Displaying items by tag: SmartPhone

Anyone who has ever dropped their cell phone or tablet knows the cringe that crosses their face before the device even makes its landing. That dreaded grimace doesn’t get any better when the beloved gadget ends up in a puddle, or a pool, or into your drink. That last one happens more than you’d think.

OmniVision has developed a CMOS sensor designed for use in mid-range smartphones. In this way, the mid-range devices should close the gap in image quality with advanced, higher-priced models. Vinoo Margasahayam, senior product marketing manager at OmniVision said that “Industry research projects that 8-megapixel cameras will continue to enjoy a dominant position in the mobile device market in the foreseeable future. To stay at the forefront of this trend, OmniVision developed a leading-edge 8-megapixel image sensor for smartphones and tablets. The OV8835's fast frame rates, excellent pixel performance and low power consumption are critical performance benefits for manufacturers.”

In collaboration with Project Ray, a company that creates tools and instruments for those who cannot see well, Qualcomm has developed a smartphone based on Android that helps blind and visually impaired people to be rid of wearing several different devices simultaneously. This smartphone is made to replace voice readers, color readers, navigational instruments, special bar-code scanners, and MP3 players and it is driven by voice commands.

Like it was not enough that they pretty much ruined the basic version of Android with their apps and add-ons like Walkman, now Sony has announced that some of their Xperia devices won’t even get a Jelly Bean upgrade. This will certainly be more than disappointing for their usersand they can’t do anything but hope that things will change later in 2013. However, until early 2013 no changes will be made. Some of the devices will not be getting the update at all.

Verizon has published their results for Q3 2013 and they are doing pretty good. They managed to sell 6.8 million smartphones, which means that now more than 53% of Verizon users are smartphone owners. These sales brought them a 7.5% year-on-year rise and around 1.8 million new customers; which is the most in the last 4 years. In only three months they made $16.2 billion in revenue and the average amount of money spent on their services per account has also increased by 6.5% making it $145.42 monthly.

As expected, Samsung did excellent in the last quarter. They marked record profits of $7.3 billion, and even though there were many speculations that the iPhone 5 launch would ruin their success; obviously that's not what happened. These results are almost as twice as good they were the year before. It looks like the Galaxy S III and other high end Android devices were appreciated by the customers. They didn’t want to say much more on their profits as they will wait until October 26 for full-quarter results.

Today Samsung announced some great news. Their new 5.5-inch device, the Note II, will be coming to all major US carriers soon. The new Note will be available in November, and will launch on pretty much same the carriers as its smaller brother the Galaxy S3 did. So far there have been leaks about Verizon's Note II and also some screenshots have confirmed that it will be available on T-Mobile too. That is big turnaround, since the first Note was available exclusively on AT&T in the US. Samsung officially confirmed that it will be available on Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, The Now Network and US Cellular by mid-November.

Huawei will welcome a new member of their smartphone family this month; the Ascend G600 comes with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. So far it is not known in which countries the Ascend G600 will be available first, but according to an official announcement they will start distribution for the German market in December. The initial price for device the device is expected to be €300. Shao Yang, Chief marketing officer said that “We are very excited to introduce the new Huawei Ascend G600, which gives more functionality and power for people who expect more from their technology“.

Synaptics, the inventor of the touch pad back in 1995, is looking to revolutionize the touch industry again. On the 17th of August we had a conversation with Synaptics about their new innovation, the ForcePad, and how it and some additional technology could push the mobile and desktop experience to a new dimension. After looking through the all of the details and talking with Synaptics, we think there might even be hope for Windows 8.

After being impressed with the House of Marley’s Redemption Song On-Ear headphones we have now spent some time with their Zion In-Ear head phones. These follow in the same style as the Redemption Song headphones and are made of recycled or renewable materials. They also follow in the trend of being tuned for high quality sound and are designed for use with Apple’s lineup of products (iPad, iPod, iPhone) but will work with just about any media player or smart phone (with a few exceptions). With a price tag of $99.99 we are hoping that these headphones give us the same level of performance that we saw with the Redemption Song. Follow the bouncing ball and sing along as we tell your just how well they perform.