Android 2.2 'Froyo' Review: It's Sweet :)

If you consider where Android was when it started versus how far it's advanced in 18 months with Android 2.2, you might get brain freeze.

Android 2.2—aka Froyo—is the most usable, polished iteration of Android yet. But more importantly, it's the first release that makes Android truly compelling for a broad consumer audience. Froyo's updates aren't that radical, but serious under-the-hood improvements and refinements throughout make it tangibly more pleasing to use.

Need for Speed
Without getting overly technical, Android executes its apps in a layer above its core Linux OS in a virtual machine called Dalvik. One of the major under-the-hood changes in 2.2 is a just-in-time compiler for Dalvik, which—here come the chocolate sprinkles—results in a 2x–5x performance boost for CPU-heavy code. That means faster apps—faster everything. (Google demoed it last week with the game Replica Island, which kept a higher framerate while doing more stuff in 2.2 compared to its performance on Android 2.1)

In everyday use, the new compiler combined with Android's efficient memory management means that pretty much everything you do, in both the general OS as well as apps, feels more responsive. The speed increase itself isn't staggering in and of itself, but the subconscious effects of a smoother, less draggy experience are real. The slowdowns and stutters I've come to just expect from Android (even with beefier processors) are mostly gone. And after a year-and-a-half of dealing with them, it's kind of remarkable to no longer rage at Android's persistent lagging.

According to Google, this speed boost incongruously comes with slightly better battery life. But any power improvements haven't been dramatic enough for us to notice during tests on the Nexus One.

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Nvidia's Android Tablet

A rounded, plasticky take on the iPad. That's how Nvidia's latest Android tablet prototype struck me. It's pretty nice. But not as nice as the inside.





Inside this 8.9-inch tablet, you see, is Nvidia's Tegra 2, the heart of which is a dual core ARM Cortex A9—a chip that's a generation ahead of the silicon the iPad's A4 is based on—meaning this thing will zooooom. It's also got a gig of RAM (the iPad's biggest technical limitation now is its puny amount of RAM), two USB ports, and a front-facing camera.

Given that both of the units we handled were running just one app each—pretty snazzy looking games—it's hard to tell what it'll be like to use generally, like with the front-facing camera and how the widescreen aspect ratio feels outside of a game, but the games did feel and look great, as you'd expect from the kind of horsepower inside. I wish the screen, which is capacitive for multitouchness, wasn't quite as glossy as the iPad though.

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An iPhone App To Help You Fake A Social Life

I'm sorry, you'll have to excuse me for a moment. I'm quite in demand as you can see by all these message notifications on my iPhone. Obviously things like this can't be faked and my Settings app really needs me.

OK, so maybe I used an app called iNotifyYou to fake all those notifications just to make all of you jealous. It's just tough to resist this cute app which lets you alter the notification numbers for any app on your home screen—or to just plain clear them all at once.

Pretty useful for those times when some notifications just refuse to go away and it's got potential for some humor. iNotifyYou will cost you two bucks and is available in the iTunes store now.

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Bill Gates Told Steve Jobs About the iPad in 2007

Apple CEO Steve Jobs next to him: An iPad-like device being used alongside an iPhone-like device. Then watch Jobs saying that, actually, the future was the PC.

First, Bill Gates' idea of the future of computing:

I don't think you'll have one device. I think you'll have a full-screen device that you can carry around and you'll do dramatically more reading off of that... yeah, I mean, I believe in the tablet form factor [...] You'll have some way of having a hardware keyboard and some settings for that. And then you'll have the device that fits in your pocket, which the whole notion of how much function should you combine in there, you know, there's navigation computers, there's media, there's phone.
Nowadays, Steve Jobs agrees with this vision. He thinks that the iPad is the future and the traditional PC is dying. Like he told Ryan Tate: "The times are a changin', and some traditional PC folks feel like their world is slipping away."

Back in 2007, however, he believed otherwise:

It will be the PC, maybe used a little more tightly coupled with some back-end Internet services and some things like that. And, of course, PCs are going mobile in an ever greater degree. So I think the PC is going to continue. This general purpose device is going to continue to be with us and morph with us, whether it's a tablet or a notebook or, you know, a big curved desktop that you have at your house or whatever it might be. So I think that'll be something that most people have, at least in this society. In others, maybe not, but certainly in this one. But then there's an explosion that's starting to happen in what you call post-PC devices, right? You can call the iPod one of them. There's a lot of things that are not. … I think there's just a category of devices that aren't as general purpose, that are really more focused on specific functions, whether they're phones or iPods or Zunes or what have you. And I think that category of devices is going to continue to be very innovative and we're going to see lots of them.
In a way, you can argue that the iPad and the iPhone are personal computers. PCs evolved into different form factors, with different UI paradigms. But that's not what Steve Jobs meant back then. To the question about what device will be the future of computing, Jobs clearly answers "it will be the PC, maybe used a little more tightly coupled with some back-end Internet services and some things like that." It's not surprising. Back then, he was always repeating the same message: The PC as the digital hub, the center of our digital lives, with specialized devices like the iPod orbiting around it. That was Apple's marketing message at the time.

Only a few months later, the iPhone changed that vision. And the iPhone or the iPad are anything but specialized devices around the PC. They have a life on their own. They are general purpose computing devices in a phone and tablet format. Jobs later pointed this out:

We're getting to the point where everything's a computer in a different form factor. So what, right? So what if it's built with a computer inside it? It doesn't matter. It's, what is it? How do you use it? You know, how does the consumer approach it? And so who cares what's inside it anymore
That's true. But it's funny to see that, back then, Bill Gates was the one truly believing in a future beyond the PC, while Jobs was still playing the "PC as the digital hub" tune. I wonder if the latter ever anticipated the iPhone effect. If only I had a time machine. I could go back to 2007 and send him an email asking him about it.

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Solid Gold Apple iPad

On the 107th day, Stuart Hughes revealed the solid gold iPad. With 53 diamonds set in the Apple logo, and the casing crafted from 22ct gold, 10 lucky people can snap one up—for $189,000(Rs.85 Lakhs approx).

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HTC files a complaint against Apple, wants iPhone out of USA

Today HTC filed a complaint against Apple with the United States International Trade Commission. According to HTC, Apple has infringed five HTC patents and its law department insists on halting the importation and sales of the iPhone, iPod and iPad in the USA.
As usual halting the sales on a top product(s) is a standard request in these cases. It's interesting that HTC hasn't filed a lawsuit on that matter yet, it's just that complaint to the Trade Commission.
According to Gizmodo the five related patents are:
-two for power management
-two concerning personalized phone dialers
-one over a phone dialer with easy memory access
As you may have heard, Apple is already suing HTC on patent matters. HTC have responded they are ready to meet in court. No matter who wins this, it won't be easy and surely it will take a while.

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Next-Gen iPhone in Vietnam spotted running iPhone OS 4?

This is a bit of a confusing one, but we just got tipped an additional shot of this 4th generation iPhone that leaked out in Vietnam, but this time with a big twist: it appears to be running iPhone OS 4. Or at least displaying a screenshot of the new OS, with that telltale wallpaper in the background. We have no idea how this crew might've circumvented Apple's lockdown of the device, and there's always the chance this is some sort of Photoshop or other trickery. Still, a source has confirmed to us that the markings "N90 PRO2" indicate an older prototype N90 (the Apple codename for the new iPhone), which refers to "Working Prototype 2" and might possibly be easier to enable than the newer, lock tight model Gizmodo obtained. Also, despite the photo's out-of-focus nature, the display (or at least its contents) doesn't appear nearly as sharp as those previous shots we saw of the "fireball" screen. We're digging for more info as we speak, but unfortunately the original source site, Taoviet, is down right now. We'll keep you posted if we hear anything else about this image's origins.

Update: The source link is loading for us sporadically. The translated text above the shot reads: "Iphone 4G VN is distributed by the network not it? Maybe not then, we'll be the first use:" It's all so clear now!!

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AMD Vision Refresh: Better, Faster, More

AMD's officially closing the gap. With the help of a slew of major manufacturers, they're putting their processors in nearly three times more notebooks than last year, expanding their Vision branding to desktops, and ramping up performance across the board.

To be clear, Intel's still the big dog here. But they've been showing some cracks lately; AMD's consistently beaten them on price, and Intel's ongoing spat with Nvidia over graphics has led even Apple to test AMD chipsets in their lab. So now's a terrific time for AMD to plant a flag.

That's essentially just what they're doing. This year you'll see AMD in 109 mainstream notebooks, 26 ultrathin notebooks, and more desktops than ever.

In terms of performance, the 2010 AMD ultralight notebook platform (featuring the 23w Turion II Neo dual core, Athlon II Neo dual core, and Athlon II Neo processors) can get up to eight hours of battery life and will support DDR3 memory, DirectX 10.1 and are compatible with ATI Radeon HD 5400 or Radeon 4200 integrated graphics. Mainstream note book processors (Athlon II dual-core, Turion II dual-core, Phenom II dual-core, and Phenom II triple- and quad-core) support Blu-ray playback, up to DirectX 11 graphics, and a reported 60% improvement in hard drive performance over competitors.

Intel's still going to get you better battery life, and by most any metric will still outperform comparable AMD processors. But if you're someone who doesn't mind an application opening a half-second slower—although around here, chances are you do—you can save yourself a decent chunk of cash going AMD. And in exchange, you'll be giving up less than ever.

PC Manufacturers Triple the Number of Platforms that Feature VISION
Technology from AMD
AMD Refreshes Notebook Platforms and Introduces VISION Technology for Desktop
PCs
Thirty Percent More Ultrathin Notebooks and 109 New Mainstream Notebooks Based
on VISION Technology Scheduled to Arrive in Time for Back-to-School Buyers2
CANNES, France - May 12, 2010 -
From the Cannes Film Festival AMD (NYSE:
AMD) today announced a complete refresh of its desktop and notebook platforms
based on VISION Technology for consumer and commercial customers. Ahead of
the biggest buying cycle of the year, the new notebook platforms offer up to eight
hours of battery life while delivering an outstanding visual experience at a great
price for the mainstream and ultrathin markets.
―With VISION Technology from AMD, we are finally connecting how people use
their PCs with the way people purchase them,‖ said Nigel Dessau, senior vice
president and chief marketing officer of AMD. ―Today, after little more than 200
days in market, our partners are introducing more VISION-based PCs than ever
before; a testament to both the competitiveness of AMD platform technology and
the simplified marketing approach.
Introduced in October 2009, VISION Technology from AMD simplifies the PC
buying process at the point of sale by focusing on how consumers use PCs, rather
than relying upon the confusing ―speeds and feeds‖ technical specifications that
many people find difficult to understand. VISION also denotes the powerful visual
experience AMD systems enable; an important feature as more consumers use their
computers as entertainment hubs for sharing photos, music and videos with friends
and family, watching TV and HD videos, and playing games.
AMD 2010 Mainstream and Ultrathin Notebook Platforms
In 2009, 96 million people worldwide bought PCs for entertainment purposes.4
The AMD 2010 Mainstream Notebook Platform lets consumers enjoy their movies,
music and games in stunning color and clarity, seamlessly connect with friends on
social networks, and edit videos and photos. The 2010 Ultrathin Notebook Platform
makes it possible for consumers to enjoy a full-featured PC experience, including
HD playback, in sleek and affordable notebooks that can deliver up to eight hours of
battery life. Examples of the benefits the platforms provide to consumers include
the following:
In testing with HQV 2.0, a VISION-based system with AMD integrated
graphics achieved a video experience score almost 2x that of a
comparable Intel-based system. Additionally, a VISION-based system
with AMD discrete graphics scored 50% better than a comparable Intel-
5
based system with Nvidia discrete graphics.
Enjoy photos with greater color, clarity and definition by cleaning up
photos up to 20 percent faster with Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 than
competing mainstream notebooks.6
Transfer entertainment fast and convert DVDs to play on game consoles
in up to 37 percent less time than a comparable competitive mainstream
notebook.7
Experience up to 80 percent smoother gaming performance in Call of
Duty® 4: Modern Warfare™, compared to a comparable competitive
mainstream system.8
AMD 2010 Desktop Platform
AMD's new mainstream and enthusiast desktop platforms are designed to
deliver superior performance while alleviating unnecessary spending associated
with competing platforms. The new platforms are enhanced with the latest graphics
technology for stunning HD digital media and immersive 3D entertainment, and
multi-core performance for seamless multi-tasking, including the new six-core AMD
Phenom™ II X6 processor. Examples of the benefits the platforms provide to
consumers include the following:
Share movies with friends 30 percent faster than with comparable
competing PCs.9
Organize digital libraries 40 percent faster, using facial recognition to
categorize photos, than competing desktop PCs.10
Build a complete AMD-based system featuring the AMD Phenom™ II X6
processor with all the necessary components and monitor for less than
the price of our competition's only six-core desktop processor.11
Systems featuring these notebook and desktop platforms with VISION
Technology from AMD will be available beginning today and through the end of the
year from original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and System Integrators
including Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, MSI and Toshiba.

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Use Bing to Easily Find Wallpaper That Perfectly Matches Your Screen

With all the different sizes and shapes of monitors these days, it's sometimes difficult to find wallpaper that perfectly matches your desktop resolution, but weblog Digital Inspiration points out that Bing's image search makes it really simple.

While you can manually search for images with a specific resolution using the same imagesize parameter that you can use in Google, Bing's image search can filter by your desktop resolution in a single click—just perform a search, and then choose Size -> Wallpaper from the filtering options on the left menu to filter your search by your current resolution. One of the other benefits of using Bing to find wallpaper is the never-ending "river" of images, so you can just keep scrolling down and it will load in more results.

The Digital Inspiration article also talks about how you can use the same tip to find perfect-sized wallpaper for your iPad, iPhone, or other mobile device, by accessing the desktop version of Bing instead of the mobile one

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Running on water (No Fakes)

Some geeks created pair of shoes, a special pair of shoe which repeal the water away from it
HERE IS THE CLIP!!

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