According to MacRumors, it's possible Apple could also introduce a faster iPad 2, which he dubbed an "iPad 2S," akin to the iPhone 4S. A so-called iPad 2S could include a faster processor and Siri integration, just like Apple's latest iPhone.
The HTC Rezound spots a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor, a 4.3-inch screen, 1 GB of RAM, support for Verizon’s LTE network, and a 8 megapixel camera in the rear. This device will also feature Beats Audio built-in.
Ice Cream Sandwich was scheduled to unveil on Oct. 11 at Samsung and Google's joint media event, "Samsung Mobile Unpacked: Google Episode." Find all the Android 4.0 Ice Cream features below!
However the event was canceled, according to the companies, in respect for the recent death of Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs.
The event was rescheduled for Oct. 19 in Hong Kong in honor of Steve Jobs.
The exact date and time is Wednesday, October 19th in Hong Kong at 10AM (7PM PST)
The OS will be launched alongside the Samsung Nexus Prime, the first smartphone to be powered by Ice Cream Sandwich.
As we reported from Google's keynote at Mobile World Congress in February, Google's mantra for the Android 4.0 OS is "one OS everywhere" – it will be a single 4.0 version of Android running across phones and tablets, unlike Android 3.0 Honeycomb that only runs on tablets.
That's why it's a Sandwich y'see.
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich interface
Ice Cream Sandwich will bring all the interface loveliness of Android 3.0 Honeycombto Android smartphones. Android phone users will get the updated app launcher, holographic user interface, interactive and new homescreen widgets plus the multi-tasking panel.
ANDROID 3.0: This interface magic will be coming to Android Ice Cream Sandwich
On 12 August we saw a batch of leaked screenshots of Ice Cream Sandwich.
Android Police and Roots Wiki seem to have come up with an odd cross-site team up to leak four pretty plausible screengrabs of the latest version of Google's mobile OS, which will likely be Android 4.0.
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich features
Google says Ice Cream Sandwich is its "most ambitious release to date" and will incorporate all the best bits of Honeycomb, the Android tablet OS, and make them useable on smartphones too.
But Ice Cream Sandwich is about more than just the user interface and it will bring all the new Android 3.1 features to phones. This new update means Android tablets will also be able to act as a USB hub and you'll be to hook up devices such as mice and keyboards and game controllers to tablets and smartphones.
On 10 October, TI refused to confirm or denyFudzilla reportsthat it was the reference design for Android 4.0 would be based on their hardware.
Google is also intending to make life easier for developers by releasing a new set of APIs that will help them to scale their apps across the various sizes of Android devices - Google acknowledges that it's important for developers to be able to design apps that will work across 3.5-inch smartphones up to 10.1-inch tablets.
During the Google Google I/O keynote those on stage also showed off 3D headtracking using the front-mounted camera so you can figure out who is speaking and focus on them while on a video call. Face detection will be a keyfeature in the OS and we hear that you can even unlock your handset using it.
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich apps
Many popular apps will get an update in time for the new OS - with a new interface expected to debut too. Interestingly, the screenshots shown here appear to have been taken on a new Samsung-built Nexus Prime.
A new Google Music app has also leaked which, although it works with earlier Android versions, is designed for Ice Cream Sandwich.
There will also be a new browser available - Google Chrome will debut on Android.
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich specification
Google's Mike Claren said, "we want one OS that runs everywhere."
Smartphone users will also get an expanded multitasking tool, including a system manager that handles your open resources for you so you won't run out of memory or be prompted to quit an application on the tablet.
Android 3.1 also means you can expand the size of a scrollable home screen widget, while existing scrollable widgets can also be upgraded by devs with a couple of lines of code.
SWEET: Google's inspiration for Android Ice Cream Sandwich [Image credit: Flickr/Blue Bunny]
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich requirements
There's no word yet on minimum hardware requirements, though this will certainly have implications for upgrading existing handsets to the new OS. Speaking of which…
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich upgrades
Google is introducing new guidelines in which it promises OS updates for the first 18 months for existing handsets. So Ice Cream will be coming to some of the more powerful handsets released during 2011.
"Together we'll create guidelines for how quickly devices will get updated after new android platforms and for how long they'll continue to get updated.," said Google's Vic Gundotra at Google I/O.
"New devices from these partners will receive the latest Android updates for 18 months after first launch, if the hardware allows it. We think this is really great news for users, we think it's excellent for developers and really great for the entire industry."
The move is in response to accusations that Android is becoming too fragmented and it has announced an alliance of (US-only for now) networks and manufacturers who have vowed to provide more timely updates. No longer will you get left behind.
