Posted: 01 Mar 2012 02:41 AM PST Broadcom is flexing its semiconductor muscles as it makes an entrance to the increasingly competitive SoC business. The company has just introduced the BCM 21654G, BCM28145 and 28155 processors – all optimized for smartphones running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.  The first is the BCM21654G chip that is designed for mid-end smartphones with its 1GHz ARM Cortex A9 processor, integrated HSPA modem and VGA video support. The next two, BCM28145 and 28155, come with dual-core processors that go as high as 1.3GHz, HSPA+ modems and support for HD 720 and 1080p video. The dual-core variants also come with a "third processing core" dubbed as the VideoCore, which helps offload the application process when playing HD video, and Image Signal Processor chip that supports up to 42-MP camera. Handset OEMs can make use of the BCM4334 combo chip offered by the platform that enables simultaneous Internet connectivity, support for WiFi Direct and WiFi Display, and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity. Included in the platforms is GNSS solution that supports both GPS and GLONASS. The platforms also come with low-power NFC chip that supports secure mobile payments and other innovative applications of the technology. Those who like to keep their professional and personal life separate would welcome the fact that the platforms support active dual-SIM capability. With smartphones sales forecasted to hit 3.8 billion units in 2017, as per ABI Research, it's not a wonder how the industry has attracted more players to dip their toes in. Earlier in the week, Huawei announced to the world it has decided to fly solo and use the company's own branding of K3 processor for its latest Android phones. Samsung is also known to use proprietary processor every now and then for its Galaxy line-ups. With NVIDIA and Qualcomm dominating the Android scene, having an industry veteran such as Broadcom jumping into the SoC game makes it an even more interesting race to watch. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
This article, Broadcom Creates Integrated Android ICS Chips , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source. |
Posted: 01 Mar 2012 12:54 AM PST  We asked and you answered. According to our February poll, Dolphin is the favorite Android browser of our readers. And there are plenty of reasons to love Dolphin, from the blazing-fast navigation, to the intuitive way to access bookmarks and the support for add-ons.Another cool thing about Dolphin is how easy it is to control your browsing experience using nothing but gestures. Being a Webkit-based browser, Dolphin naturally supports the swipes and zooms that we all know and love, but the app also lets you assign custom gestures to websites, for quick access. Want to go to Facebook? Just scribble an "f". It's easy and fun, and it's the kind of simplicity-oriented thinking that propelled the Dolphin browser to the number one position. Voice controlled browsingNow Dolphin takes another leap towards simplifying web browsing by adding Sonar, a voice control feature. If you ever used Google Voice Actions or Siri, you know what Sonar is all about.The new feature in Dolphin 7.4.0 makes use of Android's voice API. Just click the Sonar icon in the Dolphin UI, or, even simpler, shake your phone, and the Dolphin browser will start listening to you. Tell it to open Twitter.com and up pops Twitter. Fun! In most cases, Sonar will open the Google search results page, but that's not what's interesting about it. After all, Android incorporates voice search already. What's interesting is the ability to use commands like Refresh, Back, Forward, or Home to get around the Web, tap-free. Also, you can do simple searches faster than ever before. Just say "Facebook search Joe" and Dolphin will open directly the Facebook search page so you can find your buddy. This works similarly for other sites, such as Twitter or Ebay, but it seems that, for now, this functionality is limited. Here’s a funny promotional video, to get an idea about how Dolphin Sonar works. Dolphin Becomes Even BetterAlong with the new Sonar feature, Dolphin 7.0.4 brings some slight improvements to the UI. For instance, the trademark bookmark side panel is less prone to accidentally opening. MoboTap, the makers of Dolphin, also turned the Webzine feature (you know, the one that got them in trouble for alleged privacy breaches) into an add-on. If you try out Dolphin Sonar and find it underwhelming, keep in mind that the new voice control feature is just in its infancy. Sonar is not designed to compete with Google Voice Actions, Siri, or other "intelligent" virtual assistant. Rather than that, Sonar is just another way to improve the experience of using the Dolphin web browser. And in time, the Sonar might become more intelligent. With the addition of voice commands, Dolphin becomes even more compelling as a web browser. And that's exactly what MoboTap needs to do, at a time when the competition is heating up (both the stock Ice Cream Sandwich and Chrome for Android have received lots of positive reviews). However, regardless how Google's own browsers will do, Dolphin will probably remain the best third-party Android browser available. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
