PATREONItems tagged with oki
The world has come a long way in the world of embedded computing, with more and more power now able to squeeze onto integrated circuits versus having to use discrete processors and the like. Integrated graphics are far more powerful now than they were, and integrated processors in general are far more capable now than ever before. But there is still a long ways to go in making fewer things discrete, namely the battery. The battery has held back innovation in consumer electronics for as long as portable devices have been around; regardless of how great a design is, there must always be consideration made for a battery. Drats. Oki Printed Circuits is hoping to change our opinion on these batteries...
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Heads-up displays have basically been seen only in expensive cars, sci-fi films and...well, that's about it. OKI Digital Imaging is hoping to change all that and bring HUDs to the masses with a new LED display. The company's 1.1" QVGA panel seeks to provide the same heads-up functionality that has become commonplace in simulators and fancy car dashboards, but while using one-tenth of the power (compared to a traditional LCD) and at just a fraction of the cost. The device features the world's first 65-micrometer pitch between LED chips, and considering that it's also self-illuminating, that's one less thing to worry over in the built structure. It's plenty visible in broad daylight, and while...
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Correction: HP has gotten more netbook-ish. Today HP announced a new line of netbooks, and as opposed to the HP 2133 Mini-Note, which they were adamant was for the educational market and not to compete with the Asus Eee PC, this one is targeted squarely at that market.Why the big change? Well, according to HP, the 2133 Mini-Note has "exceeded all expectations." That and the burgeoning netbook market seems to indicate a hop into the middle of the competition might be a good idea. On the other hand, quite a few analysts feel netbooks are stealing revenue from standard notebooks, which would not be a good trend for OEMs in the long run.Despite that, on Wednesday HP unveiled...
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Not only did Id Games announce today that it is hard at work on the next installment of the first-person shooter DOOM series, DOOM 4, but the company is looking to hire designers, artists, animators, and programmers to develop the new title."DOOM is part of the id Software DNA and demands the greatest talent and brightest minds in the industry to bring the next installment of our flagship franchise to Earth," said Todd Hollenshead, CEO, id Software. "It's critical for id Software to have the best creative minds in-house to develop games that meet the standards synonymous with our titles."No less than 15 positions were listed on the Id Software job listings page at the time of this news post....
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You may or may not know web mogul and conversational media entrepreneur Jason Calacanis but it's safe to say that he "got it" when weblogs were just starting to become hip. Along the way, the properties he built (Engadget, Joystiq etc) were picked by companies like AOL for just a little bit of coin. Though not breaking news, it's safe to say his latest start-up is gaining traction and proving relevance. Calacanis' latest vision is called Mahalo and he's taking on traditional search engines giants like Google and Yahoo but with Wikipedia-like capabilities and couple of strategic twists. Sounds interesting, but what does that...
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Microsoft has developed a rich media platform to compete with Adobe's Flash, called Silverlight. Nokia has decided to sign on to use Silverlight on some of its smartphones and Internet tablets. Microsoft no doubt sees that browsing the Internet and virtual devices will eventually eat into their desktop supremacy, and would like to get a foothold in that on-the-go mediafest now. John Case, a general manager with Microsoft, said Nokia represents the first of several similar announcements for Silverlight on mobile devices. He also said the next generation of Windows Mobile will support Silverlight, though he declined to give a time frame for the release of Windows Mobile 7. In...
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A phone you can turn into a slingshot? Well, you can't quite do that, but this concept phone is stretchable and flexible - and definitely cool.Nokia Research Center and researchers at the University of Cambridge have teamed up to create a joint nanotechnology concept dubbed "Morph". The two teams announced their partnership back in March of 2007 and the Morph is one of the first projects to emerge from the partnership. Launched today, the Morph is part of the "Design and the Elastic Mind" exhibition, on view from February 24 to May 12, 2008, at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Morph, as it is appropriately named, is comprised of flexible materials that can be reshaped on the fly to...
