Verizon announces the Droid Pro (updated with specs)

 

Verizon has surprised everyone by making press materials available for the Droid Pro -- looking very different than anyone thought with its candy-bar styling and non-sliding qwerty action.  Big Red doesn't have much to say about the Droid Pro so far:

DROID PRO is a new, powerful, stronger and faster solution designed to meet both business and personal needs. The first Android™-based smartphone optimized for business use, DROID PRO is also a global-ready Android smartphone, allowing customers to enjoy wireless voice service in more than 220 countries and data coverage in more than 200 countries.

What do we say? Hello, front-facing QWERTY goodness! We're still waiting on an official announcement and hopefully we'll get to see some more of this guy at CTIA this week in San Francisco. Stay tuned, folks, and in the meantime let's all play the waiting game in the Droid Pro forums. 

Update: The official announcement's after the break, folks. Android 2.2, 3.1-inch touchscreen, 3G mobile hot spot, 1GHz processor, 2GB ROM (boo), 2GB microSD card, 5MP camera. Available in the fourth quarter

Posted originally at Android Central

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Swearch.me is a slick four-way search page for your iPhone

Filed under: iPhone, Search

Swearch.me is a slick little mobile web app with a simple mission: to provide you with easy access to a handful of popular search options from a single location. With a swipe of your finger to the left or right you can quickly jump between Google, Twitter, Wikipedia, and Flickr. It's even optimized for the iPhone 4 retina display.

I did note one quirk I noticed while testing on my iPod touch. Everything works well in portrait view, but when rotated to landscape all I saw was the logo and the top portion of the search box. The page didn't resize, so I couldn't zoom out. It's a minor issue, but Swearch.me would be even better if it knew when to adjust itself for a wide-screen view.

[via iPhone Download Blog]

Swearch.me is a slick four-way search page for your iPhone originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 04 Oct 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Daily Crunch: Cross Walk Edition

Automotive X-Prize Winners Share $10 Million For 100MPG Car Designs The LaCie Wireless Space Is A Glorious Mash-up Of A NAS And Wireless Router Sony Outs ?Classic White? PS3, PSP ?Monster Hunter? Edition And Pink PS3 Controller Minox Talks About Their Glasses-Free 3D Camera TravelTeq Suitcase Doubles As A Chair, Speaker System

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Motorola announces the Spice

Motorola has announced the release of the Spice, a vertical slider with a 3-inch screen, running Android 2.1.  No news about any U.S. carriers, but we hear it's destined for Brazil, and has the radio technology to match.  While it may not be the Droid pro, the Pre Spice does bring the vertical slider form factor many of us want, and while not a screamer, it looks like it would be adequate if you really needed that sliding qwerty love. 

Full press release with specs after the break.

Posted originally at Android Central

Sponsored by Android Cases and Accessories

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Use Your iPad To Manage Your Finances In Style

When it comes to budgeting and managing your finances on your iPad there are several apps to choose from, but very few compare to Checkbook by iBear LLC. This newly released app has everything you could want or even ask for when it comes to both style and functionality. Easily keep track of your mortgage, [...]

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Microsoft Security Essentials celebrates one year of destroying malware

Filed under: Security, Microsoft

It's a bit hard to believe, but it's only been one short year since Microsoft introduced Security Essentials to the world. So, how do you celebrate the first birthday of an anti-malware app that is loved by tens of millions of users? With a cake and a couple of blog posts, of course!

Over at the Windows Team Blog, they're focused on numbers -- here are few key ones:

• 30 million users in 74 countries
• 366 million threats removed
• Three certifications (ICSA, West Coast Labs, and AV-Test)

They're also reminding readers of the licensing change, which takes place in October: Security Essentials will be free to use in small business and office settings of up to 10 computers. Also announced: HP is shipping MSE pre-installed on their new Envy laptops.

The next version of Microsoft Security Essentials is currently in beta testing, and it should arrive some time in early 2011.

Microsoft Security Essentials celebrates one year of destroying malware originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 30 Sep 2010 08:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wow! AOL Thinks It Can Succeed As The 500th Groupon Clone

There is no shortage of Groupon clones. With literally hundreds of daily deal sites popping up all over the world, it's a pretty saturated market. Or maybe it's the next big thing. Either way, AOL (our new corporate owner) is about to find out. It is going to launch its own daily deal site called Wow! The site will come under the purview of Ned Brody, the president of AOL's Paid Services group. That includes all of the subscription business (both the remnants of dial-up and bring-your-own broadband), along with premium services such as SafeSocial (based on sofwtare from startup Social Shield, which just raised $10 million today) and Computer Checkup. Dial-up is a dying (but extremely profitable) business, and Brody wants to find new growth for commerce and subscription revenues. Daily deals are the new black.

