Items tagged with Platform
Arguably, BlackBerry should've opened up its BBM platform to everyone years ago, as it could've leapfrogged Hangouts, iMessage, Snapchat, and some of the other chat tools ahead of where we are now. At this point, the BBM userbase is so small, that it arriving on iOS and Android a while back has had little impact on the company's overall stake in mindshare. That said, BBM is still probably the company's strongest software play at the moment, which is why it's bringing BBM to Windows Phone users. BBM will operate on WP8 or newer, enabling further cross-platform messaging with BBM Chats, BBM Groups, Find Friends, BBM Feeds, and 'Pin' to Start menu functionality. BlackBerry says that further features...
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As we've talked about before, the cloud is a great innovation...so long as you have access to a solid and quick Internet connection. But for much of the world, offline needs are still very real, and when you're talking about hour-long programming in high-definition, one has to wonder if we're really and truly ready to migrate those recordings from a local HDD into the cloud. Nevertheless, Comcast has announced a next-gen DVR platform that would indeed store your recorded shows off in the cloud instead of on your local DVR. This new platform release, known as X2, will be available to customers later this year. According to Comcast, "the next generation of the X1 Platform will be even smarter and...
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3D? Virtual reality? It's all commonplace these days, and a new company is hoping to take advantage of those shifting consumer expectations. Atheer, a company bent on "integrating the digital world into the real world," unveiled this week a new mobile 3D platform and natural human interface. For a look at what it'll do, let's hear from the company itself: "Atheer's technology is unlike anything that currently exists in the industry, taking the mobile interface from 2D to an interactive 3D platform centered on human actions. The platform is breaking the display size barrier and has created an experience that is more immersive than a tablet, and more portable than a smartphone. Atheer's technology...
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When you're dealing with a name such as SmartThings, it's hard to disregard it as something that won't make an impact in the world, right? This week, the company just mentioned made a big announcement by opening up a new platform to enable the "Internet of Things." Essentially, they're rolling out a Developer and Inventor toolkit to the public. Put simply, SmartThings helps turn your smartphone into the remote control for your everyday life. With the toolkit, developers can now build applications for the physical world that solve real problems and inventors can create new types of connected devices that integrate with the SmartThings platform. The SmartThings platform can already help solve practical...
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Ready to nerd out? Great. Globalfoundries has rolled out details surrounding its new FinFET transistor architecture, which is engineered specifically with mobile devices in mind. No real surprise, given that mobile is quite clearly the future. Desktops have already fallen behind laptops, and seems just a matter of time before tablets start making a serious dent in the laptop market -- at least for average, non-gaming consumers. Now, Globalfoundries is showcasing its 14nm-XM offering, which is said to be the industry's finest non-planar architecture. The technology is expected to deliver a 40-60% improvement in battery life when compared to today's two-dimensional planar transistors at the...
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Research in Motion hasn't had the best of months, particularly with that nasty service outage marring their otherwise outstanding record of uptime, but they're trying hard to put the past behind them at BlackBerry DevCon Americas 2011. The outfit's own dev event played host to a few announcements this morning, one of which is the unveiling of BBX. That's a new platform name for those keeping count, which brings together the "best of BlackBerry and QNX" to provide a next-gen foundation for RIM's smartphones and tablets. That's right, tablets. As in, the PlayBook is only the beginning. In addition, RIM announced a series of developer tool updates, including WebWorks for BlackBerry smartphones and...
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Here's a little confirmation to what's really going on between Symbian and Nokia. For years now, Nokia has largely been the only phone maker to even use the Symbian phone operating system platform. Sony Ericsson had a few phones use Symbian years back, but lately, it's been Nokia keeping them afloat. As fewer and fewer phone companies decided to use Symbian on their phones, people began to wonder what would become of the organization. If no phone companies use the OS... Now, Nokia has come forward (as well as Symbian) and clarified a few things. Things will definitely be changing going forward, but given the current scenario, it's probably for the best. Basically, the Symbian Foundation is stepping...
