smartphone News - Page 58 of 75 - CNX Software

February 3, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Huawei Ascend Y300 F1 Firefox OS Phone Features Qualcomm MSM8225 SoC

Firefox OS devices are slowly coming to market, but it could be that most of them are existing Android phones or tablets repurposed to run Firefox OS with little, if any, hardware changes. We’ve already seen Mozilla selected InFocus New Tab F1, an Android Tablet, for its development program, but actual products such as Huawei Ascend Y300 smartphone, will soon be sold with Firefox OS using the model name “Ascend Y300 F1” or “Ascend Y300 II”. Huawei Ascend Y300 F1 specifications: SoC – Qualcomm MSM8225 dual core Cortex A5 @ 1 GHz with Adreno 203 GPU System Memory – 512MB RAM Storage – 4GB NAND Flash, microSD card slot Display – 4″ touchscreen (WVGA – 800 x 480) Connectivity – 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS with A-GPS Cellular networks – GSM/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900, UMTS 850/1900/2100. Camera – 5MP rear camera, 0.3MP front-facing camera Battery – 1730mAh Dimensions – 124.5 x 63.75 […]

February 3, 2014February 3, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Tivizen USB Dongles Bring Digital TV (DVB-T, ATSC, 1Seg) to Your Android or iOS Devices

If you want to watch digital terrestrial TV on your Android tablet / phone / mini PC, or your iPad / iPhone, I’ve already written about Geniatech WiTV / Yeshgo Meron, as well as Geniatech PT115m / PT115e. The former are battery powered DVB receiver sending TV channel to your mobile via Wi-Fi, and is already available for purchase. The latter are micro USB or USB DBT-T dongles that you can insert into your Android or iOS devices, but they still do not seem to be available for purchase. Today, I’ve come across Tivizen USB dongles that appears to be very similar to PT115m/PT115e except there are several models with support for DVB-T, DVB-H (iOS and PC), ATSC (iOS only), 1Seg, and SBTVD standards, and they’ve been available since 2012… I won’t list the available technical specs for each device (mainly connector, dimensions, and weight), but here are the key […]

January 30, 2014January 30, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Framaroot is an Android App to Root Mediatek, Qualcomm, Exynos, etc.. Based Devices

Most of the time, when you want to root an Android devices, you may think you have to start your computer, and in many cases, it has to be a PC running Windows, which can be a real pain. Google does not allow apps that provide root access in Google Play, and all you can install are apps that can check whether your device is rooted such as Root Checker. For some reasons, today I needed to root my smartphone (ThL W200, Mediatek MT6589T), and I looked for a method working with Linux, and I did not find any, but I came across Framaroot, an Android app, that allows you to do that within your Android device without external hardware required. Framaroot is very easy to use and support different exploit in order to provide root access to many devices based on Mediatek (Boromir or Faramir exploits), Qualcomm (Gandalf exploit), […]

January 28, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

Asus ZenFone Android Smartphones Powered by Intel Atom CPU to Sell for as Low as $99

Last year, Lenovo sold Android smartphones based on Intel Atom SoC but sales numbers turned out to be disappointing. This year, Asus announced 3 smartphones powered by Intel Atom Z2520 and Z2580 SoC at CES 2014, with screen sizes ranging from 4″ to 6″, and much more aggressive pricing, as the 4″ version will sell for $99, the 5″ version for $149, and the 6″ version for $199. Asus ZenFone 4/5/6 Specifications: SoC ZenFone 4 – 1.2GHz Intel Atom Z2520 CPU with Quad-Thread Hyper-Threading Technology ZenFone 5/6 – 2GHz Intel Atom Z2580 CPU with Quad-Thread Hyper-Threading Technology System Memory – 1GB RAM Storage – 8 or 16 GB NAND Flash + micro SD card slot (Up to 64GB ) Display ZenFone 4 – 4″ WVGA 800 x 480-pixel TFT display ZenFone 5 – 5″ HD 1280 x 720-pixel IPS display ZenFone 6 – 6″ HD 1280 x 720-pixel IPS display Camera […]

January 8, 2014January 8, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Imagination Unveils OpenGL ES 3.0 Compliant Entry Level PowerVR Series6XE GPUs, and Series6XT Architecture Promising TFLOPS Performance

Imagination Technologies has announced four OpenGL ES 3.0 compliant mobile GPUs based on PowerVR Series6XE Rogue architecture for entry level ($100) smartphones, tablets, and other low-end consumer devices such as wearables and smart TVs, as well as four high-end GPUs based on PowerVR Series6XT Rogue architecture capable of TeraFLOPS computing power. PowerVR Series6XE GPUs The new PowerVR Rogue GPUs will deliver the same fillrate performance as equivalent Series5XT multi-processor configurations but offer more in terms of features and functionality, including OpenGL ES 3.0, OpenCL 1.x, and DirectX 9.3. Four entry-level GPUs have been introduced at CES 2014: PowerVR G6050 – Smallest fully-featured GPU core by Imagination with support for OpenGL ES3.0 and OpenCL 1.x. PowerVR G6060 – Same as G6050, but adds PVRIC2, the company’s second generation lossless PowerVR Image Compression. It reduces bandwidth requirements, and it likely to be used in entry-level tablets, HD TVs and STBs. PowerVR G6100 […]

January 6, 2014January 6, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Samsung Unveils “Samsung Smart Home” and Smart Home Software Protocol (SHP) at CES 2014

2014 could be the year where home automation becomes mainstream, as after Archos Connected Home, Samsung has now announced their own “Smart Home” service enabling users to control and manage their home devices, as well as Smart Home software Protocol (SHP) to enable connectivity between Smart Home products from Samsung and other manufacturers. Your smartphone, smartwatch (Galaxy GEAR), or smart TV will be the control center of your home, and you’ll be able to manage refrigerators, washing machines, smart TVs, lights, and more. Communication between your phone and the appliance will go through the company’s cloud-based Smart Home Server. At launch, Samsung will provide three main service features as shown in the illustration above: Device Control – Mobile devices or Smart TV can be used to monitor or control home appliances via Smart Home app from nearly anywhere. Voice control is also available so you could say “good night” to […]

January 4, 2014June 14, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

What to Expect from AllWinner, Rockchip, Mediatek, and Other Silicon Vendors at CES 2014

CES 2014 is coming soon, and it will take place on 7 – 10 January, 2014, and we can expect some interesting SoC news. Samsung suggested they will unveil their 64-bit ARM SoC (Exynos 6?) at CES 2014, Nvidia will hold a press conference to “showcase new NVIDIA Tegra mobile technologies, gaming innovations, and advanced automotive display technologies”, and Qualcomm has been quiet for now. However, several Chinese SoC vendors, namely AllWinner, Rockchip, and Mediatek, have already announced what they will showcase at CES 2014, albeit with few details. AllWinner at CES 2014 Allwinner announced will showcase their OptimusBoard based on their Ultra Octa-Core A80 SoC, as well as 4G tablets powered by Allwinner A31/A31s, and dual-SIM phablets sporting A23 dual-core. Allwinner A80 is an Octacore processor featuring four ARM Cortex A7 cores, and four Cortex A15 cores @ 2.0GHz together with an unnamed GPU offering 2x more performance over previous […]

December 24, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Canonical Releases Ubuntu and Android Dual Boot Developer Preview

Canonical announced Ubuntu for Phones at the very beginning of the year, and the operating systems have been ported to several phones since then. The only problem is that if you just want to try it, you’d have to replace your Android installation. To work around this problem, Canonical just released Ubuntu and Android dual boot developer preview, that installs both OS on your smartphone, and one app in Ubuntu and Android, let you choose whether you want to boot Ubuntu or Android. The installation requires rewriting the Android recovery partition, and changes the partition layout, so Canonical only recommends Ubuntu Dual boot to developers, in case something goes wrong during installation. Having said that, the installation instructions do not seem particularly difficult to follow, as it’s just the case of running one script (dualboot.sh), after you’ve made sure your device is rooted, connected your phone to a Linux PC […]