Find: the webos zombie - Open webOS ported to Nexus 7 with working Wi-Fi and browser

Open webOS ported to Nexus 7 with working Wi-Fi and browser

webOS Nexus 7

While HP may have crushed the spirits of webOS fans last year, the Open webOS project brings a glimmer of hope to those faithful disciples of Palm's departed mobile operating system. It was ported to the Galaxy Nexus in short order, and now the same webOS Ports team has managed to get it up and running on the Nexus 7. While it's a jerky and feature-incomplete port at this time, a few key features appear to be working just fine — the Nexus 7 with webOS can connect to Wi-Fi and load pages in the browser, one of the cornerstone features of any good tablet. It's only an alpha release right now, but apparently it wasn't too challenging — WebOS Nation notes that the developer behind it got the port running in about a week over his winter...

Find: Indystate from Pew - One in four Americans now owns a tablet

One in four Americans now owns a tablet, according to Pew Research

iPad mini vs. Nexus 7

The Pew Research Center just released some data on the growing adoption of ebooks, but buried amongst its survey data was a more interesting tidbit — the group's latest survey shows that a full 25 percent of Americans own some type of tablet. That's not including those who may own a more traditional E Ink reader — though it's a self-reported survey, so there's always the potential for confusion amongst the 2,252 respondents. That's up significantly from the ten percent of respondents who said they owned a tablet as of December of 2011 and marks a pretty significant rise for a product category that essentially did not exist three years ago. Tablet ownership has even surpassed that of e-reader ownership, despite the higher cost of...

Find: a Nokia windows tablet

Still don't understand why nokias is better. 

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Nokia's Windows tablet to take on Surface with battery-equipped keyboard cover

Nokia stock


Nokia is building its own Windows RT tablet that is set to debut in early 2013. Sources familiar with Nokia's plans have revealed to The Verge that Nokia's tablet will include HDMI and USB ports and a 10.1-inch display that's similar to Microsoft's Surface RT screen. Nokia's tablet will also include cellular connectivity and we understand that AT&T will be one of the first to stock it in the US.


We're told that the large majority of Nokia's focus with its tablet is on a battery-equipped cover. Nokia will release a special cover for the tablet that envelops it like a book. Clicking into place, the cover provides a keyboard and a kickstand for the tablet. Nokia has also built a battery into the cover that can be used to power the tablet...



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Find: leaks on nvidias next tegra chip

Nvidia needs lte tech. Maybe buy another chipmaker -- broadcom?

All we know about Nvidia's next-generation Tegra chip

Nvidia's Tegra 3 system-on-a-chip for smartphones and tablets is getting a bit long in the tooth, but the company still hasn't officially announced when its successor, an SoC codenamed "Wayne," will be available in shipping products. We expect an official announcement soon—perhaps even at Nvidia's press conference at CES—but for now we're still piecing together information from older announcements and alleged leaks.


One such leak appeared this week, courtesy of Chinese-language site ChipHell. If it's legitimate (and it does appear to line up with information we already knew), it points to Wayne being a powerful SoC best suited for high-end tablets, but also a good fit for small, inexpensive ARM-based laptops or desktops. What we know so far paints a remarkably complete picture of what Wayne looks like, what it will be good at, and just how much better it will be than Tegra 3.


The CPU and GPU: a big step up




This leaked slide gives us a clear look at Wayne. You know, if it isn't faked.



As in any SoC, the biggest focus is going to be on the CPU and the GPU. Tegra 3 combined four Cortex-A9 CPU cores with an extra low-power "companion core" that will switch on when a device is asleep or idle to continue performing background tasks. Wayne changes those A9 cores in for higher-performing Cortex-A15 cores. While we don't know clock speeds yet, you need look no further than our Nexus 10 review to see how thoroughly even a dual-core Cortex-A15 beats a quad-core Cortex-A9.

Find: Google and Motorola finally making a phone?

What took so long?

Google and Motorola draw up plans for “X phone”

According to the Wall Street Journal, Motorola has been working furiously on a new handset with Google. Referred to only as the “X phone,” the device will be separate from other phones in development at Motorola that are exclusively sold by Verizon Wireless.


Dennis Woodside, a former Google sales executive who is now chief executive at Motorola, told the Wall Street Journal that the company is “investing in a team and a technology that will do something quite different than the current approaches.” He added that although Motorola has been “under hard times,” it can do more now that Google is involved.


Motorola is aiming to put more refined features in the X phone, like a better camera. The company is especially hoping to beef up the software on the X phone and is looking toward its acquisition of Viewdle, an imaging and gesture-recognition software developer, to help give it a leg up. Motorola has also been experimenting with bendable screens and a ceramic chassis as a way to make the phone more durable and stress resistant, although the WSJ's sources say these experiments "ran into difficulties."

Find: Intel uses less per than tegra 3

Next year could be fun. 

The x86 Power Myth Busted: In-Depth Clover Trail Power Analysis

The untold story of Intel's desktop (and notebook) CPU dominance after 2006 has nothing to do with novel new approaches to chip design or spending billions on keeping its army of fabs up to date. While both of those are critical components to the formula, its Intel's internal performance modeling team that plays a major role in providing targets for both the architects and fab engineers to hit. After losing face (and sales) to AMD's Athlon 64 in the early 2000s, Intel adopted a "no more surprises" policy. Intel would never again be caught off guard by a performance upset.

Over the past few years however the focus of meaningful performance has shifted. Just as important as absolute performance, is power consumption. Intel has been going through a slow waking up process over the past few years as it's been adapting to the new ultra mobile world. One of the first things to change however was the scope and focus of its internal performance modeling. User experience (quantified through high speed cameras mapping frame rates to user survey data) and power efficiency are now both incorporated into all architecture targets going forward. Building its next-generation CPU cores no longer means picking a SPECCPU performance target and working towards it, but delivering a certain user experience as well.

