RIM Already Working With QNX-Powered Prototype

Carlo Chiarello, Vice President of GSM/UMTS business unit over at RIM recently told TechRadar that the company is already working with QNX-powered prototype smartphones, as RIM has already made its intentions public to move BlackBerry smartphones to the QNX platform already operating on the PlayBook.

The QNX "experience is going to start to come in to our high tier products. I can't tell you when; I'm not allowed to", Chiarello said. "I can tell you that it's going to come in to the higher tier value propositions first. It'll probably come into an all-touch first, more than likely… but I can't tell you timings specifically. But it looks marvelous!" 

We can imagine that the direction here is towards an all-touch slate -- pretty much like all those rumors about the button-less, all-screen Ice Cream Sandwich slate for Google -- running QNX, which is optimized for multi-core processing. With no exact time-frame being made public, TechRadar also hints, from different sources, that we might be able to see such a device in approximately 18 months. One and a half year is just too much in the fast lane of technology these days. 

Sony Ericsson Outs Panorama Beta For Xperia X10

Sony Ericsson has released a Panorama application for the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 that is available to download freely from the Android Market but is indended to work solely on X10 smartphones, and works in firmware version 2.1. 

Panorama Beta will allow you to easily capture panoramic pictures: "select a direction, press the capture button and then pan the camera to shoot your panoramic photo." Easy as that! Since this is a Beta application it means that it's still under development so you might run into bugs now and then but sinceyou already know that head over to the source link and grab some panoramas! 

Apple iOS 5 To Allow Custom Notification Center Plugins?

Apple recently introduced the next generation of iOS, iOS 5, and among those 200 user features announced there's a new Notification Center that aggregates all the notifications iPhone-wide in a single screen where you can either dismiss them or take action. 

Recently it has been discovered that the Notification Center on iOS 5 might be able to handle custom plugins or widgets, as you wish. The process would allow stock applications as well as official (iTunes App Store) apps to have custom widgets in the Notification Center, where Apple currently placed the Stocks and Weather widgets. 

For those into coding, you need to create a class that implements the BBWeeAppController protocol which will result in the widget launching a local application upon tapping. This could open up lots of doors and we can even hope for an Android-like action center to quickly turn off Data Connection or WiFi just by tapping shortcuts in the upper Notification Center window. 

Eight Megapixel Camera Confirmed For Next iPhone, Sort Of

It's been already hinted that Apple's upcoming iOS 5 will support Full HD, 1080p video playback on devices having the necessary internals to pull this off, like the iPhone 4. 

According to recent findings, the maximum resolution for video exports has been bumped from 720p to 1080p in the iOS 5 software development kit. So not only you will be able to sync to and play back on your iPhone Full HD videos but there will be an added capability for apps to export videos in 1080p. With a template to export 1920x1080 Full HD video it is very likely that the next generation of iPhones, the iPhone 5 or the iPhone 4S will sport an eight-megapixel camera. The question remains, will it be Sony orOmnivision? 

Best Buy Has A Great Deal On The AT&T HTC HD7S

Are you on AT&T and you fancy a Windows Phone 7 like the newly released HTC HD7S? Instead of paying the carrier $199.99 for the Windows Phone you might as well head over to Best Buy as they've got a great deal on the smartphone. 

Best Buy goes $150 lower than AT&T on the HTC HD7S offering it at $49.99. The price is valid of course with a two-year contract and they even throw in free shipping. Make sure to check out our unboxing video, the hardware tour and comparison with the HTC HD7 (sans S) available on T-Mobile as well as thesoftware tour