It seems Lenovo is jumping into the tablet market with the LePad tablet which is scheduled to be launched in June, worldwide. The LePad was actually shown in the January CES show in Las Vegas. The breakdown of the device is quite the norm with most of these tablets: a 10.1 inch screen that will be running the Android 2.2 OS with a 1.2 GHz snapdragon processor from Qualcomm.
The pricing is going to be much less than most of the major tablets like the Xoom for example. The pricing is going to between $399 and $449. Currently China will be getting in first in March as Lenovo has been dominating the Chinese market as of late.
It seems like everyone is following on the coat tails of Apple by making these tablets. Currently tablet shipments are expected to be around 54.8 million units in 2011 which is up over 180% for last year, this according to the research firm Gartner.
It has been said that Google has been working on a creating a social network type product. The inception of this product is called +1. Well from what I have been seeing and reading Google maybe testing a toolbar that is directly related to this product.
So far here is what I got from the breakdown the new toolbar shows your name and shows your gmail account and gives you the normal option to sign out of your account. Then you have your usually settings menu and normal search setting and account settings. So nothing too special to speak about at the moment but Google did release a statement on the new bar. ?Last week we tested a new top navigation bar, which increases consistency across most of Google?s properties and is a visual update over the previous top navigation bar. We are now rolling this new bar out widely.?
So the Google word is this is just a visual upgrade but some inside sources that have seen this +1 product have stated it looks a lot like +1 and this could be a step in a gradual process to get some buzz going.
It just about that time for Microsoft to start doing what it does best, fixing issues with its operating system that didn?t have time to fix before they launched. Now don?t get me wrong, we also have some cool updates to go along with it but the service pack also provides fixes for your Windows 7 OS that you may need.
The update I am most excited about that comes along with SP1 is the Remote FX. What the Remote FX does is it provides 3D graphical updates. This will allow for full remote experiences including multiple displays. So the RemoteFX is able to do these renderings of the 3D graphics by locally rendering the screen image on the remote PC after being compressed and sent down to the remote host. This will help improve video streaming across remote sessions which right now is a major issue of virtualized computing.
Now that Windows 7 is over a year old it is about time for the SP1 to launch and I am actually very happy to see that they have added something as significant as RemoteFX. This will surely improve the experience of people who remote into desktops from home or work. Thank you Microsoft for adding a nice improvement to Windows 7 in SP1.
We all know that magical slogan from Verizon Wireless: “Can you hear me now?” Well Verizon has decide to take that slogan to a who new level with the introduction of the iPhone 4. They are taking shots at AT&T’s network in a new commercial for the iPhone 4. Most people are well aware that the AT&T iPhone 4 has a had troubles with dropped calls and well Verizon Wireless is set to dramatically reduce that problem current AT&T iPhone 4 customers have.
The breakdown of the commercial is simple. It starts with the camera panning over the iPhone with conquering type music playing in the background with a voice over saying this:
?It?s beautiful.?
?It?s intelligent.?
?Ingenious.?
Then the music speeds up.
?But does your network, work??
A call comes in. And the person answering the call is revealed. It?s the Verizon guy!
Google seems poised to hire more than 6,000 people this year if Google meets projections. This was posted on the company’s website by Alan Eustace, Google’s senior vice president of engineering and research.
“In 2010 we added more than 4,500 Googlers, primarily in engineering and sales: second only to 2007 when we added over 6,000 people to Google. I love Google because of our people. It’s inspiring to be part of the team. And that’s why I am excited about 2011-because it will be our biggest hiring year in company history,” Eustace wrote.
The hiring figure is based on Google’s growing efforts in mobile display advertising and the cloud to name a a small number of accomplishments, Eustace stated. “Amazingly, Android now runs on over 100 devices with more than 300,000 activations each day. Chrome has at least 120 million active users and it’s growing quickly. Last year more than 1 million businesses switched to Google Apps and embraced its 100% web approach. ”
The executive went on to say the company will be looking to hire “across the board and around the globe,” for a variety of jobs. The company is looking to tackle “some of the toughest challenges in computer science: like building a web-based operating system from scratch, instantly searching an index of more than 100 million gigabytes and even developing cars that drive themselves.” He noted that the average number of software engineers on a project at Google is 3.5.
The hiring spree brought a variety of observations:
From the MercuryNews.com: “With the hiring plans, Google will have more than 30,000 employees by the start of 2012, a workforce still significantly smaller than Silicon Valley giants like Intel, Cisco Systems and Hewlett-Packard, but more than double the size of rivals like Yahoo, and more than six times the size of the company that has become its most formidable competitor — Facebook.”
From the Wall Street Journal: “Last week Google said it was testing a service that offers consumers deals to local businesses such as restaurants. Last year it hired several hundred sales representatives to call U.S. businesses such as spas, restaurants and hotels to promote new advertising initiatives. Google has been opening its wallet to keep key executives, according to recruiters and people familiar with the matter. Google executives have said the company engaged in a “war for talent” with the likes of social-networking site Facebook Inc. Last fall, Google announced a 10% raise for all of its employees.”
From MarketWatch: “Wall Street has long raised the issue of aggressive hiring at Google as a potential concern, given the expenses involved. The company has countered that hiring in large numbers is necessary, as it intends to move aggressively into multiple new markets.”
Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) is a new version of the Android platform. This new platform has been developed from the ground up for devices with larger screen sizes, particularly tablets. It introduces a brand new holographic UI theme and an interaction model that builds on the things people love about Android multitasking, notifications, widgets, and others and adds many new features.
Above and beyond the user-facing features it offers, Android 3.0 is also specifically designed to provide developers the tools and capabilities they require to generate great applications for tablets and comparable devices, together with the flexibility to adapt existing apps to the innovative UI while maintaining compatibility with earlier platform versions and additional form-factors.
Here is a preview of the Android 3.0 SDK, with non-final APIs and system image, to permit developers to establish testing their existing applications on the tablet form-factor and start on getting familiar with the fresh UI patterns, APIs, and capabilities that will be accessible in Android 3.0.
Here are some of the highlights:
UI framework for creating great apps for larger screen devices: Developers can use a new UI components, new themes, richer widgets and notifications, drag and drop, and additional new features to craft rich and appealing apps for users on larger screen devices.
High-performance 2D and 3D graphics: A new property-based animation framework lets developers add vast visual effects to their apps. A built-in GL renderer lets developers request hardware-acceleration of general 2D rendering operations in their apps, across the entire app or only in specific activities or views. For adding rich 3D scenes, developers can gain benefit of a new 3D graphics engine called Renderscript.
Support for multicore processor architectures: Android 3.0 is optimized to run on either single- or dual-core processors, so that applications run with the greatest possible performance.
Rich multimedia: New multimedia features such as HTTP Live streaming support, a pluggable DRM framework, and easy media file transfer through MTP/PTP, give developers new ways to bring rich content to users.
New types of connectivity: New APIs for Bluetooth A2DP and HSP let applications offer audio streaming and headset control. Support for Bluetooth insecure socket connection lets applications connect to straightforward devices that may not have a user interface.
Enhancements for enterprise: New administrative policies, such as for encrypted storage and password expiration, help enterprise administrators manage devices more effectively.
Note that applications developed with the Android 3.0 Platform Preview cannot be published on Android Market. A special thanks to the Android developers for giving a preview of what is to come with the Android 3.0 platform.
