Asus Skype video-telefon
Subota, 20. septembar 2008. 14:16    

Kompanija Asus predstavila je prvi svetski Skype video-telefon.

Uređaj, pod nazivom AiGuru SV1, prilično je neobičnog dizajna, sa prijatnim kontrolama, LCD ekranom u boji veličine 7 inča, Integrisanom VGA veb kamerom, WiFi konekcijom, zvučnicima i mikrofonom.

Uputstvo za korišćenje ovog urešaja je jednostavno: postavite SV1 u bilo koju sobu u svom stanu i obavljajte besplatne video razgovore, sa osbom koja već poseduje Skype, preko veba.

Cena ovog uređaja iznosi oko 250 evra, a u prodaji će se naći do kraja godine.


Izvor: MTS-Mondo

Live Images of LG Renoir, the Viewty successor, emerge



Back in August, LG officially announced the new LG KC910, the successor to the LG Viewty. Officially given the name LG Renoir, the phone has made its appearance in a few pictures snagged from it168.com. A short review of the specs will remind you that it has Quad-band GSM, UMTS (HSDPA 7.2 Mbps), 3 inch WQVGA 240×400 touchscreen display, 8 megapixel camera with Xenon flash & Schneider-Kreuznach lens, GPS with geotagging support, Bluetooth 2.0, and WiFi. The Renoir is expected to be available sometime in October. We have another touchscreen phone with a huge beautiful 8MP camera and some more cell phone eye candy for you all.




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9 megapixel mobile camera module launched



If you were drooling over the 8 megapixel camera that the LG KC910, the Samsung INNOV8, or the Sony Ericsson C905 have to offer, it may be time to reassess your gadget-lust. Digital Imaging Systems launched their 9 megapixel camera module today, the DIS6931, which promises to capture photos up to 3488 x 2616 pixels in size and VGA video at 30 FPS. With power consumption under 175mW, an autofocus taking less than 300ms, a click-to-capture time of sub-200ms, and the highest pixel count to date, this module should be very appealing to manufacturers out there, so you can expect some announcements for the next notch in cameraphones real soon.

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Samsung prepping 8MP Bresson M8800 for official launch on September 25th

If you had fun dreaming about all the things you would do with the super-feature-packed Samsung INNOV8 i850, then you will be blown away by what you are about to find out. Samsung, it appears, wastes no time in delivering tomorrow’s cellphones today, as they are currently preparing yet another 8 megapixel cameraphone that’s geared to be their top multimedia handset for this year.

Not wary of cannibalizing INNOV8 i850 sales, Samsung will release a handset called the Samsung Bresson M8800 with similar specs and several improvements. The “Bresson” part of its name is said to be derived from a French photographer considered the father of modern photojournalism, Henri Cartier-Bresson. M8800 is its product code.



The Samsung Bresson M8800’s camera is said to be so good that it features “every camera function under the sun,” all while only measuring 15.5mm thick.

It has a 3.2-inch 16 million color display that’s actually a touchscreen that supports full HDTV viewing. GPS mapping, HSDPA, “serious music capabilities” and improved office interaction applications are said to be also on-board. So aside from multimedia the Samsung Bresson M8800 should have you covered in other areas of your life as well.

Unlike Nokia, Samsung has been keen to keep leaked photos of the Samsung Bresson M8800 off the Internet so far, but rumor has it that it will be officially announced on September 25th. That might seem like a long shot since its rumored launch date is only less than a week away, but since you can confirm that it’s real with a quick Google search, suddenly it doesn’t sound so impossible.

We’ll see what happens come September 25th. And if Samsung comes out with their official Samsung Bresson M8800 announcement, we’ll be ready. So should you.

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LG KC780 8 megapixel slider in the works

It seems that LG has an interesting new plan in taking over high megapixel cameraphone market.

Have one sleek high end and expensive  highest megapixel cameraphone to dazzle the crowds and wet their appetite. Then produce  another high megapixel handset. But make it more simple and affordable.

