3D Capable Android Tablet: iStation Zood (Z3D)

iStation, a south korean company, announced the iStation Zood (codenamed Z3D) one the first (if not the first) stereoscopic 3D capable Android Tablet. You’ll need 3D content and wear polarised 3D glasses to take advantage of it. It features a 7″ multi-touch capacitive touchscreen and is powered by a Telechips ARM11 core processor (TCC8900?) running Android 2.1. The performance does not seem that great, but it’s still usable and being based on Telechips the price should be relatively low. Here are the Zood specifications on iStation website: Real 3D panel 7″ TFT-LCD (WVGA, 800×480) Capacitive touchscreen 16/32 Nand flash Acceleration sensor Wifi 802.11 b/g/n Bluetooth v2.1 + EDR FM Radio USB 2.0 Host and Slave SDHC card reader HDMI output Android 2.1 In the video below (but not in the specs?), they say this tablet also supports digital terrestrial television (DTT), now only supporting T-DMB, the standard used in south […]

Dvico Tvix XROID A1 Video Preview at CES 2011

Dvico should start shipping the Tvix Xroid A1, its latest Android media player based on Sigma Designs SMP8656 in March 2011 so it will be available for end users in Q2 2011. Dvico is now at CES 2011 to promote their media player TViX HD XROID A1. Here are the main characteristics: Full native web browser App-secure: Favorite application downloadable and installable Multitasking feature support with apps Video Formats: H.264, MKV, MPG, ISO, IFO, TS, TP, etc… Lossless audio files playback (FLAC, Wave Pack) Innovative Web remote (via smartphone) Wifi 802.11n network (via optional USB dongle) UPnP & NAS, Samba client, NFS, Netshare, FTP Video outputs: HDMI (Video 24-bit), composite, component Maximum resolution up to 1920x1080p (1080p) USB 3.0, e-Sata, SD SDHD and MS card reader Support for 3.5: Internal SATA harddisk Here’s a video with a demo of TViX HD XROID A1 web browser and multimedia functions (video/music). Currently […]

Rockchip RK29xx Processors at CES 2011

Rockchip (瑞芯微电子), a Fuzhou (China) based company, showcased its new RK29XX processors at CES 2011. The processors are aimed at smartphones, mid, tablet and internet tv (smart tv) and compete directly with the like of Qualcomm snapdragon or Samsung Hummingbird. Here are the specs for the RK29XX series: 1.2 GHz ARM Cortex A8 core with Neon and 512KB L2 cache High performance 2D and 3D processors supporting OpenGL ES 2.0 and Open VG. The GPU can deliver up to 60 MT/s. 1080p video decoding for H.264, VP8, RV, WMV, AVS, H.263, MPE-4…. 1080p H.264 video encoding Supports DDRIII, DDRII, Mobile DDR memory 24-bit HW ECC for MLC Nand, support e-MMC boot 3 USB ports for device, host, 3G module 2 SD  ports for SD card and WiFi Sensor interface for front and rear camera, up to 5M Standard TFT/EPD controller for variable panels 8 channel I2S and SPDIF TS port […]

A Pico Projector and Android in a Light Bulb

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Seco, an Italian company, specialized in Embedded Systems development has developed a light bulb with a pico projector (DLP) that replaces your light bulb and project videos/pictures or anything you can think of on your wall. The product is supposedly 99% made with Texas Instruments chipsets, mainly Texas Instruments OMAP3530 processor (ARM Cortex A8) and it runs Android, WiFi, Bluetooth, inside a lamp. The maximum power consumption is 25 W (green bulb maximum power consumption). This is currently a prototype and could cost between 200 and 400 USD retail. A microphone and speaker is also available, so it could possibly be used with Skype. Have a look this really seems promising. Soon we may also ask: “What OS are you running in your light bulb ?” Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to […]

Motorola Atrix 4G: A mobile turns into a Laptop

Motorola showcased the Atrix 4g smartphone based on NVidia Tegra 2 and running Android 2.2 (upgradable to Android 2.3 gingerbread later in 2011). It can be plugged directly into an ultra-thin laptop chassis (Laptop Dock for Motorola Atrix 4G). Motorola calls that a WebTop. The dock itself has a resolution of 1366×768 but the phone can support up to 1280×1024 in Desktop Mode. Contrary to Lenovo LePad, where the dock has an Intel iCore processor, all processor is done by the smartphone. Once in the dock you’ll be able to use the keyboard and mouse to check your emails (Gmail), play videos (720p supported, but 480p is recommended for smoothness), send SMS, browse the web with Mozilla Firefox (Add-ons are also supported) and more. The smartphone has a Citrix receiver so it can run Windows XP/Vista/7 thru the Citrix server (Virtual Machine). It also is capable of docking directly into […]

Sigma Designs unveils its SMP8910 Series Secure Media Processors: SMP8910 SMP8911

Sigma Designs will announce its latest and all powerful Media Processor (SMP8910) based on MIPS at CES 2011. The SMP8910 with integrated studio-quality VXP® video processing provides a highly-integrated, high-performance solution for premium Blu-ray 3D players. It supports all the audio decoding options, video decoding options, and content protection requirements for Blu-ray players. The Secure Media Processor architecture offers advanced content protection, supporting a wide variety of Digital Rights Management (DRM) and Conditional Access (CA) solutions. Studio-quality VXP® video processing is included, offering fully adaptive deinterlacing, adaptive 3D noise reduction, mosquito noise reduction, block artifact reduction, adaptive detail enhancement featuring sharpness and texture enhancement with overshoot control, adaptive debanding, and adaptive contrast enhancement. 3D Video decoding of a variety of 3D Video formats is also featured, including Blu-ray 3D. Support for legacy, current, and future 3DTVs is provided by supporting a variety of 3D Video output formats. The high-performance 3D […]

Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) Video Preview

A preview of Android 3.0 (Honeycomb), the new Android OS optimized for larger screen size devices particularly tablets, is now available. It really looks great, with eBook reading, Gmail, YouTube, Google talk (with video) applications redesigned for tablets. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011. www.cnx-software.com

Lenovo LePad Android Qualcomm SnapDragon Tablet with Intel iCore Dock

CES has just started and Leveno showcased their new Android 2.2 tablet (Lenovo LePad) based on Qualcomm Snapdragon (MSM8x60?) @ 1.3GHz with 1GB RAM, a 10.1″ Capacitive touchscreen (1280×800). Currently on the Wifi version is available, but a 3G/GPS version will be available later this year. The Wifi version will start to sell this month for around 500 USD in China. They use their own UI called “Four Square” on top of Android, the same currently on their phones (LePhone). Lenovo also innovated by providing a dock for their tablet. Once you connect the tablet to the dock TaDa! it becomes a laptop based on Intel iCore 5 running Windows 7. The Intel dock will cost 800 USD. They can then switch back on forth between Android 2.2 and Windows 7 in less than a second. A new version of the LePad (new hardware) will also be provided later this […]