Posted: 27 Jan 2012 04:10 PM PST  Google shocked the tech world last year when they announced that they would acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. Shareholders already approved the deal and many in the industry assume it will go through, but there are still a few hurdles left to clear before it becomes official. Motorola provided an update on the progress in yesterday's earnings report. In order to be approved antitrust clearances, or waiting period expirations, are required by the U.S. Department of Justice, European Commission, Canada, China, Israel, Russia, Taiwan and Turkey. So far, clearances have only been received from Turkey and Russia. The waiting period has expired in the United States and Canada, but Motorola has been informed that the reviewing agencies have not finished their investigations. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce announced in December that they have moved on to phase two of its investigation. Motorola "expects the transaction to close in early 2012″ but notes that "factors outside the company's control" could "delay or prevent completion of the transaction altogether." The biggest obstacle to completing the transaction could come from Europe where consumer groups are urging the European Union to block the merger. Consumer Watchdog, a US-based advocacy group, has written a letter [.pdf] to the EU asking them to stop the deal. Parts of the letter read, "Allowing the Motorola Mobility deal would provide Google with unprecedented dominance in virtually all aspects of the mobile world – manufacturing, operating systems, search and advertising. It would be a virtually unstoppable juggernaut. We urge the Commission to block the proposed $12.5 billion deal." Not only does the letter ask the EU to block the merger, but it also calls for an investigation into the Google's alleged anti-competitive practices. If you are not familiar with Consumer Watchdog, they have accused Google of engaging in "close relationships" with the U.S. governement and produced several videos attacking former Google CEO, Eric Schmidt. The EU Commission was originally supposed to make a decision on the merger by January 10th, but that deadline was extended to February 13th after Google submitted additional documents to support its case. At this point I doubt the deal will get killed, but anything is possible. There was a time when we thought that AT&T's acquisition of T-Mobile was certain, and look how that turned out. |
Posted: 27 Jan 2012 10:33 AM PST  Madfinger Games has just released an expansion pack to their hit game Shadowgun. The new update, dubbed The Leftover, picks right up where the original left off and adds four new levels in addition to a lot of other goodies. Shadowgun was first released as a Tegra Zone exclusive, but was later released as a separate download that supported more devices. Confusingly, Madfinger games has only released the The Leftover update for the non-Tegra version while the THD version has yet to receive it. Expansion pack details include:
If you don't hear from me for the next couple hours, I'll be gaming on my ASUS Transformer Prime as I try to complete this add-on pack. |
Posted: 27 Jan 2012 09:26 AM PST  RIM's success has been declining since the iOS and Android operating systems started skyrocketing. Currently, Blackberry devices hold a dismal position in distribution charts, and Research in Motion is in desperate need of rescue. In an attempt to seek a newer approach, past co-CEO's have gotten off their thrones, and allowed Thorsten Heins to take over the Canadian company. It seems like RIM will need a bit more than this man's leadership to get out of that hole, though. One of Thorsten's first duties as CEO included sitting down for an interview with Kevin Michaluk from CrackBerry. In the interview, RIM's CEO goes into what he sees coming in RIM's future. When asked about the possibility of BlackBerry building on Android, he responded the following: Just take a look where the Android OEMs are. I leave this to you. Take a look at their recent announcements and what you will immediately see is there is just no room for differentiation because they are all the same.Needless to say that Thorsten is completely wrong. Android fans frequently brag about the amount of options the little green robot offers. Yes, most devices are black slabs, and usually have 4 buttons below the screen. There is no doubt that it is the most flexible when it comes to innovation, though. We have seen a plethora of designs here. Dual-screen devices and even BlackBerry-esque ones are just the beginning of the list. Not to mention the fact that most manufacturers design their own UI overlays, and (whether we like it or not) it gives a different feeling to all Android smartphones. We are not here just to point out that Heins' opinion of Android is wrong, though. We all have our preferences. The issue here, with all due respect, is that this CEO seems to be a bit out of