Gearfuse

It might have taken them nearly a decade to do so, but the most popular knowledge hub on the net, Wikipedia, has finally launched their official mobile optimized site.

The newly launched mobile adaptation is supposed to be optimized for all “fully-featured” smartphones, including the Palm Pre, iPhone, Kindle and Android platforms. So far both English and German are supported, but there are more to come. I’ve heard that visiting Wikipedia on the Palm Pre automatically redirects you to the mobile site. Doing so on the iPhone does not, at least yet.

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Bout damn time! T-Mobile officially announced the myTouch 3G today. It’ll drop next month and is quite the improvement over the Google G1. It’ll of course use the Android OS but will come packed with a nice big 3.2-inch display, WiFi, a 3.2-megapixel shooter and Exchange support. It’ll ship in black, white or merlot and should retail for $199.99 with a two-year contract. Overpriced? Maybe, but this is T-Mobile’s only shot at a standout phone this summer.

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Dell is diving even deeper into the netbook market. In this video, a Dell engineer shows off the new 10v laptop running Ubuntu and the “Cupcake” version of Google’s Android OS. He calls it “snappy” and makes sure to note that Dell is not offering this as an option on any of its computers. However, it’s very possible to port it over to your 10v, so if Google’s mobile OS tickles your fancy, you better start coding.

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Rumors of an upcoming Samsung phone running Google’s Android OS were abound throughout the first quarter of this year. Now Samsung has laid those to rest and announced the I7500, an Android-powered phone that will drop in Europe this June and has already landed in Korea. What can it do? Aside from all your basic media playback bullshit (MP3, videos, etc.), it comes with a 3.2-inch AMOLED touchscreen, GPS, WiFi and 8GB of internal memory. The camera is 5-megapixels, but that doesn’t mean shit unless it has a decent lens and CMOS sensor.

HSDPA-capable and equipped with Bluetooth 2.0, the I7500 is going to be the first Google device that people will actually want. For now, we’ll have to wait around and see if AT&T gets it sometime this year.

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Looking to get your hands on a netbook with some official Android goodness? While the US manufacturers haven’t caught on yet, China’s Skytone certainly has and would love to offer you the Alpha-680 netbook for about $100. It comes in white, black, yellow, pink and red. 3G, Ethernet, Wifi and USB ports are all included to get you connected and an SD card reader will provide you with more storage. You’re going to need it too since it only sports 1GB of solid state memory.

Essentially, it’s the G1 on steroids. Import if you dare but you might want to wait until something a little nicer pops up on the radar.

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This is no April Fool’s prank, my friends. In the wee hours of this morning, RIM switched on its competitor to Apple’s App Store, the Blackberry App World (how creative). You’ll be able to browse top apps, find new ones and hope someone was able to make a half-decent program in such little time. RIM is saying that by the end of the week, about 1000 apps will be available. Much better than the Google G1’s Android Marketplace launch, but jack shit compared to Jobs & Co.’s powerhouse.

Do you have a Blackberry? Let us know what apps come out this week and whether or not they are useful.

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Good news for consumers who are looking for a hot cellphone that isn’t an iPhone. HTC is set to release “at least three” new Android devices in 2009. The report comes from a Merrill Lynch technology conference where CEO Peter Chou responded to a question about Android-based devices.

This is a good move by HTC. While the T-Mobile G1 is undeniably popular, its gusto is starting to wane. HTC can really spice competition up by unleashing three Android-enabled phones into the cellphone market. Couple that in with the newly re-tooled Android Market and Apple has a serious problem on its hands.

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The T-Mobile G1 is really enjoying its time in the limelight thanks to it being the only available Android phone at the moment. With that said, it’s taken Google quite awhile to roll out paid apps on the Android Market. This is no good considering that Apple’s App Store is the undisputed king of application shopping. It’s good to see that Google is finally catching up.

Unfortunately, as you can see in the above screenshot, there’s no real useful applications yet. This is still a huge sword in Android’s foot. For the OS to be successful, it needs strong, likable apps that people will actually want to pay money for. Makes sense, right? After all, who the fuck wants to spend $6.99 on “To Do Projects”?

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Leave it to the Boy Genius to get yet another exclusive mobile phone leak. This time around, it’s the T-Mobile G2! Except that, it’s not called the G2. In Europe, it’ll be known as the HTC Dream and Vodafone will be offering it to customers sometime this year.

What’s the Dream going to pack? For now, BGR speculates mostly standard stuff: 3.2-megapixel camera, WiFi, HSPA (for high speed 3G connectivity) and some other bullshit like the “Cupcake” version of the Android OS. Finally, there’s also speculation that the name could be changed to “Pioneer” from Dream. Kind of stupid sounding, don’t you think?

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The oft-troubled Dodgeball service is on its way out at Google but that won’t keep the company from innovating new products. Case in point: Latitude. Google Latitude is a new location-based social networking experience. You install a widget to your iGoogle page if you’re on a computer and mobile users can directly access the Latitude website. Users can see other friends’ location, update their status message (just like Facebook) and it’s all in real-time!

Privacy issues will no doubt keep some from using the Latitude service, but Google says you’ll be able to completely control your privacy. Latitude is supposed to work as of right now, but I just tried to use it on my iPhone 3G and it still says “Coming Soon” after I click the link in SMS that Google sent me. Oh well. Perhaps Google is busy working on more important things.

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