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Wednesday, May 01, 2013

OmniVision OV2724 should lead to super-small, 1080p60 front phone cameras

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/01/omnivision-ov2724-may-lead-to-super-small-1080p60-front-cameras/

When most front-facing mobile cameras are shoehorned in between a myriad of sensors, they seldom have the breathing room they'd need for truly noteworthy performance. OmniVision can't quite defy physics, but its new OV2724 sensor could challenge at least a few of our common assumptions. The OV2722 successor stuffs 1080p imaging into the company's smallest chip of the kind, at 5mm by 5mm by 3.5mm -- ideally, leading to full HD front cameras in tinier devices. Full-size devices still stand to benefit, though. The OV2724 has the headroom to record at an extra-smooth 60 frames per second, and individual frames should be more eye-catching between the higher dynamic range and better low light shooting. The only frustration left is having to wait for mass production of the new sensor in the summer quarter -- we won't see any phones or tablets reaping the rewards for at least a few months.

Filed under: Cellphones, Cameras, Tablets

Source: OmniVision

New Sirius XM CEO considering infotainment, in-car safety offerings

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/01/sirius-xm-infotainment/

Satellite-based streaming is a successful enough enterprise for the time being, but even the most naive of executives must know that the momentum isn't sure to last. In-car LTE and cheap web-based solutions provide access to millions of tracks on demand, making other options less relevant. Doom and gloom aside, there's still an opportunity to remain afloat, and Sirius XM's new CEO, Jim Meyer, has a plan to diversify his company's portfolio of products.

The music would continue to flow, but OnStar-like options would become available as well, according to a Reuters interview with Meyer. Other services, such as weather, realtime gas prices, roadside assistance and stolen car tracking could be implemented with the company's existing satellite infrastructure, and might be offered on a subscription basis down the line. "This is going to take a while," according to the new chief executive, who said that the new products might be implemented in certain 2017 and 2018 vehicles, but likely not sooner. Sadly, he's not talking details just yet, but there may be more to share before the end of next year.

Filed under: Transportation, Wireless

Source: Reuters

Qualcomm aims to solve the coming mobile data crunch with small cell base stations

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/01/qualcomm-small-cell-network/

Qualcomm's been doing very well lately, and most of those chips it builds are for mobile devices that demand a lot of data to serve their owners' needs -- and as more and more folks jump on the smartphone bandwagon, the demand for data will continue to grow exponentially. Today at Qualcomm's What's Next in Mobile event in Santa Clara, California, the company told us more about its plan to help build a network that'll be able to serve up the data all its SoC's need. The goal is to give us 1000 times the capacity of what we currently have. One of the key parts, as Qualcomm sees it, is small cell base stations in homes, offices and retail spaces working in tandem with the large cell towers that currently adorn so many roofs and mountain tops -- the same thing ex-FCC head honcho Julian Genachowski talked about last year.

You see, macrocells (read: towers) can blanket wide areas in signal, but they struggle to penetrate the innards of buildings, which is where small cells come in handy. For those who aren't familiar, small cell base stations like femtocells and picocells have been around for years, helping to boost cell signal in small areas by hooking into a local wired network. Until now, these small cells have served as a small-scale supplement to macro networks, but Qualcomm CTO Matt Grob sees them comprising a much bigger chunk of the network of the future. According to him, there are a few issues with using them in an expanded role, however.

Filed under: Mobile

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Acer Aspire V5 11.6-inch notebook leaked with $450 price tag, unexpected AMD Temash chip

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/30/acer-aspire-v5-amd-temash/

While AMD announced its new Temash APU (alongside others) at this year's CES, the only device we've seen sporting it was an intriguing reference hybrid that made the rounds at the show. Now, details of an Acer Aspire V5 notebook have emerged, indicating the company is preparing its first Temash-powered device for general consumption. Acer already has a trio of Aspire V5 models with Intel Core processors and NVIDIA handling the graphics, but a half-complete product page for an unannounced V5-122P-0643 swaps those components out for AMD's wares. Formally called the AMD A6-1450, the Temash APU combines a quad-core 1GHz processor -- or 1.4GHz in "Turbo" state -- with a Radeon HD 8280 GPU. When put into tablets, it has an unusually low, sub-5W power envelope that allows for passive cooling. While we don't know exactly what wattage this Acer notebook will have, the presence of Temash should bode well for battery l! ife. Hea d past the break for more details.

