Day: January 15, 2010

“We’ve reached the point where a smartphone can do most of what a laptop can. Nevertheless, many people still carry a laptop with them when they travel because they want a larger screen. A pico projector gives you the best of both worlds. I know the projected image doesn’t look its best in the video above, but keep in mind that it was taken under harsh conditions. It looks much better in dimly-lit rooms. Its colors are good, and the image is sharp. (There’s a manual focus so you can adjust it to your liking.) There’s still a hurdle to get over: battery life. The pico projector uses the eXpo’s battery, and can drain it in a couple of hours. If you’re planning on watching a movie on the plane, you’d better bring an extra battery..” Read more here:

“Today Symbian made available, via its developer website, a number of documents relating to the Orbit and Direct UI proposals that make up a major part of the changes in Symbian^4. These proposals offer a glimpse of what the Symbian^4 UI may look like and explain some of the key UI layout and design changes. Symbian are looking for the community’s feedback, comments and questions about the proposals. Read on for more details and illustrations. The Qt-based Orbit and Direct UI together encompass the major UI changes that are being introduced as part of Symbian^4, which replace AVKON (the current UI libraries and framework). Symbian^4 is currently being feature road-mapped (planned), with an anticipated ‘functionally complete’ date of late summer 2010, hardening in early 2011 and with the first device release likely to be in Q1 2011. Orbit provides UI extensions (essentially UI widgets) for Qt that are optimised for use on mobile devices. Orbit can potentially be used on both touch and non-touch devices.” Read more here:

ACCESS announced NetFront Browser v4.0, the latest version of NetFront Browser for mobile handsets and Internet-enabled devices. The new version has improved the JavaScript executions time, with up to twenty times faster than ACCESS’ NetFront Browser v3.52. The NetFront Browser v4.0 API application and porting layers are compatible with those of NetFront Browser v3.5, so device manufacturers using NetFront Browser v3.5 can easily upgrade to take advantage of super fast JavaScript engine in NetFront Browser v4.0, making it possible to leverage customized applications with minimal additional investment. ACCESS will make a concept version of NetFront Browser v4.0 for Windows Mobile available for free download for a limited time. In addition to the Windows Mobile version, ACCESS also plans to provide NetFront Browser v4.0 for major mobile operating systems and Internet-enabled devices to improve Internet access and use. “The more users and companies come to depend on cloud computing, the more important web application performance and web JavaScript execution become,” said Tomihisa Kamada, president, CEO and co-founder of ACCESS. “NetFront delivers not only an exceptionally fast mobile browsing experience, but also a mobile cloud computing experience that is fluid and truly useful. ACCESS will continue to improve and extend our technologies to bring users around the world a faster, easier and more enjoyable Internet experience.” via slashphone.com