We already knew Samsung had something planned for the Super Bowl, although based on a teaser, we thought it was going to be hammering Apple, again. If it's going to do so, it will be with a bigger stick: on Tuesday, the company said that its Super Bowl ad will focus on the mega-sized Samsung Galaxy Note.
The Galaxy Note will be available on the network that once held iPhone exclusivity in the U.S., AT&T's, beginning on Feb. 19, exactly two weeks after Super Bowl XLVI, although it goes on pre-order on Super Bowl Sunday, for $299.99 on contract.
It's a huge device, somewhat reminiscent of the Dell Streak 5, but for some reason --- we've tried it --- it feels like more of a phone than the Streak ever did. It's pocketable, even in a shirt pocket, and slim. With a 2500mAh battery standard, battery life is amazing.
Samsung teased the ad on social media on Monday, saying its ad would be "launching a device so exciting that only the biggest game in America can do it justice." With a 5.3-inch Super AMOLED 1280 x 800 screen, the device itself is among the biggest.
So will be the pricetag of the ad. It's a supersized ad, running 90 seconds, Samsung said. The ad will air during the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl.
That's right: the S Pen technology basically means you have a stylus again. For the most part, you don't need to use it, but when you want to use it, it's a useful tool, for drawing or even handwriting recognition.
This might prove to be an impressive ad. Samsung's "Next Big Thing is Here" series of commercials has already been succesful, and they've gotten a legendary director to do their Super Bowl ad. And not only is it Samsung's first Super Bowl it's also his. As the company Tweeted late Monday:
"Sunday is our 1st ever SB... So we tapped legendary director Bobby Farrelly (http://smgm.us/w03) for his first ever commercial. Excited?"
Samsung fans and viewers in general should recall that Farrelly was behind the movies "There's Something About Mary," "Dumb and Dumber," and "Shallow Hal." Might we see something akin to the "hair gel" scene in "Mary?" We can only hope.
For those unfamiliar with the scene, watch the "hair gel" scene below. We assume you can figure out what Ben Stiller is doing before Cameron Diaz shows up.
A lot of good things to say about the Verizon-exclusive handset, but I also had a complaint when it came to battery life.
"Daily charging would be a part of life with the Razr and anyone considering buying this phone should have a charger at home, work and in the car," I wrote.
And evidently, I wasn't the only one who thought the Razr could do better when it came to holding a charge -- lots of other tech critics complained too. Motorola seems to have agreed also, which is why the company is releasing the Droid Razr Maxx through Verizon on Thursday.
Steve Wozniak may have co-founded Apple with the late Steve Jobs, but when it comes to Android, the two radically diverged opinion-wise. Jobs felt Android was a "stolen product," and Wozniak is always among the first to land a new Android version.
But now Wozniak has gone so far as to be labeled a heretic. He's said that "I wish it [the iPhone] did all the things my Android does, I really do."
This isn't to say Woz doesn't love the iPhone; he does. In fact, he said, "My primary phone is the iPhone. I love the beauty of it." However, Woz carries both iPhone and Android and appreciates the strengths of both.
His big gripe (right now) is Siri. It used to work, he said, a lot better than now. Let's not forget that Siri uses Apple's servers to generate its answers, and its still beta, so there could be a lot of improvements.
Wozniak said, "I used to ask Siri, 'What are the five biggest lakes in California?' and it would come back with the answer. Now it just misses. It gives me real estate listings. I used to ask, 'What are the prime numbers greater than 87?' and it would answer. Now instead of getting prime numbers, I get listings for prime rib, or prime real estate.
"I have a lower success rate with Siri than I do with the voice built into the Android, and that bothers me. I’ll be saying, over and over again in my car, ‘Call the Lark Creek Steak House,’ and I can’t get it done. Then I pick up my Android, say the same thing, and it’s done. Plus I get navigation. Android is way ahead on that.”
He's also seeing poor iPhone battery life, but that's something that quite a few end users have been complaining about since the iPhone 4S and iOS 5. So he's just seeing a general problem.
As you might have noted above, Woz also loves the GPS navigation on Android phones, which has always been a plus of those devices. As a techie, he's not dissuaded by the more technical aspects of Android.
