iphone 6 case

2014年3月13日星期四

Sony "not worried" about the fact that Samsung's Galaxy S5 is water resistant

MWC 2014 is now over and, among many other things, the fair brought us two new, high-end water resistant Android smartphones: Sony’s Xperia Z2, and Samsung’s Galaxy S5. As you may know, Sony was the first to introduce a high-end smartphone that features a water resistant body: it was the Xperia Z, released in early 2013. But now, with the Galaxy S5 coming soon, Sony may feel that the uniqueness of its Xperias is being threatened. Or maybe not.

According to Ravi Nookala, President of Sony Mobile Communications USA, the company is “not worried about it” - it being the fact that the S5 is also water resistant. CNET talked to Ravi Nookala yesterday, and the exec was quick to mention that Sony “started the waterproof trend.”

The Xperia Z, which we’re mentioning above, was succeeded by the Z1 and the Z1S, the latter being a US-only variant that’s available at T-Mobile since January. Nookala said that the launch of Xperia Z1S was a turning point for Sony in the US, and “sales have exceeded expectations,” being “25% above its predecessor.”

Both the Xperia Z1S and Xperia Z2 (pictured above) are IP58-certified. Compared to the Samsung Galaxy S5 (pictured below) and its IP67 certification, the two Sony handsets have an advantage, as they are more waterproof, if we may put it this way. The Z1S and Z2 can be immersed in water beyond 1m (3.2 feet) for as long as you wish, while the Galaxy S5 is safe only when immersed in up to 1m of water for no more than 30 minutes. You can see more about how IP rating works here.

While the Xperia Z2 is expected to be released in March in some markets, it doesn’t look like it’ll be coming to the US soon. One of the reasons for this is that galaxy S5 case the galaxy S5 candy case Z1S was launched just last month. But Sony may introduce the new Z2 Stateside before FIFA 2014 World Cup debuts (June 12). Ravi Nookala said that Sony smartphones may see a sales boost in June, due to the fact that the company is one of the official FIFA partners for this year’s World Cup. As you can see in our Xperia Z1S review and our Xperia Z1 Compact review, 2014 FIFA World Cup logos are being placed on the smartphones’ retail boxes.

Samsung said that the Galaxy S5 would be launched globally on April 11 - so it will be in stores about a month later than the Xperia Z2. Still, the Z2 won't reach US shores before the S5, but Ravi Nookala is confident that, when T-Mobile customers will ask about the S5's waterproof capabilities, salespeople will present the Xperia Z1S as an alternative. Apparently, there are water tanks in about 700 T-Mobile USA locations for store staff to show how the Z1S can still function underwater, and even take photos while there. Too bad that this is possible only at T-Mobile.

source: CNET

galaxy S5 genuine leather case

2014年2月23日星期日

Audyssey to showcase new audio technology for smartphones at MWC 2014

Audyssey to showcase new audio technology for smartphones at MWC 2014 Most of us know of Audyssey as the company behind the sound calibration software technology that is used by many home theater products on the market, as it can correct for room size, frequency response, and cross-over points...all of which allows for an improved sound experience when playing a movie, watching TV, or when just listening to music.

But in the mobile domain, Audyssey has not been as well known as others (such as Beat's Audio used by HTC), but the company has been steadily growing its presence. The Audyssey Media Player is a standalone app that improves headphone quality on iOS devices. And Audyssey's audio technologies also enable the HQ Audio feature on the Songza streaming music service for iOS and Android.

Audyssey is now hoping to bring headphone audio playback to a new level by introducing their new Audyssey 60° technology. It is designed to give a more accurate recreation of the original recording to deliver a proper blend of acoustical and psychoacoustical cues to both ears simultaneously. This results in spatially expanded sound perception, creating the impression of a much wider soundstage.

