The changes will start with the lockscreen, which has apparently lost its glossy, semi-transparent time and date pane and replaced it with a solid black bar, while the PIN code keypad has been supposedly updated with black, round buttons with simple white text and borders.

Notifications have changed too, it’s said, both in the lockscreen – where there are believed to be new gesture controls – and in the drop-down notification pane, which will be white text on black and include shortcut controls for commonly-accessed settings such as airplane mode, in addition to new widget-style panes.

The iOS 7 homescreen will reportedly gain panoramic wallpapers, as on Android phones and tablets, and the iconography lose the lighting effect in favor of flatter graphics.

However, while previous leaks suggested Apple could push back updating some of its core apps in iOS 7 so as to finish up the UI changes, potentially staggering the refresh into early 2014, the new sources claim WWDC 2013 will see just about every aspect of the platform modified. The new app icons will each have a different key color, carried through into the apps themselves: “a white base with a respective color theme” as 9to5Mac describes it.

The overarching theme will be flatness, it’s said, with Apple’s designers supposedly more comfortable with the idea of leaving backgrounds as plain white, rather than using some sort of texture image. That will extend to Mail, Calendar, Maps, Messages, and Notes, among others, though the exact degree of changes is said to vary. Those most modified will include Safari, the Camera app, Weather, the App Store, Newwstand, and Game Center, it’s said.

According to multiple leaks, it’s all-hands-on-deck within Apple to get iOS 7 ready in time for WWDC 2013 next month. The company has apparently shifted coders from the Mac OS X team to the iOS division, so as to address all the changes Ive has been instrumental in pushing, though it’s said that the goal is now to get the iPhone version finished first before the iPad version.

Ive’s goal for the iOS 7 changes is apparently to reduce the speed at which he fears the platform will date. Insiders at the firm have said that the designer has been increasingly present across all software department meetings, often only listening to the topics of discussion, but generally involving himself far more in iOS design than in previous iterations.

That strategy has potential. iOS’ interface has seen relatively little change since it was first revealed on the original iPhone, and while the decisions Apple took at the time – to ease users into the concept by borrowing physical metaphors like yellow legal pads for Notes, complete with torn paper edges – may have helped make it one of the most approachable platforms, they’re seeing increasing criticism since many users have never encountered the real-world equivalents of the design.

Meanwhile rival software like Microsoft’s Windows Phone and the latter versions of Google’s Android have followed more “authentically digital” paths for their appearance, which has led to suggestions that iOS is comparatively dated. Nonetheless, given the large – and vocal – userbase familiar with iOS and the idea that they can upgrade their iPhone or iPad from one year to the next without having to re-learn how to use them, Apple must tread a careful line not to throw out that familiarity along with the chintz.

We’ll be at WWDC 2013 to see all the changes Apple has made, and will be liveblogging the opening keynote on Monday, June 10.

For instance, Nokia claims HTC infringes its patent on the video encoding/decoding with Android’s VP8 codec, something FOSS Patents suggests might even force Google to look instead to H.264 which may be more legally palatable. H.264 would involve royalties, but at least avoid wholesale import bans of the sort which Nokia is chasing.

“We began actions against HTC in 2012 to end the unauthorized use of our proprietary innovations and technologies” Nokia said in a statement on the newly added patent action. “Since then, despite the German courts confirming infringements of Nokia patents in HTC products, HTC has shown no intention to end its practices; instead it has tried to shift responsibility to its suppliers. We have therefore taken these further steps to hold HTC accountable for its actions.”

Last month, Nokia alleged that the high-amplitude microphone HTC used in the One breached an exclusivity agreement the Finnish firm has with supplier STMicroelectronics. However, despite Nokia’s claims, HTC protested its own ignorance about the existing deal the component maker had, arguing that the injunction did not impact the One.

Back in March, meanwhile, HTC was hit with a German injunction over power saving technologies used by its Qualcomm chipset. The company opted to disable the feature – which it said was “trivial and contributes only a negligible reduction in power-consumption” – as “a precaution against any attempt by Nokia to extend the scope of the judgment unfairly.”

Meanwhile, a second suit filed at the US District Court for the Southern District of California San Diego covers three patents which Nokia also alleges infringement on, by the HTC One and HTC First “Facebook Phone” as well as eight others.

We’ve asked HTC for a comment and will update when we know more.

VIA: AllThingsD; FOSS Patents; ZDNet

The retailers claim that Microsoft has begun briefings this week on how the trade-in situation will be run, since it will be more complex than the existing process for Xbox 360 discs. According to the store chatter, Microsoft will require each retailer wanting to deal in pre-owned games to integrate its systems with an Azure-based cloud database, which will keep track of which titles Xbox One gamers have registered.

When a gamer wishes to trade in a game, it will be logged on the Microsoft database and removed from their account. The Xbox One will be required to check into Microsoft’s servers at least once every 24hrs, with sold titles automatically deauthorized from where they’ve been installed on the console’s hard drive.

By running all transactions through the cloud system, Microsoft and the publisher of the game will automatically get a percentage of the resale figure. Exactly what that cut will be – and what price the retailers will be selling the games for – is unclear; MCV’s sources indicate that stores will be able to set their own figures, but Console Deals‘ sources suggest that Microsoft will permit at most a 10-percent discount from the game’s recommended retail price (RRP).

Microsoft has declined to comment specifically on any of the possible systems for used games sales. “While there have been many potential scenarios discussed, we have only confirmed that we designed Xbox One to enable our customers to trade in and resell games at retail” the company told MCV. “Beyond that, we have not confirmed any specific scenarios.”

Nonetheless, if the leaks are true, the policies are unlikely to meet with a positive reaction from gamers and – as Don Reisinger wrote earlier this week – could give some cause to rethink upgrading to the new console. Microsoft has said that there won’t be a cost involved if you take a game to play on a friend’s Xbox One, as long as you are logged in with your own Xbox LIVE profile; however, you will not be able to loan them the game (to play registered to their own profile), as there will be a fee involved to unlock it.

Tackling the pre-owned games market – and, more importantly perhaps, monetizing it – has been one of the key goals with next-gen consoles. Sony has also confirmed that the PlayStation 4 will support used games, but is also yet to detail the process around that, and whether it will follow a similar approach to that which Microsoft is rumored to be following.

The comments were made on Thursday this week, at a pre-trial hearing to decide on aspects like expert witnesses along with how long the case was expected to last. However, Justice Cote made waves by announcing that she had already been working on the draft of the final written decision – which would be published after the trial had been completed – and agreeing to give participants an insight into which way she is already leaning.

“I believe that the government will be able to show at trial direct evidence that Apple knowingly participated in and facilitated a conspiracy to raise prices of e-books,” the judge said, “and that the circumstantial evidence in this case, including the terms of the agreements, will confirm that.”

Cote described her stance as a “tentative” view of the case, pointing out that it had been based for the most part on evidence the DoJ had submitted. However, it did not take into account affidavits submitted both by the DoJ and Apple.

Unsurprisingly, Apple isn’t impressed by Cote’s comments. “We strongly disagree with the court’s preliminary statements about the case today,” lawyer Orin Snyder said, going on to suggest that Apple’s own evidence would sufficiently counter that of the Justice Department. “We look forward to presenting our evidence in open court and proving that Apple did not conspire to fix prices,” he concluded.

The Cupertino firm is the final hold-out in the case, after the five publishers agreed at various points over the past year to cough up penalties. Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, and Hachette Book Group all rolled over immediately, followed by Pearson in December 2012, and MacMillan in February.

Justice Cote’s early stance is being interpreted by some as an attempt to pressure Apple into settling, likely without necessarily accepting blame; MacMillan, for instance, said that it had capitulated “because the potential penalties became too high to risk even the possibility of an unfavorable outcome.”

Apple’s deeper war chest may make it a tougher nut to crack that way, however. Apple CEO Tim Cook is expected to appear to give evidence, among others, after the DoJ convinced the court that his conversations with Steve Jobs give him unique insight into the case.