While there are quite a few great things about Android, we would agree with many: iPhone is built so that Grandma could use it, and Android such that Grandma could use it only if she were programming language pioneer Grace Hopper (COBOL). There is great power there, but if you want something that just works (but also is restricted to only a few different designs) we'd recommend iPhone, ourself.
"The people I recommend the iPhone 4S for are the ones who are already in the Mac world, because it's so compatible, and people who are just scared of computers altogether and don't want to use them. The iPhone is the least frightening thing. For that kind of person who is scared of complexity, well, here's a phone that is simple to use and does what you need it to do."
Rumors about the upcoming iPad 3 --- which we know is coming, but not when or what --- are beginning to fly. That alone seems to point to a release in the next few months, with March in the bulls-eye right now, as that would match the normal one-year refresh cycle since the iPad 2 was launched.
The latest rumor, this time from Bloomberg, confirms earlier rumors from other sources. Earlier rumors said that Apple's Pegatron and Foxconn manufacturers had begun building iPad 3s for a March launch, and that an LTE version would be coming this year.
The newest report sticks with the March launch date, and also claims Apple will launch an LTE version as well. The earlier LTE report, though, estimated a launch date of mid-year for the LTE iPad 3. That actually makes more sense, as second-generation --- and thus more real-estate and battery friendly LTE chipsets are not expected until Q2 2012. Apple is very focused on battery life, and despite the iPad's much-larger-than-a-smartphone battery, it's hard to believe they would sacrifice battery life on the new device.
Of course, that late a launch would break the iPad's annual refresh cycle, but since Apple showed with the iPhone 4S that going off-schedule, or rather, the off-the-schedule-Apple-has-kept-thus-far won't hurt sales.
The tablet will also use a quad-core chip, two of Bloomberg's sources said. The first Android tablet with a quad-core chip, the Transformer Prime with the NVIDIA Tegra 3 SoC (system-on-a-chip) launched late last year, but the iPad's success, and Android tablets' lack, has shown that specs are not exactly a sales point with many consumers.
The report also stated that the iPad 3 will carry a high-definition screen. While not specifying the resolution, it's already been rumored that Apple will double the current iPad 2 resolution with a 2,048 x 1,536 screen on the new iPad 3.
Earlier rumors also said the iPad 3 would be visually nearly indistinguishable from the iPad 2, although it be thicker by about 1mm.
Sony plans to introduce its first Sony-branded phone on AT&T’s LTE network this year, the company announced at the Consumer Electronics Show on January 9. The Xperia Ion has impressive specs and a beautiful screen, though it wasn’t a perfect experience in our hands.
The Xperia Ion has a 1.5GHz dual-core processor and 16GB of internal storage behind a gorgeous 1280x720 display. Only a few companies have managed to eschew the lesser PenTile displays, but with the force of the Bravia brand behind Sony’s phones (the Sony Ericsson brand in the photos is just an anachronism, we’re told), we expect they’ll lead the charge for high-quality screens. How the battery life will be on those phones is another matter.
The Xperia Ion felt light and not too big in hand for its 4.6-inch screen size—in fact, we barely noticed its large size, despite usually balking at phones of similar girth. The edges weren’t very comfortable to hold, but the rounded back may do better work in that area.
The sleep and volume buttons on the sides had nice give, but the navigation buttons along the bottom of the screen were very unresponsive. Those soft buttons are stylized with an underscoring light, and we seemed to have better luck tapping at the light than the icon itself—a little misleading given the history of how Android buttons are used, but we could get used to it if that was the correct way to use them.
Other than the iffy soft buttons, the screen was very responsive and took swipes and taps beautifully. The phone has 12-megapixel camera that we didn’t get to test out, but Sony boasts that the app can go from launch to the first shot in 1.5 seconds.
One big issue was left unaddressed by Sony: there was no mention of an upgrade trajectory to Android 4 in its press release. Given that Sony is new to handling its own phone business, we’d tread carefully with that.
