Archive for June 20th, 2011

Huawei MediaPad media surfaces

Huawei are hitting the market with the first Android 3.2 tablet. Engadget reports that this is a Honeycomb 3.2 tablet, the first of it’s kind. 3.2 is essentially the same as 3.1, but specifically tailored to 7-inch tablets as opposed to 10-inch. Packed within the MediaPad’s 10.5mm shell, there’s a 217 pixels-per-inch IPS capacitive touch panel, GPS, 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera, 5 megapixel rear-facing camera, 802.11n WiFi, a battery good for around six hours of life and a bona fide racehorse as a processor: a dual-core 1.2GHz chip from Qualcomm. 

The MediaPad weighs only 390g,  supports full 1080p playback, includes HSPA+ (14.4Mbps) 3G support, offers 8GB of internal storage (as well as a microSD slot) and comes pre-loaded with Facebook, Twitter, Let’s Golf from Gameloft and Documents To Go. There’s also a Bluetooth module, an HDMI output for catching those high-def flicks on the go, and Flash 10.3.

Unfortunately, there is no pricing at this stage. Pictures and a demo video below:

Seesmic devs ditch the BlackBerry platform

The popular Twitter app Seesmic will no longer be supported for BlackBerry, the developers have said today. I’m not a Seesmic user however this news saddens me a little and I hope other developers do not follow suit.

Here is what they said:

Blackberry users, we have important news we would like to share:

Effective June 30th, Seesmic will discontinue support for Blackberry in order to focus development efforts on our most popular mobile platforms: Android, iOS and Windows Phone 7.

We encourage those effected by this change to try out Seesmic for Android, iOS and Windows Phone 7, as well as Seesmic Desktop and Web.

Sincerely,

Team Seesmic

Posted by: James

Orange T-Shirt charges your mobile

Glastonbury revellers may have an extra incentive to elbow their way closer to the stages – it may help charge their phones.

Mobile phone giant Orange has released a prototype t-shirt which powers mobiles while festival-goers watch bands in action.

Users can plug their phone in to the t-shirt, which uses noise-responsive technology, for a quick top-up charge whenever they need it.

Orange will be conducting live testing of the gadget on site at the festival to see which acts are the "best to charge to" around the Spirit of 71 stage.

Tony Andrews, co-producer of the Spirit of 71, said: "Sound vibrations, particularly bass frequencies, will create enough shaking to produce electricity from a material as simple as piezoelectric film.

"It looks like it could provide a real solution to mobile charging and I’m interested to see how the Orange Sound Charge performs in a live testing environment such as Glastonbury."

Andrew Pearcey, head of sponsorship at Orange UK, said: "In a vibrant festival environment such as Glastonbury, sound is such an obvious medium that it seemed like a natural fit to use it in the development of this year’s prototype."

Posted by: James