Mobile Devices - Page 174

Microsoft held their "secret" press event this week, where they announced their Surface tablet running the upcoming Windows 8 OS, but did PC makers know what Microsoft was going to show off? Well, yes, yes they did.

During an interview with The Verge, Microsoft's Steve Ballmer noted that PC makers knew about the Surface tablet ahead of the announcement. The question is, how long before the announcement did PC makers know about Microsoft's Surface tablet? The other question is why didn't Microsoft unveil the Surface tablet at Computex just two weeks ago? Did they hold off so PC makers could show off their various Windows 8-based tablets and Ultrabooks?

Was this why the Microsoft booth at Computex was so quiet? It would appear (to me at least) that this is the case. Ballmer did note that one of the reasons behind Microsoft building the Surface table was to "prime the pump" for Windows 8's release later in the year, noting that a tablet was an important piece of the overall story of Windows 8. PC makers have been quiet about the Surface tablet, and for good reason.

HTC is suffering a bit of a problem that is similar to Apple's notorious 'Antennagate' scandal. That is, the design of the phone is physically not perfect and users are finding poor performance and are having to squeeze the phone to restore proper functioning. let's just hope HTC doesn't tell users to just hold the phone differently.

It sounds as thought it is a loose hardware connection, so this means no quick fix for HTC through software. HTC as done the proper thing, as opposed to Apple, and come out an dadmitted that there is a problem on some One X international versions. The problem does not affect the US One X or One XL. HTC:

If BlackBerry makers Research in Motion weren't already in enough trouble, it seems that the U.S. military could switch over most of their mobile devices from BlackBerry's to those running Apple's iOS or Google's Android mobile operating systems.

BlackBerry's are, as it stands right now, the device of choice for Pentagon among other U.S. military branches. It's also worth noting that RIM's biggest customer is... the U.S. military, but officials within the military have already voiced their opinion on RIM's BlackBerry platform not being able to keep up with the iOS and Android technology.

Teri Takai, the Pentagon's chief of information officer has said that flexibility provided by non-BlackBerry platforms to develop custom applications is what makes the move to the iOS and Android platforms so attractive. The current BlackBerry devices that DoD use are also not portable enough, with Dennis Moran, vice president for Harris Corp stating:

The rumored ASUS Nexus 7 has shown up online in the form of two pictures uploaded to Picasa. The two photos, which measure 1280 x 960, were uploaded on June 7 and June 13. The photos could have been scaled down, so don't take that as indicative of the camera's performance. The two pictures are linked to Google+ user Somit Bh.

Furthermore, the geo-location data place the pictures as having been taken in Google Building 44. Of course, this information is fairly easy to fake, but a look as Google+ user Somit Bh's profile offers reason to believe otherwise. His circles contain many people who are affiliated with Google which means this could be legit.

Just two years ago, the Nexus S was revealed in the exact same way. The "Nexus Tablet" has been rumored for a while now, including the portion that ASUS is going to be the one making it. The rumor also said that the tablet would cost between $149-199 and would go on sale this July. It's likely that an announcement is just around the corner.

Toshiba has launched a 13" version of its Excite tablets and a few reviews have popped up online showing off a few issues. Thankfully, Toshiba didn't disgrace this tablet with a paltry 1366x768 screen and instead opted for a 1600x900 panel. It appears to be a TN panel as there is no mention of IPS, something usually added for marketing.

Some of the reviews we mentioned above have called out the screen as being rather dim, but that's the least of the panels problems. The Gorilla glass that covers the screen can stick to the LCD panel and create visible "puddles." Have no fear, though, as that can be alleviated by twisting the tablet like an ice cube tray.

The battery life is around 11 hours, at least according to one review. The device features a Tegra 3 SoC, a full-sized SD card reader, and Android 4.0. The tablet weighs in at a heavy 2.2lbs and isn't exactly cheap. The 32GB model runs about $650 and the 64GB model will run about $750. Both of those are more expensive than an iPad.

The poor laptop has only been out for a few days and someone has already stripped it down to its most basic components. That's right, iFixIt has pulled the $2000+ laptop apart and found some interesting things, along with taking lots of pictures. The short summary is that they say it is the least repairable laptop they have ever taken apart.

Kyle Wiens says:

Vodafone UK have thought outside the square and released the Booster Brolly. What exactly is the Booster Brolly, well it's a multi-purpose umbrella. The prototype umbrella was created in partnership with University College London (UCL) to make sure that festival goers stay connected with their friends during the events over the coming months.

