TechRadar offers an interesting snapshot of the 10 gadgets their staff is most looking forward to in 2012, some of which we should expect to see at CES next month.
“Where once we were waiting on the influx of dual-core tablets, now we’re looking at a quad-core revolution on the horizon,” explains the post. “We were looking forward to Android 3.0 and Google’s Chrome OS, but now we’re clamouring for Android 4.0 and Windows 8. Gaming also looks set to have a bumper year, with new consoles and technologies coming, and this is all before we get the usual raft of awesome announcements at CES 2012 in January.”
The following comprise the 10 picks that the TechRadar staff are most excited about: 1) New video streaming options and other content for the Amazon Kindle Fire — “perhaps the best gadget bargain of this era;” 2) Wii U with 1080p output, 3D support and a new controller; 3) Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime — the first Nvidia Tegra 3 tablet; 4) Windows 8 tablets with Metro interface and support for ARM processors; 5) Apple’s 2012 tablet (iPad 3 with retina display?); 6) PlayStation Vita with quad-core graphics processor; 7) Asus Padfone with Android 4.0 and Nvidia’s Tegra 3 quad-core CPU; 8) Sony PlayStation 3D display — “a brilliant way to get into 3D gaming without totally breaking the bank;” 9) Android 4.0 tablets with varieties of apps and widgets; and 10) Ultrabooks “that get it right.”
Amidst customer complaints and bad reviews, Amazon plans to unveil an over-the-air-update to the Kindle Fire and is also expected to produce an improved version of the device.
Some of the complaints include: no external volume control; the off switch is easily unintentionally hit; Web pages load slowly; there is no privacy for multiple users; and the touchscreen delays and can be difficult to operate for users “whose fingers are not as slender as toothpicks” one critic warns.
Some Fire consumers who bought the product based on faith in the company have expressed disappointment in reviews. Also, some unhappy customers recommend just spending the extra money on an iPad.
Amazon considers the Kindle crucial to its success as a virtual store and it is already at risk with current pricing that can lose as much as $20 on each $79 Fire. Although the negative feedback might spell doom for some companies, Forbes warns “it would be foolish to underestimate Amazon.”
If the company can make a well-liked, reliable product, Amazon’s low prices will ensure a decent market share. However, the company is hoping for a device that is more than an e-book reader, and an updated version may be needed to achieve this. One analyst noted there is nothing to do with the tablet “unless you’re planning on putting books, a lot of books, on it.”
One thing Amazon got right with the Fire: “Shopping on Amazon is a breeze,” reports The New York Times.
As consumers continue to expect ubiquitous, easy and immediate ways to access media content, Hollywood’s release windows strategy has become “the root cause of piracy,” suggest The Hill.
Research at Carnegie Mellon University shows that every week customers have to wait before they can buy a DVD leads to 1.8 percent lower DVD sales. Moreover, as pirated versions are available 14 weeks before legal versions, the result is a 70 percent increase in pirated movie downloads.
The article suggests that Hollywood needs to adjust its current windowing strategy by looking at selling content in theaters, on DVD and through digital services “around the same time, perhaps at different price points.”
When VCRs were first introduced, they were viewed by the industry as a potentially dangerous piracy tool. However, VCRs eventually became a highly lucrative mechanism for the home video rental business.
The Hill concludes, “technology required the industry to adapt then, and it requires the same now. If Hollywood and publishers can do so, they stand a much better chance of thriving in a global digital marketplace.”
Rich Greenfield, a media analyst at BTIG, makes predictions about “virtual” cable companies that he expects to become available online by next year.
These companies will differ from VOD services like Netflix or Hulu in that consumers will subscribe to “real” TV delivered over the Web in real time.
The contracts will not be a la carte and the virtual cable companies will probably have razor-thin profit margins — after paying higher-than-market rates for big TV channels/programmers.
Although networks might shy away from virtual cable companies so as to not threaten their current deals with existing cable companies, the virtual programming may be beneficial to providers like Time Warner Cable, which will continue to offer broadband, where the profit margin is larger.
Greenfield expects companies that aren’t yet involved in the video business to be the first viral cable providers as they look for another platform to expand their business. Companies such as Amazon, Google or Verizon might also be among the first to sign on.
Faced with little interest from potential buyers, Hewlett-Packard is making its mobile operating system, webOS, available for free, allowing individuals and companies to make improvements (with certain guidelines).
