Very short review of TOP 3 tablets on the market

Yesterday I bought second tablet in my Android carrier - Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (N8000). Internet is full of different reviews about this device, so I wont be writing essay about it. What I want to do, is to write about 3 current high-end tablets you can find on the market and why non of them are worth to buy. This concerns: Galaxy Nexus 10, Galaxy Note 10.1 and Asus Transformer Infinity. I will mostly write short pros and cons of each.

Every of these three devices presents different approach of using a tablet:

1. Galaxy Nexus 10 ---> hand only
2. Galaxy Note 10.1 --> hand & active pen
3. Asus Transformer Infinity ---> hand & keyboard dock

Galaxy Nexus 10

The build quality of Nexus 10 is superb. Screen is actually the best on the market. Hardware (CPU, GPU) are top components as well. However, using N10 with only a hand makes this device nothing more then a overgrown phone. You can browse internet, zoom in or zoom out 100 times the same pictures, watch a movie (if you have some battery bank with you), chat with friends etc. You can do all these amazing things... Oh wait... no, you can't! There is no 3G connectivity. So if you are not close to some Wi-Fi hot-spot (you can make one yourself if you have enough mobile data-plan in your smartphone) you can only watch photos, read some e-book or listen to the music. Or you can browse the Internet on your tablet sitting home on the couch with your notebook next to you. I don't know what's so cool in browsing Internet on 10" screen, if you can do it on 15"4 screen as well, with full keyboard and mouse. Let's get back to that hot-spot. Why it sucks? Because now you need 2 battery banks. One for your tablet, and one for your mobile phone.

You might say there are many advanced active pens on the market you can buy and use with your Nexus 10. Sure, you can. Try to make a note having your hand lying on the screen. It's not possible to write anything (at least nothing readable) if there is no software protection against random hand touch (like Samsung has in Note 10.1). So forget about using pen with Nexus 10. Pure Android is not ready yet for active pens.

Pros:

1. Great screen (2560 x 1600)
2. Great hardware
3. Great design

Cons:

1. No 3G connectivity
2. Not ready for active pens, so using this device is limited just to entertainment.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1

Now... let's be honest. I'm not disappointed with this device. But I'm also not that excited as I was when I bought my first tablet - Asus Eee Pad Transformer TF101. So what's wrong about it? It's Samsung design, so it feels plastic. And no matter how great and innovatory this plastic will be, it still feels like plastic. Other tablets are plastic too, but when you hold Samsung you feel like holding a cheap plastic. Sorry, it's they way I feel. But what is worse, it's creaking here and there. Samsung, please! For that price you give us cheap, noisy plastic? I'm not saying it's creaking a lot. But it shouldn't be creaking at all. Another things is the screen. 1280 x 800 is embarrassing resolution for 10'1 tablet. This should not happen. Screen quality is just bad. And there is no Gorilla Glass. By the way - S-Pen feels cheap too.

When it comes to connectivity, it's one of not many tablets on the market with 3G connection. So if you have a SIM card with at least 2 GB mobile data plan, it's a perfect solution to have your tablet connected all the time.

The best thing about this tablet is not S-Pen. It's Samsung software. And trust me - I'm a HTC fan so it's not easy for me to say that I like anything about Samsung software. But when it comes to using a pen, this is the only tablet on the market with such advanced software for handwriting. There is also great multitasking - you can have active applications on the desktop and work without closing each other. It would take too long to write about all amazing things you can find using this tablet together with S-Pen. If you're looking for a tablet that you can use not only for fun - Note 10.1 it's the only right choice.

Pros:

1. Great active pen (S-Pen)
2. Amazing software for handwriting and great multitasking features
3. 3G connectivity

Cons:

1. Plastic design
2. Low resolution (1280 x 800)
3. No Gorilla Glas protection
4. Cracking body

Asus Transformer Infinity

The last one from the TOP 3. Asus tablets are well known from their keyboard dock stations. What is so great about it? In my opinion - nothing. But let's start from the beginning. Screen in this model is somewhere in between Nexus 10 and Galaxy Note 10.1. It has 1920 x 1200 resolution. Not as good as Nexus 10, but decisively much better than Galaxy Note 10.1. It also has IPS+ panel instead of TFT (guess which one have TFT...?). Also there is 3G connectivity. Of course if you find TF700TG version. So far 3G variant seems to be a ghost version, almost like Nexus 10 in some countries. Build quality is very good, I like the design as well. Again, it's between Nexus 10 and Samsung. Not that good as N10, but much better then Note 10.1.

When it comes to software I must say I pretty like it. GUI is not as expanded as HTC Sense or Samsung TouchWiz, but it gives you some more widgets and applications than pure Android (Galaxy Nexus 10).

Now the best part - keyboard. This is the approach I find the most ridiculous. And the useless touchpad is lovely too! Just one question - if you need to write fast on your portable device - why using limited Android with quasi-keyboard is better then using ultrabook with Windows (or Linux) Intel CPU, big SSD drive, HD graphic and 4 GB RAM? If you want to carry 10'1 tablet with external keyboard, you can get Asus or Samsung ultrabook for the same price. With much more features and power under the hood.

Of course you can buy an active pen. But like I mentioned before in Nexus 10 part, using an active pen without a special software is pointless. It just wont work as you could expect.

