Nook Tablet: a true competitor for Kindle Fire

Barnes & Noble Announces Android Touch Pad 7 "at low prices to counter its competitor Amazon Kindle and Fire.

The season may be very busy in the segment of touch pads, entry-level. U.S. bookseller Barnes & Noble has announced the availability of its slate multimedia, Tablet Nook, in response to the attack of Amazon and its Kindle Fire.

The two competing models have the same characteristics are: IPS multitouch screen 7 "(resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels), TI OMAP processor double heart 1 GHz, WiFi 802.11 b / g / n ... but the Nook is characterized by a much more substantial RAM (1 GB 512 MB against Kindle for Fire) and a memory of 16GB expandable to 48 GB with SD card slot (only 8 GB of internal memory for Amazon model).

Lighter (412 grams against 499 grams for the tablet competitor) the Nook Tablet offers a range of comfortable 11 hours reading text and 9.5 hours in video mode. This superior technology is paid for by a tariff increase of 50 dollars or 249 dollars against 199 dollars for the Kindle Fire. Pre-orders are now open across the Atlantic, and will be delivered and available for sale only three days after the model of its direct competitor, is November 18.

               

To complete its range of content, Barnes & Noble has entered into various partnerships with Marvel, Netflix, Hulu Plus, Pandora or Grooveshark, and offer a storage service in the cloud to its users through the Nook Cloud.

Note also that in order not to let Amazon steal market share of reading lights "simple", the American bookseller down the price of its Nook Color (from 249 to 199 dollars) and that of its Nook Touch (from 139 to 99 dollars). We can say that the release of Touch Kindle by Amazon price floor has been beneficial for consumers.

Read More

Modules of DDR3 of 64 Go

Micron is back on center stage with modules of RAM and 64 GB

More and more services in the cloud, so more and more users to manage the servers, resulting in a demand for storage space and RAM especially more important ... To meet this demand, Micron Technology introduces new RAM sticks (more precisely LRDIMMs) of 64 GB


Relying on this small step forward, the parent Lexar also offers smaller modules like the classic 8 GB, 16 GB or 32 GB According to the brand marketing team, this architecture will allow modification of the company to increase capacity by 50% and 30% performance on the server type applications. In addition, better management of the increase in frequency accompanied by a significant discharge of the memory bus will reduce energy consumption by about 10%.

The first RAM chips including the new technology should be available for sale during February 2012.

Read More

The BIOS of Gigabyte passes in “3D”

Gigabyte BIOS upgrades in UEFI motherboard with more interactive when applying changes in parameters.

Gigabyte has just introduced an official BIOS for its next generation motherboards, starting with those equipped with the Intel x79 chipset for Sandy Bridge-E. The latter, called 3D BIOS, is to actually offer two different dual-navigation UEFI, with the ability to switch from one presentation to another by clicking (or pressing the F1 key).

The first presentation is classic, with its sections, lists and traditional menus, while the second (called "3D") adds various visual elements. A graphical representation of the motherboard that can handle provides access in an intuitive way to various components of the machine, like CPU, RAM or SATA controllers. A simple click on these to open a menu related to apply some parameter changes.

This is explained in this video by Gigabyte 3D Presend the BIOS:

Read More

Mobile Internet: the Orange flows are the best

The thirteenth edition of the surveyon the quality of mobile networks is available. Let's take ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

The authority of telecom us some figures on the quality of mobile networks in order to ensure that the consumer can use his mobile phone under good conditions. Various tests were carried out on the field with a new feature this year, adding measures of Web browsing.

As in previous years, the GSM network used for voice is always good, whether inside or outside a building or traveling in a vehicle. For cons, the quality degrades compared to last year when communication in TGV or on motorways in France, with significant differences between operators. Good for calls in the suburban trains and trams for their benefiting from a better result with an increase in the quality and maintains the communication of 2 to 4%.

A large disparity in average rates was observed between operators

The following figures were established via the 3G dongles for different operators, where the fastest downloads reach more than 9.2 Mbit / s and 3 Mbit / s when sending files. For the average flow is the order of 3 Mbit / s (40% better than the previous survey) and 1.3 Mbit / s for sending (1.2 Mbit / s above) . However, a large disparity in median flow is observed between the operators, with 4.8 Mbit / s for Orange France, 2.8 Mbit / s for SFR and 1.2 Mbit / s for Bouygues Telecom. What about joining the point made by DegroupTest few weeks ago.

With the new test for Web browsing, ARCEP using smartphones for measures giving amazing results, the average throughput for download is 2.4 Mbit / s against 3 Mbit / s on USB 3G, and 1.4 Mbit / s against 1.3 Mbit / s on USB 3G upload.

