Becky Worley is a tech pundit on Tech News Today
Category: OS
Becky Worley films a Logitech Revue Google TV demonstration
Posted by – October 7, 2010
Category: Set-top-boxes, Android
newgadgets.de: Hanvon Android tablet at Frankfurt Book Fair
Here’s a new Marvell powered Android 1.6 tablet design presented by Hanvon at the Frankfurt Book Fair:
This video was released at: newgadgets.de
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Huawei Ascend is a $150 contract-free Android smartphone
Posted by – October 6, 2010
Category: Smartphones, Android
Nice to see the low cost Android phones reaching pre-paid providers in the USA and around the world. Huawei is delivering this Android 2.2 compatible 3.5″ capacitive Android smartphone to US based pre-paid carrier Cricket. It’s contract-free but it’s probably still locked to only work on Cricket’s network.
This video was released at: engadget.com
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Google TV is launching today
Posted by – October 6, 2010
Category: Set-top-boxes, Google TV
- Image via CrunchBase
Google TV is being launched based on Intel CE4100, Logitech has an event later today. I can’t wait to see reports from it. Sony has their event unveiling their Google TV devices on October 12th, that will be fun too.
Google product manager on Google TV, Rishi Chandra said following:
We do believe that this is the similar transformation that happened with the phone, with the introduction of the Smartphone, now it’s going to happen with the TV, this is the introduction of the Smart TV.
Watch ABC News report over at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMBv5uLvvlA
Look forward to Logitech’s Google TV products to be unveiled later today. Logitech plans to sell at least half a million units in the next three months. Of course, obviously, I can’t wait for Google TV to be compatible with ARM Cortex A9 processors that have full 1080p 60fps support and HDMI pass-through overlay graphics support as well.
I believe Google TV is very important because it is the software that finally makes it possible to easily bring on-demand web video and features into the living room of not just HTPC/mediastreamer geeks but for everyone. People’s 5 hours daily TV watching is going to be disrupted for the better.
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Samsung sells 5 million Galaxy S smartphones in 4 months, on its way to overtake Apple
Posted by – October 5, 2010
- Image by liewcf via Flickr
Samsung already sold 5 million Galaxy S Android smart phones since its June 1st release. Only 4 months since Galaxy S release, and with the imminent release of cheaper Android smartphones such as the Samsung Intercept, the daily rate at which Samsung is selling Android phones may soon overtake Apple’s iPhone. I believe it could be possible that Samsung will be selling more Android smartphones per day than Apple will be selling of iPhones by the end of this year.
One month ago, Samsung’s official smartphone sales target is 25 million units for this year. Apple sold 25.1 million iphones in 2009.
This also means that Samsung has been pretty good at managing its initial manufacturing of the very amazing 4″ Super AMOLED screens in the lead up to the launch of its larger Super AMOLED factory by July of next year. At which point Super AMOLED will be made available to more smartphone manufacturers, maybe outputting as much as 30 million Super AMOLED screens per month.
Samsung Mobile Display plans to spend 2.5 trillion South Korean won (US$2.1 billion) to set up the next-generation production facility. The plant, situated in Tang Jung in the southern part of Seoul, primarily will be used to manufacture three-inch panels used for mobile phones.
Source: koreanewswire.co.kr, reuters.com and online.wsj.com
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The real Skype app arrives for Android worldwide
Posted by – October 5, 2010
It works on 3G and WiFi worldwide except in the USA (for some telco policy reasons, in the USA, it only works on 3G with Verizon).
Even though Skype is a proprietary VOIP platform, this is a big deal. It working smoothly on 3G as well as WiFi means this can help popularize VOIP on Android devices. Sure, Skype kind of worked with Truphone, Nimbuzz, Fring on Android previously, but Skype did sometimes block those third party apps from accessing its proprietary network. And sure there are open SIP based apps for Android like Sipdroid. Anyways, this is cool and awesome. I’m looking forward for Google Voice to be released internationally as well. More VOIP on Android may bring about cheaper Android devices that don’t even come with voice/sms packages anymore but which can do everything on Data networks only, and not even with compulsory 2-year subscription plans. You can download it to your Android device at http://skype.com/m/ or in the Google Marketplace.