Booster Brolly has been designed to work as an eco-friendly mobile phone charger that gets charged through a bunch of flexible solar panels. The electrical current generated from these solar panels also powers a micro antenna which will boost a handsets 3G signal wirelessly. Booster Brolly is going to get trialled at the Isle of Wight Festival next weekend, the umbrella also sports an LED torch for night time navigation, as well as a 'hands free' smart phone cradle.

Booster Brolly works with a bunch of mobile devices, charging a smartphone battery in less than three hours. Booster Brolly features a durable carbon fibre skeleton, housing the electrical circuitry and a double layer wind and waterproof canopy that protects users from the worst of the British weather that is thrown on top of them, as well as doubling as a sunshade when the sun is out and bright.

Android user? iPhone user? Well, right now you are the two major competing phone operating systems. However, analysts are expecting that to change by 2016. Windows Phone is predicted to eclipse iPhone's market share by the year 2016 due to the recent release of the Nokia Lumia 900 to emerging markets.

The IDC predicts that iPhone's market share will drop by about 1.5%, ending at 19% by 2016. Windows Phone, on the other hand, will gain 14% and end near 19.2%, if predictions prove accurate. Android will give up the majority of the market share that Windows Phone will gain. Android is looking towards loosing about 8% market share.

Blackberry isn't going to lose much, about 0.1%. Android is going to remain the top mobile operating system, partly thanks to some of Samsung's new phone releases. "The smartphone parade won't be as lively this year as it has been in past," said Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. "The mobile phone user transition from feature phones to smartphones will continue in a gradual but unabated fashion. Smartphone growth, however, will increasingly be driven by a triumvirate of smartphone operating systems, namely Android, iOS and Windows Phone 7."

iOS brings with it a new version of Siri. She has been studying for the past 8 months and can now do so much more like understand sports. There are also new features for finding restaurants and making reservations.

Siri also understands movies better as she has integrated with Rotten Tomatoes. Siri can search for movies featuring specific actors or directors.

Siri can also launch apps:

Intel recently released their Medfield Atom chip in smartphones and have had limited success. At first blush, it appears tests are proving the single core chip is the same as multicore ARM chips in both performance and power draw measurements. Usually, to increase performance, more cores are thrown at the problem.

However, this time Intel believes that won't help as they are saying that Android isn't properly prepared to utilize multiple cores efficiently. Moreover, Intel thinks that these optimizations for multiple cores could and should come from the System-on-a-chip providers such as Texas Instruments or Qualcomm.

Intel's Mobile and Communications Group General Manager, Mike Bell, had this to say:

Computex 2012 - Sitting in a private suite at the Grand Hyatt we got a chance to check out the Intel powered K800 Smartphone from Lenovo to see just what a smartphone from Intel was capable of doing.

I think the most obvious thing we notice is the performance of it. Silky smooth playback of video over a crowded 3G network in Taipei was great.

Of course there's the responsiveness of the phone as well when it's running the video and the Intel powered K800 really has no trouble making sure everything is running super smooth at all times. It's probably the two other features that we really loved, though.

Computex 2012 - I've got to say myself that Intel did a good job of impressing us at the end of Day 3 of Computex when all we wanted to do was grab some dinner and relax somewhere.

The next demo we got from Intel was with our French friend François Piednoël who was clearly thrilled to show us what the upcoming Acer W700 tablet can do when combined with Intel processing power. Apparently the exact final processor has been decided and hence not yet announced from Acer, but it's going to be a "Core processor" of some sort according to François.

I'll say it right now - this is what a Windows 8 tablet experience should be like. I was joined by Shane and Chris at the Intel meeting and over dinner we all said that we would be buying an Acer W700. We saw very smooth and fluid tab switching under Windows 8 on the W700 as well as very solid touch scrolling and zooming in the browser, as you can see in the video above.

Computex 2012 - On Monday we got some short hands on with what ASUS are currently calling the Tablet-600. This is a system that is almost finished, but has yet to receive its final retail model name.

It's a system with a 10.-inch Super IPS+ panel with a 1366 x 768 resolution that supports up to an amazing 10 finger multi-touch. It was running the Windows RT Preview Release which if you weren't sure is essentially Windows 8 for ARM based processors, as opposed to regular Windows 8 that is for traditional x86 processors.

And on that note it brings us to the CPU and this job is given to NVIDIA with its Tegra 3 quad-core processor. As far as additional specs go, it comes with 2GB of RAM, 32GB eMMC storage, 802.11n, Bluetooth 4.0, rear 8MP auto focus LED flash camera and front 2MP camera. It also comes with enough sensors to ship a battle ship - G-Sensor, Light Sensor, Gyroscope, E-compass, NFC and GPS.