Pros:

1. Good screen (IPS+ 1920 x 1200)
2. Nice design
3. Good build quality

Cons:

1. Almost not possible to find model with 3G
2. Not ready for active pens, so using this device is limited just to entertainment (if you don't have keyboard dock)
3. If you actually have keyboard dock, think about functionality of such combo against e.g. HP Envy ultrabook.

Conclusion

As you can see, there is no perfect tablet on the market. At least not for me. Some of them are missing 3G, some of them are not yet ready for handwriting. And if there is a tablet with 3G and great handwriting software, it doesn't look as good as it could. Maybe it's time for HTC to show some tablet? We haven't seen from HTC anything new with 10'1 screen since a long time.

So what the best tablet should be and look like?

1. Galaxy Nexus 10 build quality and design
2. Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity (additionally variant with LTE instead of 3G)
3. Samsung handwriting software & S-Pen
4. IPS+ panel with 2560 x 1600 resolution, covered with Gorilla Glass
5. Top CPU, GPU and sufficient amount of RAM memory
6. MicoSD card slot

For such tablet I will pay every price.

At the end, here is some thought - do you think tablets have a chance to survive in a world where more and more ultrabooks and notebooks have touch screens or even rotating screens (like Dell XPS 12, Lenovo ThinkPad Twist) or dual-screen like Asus Taichi.

Do you have any questions or want to share some opinion? Please leave a comment below! Also, if you like this article, please use media sharing buttons (Twitter, G+, Facebook) down this post!

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More pictures of HTC M7 and HTC Sense 5.0

It seems that leaked yesterday pictures of HTC M7 were not a fake. Today we have another portion of promising photos, this time published by androidpolice.com.

Source: www.androidpolice.com

Watermark on the screen makes those images trustworthy. It's a common watermark used by HTC in beta-software. Looking at the lock-screen I can say that HTC 5.0 is not that minor update as some have stated. I must say I'm getting more and more excited about it. And this is the back of the device:

Source: www.androidpolice.com

The back of the device seems to be made from the same material as HTC One X+. Actually it looks quite the same with only flash led moved to the other side and slightly different camera body.

There are also more screenshots of HTC Sense 5.0.

Source: www.androidpolice.com

The one on the left seems to be some kind of weather app connected with initial setup screen or some social center. In the center and the right you can see more details about incoming software like HTC SDK API or kernel version. The rest is protected by HTC, which is also very common in beta-software. It looks quite promising, don't you think so?

UPDATE 24.01.2013

Here are some more screenshots taken on HTC Droid DNA device by mdeejay from xda-developers:

This looks very good! Hopefully we'll see new HTC UI on HTC One X/X+ as well.

Do you have any questions or want to share some opinion? Please leave a comment below! Also, if you like this article, please use media sharing buttons (Twitter, G+, Facebook) down this post!

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Nokia Lumia 822 showcases Windows Phone 8 from Microsoft

I've had another experience where a particular smartphone was just a joy to carry around. This time, it was the Nokia Lumia 822 from Verizon Wireless.

Maybe it was the live tiles of Windows Phone 8 or the seamless integration with everything Microsoft, such as Windows Live and all the features surrounding it. Whatever it was, I took a likening to the Lumia 822 and now I must say "well done" to Nokia and Microsoft.

Nokia has been around for the long term and most of us remember them as always having quality hardware. Although the Finnish crew have been making mobile phones since the early 1990s and used to be the King of cell phones, the smartphone craze from Apple's iPhone and Google's Android platform caused Nokia to fall by the wayside.

Microsoft has been around since 1975 and needed something significant and exciting in the mobile communications arena.

So these two giants teamed up in 2011 to create market-leading mobile products. Before the year was out, the Lumia 710 was announced as being the first Windows phone from Nokia in the United States, but it was running Windows Phone 7. About a year later in September, the Lumia line of devices was announced for Windows Phone 8.

The Lumia 822 is the upgraded version of the 820, which was announced in September along with the flagship Lumia 920. Now I'm pretty familiar with Android devices and I carry the iPhone 5, but the live tiles on the WP8 devices, such as the Lumia 822, are pretty ingenious.

You can make your start screen as personal as you like, with your favorite things just a touch away. That's why so many WP8 fans are having so much fun with their devices. The live tiles work very well giving the very latest updates and information. Live tiles are a winner. Simple as that.

The other feature I found really enjoyable on the Lumia 822 is the integration between the phone and your Windows Live account. Every photo taken with the 8 megapixel camera goes to Windows Live without a hitch. Your email account is just a tap away, along with any calendar appointments.

Then you have the People tile that pulls in all you social networks into one list. This became my favorite morning pastime with a cup of coffee — just seeing what's going on in Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn — all in one stream.

When you compare my iPhone with it's 4-inch display to the Lumia 822's 4.3-inch display, I found typing and texting to be much easier. Having the extra space around the characters makes a difference and the suggested words feature on the Lumia speeds things along by saving keystrokes.

The Lumia is a little heavier at 4.99 ounces compared with my guy at 3.65 ounces, but the extra weight didn't bother me all, mainly due to the rounded corners and quality feel of the Nokia hardware. It simply feels good in your hand.

The 1.25 gigahertz processor of the Lumia 822 falls right in line with some of the other WP8 devices, such at its sibling, the Lumia 920, and the HTC 8X. But the latter devices trump the Lumia 822 with better screen resolution and the 920 has a higher-rated camera at 8.7 megapixels. During a surprise snowfall in my town, I had fun with the Carl Zeiss lens on the Lumia 822's 8 MP camera. Nice pictures is what I can say.