It comes perhaps as a surprise, given YouView is arguably the closest in principle of the UK TV services to Microsoft’s interpretation of live and on-demand content. Launched a year ago, YouView pairs Freeview+HD service – free-to-air digital television in up to HD quality – with on-demand shows streamed from services like BBC iPlayer, Channel 4′s 4oD, and Now TV over the user’s internet connection.

The Xbox One will integrate some of those services itself, in addition to relying on external hardware. The console has an HDMI input as well as an HDMI output, meaning a cable, satellite, or other set-top box can be piped through; an IR blaster handles controlling the channels, with Xbox One users able to search by voice for specific shows or channels and have the console change to them automatically.

“Microsoft is committed to bringing live TV through various solutions to all the markets where Xbox One will be available” Microsoft

What YouView’s decision not to support Xbox One – at least for the moment – means is not entirely clear, though it could lead to the console being unable to incorporate YouView boxes’ channels into its own program guide.

In fact, Microsoft has already confirmed that live TV functionality on the Xbox One will be limited to North America initially. “Live TV with Kinect navigation, Live TV with OneGuide, Trending, and NFL on Xbox available in US at launch” Microsoft said of the console, adding that it was “anticipating global scale over time.”

Exactly how well Xbox One will work with DVRs remains a lingering question, given the rudimentary control system – relying on an IR blaster – is one-way only, and the console has no way of knowing what’s actually recorded on the set-top box. One possibility is that Microsoft could offer its own recording system, extending the Game DVR feature which can be used to capture and share gameplay, and making it work on live TV. However, Microsoft has refused to be drawn on whether that will be the case.

The new version of the ET66 sticks to the tried and tested design of the original. That means the round, convex buttons with a single function per key, as well as a slide-off protective cover.

In fact, the ET66 was only the best-known refinement of Rams’ original design, created with Dietrich Lubs. Their first attempt was the ET22, which had the round glossy buttons but used a more complex array of switches and keys under the display.

The ET22 was then refined over a few generations, and eventually the ET66 was born. By that point, all non-circular controls had been ousted, and where before there’d been a spray of controls, now there were only power on/off keys. It wasn’t the only variant, mind; Braun also developed the E33, ET44, and ET88 along the way.

The reissued ET66 will go on sale in August 2013, priced at $49. It’s part of a range of retro/minimalist designed watches, clocks, and other gadgets that the company brought to Basel 2013.

VIA Core77

According to Microsoft’s Matt Booty, General Manager of Redmond Game Studios and Platforms, the remote processing works because not every element of gameplay is “latency-sensitive” and so doesn’t need to be handled by the local console. While elements like collisions and attacks might need to happen instantly, others – such as cloth motion for characters’ clothes, fluid dynamics, and physics modeling – are no less compute-intensive but don’t have the same urgency.

“Let’s say you’re looking at a forest scene and you need to calculate the light coming through the trees, or you’re going through a battlefield and have very dense volumetric fog that’s hugging the terrain. Those things often involve some complicated up-front calculations when you enter that world, but they don’t necessarily have to be updated every frame. Those are perfect candidates for the console to offload that to the cloud—the cloud can do the heavy lifting, because you’ve got the ability to throw multiple devices at the problem in the cloud” Matt Booty, Microsoft

That sort of work can be handed over to the cloud, Microsoft has decided, though there’ll be a balancing of local and remote handiwork depending on when the results are needed. For instance, the Xbox One will likely do the initial processing when the scene changes, Booty explains, before the cloud takes over and begins feeding data over the internet connection.

For those without a persistent connection – or with an unstable one – it will likely mean a reduction in some of the visual gloss, or at the very least the Xbox One’s 8-core processor working harder to catch up. Booty wouldn’t be drawn on what Microsoft’s exact policy is in that case – saying only that “the game is going to have to intelligently handle that” – but presumably there will be a minimum level of detail that gamers can expect.

Microsoft’s approach to the cloud is markedly different to that of Sony and the PS4. There, the new PlayStation will use cloud processing to enable backward-compatibility with PS3 games, since – like the Xbox One – the next-gen console introduces a change of core architecture and so won’t work directly with old discs.

Sony will use its Gaikai acquisition to do that, with the cloud in effect creating a virtual PS3 and then communicating the gameplay over the PS4 owner’s internet connection. The Xbox One, meanwhile, will not place such a priority on backward compatibility, with Microsoft recently arguing that only around 5-percent of gamers play last-gen games on their new console.

Instead, there’ll be lingering support – and new games – for the Xbox 360, with a fresh batch of titles promised for E3 2013 alongside more details of the line-up for the new Xbox One. Microsoft is yet to detail the Xbox One release date, or indeed to confirm what will happen to the Xbox 360 when the new console hits store shelves.

The issue of backward compatibility of next-gen consoles is something that has been hotly discussed over the past few months, as gamers try to decide whether to consider brand loyalty when they upgrade from their existing console, or indeed if they should jump ship to more casual gaming, such as on a tablet. That’s led to some interesting hoop-jumping, as companies attempt to deliver retro support while still push the envelope with new technology.

Sony, for instance, opted to go with a cloud gaming system for the PlayStation 4 which runs PS3 titles on remote servers and then delivers the content via the gamer’s internet connection. The same technology will also funnel PS4 games to the PS Vita, as part of Sony’s attempt to more tightly integrate the ecosystem.

That’s not apparently something Mattrick thinks is particularly necessary, at least based on Microsoft’s research into how many people play old games on new hardware. In fact, only around 5-percent of people do that, he claims, arguing that if Microsoft spent time and effort on building it into the Xbox One, it could potentially mean compromises in other areas which would in fact have more impact on a greater number of gamers.

What Microsoft will, in fact, use the cloud for is offloading some of the Xbox One’s processing. Elements like background textures can be rendered remotely on the Xbox LIVE infrastructure and then delivered over the internet to the console, leaving its own 8-core processor and AMD graphics free to focus on more obvious visual glitz.

Instead, there’ll be lingering support – and new titles, some at E3 2013 – for the Xbox 360, so it might be worth reconsidering trading in your old console for an Xbox One if there are some classics in your collection you can’t do without. Exactly how much of a turn-off having to build a game library from scratch will be to Xbox One buyers remains to be seen.

“OLED on silicon may be used for glasses-type, augmented-reality devices much like the Google Glass” CEO Kim Ki-nam said during a SID keynote this past week. “The wearable market will be a major beneficiary of the free-form factor advantage of flexible OLEDs. Smartphone-linked wearable accessory products such as watches and health bands will use ultra-thin flexible OLEDs embedded with various sensors.”

Samsung has been talking up the potential of flexible OLED for some time, though is yet to commercially deploy the technology. That’s been promised for 2013 under the YOUM brand, however, slightly delayed after Samsung was apparently forced to dedicate the bulk of its production facility to making traditional AMOLED screens for devices like the Galaxy series of smartphones.

Back at CES, the company brought a number of concepts along, some using flexible OLED technology. There, the panels didn’t actively flex, but were instead wrapped around the shell of a device mock-up, and intended for use as an always-on status panel.

The current Glass Explorer Edition, which Google has sold to a limited number of developers for real-world testing and app development, uses a small plastic eyepiece into which the image is projected. Exact technical specifications for the display technology itself have not been shared, though it’s believed to be something along the lines of a transmissive color filter panel backlit with an LED in the headset section, near the camera module.

Switching to OLED would mean Google could do away with the separate LED backlighting, since OLED pixels produce their own lighting. It seems likely that Google would still use the wave splitter eyepiece block, since that allows the “floating” display to be translucent, though it’s worth noting that Samsung has been showing off translucent OLED panels for several years, and has in fact commercialized them on a small scale.

Either way, it would likely be a more compact setup than what is used in the Explorer Edition, as well as potentially more power-frugal. That could make for a lighter, longer-running Glass, something Google has said are key objectives for the consumer version.

Exactly when the mass-market Glass will launch is unclear, though Google chairman Eric Schmidt did suggest that sometime in 2014 is likely. Similarly unknown is how much it will retail for, though Google has been clear that it aims to make the wearable far more affordable than the $1,500 developer version.