Filed under: Laptops, AMD, Acer

Via: MiniMachines

Source: Acer

Netflix original series 'Orange is the New Black' debuting July 11th

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/30/netflix-orange-is-the-new-black/

Despite having recently introduced the likes of Hemlock Grove and House of Cards, Netflix isn't staying put and is now boosting its original content with yet another production: Orange is the New Black. The new comedic drama series, created by Weeds' own Jenji Kohan, is set to start streaming to worldwide Netflix subscribers beginning July 11th. Similar to Netflix's House of Cards, Orange is the New Black consists of thirteen episodes running at around 60 minutes -- however, the main story here won't be based on drama coming out of D.C., but rather a "world populated with unforgettable characters and no-holds-barred humor set against the backdrop of a women's prison." Be sure to peruse over the PR after the break, where you'll find more deets about the plot as well as the full cast.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD

Source: Netflix

Samsung starts production of 20nm 4Gb LPDDR3 mobile DRAM

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/30/samsung-20nm-4gb-lpddr3-ram/

What is it that you want to know about the RAM in your mobile device? Usually, how much of it there is, and if you're a little more demanding of your hardware, maybe what type it is, too. Well, folk in the latter category might interested to know that Samsung has started production of 20nm 4Gb LPDDR3 mobile DRAM. As is the nature of smaller, more efficient components, the new chips promise to be faster (2,133 Mbps per pin, over LPDDR2's 800 Mbps), and -- so claims Samsung -- a 20 percent drop in power consumption. With just four of these new chips, OEMs can have a 2GB offering that's still just a slick 0.8mm in height.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Mobile

Belkin's Thunderbolt Express dock is finally shipping, offers its ports for $299

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/30/belkin-thunderbolt-express-dock-finally-shipsoffers-it/

Remember the Belkin Thunderbolt Express dock that we first laid our peepers on back at CES 2012? Well, the device that looks to lend a hand to your desktop setup is now available. After upgrading the unit back in the summer of 2012, pre-orders went live in February with a ship date expected shortly thereafter. No word on the cause of the delay, but the $299 dock still offers dual Thunderbolt ports for daisy-chaining up to five gadgets, FireWire 800, Ethernet, and both 3.5mm audio input and output. If the wait hasn't swayed your interest, grab one immediately via the source link below, and in stores before the end of May.

Filed under: Peripherals

Source: Belkin

Jawbone acquires health-tracking pioneer BodyMedia, opens API to developers

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/30/jawbone-acquires-bodymedia-opens-its-api-for-ios-developers/

Did your vibrating fitness bracelet wake you up on time? Good, because Jawbone has not one, but two pieces of news to share this morning. First off, getting the corporate news out of the way, the company's buying BodyMedia, perhaps best known for its wearable fitness trackers (yep, similar to what Jawbone's already making). In fact, though, BodyMedia's been in the health-data business since 1999, with a particularly strong foothold in the medical industry -- a market Jawbone hasn't reached yet, but would like to. As you can imagine, once the deal is finalized and Jawbone brings on BodyMedia's 60-odd employees, the plan will be to improve Jawbone's existing apps, and maybe even break into healthcare. In the meantime, we're told Jawbone will continue to sell BodyMedia's existing fitness monitors, but it's making no promises to keep them around indefinitely.

Speaking of improving the current Jawbone apps, the company is also opening up its API to developers so that they can use Jawbone stats in their applications, as well as share their own data back with Jawbone. For now, the Up platform is open only for iOS, though a company rep told us they're planning on adding Android too. (No exact ETA there, sorry.) At launch, there will be 10 apps on board, including notables like RunKeeper, Withings and MapMyFitness. What's neat is that users can manually disa! ble a co nnection with these apps anytime they want, and when they do, these third-party developers are required to delete user data from their servers. Again, no word on when this will be available for Android, but for now, at least, the iOS platform is open to developers worldwide. Hit the break for more info, along with a full list of the apps you can sync with your Up band right away.

