The BlackBerry 10 operating system is set to launch in about two weeks, now with 15,000 more applications.

Research in Motion held two Port-A-Thon events on Friday — one focused on the BB 10 Community, and the other on Android developers. In total, it received 15,000 app submissions within 37.5 hours.

RIM’s vice president of develop relations, Alec Saunders, tweeted the news Saturday night, comparing the event to running a marathon. “Thanks to all the devs!” he added.

Beginning at noon on Friday offering a number of incentives based on the volume of approved apps each vendor submitted. With a cap of 20 apps per person, developers porting one to five apps were able to earn $100 (£62) per app, while the first 200 participants to port five to 10 approved apps received one BlackBerry Dev Alpha Device and an additional $100 (£62). Even more extravagant was the prize for those who ported 10 or more apps: the first 10 developers received a paid trip to BlackBerry Jam Europe, on top of the prizes awarded to prior categories.

RIM also held a separate but simultaneous event for Android developers, offering $100 (£62) per eligible app. Those who submitted five or more apps became eligible for a random drawing for one BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha device.

For those developers who missed the weekend’s events, RIM today announced its Last Chance Port-A-Thon, on 18 January beginning at noon. Similar to former Port-A-Thons, it will be a virtual event, so people can log on from anywhere to participate.

by Stephanie Mlot,

Ofcom today announced plans to expand the UK’s current mobile spectrum beyond its current boundaries, with the creation of a 5G space intended to help deal with the looming “capacity crunch” caused by the enormous surge in data usage over recent years. As more and more people are using smartphones and tablets to connect to the Internet and conduct data intensive activities such as streaming films on the move, the existing mobile spectrum is expected to buckle under the pressure, according to the agency. Apparently, the amount of data Britons consume on the move each month has hit 20 million gigabytes – more than twice as much as last year (9 million gigabytes), which is the equivalent of downloading 5 billion music tracks. Despite the UK only just launching its first 4G service last month promising super-fast mobile Internet, Ofcom CEO Ed Richards claimed it will not be enough to meet future data demands, which are estimated to be 80 times higher by 2013. ‘Within the coming months we will hold the UK’s largest-ever auction of mobile spectrum for 4G. However, that may not be enough to meet consumers’ future data demands, which is why we are already making significant efforts to prepare to go beyond 4G,” he said. To cope with this “capacity crunch,” Ofcom has drawn up plans to open up the 700MHz frequency band – currently used by digital terrestrial television – to mobile networks by 2018 as part of a global initiative to bring together frequencies for mobile users. The idea is for different countries to use the same spectrum frequency to improve efficiency across mobile networks and reduce the cost of handsets. “Our plans are designed to avoid a ‘capacity crunch’, ensuring that the UK’s mobile infrastructure can continue to support the inescapable growth in consumer demand and economic growth more generally,” added Richards.

by Monira Matin

The hotly in-demand LG-built Google Nexus 4 is currently available on  O2, albeit at a price of £399 for customers who choose the Pay & Go package. That is £120 more than what Google is asking for it via its  Play Store, where the corresponding 16GB model costs just £279.

Google Nexus 4 pricing with O2 varies on Pay Monthly  options, ranging from free to £299 depending on the tariff chosen.

O2 managed to secure an exclusive retail deal for the first   month of Nexus 4 sales and provides the only alternative for customers to  purchase the handset, which sold out within 30 minutes of going live on the Play  store and Google’s press office unable to confirm to us when stocks  might be replenished.

“We are selling Nexus 4 on a range of tariffs on both Pay & Go and Pay  Monthly. On O2 Pay Monthly, for instance, the phone is free on a £36 or above  tariff. O2 Pay & Go customers meanwhile can use their O2 Reward balance to  get discounts off new phones and accessories, including Nexus 4,” the network  told International Business Times.

Perhaps in an effort to mitigate  its apparently inflated Nexus 4 price, O2 added: “Prices are set by  both O2 and Google.

“Customers buying from us will benefit from things like O2 Priority Moments,  Ticketing, O2 Rewards and Fair Deal and others for being part of our network,”  said the service provider.

The Nexus 4 handset as briefly available via Google also comes unlocked and  can thus be used on a range of networks, making it possible to purchase the  device from the Play Store and obtain an O2 SIM-card separately – saving £120 on  the hardware and obtaining all of the O2 benefits at the same  time.

by Oluseun Alufa

HTC’s new flagship One X mobile phone was announced at mobile world Congress last week, as a part of the new range of handsets – all bearing the same ‘One’ family name

This hands-on review of the soon-to-be-released mobile, complements the ITProPortal.com hands-on walkthrough in both pictures and video.