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RED Gives Up Making Consumer Cameras, Saying "We Had No Idea What We Were Doing" [Cameras]

They might be struggling with how to position themselves in the market, but at least RED is willing to jump onto their message boards and update everyone on what they're doing. A lot of companies could learn from that transparency. More »

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Kapitall is a massive, beautiful stock market playground

Filed under: Business, Education

Kapitall is one of the most impressive finance-related websites I've recently come across. The site requires registration (which is free, but you do have to opt out of their newsletter) -- but in return it provides you with an incredible amount of financial data.

The experience is very visual. You get a large canvas, which they call "the Playground." You can search for companies by their stock symbols or by their names. (For example, I didn't know that Oracle is ORCL, so I just searched by name.) Each company gets a large icon on your playground, with the company logo, their name, and their segment ("TECHNOLOGY" for Oracle). Icons can be grouped together, dragged around, and organized in any way you wish.

To dig into a single company, double-click its icon. You get a snapshot page that shows you a one-year performance graph, a company synopsis, current market cap, management details, analyst ratings, and more. You also get to see "Monthly Community Activity" for the company, which lets you determine how much Kapitall buzz there is around a given company.

You can also analyze company data in all sorts of ways. One neat tool is the Compar-O-Matic, which shows you statistics for two or more companies. You can also see statistics over time. Here's a fun fact: in October 2008, Apple's market cap was $100.7B, versus Oracle's $104.6B. Today, Apple stands at $221.2B with Oracle at $109.8B. That's pretty intense, especially when you play it back month-by-month and see how the stock behaves.

This is just scratching the surface of this massive tool, really. If you have any interest in the stock market and in cool tools to chart it and learn about it, you should definitely check out Kapitall.

Kapitall is a massive, beautiful stock market playground originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 29 Sep 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If You Thought Revo-Round Was Wacky, Get This: They Just Raised $69 Million

I'm going to assume you've read this story on our sister site CrunchGear today: Revo-Round: Bravely Saving China From the Square-Eye Menace - if you haven't, make sure you don't miss it (and everything else on the site). Here's the gist: a Chinese company called Revo Round is developing a special computer called Round-Revo that boasts a round screen and keyboard. Why such an unorthodox shape, you ask? Well, this is to "preserve the characteristic proud Asian look for future generations to come" and battle the destruction of "the characteristic appearances of one of the oldest civilizations in the world", of course. WTF, right? Well, here's another shocker: a group of Silicon Valley investors has just pumped ?50 million (roughly $69 million) into the venture.

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New WebP Image Format Could Send JPEG Packing

Google has introduced a new image format to help speed up the performance of websites. WebP (pronounced "weppy") reduces the file size of images by 40 percent, the company claims. Images make up 65 percent of the bytes transmitted per Web page, according to Google. WebP was designed to improve the compression offered by the widely used lossy JPEG format. The result is the lossy WebP.

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NTT DoCoMo's ion-generating phone is literally a breath of fresh air

Sharp has been working on miniaturizing its so-called Plasmacluster line of ion-generating products as of late, most recently with the pocketable IG-CM1. Well, imagine if you took an IG-CM1 and duct-taped it to the back of a Japanese-style flip phone... what would you get? You'd get something like this concept being shown off at CEATEC, we think. Found in the booths of both Sharp and NTT DoCoMo, the basic idea is that the phone surrounds you with pleasant, invigorating ions while you chat away, repelling viruses and generally making you a better, happier, and healthier human being; in addition to the functional prototype, DoCoMo was also showing off totally fake (and considerably sexier) design concepts of how a personal ion generator / phone combo could look down the road. We're not aware of any commercialization plans here -- but considering that Plasmacluster technology comes pre-installed on some Toyota cars sold around the world, it's not a far leap to say that we could see it in a production phone, too. We suppose.

Gallery: NTT DoCoMo's ion-generating phone is literally a breath of fresh air

NTT DoCoMo's ion-generating phone is literally a breath of fresh air originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Oct 2010 11:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mark Zuckerberg Joins Bill Gates And Steve Jobs With ?Simpsons? Cameo

As a complete The Simpsons dork, I'm just going to ignore "journalistic integrity" or whatever for the moment to blabber on for three paragraphs about how cool this is. In making an appearance on a�The Simpsons episode last night, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg joined the pantheon of Internet moguls Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, achieving the honorary PhD in nerd pop culture that is awarded with every appearance on Matt Groening's opus. Want context? In the "Loan-A-Lisa" episode,�Nelson founds a super successful bike shop and decides to drop out of school. Lisa takes him to a TechCrunch Disrupt-like "Entrepreneur Expo" where she attempts to introduce him to rich people that can demonstrate how having an education is crucial to their success.

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Buoyant Life Aid That Expands to 40x Its Size in Water Wins Dyson Award [Video]

A buoyancy aid from Australia has won this year's James Dyson Award, which battled alongside 14 amazing finalists. Made from hydrophobic foam which expands in the water, the Longreach aid can be fired 150m out to sea to save lives. More »

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