Hasta La Gadget!

Apple’s iPad Mini is the rumor that refuses to die, with several high-profile sites lending their support to speculation that a “tweener” iOS tablet is indeed in the pipeline. Such a slate would presumably instantly help Apple better compete with the Kindle Fire juggernaut, as well as the freshly announced Nexus 7, but that’s assuming it can keep up its end of the bargain. Namely, does Apple – and its suppliers – have the technical capabilities to deliver a screen good enough to bear the Retina Display branding?

According to the rumors, Apple has turned to Sharp for its display panels in the iPad Mini. On the face of it that makes sense; long-standing Apple production partner Foxconn already holds a significant number of shares in Sharp, a fact which has seen links drawn between the companies and the possibility of an Apple television set.

For the iPad mini, though, it would be Sharp’s smaller panels that are of interest: namely, the IGZO technology screens that went into production back in April. That tech produces thinner, better-quality displays than we’ve seen before, which would allow Apple to create a small, thin tablet without sacrificing all-important usability.

Question is, can Sharp’s screen deliver on what is gradually becoming a selling point across Apple’s range? Retina Display may be a marketing term rather than a specific standard, but Apple has taken the idea of pixels too small to differentiate between at average user-distance and run with it in the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and, most recently, the top-tier version of the 2012 MacBook Pro. True, there are iOS devices still on sale without Retina support, but they’re the older iPhone 3GS and iPad 2, legacies of yesterday’s tech kept on to keep the entry-level price points catered for.

Could Apple launch a non-Retina iPad Mini? And what would such a tablet entail? With the iPhone 4S having a pixel density of 326ppi and the new iPad coming in at 264ppi, the iPad mini would presumably have to slot in somewhere around the latter end of those numbers; that, and keeping roughly the same aspect ratio as both existing devices, would call for at least a 1600 x 12800 UXGA panel, which would deliver 261ppi for the speculated 7.85-inch screen.

Ah, but does Sharp have such a panel, remains the question. According to the April announcement, the company has three IGZO screens: a 32-inch panel running at 3840 x 2160, a 10-inch at 2560 x 1600, and finally a 7-inch at 1280 x 800 for a 217ppi count.

Not quite Retina then, and not 7.85-inches, though of course Sharp could well be playing some Apple-specific cards close to its chest. Given the emphasis Apple has placed on Retina Display branding and technology as the future of its pixel-rich devices, the iPad Mini will need to shape up, resolution-wise, if it wants to join the iOS club.

[Update: John Gruber suggests Apple may well stick with iPhone 3GS technology, cutting the displays into 1024 x 768 7.85-inch chunks]

[Image credit: Ciccaresedesign]

Does an iPad Mini add up, Retina style? is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Scientists at CERN have announced that they have discovered evidence of a Higgs-like particle with an evidence signal of 5 sigma, the agreed threshold for positive identification of the so-called “God Particle.” Announced at a live streaming press conference from the Large Hadron Collider, the confirmation means there is a 99.99997-percent chance that the Higgs boson has been identified in the 125GeV mass range. The news has huge implications for the so-called Standard Model of physics.

That model attempts to describe the ways the universe works at a subatomic level, including the electromagnetic, weak, and strong nuclear interactions. Suggestions that the Higgs boson – a ”massive scalar elementary particle” – was a necessary part of that model were made back in the 1960s, but the huge amounts of energy required to actually identify the boson have kept it elusive.

“The Higgs boson plays a unique role in the Standard Model, by explaining why the other elementary particles, except the photon and gluon, are massive. In particular, the Higgs boson would explain why the photon has no mass, while the W and Z bosons are very heavy. Elementary particle masses, and the differences between electromagnetism (mediated by the photon) and the weak force (mediated by the W and Z bosons), are critical to many aspects of the structure of microscopic (and hence macroscopic) matter. In electroweak theory, the Higgs boson generates the masses of the leptons (electron, muon, and tau) and quarks” Wikipedia

Those huge energies have been what the CERN teams have been flinging around in the large hadron collider, with two teams, ATLAS and CMS, looking for evidence that indicates the Higgs boson is present in the aftermath of high-power collisions in the underground facility.