The Xperia Ion can also be placed in a dock and be used with a large display. This works much like the media side of the webtop experience Motorola launched earlier in the year: we could send text messages, play music, and view photos. The phone was controllable with the TV’s remote, and a Sony representative told Ars that it would work with any TV’s remote—not just Sony’s. However, the phone also displays a browsing app on the TV, which can’t be used without a keyboard worked into the mix.
Diabetes is an increasing problem in the U.S., with an estimated 25.8 million children and adults in America, or about 8.3 percent of the population having diabetes, according to statistics from the American Diabetes Association as of January 2011. This coming week, patients will see a major advance in blood glucose meters, as Telcare's 3G-enabled meter will become commercially available.
The timing, we'd guess, is based on the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which runs from Jan. 10-13.
As type-2 diabetics ourselves, we can attest to the fact that the only way our doctor can get readings off of our blood glucose meter is to either have us keep records of it ourselves --- which admittedly we can do either with paper or tracking software --- or have us bring the meter in so that the readings can be downloaded off the meter.
The Telcare BGM instead wirelessly transmits glucose values using T-Mobile USA's 3G network to an online clinical server. Physicians, caregivers, and patients can then access the data via a password-protected Web site or an iPhone app.
There are negatives with the system, and price is paramount. The meter costs $150; compare that to a typical starter kit which can run lower than $10 for some of them. Of course, just as with anything like this (example: printers), the real money for these companies is in the consumers (meaning, the test strips). So you can lower the initial cost by "subscribing" to a one-year supply of test strips.
The cost of the Telcare BGM drops to $100 with a subscription for a one-year supply of test strips. Strips cost $56 for a container of 50, or $36 with a subscription. These prices are sans insurance subsidy.
Battery life is another issue: unlike a typical meter which might use a replaceable battery and last months or more than a year, all this extra technology means the system requires a rechargeable sealed battery in order to keep up with the drain. Turn off the meter between uses, and the company says a charge should last for 200 to 300 tests. Leave it on and the meter will "go to sleep" between tests, but need to be recharged every two or three days.
It's a great advance, but of course the annoying finger pricking and drawing of blood remains as part of the process.
Tech columnist Walt Mossberg, also a type-2 diabetic, took the Telcare BGM for a spin. You can watch his video review below.
The first photos of the latest device from the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) foundation have emerged, with the XO 3.0 tablet to be shown off at CES 2012. The $100 tablet is a follow-up to the organization's low-cost laptop, which has already been distributed to more than 2 million underprivileged children globally.
The XO 3.0 tablet has an 8-inch 1024 x 768 Pixel Qi sunlight-readable display, 512MB of RAM, and circuitry that allows it to be charged directly by hand cranks or solar panels. In fact, the XO 3.0 can get 10 minutes of runtime from one minute of cranking (cranks will NOT be shipped standard with the device).
It will have 8 to 10 hours of battery life, and a Marvell Armada PXA618 processor. Nicely, the tablet can be equipped with either Android or Sugar, which is the OLPC Foundation's own Linux operating system, designed specifically for children.
According to Marvell's own website, the Armada PXA618 SoC integrates a gigahertz-class CPU, full HD 1080p encode and decode, an integrated ISP capable of 16MP image capture, an integrated audio processing engine for extremely low power audio playback and exceptional high quality sound and advanced 3D graphics. The processor is supposed to be very lower-power.
Unspecified, but apparent from the OLPC-provided images are a full-size USB port, two ports which are probably audio, and a possible microSD slot. There also seems to be a front-facing camera at the top.
The price target is still $100, but the XO 3.0, like the prior XO laptops, won't be sold directly to consumers or parents. Instead, the foundation will sell the tablets directly in bulk to countries who want to ensure their children can have computers. Examples of countries that have deployed thousands of XO laptops include Peru and Uruguay.
OLPC's CEO Ed McNierney and OLPC founder Nicholas Negoroponte said that $100 price point can be met, but only by sacrificing some "premium" components. They said that a version priced at $100 wouldn't necessarily have the Pixel Qi display, but instead a regular LCD, and other unspecified components might be omitted, as well.
