Latest Gadgets, Tablets and Smartphones
Microsoft is working on its next version of tablet software. This will be Windows 8, but until now the launch/debut date has not been known. We now hear that Microsoft could unveil Windows 8 for Tablet computers as early as next week. The debut will be at the AllThingsDigital conference that will be held next week.
The specific tablet it will debut on is not known, but reports indicate it will be based on an NVIDIA Tegra Chip/
Near Field Communications (NFC) was first rumored to be arriving in the iPhone 4 last year. This of course didn’t happen. Due to a few Apple patents, these rumors were then reignited for the soon to be released iPhone 5. We now hear that this also wont be happening.
Samsung has announced a new display that measures 10.1 inches and crams 2560×1600 pixels on to the screen. The display has a DPI of 300 and comes close to the DPI of the Retina display used in the iPhone 4. The new screen will be on display on May 17-19 at the SID Display Week in the LA Convention center.
The technology used on the screen is LCD and with that pixel density of 300 DPI, it allows more clarity in small text which makes reading, browsing and over tablet based activities a little better.
Nokia is holding an event in Athens a week today. Nothing is known about the event other than being held on the 17th May at 8pm in Athens.
What we expect to hear is that Nokia will unveil or provide more details on Windows Phone smartphones.
Microsoft has announced that it is buying Skype. The deal will see Microsoft pay $8.5 billion in an all cash deal.
The acquisition will increase the accessibility of real-time video and voice communications, bringing benefits to both consumers and enterprise users and generating significant new business and revenue opportunities. The combination will extend Skype’s world-class brand and the reach of its networked platform, while enhancing Microsoft’s existing portfolio of real-time communications products and services.
When Apple launch the next version of OS X, we could see it launching via the Mac App store before being sold online or in store. By making the operating system available through the App Store, it allows those running OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard a simple way to get hold of the latest version of the OS.
Now that the white iPhone 4 has arrived, 9 months late, it’s time to take a quick look inside to see what changes have been made. We hear that the device is 0.2mm thicker than the black version and this could be to do with extra UV filtering on the front panel that Apple needed to add. (Phil Schiller doesn’t agree to that though… tweet now deleted).
Differences that have also been found are the camera and the proximity sensor which have both been modified a little. This could be for a number of reasons, but more than likely it’s the fix to what was broken on the original white iPhone 4 when it didn’t launch due to technical problems. Alternatively, it could be just different parts as the new white version has been manufactured a lot later.
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When Apple launches the MacBook Pro revision next year, we could finally be seeing a new design. Over the past few years, Apple has made few changes to the design of the MacBook Pro which would make the next version a step away from the norm. The usual route that Apple go is just providing a bit of an increase in speed/RAM and graphics. This time around, it is expected to be quite a bit more.
The part pictured below is believed to be the digitizer panel for the iPhone 5. If real, we see that it appears to be a similar design to the iPhone 4 although the bezel around the edges of the screen are actually smaller on all 4 edges. This lines up with rumours about the iPhone 5 screen being 4 inches rather than the regular 3.5 inches we have seen in all generations of the smartphone so far.
We don’t know for sure if the digitizer is real and to be honest, we don’t know how large the full part is, but we suspect it is a very similar size to the current iPhone 4 and that the extra half an inch will be gained by slimming down the bezel on the device. By doing this, Apple will be keeping competitive with the current Android devices that often have larger screens.
Over the weekend, some artwork was found within the latest Mac OS X Lion build that hints at higher resolution Retina Displays (or at least higher resolution displays) arriving in the coming year. A number of icons were found that broke the regular 512×512 size that are available in current builds. Instead, icons with a resolution of 1024×1024 were found along with a background that has a 3200×3200 resolution. At the moment, no Apple product has a resolution that high.
At the moment there is no need for icons to have a 1024×1024 pixel size which makes us, and others, believe that Apple could increase the pixel density of the iMac and perhaps even the MacBook Pro over the next year. The new sizes are probably a little too early for the rumoured iMac refresh that is just around the corner, but perhaps by this time next year we could be seeing some high density displays on the market.
Yesterday, an app was released that was able to read a file generated by iOS (and backed up to computer with iTunes), that shows where your iPhone or 3G enabled iPad has been since the day you purchased it. The file is called consolidated.db and uses cell tower information to give a guide as to where you have been.
Although there’s some obvious privacy questions here, the main questions are why this is allowed to happen, and what exactly does it track? A map of what the consolidated.db file looks like when placed on a map… program available here.
Apple will be introducing a next gen iPhone later this year. Some say it will be arriving in June, while others are expecting to see it in September. Either way, it will be more powerful and more than likely it will be a refined iPhone 4, perhaps called the iPhone 4S.
We hear today that Apple has been handing out a new prototype iPhone 4 that has been described as the 4S in that it looks identical to the iPhone 4 on the outside, but inside it carries an Apple A5 processor to speed things up.
