EyeSight has been bringing its hand-waving UI to all sorts of mobile devices for some time now, and it’s now expanded things yet again. Following up its launch on Android last summer, the company has announced that its gesture recognition software has now also been tailored specifically for Android tablets and other “computer-based” Android platforms, and it’s announced that it’s now available for Windows-based devices as well. As before, the software is able to work with just about any built-in camera, and the company says that it has been “highly optimized” for mobile platforms, with low CPU and memory requirements. It’s not something available directly to users, though — it’s up to developers to license it and include the functionality in their applications. Head on past the break for an idea of how it works — just try to ignore that conspicuously out of place iPad at the beginning of the video.
Had enough of seeing grids and folders of static (Calendar app excluded, of course) icons on your iDevice? Well, here’s one option to relieving your tedium: a Windows Phone 7 theme for the iPhone and iPod touch. You’ll naturally need to jailbreak your iOS handheld in order to restyle it quite so dramatically, but once you do, you’ll have all your precious apps sorted in a neat alphabetical pile on one screen, with the other waiting patiently for your customizations and live tile choices. It’s a good looking little mod, we have to say, and it’s currently going through beta testing, so why not grab your iPhone and see if it can survive a lick of Microsoft paint without self-combusting?
What, a full spec sheet for the Topaz not good enough for you? Fine, Pre Central has managed to dig up another little document from HP’s 2010 archives, this one delving into tablet-specific UI elements in webOS. The first notable thing is the inclusion of more sophisticated gesture and tap controls, with double-tap, tap-and-hold, and even two-finger tap-and-drag actions serving some unspecified functions in the tablet version of the software. Tabbed browsing also makes an appearance, alongside an auto-expanding email client and a page-turning element, all of which may or may not be in the final build shipping with the final devices. Until finality is reached, however, the source link is your best buddy.
Remember that day when Emblaze wowed the world with its First Else “death of main menu” smartphone? What a shame, eh? While it’s unlikely that said Linux handset will ever be resurrected, there’s a small chance that bits of its legacy will be passed onto other products. For instance, a recent LinkedIn newsletter led us to Itai Vonshak, who was one of the main engineers behind the architecture that powered the First Else’s brilliant, mesmerizing UI. Now, according to his profile, our man has recently moved into HP / Palm’s comfy little house to do UX strategy. Whether this means webOS will get a slice of that Minority Report action, we don’t know; but it’ll be interesting to see what Vonshak will surprise us with at the HP / Palm event next month. For now, there’s a hands-on video of the First Else after the break for old time’s sake.
Just shy of a month after it launched on the PlayStation 3 and days after debuting on Boxee’s Box, the new Vudu 2.0 interface is live on most TVs and Blu-ray players with access to the service. Check out our earlier gallery if you’re not familiar with the new look, it should be identical across the lineup (sans-Move support of course) with recommendations, enhanced sharing options and optimized for HD. For now it looks like the Yahoo! Widgets based Samsung and Vizio versions are the only ones still lagging but they’re on deck for an update “soon.”
CES 2011 saw the debut of what could be the biggest challenge to the Wintel dominance of personal computing since Windows 95 cemented its position. The combination of the Android operating system on ARM processors — ARMdroid if you will — grabbed most of the attention in the emerging tablet category on products such as devices such as the Motorola Xoom and LG G-Slate. But it was also clear that manufacturers — unconstrained by Cupertinian notions of what operating system is best suited to what kind of device — are willing to take the combination in new directions that come much closer to the notebook form factor. A clear example of this was the ASUS Eee Pad Slider. If having the tablet thunder stolen from Microsoft wasn’t enough to make the company uncomfortable, clearly encroaching designs like this were.
And so, at Steve Ballmer’s keynote, the company announced that the next version of Windows will support not only x86 offerings from Intel and AMD – themselves moving closer to ARM-like system-on-chips – but ARM designs from companies such as Qualcomm and NVIDIA as well. Microsoft noted that the new chip support was requested by its partners, implying that PC companies want to take advantage of the long battery life and thin form factors enabled by ARM architectures, but also bring along Windows’ broad driver and software support. Microsoft clearly considers the tablet another PC, albeit one that Windows’ hardware and user interface layer needs to support better. However, in striking back at Android evolution, Microsoft risks collateral damage to its own mobile OS. Can Windows Phone 7 co-exist with a ARM-based version of the real thing?
A leaked preview of upcoming Android 3.0 release (aka Honeycomb) dropped last week on the Android developers’ YouTube channel. We certainly noticed, and of course the scrutiny of the drastically different UI began shortly thereafter.
Google’s official preview video (above) provides us with the most in-depth look we’ve seen of the OS since Google’s VP of engineering Andy Rubin gave us a sneak peek of it in December. It’s too preliminary to make any absolute judgments, but from what little we’ve gleaned from the video, there are a number of pretty big changes. It’s a complete interface makeover.
After Apple’s runaway success with its 2010 debut of the iPad, expectations on tablet offerings from competing companies in 2011 have been high. And at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, there was certainly no dearth of new tablet debuts. Estimates of the number of new tablets showcased at CES ranged in the 50s to the 80s. From what we understand, the Honeycomb operating system has been designed to take advantage of the tablet shape in particular.
What hasn’t been made clear yet, however, is whether or not Honeycomb will be a tablet-exclusive version, or whether it will also be available for phones.
Android UI director Matias Duarte speaks to the issue, however effusively, in an interview with Engadget: “What you see in Honeycomb is absolutely the direction for Android,” Duarte says when directly asked about portability.
