Hasta La Gadget!

By Casey Johnston, Ars Technica

Corning, the developers of Gorilla Glass, announced the launch of a new display material named Lotus Glass for use with LCD and OLED screens today in a press release. The company says Lotus Glass has more “thermal and dimensional stability,” which will allow it to better withstand the process of attaching high-resolution displays and implementing “tighter design rules.”

LCD glass substrates can require intense heating and cooling cycles to create screens, particularly for higher-resolution displays, Corning says. Lotus Glass has a higher annealing point than Gorilla Glass, meaning more heat is required for the material to relax internal stresses and forces.

Because Lotus Glass can withstand heat better, it’s in less danger of warping or sagging while “advanced backplanes” are applied. (Backplanes on screens contain the circuits that control the pixels on the screen.) Very hot temperatures aren’t required to make nice displays — for instance, AMOLED displays can use low-temperature (150 degrees Celsius) poly-silicone as a backplane — but more resilient glass could reduce the current rate of screen imperfections.

According to Corning, Lotus Glass will allow for screens with “higher resolution and faster response times.” We’re not sure it’s just the Gorilla Glass that is holding these specs back on the current crop of smartphones and tablets, but every little bit helps. Corning did not respond to requests for comment on which manufacturers, if any, it has locked down for Lotus Glass contracts, but its press release states that the glass “has been qualified and is in production.”

Photo courtesy of Corning

The 4G-capable Droid Bionic next to an iPhone 4. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

When the iPhone 4S spec sheet was officially revealed in early October, consumers were disappointed to learn that Apple’s newest iPhone doesn’t support 4G, or fourth-generation wireless data connectivity, as rumored. But now it looks like a 4G/LTE iPhone will arrive next year. According to sources that just spoke with DigiTimes, Apple will “join the LTE club” in 2012.

DigiTimes is notorious for floating unsubstantiated Apple rumors. Some come true; most don’t. But Forrester analyst Charles Golvin and Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi think it’s very likely that the iPhone 5 will be LTE capable.

Well, here’s a reality check for Apple fanatics who just can’t sleep at night until 4G shows up in an iPhone specs listing: LTE support made no sense for Apple in 2011, and LTE probably won’t rock your world in 2012 either. We’re not saying Apple won’t release an LTE-capable iPhone. But we are cautioning you to temper expectations of how an LTE iPhone may change your lives.

The LTE network infrastructure is currently immature, and while carrier coverage will expand as more and more customers demand 4G support, relatively few people should expect their iPhone 5s to deliver 4G speeds in 2012. Indeed, LTE support isn’t something that Apple can just instantaneously “flip on” for everyone. A host of technologies — from network towers to hardware chipsets – must first converge, and if the short history of 4G deployment is any indicator, Apple’s 4G future could be bumpy.

4G Is Great — If You Can Access It, That is
4G network expansion has been slow and somewhat fragmented for all carriers. There are two competing 4G standards — WiMax and LTE — and when 4G network support has rolled out, it’s been limited to select markets.

Sprint was the first to adopt a fourth-gen network with WiMax as its 4G flavor of choice. Then Verizon rolled out its 4G LTE network, and its speeds and coverage dominated the 4G scene. AT&T began delivering 4G LTE to select metropolitan areas this summer, but previously relied on HSPA+ for 4G-caliber speeds, just like T-Mobile.

Indeed, what constitutes actual “4G” has been hotly debated, and AT&T’s HSPA+ network should really be considered 3.5G if you actually study bandwidth numbers. For that matter, HSPA+ has even been upgraded to 4G status by the International Telecommunications Union, the key agency that defines telecom standards.

The upshot for AT&T iPhone users? You already have 4G service — or at least the HSPA+ variant. All of LTE’s data rate and latency specs are better than those of HSPA+, but it’s all academic if you can’t tap into an LTE network.

But still, gosh dernnit, iPhone fanatics want support for LTE, which is becoming the defacto, must-have 4G industry standard, at least here in the U.S.

