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Windows Phone cracks, Blackberry's out of juice and even Apple's squeezed The Google spawn's market share is up a third compared to the same quarter in 2013. Every other mobile operating system is not even eating Android's dust – they're so far back on the road they can see the plume of dust Android throws up are falling behind and don't even look to have a chance of choking. We offer that analysis because, as the chart below shows, Android's nearest rival – Apple's iOS – now has just 11.7 per cent market share.Top Five Smartphone Operating Systems, Worldwide Shipments,...

Earlier this year Advanced Micro Devices generally confirmed plans to apply ARM architecture not only to special low-power microprocessors for servers, but also to consumer chips. According to a new rumour, the company is indeed preparing a chip designed mostly for tablets with ARMv8 general-purpose cores as well as AMD Radeon HD graphics engine. In order to be more successful on the market of media tablets, AMD is rumoured to be designing a system-on-chip with unknown number of ARM Cortex-A57 or A53 general-purpose cores as well as Radeon HD graphics engine based on GCN [graphics core next] architecture, reports SweClockers...

Everyone is waiting for the Android 4.4 Kitkat after its statue gets established in the Google Premises last week. Today Nestle has confirmed that the Android 4.4 “KitKat” is coming our way in October. Currently nothing is said by Google on the launch of Kitkat.

Panasonic was showing off one of the most incredible heatsinks on the market, 10µm ‘thick’ carbon sheets with 95% the conductivity of diamond. If you think that is impressive, the sandwiches they make with it were even more interesting.At first the Pyrolitic (Highly Oriented) Graphite Sheet or PGS looks like a bit of dull grey cloth with no more sheen than an average cheap suit. If you pick it up it feels more like a lint-free screen cleaning cloth, quite soft, a bit slippery, but with none of the weight found in a screen cleaning mat. It really weighs nothing...

AMD Fusion Chips for Tablets Set to Support Android OSAfter a long time of supporting only Microsoft Corp.’s Widows operating system, Advanced Micro Devices is changing its stance towards Google Android and Google Chrome platforms. In a bid to become successful on the market of tablets, ultra low-cost personal computers and, perhaps, even smartphones, the company will support Google’s OSes."We are very committed to Windows 8; we think it is a great operating system, but we also see a market for Android and Chrome developing as well. […] I think Android and Chrome tend to be in the entry form...

There is little doubt that the smartphone world is dominated by two operating systems — Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS.The latest market data released by the International Data Corporation (IDC), which showed that both these platforms accounted for 92.3 percent of all smartphone OS shipments during the first quarter of 2013, proves this dominance in numbers.IDC says Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million devices worldwide during Q1 2013, which was up 59.1 percent from the 125.4 million units shipped during the same quarter in 2012.Android remained the market leader with a 75 percent share of the...

Intel has unveiled its brand new Silvermont microarchitecture. The new Atom chips based upon 22nm Silvermont designs will yet again be pitted against ARM processors in the target market of mobile processors. Silvermont designs will power the Merrifield (smartphone) and Bay Trail (tablet) SoCs. However this time Chipzilla might have more of a chance against the ARM artillery supplied Qualcomm, Nvidia, Apple, and Samsung. According to Intel, the Silvermont architecture can deliver a choice of “approximately 3x more peak performance or the same performance at approximately 5x lower power over the current-generation Intel® Atom™ processor core”. That is indeed a...

Intel is introducing a new 22nm Atom core, and for the first time in the history of the line it is a new microarchitecture. Lets take a look at what we can expect from this new device, and why.

Move over Apple and make room for Samsung. In what could be a win-win-lose situation for Samsung, Best Buy, and Apple, the Korean electronics maker announced today that it will open up Samsung Experience Shops in 1,400 Best Buy and Best Buy Mobile specialty stores across the U.S. These shops within a shop will allow customers to explore, purchase, activate, and receive service on a wide range of Samsung mobile products and accessories.Samsung says it will stock its shops with a full range of mobile products, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, connected cameras, and accessories, all available in a single location...

Single-Cell Battery Charger ICs with I2C and USB OTG Achieve Highest Efficiency and Cut Charge Time in Half Texas Instruments has introduced lithium-ion battery charger integrated circuits (ICs) that reduce charge time by 50% in smartphones and tablets compared to other charger solutions.The TI bq2419x family of 4.5A output, 20V input-rated switch-mode chargers with I2C interface and USB on-the-go (OTG) support delivers faster and cooler charging to a wide array of applications ranging from power banks and packs to 4G LTE routers, Wi-Fi speakers, portable medical and industrial designs.  Consumers continue to want faster battery charging in portable electronics. New...

