Yesterday, Bloomberg reported that Sony is considering pushing back the release of the NGP, aka the PSP2 (we followed up right after the report was published). As a reason for the possible delay, Jack Tretton (president of Sony Computer Entertainment of America) was quoted as saying his company is seeing production problems.
wtorek, 5 kwietnia 2011
Sony Says The NGP/PSP2 Won?t Be Delayed (But Rather Arrive This Year)
Yesterday, Bloomberg reported that Sony is considering pushing back the release of the NGP, aka the PSP2 (we followed up right after the report was published). As a reason for the possible delay, Jack Tretton (president of Sony Computer Entertainment of America) was quoted as saying his company is seeing production problems.
Nexus S 4G smartphone for Sprint Ships April 6
We have already done the whole spy shot thing on the coming Sprint Nexus S 4G Android smartphone. We know just about all there is to know about the smartphone and now the launch date and price for the smartphone on Sprint have been offered. These are the last two details buyers really need to [...]
Source: http://androidcommunity.com/nexus-s-4g-smartphone-for-sprint-ships-april-6-20110404/
Forget apps, Apple?s core iPad 2 experience needs to grow up
Shiny shiny, shiny Apple iPad; whiplash tablet in the dark. Forgive the Velvet Underground, but sometimes it really does feel like being a masochist would make the iOS user experience easier to stomach. Yes, Apple’s App Store may be the most bulging around, offering hundreds of thousands to titles whether you want to turn your iPad 2 into a recording studio, games machine or digital recipe book. Problem is, there’s still no way to turn the iPad into a proper, multi-user, family tablet.
The iPad 2 gets some stick for requiring a PC or Mac to set it up in the first place, but it’s arguably more disappointing that, from there on, it’s really focused on a single user. One email inbox, one calendar view, one set of Safari bookmarks: if you’re living in a commune then perhaps that’s okay, but for everybody else it leaves the choice of either opening up your messages and schedule to anybody curious enough to stab at the icon.
It’s something I touched on when I wrote my iPad 2 Skeptic’s Review last week, but it’s not a new frustration. Notifications, multi-user accounts, multitasking – they’re all complaints I leveled back in my original iPad review, when iOS 3.2 was new and shiny. Now we’re up to iOS 4.3.1 and most of the pain-points are still there.
There are plenty of people using their iPad and iPad 2 tablets as family slates, with games for the kids, streaming content for parents and a little web browsing for everybody, but without user accounts or a way to switch between multitasking environments it all falls short of its true potential. Say I’ve been switching between Safari, reading restaurant reviews, Google Maps, to see where they are, and my inbox, to invite people out for dinner; I can flick between the apps pretty quickly, with a double-click of the home button, but should anybody use the iPad in the meantime, there’s a fair chance I’ll lose one or more of my webpages, the open email I’m writing, perhaps the locations I’m looking at on the map.
What’s needed is a way to manage multiple users and – handy even if you’re the only person using the iPad 2 – multiple use-cases. Apple’s existing iOS multitasking system of freezing apps and leaving only certain core APIs running shouldn’t have any problem with this – my activities are simply frozen in state – but so far there’s no way to elegantly share the slate with family, friends or colleagues. You can’t have a different music library to that of your kids, a different photo gallery, even the shots you take with the iPad 2′s low-res cameras all get lumped in together.
If you buy into the idea that Apple is leading the tablet market right now, it certainly follows that rivals have stumbled after the iPad with their own short-sighted user experiences. Android 3.0 Honeycomb may have all the homescreen widgets and thumbnail previewed multitasking that iPad 2 owners can only dream of, but it’s still resolutely stuck to a single user account. From what we’ve seen of HP’s webOS based Touchpad, that looks to make the same single-owner mistake, while if the functionality is there in RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook, the Canadian company hasn’t shown it off.
Salvation may – in part – be at hand. A recently spotted patent application from Apple suggests the company is exploring bringing Spaces – its virtual desktop feature in OS X – over to iOS. The accompanying graphics show a nine-pane preview of multiple desktops, a blend of live-widget multitasking and a way to split apart work, personal and other apps and groups of apps with simple gestures to move between them. No sign of any link with user-accounts, nor different iterations of core apps like Mail and Calendar, but at least I could split my dinner plan research off from someone checking Facebook. I’ve also heard from OEMs that Google is looking at multi-user support for a future Android 3.x release, though there’s no timescale for its arrival and the project is peppered with considerations like how to handle app purchases: should every user of the tablet be allowed to access the same paid-app?
With iOS on the iPad and Honeycomb, Apple and Google have recognized that tablets demand different interfaces from smartphones. What they’ve proved less cognizant of is that tablets generally occupy a very different, communalist role to our personal handsets. Perhaps Apple will address it with iOS 5.0 at WWDC 2011 later this year, but until then the iPad remains the tactile tablet users really don’t want anybody else to touch.
Relevant Entries on SlashGear
- SlashGear Morning Wrap-Up: April 4, 2011
- Auto Draft
- iPad 2 Hands-on [Video]
- Apple’s iPad 2 Official, Lighter and Faster
- Apple’s iPad to Grow a Kickstand?
Source: http://feeds.slashgear.com/~r/slashgear/~3/p3_lS8Q4gb4/
poniedziałek, 4 kwietnia 2011
Apple iPod nano seventh-gen regaining camera?
An image of what’s purported to be Apple’s next-gen iPod nano chassis has leaked, with a space in the back panel for a camera. The picture, sent to Apple.pro, shows a nano casing in the same square style as the existing 6th-gen model, but seemingly with camera functionality restored from the 5th-gen version.
Apple stripped out the camera from the nano in the last generation, when the iPod slimmed down considerably and gained a renewed focus on audio rather than attempting to cover video and content creation (rivaling the iPod touch). With this new shot, it suggests Apple is looking to restore video recording (we’re guessing, if this is all legitimate, that they’ll use the same 720p-capable CMOS as in the iPod touch).
However, without FaceTime – which seems a tough prospect for inclusion given the small space on offer – the seventh-gen iPod nano would still not fit into Apple’s video conferencing range. Apple is expected to unveil its new iPod range in roughly September this year.
[via 9 to 5 Mac]
Relevant Entries on SlashGear
- iPod Nano 2G – Just how much of an upgrade is it?
- 8GB iPod Nano gets the Pink treatment
- Apple iPod nano 5G hands-on [Video]
- Second Red iPod Nano
- iSuppli reports new iPod nano costs under $46 to build
Source: http://feeds.slashgear.com/~r/slashgear/~3/cD1ByGN2GDc/
Toshiba's P770 and P775 3D Satellite laptops do 120Hz on the go
Toshiba's P770 and P775 3D Satellite laptops do 120Hz on the go originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 15:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Notebook Italia | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/04/toshibas-p770-and-p775-3d-satellite-laptops-do-120hz-on-the-go/
Bose Bluetooth Headset Review
The following is a review that, for any other product, might be considered short, but for this bluetooth headset, there’s just really not that much to be said. And it’s not just a pumped up yelling and screaming “I LOVE IT” situation either, though there is a little bit of screaming in the story. This is a review of a product that essentially does one thing, and it does it well. What this product presents is noise cancellation and comfort for a premium talking and listening experience both to and from your ear and mouth and via Bluetooth to and from your handset.
First Impressions
When you hear the name Bose, you know it means superior quality audio. Their ultimate marketing campaign was and always will be the the display they had set up in Target stores across the USA, the one where they played the T-Rex portion of Jurrasic Park to show off the surround-sound experience you’d get if you went with Bose for your speaker system. I remember walking directly over to that area of the store just to hear that part of the movie in that environment over and over again, thus the power of both the actual sound quality and the branding going on with the display.
My brain was taught that Bose meant quality.
Now for this Bluetooth headset – it’s made by Bose. I instantly knew what I had in store for me. Not only do I trust Bose as a name in audio, I know they mean business when they release a new product. I don’t mean to be seen as a fanboy of a brand here, but Bose has literally never let me down when I decided to go with them for a speaker system in any form. Therefor, I had pretty high standards for this headset.
When I first opened the box, I was surprised by the lack of equipment that was inside. I suppose that I’m not sure what I was expecting to find, but the fact that this giant box served only to contain a few items – it was strange: the headset, a couple extra headpieces, USB cord, wall plug, instructional books, and click-open pocket carrying case. I realized than that this was still the tail end of the hardware age, the age when we still purchase tiny objects in gigantic boxes so that the store shelves can be filled and items stand less of a chance of getting stolen. Remember when computer games came in dictionary-sized boxes? Remember when dictionaries were still printed as physical books?
Making it Work
Once the box and plastic is aside, and you’ve got the instruction books put away somewhere safe incase you need them, you really ought to charge the earpiece up a bit. The Bose Bluetooth Headset comes partially charged, but if you plan on getting any use out of it before it runs out of juice, you’ll want to plug it in for a while. To do this, just plug the USB into the device, plug the other end of the USB into the coolest wall plug ever constructed by mankind, and plug that epic wallpiece into the wall. Before we continue, please check out all the printing on this plug – it’s awesome:
Once your headset is charged, flick the on switch so that it reveals green instead of red, then hold down the phone icon button until the Bluetooth light blinks blue SLOWLY. There are two different ways the Bluetooth light can be blinking, and more than likely, your device will be blinking quickly when you first turn it on. Once it’s blinking slowly, you can search for it on the device you’d like to pair it with. There is an option to pair with more than one item, but for the sake of brevity, we’ll just go into one.
Your Bose Bluetooth headset, like ours, should show up on your Bluetooth list wherever it may be. I connected this Bluetooth Headset up with the brand new HTC ThunderBolt on Verizon. Once I’d pressed the phone button long enough for the light to blink slowly, the Bose name came up on the list almost instantly, and I was able to sync up without even entering a password. Once the two items were synced, they were set to go for the entire time I was testing them.
Daily Use
I must admit that when I’d seen people wearing headsets similar to this one out in public, I found myself comparing them to the Borg, or in general to total weirdos who love big earrings. Once I placed the headset on my right ear, all that changed. Not only was it comfortable, it felt oddly satisfying to have connected to my head. Inserting the earpiece feels very similar, in a way, to putting on a pair of glasses. It gives the impression that it’s meant to be there and that it’s helping you out in your daily activities, activities such as communicating with other humans, wirelessly!
As far as sound quality goes, this is the tops. The only superior sound quality that my ears have personally experienced via a headset was a pair of Bose noise-cancellation headphones, the kind that cover your entire ear. And that’s saying a lot, especially since the sound was not only being transported to my head via Bluetooth connection, it was being blasted through space via telephone!
On the several calls I made and received with this headset, I only had to ask a couple times of the person on the other end to repeat themselves, they never having to ask me a single time. This is actually an improvement over my normal phone experience.
This device is capable to taking your voice and canceling noise around it, of turning its own volume up when you’re in a noisy area, and of basically making your life a lot easier when you’re attempting to make or receive calls and have no hands free to be holding up a phone. When you press the phone icon button, you’re prompted to make a command – you’re able to call anyone in your contacts list without taking your phone device out of your pocket. You can adjust volume via the volume dongle and switch the device on and off via the simple switch.
Wrap-Up
This headset does what it says it does, and even whilst walking through a mall containing a screaming pack of wild children creatures, a call I was on was not interrupted. Noise cancellation is at a point in our tech history where we’ve basically got it down to an art, and it’s pretty darn cool. Bose has created here a slick earpiece that allows you to connect to your handset while it’s in your pocket. It does just that, and it does just that extremely well.
As far as how you look when you’ve got one of these in your ear and you’re walking around the grocery store talking to yourself – that’s an issue you’re going to have to deal with all on your own.
Relevant Entries on SlashGear
- Bose Bluetooth Headset unboxing & hands-on
- Bose Bluetooth Headset offers hyperbole galore for $150
- Apple Bluetooth Headset arrives – looks aren’t everything
- Apple Bluetooth headset approved by FCC
- Bose In-Ear Headphones for Under $100!
Source: http://feeds.slashgear.com/~r/slashgear/~3/0eQ0T2UlJVM/
tablet android tablet comparison tablets of fire tablet laptop
Apple Airs First iPad 2 TV Ad [VIDEO]
More than three weeks after the iPad 2 hit stores, Apple has released a TV ad — one that, surprisingly, takes issue with technology. ?Techno…
Source: http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/Mashable/~3/sFSg4m9lfGw/
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