Hasta La Gadget!

Spotted outside the auditorium at Qualcomm’s China QRD (Qualcomm Reference Design) Summit earlier today were a handful of — surprise, surprise — QRD-based smartphones from China, several of which featured the Cortex-A5-based quad-core MSM8x25Q announced back in September. The usual suspects were there in the quad-core lot: Yulong had its Coolpad 5890 (EVDO) and Coolpad 7268 (UMTS), along with Hisense’s U958 (UMTS) and Tianyu’s K-Touch U86 (UMTS). These all fall within the so-called “¥1,000 ($160) phone” category and yet they are also gifted with a second SIM slot. But what really got our attention was Beidou’s Little Chilli LA-M1, which also does dual-SIM (UMTS) but packs an OGS gapless IPS display, while the others came with an LCD panel of obviously lesser quality. Read on to learn more about this mysterious phone, as well as checking out our hands-on photos of the other aforementioned quad-core QRD phones.

Here’s a little background: Little Chilli is Beidou’s fairly new brand that attempts to follow Xiaomi’s online retail model, but without supplying a heavily customized version of Android like MIUI. Most of its earlier models didn’t really stand out as they carried almost the same set of components used by other budget phones; but that was until Beidou and ZTE announced their ¥999, Tegra 3-based U950, followed by the Little Chilli Q1 which was officially launched four days ago. The latter went on sale yesterday and the first batch of 20,000 units promptly sold out — not a surprise since it comes with Tegra 3 and a 4.7-inch 720p IPS display for just ¥999 as well.

Giving the Q1’s recent availability, you could say the timing of the LA-M1’s announcement today wasn’t ideal, which is likely why Beidou has yet to mention the price and availability for its newer phone, but we did hear mentions of a sub-¥1,000 on the show floor. That would be pretty decent for the specs we know so far: 4.5-inch 800 x 480 IPS gapless display, MSM8225Q quad-core chip, dual-SIM support, an eight-megapixel main camera (which produced reasonably good photos, from what we could see), a two-megapixel front-facing camera, and Baidu cloud service integration with 15GB of storage for life, plus another 15GB free for one year. No word on battery size nor battery life yet, but our guess is that neither should disappoint.

While it isn’t exactly the most handsome phone on the planet, the M1 that we got to touch actually felt pretty solid, and it ran the native Android 4.1 quite smoothly. So given the choice (and assuming they cost the same), it’s either the M1 with its dual-SIM capability but qHD display, or the Q1 with the 720p display but with just one SIM slot. Regardless, Beidou could be well on its way to become the new Xiaomi (sans the software part), though only time can tell whether it has the reliability and after-sale service to prove it. If not, there’s still plenty of opportunity for others — Qualcomm’s already completed over 170 QRD-based projects, with about 100 more in the pipeline. Watch out, MediaTek!

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Welcome to Startup Weekend Transmedia, a Startup Weekend focusing on media, entertainment, and the future of storytelling. Transmedia is a technique of creating a multi-platform universe where each platform supports different story-lines, that serve the main « storyworld ». Transmedia can be applied to entertainment, non-fiction and educational content, advertising and branding…

Ubergizmo is a media partner of Startup Weekend Transmedia, the event will be haled Feb1-3 at PARISOMA in San Francisco. Our readers get a 15% discount on registration fee,  please use the special code « Ubergizmo » when registering on Eventbrite !

Join 60 programmers, art directors, film producers, game designers, developers, advertisers, marketers – to form multidisciplinary teams and prototype transmedia experiences, all in 54 hours. Teams will be coached by industry experts from EA/Bioware, Unit9, Situate, Storify, Mozilla, Zeega, Mixamo and will have the opportunity to pitch and demo their prototype in front of judges from Lucasfilm, AKQA, IDEO.org and the Mayor’s Office of Innovation. Winning prizes include incubation services, goodies, and exclusive access to tools/content from our partners.

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By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Mobile World Congress 2013, Best of CES 2013 @ Ubergizmo,

Even the landscape of Mobile World Congress will look different than it has in the past. While the Mobile World Capital Barcelona remains our host, the event is relocating to a state-of-the-art new facility, Fira Gran Via.

The annual event provides the planet’s best venue for mobile industry networking, new business opportunities and deal-making. Mobile World Congress includes a world-class conference featuring visionary keynotes and action-provoking panel discussions; an exhibition with more than 1,500 companies displaying the cutting-edge products and technologies that define the future of mobile; App Planet, the Centre of the Mobile Apps Universe; mPowered Brands, where marketers and agencies can increase their knowledge of mobile marketing; and the annual Global Mobile Awards ceremony , which recognises the most innovative mobile solutions and initiatives from around the world.

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By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Best of CES 2013 @ Ubergizmo, Venture Summit Silicon Valley by AlwaysOn – Live Video Streaming,

Earlier today, we laid out the basic functionality of the new Graph Search live from the Facebook HQ in Menlo Park. Beyond the new features, it is interesting to look at how this will help Facebook going forward, including monetization. The “business” question was raised during the Q&A sessions and it is completely legitimate, especially when you think about the potential infrastructure cost of running this resource-intensive, 100% personalized, feature. Facebook is known to be a great engineering company, so there is little to worry about how much computing resources will be spent as Facebook will undoubtedly run it efficiently. What’s more interesting is that while Facebook wants to project an image of humility around Graph Search, this is definitely a key launch in the company’s history – here’s why in five points: (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Ubergizmo Launches its Social Reader for Facebook, Samsung Series 5 550 Chromebook Review,

Every year at CES, the focus on autos and the tech they’re outfitted with grabs a fair share of the attention in Las Vegas. This installment was no different. While several companies trotted out their latest infotainment wares, the self-driving debate nabbed a prime spot as Toyota and Audi both offered show-and-tells on tech that looks to aid drivers rather than do all of the work for them. As we’ve come to expect, a wealth of infotainment systems were also on display with a couple in particular grabbing our attention. Not to be overlooked, devs received a number of notable invites to create system-specific offerings this time out. For a full rundown of the highlights, read on past the break for a brief synopsis.

Continue reading CES 2013: Auto roundup

Filed under: Transportation

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