Latest Gadgets, Tablets and Smartphones
On Monday we mentioned that the CrunchPad suddenly dropped in the 11th hour due to the other company involved called Fusion Garage basically kicking TechCrunch out of the program. This of course was in TechCrunch’s words.
Chandra Rathkrishnan, the partner over at Fusion Garage has now said he will hold a video webcast where he is planning to share his side of the story as well as reveal the CrunchPad (this part will be behind closed doors) as he is full intended to launch it. [Read more…]
Nokia have revealed pictures of the new Symbian UI and what they are planning to make it look like. Nokia have mentioned that for next year they are releasing just one Maemo smartphone and will be spending the rest of the time concentrating on the Symbian OS.
Nokia have said that the main problem with Symbian OS isn’t the OS it’s self, but actually the UI (User Interface). What Nokia are planning to do is reduce the number of taps you need to do to get around the menus. Rather than setting up an email address with 4 taps, it will reduce to 2 screen taps. Other menu’s and features will also get enhanced in the same way, such as easy access to music, photos etc… [Read more…]
A patent has been found that was filed by Canon and provides details of a touchscreen DSLR camera. Filed back in April and approved in October this year, the patent describes a DSLR camera where you can easily manipulate the settings by touching the screen rather than the buttons.
The patent was found to be just 13 pages long. One of the first things that comes to mind with a touchscreen on a camera is that when you look through the viewfinder, your face is actually touching the screen. To prevent settings being changed by accident the system can be programmed with what eye you look through the viewfinder with and when you look through it, the parts of the screen that your face will touch have the touchscreen portion disabled. When moving away the portion of the screen then can be touched again. [Read more…]
Yesterday, Google [GOOG] introduced a new operating system called Google Chrome OS. We have heard a few things about it over the last few months, but now it has been officially displayed. The idea behind Chrome OS is that most users switch on their computer and want to go online to get email, check Facebook, browse websites, search for jobs, go shopping and perhaps play games while chatting to friends and listening to music etc… with other programs not getting as much use, if any at all. Perhaps the web browser is the most important and most used program on a computer in Google’s words.
When a computer boots up if often takes a while from hitting the power button to loading up a web browser. For this reason Google decided to get rid of all the things that slow it down and make the browser the operating system. After hitting the power button you can be online within seconds. [Read more…]
The thumb-sized Lamborghini is the perfect gift idea for a guy who works in an office. The RC Lamborghini measures just 2.75″ in length allowing it to be driven around an office desk.
Costing just $9.99, you’ll save yourself around $299990 vs buying the real thing. The remote control is capable of moving the car forwards, backwards, left and right. [Read more…]
Qualcomm have unveiled a new smartbook that will be built by Lenovo and sold by US carrier AT&T. The Smartbook will run a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and be capable of 720p HD video.
The picture above came thanks to TechTicker and although a little blurry, you can get some what of an idea of what the new smartbook will look like.
The smartbook is essentially a mini laptop that runs a chipset available for smartphones, but has a larger screen and a decent battery life. [Read more…]
A leak shows that Sony are to launch a new range of TV’s that will probably go on display at CES in 2010 in just a few weeks time. Amongst the new TV’s is a new OLED screen that is a new model from the XEL-1 that was a 3mm thick, 11 inch OLED screen launched last year. As of now it is unknown what size of screen the new OLED TV will be. I’d expect it to be a larger screen to perhaps compete with the new 15 inch LG OLED screen.
Also a new HDTV called the Sony KDL-XBR12 series has been mentioned that uses “high range advanced LED RGB” backlighting to function allowing for blacker blacks due to being able to dim certain parts of the screen individually. [Read more…]
AU Optronics Corp have created range of new TV’s and ePaper screens that were put on display today over at FPD International in Yokohama in Japan.
Included in the lineup of displays is a 65″ LED panel that measures 7.9mm thick and has High Dynamic Contrast. The panel is being touted as being eco-friendly and according to the press release, it consumes 50% less power than average. It has a contrast ratio of 2,000,000:1 and uses a pre-mixed LED Light Cell that has 256 zones of local dimming. [Read more…]
Samsung have created a new colour e-paper display that measures 10.1 inches. Right now it’s just a prototype and it has a contrast ratio of just 10:1 making it not too clear at all. The screen also only has the ability to reproduce 7% of the NTSC colours. Yes, it could be a while before it goes in to production but it is a great step in the right direction.
Samsung aim to have the colour e-paper available in about 2 years time which will be about a year after PVI create colour displays for both Kindles and Sony Readers. [Read more…]
LG and Samsung have been showing off some cool transparent OLED displays. The LG screen measures 15 inches and could work in notebooks. Samsungs screen measures just 2 inches and could potentially be used in mobile phones.
It is unclear why transparent screens are needed unless perhaps used for shining light through to project on to a larger screen, but even if they have no purpose they still look rather good.
Instead of using the back section of the screen that prevents transparency, this has instead been removed. Each has a transparency of 30%. For the LG screen it is unknown what the resolution is, but the smaller Samsung screen can show 176 x 220 pixels. [Read more…]
Boy Genius Report managed to get to spend some time with the unannounced and unreleased version of Android 2.0. The report has a lot of images covering a number of aspects of the new operating system. Some of the major changes include a native Facebook application, native Exchange support, upgrade to Google Maps, browser improvements, contacts tweaked and a whole new UI. BGR described the new OS as making Android a very viable and interesting operating system.
The whole system looks to be quite amazing from what I see in the screen shots. There are many features that can be fine tuned such as selecting if you want a system backup for the device, or “shake to refresh” active on Facebook to name just 2 of the great amount. [Read more…]
Recently the Dell Adamo XPS ultra-thin laptop was shown at an event. At the time there were only a couple of photos captured by those in attendance and due to the very brief showing, there were no more details provided.
We have now come across some official pictures of the Adamo XPS laptop that show a little bit more detail of how it actually fits together. It looks stunning!
The Dell Adamo XPS measures just under 10mm thick making it thinner than the macbook air. To achieve the super thinness the Adamo uses a very unique hinge which leaves a part of the main system behind the hinge (as seen below). [Read more…]
