The latest version of the Zune software, 4.2, was just released. Not all that much changed, but the update lays the groundwork for some more significant feature additions to Zune software and the Zune HD, most importantly in codec support.
Microsoft is just calling this a "maintenance" update, and there are only a couple actual changes to be seen. Most importantly, the software now supports Xvid, Divx and AVI videos, though it'll have to convert them to play on Zune hardware. However, those videos will be natively supported after another firmware update to the Zune HD, which should come this spring. So there's not much to get excited about quite yet, but it's great to see Microsoft actively supporting the Zune HD like this. [Zune]
It'll all be over soon. The mystery. The anticipation. The rumors. Oh, the rumors. After the tablet is announced tomorrow, another stage in the gadget life cycle will begin. So take one last soak in every tablet rumor worth reading.
We'll be continuously updating our ongoing rumor roundup until our liveblog actually starts tomorrow morning. And the last 24 hours is always the most exciting. Anyone catch CNBC lately? So, catch up on what's been leaked, what's been whispered, what's been sneezed—you don't wanna be behind everybody else, do you? [Apple Tablet Rumors, Photo Credit: Steve McQuillen]
It'll all be over soon. The mystery. The anticipation. The rumors. Oh, the rumors. After the tablet is announced tomorrow, another stage in the gadget life cycle will begin. So take one last soak in every tablet rumor worth reading.
We'll be continuously updating our ongoing rumor roundup until our liveblog actually starts tomorrow morning. And the last 24 hours is always the most exciting. Anyone catch CNBC lately? So, catch up on what's been leaked, what's been whispered, what's been sneezed—you don't wanna be behind everybody else, do you? [Apple Tablet Rumors, Photo Credit: Steve McQuillen]
Droid draggin'? Apps crawlin'? Android creepin'? Then maybe you should overclock your Droid to 1.1GHz, like this guy! But really no, don't.
The boys at AllDroid have figured out how to overclock the Droid's ARM Cortex A8, normally clocked at 550 MHz, to 1.1GHz. That's twice the frequency, in case you're comically terrible at math, which can't be safe on a processor with no active cooling, stuffed into a metal phone. But whatever, it's the joy of the hunt, right? Or something? Here's how you can try it; it's a fairly involved process, so don't even try unless you're already familiar with rooting, overclocking, and bricking the shit out of phones for questionable reasons.
The AllDroid guys seem to have settled on 800MHz as a safe, cool, stable frequency, and 1.1GHz as a rough top end; past that, I imagine things get too crashy to be fun. [AllDroid via MobileCrunch]
Droid draggin'? Apps crawlin'? Android creepin'? Then maybe you should overclock your Droid to 1.1GHz, like this guy! But really no, don't.
The boys at AllDroid have figured out how to overclock the Droid's ARM Cortex A8, normally clocked at 550 MHz, to 1.1GHz. That's twice the frequency, in case you're comically terrible at math, which can't be safe on a processor with no active cooling, stuffed into a metal phone. But whatever, it's the joy of the hunt, right? Or something? Here's how you can try it; it's a fairly involved process, so don't even try unless you're already familiar with rooting, overclocking, and bricking the shit out of phones for questionable reasons.
The AllDroid guys seem to have settled on 800MHz as a safe, cool, stable frequency, and 1.1GHz as a rough top end; past that, I imagine things get too crashy to be fun. [AllDroid via MobileCrunch]
The car runs on Sony's Bio Battery which, in turn, gets its energy from breaking down sugars like those found in soda and fruit drinks. Therefore, the efficiency of the car depends on the liquid used (apparently, grape juice is the best). Obviously, a toy like this is intended as an eco-friendly alternative to electricity, but unless you are sifting through dumpsters for the residue in Red Bull cans, all you are really doing is wasting food. At any rate, the car is still in the prototype phase, so there is no word yet on when it might actually be available for sale. [Gigazine via Inhabitat]
The car runs on Sony's Bio Battery which, in turn, gets its energy from breaking down sugars like those found in soda and fruit drinks. Therefore, the efficiency of the car depends on the liquid used (apparently, grape juice is the best). Obviously, a toy like this is intended as an eco-friendly alternative to electricity, but unless you are sifting through dumpsters for the residue in Red Bull cans, all you are really doing is wasting food. At any rate, the car is still in the prototype phase, so there is no word yet on when it might actually be available for sale. [Gigazine via Inhabitat]
It's pretty much agreed that the magical thing about the Apple tablet, the reason it could succeed where every other has failed, is going to be the interface. The software. But what's under the hood?
