Today Nokia presented the rumored Nokia Lumia 900. It’s a LTE device with a 4.3-inch ClearBlack AMOLED display, and with 2 cameras. The back camera has an f/2.2 apeture lens, and the front camera an f/2.4 apeture lens. Maybe there is videocall support through Skype on the horizon?
It’s using a 1.4GHz processor just as in the Lumia 800, and the memory specifications seems to be the same as well. The body is made of the same slick polycarbonate material used on the Nokia N9 and the Lumia 800, and the Lumia 900 uses the same beautiful design features as well. The device is also sporting a 1830mAh battery to provide good battery life even with the increased screen size.
A group of engineers at the Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology has developed a system that can recognize an individual by analyzing the seating position and how the body applies pressure on the seat when a person is sitting down. The group of engineers, led by professor Shigeomi Koshimizu at the public graduate school in Tokyo, will seek commercialization of the system for use as a highly reliable anti-theft system in two to three years, through collaboration with different automakers.
The seat works by using a system of 360 pressure sensors attached under the driver’s seat.Through their combined efforts they remember and create a “pressure map” that is then stored and can later be used for identification purposes.
In mid November, Kåre Halvorsen also known as “Zenta”, presented a new project, the MorphHex project. A spherical hexapod robot with a crab like movement, that now a few weeks later is ready to strut its stuff, and do a little dance. Starting with a 28cm in diameter globe from Toys r’ Us, the brainchild of Zenta has evolved into a quite an impressive robot.
Nokia Lumia 800 projection from the Live event in London
This week had an amazing start for the residents of London, courtesy of Nokia and Deadmau5. Seems Nokia and Microsoft is pulling out all the stops to make Windows Phone and the Lumia phones a success. It really shows that they both mean business and Nokia is ready to take back their crown as the number one smartphone manufacturer, a title they lost in the beginning of this year.
Using the Millbank Tower in Westminster near the river Themes in London as their canvas, Nokia with the help of Drive Productions, showed of an amazing effects show, accompanied by music from Deadmau5. The grand finale being the projection of a huge Nokia Lumia 800.
Nokia’s loudest smartphone on the market appears to have been silenced. It seems Nokia have cancelled the Nokia 600, one of their latest Symbian Belle device announced in August. It was revealed at the same time as Nokia 700 and Nokia 701 and was presented as Nokia’s loudest smartphone in the market. Maybe it was a bit to loud, or it could be that there was some issues with the device.
Not long after Nokia 600 was announced at Nokia’s Connection event in Singapore, a new device was presented, the Nokia 603. Could it be that they felt that the Nokia 603 was a better device and more ready to present to the market? What ever the reason, Nokia has removed almost all traces of the device. Everything from Nokia’s press pages and images, developer website, and even Youtube promotional videos have been been removed. The only trace left is a page at Nokia conversations from the time of its announcement.
At Nokia World in London today Nokia revealed not only one, but two brand new Windows Phone devices. The stunningly beautiful Nokia Lumia 800, that brings content to life in a fun and easy way, and also the affordable Nokia Lumia 710 that brings the Lumia experience to more people around the world, with the same easy and fluent software functionality as her bigger sister.
Nokia Lumia 800 shares the main design features of the gorgeous Nokia N9, but with some changes and additions. The bottom part of the 3.9″ screen is dedicated to the three standard buttons that is a familial feature of the Windows Phone operating system. This leaves a 3,7″ part of the screen left to be used by rest of the UI. On the right side of the phone there’s also an added hardware button, dedicated for the on-board 8 Megapixel camera. Unlike other devices running Windows Phone, on a Nokia phone you will of course get something extra. Among things, you get free Offline navigation, and also access to the brand new Nokia Music service.
At Nokia World in London, Blanca Juti, Vice President of Product Marketing for Mobile Phones, in a passionate and inspiring key note speech showed that Nokia still cares about the developing markets. She introduced us to the new Asha family, containing 4 new phones, that she called her babies. In my opinion Blanca Juti held the most inspiring keynote speech at this event yet, and she proves Nokia care, not only about making money, but also about improving the life quality of their users.
Traveling around the world, and meeting actual customers and thinking about their needs Nokia have come up with high quality, stylish devices that provide the best access to social networks, the Internet and information. Placing these phones at a great price point it will offer the best overall experience and value proposition for the next billion mobile phone users. These consumers want access to innovations such as easy-to-use dual-SIM, local services and content, and third-party apps, all with a superior user experience for which Nokia mobile phones are known. And why shouldn’t all people in the world have access to these types of communication and technologies. Asha, derived from Hindi – meaning ‘hope’, signifies Nokia’s focus on positive user experiences and connecting millions of people to new opportunities that help them reach their aspirations.
The Asha Family consists of Nokia Asha 200, 201, 300 and 303.
Using 36 fixed-focus 2 megapixel mobile phone camera modules, the Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera is the brainchild of Jonas Pfeil, Kristian Hildebrand, Carsten Gremzow, Bernd Bickel, Marc Alexa at Computer Graphics Group, TU Berlin. The camera modules are mounted in a robust, 3D-printed, ball-shaped enclosure that is padded with foam and handles just like a ball.
The camera is thrown into the air and captures an image at the highest point of flight, when it is hardly moving. The camera takes full spherical panoramas, and images are taken instantaneously. It can capture scenes with many moving objects without producing ghosting artifacts and creates unique images and lets you take pictures from an angle that otherwise would be very hard to achieve.
Electron microscopy images of magnetic bits at densities.
The increasing need for larger data storage space have for a long time pushed the development of ever larger and faster data storage mediums. At the moment existing hard drives max out at 3TB, but TDK’s new HAMR head innovation promises to double this limit to 6TB utilizing heat-assisted magnetic recording. HAMR was developed by Fujitsu in 2006, and relies on recording platters with a high coercivity, making it possible to pack information in more tightly than current platters. To do this they need to be heated before they’re able to write data, which TDK does using a small laser in the drive head. TDK has said that it plans to begin mass-producing drives with these increased capacities by late next year
Now how ever, TDK’s HAMR technology might already be redundant through a recent discovery by Dr Joel Yang at the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE), collaborating with researchers at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the Data Storage Institute (DSI). They have developed a process that can increase the data recording density of hard disks to 3.3 Terabit/in2, six times the recording density of current models. The key ingredient in the much enhanced patterning method and storage capacity, is sodium chloride, the chemical grade of regular table salt.
Sony will eventually recall 1.6 million of its Bravia brand LCD HDTVs worldwide after several serious malfunctions where found. The components in some Japanese sets started to melt and started to emit smoke. So far its been 11 incidents in total in Japan, but the faulty parts may also affect models sold all around the world. As an example 630,000 affected units have been sold in Europe.
Sony believes only certain 40″ LCD models manufactured during 2007 and 2008 are at risk. What to keep in mind is that these models could have been on sale for a while at your local retailer, so you check your model number if you are concerned. The affected models includes the following model numbers: KDL-40D3400, KDL-40D3500, KDL-40D3550, KDL-40D3660, KDL-40V3000, KDL-40W3000, KDL-40X3000 and KDL-40X3500. You’ll find the model on your warranty card, or the back of your HDTV.