Summary: By killing traditional cell phone contracts, the fourth largest US cellular network hopes to undercut its rivals who have taken on most of its defecting customers. NEW YORK — T-Mobile has suffered a rough ride by losing close to a half-million postpaid contract customers during its recent third quarter results. But today, the fourth largest US cellular network formally announced  that it is killing the traditional two-year cell contract in favor of a different pricing structure."We're changing the rules," said T-Mobile president John Legere at the press event in New York. 

Samsung became the third major ARM SoC maker to launch an extreme-performance product, for high-end smartphones and tablets, this CES. Hot on the heels of NVIDIA Tegra 4 and Qualcomm Snapdragon 800, the Korean silicon giant launched the Exynos 5 Octa, which stakes claim as being the industry's first eight-core ARM SoC. While it's true that the chip packs eight CPU cores, it is based on ARM's big.LITTLE micro-architecture, in which two sets of four cores each take turns at either handling heavy processing loads, or light/stand-by loads. One of the two sets consists of high-performance Cortex-A15 cores, while the...

Emerging markets will be the first to get the devices *********************************************EXCERPT************************************** BARCELONA, Spain--Mozilla formally launched its Firefox OS here ahead of the start of Mobile World Congress. However, the smartphone platform is focusing its attention on emerging markets and will likely not launch in the U.S. market until 2014.Mozilla, best known for its Firefox browser, said the first Firefox OS devices will be available to consumers in Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, Mexico, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Spain and Venezuela, and that additional markets will be announced soon. The platform seems clearly aimed at emerging markets, and Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs said the platform...

If you like what you've seen so far from RIM BlackBerry's big launch event today, then you might want to know when you can get it? Those in the US might have hoped the rumors weren't true, but indeed, you will have to wait until March before you can get your hands on BlackBerry 10. Though when it does land, customers of AT&T, Verizon, Sprint (only Q10 confirmed) and T-Mobile (Z10 confirmed) will all be able to get onboard. BlackBerry's giving its home turf a little bit of a head start with a February 5th release date and Bell,...

1 Introduction to How the Lytro Works 2 Focusing on the Problem 3 Fields of Light 4 Faking Depth Lytro cameras have a simple touch-screen interface and LCD display. Courtesy LytroTaking the perfect photograph is part art and part science. In the old days, when film was the only medium you could use, you had to make sure you had the right lens, lighting and type of film for the shot. As digital cameras took center stage, lens choice and lighting remained important. Equally as important was a familiarity with editing software. The right tools can help you adjust...

Sprint hopes to complete the deal in the same timeframe the Softbank deal is wrapped up The department that handles acquisitions and mergers at Sprint has been very busy lately. Sprint announced that it would be selling a majority stake to Softbank for $20 billion in October. Sprint has also long coveted the wireless spectrum that partner Clearwire holds and uses for wireless internet service. Sprint has made no secret of the fact that it wants to own all of Clearwire. CNBC reports that that Sprint and Clearwire are moving closer to a deal that would see Sprint acquire the reamaining 49%...

Processors can be up to 65 percent faster thanks to novel new design Intel Corp. (INTC) has a long way to go to be a strong competitor to the coalition of ARM Holdings Plc (LON:ARM) licensees who today dominate the smartphone and tablet industries.  The company, long the dominant force in the personal computer CPU market, is working diligently to catch up.  Its first smartphone effort -- Medfield was surprisingly capable, although not giving Intel a clear win over rival ARM-based offerings. I. Tri-Gate is Crucial to Intel's Mobile Ambition But Intel has a trick up its sleeve for the next round...

Android will further solidify its market leadership in the smartphone operating system race in 2013, thanks to a broad support from smartphone vendors and the rollout of a wide range of low-priced models for sale in emerging markets. Shipments of Android phones are expected to top 600 million units or over 70% of global smartphone shipments in 2013, Digitimes Research estimates.

A Nokia job listing [since taken down] has been discovered seeking a Senior Engineer with Linux expertise, rather than Windows Phone experience, this leading the Android masses to have a freak-out-festival about the possibilities of a Google OS Nokia device. At the moment it’s a nearly all-Microsoft party at Nokia with the latter shaking hands heavily with the former for the launch of Windows Phone 8 with devices like the Nokia Lumia 920, a hero for the operating system. With a Linux expert on their team, (not that Nokia doesn’t already have engineers with such expertise), it would appear...

Sorting out the amp in a mobile phone Two MIT researchers claimed that they have doubled the life of a mobile phone battery by tweaking an efficiency problem related to the power amplifier. The professors Joel Dawson and David Perreault claim that power amplifiers are to blame for much of the draining of a mobile phone and the amp chips waste as much as 65 per cent of their energy. They have formed a startup called Eta Devices which will flog gear that they claim to have solved this problem. The technology is currently being tested in labs. They think...