An iWatch concept

Wearable gadgets have been mainstream since the pocket-watch so nobody is going to balk at the idea of an Apple iWatch. What they might balk at is the design. Watch designs are very personal, much more so than laptop design or a mobile phone. A watch really says something about YOU.

Apple is rumoured to be developing a wrist watch of some description, which would most likely synch up with an iPhone or iPad to give you updates on you’re wrist, allow you to control other devices and pull data from the cloud. That leaves a lot of speculation about the design which will probably leverage Apple’s existing manufacturing processes and therefore, as I quip at the top of this page, probably look like an iPod nano with a strap.

But Tolga Tuncer has other ideas. To keep the watch thin it doesn’t have a touch-screen. The battery level is displayed via a series of illuminated LEDs on the lower bezel, and the volume controls are two circular buttons set into the final link of the strap.

While the watch is claimed to come with all the connectivity we would expect of an Apple designed wrist product, and the strap and bezel are reminiscent of the PowerBook Unibody , the face of the watch doesn’t look very Apple-like at all.

The watch uses an OLED screen for displaying, by default, a traditional analogue watch face with digital time and date read-out. In fact, it looks like an over-designed watch-face that you could see in any high-street jewellers.

So while the hardware design of this concept brings inspiration to those of us who can’t wait for Apple to dominate another product sector, lets hope Apple continues to bring innovative software design to the marketplace.

Gallery

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Original article: iWatch concept by Tolga Tuncer
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Dolphin Concept Car

The shape is just part of the many facets of the design that contribute to the overall concept of a low energy family car. The concept tag line is ‘Half! Lightweight with passion”. Other features of the vehicle include:

• Entire body of glass,
• Carbon fibre frame,
• Lightweight design to reduce energy consumption

The drive-chain includes a maglev DC motor with dual stators which apparently brings power at a lighter weight cost than conventional engines.

This family car of the future, as its name suggests, takes its inspiration from aquatic mammals, which is so very evident from its streamlined and sculpted shape.  Moreover, the lightweight construction would be sure to make it agile with taught handling.

Gallery

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Original article: Dolphin Concept Car wins Michellin competition
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128GB iPad

The fourth-generation  iPad will have a capacity of 128GB, considerably more than the current version and will go on sale from Monday.

Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing said:

“With more than 120 million iPads sold, it’s clear that customers around the world love their iPads, and everyday they are finding more great reasons to work, learn and play on their iPads rather than their old PCs. With twice the storage capacity and an unparalleled selection of over 300,000 native iPad apps, enterprises, educators and artists have even more reasons to use iPad for all their business and personal needs.”

Unfortunately the 128GB iPad will be priced at $799 for the cheapest version and $929 for the Wi-Fi touting, 3G spouting version (a MacBook Air costs only $170 more).

One user on the technology forum Macrumors.com, Kcamfork, wrote:

“I’m glad there are options. But these prices are getting ridiculous for simply more storage.”

And Nia820 wrote on the same website:

“Will be skipping this. I can buy a decent laptop with that money.”

Apple’s new 128GB iPad will have to compete against existing Samsung models as well as Microsoft’s Surface Pro tablet with 128GB.

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• More Apple media pad grist to the rumour mill

Original article: 128GB iPad available in February
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The next generation Xbox’s hardware, nicknamed the Xbox 720 by fans, codenamed Durango by Microsoft has long been suspected of sporting an eight-core AMD CPU running at 1.6GHz (and reportedly so does the PlayStation 4).

The Xbox 720 / Durango also boasts an 800 MHz graphics processor with 12 shader cores providing a total of 768 threads and a peak raw processing performance of 1.2 teraflops. It also apparently has 8GB of DDR3 RAM (double that of the PlayStation 4) and 32MB of superfast ESRAM.

This all means that it’s very powerful, and on par with a high end PC. As previously rumoured the new console also uses a x6 speed Blu-ray drive and comes with a hard drive as standard – no doubt of varying sizes depending on which model you buy. The specs suggest a device that’s very similar in many respects to the previously leaked PS4 (code-named Orbis). If anything, the Xbox 720 might come up a little short of the PS4 in terms of pure graphical power, but it has a couple of other tricks up its sleeve.

