13
May
samsung-logo

Samsung Prepares For Gigabit Mobile Speeds With "5G" Millimeter Wave Band Transceiver, ETA 2020

Posted by in News, Samsung

Most mobile users these days are happy to get LTE service (and a few of us just wish we could get 3G reliably) but there is already a surprising push towards the next big thing in wireless speeds. Samsung thinks it has the solution, or at least what might become one: expanding existing LTE networks into the super-high 28GHz range, the lower part of what's known as the millimeter wave bands. The company is calling this system 5G, and expects to have it ready for cellular networks in 2020.

삼성전자5G기술세계최초개발

Any grade school science student can tell you that higher-frequency radio waves have the capacity for more data, and Samsung's system has been tested with speeds just north of 1Gb per second, about ten times as fast as the best current LTE offerings.

31
Aug
lgchemsmall

LG's Flexible Cable Battery Prototype Could Bring Much-Needed Innovation To Power Supplies

Posted by in LG, News

There's been a fundamental problem holding back the development of gadgets for the last decade or so. While processing power, storage capacity, wireless speed, and even display quality are growing at a phenomenal and steady rate, lithium ion batteries really haven't changed at all. The best that manufacturers can do is either create smaller components to make more space for the battery bay or make those components more efficient. LG Chem has created one of the first truly exciting innovations in battery tech in a long time: a Li-ion battery that's flexible enough to twist into almost any shape necessary.

The basic chemical properties of the battery remain untouched.

06
Jun
2012-06-06_16h19_20

Tactus Technology Demos A Prototype Android Touchscreen Display With Disappearing Physical Keys

Posted by in News

If there's one downside to the proliferation of touchscreen technology, it's the lack of tactile feedback. Tactus is one of many companies that aims to alleviate this problem. This week, at SID 2012, the company demoed a product that offers disappearing physical touch keys. As seen in the demo video here, these buttons can raise on command and disappear when they're not needed. Which sounds like something out of science fiction.

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At the moment, the display can only be configured for preset layouts. Meaning, you configure it for a landscape QWERTY layout, that's all you'll get. No gaming controls, no dialer configurations.

16
Apr
snapnplay

[New App] Music Is Math Now: SnapNPlay Lets You Play Back Sheet Music By Taking A Picture Of The Notes

Posted by in Applications, News

How's this for amazing? You see a piece of sheet music, but you can't read it because you're a plebian, or perhaps you can read it but you want to hear it. SnapNPlay is an app that lets you take a picture of a line of sheet music and then plays back the notes on the page. This is amazing.

The app itself looks a little rough around the edges right now, but the concept is wonderful. The world of the future has already brought us some amazing things, but this app helps highlight something romantic about the nature of creative thought.

05
Mar
tedtiny

Official TED App Available For Android, Streams Video And Audio Talks To Your Phone - Welcome To The Future

Posted by in Apps/Games, News

From climate change to mobile security, psychology to astronomy, TED talks cover some of the most important, interesting, and amazing topics from leaders of science and technology. TED is, in short, a collection of discussions from the height of human intelligence and thought. Now, more than 1200 TED talks are available on your phone or tablet. This is amazing.

ted1 ted2 ted3

The design of the app is clean and straightforward. It sticks pretty closely to Android's style guide and is therefore very good looking and, more importantly, familiar. The app is functional and gives the user plenty of ways to both discover new talks to listen to as well as find a specific talk.

04
Mar
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Samsung Reportedly Working On Eliminating Bezels In 2012 By Bringing Flexible Display Technology To Smartphones

Posted by in News, Samsung

You may remember way back in 2010 when Samsung first demonstrated a new flexible display technology, wowing onlookers and begging the question "what's the application?"

Well Richard Windsor, a senior technology analyst at Normura Group, has answered that question, indicating that Sammy plans to include foldable displays in future devices. Specifically, Normura's Asian analysts have indicated that the manufacturer is expected to use foldable display technology to entirely eliminate the appearance of side bezels around a smartphone screen. The analysts added the display would be unbreakable, would enhance "the exceptionally thin form factor," and will debut some time in 2012.

16
Feb
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[New App] Riversip Technology News Comes To Market, Provides Quick, Easy News Updates On The Go

Posted by in Applications, News

Looking to "help you catch up on technology news in minimal time and on your own schedule," Briox introduced Riversip to the Android Market recently. Riversip without a doubt provides a unique take on the "news reader" concept, automatically choosing news sources based on user-chosen topics, and showing only the top headlines, instead of clogging up your screen with every headline available.

 

Riversip also makes a point of its incredibly easy user experience, promising that "no setup or learning time [is] required." The app also allows users to see what other sources have reported on a given topic, providing a multitude of different angles for each headline.

10
Feb
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INQ Cloud Touch Will Ship With A Keyboard Based On SwiftKey's Predictive Fluency Technology

Posted by in Applications, Cloud Touch, INQ, News

Yesterday, we saw INQ's Cloud Touch Android handset with deep Facebook integration revealed in all its socially introjected glory in an exclusive TechCrunch demo. Coming to Europe in May of this year and possibly to the U.S. after, the Cloud Touch will be taking aim at text-crazy teenagers and insomniac Facebook users who spend the better halves of their days prowling the depths of the largest social network in the world.

Erick Schonfeld, the reporter who conducted the interview, touched on the music app (which was replaced by Spotify), Facebook, more Facebook, and some more Facebook, but failed to mention the story behind the keyboard in this upcoming social hub of a phone.

05
Jan
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Ultra Low Power Qualcomm Mirasol Color eInk-like Screen Technology Teased Ahead Of CES Demos

Posted by in News, Videos

Qualcomm's Mirasol technology has been in prototype form for a while, but at this year's CES, it seems like we'll finally see a working product - an Android e-reader by PocketBook that is called simply Mirasol.

For those who haven't been following Mirasol, it is a functional equivalent of a traditional black-and-white eInk display that has become so popular in e-readers over the last few years, except it is capable of displaying color and playing videos (refresh rates are rumored to be anywhere from 12 to 30 fps). At its core, Mirasol screens use a reflective display technology which "can create various colors through the interference of reflected light." Mirasol displays consume very little power and have superb visibility in direct sunlight.

25
Oct
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Google Gets Sued Over Android And Java Yet Again, This Time By Gemalto

Posted by in HTC, Motorola, News, Samsung

As if Oracle's, Microsoft's, and Apple's [1] [2] suits weren't giving Android enough headache, today, Gemalto, an Amsterdam-based digital security company, added some fuel to the flames by filing a patent infringement suit against Google and its partners HTC, Samsung, and Motorola. The suit claimed that Android and the Dalvik operating environment incorporated Gemalto's patented Java Card technology without the company's permission.

The Wall Street Journal explained in more detail:

According to the complaint on the website of the U.S. law firm hired by Gemalto, McKool Smith, the Java Card Technology enables Java applications and applications developed in other high level programming languages to run on resource-constrained devices such as smart cards and mobile phones.