There are two arbiters of what's inside the tablet. The software, and the battery. If it's running an enhanced version of the iPhone OS, which seems likely, that says a lot. If you not-so-unreasonably expect 4-6 hours of usage out of this thing, it also says a lot. (Apple product rule: There's never enough battery life.) Together, they scream mobile guts.
The last three iPhones have run on processors using the ARM architecture, like basically every other smartphone on the planet. The iPhone OS is designed to run on ARM processors, so if the tablet's using iPhone OS, logic and Occam's Razor says, it's running on ARM too. But, you're asking, how's a chip architecture that's used in smartphones gonna power a big ol' tablet?
I talked to Ars Technica's chip maven Jon Stokes about tablet silicon for a while. Even going down the ARM path, there's a couple of ways to go about it. A persistent (and plausible) rumor is that the little chip company Apple bought, PA Semi, is finally debuting their wares in the Apple tablet. Previously, PA Semi worked on the Power architecture (remember PowerPC?), but what they excelled at, Stokes says, was creating incredibly efficient chips. So it's possible they were put to work on a chip for the tablet using the ARM architecture, especially given ARM's comments implying Apple's an ARM licensee.
Another ARM possibility is a custom system on a chip using the ARM Cortex A9, which is designed for smartbooks (those weirdly nebulous things between a netbook and a laptop). It's the heart of Nvidia's Tegra2 wonderchip, for instance, which is itself in tablets, like the very neat Adam one we saw at CES. The Cortex A9 is multi-core, fast and power efficient, even if it's outgunned on straight performance by Intel's Atom. (For more on the Intel/ARM device chasm, check out this piece by Stokes.) The major "problem" with this possibility is that the Cortex A9 is vapor at the moment (much like the tablet, oho), and hasn't shown up in anything actually shipping yet.
The other major piece of silicon to worry about is graphics. How pumped are the tablet's graphics powers going to be? Gaming could be a huge deal, and we've heard EA is all over the tablet. But are the games just going to be, uh, supersized versions of iPhone games? Again, if it's a big(ger) iPhone, Apple could license a PowerVR graphics part, like they've used in the iPhone 3GS, or perhaps even one from Qualcomm, who picked up AMD's Imageon mobile graphics a year ago. Don't expect anything crazy, like a fire-breathing GeForce 285 GTX. Like Stokes says, sticking with ARM makes sense if they're expanding on that platform. What we could see, maybe, is a dedicated HD video decoder that's popping up in some netbooks to handle H.264 video.
The only other real consideration, I think, is the screen. AMOLED isn't happening. Not only would it be too expensive, no one's actually mass producing 10-inch AMOLED panels—not enough for millions of tablets, anyway. Pixel Qi's screen tech, as much as I love it, is too rough around the edges, even if it very conveniently comes in a 10-inch size. So! Conventional LED-backlit LCD it probably is. The resolution is probably, at minimum, 1280x720 but probably more. Why? Pixel density. A 10-inch, 1280x720 screen is roughly 138ppi, lower than the iPhone's 163ppi or the new iMac's 208ppi. If you're going to seriously read on this thing, the higher the pixel density, the better.
And, uh, networking. Wi-Fi, how could it not? Supposedly, it'll have 3G. From which carrier(s), who knows? If it's on Verizon, it'll probably be on AT&T, too. Everything else, like RAM and storage, I'd argue, is nearly inconsequential, at least in terms of how you'll use it. Some gigabytes of flash-based storage that's a multiple of 16, like 64GB or 128GB. If it multitasks, it'll need more RAM, not less. It'll have a headphone jack. Maybe a camera (more likely yes than no, is the latest 'consenus'). People would like it to take an SD card, like the current MacBook Pros, but it probably won't. Oh, here's a real quandary: Real USB port, or iPod dock connector? We'd guess the latter. Hmmm!
The bottom line is that, for whatever specifics we might be wrong about thanks to secret hardware partnerships, it's probably going to look a lot more like a (big) smartphone inside than hulking notebook. Just like the outside.
It's pretty much agreed that the magical thing about the Apple tablet, the reason it could succeed where every other has failed, is going to be the interface. The software. But what's under the hood?
There are two arbiters of what's inside the tablet. The software, and the battery. If it's running an enhanced version of the iPhone OS, which seems likely, that says a lot. If you not-so-unreasonably expect 4-6 hours of usage out of this thing, it also says a lot. (Apple product rule: There's never enough battery life.) Together, they scream mobile guts.
