Google I/O 2012 Live

Today sees the Google I/O 2012 Keynote address kicking off at Moscone West where we should see the latest version of Google Android aka JellyBean revealed. The event may also hold a surprise announcement of a new 7-inch Nexus Tablet. The event is being streamed live, so come back here at the times below to watch things unfold.

Pacific – 9:30 AM
Mountain – 10:30 AM
Central – 11:30 AM
Eastern – 12:30 PM
London – 5:30 PM
Tokyo – 1:30 AM (June 28)
Sydney – 2:30 AM (June 28)

Apple are the Smart Ones !

Something compelled me to write this article today… I shall tell you what it was… it was information overload coming out of Mobile World Congress and it made me smile. When I am touting an iPhone 4S people brand me as an Apple fanboy, put an Android based mobile phone in my hand and now I am a Google fanboy. What I have come to realise is that I can happily sit on the fence just enjoying my technology… watching in as everyone goes into a mad frenzy about the latest tech. For the most part I am very quiet and that is what made me smile.

Time after time, Apple play this same strategy, they are cunningly quiet. They do it around the time of the Consumer Electronics Show, Mac World and of course Mobile World Congress. Never do they rush to market with something, they just quietly watch on, making digital notes (on their iPad 3), ticking the relevant boxes that ensure they remain one step ahead.

We have just been treated to details of Quad Core mobile phones, alongside new tablet devices, from all the manufacturers. You can bet against me if you wish, but Apple have already got their iPad 3 and iPhone 5 ready in the wings, they just watch on and tweak almost ready designs, so that when they launch it beats all these new devices AGAIN. They are the smart ones… that is what keeps them at the top of their game.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 Launched

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd introduces its first line-up of tablets for 2012 with the launch of the Galaxy Tab 2 series, further expanding the choice of Samsung tablets available to consumers. The Galaxy Tab 2 series includes both a 7” and a 10.1” version and will be available in the UK from March onwards.

 

The Galaxy Tab 2 series, available in both 3G and WiFi, are light weight and portable. The larger Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1) is well-suited for those that like to carry a larger screen or for use at home and by all the family.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 Launched

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd introduces its first line-up of tablets for 2012 with the launch of the Galaxy Tab 2 series, further expanding the choice of Samsung tablets available to consumers. The Galaxy Tab 2 series includes both a 7” and a 10.1” version and will be available in the UK from March onwards.

 

The Galaxy Tab 2 series, available in both 3G and WiFi, are light weight and portable. The Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) is ideal for people that like to carry pocket sized devices.

Photos & Specifications just below;

FLASH KICK in London [Project Teamwork - GALAXY Note]

"A football match has just broken out at London Victoria Station." 

Watch to see how four footballers use fancy footwork, along with the brilliant screen and innovative S Pen of the Samsung GALAXY Note, to transform a routine commute into a spectacular event for Londoners. 

Check out more Project Teamwork videos from Samsung Mobile and ESPN at 
http://www.espn.com/projectteamwork

Blackberry PlayBook OS 2.0 Features

This week at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) will be previewing new features of BlackBerry® PlayBook™ OS 2.0 that will enable customers to stay even more connected and productive in their personal and professional lives. 

 

“BlackBerry PlayBook is already recognised for delivering powerful performance, true multi-tasking, advanced web browsing and HD multimedia in an ultra-portable design,” said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at Research In Motion. “With BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 we are building on this strong foundation, as well as leveraging our strengths in communications, social integration and productivity, to allow people to use their BlackBerry PlayBook in new ways throughout the day.” 

 

CES 2012 attendees who visit the BlackBerry booth at CES (South Hall 3 Booth # 30326) will get a sneak peek of upcoming BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 functionality including:

 

Advanced Messaging Experience: 

• New unified inbox - a powerful unified inbox within the built-in messaging app allows users to quickly manage their personal email and work email accounts as well as the messaging capabilities of popular social networking sites like Twitter®, LinkedIn® and others – all in one place.

• Multi-tasking within email – by extending the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet’s multitasking capabilities to ‘tabbed email’, users are able to reference one email while they compose another.

• Rich-text email composing and editing – new features within the Messages app enable users to benefit from full support of fonts, formatting and editing of email threads, offering a robust email experience similar to that of a PC or laptop.

• Inbox management tools – allows for powerful inbox search across multiple email accounts, as well as the ability to set out-of-office messages and email signatures directly from their tablet.

 

Deep Integration of Social Relationships: 

• Innovative people-centric calendar – in addition to standard calendar features that help users plan and organise their day, the powerful built-in Calendar app provides the unique ability for users to view their calendar by who they are meeting with that day and review valuable information about that contact. Information is consolidated automatically from social networking sites about that contact and/or their company.

