Long-term followers of this web site know that I love new screen technologies – especially if they are of the OLED variety. Samsung claims to have one step further with its Super AMOLED…but has not disclosed too much so far.
Don’t ask me where erikaustria1974 got the tone-less video below – it seems to be a Samsung-internal video showing the benefits of Super AMOLED:
Not much to add here…
This one is for all registered Apple developers – the beta 4 of iPhone SDK 3.2 has just been released.
As usual, non-registered members see but this:
The iPhone’s lack of stylus was praised when the unit first came out – unfortunately, having no stylus makes using the unit with gloves difficult.
Koreans discovered that a popular type of snack sausage could be used as stylus – and an innovative vendor has now capitalized on their findings. His “sausage” is non-edible, but can be used as a stylus for long times without fear of “degeneration”:
Those of you who feel like taking a stab can do so for the acceptable price of 1 USD – further information is at the URL below:
http://www.casecrown.com/iphone/accessories/iphone-1g-3g-3gs-sausage-screen-stylus
Dr. Schaffer’s Mobile Computing facility at the Austrian FH Hagenberg has produced quite a few really amazing projects (think Shaker Racer) in the last years; the knowledge of their faculty staff is top-notch and contains loads of Forum Nokia champions. Cutting a long story short: the price (free) is more than right – I am there for about 18 months now and am happy overall.
In case anyone of you feels like adding a Bachelor of Science in Mobile Computing to his business card, definitely consider these boys. As tuition is free and living in Linz is dirt cheap (900E/month max), interested German-speakers are well advised to visit their open-house day to find out more about how to get great education for a very low price…which is held on Friday:
FH Hagenberg Campus
Softwarepark 11
4232 Hagenberg/Austria
Open: 9h to 18h local time
Yours truly will not be around this time. However, it would be too cool to have a group of Tamoggemon Content Network heads at this university…
When the iPhone came, yours truly was among the first to muse that a stylus would eventually come back – the device has since brought us sausages used as styli, weird aftermarket solutions and a load of other ideas regarding that “god-darn toothpick”.
Dell apparently sees value in styli, too – SlashGear reports the following:
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As for stylus input – something we puzzled over earlier – Choubey seems to hint that Dell might use new transparent conductor resistive panels over capacitive technology in future tablet models, which support multitouch finger-input and stylus control with high-resolution accuracy.
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This makes their Mini5 tablet interesting all over again…
We’ve heard all kinds of rumors about iPhone video calls in the past – unfortunately, they have not materialized so far.
FSM now stumbled across this snippet on O2 UK’s web site:
Given that video calls never really took off, I would dare to assume that this is a slip-up rather than a honest mistake/leak – stay tuned for further info as we get it…
We’ve heard our fair share of news about new Bluetooth standards – unfortunately, very few devices have implemented anything beyond 2.x so far. Nevertheless, it’s always interesting to see what the boys plan for Q4 of this year.
PCWorld states the following about the new standard:
…Previous versions of Bluetooth could only go into devices with triple-A or larger-capacity batteries.
Bluetooth 4.0 includes a low-energy specification for transmitting small bursts of data over short ranges, in addition to the high-speed data transfer capabilities introduced with Bluetooth 3.0 last April.
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So much, so good…
Motley Fool is not new to the “Palm will be aquired” group. Their latest statement was really, really funny…
The relevant passage goes as following:
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Apple, on other hand, has several good reasons to go after Palm. It’s the most natural fit talentwise; webOS is based on the Mac maker’s WebKit tools; and CEO Steve Jobs has expressed a mild interest in deals even as he’s eschewed dividends. He’d need little of his company’s $40 billion war chest to acquire Palm.
And if he doesn’t, someone else will. It’s long past time to put Palm in new hands
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Everybody with at least a minimal amount of IT understanding will be able to tell you that this is pointless: Apple has nothing to gain from Palm.
WebOS apps are completely incompatible to the iPhone OS, which follows a different programming paradigm. The two platforms are like race cars and lorries – not much to merge here…
I’d file this report straight into the under-reported but interesting category. When it came to CPU’s, QualComm was a nobody a few years ago – in the last two years, it became hard to find a non-Qualcomm mobile device.
The CEO of the company now stated the following according to Mobile Business:
Qualcomm’s chief executive Paul Jacobs said he sees the number of wireless chip providers shrinking either through consolidation or players disappearing, reports Dow Jones Newswires. “Consolidation will happen or people will leave the market,” he said.”We’re trying to make that happen sooner.” He also appeared to rule out the prospect of buying rival ARM.
Given that ARM is a fabless IP core vendor, and that Samsung has already all but left the market, this essentially targets one vendor: Marvell.
They bought up Intel’s assets a few years ago, and never got much out of it – Intel’s XScale CPU’s dominated the market, whereas Marvell’s new processors are almost invisible.
QualComm buying up ARM, on the other hand, would be a total GAU scenario. As ARM holds tons and tons of patents for ARM processors, it would allow QualComm to effectively stop competing chip vendors from creating ARM-based processors…
When it comes to China, the iPhone has had a mixed track record – while wanted by everyone, government and carriers had their fair share of issues.
Mobile Business now reports the following:
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China Mobile said today it is still in negotiations with Apple over the sale of iPhones in China, according to AFP. The comments come as existing Chinese iPhone carrier China Unicom has reportedly experienced relatively sluggish sales.
The reports of sluggish sales at Unicom’s are enforced by reports of China Unicom’s intention to go Android against the government’s will…