As for apps, the Lumia 822 comes with ESPN, My Verizon Mobile, NFL Mobile, The Weather Channel, Nokia City Lens and a few others. Then you can shop among the 120,000 or so in the Windows 8 store. That's nowhere near the 600,000 to 700,000 apps found in the Google Play and Apple stores, but I found a few of my favorites that worked well on the Lumia 822.

The Nokia Wireless Charging Pad allows you to put your phone down on a plate to charge the battery.

The Lumia 822 can be made even better with accessories, such as a Nokia Wireless Charging Cover or Charging Pad and a JBL Wireless Speaker.

You would think you might need a couple of hundred bucks to snag a Lumia 822, especially after considering all the features I've mentioned, but it's a bargain at $49.99 with a contract.

For the past of couple of years, the smartphone arena has been ruled by the iPhone and Android, while other platforms revamped their offerings. Things are changing now.

At this point, the Lumia 822 could be the deal of the year, as we wait on Samsung's next move with the Galaxy line of devices and the upcoming new BlackBerry 10 smartphones that will be announced on Jan. 30. Let's also not forget that Google made a $12.5 billion play for Motorola about a year ago and we're yet to see what they're up to for a new smartphone from the twosome.

The Windows Phone 8 devices are off to a good start while things are calm and the Lumia 822 is one good example of what's available.

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HTC M7 - next HTC flagship device

Today htcsource.com came up with a nice photo of incoming HTC flagship model - HTC M7.

Source: http://htcsource.com

In a matter of fact, this picture shows not only new, incoming device but also the main screen from HTC Sesne 5.0 UI. Obviously not much can be concluded based only on this photo, but it seems that HTC is following the fashion of angular and edgy graphic elements. The same happened to Microsoft Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. Personally I'm not yet sure if I like it. Actually I find HTC Sense 4+ very good UI and I'm not really sure if this direction of squares is good one. Maybe it's just a matter of habits and in fact HTC Sense 5.0 will be an improvement over Sense 4+ when it comes to the graphic design.

This angularity concerns the overall design of the device as well. As you can see, HTC M7 is very similar to HTC Butterfly. Corners are even more tightened in HTC M7.

What else is interesting? Look at the capacitive buttons. It seems that home button and multi-tasks button are  in reversed order. Isn't it more intuitive to have home button in the middle? Also, based on this photo you can see that no % battery icon will be presented in HTC Sense 5.0. Furthermore, it seems that HTC didn't remove stock Android browser, so out of the box you'll have two browsers in the system.

My final thoughts? Well... hard to say. I'm excited as everyone when new HTC flagship device is almost to come. Without premature judgment I can only say that if the screen wouldn't be turned on showing HTC Sense 5.0 UI, I would blindly say that it's next HTC Windows Phone device.

EDIT:

There are some rumors that this photo might be a fake. I guess we need to wait a bit longer to know if this is a real HTC M7 or not.

Do you have any questions or want to share some opinion? Please leave a comment below! Also, if you like this article, please use media sharing buttons (Twitter, G+, Facebook) down this post!

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PayPal is letting the numbers tell mobile payments success in 2012

PayPal likes the numbers coming from their 2012 balance sheet. The online mobile payment company is reporting $14 billion in customer payments, compared with a projection of $10 billion for last year.

According to PayPal, during the holiday season from October to December, 692 million payments were processed, making it the busiest three months in the company's 14-year history.

PayPal's growth continues with 123 million active accounts, driven by the addition of more customers in the last three months of last year than at any time during the past eight years.

"To all of our customers, both old and new, I’d like to say thank you...for your loyalty, your enthusiasm and for your valued feedback, said David Marcus, president of PayPal. "We are committed to making 2013 a great year for you."

PayPal has been turning their attention to offline retailers and small business. According to PayPal executives, this market is 17 times larger than the online sector.



They launched "PayPal Here" in March as a mobile payment solution that allows small business to accept almost any form of payment by using a free app and a small credit card reader for the iPhone and Android devices.

The online payment sector will get increasingly crowded, as key players explore banking on NFC, or Near Field Communication, to entice consumers to pay for merchandise and services with their smartphones. Google has Google Wallet, Mastercard has PayPass Wallet and Visa is pushing their V.me digital wallet service.

Apple rolled out their Passbook app with iOS 6 in September, which will organize gift cards, coupons, passes, tickets and more, with the idea of making your wallet a lot thinner and lighter. But Apple has stay away from the NFC technology, while it can be found several iPhone competitors, such as the Samsung Galaxy S III and Victory, the Nokia Lumia devices, Motorola RAZR i and the HTC 8X.

Several of the mobile carriers, including AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile, are exploring mobile payments services using the Isis Mobile Wallet, which is underway in Salt Lake City and Austin.

While the mobile payments technology continues to emerge, Paypal is banking on introducing their customers to new ways to shop and pay in the years ahead.

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Getting properties and functions of JavaScript objects

I was looking for a way to get all the properties and functions for a particular JavaScript object. Looking around the web I found this discussion of StackOverflow which gave me my answer. I created a small helper function to which you pass your object and it spit out all its properties and function in the console. This is how it looks like:

function listPropsAndFunctions(object) {
    var o;
    for (o in object) {
        console.log((typeof object[o] == "function" ? "function " : "") + o);
    }
}

You may argue that content assist in IDEs already give you this information. But there are slight differences in implementation of JavaScript of each browser. Looking into the document object on Chrome I found a property webkitIsFullScreen, but on Firefox there is not corresponding property with name mozIsFullScreen (I am looking at Firefox 16).