Samsung UK has also told TechRadar that it is working to bring faster updates to users.
"We saw a lot of comments saying 'I want my upgrade, when do I get my upgrade?'," says Hiroshi Lockheimer, director of engineering at Google.
"There's no common expectation set of how this would work, so we can at least establish some form of expectation for the whole community - users and developers.
"We certainly want this to be an international, global thing. We announced Vodafone;you can expect another wave of announcements around that."
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is open source
We also know that Google is intending to make Ice Cream Sandwich fully open source. It didn't do this with Android 3.0 Honeycomb in an attempt to make things more consistent.
"It's more manageable to start small and get bigger," says Andy Rubin, senior vice president of Mobile at Google.
"It's an open invitation; there's no reason not to have everybody in [The Open Handset Alliance] - but I want to hit the ground running, I don't want to take a lot of time on building a list of names."
For a penny under $100, you can have a WiMAX-capable device with GSM roaming that features a 4-inch qHD (960 x 540) display, 1.2GHz Qualcomm MSM8655 CPU, Android 2.3 with HTC Sense UI, Mobile Hotspot, a 5MP rear camera with HD video recording (720p, we presume) and a 1.3MP front-facing cam.
Samsung's personal media tablets have finally hit U.S. store shelves. The Galaxy Player 4 and 5 run the Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS and offer users full access to Google's Android Market for apps as well as offering Samsung's TouchWiz UI, 1GHz Samsung processors, 512MB of RAM, microSD card slots with support for up to 32GB microSD cards, and dual cameras. The difference between the two devices is the touchscreens. The 4 sports a 4-inch WVGA Super Clear LCD display and the 5 features a larger 5-inch WVGA TFT LCD display screen. The Samsung Galaxy Player 4 and 5 are available now in the U.S for $229 and $269, respectively.
The Canon S100 is due out in November for around $430. If you preorder from Amazon, you can get yours a few weeks earlier though.
Amazon estimated ship dates have been indicating as early as October 3rd-15th. In an industry where delays are much more prevalent than quiet early releases, this is certainly welcome news for the highly anticipated pocket cam, which packs a 12.1 megapixel CMOS sensor and f/2.0 (variable) zoom lens.
Via Engadget
The release date in the UK for the Samsung Galaxy Note has been moved from November 17th to November 1st. Online retailer the Clove announced both the price cut and that the device will be available come November 1st.
Samsung Galaxy Note comes with a sensitive stylus that allows intricate sketching, doodling, note taking, annotating pictures, videos, etc. The Super AMOLED HD display cannot fail to impress, it’s vivid and spectacular. The screen size gives you more screen estate to play games and run apps that work with buttery smoothness, powered by Samsung’s own 1.4GHz dual core processor.
The rear camera comes with LED flash and supports 1080p recording that can be viewed on the device anytime. Samsung Galaxy Note includes microSD support and microSDHC support to extend storage capacity beyond the 32GB it comes with. It chockfull of apps that optimize on the device’s features – the stylus, HD camera, sensors, etc, and loads more from Samsung and Google.
via PDFdevices
The Asus Transformer Prime was shown today at the AllThingsD AsiaD conference. It will be 8.3mm thick, run on Nvidia's quad-core Tegra 3 processor, and be formally announced Nov. 9.
The Asus Transformer Prime will be announced on Nov. 9, said Chairman Jonney Shih at AllThingsD‘s AsiaD conference today as he pulled it out and showed it off. Like the original Transformer, which has been selling well since its debut in April, the Transformer Prime will be a traditional touch tablet, but have a keyboard dock that it can attach to, making it about as functional as a netbook. The new transformer is super thin, measuring only 8.3mm thick, which is thinner than the iPad, which measures 8.8mm, but not quite as thin as the new Motorola Droid Razr, which is only 7.1mm thick.
Under the hood, the Transformer Prime will use Nvidia’s new quad-core Tegra 3 processor, featuring a 10.1-inch screen (standard), and has a battery life of around 14.5 hours with the keyboard dock attached. It also has USB and HDMI ports. There’s no word on if it will ship with Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) or not, but we hope that Asus provides an update to the new OS as soon as Google releases the code in November.
Movies, apps, games, music, reading and more, plus Amazon's revolutionary, cloud-accelerated web browser
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Thousands of popular apps and games
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Vibrant color touchscreen with extra-wide viewing angle
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The Lytro Light Field Camera is set to release in Early 2012.
