New Vaio Z to sport “Quad” SSD in RAID 0?

This is an interesting development. The latest Vaios leaked out a little while ago, and for the most part they were what one would expect: improved performance, better battery life, that sort of thing. But there’s an interesting feature that wasn’t on the leaked spec list (and isn’t confirmed to be, either): a “quad” SSD composed of four SSD drives working together in RAID 0. If the chipset and other hardware are designed with something like this in mind, it really could be extremely fast.
Of course it’d be fast whether they designed for it or not, but if they made sure to have the right motherboard, fast RAM, special storage controllers and so on, it could blow away the competition. Laptop had drives are traditionally low-power 5400RPM HDDs, though SSDs are becoming more common, and this multiple SSD setup could be the next step in luxury mobile computing.
It’s unclear whether the “64GB/128GB x 4″ quoted is, for instance, four 32GB drives making up 128GB or four 128GB drives making up 512GB. I’d lean towards the former, since the latter would be incredibly expensive. Sure, SSDs are already expensive, but four high-capacity drives would put the raw storage cost at over $1500.

Source : http://www.crunchgear.com/

New cameraphone sensor to take terrible, terrible 1080p video

I’m sure this is a very grand advance in miniaturization, but I’m afraid the results may be of questionable quality. Omnivision has announced a new sensor for mobile phone cameras that will take 14MP photos and do 1080p video at 60FPS. As far as I’m concerned, this is bad news. Cameraphone lenses are slow and of very low quality, and the tiny sensor size means both bad low light performance and bad clarity due to insanely small pixel pitch.
And the video will have to be low bitrate to accommodate the lack of storage on most phones. 1080p video at 1Mbps? It’ll be like watching an HDTV smeared with vaseline. Why not make your sensor or phone do something useful, like take good pictures in low light, or do high-speed video?
Phone-camera hybrids like the Idou are still pretty rough. Let’s focus on getting the devices right, then we can add resolution if it’s really necessary, all right?

Source : http://www.mobilecrunch.com

WSJ: Apple Tablet shipping in March

This is not it This just in: the WSJ is reporting that an Apple Tablet device thinger will ship in March after a January announcement. The announcement should come on the 27th or the 28th, according on various sources.

Apple Inc. plans to unveil a new multimedia tablet device later this month, but doesn’t plan on shipping the product until March, people briefed by the company said.

The device should sell for under $1000 and come in multiple finishes and may come with a nationwide Wi-Fi subscription similar to Boingo.

Source : http://www.crunchgear.com

Lenovo’s U1 is a netbook with removable tablet

Everyone’s all excited about that Freescale gizmo, but it looks like it may have competition. The Lenovo U1 has a similar convertible design, though with a slightly more rounded look. It’s also different in function: when docked, it runs Windows 7 on the dock’s low-power Intel processor, but once detached it uses an ARM CPU to run a lightweight Linux distro. Not sure how it’s going to handle the segue if you’ve got work in progress and need to dock it, but I’m sure Lenovo has that handled.

Here are the specs, broken down into tablet and dock portions:
Tablet:

• 1.6 pounds
• 1GHz Snapdragon processor
• 512MB DDR1 RAM
• 16GB SSD

Dock:

• 3.8 pounds (with tablet attached)
• Intel Core2 Duo U4100 processor
• 4GB DDR3 RAM (max)
• 128GB SSD

One other major difference: the U1 starts at a thousand dollars. I get the feeling Freescale might be the more attractive proposition to most people. We’ll see ‘em both at CES, though, so we’ll let you know.

Source : http://www.crunchgear.com

Google launches Nexus One 'superphone'

Google has begun selling mobile phones directly to consumers, taking on hardware makers like Apple in an effort to dominate the burgeoning mobile internet space.
The company had been testing the Nexus One smartphone with employees through a process it dubbed “dogfooding”, but today it announced the device would be available more broadly through its web store.
The Nexus One, based on Google's Android platform, will initially only be available to those in the US, Britain, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Click for more photos Google's Nexus One.

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It will sell for $US529 outright and $US179 on a two-year contract from T-Mobile USA.
A Google spokeswoman said the company wanted to roll out the device “gradually” in order to receive feedback and ensure the ordering process was smooth.
“The Nexus One also had to undergo certification in all countries we sell the phone in, and we wanted to ensure that the import regulations didn't make the phone prohibitively expensive,” she said.
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Comment: Google's quest to take on the world
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The spokeswoman said Google hoped to sell the Nexus One, “and future phones from Google”, to people in other countries such as Australia “soon”.
Rather than a money spinner, Google hopes the Nexus One will serve as a Trojan Horse for its vast array of web services, cementing the company as a leader in mobile search and applications.
The fight for control of the mobile space is seen as so important that even hardware makers - such as Samsung with “Bada” - have developed their own mobile phone software platforms.
“The Nexus One belongs in the emerging class of devices which we call 'superphones', with the 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor making it as powerful as your laptop computer of three to four years ago,” said Andy Rubin, Google's VP of engineering.
“It's our way to raise the bar on what's possible when it comes to creating the best mobile experience for consumers
“We look forward to working with handset manufacturer and operators to bring more phones to market through this channel worldwide.”
The timing of the announcement was designed to deliberately overshadow the Consumer Electronics Show, which runs this week in Las Vegas. It comes 24 hours ahead of a keynote speech by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
Apple is also expected to expand its portable offerings late this month with the launch of its much-vaunted tablet computer.
The Nexus One was designed in partnership with Taiwanese manufacturer HTC, which made a number of the first Android-based phones to go on sale worldwide.
These have not been a runaway hit with Australian consumers as the early devices, such as the HTC Dream, lacked the stylish design, array of apps and solid marketing campaign of other platforms.
The Nexus One runs a new version of Android that includes built in Google Maps Navigation (with turn-by-turn driving directions), a voice-enabled keyboard, five home screen panels, interactive “live” wallpapers and the ability to operate the phone just by speaking into it.
It supports multiple work and personal email addresses and the ability to easily switch between regular communications and social networking apps such as Facebook.
Over 18,000 apps are available to download from the Android Market.
The name Nexus One was inspired by the film Blade Runner, and the family of author Philip K Dick has threatened to sue Google over the matter.
Specifications
• Display: 3.7" AMOLED 480x800 WVGA display
• Thickness: 11.5mm; Weight: 130g
• Processor/Speed: Qualcomm Snapdragon(TM) 8250 processor, with speeds up to 1GHz
• Camera: 5 megapixel auto focus with flash and geo tagging
• Onboard memory: 512MB Flash, 512MB RAM
• Expandable memory: 4GB removable SD Card (expandable to 32GB)
• Noise Suppression: Dynamic noise suppression from Audience, Inc.
• Ports: 3.5mm stereo headphone jack with four contacts for inline voice and remote control
• Battery: Removable 1400 mAh
• Personalized laser engraving: Up to 50 characters on the back of the phone
• Trackball: Tri-color notification LED, alerts when new emails, chats, text messages arrive

Source : http://www.smh.com.au