This article, Dolphin Sonar: Control Your Browser With Just Your Voice , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source. |
Posted: 29 Feb 2012 06:11 PM PST  We all enjoy a good game, especially when it's with you wherever you go. It makes waiting alone in a supermarket line less boring. Although going solo is great, we've got to admit that there's nothing like a good co-op on action-driven application right at your fingertips. Check out our list of multiplayer games that we’ve found interesting. 1. Asphalt 6: Adrenaline HD  Racing games may not be your cup of tea – until this game that is. Asphalt 6 offers great graphics showcasing 42 different cars and bikes from the best manufactures that you can choose from, not to mention a good roster of virtual cities you can wreak havoc in. Whether you're looking for challengers online or you're with your friends for some cross-platform fun, this game will poke at your competitive side that one run won't be enough. You can even customize your vehicles and challenge yourself against racers from 11 leagues in 55 events to earn your place in leaderboards. Best of all, you can have all these for only around a dollar. 2. Modern Combat 3: Fallen Nation  If you're an avid first person shooter (FPS) gamer on other consoles, then you'll probably notice that Modern Combat 3: Fallen Nation has a lot of things that look eerily similar to famous titles you've probably played before – but you'll forgive GameLoft for that, since this really brings a great deal of fun to your Android device. Formula invasion story aside, the virtual environment will blow you away. Controls may be a bit iffy as a lot of FPS games on touch screen phones are, but GameLoft developers try to remedy this by putting in an auto aim option that works okay. Your character and guns are customizable, which is great help especially during multiplayer runs through 6 maps and 7 modes. Sound quality could be better though, but looking over minor annoyances, MC3 is a great game. Download it on your tablet for best results. 3. Pocket Legends  For those massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) fans out there looking for a fix away from your desktop computers, get Pocket Legends. Be a Warrior, an Archer, or an Enchantress and save the world of Alterra from invading zombies, aliens, and other oddities. What's interesting with Pocket Legends is that you can create your own instance which other players can easily join in. It can sometimes be a bummer to be with total strangers in a dungeon with no semblance of strategy, but since the gameplay is pretty simple, you don't really need to be as serious playing this as you are with WoW. You can do the run all over again in any case. Pocket Legends is free to download, but though there are in-game purchases in order to advance faster, it's pretty fun to play. 4. Guerrilla Bob  The first thing you'll probably notice about Guerrilla Bob is how pretty it is, but don't be fooled with all the bright colors and the chibi characters, because with the amount of action and firepower packed in it, this game is most definitely not cute by any standards. Reminiscent of Metal Slug, Guerrilla Bob will have you running through levels, using a wide array of weaponry to exact revenge on your enemies. Not only is it multiplayer, it's also cross platform, so if you have friends who play it on their iPads, PCs, or MacBooks, you can just hook up and do a run. For the full version, you can download it here. Your $2.99 will definitely be worth it. 5. 2-Player Reactor 2-Player Reactor doesn't have impressive graphics and you don't even have to go online. You only need a friend, a husband, or a sibling to play with, and that's as multiplayer as it can get. But trust us, it is addicting. It's probably because the instructions are so simple that you can't help but get frustrated and competitive if you miss one of them. This game has garnered good reviews that the developers have released a paid version, which basically does the same thing, but only with four people. Just be careful not to break any displays while playing. 