touch with reality. It first hit me during his introduction video, where one of his first statements was that "if they continued doing well what they are doing, he sees no problem with RIM being among the top 3 players." I believe the contrary – unless RIM makes some good changes soon, it will probably disappear off the face this little place we call Earth, relegated to the likes of Symbian. I am not the only one that says it, and certainly, the numbers don't lie. There are reasons why RIM has been considering licensing its services (with rumors of RIM probably licensing its software) to other operating systems. Undoubtedly, RIM has great services, especially for Businesses, but their hardware sales have been abysmally decreasing. We believe that these products have not been able to keep up with the evolution of the smartphone market in general. I remember my first BlackBerry device, about 5 years ago – it looked almost identical to the latest and greatest BlackBerry phones. The software's look and feel is unbelievably similar, as well. Then they released some designs like the Storm, followed by the Torch, with a closer resemblance to your typical black slab smartphones. Yet RIM CEO Thorsten Heins believes that Android-related products and services are "all the same." Don't get me wrong. Competition is a good thing, and we want BlackBerry/RIM to come out of this hole. And we will have to wait and see what improvements RIM can make. We simply don't know if Thorsten's plans and views have what it takes to do this. Other operating systems are currently focusing on Enterprise solutions, as well. In sum: You do need some changes, RIM, and you need them quick. |
Posted: 27 Jan 2012 08:32 AM PST  Samsung might be holding their Galaxy S III from next month's Mobile World Congress show, but that doesn't mean this will be a quiet show for them. Thanks to a little digging around I did during CES and some other recent news, I now believe I know what Samsung will introduce in its place. Read on for the full rumor report. The RumorSamsung will announce the next-generation of the Galaxy Tab at Mobile World Congress. It will feature a dual-core 2 GHz Exynos 5250 processor and feature a display larger than 10 inches with a WXQGA (2560×1600) resolution. The device will run the latest Android 4.0.x.The SourceFor once, I am the source of my own rumor report. I visited with Samsung System LSI during CES to discuss their upcoming Exynos processors and I saw one of their prototype tablets which was powered by Exynos 5250 and already running Android 4.0. I actually took pictures of the device (not really knowing what it was), but I was politely asked to delete them from my camera after the briefing was over.One Android Insider's take on the rumorLast year at Mobile World Congress, Samsung unpacked the Galaxy S II and Galaxy Tab 10.1. Many of us were focused on the Galaxy S III for this year's show, but Samsung is still weighing their options and it's not likely to be announced. However, that leaves open the possibility of them showing the next-generation Galaxy Tab.Samsung already announced their dual-core 2 GHz Exynos 5250 processor last November, which is their first mobile processor to feature ARM's latest Cortex-A15 CPU core. The chip is built on Samsung's new 32nm High-K Metal Gate (HK/MG) low-power process and it also includes ARM's next GPU, the Mali-T604. Many competitors are also working on Cortex-A15 parts, but they were not expected to be widely available in products until late 2012 or early 2013 (see TI's OMAP5). However, Samsung has been sampling their A15 part for quite some time and they just announced it will go into mass production in Q2. I can't say for sure how Samsung was able to deliver their A15 part so far ahead of the competition, but it could be because they chose the more mature 32nm process while others are using a 28nm process that is rumored to be having yield issues. For those of you just joining us, I suggest heading over to ARM's site and reading up on Cortex-A15 and Mali-T604 if you want to know why this is such a big deal. Basically we should see twice the compute power, insane memory bandwidth(12.8 GB/s), 5x the graphics horsepower, and all day battery life. Even though Samsung's Exynos 5250 will not hit mass production till next quarter, they still have enough of the chips laying around to pop them into some demo devices and put them on display at Mobile World Congress. The fact that Samsung already has Android 4.0 up and running on the Exynos 5250 shows me how serious they are about being first to market with an A15 part. I realize there's a chance I could be wrong about this rumor, but if Samsung was showing off this next-generation tablet behind closed doors at CES, then it should definitely be ready for show time at MWC. Given the fact that the Galaxy S III will be absent, it makes perfect sense that this tablet will be the star of the show for Samsung. Update: As someone pointed out, my description is very similar to a device that Jonathan Geller of BGR reported on back in December. I guess this is confirmation that he was correct, since I saw a similar product with my own eyes. Update 2: German site TabTech.de is reporting that Samsung will introduce the Galaxy Tab 11.6 at MWC. Their mockup is included below.  |