VIA: AndroidBeat

EE had been named the Facebook phone’s initial exclusive partner in the UK, with sales expected to start within a few months of the First arriving on US shelves. In the intervening period, however, Facebook released the Home launcher – which the First comes preloaded with – as a free download (for select devices) in the Google Play store.

It’s that software availability – along with middling first-impressions of Home – which is said to have doused expectations around HTC’s device. As we discovered in our review, the hardware isn’t bad, but users will need to be significantly – and pretty much solely – invested in Facebook for their social lives in order to get the best out of Home.

Unofficially, insiders have claimed that HTC was surprised by Facebook’s release decision for the Home launcher, the original plan having been to stagger the availability. That would have left the First with a period of market exclusivity, as the only way for Facebook fans to get their hands – officially, anyway – on the system.

We’re waiting to hear back from HTC and EE as to what’s happening in the UK, but the assumption is that the cost of launching a region-specific First variant with EE LTE support was deemed too much given the predicted demand. Whether HTC recycles the design (which was met more positively than the software) for a Home-free version remains to be seen.

The news is the latest in a spate of generally pessimistic chatter around HTC, which has seen several high-profile executives – including the CEO of HTC Asia – leave the company in recent weeks. One high point has been HTC One sales, which according to an unnamed executive at the company have now reached 5m units.

Update: An EE spokesperson gave us the following statement:

“Following customer feedback, Facebook has decided to focus on adding new customisation features to Facebook Home over the coming months. While they are working to make a better Facebook Home experience, they have recommended holding off launching the HTC First in the UK, and so we will shortly be contacting those who registered their interest with us to let them know of this decision.

Rest assured, we remain committed to bringing our customers the latest mobile experiences, and we will continue to build on our strong relationship with Facebook so as to offer customers new opportunities in the future.”

VIA: Mobile News Online; Engadget

The acquisition comes a week after Mankani Power’s first fully-autonomous test flight, with an Airborne Wind Turbine taking off, hovering, generating power, then hovering again before landing safely. The tethered wing flies in large circles, and uses around 90-percent less material than a traditional turbine.

Mankani Power fully-autonomous test flight:

Google began investing in Mankani Power back in 2007, part of a broader R&D project aiming to develop ways of producing power more cheaply than traditional coal-fueled methods. The Mankani Power approach has culminated in Wing 7, which can produce 30kW of power as well as autonomously switching between generation and standby modes.

Take-off involves the AWT being reeled out from the base station “perch”, and then hovering before flying in crosswind. If the wind gets too weak or strong, or the AWT needs maintenance, it can automatically be transitioned back to crosswind hover mode, and then winched back home.

Mankani Power technology demonstration:

“This formalizes a long and productive relationship between our two companies, and will provide Makani with the resources to accelerate our work to make wind energy cost competitive with fossil fuels” Mankani Power said in a statement. “Makani could not have reached this point without the support of the US Department of Energy’s ARPA-E program and the hard work of our talented team, past and present. We look forward to working with our new colleagues at Google[x] to make airborne wind a cost-effective reality.”

Google’s mysterious X labs is the company’s more outlandish thinktank, separate from the mainstream work the rest of the company does on search, Android, and other more immediately commercialized products. The team has also been tipped to be working on autonomous robotic explorers, which could use self-driving car technology with the same kind of Street View photography equipment as used in Google Maps to more comprehensively document the world.

VIA: Bloomberg Businessweek

For US users, and those watching select content in the UK, the new Shazam iPad app can listen out to what’s showing on-screen and pull out extra content. That could be special offers related to advertising, or information on specific shows and actors. The new homescreen will include what TV is being commonly watched in among the music listings, too.

Elsewhere, there’s integrated Rdio streaming – for which you’ll need a subscription – to instantly play back tagged songs, and a world mapping system which can show what’s popular in different locations. Shazam says it’s accurate down to town-level data, in some cases.

Meanwhile, the app can now apparently recognize music in as little as a second, and there’s tagging caching if you’re in an area with a poor data connection, so that you don’t have to re-tag them when you get coverage again. Social options now include email, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

Shazam’s new app is available for iPhone and iPad, though some of the more impressive features only work on the tablet version. As for the Android app, that’s due to get a similar update “in the coming weeks.”

Those tax incentives could amount to as much as $7,500, depending on where the car is registered. Add in California credits some are eligible, and that could knock another $2,500 off the sticker; in fact, GM says, the Spark EV could end up $17,495 if the driver can get all the potential discounts.

Difficulty in getting behind the wheel might be a matter more of finding a showroom with the Spark inside, rather than affording it. Chevrolet’s initial roll-out plans consist of select dealers in California and Oregon; beyond that, it’s not clear which states will get the car next.

As for the lease, that’s $199 per month over the course of three years, after a $999 initial payment and fees, assuming you qualify.

Since range anxiety is likely to be a lasting concern for electric car drivers, the Spark EV works with Chevy’s RemoteLink app that hooks up via Bluetooth with the in-car systems and OnStar; that can re-plan your journey so that you drive via a charging station if you won’t have sufficient power to make it all the way.

That’ll work best with the optional DC Fast Charging – though not quite ready for the June launch – which will allow the Spark to power back up to 80-percent in around 20 minutes. Chevrolet says that, unlike some of its (unnamed) rivals’ cars, the Spark can use DC Fast Charging multiple times during the day without ill-effect. From a 240V supply the car will get to 100-percent in under 7hrs.

As HTC has complained about before, it’s getting sufficient stock that is primarily holding the One back, the executive continues. “Orders are pretty good so far and are still more than what we can supply” the source suggests. “This is partly due to the shortage of components. When the issue is resolved next month, we will have a better idea if it’s doing really well or not.”

Production is set to double this month HTC has already claimed, and April sales figures showed a reassuring upward turn, believed to be primarily down to One performance. The phone was originally intended to release in eighty countries by the end of Q1 2013, but issues sourcing components for the “UltraPixel” camera, among other things, saw that limited to just a handful of locations.

That hasn’t stopped HTC from making bold predictions for Q2. Revenue for the current quarter is expected to reach around NT$70bn ($2.4bn), the company has said, an increase of almost a billion US dollars.

Still, the 5m figure pales somewhat compared to Samsung’s sales figures for its Galaxy S 4. Earlier today, Samsung confirmed that 10m of the latest Galaxy flagships had been sold – though it’s worth noting that Samsung’s numbers count sales to operators and retailers, not to end-users – in the first month of the device’s availability.

Meanwhile, the other phone HTC had high hopes for, the HTC First, has not seen the success expected. Sales are said to have underwhelmed, and sources have even claimed that the First – which runs Facebook Home, a replacement Android launcher focused on information from the social network – was scuppered by Facebook itself, after a last-minute change in strategy that saw the launcher released free in the Google Play market in the same week that the smartphone arrived on AT&T.

In the brief demo video shared on Aireal so far – you can see if from the 0:44 point – a gamer plays a goalkeeper simulator, with balls fired toward them on-screen. The challenge appears to be knocking as many of the balls away, using physical movements tracked by a Kinect; the Aireal sits next to it, firing puffs of air at the player to recreate the sensation of objects impacting.

Disney Research describes the system as creating “interactive tactile experiences in free air”, and it relies on the inherent stability and range of a vortex of air. By spinning the flow of air around the central axis, the blast can be made far more precise and reach further into the room.

The developers – Rajinder Sodhi of the University of Illinois, along with Matthew Glisson and Ivan Poupyrev of Disney Research Pittsburgh – don’t say exactly what the range of the Aireal cannon actually is, only “large distances.” The system is “scalable and inexpensive” they claim, though would presumably need to be made more compact if it wanted to gain living room acceptance.

However, you could easily imagine Microsoft integrating Aireal into a future version of the Kinect sensor bar, which was updated for the Xbox One revealed earlier this week. The new Kinect has more accurate motion-tracking – now capable of identifying not only skeletal movement, but musculature and force, and even measuring heart-rate – as well as advanced microphones for voice control of the next-gen console.

