Hasta La Gadget!

Being Mobile World Congress, quite a few software vendors found themselves tucked into corners of bigger booths, eager and willing to showcase their latest work. Ittiam is one of those companies, relying on Texas Instruments’ OMAP 4 platform to power its new HD video conferencing system. The demo shown here at MWC involved a foursome of TI development boxes, but the underlying platform was most certainly Android 2.2. Anil Kumar, the manager of Ittiam’s video communications division, noted that the system would work just fine on Gingerbread and Honeycomb, enabling up to four devices (smartphones, tablets, whatever) to link up and enjoy a multi-faced call over a standard 3G network.

Of course, the demonstration that we were shown used an Ethernet network for maximum stability, but the low-bitrate technology would allow bearable results on 3G networks (and better-than-average results on a 4G network). We were told that the company is in talks with “numerous” phone makers, in hopes of getting their VCS software integrated onto Android devices by the year’s end — think Qik, but for video conferencing — but he couldn’t hand out any specifics. Head on past the jump if you’d like to see a demo (and hear an awful lot more).

Continue reading Ittiam shows off four-way 720p HD video conferencing using Android, OMAP 4 (video)

Ittiam shows off four-way 720p HD video conferencing using Android, OMAP 4 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 20:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There may not be a native LTE network live in Barcelona yet, but that didn’t stop Big Red from hauling a 700MHz demonstration to Spain for the purposes of gloating at Mobile World Congress. We heard just days ago that the LG Revolution would be one of the first phones to support voice over LTE (VoLTE) on Verizon, and today we were given quite a bit of extra information about the rollout. For starters, Verizon’s hoping that other carriers adopt their VoLTE platform, even going so far as to encourage it. It’s sort of comical to hear the company that once crippled Bluetooth on dumbphones and still makes you buy a month of data just to activate a tablet talk about “openness” when it comes to communications, but we suppose the tables are turned somewhat when it’s VZW that stands to gain. At any rate, VoLTE essentially acts as a VoIP lane, giving a specific amount of bandwidth to the call (which ensures call quality, unlike Skype, which is at the mercy of shared applications that are using the same bandwidth) and also enabling the phone to use data whilst the call it ongoing.

The Revolution, which is slated to launch in March, will eventually gain VoLTE support, though VZW’s not expecting the feature to go live in America until next year. Bilal Wahid, Verizon Wireless’ Associate Director of Product Development, told us that at least initially, you may see VoLTE voice and videocalling available on Android smartphones, but there’s no reason that the same apps couldn’t be developed for other platforms. The call quality was on par with some of the high-bandwidth VoIP calls we’ve encountered, and the videocalling was particularly impressive. The resolution was tremendous, and there was essentially no lag whatsoever. Of course, this all happened over a locked, modular LTE network, so results will almost certainly vary out in the real world; regardless, it’s a beautiful start, and it certainly makes the wait to 2012 that much more difficult. Hop on past the break for a demonstration as well as a lengthy explanation of the technology, where it’s going, and when it’ll be implemented.

Continue reading Verizon VoLTE voice and video call demo at MWC 2011 (video)

Verizon VoLTE voice and video call demo at MWC 2011 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 11:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well, well — what have we here? That up above is LG’s Revolution, a Snapdragon-powered Android superphone. What’s inside is no normal Snapdragon, though. It’s actually a newfangled chip that isn’t shipping to consumers just yet, which includes DRM libraries at a hardware level that serve to satisfy paranoid movie execs. The good news is that Qualcomm has actually whipped up a solution that’ll finally bring Watch Instantly to Android; the bad news is that existing smartphones — even existing Snapdragon devices — will not be able to utilize the app. Without new hardware, the Android version of the Netflix app simply won’t function, and no one at Qualcomm was willing to tell us when these Netflix-friendly Snapdragon chips would begin to ship out.

Whenever that fateful day arrives, though, Snapdragon devices with HDMI sockets will be able to beam that content right to their HDTV — the company’s hardware is HDCP-approved, so there’s no sweat when it comes to watching content on the big screen. On-site representatives made clear that both the phone and the app were for demonstration purposes only, but we’d be shocked if LG’s handset shipped without this compatibility. The demo we saw was smooth as butter, and the app itself looked glorious on the Revolution’s 4.3-inch touchscreen. See for yourself in the video just past the break.

Continue reading Android-powered LG Revolution caught streaming Netflix at MWC (video)

Android-powered LG Revolution caught streaming Netflix at MWC (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 07:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Imagine a retro-styled, Micro Four Thirds-sized compact camera with an optical viewfinder. Now, imagine that same camera having a switch that throws all sorts of useful data into your line of sight. That camera is Fujifilm’s Finepix X100, and that viewfinder is real. Back at Photokina, the mockup we ran into didn’t have a functioning viewfinder, but with just two months until the $1,000 beaut is released into the wilds of America, it’s not too shocking that our brethren over at Engadget Spanish managed to come across a (mostly) functional one at CES last week. Eager to show the world exactly what a hybrid viewfinder looks like when being flipped on and off, they shoved a camera up against the OVF and toggled the new mechanism — it’s downright luscious, and it’s waiting for you in the video just past the break.

Continue reading Fujifilm’s X100 hybrid viewfinder demoed on video, gets us all sorts of excited

Fujifilm’s X100 hybrid viewfinder demoed on video, gets us all sorts of excited originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 03:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This isn’t Google TV, though we can see why you’d ask. No, this monster is merely the world’s largest fully-functional Nexus S handset. Presently on display in a Best Buy store in San Carlos, California, the enormous Android is equipped with a 42-inch multitouch screen, rigged to a real Nexus S that does all the processing. There’s a working camera, internet access and the whole Android 2.3 user interface to explore, though it does look a mite difficult to navigate in the video below. Did we mention there’s a video? Stop reading, hit the break, and get on with the show!

Continue reading 42-inch Nexus S stomps into Best Buy, terrifies shoppers and demos interactive Gingerbread UI (video)

42-inch Nexus S stomps into Best Buy, terrifies shoppers and demos interactive Gingerbread UI (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 26 Dec 2010 21:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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