This Is a Next-Generation iPhone 4 Part, China Ontrade Claims

China Ontrade calls this the iPhone 4 Generation Midboard. Not very exciting, but the last time they announced a next-generation iPhone part, they were right. A month later, the iPhone 3GS appeared with exactly those parts. What could this mean?

The iPhone 3GS display

Let's review what we know: When we first covered China Ontrade's iPhone 3G 2009 parts—back in May 2009—we thought they looked real. Since they didn't have any track record, we treated it as a rumor. Potentially true, but a rumor. The iPhone 3GS announcement was going to happen that summer, so it was logical that factories had already manufactured parts for the assembled iPhone 2009. That is, in fact, what China Ontrade claimed in their site:

This is great honor for China Ontrade (HK) chinaontrade.com to be the 1st started to supply iphone 3gen 2009 parts directly from factory

In June 2009, the actual iPhone 3GS teardown confirmed that China Ontrade's parts were indeed the real McCoy. Somehow, the Chinese wholesaler's ninjas—who sell spare parts for all Apple iPod and iPhone products—got the next generation pieces one month before the product reached the streets.
Zoom in to see the comparison of the May 2009 and June 2009 parts.

Apple iPhone 4 Generation

Now, China Ontrade is claiming that this iPhone midboard belongs to the next-generation iPhone 4, which in theory is supposed to come out next summer, like all the previous iPhones. If confirmed, this means they have the piece about eight months before the actual iPhone 2010 release. That seems like an awfully long time for any factory to produce parts for a new product. Like every company out there, Apple's products are built just-in-time to avoid stock congestion or last minute changes. They don't have parts ready eight months before release.
Does this mean that a new iPhone 4 may appear in a month too? That seems crazy, and very unlikely. After all, we know that Phil Schiller said that the Apple holiday lineup was set. Some people argue that this means that the holiday lineup is set, but it hasn't been fully announced yet. However, for now we can only speculate about the true meaning of his words, and the fact that Apple called us to tell us an exact quote to publish.
Some may argue that they have important reasons to accelerate the introduction of a new iPhone. One is gaining more strength lately, despite Apple's domination of the cell market: Google's Android. Even while Apple COO Tim Cook dismissed Android—saying that Google phones "are still just trying to catch up with the first iPhone two years ago"—the media mindshare is certainly shifting. Thanks to the latest batch of Android 2.0 cellphones, people are starting to look at Android with different eyes.
For now we can't assume any of this means a new iPhone is around the corner. After all, the 3GS just came out five months ago. The only thing we know is that China Ontrade's claims were true in the past, so it's logical to assume this is an actual iPhone 4 generation part. But this makes little sense given Apple's manufacturing practices and self-imposed yearly-upgrade cycle, so this may all be a publicity ploy. Especially because they claim they will publish actual shots of the product in their web site.
There's one last implication in all this: Maybe this is the real Apple "iTablet" SIM tray, after all. [China On Trade]

Why Android 2.0 is going to be a very big deal

Here come phones that finally live up to the Android hype

When Google announced turn-by-turn navigation for its Android operating system last week, the executives of sat-nav firms had to be talked down from high windowsills. But the tech isn't just bad news for sat-nav manufacturers. It's a sign of the coming Android invasion.

Version 1 of Android was pretty good, but - crucially - it wasn't good enough to live up to the hype surrounding it.

Android, it seemed, would kill the iPhone, monster Windows Mobile, cure cancer and bring your ancestors back from the dead.

No handset could possibly live up to that hype, and the T-Mobile G1 didn't. Don't get us wrong, the G1 is a good phone - we gave it four and a half stars out of five and called it a "top performer" - but it wasn't the iPhone killer everyone was expecting.

In many ways Android is a bit like Windows. The first version of Windows wasn't up to much, but Microsoft refined it, refined it, refined it a bit more and then used it to take over the Earth.

Google's doing the same. It's developed a new version of the platform, it's been forging alliances with handset firms, and it's been working on gee-whiz features such as turn-by-turn navigation. Where Android initially launched with a single, good but not great handset, Android 2 is going to appear on stacks of seriously impressive devices.

There's more to the story than phones, too. Barnes & Noble's Kindle rival is Android powered. We'll be amazed if Google doesn't sell Android to car firms for in-dash navigation systems. Archos is using it for its internet tablets. Asus is sticking it into netbooks. NEC has an Android tablet in development that it reckons will sell 200,000 units a year. And so on.

Google's Android army already includes most of the major phone firms and plenty of PC manufacturers, and the devices we already know about are going to make an enormous difference to Android's global market share.

The hype over Android wasn't wrong; it was just several months premature. Make no mistake, unless the entire planet suddenly falls out with Google then Android is going to be a very big deal.

