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Friday, October 4, 2013

Samsung FINALLY allowed to sell the Galaxy Tab in Australia

After a long game of inflicting and lifting bans backwards and forwards, finally the Australian High Court has allowed Samsung to sell the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the country.

The High Court had a week to decide on a verdict whether to accept Apple’s application to appeal to the Federal Court decision of overturning the ban on the Galaxy Tab 10.1. And today, finally, the High Court represented by a three judge panel, dismissed Apple’s application, which means that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 can go on sale in Australian stores.

According to a Samsung representative, the tablet will be launched in time for Christmas, which is a perfect timing for Samsung to catch the wave of the holiday season.

Source

Thursday, October 3, 2013

HP TouchPad Android port edges closer to completion

HP TouchPad Android port edges closer to completion, hardware acceleration now enabled

After the fire sale that HP had to mark the end of webOS as we know it, the TouchPad suddenly became a very important device. A lot of people took the $100 offer and are now hoping to get as much bang for their buck as possible. Something that the abandoned webOS won’t deliver, but an Android port might just provide.

And the good news, brought by its developers themselves, are that the said port has moved another step closer to its official release. The Cyanogen team released a new video demonstrating the 3D gaming capabilities of their Android-running TouchPad.

The team has enabled the hardware graphics acceleration under Google OS, allowing for some of the most demanding Android games to be played on it. Check it out on video.

If you were among the lucky fellas to get one of the discounted TouchPads you’re certainly very eager to see the final version of this hit your device. Unfortunately however, the developers say that it’s a bit too early for that. We are not even at the stage when an estimated release time could be provided.

Via

Samsung I9300 M to come with eye-tracking and auto-dial

Samsung I9300 M to come with eye-tracking and auto-dial?

Yesterday we first heard the Samsung I9300 might be called Galaxy M and belong to the mid-range and now we already got our first glance of its specs. The new rumors have little facts to back them up, so you probably shouldn’t bet the farm on them coming up true, but they are more exciting enough to be worth checking out.

According to our source, the device might even drop the Galaxy branding and go by Samsung M. What’s more interesting, though, are few neat little tricks up its sleeve, including eye-monitoring feature, which will keep the display turned on if it recognizes you are looking at it.

The eye-tracker will also manage the auto-rotation of the device so that when it detects that you are lying down, the screen will stay level with your sight. The feature does sound like it came out of a science fiction movie, but, if true, it will be awesome to have.

Another more down-to-earth sounding feature is auto-dial, which detects when you put the Samsung M to your ear after reading a message from someone and automatically dials their number. But wait, there’s more. When you take a group photo, it will automatically recognize the faces of those in your contact list and let you email them the photo.

Lastly, our source doesn’t exclude the possibility of the Samsung M being able to monitor your heart rate and other biometric functions via hardware addons. With Samsung being an official sponsor of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, announcing a phone with such feature in the eve of the games makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?

We’ll be keeping an eye for more info about the Samsung I9300 so stay tuned! Ideally, Samsung will make an official announcement in the coming weeks and will finally confirm or deny all those rumors.

Apple could rack up an $11 billion bill with Samsung before 2012 is out

With all the market rivalry, patent lawsuits and sly televisual marketing going on between Samsung and Apple, you’d be forgiven for thinking all ties between these two companies would have already been severed at this heavily tumultuous stage in their relationship, but at the end of the day business is business and both these big names know that need to work together to make money.

Apple will owe Samsung a lot of money before the end of 2012

The likes of LG and Sharp were initially entrusted with creating displays for Apple’s newest tablet, set to touch down in a couple of days, but when they were unable to deliver due to manufacturing issues, Apple passed the task to Samsung who will now be producing the new iPad’s QXGA display panels (for the time being at least).

As such the cost of these panels will add to a growing bill that Apple currently has under contract with Samsung, which by the end of this year is expected to total somewhere in the vicinity of $11 billion. The running total for parts bought by Apple from Samsung is rumored to stand at approximately $9.7 billion which already dwarfs last years final bill of $7.8 billion.

An unnamed Samsung official stated, “The amount of the current contract is around $9.7 billion. The popularity of Apple products lines the pockets of Samsung as well. The amount may go up to $11 billion, depending on the demand for Apple products.” According to the same source, Samsung are also on the cards to produce a 7.85″ display supposedly for a smaller iPad along with high speed solid state drives (SSDs) for Apple’s latest MacBooks.