Speaking of which, the main point of differentiation between the two next-gen consoles here would appear to be the GPU. The Xbox 720′s 12-core GPU appears to lag behind the PS4′s 18-core example by quite a margin – at least on paper.

Other interesting snippets from this report include the claim that the Xbox 720 will feature a Blu-ray drive, as well as a fixed hard drive (the Xbox 360′s has always been removable).

The console will also feature what appears to be an accelerated hardware video encoder and an HDMI input. This would open the possibility of recording TV content from your dedicated set-top box to your new console. You could also import footage from your camcorder directly to the Xbox 720 console.

Other features visible on the above system diagram are a Kinect multichannel echo cancellation (MEC), although no one doubted that there would also be a next generation Kinect. It does at least have its own input this time, and doesn’t have to use one of the USB 3.0 slots.

The Xbox 720 also has a HDMI 1.4a input, which suggests it can receive video signals from other devices – perhaps the already rumoured Xbox set-top box. Not everything on the system diagram is easily explainable though, even if you do speak computer-ese, with the block named ‘Data Move Engines’ remaining a complete mystery.

As with most of the more believable console leaks the question here is not so much whether the information is genuine but simply how old it is and whether anything has changed more recently. That may take a relatively long time to find out though as even if Microsoft do announce their new console in March or June they won’t necessarily reveal the full tech spec until much later.

So in the meantime here’s some light reading on just what it, allegedly, contains:

The Xbox 720 specs

CPU:

• x64 Architecture
• 8 CPU cores running at 1.6 gigahertz (GHz)
• each CPU thread has its own 32 KB L1 instruction cache and 32 KB L1 data cache
• each module of four CPU cores has a 2 MB L2 cache resulting in a total of 4 MB of L2 cache
• each core has one fully independent hardware thread with no shared execution resources
• each hardware thread can issue two instructions per clock

GPU:

• custom D3D11.1 class 800-MHz graphics processor
• 12 shader cores providing a total of 768 threads
• each thread can perform one scalar multiplication and addition operation (MADD) per clock cycle
• at peak performance, the GPU can effectively issue 1.2 trillion floating-point operations per second
• High-fidelity Natural User Interface (NUI) sensor is always present

Storage and Memory:

• 8 gigabyte (GB) of RAM DDR3 (68 GB/s)
• 32 MB of fast embedded SRAM (ESRAM) (102 GB/s)
• from the GPU’s perspective the bandwidths of system memory and ESRAM are parallel providing combined peak bandwidth of 170 GB/sec.
• Hard drive is always present
• 50 GB 6x Blu-ray Disc drive

Networking:

• Gigabit Ethernet
• Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Direct

Hardware Accelerators:

• Move engines
• Image, video, and audio codecs
• Kinect multichannel echo cancellation (MEC) hardware
• Cryptography engines for encryption and decryption, and hashing

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Original article: Xbox 720 specs leaked
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The OLED curved screen

Havis Kwon, President and CEO of LG’s Home Entertainment Company said:

“LG is the first to launch the 55-inch OLED TV. We believe our new OLED TVs offer the ultimate viewing experience, surpassing anything seen before. The new curved model complements our core OLED TV family with a unique design that capitalizes on the thinness of the screen and the aesthetic beauty of OLED TV.”

Technology

The WRGB technology is a unique four-colour pixel system that features a white sub-pixel, which works in conjunction with the conventional RGB setup to enhance the color output. The built-in Color Refiner delivers further tonal enhancement, resulting in images that are more vibrant and natural than earlier models. The 55-inch OLED TV also offers an higher contrast ratio, which maintains optimal contrast levels regardless of ambient brightness or viewing angle. To complement the higher contrast ratio and enable deeper black pixels, a High Dynamic Range (HDR) algorithm has been incorporated. This technology also ensures contrast ratio consistency and maximum color separation.

Related Posts:

• LG launches 55 inch next-gen OLED TV – the LG55EM9700
• LG to launch Trumotion 480Hz LCD TV at CES 2009
• Sony’s flexible 11-inch OLED display flaunted at CEATEC
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• Eizo gives its latest FlexScan LCD screens a twirl

Original article: LG unveils 55 inch OLED curved screen – the EA9800
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All-in-one computer cum tablet

How many 27-inch tablets have you seen? And yet the idea isn’t as ridiculous as it sounds when you consider social browsing and game play on a flat surface. At such a size the Lenovo Horizon 27 can also operate as an all-in-one desktop machine.

