Samsung ATIV S is the first Windows Phone 8 smartphone

<NEWLY ANOUNCED>

 Samsung ATIV S is the first Windows Phone 8 smartphone

The Galaxy Note II wasn’t the only flagship device that Samsung announced at its pre-IFA press conference. The company has also revealed the first ever Windows Phone 8 smartphone – the Samsung ATIV S.



The ATIV S is built around a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED display of HD resolution and has Gorilla Glass 2 on top for extra protection. Powering the smartphone is a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Krait processor and 1GB of RAM. At the back, there’s an 8MP camera with 1.9MP snapper at the front.

Measuring 137.2 mm x 70.5 mm x 8.7 mm the Samsung ATIV S weighs 135 grams and packs a beefy 2,300mAh battery. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 3 and NFC. Windows Phone 8 supports memory expansion slots and the Samsung ATIV S makes use of that, bringing a microSD card slot to allow expansion of its 16GB or 32GB built-in storage.

Pricing and availability is yet to be confirmed, but we're guessing the smartphone will hit the shelves immediately after Microsoft officially releases the Windows Phone 8 OS.

Making the Samsung ATIV S company are three new Windows 8-powered tablets – the 10.1” ATIV Tab, and two 11.6” ATIV Smart PC and ATIV Smart PC Pro.

source : samsungmobilepress.com

SONY'S hybrid-style ultrabook

<NEWLY ANOUNCED> SONY'S hybrid-style ultrabook

We've just gotten our first look at Sony's VAIO Duo 11, a "hybrid-style ultrabook" with a hinge that slides the keyboard in, turning it into a Windows 8 tablet. The touch-equipped device looks light as a notebook, but it's hefty as a tablet. The 11.6-inch device is supposed to weigh about 2.9 pounds, a little more than Microsoft's Surface, but it's not too difficult to hold with both hands. The display units have a separate supplementary battery, which adds significantly to the weight. The final battery time isn't set yet; Sony promises us a "full work day" with the supplementary battery attached once the tablet has been released. The version I saw used an Intel Core i7 processor with 8GB of RAM, but customers will be able to select an i5 or i3 as well.

The screen slides smoothly into the keyboard and slots in place when raised, and the prominent spring-loaded hinge gives it a different feel from other keyboard-equipped tablets. The screen accepts touch and stylus input whether it's in tablet or PC mode, but you can also control its mouse with a nub in the center of the keyboard, using the buttons on the edge to click. The mouse felt a little jumpy when I tried it with the smooth, metallic nub, though using it may get easier with practice. In tablet mode, the screen supports palm rejection with apps that implement it, and it's designed for pressure-sensitive input.

While the keyboard is generally spacious, the keys themselves are pretty small, with wide spaces between them. The dark metal around the keyboard looks quite nice, changing from a smooth to matte texture inside the key tray. The black screen bezel matches it well, although with nothing but some thin plastic covering it, the reverse side of the screen section looks almost unfinished compared to the metal hinge holding it. We wouldn't be surprised if some small changes were made to the version we saw, since it won't be launching until Windows 8 is out in October.

Source theverge.com

SONY VAIO

DUO 11 HANDS-ON

Mozilla Firefox 4: New Betas For Desktop PC and Android Mobiles

           Mozilla Firefox 4.0 is now in beta 8 stage for PC operating systems, and beta 3 stage for the Android mobile OS. While it already has considerable momentum on the PC (desktops/laptops), we are particularly waiting to see the impact it makes on the mobile platform. As a freeware app, and being one that is already well-recognized, Firefox has the potential of taking a majority market-share as a web browser, on an OS that is fast growing in user numbers.

 Availability of Firefox on mobile is pretty much restricted only to Nokia's Maemo (N900) and Google's Android OS (2.0 and above). Both are Linux operating systems in essence, running on non-x86 processors. Firefox browser for the PC on the other hand, is available to many x86-based operating systems, including Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and FreeBSD.

The desktop version of the browser, Firefox 4.0 beta 8, brings new features - some of the top ones are listed below:
- Visual overview of all open tabs, for sorting/grouping.
- Improved Firefox Sync, meant for desktop and mobile devices.
- HTML5 support, including WebM video format.
- Hardware acceleration (via GPU) for some rendering operations.
- JägerMonkey, a new, faster JavaScript engine.
This is scheduled to be the last beta, before the final/stable version releases in early 2011.

Firefox 4.0 beta 3 for mobile (formerly codenamed Fennec) brings these features among others:
- Firefox Sync feature built-in.
- Add-ons (somewhat like extensions).
- Option to "Save as PDF".
- Password Manager.
- Support for Android-style menus and keyboards.
- Support for uploading files.
- Supports playing video in Full-screen.
- The "Awesome Bar" and "Awesome Screen".
You can download Firefox Beta for mobile, either through scanning QR code or install by browsing to the mobile site directly using Android's default mobile browser.

source: mozilla Mobile