Hasta La Gadget!

Yes, a little more news from Pioneer today, perhaps the biggest for those not looking for a new head unit. It’s the SmartCradle, which accepts an iPhone and offers integrated GPS, ala the Magellan GPS Car Kit. It also has a built-in amplified speaker and microphone for hands-free calling and, thankfully, has charging built-in to keep you from running out of juice half-way to Topkea. No word on a price yet, sadly, nor a release date, but good things come to those who wait.

Pioneer wants to hold your iPhone and boost its GPS signal in its SmartCradle originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 04:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

At CES, NEC’s showing off the hinged Android tablet it teased last month, pitching it as a great way for third parties to… well, do awesome stuff. They’re kind of leaving the doors wide open as to how (or to whom) it’ll be sold, suggesting it could make a great e-reader, a digital notebook for students, a scrapbook, or whatever devs dream up. The “Cloud” part of the “Cloud Communicator” name means that NEC thinks the LT-W would be great for generic cloud services, but really, it’s just an Android 2.1 tablet with WiFi, Bluetooth, and optional 3G — there’s nothing special in here that makes it particularly well-adapted for magically pulling data out of the cloud.

Unfortunately — cloud or otherwise — we didn’t come away with a very positive impression of this thing. Our very first red flag was the stylus, which matches up with a pair of 800 x 600 resistive touchscreens that don’t seem particularly bright or contrasty. Some of NEC’s sample apps (which you can see in the video after the break) make decent use of the dual display setup, but nothing blew us away — and more importantly, everything seemed just a little too jerky for a Cortex-A8 core. If NEC were to remix this with a Tegra 2, two capacitive touchscreens, and Honeycomb, we might be singing a different tune… but for now, this seems like little more than a Courier gone wrong.

Continue reading NEC dual-screen Android Cloud Communicator LT-W hands-on

NEC dual-screen Android Cloud Communicator LT-W hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 04:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Facevision announces a new Skype-certified HD Webcam that carries a friendlier price tag than its previous version, at just around $70.

Originally posted at CES 2011

This article was written on April 23, 2008 by CyberNet.

We already know that Steve Jobs is on the verge of being a control freak, so the news coming from Forbes today that Apple has agreed to purchase a microprocessor design company makes sense. The company is P.A. Semi, and it’s rumored that Apple is willing to spend $278 million dollars in cash to acquire them. So what would Apple want with a microprocessor design company? Well considering they’re known for their sophisticated, low-power chips, Apple could use their chips for use in future iPhones or iPods.

Apple confirmed that they had in fact purchased the company but wouldn’t go into any details of what they plan to do with them. Apple spokesman Steve Dowling was quoted as saying, “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not comment on our purposes and plans.” With a microprocessor design company in-house, Apple has more control over over the hardware that goes into their devices and ultimately, it could save the some money and give them the opportunity to include the best possible processor with iPhones or iPods.

This buy probably didn’t make Intel or ARM to happy because Apple uses Intel for their Mac computers and ARM currently for the iPhone. The fact that Apple acquired P.A. Semi is pretty big for the company of 150 employees. Regarding the history between the two companies, Gizmodo says:

Historically, P.A. Semi was trying to be the chip provider for Macs around the time they chose to go for Intel, and it is reported that Dobberpuhl was furious when they went x86, thinking the Intel talks were just a bargaining chip. Some think that P.A. Semi lost its chance to be a brand name like AMD or Intel, but clearly, being under the brand name of Apple isn’t half bad.

P.A. Semi says that their chips are “300% more efficient than any comparable chips,” so they just might be a great buy for Apple.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

Apple in Talks to Acquire IntelApple Computer Market Share Progress ReportMore SlashDot Redesigns — This Round Is Much BetterBig Cash Piles in the Tech IndustryYahoo Acquires del.icio.us