As Kent and Bonnie enjoy their last few days in Barcelona, Nicole invites Tom Merritt from Buzz Out Loud and Donald Bell from MP3 Insider to join her in a discussion of what happened at Mobile World Congress 2010. It turns out, quite a bit. We go over Windows Phone …
Originally posted at Dialed In
Garmin-Asus showed off its first Google Android device, the Nuvifone A50, at Mobile World Congress 2010, and it doesn’t look half bad. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13970_7-10454892-78.html” class=”origPostedBlog”3GSM blog/a/p
The concept device works by mimicking the natural push-off of a human ankle, using a microprocessor to control the device and capture the energy normally dissipated by the leg.
What, you didn’t think Microsoft would really keep up with the non-parallel syntax of “Windows Phone 7 Series” and “Windows Mobile 6.x,” did you? We knew Windows Mobile 6.5.3 would continue its admittedly less chic existence, but now comes word via I Started Something that it’ll be rebranded as Windows Phone Classic. The name change apparently won’t take effect until the 7 Series devices start hitting consumer hands — can’t have a classic without something newer to take its place, right? No worries, Sense UI fans, it looks like you’ll still have plenty of WinMo support, even if that portmanteau goes the way of the dinosaur.
Windows Mobile 6.5 to be redubbed Windows Phone Classic? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 19:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink 
jkOnTheRun | 
I Started Something | Email this | Comments
Samsung’s sliding, handwriting-recognizing SNE-60K e-reader hits South Korea originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
BlackBerry addicts won’t have to wait much longer to get a true browsing experience through their smartphones.
A new BlackBerry browser based on the Webkit layout engine is on its way and it will be extremely “network efficient,” Research In Motion co-CEO Mike Lazaridis told attendees at the Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona Tuesday. What RIM did not mention is that Webkit layout engine is also used by the iPhone, Android and Symbian mobile operating systems.
“It’s going to be well worth the wait,” says Lazaridis.
The emphasis on network efficiency an interesting spin by a company whose cellphone browser is one of its weakest points. Unlike the iPhone, the Motorola Droid or any other smartphone today, the BlackBerry does not display web pages just the way your PC would. Instead, Blackberry users have to contend with a stripped-down, mobile version of a web page that is decidedly 1990s in its look. In what was seen as an attempt to solve the problem, last year RIM acquired Torch Mobile, which makes the Webkit-based Iris browser.
During his keynote, Lazaridis offered a quick glimpse into what the new browser could look like on the BlackBerry.
A better browser could put RIM on a stronger footing against rivals, writes Shaw Wu, an analyst at Kaufman Bros. in a research note to his company’s clients.
“Its current web browser is arguably the weakest part of the BlackBerry experience so a new version that will close the gap between Apple’s Safari, Palm’s WebOS browser and Google’s Chrome would be welcome,” says Wu. “We can’t help but wonder how many more units RIM could sell with a quality browse.” RIM sold 10.1 million BlackBerries last quarter compared to Apple’s 8.7 million iPhones.
Lazaridis did not mention when RIM plans to release its new browser. But RIM could make it available as a public beta for its developers in April at the WES 2010 conference, says Wu.
“We believe this makes sense in helping work out kinks and bugs with such an important software release,” he says.
BlackBerrys are also better than other smartphones–for carriers that is–says Lazaridis. A BlackBerry is more efficient, consumes less bandwidth than competing smartphones and scales better than on telecom carrier networks, he says.
“Network operators can support three BlackBerry browsing sessions for every one other smart phone browsing session,” says Lazaridis.
Lazaridis’ comments were meant to highlight what some industry experts see as a possible bandwidth crisis facing the cellphone industry. Based on current data consumption patterns, operators are likely to find their available spectrum completely consumed in the next three to five years, according to analyst Peter Rysavy.
See Also:
Photo: iPhone vs BlackBerry (Andy Mihail/Flickr)
We’re not entirely sure what’s going on here, but that’s a shot of a Droid Eris running Android 2.1, and we’re told the update came over the air — a story seemingly corroborated by a couple other people around the web. Unfortunately, it seems like things aren’t quite fully baked yet: the update doesn’t include Sense UI, and it apparently wipes all your data and doesn’t allow you to log back into your Google Account. Verizon tells us that the Eris update to a “newer” Android is still in testing and hasn’t yet been officially released, so we’re taking all this to mean that there’s been a slip-up along the line — especially since this obviously isn’t final software. In the meantime, we’d say Droid Eris users should probably back up their sets just to be safe.