The Horizon is based on Microsoft’s Windows 8 Operating system but Lenovo have added their own multi-user interface called Aura. But Aura isn’t just an interface layer that floats on top of the Windows OS. It is deeply rooted in the operation of the machine. While the device is upright in desktop mode Windows 8 appears normally but drop it down to table-top level and Aura takes over presenting its ‘control wheel’ that acts as an application launcher (although I couldn’t help comparing it with a revolving food platter available in certain restaurants!).

The applications available via Aura include:

• Photo Browser,
• Music & Video Players,
• Games,
• Education

All designed or re-designed with multiple users in mind.

Unsurprisingly, Lenovo say they are going to offer an App. store and a number of software houses have committed to producing titles for Aura including EA Sports and Ubisoft. The software development kit is a free download so Lenovo seems determined to eliminate all excuses not to develop for the technology.

But it’s not just software  that make this machine look like a serious attempt to drive a wedge in the consumer computer arena. The Horizon package includes the following hardware:

• Touch-capacitive sliding air hockey paddles,
• Touch-capacitive joysticks,
• Large six-sided die

The joysticks are connected via suction cups to spots on the screen and the die transmits its number to the machine via wifi.

Lenovo has embraced the concept of the coffee-table computer and has proposed a table design which accommodates the Horizon near its centre. When the machine is not in use flaps at the corners of the table slide over and conceal the Horizon so that the table looks more like traditional furniture. These flaps are motorised, as is another surface that lifts the Horizon into its upright orientation so that it can operate like a conventional desktop machine.

Its easy to imaging social gaming and education around this computer concept. The dedicated coffee table looks like an extravagant hardware upgrade that not many will have space for. But as a gaming machine resting on a conventional table this looks like a goer. At a price point of $999 Lenovo have been careful not to price the Horizon out of the consumer space and remember, its still a fairly capable desktop machine.

By this Summer Lenovo will probably not be alone in offering this format of Desktop/Laptop machine all with similar configurations so the distinguishing criterium will be the software. Whoever attracts those killer multi-user apps wins.

Specs

The specs for the Horizon are:

Screen size: 27 inches
Thickness: 1.1 inches
Weight: 17.8 lb

Chip-set: Core i7 ULV CPU
Drives: Solid state option
Graphics hardware: Nvidea GeForce GT 620

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Original article: Lenovo’s all-in-one computer with a twist — the Horizon 27
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The 55 inch OLED TV

Pre-orders are now being taken for LG’s 55EM9700 which was demonstrated at the Consumer Electronics Show in January last year. Orders for the 55 inch OLED TV are scheduled to start in Europe, the rest of Asia and North America in three months time.

Both Samsung and LG announced 55 inch OLED TVs last year but LG has been the first to market at a price point expected to be around $10,300, US$10,300 with that price not reducing, analysts believe, until 2015. However, sales are still expected to grow to 1.7 million by 2014. This release is more about LG cementing itself as market leader in the display sector.

Havis Kwon, President and CEO of LG’s Home Entertainment Company said:

“We are extremely pleased to be able to make this announcement at the start of the new year because we believe that OLED will usher in a whole new era of home entertainment. Not since colour TV was first introduced 60 years ago has there been a more transformational moment. When high definition TV was first introduced 15 years ago, the public’s reaction was ‘wow!’ but when customers see our razor-thin OLED TV for the first time, they’re left speechless. That’s a clear indicator as any that OLED TV is much more than just an incremental improvement to current television technology.”

Smaller OLEDs are already available in high-streets. Samsung uses the technology in its smartphones and Sony’s PlayStation Vita hand-held console also uses OLED technology.

The Future

OLEDs (organic light emitting diodes) have been touted as the successor to LCD ( liquid crystal displays) since the new technology allows for darker and deeper blacks and can be made thinner than conventional display methids. This is because OLEDs do not require a back-light or the heavy structure hold them rigid.

Some are predicting that OLED technology will bring the development of a new wave of ‘bendy’, transparent gadgets some of which will be announced over the coming year.