It tried it with high end 5 megapixel LG Viewty KU990 and affordable LG KC550.

Now it seems to be the time to do the same for a 8 megapixel cameraphones. With Viewty successor full touchscreen  LG Renoir KC910 to cover the high end, LG is now working on simpler 8 megapixel cameraphone - LG KC780.



Not much has been known about LG KC780 slider so far.

It already has been tested and approved by FCC, at least for GSM1900 band and Bluetooth emissions. Other LG KC780 specs that we’ve  been able to ferret out from various sources include:

    * Quadband GSM, GPRS/EDGE connectivity
    * 8 megapixel camera with autofocus, red eye reduction,  face recognition and 30fps video recording
    * 140 MB of internal memory
    * microSD memory card slot
    * Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0

We’ll keep you posted when we hear more about it.

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Camera Nitty Gritty

The 'Megapixel Myth' is usually quoted along the lines of 'A camera isn't better just because it has more megapixels', referring to the fact that just because there are more dots in your final photo, it doesn't mean that the photo is necessarily any 'better'. In other words, when the phone shop tries to sell you something with an '8 megapixel' (mp) camera, there's no guarantee that it will produce better results than your existing phone with a 5mp camera.

And this is all very true. After all, the quality of a photo from a camera phone also depends on the lens size and quality (i.e. the optics), the (physical) size and quality of the CMOS sensor and the quality of the software algorithms that decode the raw data from the sensor into sensibly sized JPGs that you or I can save, view and print. And, arguably (depending on your reaction to part 1 of this series) on the cleanliness of the external camera glass.

That's a lot of extra factors besides raw megapixels.

Then there's the issue of the limitations of printing/viewing technology and the human eye. I used to print out photos from my 1.3mp Nokia 6630 and, as long as the picture was taken in good light, the results were quite acceptable when printed at 6" by 4", the standard 'snapshot' for albums. So why on earth would anyone want more than 1.3mp?

    * In order to be able to print out at A4 or even poster sizes, or view on large monitors or TV screens without being limited by the original captured pixels
       
    * In order to be able to selectively crop just part of the original photo and still have plenty of quality left for printing at normal size
       
    * In order to be able to have resolution to spare when sampling down  low light or less than perfect shots

For these three reasons, 2, 3, 5 and even 8 megapixel cameras have been fitted to the (not so) humble phone. But there's another factor that generally wows an audience: focus. Starting with the Nokia N90 with its groundbreaking (for a phone) auto-focussing 2 megapixel camera, the ability to focus on close-up objects (people, pets, things) and thus snap them in crisp detail rather than it-was-taken-on-a-phone blurriness, has been a major criteria for those in the know, in my view even more important than the sheer number of megapixels.

Of course, trying to get across all the above text in 5 words on a bullet point on a phone display in the High Street is impossible, so you'll understand why the vendors restrict themselves to the lowest common denominator of 'n megapixels'.

But how many megapixels do you need? What's a good baseline resolution to aim for when choosing your next purchase?

In an attempt to illustrate the megapixel myth and to attempt to answer the question, I've taken four S60 smartphones, with megapixel counts:

    * Nokia 6650: 2mp
    * Nokia N93: 3.2mp
    * Nokia N82: 5mp
    * Samsung i8510: 8mp

and in each case I've shot the exact same scene, from the same position, in the same conditions, one after the other. Typically, you'd view a photo printed out at 6" by 4" or perhaps 7" by 5", or on a desktop computer screen, as here - I don't think I'm distorting reality by presenting each photo here at 700 pixels across, hopefully giving you a real world-sized photo that's close to how you look at your own snaps, i.e. at roughly the same size, or perhaps a little bigger - for those like me with tired eyes!

I've also tried to vary the conditions and test. Let's see how the four devices do and at what point you and I might say 'OK, that's perfectly good enough':



A nicely coloured sunny snap, courtesy of the Samsung i8510. Which of course is totally overkill for casual snaps like this. Moving on....