So far, though, attempts to make gaming more immersive have tended to treat the sense of touch with relatively broad strokes. At most, there’s some sort of haptic feedback from vibration of the gamepad; the Xbox One controllers, for instance, have tunable vibration to suit the on-screen action, but harness systems and similar to spread the sensation across the player’s body have generally met with resistance.

Disney Research’s approach – though perhaps less targeted than strapping vibration motors across your torso – does away with the issues of clumsy bodywear, and it could also be used to good effect in media types other than gaming, such as movies and TV shows. Whether that will make it an acquisition target for one of the big game companies remains to be seen.

VIA Geek; ExtremeTech

Elsewhere, there’s an 8-megapixel camera on the back, with an LED flash and HTC’s ImageChip for improved processing; HTC uses an f/2.0 aperture, 28mm lens. The Desire 600 tops out at 720p HD video recording, however, not the 1080p we’re used to seeing. A front 1.6-megapixel camera is there for video calls.

The Desire 600 doesn’t get HTC Zoe, however, the combination stills and video burst system it made a headline feature on the One. Instead, it gets a pared-back Video Highlights system, which cuts together impromptu thirty second video compilations from your content, which can be edited, set to music and themes, and then shared online.

Inside, there’s HTC BoomSound speakers, positioned facing the front for the same sort of impressive audio performance as on the One, and Beats Audio processing too. Connectivity includes dualband HSPA and triband GSM/EDGE – no LTE – along with WiFi b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0 with aptX.

There’s also NFC, GPS, and AGPS, while Russia and the EU will get GLONASS too. Internal storage is 8GB, with a microSD card slot for adding to that, and there are two SIM slots. HTC says both cards can be active at the same time, unlike some other dual-SIM handsets, so you can have calls come in on either account even when you’re using one of them.

The 1,860 mAh battery is good for up to 11.1hrs of 3G talktime, HTC claims, or up to 577hrs of 3G standby. Unlike with the One, it can be removed and swapped out for another, too, something HTC customers have been vocal in requesting.

The HTC Desire 600 will go on sale in Russia, the Ukreaine, and select markets in the Middle East and Asia from early in June. No word on pricing or the possibility of a European or North American version at this stage.

The commercial kicks off with Windows’ Live Tiles, with Siri conceding that iOS doesn’t update its icons like that, and then launches into multi-tasking. The ASUS tablet is shown opening up a sidebar with a second app, again something which isn’t supported on the iPad.

Then it’s time for PowerPoint, since Microsoft apparently can’t imagine a world where a tablet user might not want to throw together some slides. On the ASUS, the presentation can be edited and re-formatted, while the iPad is shown merely scrolling and zooming around in frustration. It’s worth noting that Apple does offer Keynote for iOS, its own PowerPoint alternative, which does allow presentations to be created.

“Should we just play Chopsticks?” Siri concludes, playing out the advert as Microsoft reveals its kicker: how much 64GB versions of both tablets cost. The iPad – Apple’s full-sized version, complete with Retina display – is priced at $699, while ASUS’ Windows 8 tablet is $449.

It’s certainly one of the better adverts Microsoft has put together – at least there’s no random dancing like the Surface tablet commercials the company aired last year – and the use of Siri’s voice (the actual audio files for which Apple licenses) is a sly touch that’s likely to get the fans arguing. Still, Microsoft’s decision to illustrate functionality with PowerPoint seems like a missed opportunity; the business-centric app has little relevance to home users.

Thanks Craig!

With that in place, and the Square app installed, anybody can take a payment from a credit card. Square charges a 3.25-percent transaction fee in Japan, and is promising next-day deposits for “participating banks” and deposits within a week for other banks.

Meanwhile, Square will soon offer Square Wallet functionality in Japan, which will allow for direct payments between accounts, rather than requiring a credit card or cash. Square will also offer businesses the option of using a traditional cash drawer and receipt printer, though the app can send an email receipt by default.

Mobile payments are a growing business, and Japan has been ahead of the curve for some time with cashless options. Cellphones in the country have long been able to use mobile wallet systems, with subscribers able to charge travel, goods, and services to their monthly bill.

Square does not currently offer a Chip & PIN option – where credit or debit cards have an embedded microchip, similar in appearance to a phone SIM card, and the customer must punch in their PIN code to authorize the payment – which is in use in Japan, with the old-fashioned “swipe and sign” process used instead. The company is also working on a system for small payments between friends and family, with Square Cash going into closed beta recently.

The Kindle Fire HD has a 7-inch display running at 1280 x 800 resolution, and packs Bluetooth, dualband WiFi, and an HDMI output. A front-facing camera, 16GB or 32GB of onboard storage, and a battery rated for over ten hours round out the package. In our review, we rated its tight integration with Amazon’s ebooks, multimedia, and other cloud services, assuming you’re a frequent shopper from the retailer.

As for the Kindle Fire HD 8.9, that steps up the display to an 8.9-inch panel running at 1920 x 1200 – more than Full HD. It also has a faster processor, TI’s OMAP4470, though the same connectivity options as the smaller version.

The Kindle Fire HD 7 is up for preorder from the equivalent of $214, while the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 comes in at the equivalent of $284. They’ll ship to those in Ireland and Gibraltar from the UK site; to Austria and Luxembourg from the German site; and to Monaco from the French site.

Back when we reviewed the Fire HD 8.9, we praised its pricing and the consistency of the experience, though as with the Fire HD it’s less well-rounded if you’re not entirely dedicated to Android. Both Kindles are positioned basically as mobile storefronts for the retailer, and since there’s no official Google Play access you’re limited to what third-party apps Amazon allows into its own Appstore.

The jump from seven countries to more than 170 is another sign of Amazon’s growing hardware ambitions. Earlier this month, leaks suggested the company was working on at least two potential smartphones, one of which would use a glasses-free 3D display with eye-tracking for improved performance over previous implementations of the technology.

A Sonos-style music streamer was also tipped, though there’s no guarantee that – even if the products are in development – Amazon won’t axe the projects before they see the light of day.

Update: Amazon has also announced today that its Appstore for Android is now live in “nearly 200 countries”, paving the way for the Kindle Fire HD expansion. The service will also come to Brazil “in the coming months” the retailer says.

As AMD sees it, Temash and Windows is a combination that means the flexibility of a desktop with the performance of a multimedia-centric chipset. The first true AMD SoC, with a choice of dual and quadcore options, Temash offers up to a 212-percent graphics boost-per-watt compared to 2012′ AMD C-70 and up to a 172-percent jump in x86 performance per watt.

However, that doesn’t come with a battery hit, AMD claims, despite offering between 2x and 5x the performance of Intel’s Atom Z2760 in AMD’s testing. A Temash-based system can manage up to 12hrs of idle battery life, or up to 45-percent longer than a Core i3-based Windows tablet.

AMD sprinkles some of its extra feature magic on the new A-series. The A400 gets GPU acceleration for apps, along with native video stabilization; the A600 adds AMD Screen Mirror, which wirelessly squirts the contents of the display to a supported TV, together with gesture controls using the webcam, and AMD Face Login, for biometric security. Both have Radeon HD 8000 series graphics.

Connectivity support includes up to two USB 3.0 ports, up to ten USB 2.0 ports, eSATA, HDMI, PCI Express, VGA, and more. There’s also support for up to 8GB of system memory and AMD’s Turbo Dock system, which boosts performance when a tablet is slotted into a keyboard base station, while prolonging battery life when it’s removed.

Perhaps most impressive, AMD says the sub-5W versions of Temash can be used in fanless systems. We had a chance to play with a Temash-based Windows 8 tablet, and the experience was impressively good: it was a Quanta reference design, the BZ1T, but the Radeon HD 8180 GPU and A4-1200 1GHz CPU were certainly strong enough to keep Full HD video playing smoothly on the 11.6-inch 1920 x 1080 touchscreen.

Inside, there was 2GB of DDR3U-1066 RAM and a 128GB mSATA SSD drive, loaded up with HD content that we could then push over wirelessly to a nearby HDTV with a Screen Mirror-compatible adapter. The whole thing was lag-free.