Intel's role in the industry has started to change. It worked very closely with Acer on bringing the W510, W700 and S7 to market. With Haswell, Intel will work even closer with its partners - going as far as to specify other, non-Intel components on the motherboard in pursuit of ultimate battery life. The pieces are beginning to fall into place, and if all goes according to Intel's plan we should start to see the fruits of its labor next year. The goal is to bring Core down to very low power levels, and to take Atom even lower. Don't underestimate the significance of Intel's 10W Ivy Bridge announcement. Although desktop and mobile Haswell will appear in mid to late Q2-2013, the exciting ultra mobile parts won't arrive until Q3. Intel's 10W Ivy Bridge will be responsible for at least bringing some more exciting form factors to market between now and then. While we're not exactly at Core-in-an-iPad level of integration, we are getting very close.

To kick off what is bound to be an exciting year, Intel made a couple of stops around the country showing off that even its existing architectures ...

Find: Nvidia's Tegra 4 leaks with 72-core graphics for your smartphone

Nvidia's Tegra 4 leaks with 72-core graphics for your smartphone

Photo

Chiphell has leaked specs of Nvidia's next-generation Tegra processor for smartphones and tablets. Codenamed Wayne, the Tegra 4 will reportedly feature Tegra 3's 4-plus-1 setup, which has four regular cores and a low-power companion core to save battery life. The CPU, described as a "4-PLUS-1 Quad Core Eagle," is likely to be a Cortex-A15: Eagle was ARM's codename for the architecture. Nvidia is best known for its graphics, however, and if this leak is to be believed, the Tegra 4 will have six times the graphical power of current-generation Tegra chips thanks to a "72-core" (we imagine Nvidia is referring to cuda cores here) GPU setup.

The Tegra 4 should be more forgiving on your smartphone's battery than Tegra 3, thanks to a reduced...

Find: Indystate - android os - Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean slowly eat away at Gingerbread

Getting better. 

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Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean slowly eat away at Gingerbread


Google just released new Android platform distribution numbers for the end of November. While software fragmentation is still definitely a problem for smartphones and tablets running the open-source operating system, the numbers paint a picture of slow but continuous improvement: 34.2 percent of all users are now running Ice Cream Sandwich or newer. That's a considerable improvement from just six months ago when Ice Cream Sandwich accounted for a paltry seven percent of all Android devices. Now, at 6.8 percent, both versions of Jelly Bean have nearly overtaken that number by themselves.

Though Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean continue to grow, Gingerbread and older versions continue to account for the lion's share of Android usage. Versions 1.5 through 3.2 account for nearly two-thirds of the pie at 65.8 percent, and a good chunk of that is going to stick around for the long-term. It seems unlikely that most of the Froyo devices and a good number of the Gingerbread devices will see any sort of updates going forward, so we're going to be waiting for those phones to break or be replaced before they disappear.

These statistics are also the first to include Android 4.2, the new version of Jelly Bean released last month. It accounted for just 0.8 percent of the Android pie, a small but relatively impressive number given this version of Android is shipping pretty much exclusively on the new Nexus 4 handset, the Nexus 10 tablet, and new-and-upgraded Nexus 7 tablets. Most handset makers are still discussing (or not discussing, or canceling) Ice Cream Sandwich and Android 4.1 updates, and the Android 4.2 builds of third-party Android distributions like CyanogenMod are still in the very early stages. So it may be awhile before we see these numbers begin to spike in earnest.


Find: Top wireless carriers to accelerate text-to-911 capabilities

Top wireless carriers to accelerate text-to-911 capabilities

FCCUnder an agreement announced Thursday, AT&T Inc., Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA Inc. will do "major deployments" of so-called text-to-911 in the U.S. next year, the FCC says.

Find: Indystate y12q3 tablets - apple 51, android 49

Apple 51
Samsung 20
Amazon 9
Asus 9
...

Before the new iPads. 

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Android Tablets Gain Momentum in the Third Quarter, Expectations Remain High for the Holiday Quarter, According to IDC

Worldwide tablet shipments totaled 27.8 million units in the third quarter of 2012 (3Q12), according to preliminary data from the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker.

Find: Indystate worldwide smatphones y12q3 - Samsung 1/3, Apple 1/6, down from there

But before iPhone 5. Next quarter will be closer. 

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Looking backward and forward: The explosive smartphone scene in 2013

What started off as a grim year for smartphone sales turned into an optimistic look forward. 2012 saw record returns for Samsung and its arch rival Apple, as both companies experienced tremendous growth in sales numbers and worldwide market share. And with this year's handset models, the two competitors essentially set the precedent for what sells in today's smartphone market.



#more 


As consumers face an onslaught of sales from retailers—and as handset makers consistently push forward new models—the market has become more than just a two-tyke playground. Consumers should have choices like never before in 2013, what with RIM trying for a comeback and Microsoft's Windows Phone 8 aiming to take off. Ars chatted with a few analysts about what the 2013 landscape might look like, which brands will make it through the year into the next, and which companies will need to straighten up their act to make it at all.

All hail king (or queen?) Samsung



A look at the third-quarter results provided by Canalys shows Samsung currently reigns as the top vendor on the market: 55.5 million smartphones sold last quarter. This is largely due to the handset offerings the company pushed forward within the last year, including the top-selling Galaxy SIII. Samsung managed to increase its global market share from 22 percent this time last year to 32 percent. It also nearly doubled its profit in the third quarter, hitting its very own all-time record for handset shipments. Overall, Samsung made about $47.6 billion in sales and increased revenue by 26 percent.

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