Awesome new 5.3″ Super AMOLED Plus hybrid device from Samsung. It runs on the new 1.4Ghz Dual-core processor (upgraded Exynos?), will probably run Ice Cream Sandwich beautifully. So it’s capacitive and also has what looks to be the N-Trig stylus input technology also used on the HTC flyer to let you input handwritten scribbles and annotations such as in a notepad app but also in new S Pen apps and things like annotating a screenshot of any Android instance. As you can see in this video, the 5.3″ screen is huge compared to the already big 4.3″ Samsung Galaxy S2 screen, which really is awesome because I believe even this device fits nicely and confortably in most pockets.
This extra size, in my opinion, really does provide for extra potential productivity, better video playback, better web browsing on its amazing 1280×800 resolution, this size and resolution offers a better hybrid of the Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich features that are coming up.
We’ve seen the EyeFi do something like this before, this is Toshiba’s new entry into this market of enabling any SDHC device, for example any photo and video camera to transfer wirelessly and stream content out to any other WiFi device around it.
Lenovo is launching this new Ultrabook based on the second generation Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processors, pricing starts at $1199, goes up perhaps to about $1999 with all kinds of options in terms of dual or quad core processor, 128GB or 256GB SSD memory, 2GB, 4GB or 8GB RAM. They have done some ventilation design so there are no vents under the laptop, it’s aluminium everywhere, so it stays cold under the laptop even though this is a quite powerful new processor.
Lenovo is doing 2 versions of their Tegra2 Android tablets, the IdeaPad is for consumers, the ThinkPad is for enterprise. It’s got to do with different components and design, different software and other.
Here’s a cheap new Lenovo Tablet targetted at the sub-$300 price point. It might use the Rockchip RK2918, or it might be some other processor similar to that, to be confirmed. Please post in the comments if you find out which processor it is using..
This is Samsung’s new Multiview MV800 has a fold-out 3″ AMOLED screen, takes pictures, and provides a bunch of picture modes that can be accessed through the Home screen menu on the touch screen on this camera.
Here’s the newest Samsung Bada phone, running the Bada 2.0 software on a 4″ Super AMOLED Plus screen, this is probably aimed at lower cost, although Android does allow Samsung to lower the cost of smartphones as well, so I am not really sure what Samsung is trying to do with Bada. Maybe Samsung wants to option of being able to own a smartphone ecosystem to try to profit as much as possible on every level of the value chain of the phone all the while trying to sell it for cheap. I prefer the cheap Samsung Android phones though.
Charlie Kindel, Windows Phone Developer Ecosystem General Manager, quit his job at Microsoft to start a new (Android?) startup in Seattle. Windows Phone is kind of a failure and is rapidly losing market share to the superior Android platform in the smart phone and tablet race. To remain a fair competitor in this market, will Microsoft stop suing Android companies for bogus patents and bogus licences, stop charging licences for Windows (give it away for free!) and even open up the source? How can anyone (fairly) compete with open source and free?
Here is my video interview with Charlie Kindel filmed at last year’s LeWeb conference in Paris:
I got lucky enough to be able to play around with the new Archos G9 tablets for a few minutes (as I am the admin on http://forum.archosfans.com), they are awesome. Here are some of the features that I think makes this probably one of the best tablets in the world when it comes out in September:
– 50% faster than iPad2/Xoom/Transformer/Tab101/etc, 1.5Ghz Dual-core OMAP4460 ARM Cortex-A9 vs 1Ghz for the others (Quad-cores such as Nvidia Tegra3 are rumored to come at 1.2Ghz so this dual-core may be 25% faster for some things that are not too parallel and perhaps about 20% slower on other more parallel processed things)
– Optional unlocked $49 3G Dongle slides in the back
– Built-in kick-stand
– HDMI-out (1080p All Codecs High Profile High Bitrates) with most powerful Video/Audio/Photo apps on any device with automatic meta-data and Upnp/Samba streaming support
– 2x USB Host (one is dedicated for 3G Dongle)
– Honeycomb 3.2 with official Google Marketplace pre-installed
– Most importantly, starts at $279 for 8″, $349 for 10.1″, there will be all kinds of options though, 16GB Flash or 250GB hard drive (the 250GB version is likely around $100 more than the 16GB flash version, to be confirmed) don’t worry about hard drive speed/failures, all the Android OS and apps are on 4GB Flash based ROM cache so the OS feels 100% as fast as on a Flash based tablet, the HDD only spins up when loading big video files into memory while you probably are not likely to be running around with it anyway.
