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Sprint's Motorola Xprt smartphone sports a small display atop a physical QWERTY keyboard. This Android-powered device is low-priced, but only hardcore enterprise e-mail users will bother to buy one, this eWEEK review argues.
Android 3.2 has begun rolling out to selected tablets, starting with the Wi-Fi only Motorola Xoom, bringing support for seven-inch displays and native hardware support for SD cards, says an industry report. Android 3.2, the source code of which has been partially released, also features an automatic zoom-to-fit resizing feature tipped by Google earlier this week.
PayPal announced a peer-to-peer (P2P) near field communications (NFC) solution for Android, designed to support direct payments between Samsung Nexus S owners. Due late this summer, the technology will be followed later this year by an expanded NFC solution that will compete with Google Wallet by supporting retail payments, PayPal says.
Radio-frequency energy from television, AM, FM, cellular, Wi-Fi, WiMAX, and other broadcasts can now be harvested to power electronic devices, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have claimed. It's said applications could include security, environmental sensing, structural monitoring, and bio-monitoring devices.
Sony offered the press a glimpse of its upcoming S1 and S2 tablets, which will enter an already-crowded market at an unannounced point later this year. Both run Android, but the S1 features a single 9.4-inch display, while the foldable (and pocketable) S2 features a hinge connecting a pair of 5.5-inch screens.
Google overhauled the Android Market user interface for Android 2.2 and 2.3 phones with faster checkout, improved showcasing of top titles, and horizontal swiping to flip through “top” lists. In addition, U.S. users can now buy or rent thousands of movies directly from Android phones, then watch them offline, as well as directly purchase from a selection of three million books.
Android took the top position among U.S. smartphone market share with 35 percent, followed by Apple's iPhone and RIM's BlackBerry, each with 24 percent, says a Pew Research study. Android is particularly strong among younger adults and African Americans, says the study.
Harman International Industries announced that its automotive infotainment systems now support the Android Open Accessory Protocol found in Android 3.1 (and available as an upgrade in Android 2.3.4). The USB-based protocol enables users to control Android smartphone or tablet content, including multimedia and navigation apps, through a car's dashboard or steering-wheel controls, says the company.
NionCom is preparing an Android 2.3 mini-tablet reference design that includes an embedded pico projector, capable of displaying content on a wall or screen sized up to 100 inches diagonal. The “MemoryKick Vision” offers a 4.3-inch capacitive WVGA display, 4GB flash memory, a 500GB hard disk drive (HDD), Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, plus HDMI in and out ports, according to a story in Picopros.
Extreme Engineering Solutions (X-ES) is shipping three 6U single board computers that run Linux on Freescale's dual-core, 1.2GHz QorIQ P2020 processor. The XCalibur1700 6U CompactPCI, the XCalibur1730 VME, and the XCalibur1740 6U VPX SBCs respectively adopt the cPCI, VME, and VPX form factors, and offer dual XMC/PrPMC sites, three gigabit Ethernet ports, plus SATA, serial, and USB connectivity.
Emerson Network Power announced two embedded computers targeting applications such as digital signage, intelligent kiosks, and slot machines. The KR8-315 uses a 1.0GHz Intel Atom E640, has a 5.7 x 5.1-inch footprint and runs fanlessly, while the also-compact MCASE offers a Core i5 CPU and two Mini PCI slots, according to the company.
Toshiba began selling its long-awaited 10.1-inch tablet in 8GB ($430), 16GB ($480) and 32GB ($580) Wi-Fi only versions. The Android 3.1-powered Toshiba Thrive is thick and heavy, but its Tegra 2 processor, 1280 x 800 display, and full-size HDMI, USB 2.0, and SD connections go a long way toward compensating, says one review.
Freescale Semiconductor announced three ARM Cortex-A8 SoCs (systems on chip), aimed at e-readers with either LCD or E Ink displays. The i.MX502, i.MX503, and i.MX507 include 800MHz, USB host and On-The-Go controllers, and 10/100 Ethernet interfaces.
The CentOS community released its Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.0 clone, promising continuous release updates to support RHEL 6.1 security features. In addition to supporting RHEL 6.0 improvements such as faster virtualization, and better scalability, power efficiency, and resource management, CentOS 6.0 is said to offer a completely rebuilt build system and library checks to confirm upstream binary compatibility.
Google announced that iRiver's Story HD e-reader will be available July 17 at Target, and will be the first device to offer Google eBooks support via Wi-Fi. In related e-reader news, the Philadelphia Media Network will offer deeply discounted Android tablets to Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News subscribers, and e-reader/tablet vendor Augen appears to have gone under.