Oh, You Care About Battery Life Too?
There’s also another a rub — a rub that Apple is acutely aware of, and has likely influenced its LTE decision-making: 4G phones drain battery life like you wouldn’t imagine. In fact, every 4G phone that I’ve tested has demonstrated terrible battery life (some worse than others, as screen size and battery capacity do come into play).

Also worth noting: Inconsistent data speeds across 4G networks have plagued users, and that’s a customer experience nightmare that Apple wants no part of.

And then there are concerns about design compromises. In a conference call earlier this year, Apple CEO Tim Cook said, “The first generation of LTE chipsets force a lot of design compromises with the handset, and some of those we are just not willing to make.” The iPhone 4S, on AT&T at least, provides 4G-like speeds, so we can begin to see why Apple didn’t turn on the LTE spigot for its new phone.

Many consumers anticipated Apple to release a 4G handset this year, but Forrester’s Golvin wasn’t one of them. “In contrast to the network technologies that are in the 4S, which comprise the vast majority of 3G networks around the world, there are very few LTE networks launched today,” Golvin says. Additionally, he says, current U.S.-based LTE networks rely on frequency bands that aren’t widely used across other parts of the world.

“If the iPhone 5 comes in June or later, I think that Apple will likely have LTE,” Milanesi says. She cites battery consumption and lack of voice support as two big reasons why Apple hasn’t yet adopted the technology. Verizon has previewed a voiceover LTE service that would provide better sound quality than traditional cellphone calls.

Another reason why the time wasn’t ripe for a 4G iPhone: The cost of LTE chipsets would cut into Apple’s profit margins, and Apple would also have to develop more phone models to accommodate different frequency bands, reducing Apple’s margins further. Indeed, most current 4G handsets come in one model for the U.S., and one for the rest of the world, all thanks to frequency variations.

Because LTE networks aren’t yet widely deployed, a 4G-capable iPhone 4S would provide benefit for just a small portion of the global population. But by sticking with 3G technology for one more handset generation, Golvin says, Apple has been able to very efficiently produce a single global product that it can sell to AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and European carriers.

Golvin says, “A year from now, there will be more LTE networks live in more parts of the world, the chip costs will have come down, and it will likely make sense for Apple to include LTE in its — say it with me now — iPhone 5.”

We’ll believe it when we see it. And then we’ll immediately begin testing the handset in various locations to see just who’s really served by LTE support.

Sure, you may be fast asleep in your warm comfy bed back stateside, but we’re here at Nokia World in London, gearing up for a Windows Phone-packed keynote with CEO Stephen Elop. The excitement begins at 9AM local time (translated to your time zone below), so tune in just before for the play-by-play.

Psst… and toss your own time zone / day in comments below!

10:00PM – Hawaii (October 25th)
01:00AM – Pacific (October 26th)
02:00AM – Mountain (October 26th)
03:00AM – Central (October 26th)
04:00AM – Eastern (October 26th)
09:00AM – London (October 26th)
10:00AM – Paris (October 26th)
12:00PM – Moscow (October 26th)
05:00PM – Tokyo (October 26th)

Continue reading The Nokia World 2011 keynote liveblog!

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A leaked shot of the Lumia 800 shows a familiar form factor. Photo: WinRumors

Nokia needs a swift injection of relevance — badly. Compared to Google’s and Apple’s mobile OS offerings, Nokia’s Symbian software is positively prehistoric. And Nokia phones overall are little more than handheld curiosities, at least in the U.S. consumer market.

Indeed, pulling a Nokia out of your jeans pocket is somewhat akin to pulling up to the curb in an old Citroen. Onlookers must inevitably ask, “Why?”

But we’re finally seeing hard evidence of a much-needed sea change at Nokia. This Tuesday, screenshots of three new Nokia devices running the Windows Phone OS — the first of many promised devices to run the software — finally surfaced. The phones will most likely make their official debut on Wednesday morning at the Nokia World conference in London.

WinRumors was the first to report the story.