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Super Smash Bros. Brawl has been released in Japan already, to great sales as well as some problems. Some of the problems seem to be related to a bad habit: smoking.According to the statement, Nintendo has received complaints from Smash Bros. Brawl buyers of the Wii being unable to read their newly bought disc, or of videos chopping up during playback. These users claim to have had no such problems with past games. Nintendo has come to the conclusion that the problem has to do with dust and tobacco building up on Wii laser units. This effects Smash Bros. Brawl while leaving other titles unaffected because the new fighter uses a dual layer DVD, which is apparently more sensitive to a dirty...
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It's been more than a year since Intel demonstrated their Kentsfield CPUs running Remedy's upcoming Alan Wake. At the time the world got its first glimpse of what a quad-core ready game could be like, and there were plenty of oooohs and aaaahhhs to go around.Now that quad-core CPUs are here and reasonably priced, and Vista with its DX 10 is here, what does Remedy have to say about these new technologies? Here's a snip from a Q & A with Markus Maki, the Director of Development at Remedy:“Q: Does the engine profit from CPUs with four or even eight core? If yes what is the expected performance gain resulting from four or more cores?A: Alan Wake currently runs faster and smoother...
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Nokia announced they were shipping the new N810 Internet Tablet yesterday. It's not really a phone unless you've got some sort of VoIP arrangement, but it's a nice little UMPC. Or it's a PDA on steroids. Well, at any rate, you can slide out the keyboard and type, surf the internet on its touchscreen if you can find a WiFi hotspot or can finagle a Bluetooth phone, or maybe just use it for music playback for a week at a stretch.With up to 45 hours of music playback, storage for up to 7,500 songs* and built-in GPS, the Nokia N810 is perfect for the person on the go. The Nokia N810 comes with free maps preloaded for users to browse detailed locations, search for street addresses, find various...
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It's a grand time to be in the GPU business. According to Jon Peddie Research, graphics chips manufacturers shipped 97.9 million units in the third quarter, a 20% rise over the preceding quarter, and 18% more than during the same period last year. Intel is still king; AMD is the little engine that could; but it's Nvidia that's showing the biggest market-share rise.Overall, Intel held its lead, shipping 37.2 million units (+21.2% over Q3 2006) and claiming a 38.0% market share, which, however is down 3.8 points from 41.8% the company held in Q3 2006. AMD posted a slight shipment growth of 8.4% to 18.7 million units, translating into a 19.1% market share, down from 23.4% last year. ...
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Nokia, the Finnish handset giant, announced third quarter financial results yesterday. They've posted an astonishing 85% gain in profits, $2.2 billion, surprising experts and sending their stock into the chilly Scandinavian troposphere. And they did it by playing Wal*Mart to Apple's Neiman-Marcus, if you will -- selling inexpensive things to a lot of people, instead of pricey things to a few people. How many is "a lot," you ask? The company shipped 112 million units for the quarter, a record for the industry. Nokia now predicts that 1.1 billion mobile devices will be sold this year, up from 978 million in 2006. The company's results follow strong profit reports from mobile-phone rivals LG,...
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Finnish phone giant Nokia is shipping their eagerly anticipated N95 handheld computer. It got a 2.8" display, and a nifty two way slide to expose a keypad for entering text if you slide it out one way, or controls for the media functions if you slide it out the other direction. Nifty. Boasting up to eight gigabytes of built-in memory, the Nokia N95 8GB has all the key features of its predecessor, including a 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, built-in A-GPS, WLAN, HSDPA and an innovative 2-way slide. The sleek black N95 8GB also boasts a luminous 2.8" (240 x 320) QVGA display, so watching videos, browsing the Internet or viewing maps is a real pleasure. With its expanded memory, the N95...
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Norwegian phone giant Nokia announced its intention to purchase Chicago-based navigation software maker Navteq for around 8 billion dollars. Nokia, already the world's largest maker of mobile phones, seeks to expand the mobile services it offers to go along with the hardware.Nokia's President and Chief Executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said "location-based services are one of the cornerstones of Nokia's Internet services strategy. The acquisition of Navteq is another step toward Nokia becoming a leading player in this space." Helsinki-based Nokia has made several acquisitions to expand Internet services. The company announced last month that it would buy Enpocket, a U.S.-based mobile advertising...