AMD’s second Temash demo machine was a compact Acer ultraportable, the Angel. That ran Windows 8 on a lightweight touchscreen notebook with a Temash A6-1450 processor and Radeon HD 8280 graphics. Unlike the tablet, the Angel had a traditional 500GB hard-drive inside, but doubled up RAM to 4GB. It was certainly a fast-moving machine, multitasking between office apps and multimedia quickly, though we’d need to spend more time with it to see whether it really does offer a significant step up from the Intel equivalent.

AMD expects the Temash series of APUs to begin showing up in tablets, notebooks, and other form-factors over the coming months.

AMD Kabini

Kabini is AMD’s mainstream platform for portables in 2013, targeting small touchscreen notebooks as well as entry-level laptops. The company is making a big push for battery life, with machines running the new APUs apparently capable of up to 10hrs of resting runtime, or over 9hrs of web browsing. Even playing Full HD 1080p video, they should be good for more than 6hrs of use.

The single-chip SoCs use Jaguar cores with 2MB of shared L2 cache, and come in 9W to 25W TDP variants. Each supports two simultaneous displays of up to 4096 x 2160 resolution, with DisplayPort 1.2, DVI, and HDMI 1.4a output capabilities. Other connectivity includes provision for up to eight USB 2.0, up to two USB 3.0, two SATA Gen2/Gen3, and an SD card reader.

There’s also AMD’s Steady Video technology, for smoothing out jerky camera footage, and AMD Perfect Picture HD, which does real-time processing of on-screen graphics to bring out the best contrast and colors. Compared to last year’s chips, the new Kabini E1, E2, A4, and A6 APUs offer up to an 88-percent boost in performance.

AMD Kabini Mainstream APUs

AMD Richland

As for the performance end, AMD is taking on Intel’s Core i3 and Core it with the new Richland series of APUs, replacing Trinity in the process. They offer up to 71-percent better graphics abilities than the Core i5, AMD claims, while still being capable of over 10hrs resting battery life or 7.5hrs of web browsing.

Compared to Trinity, overall performance is up by up to 19-percent, the company claims, while graphics performance is improved by as much as 40-percent. The A8 gets gesture control and face login, for chip-level biometric security, as well as AMD Screen Mirror for wirelessly pushing graphics to a nearby TV. The A10 throws in game bundles, a strategy AMD has tried with success before, including a number of games with each qualifying PC purchase to show off the abilities of the APUs.

There’s also provision for AMD Dual Graphics, with the onboard GPU in the Richland chips capable of working simultaneously with a discrete GPU from the company’s Radeon HD 7000 or 8000 series. That should make for ultraportables that can still put in some solid gaming, AMD claims.

The first notebooks running AMD Kabini and Richland APUs will show up in the coming months.

AMD Richland Elite APUs

For a more immediate insight into what’s being searched for, however, there’s also the new visualization tool for hot searches. That flicks through the latest queries in Google’s typically luminous colors.

There’s perhaps more to be gleaned from the top trends charts – though the hot searches display might look good as a screensaver – and you can break down the lists by location and date. Interestingly, Google’s results go back to January 2004, when searchers were most interested in Moby, Paris Hilton, and McDonald’s.

In the intervening period, Kim Kardashian has knocked Paris from the top spot, and Pizza Hut has ousted its burger-vending rival. Moby has dropped to fourth place, with Skrillex taking pole position.

Despite diversions like Glass, search still remains Google’s key focus online. Earlier today, the company activated the next generation of “conversational search” for Chrome users, using its Knowledge Graph technology to give inferential search results, among other things.

HTC Asia confirmed Hoornik’s leaving the company to CNET Asia today. It follows a period of two months when the CEO was described as “on leave”; Hoornik has been South Asia President for the company for just over two year, after a period at Sony Ericsson.

According to the company, CFO Chang Chia Lin will be leading the HTC Asia team, until a replacement can be found. The division handles HTC’s smartphone business in Singapore, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines.

Reasons behind Hoornik deciding to leave HTC have not been revealed, but nonetheless it’s another blow to the company. In the US, in addition to Kodera, HTC also lost its VP of global communications, Jason Gordon. Earlier in the year, Global retail marketing manager Rebecca Rowland, product manager Eric Lin, and Worldwide director of digital marketing John Starkweather all resigned.

HTC is yet to comment about the losses – we’re waiting on a statement from the company – though they arguably couldn’t come at a worse time. The firm has staked its future on the HTC One, which has been receiving impressively positive reviews, but struggling to raise its profile above Samsung’s huge marketing budget for the Galaxy S 4.

Meanwhile, HTC is also said to have been stung by Facebook and the Facebook Home launch. The smartphone company had been expecting a period of exclusivity with its HTC First handset, insiders claim, but Facebook hijacked the launch by releasing the free software launcher in the same week.

Update: HTC has given us the following statement:

“HTC can confirm that Lennard Hoornik has left HTC to pursue other interests. We appreciate his contributions to our South Asia efforts over the past year and wish him all the best. HTC’s CFO, Chialin Chang will provide interim leadership in this strategic region while we work to find a permanent solution.”

Anything over 10,000 words will see the author of the fan fiction getting 35-percent of the net revenue, as per Amazon’s existing publishing deal. However, there’s also a new tier for shorter stories – anything between 5,000 and 10,000 words – which will pay the author 20-percent.

The three existing Worlds come from Warner Bros.’s Alloy Entertainment division, but Amazon says that’s only the start of it. The company is in negotiations with rights holders across multiple types of media – TV, movies, books, games, and even music – to try to encourage them to allow authors to borrow their characters.

For those content rights holders, Amazon argues that it’s a no-lose situation, with a fresh way to monetize their characters in addition to reaching out to new audiences. There’ll also be “content guidelines” – drawn up with Amazon – “that balance flexibility and openness for writers with what’s reasonable for the franchise.”

That probably means that some of the more outlandish fan fiction styles out there – particularly those which create unexpected romantic trysts – may not be approved for Kindle Worlds. Amazon has already said that explicit content is not allowed, nor anything excessively graphic, violent, or that includes hate speech of any sort. Interestingly, there’s also a ban on crossover between worlds, so you couldn’t have characters from Gossip Girl interacting with those from Pretty Little Liars.

Fan fiction has proved divisive among authors, with some appreciating the devotion and imagination the generally amateur writers bring, while others have proved less keen. Orson Scott Card, for instance, author of Ender’s Game, has been aggressively anti-fanfic for some time, telling readers back in 2004 that “the time to write fan fiction is ‘never.’”

Nonetheless, the opportunity to squeeze some extra cash from a franchise may prove appealing to rights owners, and for the authors themselves it’s a chance to potentially make some money from a hobby.

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The Scout concept was first shown off late last year, the handiwork of a team at the NASA Ames labs. Held to the forehead, it beams information – including heart rate, skin/core body temperature, oxymetry, respiratory rate, blood pressure, ECG, and emotional stress – over to an app on your phone.

That data, Scanado suggests, could be interesting to a wide range of people. By preempting health issues, it could mean avoiding periods of sickness (and cutting down on medical insurance bills) by treating conditions early; meanwhile, athletes could use Scout to monitor the effectiveness of their fitness regime.

Meanwhile, life-loggers who might be drawn to wearables like Fitbit Flex or Jawbone UP are also a target group for the firm. They’re expected to find the wealth of data – and historical tracking – to be particularly interesting.

As for hardware, full details aren’t specified yet, but there’s Bluetooth 4.0 and apps for Android and iOS. It recharges via microUSB, and Scanadu claims that it’ll last for around a week, if used “a few times a day.”

Of course, any medical-grade device hoping to reach the market in the US needs to get FDA approval, and that’s the stage Scanadu is up to. The company has kicked off an Indigogo campaign to raise $100,000, but also needs early-adopters who will agree to share their data so that it can be used in clinical studies to demonstrate effectiveness.