Rival Technologies

Although the LG55EM9700 marks a size milestone for the technology building large displays using OLED has proved difficult due to production costs and reliability problems. However, there is another technology which, 4K, which may be more suitable for larger scale devices. 4K has four times the resolution of 1080p HD. Dubbed ‘Ultra HD’, 4K may be more suited to larger displays over 100 inches and, in fact, we may see some 110 inches plus 4K models at CES next week.

Current 4K TVs are all LCD-based but OLED is said to offer richer quality so might be a better option for the sub-100 inch market.

Specification

Screen size (diagonal): 54.6 inches
Depth: 4mm (0.16 inches)
Weight: 10 Kg (22 lb)

Resolution: 1920 x 1080p

3D-compatible: yes
V-chip: yes

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Original article: LG launches 55 inch next-gen OLED TV – the LG55EM9700
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Android 4.0 expected features

Android 4.0 is clearly designed to unify the Android experience and while there are plenty of details lacking, we know that Ice Cream Sandwich has:

• New User Interface taking a cue from the Honeycomb tablet operating system, Ice Cream Sandwich sports a sleek futuristic design that more closely aligns the phone and slate OSes.
• Hardware acceleration for smoother-running apps and greater energy efficiency saving battery life.
  
• All hardware buttons removed in favor of software buttons, allowing more universal application design on both tablet and smartphone devices.
• Roboto font, which was specifically developed for smartphones and tablets.
• Flexible widgets that can be resized by users and which are located in a new element of the OS’s navigation.
• Home Screen folders You can group apps or shortcuts together and, as with iOS, you can do this just by dragging icons on top of one another.
• Smarter folders, including the ability to ‘layer’ foldering.
• Favorites tray giving quick access favorite apps, folders, and links.
• Screenshot functionality. By holding down the power and volume button, you can take a shot of everything on your screen.
• Revamped notifications, including new user customization options and quick dismissal.
• Improved copy/paste by allowing users to move and manipulate entire blocks of selected text.
• Better keyboard It’s faster, smoother, more accurate, and best of all, better at correction. There’s in-line spell check and the ability to install third-party dictionaries.
• Enhanced talk-to-text features by improving accuracy, speeding up speech-to-text interpretation, and making the controls for speech-based typing more prominent.
• New browser that has tabs, lets you import your Chrome bookmarks, and lets you automatically load the desktop version of a site.
• Integrated Gmail and Google Calendar, whether you want them or not, with more intuitive controls and deeper in-OS functionality.
• Gmail UI improvementsincluding off-line search, a two-line preview, and gesture support for swiping between conversations and action bar for composing a message, searching, and accessing labels.
• Google+ integration, giving users quick access to Hangouts and other new social functions from Google.
• People app taking care of all your social networking needs, the updated People app will be pull in all status updates, photos, videos which should also include all your Google+ activity.
• Multi-tasking has been given a boost and with ICS it’s easier to see which apps you’ve been using recently. If you decide you’re done with using one, you can easily flick it away to close.
• Data usage tracking and controls that let users see where their data usage is coming from.
• Improved camera functionalitywith image stabilization, autofocus, panorama photo features, automatic face detection, and on-the-go photo editing and enhancement. Also Camera has no shutter lag, continuous focus, zoom while recording, panorama photos, time lapse settings, and 1080p recording.
• “Android Beam,” which lets users transmit YouTube videos, websites, apps, and more by touching their phone to another NFC-equipped device.
• Improved the contact list through the “People App,” which gives users the option to share, hide, and prioritize their contact information and integrated social data.
• “Face Unlock,” which lets users unlock their phone just by looking at the front-facing camera.
• Voice Input features including the ability to read out text for your mobile to input. This is a similar, if less advanced, version of Siri.
• “Visual Voicemail” service that translates your voicemails into text so you don’t need to listen to them to get the message. Coupled with auto-text response for when you are busy and can’t answer a call.
• WiFi direct which enables you to connect directly to peer WiFi devices without the need for tethering.
• on-device data encryption allowing connections to Microsoft Exchange Servers for access to corporate e-mail, calendars, contacts and more, eben if those Exchange Servers have a device-encryption IT policy enabled.
• Revamped calendar UI that makes navigating calendar pages easier and more intuitive. And a new pinch-to-zoom feature makes precise zooming in on calendar items much simpler.

So plenty to look forward to there. But is there anything missing? Were you hoping for anything that isn’t on this list.