CERN says it has observed some of the key indicators that have indeed confirmed that to such a high degree of possibility, including state decaying to di-photon level with a significance of five sigma, and leaving them confident the Higgs is there.

“The results are preliminary but the 5 sigma signal at around 125 GeV we’re seeing is dramatic. This is indeed a new particle. We know it must be a boson and it’s the heaviest boson ever found,” said CMS experiment spokesperson Joe Incandela. “The implications are very significant and it is precisely for this reason that we must be extremely diligent in all of our studies and cross-checks.”

The search is not over, however; “it’s very early” the team say, and more data is still needed to confirm the combined channel significance, which is currently coming in at 4.9 sigma but, according to predictions, should be around 5.9 sigma for the Higgs. While the ZZ + gamma-gamma combination hits the 5.0 sigma threshold, overall CERN is saying it has “observed a new boson with a mass of 125.3 +/1 0.6 GeV at 4.9 sigma significance.”

“We have reached a milestone in our understanding of nature,” said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer. “The discovery of a particle consistent with the Higgs boson opens the way to more detailed studies, requiring larger statistics, which will pin down the new particle’s properties, and is likely to shed light on other mysteries of our universe.”

“God Particle” shows itself: CERN spots Higgs boson is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It’s not a mistake that Bill Gates spoke this week on the Microsoft Surface saying Apple may have to follow suit at essentially the same time as Andrew Kim’s The Next Microsoft branding has come along. Actually it’s more like divine intervention, with some power up above finally telling Microsoft to get their rear in gear, to not only chop out the middle man in more ways than one, but to get some graphic designers worth their salt as well. The biggest news at the moment is the fact that in an interview with Charlie Rose this week, Bill Gates was quoted saying that Apple will probably have to create their own Surface-like device in the near future because Microsoft’s effort was so awesome.

Speaking on not only the Surface but Microsoft’s entire history, Gates let Rose know that he doesn’t regret for a second the decisions he’s made in regards to the hardware ecosystem for the big M: “I actually believe you can have the best of both worlds. You can have a rich ecosystem of manufacturers and you can have a few signature devices that show off, you know, wow, what’s the difference between a tablet and a PC.” He speaks of course of Windows as an operating system and 3rd party manufacturers such as HP, Dell, and Acer.

The Microsoft Surface is a bit different, with Microsoft not being open about who actually created the components for the devices, instead presenting the product as their very own. This next-generation device, as he and Microsoft would like to present it, is ready to take the spotlight in the very near future.

“You don’t have to make a compromise. You can have everything you like about a tablet and everything you like about a PC all in one device. And so that should change the way people look at things.” – Gates

When asked by Rose whether or not Apple would “have to change” the way they’re creating the products they’ve got now, whether or not they’d have to create a Surface-like product in the future, Gates replied at first with a bit of hesitation, saying that the market hadn’t yet decided if it wants the Surface in the first place.

Gates continued, though, with the thought that Apple would have to create a Surface-like device was indeed “a strong possibility.”

“This is a seminal event.” – Gates

Have a peek at our timeline below for everything Surface up unto this point, and stay tuned as not only the Surface price is revealed in the near future, but the release date is dropped as well!

[via CNET]

Apple Surface a possibility says Bill Gates is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Think Microsoft and what do you get: old, enterprise, and well behind the times, perhaps? Not if one designer has his way; Andrew Kim may not have a contract with Microsoft, but that hasn’t stopped him crafting a whole new branding strategy that ditches the “Windows” pane of today and replaces it with a crisp parallelogram Kim calls the “slate”, before pulling in Windows Phone, Surface, Office, and Windows under some straightforward new headings.

We’ve featured Kim’s design work before, including his Butterfly smartphone concept all the way back in 2007, and his widely-shared HTC 1 Android phone concept of 2010. “The Next Microsoft” is arguably his best work yet, however, ditching even the 2012 logo refresh for something we could easily see appearing on the front of packaging and in adverts.

Under Kim’s strategy, Windows Phone would be moved in under Surface branding, with a choice of Surface Tablet or Surface Phone. Windows RT would be renamed “Metro” to better differentiate it from Windows 8 Pro, branded simply “Windows”, and the Metro UI itself would be cleaned up with some improved color schemes and more intuitive interfaces for things like Wallet.