6. Dungeon Defenders: Second Wave  An update to the successful first title, Dungeon Defenders: Second Wave boasts of a deep RPG-con-tower-defense-game that allows four-player co-op mode across different platforms – from your Droid, to your PC to your iOS device. Become a Fighter, an Archer, a Mage, or a Monk and go through beautifully rendered environments while quashing tons of evil groups along the way. If you're into player-vs-player (PVP), the game gives you the option to access the arena for $4.99, but it wouldn't hurt your normal gameplay even if you don't bother with it. If you're a fan of the first release, you'll love the fact that the skill cap was raised to level 80 and that new dungeons have been added. 7. Haypi Kingdom No swashbuckling adventures here. Haypi Kingdom is an empire building/strategy game that may initially turn you off with its almost static graphics and an overly-simple interface. Although you may be tempted to uninstall it as nothing seems to be happening, stick around and do a few tasks. Grow your kingdom. When you find yourself consistently checking your phone to see if your crops have grown, then you've already fallen into this very deep rabbit hole of a game. Haypi Kingdom enables you not only to create your kingdom, but also to forge alliances with other real-world players and conquer different territories. You can chat with your fellow players and even participate in the live market to trade your goods. There are so many things to do with it that you'll wonder why you wanted to uninstall it in the first place. It's a game for those who are patient and are willing to think thoroughly about tactics, and it rewards you with a pretty powerful virtual kingdom and a sense of well-being. Do you have any more multiplayer games that you've enjoyed but aren't on the list? Leave a comment and tell us about them! YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
This article, 7 Must-try Multiplayer Games For Your Android Device , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source. |
Posted: 29 Feb 2012 02:34 PM PST  Things are about to go from bad to worse for PC makers of the world. That is if you believe the latest forecast that was just released by Business Insider Intelligence on the expected global sales of smartphones compared to PCs.It appears that smartphone sales will far surpass their PC counterparts, with the numbers expected to reach 1.5 billion units in 2016. Comparing this to the number of PCs that have been sold this year, which stood at 350 million units, it isn’t hard to see why some tech pundits are declaring the death of PCs and heralding the new age of mobile devices. A premature declaration, we know, but the figures do speak for themselves.  Sales forecast for the next couple of years According to Alex Cocotas, research analyst at BI Intelligence, there are two factors that contribute to the booming sales of smartphones. The first factor is the declining price of the devices. After hovering around $315 in 2011, the average price of a smartphone is expected to drop to $200, within the next couple of years. The second factor is linked closely to the first one. With prices coming down, consumers are more inclined to make that jump from dumbphones – 5 billion units of them – to smartphones. It's worth mentioning that the report states that smartphones only made up about 10 percent of the global sales of mobile phones this year. So there's definitely room for growth. The report also mentions that, over the next five years, smartphones sales will see a 30 percent compound annual growth rate. By 2016, smartphones will make up about 2/3 of all mobile phone sales. It is not uncommon for analysts to make such bold claims about what's hot and what's not in 5 or 10 years from now. If you like numbers and like your story to have a certain twist, here are some sales stats from other analysts. Gartner estimates that the global smartphones sales in 2011 were 472 million units – accounting 31 percent of all mobile device sales. Meanwhile, IDC believes that 491.4 million units of smartphones were sold in 2011. Suddenly, that 1.5 billion smartphones sales figure forecasted for 2016 doesn’t seem that ludicrous, does it? YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
This article, Move Over PCs, Sales of Smartphones to Reach 1.5 Billion in 2016 , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source. |