The full report of the survey, containing the description of the test protocol and the detailed results of each operator - which is also very well written - is available on the website of the ARCEP. In addition, work should soon extend this survey to departments and territories overseas.

Read More

Android royalties: Huawei could say “not” at Microsoft

Microsoft does succeed to reach an agreement with China's Huawei to receive royalties on sales of its Android devices?

Micosoft believes that Android devices infringe its patents and does not hesitate to put pressure on manufacturers of these to get royalties on each model delivered. A strategy that works, big brands have already signed agreements with the U.S. software giant, which allows Microsoft to generate more revenue now than its own Windows Phone. Recently, Samsung was concerned, joining HTC, Onkyo, Velocity Micro, General Dynamics Itronix, Acer and Viewsonic.

New target for Microsoft, China's Huawei, which - after having long made ??white label terminals for operators - markets recently Android smartphones under its own brand. Huawei has told the Guardian he was approached by Microsoft as part of an agreement to license a patent against royalties. Victor Xu, marketing director, confirmed that negotiations are under way with Microsoft, but it is clearly not ready to abdicate at the moment, challenging the legitimacy of the process.

Huawei U8230, the first Android smartphone sold in the Chinese own name

"We are part of those who respect intellectual property. But we also hold 65,000 patents worldwide. We can protect ourselves," says he, also waiting to see if the purchase of Motorola Mobility enough Google will enrich the portfolio patent editor for Android change the situation vis-à-vis Microsoft royalties. We do not yet know Huawei is able to sign with Microsoft or it will go to trial, as have Motorola decided to do it or Barnes & Noble.

A subject on which it is desirable that justice looks anyway, because if one side believes Microsoft still have not seen a single terminal that Android does not infringe its patents, Google accuses the firm of Redmond to extort money by threatening to manufacturers of trial. What had led to heated exchanges in the public, via Twitter.

Read More

Shortage of HDD: Nidec starts again its production partly

The revival of the production of hard drives could start earlier than expected thanks to the recovery of one of the leading suppliers in the industry.

The company produces motors Nidec hard drives allowing rotation of the plates. Usually, it represents nearly 75% of the total production of all engines built in HDD sold worldwide. But the floods, production capacity has been reduced without its engines, the hard drive manufacturers can consider resuming their normal activities.

Good news, Nidec announced that production gradually resumed on the platform of Thailand in Ayutthaya plant thereby cushion the shortage was announced yesterday for the fourth quarter of 2011.

Nidec has ten manufacturing plants in Thailand, eight of which were affected by flooding. For example, the production unit Rangsit was arrested Oct. 13, taking over from the October 25, unlike the site of Ayutthaya who took over on November 4. In the Philippines, the monthly capacity from 15 million units usually produced 25 million, as in China where they have gone from 10 to 15 million units per day.

However, there is still a production loss of nearly 30%, about 140 million small engine in the third quarter. In the future, Nidec will review plans to charge its plants from 62% to 43% of the total production of the company in Thailand, and from 23% to 36% in the Philippines and 15% to 21 % in China, in order to rectify this production and to protect themselves from potential future problems in some areas.

Read More

Windows Phon: material requirements with the fall

Microsoft gives a little more flexibility to manufacturers of Windows Phone.

"All Windows Phone look alike." It's a phrase you've heard a lot in order to characterize the first generation of smartphones operating the mobile OS from Microsoft. I must say that the hardware specifications required by Microsoft to manufacturers did not leave them much room to differentiate their devices. A situation that is about to change, Microsoft has realized that it would make concessions to let manufacturers innovate in the design and functionality of their phones, to enable supply to expand, a sine qua the adoption of Windows Phone by many.

Thus, manufacturers of Windows Phone can now use two Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, the MSM8x55 and MSM7x30. The first can be clocked from 1 to 1.5 GHz and terminals are for medium and high end. The second 800 MHz will allow manufacturers to offer Windows smartphones more accessible, entry-level. Nokia, which enjoys certain privileges through its agreement with Microsoft to use its share of ST-Ericsson platforms in the future (but not on the 800 and 710 Lumia recently announced). Architectures that Microsoft could confirm that all manufacturers can use Windows Phone.

Other developments, if the screen should always display a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels, 256 MB of RAM that should always be installed and the built-in storage must be 8 GB, the list goes on optional equipment with digital compass the gyroscope and the second photo sensor no longer required. What extend the range down, and allow Windows Phone to finally take off? Remember, it now accounts for less than 5% of the smartphone market, but growth should accelerate in the coming years according to analysts who see Windows Phone and Android truly compete iOS by 2015.

Read More