A look deep inside the latest iOS 5.1 beta seems to show that Apple is working on making its iOS mobile device platform work on quad-core processors. While it's already almost a given that the next-generation iPad and iPhone will use the A6 processor, up from the dual-core A5, it hasn't been clear that the chip would be quad-core.
Apple always places battery life first on its list of desires (despite what people have been saying about iOS 5). NVIDIA, which already launched a quad-core processor, the Tegra 3, has a stealth low-power fifth core, which is used for low priority tasks, increasing battery life. How Apple will address battery life in its own quad-core SoC (system-on-a-chip) is still unknown.
However, with NVIDIA and Asus having just released a quad core Android tablet, the legally-challenged Transformer Prime, it is unlikely that Apple would release the iPad 3 without a similar quad-core SoC.
The question of when exactly Apple will release the iPad 3 and iPhone 5 still remains, but early signs still point to the annual refresh cycles of March for a new iPad and late fall for a new iPhone.
If you're wondering why your Samsung Nexus S hasn't received Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) yet, while your neighbor's has, there's a reason for that, and it's not just bad luck. Google is holding back further updates to devices as it monitors feedback based on reported battery drain issues.
Notably, the battery drain problem is reported to affect Samsung Galaxy Nexus devices, too, not just the older Nexus S smartphones. It could be for that reason that the Galaxy Nexus has not yet received the 4.0.3 update that Google promised earlier.
Notably, we've noticed rather substandard battery life with both the GSM and LTE versions we've been testing. The battery drain seems far worse on LTE, however.
Just a reminder that the ICS upgrade wasn't going to come to Nexus S 4G devices YET anyway, so perhaps Sprint users can feel a little happier now. Google said the update for those devices would come later, but didn't detail an exact time.
More details are coming forth about the Carrier IQ "rootkit," and while mostly reassuring there's still stuff that could be disturbing. Just how much Carrier IQ bothers you depends much on how much you value your privacy that the software doesn't log keystrokes.
The company's monitoring software, which goes by the same name, is embedded on about 150 million handsets, according to Carrier IQ.
Here, in summary, is what the company said in a two-hour interview with Wired:
Andrew Coward, the company's chief marketing officer, said the company is aware how valuable the information they gather is: "It's a treasure trove."
No keystrokes are captured (something already confirmed by independent researchers), but Carrier IQ does monitor the app a user might install, battery life, phone CPU usage, and data and cellular connectivity, among other things.
The software is capable of logging the phone number and time of sent and received calls and text messages, although the contents of text messages are not logged. Not all carriers require all of these to be logged, though; for example, Coward said that some carriers might want the text-message data only when certain conditions are met, such as an SMS message that was never received.
The data is encrypted and uploaded from phones about once a day, to both Carrier IQ and to carriers, who use the data to enhance the “user experience."
The company stores the data for a variable length of time, depending on the carrier: from 10 to 30 days.
The software does log site visits, included encrypted search queries. This is done so that, for example, a tech support analyst could tell a customer who complains about not being able to reach a site that the reason that's happening is because they were misspelling the URL. Not all Carrier IQ’s customer carriers choose to turn on the “record the URLs.”
Here's the still scary part: although some carriers collect anonymized data, not all do. Obviously, the example above with regard to a misspelled URL should have "spelled it out." Some carriers collect data and can drill down into it. The data is still anonymized from a personal level, meaning a user's name isn't part of the information, but his phone's ID is, and that can be tracked back to the user, if tech support needs to.
Separately, among the big 4 wireless carriers, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile have admitted using Carrier IQ. Verizon says it does not. We have confirmed, using a special tool, that at least two Verizon Android phones in our possession do not have Carrier IQ software.
The uproar around Carrier IQ is likely to die down now that information is trickling out about what is or is not tracked. What's strange is that companies continue to make mistakes like this.
This software has been around for a long time. People are most upset because they were surprised about it. They weren't told about it, there is no way to opt out (and really, something like this should be opt in, not out), so naturally when information arises, they become upset --- understandably so.
And yes, they'll file lawsuits, as has already been done in this case.
The way to prevent something like this furball in the future is to stop hiding stuff like this from consumers. Be open about it. Who knows what other hidden gems are hiding among our electronic devices, just waiting to be revealed?
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