Hasta La Gadget!

Android and Chrome OS: Google’s split attention between two overlapping platforms has long come in for criticism, but rumors of a merge in time for the Chromebook Pixel failed to pan out. Then again, is the world ready for a $1,300 Chromebook, no matter whether it runs Android or Chrome OS? Perhaps not, Google’s director of Android user experience, Matias Duarte, says, but there’s more in Pixel’s prescience of the touchscreen future, he argues.

Pixel’s appeal on a purely hardware basis is undeniable: it’s a beautifully designed notebook, with an incredibly high resolution touchscreen and the same crisp lines that we liked from Google’s first Cr-48 Chromebook. However, its huge price puts Chrome OS up against full notebooks from Apple, Sony, and others, despite the relative limitations of the cloud-centric platform, a completely different market from earlier, highly affordable Chromebooks.

“Pixel shows the boundaries between types of computing blurring”

For Duarte, however, Pixel’s success won’t solely be measured by pure sales. “I think that Pixel is really exciting, because I think that Pixel shows the way that the boundaries between the different types of computing are blurring” he explained to us. “I think it’s great that the Chrome team is doing that, I think it’s great that the Chrome team is allowing Google to get into people’s lives with touchscreens on a desktop form-factor.”

That’s not a point of view shared by everybody in the industry, and in fact it puts Duarte and Google in the same camp as Microsoft and its hardware partners, rather than with Apple. Steve Jobs memorably decried the usability of touch notebooks, and Tim Cook has since made similar arguments, that reaching across a keyboard to tap at a display simply isn’t ergonomically satisfying.

Duarte disagrees, saying that despite what the MacBook makers think, users themselves are asking for a touchscreen approach. “I think that’s a real trend, that touch on laptops and on desktop form-factors is the way that people want to interact with computers” he says. “I think every screen should be a touchscreen in the future, regardless if it has a keyboard or not.”

Despite the overlap, then, between Android – which has touch at its heart – and Chrome OS – designed for more traditional form-factors – the two platforms still have a future as independent projects. According to Duarte, that will be the case for as long as it makes functional sense: the two OSes converging, perhaps, on a commonality of features as Google develops them.

“Google is excellent at diversifying, and experimenting” he told us. “And I think what Chrome OS does well – they’re getting better at, and it’s being reflected in what Android does well in succession – Chrome on Android is the best browser we’ve ever had, and we would not be at that level without the Chrome team doing the work that they do, without the Chrome OS team learning the things that they do, and learning to understand, for example, how to work on touchscreens.”

“Ultimately, still, the two platforms meet different needs”

Meanwhile, what was originally a smartphone, and then a tablet, OS has been gaining more functionality to bring it in line with a desktop platform, though Duarte says that it’s still not quite there year. “Of course Android has also been evolving, and I think it’s terrific the way that we are gaining capabilities on a day-by-day basis” he said. “For example in Jelly Bean we announced multi-user support, and that opens up a range of use-cases, but ultimately, still, the two platforms meet different needs.”

That also means Android playing more readily with accessories and other devices, as it continues its trend toward being the one “OS for humanity” as Duarte himself described it. “One of the things that was great that we did in Honeycomb, was we included much better support for peripherals” the designer said. “So if you go hook up your Nexus 10 to a Bluetooth keyboard, or even a Bluetooth trackpad, you’ll find you have a much better experience with that.”

Despite the convergence that has already happened, Duarte points out however, neither Android nor Chrome OS are at the point where they satisfy the overall needs of all users. “Until we have one solution for Google that can really capture everything, it makes sense for us to continue to develop two platforms” he explained. Exactly how long that development will take is unclear, but it may take some time before Chrome OS – or a flavor of it – achieves the same market dominance as Android enjoys.

Don’t expect Android and Chrome OS to merge any time soon is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Drivers on a budget: Dacia wants your money, but not much of it. The Renault subsidiary has been making quiet inroads into the European market, and is now targeting the UK with a pretty straightforward premise: a car the size of a compact for the price that undercuts the cheapest supermini. Some drivers don’t care about badge cachet, or halo branding, or being recognized as a high-flier at the traffic lights, Dacia argues: instead, the Sandreo is the automotive equivalent of white goods. And, with a starting price of £5,995 ($9,149) it has more than a few people interested, too. We caught up with Dacia for some time behind the wheel, and to see if cheap really does mean cheerful.