Source: blogs.skype.com
Found via: engadget.com
OLPC receives $5.6 Million grant from Marvell to develop XO-3 Tablet for education
Marvell is giving $5.6 Million to OLPC to fund the development of the XO-3 Tablet, with bendable plastic Pixel Qi screen and education-centric customized software, that finalized XO-3 will be ready by 2012 for distribution to schools at a target $75 bill of materials and manufacturing each. OLPC and Marvell will have an early demonstration tablet prototype running Android to show in January at the next CES.
I think that they should definitely go for customizing Android for education. Maybe add Sugar apps support on top of Android OS as a second app platform. I wonder if 7″ or 10.1″ Pixel Qi will be used, or both. For productivity, I think it should support both touch screen and some cheap $2 USB keyboards/mouse and a kick-stand.
Source: xconomy.com
Archos $99-$149 MiniTablet platform videoed
Posted by – October 1, 2010
In this video, I try to show you the quality and to demonstrate the value of the Archos 32 Internet Tablet with Android. It’s the 3.2″ $149 8GB big brother of Archos 28 Internet Tablet which is to be sold below $99 with 4GB of storage and a slightly smaller 2.8″ screen, of about the same size as the HTC Tatoo, Sony Ericsson X10 Mini, Acer beTouch 110/120/130. This video shows how the experience is on such WQVGA resolution small screen Android device.
What do you think about this Archos Android WiFi-connected PMP, at 2.3x cheaper than the iPod Touch? Don’t you think it will be a no brainer for mass market consumers, if given the choice in stores, that they will choose this type of Android alternative to the iPod Touch?
Archos 43 Internet Tablet compared to Archos 5 Internet Tablet
Posted by – October 1, 2010
An overview of the difference in screen size, touch screen quality, web browsing speed. More on video playback support including a test on streaming video over Samba file sharing.
Archos 43 Internet Tablet Reviewed
Posted by – September 28, 2010
It packs everything you can think of into 130 grams, with 4.3″ highly responsive touch screen, $199 price point for 16GB, no monthly subscription fees required (makes it much cheaper but similar in performance to Droid X), it can access 3G on Mifi or using Bluetooth tethering. In this video I demonstrate awesome HDMI output to browse the Internet on your HDTV, to play amazing 3D video games using the accelerometer or perhaps using bluetooth gamepad controllers too, and of course, to playback HD quality videos.
My unboxing of Archos 43 and 32 Internet Tablets
This is my unboxing video of the Generation 8 Archos Android tablets:
Archos 43 Internet Tablet (16GB) for sale soon for $199 in the USA and 199€ in Europe. (yes A43 is confirmed to be $199/199€ for 16GB Capacity). The Archos 43 Internet Tablet basically offers the same Android experience on a large yet very pocketable 4.3″ touch screen as on a Droid X using the same Texas Instruments OMAP3630 ARM Cortex A8 45nm 1ghz processor but for $199 all inclusive (no $599 unlocked pricing or $2000 with 2-year contracts), no monthly subscriptions required, though for 3G access and VOIP you need to use a Mifi or Bluetooth tethering. It comes with HDMI output and full video and audio codecs support up to MKV 720p high profile and high bitrate support (which I will test in my upcoming next videos).
Archos 32 Internet Tablet (8GB) for sale now on Amazon.com for $144 in the USA and 158€ on Amazon.de in Europe. This MiniTablet range by Archos offers basically a similar experience to the iPod Touch but for an amazing price starting at $99 for the Archos 28 to $149 for the Archos 32 which thus has slightly larger screen, a VGA camera and Composite tv-out.
In this video, I unbox them and boot them up for the first time:
Consider European prices include ~20% VAT taxes which is why the EU price of any consumer electronics devices is always higher than US prices which don’t include taxes.
You can discuss this video in my other forum: http://forum.archosfans.com/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=37752
netbooknews.com: Nvidia explains Tegra 2 tablets delay
CEO of Nvidia, Jen-Hsun Huang, recently said at their GPU technology conference that some of the reason for Tegra 2 tablets delay has been the OS and software integration (my guess: possibly something to do with optimizing existing Android source code for Nvidia’s ARM Cortex A9), that several companies have needed to collaborate to reach “Windows 95” level in terms of software integration, once the investment has been made to realize the horizhontal infrastructure behind these upcoming tablet, it will allow for the fast innovation curve that’s about to arrive when hundreds of companies can innovate faster in the tablet market. He hopes the Tegra 2 tablets will arrive to market by the end of the year, they are in the “home stretch”.
