Acer CloudMobile Gets Detailed: Android 4.0, 8MP Camera, 1.5 Ghz Dual-Core CPU

Acer has given few details on CloudMobile's specs sheet, but the company announced its upcoming ICS-based smartphone has already received an iF Design award last year. Today, the Italian site Cellularemagazine leaked most of the phone's specs and also published a hands-on video showing the Acer CloudMobile in action. According to them, Acer CloudMobile will be delivered with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system on board, as well as a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor. On the back, the smartphone is said to boast an 8-megapixel camera, which features autofocus, LED flash and HD video recording. There's also a large 4.3-inch capacitive touchscreen display with 1280 x 800 pixels resolution, along with HSPA and Wi-Fi support. Acer CloudMobile is expected to be officially introduced...

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Sony Releases Official Android 4.0 Beta ROM for Xperia 2011 Phones

Following the Android 4.0 alpha release from two months ago, Sony has pushed another build of the highly-acclaimed Ice Cream Sandwich update. However, this time the company is putting out a beta ROM that promises all the basic functions to be available and fully working. Still, the handset maker recommends that this build should only be downloaded and installed by experienced developers, as this is not the final version of the update and the stability may not be suitable for everyday use. It is also worth mentioning that in this Android 4.0 beta ROM Google's full suite of services and apps, including Gmail, Google Maps and Face Unlock, as well as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are not included, as they have yet to be approved for certification. This...

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Sharp AQUOS 104SH with Android 4.0 Lands in Japan on February 24

Sharp is one of the few Japanese handset makers that have yet to announce their entrance on the European market. Although the company will be present at this year’s Mobile World Congress trade fair, Sharp did not mention any launch events for the European market. However, Sharp has a strong presence on the Japanese market, and for the moment, this is all that matters. Today, the company announced the upcoming availability of one of Japan’s first Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich smartphones, the AQUOS 104SH. According to Sharp, the smartphone will be available in Japan from February 24 for a price that will probably be disclosed at launch. Sharp AQUOS 104SH will be released nationwide via major carrier Softbank. The folks over at Androinica...

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TI’s OMAP 5 SoC Is No Match for a Quad-Core Cortex A9

When compared to dual-core processors, quad-core chips should be faster. After all, they do have double the number of cores.  However, it appears that not all of them can actually deliver the expected performance, and the video embedded above proves it.  What you can see there is a device powered by a Texas Instruments OMAP 5 SoC clocked in at 800 MHz, which is compared to a tablet powered by a quad core Cortex A9, clocked in at 1.3GHz.  The OMAP 5 CPU was designed using the 28nm process and features two ARM Cortex A15s and two Cortex M4s, as well as SGX544 MP2 graphics. In the clip, you will see the two devices downloading videos, playing an MP3, and running through 20 pages of EEMBC's BrowsingBench. Both of them use the Android 4.0 browser to load pages, it seems, but the...

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The iPhone 5 Could Look Like This, Says Ciccarese

New iPhone 5 conceptual designs are popping up on the Internet, the latest of which arrives from Ciccarese Design. Their view of the next-generation Apple handset closely resembles a futuristic desk-phone, but it’s not half bad. Don’t get us wrong, Ciccarese Design are some of the most talented blokes in their field. They simply wanted to go off the rails a bit with this new design. In their new vision of the iPhone 5, Apple’s handset is curved, with a tapered back and a very slim silhouette. They don't provide any imaginary specs, such as a 4-inch display, a higher-resolution camera, new ports and buttons, and all the other technicalities that usually accompany concepts such as this one. However, the images speak for themselves. In this...

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ASRock Releases New Gaming Motherboard, Fatal1ty X79 Professional

ASRock decided to try and push the concept of high-end to a whole new level when it built the Fatal1ty X79 Professional motherboard. The product is, obviously enough, powered by the Intel X79 chipset, which supports all processors on the LGA 2011 socket. That includes Sandy Bridge, Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge CPUs, as well as their various subtypes. The full spec sheet is available on the company's website, so go there to see all the memory, expansion and I/O capabilities. No price in sight yet, though. Here, we'll just draw attention to the Xfast 555 and the other, unique technologies. XFast RAM, one of the XFast 555 technologies, creates a virtual disk from the system memory, for higher performance (up to five times in some applications). XFast...

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AMD Gains Graphics Market Share at NVIDIA's Expense

Jon Peddie Research (JPR) has published its findings in regards to the evolution of the graphics market during the fourth quarter of last year, 2011. There were some changes in terms of market shares, the most notable of which was NVIDIA's continued decline. During the same period of 2010, NVIDIA held 22.5% of the GPU industry, with AMD less than 2% above (24.2%). At the end of Q4 2011, though, the Santa Clara, California-based GPU maker ended up with just 15.7%, while AMD finished with 24.8%. On that note, NVIDIA's share also dropped sequentially (it held 16.1% in Q3, 2011), while AMD grew, from 23%. Meanwhile, Intel ended up with 59.1% of the total, less than the third quarter's 60.4%, but more than the Q4, 2010 share of 52.5%. What sets...