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During the summer of 2008, we published a number of articles detailing the design and launch of VIA’s Isaiah core, which would eventually be called the Nano. At right about the same time, Intel’s Atom processor was generating massive amounts of buzz in the mobile and entry-level desktop space, due to its low-power characteristics. But VIA quickly began shouting from the rooftops, extolling the virtues of their new low-power core, which would supposedly offer much better performance than Atom, albeit in a slightly higher power envelope. And our initial testing of Nano confirmed much of what VIA had been saying. In the performance summary of our first head-to-head comparison between...
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A little over two years ago, Intel formally unveiled the low-power Atom processor and its related chipset and platform technologies. At the time, Intel's vision for Atom had the diminutive CPU powering a diverse line-up of mobile internet devices, or MIDs, web-connected tablets, portable media players, and handheld gaming devices. Suffice it to say, Intel's original vision for Atom didn't quite go according to plan. Yes, the chip found its way into an array of devices from video phones to set-top boxes, but by and large Atom has dominated the netbook market, a segment Intel didn't pay much attention to when it first unveiled Atom.Regardless of whether or not Atom found its way into all of the...
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A little over two years ago, Intel formally unveiled the low-power Atom processor and its related chipset and platform technologies. At the time, Intel's vision for Atom had the diminutive CPU powering a diverse line-up of mobile internet devices, or MIDs, web-connected tablets, portable media players, and handheld gaming devices. Suffice it to say, Intel's original vision for Atom didn't quite go according to plan. Yes, the chip found its way into an array of devices from video phones to set-top boxes, but by and large Atom has dominated the netbook market, a segment Intel didn't pay much attention to when it first unveiled Atom.Regardless of whether or not Atom found its way into all of the...
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When Pico-ITX hit the market in mid-2008, many figured that it would be quite some time before we saw a replacement shrink any further. Leave it to the folks at VIA to prove us all wrong. Today, the company is introducing its newest platform, one that's a whopping 50% small than Pico-ITX, which itself is quite a bit smaller than Micro-ITX.The new platform is called Mobile-ITX, and at 6cm x 6cm, it promises to enable all sorts of next-generation devices. Applications for this mostly live in the medical and military market, but with converged devices shrinking all the time, we suspect it's only a matter of time before this finds use in the commercial world. Mobile-ITX employs a modularized design...
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As details of upcoming Lynnfield processors and P55 chipset-based motherboards hit the scene, there is a growing buzz within the industry about the effects of bringing Nehalem down into the mainstream market segments. While X58 and Core i7 performance dominates, complete system pricing has kept some average consumers looking to upgrade wistfully on the fence. That roadblock will likely been cleared by P55 as the companies involved eagerly expect to see widespread adoption of the high performing and relatively affordable platform. On August 18, 2009, Loews Hotel in Santa Monica, California was host to Gigabyte's Invitational Press Day. The affair promised to provide an informative look at Intel's...
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In a short interview to Digitimes, AMD CEO spoke a little about the company’s plan to counteract rival Intel’s Atom chip. Revealing nothing but a vague date, Meyer said that the company will begin sampling to partners in the beginning of 2010, while not attempting to break into the Netbook form-factor. Let’s read a little into this. In the ultraportable notebook segment, AMD already has the AMD Neo (single- and dual-core), which will do nicely when it comes to powering tiny notebooks, so where exactly does this Atom rival fit in? Considering the ARM-based netbooks that were on display at Computex 2009, Meyer also mentioned that ARM architecture wouldn’t make it big in the netbook market...
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Late last month, VIA came clean with its very first Pico-ITX box, and now the company is unveiling an entirely new form factor: Em-ITX. Reportedly, it's the first form factor that comes standard with "dual I/O coastlines." The benefit? It should reduce cable clutter, improve airflow and enable sub-2-centimeter high embedded systems. That last bit is rather important, as you aren't apt to see this pushed much in the consumer realm. Rather, it will likely be reserved for enterprise customers and those dealing specifically with embedded products. Think car PCs, digital signage, home automation, and the like. The new design is around 30 percent more compact than Mini-ITX, yet it offers up a whopping...
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