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A promising OS for the new Palm
Florence Legrand
January 09, 2009 5:11 pm
January 09, 2009 5:11 pm
Palm is back in the smartphone race with a new handset and a brand new operating system to prove so. .jpg)
After unveiling the "Pre" smartphone at CES on Thursday, the Palm share went up by 35%. Good news for a company that had been struggling recently. So what's all the talk about?
Good looking and minimalist design
For one, the Pre looks good and it ticks all the right boxes. This high end touchscreen phone with its curvy body and glossy finish does indeed have a stylish look. It has all the features that are now a "must" on a smartphone and comes with a 3.1 inch multitouch display, 3G, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth connectivity, 3 megapixel camera, 8 GB memory, an accelerometer and a full QWERTY keyboard that slides out.
And then there is the touchstone. This is a magnetic induction charger - which looks like a puck- on which you lie the headset for charging. Totally wireless and totally a great idea. According to the first reports from Las Vegas, those who have tried the touchscreen interface were rather impressed.
Palm OS web : an open system
The names says it all: the new operating system promises to deliver the best of mobile Web. The platform is designed to allow the use of several programs at once. A function called Synergy integrates information from various applications. This will be of great interest to users with multiple accounts (Outlook, Gmail..) and those who use social networking websites (Facebook...) as all contacts online will appear in one list. A similar application for the iPhone can be found on the App Store and proves indeed very useful for combined messaging.
Last but not least, the Palm OS web is an open source system so developers can bring in new ideas.
The Pre is supposed to hit the stores in the United States during the first half of 2009 but its price is still unknown.
Hopefully we shall be able to play with it next month during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Could this be a new beginning for Palm? Competition within smartphone operating systems is certainly welcome and might lead manufacturers to come up with even better ideas…sooner.
.
After unveiling the "Pre" smartphone at CES on Thursday, the Palm share went up by 35%. Good news for a company that had been struggling recently. So what's all the talk about?
Good looking and minimalist design
For one, the Pre looks good and it ticks all the right boxes. This high end touchscreen phone with its curvy body and glossy finish does indeed have a stylish look. It has all the features that are now a "must" on a smartphone and comes with a 3.1 inch multitouch display, 3G, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth connectivity, 3 megapixel camera, 8 GB memory, an accelerometer and a full QWERTY keyboard that slides out.
And then there is the touchstone. This is a magnetic induction charger - which looks like a puck- on which you lie the headset for charging. Totally wireless and totally a great idea. According to the first reports from Las Vegas, those who have tried the touchscreen interface were rather impressed.
Palm OS web : an open system
The names says it all: the new operating system promises to deliver the best of mobile Web. The platform is designed to allow the use of several programs at once. A function called Synergy integrates information from various applications. This will be of great interest to users with multiple accounts (Outlook, Gmail..) and those who use social networking websites (Facebook...) as all contacts online will appear in one list. A similar application for the iPhone can be found on the App Store and proves indeed very useful for combined messaging.
Last but not least, the Palm OS web is an open source system so developers can bring in new ideas.
The Pre is supposed to hit the stores in the United States during the first half of 2009 but its price is still unknown.
Hopefully we shall be able to play with it next month during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Could this be a new beginning for Palm? Competition within smartphone operating systems is certainly welcome and might lead manufacturers to come up with even better ideas…sooner.
.
News from CES 2009: prototype USB 3.0 demo
Pierre-Jean Alzieu
January 09, 2009 2:26 pm
January 09, 2009 2:26 pm
|
Panasonic
NeoPDP TX-P42V10  |
Moins cher que le Panasonic NeoPDP Z1, le V10 n'en est pas moins richement équipé.
Plasma plus abordable que le NeoPDP Z1, le V10 en reprend les principales caractéristiques : dalle Full HD d'un contraste de 2000000:1, TNT HD, 600 Hz SFD avec 24p Real Cinema, 100 Hz, Viera Cast, DLNA et DiVX sur le lecteur SD.
Il ne fait finalement l'impasse que sur le Wireless HD, et sur son épaisseur qui passe de 2,5 à 5 cm. Cette économie se ressent sur le prix de vente qui baisse considérablement par rapport au NeoPDP Z1.
The much awaited USB 3.0 specification should turn up in devices by the end of this year, or early next. In theory a data transfer speed of up to 4.8 GB ( 600 MB/s) is announced. This is ten times faster than the current USB 2.0 standard. TG Daily reports on a USB 3.0 hard drive prototype presented at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
The prototype hard drive reached 1320 Mb/s (165 MB/s) in read operations and 1000 Mb/s (125 MB/s) in write processes. This is partly due to the type of hard disk used, qualified as "very fragile" but it does give an insight to the level of performance one can expect. These results are about 5 times superior to the best ones we got with USB 2.0 in our tests.
By the time of the official launch, it is likely that transfer speed will have improved. As with USB 2.0, it will then take some years before manufacturers can use a bandwith closer to the one announced.
> CES 2009: USB 3.0 slower than expected
Le V10 est attendu en mai 2009 en 42 et 50 pouces (107 et 127 cm)pour des prix respectifs de 1800 et 2300 euros.
Attention : le V10 sera également décliné dans une version LCD. Il ne faudra pas les confondre !
Plasma plus abordable que le NeoPDP Z1, le V10 en reprend les principales caractéristiques : dalle Full HD d'un contraste de 2000000:1, TNT HD, 600 Hz SFD avec 24p Real Cinema, 100 Hz, Viera Cast, DLNA et DiVX sur le lecteur SD.
Il ne fait finalement l'impasse que sur le Wireless HD, et sur son épaisseur qui passe de 2,5 à 5 cm. Cette économie se ressent sur le prix de vente qui baisse considérablement par rapport au NeoPDP Z1.
The much awaited USB 3.0 specification should turn up in devices by the end of this year, or early next. In theory a data transfer speed of up to 4.8 GB ( 600 MB/s) is announced. This is ten times faster than the current USB 2.0 standard. TG Daily reports on a USB 3.0 hard drive prototype presented at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
The prototype hard drive reached 1320 Mb/s (165 MB/s) in read operations and 1000 Mb/s (125 MB/s) in write processes. This is partly due to the type of hard disk used, qualified as "very fragile" but it does give an insight to the level of performance one can expect. These results are about 5 times superior to the best ones we got with USB 2.0 in our tests.
By the time of the official launch, it is likely that transfer speed will have improved. As with USB 2.0, it will then take some years before manufacturers can use a bandwith closer to the one announced.
> CES 2009: USB 3.0 slower than expected
Le V10 est attendu en mai 2009 en 42 et 50 pouces (107 et 127 cm)pour des prix respectifs de 1800 et 2300 euros.
Attention : le V10 sera également décliné dans une version LCD. Il ne faudra pas les confondre !
> Comparatif : les TV de 40 à 49 pouces
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