It’s easy to get distracted by luxury cars and marques coaxing ever more performance from sporty two-seaters, but life at the cheap end of the spectrum can be a lot tougher. Building to a budget isn’t easy, and so Dacia went for a strategy that mimics that of the low-cost airlines: in short, you pay a little bit for everything.

The entry-level Sandero Access comes in white only, with black plastic bumpers and a single engine choice: a 1.2-liter 16V 75bhp borrowed from Renault, with a leisurely 14.5s 0-62mph time and a top speed of 101mph. It’s 5-door only, but when you step inside you could be forgiven for thinking you were stepping back a decade or so. No electric windows, no air conditioning, no central locking, not even a radio (Dacia tells us that a lot of their buyers begrudge paying for something they never end up turning on, though the Access does come pre-wired to fit your own choice of aftermarket stereo).

You won’t mistake it for a BMW, or even a Ford inside. The plastics are sturdy but feel cheap, and there’s a lot of rhino-skin effect plastic and flocked headlining material. Some of the touch points, like the twisting, folding vents in the center console are particularly cheap to the touch, and the switchgear clicks with a crispness we’re not used to now that most car manufacturers go in for more premium-feeling dampening.

Start the Sandero up, though, and your £6k doesn’t seem like such a bad deal. For a start it’s a spacious five-seater, with a large trunk and legitimate room for an all-adult complement of passengers. Dacia purposefully opted to match the sort of dimensions of a car from the class above the price band, and while that means you miss out on some of the darting zeal of a smaller city car, you make up for it in space for people and luggage. It’s also cheap to insure, slotting into group 2.

The petrol engine is actually quite good, too, though it’s best when you wind the Sandero up. It’s a fizzy little thing, preferring to be worked hard else you face that ponderous climb back up to speed again. There’s power steering (along with emergency brake assistance, ABS, stability and traction control, front and side airbags, and all the other safety kit the regulators demand) but it’s not too over-assisted, meaning there’s a fair amount of feel from the road. We had the most fun when we ignored the “change up” indicator which flashed up with miserly regularity by the rev counter, but if you obey the instructions Dacia claims you could see combined fuel consumption of 48.7mpg (Euro).

Curiously, though, while the low starting price is working as the initial point of appeal, Dacia says most buyers actually opt to step up through the range. Pay £7,395 ($11,285) and you get the Sandero Ambiance, with a choice of TCe 90 or dCi 90 gas or diesel engines (with frugal ECO modes saving roughly 12-percent in fuel consumption) borrowed from Renault’s swankier 4th-gen Clio, as well as a Bluetooth-equipped radio/CD player, electric windows, body-color bumpers, alloy wheels and central locking. Finally, there’s the £7,995 ($12,200) Sandero Laureate, with the joys of air-con, rear electric windows, cruise control, electric mirrors, and even the unbridled luxury of a leather-wrapped steering wheel and gear knob (there’s no auto option anywhere in the range).

Then there are the options, like £395 ($603) for a 5-year (60,000 mile) warranty, or £850 ($1,450) for 7-years (100,000 miles); Dacia knows that other car companies go for 5- or 7-years as standard, but they also recognize that some of their customers would rather pay less and then run the car into the ground. You can even have leather seats and other luxuries, but we can’t help feel that over-speccing the Sandero starts to blunt its overall purpose.

With that in mind, the TCe 90 and dCi 90 engines, though more refined than the entry-level lump, lack some of the charm. They chug away well, are a little faster, and manage better fuel economy (56.5mph Euro combined for the TCe 90; 74.3mpg Euro combined for the dCi 90), but we’re not convinced the initial extra outlay is worth it. The Sandero makes most sense when you think of it in terms of a washing machine, or a refrigerator: it’s an appliance, not a luxury or a status symbol. That might not appeal to car enthusiasts, but anybody wary of the used car market and simply wanting cheap A-to-B transport should take a look.