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Original article: Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich features we know sofar
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Tim Cook started off the show with some interesting statistics:

• There have been six million Lion downloads to since it’s launch
• “the MacBook Pro and iMac are the number one best selling notebook and desktop in the United States”
• 16 billion songs have been downloaded from iTunes
• 300 million iPods have been sold
• 250 million iOS devices have been sold

Scott Forstall then gave us the news that iOS 5 will be launched on October 12th.

iPhone 4S

Then came the big news of the day when Tim took the wraps of a sparkling new iPhone 4S.

The 4S has the same form factor as the 4, just as all the speculation expected, so no larger screen. All the changes are under the skin:

• Storage space is up from 8GB to 16, 32 and 64 MB
• The processor is upgraded from A4 to A5
• The main Camera is upgraded from 5 megapixel AF with flash to 8 megapixel AF with flash and f/2.4 aperture
• The secondary camera has its frame rate upped to 30fps
• Video recording resolution up from 720 to 1080
• Cellular connectivity goes from ‘Quadband GSM, pentaband HSPA’ to ‘Hybrid GSM / CDMA “World Phone”, Bluetooth 4.0′

All other specs remain essentially the same except for some minor improvements in battery performance during various activities but I never take these claims seriously from any manufacturer.

Engadget has compared the 4S with suitable competition: the Samsung Galaxy S II, the Motorola Droid Bionic and the HTC Titan. In this company the Apple iPhone S4 appears to fall short in some respects:

• The slowest processor (in purely MHz terms)
• The least RAM
• The smallest display
• Lowest spec secondary camera
• Embedded battery

But stands out in others:

• The highest storage capacity
• Highest screen resolution

This comparison concentrates on hardware. But what about the software upgrades?

The 4S is the first iPhone to come with Siri, Apple’s new assistant that provides a voice interface for just about everything you can do on an iPhone. Reports from the event claim that the performance of Siri under test was every bit as good as Tim Cook’s demo.

Apple now has a range of three iPhones prices as follows:

• iPhone 3: Free
• iPhone 4:$99
• iPhone 4S:
• • 16MB: $199
  • 32MB:$299
  • 64MB:$399

Of course all these comparisons will have to be revised once Samsung announces its new phone next Tuesday!

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Original article: Apple iPhone 4S launched at ‘let’s talk iPhone’ event
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Samsung 3D MSTV

The screen uses the latest generation of transparent AMOLED+ panels making this the thinnest and lightest screen ever. Each sub-pixel is a diode of red,  green or blue. Therefore, instead of displaying the usual black areas, they allow light to pass which allows the viewer to see through the screen.

You can adjust the transparency level of the screen and select the screens that match your desired application such as screens specifically dedicated to video games, movies etc.

The TV supports various screen sizes (22,32,42,46,55, 64 inches), full HD, 3D active screen and supports 4K2K (40″ and more) with 3D without glasses. Once the screen is connected to the TV, it automatically recognizes and displays the definition of the screen. You choose your screen depending on the space you have.

The TV is completely wireless. With ‘DPConnect’ your devices (video games, Blu-ray players, and others) connect wirelessly (7m, max). There’s no HDMI, no USB etc. The TV automatically detects devices in less than 5ms and displays the relevant options.

In keeping with Sammy’s passion for Android, this TV is a pure-blood Google Android.

Other features include:

• The base serves as a box.
• You can find all your applications on your TV with the “SynchrTV” and you can use your smartphone as a controller to play your video games.
• If you do not have a smartphone or remote to control your TV, the touch screen will allow you a simple gesture to access functions or you can do so through the voice function.
• It features SmartTV applications, screens with cameras, the “Uprogram” which allows you to share your programs on your devices like your smartphone or tablet android etc.
• “No Edges”, so you can see the entire image on your screen.
• ActiveDeep3D+ allows you to see 3D images of high quality in a transparent screen without lag.

Gallery

Related Posts:

• Dolphin Concept Car wins Michellin competition
• LG launches 55 inch next-gen OLED TV – the LG55EM9700
• Apple iPhone 4S launched at ‘let’s talk iPhone’ event
• Demolition robot — you know you want one!
• Samsung Celox Trumps Apple iPhone 5 ‘specs’

Original article: Samsung 3D MSTV concept — now you see it, now you don’t
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