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HTC battery bank short review

Lately I've been using one of the best phone accessory I've ever had. And the funny part is, I didn't suspect it to be that great. But let's start from the beginning!

Full name of that red & black little thing is "HTC External Battery Bank for all Micro USB Handsets".

What is so great about it? In simple words - it's small and can save your butt in many situations. The capacity of 6000 mAh is enough for full two charges. What is more - due to dual charging port - USB port and micro USB port - it's compatible with most new smartphones.

It's quite small (9,7 x 4,2 x 2,2) so you can take with you everywhere. Not really useful when you are in the car (better to use car charger) but quite handy in the train, bus, boring lecture or long day trip outside the city.

At the top you'll find a button. Once pressed, the lights in front of the battery bank will indicate how much power left inside. Very nice!

As I wrote before, the size is great, but as most of you probably think - things can always get smaller! I don't know if it's possible to make such battery bank smaller (at least now) but the current size should not be an issue. If you have enough space to carry 4-inch screen device or bigger, then you surely will find extra space for this external battery bank.

When battery bank is discharged, simply plug it to any device with USB port (can be notebook) or regular charger. It will take few hours to full charge, but afterwards it's ready to be your lifelong companion!

Described battery bank comes with a micro USB cable with a length of 15cm. What I really miss here is some kind of holder for that cable integrated with the battery bank. Some simple plastic holdfast would be really great and wont take much space. HTC, maybe something worth to consider?

Reviewed subject was delivered by HTC.

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More cores, more power and still no effective cooling system

I think we really have a problem here. Watching the world of technology, there is a clear tendency to equip mobile devices with more and more power. Looking at the specifications of fleshly unveiled Nvidia Tegra 4 (72 custom Nvidia GeForce GPU cores, new quad-core variant of ARM's Cortex-A15 CPU) I can say I'm already pretty amazed. But this enthusiasm might be suppressed very soon!

Where is the issue? You might say we've already been there few years ago, when multi-cores CPUs were gaining more and more attention from non-professional desktops/notebooks users. Marketing did a great job then. Nobody cared that most of consumers wouldn't be able to use the power of multi-cores. Nobody told them, that powerful CPU in pair with 1 GB of RAM memory and 5.400 RPM hard drive will be a waste of money and power. But it's not the point here.

What matters is the method of heat extraction. Air or water cooling systems are very advanced these days and can be very effective when it comes to PC. So if you really want to use 4 cores CPU for MS Word Editing or Internet browsing on your PC, there is nobody stopping you, apart of your own pocket. But what about mobile phones, tablets or so popular these days ultrabooks? Cooling systems on those devices are really bad. And what makes it even worse, there is no revolution coming. At least not for mobile phones or tablets.

Most of new ultrabooks (equipped with powerful CPUs and dedicated GPU) suffers from so called "throttling", caused by too much heat generated by the CPU and GPU when under heavy load together. Extra thin constructions are not effective when it comes to cooling, because the size of cooling heaps and fans needs to be reduced to minimum. Of course there is some room for improvements. For example, in  new MacBook Pro you can find two fans and quite smart arrangement of cooling pipes. Notebooks/ultrabooks designers surely have more options and more space than mobile phones designers. So I believe this might get better in time.

What's the situation when it comes to mobile phones? As I mentioned before, I think it's really bad. First of all, you can't put any fan inside your phone. The space inside is so limited, so forget about advanced system of micro cooling pipes. So what is the current solution? For example, idea of 5th companion core presented by Nvidia in Tegra 3. When device is in idle state, 5th core is taking care of low level tasks, running at very low frequency. Yes, this is quite smart. Tegra 4 will have the same mechanism. Another example - smart governors. When you turn your screen off, you CPU frequency will be limited to let's say 340 MHz. When turning screen on, it will go back to let's say 1,7 GHz. Nice, huh?

So... wait a minute!

It seems that from one hand we are buying super powerful devices, and from the other hand there are plenty of methods to limit this power. People are happy these days when they can use their super phone for more then 16 hours without charging. They do everything to achieve that - they are limiting GPU power, CPU power, turning off capacitive buttons lights or changing screen backlight to minimum (and they can barely see what's written on the screen). So take a moment, sit on the chair and count - how many times have you actually used the power of your device? Do you really need 4 cores and 2GB of RAM for Gmail, Chrome or Andry Birds? I don't think so. You might say you are playing heavy 3D games. Okay - how long can you play Need For Speed on your device in the bus? I'm pretty sure your device will be discharged after less then 1 hour. So, you might say you can always play it at home, with a device connected to the charger. Personally, when sitting home I prefer playing Need For Speed on PC or notebook.

What's the point in having 4 cores CPU, 2GB RAM and 72 custom Nvidia GeForce GPU cores if you can't use it? In idle this will be limited to 1 hidden core running something like 70 MHz. When using the phone for daily tasks (photos, internet, mail, calling) it will use about 20% of the potential power. When playing games it might use the full power for some period of time, then will be down-clocked because of generated heat. Is it comfortable to hold a device in your hand that have a temperature of 59 °C? I don't think so...

Of course there is a matter of reducing the size of the chipsets. Newer production processes mean lower power consumption. But this wont help.

So is it a right and good direction, when a companies are making more and more powerful hardware, trying to figure out better and more effective way to limit this power at the same time? It's like putting in and out. And all for the money from customers.