• Relationship-centric contacts app - more than just an address book, the new built-in Contacts app serves as a social hub - merging and consolidating information from multiple sources (including email and social channels) into one contact file for each person in their address book.  Each contact file includes information such as recent status updates, conversations, related news articles and mutual contacts that are kept up-to-date automatically. 

 

Making Your BlackBerry Smartphone and Tablet a Powerful Pair:

• Remote control for the BlackBerry PlayBook – new BlackBerry® Bridge™ features allow a user’s BlackBerry® smartphone to act as a keyboard and mouse for their BlackBerry PlayBook – effectively providing a wireless remote control for their tablet. Perfect for pausing a movie when a BlackBerry PlayBook is plugged in to a TV with an HDMI connection, or for using the tactile QWERTY keyboard on a BlackBerry smartphone to compose a message or document on the BlackBerry PlayBook.

• Opening content on the BlackBerry PlayBook – BlackBerry Bridge allows you to take documents, emails, multimedia files and web pages found on your smartphone and open them quickly and directly on the BlackBerry PlayBook so you can use the larger high resolution display for an optimised viewing and editing experience.

 

Improved Mobile Productivity: 

• Updated document editing capabilities - updated Documents To Go® functionality makes it easier for users to create and edit documents while on the go. Improvements include: enhanced support for the virtual keyboard, the ability to view and update embedded charts and chart sheets within spreadsheets, a new formula wizard with over 100 functions as well as the ability to edit presentations including text, bullets and formatting.

• Print To Go application - this app allows users to wirelessly “print” from their laptop or PC directly to their BlackBerry PlayBook over Wi-Fi®. A digital printout is created on the BlackBerry PlayBook so that users can view, sort and manage their digital printouts as though they were physical sheets of paper. The Print To Go app is the perfect way to consolidate info from various related sources like a hotel web confirmation, an airline boarding pass email, the show event schedule or even a map of the destination city and make them available for quick access on the go.

• Increased control and manageability of corporate data – the combination of BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 with BlackBerry Mobile Fusion and BlackBerry Balance will help to overcome many barriers to widespread tablet deployment, including device manageability and the ability to secure, manage and control confidential corporate information on the device. Plus BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 supports dedicated shelf space inside the BlackBerry® App World™ storefront to allow IT departments to control distribution of enterprise applications and to make those approved enterprise applications easily available to the organisation’s end users.

 

New Apps and Content: 

• Your favorite apps plus thousands more - many exciting new applications built for the BlackBerry PlayBook will be made available on BlackBerry App World with the availability of BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0. From gaming and lifestyle to business and productivity, RIM is showcasing some of the latest apps available for the BlackBerry PlayBook at CES 2012 including Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, Groupon, Thomson Reuters, Zinio and many more.  

• Video store – a catalog of thousands of movies and TV shows will be available through the integrated BlackBerry Video Storefront* with new releases to be made available for purchase or rent the same day they come out on DVD. Users will be able to begin watching media as soon as they start to download the file, so users won’t have to wait for the entire file to transfer before they can enjoy great entertainment on the tablet’s high resolution display, or on an HDTV via the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet’s HDMI output.

• Enhanced web browsing - the BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 browser also includes a new reading view, which is designed to make web sites even easier to enjoy by eliminating page clutter at the touch of a button. What’s left is a cleaner format that is great for reading online news articles, blog posts, or websites that contain heavy amounts of text.

 

Availability

The BlackBerry® PlayBook OS 2.0 software update will be available as a free download for all BlackBerry PlayBook users and is expected to be available in February 2012.

OLPC Tablet for $100 - yes please!

One Laptop Per Child will be showing their $100 tablet at CES 2012 and I must admit it looks like they have done a superb job. The XO 3.0 integrates a 1GHZ Marvell Armada PXA618 system-on-a-chip, which should deliver good performance at a very low cost. It should also eek out 8-10 hours of battery life. Check the full rundown here. [Source: CNET] [Photo: OLPC]

BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 to be shown at CES 2012

When I unboxed the BB Playbook I knew the hardware was rather special. The review that followed (see below) left me wanting more from the OS. A long wait followed, but nothing, nada, zilch. However, I was so happy to read this article from Engadget citing that the long overdue OS 2.0 will be shown at CES 2012. Now I am excited and need to get me another Playbook in and wait for them to push the OS out hopefully first quarter of 2012. [Source: Engadget]

Samsung Galaxy Note gets UK Launch Date

Following the recent global launch at IFA, Samsung has today announced that the latest device to join its Galaxy range, the Galaxy Note, will be available in the UK on 17^th November 2011. 