Presently displays, processors, DRAM, NAND flash chips and similar components are all supplied to Apple from Samsung. Based on a conversation had at the end of last year between Apple’s CEO Tim Cook and Samsung Electronics’ Chief Operating Officer Lee Jay-yong, the Korean company will be a key supplier of Apple until the end of 2014.

In their current states, it would appear that Apple need Samsung in order to help produce their latest iPad to an acceptable quality and at an acceptable pace, whilst Apple is Samsung’s largest single customer and as such it just makes sense on a corporate level to continue to do business, despite the bad blood in other areas of their relationship.

Source | Via

More photos of the Nokia Lumia 1020 battery pack show the grip

More photos of the Nokia Lumia 1020 battery pack show the grip, tripod mount and more

The battery pack for the Nokia Lumia 1020 (codenamed EOS) has leaked again, this time with more photos that offer a much better look at the accessory. By the looks of it, the battery pack won’t add a lot of thickness – the 1,020mAh battery seems to be contained in the grip.

The grip has a nice rubbery-looking strip that should give you a rock solid hold on the Lumia 1020.

The grip also adds has a standard tripod mount on the bottom and a shutter key on top. This battery pack turns Nokia’s upcoming (just one day away now!) PureView camera into a point-and-shoot lookalike.

The right side of the pack has four LEDs that show the charge level as well as the microUSB port used to charge the pack and the phone if inserted. The view from the inside reveals something that might be a lanyard eyelet.

In case you’ve missed it, the Nokia Lumia 1020 (or maybe 909) will run Windows Phone 8, pack a 41MP sensor, will “reinvent zoom” (presumably something like the one on the Nokia 808 PureView) and will offer excellent low-light photos. The smartphoned is expected to launch as soon as next month for $600 in at least three colors.

Thanks to Eugen Diskin for sending this in!

Source (in Russian)

Acer CEO advises Microsoft against making tablets

Acer CEO advises Microsoft against making tablets, tells them they're no good at it

Acer’s CEO JT Wang has some words of wisdom for Microsoft and they involve telling them not to enter the tablet market, which is exactly what Microsoft plans to do with the Surface.

While everyone assumed that Microsoft’s decision to enter the hardware manufacturing business will not go down well with their OEM partners, these companies were strangely quiet initially. That is until now, when the reality of the situation seems to have slowly dawned upon them and Acer is the first one to take a shot at Microsoft.

According to Wang, Acer has told Microsoft to think the decision over as it will create a huge negative impact for the ecosystem and that the other brands may take a negative reaction to this move. Wang also thinks that this is not something Microsoft is good at so they should think about this twice.

What Mr. Wang and perhaps even other OEMs are failing to grasp is that Microsoft may have had to take the drastic step of manufacturing its own hardware because companies like Acer are incapable of doing a good job. It would have been very easy for Microsoft to go to an OEM like Acer and get them to manufacture the Surface tablets for them. But a lot is resting on the success of the Surface for Microsoft and the fact that they don’t trust other OEMs to do this important job for them clearly shows that Microsoft doesn’t think others are capable of doing the job right, something they would have learned after years of working with them.

Maybe Mr. Wang should take a look at some of Acer’s own products before telling others they are not good at something.

Source

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Galaxy Tab 10

Galaxy Tab 10.1 ban gets lifted

After keeping it in purgatory for a while, Judge Lucy Koh has finally lifted the ban on the Galaxy Tab 10.1. If you remember, the tablet was banned in the US court after it was found that the device was infringing upon the iPad’s design.

Later on, however, during the recent Apple vs. Samsung legal war, the jury decided that although the Galaxy Tab 10.1 was infringing upon several of Apple’s patents, the design patent wasn’t one of them. And since the ban was due to that particular patent, it would have to be lifted.

After that Samsung appealed for the ban to be lifted, which meant Judge Lucy Koh could not lift the ban any longer as it was out of her jurisdiction (she could have if Samsung had not appealed). Then the Federal U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to Koh and authorized her to lift the ban and so the ban has now been lifted.

Now, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is not completely out of the woods. The next round of Apple vs. Samsung trials will commence on December 6 and the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is part of it and as mentioned before, it still infringes upon several of Apple’s patents so it could once again be banned. But till then you still have around two months where the product can now be sold legally in the US. Assuming anybody would still want to buy it.

Source