When HP purchased webOS with Palm Inc. in July last year for $1.2 billion, it was “a highly regarded technology, but one that had failed to gain much traction with consumers,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
HP plans to continue enhancements to webOS and keep the 600 or so employees involved with the system. CEO Meg Whitman said HP may build devices with webOS in the future, but not in the next year.
The mobile operating system is “a fabulous technology that we don’t want to have go away,” explained Whitman in an interview, further noting that the decision to go open source is “a great answer.”
Google just hit the 10 billion mark for Android app downloads and is seeing one billion downloads per month.
However, The Arora Report found that some app developers make 1000 percent or more revenue from Apple than they do with Google.
“It appears that iPhone buyers are more amenable for paying for apps whereas Google buyers typically look for free apps,” explains Forbes. “Capitalism indicates that developers will continue to focus first on Apple and then on Google. It makes sense for the developers to go first where the money is.”
The article suggests Apple buyers prefer top of the line products whereas many Android consumers buy cheaper phones.
To further entice buyers, Google is now offering 10 popular Android apps for $1, with plans to cycle new apps every day.
Researchers have developed a new form of light-emitting crystals, known as quantum dots, that will be used to create thinner, flexible displays.
“The tiny crystals, which are 100,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair, can be printed onto flexible plastic sheets to produce a paper-thin display that can be easily carried around, or even onto wallpaper to create giant room-size screens,” reports The Telegraph.
The first commercial products to use the technology are expected to be flat-screen TVs with improved color and thinner displays, available by the end of next year. The flexible versions should take at least three years to become commercially available, although the technology may appear on small personal devices earlier.
“Something else we are looking at is reels of wallpaper or curtains made out of a material that has quantum dots printed on it,” explains Michael Edelman, chief executive of Nanoco,a company set up by the scientists behind the technology at Manchester University. “You can imagine displaying scenes of the sun rising over a beach as you wake up in the morning.”
According to Edelman, Nanoco is currently working with major Asian electronics companies on flat-screen TVs that incorporate the quantum dot technology.
Amazon has established a $6 million fund called KDP Select aimed at gaining 90-day book exclusives for Kindles from publishers and independent authors.
Digital Trends explains how it works: “$6 million is allocated each year and split into $500,000 per month. That $500,000 is awarded to publishers based entirely on how many purchases that author’s books generated during the month as compared to all books enrolled in the KDP Select exclusivity program. So, according to Amazon, if 100,000 books sell during a month and your book sells 1,500, you will earn $7,500 in additional royalties for the month.”
Authors who opt in will get “special tools” like the ability to offer their book for free, to better market their books on Amazon. Amazon says there will hopefully be more tools to come in the future.
The program may become less appealing as more authors join — especially popular authors — since the fixed $500,000 amount could potentially split more times. “The minute a really popular book joins that plan, all other participating members will see their royalties sliced by huge proportions,” suggests the post.
TechRadar offers its predictions of what to expect at January’s CES.
OLED: new production techniques are making the technology affordable; Samsung and LG will likely show 55-inch prototypes.
The majority of TVs 32-inch and larger will be 3D capable, Smart TV will probably see a boost and 4K panels will provide high resolution sets.
The Nintendo Wii U or an updated prototype will likely make an appearance along with — maybe — the Xbox 720.
Computing will see more from Microsoft on Windows 8 (which will hopefully discuss ARM backwards compatibility); Intel will showcase its die-shrink successor, Ivy Bridge; and ultrabooks will flood the conference.
Tablets may be revealed from Acer and HTC. There may also be multiple phone premieres: Samsung Galaxy S III, LG Optimus U1, HTC Edge and/or Ville, and the Xperia Arc HD from Sony Ericsson.
The article details potential camera reveals from Canon, Nikon and Sony. It also talks about more compact system cameras (CSC) that may be coming out in 2012 following Panasonic, Olympus, Samsung, Sony and Nikon models released this year.
Mitsubishi has been named a CES Innovations 2012 Design and Engineering Awards Honoree for its 92-inch 3D DLP Home Cinema TV.
According to the press release: “Mitsubishi’s 92-inch TV includes a 16-speaker, fully immersive Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound system; new Clear Contrast Screen; Perfect Color; Perfect Tint; and the same 3D DLP technology used by 90 percent of 3D movie theaters.”
The company claims its $6,000 3D DLP model (WD-92840) is “the largest mass-produced TV on the market, covering a surface area greater than four standard 46-inch TVs combined.”
