Google Maps Introduces Indoor Navigation

Google Maps 6.0 brought a promise of indoor navigation back in November of last year, but outside of a few dozen airports, transit hubs and retail outlets, we had no idea where it was or wasn’t implemented.  Luckily, Google made the smart move of mapping out most of Las Vegas before this year’s annual Consumer Electronics Show.  As of right now, not much is mapped out (it is obviously still a work in progress) but it brings the promise of yet another amazing “add-on” of technology to the year of 2012.

New Asus Memo Pad Gets Leaked

Shortly after getting a sneak peek at the Eee PC Flare, new images of another leaked tablet are showing up.  Apparently, these images are showing the Asus Memo Pad.

The Memo Pad will be running on a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 16-64GB of internal storage, built in 3G and Wi-Fi.  The screen resolution will be 1280×800 making the screen 7 inches.  The version of Android that it will run on is not known yet but we can expect to see this product shown at CES this year.

Consumer Electronics Show 2012: Trends To Watch Out For

All across the globe, electronic/technology companies are preparing themselves for CES (Comsumer Electronics Show) 2012, which takes place during the second week of January at the Las Vegas Convention Center.  Although Microsoft disclosed its plans to end its participation in CES starting next year, this year’s show should hold some promising insights to what’s ahead in the world of electronics.

During an interview with FORBES Wednesday, Accenture‘s Kumu Puri, a senior executive with the consulting firm’s consumer electronics practice in San Francisco, laid out what she thinks will be the five big themes from the 2012 edition of the show.  Microsoft will of course hold a big role this year.  Apple will be casting a big shadow over the event although it will not be participating this year.

So here they are, Puri’s 5 trends to keep a look out for at this year’s CES show:

1. Ultrabooks: PC makers are expected to role out 20-40 new versions of the incredibly thin notebooks.  Puri thinks pricing will start in the $800 to $1,000 range, but quickly scale down from there.
2. Tablets/Smartphones: As everyone could have guessed, we will be seeing a lot more mobile devices this year, including new Android based tablets and smartphones.  We should be expecting to see more support for mobile payments and location-based services on these devices.
3. Connected Devices: Puri expects to see innovation in connected cars, for instance, with new features for Internet radio, and in-car apps targeting safety issues. There will be more Internet-enabled kitchen appliances. Also big again this year will be connected televisions. She thinks some of those services are maturing, and should improve over previous attempts at TV-based Web offerings that received an indifferent consumer reception.
4. Windows 8: Coming back to Microsoft, the company is expected to launch its new operating system at some point in 2012.  Everyone is just asking how much of it they will be showing off at CES.  Also likely to show up at CES: a variety of new Windows Phone-based mobile devices.
5. Digital Health: Puri thinks there will be an increased focus on health care at the show, with developments in three areas. One of those is the increased adoption of tablets in hospitals and doctors offices for recording data and other purposes. A second focus will be cloud-based solutions for storing, archiving, accessing and retrieving medical records. And the third will be an increased number of consumer medical devices, some apps running on tablets and phones, others dedicated gizmos for monitoring things like glucose levels and blood pressure.

Droid Bionic Coming Out Tomorrow

Verizon Wireless has just announced that one of their most powerful smartphones, the Droid Bionic, will be going on sale this Thursday (September 7th) for $299.99.

In case you are unfamiliar with the Droid Bionic, it is the first Verizon phone to run on a dual-core  1GHz processor to run on Verizon’s fast 4G LTE network. And besides selling the phone, Verizon will also be selling accessories for the phone such as an 11.6 inch lapdock for roughly $300.

This lapdock was first brought up at the CES this past January showing the ability of the phone to connect and run the laptop through its powerful processor.  This would give users a full keyboard and large screen to do whatever they like such as edit documents, watch movies, or just browse the web on Firefox.

Although the price of the new smartphone may be high, it is in fact the only smartphone on Verizon that runs on the 4G LTE network with a dual core processor.  Besides this, the phone is also now the slimmest phone on the Verizon market being only 0.43 inches thick and weighing in at only 5.6 ounces.

The Bionic will run on the latest version of Android (Android 2.3.4), and will support up to 32GB of storage.  The phone also has a front and rear facing camera with the rear one being 8 megapixels putting the phone in major competition with newer smartphones.

Although the price is high, it seems the Droid Bionic packs quite the punch and with the external lapdock, it could even be used as a new cheap laptop!

What do you think? Leave a comment below!

Asus Transformer 2?

As a follow up from an earlier post, this weekend Asus announced that a Transformer 2 is in the making.  Although it has been announced, there has been no details about the device or any clue on the launch date but we can probably assume that it will be revealed on or around the next Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January.  The only thing there has been speculation about is that the new tablet will most likely support Nvidia’s new quad-core processor.  However, Asus chairman promised that it will be “impressive”.

New Look To Tablet PCs

If you have been reading my blog for a while, then you would have read this post back in January convering the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) on different tablets PCs that were coming out this year.  I mainly focused on the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer and how different and revolutionized it looked.