As ever, the Nokia N82's photos look a bit washed out. Clear, but not as vibrant as the i8510's. Still, we're looking at resolution here, not photo quality. Colouration aside, there's clearly little difference dropping down to 5 megapixels.



Now this is the N93's take on the scene, with slightly better colours than the N82 and, arguably a more accurate rendition of real life. There's still no problems with resolution though - and if anything the N93's lack of annoying digital noise reduction algorithms mean that the photo is sharper and more detailed. Clearly 3mp is more than enough.



Ah. Now, you've got to look past the wierd purple tint, possibly a by product of too much sun getting into the 6650's cheap optics. Look at the detail in the photo and you have to conclude, like me - and backing up the 'megapixel myth' - that for simple shots in good light (and in this case with no special focussing needs), even 2 megapixels is perfectly sufficient.

But, of course, we need more data. More examples. More tests.

Next up was a rather dilapidated gate that took my eye, being well lit and nicely shaped for a photograph. Here's the i8510 image:



Pretty good. Here's the N82 version:



Just as before. Good photo, with the colours distinctly muted. Now for the N93's take:



Yet again, detail is great, colours better than the N82 but not as good as the i8510. Now for the 6650 and its little 2mp camera:



Again there's that slight purple tint. And this time I think you'll agree that the shot isn't quite as detailed as the N93's, the image isn't quite as crisp. Perhaps some of this is due to there not being any focussing going on, another drawback (N90 and P990-aside) of 2 megapixel cameras.

As I said above, one of the main advantages of a higher number of megapixels is that you're free later on to crop the image and still produce a pleasing result. This forms the basis of the next test. Using a highly trained camera-person (ok, my wife), I had them shoot me from about 1.5 metres away, a typical distance when shooting friends or family. With the wide angles featured in today's camera phones, there was too much 'surround' (garage roof, next door neighbour's house etc), so I cropped just the central section, using around a third of the image area in all.

Here's the result, i8510 first, which should have no trouble with such a trivial task:



There's good colours and detail, with perhaps inflexible handling of the extremes of light and dark. I was using default settings on all photos, by the way, as a new user would. Now for the N82's attempt:



Super detail, super focussing and only (again) slightly muted colours. Again, even after cropping away two thirds of the photo (by area), there's still plenty left for a cropped version. Now for the N93:



Yet again terrific colour and detail from the N93, so (surprisingly?) even three megapixels seems perfectly adequate, even when cropping out just a section of a photo!

I'm wincing a bit before digging up the 6650's attempt, but here goes:



Leaving aside the red/purple tint again, and also leaving aside the optical defects (after all, there's no Carl Zeiss lens or sensor etc), it's obvious that the resolution is really a limitation here, with indistinct detail in the foliage and a less than pleasing result on my ugly mug.
Round up time

Non-auto-focus cameras, like the 2mp unit in the 6650 are great for ad-hoc outdoor snaps, mainly because there's no need to wait while focussing takes place, and you can just about get away with printing the results, as long as your subject isn't too close and the light was good enough. But you're very limited overall. And you're on the verge of photos which are truly unsatisfactory. Cropping a central section is a very common thing to do on a digital photo (you can do it on phone or desktop) and the moment you start doing that you need a few extra pixels.

Which is what the two year old Nokia N93 delivers, with its 3.2mp camera, enough detail to print smoothly on 7" by 5" paper, even with a degree of cropping, or to view full-screen on a PC or TV. And it's helped by the way detail isn't masked by software 'fixes'. It's also helped by the Carl Zeiss optics, a fact made very apparent if you ever compare 3mp photos from the likes of the N93 and a generic Windows Mobile 3mp phone - the latter's images will be far less impressive. I'll be investigating this subject in part 4 of this series.

Then we come to the 5mp images from the N82 (or N95), also from a device with Carl Zeiss optics. Tremendous detail and, with 5mp, enough pixels left over to handle quite savage cropping later on and still be useable. Or to blow up to A4 or even poster size, of course! But you don't really need 5mp for day to day shots - you really don't. And this, in a nutshell, is the crux of the megapixel myth.

