Thursday, October 31, 2013

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Acer unveils flat screen Smart All-in-One series
Oct 31st 2013, 07:02, by Juan Carlos Torres

Jumping on the all-in-one or AIO train, Acer has just announced four new large flat screen computers. Unlike most AIO units however, these models from the company’s new Smart LCD Monitor DA and TA series all run a more or less recent Android OS.

acer-smart-aio-1

One word that describes these screens is “huge”, despite Acer describing the smallest of them as being portable. The models mostly vary in screen size, though all except the largest one sport the same resolution. The Smart AIO displays all sport kickstands that can be adjusted to make the screens stand upright, tilted or lie flat, depending on the intended use case, which is intended mostly for POS or exhibits.

The DA222HQL has a display size of 21.5 inches and a resolution of 1920×1080 pixels. It runs on an NVIDIA Tegra 3 chip at 1.6 GHz and has both VGA and MHL video output ports. The DA223HQL has the same screen size and resolution but runs on a quad-core Qualcomm processor instead and only has MHL output. The DA233HQL also only runs Android 4.1.2 while the DA222HQL uses a more recent Android 4.2.2. The larger DA241HL has a 24-inch 1080p display that also runs on an NVIDIA Tegra 3 and uses Android 4.2.1. All three models sport only 1 GB of RAM. The higher-end TA272HUL, however, has 2 GB of RAM and runs on a more powerful NVIDIA Tegra 4. It also has the largest size, with a 27-inch screen and a 2560×1440 pixel resolution. It also runs a more recent Android 4.2.2 version. All four models from the Smart series are equipped with a 2 megapixel webcam and 16 GB of internal storage.

Only the DA222HQL is currently available with a price tag of 14,900 TWD or around $510. The DA223HQL, DA241HL, and TA272HUL are expected to become available in December and will be priced at 20,000 TWD, 18,000 TWD, and 30,000 TWD, respectively, or $680, $610, and $1,020.

VIA: ePrice

acer-smart-aio-1 acer-smart-aio-2 acer-smart-aio-3

Ingress augmented reality game now open to all
Oct 31st 2013, 06:11, by Juan Carlos Torres

It has been a long time coming but it has finally happened. Niantic has, without much fuss or fanfare, silently removed the “closed beta” tag on its popular AR game. This means that anyone can now dive into the mysterious world of Ingress without the need for invitations.

ingress-map

Like any other augmented reality application, Ingress overlays a virtual world on top of our actual real world. In the game’s case, the alternate reality is set in a science-fiction world that revolves around fictional energy called “Exotic Matter” or XM left by yet unknown and unseen aliens only known as Shapers. The plot revolves around two rival factions that struggle for control of the XM spread all over the world. The Enlightened believe that the XM were left by Shapers in order to help bring humanity to the next step of evolution. The Resistance, on the other hand, consider the Shapers as a threat to humanity and seek control of XM in order to prevent its usage.

Ingress launched on November 2012 as an invite-only closed beta that has seen players take sides on the war over XM. The overall goal is to establish as many portals around these XM, which are often found in public landmarks and locations, for your faction and increase their controlled territory. The Android app acts as a map that shows the XM, as a communication device for other players, called Agents, and as a control panel and information center for various aspects of the game.

While Ingress has its fair share of avid players, the game hasn’t caught on like some other Android games apart from the initial spurt of media interest during the game’s launch. This could partly be ascribed to the rather novel and somewhat geeky nature of the game, and partly due to the limitations in joining it. Now that it’s open to the public, perhaps the game will be able to gather more players and maybe even increase interest in augmented reality games such as these.

Download: Ingress on Google Play Store
SOURCE: Josh Warner

Android 4.4 tipped to address low-end phones, wearables, and TVs
Oct 31st 2013, 05:45, by Juan Carlos Torres

With just a day left before October ends, the whole tech world looks forward with much excitement, and perhaps less patience, to the long-awaited launch of Android 4.4 KitKat, with a shiny new Nexus 5 smartphone hopefully in tow. With nothing left to do but wait, we shift our eyes towards last minute leaks that help form a picture of what the next Android version will be about.

android-4.4-kitkat-gplus

While we already have loads of rumors, tips, leaks, and screenshots of some interesting, and some not so interesting, features coming by way of Android 4.4, we do lack a certain general idea of the direction that Google is taking the Android platform in this upcoming iteration. Now thanks to some documents from Google to device manufacturers, we’re getting a glimpse of the tech giants plans for its mobile OS. And it seems that it is quite intent on solving Android’s biggest problems that plague its past and block its future.

Fragmentation is probably the biggest wart on Android’s face, both in terms of device capabilities as well as Android version. Although the last distribution numbers from early this month show Jelly Bean, which actually spans three releases, taking up 50 percent of the pie, devices running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and Android 2.3 Gingerbread together take up the other half. While there is nothing Google can practically do to curb the myriad of incompatible device sizes and screen resolutions, it may now have a solution on the software side. Based on the aforementioned document, Google has made Android 4.4 usable not only on the latest high-end devices but also on low-end hardware, those that only have 512 MB of RAM. In theory, this should make it possible for even the cheapest of devices to run the latest Android version and not have to fallback to older ones that run better on weaker specs.

android-distribution-october

Android 4.4 is also forward-looking and will be adding support for the latest hardware trends, shedding some light on Google’s own plans for Android-powered smart devices. The next Android version will be bringing in support for a variety of sensors, including geomagnetic rotation vector, step detectors, and step counters. These are most useful in the case of wearable devices, giving a bit of credence to rumors of Google preparing its own smartwatch. Android 4.4 will also be including built-in support for IR (infrared) blasters, making it easier for app developers to create apps that control, say, some Google TVs or set-top boxes. And finally, there will also be ways to emulate physical NFC cards, instead of having to go through carriers in order authorize such items, making it easy to develop apps that take advantage of NFC hardware, something which the rival Apple devices still don’t have.

Of course, the presence of these new features doesn’t necessarily mean that Google will immediately be making devices that utilize them, nor does it mean that manufacturers will be quick at adopting them in their next batch of devices. But at least the foundations have been laid and, as they say, if you build it, they will come.

SOURCE: Jessica Lessin

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