If it raises its goal amount – and that looks likely, given at time of writing it’s already over $40,000 in – the first units are expected to ship out to backers in March next year. Those in early can get one for $149; when it launches, it’s expected to retail at $199.

Update: As expected, the Scout has already passed its funding goal, with 31 days left to run. More than 50-percent of the $149 units have been taken at time of writing.

That’s not the only improvement, however. The system also supports semantics across repeated searches; so, for instance, if you ask a follow-up question, Google will automatically understand that the two queries are related.

If you ask “When was Ford founded?” for instance, Google will now read out the answer. You can then ask a follow-up like “Where is its headquarters?” and, even though you did not specify you were still asking about Ford, Google will still understand that it’s the topic of inquiry.

At the heart of this contextual awareness is Google’s Knowledge Graph technology, revealed last year, and integrated with natural language processing. That way, search knows that some queries will be about people – perhaps referred to as “he” or “she” in follow-up questions – while others will be about objects or companies.

More impressive are the compound assumptions that search can now make. Ask Chrome if it will rain tomorrow, and it will tell you the forecast (as well as display it on-screen): automatically figuring out where you are, and that you may want a full forecast.

Still absent is so-called “hotword search” as on Google Glass, which allows you to wake the system with a spoken command – “OK Glass” in the case of the wearable – and then begin asking queries. That seems likely to arrive sometime soon, though, especially given Microsoft has built something similar into Xbox One.

Overall, the technology is further evidence of Google’s greater confidence in its own results, and in showing users what it believes they’re looking for rather than just a list of possibilities. That’s something Matias Duarte, director of Android user experience, described to us as a key part of Google Now back at MWC, an endeavor which has applications across Google’s range: desktop, Chromebook, Android, and Glass.

You’ll need to be running the latest version of Chrome in order to get access to the new voice search functionality, and you may have to be patient, too. Google appears to be suffering some teething problems scaling out the system, and we’re getting a lot of “No internet connection” error messages right now.

VIA Engadget; Search Engine Land

There’s a new 1080p camera for video calls, and a new IR camera which can see in the dark; they can be used together to track skeletal and muscular movements, as well as whether the gamer is off-balance. Skin color and transparency can be used to measure heart rate, a feature which Microsoft says it expects to see integrated into exercise and fitness games.

Meanwhile, a new multi-microphone array is apparently even better at locking onto the user’s voice and ignoring background noise. That’s essential for the new speech control systems the Xbox One offers, as well as for use in Skype video calls.

However, the new attentiveness has also worried privacy advocates, who are concerned that Microsoft’s freshly-alert Kinect could be too intrusive in the living room. The camera won’t be removable altogether, Xbox group program manager Jeff Henshaw reiterate CNET, but there will be other ways to ensure the One isn’t listening in.

“The system is designed to have Kinect be an integral part of the experience. It’s not the case where you’ll be able to remove the camera altogether” Henshaw clarified. “But you’ll be able to put the system in modes where you can be completely secure about the fact that the camera is off and can’t see you.”

Henshaw pointed to Microsoft’s existing privacy policy around Kinect, though that’s likely to be updated closer to the One’s launch to take into account the new features of the updated sensor. As it stands, though, the exact nature of the “completely secure” modes is unclear.

Still, what is clear is that Microsoft would prefer for Xbox One owners to keep their consoles active, given the Kinect is vital for waking it from standby with spoken commands, and then using voice to switch between gameplay and TV, as well as search for channels and shows. We’ve more on the Kinect – and Xbox One as a whole – in our full wrap-up of yesterday’s launch event.

Positioned between 6th and 7th Avenues, and in the shadow of the high-rise buildings also intended by Amazon, the proposed structure would have a ground level for retail approached from 7th Ave, while the opposite entrance would open into the floor above, where some degree of retail would also be accommodated. Three further levels above would be filled with fully-grown trees and “living walls” of plant-life.

The new biosphere design is a significant departure from Amazon’s previous approach to the “Rufus 2.0″ block, which was approved before. Then, the retailer had intended a large, block-like structure, hardly unimpressive but certainly more mainstream than the updated vision.

In total, Amazon’s architects, NBBJ, have designed 65,000sf of high-ceilinged space within the structure, with a variety of “botanical zones” being modeled. In all, the project – along with the trio of 37-floor towers – is expected to take a minimum of six years to complete.

Amazon isn’t the only company with ambitious building plans of late. Apple’s spaceship-style “Campus 2″ is a huge undertaking in Cupertino, though the company has recently pared back plans after the project was revealed to be both behind schedule and a whopping $2bn over budget.

VIA: PhysOrg; GeekWire

Rather than building up layers, as per traditional 3D printers, the MATAERIAL system can produce 3D curves. That allows the designer to take into account stress lines, developers Petr Novikov and Saša Jokić from Barcelona’s Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia say, among other things, without any temporary structural support or other load-bearing bracketing required.

Although MATAERIAL’s video shows the 3D printer – mounted, dramatically, on a big industrial robotic arm – producing only a single color, in actual fact there’s support for full color, even changing mid-flow. MATAERIAL can inject CMYK dyes into the path of the building material to adjust the eventual hue without the need for post-printing painting.

Details on the exact material used are scant, but according to Dezeen the rods are made up of thermosetting polymers, a chemical reaction between which causes them to quickly solidify. Regular 3D printers more commonly use thermoplastics.

“The desired shape is created by user in CAD software and then transformed into 3d curves describing the shape which are then converted into movement paths for the robotic arm. The thickness of the printed curve can be scaled down to less than a millimeter and can be adjusted during the printing process, by changing the speed of the movement. Colors can be injected in the nozzle in CMYK mode that allows changing of the curve color throughout the printing process” MATAERIAL

It’s not quite the speedy process as shown in the video in real life; apparently, the footage was sped up by as much as 3x in post-processing. However, roughly one meter of printing takes three minutes, it’s said.

The whole thing is reminiscent of Kickstarter success 3Doodler, which raised over $2.3m for its “3D printer pen” that can be used to sketch out drawings in plastic “ink”. MATAERIAL envisages its system being used for furniture and architectural printing, among other things, though there’s no telling how close to commercialization it all is.

VIA: Core77

Pantech’s other investors include Qualcomm – which holds the largest individual stake, at 11.96-percent of the firm – and the Korea Development Bank, a government-run institution, which comes in just behind at 11.81-percent.

Given the inevitable concerns about anti-competition behavior, what with both Samsung and Pantech being well-known players in the Korean market and abroad, Samsung has been keen to point out that it will be taking a back-seat in how Pantech runs its business. In a statement to The Next Web, Samsung confirmed it would be operating with a hands-off approach.

“The investment is aimed at solidifying our relationship with Pantech, a key component customer of Samsung” the spokesperson said. “Samsung will have no involvement in Pantech’s business management in any way or form.”

Outside of South Korea, Pantech is known best for its more affordable devices, such as the Perception on Verizon we reviewed earlier this month. That device attempts to straddle the mid- and high-end of the mobile market, with a 720p OLED display and 8-megapixel camera, but a sticker price of $99.99 with a new, two year agreement on the carrier.

Both get their power from the iPad, so there are no batteries to switch out or recharge, and since you’re not relying on Bluetooth there shouldn’t be any lost-connection issues either. Logitech has given the Wired Keyboard for iPad full-sized keys, and while they’re low-profile, that should be at least familiar to those coming over from a laptop ‘board.

It’s also spill resistant, capable of shrugging off at most 60ml of liquids (though not of withstanding full immersion). Heavy-handed typists can expect it to handle more than 5m keystrokes.

The layout itself is basically the Mac-usual, with shortcut buttons for brightness, search, media playback, and volume. There’s also a dedicated lock button.

The Logitech Wired Keyboard for iPad will go on sale in the US from August, in Lightning Connector form, while the 30-pin connector version will follow on in October. Both versions will be priced at $59.99, and it’s up for preorder now.

Kodera and Gordon are the latest in a number of staff leaving HTC. Global retail marketing manager Rebecca Rowland left the company in April after more than four and a half years, joining Microsoft as the company’s new visual merchandizing manager; similarly, Eric Lin, who had been product manager at HTC, jumped ship to Microsoft and the Skype team. Worldwide director of digital marketing John Starkweather is another recent departure, now responsible for social and digital marketing at AT&T.