This Dacia is the UK’s cheapest car… and it’s not half bad is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Augmented reality is going to be big, and Canon is jumping straight in with its MREAL System for Mixed Reality, a combination of a clever head-mounted display and integration with 3D graphics software to create a real-time virtual world you can interact with. Better known for its cameras, Canon is bringing that knowledge of lenses and optics to an innovative display system that blends the real world with computer graphics, using marker recognition so that physical objects can be picked out and manipulated in the digital environment. We caught up with Canon to try MREAL out, and see what you get for $125,000.

Canon is implemented true mediated reality with its headset, using stereoscopic cameras on the front of the HM-A1 HMD to take a view of the real world and then overlaying computer graphics, which are then fed to the twin displays inside. They run at 1280 x 960 resolution, higher than many cheaper HMDs we’ve seen, and use a specially created free-form prism display system that Canon claims means less distortion and fewer optical aberrations around the periphery.

Capturing and displaying graphics is only part of the overall system, however. The MREAL setup also requires tracking data, to know where the user is looking and what they’re interacting with, and of course a software platform that hooks into whatever 3D environment you’re exploring. On the sensor side, there’s a combination of visual markers and an optional gyroscopic sensor, the latter of which tracks the orientation of the headset in space per frame of video.

It’s the markers, though, that are more commonly relied upon. MREAL can work with optical and magnetic sensors, including third-party brands, but the most obvious are a series of QR-like glyphs which can be used to mark the sides of a physical mock-up. By tracking those glyphs, MREAL can map the movement of the virtual object against the user’s manipulation of its physical counterpart.

So, a basic model of a car, or a camera, or the control surface in the plane could be marked out with a few MREAL glyphs, and then Canon’s system will overlay whatever proposed controls or components are intended. The wearer can interact with those controls as if they were real, able to “look around” the environment with the physical perfectly matched to the digital representation.

On the software side, Canon’s MR Platform has been designed to hook into the most common CAD and 3D visualization packages, with an MR Platform SDK to make integrating existing graphic design software with MREAL straightforward. RTT, the makers of 3D visualization software RTT DeltaGen, has already confirmed it will be combining the package with MREAL; existing customers include Audi, BMW, GM, Ferrari, and Porsche, as well as Adidas and Electrolux.

It’s not just prototyping and industrial design that Canon sees as benefiting from MREAL, however. Another avenue the company is pushing is museum use, where visitors would be able to don an HM-A1 headset and have characters – whether famous faces from history, dinosaurs, wild animals, or fantasy constructions – appear in the real-world with them, interacting as if themselves real. Another possibility is retail, where designers of custom furniture, architects, and others could use MREAL to walk their customers through the design refinement process, tailoring the final product to them without costly iterative prototyping along the way.

Compared to the wearable displays we’ve seen on Google’s Glass and from others, Canon’s is obviously a league ahead. The blending of the digital graphics and what’s actually going on around you is surprisingly good, with the mapping of the two very accurate. You can see your hands – if the system decides they’re relevant to the environment – and after a little acclimatization, it really is like you’re handling a more complex object or coming face to face with a dinosaur.

Interactive Demo Gallery

We tried several demos with the MREAL system, tailored to different potential clients. In an educational-style environment, we were able to interact with a virtual dinosaur, walk around it and pet it, while still seeing other people in the vicinity not wearing a Canon HMD. In another setup, we were able to virtually “kick the tires” of a digital car, customizing colors and trim, exploring the dashboard, and generally seeing what we could expect to be driving despite the real-world object being far more basic in its design. A virtual earth-mover allowed us to experience the cabin and identify ergonomic flaws, such as controls that blocked access to the cup holder, and which might normally demand a physical prototype be built before the issue was identified. There’s more details in our hands-on videos.

