At Mobile World Congress this week, ASUS showed off more of its PadFone combination smartphone/tablet, as well as the new Transformer Pad Series.
The PadFone features a 4.3-inch smartphone (with Super AMOLED qHD display), a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 8 megapixel digital camera, and the Android 4.0 operating system (Ice Cream Sandwich). When the PadFone was first announced last year, it was running Android 3.0.
Check out this commercial for the PadFone, released last month: Read more
A few smartphone and other device vendors have begun teasing what presumably will be products shown at Mobile World Congress (MWC), the big wireless industry event that kicks off next week in Barcelona (Network World's John Cox will be there reporting for us). Read more
The Android netbook market is changing faster than gossip in a small town, with Chinese manufacturers leading the way. Acer has thrown down the gauntlet and is the first to announce plans to ship a product -- aiming to have it to market this year, no less. Read more
HP is reportedly testing a netbook that would run Google's Android operating system rather than Windows, The Wall Street Journal reports. Dell and Asustek Computer also also said to be eyeing Android for netbooks. Read more
Once again, the idea of Android running on netbooks is starting to gain traction in the blogger community. Read more
Many of the complaints about "Android" I've been seeing are not really about Android at all, but about the current option:
The T-Mobile G1 is certainly a fine handset but may be missing some features some people want
It is unclear if you can flash the G1 and install new firmware, which is what some people want out of an open platform
Some people can't get T-Mobile service, or coverage is sub-par in their specific area Read more
That embedded Linux that ASUS is putting in all their motherboards is going to be huge.
I know plenty of people who can spend their whole lives in Firefox, IM, Skype photoviewer (and media player you claim) without ever having to boot into their main OS.
Acer, the world's third-largest PC maker, says Linux -- not XP -- is the way to go for ultra low-cost PCs (ULCPCs), reports a story from IDG News Service. Statements made today by Acer executives were clearly subtle digs at Microsoft. This is not surprising given that Microsoft wants to call the shots on what PC makers can/cannot do in this market by refusing to sell its special low-cost version of XP unless devices meet Microsoft's list of hardware limitations. Read more
So much for the June 30 end date. Microsoft is slowly and (almost) quietly letting XP live on. So now XP could continue to be sold on very-low cost desktops as long as they have limited capabilities. This is the same thing Microsoft told the very-low-cost laptop makers (the kind made by Intel, Asus). Yes, Microsoft is saying these new licenses can only go on machines with limited capabilities. With the stockpile of XP that manufacturers already have, and with Windows 7 clearly in the works, Vista's days seem to be numbered. Better for Microsoft and its enormous channel that the company should recognize the commercial mistake that is Vista, than to continue to force it down the throats of people who don't want it (and will hence be happier to try Linux or Macs) Read more
CEBIT: Asus shows a new version of its Eee PC at Cebit. The new model sports an 8.9-inch screen, which is a couple of inches larger than the screen on the current model.
The Connected Enterprise