Google Nexus 7, get to know it, because it's going to be something quite big over the coming months. Nexus 7 is a 7-inch tablet with a 'HD Ready' 1280x800-pixel screen, NVIDIA's 4-PLUS-1 Tegra 3 SoC which clocked in at 1.3GHz and is manufactured by ASUS.

It features a five-point multi-touch hardware-accelerated screen, which takes advantage of Tegra's fifth 'companion' core and Synamptics IP. Pixel density on the Nexus 7 is a little higher than 215 pixels per inch.

Being a Google device, it sports the very latest version of their mobile OS, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. It has been previously reported that Android 5.0 would be Jelly Bean, but it seems Google is outfitting their $199 tablet with the latest deliciously-named OS. Android 4.1 is the next step from Google, with Android 4.2 being the step after.

According to Sony's market research and general common sense, water proof smartphones are something that everyone wants. Finally enough people have sounded off that Sony has decided to appease them. The Sony Xperia Go appears to replace last year's Xperia Active and the Xperia arco S appears to be an international Xperia arco HD.

Sony Xperia go specifications:

Sony Xperia arco S specifications:

During a speech at the AllThingsD Conference yesterday, Apple CEO Tim Cook talked about various things, one of these topics was the Apple TV. Cook revealed that Apple was on track to double the sales of the Apple TV this year, where they've already racked up 2.7 million sold. Considering that 3 million were sold throughout the entire of 2011, this is not bad at all.

Cook added that staying in the Apple TV market was uncharacteristic for Apple:

Let me qualify this with the following: While these appear to be legitimate, valid pictures of the upcoming iPhone case, I am still skeptical due to the fact Apple is ridiculously tight-lipped about products and slips like these don't usually happen. However, with a new CEO the secrecy of Apple could be in decline. If that is the case, I would have so many fewer rumors to post.

The first picture is courtesy of 9to5Mac. In it are two shells, which appear to be larger than the iPhone 4S. The casings show the smaller dock connector along the bottom of the phone along with what appear to be speaker grills and a headphone jack. The larger speaker grills are to accommodate better, larger speakers.

Also, the provider of the picture has said that there are two additional colors that the iPhone will be available in. What those colors are are not known. Again, I would attribute the new colors to the new CEO and the change that comes with a new leader. Engadget has supplied additional photos which depict a device which looks identical to the first set in the first picture. The higher quality pictures indicate that the device is not two-tone but rather just covered in a protective plastic covering.

Just when you thought you wouldn't upgrade your phone beyond the already-announced and nearly here GALAXY S III from Samsung, or alternatively, HTC's One X, or if you're an Apple fan, the not-out-yet iPhone 5.

LG have just unveiled a new display for smartphones that shoves 1920x1080 pixels into a 5-inch screen. It's the world's first Full HD smartphone display and has an amazing pixel density of 440ppi, way out and beyond what we have in today's phones.

The panel LG have used is an Advanced High Performance In-Plane Switching or AH-IPS LCD. It's the same technology that LG used in one of their panels last year and when compared to a standard IPS panel, AH-IPS panels sport greater color accuracy, wider viewing angles and greater light transmission which all leads to lower power consumption.

Details surrounding Huawei's new Emotion UI aren't plentiful or clear, but we do know somethings. Samsung, HTC, and now ZTE all have custom user interfaces for their Android phones so it seems as though Huawei doesn't want to be left behind. As such, Huawei is now working on a UI called Emotion UI, likely for ICS.

Considering the other manufacturers' UIs works on Ice Cream Sandwich, it makes sense that that is what Huawei will be targeting. The new UI will be unveiled June 9 and will become available sometime in July. Updates will be pushed to currently shipping Huawei Android phones so that they will get the new user interface.

Functionality of the new UI is not clear. Huawei is using words such as "emotional," "simple," and "smart" when describing it, but that doesn't exactly tell us that much. This UI also may not make it out of China, although it could as Huawei is trying to become a global manufacturer. The only downside to this custom UI is that updates will now take longer when new Android versions come out.

We've heard the rumors before, and with the power that social networking giant Facebook has, it would not surprise me to see them release a smartphone. But, can a smartphone really succeed in this world of super-powered smartphones, built around Facebook?

Well, according to employees of Facebook, some engineers have been sought out by engineers there, as well as others who have been briefed on Facebook's plans, reckon that the company wants to release its own smartphone by 2013. These people spoke out in anonymity, fearing their jobs or relationship with Facebook.

Facebook have reportedly hired ex-Apple software and hardware engineers who worked on the iPhone, and one who worked on the iPad, these same employees said. One thing that would boost the 'is Facebook building a phone' argument, is CEO and founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg has said he's worried that if he doesn't create a mobile phone in the near future that Facebook will simply become an app on other mobile platforms.