Gallery: Jawbone Up platform for iOS

Filed under: Wearables

drag2share: This Is What A Google Self-Driving Car 'Sees' At A Stoplight (GOOG)

source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/aYmVuI_GxA8/this-is-what-a-google-self-driving-car-sees-at-a-stoplight-2013-4

This Is What A Google Self-Driving Car 'Sees' At A Stoplight (GOOG)

Apr 30, 2013

According to Idea Lab's Bill Gross, Google's self-driving cars gather 1 gigabyte of information every single second.

He says this is what a self-driving car "sees" at a stoplight:

google self driving car

Gross doesn't say where he got the image.

The idea of self-driving cars being on the road scares some people.

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drag2share - drag and drop RSS news items on your email contacts to share (click SEE DEMO)

Global Tablet Shipments Topped 40 Million Last Quarter

Source: https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/welcome

Tablets had a strong first quarter, shipping 40.6 million units, according to Strategy Analytics.

That's a 23% drop compared to the prior quarter, but it's an 143% increase over the same quarter in 2012.

The sequential drop shouldn't come as a surprise because the holiday quarter is historically the tablet market's strongest, so sales naturally dip in the first quarter.

The important thing, however, is that the dip is becoming less pronounced. Last year the decline between the fourth quarter of 2011 and the first quarter of 2012 was 41%. This year, it was nearly half that.

Furthermore, there is reason to believe that there is a substantial grey market for tablets in China that is flying under the radar of data research firms.

In terms of tablet platforms, Apple's iOS once again leads the tablet market, accounting for a 48% share of tablet shipments in the first quarter. That's a slight improvement over the fourth quarter, when it stumbled to a 44% share.

Google's Android was second, with a 43% share, according to Strategy Analytics.

Note, however, that Strategy Analytics places tablets like the Kindle Fire into the Android category, even though it doesn't really make sense to categorize them as such. Kindle tablets run on software that is a "fork" of the Android operating system, and they don't come pre-installed with Google's services and software.

Microsoft shipped 3 million tablets, up from 1 million a quarter prior, for a 7 percent share. Microsoft tablets may be showing signs of life, but the company's two-in-one Windows 8 interface — designed to work seamlessly across tablets and PCs — is not a rousing success just yet.

Click here to view a larger version of this chart.

BII global tablet shipments

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Tweets sent from 'Twitter for Glass' appear, suggest official app in testing

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/30/twitter-for-glass-tweets/

Google has opened its Mirror API for devs while passing out Glass headsets to early adopters -- including our own Tim Stevens -- and now there's evidence Twitter is already working up an official app. As TechCrunch points out, developer Jonathan Gottfried noticed images popping up from a "Twitter for Glass" client sporting the same #throughglass hashtag he'd been using on his own TweetGlass project and that Google puts on G+ images shared from the device. The original tweet he pointed out has been deleted, but as he informed AllThingsD, there are several others still live. Most notably, they originate from Googlers working on the Glass project, and ATD astutely mentioned Twitter's rules prohibit third-party apps from using the company's name, suggesting this is something developed in-house.

Filed under: Wearables, Google

Source: TechCrunch, AllThingsD, Jonathan Gottfried (Twitter)

Synrgic Uno debuts as one of the last TI OMAP-powered Android phones (updated with video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/30/synrgic-uno-m1-singapore/

Taiwan might have an HTC One and an HTC First, but starting today, Singapore has a Synrgic Uno to join the banter (get it?). The name Synrgic might not immediately ring a bell, but if you dig a little deeper, you'll see a mention of its earlier phone plus three tablets from a while back. Alas, said phone was eventually canned as the quality didn't meet expectations, so consider this Uno a new attempt by the same Singaporean startup. Announced in its home city just now, this device is positioned as a mid-tier Android phone with some modest specs, namely a 4.7-inch, 720p IPS display with Gorilla Glass and, more interestingly, a dual-core 1.5GHz Texas Instruments OMAP 4470 SoC (with 1GB DDR2 RAM and SGX 544 graphics chip). With the upcoming TI OMAP 5 series shifting towards automotive systems, chances are the Uno will be one of the last OMAP-powered smartphones before TI waves goodbye to the mobile world. More after the break.

Update: We've added a hands-on video after the break. In short: smooth software and solid hardware build, with some room for improvement on the coating at the top and bottom sides.