The phone will arrive with a familiar shape and design that is now synonymous with the Taiwanese handset maker, in a lightweight polycarbonate unibody form, rounded edges, and a shape with origins that could be traced back as far as 2007, with the HTC Touch.

HTC’s One X design is both simple and effective, with a look that immediately makes you think of HTC – in much the same way as Apples’ phones always look like an Apple phone.

Screen

The 4.7-inch screen of the mobile supports a full high definition resolution of 1,280 by 720, with the inclusion of the second generation of Corning’s Gorilla Glass. This is 30 per cent thinner, than the previous version of the tough glass. It is only the fourth handset from HTC to support this larger screen size, along with being the first to contain a HD screen.

HTC’s One X display hasn’t been completely, flatly, embedded into the handset’s chassis, instead it has a slightly-rounded lip that joins the side of the phone’s body – where it has been stated to ITPP that “the screen melts off to the side”, which we would agree. This, offers up much more of a premium feel, instead of the sharp edges that could have finished off the phone’s design.

We found the display itself to be responsive to the touch, with actions being carried out very fast indeed, which is partly thanks to the substantial processor on board. This is coupled with the screen being both a clear and bright LCD. HTC adopted this display technology when they dropped AMOLED, back in 2010, in favour of the LCD format.

On the rear of the phone, towards the base, are pogo pins, for use with docking stations and similar accessories but details of these haven’t been released as yet.

Camera

The back also houses an 8megapixel camera, with a F2.0 aperture and a 28mm lens that’s standard across all the One range; capturing 40 per cent more light than the f/2.4 lenses and we can testify to the fact that it does take a good picture.

A part of the new HTC Sense 4 user interface is a feature, known as ‘ImageSense’. This is backed by a dedicated HTC ImageChip, which allows for a number of new camera abilities, such as capturing a picture in 0.7 seconds and being able to record a 1080p video. The latter of which also offers still-picture capture, at the same time as filming – without any shutter noise. We tried this feature out and it does work well, along with fast image capture and a continuous-shooting mode, too.

Operating System

HTC has included the Android ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’ 4.0 OS on the HTC One X. This is a good fit for the device and an expected one too, where the company’s rivals aired their new models running ‘Gingerbread’ 2.3, with the promise of an update. However, HTC has still missed some tricks with the platform.

On the base of the screen are still touch sensitive buttons, for back, home screen and to see all the running applications. These are actually a part of the new OS and are integrated into the display. They don’t really need to be there on the One X, but have been included anyway and this does seem a little redundant.

The argument could be made that the One X was already some way along in the development stage, when Google included this ability in the operating system and it was all too late to change the hardware. Only time will tell, if HTC will adopt Androids’ features in their handsets or just stick with the status quo of touch sensitive buttons.

Processor

Running the mobile phone is the Nvida Tegra 3 quad core 1.5GHz CPU, with a 12 core graphics processor. The American version won’t run from such a CPU, due to the LTE requirements of the handset and a Qualcomm dual core variant has been added, instead.

This quad core processor works very well on the handset, whilst performing tasks in a fast and efficient manner. A fifth 500Mhz companion processor actually does most of the work and a lot of the time too, even when playing the likes of full 1080p HD video. This will keep down the high-performance power drain on the 1800 mAh battery, which most people will assume will go hand-in-hand with a powerful chipset, of this nature.

We didn’t see many instances of the other cores being used on the One X, but we are guaranteed  they are only brought in when truly necessary. On that note, ITProPortal isn’t entirely convinced by the need for quad core processing in a mobile phone, but we are aware there are those that will want the most powerful and the fastest device on the market.

What will convince us of the usefulness of a quad core, is if more applications are written to take advantage of a processor of this nature. Nvidia has their own section on the Android Market/Google play, entitled TegraZone, with games written soley for the Tegra chipsets. If there are more useful and processor resource hungry apps here, the more likely we are to be convinced of a quad core need, in the mobile space; think HD video editing, Adobe Photoshop for Android and similar apps.

Audio

In August 2010, HTC announced a partnership with Dr Dre Beats Audio company with a reported heavy investment. Since then we have seen two handsets from this venture, the Sensation XE and then XL. These devices have integrated bespoke sound chips and audio profiles, which when used with a Dr Dre set of headphones change the sound to match the high quality of the headphones.

This has now been brought over to all of the One family of mobile phones, but it’s unsure whether Dr Dre headphones will accompany the One X, S or V – but hearing this feature in action, ensures us the integration is worth it and it sounds great.

Other abilities to the new Sense 4.0 user interface relate to a different multi app interface, from the one seen in ICS; the integration of Dropbox; an active lock screen with access to the likes of Facebook status and a rich HTML5 web browser.