The Audyssey 60° technology will be on demo at the Mobile World Congress starting February 24th, but don't expect it to show up on your phone anytime soon, as the software technology has to be licensed to phone manufacturers for them to incorporate in future smartphones and tablets.

source: Audyssey

Press Release

Audyssey To Unveil Breakthrough Headphone Technology

at 2014 Mobile World Congress

Audyssey 60° Advances the Headphone Listening Experience

Barcelona, SPAIN – (February 18, 2014) – Audyssey, the leader in high-quality audio rendering, today announced Audyssey 60°. This new technology upgrades the headphone listening experience by bringing depth and spatial awareness that – until now – had been unavailable in mobile audio.

“With headphones it’s impossible to reproduce the soundstage experience of the original recording because headphones can’t deliver sound to both ears,” said Chris Kyriakakis, Audyssey’s founder and CTO. “As a result, significant portions of the required acoustical and psychoacoustical cues are missing. With Audyssey 60°, we restore this missing information to deliver a natural, more precise listening experience.”

Music and movies are mixed in acoustically calibrated listening spaces – rooms with two or more speakers placed in precise locations that deliver sound to both ears to create a detailed soundstage. To render this soundstage over headphones, previous methods have attempted to feed the signal from each side to the opposite ear with little success. Audyssey 60° takes a different approach, developing an immersive listening experience by sending the proper blend of acoustical and psychoacoustical cues to both ears simultaneously. This results in spatially expanded sound perception, creating the impression of a much wider soundstage.

Audyssey will be at the Mobile World Congress next week in Barcelona, Spain, meeting with phone and tablet manufacturers that have already expressed strong interest in delivering HD audio to their customers. Audyssey 60° is a software-based solution that’s quickly and easily implemented in any mobile device, mobile application or personal computer.

For more information or to schedule a time to meet with Audyssey at Mobile World Congress, send an email to dms_sales@audyssey.com.

About Audyssey

Established in 2002, Audyssey is the industry leader in research-based audio technologies that correct acoustical problems to improve the sound quality of any device or listening environment. The company’s technologies are integrated into home theater products, automobiles, TVs, mobile phones and movie theaters from industry-leading manufacturers. For more information, visit http://www.audyssey.com.

2014年2月9日星期日

Android 4

Android 4.3 for Nexus 4 caught in the wild, system dump available for download

Android 4.3 cropped up on the Google Play Editions of the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One first but you shouldn’t doubt that the Nexus 4 will get it too. Some already have it – one Jeff Williams apparently bought a Nexus 4 from a Google employee and to his surprise the phone was running Android 4.3 JWR66N, the same build number we saw on the Galaxy S4 GPE.

With some help, he managed to get a system dump of the phone. There’s no radio and bootloader yet (Jeff promised to get those soon), but reports say you can use TWRP to restore the dump and get it to work. Proceed with caution (and full backup) as there’s no guarantee of the result.

Or you can wait – the official unveiling will be in less than a week, the even is scheduled for July 24. The delivery of the update for the Nexus 4 shouldn’t take too long after that.

You can grab the dump from here (339MB). If that’s not working, Android Police has set up a number of mirrors you can try.

In the meantime, we’ll wait and see if people digging through the system dump find anything that wasn’t on the Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Play Edition, which we reviewed.

So, will the Samsung Galaxy Nexus get 4.3 as well? It’s currently on 4.2 and this is a relatively minor update.

Source

Android ported to the iPhone

Android ported to the iPhone, Steve Jobs loses his sleep

Here’s the next proof, if needed, that the rapid development of the Android OS has impressed the whole mobile world. A knowledgeable user managed to port the Open Handset Alliance platform to run over the Apple hardware that is inside the iPhone. Baaam!

There’s not much else to say here but for the fact that you can find pre-built images and sources here. The video below (shot on another iPhone to prove the developer’s commitment to the Apple cause) will do the rest of the talking.

I’m not quite sure if many iPhone owners are willing to join the Android bandwagon at this stage but in case the Google OS gains some serious advantage in the future it’s nice to know that it’s an option.

Source

AMD drops the ATI brand

AMD drops the ATI brand, for now on all Radeon graphic cards shall bear the AMD logo

AMD is dropping the ATI moniker from its graphic cards range. Its future products will go sell under the AMD logo, but the family names will stay the same – Radeon and FirePro.

