Corning had announced the newest version of its popular fortified glass, Gorilla Glass 2, at CES this year. The second version has the same scratch and impact resistance as its predecessor despite being 20% thinner. Corning later announced on February 27 that it begun initial shipment of the new glass to its customers and that we should expect manufacturers to start revealing products using it by the by second quarter of the year.
It has been assumed that the new HTC One X smartphone is already using the new Gorilla Glass 2 to protect is gorgeous 4.7-inch 720p super LCD2 screen and in fact, a couple of websites have even said so in their reviews.
We’ve got in touch with HTC directly and the company has confirmed that the One X actually uses the original Gorilla Glass and not version 2. It practically plays no significance for end users, since both versions of the glass offer the same level of protection, though we though you should know for the sake of completeness. The HTC One X’s screen is optically laminated to the glass, eliminating any gap between them and bringing the screen closer to the edge anyway.
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Sharp has just announced that it’s ramping up production of the world’s first LCD panels using advanced indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) semiconductors at its Kameyama Plant No. 2 in order to meet increased demand. Production of the panels began in March 2012 and the IGZO technology allows Sharp to produce LCDs with high pixel density but lower energy consumption because of the smaller thin-film transistors and increased pixel transparency.
Sharp was long rumored as an Apple partner providing the retina displays in the 3rd generation iPad. However as the IGZO technology was too young, the company couldn’t yet mass-produce the 10-inch 2048×1536 panels required for the new iPad. Apple finally went with the same IPS LCD amorphous silicon panel technology as in the iPad 2, but the new iPad retina panel now consumes 2.5-times the power at the same brightness. To compensate Apple has loaded the new iPad with almost double the amount of battery, meaning that it takes much longer to recharge the iPad 3, and it’s also slightly thicker and heavier.
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Contrary to the Stanley Kubrick reference there is actually nothing wrong with building a supergrid. In fact, it’s actually a fantastic idea. A supergrid is an electric power grid on a mega-scale that connects various countries together, moving electricity from where there is excess supply to where there is demand.
The supergrid in question is an envisaged European high-voltage direct current (HVDC) cable power grid connecting different regional countries, Iceland and even North Africa and the Middle East.
We’ve talked about the supergrid being a great idea, and connecting different countries together in one big grid means: better energy security and reliability, better and more efficient use of the region’s renewable energy resources and energy generation capacity, which would translate to lower cost of electricity throughout Europe.
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Micro Four Thirds camera users are spoiled for choice when it comes to lenses compared to other mirrorless system cameras. However, there is a big gap for bright quality zoom lenses. Panasonic had shown off a pair of large aperture ‘concept lenses’ at CES this year, the 12-35mm f/2.8mm and 35-100mm f/2.8 X-series lenses.
Unfortunately there was no indication on when the two lenses would be hitting the market or on pricing. Well it now seems that this information has slipped from the mouth of a Panasonic representative interviewed by Amateur Photographer. The information that was posted and later removed from the UK magazine’s website stated that the, new 12-35mm f/2.8 lens is expected out at the end of June, priced £1,000.
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The $35 (£22) Raspberry Pi ARM-based Linux computer has had a roller-coaster ride since it was released. The single-board computer completely sold out in a matter of minutes on February 29th when it hit Premier Farnell and RS Components, two mail-order electronics distributors, and brought both their websites to their knees.
However the Raspberry Pi never actually shipped to expecting DYIers. First, manufacturing had hit a snag, with the Chinese factory producing the boards having soldered-in the wrong type of ethernet jack. Then the two retailers refused to fulfill any orders until the Pi completed CE certification. CE compliance is required for electronics shipping in the European Union, which the Raspberry Pi Foundation was initially hoping to bypass it, since their device could be considered an unfinished product.
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Most display panels are sandwiched between layers of glass making them rigid and also pretty breakable. Samsung Display has just filed a patent application for a new flexible AMOLED display technology, called “Youm”, that does away with the glass layers, replacing them with a special plastic film. The result is a flexible display, which can even be rolled up or folded, that according to Samsung is unbreakable and lighter than conventional displays.
You can see a comparison between the Samsung YOUM AMOLED panel technology and standard LCD and OLED panels below.
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While revealing Project Glass, the company’s project to create augmented reality glasses, Google made known that it will be publicly testing devices. Well it didn’t take too long for the first pair of prototype eyewear to to be spotted in the wild. The glasses were donned by none other than Google co-founder Sergey Brin at a Dining in the Dark charity event.
Rackspace’s Robert Scoble spotted Brin wearing them and joined him in the above picture. Robert noted that the glasses looked very lightweight and although Brin was wearing a backpack they seemed to be self-contained. Although Brin refused to lend them to Robert, he did see images flashing in the small transparent glass display.
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Certainly not the first supposed leaked image of the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S III that has come our way, but we thought we’d share this with you since a lot of the pieces check out, like typeface, timing, location and last but not least the handset has a very interesting design that we’ve never seen before.
The device looks like a curvy slab of metal with a large display and practically zero left and right bezel — the zero bezel for the Galaxy S III has been one of the longest standing rumors and something we would be very happy about. There are also no hardware buttons, similar to the Galaxy Nexus (check out our full review here), and a feature of handsets designed with Android Ice Cream Sandwich in mind. The device certainly looks premium enough to merit its place in the incredibly successful Galaxy S series.