Hands-on Demo Gallery

As Canon and its partners see it, the big difference between something like Glass and its MREAL system is the introduction of haptics. “We’re already overloading the eyes as it is” Simiosys’ Christopher Stapleton explained to us. “The question is what’s going through what channel, and how. So, this whole aspect of multitasking isn’t about the number of tasks, it’s about competition for attention.”

“You have all the senses, in all dimensions and all directions, all this impact, we’re overloading the eyes in proportion to the hearing, or the touch. The eyes have depth-perception to a certain extent, but the only interactive sense we have is touch, so the aspect of mixed-reality and haptics is a huge jump in how much we can do. What [Google] is doing is too much in one area.”

Meanwhile, the traditional idea of a GUI – whether text or icons – is quickly becoming overwhelmed by the complexity of what today’s systems can deliver. Instead, Stapleton argues, systems like MREAL can take what would be a very complex interface and make it more naturalistic. Today’s users aren’t looking for ever-increasing menus and toolbars, he says, but gesture response, social interaction, and a more human way of encountering the digital world.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, all this doesn’t come cheap. Canon will be selling the entire MREAL Mixed Reality System – the HM-A1 headset and the MR Platform software – for $125,000 from March 1, with a $25,000 annual maintenance fee on top. That might sound expensive, but Canon balances it against the existing costs companies face of producing a hardware prototype. That process – which can be relatively quickly and affordably mocked-up virtually using MREAL – is an even more expensive one, and it’s easy to see how MREAL could earn its keep over time.

Canon MREAL Mixed Reality Presentation Gallery

Canon MREAL Mixed Reality Hands-on is written by Vincent Nguyen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week we’re seeing HTC come into the light with a massively important new device by the name of HTC One, and with it, a new collection of features included under the “HTC UltraPixel Camera” umbrella. With the features we’re working with here on the HTC One hero phone’s implementation of HTC UltraPixel Camera, you’ll find that image quality is, first and foremost, not solely dependent on the amount of megapixels a camera has. HTC UltraPixel Camera technology is here demonstrated with an UltraPixel Sensor, HTC ImageChip, f/2.0 Aperture, and Optical Image Stabilization.

UltraPixel Sensor

HTC is bringing what it calls its first UltraPixel sensor to the market with the HTC One, showing off the full setup in the image you see below. This image shows the HTC ImageChip architecture (not unlike what we saw with each of the HTC One models in the past), the UltraPixel Sensor itself, an f/2.0 Aperture, and the HTC One’s lens. With the UltraPixel sensor, you’ll now be working with larger pixels than the average camera.

With the UltraPixel Sensor collecting UltraPixel-sized pixels, you’ll be getting the ability to capture “300% more light than many of the 13 megapixel cameras on the market.” Each pixel contains more light and more data than ever before, all this with a sensor whose size is equivalent to that of a standard 8MP or 13MP smartphone camera. This UltraPixel Sensor is a CMOS BSI and is classified as having a 1/3′ sensor size.

Each photo you’re going to be taking will be 2688 x 1520 pixels in size on the HTC One at a 16:9 aspect ratio, and you’ve got a 5 piece lens element setup with a focal length of 3.82mm. Each one of the pixels you’re picking up here is a 2.0 micrometer UltraPixel. These pixels have “effectively” twice the surface area of the standard pixels you’re working with on 8MP and 13MP setups, those being generally 1.4 micrometers and 1.1 micrometers respectively.

In effect, you’ve got the same size photo, but instead of creating smaller pixels to fill the area as larger megapixel cameras are doing, HTC is creating larger pixels to fill the area. This results in the HTC One’s camera being 4MP strong, but creating photos that are the same size – and better quality – than the larger megapixel solutions. File sizes are smaller for the HTC-taken photos here as well.

HTC ImageChip

With the newest edition of HTC’s own ISP (Image Signal Processor), you’ll find that the HTC ImageChip feature collection has expanded since the HTC One X arrived on the scene right around a year ago with ImageSense. The first big innovation is a rather speedy 200ms full distance scan for use with Continuous Auto Focus. That’s quicker than a human blink – you’ll have a harder time being out of focus than you will getting instant focus.

