Asus Eee formalizes Pad Slider

Asus, which has a small success with the Eee Pad Turn, has announced the Slider. Fairly close to the first, she swapped the keyboard for a detachable keyboard that slides under the shelf, hence the name. Android 3.1 (Asus promises an updated version 3.2), the tablet is animated - as often - a Tegra chip 2.

It was always an IPS screen (pledge of wide viewing angle), a USB port, a mini HDMI output and a microSD card reader. The screen is "Gorilla Glass" and Asus has included two cameras on the device: one with a 5-megapixel sensor and the other with a 1.2 megapixel sensor. Both models are expected in September, with 16 and 32 GB of memory, and a 3G version is in principle in 2012.

Samsung profits drop 18%

Samsung has released its financial results for the second quarter of 2011 and overall they are quite good. Its turnover reached 26 billion euros, an increase of 4% compared to last year, while its profit is down from 2.84 billion euros in the second quarter of 2010 to 2,330,000,000 euros. This decrease is mainly due to a fall in selling prices of components due to a surplus.

His division smartphone continues to excel and take the results of the company up. Indeed, the telecommunications department has seen its profits rise by 420 million euros to 1.1 billion euros, an increase of 165%. Nokia still seems to dominate the mobile phone market, but Samsung has already passed the Finn on the smartphone.

The acquisition of Nortel's patents approved

U.S. and Canadian judges yesterday approved the acquisition of Nortel's 6000 patent by a group including Apple, Microsoft and RIM, for $ 4.5 billion. This is an amount three times larger than the estimates of analysts according to Reuters who reports the news. In January 2009, Canada's Nortel Networks has filed for bankruptcy and filed for bankruptcy.

North American judges have so over the business and oversee the liquidation of its assets. Nortel telecommunications technologies had very important and Google caused a stir when it first announced its intention to redeem $ 900 million. A consortium to address the search engine was immediately created.

Induction charger and the new iPhone 5

Apple iPhone would be some prototypes using an induction charger in its research and development centers. The firm is currently conducting some experiments according to the Wall Street Journal that stimulus as the rumor of an iPhone nano would be always in the laboratories of the brand. The newspaper also claims that one of the manufacturers of iPhone, Hon Hai would have performance problems that could hamper the release of the iPhone 5.

Microsoft, Apple, RIM, Sony, etc.. buy patents for $ 4.5 billion

The Canadian equipment supplier Nortel sold its patent portfolio to a consortium of Microsoft, Apple, RIM, Sony, Ericsson and EMC for the tidy sum of $ 4.5 billion. 6000 These patents cover a broad range of technologies in communications (telephone network, 4G, optical communications, internet), semiconductors and even the search engines or social networks.

Nortel, which declared bankruptcy in January 2009 has already sold some of its subsidiaries, including CDMA/LTE to Ericsson for $ 1 billion in July 2009. Microsoft, Apple, RIM, Sony, Ericsson and EMC will share Nortel patents in proportion to their participation: Ericsson said he contributed $ 340 million, RIM for $ 740 million.

• Apple, Microsoft and others join forces to buy Nortel patents (01/07/2011)
• Apple, RIM in group buying Nortel patents for $4.5B (01/07/2011)
• ITC Sides with Everyone in RIM, Apple, Kodak Spat (30/06/2011)
• Nortel sells remaining patents for $4.5B US (01/07/2011)
• ITC gives Kodak a small chance to prevail over Apple and RIM -- uphill battle until August 30, 2011 (30/06/2011)

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Cisco has announced ICSU, its Android tablet

Cisco, specializing in the professional world, has announced its Android tablet, the ICSU. Aimed at the business world, it is based on an Atom platform and runs on Android, the Google operating system. The tablet comes with a dedicated online store, the AppHQ, which can offer applications designed for the professional world.

Very secure, the tablet can be deleted remotely or in case of wrong password is entered, and Cisco provides tools to manage finely equipment, with the ability to restrain the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, access to certain functions, etc.. A dock is available, which will help transform the tablet into a "super phone business": it offers a handset and Ethernet connectivity for the tablet and it is even compatible PoE (Power over Ethernet).

Ericsson phone to 1 Gbit / s 4G

Ericsson, a pioneer of mobile telephony has just made an impressive demonstration of the capabilities of LTE Advanced, that is the real 4G (LTE "not advanced" for its part is the 3.9 g). Ericsson's engineers have achieved a throughput of almost 1 Gbit / s between a base station and a van in motion. Let us recall some comparison data: 3G caps typically 384 kbit / s, the 3G has now reached 21 Mbit / s in the cities lucky.