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Hold on tight as this could be one of the coolest things in tech. It’s been long-rumored that Google has been working on augmented reality (AR) glasses and the search giant has now officially confirmed the project on a Google+ page. The project named “Project Glass” is run by Google X Lab, the company’s super-cool innovation lab that has been tackling challenging projects like the self-driving car and a space elevator.
Project Glass is a first step to wearable computing, putting the information directly in front of your eyes in the form of a see-through display in a slim pair of glasses. Google is now privately testing the technology and has released a number of concept design images for the AR glasses. The clear display is located above the eye, the glasses include a camera and the skeleton sits on the bridge of your nose. Note that Google is supposed to be testing a number of designs, some of which can be worn over prescription eyeglasses.
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Instagram has been an incredibly popular app for iOS devices and while it has created a number of clones on Android the social photo application has now officially made the platform a home. The Instagram team had recently promised that an Android app was coming and true to their word the app is now available for download on Google Play (a.k.a. Android Market).
Visually the application is a direct port from the iOS version. The team didn’t make much of an effort in adopting Android’s design philosophy and the iOS-style buttons feel a bit out of place. Nevertheless, we took the app for a spin and it performs admirably on a Galaxy Nexus (see our full review here) running Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich, the app is fluid and stable.
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Ever since the introduction of the aluminium unibody iMac line in 2009, Apple’s all-in-one personal computers have remained the same externally. Nevertheless, the series had received annual refreshes with faster processors and graphics units, with the most recent mid-2011 iMacs also receiving Thunderbolt ports.
Well recent rumors suggest that the 2012 iMacs will receive a redesign as well, making them slimmer and lighter than the current models. AppleInsider is claiming that the new iMacs will more closely resemble the footprint of today’s most popular LED televisions.
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The Olympus OM-D E-M5 is already shipping in Asia and we’ve seen the first unboxing photos here. We had high hopes that the rest of the world would be receiving their new Micro Four Thirds wonders soon as Amazon UK had been listing the E-M5′s shipping date as April 1st.
Well, April 1st is now history and Amazon UK has been sending emails to early pre-orderers letting them know that the new shipping date is now April 23rd — unfortunately that’s no April Fool’s. We’ve received the below email from Amazon:
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A survey done by ChangeWave Research on the new 3rd generation iPad has revealed some interesting tidbits, though we have to foreword this by saying that the company has polled a mere 200 new iPad owners, which is a pretty small sample if you consider that Apple has sold more than three million new iPads in the initial release weekend.
According to the survey more than four out of five people polled (82% to be exact) have said that they are very satisfied with the new iPad, compared to 74% for the iPad 2. Only 2%, or four people, have said they are somewhat dissatisfied.
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Camera makers load their goods with moiré-busting anti-aliasing (AA) filters, however these low-pass filters come with a big caveat. You see they are placed in front of the camera’s sensor and work by slightly blurring the image in order to avoid moiré and aliasing effects at the cost of resolution and sharpness.
It seems that Canon has chosen a pretty strong AA for its latest full-frame shooter, the 5D Mark III, which is bad news for videographers and lovers of sharp stills. Nikon offers two versions of the competing D800, the D800E flavor has a weaker anti-aliasing filter than the standard model, but Canon fans are pretty much stuck.
Now you’d think that a weak low-pass filter leaves you at the mercy of moiré, but in reality these patterns are not as common as they are made to be and we’ve seen the benefits to resolution of a weak anti-aliasing filter in our real world review of the Fujifilm X100 here.
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While the rest of the world is still holding its breath for the Olympus OM-D E-M5 digital camera, the Micro Four Thirds shooter has already started shipping in Asia.
A lucky Flickr user, Zetton Nara, just got his silver 12-50mm kit lens version delivered and was kind enough to post a couple of shots from the unboxing process.
You can check the full set of drool-worthy photos here, including a pairing of the E-M5 with the Olympus Four Thirds 50mm f/2 macro lens seen below.
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There was much hope that a jailbreak for A5 and A5X devices, that’s the iPhone 4S, iPad 2 and the 3rd generation iPad, running iOS 5.1 would materialize soon after the new iPad’s release. After all, just a few hours following the official release of the new iPad three different jailbreak methods were demonstrated and confirmed.
Two weeks later and there haven’t been any updates on a public release of a jailbreak yet. Now it would seem that we might still be weeks away from a usable public jailbreak for iOS 5.1 and that’s unfortunate news for new iPad (3) owners itching to install Cydia and 3rd party apps on their retina-touting tablet.
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What could be the biggest, and most hilarious, upgrade to Google Maps? Going 8-bit of course! In an ode to console RPGs of yesteryear, and to poke a bit of fun, Google has just added one more view option to Google Maps, called Quest. By selecting this, your neighborhood and the entire world goes 8-bit Dragon Warrior-style.
Most famous landmarks are still there, like the Pyramids, the Taj Majal, Mount Rushmore, the Parthenon, Mount Fuji, the Eiffel Tower and there’s even a UFO in Area 51.
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Do you remember that amazing interactive (and multitouch) version of Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” by Petros Vrellis? Well it has now become an iPad app, so that you can literally interact with the paintings brushstrokes and watch them flow and whirl around.
The app is compatible with the iPad 2 and the new 3rd generation iPad. It’s $1.99 from the App Store and was created using openframeworks, similar to the original PC version that was demonstrated earlier. The app allows you to change the music and the animation speed and touching the painting not only affects the particle animation but also the music.
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