Technology Android

[Cooper]

I like the way the small form PCs are going. I am getting a few Raspberry Pis at work to play with. I think it could be good for streaming music and video to every room. Or for Home automation. Or for monitoring information and creating a media centre in the car.

Yea I'm gonna get one to play about with, although not really sure what I'm going to do with it!

 

[Flipmo]

S3 as the Olympic's official phone.
Now Beckham with the Note.

Hard to beat that kind marketing/promo.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

Beckham is one of the most marketable people on the planet.

Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility goes through. I wonder what this means for MotoBlur... I think we'll be seeing a lot more vanilla than MotoBlur (I hope).

 

[THEV1LL4N]

S3 as the Olympic's official phone.
Now Beckham with the Note.

Hard to beat that kind marketing/promo.

That was fun!

 

[ARon]

http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/22/omnivision-16-megapixel-camera-sensors-record-4k-video-on-phones/

holy fuck

 

[Casey]

http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/22/omnivision-16-megapixel-camera-sensors-record-4k-video-on-phones/

holy fuck

If your smartphone or camcorder has the processing grunt to handle it, either of the sensors can record 4K (3840 x 2160, to be exact) video at a super-smooth 60 fps

.... and that right there is why quad core is all good with me

 

[masta247]

It's not about the amount of cores (though you'd certainly need a fast processor to compress that thing). Here you'd be limited by.. memory bandwidth. Highly compressed 3940x2160 comes with a bitrate of about 150mbit/sec.Want to record a 3 minute video of an artist performing a song? That'd be almost 4gb with high compression rates that scream for a lower resolution and lower compression rates to improve the quality. BUT.. Uncompressed, a SINGLE FRAME would be 50mb. That's 24.51 Gbps with 60fps. To put it in a perspective a 5 minute video would take 919.12 GB. Your system has to handle real time compression of that thing and that'd be equally hard for fast dual cores and quad cores almost equally.

 

[Cooper]

I'm looking at getting a Transformer Prime. Tell why I should or shouldn't.

 

[masta247]

It's okay. I think Pittsey has one. I think it's more expensive than the Ipad though, and I'd rather get an Ipad 2 after all. I can't exactly explain why. I'd also rather get the Samsung 7.7 tab. There's a dual core processor but the device is super cool - the form factor is somewhat nicer imho and the super amoled screen on a tablet is pure awesomeness.

But the transformer price is an all around good tablet, I'd say.

 

[Casey]

I'm looking at getting a Transformer Prime. Tell why I should or shouldn't.

The Transformer Prime is phenomenal. One of my cousins has one and it's ridiculously responsive. The screen is great, and it's a beautiful device.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

On Monday, my employer wanted me to set up his email on his iPad 3 and buy stuff online for him - so I had a good hour or so using it. The device is nice to use for the casual user, but FUCK ME is it heavy, and it get's frustrating having been an Android consumer for some years now. If you want to use it a lot, it does get annoying without having a 'back' button. Android is a lot more coherent. I told him to get rid of his iPhone and new iPad. He agreed on the iPhone but said that there's no way he'd get rid of the iPad. He'd probably end up getting a newer iPhone anyway...

It would be nice if Apple could get the Google Drive app, because i'd like to set him up Drive, making the switch from Dropbox.

 

[Pittsey]

I'm looking at getting a Transformer Prime. Tell why I should or shouldn't.

I have one, and I'm more than happy with it. It's very, very nice. But... I wouldn't spend my own money on it.

Like Masta. I'd probably spend £250 on an ipad2.

 

[Casey]

Or.... you could get the TF300 which is almost identical to the Prime but £100 cheaper....

 

[Casey]

My uncle just upgraded to an Xperia Ray from an X10 and has given me his X10 to sell on eBay..... For a 2year old phone this thing holds up quite well. I'm going to try and root it and find a good ROM before I flog it.

