Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Renesas Wins DivX Plus HD Certification, For MKV Files on Your Phone [Smartphones]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/#!5761740/renesas-wins-divx-plus-hd-certification-for-mkv-files-on-your-phone

The DivX Corporation has awarded its first DivX Plus HD certificate to Renesas Mobile, producer of several HD-capable system-on-chip processors. Any phone that features Renesas Mobile's SH73704 will therefore be able to manage full HD 1080p playback, including the popular HD content ripping format MKV. In this age of ever-growing screens, that has to be a good selling point.

The announcement hasn't hit the press sites of the companies concerned as yet, so here's a cut & paste for you:

Renesas Mobile's Full-HD Capable Application Achieves DivX Certification as World's First DivX Plus™ HD System-on-Chip

Enables DivX Plus™ HD 1080p video playback and easy transfer to millions DivX devices without conversion

Barcelona, Spain– February 16, 2011 – DivX®, a division of Sonic Solutions® (NASDAQ: SNIC) today announced that Renesas Mobile Corporation's full-HD capable application processor SH-Mobile MT1 (SH73704) is the world's first mobile system-on-chip (SoC) to be awarded DivX Plus™ HD Certification. Smartphones with Renesas Mobile's SoC will deliver full HD 1080 playback of DivX Plus HD videos including MKV files.

"DivX Plus HD is our premium level of certification, and it's a testament to Renesas Mobile's technology leadership that they are the first integrated circuit company to achieve our most comprehensive standards for HD video playback on a mobile phone," said Matt Milne, Executive Vice President and General Manager, DivX. "By partnering with an innovator like Renesas Mobile that supplies technology to a range of top-tier device manufacturers, we'll help ensure more consumers can watch the highest quality DivX videos at home or on the go."

"Smartphone technology is transforming exponentially, and adding DivX Plus HD Certification helps us enhance the advantages of our application processor product line," said Kazuhiko Yoshimatsu, Department Manager, Mobile Platform Marketing Department, Renesas Mobile Corporation. "Together with DivX we can better help our mobile OEM customers quickly implement an end-to-end solution for the high-quality playback of DivX HD videos and secure premium content. We also look forward to integrating DivX technology on our new integrated application processor line, 'R-Mobile,' which is under development."

To enjoy DivX videos on mobile devices with Renesas Mobile's SH-Mobile MT1, consumers can seamlessly load their video libraries of both standard definition and HD 1080p files directly on any DivX Certified device without conversion. In addition, all DivX Certified mobile phones support the playback of Hollywood studio movies from leading retailers in the DivX® format.

DivX Plus HD Certification is the most comprehensive level of certification available from DivX, awarded to consumer electronics products supporting the optimized playback of all content created with DivX software. Available on www.divx.com, DivX Plus Software allows users to create and playback H.264 video in an .mkv file container. DivX Plus HD Certified devices will playback all previous versions of DivX video and DivX Plus HD video files with the .mkv file extension and AAC audio created with third-party tools.

The Renesas Mobile SH-Mobile was designed to offload application processing from the baseband LSI, ease system development and realize significant performance improvement. SH-Mobile enables separation of the application software and communications protocol software developments. This baseband independent approach reduces time-to-market, and allows rapid evolution of multimedia applications whilst retaining investment in established communications protocol software. The SH73704 performs video processing at full HD (1,920 × 1,080 pixels) resolution, as well as functions such as noise reduction and audio processing (5.1-channel/2-channel), while maintaining low power consumption.

Known for great performance, visual quality, and interoperability on any DivX Certified device, DivX provides consumers with a comprehensive digital media solution supporting the majority of high-quality Internet video on their TVs or other consumer electronics devices. All DivX devices contain proprietary digital rights management technology and are capable of playing back premium movies in the DivX format from major studios. Global online retailers offering titles in the DivX format include WB Shop, Media Markt, Film Fresh, and Best Buy's CinemaNow, which is powered by RoxioNow™.

DivX creates, distributes, and licenses digital video technologies that span the "three screens" comprising today's consumer media environment - the PC, television, and mobile devices. Over 400 million DivX devices have shipped into the market worldwide from leading consumer electronics manufacturers. DivX also offers content providers and publishers a complete solution for the distribution of secure, high-quality digital video content. Driven by a globally recognized brand and a passionate community of hundreds of millions of consumers, DivX is simplifying the video experience to enable the digital home.

For more information about Renesas Mobile, visit www.renesasmobile.com

For more information about DivX, visit www.divx.com

Samsung 9 Series laptops to include 11.6-inch model?

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/15/samsung-9-series-laptops-to-include-11-6-inch-model/

Samsung managed to impress us back at CES with its ultrathin 9 Series laptop but, as far as we knew at the time, the company was only planning to produce a 13.3-inch version of it. If a listing from online retailer Provantange is any indication though, it looks like there could also be a 11.6-inch model in the pipeline. While there's no indication of a release date, the specs do seem to suggest that this is something more than a typo, as they include in a Core i3 processor instead of the i5 on the 13-incher, 2GB of RAM, a 64GB SSD, and the same 1,366 x 768 resolution as its larger counterpart but a lower 340 nits brightness. As you can see above, it also lists a price of just under $1,200, which would place it about $400 less than the 13.3-inch model.

