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Sony Ericsson announced a 1GHz Snapdragon-based Android 2.3 phone that doubles as a handheld game-playing device. The Xperia Play offers a slide-out Sony PS3-style gamepad instead of a keyboard, a four-inch 854 x 480 pixel display, 8GB of memory with expansion, a five-megapixel camera, and all the usual wireless features.
More than half of American and British consumers say they're frustrated with electronic devices that crash or otherwise fail to perform as they were hoped to. Meanwhile, just under half would pay from five to 30 percent more if products could work more automatically or autonomously, says Accenture Research.
HP's WebOS-based TouchPad tablet has received a surprisingly favorable response, but what really has pundits blogging is HP's suggestion that WebOS will head for desktop PCs. Meanwhile, more details are emerging on the new WebOS 3.0 release that runs on the Touchpad, including an updated Synergy engine that HP intends to integrate a growing ecosystem of devices based on WebOS.
As rumored, Nokia and Microsoft have agreed to join hands, forming a “broad strategic partnership.” As a result, Nokia Windows Phone 7 devices will apparently appear next year, the Finnish company's Symbian operating system is being killed off, and MeeGo is being moved to the back burner.
Samsung Electronics says it will begin producing a dual-core ARM Cortex A9-based system-on-chip (SoC) next month. Aimed at both smartphones and tablets, the Exynos 4210 offers dual 1GHz cores, 1MB L2 cache, a 1080p HD video accelerator, improved 3D graphics performance, dual-display support, and even a GPS receiver, according to the company.
Canonical made public a database of 1,300 certified components for Ubuntu and Linux, said to enable original design manufacturers (ODMs) to more quickly develop Ubuntu- or other Linux-based computers. Meanwhile, Canonical and Autonomic Resources announced an integrated “ARC-P-UEC” cloud computing platform for use in the federal government, based on Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud running on Dell Blade servers.
Qualcomm announced a new entry in its ARM-based “Snapdragon” family of processors, this time targeting tablet devices as well as smartphones. The APQ8060 includes dual cores clocked at 1.2GHz, a homegrown “Adreno 220” GPU, and the ability to capture stereoscopic HD video or 3D still images.
Broadcom announced its first smartphone system-on-chips (SoCs) to feature ARM Cortex-A9 cores, plus two new GPS chipsets with GLONASS support. The 40-nanometer fabricated smartphone SoCs, both supporting Android and integrating Broadcom's VideoCore IV mobile multimedia chip, include the dual-core, 1.1GHz BCM28150, designed for HSPA+, and the single-core, HSPA-ready BCM21654, says the chipmaker.
INQ Mobile announced two unofficial Facebook phones, both of which are deeply integrated with the social network and are powered by Android 2.2. The 3.5-inch INQ Cloud Touch and 2.6-inch INQ Cloud Q are modestly appointed with a 600MHz Qualcomm processor, 4GB of memory, a five megapixel camera, the Spotify music player, and a full array of wireless features, says the company.
AMD, which already is looking for a new CEO after the departure of Dirk Meyer in January, is losing Robert Rivet, chief operations and administrative officer, and Marty Seyer, senior vice president of corporate strategy. The move may be related to the company's shyness when it comes to moving into the tablet space, analysts say.
MetroPCS announced yet another variant of the Samsung Galaxy S that may beat Verizon's HTC ThunderBolt to market, making it the first 4G LTE Android smartphone. The Samsung Galaxy Indulge is due to go on sale for $399 this week, sans contract, featuring a 1GHz Samsung Hummingbird processor, a 3.5-inch display, and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, says the carrier.
Lantronix announced a Linux-based wireless device server with IPv6 and extended temperature support. The PremierWave EN is built on a 400MHz Lantronix ARM9 processor, offers 64MB of RAM and 64MB of flash, provides dual-band 802.11a/b/g/n with extensive wireless security features, and includes USB, Ethernet, I2C, SPI, and serial connectivity.
While reducing costs remains a primary factor for adopting open source software, businesses are increasingly seeing it as a way to gain a competitive advantage, according to a new Gartner survey. Nearly 46 percent of surveyed organizations have deployed open source applications, and 22 percent use it consistently across all departments, says the research firm.
Android's worldwide smartphone sales grew 888.8 percent in 2010 and moved past RIM in the fourth quarter to take second place behind Symbian with 22.7 percent, says Gartner. Meanwhile, IDC estimates that Android pushed the 87.2 percent growth in the global smartphone market in 2010, and ComScore says Android continues to lead iOS for second place in U.S. smartphone subscriber share.
An “IcedRobot” project aims to develop a version of Android that will be beyond the reach of Oracle's lawsuit against Google regarding use of the Dalvik Virtual Machine. By adopting the OpenJDK implementation of Java, the project will further separate Dalvik from Android and create an Android variant that will be suitable for running on desktop PCs.