The ATI brand surely has a long history and traditions, but it’s time we all let it go. It was clear where this would lead to, the moment AMD acquired ATI. Today thefamous three letters become part of the history replaced by the three-letter abbreviation of their owner AMD.

I am sure many of us, who followed ATI through the years, are already nostalgic but it’s the right decision. It ends the long-drawn confusion about the proper abbrevation to put in front a Radeon graphic card.

AMD graphics lineup will continue to fight NVIDIA with the same spirit as before. The first AMD-only labeled cards are expected to launch later this year.

Source

2014年1月6日星期一

A kidney or two will get you a Celsius X-VI-II Papillon

A kidney or two will get you a Celsius X-VI-II Papillon, the mechanical phone!

How many of you had a calculator watch? And how many had a mechanical phone? See, mechanical is, um, cooler! Yeah. Who needs a Ferrari when you can own this head turner…

This extravagant phone will be announced tomorrow and more details will become available. Until then here’s what I know – the Celsius X-VI-II Papillon is a clamshell with mechanical gadgetry inside, 547 hand assembled pieces to be precise.

The mechanism operates the clock on the top part of the clamshell and the one on the inside (above the screen). The cover is transparent so you can see the whole shebang tick and there’s even speculation that the mechanical parts play a role in the phone itself, perhaps charge the battery from the movement of the phone like a self-winding watch.

The Celsius X-VI-II Papillon is lavish, exorbitant and pricy

If you though to yourself “I want one!” then better hurry – the Celsius X-VI-II Papillon is probably going to be a strictly limited edition. At 300 000 US dollars a pop that’s hardly a surprise. That’s right, it’s three hundred thousand, I’ve counted the zeroes several times.

If that’s too rich for your blood (or you have some common sense) you can settle for another kind of Papillon. They are very athletic apparently. Oh, one more thing that makes the phone even manlier – “papillon” is French for “butterfly” (the dog was named so because of its ears).

Pictured: “papillon”

Source (site in Russian)

A lot of new Windows Mobile 7 details surfaced

A lot of new Windows Mobile 7 details surfaced, we still hold our breath

PPCGeeks managed to obtains some new spicy info about the latest Microsoft mobile OS – Windows Mobile 7. Zune and Xbox integration are waiting to be unveiled at the MWC later this month.

As the previous leaked images left us with mixed feelings, so is the new feature roster. The notable improvements over the current version of Windows Mobile start with the full Zune integration with Zune HD interface. The UI is codenamed “METRO” and will be “very clean, soulful and alive”. Even more, the Zune software will be used for PC sync, so no more Active Sync or Windows Mobile Device Center – wow, I still can’t bend my head over that too.

Next in the list comes integration with the Xbox Gaming service – Gamer tags, achievements, friends, etc. This suggests Microsoft’s intentions to bring down the game crown from the iPhone offering their community service with the new mobile OS.

The Maketplace will go through a complete overhaul delivering huge amount of software, services and a brand new interface (they certainly messed up with the current one with overSIZED fonts). The Windows application store will be the first to offer seamless “try before you buy” functionality. Yes, the Apple AppStore offers trials too, but you need to download them separately.

As you may have guessed the full social networking support will be an important part of the new Windows Mobile 7 as well.

And here comes the bad news – there will be no Flash support and no real multitasking. You will be able to run several apps simultaneously, but they will “pause” when they go in background. Wait, what? Is that the iPhone we’re talking about?

Also users won’t be able to install anything unless it comes from official sources such as the Marketplace. There will be no backwards compatibility with older Windows Mobile software, at least for now. I guess that’s their way of making everybody use their own repository.

And finally Microsoft will not allow the use of custom interfaces (such as Sense UI/ SPB Mobile Shell/ XPERIA panels), but they promise Windows Mobile 7 really won’t need them. Now I find that really hard to believe.

All this sound so like Apple! But I guess we’ll learn whether they’re true or false at the MWC this year, since the Windows Mobile 7 announcement is rumored to take place there. The first devices packing the new Windows Mobile are expected in September this year.

Source

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