[Thanks, Vido]
Some Droid Eris owners getting Android 2.1 update? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Android Forums, Droid Life | Email this | Comments
Adobe’s been getting a lot of flack recently after Steve Jobs reportedly called the software company lazy during an employee meeting (according to a second-hand account first reported by Wired.com) because of its slow progress with improving Flash. Adobe’s CTO Kevin Lynch defended the Flash platform in the video interview above with Wall Street Journal writer Kara Swisher.
Flash lit up as a controversial topic recently after Apple’s tablet demonstration revealed the iPad would not support the Flash plug-in, just like the iPhone doesn’t. Many websites use the Flash platform to stream video or display animations, so the lack of Flash results in missing out on a chunk of the internet on the iPhone and, soon, the upcoming iPad.
Flash opponents, however, have sided with Apple for leaving out Flash, citing rumors that Flash is the biggest source of browser crashes in Mac OS X. Also, they argue that Apple can continue to ignore Flash if more web developers create alternatives to viewing content via a native iPhone app or an HTML5-based website — which many, including YouTube, are doing.
Lynch’s 8-minute interview can be summed up as such (paraphrased): We’re not lazy; we’re actually quite busy. And we’ve been working hard to improve the platform for Macs and smartphones, and we’ll continue to do so.
Say what you will about Flash, but that’s a better response than pulling the porn card to make a point.
See Also:
Tune your brainwaves back to October 2009, when there were whispers and dreams of a Nokia phone fitted with the fast and trendy Snapdragon processor. Now tune back to present day, where Qualcomm’s CEO Paul Jacobs has mentioned in an interview that just such a Symbian-powered device (S^3, we’d hope) is on the horizon. Better yet, it’s coming sometime in 2010. No other details, but hey, sometimes all you need is a hope and a prayer to get by.
Nokia to splice Symbian and Snapdragon this year, says Qualcomm CEO originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Apple has put the pressure on e-book readers with its forthcoming iPad tablet. But Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Sony aren’t taking it lying down. Color, touchscreens and improved black-and-white displays are some of the innovations that consumers can expect to see in electronic-reading gadgets this year.
“E-readers today are where the pre-iPod MP3 players were,” says Robert Brunner, founder of Ammunition, a design firm that worked on Barnes & Noble’s Nook. “It’s still very early and development is just beginning to ramp up.”
Since the launch of Amazon’s Kindle in 2007, e-readers have become a fast-growing category of consumer electronics products. But with the entry of the iPad, the e-reader market is at a crossroads. With its 9.7-inch color LCD screen, the iPad supports not just movies and web surfing, but also has an e-reading feature. Apple will also begin selling e-books for the iPad through its iTunes store.
But e-reader enthusiasts say that dedicated digital reading devices will continue to thrive despite competition from Apple.
Let’s take a look at five technologies that e-reader makers are betting on to keep their products relevant.
Better touchscreen and multi-touch could improve user interface in e-readers.
Touch
Touchscreens have been pivotal to the recent success of smartphones, so it is no surprise that e-reader manufacturers are looking at ways to bring the technology to their devices.
Unlike phones, e-readers are used primarily to consume content, which makes touch-based interaction a perfect fit. Flipping a page, clicking on a link or highlighting a paragraph is easier using simple touch-based gestures.
But touch on e-readers today is where it was on smartphones before the arrival of the iPhone: It’s primitive, not widely used and full of compromises. For instance, the resistive touchscreen on Sony’s e-reader does not offer the smooth, fast response that the capacitive touchscreen of an iPhone or a Motorola Droid can.
Adding a touch-sensitive upper layer to a screen also dims the display slightly, a real problem with the already low contrast ratio of E Ink screens.
“We are so used to responsive displays that if we touch something and it doesn’t react immediately, it is disappointing,” says Brunner. Nook has added touch into its secondary, 3.5-inch LCD touchscreen, instead of the larger E Ink display. Amazon hopes to take the technology to the next step.
The company recently acquired Touchco, a early-stage technology startup that could allow for a touch-capable layer to be embedded below the screen, instead of adding it on top as current touch technologies do.