Gallery: Synrgic Uno debuts as one of the last TI OMAP-powered Android phones

Gallery: Synrgic Uno hands-on

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

Source: Synrgic

Nokia to invest in 'array' mobile cameras that use small lenses to capture big images

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/30/nokia-to-invest-in-pelican-camera-tech/

If the name Pelican Imaging rings a bell, it's possibly because we covered the company's array imaging camera prototype back in 2011. The technology uses multiple lenses that are relatively tiny in terms of how much space they take up in a mobile device, but which work together to capture an image of the same quality as a much larger camera -- just as array telescopes replace the need for one huge telescope. Now, it appears we weren't the only ones taking an interest, because Nokia's investment wing has revealed to Bloomberg that it's been watching the startup since 2008 and is currently planning to invest in it. Bo Ilsoe, of Nokia Growth Partners, describes Pelican's technology as being "on the cusp of being commercialized" -- so who knows? One day, a future Lumia might house 41 megapixels, image stabilization and the voodoo known as plenoptics. In the meantime, there's a video after the break which sort of explains how the technology sucks in enough data to allow for focus to be adjusted after a picture is taken -- a trick which also sounds rather familiar.

Filed under: Cellphones, Cameras, Mobile, Nokia

Source: Bloomberg

Monday, April 29, 2013

Eyes-on: MIT Media Lab's Smarter Objects can map a user interface onto... anything (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/29/eyes-on-mit-media-labs-smarter-objects/

Eyeson MIT Media Lab's Smarter Objects can map a user interface onto anything video

While patrolling the halls of the CHI 2013 Human Factors in Computing conference in Paris, we spied a research project from MIT's Media Lab called "Smarter Objects" that turns Minority Report tech on its head. The researchers figured out a way to map software functionality onto tangible objects like a radio, light switch or door lock through an iPad interface and a simple processor / WiFi transceiver in the object. Researcher Valentin Huen explains that "graphical user interfaces are perfect for modifying systems," but operating them on a day-to-day basis is much easier using tangible objects.

To that end, the team developed an iPad app that uses motion tracking technology to "map" a user interface onto different parts of an object. The example we saw was a simple radio with a a pair of dials and a speaker, and when the iPad's camera was pointed at it, a circular interface along with a menu system popped up that cannily tracked the radio. From there, Huen mapped various songs onto different positions of the knob, allowing him to control his playlist by moving it -- a simple, manual interface for selecting music. He was even able to activate a second speaker by drawing a line to it, then "cutting" the line to shut it off. We're not sure when, or if, this kind of tech will ever make it into your house, but the demo we s! aw (see the pair of videos after the break) seemed impressively ready to go.

Filed under: Tablets, Science

Your Skype Account Can Be Easily Hijacked, Says A Guy Who Was Hacked Six Times In One Day (MSFT)

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/spammers-can-easily-hijack-your-skype-account-says-a-security-researcher-who-lost-his-account-six-times-2013-4

Skype It is painfully easy for hackers to hijack your Skype account and then use it to spam your Skype contacts, says a guy who had his Skype account stolen six times in one day.

Over the weekend, "Dylan," aka @TibitXimer on Twitter, a self-proclaimed security researcher/hacker, contacted Skype when he discovered his account had been hijacked. Skype asked him a few basic questions and then reset the account.

The problem is that those same easy-to-answer questions are what allowed spammers to hijack his account in the first place.

When someone contacts Skype to say they want a new email address and password, Skype asks people to tell them things like naming three to five Skype contacts, giving them an email account used with Skype, or giving a first and/or last name, Dylan explained.

He says it's easy for a hacker to learn those things, call Skype and gain control of the account.

After the sixth time he had his account stolen on Saturday, Dylan posted a message to the Skype help forum and started Tweeting about it:

@skypesupport my skype was given away to over 6 people in one day due to them just knowing my email, name, and 5 contacts on my account
— Tibit (@TibitXimer) April 25, 2013

Other people tweeted about getting their Skype accounts hijacked, too.

@tibitximer @skype My account was hijacked and they changed/add! ed email . Can't reset password bc the token expires. Support's terrible.
— Jana Veliskova (@jveliskova) April 29, 2013

Skype fixed the problem with Dylan's account, it says, but it's unclear if they will change their support policies to make it harder to get a Skype account reset.

We've reached out to Skype PR and Microsoft PR for comment.

SEE ALSO: The 10 Most Important Companies In Cloud Computing

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