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Office 15 Technical Preview Screenshots Emerge

In summer this year, we’ll get the chance to have a look at Microsoft’s Office 15 Suite. Before that, however, we can only get a taste of what it has to offer courtesy of leaked screenshots from the Office 15 Technical Preview.  Microsoft released this early flavor of Office 15 in January, but only a small number of people had access to it at that time. Among them, we can count third parties such as businesses, partners and OEMs.  Courtesy of leaked screenshots coming from The Verge, we can now get a better idea of what the pre-beta Office 15 code, running as standard desktop application on computers based on Windows 7 and Windows 8, is all about.  In Office 15, Microsoft has decided to make a series of changes to its ribbon...

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ADATA Launches DashDrive UV100 Capless USB Stick

ADATA has launched a fairly generic USB flash drive, one that is more concerned with looks and pricing than performance. The company chose not to implement the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface, settling for USB 2.0 instead. That said, the USB sticks, called the DashDrive UV100 series, feature a capless design and have capacities of 4 GB, 8 GB and 16 GB, respectively. Also, they are colored black, red or blue, measure 41 mm in length, have a thickness of 5.8 mm and come with a lifetime warranty. Finally, a strap hole lets them be hung by a lanyard or key chain and the diamond-cut bevel exterior lets them look good alongside any article of clothing. The product page is located here, but there don't seem to be any pricing details public yet...

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Nokia Social 1.5 Now Available for Belle Smartphones

Nokia is going social all the way. After betting everything on Windows Phone platform, the company is now turning its attention to Symbian phone users.  With Nokia Belle already deployed globally, since earlier this month, Nokia is now looking to update some of the critical services and apps that is still offering to these Symbian users. Today’s handsets are packed with all sorts of apps that are meant to make users’ life easier, but the most important ones are those aimed at social networking addicts. For a phone to be successful these days, it’s almost mandatory to offer deep social networking integration via Facebook, Twitter and other similar services. This is probably one of the reasons Nokia decided to update its Nokia Social...

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ASUS Eee Pad Transformer TF101 Gets Android 4.0 ICS Update (OTA)

ASUS was going to release the Android 4.0 over the air (OTA) upgrade for the original Transformer tablet either this month or the next. Much to the joy of those who possess a Transformer TF101, the operating system upgrade is taking effect now instead of later, in Taiwan at least. ASUS made sure to mention it on its Facebook page. The software is reaching customers whose Transformer TF101 has the v.9.2.1.11 firmware. We aren't sure when the company will roll the OTA out in other regions, but we’ll let you know when it does. Hopefully, the OTA update won't put the item in a state where it restarts every two minutes. We already had to wait for weeks before the Prime solved those problems with an updated firmware, and ASUS didn't get it on...

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Samsung Trademarks Galaxy Rite, Galaxy Heir, Galaxy Axiom and Galaxy Awaken in the US

With only several days until Mobile World Congress 2012 kicks off, Korean handset maker Samsung filed for a handful of trademarks at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The folks at Fusible discovered that on February 16 Samsung submitted the following trademark applications: Samsung Galaxy Rite (Serial Number: 85545292), Samsung Galaxy Heir (Serial Number: 85545288), Samsung Galaxy Axiom (Serial Number: 85545284), and Samsung Galaxy Awaken (Serial Number: 85545285). These trademarks were filed under “Mobile phones; Smartphones” category. These devices might be introduced in the United States within the following months.  There are no additional details on these upcoming devices, but we can safely assume that at least...

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Samsung Creates 4 Gb (512 MB) LPDDR3 RAM for Smartphones

Samsung likes to use as many of its own resources as possible when making consumer or business/enterprise products, and the new DRAM it invented proves it. The company has an extensive collection of phones, but this is merely one of its many business outlets, one that it has only indirectly served just now.  Long story short, Samsung has unveiled a new memory chip, a DRAM with a capacity of 4 Gb of the LPDDR2 variety. 4 Gb translates into 512 MB, not a modest amount by any measure, especially for mobile devices. Speaking of which, the company designed the DRAM for its series of smartphones, especially the mainstream ones. "It will be the mainstream DRAM for smartphones this year," the company reportedly said. Built on the 30nm manufacturing...

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RIM Updates Facebook and Twitter for BlackBerry with BBM Capabilities

Canadian mobile phone maker Research In Motion is making applications for the BlackBerry smartphones more social than they already are.  The latest releases of Facebook and Twitter mobile clients for the BlackBerry platform, both available at the moment in a beta state, prove it.  Available for download today via the BlackBerry Beta Zone, these mobile applications feature BBM Connected App Integration, which means that they have access both to the BlackBerry Messenger and to user’s contacts.  RIM has promised before that it will pack BBM capabilities inside many of the apps available for its smartphone users, but did not offer info on when that might happen.  Today, however, BlackBerry owners who will head over to the...