E Ink is also working on its own to create touch-sensitive displays that put pressure sensors behind the display. The company hopes to have the first version ready by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, SiPix, another electronic paper display maker, is offering touchscreens that it claims are better than the resistive e-paper displays seen in devices such as the Sony Touch Reader. SiPix’s touchscreen will be available in e-book readers created by French company Bookeen.
Qualcomm's Mirasol technology promises low-power color displays.
Color
If there’s one thing that most e-reader enthusiasts want from the next generation of devices, it is color.
Sure, die-hard readers will scoff at the notion that color could enhance the experience of reading plain text, and they’d be right. But color would be key to enhancing illustrations, photos, covers and maybe even the clarity of the fonts themselves.
Display manufacturers are competing intensely to solve this problem with a variety of technologies. E Ink promises to have a color screen available by the end of the year. Qualcomm is already shopping around its 5.7-inch color display called Mirasol, which could debut in an e-reader by fall. Meanwhile, Pixel Qi, a California-based startup, is showing LCD displays that can do double duty as color screens as well as low-power, black-and-white displays.
Now that Apple iPad has paved the way, e-reader makers could also be re-evaluating the LCD as an alternative to the bistable, low-power but black-and-white E Ink display. Despite its ability to offer full color and touch, LCD screens didn’t set the e-reading market on fire because of their low battery life and the perceived issue of eyestrain.
If the iPad is successful, it won’t take long for Amazon and other ambitious companies to produce LCD-based tabletlike devices that are optimized for digital books and magazines, says Brunner.
Flexible screens will be lightweight and shatterproof.
Flexibility
E Ink is talking about flexible displays for the next generation of its screen technology.
Flexibility doesn’t mean you’ll be able to roll up the screens and stuff them in your backpack, but it is key to making readers with larger screens light enough to hold conveniently in one hand.
Instead of a layer of glass (which is at the foundation of most displays available currently) the next generation of e-readers will have lightweight screens that are based on a metal foil.
“Flexible doesn’t mean the display is floppy,” says Sri Peruvemba, vice-president of marketing for E Ink. “What flexible does mean is that it is lightweight, shatterproof and rugged.”
E Ink’s flexible displays combine a thin stainless steel foil transistor substrate with electronic-ink display material that is coated on a plastic sheet. That results in a screen that is extremely lightweight and slim, allowing for newer hardware design.
Weight is an area where E Ink can claim advantage over LCD displays. For instance, despite its glass, the 9.7-inch Kindle DX is about 27 percent lighter than the similar sized iPad: The Kindle DX weights 1.1 lbs compared to the iPad’s 1.5 lbs. With a foil-based substrate, the DX could be lighter by another 40 percent, says Peruvemba.
“When you get to a 11-inch screen size, if you put a glass substrate, you need two hands to just hold the device,” he says. “That’s why tablets haven’t taken off for reading. People want a device where they can have a free hand.”
The e-reader interface has much room for improvement.
Better Software
There’s more to a gadget than just good hardware. An elegantly designed user interface can put a gadget head and shoulders above its peers.
That’s where most e-readers have fallen short. E-reader manufacturers’ focus on hardware design means their user interfaces often feel like an afterthought.
Almost all e-readers today lack the interactive experience that could make reading digital books truly interesting, says Brunner. “If you look at the current products out there, they are they are just repurposing content from print and delivering it on a different medium without adding the value generated by that medium,” he says.
Meanwhile, Blio, e-reading software, has shown it is possible to develop an interface that could inject life into e-books. Blio is currently available for PCs, iPhone and iPod Touch. A similar interface for an e-reader could change the game.
Another way to enhance the experience may be through opening up e-readers to third-party apps, as Amazon has done with the Kindle. That could bring additional features to the devices and maybe even alternate readers with more elegant interfaces.
Better contrast in e-reader screens is high on the wish list of consumers and device makers. This photo approximates the difference between E Ink (left) and paper (right)
More Contrast
E Ink’s displays may be the current industry standard. But what they offer in clarity and readability, they lack in contrast: Their look is decidedly gray, like an Etch A Sketch.
The screens are also slow to change, sometimes taking as much as a second to switch between pages.
Fortunately for readers, the company plans to introduce new screens this year that will come with a faster response times and offer twice the contrast as existing products.
“The fundamental advantage is better contrast,” says Peruvemba. “The blacks will be blacker and the whites whiter. That’s a major request from our customers.”
See Also:
Photos: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