Archos G9: the shelves at 1.5 GHz

Archos yesterday presented its new range of shelves, with three generation models 9. Four models will be part of the two models and two 8-inch by 10.1 inches. While all manufacturers today (almost) use a chip Tegra 2-1 GHz in their Tablet, Archos highlights the fact that it uses a Texas Instrument OMAP4, which can reach 1.5 GHz.

The data sheet is not very clear on speed, but obviously the entry-level models will just 1 GHz. The GPU used is the classic PowerVR SGX540, level of ULP GeForce Tegra 2 and about four times slower than the iPad SGX543MP2 2. Good news, Archos will integrate Android 3.1 (or 3.2, it is not clear) and the shelves will have access to the Android Market.

Apple joined the Bluetooth SIG consortium

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has announced that Apple and Nordic Semiconductor joined its Executive Committee which already has major players such as Lenovo, Intel, Motorola, Microsoft and Toshiba. The Bluetooth SIG oversees the development of Bluetooth standards and the licensing and exploitation rights to manufacturers.

This is a private, nonprofit headquartered in Kirkland, Washington in the United States. Dr. Michael Foley, director of the Bluetooth SIG, states the "ambitious goal to deliver five billion devices (Bluetooth, Ed) in 2015." It happens, however, to ignore the reasons why the two companies to enter the ranks of the consortium.

4G licenses: auctions are open

ARCEP announced that the auction for 4G licenses were open. The? Yes, because there are two bands, one around 2.6 GHz, the other closer to 800 MHz. The first allows a wide bandwidth - there are 70 MHz to share - the second has the advantage of covering a larger distance and thus would cover the campaigns, even if it offers "only" 30 MHz.

For the 2.6 GHz band, 70 MHz will be divided into lots of 5 MHz with a minimum of 10 MHz per operator and a maximum of 30 MHz, to avoid competitive imbalances. Four licenses will be awarded by auction, for a period of 20 years. The availability of frequencies depends on the region: no earlier than October 1, 2011, no later than 1 March 2014, with a coverage requirement of 75% of the territory in 12 years.

WHO: a portable "possibly carcinogenic"

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the intergovernmental agency based in Lyon and belonging to the World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a press release stating that he classified the electromagnetic fields and radio frequency mobile phones as "possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B)".

They aggravate the risk of gliomas which represent two thirds of all cancers of the brain, according to IARC, which cites the project Globocan published in 2008. A working group comprising 31 scientists from 14 countries met at IARC to try to assess the risks related to exposure to radio frequencies and electromagnetic fields, the statement said.

Lion, 5 and iOS icloud next week

Apple has announced that the company would announce (sic) Mac OS X 10.7 (Leo), IOS 5 and ... icloud next week. If the former is known, with beta circulating in recent months, little has filtered iOS 5. We know no more than what Apple has already said: the management of localization files will be modified with an encryption of information ...

As for icloud, we know of course that is an offer related to music - like Google and Amazon Music CloudPlayer - but the exact details of the offer are not known. Appointment on June 6 on our Twitter account to follow live news.

• Apple To Unveil iCloud, Mac OS X Lion & iOS 5 at WWDC (31/05/2011)
• Official: iOS 5, OS X Lion, and iCloud To Be Announced Next Week At WWDC (31/05/2011)
• Official: Apple will show off iOS 5, iCloud and OS X 10.7 Lion at WWDC. (31/05/2011)
• Apple confirms it will unveil Mac OS X Lion, iOS 5 and iCloud at WWDC (31/05/2011)
• Steve Jobs will introduce iCloud, Lion, iOS5 at WWDC Keynote June 6 (31/05/2011)

IOS (Apple) (homepage)  IOS (Apple) (wikipedia)  

A smartphone integrating two CPUs (Atom + ARM)

Fujitsu gave a press conference last May 26 during which he showed his F-07C, a smartphone integrates an ARM processor from Texas Instrument OMAP which turns NTT Docomo iMode, the OS of the largest Japanese operator, Atom and Moorestown processor capable of supporting an installation of Windows 7 32 bit.

The phone is featured on the site of the operator as the smallest Windows PC 7 in the world. NTT DoCoMo had already made an announcement two weeks ago, but the Computex is an opportunity to show to the international press. The F-07C has a screen of 4 "SVGA resolution of 600 x 1024, a battery life of 370 minutes talk time 3G, 5 Megapixel CMOS sensor, 1 GB LPDDR400, a No Wi-Fi module and 32 GB eMMC used by the user that Windows 7 would have an endurance of two hours.

Padfone Asus wants a phone in a tablet

Asus will introduce a prototype at Computex, which integrates a smartphone within a shelf. This is the Padfone, an even more strange than his name. The official specifications are not filtered and the Taiwanese do not talk about price or availability date. It seems that the Padfone is a precarious stage of its development and the builder wants to first test public reaction.

The padfone is in fact a receptacle for a smartphone with 4.3 "of the brand. The touch pad of 10.1 "uses a priori the processor, memory and GPU of the smartphone, but as advertised by Asus, which we find very amusing and is visible below, the unit would have its own battery and offers a bigger screen.

3G and 4G: how we will pay more for the same service

Continue our momentum with the information we have obtained at Amdocs, a specialist in billing services for mobile operators. Today, talking about an interesting technology on the merits, but that poses problems in terms of privacy and how it will be implemented. We have already explained, by the admission of the unlimited operators died.

The idea, developed in a dedicated news, is to limit the offerings at speed or at the amount of data transferred. A problem quickly arose: if the connection up to 384 kilobits per second (for example), how to watch a video so comfortable? We had an answer to this question at Amdocs: operators will implement the DPI (Deep Packet Inspection), albeit not say so directly.

Qualcomm Completes Purchase Atheros

In January, Qualcomm announced the acquisition of Atheros. The transaction is now complete, for $ 3.1 billion in shares. With this acquisition, Qualcomm is able to handle the majority of current communication technologies: 3G, Wi-Fi, CPL. Indeed, if Qualcomm is a company specialized in 3G, it does not yet have the skills to offer Wi-Fi chips, unlike Marvell or Broadcom, two competitors.

And in the world of the CPL, Qualcomm became the de facto leader: the majority of cases using Intellon chip, which was acquired by Atheros some time ago. In practice, it is especially interesting for a new division Snapdragon: SoC Qualcomm is already one of the most comprehensive - it includes CPU, GPU, GPS chip and 3G - and the addition of Wi-Fi should make it even more interesting.

Snapdragon compatible with the 'Russian GPS'

The Qualcomm Snapdragon, widely used in smartphones and Windows Android Phone, is compatible with Glonass, the location system used in Russia. Glonass, which started in 1982, is a competitor to America's GPS system and offers the same possibilities: a location on the ground with an accuracy of few meters (5-8 feet with Glonass, 2-9 meters GPS).

The advantage is that GLONASS covers Russia and the accuracy is better than GPS in northern latitudes. The MSM7x30 Qualcomm (one of several models Snapdragon) is the first to offer compatibility and more Glonass GPS compatibility, but other manufacturer's chips should also receive this compatibility in the future.

3G and 4G: Towards the end of the unlimited

Last week we explained why - ultimately - the applications will replace the "mobile web". Today, let's analyze why the offers "unlimited" are set to disappear and how - unfortunately - offers multi-speed should be proposed to term. For now, the offers so-called "unlimited" does not really already are.

For an operator, an offer is unlimited in time - we may well use the line all the time - but the speed varies. Typically, operators indicate caps (a limit) beyond which the speed is limited. In some MVNO (virtual operators), access to 3G + (HSxPA) is not offered, only the 3G standard - 384 kilobits per second - is proposed.

WiMAX: state of play in France

ARCEP has published a "report card" of the deployment of WiMAX in France. This radio technology that works between 3.4 and 3.6 GHz has long been seen as a potential 4G technology, but it is ultimately the evolution of mobile networks that will take that role. ARCEP started giving permissions in 2006 and currently (January 2011) there are 19 entities that have a license to work on this type of frequency.

[Video] Augmented reality by Sony

Sony introduced its Smart AR, an augmented reality system capable of using the video sensor of a smartphone and a stereoscopic screen, according to a statement posted on the website of the Japanese. The video below shows a very impressive demonstration. Sony claims to have begun his research into augmented reality systems in 1994, the statement said.

The first models were taking pictures of a bar code, then added the related information. In 1998, a software running on the VAIO PCG-G1 used a 3D bar code named Cyber Code. SmartAR stands of ancient prototypes by the absence of marker. Recognition technologies allow 3D objects not to barcode and track the subject scanned at high speed to continue layering information or images on his movements, the very principle of reality grew.