A reshuffle in how HTC makes its strategy decisions could be part of the reason behind the shake-up, it’s suggested, with the company shifting product planning to the Taipei HQ and potentially leaving the Seattle office out of the loop. CEO Peter Chou – who has bet his job on the success of the One – is also said to be a source of frustration, deeply immersed in strategy and product design, and making over-arching decisions with little consultation with the executive team.

However, for whatever internal issues HTC might have, problems with partners also shoulder some share of the blame. According to The Verge’s sources, Facebook had previously intended to release its Home Android launcher at a later date, giving the the HTC-made First smartphone exclusivity in the market. That has led – in part – to reportedly underwhelming sales, with AT&T increasing its subsidy in an apparent attempt to stimulate some demand.

Nonetheless, HTC’s future is about more than just a few high-profile staff looking elsewhere for their next challenge. The company has apparently pushed through its HTC One production issues, with output said to double this month alone, and the unaudited sales figures from April indicated that demand for the flagship was certainly there. HTC has been pushing ahead with cost-cutting, too, axing little-used services like HTC Watch in less popular locations.

The overarching problem remains how HTC can compete with its key Android rival, Samsung, which has a vast marketing budget and a range of phones that appears to grow with new variants every week. Samsung’s tightly integrated supply chain and brand recognition – not to mention its hardware, software, and services ecosystem, which it can afford to highlight with schemes like the media-sharing App Challenge with its $800,000 bounty – make it the company to beat in Android, and HTC’s current strategy of pinpointing key areas with targeted One promotion is yet to demonstrate convincing results.

Update: HTC gave us the following statements, and confirmed that Scott Croyle, VP of Design, will be taking over Kouji Kodera’s duties:

“HTC can confirm that Jason Gordon has left the company. We appreciate his contributions in the past several years and wish him well on his future endeavors. HTC continues to invest in talent and recruitment as part of our broader human resources strategy to ensure the continued strength of our company’s organizational structure.”

“Kouji Kodera has left HTC to pursue other interests. We appreciate his contributions and wish him all the best. Scott Croyle will take over his duties.”

The panel, spotted by Engadget at display-centric expo SID 2013, was being demonstrated as part of a generic smartphone mockup, though Qualcomm was keen to point out that it was not in any sense a final product. In fact, the new screen itself is still a few more years out altogether, with the mirasol team working on the technology.

First impressions even at this early stage seem to suggest that the user-experience of mirasol is little changed, despite the step up in resolution. The reflective display technology – which uses ambient light to make the screen brighter – gives graphics “a silvery tint” Engadget reports, while colors are more muted than on LCD or OLED.

However, it’s the resolution and power consumption that are particularly special. Qualcomm says the new screen consumes 6x less electricity than a comparative LCD or OLED panel, which means longer runtimes off smaller batteries, and overall thinner and lighter phones.

mirasol has been a work-in-progress for Qualcomm for some years. Built upon the same theory that makes a butterfly’s wings iridescent, the technology uses pixels made up of what are effectively tiny mirrors, selectively reflecting light back out of the display according to the primary colors. Unlike LCD screens, which require active backlighting, or OLED, the pixels of which produce their own light, mirasol has no backlighting at all, and is in fact clearer and brighter the more light lands on it. Qualcomm has also produced versions with front illumination, for use in low-light situations.

That makes it ideal for ereaders and low-power phones and tablets, but Qualcomm has struggled to make an impact on those markets. A small number of ereaders have launched with the color e-paper display, but the big sellers in the segment have stuck with monochrome displays from industry heavyweight E Ink. Meanwhile, delays in creating panels capable of showing smooth video playback, and a perception issue caused by the muted colors, has also held back the technology.

It’s mirasol’s production hiccups that have proved most disastrous, however, and are what triggered a rethink by Qualcomm last year. Then, CEO Paul Jacobs said the company was “now focusing on licensing our next-generation mirasol display technology and will directly commercialize only certain mirasol products.”

The fruits of the company’s research include this 5.1-inch screen, along with a 1.5-inch panel which Qualcomm was showing built into a smartwatch concept. The latter may be closer to launch than its bigger sibling; Qualcomm said that it is expected to show up in commercial devices “soon” from third-parties.

Design

The original Xbox 360 design measured in at 310 x 80 x 268 mm, with a slightly concave form-factor; Microsoft offered it in white or black. In mid-2010, the Xbox 360 S shrunk things down, introducing some sharper angles along the way, and offered in matte or gloss black. The most noticeable illumination is the the “ring of light” on the front, with four lit quadrants that show processing or error status.

Above: Xbox 360 in Black and White. Below: Xbox One.

The new Xbox One is an altogether more blocky affair, resembling a traditional Blu-ray player or A/V receiver more than anything else. Microsoft describes it as finished in “deep and rich liquid black” with a beveled edge to add a little eye-candy, but it’s also quite sober. How well it will fit in a world of flat-screen TVs remains to be seen – though they could perhaps stand on top of it – but there’s the possibility to replace at least your Blu-ray player in the A/V rack.

Processor and Graphics

In the Xbox 360, Microsoft used a specially developed PowerPC tri-core Xenon processor running at 3.2GHz, while the graphics were courtesy of an ATI Xenos GPU running at 500MHz and paired with 512MB of 700MHz GDDR3 memory.

The Xbox One kicks things up another level altogether. Microsoft is yet to fully detail the processor, calling it only an 8-core chip based on x86 architecture, and with “more than 5bn transistors”; the graphics, meanwhile, haven’t even been described beyond something custom from AMD with DirectX 11.1 support

However, there’s 8GB of system memory, and Microsoft will use virtualization technology to effectively run three platforms simultaneously. The underlying core is the Windows Kernel, as per Windows 8, while the Xbox OS runs virtually within that; the third platform basically acts as a bridge between the two. That means Microsoft can keep the Xbox OS part stable over the lifespan of the console, giving game developers a consistent platform to code for, while the Windows kernel – where apps like Skype and others will run – can be updated progressively.

Optical Drive

Aside from a short-lived experiment with an external HD-DVD drive, the Xbox 360 has stuck with DVD. That means support for games and movies; games come on dual-layer DVD with up to 7.8GB of space. There’s also regional locking, which is optional for game developers

The Xbox One keeps an optical drive, but here kicks it up to a Blu-ray drive. That’ll be used to install games to the console, too, along with play movies. Unfortunately, what it won’t do is backward-compatibility, so you wont’ be able to load up your old Xbox 360 titles on the new Xbox One.

Storage

In its most recent form, the Xbox 360 offers up to 320GB of hard-drive space, though most used a 250GB drive. The Arcade version has 4GB of integrated flash storage on the motherboard.

The Xbox One goes straight to half a terabyte, with a 500GB internal drive. That space will be vital, however, since games will be installed directly to the onboard storage rather than run from Blu-ray. It’ll mean faster loading, but we’re still not sure how big all the high-res graphics Microsoft and its developer partners are so excited about will be.

Connectivity

When first launched, the Xbox 360 had three USB 2.0 ports; that was increased to five on the Xbox 360 S, as well as a dedicated Kinect port. The refreshed model also has integrated WiFi b/g/n along with a 10/100 ethernet port. HDMI has been included since mid-2007.

For the Xbox One, there are now USB 3.0 ports, with at least five spread around the console. Microsoft has also included wired gigabit ethernet and a digital optical audio output. In addition to an HDMI output, for hooking up your TV or a projector, there’s also an HDMI input, for plugging in your cable TV box or other source.

Unfortunately, despite the focus on TV and multimedia, there are no internal tuners and no CableCard slots. Any source you want to use with the Xbox One must be external, just as Google did with the original Google TV boxes.

Inside, there’s WiFi and WiFI Direct, the latter – in a tweaked way – being used to hook up to the controllers.