Do you have any questions or want to share some opinion? Please leave a comment below! Also, if you like this article, please use media sharing buttons (Twitter, G+, Facebook) down this post!

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Welcome!

This is the first post on my new blog - http://android-revolution-hd.blogspot.com.

I want to post here some reviews of devices I own, some mobile news etc. Some information concerning my ROMs as well. Basically I don't know yet what form will this blog have, but I'm sure it's worth to give a shot this way of communicating with Android fans. This surely wont be personal blog :)

You can find my blog at android-revolution-hd.blogspot.com.

See you around!

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TechRadar editors select Best of the Best at the 2013 CES

The winners of the first annual TechRadar Best of CES Awards 2013 were announced today. TechRadar editors touched, played, used and reviewed the hottest and newest items the Consumer Electronics Show has to offer and named their top choices direct from the show floor at the convention center in Las Vegas.

Winners of the TechRadar Best of CES Awards 2013 include:

Best in Show: Sony Bravia 4K 65-inch Television

Peoples' Choice Award: Steam Console Concept – Valve

Best Cell Phone: Sony Xperia Z

Best Tablet: Razer Edge

Best Laptop: Lenovo ThinkPad Helix

Best GPS Device: Bad Elf GPS Pro

Best Digital Camera: Fuji X20

Best Audio Accessory: MUNITIO PRO40 High Performance Headphones

Best All-in-One Computer: Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon Table PC

Most Unique Product: Panasonic 20-inch 4K Windows 8 Tablet

Best Car Tech: Lexus Self-Driving Car

Best Home Theater Product: Sony Bravia 4K Television 65-inch

TechRadar, owned by Future U.S. media group, is the United Kingdom's biggest technology website and launched a U.S. focused site in April 2012.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You can stay abreast of the latest technology news using the following tools and links:

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CES TechZones

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Get the official CES Mobile app
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The 2013 CES is a haven for gadgets and technology enthusiasts

Members of the media enjoy a sneak peak of what's to come at this year's CES event.

The 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show is underway and Las Vegas is the place to be this week for gadget lovers.

The keynote addresses will kick things off today, with Kazuhiro Tsuga, president of Panasonic Corp. leading the way. Tsunga was to share to his vision for the future and elaborate on how Panasonic is engineering a better world for us all.

We'll also hear from Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of CEA, and Lowell McAdam, chairmen and CEO of Verizon.

As we know from previous years, Apple Inc. will not be in the house and Microsoft was on tap on a keynote appearance, but I hear that Chairman Steve Ballmer worked in a few comments on the new Windows RT and Windows Phone 8 devices.

It didn't take long for gadget news to start filtering out from the convention booths at the Las Vegas Convention Center/Hilton and The Venetian.

Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology company, has already primed the pump, with their announcement of the world's largest smartphone. It's called the Ascent Mate and sports a whooping 6.1-inch display, a 1.5 GHz quad-core display and a 4050 mAh battery under the hood. We'll learn more about this trend-setter in the coming months.

The Near Field Communication technology is also on the move, with early announcements coming Samsung on NFC Bluetooth speakers and Asus rolling out their 10.1-inch VivoTab Windows 8 tablet.

Sprint is also using CES to announce their Microsoft Windows Phone 8 plans. They'll have two WP8 devices coming this summer — one from Samsung and another from HTC. So get ready for Live Tiles and SkyDrive features from the guys in yellow.

Let's also not forget the auto makers, as Ford and USA Today have teamed up for an app and Ford SYNC integration to allow drivers to just tell their car to listen to sport stories or the latest news. I imagine we can expect similar technology from other auto manufacturers.

The fitness craze is continuing to spark innovation with the announcement of the Fitbit Flex, a Bluetooth wristband that help track the progress of your workouts to help meet your goals. According to the company, it'll also monitor your sleep quality.

Another early mover out of the gate is Coby Electronics Corporation, with their LED TVs, Bluetooth speakers, headphones and earbuds. This New York company has been making consumer electronics products since 1991 and continue to carve out a place in the industry.

This is just the first day of CES and the best is yet to come. It's going to be a good week for technology.

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Saving the Windows Phone 8 Emulator State

    Saving the emulator state between runs was one of the feature needed for the Windows Phone emulator, but till now it is not officially supported. It even makes more sense now when the Windows Phone 8 emulator is a full working operating system and not a trimmed one like Windows Phone 7/7.5 was. You could configure an email account, personalize the start screen, install some applications, install certificates or even save the state of an application that requires a lot of data to synchronize before the actual debugging and have everything ready the next time you start the emulator.

   Today I was trying to run the Windows Phone 8 emulator on a Parallels 8 machine using this post because I hate Windows 8 performance in Bootcamp (the disk access is crappy and the UEFI mode still needs drivers for sound, video and a way to enable Hyper-V). I observed that the first time you run an Windows Phone emulator it took more than 40 seconds to start. The reason is that the SDK creates a new Virtual Machine in Hyper-V and saves a "clean" snapshot of it.

       On every subsequent run of that emulator the XDE automatically starts the virtual machine and immediately applies the snapshot (or starts the virtual machine from the snapshot directly). What caught my attention was the name of the snapshot for each virtual machine: 

1. Emulator 720P - snapshot.720x1280.1024
2. Emulator WVGA 512MB - snapshot.480x800.512
3. Emulator WVGA - snapshot.480x800.1024
4. Emulator WXGA - snapshot.768x1280.1024

     I tried and messed up the names and observed that XDE, if it doesn't see a certain Snapshot, it starts the Virtual Machine and creates a new snapshot with the required name. So in order to save the state it would be enough to alter/change the snapshot XDE uses to start the virtual machine. 

