Mobile Telecommunication and gadgets

Tablet chatter this week might be skewing heavily in Apple (NSDQ: AAPL)’s favor, but if you can manage to wrestle yourself away from the hype around Apple’s admittedly sexy iPad, you might be interested to see what other tablet makers are working on. I had a chance to stop by NVIDIA’s headquarters recently, where the Tegra team showed me a couple super-early prototype Android tablets powered by the company’s new Tegra2 multi-core processors. Compared to the iPad, the Android tablet prototypes are far more flexible and functional than Apple’s tabet – they are Flash compatible, feature front-facing cameras, support multi-tasking, and have expandable storage options. If you want a tablet, but hate iPhone, these tablets might be for you.

The video you see here shows two tablets. The black tablet on the left is made by a company called ICD and features a 7-inch resistive touchscreen. The beige tablet on the right is made by FoxConn – the same company that manufactures iPhones for Apple – and boasts a generous 10-inch resistive touchscreen. More importantly, though, both tablets are running on the NVIDIA Tegra2 1Ghz multi-core processor. Thanks to the dual-core Tegra2 CPU and the dedicated GPU core, both tablets made quick work of web surfing, Flash animations, HD (true 1080p) and high-resolution photos.

The prototype tablets were still getting some Adobe Flash-related kinks ironed out, so I couldn’t show you Flash video playback. But, you can clearly see that other embedded Flash content works like a charm. Both tablets will e fully Flash 10.1 compatible by launch time, which means that all embedded videos and interactive content will play straight from the web. Try to do that on your iPad.

If you want to play with the NVIDIA Tegra2 platform for yourself, or you feel like trying your hand at manufacturing a Tegra-powered tablet, you can grab the Tegra hardware developers kit here.

Source: Intomobile.com

Free voice calls, that is, as long as you have an iPhone 3G and a VoIP app that lets you make internet voice calls over the 3G wireless data network. How is that possible, you ask? Well, Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) has apparently done an about face on their policy that prohibited VoIP apps from using a carrier’s wireless network to make free voice calls. Following AT&T (NYSE: T)’s decision to allow VoIP on its 3G network, Apple has opened the doors to a whole new world of VoIP calling, where iPhone users can make no-cost calls to other VoIP users from anywhere they please (as long as they have a decently strong signal). The implications of the move are huge – AT&T risks losing revenue from its wireless voice business if customers wholesale adopt 3G VoIP calling. For the customer, though, it doesn’t get any better than this.

VoIP iPhone apps, like fring, have been available for a while. But, their usefulness was previously limited to WiFi networks (unless you had a jailbroken iPhone, of course). You could make free phone calls from your iPhone’s fring app, but only if you had a WiFi connection handy. Today, that all changes. fring has announced that it’s iPhone app is now completely functional over a AT&T’s 3G network. That means fring users can make free voice and video calls to other fring users, Skype, GoogleTalk and MSN on both WiFi and 3G networks!

“fring users and our team alike are very excited that Apple Inc. have allowed independent iPhone VoIP applications over 3G networks, letting users make voice and video calls over whichever internet access suits their needs at any given place and time,” said Avi Shechter, Co-Founder & CEO of fring in a statement released today.

Now that VoIP is officially allowed on AT&T’s 3G network, will we see more iPhone users adopting VoIP apps as their voice call method of choice? That could hurt AT&T’s bottom line in the long run, while putting additional stress on their network. With the iPad expected to bring even more pain to AT&T’s data network later this year, things should get interesting for Big Blue.

fring for iPhone (FREE) [iTunes link]