Controllers

Microsoft redesigned the Xbox controller for the 360, and it has stuck around since with only a minor refresh in mid-2010. Available in wired and wireless versions, it has two analog sticks and two analog triggers, along with eleven digital buttons and a D-pad. There’s also a USB port – custom-shaped, for the chatpad keyboard – and 2.5mm headphone connection.

Above: Xbox 360 Wireless Controller. Below: Xbox One Wireless Controller.

The new controllers look similar, though with smoothed off edges and a more rounded look. The controls are similar in layout – helping keep things familiar for Xbox 360 upgraders – but there’s now new impulse triggers and an updated “precision” directional pad. The battery is now integrated too, and of course they use WiFi Direct to hook up, rather than a proprietary 2.4GHz link as on the old console.

Kinect

Microsoft introduced the Kinect motion-sensor bar in 2010, an add-on to the 360 to compete with the Wiimote and PlayStation Move. The bar uses a combination of camera and infrared sensors to identify gamers and track their movements; it can simultaneously track up to six people, though only two active players at a time. Twenty joints per active player can be individually monitored, and there’s also voice recognition support.

Above: Xbox 360 Kinect. Below: Xbox One Kinect.

The new Kinect has been significantly redesigned, matching the blunt-sided look of the Xbox One, and getting far more impressive internal abilities. It now has a 250k pixel infrared depth sensor and a webcam, with a wider angle lens. As well as tracking body movement, it can monitor both skeletal and muscle movements. In fact, it’s so sensitive it can even measure the gamer’s pulse, monitoring the pigmentation changes in their face. The microphones are used for the Xbox One’s advanced speech recognition system, which is used to wake the console as well as search for content, switch between TV and gaming, and more.

This battle isn’t over

Just because there’s the Xbox One on the scene, however, that doesn’t mean the Xbox 360 is going anywhere quite yet. “In just a few weeks at E3 we’ll be sharing what’s next for Xbox 360″ Microsoft’s Don Mattrick said at the opening of the event today. We’ll also be seeing a collection of new games and additional functionality from the Xbox One at E3 as well as Gamescom later this year – stay tuned!

Of course, the biggest probability is that “later this year” means in time for the holiday shopping season. That would fit in with rumors we’ve heard before of a November release, certainly.

As for price, that’s also a detail Microsoft is yet to confirm. The current Xbox 360 has an MRSP of $199.99 for the Arcade model or $299.99 for the regular model, but the Xbox One is more likely to come in above that, given the nature of the specifications and the fact that the Kinect will be standard in the box.

Sony is similarly yet to confirm pricing or availability for the PlayStation 4, and it may well be that Microsoft is waiting until it gets more hints from its arch gaming rival to settle on a date.

Still, even if it’s more expensive than the old console, it could well replace a few of your other devices on the A/V rack. The Xbox One has a Blu-ray drive, for instance, as well as on-demand content.

Microsoft didn’t give out too many details about Quantum Break, but the concept is pretty intriguing. The game appears to include live action drama – including a pretty creepy little girl – and then jump into gameplay as the storyline demands it.

We’ve seen ambitious cut-scene video in games before, of course, with mixed results. Often enough, the acting can be cheesy and the plotlines nonsensical; gamers generally want to be able to skip past them as soon as possible.

Remedy Games’ challenge is to change that mindset, and it’s apparently hoping to do that by increasing the amount of drama altogether. We’ll have to wait and see whether the Xbox One can actually achieve that; fast-switching between TV and games is certainly one of the headline features being pushed.

Of course, given the Xbox One’s new Kinect can track more movement and details of the gamers than ever before, there’s also the possibility for those watching to actually jump into the plotline, in hardware at least. We’ll know more when Quantum Break launches on the Xbox One.

It’s the combination of two platforms that Microsoft says makes Xbox One most successful. The on-stage demo certainly looked impressive, with the speech- and gesture-controlled console instantly switching between gameplay and multimedia content.

To recognize that there’ll be a new Kinect sensor bar, which Microsoft will be including in the box with every Xbox One. That has a broader field of view, too, with 1080p Full HD resolution, and can track and identify the users’ voice from across the room.

The Xbox OS will be responsible for games, just as you might expect. However, the Windows core will be used for other apps, such as Skype, and Microsoft will be able to more frequently update it while keeping the Xbox OS stable for game developers to rely upon.

Meanwhile, the new Xbox One platform will be tied closely into Xbox LIVE, which Microsoft says will consist of more than 300,000 servers. That will include a Game DVR feature – complete with editing tools – to upload and share videos of your best achievements in the cloud.

However, it’s the speaker’s social skills that Ultimate Ears is particularly keen to emphasize. The BOOM can connect to two Bluetooth devices simultaneously, allowing music from, say, an iPhone and an iPad to be mixed up into the playlist.

However, it’s also possible to pair two BOOM units together and create a traditional stereo pair. Alternatively, each can carry on pushing out its own stereo output, synchronized across each unit. You’ll need an app to actually do the pairing, however, which is currently available for iOS and Android.

The UE BOOM works as a speakerphone, just as with most Bluetooth speakers, and there’s NFC so that compatible devices can be tapped against the portable to pair them up straight away. Pairing information for up to eight devices can be stored, with a roughly 15m range.

Inside the IPX4-rated water resistant skin there are two 1.5-inch drivers and two 2-inch passive radiators; if you haven’t got Bluetooth on your source device, it can be plugged into a standard 3.5mm stereo input. Ultimate Ears says the UE BOOM will recharge in 3.4hrs via a microUSB charger.

The UE BOOM is expected to go on sale in the US and Europe this month, with select Asia availability in June. It’ll be priced at $199.99.

At Amazon, the Signature Shot Pack will include a special Black Viceroys level in which players will need to infiltrate one of the gangs in the game. There’ll also be an exclusive Black Viceroys outfit for the player’s character.

Over at GameStop, meanwhile, there’ll be the Palace Pack for preorder customers. That will have a different infiltration mission, as well as giving the player the ability to hack ATMs and get more cash from them, among other things.

Perks to encourage gamers to choose one retailer rather than another are commonplace, especially with high-profile titles like Watch Dogs. However, most of the time the extras thrown in are along the lines of posters or exclusive artwork, figurines of game characters, or appealing – but non-essential – add-ons for in-game play.

Ubisoft’s two extra missions, however, are likely to be something many gamers would like to play, and the fact that if they want them they’ll have to preorder two copies of Watch Dogs is already prompting some upset. It’s possible the publisher could release the levels later on, as DLC, but that’s certainly not confirmed at this stage.

Preorders for the game have already opened – including the PlayStation 4 version – with availability for the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U, and Windows expected on November 19.

VIA: Geek

In fact, Credit Suisse’s report estimates the current wearables market as being worth around $3-5bn already, with it likely to increase tenfold over the next 2-3 years. That pegs the market at between $30bn and $50bn in just a few product cycles.

They’re ambitious numbers, more so than industry watchers have pegged previously. Back in January, Juniper Research estimated that the wearables business would grow to 70m devices by 2017, though was also more conservative about its starting point; it would roughly double between now and 2014 to somewhere in the region of $1.5bn, the company claimed.

Either way, predictions as to which companies are likely to weigh in over the coming weeks and months show several overlaps. Apple is the hottest potential participant, with Credit Suisse guesstimating an “iWatch” smartwatch could generate as much as $10bn in revenues per year. The smartwatch market at present is made up of only around nine models, the organization points out, with options like the Pebble still yet to make significant inroads into the mass market.

However, wearables will take a little more development until that mass market is ready to embrace them. A significant part of that is battery longevity, both of the wearables themselves, and of the smartphones – whether iOS or Android based, or something else – that will communicate with them. Credit Suisse is hopeful on that point, however, expecting a 2.2x increase in battery power by 2020.

Initially, the big money will be on cheaper fitness-style gadgets, used to track movement exercise. There, the market has coalesced around the roughly $100 price point, a far cry from the $1,500 of Google’s Glass Explorer Edition (though the eventual consumer version, tipped for release in 2014, is expected to be considerably more affordable).

VIA Business Insider