smartphone News - Page 56 of 74 - CNX Software

February 24, 2014May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Firefox OS Smartphones, Tablets and Reference Designs at Mobile World Congress 2014

Beside the $25 smartphone, Mozilla has also announced a number of smartphones and tablets running Firefox OS during an event at Mobile World Congress 2014. The first devices such as ZTE Open featured a single core processor, the new models come with more powerful dual and quad core processors, mostly from Qualcomm, but also WonderMedia and AllWinner, together with better screen and features. Let’s have a look. ZTE Open C and Open II ZTE Open C smartphone features a 4″ display (800 x 480 resolution), powered by Qualcomm Snadragon 200 SoC @ 1.2 GHz, 512MB of RAM, a 2MP camera, as well as a 1,200mAh battery. Engadget has an hands-on video. ZTE Open II sports a 3.5″ (HVGA -> 480×320) display, with a dual core Snapdragon processor @ 1.2 GHz, 256 MB, 2GB flash, a 2MP camera, and a 1150 mh, according to CNet. It also supports 3G networks. Both […]

February 24, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Mediatek Introduces MT6732 Quad Core ARM Cortex A53 LTE SoC

Meditaked has just announced their first 64-bit ARM SoC with MT6732 featuring four ARM Cortex A53 cores, Mali-T760 GPU, and a Multi-mode 4G LTE Modem at Mobile World Congress 2014. Here are the key features of MT6732: Quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor system @ 1.5GHz ARM Mali-T760 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 3.0 and OpenCL 1.2 APIs Multimedia Features Supports low-power, 1080p, 30fps video playback supporting the emerging video codec standard H.265 and legacy H.264 and 1080p, 30fps H.264 video recording Integrated 13MP camera image signal processor with support for unique features like PIP (Picture-in-Picture), VIV (Video in Video) and Video Face Beautifier MediaTek ClearMotion technology eliminates motion jitter and ensures smooth video playback at 60fps on mobile devices MediaTek MiraVision technology for DTV-grade picture quality Integrated Multi-mode 4G LTE Modem Rel. 9, Category 4 FDD and TDD LTE (150 Mb/s downlink, 50 Mb/s uplink) 3GPP Rel. 8, DC-HSPA+ (42 […]

February 24, 2014February 24, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Mozilla Working on $25 Firefox OS Smartphones With Spreadtrum SC6821 SoC

The cheapest Android smartphones cost about $50, and this price is still a barrier to entry to many, as about 46.4% of phones sold worldwide in 2013 were feature phones according to Gartner, which still corresponds to about 838 million units per year. Mozilla and Spreadtrum are currently working together to bring $25 smartphones to market, and that’s retail price, running Firefox OS and powered by the latest Spreadtrum SC6821 SoC. The $25 smartphone will come with 128 MB RAM, 256 MB NAND flash, and feature a 3.5″ HVGA touchscreen, built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, FM radio, and run Firefox OS with HTML5 apps such as Twitter and Facebook, and access to a full web browser, according to Spreadtrum representatives. You would certainly not trade this phone with your existing Android phone, but if all you could afford until now was a feature phone, these upcoming ultra low cost Firefox OS […]

February 21, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 25 Comments

USB Solar Power Bank Review

A few months ago, I won a $5 coupon for DealExtreme, and decided to buy a “Portable 5V (30,000mAh) Li-ion Battery Solar Power Bank w/ Dual USB + LED – Black + White” for just over $20. For the price, solar charging was a nice bonus, and the 30,000 mAh was probably a “mistake” but it did not really matter. The SKU is gone, but 1BA-2 Solar power bank ($23.97) appears to be a very similar product. I did not plan to write about this gadget, but a few things happened that made me change my mind. First. it took over two months to reach me, instead of the usual 2 to 4 weeks. I ordered on the 9th of November 2013, and received the package on the 25th of January 2014. The reason being that the package got declined by Thai immigration (I live in Thailand). DealExtreme could not […]