Posted: 29 Feb 2012 11:52 AM PST  Dual core or quad core? Which should you pick? If the decision was that simple, I’m sure most people would just go with the quad core chip. But what if the dual core chip this time is more powerful than the quad core one? From what we’ve seen in the benchmarks so far, it seems that the S4 beats the quad core Tegra 3 in most situations, except in some browsing tests and graphics tests. So how can this be? A single core of the Krait chip is simply based on a more advanced and newer chip architecture, that allows it to be more powerful than the Cortex A9 core inside Tegra 3. Tegra 3 is almost at the end of its lifecycle (at least as high-end devices go), while Krait is just starting its own lifecycle. But this still doesn’t really explain why a dual core chip can beat a quad core one. After all, a Krait core is not twice as fast as a Cortex A9 core, at least not if they run at the same clock speed, and in this case they pretty much do (depending on the Tegra 3 version). The reason is simple, and I’m sure many of you have figured this out by now. Most applications are not yet optimized for multiple cores, which means that at least 2 or 3 of Tegra 3′s cores will go unused, and only the first one, or the first 2 cores at most will be used for the vast majority of applications. Since only 2 cores are put to use in most situations, this puts Krait at an advantage over Tegra 3, because its cores are more advanced and more powerful. But this is also why things get a bit more complicated when it comes to browsing and games, because in many cases the browser can take advantage of all the cores in the phone, and also many new games, especially those optimized for Tegra 3, take advantage of all its cores and allow them to have richer content. Plus, I’m not convinced yet of the graphics tests for the Adreno 225. In some it wins over Tegra 3, in others it loses, but even in those where it wins, the difference is small, and the Adreno 225 is tested at a lower resolution than Tegra 3, which gives it an unfair advantage. Could this also be the reason why most S4 devices that were announced so far are only using a qHD resolution to make it run at least as well as Tegra 3? Again, things are pretty unclear for now, but given Adreno’s past, I wouldn’t bet on it beating Tegra 3′s GPU. Qualcomm has also announced the S4 Pro with the Adreno 320 GPU (along with a quad core CPU), of which we don’t know all that much about, other than the fact that it’s on a new architecture, possibly much improved, but won’t be available until this fall. Even if it has significant gains over the current Adreno 225, it will probably have to fight GPU’s like Mali T604 or even T658, and Tegra 3+’s GPU, so it makes no sense to pronounce on which is better right now. What do you think? Will you take a quad core Cortex A9 device now over a dual core S4 a bit later, or will you even wait for something like a dual core Cortex A15 device? YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
This article, Why S4 Is More Powerful than Tegra 3 (Most of the Time) , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source. |
Posted: 29 Feb 2012 07:05 AM PST  Most of us are so focused on our daily grind that we hardly have time to take a break, step back, and look at the big picture. This is true in most areas of modern life, but in the tech world, where things change by the minute, it's especially difficult to see beyond the noise. A new smartphone, a new leak, a crazy rumor… Statistics, marketing, tech-talk… they all compete for our attention, making things appear larger than they actually are.So, from time to time, it's refreshing to see someone step back and leave all the "My smartphone is better than yours" madness aside and just talk about where the world is heading. And this is precisely what Google Chairman Eric Schmidt did yesterday during his keynote speech at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Technology will reorganize our livesSchmidt thinks that technology will radically transform the very essence of our society, and even the building blocks that make it. Instead of social classes based on wealth, Google's former CEO sees new social classes that are based on the level of assimilation of technology. From the hyper-connected minority at the top, to an "aspiring majority" without access to the Internet at the bottom, we will all be directly influenced in what we can do with our lives by our ability to use modern technology.Schmidt sees a future where the fortunate that leave in modern cities will be able to enjoy telepresence, self-driving cars, holographic displays, and seamless, ubiquitous access to the cloud. Of course, Google's chairman alluded to some of Google's own projects. For example, it's well known that Google is close to developing a self-driving car, which Schmidt said that it's closer to reality than we think. Indeed, Google obtained authorization for testing the vehicle in several American locales, and its robocar has already driven thousands of miles across public roads. Another of Google's pet projects that Schmidt referred to in his speech is the gigabit-level Google Fiber network, currently in deployment in Kansas City, KS, which serves as a trial for the project that ultimately aims at delivering ultra-high speed network access across the U.S. We can only speculate about the other technologies that the bright minds at Google are working behind the doors of the new Google X labs in Mountain View. Some of them, like the Google Glasses or Android @ Home are likely to be revealed to us soon. For others, we might have to wait for years.  Regardless, it's always interesting to see how a man that has intimate knowledge of Google's plans sees the world and the future. Eric Schmidt discussed many other interesting things in his keynote, but we'll let you learn more on your own. Here's a partial recording of Google's Chairman Eric Schmidt keynote speech at MWC 2012. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKENo related posts.This article, Eric Schmidt Talks Future and How Google Will Shape It , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source. |