This is my first video showing how those tablets are. Look forward to many more videos that I will post about the Archos G9 if I can get some review samples at one point in the next few weeks until and after they are released in September worldwide.
I would have liked to see them do 5″ and 7″ G9 tablets as well to be more pocketable (pants 5″ or jacket 7″ pockets), but for now, Archos has nothing to announce regarding more sizes for the G9 series, it’s open to speculation, my speculation is that it may be the reason for them to have to wait for Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich to come and support more screen sizes officially and also it may be a question of production capacity and limiting the amount of skews they release.
Freescale launches the new altimeter MPL3115A2. This device uses a piezoresistive bridge as its sensor element. It also includes a dedicated ASIC which performs ADC conversions, oversampling, trim compensation, data path calculations and I2C port control. What this means is that your next smartphone can detect on which floor you are in a building, it can detect the altitude of your smartphone in theory to as small a distance as 3cm (they guarantee 30cm because of potential interference and uncertainties). IT can also do barometric weather forecast and measure the ambient temperature. When you combine this new sensor with all the other sensors in a device such as accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer you can get a complete inertial navigation system which helps you to have a more accurate positioning for indoor and outdoor navigation.
Connect a new blood glucose meter, blood pressure monitor, weight scale, digital thermometer, spirometers and other devices to sensors in your bed, on your arm and to your smartphone, tablets etc to monitor your health and help improve lifestyles and prevent disease. Freescale presents a whole range of new technologies to lower the cost of those healthcare devices so everyone can afford to have them at home and want to use them regularly as the data being wirelessly transfered and visualized online makes it easier and very useful for everyone to live a healthy lifestyle, eat good food, sleep well and do enough exercise.
Freescale is expanding their line of processors that are customized for e-reader type of applications with the i.MX502, i.MX503, i.MX507 and i.MX508 processors. Compared with i.MX51/53, i.MX50 is built to lack GPU for 3D acceleration (unnecessary on e-readers) but they can do 2D and have the option (i.MX503 and i.MX508) to hardware accelerate vector graphics through the OpenVG accelerator. This series is the first processor on the market to combine ARM Cortex-A8 with an EPD controller. Those are in different configurations to be used for e-ink (i.MX508 with OpenVG and i.MX507 without) or LCD e-readers (i.MX503 with OpenVG and i.MX502 without). Read the full press release here. Find more info at freescale.com
The Kinnetis K50 has integrated operational amplifiers and transimpedance amplifiers, allows to reduce the PCB size and thus cost of healthcare sensor products. Expect to see many Healthcare oriented products arrive on the market using this Cortex-M4 processor. You can find more information at http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=K50
They have Android running on the Freescale i.MX53, but it’s running virtualized using a separation micro-kernel they call COQOS offering the real-time features that are required in a car running the industry-standard AUTOSAR software also at the same time, thus this solution is fully secure. You can find more information at http://www.opensynergy.com/en/Products/COQOS
This new type of wheel includes two motors controlled by Freescale procecssors, one to accelerate the car and to have regenerative breaking, and the second is the manage the suspension and the control of the chassis. This could be transformational for cars, no more engine could be needed under the hood, no more traditional suspension system, and no more gearbox or transmission as all the essential components have been integrated into the wheel itself. The Active Wheel System could outperform Ferrari and Porsche in a straight line when it comes to braking. While a typical high performance supercar takes about six seconds to come to a complete halt from 100km/h, the Michelin concept does it in a mere 2.8 seconds at up to 1G. Find more information: motorauthority.com and gizmag.com
This is the 77Ghz chipset demonstrating Freescale’s for Automotive Radar Millimeter-Wave Technology, this is a demo of a radar for cars to see through the dark, through rain, through any weather. Find more information at http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/overview.jsp?code=AUTRMWT
Freescale Xtrinsic radar chipsets are the most advanced SiGe technology on the market, consisting of a transmitter and a multi-channel receiver with an integrated phase-locked loop (PLL). Freescale’s 77 GHz technology allows a device to switch between long- and short-range functionality simply by issuing a serial peripheral interface (SPI) command. This enables the same radar module to be used for multiple safety systems, such as adaptive cruise control, headway alert, collision warning and mitigation. Long-range radar, used for adaptive cruise control and lane departure warnings, has long and narrow coverage directly in front and back of the car. Short-range radar, ideal for blind spot detection, pre-crash and stop-and-go applications, monitors the car’s immediate surroundings with a wide spatial view that covers shorter distances.