Simon Stanford, Managing Director, Mobile, Samsung UK and Ireland said: “We’re delighted with the overwhelming reception the Galaxy Note has received since it was announced earlier this month and are looking forward to offering Samsung customers a whole new smartphone experience. The Galaxy Note is a great example of Samsung’s passion for innovation by bringing to market a brand new category of mobile products. It is our fastest handset to date and brings together all the benefits of our award-winning smartphone technology and services.”

The Galaxy Note combines the benefits of a notebook with the portability of a smartphone. Thanks to its 5.3” HD Super AMOLED screen, the largest, highest quality display available in any phone, consumers can view movies, photos, and documents, as well as play games on the device with crystal-clear clarity.

Not only that, an advanced pen-input technology called the S Pen and a full touch screen mean owners of the Galaxy Note can easily create and consume more content whilst on the go, with minimum scrolling and screen transitions. With a 1.4GHz dual-core processor, the Galaxy Note is Samsung’s fastest handset to date, combined with HSPA+ enabled super-fast connection means there’s immediate access to content and increased download speeds for streaming videos in real-time or chatting with friends online.

The Samsung Galaxy Note will be available in the UK across major networks, key high street and out of town electrical retailers and online.

Samsung Galaxy Note - Check this out

Samsung Galaxy Note - Truly Smart [video].

I love the design of the Samsung devices and really hope I can bring you a review of this as soon as it becomes available.

What makes the Samsung Galaxy Note truly smart? Perhaps it's the enormous 5.3" screen and 8mp camera. Or maybe its Super HD Amoled crispness, ensuring you never miss a detail, not even a cats whisker. 

Or maybe it's the minimum scrolling and screen transition, which ensures minimum efficiency when switching between applications. It could also be the 1.4 Ghz Dual Core Processor powering the whole thing. Either way, put all these ingredients together and you have a smartphone like no other - The Samsung Galaxy Note. Truly smart.

A message from Paul Hunter, Head of HP PSG UK and Ireland

There’s no denying that it’s been a strange week at HP. I’ve spent 16 years with HP in the UK and I certainly can’t remember a time like it. But change happens, and I fundamentally believe that HP and PSG are stronger following the announcements surrounding webOS and PSG.

 

I’d like to firstly clear up any misunderstanding that has arisen from the earnings announcement around the future of the Personal Systems Group. There have been a number of incorrect stories saying that HP is quitting the PC business.

 

Let me be absolutely clear in saying that at no stage has HP said it is quitting the PC business. Three options are being investigated, and whether the company is spun off, sold or kept in the HP portfolio, the team in the UK remains committed to creating and supporting great products and services.

 

I’d also like to reaffirm our commitment to our UK customers regarding both PC products and those that bought webOS devices. HP is the world’s largest PC manufacturer. We are the number one PC manufacturer in UK and Ireland. HP PSG UK is only going in one direction, forwards and that means customers can have confidence that existing HP products will be supported under the terms of their warranties as will any future purchases. Likewise, all webOS products will be supported and HP fully intends to support the future development of the webOS platform, though again how that will be managed is still under discussion.

 

Obviously the announcement has raised a number of questions outside those mentioned above. We are still working through some of these, but I wanted to try and address as many as I could.

 

Regarding PSG activity in the UK, it’s very much business as usual. Actually, it’s more than business as usual. PSG is a $40B annual business. We operate in 170 countries and have more than 180,000 channel partners. Whatever the future strategy, we have a mission and responsibility to all of our employees, customers and partners to continue to deliver fantastic products. To that end, you will see a ramping up of marketing and advertising activity in the UK as we look to raise awareness of our great products ranges like ENVY and TouchSmart for consumer and Elite and ProBooks for business users.

 

Another obvious question is why has HP decided to stop supporting webOS hardware devices. Due to market dynamics, significant competition and a rapidly changing environment, continuing to execute our former device approach was not in the best interest of HP and HP shareholders. HP is fully committed to the ongoing support and service of customers who purchased webOS devices.

 

I know that questions will remain, and I will do my very best to answer these as and when they arise. I apologize that we have been slow to answer some of the questions around webOS. The sheer scale of interest in the discounted products took us a little by surprise. We are now working on ensuring everyone that owns a webOS device has a positive experience.

 

And that is my focus now; to ensure each and every interaction with the PSG UK business, be that from a customer, reseller, partner or journalist is a positive one. These are changing but exciting times. My UK team and I are fully committed to leading this world class business to a new and prosperous future.

 

Very best regards

 

Paul Hunter on behalf of the UK and Ireland PSG management team

Samsung Galaxy Tab - Thinner

This is my favourite video of the three, really liking the look of this device. Thinner Than Ever Before. 8.6mm is not a lot of space to work with even in the best of conditions, but the Samsung Galaxy Tab does what other tablets can only dream of, twice as fast, in the sleek design you've come to expect of all Samsung Galaxy Tabs. Just remember to keep a pencil handy if prying hands are to be kept at bay...