Got HDTV? Get Ready For UHD-TV

While everyone's still trying to replace their DVD players with Blu-ray and their nice plasma flatscreens with HDTVs, the industry already is worrying about the market for UHD — Ultra-High Definition.

Apparently, UHD will debut in the next five to 10 years (if that seems like a long time, remember how long HDTV was being talked about and then how it felt when it "suddenly" hit), but is expected to take a long time before it reaches a "critical mass," deemed to be taking up residence in 5 percent of households globally, according to market research firm In-Stat.

UHD will come in two resolution levels: 7680 x 4320 pixels (8K) and 3840 x 2160 pixels (4K) and provide four to 16 times the resolution of Blu-ray or 1080p high-def. And "22.2 multichannel three-dimensional sound."

In-Stat's study concluded that high resolution digital cinema would drive consumers to UHDTVs so they could experience the same quality on their home television sets and that broadcasters would start providing content in the lower-resolution UHD by 2017 and the high-resolution technology by 2022. The market in Europe is expected to hit 5 percent penetration by 2021 and then zip up to more than 28 percent by 2025.

Ultra HDTV Requirements: (credit:  UltraHDTV.net)

    * Ultra HDTV requires 300Mb/second transmissions using a compressed image at 24 FPS, while 60 FPS will require a new compression system to meet with realistic household fiber-optic connections.
    * In addition, Ultra HDTV displays will require new electrode materials to power the 4x high-speed pixel requirements.

    * Processing power is also a major requirement with Ultra HDTV. Current technology is unable to effectively process the Ultra HDTV signal. At 60 FPS, this signal requires processing power at 2400 GOPS.

Globally, the "mass market" for UHD is expected in 2023 or 2024, when about 10 percent of consumers will have sets at home.

 

Google Adds Longer Text Snippets and Image Previews to Search Results

Google has added a new option to their sidebar options list.
If you open the left sidebar after a google search and select “more text”, the results will show a larger text snippet than previously allowed.
If you then click on “images from the page”, you’ll also notice a thumbnail for each search result. Something many users would have previously used Firefox extensions for.
The thumbnails show more than one image from the site which is helpful, and in my albeit short tests, did not seem to have any impact on page loading times. That said, I probably would return to standard search results (by clicking “reset options” in the sidebar) if I’d been on a slower connection.
Frustratingly however, you’ll soon discover the thumbnails to generally be mere images that have been posting into the posts rather than screenshots. Needless to say, I’ll still be using the likes of Search Preview until Google provides a more enhanced preview.

ATI's dual-GPU Radeon HD 5970 pictured in the wilderness

And now... fighting out of the red corner, weighing in with two Evergreen GPUs, and wearing black trunks and red trim, it's the Radeon HD 5970. ATI's latest challenger for the title of undisputed graphics champion has been snared in the wild, and its photo shoot reveals a suitably oversized beast. Measuring in at 13.5 inches and requiring both an eight- and six-pin power connector, the pre-production sample can fit inside only the roomiest and best-powered rigs around. It's named somewhat confusingly, with AMD dropping its X2 nomenclature for dual GPU setups, but it features two HD 5870 chips running in onboard Crossfire on the same PCB, and foreshadows a HD 5950, which will combine a pair of the more affordable HD 5850s. Performance figures available earlier have been pulled, at the behest of AMD, but we've got plenty of eye candy to admire, and there's also no price tag in sight to spoil our daydreaming pleasure.

NEC CRV43 Curved Ultra-Wide Display

This 42.8” unique curved display delivers an immersive and unmatched viewing experience. It is the perfect display for those applications requiring lightning-fast response time, much wider field of view, greater
dynamic range and wide color gamut.
* Seamless curved screen increases productivity, while decreasing frustration
o Eliminates bezel and screen gap issues
o No data or window interference
o Taskbar extended natively
o Easy setup with one input
* Electronics Suite:
o Single link DVI-D input
o HDMI 1.3 input
o USB 2.0 connectivity
o Front panel controls
* On Screen Display (OSD) and software-based GUI enabling advanced display control options

Google Voice Search for your Nokia Phone

Good news for Nokia users who carry an N-Series or E-Series mobile phone. You can now download the Google Mobile app for your Nokia phone and search Google using simple voice commands

Google Voice Search app is location aware so you don’t have to mention the name of your city or locality when using location specific queries like “nearest pizza restaurant or “medicine shops”.

google voice for nokiaThe Google voice search app is integrated with Google Suggest but in addition to regular search queries, the voice app can also auto-suggest websites so you reach your favorites sites more quickly as you no longer have to type the full address of a domain.

In addition to Nokia S60 phones, Google Mobile App with Voice Search is available for BlackBerry, iPhone and Android based mobile devices.

The Google Voice Search application for Nokia is available for English as well as the Chinese Language. More details on the Google India blog and Google China blog.