      First we need to start the emulator we want to personalize (in this post i will mess up the 512 WVGA emulator). This can be done in two ways:

1. From Visual Studio by running a program on that emulator or from Application Deployment (the emulator is easy to personalize because you can zoom the content and you have the hardware buttons but will require a subsequent reset of the Virtual Machine from Hyper-V) 
2. From Hyper-V manager by starting the Emulator WVGA 512MB virtual machine and applying the saved snapshot for a fast start. After the machine starts you will have to connect to it:

    Once connected to the emulator/virtual machine you can personalize/modify the way you want it to be. If you connected using Hyper-V these keyboard shortcuts will prove helpful (they also work in the emulator):

• F1 - the same as pressing the back button
• F2 – the same as pressing the home button
• PageUp  - enables physical keyboard and minimizes the software keyboard
• PageDown – disables physical keyboard and maximizes the software keyboard
• F9 - volume up
• F10 - volume down
• F7 – invoke camera
• F3 – invoke Bing search

If you want/need to install some xap's you can use Application Deployment with the Emulator. 

When you've reached the desired state go to the Hyper-V manager, select the Virtual machine that you are personalizing and hit Snapshot. This will create a new Snapshot(save state for the emulator).

If you've started the emulator from Visual Studio or Application Deployment App before you create the snapshot you will have to connect to the Virtual Machine from Hyper-V and from the menu Action select Reset (this will clean the ports used for debugging and the state you will save will be usable for Visual Studio and XDE).

After saving the new state the only thing you have to do is to rename the snapshot with the same name of the parent snapshot and delete the parent by right-clicking on it and select Delete Snapshot (DO NOT select Delete Snapshot Subtree).

You are now ready to go:  Turn Off the virtual machine from Hyper-V and try it from Visual Studio. Everything should work. If it doesn't it means that the state has some ports that Visual Studio uses still opened and in this case you will have to connect to the Virtual Machine from Hyper-V, Reset the machine from Action and save a new Snapshot.

My personalized emulator looks like this:

If you want to get back to an "unaltered" state just delete the snapshot of the corresponding Virtual Machine from Hyper-V Manager.

Hope saving the emulator state will help you in some scenarios.

NAMASTE!

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GetNativeSystemInfo on Windows Phone 8

  This post is related/continues my previous one. I have written a small sample that shows how to call the GetNativeSystemInfo and IsProcessorFeaturePresent functions on Windows Phone 8 devices using a  C++ runtime component. For the moment I cannot think of a really good use for calling these functions because there are only two processors on the devices currently available. You could detect which of the two processors the device has and also its features. 

    Here is a screenshot of the sample running on my Nokia Lumia 920:

As it is the first day of the new year I Wish you all a great 2013!

SOURCE CODE

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Detect CPU architecture at runtime for Windows 8 Store Apps

  If you are developing an application for the Windows 8 Store it is very important that you test it on an ARM device (Surface RT, Asus VivoTab RT, Dell XPS 10,etc.) before sending it into certification. You will probably have some bad surprises and not everything that was fast&fluid on your development machine will continue to be so on an ARM device (the list scroll performance reminds me of the first version of Windows Phone). So you will have to simplify the layouts, animations and in some cases even rewrite part of your code. Parallel Programming is your friend if you can use it (for Kids' Orchestra I had the big problem that generating 100ms of sound output took more then 100ms so after 2 days of trying to optimize the C# source code I realized that I only had to use the Parallel.For and everything started working). 

   Due to performance differences you might need to split the user experience/code on different architectures (like disabling some animations on ARM). If this is the case it becomes very important to know the processor architecture on which your application runs. One solution would be to create 3 different packages of your applications and use the conditional compilation to differentiate between what happens on each architecture. If you still want to use only one package (Any CPU) it is enough to have a method that returns the processor architecture.
    The bad news is that WinRT framework doesn't have any method/property that returns the processor architecture  (at least I don't know it). The good news is that you can still use GetNativeSystemInfo as it is an api supported for Windows Store apps (it is even supported for Windows Phone 8 apps):

  For Windows Store apps you can use two approaches to call this api:

1. Use P/Invoke -this is the one I opted for;

2. Create a Windows Runtime Component in C++ that you can then call from managed code - this is the approach you will have to use if you need to call this function on Windows Phone 8.

   What I did is to create a public class, which I called CPU, and has one public static property NativeInfo that returns an SystemInfo object:

 public class SystemInfo  
   {  
     public ProcessorArchitecture ProcessorArchitecture;  
     public ushort ProcessorArchitectureId;  
     public ProcessorType ProcessorType;  
     public uint ProcessorTypeId;  
     public uint NumberOfProcessors;  
     public ushort ProcessorLevel;  
     public ushort ProcessorRevision;  
     public uint AllocationGranularity;  
   };  

and a public method IsProcessorFeaturePresent (invoking also a supported Api for Windows Store applications) which returns if a certain ProcessorFeature feature is supported or not.

I have also created a small sample that will give you a list with your processor details. Here is the result I got on  my Surface:

Hope you will find the class useful. Don't hesitate to contact me if you need further details.

SOURCE CODE:

CPU.cs  and Sample Project

NAMASTE!