Mountain View, CA – June 22, 2011- Lytro, Inc. (http://www.lytro.com) announced today that it is developing a “light field” camera for consumers that will forever change the way people take and experience pictures. Later this year, Lytro will start selling light field cameras that can capture all of the light rays in a scene to offer photographic capabilities never before possible, such as focusing a picture after it’s taken. Lytro cameras will also create interactive, living pictures that can be endlessly focused and refocused by both the photographer and the viewer, bringing new creative possibilities to photography. In 2010, consumers worldwide spent more than $38 billion on cameras.
Introducing Camera 3.0
Lytro’s light field camera represents the most significant shift in photography since the transition from film to digital in 1988. The light field fully defines how a scene appears, from the foreground to the background and everything in between. Unlike conventional cameras, which can only record a scene in two dimensions, light field cameras can capture all of the light traveling in every direction through a scene in four dimensions. A light field picture taken with a Lytro camera can be manipulated after the fact in ways not possible with editing software.
Light field cameras capture fundamentally more powerful data than possible in regular photographs. To record this additional data, Lytro cameras will feature an innovative new light field sensor that captures the color, intensity and direction of every light ray. Powerful software within the camera then processes the picture into a light field picture file that anyone can interact with, without needing special software.
“This is the next big evolution of the camera,” said CEO and Founder Dr. Ren Ng. “The move from film to digital was extraordinary and opened up picture taking to a much larger audience. Lytro is introducing Camera 3.0, a breakthrough that lets you nail your shot every time and never miss a moment. Now you can snap once and focus later to get the perfect picture.”
Turning Light into Living Pictures
Lytro camera capabilities will include:
“Lytro’s breakthrough technology will make conventional digital cameras obsolete. It has to be seen to be believed,” said investor Marc Andreessen, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz.
“Humans have a deep desire to capture the experience of their lives and share it visually with others,” said Emmy-award winning multimedia journalist Richard Koci Hernandez. “From early man’s cave paintings more than 30,000 years ago to the first people posing for daguerreotype photos wearing iron collars to stay still in the 1800s, humans have gone to great lengths to tell visual stories. Light field cameras are the next step in that picture revolution.”
Out of the Lab, Into Your Pocket
Light field science and computational photography have been extensively researched for more than a century in academic environments. Light field science was the subject of Dr. Ng’s PhD dissertation in computer science at Stanford, which was awarded the internationally-recognized ACM Dissertation Award in 2007. Dr. Ng’s research focused on miniaturizing a roomful of a hundred cameras plugged in to a supercomputer in a lab. In 2011, the Lytro team will complete the job of taking light fields out of the lab and making them available in the form of a consumer light field camera.
The digital still camera market is large and growing with $38.3 billion in worldwide revenue in 2010 and expectations to increase to $43.5 billion worldwide by 2015.* Visual storytelling is universal, with 60 billion photos shared on Facebook in 2010, projected to reach 100 billion photos by this summer.
Lytro has raised approximately $50 million to date from Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock Partners, NEA and K9 Ventures, along with individual investors. K9 Ventures provided initial money to Dr. Ng and Greylock Partners seeded Lytro. NEA led the Series B round in 2010 and Andreessen Horowitz recently led its Series C, which raised $37.6 million for Lytro’s push into consumer markets this year. Board members include Mike Ramsay, consumer products pioneer and TiVo co-founder; Ben Horowitz, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz; and Patrick Chung, partner at NEA. Advisors to the company include two Nobel laureates, Stanford physics professor Douglas Osheroff and physicist Arno Penzias, as well as Intuit cofounder Scott Cook, VMware cofounder Diane Greene, Dolby Labs Chairman Peter Gotcher, and Sling Media cofounder Blake Krikorian. Lytro has assembled a world-class team of experts in areas that include engineering, design, computational photography, computer graphics, high volume manufacturing, high volume distribution, and consumer marketing.
The first Lytro camera will be available for purchase online later this year. For a demonstration of living pictures, visit the Lytro Picture Gallery http://www.lytro.com/picture_gallery. To reserve a camera, visitLytro.com.
For additional commentary on Lytro’s innovations, visit Ben Horowitz’s blog:http://bhorowitz.com/2011/06/21/lytro-and-the-magic-camera/
About Lytro:
Lytro is transforming the camera into a powerful computational photography platform and making conventional cameras a thing of the past. The company was founded in 2006 by CEO Ren Ng, whose PhD research on light field photography won Stanford’s prize for best thesis in computer science in 2006 as well as the internationally recognized ACM Dissertation award. For additional information, visit Lytro.com.