Author Archive: Gareth

Asus to shake up the netbook game

A new rumour has surfaced from DigiTimes reporting ASUS is looking to evolve their netbook game in 2011 with either Chrome OS or – our precious – Android. It’ll be on the affordable side with pricing expected to sit anywhere between £150 and £200. They’re claiming it’ll be a 10 or 11 inch netbook.

ASUS has already shown their Android-based netbook card – they debuted tablet/netbook hybrids at CES this year called the Eee Pad Transformer and Eee Pad Slider (both pictured above). This would be a more traditional netbook, though, which makes things a bit interesting.

As far as processor technology goes, it’s believed that Intel’s established Atom series will be powering things under the hood, though which chipset exactly wasn’t said. While Chrome OS may be a better fit for a traditional netbook experience, Android has quickly become an easily-marketable household name and – to be quite honest – it can do a lot more than Chrome OS can in its current state. We’ll be keeping an eye out for further announcements from ASUS.

Adobe Flash 10.2 for Honeycomb dated

Adobe has announced on their blog that Adobe Flash 10.2 for Android 3.0.1 (Honeycomb) tablets will be available on Friday, March 18th. They state that they have been working very closely with Google to integrate Flash 10.2 into the new OS and browser capabilities of Honeycomb. Currently the only Honeycomb tablet available is the Motorola XOOM.

Lenovo Skylight Slate appears through FCC

Lenovo finally got their act together and decided to go through with the FCC approval for their entry into the Android tablet market, with what may soon be called the Lenovo Skylight. The 10" Android 2.2 tablet’s FCC testing documents made its way into the FCC database yesterday.

Tegra Zone now available on Android Market

nVidia’s Tegra Zone is now available for you to download off the Android Market. We got a sneak peak at this awesome little application/market back during CES 2011 and it looked and ran pretty smoothly. It had all the options a user would want including multiple screenshots, gameplay videos and HD trailers for each game, behind-the-scenes featurettes and a great looking user interface. You’ll also be able to see what people like us are saying about each game right in the description! Another great feature is that although this is technically another market application, it uses the Google Checkout back-end for payment processing. You won’t need another account to buy games, you can just use your Google account that you already have.

Games that will be available on Tegra Zone initially will be the same ones now available on the Android Market:

• Monster Madness
• Fruit Ninja THD
• Backbreaker THD
• Samurai II: Vengeance (See some of the coolest Samurai Swords here)
• Hardwood Solitaire IV
• Dungeon Defenders: First Wave HD

Also to be available after the release of Tegra Zone very shortly will be Vendetta Online which we know a lot of you Android gamers out there are looking forward to getting your hands on and playing, especially you space MMORPG fans. Other games coming shortly to Tegra Zone include Hardwood Spades and Galaxy on Fire 2. Time for us to get into the thick of things here at GDC 2011!

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Windows 8 Tablets due in Q4 this year

Some say that Windows 8 tablets using ARM processors could be out before the years end. Business Insider’s sources claim that Microsoft has thousands of engineers which have been working on the ARM version of Windows 8. It has already been leaked that Windows 8 will be more tablet-centric and touch friendly.

Windows 7 tablets have been critised for two main problems. Firstly, an unrefined touch interface. The few tablets on the market now seem to not only be less responsive than Android or Ipad alternatives but also fairly fiddly. Windows also seems to suck up battery life at an alarming rate. These are the precise two things that Windows 8 will combat. The ability for Windows 8 to run on ARM processors should allow the platform to match Android and Apple tablets with their 10 hours or more battery lives.

Some companies have managed to make Windows 7 quite a pleasent experience, for example Viewsonic’s Vpad 10 which I had the pleasure of playing with at MWC. This tablet had Windows as the front runner and ran Android 2.2 on top, with Meego as a option they plan to shoehorn in.

It will be great to see Windows shaking up the mix. Windows 7 proved to be a strong operating system and if Windows 8 is an improvement, with the support behind it, Microsoft has the potential to be a market leader.

Posted by Gareth

Video on Skype coming soon to Android

Got an Android phone with a front facing camera? Or a Tablet and want to do the video conferencing damn near all of them advertised? Well, February 28th could be a good date for you. Rumour has it that there will be an update for Skype on Androidy platforms that will include video chattery. Can’t imagine the networks being particularly enthusiastic about it so I imagine it might just be wi-fi only after a short time but the fact that it might just allow for some nice cross platform conferencing will be a winner.

[Source]

Posted by Gareth