From what we can see in the new video, Duarte’s influence on the new UI is palpable. He came to Google in May from HP-owned Palm, where he developed the webOS interface for Palm devices, seen below:
Duarte’s scrollable page widgets from the webOS interface above are reminiscent of those seen on Honeycomb in the recent video from Google:
The Rubin demo screen shot and the screen above grab from Google’s leaked video share the same minimalist aesthetic, even more so than “Froyo” version 2.2 seen on Samsung’s Galaxy Tab (an OS which Duarte had no part in creating).
Surface area is obviously greater when moving from a 4-inch smartphone screen to that of a 10-inch tablet, and the scrollable Gmail, calendar and browser bookmark widgets sitting side-by-side simultaneously make good use of the increase in screen size.
Another stark difference: the complete lack of physical buttons on the device itself. “With Honeycomb,” says Duarte in the Engadget interview, “you don’t need to have physical buttons.” Note their complete absence in the wide shot of the Xoom:
Instead, physical navigational buttons have been replaced with on-screen versions of themselves, as seen in the arrows in the Xoom’s bottom left-hand corner, while the full app menu is still accessible in the upper right-hand corner:
But manufacturers aren’t beholden to buttonless devices. “Our partners can take that and do what they want with it,” Duarte says in the Engadget interview. “If somebody feels that, for their application, physical buttons are absolutely the right thing to do? Great. They can do that.”
Other app demos in the video seemed relatively straightforward, with heavier emphasis on their tablet application. Google Books leverages the tablet’s shape for page-turning and reading purposes, much like opening an iBook on the iPad. Gmail interactivity remains similar to its “Gingerbread” application — scrollable inbox, no-frills white-and-gray color scheme — but is now separated into two columns for navigability’s sake.
We’re not going to lie — we’re pretty excited to bring this to you guys. Here at CES 2011 we had a chance to sit down with Matias Duarte, the man behind webOS (as well as the Sidekick and Helio UIs), who’s now heading up Google’s user experience for Android. Matias is currently driving the interface and design for Android 3.0 (AKA Honeycomb), and it’s clear that he’s bringing his big, bold ideas to the Android platform. This is the first video interview Matias has done since leaving Palm, and we pressed the man on his involvement in Gingerbread and Honeycomb, what had to be torn down in Android, how desktop OSs can inform mobile devices, and much, much more. Don’t just take our word for it — follow along after the break and watch the full interview!
If you’re an avid Engadget reader, you’re familiar with a dream of ours — we have always wanted a netbook / tablet hybrid (netverible as we like to call ’em) that actually works really well. We don’t want to get our hopes up too much, but the Samsung Sliding PC 7 Series could be it. While we got a chance to see the 10.1-inch tablet with its slide out keyboard just a few days ago, we caught some one-on-one time with the device behind closed doors here at the show and came out having a lot of hope in the product. The unit we saw, and the one being shown on the show floor here at CES, is still pre-production, but even so the sliding mechanism worked pretty smoothly. That’s not to say it doesn’t still feel delicate, but it actually auto-slides open once you start to push up the screen. As you’ll see in the video, it’s a rather exhilarating process, although, we were slightly worried that the back of the screen was going to shave off a keyboard key or two. Speaking of the keyboard, those smooth, shiny chiclet keys feel pretty good, though as you’d expect the layout is a little bit cramped.
When held in tablet mode the 2.18-pound device is a little heavy for one-handed use, but it’s nowhere near as thick or bulky as the Dell Inspiron Duo. However, to maintain those trim dimensions, Samsung has had to cut out a full sized USB port, and instead, the device will use its mini-HDMI port — it will come with a mini-HDMI-to-USB 2.0 adapter. It also has a MicroSD slot and 3G-card insert, and both front- and back-facing cameras. We didn’t get to spend too much with Samsung’s Touch Launcher, but it’s one of the nicer looking Windows 7 layers we’ve seen in our day, and it can be launched by just touching that bright blue strip on the screen bezel. Of course, we’re slightly worried that it will be sluggish, but Samsung is using Intel’s forthcoming 1.5GHz Oak Trail processor, which we’ve heard will speed up Win 7 and improve battery life. As for the 340-nit, 1366 x 768-resolution screen itself, it was nice and bright on maximum setting, and the viewing angles seemed to be fairly decent. Unfortunately, it’s also fairly glossy, so we’ll have to see how it holds up outdoors. It also supports up to 16 points of contact — we’re not sure how useful that is on a ten-inch screen, but it’s a nice bragging point. Samsung maintains the Sliding PC 7 Series should be hitting for $699 in May — don’t let us down Sammy, we’ve got dreams.
As promised, Notion Ink has just released a video of the Adam tablet in action, complete with that snazzy new Eden UI — the first anyone’s seen of the device since its first working prototype. While the footage itself is of disappointingly low quality, it seems to show a device somewhat worthy of the hype, with a responsive screen, a multitask-friendly interface and plug ‘n play peripherals — though we’re holding out for Pixel Qi screen tests and some closeup shots before we place any orders ourselves. Notion Ink singled out vocal critic AndroidPolice to launch the (seemingly incomplete) video and gave the publication an exclusive interview too, so take your lingering doubts about the tablet’s capabilities and head on down to our source links.
Update: Now in 720p!
Update 2: There’s a brand-new video after the break, showing off more Eden UI, a speedy PDF reader, and the Adam’s virtual keyboard — and reportedly all shot in daylight to boot.
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