More details are expected during January’s CES in Las Vegas.
Intel announced that smartphones and tablets powered by the company’s Medfield Atom processor and running Google’s Android 4.0 OS could hit the market next year.
Intel has been working with manufacturers to ensure compatibility of its chipsets with several versions of Android.
“We’ll see products next year on Gingerbread, Ice Cream Sandwich and Honeycomb,” said Alec Gefrides, head of the Google Program Office at Intel. “Every OEM has to put a stake in the ground to get a product delivered.”
In a related post from Product Reviews, rumors suggest we may see some unannounced Ice Cream Sandwich handsets at CES in January.
Samsung may be unveiling an ICS device for the Sprint network that is powered by Intel.
Intel is reportedly choosing a manufacturer to produce its device, which would run Android 4.0 ICS on Intel’s Atom processor.
“Could Intel be the brand new player in 2012 that is set to give NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 chip a run for its money?” asks Product Reviews. “It certainly seems that way based on these rumors and more choice in the market is obviously a great thing from a consumers perspective.”
UltraViolet’s Web channels are now live and will be going global, with launches planned in the UK for the end of December, Canada in 2012 and additional locations in 2013.
“Sony, Universal and Warner began shipping UV-enabled Blu-ray and DVD titles to U.S. shelves in October,” reports paidContent. “In the last few days, the first three online exponents — SonyPictures.com, UniversalHiDef.com and Flixster.com — went live, allowing owners of the new discs to also stream the same movie on those sites for free.”
In the UK, Tesco’s Blinkbox VOD service will launch an individual version of the same concept, but “Blinkbox will also be plugging in to UltraViolet in 2012.”
“Against a backdrop of piracy and the rise of subscription access services like Netflix and Spotify, UltraViolet is a defensive ploy to build online value around the same model entertainment has known for decades — ownership,” suggests the article.
There’s a new rumor making the rounds that Microsoft may resurrect a file-sharing technology it first introduced with the Zune in 2006, which failed to gain traction initially due to the device’s lack of adoption.
“Beaming” is reportedly based on Zune’s “squirting” concept (sharing music with other Zunes over Wi-Fi). Microsoft is believed to be working on the beaming feature for its Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 “Apollo” and Xbox platforms.
Beaming will utilize NFC, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi direct pairing. The feature may be used to beam users’ Windows 8 profiles, for example, or possibly even stream movies from an Xbox console.
“As always, take this rumor with a grain of salt, but to some degree, it fits within Microsoft’s vision of a unified experience across the three screens: PC/tablet, smartphone and console,” reports tech blog Tom’s Hardware. “Perhaps we’ll hear more about Beaming next month during CES 2012.”
The post includes a video showing a user “beaming” a presentation from his phone to an HDTV and a document from his phone to a tablet.
We should expect to see a major push regarding Google TV in the coming months, according to Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt.
“By the summer of 2012… the majority of the televisions you see in television stores will have Google TV embedded in them,” he predicted while addressing a crowd at the LeWeb conference in Paris.
While Logitech has stepped away from the project, PC Pro reports that LG and Samsung are rumored to be debuting Google TV products at CES in January.
However, The Guardian warns that “Google TV is going to face an uphill battle: it may well be installed in lots of TV sets sitting on the shelves, but people may well be keeping their hands in their pockets; few people need to buy a new television. The market is saturated. TV sales look set for a dramatic slowdown in 2012.”
The Guardian agrees that Schmidt’s contention may be accurate, but adds: “…there’s a long way from that to people buying them, and taking them home, and engaging the Internet capability, and enjoying the experience more than they do through some other channel such as their laptop, tablet, or games console. Let’s check back in a year.”
Ross Nanotechnology has developed a new silicon-based spray that may save users buckets in cash by water-proofing electronics.
NeverWet has a very high contact angle, a way of measuring hydrophobicity or water resistance. The product is long-lasting and can also be used as an anti-icing agent or antibacterial shield.
“When water hits a NeverWet-coated product or item, it simply beads and rolls off the surface just like the proverbial duck’s back,” reports Digital Trends. “It’s not just water it repels either, as the silicon-based spray sees everything from oil to ketchup instantly fall away.”
NeverWet was applied to an iPhone that continued to operate successfully, despite being submerged underwater for a half hour.
The post includes two compelling videos showcasing the capabilities of the technology.
