A periodic roundup of relevant news… from our friends at Last100:
Hands-on review: INQ1 a.k.a. the ‘Facebook phone’
I’ve been playing with the INQ1, the so-called ‘Facebook phone’. Designed by the same team behind mobile carrier 3’s original “Skype Phoneâ€, like its predecessor, this fairly nondescript 3G candy bar slider masks plenty of innovation on the software side.
Google helps add 500,000 public domain eBooks to Sony Reader store
Owners of Sony’s Reader - which includes my dad - can now access over half a million public domain books via the company’s eBook store, courtesy of a new partnership with Google Book Search.
Ad-supported music download service SpiralFrog enters the dead pool
Ad-supported music download service SpiralFrog appears to be no more. Unable to raise a further round of funding and crippled by debt, the service couldn’t overcome “a macro-economic perfect storm.â€
iPhone’s ‘In App’ purchases will be a boon to micro-payments
When iPhone OS 3.0 is rolled out this summer, developers will be able to charge for additional content within their applications - so that, for example, an iPhone game could at anytime prompt a player to purchase additional levels or other in-game content, such as maps, without the user having to leave the app.