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C# XAudio2 Sound Playback for Windows Phone

     Let's begin with a small introduction to XAudio2:
     XAudio2 is a low-level audio API. It provides a signal processing and mixing foundation for games that is similar to its predecessors, DirectSound and XAudio. XAudio2 is the replacement for both DirectSound and XAudio.
     XAudio2 abstracts audio generation by separating sound data from "voice", allowing each voice to be filtered by programmable digital signal processing and effects processing functions. Voices can be "submixed" together into a single stream. There is always only one Mastering Voice that outputs the result using WASAPI.

     XAudio2 is primarily intended for developing high performance audio engines for games. For game developers who want to add sound effects and background music to their modern games, XAudio2 offers an audio graph and mixing engine with low-latency and support for dynamic buffers, synchronous sample-accurate playback, and implicit source rate conversion. Compared to WASAPI, XAudio2 requires only a minimum amount of code even for complex audio solutions. Compared to the Media Foundation engine, XAudio2 is a low-level, low-latency C++ API that is designed for use in games.

     XAudio2 cannot be used for background music - for this task you will have to use the IMFMediaEngine. XAudio2 cannot be used for capturing audio - for this task you will have to use WASAPI. Do not use XAudio2 for media playback. For that task you can use MediaElement

    XAudio2 is part of the DirectX api that is included in the new Windows Phone 8 SDK. The Api is shared between Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 which means that you will be able to fully reuse your source code on both platforms. 

If you want to use XAudio2 for your C#/VB/HTML code you have two options:

1. Use SharpDX . SharpDX is a wrapper of the DirectX Api under .Net platform. Theoretically you can use it to call XAudio2 api directly from your managed code. Practically what happens is that the .Net CLR/GC on ARM seem to block native threads so your audio will shutter/glitch in certain conditions. I had the same problem when I was developing our Windows 8 game Kids' Orchestra and the audio had glitches even on a core i7 processor.

2. The other option, which from my experience works better, is to develop an Windows Phone Runtime Component that will manage the XAudio2 part and expose the needed methods/events to the managed code.

      To better understand how it is done I took the Windows 8 sample XAudio2 audio file playback sample C++ from MSDN and ported to Windows Phone 8 by splitting it in two projects: The C#/Xaml part for the UI and the "audio" project which is a Windows Phone Runtime component developed in C++.

     The porting was pretty easy. I only had to re-code the player class to make it "visible" to the managed code project and added an event that will tell you when a certain Source Voice has finished playing its buffer/sound (we have 7 sounds and each sound has a Source Voice associated to it). If you need further details on how to write a Windows Phone Runtime component in C++ have a look at this  MSDN Post

    This sample only plays Wav files that are resources in the C++ project. You could also dynamically generate sounds in managed code and pass the Wave/buffer data as a byte[] to the runtime component. Inside the native code you will then generate an XAUDIO2_BUFFER and submit it to a Source Voice for playing.

     I have attached the SOURCE CODE for the Windows Phone project. If you have problems with it don't hesitate to contact me.

NAMASTE!

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Using indexOf method on array in server side JavaScript

Sometime back I was trying to use indexOf method on an Array object in server-side JavaScript (SSJS) code. But it was giving me error that indexOf method is not defined. I also couldn't find this method in help documentation. It was then it struck me that the implementation indexOf method in client side JavaScript itself is a bit fuzzy with Internet Explorer not supporting it. It can be defined using prototype property.

I found a simple solution here which implements the method. Just add the below code snippet to your SSJS code and then you would be able to use indexOf method.

if(!Array.indexOf) {
   Array.prototype.indexOf = function(obj) {
      for(var i=0; i<this.length; i++) {
         if(this[i]==obj) {
            return i;
         }
      }
      return -1;
   }
}

Remember that this would be required for SSJS. For client side JavaScript I would recommend using dojo.indexOf.

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Charging pattern on HTC One X

My HTC One X has a pattern in which it charges itself.

In the above screenshot of my battery usage you can see that from 10% battery level to 60% battery level my phone charges at a constant rate. But from 60% up till around 75% this rate dramatically drops and it takes much longer to charge. Then picks up again until around 90% and afterwards it charges very quickly. I don't know why does this happen and what is its significance. I contacted HTC support but there response was not satisfactory either.

So if you notice the same pattern while charging or a different one do post it in the comments.

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Some business customers invited to test new BlackBerry 10 platform

If you're lucky, you may be one of the 120 select customers from 64 Fortune 500 companies to beta test the BlackBerry 10 smartphone, which is set to make a worldwide debut on the 30th of January. The new BlackBerry Hub experience is waiting for your reactions.

The by-invitation-only program starts today and includes participants from financial, government, insurance healthcare, manufacturing and media. It is design to give early adopters a real-life experience on the new BlackBerry 10 platform from Research in Motion, who introduced the BlackBerry in 1999.

“Beginning today, RIM will be visiting some of our enterprise and government ‘early adopters’ and getting them started with the BlackBerry 10 platform,” said Robin Bienfait, Chief Information Officer, Research In Motion. “At RIM, we’ve seen the power of our new enterprise mobility management solution first-hand, and we are thrilled to share BlackBerry 10 directly with these leading organizations.”

The testers will be able to use the key features of the new platform, such as BlackBerry Balance, the BlackBerry Hub, a new messenger and explore the dedicated BlackBerry app store, which is expected to contain around 100,000 apps ready at launch.

