We're still shaking our heads and sighing longingly at the performance of Samsung's Galaxy S II, a phone that wowed us in Europe but likely won't be coming to American shores for some time -- and who knows what it'll look like when it does. But don't get too down, dear reader,
Want an adorable little Android cellbot to call your own, but aren't quite ready to tackle Arduino code? Darrell Taylor's got you covered with an audio-controlled, jousting cellbot: no muss, no fuss, no microcontroller. The Make project, called TRRSTAN, accepts commands via Google chat, web browser, or Wii remote piped through the headphone jack of your Android phone -- the robot's brain, of course. Tack on a few makeshift weapons procured at the local dollar store, and you've got a homemade warrior you can be proud of. Want one? Taylor has a ready-made kit available for just shy of $50, and offers a 'fully assembled' option for the extra-lazy robot enthusiast. Of course, you could always go back to playing Android-bots with your Legos if you aren't quite ready to big-boy world of DIY. Just sayin'.
The LG Revolution is the first Android device to arrive on the market optimized for Verizon’s 4G LTE network. With download speeds of between 5Mbps and 12Mbps and upload speeds of between 2Mbps and 5Mbps — ten times faster than the company’s 3G network — phones running on 4G should be able to make good use of any cloud-based services. LG has certainly cashed in on that potential with a multimedia phone that includes Netflix’s app as a built-in feature.
India’s mobile phone market might not be the place to look for the latest technological breakthroughs but it does have some of the most creative niche devices. This is only made possible through Android’s open platform and India’s up and coming innovative and entrepreneurial population.
Micromax has been churning out a series of highly-targeted phones since 2008 and now has an inventory that includes the M2, a device available in canary yellow that looks like a stretched MP3 player and fittingly calls itself “a music player that’s also a phone.” The X395 Convertible switches networks with a shake, and the X505 comes with pre-loaded MTV content.
The Bling 2, a follow-up to Micromax’s Q55 Bling, stands out for its direct appeal to women. Under the
Sony is due to release two tablets into the market later this year, both of which are currently under the codenames of Sony S1 and, you guessed it, Sony S2. The Sony Tablet will hit the shelves in autumn 2011 as the Japanese tech giant makes its first attempt at producing a competitor to Apple’s hugely popular iPad.
The S1 and S2 are different, to say the least, so here is a comparison of the two for you to consider if you are thinking of making a purchase that will help Sony establish itself as a major player in this booming market:
(Cross-posted from the European Public Policy Blog) Data centers are very important to us—they’re critical to the cloud services we deliver. Over the last 12 years, we’ve put a lot of effort into minimizing the amount of energy, water and other resources we use—because it makes financial sense, and because it’s good for the environment too. That work means that today, we use half the energy of a typical industry data center.
Last week, we brought together more than 150 industry professionals in Zürich, Switzerland for our second conference on data center efficiency. Since our first conference two years ago in the U.S., the industry’s come a long way, with large operators now very focused on energy efficiency.
With “free cooling” we can dramatically reduce energy consumption by using the local environment to cool servers, instead of energy-intensive chillers. In our data centers we use both air cooling and evaporative cooling—and we revealed the details of the seawater cooling system we’ve custom-engineered for our new data center in Hamina, Finland.
Google is lucky enough to have the resources and experts to continually improve efficiency. But around 70% of the world’s data centers are operated by companies that probably don’t.
That’s why we shared five simple and low-cost steps that any company, large or small, can use. These include using plastic meat locker curtains to separate hot and cold air, or welding your own air-conditioning chimney out of cheap sheet metal. These techniques are proven to increase energy efficiency, reduce electricity consumption and improve environmental footprint.
We also announced that we’re now participating in the European Commission’s Code of Conduct for Data Centres, a framework for designing and operating data centers efficiently. It ties in closely with the way we build and run our facilities, and has a robust checklist of efficiency best practices that are well worth trying out.
The main take-away was that there is no magic in data center efficiency. With the right information and a bit of creativity, anyone can make their computing infrastructure efficient. If you operate a data center or server room, please visit our website and make use of the techniques we’ve outlined. Videos of all the presentations from the Summit will be available on the site next week.
Posted by Urs Hoelzle, Senior Vice President, Technical Infrastructure
So, Samsung missed that mid-May target date for the Galaxy S Gingerbread update... after already aborting an earlier push to Google's latest and greatest in mid-April. But, time for some cautious optimism -- it appears that Android 2.3 is finally here for Sammy's carrier-agnostic former flagship. A reader from the UK wrote in to let us know that he fired up Kies today and voilà -- firmware version 2.3.3. He was even kind enough to send us the photo above. We're not sure when to expect this as an OTA update here in the states, but we'd venture to guess it'll be soon.
We got a hint of Sling's desire to let users catch their video streams directly on TV without a box during CES 2010, and now there's video of the company showing off its SlingPlayer for Connected Devices app on Google TV. We caught a a preview at CES earlier this year, but interested Slingbox owners (SOLO and PRO-HD boxes only, just like the mobile apps) can sign up for the upcoming beta at the link below. The most interesting development however is that it appears to be a web app, likely running on Flash. That means Sling won't have to wait for the Android Market to open up on Google TV to roll this out, and it may allow for easy porting to other embedded TV platforms with browser that support Flash like Samsung's Smart Hub. Also not lost in the moment is the ability for the Google TV to show some potential, since it desperately needs for the list of things it actually can do to garner more attention than the list of things it's blocked from doing.
Still bothering with that unofficial 2.3 update for your comparatively monstrous Droid X? Good news, eager beaver; right on cue, the bona fide Gingerbread update is rolling out to select Droid X owners this weekend, and if you aren't lucky enough to be included in the initial soak test, you can take matters into your own hands by visiting the source links below. Per usual, we'd caution against a manual install for those who aren't familiar with the process, particularly since the masses should receive it as the week forges on. Naturally, the v2.3.3 changes are subtle (at least in comparison to the changes seen in the leap from Eclair to Froyo), but hey -- an update's an update.
Samsung is pouring on the heat in the mobile markets with it’s Galaxy family of devices over the last year or so. Why stop now right? Well, this news may be a bit premature from Samsung, even if it is just a few nuggets of hints thrown at us wild mobile dogs. Still, with the Samsung Galaxy S II just out the doors, and the Galaxy Tab 10.1 inch not launching until next month, or the Galaxy Tab 8.9 inch til this summer for release, don’t you think it would be wise to let us buy these devices first, then tell us about the next models?
Samsung’s Mobile communication president J.K. Shin made mention that we should expect to see a Galaxy S III sometime in the first half of 2012, which isn’t bad seeing as the Galaxy S II just came out and we’re still in the first half of 2011. He also stated that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 will be coming out this year after the 8.9 tab launches, where the 10.1 Tab will be sporting 4G/LTE technology, of which they are already in talks with US and South Korean carriers. Wow. That seems a bit early. They must not be concerned with selling the first 10.1 inch Galaxy Tab much before putting it to rest with a faster 4G model.
[via engadget]
We knew that ViewSonic was going to be making a run at being the first 7inch tablet to ship with Android 3.0 Honeycomb, and now at Computex 2011 in Taipai, we have some real images of the ViewPad 7x tablet.
The specs are pretty much the same as what we had heard about a couple weeks back, featuring the NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core processor, Android 3.0.1 Honeycomb, and 1024×600 display resolution. After having a look at the device below, it looks like it may fair better than ViewSonics’ earlier Android tablet devices, which is what they need to be taken seriously anyway, and shake that ‘cheap’ image away. Have a look and let us know what you think!
Back in February, we were informed of several new devices ViewSonic had up its’ sleeves for tablet devices in 2011. One of which we heard of was the ViewPad 10Pro, which upon early specs, looked to be a dual-booting Android and Windows 7 Pro tablet device. Cool right? Well, not as cool as we had heard, but still nice enough.
At Computex 2011, ViewSonic not only announced its ViewPad 7x, but alsoi the new ViewPad 10Pro which will come with Windows 7 Pro, and Android (looks like Android 2.2 Froyo in the pics), but Android will be accessed by a virtualization program called Bluestacks, which turns Android into a Windows app and runs it in a virtual environment rather than being a true dual-boot. Ah, well, it’s still pretty cool. On top of that, it’s got a 1.5GHz Intel Oak Trail processor, 32GB onboard storage expandable by MicroSD and USB and 3G built-in. Let us know what you think!
