Friday, 10 February 2012
WEEKLY ROUNDUP
According to AllThingsD, Apple are set to reveal the iPad 3 during the first week of March which would make it around a year since the iPad 2 was launched. The new iPad is touted to have a HD display, slightly thicker build and a faster dual core processor rather than a quad core one. An image of the housing of the iPad 3 was posted online earlier in the week which seemed to confirm the speculated improvements on the new tablet. The biggest surprise being that the new device will not sport a quad core chip but would still run on dual core although it won't be the A5 processor that currently powers the iPad 2. Only time will tell if any of these stories come true but it looks like we wot have to wait long to find out.
After numerous builds of the developer preview, Microsoft are ready to show the world their new operating system. The Comsumer preview will be made available on the 29th of February and will include a brief look into the Windows app store. Windows 8 has been designed to marry up with the current tiled Metro user interface that it currently employs on Windows smartphones and X Box Live. The system has also been aimed at tablet and touchscreen use as well as the typical mouse. The developer preview was a brief look at the new layout but the consumer preview will give us a much better understanding of what the final product will be like. It's looking much more user friendly and the interface is as slick and smooth as the Windows Phone variant. Now that Microsoft own Skype, deeper integration is speculated with the VoIP service and hopefully we'll see that in action too!
Following on from the story earlier in the week, the event that Samsung are set to hold on March 22nd has quickly been rebuffed by Sammy. Although there will be an event, it won't have anything to do with the Galaxy S3. Rather, Samsung will be talking about their reveals from the Mobile World Congress which will be held in Barcelona at the end of this month. Samsung did reiterate that they WILL hold a press event to reveal the S3 but the date for that day has not yet materialised. It looks like Samsung want to wait until after MWC to start the ball rolling on their new flagship device. Photos surfaced earlier on in the week showing a Samsung Android phone which looks just like the Galaxy Nexus but with Gingerbread software and a smaller screen. This is dubbed the Galaxy S Plus and will most likely be shown at MWC. The other announcement is that Samsung will not hold a press event at MWC which kind of makes any new product reveals at the show less important or noteworthy.
Reports were making the rounds over the last couple of weeks that Google employees were trialling some sort of home entertainment device. This later seemed to be Google Smart Glasses which are basically glasses you wear which gives you a Heads Up Display and is powered by a similar spec o older Smartphones. Now it seems that Google are working on a lot more including a home TV and overall Entertainment unit. The reports point to Google integrating wireless music, video and image streaming across the devices and smartphones. Whatever the entertainment unit is, it will most likely be powered by the Android operating system. Apple are apparently looking into TV's so it wouldn't be a great surprise if Google are doing the same thing. It looks like the Apple/Google war is heading to living rooms very soon as both companies are touted to be releasing their TV/Entertainment devices this year.
I hate 3D as I feel its still a useless gimmick and despite numerous advances in its tech, it STILL has yet to offer us an experience worth using or having on a daily basis. I also hate Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace as the second best Sith Lord Darth Maul is killed after only a few minutes of camera time and that idiotic and slightly racist lunch box selling Jar Jar Binks survives! It was to my horror then, that George Lucas decided to start the re-release of the 3D converted films with the Phantom Menace. The film will be showing at most cinemas in the UK from the 10th of February and god help you if you are going to see it. I will probably wait until the original trilogy is released and thats JUST cos I would love to watch the original trilogy in the cinema. You see I missed out on watching the first 3 films at the cinema on account of me not existing at the time of their release. I really really hate Jar Jar Binks.
So, my Star Wars ranting aside, its been a great week in the world of tech and all the big product releases are starting to filter through. Its only gonna get better!
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