February 21, 2014February 21, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Google’s Project Tango Phone Prototype Generates Real-time 3D Maps

Google ATAP (Advanced Technology and Products), the team who is currently working on Project Ara for Google, and recently moved from Motorola following the acquisition by Lenovo, has also been busy on another project called Tango, which centers around a phone equipped with cameras and sensors capturing 250,000 data points per second to track motion and generate 3D maps in real-time. The prototype is 5” phone with hardware and software customization designed to simultaneously track the 3D motion of the device, and creating a 3D map of the environment. The device runs Android and includes development APIs to provide position, orientation, and depth data to standard Java, C/C++ Android. This is still early development, but the team imagine the technology could be used to easily create a 3D map of your home, facilitating furniture shopping. Other usa cses include indoor navigations, visually-impaired aid, and product location in a store. Augmented reality […]

February 21, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Geeksphone Revolution Multi OS Smartphone Supports Android, Firefox OS, and Soon More…

Geeksphone, the company behind the earlier Firefox OS developer’s phones, and the privacy-enhanced Blackphone, has now officially launched the Geeksphone Revolution powered by a dual core Intel Atom Z2560 processor and supporting Android, Firefox OS, or more exactly Boot2Gecko (B2G), and potentially other OS supported by the community such as Sailfish OS. Geeksphone Revolution specifications: SoC – Dual core Intel Atom processor Z2560 up to 1.6GHz System Memory – 1GB LPDDR2 Storage – 4GB EMMC + MicroSD support, Up to 32GB Display – 4.7″ IPS LCD Multi-touch, qHD resolution. Cellular network – HSPA/WCDMA: 2100/1900/900/850 MHz, GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, HSDPA up to 21Mbps, HSUPA up to 5.76Mbps, GPRS Class 12 / EDGE Class 12 Connectivity – WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth Class 3.0, GPS, AGPS Camera – 8 MP rear camera with LED Flash, 1.3 MP front camera System I/O – 3.5mm audio jack, micro USB Sensors – G‐Sensor + E‐Compass + […]

February 20, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

Samsung Exynos 5260 Hexa Core Cortex A15/A7 big.LITTLE Processor

Samsung has been teasing with “Exynos Infinity” before Mobile World Congress 2014, and many expect the Korean company to announce their 64-bit mobile processor (Exynos 6 ?). But it’s likely another Exynos SoC will (also) be announced, as a quick search shows recent patch submissions for Exynos 5260, which happens to be an hexa-core processor using two ARM Cortex A15 cores @ 1.7 GHz, and four ARM Cortex A7 cores @ 1.3 Ghz in big.LITTLE configuration supporting HMP (Heterogenous Multi Processing) / GTS (Global Task Scheduling). The official name might be something like Exynos 5 Hexa (5260). There’s also a device tree file for Samsung XYREF5260 EVT0 development board. It would probably be possible to go through the patches to find out more, but there’s an easier solution, and some blogs have already posted details about a leak showing Exynos 5260 used in the upcoming Galaxy Note3 Neo, where we learn […]

February 20, 2014February 20, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Try Ubuntu Touch on Your Computer with Ubuntu Touch Emulator

Canonical has just announced Meizu (China) and Bq (Europe) will be the first manufacturers to launch Ubuntu Touch phones at the end of 2014. But if you want to try Ubuntu Touch, and don’t own a Google Nexus 4 or 7, or simply don’t want to flash Ubuntu Touch to your devices, you can do so using Ubuntu Touch x86 Emulator in your computer running Ubuntu , or in an Ubuntu Virtual machine in Virtualbox or VMWare. The emulator has been available since last November, but Ricardo Salveti announced an updated version, the first public preview, with the following changes: Better TLS handling (not using the Android slots, but using pthread_set/getspecifics instead) Qt packages compatible with OpenGL ES 2.0 available at https://launchpad.net/~rsalveti/+archive/qt-gles-test It has been tried on Ubuntu Trusty (14.04), but I could run it just fine on Ubuntu Saucy (13.10), by following the instructions below in a terminal: Download […]