Posted: 27 Jan 2012 07:45 AM PST  Folks looking to get their hands on the Wi-Fi Motorola Xyboard 8.2″ and 10.1″ tablets, the wait is over. Though the device has been up for preorder for a few weeks now, the follow up to the Xoom tablet is now shipping from Motorola's website. Starting today, customers who order the Xyboard will be treated to free two-day shipping on their orders. The pricing for the Wi-Fi models range from $399.99 for the 16 GB 8.2″ model to $599.99 for the 32GB 10.1″ model. Highlights of the Motorola Xyboard include:
If you've still got your heart set on the Xyboard, you can head over to Motorola's site to order your shiny new Android tablet. Anyone planning on picking one of these up? Which model? |
Posted: 27 Jan 2012 07:27 AM PST  The Samsung Galaxy S III truly is the next big thing in Android land right now, even though the device has not been officially announced. Many of us expected Samsung to unpack their next flagship phone during Mobile World Congress in late February, but the latest rumors suggest it will not make an appearance at that show. This week during Samsung's earnings call, a company executive named Mrs. Younghee Lee actually acknowledged the existence of the Galaxy S III. In response to an analyst question about the Galaxy S III launch date, Mrs. Lee responded, "We are still reviewing several options when to launch. We will let you know when it's decided." Also discovered this morning on a Samsung support site was an upcoming model number GT-I9300. This is one of the highest model numbers we have seen yet (Galaxy Nexus was i9250), which leads some to believe this could be the model number of the Galaxy S III. While most companies have already announced their MWC press events, Samsung has yet to send out an invitation to theirs. With every passing day, it looks more likely that Samsung will not be announcing their Galaxy S III next month. Other recent rumors suggest there are multiple versions of the Galaxy S III in testing, so Samsung could still be debating which model to go with. It is widely believed that Samsung will use their own quad-core 1.5 GHz Exynos 4412 processor, but there's also a small chance they could go with the next-generation dual-core 2.0 GHz Exynos 5250. We already saw the Exynos 5250 in action at CES and Samsung revealed during their earnings call that mass production would begin in Q2. The chip is likely to appear in a tablet first, but it should also power smartphones later this year. Personally, I'm rooting for Samsung to push back the release date of the Galaxy S III and go with the Exynos 5250. The chances of this are slim based on the availability of the chip, but Samsung could boast the first smartphone based on ARM's Cortex-A15 CPU core. Mobile World Congress is exactly one month away and I'll be making the long trip to check it out, so hopefully we can uncover the true story soon. |
Posted: 27 Jan 2012 06:02 AM PST  Though some will lament the fact that the ASUS Transformer Prime was released with several issues, ASUS has continued to impress us with its commitment to updates for its flagship tablet. Earlier this month, ASUS pushed out an update to Ice Cream Sandwich which brought with it fixes to several of the software hiccups plaguing the Prime (including GPS and WiFi performance), along with the wonderment of Android 4.0. Users of the Transformer Prime are still reporting that their devices are randomly locking up during various use cases (hit the source link to peruse the 400+ threads), requiring a reset to restore the tablet back to proper working conditions. ASUS Technical Marketing Manager Gary Key has taken to the XDA developers forum to provide an update on a few bugfixes its working on. Mr. Key has indicated that ASUS is aware of the lockup issues affecting some Transformer Prime owners, and has indicated that the company will be pushing out an update that fixes this issue sometime in early February. Further, ASUS recognizes that some users are still seeing issues with WiFi/Bluetooth fallout, and is asking users having this issue to send him a private message on XDA with a serial number so they can more closely investigate the issue. We've written about our appreciation of ASUS's commitment to frequent updates and customer service before, and folks such as Mr. Key are quickly propelling ASUS to become one of our favorite manufacturers because their actions back up their commitment to customer service. Devices are always going to have unforeseen problems pop up over time, and it's good to see companies like ASUS firmly committed to making it right. |
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment