Intel appears to be firing on all cylinders at IDF. Besides whatever surprised they have planned for tomorrow, the chip-maker rolled out a prototype of a convertible laptop / tablet / MID / UMPC / netbook / super-gadget called the UrbanMax. There's not much in the way of specs on the device, but as you can see from the photos, it utilizes a combination sliding / tilting screen to transform into any variety of configurations. The display is a resisitive touchscreen, though it's not clear what the guts are made up of here. The whole thing reminds us of a giant Tilt, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. One more pic after the break.

[Via jkkmobile]

Hopes were high that 2.0.2 would decisively crush the reception woes some iPhone 3G owners have experienced since taking delivery of their cracking beauties; dropped calls, latching onto EDGE reception when 3G (also known as "the good stuff") is available, and general signal strength wonkiness have all plagued a select group of handsets since launch, making for a decidedly MobileMe-like user experience. Some upgraders are actually reporting just the opposite, though -- for these lucky few, 2.0.2 seems to be making reception somehow worse than it already was, and what's more, there are intermittent reports cropping up of broken third-party apps, too. With the 1.x line of builds having chugged along with relatively little drama for a year, here's our question: what the hell is going on? Why does 2.0, after two post-launch builds, still feel like a beta? MobileMe took the lion's share of the fall for Apple having spread itself too thin through the launch-heavy summer months, but did some of that fire-drill mentality trickle over to the breadwinner, too? Sound off in comments with your experiences putting 2.0.2 through its paces so far!

[Via Mobility Site]

Update: Apparently Steve Jobs, who should have his face buried in a developer workstation somewhere in Cupertino slaving away on iPhone bug fixes, somehow found the time to slack off for half an hour and fire off an email to some guy who wrote him complaining about third-party apps that are crashing on startup. Jobs allegedly says that the issue is a "known iPhone bug" and that it'll be fixed in the next update come September -- but frankly, we wish he'd let his assistants attend to this sort of needless communication so he could get back to, you know, writing code and inventing phones. Thanks, Alexander!

It has taken its sweet, sweet time in arriving, but it seems the iPhone Nike+ running application is just... about... here. A slew of new screenshots of the application have emerged, and while there are no juicy tidbits to accompany 'em (release date, cost, etc.), we all know how many lines of text a single snapshot is worth. Hang tight runners, the app you've been waiting (and waiting) for can't be far from the finish line now.

[Via MacRumors]

It won't be the first launch in North America -- those honors go to Telus at this point -- but Sprint won't be far behind. A pretty believable new slide deck suggests that big ol' Number Three will take delivery of its Touch Diamonds in September and start hawking them for the princely sum of $299.99 on contract after rebates, netting customers a 3.2 megapixel cam, 4GB of internal storage, and EV-DO Rev. A, among all the other spoils that only Windows Mobile 6.1 can offer. Is the back end of it red? Can't really tell from this angle, but if the goal is to offer up a high-end business tool, we've gotta believe black will be available either way.

[Thanks, anonymous tipster]

Google feels really badly about that several month-long stretch where it kept any and all updates to its Android SDK out of the public limelight, developers, honest, but it wants to make it up to you. It seems that yesterday's 0.9 release, which represented the first official SDK available with a platform even remotely resembling what Google intends to release on retail devices this fall, was just the first in a string of goings-on leading up to the grand 1.0 launch in the coming months according to a new roadmap published on the Android site. To start, there'll be "additional Android 1.0 (pre) SDK releases made available, as necessary" in September, followed by the first 1.0-compatible release in the Q3 to Q4 timeframe (that's any time between now and the end of December, for you calendar-disadvantaged folk). Finally, the Android source will leak out in the fourth quarter along with the first "Android 1.0 devices" -- pay special attention to the plural "devices" there -- and an announcement about Android Developer Challenge II. It gives us a warm fuzzy to see that Google's interested in keeping its devs engaged with these contests on an ongoing basis, because let's be honest: "prize money" has a much nicer ring to it than "VC money" ever will.

[Via Talk Android]

Compal's been a vocal supporter of Intel's MID followup to the tragic UMPC platform ever since It was announced in April of last year. Hell, the Taiwanese ODM even dedicated a team to crank out all the devices expected in the first half of 2008 but never came thanks in part, to Intel's Atom slippage. Now Compal looks ready to toss a MID to consumers (either direct or through a third-party manufacturer, it's not clear) with the unveiling of this handheld at Intel's IDF in San Francisco. The QWERTY slider packs GPS, a Linux-based OS with media player, browser, eMail and IM clients, and Option's GlobeTrotter Connect and GTM501 HSPA data kit offering tri-band HSUPA/HSDPA and quad-band GPRS/EDGE connectivity the world-over. No pricing or availability has been announced but we hope to hear more later today.

Update: Ah ha, it's the same reference design used Aigo's Patriot, aka, M528.

[Thanks, Stuart L. and LosOutlandos]

Remember the Touch Diamond? Yeah, well, cherish that memory, because it may be gone by the time you get done with our quick look at Samsung's mighty Omnia. We're not saying the Sammy entry blows away HTC's -- not by a long shot -- but it's a solid competitor that makes Windows Mobile looks shockingly passable for the year 2008. Read on!

Well, there it is, the Lenovo IdeaPad U8 launched official at the Beijing games just as we expected. With the launch come the final specs for this Asia-only MID we've seen incubating now for months: 4.8-inch touchscreen; the latest, sub-3 watt processor from Intel (uh hem, that'd be a Silverthorn-class Atom); 350-grams and 21 x 173 x 84-mm; up to 2GB memory and 6GB flash storage; dual-cameras; support for China Multimedia Mobile Broadcasting (CMMB) digital television via that protruding USB dongle; and 802.11b/g WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, EDGE data and China-specific TD-SCDMA 3G, presumably. Expect to see it trotted out tomorrow as Intel's San Francisco IDF gets underway -- with any luck, it'll be sporting WiMAX for a North American / European release.

[Via Pocketables]

The dam has been breached, and now there seems to be no stopping the internet at large as every little nook and cranny of the Treo Pro is exposed and explored. TreoCentral member scottymomo has fleshed out a few more details on the device, and dug up that Comm Manager shot up above. Details include:

• HTC task manager.
• Comm Manager's Airplane Mode and other assorted easily switched options.
• MicroSD (up to 32GB supported) isn't under the battery, but you do have to take off the battery cover to access.
• 1500mh battery.
• Other stuff.

It's all very exciting, we assure you, but you can explore the shots for yourself if you're really feeling hard up for Treo Pro infos. Oh, while we're thinking about it: sexiest Treo yet, or disastrous usage of phone face real estate? Both?

[Via Palm Infocenter]

In case there was any lingering doubt that the Treo Pro (alias Treo 850) was real -- and there probably shouldn't be, considering it got snapped all the way back in May -- this round of non-blurry (dare we say artistic?) shots should pretty much seal the deal. The glossy shell, promise of a 320 x 320 display, and a general acknowledgment of circa-2008 industrial design definitely have us feeling just a little less pessimistic about Palm's prospects right now; if anything, it makes us wish they had some Android kit up their sleeves rather than slaving away on the thus-far vaporware Palm OS 2. As WinMo goodies go, though, this thing looks like it's ready to hang with the best of the best -- so bring it on, Palm. A legion of fans with well-worn 750s awaits you. In the meanwhile, check another shot after the break.

[Via WMExperts]

According to hot, hot reports from the interblogs, interwebs, and yes -- internets -- Sony has made some shocking changes to its mylo 2. Did we say shocking? We meant not shocking. At all. Apparently in an attempt to re-market (and thusly sell) the odd little handheld, the company has begun branding the gadget an "Internet Device" as opposed to its previous (circa 2006) title of "Personal Communicator." We're all for the new convention (we love the hell out of new names) but it remains to be seen what kind of effect, if any, it will have on the gadget's not-so-hot sales. The next step? Lose the Spider-Man font.

[Thanks, Penny]

Would you look at this. A very official looking page -- at a Palm.com domain, no less -- has unveiled the previously rumored Treo 850 as the Treo Pro. We're still digging the new look, though the keyboard does look suspiciously small in these shots. At a cursory glance we've got WiFi, a camera and a 3.5mm stereo jack. A couple more pics after the break.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Support forum threads on Apple's site and a number of ramblings across these great interwebs are starting to complain at great length about the iPhone 3G's headlining new feature -- 3G reception, that is -- and pretty much every aspect of it: signal strength, call dropping, connecting to EDGE when 3G is present, the list goes on. Some smartypants analyst from financial firm Nomura thinks he has it all figured out, saying that the issues are "typical of an immature chipset and radio protocol stack" and suggesting that a firmware update pushed out to existing handsets is unlikely to ease the pain. We've been hearing that Cupertino could actually be working on just such an update at this very second, though, so this cat better get ready for the possibility that he could be eating his own words down the road. For what it's worth, intermittent issues have been reported the world over, so this doesn't seem to be anything to do with AT&T's (or anyone else's) infrastructure -- and needless to say, not everyone is having issues to start. And for anyone whose iPhone 3G we just jinxed by writing this post... well, our bad.

If you're fortunate enough to have access to a Premier (business, that is) account with AT&T, you're now able to forgo the charade of meandering down to your local store to buy -- or place an order for, more likely -- the iPhone 3G. All three varieties of the best cellphone Apple makes are now available directly through the carrier's B2B online store for the usual $199 / $299 pricing scale; if we had to guess, it's just a matter of time before they'll throw the doors open to the riff raff (read: us), too. We'll drink to that.

[Thanks, Vasudev R.]

Update: We touched base with AT&T, and it looks like the real news here is that Premier account holders who pay their own bills now have access to the iPhone 3G online, whereas before, only those whose bills were covered by their companies had access. The more, the merrier!

A lovely picture like this can mean only one thing -- the fine feds over at the FCC are leaking another unannounced product. You're looking at the new Slacker G2 WiFi radio which appears to have slimmed down from the original Slacker Portable while moving the skip and play/pause buttons to the front of a the device. A peek at the guts reveals a Broadcom BCM4325GKFBG chip which means 802.11a/b/g, Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR, and FM receiver. We also spotted 4GB of flash storage and a 730mAH battery for what it's worth. Check the User Quickstart Guide and a few more pics in the gallery below.