The last three iPhones have run on processors using the ARM architecture, like basically every other smartphone on the planet. The iPhone OS is designed to run on ARM processors, so if the tablet's using iPhone OS, logic and Occam's Razor says, it's running on ARM too. But, you're asking, how's a chip architecture that's used in smartphones gonna power a big ol' tablet?
I talked to Ars Technica's chip maven Jon Stokes about tablet silicon for a while. Even going down the ARM path, there's a couple of ways to go about it. A persistent (and plausible) rumor is that the little chip company Apple bought, PA Semi, is finally debuting their wares in the Apple tablet. Previously, PA Semi worked on the Power architecture (remember PowerPC?), but what they excelled at, Stokes says, was creating incredibly efficient chips. So it's possible they were put to work on a chip for the tablet using the ARM architecture, especially given ARM's comments implying Apple's an ARM licensee.
Another ARM possibility is a custom system on a chip using the ARM Cortex A9, which is designed for smartbooks (those weirdly nebulous things between a netbook and a laptop). It's the heart of Nvidia's Tegra2 wonderchip, for instance, which is itself in tablets, like the very neat Adam one we saw at CES. The Cortex A9 is multi-core, fast and power efficient, even if it's outgunned on straight performance by Intel's Atom. (For more on the Intel/ARM device chasm, check out this piece by Stokes.) The major "problem" with this possibility is that the Cortex A9 is vapor at the moment (much like the tablet, oho), and hasn't shown up in anything actually shipping yet.
The other major piece of silicon to worry about is graphics. How pumped are the tablet's graphics powers going to be? Gaming could be a huge deal, and we've heard EA is all over the tablet. But are the games just going to be, uh, supersized versions of iPhone games? Again, if it's a big(ger) iPhone, Apple could license a PowerVR graphics part, like they've used in the iPhone 3GS, or perhaps even one from Qualcomm, who picked up AMD's Imageon mobile graphics a year ago. Don't expect anything crazy, like a fire-breathing GeForce 285 GTX. Like Stokes says, sticking with ARM makes sense if they're expanding on that platform. What we could see, maybe, is a dedicated HD video decoder that's popping up in some netbooks to handle H.264 video.
The only other real consideration, I think, is the screen. AMOLED isn't happening. Not only would it be too expensive, no one's actually mass producing 10-inch AMOLED panels—not enough for millions of tablets, anyway. Pixel Qi's screen tech, as much as I love it, is too rough around the edges, even if it very conveniently comes in a 10-inch size. So! Conventional LED-backlit LCD it probably is. The resolution is probably, at minimum, 1280x720 but probably more. Why? Pixel density. A 10-inch, 1280x720 screen is roughly 138ppi, lower than the iPhone's 163ppi or the new iMac's 208ppi. If you're going to seriously read on this thing, the higher the pixel density, the better.
And, uh, networking. Wi-Fi, how could it not? Supposedly, it'll have 3G. From which carrier(s), who knows? If it's on Verizon, it'll probably be on AT&T, too. Everything else, like RAM and storage, I'd argue, is nearly inconsequential, at least in terms of how you'll use it. Some gigabytes of flash-based storage that's a multiple of 16, like 64GB or 128GB. If it multitasks, it'll need more RAM, not less. It'll have a headphone jack. Maybe a camera (more likely yes than no, is the latest 'consenus'). People would like it to take an SD card, like the current MacBook Pros, but it probably won't. Oh, here's a real quandary: Real USB port, or iPod dock connector? We'd guess the latter. Hmmm!
The bottom line is that, for whatever specifics we might be wrong about thanks to secret hardware partnerships, it's probably going to look a lot more like a (big) smartphone inside than hulking notebook. Just like the outside.
According to Rodney Charters, director of photography on 24, print media might not be the only thing Apple's tablet is saving in coming months. Charters cheerfully Tweeted that Jack Bauer might wield the ubergadget later this season on 24.
The production team on the show, which recently aired the fifth episode of its eighth season, is apparently working behind the scenes to outfit its hero with Apple's forthcoming device. This morning Charters announced:
Hmmmm looks like we may get an iSlate into Jacks hands for Ep 20 getting giddy with excitement
and later updated, with a bit more certainty
Got a bit too excited probably more likely Episode 22 but Apple provided fingers crossed
In any event, it's a testament to the hype surrounding the device that it's even managed to make its way into the dreams of fictional characters. I'm sure Jack, too, is giddy with excitement. [Rodney Charters]
477847010 |
|
Menu
Droid draggin'? Apps crawlin'? Android creepin'? Then maybe you should overclock your Droid to 1.1GHz, like this guy! But really no, don't.
According to Rodney Charters, director of photography on 24,