Google Expects 18 Android Phones This Year: All the Flavors Explained [Android]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/VznWxUPenD4/google-expects-18-android-phones-this-year-all-the-flavors-explained

Google/Android's Andy Rubin said at the Google I/O conference that Google expects 18-20 Android phones this year from 8 or 9 manufacturers—and those are just the devices they know about. But it's gonna be slower going in the States because of the custom Android builds that carriers want.

(The custom builds frighten us, on multiple levels.)

More interesting, perhaps, is how they fall along the Android lines—there are apparently three ways for a manufacturer to put Android on their phone with varying levels of Google control (though all are free). The "no strings" version anyone can grab, but it doesn't have Google's apps. The "small strings" version includes an agreement to distribute Google's apps, and 12-14 are this flavor.

The final one, aka the Google Experience, is like the G1—you've got Google apps and an agreement from both the carrier and phonemaker that they won't restrict access to the Android market at all. You can spot these phones by the Google logo literally branded onto them. (These are the Android phones you probably want.)

So, maybe 2009 will be the year of Android after all. Maybe. [NYT]

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Google Ion hands-on and unboxing

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/27/google-ion-hands-on-and-unboxing/

Looks like Chris' hatred wasn't totally unfounded. We just got our hands on a Google Ion -- which as you can tell is a spitting image of the HTC Magic -- complete with 30 days' worth of T-Mobile service on an included SIM card. It's not a public release model, but seems fully capable. Yes, it's got Cupcake, and while the portrait keyboard seems more cramped than the iPhone's, we found it very comfortable to type in landscape mode. Form factor wise, this thing is as sexy as hardware gets -- light, sleek, and thin. The only thing that exceeds our love for it right now is its own love for fingerprints -- seriously, the entire body and screen attract them like flies to honey. Colorful similes aside, hit up the gallery below for all the pics you could ask for.

Gallery: Google Ion unboxing and hands-on

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Google Ion hands-on and unboxing originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 May 2009 16:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New Intel Core i7 CPUs show up unannounced

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/27/new-intel-core-i7-cpus-show-up-unannounced/

Intel's Core i7 has become somewhat of a mainstay in the most recent wave of gaming rigs, but it's been quite awhile (in processor years, anyway) since we've seen any new siblings join the launch gang. We'd heard faint whispers that a new crew was set to steal the stage on May 31st, and those rumors are looking all the more likely now that a few heretofore unheard of chips have appeared online. The 3.06GHz Core i7 950 is shown over at PCs For Everyone with 8MB of shared L3 cache and a $649 price tag, and it's expected that said chip will replace the aging Core i7 940. Moving on up, there's the luscious 3.33GHz Core i7 Extreme 975, which is also listed with 8MB of shared L3 cache but packs a staggering price tag well above the $1,100 mark. If all this pans out, this CPU will replace the Core i7 Extreme 965 as Intel fastest Core i7 product. Just a few more days to wait, right?

[Via PCWorld]

Read - Core i7 Extreme 975 listing
Read - Core i7 950 listing

Filed under: Desktops

New Intel Core i7 CPUs show up unannounced originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 May 2009 20:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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palm-sized cameras for an enthusiasts toy box

Casio superfast camera 1,200 frames per second

casio one is to capture slo mo (bullet blasting through apple)
Casio High-Speed Exilim EX-FC100 9 MP Digital Camera with 5x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 2.7-inch LCD (Black)

Sigma DP2 foveon 14 megapixel direct capture camera

foveon is to capture intricate fabric detail (every pixel has R, G, and B captured, not extrapolated)
Sigma DP2 14MP FOVEON CMOS Sensor Digital Camera with 2.5 Inch TFT LCD

Fuji super high dynamic range camera

Fuji's CMOS sensor captures 2 shots in one - one low light and one high light, and smashes them together to
achieve a high dynamic range shot (previously you'd have to bracket the same shot yourself, and smash the shots together with software)
Fujifilm FinePix F200EXR 12MP Super CCD Digital Camera with 5x Wide Angle Dual Image Stabilized Optical Zoom

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Every Mobile Browser Should Give Up and Just Go WebKit [Internet]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/a1QFwO3gAEg/every-mobile-browser-should-give-up-and-just-go-webkit

The ZuneHD looks like a lovely catchup to the original iPod touch—you know, before apps allowed it to be so much more—except for one thing. That damn browser. It's not just they're basing it off hellacious and reviled IE—it's that it's not WebKit-based.

There simply isn't a better mobile browser than WebKit right now. It powers the internet in the iPhone, Android, Symbian S60 and Palm Pre, and destroyed all comers in our Battlemodo. It's fast, it's competent and most importantly from a development perspective, it's open source. Meaning Microsoft could adopt it for its mobile devices with (relatively) little shame (okay, maybe a lot of shame) and it's ready to go right now, meaning there's no wasting time building a new engine just to attempt to play catchup to a browser that handily delivers the best mobile internet experience right now across multiple platforms.

Mozilla's Fennec could become a contender to the throne, true, but it's still far from final. Opera and Skyfire are interesting and good, but they're both proprietary, meaning there's no chance in hell they'd ever be adopted by Microsoft or RIM, much less the entire industry, as the basis for their mobile browsers.

You could rail against the idea of WebKit becoming a "monopoly," but you'd be foolish to do so: Web standards are important, and WebKit, whic! h is aga in, open source, is dedicated to standards compliance and performance. A performance and compliance standard that web developers could count on in every single mobile device wouldn't be a bad thing—far from it. It would mean even more amazing web apps, since developers would know they'd run on any mobile device, no matter what "OS" they were running underneath—the web would be the real OS.

That day is coming. I just hoped I'd see it a little sooner.

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