According to RIM, getting the new devices in the hands of its best and largest enterprise customers was an important step, as the launch draws closer.

The new BlackBerry 10 devices are expected to have Near Field Communication, or NFC capability, as "BlackBerry Tag" was announced by RIM in January in a BlackBerry OS 7.1. update. This technology will allow content sharing with a simple tap between two NFC-enabled BlackBerry smartphones.

RIM is also counting heavily on the new devices having the Federal Information Processing Standard in place, which also known as FIPS 140-2, a requirement for highly sensitive information. RIM says this certification will help government agencies deploy the BlackBerry 10 smartphones from the day of launch.

According to the BlackBerry Blog, a touchscreen model is expected to be shown at launch, but physical keyboard lovers shouldn't be worried, as a QWERTY model should be coming soon after the Jan. 30 unveiling.

The new devices will be based on an operating system built around features from QNX Software Systems, an automotive industry software maker, who BlackBerry acquired from Harman International Industries in April 2010. In September 2010, the BlackBerry Playbook was announced, along with a new QNX operating system.

We'll learn more about pricing, carriers and availability at the January launch.

Video: BlackBerry Fans Visit RIM HQ to Sneak a Peek at BlackBerry 10

Tips: 10 ways to use BlackBerry Bridge with your BlackBerry Playbook

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New features in HTC One X after Jelly Bean update

Some time back I updated my HTC One X to Jelly Bean (JB) using OTA update. The update takes your Android version to 4.1.1 and Sense to 4+.

Its been almost a 2 weeks with this update and the most noticeable improvement I can see is of battery usage. My phone lasts 1-2 hours more than it used to before. Well done HTC! There also some additions (and deletions) which I am going to describe here. Now I not an Android expert so I don't know all the new features in JB itself, so you may find a feature new in JB listed here. Also you won't find Google Now and Google Play Music here as I know they are new to JB and not HTC One X.

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Smart watches connecting to smartphones could be next big thing

I have been feeling a little like Dick Tracy lately, as I walked around with a Sony SmartWatch on my arm. There is a certain cool factor about this device, which was on loan from Verizon Wireless.

The SmartWatch functions as an extension of your Andriod smartphone or tablet and will allow you to read text messages and view social network updates, as well as check the time and date. The latter should be a "duh" moment; of course it'll give you the time and date.

I was up and running in no time, which allowed me to leave the Android smartphone in my pocket for most tasks.

The SmartWatch makes a Bluetooth connection to Android devices. After downloading a SmartWatch Liveware manager app from the Google play store, you're off and running with Facebook and Twitter updates, the weather, text messages and other features that have smart watch apps available. After digging around in the Android app store, I discovered SmartWatch apps for eBay, Web Cams, games, and get this – a Bubble Level.

I got most of these apps and features to work with the SmartWatch, but keeping a connection to the Android phone is kind of flaky. You can't let them get too far apart, as in the next room, or the Bluetooth connection will be lost.

I also found that swiping the face of the SmartWatch to control the menus and features was a little hit and miss. I would prefer hard button for some of these functions, as the face of the watch is too small for big fingers to be swipe and pinch. The SmartWatch has a single button to bring up the time and date.

Some users found the charging cable tricky to navigate, as it plugs into the underside of the watch, but depend on clamping friction from the watch back against the band to hold it securely. But once you do it a couple of time, it becomes a fairly easy maneuver.

The SmartWatch is compatible with most Android smartphones and tablets. A long list on Verizon's website includes the Droids, HTC, LG, Motorola and Samsung devices. As expected, the Sony Xperia Play is also compatible.

The Sony SmartWatch is listed at $149 from Verizon Wireless and is only available for Android devices at this time. But other manufacturers are also working on iOS compatibility, along with their Android software.

The Citizen Watch Company is taking a different approach with their $495 Eco-Drive Proximity wristwatch. According to this well-known giant in wristwatches, their smart-watch timepiece will connect to the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 through Bluetooth and features automatic adjustments for time zones, a lost iPhone search feature and email alerts with discrete vibration.

To use the smart watch features on the Citizen Proximity watch, you'll need the Proximity app in the Apple App Store. But early adopters are reporting Bluetooth connectivity problems in their reviews.

This technology is still in the early stages and I'll say the best is yet to come. As we look ahead to 2013, we can expect smart watches from MetaWatch, Martian Watches and Pebble. All of these firms have watches that are about to hit the market or are on the drawing board. These devices will be able to answers phone calls and the social networks integration will get better.

I'll predict that smart watches will be the next big thing and we won't have to reach for the smartphones as often to check emails or answer a call.

More: Apple smartwatch may be in the works

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Making internet pass-through work after updating HTC One X to Jelly Bean

Update 22 Jan 2013: "HTC Sync" seems to have been discontinued so the download links given below will not work. "HTC Sync" is different from "HTC Sync Manager". For exact difference read on.

I recently upgraded my HTC One X to Jelly Bean via OTA update. After updating I was unable to use internet pass-through which used to work flawlessly before and I already had HTC Sync installed on my PC. I uninstalled, installed, uninstalled again and installed again to make it work. But it simply refused. It gave me error of "Either you do not have the latest version of HTC Sync installed on your PC, or another phone is already using Internet pass-through on your PC." on my phone.

From this discussion on XDA Developers forum I found that there is something called as HTC Sync Manager. This is different from HTC Sync which I had installed on my machine. I don't know why HTC did this but its really confusing. Here's how these two software look.

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