Final Thoughts

On the whole, the HTC One X is a fast, high-end handset and one we found works well, as it should do – with all that it has inside. We can’t fault many aspects of phone, other than the lack of foresight of the Ice Cream Sandwich features and possibly the lack of a microSD card slot, but there is 32GB of internal storage and 25GB of on-line Dropbox access.

On the whole, the HTC One X is a fast, high-end handset and one we found works well, as it should do – with all that it has inside. We can’t fault many aspects of phone, other than the lack of foresight of the Ice Cream Sandwich features and possibly the lack of a microSD card slot, but there is 32GB of internal storage and 25GB of on-line Dropbox access.

Senior vice president of mobile at technology outfit Google, Andy Rubin, has announced that the total number of new Android devices activated each day amounts to almost 850,000.

Rubin also bragged the total number of activated Android handset all over the world has surpassed the 300 million mark.

“Each and every day, we are humbled by the trajectory of Android and our partners. With a year-on-year growth rate of more than 250 per cent, 850,000 new Android devices are activated each day, jetting the total number of Android devices around the world past 300 million,” Rubin stated, as per a report by The Inquirer.

No doubt, such an astounding sales figure is quite an achievement for the Mountain View based search giant, considering how arch rival Apple managed to sell 37.04 million units of its flagship iPhone in the last quarter alone (as per the company’s latest fiscal report), Google and the Android family’s journey in the smartphone is unlikely to be just a walk in the park in the days to come.

Despite repeated requests, Apple has refrained from revealing the net figure of iPhone it sold throughout all these years.

Around a million households in the UK may need to install filters in order to prevent 4G mobile signals from interfering with TV signals, new reports suggest. In addition, a much smaller number of households – presumably somewhere around 10,000 – will be compelled to switch their cable or satellite TV connections in order to avoid inferior picture quality.

All those households who fail to receive these two alternative platforms, will be compensated with up to £10,000 each in order to “find a solution”. All the expenditures for these proposed alternatives will have to be borne by the winner of the 4G spectrum auction to be held later in the running year.

As a matter of fact, it was revealed by the telecom regulator Ofcom last year that almost 760,000 households are likely to be affected with the introduction of 4G networks in the country. However, latter the Department for Culture, Media and Sport claimed that the figure could go all the way up to somewhere around 900,000.

All these concerns are being raised as the Long Term Evolution spectrum, “particularly on 800Mhz, overlaps part of the DTT spectrum,” as told by Saverio Romeo, an industry analyst from Frost & Sullivan, BBC News reports.

“The closer you are to a base station, the more disruptive the interference”, he added.

Defying all the concerns about 4G network connections not being available in the UK’s telecom sector by 2015, mobile operator Everything Everywhere is reportedly planning to roll out LTE connection in the country.

In order to accomplish its goal and emerge as the first telco to be launching 4G connections in the country, the operator must win the approval from Ofcom first. The company is fairly optimistic about getting a positive nod from the regulator by spring though.

When and if granted, the company will be carrying out an LTE trial in Bristol over the currently available 1800 MHz spectrum before finally making the network available for the public.

“Everything Everywhere’s vision is to launch 4G for Britain as soon as possible, and the roll out of 3.5G HSPA+ and our 4G trials across Britain are major steps towards delivering on that promise,” the company’s chief executive Olaf Swantee stated, as reported by IT Pro.

Experts are of the opinion that even though a number of telcos in the country are keen on conducting trials over 4G connectivity, chances are slim that there will be an widespread 4G coverage across the UK anytime sooner than 2017.

T-Mobile USA had to go through some rather tough time during the final quarter of 2011 as the company reportedly lost 802,000 of its post-paid customers during that period. Although, it added a net 276,000 new prepaid connections, the growing dissatisfaction amongst customers was clearly visible in the company’s overall performance in the quarter.

Not only that, the net figure of connected devices also dropped by almost 95,000 which included an approximate loss of 265,000 lines from just one customer cancellation. The company had a 33.2 million strong customer base at the end of 2011 which is shockingly over half a million less than what it used to be just a year back.

The quarterly service revenues during Q4 2011 also declined to almost USD 4.6 billion, which was 2.7 percent lower year-on-year.

“For T-Mobile USA, the past year was characterized by significant challenges, particularly in the fourth quarter, following the market launch of the new Apple iPhone model by the three major national competitors in October,” T-Mobile stated, as reported by AllThingsD.

Meanwhile, Deutsche Telekom – the parent company of T-Mobile, announced on Thursday that the company will be dishing out a brand new high-speed LTE service some time during next year.