 

[Flipmo]

Nvidia’s $199 Tegra 3 tablet will be a reality, company launches Kai platform​

By Daniel Bader on May 23, 2012 at 5:22pm in Mobile News​

The $199 Tegra 3 Android tablet is coming, and sooner than you think. Nvidia unveiled its plans for a tablet platform it called “Kai” this week, demonstrating how it plans to democratize the Tegra 3 SoC to make it considerably easier for low-cost OEMs to bring high-performance tablets to market.
While no products have been publicly announced just yet, Kai seems to be an evolution of the Asus MeMo 370T, that 7-inch $249 ICS tablet that debuted at CES and subsequently disappeared. There has been talk that the product was co-opted by Google to create a sub-$200 Nexus tablet, and that it will debut during Google I/O next month, but right now it’s all speculation. The latest rumours are that Google delayed launching the tablet until July to ensure it could hit that $199 price point.
Nvidia’s CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang, told a group of shareholders that vendors are already building tablets on the Kai platform:

Our strategy on Android is simply to enable quad-core tablets running Android Ice Cream Sandwich to be developed and brought out to market at the $199 price point, and the way we do that is a platform we’ve developed called Kai. So this uses a lot of the secret sauce that’s inside Tegra 3 to allow you to develop a tablet at a much lower cost, by using a lot of innovation that we’ve developed to reduce the power that’s used by the display and use lower cost components within the tablet.​

We’re hoping that the “innovation…to reduce the power” is a reduction of die size from 40nm to 32nm, since it would not only lower the per-chip cost to the vendor but improve thermal output and reduce overall size. Most high-end Android tablets on the market today are powered by Nvidia’s “4+1+ Tegra 3 SoC, and is proving to be a success in handsets as well. The international HTC One X and upcoming LG Optimus 4X HD incorporate Tegra 3.
Source: The Verge​

 

[Cooper]

Or.... you could get the TF300 which is almost identical to the Prime but £100 cheaper....

Yea I saw that, but the Prime price is going down as well so think I will go for that.

 

[Casey]

http://www.tmonews.com/2012/05/goog...ember-5th-to-celebrate-five-years-of-android/

On the heels of a Wall Street Journal report indicating Google is prepared to announce a variety of partnerships for their exclusive Nexus lineup of smartphones — comes news that these five devices will all arrive on November 5th. Remember, remember the fifth of November. In fact, the fifth of November this year will mark Google’s five-year anniversary for Android.
According to TalkAndroid, a reliable source has provided them with intel that Google will offer all five new Nexus devices via the Google Play store beginning November 5th. Though they do clarify they are unsure if their source meant if the devices will be unveiled on November 5th or released for sale on that day. In any case, I’d pencil in November 5th on your calendars just in case. For Nexus fans, this could be a big, big year.
Talk Android

nice.

 

[S O F I]

well, it's official. i'm waiting out the storm. i'm gonna stick with my broken nexus s until november. it's only 5ish months anyway.

 

[Pittsey]

I'm waiting until the 29th..... Then getting the S3.....
I will then buy another phone next year, possibly.

 

[Flipmo]

Google and Asus to launch 7-inch tablet in July?​

By Ian Hardy on May 24, 2012 at 8:16am in Mobile News​

Google, with the manufacturing assistance of ASUS, has been rumoured to release their own Android tablet. This could very well be a Nexus branded tablet with the size expected to be 7-inches, selling for about $200. New overseas reports from DigiTimes suggests the Google tablet is in the works and will start shipping in June, followed by a full release in July.
DigiTimes originally said a Google and ASUS tablet will be available “as early as May,” but were quick to backtrack, stating “Google originally planned to release its entry-level 7-inch tablet PC in May, but design and costs did not reach its expectations, and the product was delayed to July for some minor adjustments.”
According to their “upstream supply chain” sources the Google/ASUS partnership have ordered 600,000 tablets. 600k is a massive number of Android tablets, considering that one of ASUS’ most popular tablets – Transformer Prime – managed to ship approximately 80,000 tablets within its first couple months. However, the June shipment date seems a bit realistic as Google I/O is happening on June 27th, so we could possibly have an official announcement then.
Source: Digitimes
Via: PocketNow​