Gorilla Glass 2: Welcome To The Jungle

Gorilla Glass, protecting our favourite gadgets this Superman tough glass is the unsung hero of the gadget world and is about to receive an upgrade. Producing by Corning the new generation of Gorilla Glass will be demonstrated at the upcoming CES show in Las Vegas next week. With hammers at the ready Corning will be demonstrating the almost indestructible nature of the Gorilla. Corning takes great pride in destroying its Gorilla Glass and posting the videos, not an easy task if the demonstrations is anything to go by. The testing that Corning puts Gorilla Glass through confirms the glass is tough, flexible and scratch resistant, with some saying it’s as tough as steel while still being crystal clear.

“Corning Gorilla Glass has been a tremendous success for Corning, enjoying excellent market acceptance across mobile device industries. Handset and tablet device manufacturers are clearly driving toward higher functionality from thinner designs. Corning’s latest innovation in Gorilla Glass technology is very well positioned to meet these challenges and enable broader touch technology penetration,” said James R. Steiner, senior vice president and general manager, Corning Specialty Materials. Product details will be included in an announcement planned for Monday, January 9, 2012. Read the full article »»»»

Aakash $45 PC Tablet Clocks 1.4 Million Sales

Back in October 2011 we spruked the Indian Governments unveiling of it’s prototype touchscreen, tablet computer, the Aakash Tablet PC. The Indian Governments foresight into computing was admirable, as more data is migrated to the cloud simple web-enabled platforms such as tablet-pc’s will replace the bloated desktop and laptop hardware architectures of today, the Indian Government apparently got the premise that the future is mobile.

Since it’s release 2 weeks ago, the world’s cheapest tablet computer has clocked 1.4 million bookings since it was put up for sale online two weeks ago in India.

Bookings for the long-awaited Aakash, priced at 2,500 rupees – $US45 – kicked off on December 14, two months after it was unveiled as the “computer for the masses” Read the full article »»»»

Medfield: Intel’s New Mobile Processor

Intel’s Medfield processor is a brand new flavor for Intel. Designed from the ground up for the extremely low power requirements of the Smartphone world. Intel hopes Medfield will go places they have never been, in our pockets. Intel has undoubtedly dominated the desktop computer for 30 years but they have consistently failed - had their butts kicked – in the low power world, smart phones and tablets included. The current leader of low power processors is the ARM processor. Designed in England and manufactured by many companies these processors can be found in every smartphone and 99% of tablets. Look out ARM Intel is gunning for your market.

For Midfield Intel has pulled out all the stops and is finally working in the right direction when it comes to low power. Starting with a notebook processor and altering it for ultra low power could be considered working top down, this time Intel has worked bottom up. Starting with the design of each type of transistor, optimizing each to stop current leakage, wasted power that is converted to heat. Working their way up the design ladder the chip itself integrates a new design strategy, System On A Chip. SoC is a process of integrating as much of a system onto one chip. Intel didn’t stop there, with their sights set on the Smartphone world they have built in technology to accelerate common android functions. Read the full article »»»»

Senseg! Touch Screen Feed-back for your Fingers

Touch screens, the input device of the 21st century are due for a major upgrade. While they may be convenient they have always lacked any type of direct feedback, forcing us to live with passive feed back, the incessant beeping of the touch screen keyboard. Finnish company Senseg have recently announced a revolutionary technology that provides feed back directly to your fingers as you swipe the touch screen. Dubbed feel screen technology Senseg is able to simulate various physical textures, edges, contours and vibrations, putting the touch back into typing.

“By passing an ultra-low electrical current into the insulated electrode, Senseg’s Tixel, the proprietary charge driver can create a small attractive force to finger skin. By modulating this attractive force a variety of sensations can be generated, from textured surfaces and edges to vibrations and more”  Dave Rice, Senseg Read the full article »»»»

Kyobo Tablet: Mirasol Display

Display technology is changing faster than ever. Take for example Qualcomm, makers of much mobile chippery who have recently released upon the world a brand new display technology, the Mirasol display. Working much like the colorful patterns on butterfly wings the Mirasol display reflects selective wavelengths of light using millions of tiny pits containing mirrors. This allows the display  to have very different characteristics to that of today’s kings of display panels, LCD and eInk. The first example of the Mirasol display is now available to South Koreans in the shape of the the Kyobo eReader, available through Kyobo’s Book Center. The new eReader promises low power, fast frame rates, color and the display actually gets brighter and easier to read out doors.

The Kyobo’s display technology sets this little eReader apart. Working in partnership Qualcomm, Kyobo South Korea’s largest book retailer have released the Kyobo e-Reader, integrating a 5.7″  Mirasol display from Qualcomm. Squeezing in a 1024 x 768 resolution display with 25mhz frame rate the Kyobo eReader is the first tablet device to combine the color and brightness of LCD with the low power and outdoor readability of eInk commonly used in Amazons Kindle eReaders. Inside the Kyobo eReader contains even more Qualcomm technology, the tablet uses a Qualcomm 1.0 GHz Snapdragon processor, a zippy low power chip. The tablets interface is driven by Kyobo’s application interface sitting a top of the Android 2.3 operating system. This may well be the South Korean equivalent to the Amazon Fire. The software for the eReader ties in with Kyobo’s  online books stores to give an integrated library, bookstore and reading experience. Bringing tablet like performance to e-Readers, blurring the lines even more. Read the full article »»»»