Going up to 8mp, in the case of the Samsung i8510, the pixel numbers start to get silly - 3264 by 2448 indeed! That's just crazy, with heading towards two orders of magnitude more pixels than the first phone cameras (VGA). And no, you don't need all of them. And you have to find space on your memory card for the larger 2 to 3MB image files.

All of which sounds like I'm dismissing the new generation of 8mp camera-equipped super-phones. Not at all, more can be better - just not always. And, like I say, you really don't need 8mp.



If I had to recommend a 'camera-centric' phone to a newcomer to the field, I'd say go for something with proper auto-focus, Carl Zeiss (or Schneider Kreuznach or similar) optics and at least 3 megapixels. Job done.

I'll be back next week with more camera-centric investigative work!

Steve Litchfield, All About Symbian, 23rd Sept 2008

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 Samsung Bresson Announced



Samsung's officially in the 8 megapixel camera phone race by announcing the M8800 Bresson, a full touch screen handset that looks set to challenge the LG Renoir for position of top jock. Features and specifications found within this beauty include :-

    * Quad band GSM, tri-band HSDPA
    * Qualcomm MSM6281 chipset
    * Native Samsung OS
    * 3.2? TFT Display at 240 × 400 resolution
    * 8 megapixel camera with VGA video recording at 30 fps
    * FM Radio with RDS
    * Built-in accelerometer
    * 100MB internal memory
    * microSD memory card slot



Strangely enough, it misses out Wi-Fi connectivity as well as GPS support - and these two ommissions could very well return and bite it in hardware comparison tests. The M8800 Bresson is tipped to retail for 550 Euros or so when it ships next month.



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25% of phone features never discovered



If there was ever a case for simplified phones, this is it. WDSGlobal surveyed 500 mobile users and found that only 20% of the features were regularly used and a whole 25% were entirely undiscovered.

   

“For the most part, users struggled to list more than half a dozen services featured on their current mobile phone. Regular usage was largely confined to voice, text messaging, address book, camera and alarm clock. Users do dip into additional services, such as the music player, Internet and games, but we found that a large proportion of features remained completely undiscovered,” says Doug Overton, vice president of consulting and analysis at WDSGlobal. Service discovery, the company suggests, is now one of the most challenging barriers to mobile service adoption.

You can see why less means more for the majority of phone users, and why something like the iPhone, with its highly discoverable applications, is so popular. One would hope that Android’s rich software marketplace will do more than just throw a bunch of third-party fruits of labour into a giant pile, and let the end users sort them out, but will provide a clean and enjoyable portal for that 25% of applications that never see the light of day.

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Samsung's freakishly large Haptic 2 touchscreen phones



Forget everything you know about perspective, Samsung's Haptic 2 is clearly one huge-ass handset. Amazing that the jumbo-handed product waif on the left can even hoist the beast without so much as a grimace. Otherwise, Samsung's newest fullscreen device looks every bit the hot Korean cousin to the i900 Omnia. The Haptic 2 followup to the original Haptic features DMB television, 4GB (SCH-W550 or SPH-W5500, about $600) or 16GB (SCH-W555, about $690) of storage, integrated mobile banking, and improved (more sensitive) 3.2-inch touchscreen and an updated TouchWiz UI now sporting 50 widget applications (up from 15) and user defined vibration tones -- whoa, better beef up security for the Korean launch Sammy.

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Sagem valiantly returns with Porsche Design P'9522



Not even two full months after Sagem fell into the obviously capable hands of Sofinnova, out pops the company's return to the red carpet. Picking right up (numerically speaking, at least) where the P'9521 left off is the well-endowed P'9522, which was reportedly built with a little help from Porsche Design. The candybar features an aluminum chassis, 2.8-inch display, 5-megapixel camera, GPS, WiFi, fingerprint reader and a microSD card slot. Unfortunately, the fun and games end there, as there's no 3G radio anywhere to be found; plus, you'll be asked to lay down about €600 ($875) to acquire one when it ships next month. Loyalty has its price, we guess.



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