From what we can tell, the Nokia Lumia 800 looks exactly like the N9 model we played with earlier this month, save for the fact it’s no longer running the Linux-based Meego operating system.

The companion Lumia 710 smartphone differs aesthetically from the 800 in that it’s less boxy, instead boasting rounded edges and a flat-looking face. According to details in the leaked images, the phones both come with 512MB of RAM and no SD card slots. Further details are scant.

Little information leaked on the Lumia 710, outside of RAM and SD card specs. Photo: WinRumors

Additionally, The Nokia Blog received a spec sheet for a third device, the Nokia 900. With a 4.3-inch display and a 1.4 GHz Snapdragon processor backed by a gig of RAM, the 900 looks to be the star of Nokia’s show.

Once considered the smartphone market leader, Nokia’s industry cred has flagged over the past few years as the company has failed to sufficiently update its Symbian operating system. Though Nokia shipped upwards of 450 million handsets in 2010, its marketshare dwindled by almost 7 percent last year. Meanwhile, user adoption of Android and iOS continues to skyrocket.

Nokia is betting its future on Microsoft’s mobile OS. Earlier this year, Nokia made a major deal with Microsoft to transition from the antiquated Symbian software to Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS.

We’ll be on site at Nokia’s Northern California offices on Wednesday for the official announcement.

A screenshot of Infinity Blade II on the iPhone 4S illustrates the fine graphical detail enabled by Apple's A5 processor. Image: ChAIR Entertainment

If the last two weeks of mainstream press coverage are to be believed, the only relevant features in Apple’s new iPhone 4S are Siri, the phone’s remarkable digital assistant, and the new 8-megapixel camera, which delivers near point-and-shoot image quality to Apple’s mobile platform.

But there’s one other feature that’s largely been ignored, even though it too was demoed at the iPhone 4S debut: Apple’s A5 processor, which grants exciting new opportunities for iOS game developers.

The 1GHz dual-core A5, along with various aspects of iOS 5, have the potential to seriously supercharge gaming on both the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 (which uses the chip too). At Apple’s iPhone 4S launch event, we were shown a demo of Infinity Blade II, and its graphics were impressive enough to wow even jaded console enthusiasts and PC gamers.

In your curiosity duly piqued? Here are some of the virtual sword-clashing, adventure-questing and strategy-pondering improvements we can look forward to as game developers explore (and hopefully implement) Apple’s latest updates.

7X Graphics Power for Fancier Rendering Effects

Smartphones and tablets are great gaming platforms, but they have typically placed us in graphically simple visual environments (think Angry Birds or Scrabble). But now that Apple’s A5 processor is available in both iPad 2 and the iPhone 4S, game developers can go hog wild in designing graphically intense 3D worlds for iOS, confident of a growing installed base of Apple’s fastest mobile chip.

As Perry Tam, CEO of iOS gaming company Storm8 told us, the A5 processor will “certainly help remove some restrictions for developing games that demand more CPU power.”

According to Apple, its A5 processor delivers CPU performance twice as fast as its previous chip, along with seven times faster graphics processing — and all without additional battery life penalties.

“The A5 chip is very, very fast,” says Donald Mustard, creative director at ChAIR Entertainment, the Epics Games studio that developed Infinity Blade II. “[Game developers] love power. Extra power allows us to do more of everything.”

That “everything” includes high-end rendering techniques. At Apple’s iPhone event, Mike Capps of Epic Games said some of these techniques aren’t even used in top-line gaming consoles. For example, the A5 chip allows Infinity Blade II to include insanely detailed graphical flourishes, such as light rays shining through trees, character shadows cast on the game environment, koi swimming in a pond, and individual dandelions blowing in the wind.

The increased processing power enables richer, more cinematic gaming experiences, bringing iOS gaming much closer to what you’ll find on consoles, if not gaming PCs. Indeed, now it would seem that touch-based game control, and not graphics firepower, is the primary hurdle preventing iOS devices from becoming ideal platforms for shooters and other action games.

iCloud Delivers Seamless Gameplay Narratives

“iOS 5 is really slick,” Mustard says. “The best thing it offers to developers is iCloud.”

Mustard described how he was playing Infinity Blade II on an iPad 2. His character had just finished a fight, and picked up a sword that had fallen on the ground. Mustard then opened up Infinity Blade II on his iPhone 4S — and began playing the game exactly where he had just left off, his character with sword in hand.

“Seamless syncing across devices is a huge thing for gaming,” Mustard says. The iCloud feature enables users to effortlessly transition a game-in-progress from one iOS 5 device to another, allowing for an uninterrupted gameplay narrative as they move from, say, their subway seat to their couch, or even from room to room.

iCloud offers other unique benefits that game developers can begin coding for in updates and new titles. In Infinity Blade II, for example, users will find a new community-based gameplay mode called Clash Mobs.

It works like this: You get a notification that a big monster is available to fight for the next 24 hours. The monster is loaded with 1 million hit points. You fight him, knocking off 10,000 of his hit points. The monster now has 990,000 hit points. Thousands (if not millions) of other gamers take their hacks at the same bad guy, and together you work in concert to take him down, unlocking weapons and other features.

But that’s just one example of crowd-sourced gameplay. Other group-based challenges could be incorporated in a wide variety of games and game types. Just as the original iPhone’s accelerometer gave us the entirely new genre of physics-based gaming, we should expect developers to respond to iCloud with similar innovation in community-based gaming — leading to novel new modes of play we can’t yet imagine.

A New Twist in Turn-Based Gaming

Asynchronous turn-based gaming: It’s a fussy phrase that describes something quite simple. In effect, iOS 5 lets you play turn-based games against friends in a non-live, non-real-time environment. In iOS 4, both players had to have their apps running at the same time to, say, play a game of chess. But now, thanks to asynchronous turn-based gaming support, you can play all variety of turn-based games at a much more leisurely, convenient pace.

After you play your turn, a push notification is automatically sent to your competitor — who can act immediately, or pick up the game when time allows. And via the iOS Game Center app, which was added in iOS 4, players can manage multiple games-in-progress to keep up with the action (or whatever passes for action in the asynchronous turn-based gaming paradigm).

“The ability to play turn-based games asynchronously with your friend via Game Center in iOS 5 makes mobile social gaming even more convenient on mobile devices, which people tend to pick up and put down throughout the day,” says Tam, whose company developed a turn-based game called Cannon Ball, pictured here.

“Turn-based games used to require a separate infrastructure that cost the developer time and money,” Tam says. “iOS 5 takes care of that for you.”

And that means developers can spend more time creating rich, well-designed gaming experiences with more creative twists.

Connecting With Friends

iOS 5 makes it easier for you to discover new games in Apple’s Game Center by exposing the preferences of your trusted confidantes. Specifically, Game Center can now make recommendations based on what your friends (and non-friend competitors) are playing. iOS 5 users can also connect with friends of friends without knowing their email addresses or nicknames.

Players can now also download games directly from Game Center if they see one of their friends is playing a game they don’t already have. Before, you had to exit Game Center and go find the game in the App Store.

“This is a major benefit to developers because it makes it that much easier for people to get involved with a new game,” Tam said.

The Overarching Upshot: More Games, More Updates

Platform updates always pose a challenge to game developers: Should they start coding their games for the new hardware and software, confidant of an enthusiastic (and large) installed base? For that matter, should they go back and update previous versions of popular titles, if only to take advantage of a few new features?

Tam believes that as developers get more familiar with what iOS 5 and the A5 have to offer, we’ll see a lot more games that incorporate these new features. In fact, says Tam, updating a game to take advantage of these features, or even creating a new game from scratch, is “very easy to do.”

Easy: It’s a relative term. Nothing about the graphics of Infinity Blade II looks that “easy” to pull off. But one thing’s for sure: Apple’s latest hardware and software updates are great news for mobile gamers, and the pressure is on developers to innovate.

What iOS games would you like to see updated with new features described above? Please tell us in the comments section of this article.