Posted: 29 Feb 2012 04:57 AM PST  The new app stats, which you can find in the Developer Console, now come with added tools that are essential for analysis and marketing, such as:
 Previously, the Developer Console provided developers and publishers with performance data on dimensions like countries, model devices, and platform versions, among others. The new metrics now allow you to track active installs and total installs of the apps, as well as daily installs and uninstalls by unique users. In addition, you'll also get to track active installs, daily installs, and uninstalls, as well as upgrades, by unique devices. Finally, the revamped version of the App Stats allows you to track the installation of apps across carriers or to view the launch metrics of specific app updates. To track the installation data in a longer period, timeline charts are added to the metrics and dimensions. This gives you the ability to determine the peak installation of the apps and spot long-term trends – making it easier to correlate the performance to certain factors. It is also possible to add specific points and factors to the timeline inside the dimension. Some cosmetic changes are also introduced, as the user interface of the new App Stats has been improved. It is now more compact and easier to use, with a dedicated tab displaying each dimension. To top it off, you can now exports all the stats easily in one CSV file. This is the kind of improvement that developers and publishers are looking for and can truly benefit from, making the Android scene that much more attractive compared to other platforms. With more than 450,000 apps available to download in Android Market today (three times the number reported a year ago) and 850,000 new device activations per day, world mobile domination seems to be just a few steps away for Google’s Android. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
This article, Android Developers Get Better Insight with the New App Stats , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source. |
Posted: 29 Feb 2012 03:09 AM PST  New reports have surfaced today regarding HTC’s efforts to woo Google into choosing them as the next OEM for the next generation Nexus smartphone. The upcoming Nexus-branded super-device could very well run Android 5 a.k.a. Jelly Bean. Jeff Gordon, HTC’s Global Online Communications Manager, said that since Google hasn’t chosen its Nexus partner for Jellybean, all original equipment manufacturers, including HTC, are keeping their collective fingers crossed. But what are HTC’s chances of sealing the deal? That’s a good point to consider. You can probably remember that HTC and Google have previously formed a close working relationship when the Taiwanese developed the Nexus One, and, before that, when HTC worked on Google’s very first Android phone, the T-Mobile G1. If experience and familiarity are the key factors in Google’s decision, then HTC is a clear pick. However, if Google is looking for variety and something new, then it has to be someone else. Although we have no idea whatsoever about Google’s real standing about the situation, Jeff Gordon insists that a Nexus development wouldn’t interfere with the company’s primary goal of delivering its Sense 3.6 UI and Android 4.0 ICS to its current line of devices. But what about Samsung, you may ask. Well, Samsung isn’t a bad option either for Google. After all, the South Korean tech giant is heavily involved in developing the Nexus S model, as well as the Galaxy Nexus brand. Samsung local rivals, LG also suggested that they want a piece of the action. And then, there’s Motorola, which Google recently acquired. If all goes well for HTC, the Taiwanese powerhouse will be flying to the clouds with the taste of Jellybean on its devices, including the HTC One series scheduled to arrive sometime in April this year. But for now, that remains a dream. Google has yet to make its most important decision this year. Motorola, LG, and Samsung are all just waiting for their shot. Do they stand a chance? Only Google knows.  |
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Update - 103
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