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The newspapers are full, every day, of reports of borderline crazy people suing anybody they can think of for bizarre reasons. Every once in a while, you read about one, and think: This is just crazy enough to work. How about suing the entire pay TV industry because you are required to pay for channels you don't want or you can't purchase the service? "The antitrust laws protect the right of choice," antitrust lawyer Maxwell M. Blecher said. "Here the customer is denied that choice." The complex web of contractual arrangements among service providers and networks amounts to a monopoly or cartel that has "deprived consumers of choice, caused them to pay inflated...
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Despite the recent defection of NBC Universal, which may in fact been as a result of negotiations including this option, Apple is trying to lower the price of video downloads on iTunes. Their proposed new price would be 99 cents / TV episode. There are reasons for the network's unease. For example, DVD sales of television shows have become an important part of overall revenue. Variety offered one example where NBC's Heroes DVD currently retails for $40 in stores. Including 23 episodes, on iTunes it would currently cost $45.77 to purchase all of them. After the change, that cost would be $22.77, much cheaper than the DVD. Customers could opt for the cheaper download...
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Last month Nokia issued a massive battery recall. Unfortunately for this pregnant Indian woman, it didn't include her battery, which was of a different series, though still manufactured by Matsushita. The battery exploded 10 minutes after she plugged it into the charger. A pregnant woman was injured at her south Kolkata residence on Wednesday when her Nokia handset battery exploded 10 minutes after she had put it on charge. The battery was a BL-D3, not part of the BL-5C series that Nokia recalled earlier this month. However, both series were manufactured by Matsushita Battery Industrial Co, Japan. The handset that blew up was purchased in 2004. Legal action against Nokia is being considered...
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Showing it is indeed possible for us to all "just get along," Microsoft and Nokia have made nice. Nokia phones will be getting mobile versions of Windows Live services on its handhelds, starting today. Unfortunately for those of us in the United States, it's Europe and the Middle East only for now. Nokia and Microsoft said Thursday they have joined together to provide customers with a new suite of Windows Live services specifically designed for Nokia devices. Starting Thursday Nokia customers in eleven countries with compatible S60 devices can download the new suite enabling access to Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Contacts and Windows Live Spaces. The 11...
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For once it's not a Sony battery being recalled, but it is a huge number. 46 million BL-5C batteries made by Matsushita are being recalled by Nokia because of possible overheating. Replacements will, of course, be free. The batteries were manufactured between December 2005 and November 2006. Nokia has identified that in very rare cases the affected batteries could potentially experience over heating initiated by a short circuit while charging, causing the battery to dislodge. Nokia is working closely with relevant local authorities to investigate this situation. Consumers with a BL-5C battery subject to this advisory should note that all of the approximately 100 incidents have occurred...
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AMD Unveils Forward-Looking Technology Innovation To Extend Memory Footprint for Server Computing — Latest Customer-Centric Innovation from AMD to Improve Performance Burgeoning Technologies like Virtualization and Multi-Core Computing — SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- July 25, 2007 --Responding to customer and industry demand for increasingly improved system memory capabilities and choice, AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced it collaborated with leading integrated circuit (IC) companies to develop the Socket G3 Memory Extender (G3MX) technology, which is planned for the AMD Opteron™ processor platform infrastructure ecosystem in 2009. This innovative...
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AMD Unveils Forward-Looking Technology Innovation To Extend Memory Footprint for Server Computing — Latest Customer-Centric Innovation from AMD to Improve Performance Burgeoning Technologies like Virtualization and Multi-Core Computing — SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- July 25, 2007 --Responding to customer and industry demand for increasingly improved system memory capabilities and choice, AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced it collaborated with leading integrated circuit (IC) companies to develop the Socket G3 Memory Extender (G3MX) technology, which is planned for the AMD Opteron™ processor platform infrastructure ecosystem...
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Nokia has recently launched a new service that allows GPS users to pinpoint their location in one minute, as opposed to the standard three minutes that it currently takes. The service will be available to users of its N95 handset, Nokia’s flagship product. “‘It will be reliably under one minute in most countries,’ says Ralph Eric Kunz, head of Nokia's navigation and mapping operations.” “There are several ways improve the accuracy of cellphone GPS. Most commonly, cellphone base stations provide additional geographical information to help a phone work out where it is.” “Nokia's new service bypasses operator networks altogether, instead relying on extra information about the orbits of individual...
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