[Thanks, Vikram]

Samsung 9 Series laptops to include 11.6-inch model? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 18:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | source

Provantage | Email this | Comments

NVIDIA announces quad-core Kal-El SOC, promises it in tablets by August (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/15/nvidia-announces-quad-core-kal-el-soc-promises-it-in-tablets-by/

So it turns out that NVIDIA roadmap we saw last month was as true and pure as driven snow. The barely conceivable quad-core Tegra chip that it listed has now been made official by none other than NVIDIA itself, with the company also informing us that the new silicon is already sampling out to prospective clients. Known as Kal-El internally, this will most likely turn into NVIDIA's Tegra 3 as and when it's ready to enter the consumer market. Tonight NVIDIA whetted our appetite for what's to come with a demo that can most fittingly be described as an exhibition of unadulterated computational muscle. A 2560 x 1440 stream was being decoded on a developmental device, scaled down to that slate's native 1366 x 768 resolution, and additionally displayed on a connected 30-inch, 2560 x 1600 monitor. That entire voluminous workload was being handled in real time by Kal-El and we saw no signs of it struggling.

By NVIDIA's own estimation, the quad-core newbie provides roughly double the processing power of Tegra 2 and triple the graphics-crunching prowess. In the second demonstration of the evening, we saw an instance of Great Battles Medieval -- ran at 720p with 650 enemy soldiers on the field -- on both a Tegra 2 and a Kal-El platform, which showed the baby superhero handily dusting its still very new brethren. This was in large part down to the full dozen GPU cores contained within Kal-El, though before you freak out about battery-draining insanity, NVIDIA claims things are much, much more efficient as well -- up to 12 hours of HD video playback are promised under the right circumstances.

It's a big fat wedge of awesome boasts we've heard from the GeForce maker today, however the company's given us a schedule to hold it to as well. The "August timeframe" is when the quad-core Kal-El is expected to land in tablets, while smartphones will have to wait until the holiday season to benefit from what's likely to be a slightly downgraded variant. Skip past the break to eye the future Tegra roadmap for the next few years plus video of the wildly impressive demos we were witness to.

Gallery: NVIDIA Kal-El quad-core SOC and development platform

Continue reading NVIDIA announces quad-core Kal-El SOC, promises it in tablets by August (video)

NVIDIA announces quad-core Kal-El SOC, promises it in tablets by August (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 19:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | | Email this | Comments

Dell Streak 10 will run Honeycomb, may share a body with Windows

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/15/dell-streak-10-will-run-honeycomb-may-share-a-body-with-windows/

Worried that Dell's Streak 10 might pull a Streak 5 and ship with a aging, smartphone-specific OS? Fear no more -- Dell told investors that the 10.1-inch Android tablet will arrive later this year with Honeycomb safely nestled inside. Also, it seems Dell may looking to consolidate the number of form factors and software platforms it supports, as an executive stated during today's Q4 earnings call that the company's other 10.1-inch tablet -- a Windows device -- could have the same shell. When asked broadly about the company's tablet strategy with regards to other operating systems, this was the answer Dell had on tap:

For tablets, it's Android Honeycomb and Windows, and we have customers with a preference for either one. We can create platforms that share a great degree of hardware commonality that can run both -- or either -- operating system, and we don't see any other options that are worthy of consideration.

Guess we shouldn't expect a MeeGo tablet out of Dell anytime soon.

Dell Streak 10 will run Honeycomb, may share a body with Windows originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 21:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | | Email this | Comments

Fuel cells get stronger, potentially cheaper with graphene, ITO

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/16/fuel-cells-get-stronger-potentially-cheaper-with-graphene-ito/

As the sustainable Juggernaut of fuel cell vehicles (FCV) powers ever forward, a group of scientists are cooking up ways to make the alternative energy source more durable and even cheaper. By combining graphene -- think pencil lead -- and indium tin oxide (ITO) nanoparticles, the team produced a catalytic material that is both stronger and more chemically active than the usual catalytic combo. Fuel cells typically use a chemical catalyst like platinum, sitting atop a base of black carbon or metal oxides, to break down oxygen and hydrogen gases, creating water in the process -- thing is, carbon is easily eroded by the resulting water, and metal oxides, while more stable, are less conductive. Using graphene -- which because of its porousness erodes less quickly -- in combination with the stable ITO and platinum nanoparticles, researchers have created what could be referred to as a super fuel cell -- a stronger, longer lasting, and potentially cheaper version of the alternative energy source. Unfortunately, without enough hydrogen filling stations, these super fuel cells won't come to anyone's rescue anytime soon.

Fuel cells get stronger, potentially cheaper with graphene, ITO originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Feb 2011 01:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink