Sunday, July 19th, 2009 by Steven 0 Add a CommentAMD’s Neo ultra-portable platform was seen as something that just might rival Intel’s mighty Atom in the oversaturated netbook space when it debuted back in January, but up until now, the system has remained largely in the background. Indeed, it has only found its way into a select few machines, none of which have managed to gain any sort of traction beside the sea of Atom-based alternatives.

Filed under: Software , Symbian Mobile app stores are quickly approach “a dime a dozen” status — they’re proliferating among carriers, manufacturers, and platform vendors alike, which is a recipe for consumer confusion and developer discontent. The Symbian Foundation appears to see that writing on the wall, though, introducing its Horizon initiative which seeks to help guide developers through the process and publish good apps to as many different app stores as it takes.

Filed under: Handsets , Nokia , Symbian , GSM , EDGE , HSDPA , UMTS , HSUPA Speak of the devil — we were just chatting about Nokia’s new strategy for getting the best devices to the US (even if it means going unlocked if necessary), and what do you know? That’s right, the E72 (or E72-2, if you want to get technical about it) has just won its FCC badge, offering full HSPA on the 850 and 1900MHz bands in addition to quadband EDGE and HSPA 2100 for those times when you find yourself out of the Western Hemisphere.

Filed under: Handsets , Pantech , O2 , Windows Mobile , GSM , EDGE , HSDPA , UMTS O2 has been known to source its Xda line of smartphones from a number of different sources over the years including HTC and ASUS — but Pantech ? We’re pretty sure that’s a new one. Then again, WinMo 6.1 dual sliders aren’t exactly easy to come by, so we suppose O2 simply did what it had to do to get one in the lineup when the time came.

Filed under: Handsets , Software , LG , Palm , Android , webOS Here’s some of the other stuff that happened in the wide world of mobile for Friday, July 17th, 2009: As Samsung goes, so goes LG — usually, anyway — and it stands to reason that Lucky Goldstar would want to be hot on Sammy’s heels in the Android race. Indeed, it turns out that the unannounced LG GW620 Eve is running Android with a QWERTY keyboard, details we now know thanks to the official user agent profile for the device.

With all signs ( and by “all,” we mean “all” ) pointing to a new Storm joining Verizon Wireless’ lineup in the not-too-distant future , it’s just about the perfect time to start discounting the current model in hopes of working that inventory down before the inevitable launch of numero dos. Starting today, VZW customers can snap up the SurePress -equipped Storm 9530 for $99.99 on contract , which is a full Benjamin less than it has been since debuting last November.

It wasn’t too hard to see this one coming, but Microsoft has now officially rolled out the beta version of Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 which, among other things, brings with it a slew of new features that tie into Windows 7. That includes support for full image backup of Windows 7 PCs, Windows 7 libraries support for shared media folders, built-in Windows Search 4, and a number of Windows Media Center enhancements, as well as “better support for netbook computers,” although Microsoft doesn’t seem to have elaborated too much on that.

After a patently absurd amount of delays, it actually feels like the Garmin-ASUS nüvifone tandem is approaching a proper launch. Whether or not anyone actually cares anymore, however, remains to be seen. Across the sea over in Malaysia, one particularly lucky soul seems to have stumbled upon both the Linux-based nüvifone G60 and the WinMo-powered nüvifone M20 , and he claims that both handsets will be shipping en masse to the region “within 30 days.” Best of all, that totally jibes with what we’ve heard directly from Garmin today, which has informed us that the smartphone will be in Singaporean stores in August, with a few other Asian nations seeing it in late July.

We’ve been following the development of Tata Motors’ Nano — a teeny little car whose main claim to fame is its tiny price tag of about $2,500 — since way back when it was only an announcement . Well, today the cycle is complete : the first Nano has officially been sold to Mumbai resident Ashok Vichare, who says he bought the car (his first) because it’s the smallest and cheapest sold in India. The company held a lottery to decide who could purchase the first 100,000 Nanos, and says its got a waiting list of about a year for further cars.

This whole global economic crisis, and its resulting massive loss of jobs got us thinking. We here at Engadget didn’t want to stand helplessly by, announcing every new round of misery without giving anything back — so we decided to take the opportunity to spread a little positivity. We’ll be handing out a new gadget every day to lucky readers until we run out of stuff or companies stop sending things. Today we’ve got an OWI Robotic Arm Kit on offer.