Sales are not uncommon at Verizon, but BGR says that other phones that are part of the sale are already several months old and even more and they are soon reaching their lifespans’ ends. It is the case of BlackBerry Storm 2 which is in shops since November and will fall to $150, or the Nokia Twist, being at Verizon starting with September and dropping to $50 too. Finally, LG’s enV Touch, in stores since last year in May, will also cost $50. The last examples of price cuts including younger phones were those of Palm’s lineup. When the company realized the sales estimates had been misjudged and Verizon has been left with stock which it had to clear out.

The leaked information, although unconfirmed yet, is a first sign of some problems with Kin devices sales. Suspicions of low sales were noticed since the launch of Kin, although neither Verizon nor Microsoft has mentioned sales since going on sale in the mid of May. What mainly generated worries was the selection of a service plan, as the Kin gets a minimum $70 plan, although being targeted at teens or lacking smartphone-class features like third-party applications. For most people, the choice has been between a smaller phone with a less expensive plan and a true BlackBerry, Android or webOS smartphone which had the same rates.

The service has already gone live; users of Android-powered devices and Apple devices are encouraged to try it out. In order to view files uploaded in the formats, users only have to login into a dedicated Google account.

In recent weeks, Google has been adjusting a great part of its web platform for iOS devices. This doesn’t include only the document viewer, but also the iPad-friendly Gmail or making iPads use the desktop variants of sites instead of normally using their iPhone versions.

The basic Libox service is free of charge and only requires users to install the Libox specific software on their desktops or main computers. Then all media files are found, are loaded into the dedicated Libox folder and are processed. Data is not taken into Libox servers, but peer-to-peer sharing is used to distribute it. For example, a song accessed from the user’s smartphone when this one is away from home is streamed from the desktop at home.

There will be special code inserted to predict what users want to access in order to maintain the process speedy and smooth. For example, five of the most popular songs could be saved on the user’s smartphone to provide faster access. Sharing photos will follow a similar algorithm, trying to give higher priority to transfers of recent accessed photos if accesses of a friend to a folder occur frequently. Also supported are high definition video as well as other major formats, but less common ones are also included. There is no space limit the company should impose. Revenue sharing deals related to content providers as well as additional services which could include file backup would be sources which Libox intends to make money through.

Potential barriers to Libox’ success could be represented by legal challenges entertainment companies could initiate, as well as the case when unlimited data plans could come to an end and subscribers would consequently access less of the content remotely and would rather keep it local.

The price of the Nook Wi-Fi is much less than that of Barnes & Noble’s first e-reader and is going down to $149. The reader is already available and can ship very quickly. As an addition to the low-end e-reader, the original device, also named Nook 3G, will cost $199 instead of $259, and will still have 3G free.

Barnes & Noble is also rolling out the new 1.4 firmware update addressed to both devices. The patches are adding free AT&T access and a so-called Go To Page new feature that allows jumping to a particular page. It also brings a larger font to help the poor-sighted persons and shorter book load times. The owners of the Nook can get the firmware update manually or automatically through Wi-Fi.

Barnes & Noble has set the price drop of the Nook 3G as a milestone as this makes it the first device of the kind with a price below $200, which is countermining Amazon’s Kindle. The recent move also puts a larger distance between the Nook and the iPad, the latter starting at a price of $499 with connection through Wi-Fi only but being considered not far enough to prevent drawing away customers from its opponents.

Multitasking is a major feature introduced in iOS 4. It allows running of third-party iPhone applications in the background. Running radio applications like Pandora or VoIP iPhone applications like Skype is now possible in the background while surfing by using the Safari browser of the iPhone.

The download seems to be ready in the near future and is supposed to be countered by applications from TomTom and others that are already supported by the iOS 4. The pricing of the application has not been mentioned by now but is expected to be unchanged from the North American edition’s price of $80 and may be even less in the case of other regions.

Although a similar method has been tried in the past, it had to be assembled using two substrates and therefore could not be assembled too quickly. The new technique permits printing all at once and is consequently much faster and also less expensive.

The Stanford team expects to use the new technique for real applications, but no deadline has been communicated. The new method may be combined with other techniques like printed processors and flexible displays, which allow the creation of devices that are just a fraction the thickness existing technology permits. The soldier watch of Hewlett Packard is such an example.

This receiver and also the less costly VSX-520-K have both an optional stereo audio adapter Bluetooth-based. Most iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and other A2DP devices can stream audio files wirelessly when connected to a home theatre system. A sound processor present on either receiver is able to recognize compressed audio provided by any source and can automatically restore some lost details.

Both receivers support HDMI 1.4 and offer 110W of power through five channels with a pre-out for Dolby ProLogic IIz encoded audio files. The 820-K sports a full-size USB and RCA front jacks shrunk to mini form on the 520-K model, four HDMI inputs versus three on the other model, automatic surround sound calibration and also support for Sirius satellite radio.
The prices of the receivers are $229 for the VSX-520-K model and $299 for the 820-K. Different reports are revealing conflicting information about the possible shipping date, both receivers being scheduled either in March or in April.

As already known, Chassis 1 is limited to full-touchscreen devices using a 1GHz processor or even faster and is the first to reach the shipping target late in 2010.

Chassis 2 devices will be similar to common Windows Mobile phones and will sport a touchscreen and a sliding QWERTY keyboard.

Chassis 3 was not very much detailed but will perhaps involve handsets with fixed-in-place keyboards.

Details of other chassis were not discussed, but Microsoft has claimed that Chassis 1 hardware would require a wide VGA of 800×480 or better display. Other requirements would be 3G, Wi-Fi and GPS.

These policies are in contrast with Microsoft’s behaviour regarding Windows Mobile, where choice of design was considered as positive. Windows Phone 7 is meant to provide a tighter integration between hardware and software and will involve Microsoft in writing and supplying many of the necessary drivers itself. This would significantly speed up development and allow faster firmware updates but would also limit the variety of the hardware. Other vendors, like Apple and Palm, for example, have been given favourable reviews because their mobile operating system interfaces and characteristics are, in most cases, tailored to a limited range of hardware.

Besides the chassis details, other rumours say many of the Xbox-style games that are built using XNA may not work until Windows Phone 7.1. This version is unlikely to appear until 2011. There is no explanation for this rumour but it seems the developer framework for outside applications is not ready.

The 6216 classic handset, apart from the SWP-based NFC technology, is a simple 3G device, which is based on 850MHz band networks. The phone also benefits from a 2-megapixel camera, as well as from a microSDHC memory card slot.

NFC technology offers users the possibility to make payments just by waving their device near a special, compatible reader fro transactions (for example, public transport payments). Operators would want the account details stored on the SIM card, pushing for the user’s balance. Handset manufacturers (Nokia as well) wish that account details would be stored directly on the phone.

A SWP-equipped NFC service will most likely be introduced in about six months by China Unicom. This will be directly competing with China Mobile’s RF SIM system, which is already available.

Infinitec claims that their new drive will be compatible to Windows, Mac OS X and also Linux. It is also very possible that content could be streamed between the IUM and game consoles, like PS3, Xbox 360 or Nintendo Wii.

Despite the fact that the IUM has no memory storage on its own, it receives a signal and also content through a Wi-Fi connection. A strong feature for Infinitec’s new drive is the plug-and-play operation, as there is no need in installing any software or drivers and it doesn’t have to be paired with the PC.

Infinitec’s new IUM device doesn’t have a fixed release date yet. Its price is also unknown, but some extra information about the product is expected around March 1st.