This video was released at: netbooknews.com
Sharp announces 5.5″ and 10.8″ Android Tablets as e-readers
Sharp previously released the Interesting PC-Z1 mini Ubuntu laptop, the PC-T1 same Ubuntu but in Tablet form factor and the IS01 Android form factor, all mainly released only on the Japanese market. Now Sharp is announcing their custom high pixel density screens on their new 5.5″ 1,024×600 and 10.8″ 1,366×800 Android tablets which they position as e-books. It seems to me though that no matter what back lit LCD resolution is used, a tablet cannot really be used for reading text for hours at a time such as e-books as people do comfortably using e-ink. Sharp should I think manufacture Pixel Qi Screens with a back light switch providing fully reflected e-reading experience if they really want to call those e-readers.
Source: sharp-world.com
Found via: crunchgear.com
Archos CEO keynote video presenting its Generation 8 series of Android Tablets in Beijing China
I’ve said it before, I am an Archos fanboy, and I am really looking forward to their 5 new tablets coming out on the worldwide market during these next few weeks. I briefly filmed those tablets at IFA, see my videos of the 101, 70, 28, 32 and 43 tablets. Here is the full keynote video of Archos CEO Henri Crohas, showing the Gen8 Archos Android Tablets a couple of weeks ago in Beijing China:
$299 ARM Cortex A8 45nm 1ghz omap3630 10.1″ WSVGA capacitive Android 2.2 tablet 8GB. $349 for 16GB version
$275 ARM Cortex A8 45nm 1ghz omap3630 7″ WVGA capacitive Android 2.2 tablet 16GB, $349 for 250GB version
$199 ARM Cortex A8 45nm 1ghz omap3630 4.3″ FWVGA resistive Android 2.2 tablet 16GB
$149 ARM Cortex A8 45nm 800mhz omap3630 3.2″ WQVGA resistive Android 2.2 tablet 8GB
$99 ARM Cortex A8 45nm 800mhz omap3630 2.8″ QVGA resistive Android 2.2 tablet 4GB, $119 for 8GB version
I think those new Archos Android tablets are very good value for money. Google Marketplace can very likely be installed on all of them as the previous Archos 5 Internet Tablet with Android which was released October 2009, got the Google Marketplace on it through a solution released since November 2009 in the http://forum.archosfans.com
No matter what Google or anyone else says, Android 2.2 is great for tablets, most of the apps from the Google Marketplace, probably 99% of them will work just fine on the Archos series of Tablets, apps requiring a back-facing camera, GPS/Compass, 3G or hardware buttons are a minority. Archos can playback most video formats, including h264 MKV high profile at up to 720p with high bitrates (to be tested and confirmed if that reprensents more than 90% of all 720p movies currently traded on p2p networks).
Archos also released this animation illustrating their advantages in hardware design over the iPad:
This keynote presentation is available as a slideshow with prompter subtitles at: http://www.archos.com/_pres_hc.html Here are a couple of some of the best slides:
Orange brings £99 Android phone to the UK for pre-paid plans
Posted by – September 22, 2010
Category: Smartphones, Android
After the 2.8″ Vodafone 845, the UK is getting yet another low-cost Android phone, this time it’s the San Francisco from Orange UK, sold for £99 (= $153, consider the UK has a 20% VAT tax that is not paid for such products when sold in the USA), at this affordable price on a month-to-month pre-paid usage plan. It might actually have a 3.5″ capacitive WVGA 800×480 touch screen, but maybe a low cost one. It comes with the Google Marketplace, which probably means it has all the Bluetooth, WiFi, Compass, A-GPS, back-facing camera, accelerometer and all the other features required for Google Marketplace to come pre-installed. As more and more of these low cost Android phones become available, such as also the Kyocera Zio M6000, no more 2-year $2000 contracts are going to be required to buy cheap Android smart phones! I expect Android’s market share will increase even faster once these low cost pre-paid Android phones start to become available everywhere.