Next you’ll find Real-Time Video HDR – with a dynamic range that can be cranked up to a lovely -92dB, you’ll be able to “match the human eye capability” as you capture interlaced frames at 60fps. You’ve what HTC notes is “always on” HDR here for video, even at HD 1080p. Due to the nature of the curved lens, darker spots appear near the edge of your photos almost no matter what – HTC has compensated for this with an algorithm designed specifically for the HTC One’s hardware.

This newest HTC ImageChip also works with de-noise processing on both the front and the back-facing camera on the HTC One. With this simple concentration of effort, HTC says noise is cleanly removed at all times.

f/2.0 Aperture

HTC shows quite simply how the HTC One uses the largest of three apertures available in some of the best selling smartphones on the market today, with the Galaxy S III working with an f/2.6 and the iPhone 5 utilizing an f/2.4. With the HTC One’s f/2.0 size, one whole heck of a lot more light is able to be let in, this resulting in better results in low-light photo conditions.

Optical Image Stabilization

The HTC One’s camera setup allows its camera to capture a full sized photo as fast as 1/48 of a second. This compares with the current market standard of 1/30 of a second, that speed also the best the HTC One X can do currently. Along with this you’ve now got a real-deal physical optical image stabilizer (OIS) on the HTC One working with the smartphone’s dedicated imaging gyroscope.

With its own OIS, the HTC One’s lens physically moves according to what the dedicated imaging gyroscope tells it, this countering the inevitable shake that happens when someone takes a photo without a tripod. This OIS is different from the more common digital stabilization used on many competitor model solutions, those solutions opting to cut out shaking bits of the photo, reducing the resolution of the photo in the process.

The HTC One’s OIS works at an “unprecedented” frequency of 2000Hz and has been made small enough to fit inside the HTC One’s relatively thin chassis. Working on two axis, this OIS detects pitch and yaw movements and counters them at 2000 times a second. Video quality is also significantly improved over past solutions as the OIS effectively removes background shakes and mimics smooth panning, top to bottom.

More on the HTC One

Below you’ll find a timeline of HTC One hands-on or otherwise in-depth explorations from SlashGear. We’ll also have a full review of the HTC One up sooner than later, so be sure to stick around for the big drop! Seeya then!

SlashGear 101: HTC UltraPixel Camera Technology is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Google has spilled a fresh batch of Google Glass details, with a new video detailing what the wearable can do – including video, Google searches, photos, voice translation, and more – as well as showing the latest hardware. The new footage is apparently a far more realistic demonstration of Glass’ potential than Google’s original concept video, putting a preview pane of the Glass eyepiece in the upper right corner of the screen, and showing how the headset can react to spoken commands previewed with the order “OK, Glass.”

So, to take a photo you can merely wake the headset with the “OK, Glass” command, and then say “take a picture” complete with a preview in the corner of your vision. The same is true for video – “Start Recording” – and you can trigger Google+ Hangouts too, giving friends a live streaming view through the headset’s front-facing video camera.

There’s also support for directions, with overlays of which roads are coming up, what path to take, and ETA, together with the ability to Google for information such as “how long is the Brooklyn Bridge.” Glass even supports voice-dictated messages, and translations, so you can ask “how do you say bread in French?” and have the headset whisper the answer to you.

Google Now-style features, such as flight information cards, are also included, popping into your vision when relevant rather than forcing you to manually ask for them.

Meanwhile, there are new images of the Glass headsets, including five different colors – charcoal, tangerine, shale, cotton, and sky – and seemingly confirming that the wearable will be water-resistant. Considering it’s designed to be worn all the time, that’s probably a good idea. A version with sunglasses lenses attached is also shown, and we know Google is thinking about prescription lens support too. Finally, the headband itself is seemingly made from flexible metal, for better resilience.

Google is yet to delivery the first batch of Glass Explorer Edition headsets to Google I/O 2012 preorder customers, though that hasn’t stopped it opening up for a second round of orders. Developers who can give a sufficiently interesting use-case will be invited to preorder one of 8,000 more Glass units.

New Google Glass video demos true potential of water-resistant wearable is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.