last Friday, buried in a Motorola forum, the company quietly abandoned its update pledge, killing off plans to ever update the Photon 4G. The Electrify, a re-branded Photon available on the US Cellular … Read more

On Sunday, Sprint will welcome its second Photon to the family. The Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE, with 4G LTE, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, jazzed up with edge lighting, goes on sale for $199.99 with a new service agreement. Preorders begin today.

With the Photon Q's list of specs, it's clear that Motorola is aiming for premium placement in Sprint's lineup. It sports a 4.3-inch LCD "Color Boost" screen (with a 960x540-pixel resolution), an 8-megapixel camera with 1080p HD video support, and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing … Read more

Editors' note: This article was originally published on July 26, 2012, and updated August 10 with more details.

When we first heard of Motorola's upcoming Motorola Photon Q, we thought that the keyboarded Android smartphone would serve as a nice lifeline for disillusioned and disenfranchised BlackBerry refugees fleeing the sinking ship.

Running Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich and driven by a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, the Motorola Photon Q will certainly surpass Motorola's Droid 4.

While the Droid 4 proved that a QWERTY slider could indeed pack in a swift 4G LTE radio, nimble components, and an excellent physical keyboard, it also suffers from a few shortcomings. First, at half an inch thick and weighing a hefty 6.31 ounces, the phone is big and heavy. Second, the Droid 4 still lives in a time warp, mired by the outdated Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS.

Thankfully, the Motorola Photon Q boasts fresher features.… Read more

Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse confirmed that the company will sell the Motorola Photon Q and provided an update on its high-end smartphones.

The Motorola Photon Q is the 4G LTE-compatible successor to the original Motorola Photon. Hesse said the carrier will launch the phone later this year. The device, like some of its other environmentally friendly phones, is ULE-platinum-certified, and is designed to target business users.

Hesse made the comments on the company's quarterly conference call today.

The Sprint CEO also talked up the success of Samsung Electronics' Galaxy S3 and HTC's Evo 4G LTE. He didn'… Read more

Sprint is looking to follow last year's Motorola Photon 4G with a 4G LTE variant, according to new rumors surfacing today. Called, for now, the Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE (what a mouthful!), the Android smartphone isn't dropping any spec hints, though history may offer clues.

At the time of its arrival last year, the Photon 4G was one of the top handsets on the market. Assuming Motorola and Sprint look to do the same with this model, I'd anticipate a display with 720p resolution and a high-end processor.… Read more

Glucose levels are 100 times more concentrated in blood than in saliva, which is why in spite of many efforts to use saliva, diabetics are still pricking themselves to get accurate glucose readings.

But now, harnessing the power of nanotechnology, engineers at Brown University say they've designed a biochip that can measure glucose levels in saliva almost as accurately as current devices can measure levels in blood.

To do this, the engineers etched a complicated array of thousands of plasmonic interferometers (no, this is not an episode of Farscape) onto a fingernail-size biochip. This means they were essentially using … Read more

If you've been sitting on your hands just waiting for the Motorola Photon 4G to be officially in stores on July 31, you can beat the rest of the crowd by heading over to Sprint.com right now. Yes, the Photon 4G is now available for purchase through Sprint's online store for $199.99.

The Photon 4G has plenty going for it, like a 1GHz dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, a 4.3-inch qHD touch screen, 4G support courtesy of Sprint's WiMax, 1080p HD video capture, and a front-facing VGA camera.

Motorola Mobility isn't quite in the clear yet.

That's the opinion of RBC Capital analyst Mark Sue, who says there are still a lot of issues surrounding the manufacturer of handsets and television set-top boxes. His biggest complaints: a slow move into the white-hot 4G LTE segment, too little product diversification at major customers Verizon Wireless and AT&T, and a slow product-development cycle.

Delays in Motorola's LTE devices and its reliance on an aging product portfolio may be contributing to market share losses within the growing Android ecosystem," he said in a research note … Read more