Update: It appears that this phone is based on the ZTE Blade design. Source, specs sheet (Thanks, Cesar Cardoso). Update 2: a comment is saying it has a Qualcomm MSM7227 ARM11 45nm 600mhz processor (same as these phones, same as HTC Legend and Sony Ericsson X10 Mini among others, same SoC as in the Foxconn 7″ Android tablet reference design that I filmed here and here) with the AMD z430 GPU, same GPU as in the Nexus One/HTC Desire. The screen might actually be 3.5″ Capacitive WVGA AMOLED type! (thanks, Hackingthelacking)
Found via: androidguys.com
laptopmag.com: HP’s $399 Android Tablet includes a printer
HP is releasing this Freescale i.MX51 Powered $399 Android 2.2 Tablet which includes a “full function” color printer, with scanner and WiFi internet connection. The Android OS has been customized by HP to include only apps for printing stuff, the idea being that you can carry around this Android tablet and launch a bunch of prints wirelessly and dock it to your printer for charging. This may be the first Yahoo customized Android device, it doesn’t include Google apps/email/maps/marketplace but uses exclusively Yahoo apps and widgets.
netbooknews.com: Nufront’s ARM Cortex-A9 development box, can run up to 2Ghz Dual-core
In parallel with the Intel Developer Forum, just next to Intel’s event, some competitors are showing such nice things as this ARM Cortex A9 processor design and implementation by Chinese manufacturer Nufront, they say that final products with this could be on the market below $250 before Christmas with power consumption below 2W for the whole system. They plan this solution for low cost and low power Netbook and Desktop style products.
This video was released at: http://www.netbooknews.com/9048/nufront-readies-2-0ghz-dual-core-arm-cortex-a9-processor/
Samsung Galaxy Tab is 799€ (unlocked), 1359€ with 2-year 5GB/month service contract
Posted by – September 11, 2010
I asked T-Mobile and Vodafone at IFA 2010 in Berlin, they both confirmed that their retail price for the Samsung Galaxy Tab when bought without the 2-year 40€/month contract, is going to be 799€. Thus the price is 1359€ with 2-years of 5GB/month contracts at 40€/month including the 200-300€ purchase price for the device. 5GB/month can otherwise also be had for 15€/month in Germany without contracts using Aldi and 20€/month without contract with Tchibo SIM cards.
So by signing up for a 2-year contract for a Samsung Galaxy Tab, the actual cost for the device is higher at 1000€ since 15€ x 24 months only amounts to 360€ and that the 15€/month for 5GB/month with Aldi can actually be stopped at any time as it does not have to be on a contract.
My point? The Samsung Galaxy Tab is really expensive. Samsung really sees an opportunity to make a lot of money for themselves and for their carrier partners by selling this device to as many people as possible. The high price of the iPad and the Samsung Galaxy Tab I think are great opportunities for other players to provide lower cost tablet alternatives to the market.
Google TV at IFA 2010
Posted by – September 8, 2010
Google TV is going to change the way people watch TV. I am very much looking forward to testing the Logitech Revue and Sony Google TV solutions, even though they get released in the USA first, my guess for $300 or more it may even require subscribing to cable/satellite TV content packages.
Once Google TV is released open source, I think we could see ARM Powered Google TV alternatives also come to the market, with the whole HDMI throughput and IR blaster features being optional and eventually not even the most used option.
Google TV is best with content partnerships in place, if Google can access all the program guide informations it can provide better search of what is on TV. And the amazing feature of Google actually storing the DVR recordings on the cloud and streaming those from there, also completely disrupts the whole DVR business, fantastic.
But I also think Google TV does not need content deals to function just fine. It works on top of existing TV, no matter if the current TV channel owners and distributors agree for it to be there or not. HDMI input and output can’t be blocked. Google should go ahead and release Google TV to all countries of the world, and they should the open specifications and source code to the world, and release this solution to all set-top-box and HDTV makers. This will instantly make obsolete all the previous solutions by Philips NetTV, Samsung, LG SmartTV, Panasonic VieraCast. They will all see it in their interest to use Google TV protocol of features instead. I like the idea of Google TV on a set-top-box to work on any existing HDTV, I wonder if HDTVs with built-in Google TV could eventually come with a Google TV module that could be upgraded in the future if newer Google TV hardware appears at cheaper price than buying a new set-top-box.
Smit to use Telechips in Android tablets and set-top-boxes
Smit has previously presented Samsung ARM11 powered Android tablets, now they plan to release Telechips based ones with Android 2.1 support. In the coming weeks they will also be working on the next generation ARM Cortex A8 processor from Telechips as development boards are being made available. I previously posted the web’s most popular Smit Android tablet videos: Smit MID-560 at IFA 2009, Smit MID-560 at CES 2010