“I decided that Microsoft needs to be a brand that represents the future” Kim says of the project. “Be slightly aggressive unlike Apple and Google’s friendly marketing. Promise to deliver the future today. Be almost science fiction.”

Microsoft has shown a new, rather more dynamic side with Surface, even if it has potentially damaged its relationships with OEMs. Now, it could do a lot worse than give Kim a call and chat future brand strategy.

[via Kote Pacheco]

The Next Microsoft: The branding Surface deserves is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Sony’s acquisition of Gaikai today closes off one long-standing rumor of a cloud gaming investment, but opens up another: which rival can’t afford to leave OnLive on the shelf? Whispers that Sony was eyeing a cloud specialist culminated back in May with OnLive and Gaikai presumed the most likely candidates for powering the company’s long-standing “Four Screen” strategy, something Sony described as its retort to Apple’s iOS, iTunes and iCloud ecosystem. That leaves OnLive potentially up for grabs, and a number of potential suitors.

Sony has been talking about its “Four Screen” strategy since late 2011, with then-CEO Howard Stringer using the phrase to describe an holistic ecosystem of PC, tablet, smartphone and TV. Sony “spent the last five years building a platform so I can compete against Steve Jobs” Stringer said at the time, a platform that was just ready to launch the chief exec insisted.

The strategy was one picked up by Stringer’s replacement, Kaz Hirai, arguing that user experience and not hardware would turn Sony around. ”The foundations are now firmly in place for the new management team and me to fully leverage Sony’s diverse electronics product portfolio,” Hirai said when he took the new position, “in conjunction with our rich entertainment assets and growing array of networked services, to engage with our customers around the world in new and exciting ways.”

Sony isn’t the only firm chasing “new and exciting ways” to encourage people to stick loyally to its products and services. Possible candidates for an OnLive grab include HTC, which has already invested $40m into the company back in early 2011, though has so far failed to capitalize on that bar an abortive preload on the HTC Flyer. It’s also questionable whether it would go up against Sony on mobile gaming: last month, HTC became the first third-party company to sign up as a PlayStation Certified partner.

So, who else has a gap in its mobile gaming strategy? Microsoft’s Windows Phone has the promise of Xbox LIVE running between it, Xbox 360, Windows and the new Surface tablets, along with Xbox SmartGlass to sew up the multi-screen gap. That’s not to say a cloud gaming system like OnLive wouldn’t fit in there too, and the two companies have already been working together to some extent on OnLive Desktop. A hosted desktop in the cloud might be an interesting addition to Windows RT tablets, and bypass future need to develop ARM-specific Office releases.

Then again, perhaps Samsung is a better candidate. The South Korean company has already admitted that it is relatively lacking in software “competitiveness”; more recently, its new mobile CEO reiterated that “a particular focus must be given to serving new customer experience and value by strengthening soft capabilities in software, user experience, design, and solutions.” It has a cloud-based photo and video sync system, but no serious gaming option despite, like Sony, having a footprint in TV, phones, tablets and PCs.

“OnLive would turn the Nexus Q into an instant console”

Google and Apple are the two cash-rich heavyweights, and each might be a good fit for OnLive. There’d be no shortage of server-farm space with either, certainly, and both iOS and Android could certainly benefit from an injection of cloud gaming. For Google, it would also turn new devices like the Nexus Q and existing, struggling platforms like Google TV into instant consoles; the same could be said for the Apple TV, and Apple already has AirPlay Video for using an iPad, iPhone or iPod touch as a wireless controller.

Then there’s NVIDIA, though so far it’s shown more interesting in supplying CUDA processing to cloud gaming companies than actually owning one itself. Back in May, in fact, it announced a deal with Gaikai to use GRID processing to power streaming game content. Where that deal stands in the aftermath of the Sony acquisition is unclear right now.

What we do know is that gaming is going to be an increasingly vital element for any company hoping to take the reins of its future in the mobile space, and the cost of acquiring OnLive would likely be quickly outweighed by its value in that ecosystem. We can already hear the rustle of checkbooks.

Who do you think would make the best fit for OnLive? Or should the company continue to go it alone? Let us know in the comments!

So who’ll buy OnLive now? is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.