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All MSI's Z68 (G3)/H61 (G3) Motherboards Support Intel's 22nm Ivy Bridge CPUs

Intel will soon launch its next-generation series of central processing units, so Micro-Star International figured this was a good time to say which motherboards possessed or would offer support for them.  MSI has quite a few mainboards based on the Z68 and H61 chipsets, these being the ones that will be able to handle the upcoming 22nm processors. Go here to see the list.  The company claims that all of them will be able to allow the Ivy Bridge to operate, provided the BIOS version is up to date.  Out of the eight Z68 motherboards, none have the required BIOS, since MSI hasn't exactly completed it yet.  The situation is only slightly different for the seven H61 models: most have yet to receive an Ivy Bridge-ready BIOS,...

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New Nokia Windows Phones at MWC 2012

Next week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, we should witness the launch of new Nokia handsets running under Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system.  Nokia is betting big on Windows Phone and everyone knows that. Thus, the company is expected to unveil at least two new models at the event, one of which is said to be the most affordable Windows Phone yet.  This would be the Nokia Lumia 610, a smartphone that made it to the headlines quite a lot lately, and which should bring Microsoft’s Windows Phone to a new low price point.  Specs wise, the new device should pack a 3.5-inch touchscreen display, 256 MB of RAM, and a 5-megapixel photo snapper with LED flash. The new device should run under the next flavor of Windows...

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Intel Ivy Bridge CPU Prices Lowered by $60-70 / 45-53 Euro

Intel's Ivy Bridge central processing units have caused quite a stir these past two weeks, due to rumors and more rumors, and a new report has now emerged, one that people may actually like to see validated.  Digitimes is again supplying the world with alleged information regarding much-awaited products, the Ivy Bridge CPUs from Intel in this case.  Though its report did not specifically focus on the chip giant's upcoming product line, it did mention a very interesting tidbit.  Basically, chipzilla is said to have decided on cutting the prices of Ivy Bridge CPUs by $60-70.  According to exchange rates, that translates into 45 to 53 Euro, give or take.  Predictably, Intel did not outright say whether or not any of...

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AMD Piledriver CPUs Reach over 4GHz Due to Resonant Clock Mesh

The Piledriver micro-architecture is one of AMD's two main projects for the consumer market, alongside Pitcairn, and it looks like the company has finally unveiled some more things about it.  Advanced Micro Devices is at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), taking place between February 20 and 24, 2012 in San Francisco, California.  There, it is speaking about its technologies and products, both present and future.  The Piledriver micro-architecture is one of the subjects it has already discussed, even going into detail about the way it will behave.  Apparently, the central processing units (CPUs) based on it will possess a so-called “resonant clock mesh” technology invented by Cyclos Semiconductor.  Through...

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Android 5.0-Based Motorola Nexus RAZR Concept Emerges

One thing that we’re all waiting to see is what the next-generation Motorola devices will look like, especially after Google completes that acquisition of the vendor.  Rumor has it that the next Google phone will arrive on shelves from this smartphone designer, and that it will be jaw-dropping, just as the currently available Nexus devices were.  However, while some of us sit tight and wait for details on this to emerge, there are also those who stepped up and started to imagine what the device would look like.  Shaik Imaduddin is one of them, and his Motorola Nexus RAZR concept phone offers an idea of what the first Android 5.0-powered smartphone might be all about.  Of course, Android 5.0 Jelly Bean is only a rumor...

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Nokia to Launch Social Applications on Android and iOS

Some of the applications that Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia has launched to keep users connected to their social lives while on the go will benefit from expanded availability, the latest reports on the matter suggest.  We’re referring here to the Nokia Pulse, an application that relies on the phone’s GPS to deliver social capabilities to its users. The app was made available for Nokia's Windows Phone, Symbian and MeeGo handsets for the time being.  Apparently, Nokia will release the software for Android and iOS devices as well in the near future, at least this is what Basak Ozer, Nokia's Lead for social and location applications, confirmed.  No specific release date for the application was made available for the time being, but it should not be too long before the leading...

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Intel Starts Making 22nm Chips for Tabula

Intel used to make chips for no one but itself until a while ago, but it has begun to open its factories to other chip developers, in this case Tabula, a designer of programmable logic chips for networks. The deal between Tabula and Intel will have the latter manufacturing 22nm-based field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA) for the former. The processors make up the ABAX family of 3D programmable logic devices (3PLD) and will be supported even by applications that normally rely on ASICs or ASSPs. The reason for this is the high level of programmability of ABAX devices and their high-performance I/Os: 920 general-purpose I/Os and 48 6.5Gb/s SerDes. Also, Tabula uses Spacetime programmable fabric, which is fairly balanced and can clock all of...

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NEC to Showcase Three Android 4.0 LTE Handsets at MWC 2012

Mobile World Congress 2012, the largest mobile conference of the year, is expected to kick off on Monday, and handset vendors around the world are gearing up to showcase some of their latest devices.  Among them, we can count NEC, a manufacturer set to bring no less than three new handsets at the event.  The smartphones that NEC preps for the upcoming MWC 2012 show run under Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and feature support for LTE networks.  The company has already showcased the products in Japan, including a phone sporting a folding dual-screen, called “Best Cloud Device.” NEC also showed the “Large Screen in One Hand” model, and "The Most Stylish" device. The company is expected to offer additional details on these devices...

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