The Eee Pad Transformer has proved itself to be different in design when compared to leading tablet PCs such as the iPad or Motorola’s Xoom tablet. The Transformer has been considered to be a “hybrid” tablet as it can be used as a regular tablet PC but at the same time, can be used as a regular laptop with regular laptop capabilities.

The Eee Pad runs on a 1GHz processor and 1GB of RAM.  It also features a 10.1 inch Gorilla Glass multitouch screen.  As cameras go, it will come with a 1.2 megapixel front facing camera as well as a 5 megapixel back facing camera. The “laptop” attachment (a.k.a. the keyboard) consists of only the keyboard, trackpad, and a battery (battery lasts an astounding 16 hours long).

This seem to be a great new “revolutionized” version of any tablet out right now and it will be interesting to see if companies start to design their tablets off of this sort of design.

What do you think? Comment below

Motorola starting off 2011 with a click

Earlier today, Motorola announced that they will be shipping their latest phone, the Motorola Cliq 2.  The new phone will cost $100 with a new contract and about $400 without one.  The phone has a lot to offer and has a very unique design (picture to the left).

As I said, the phone looks pretty sweet and has some neat features. The Cliq 2 will have a 3.7inch touch screen display and will run on the new Android 2.2.  It will also have Adobe Flash support making internet browsing much easier.  The phone will also come with a 2GB microSD memory card although it can be expanded up to 32GB or storage.

Besides the phone, Motorola also released a new app to the Android market.  It’s called DriveSmart and its main purpose is to prevent people from texting or calling while driving. The app is a good concept and seems like it will help (if people decide to turn it on while driving).

Basically, the app will mute notifications for texts and any calls or alarms.  Besides this, you have to option to automatically send a text back (ex: “I’m currently driving and can not talk”) or forward a call directly to a Bluetooth headset or your voicemail. Right now there is a free version that offers all of this but there’s also a $10 monthly version that uses GPS to determine when you should turn the app on and off.  It also gives parents updates on when the driver turns off the app while driving (“overriding it”).

So all in all, the phone and app combination from Motorola looks to be a good start to a good year.  What are your thoughts?

Verizon looking worse even with iPhone

Short blog today on something I recently read and could not believe.

If you currently have a Verizon carrier then you should know about their “New every two” program in which after two years of having a phone, you are eligible for a $30-$100 discount on your next phone of choice.  Well starting on January 16th, this program will no longer be available to new customers and current customers will not be re-admitted after using their current two year upgrade.

Like I said, short post but I really couldn’t believe this.  Maybe Verizon is power hungry and want more money from upcoming users wanting to buy the iPhone 4?  Not sure but it’s a pretty big disappointment to those who have Verizon as of now.

More 4G phones coming to Verizon users

On my blog yesterday, I typed about one of Verizon’s upcoming 4G phones, the DROID BIONIC.  Today’s blog is yet another 4G Verizon phone called the HTC Thunderbolt.

Announced a couple days ago at CES, the Thunderbolt looks pretty impressive.  It has a 4.3 inch touch screen display, front and rear facing cameras and runs on Android 2.2 mixed in with HTC’s Sense 2.0 display.

Looking at the phone, it looks to be a media based smartphone.  A 8 megapixel camera that records in HD is just the tip of the iceberg. Besides this, its wireless DLNA allows the device to stream video and other media to other DLNA devices such as HDTVs.  It also comes with a 32GB microSD card and there is a stand built in the phone to make things more comfortable while watching HD videos.  To top it all off, the phone’s audio is considered surround sound.

All of this on top of a 4G network seems to be pretty impressive.  Looks like we will have a ton of more smartphones on the 4G network coming our way.

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Dual Core Processors on Verizon phones!

At CES on Wednesday, Verizon officially announced a ton of new phones that will be put on their new 4G network which is said to be up to 10 times faster than 3G.  One of the smartphones announced that stood out to me was the DROID BIONIC.  With this being the latest phone in the droid series, it has a lot to offer.

The BIONIC has a 4.3 inch HD touch screen display, and both front and rear facing cameras (rear is 8 megapixels).  The phone will also have an HDMI output so you can watch all of your HD recorded clips on your television as well as purchase HD content and view it in full 1080p.

Besides this, the BIONIC’s most notable feature is its processor.  A new rising feature in smartphones in the upcoming future is dual core processors and the DROID BIONIC will have one with both cores running at 1GHz. To people who do not know what that means, it will be running at about twice the speed of a regular smartphone. The phone will also have 512MB of RAM. These two features alone make this smartphone incredibly fast which will increase speeds while multitasking. To help out with graphics, the BIONIC comes with Adobe Flash Player and HTML 5.

This is said to be a work device so that being said, it will come with corporate email, data security and encryption capabilities.  The phone will also have Quickoffice, full calender management, one-click conference calls, and tons of Google applications/services.

It’s hard to believe that a phone has come this far. Dual Core processor, HD camera, HTML 5, and game graphics that are console quality is insane.  Verizon definatly is setting the bar for smartphones this year.