Techcrunch: Review: Zune HD

Posted by on under ugly duckling, beautiful swan, zune, gray bird, champis, clear stream, anet, techcrunch, growing pains, ipod touch, thin air, quirks, caliber, sy, hd, offerings, swan, samsung, bush, microsoft |

But what did he see in the clear stream below? His own image; no longer a dark, gray bird, ugly and disagreeable to look at, but a graceful and beautiful swan. —The Ugly Duckling

It's been a long, brown trip for the Zune: from its early days (mocked and abject) to its awkward years (deemed a dead end and money pit) it's been embattled and criticized, and rightly so. After all, here was an unpopular company with a frankly ridiculous brand it had pulled out of thin air, attempting to compete with the guys who defined the market. We've always been champions of the devices, despite their quirks, and of the service, despite its growing pains — and Microsoft occasionally made it pretty hard for us to stand by our favorite little misfit media player. Well, for once they just made it really easy. Let's not beat around the bush, now: this thing is going head-on with the iPod touch, one of the most versatile and well-liked devices on the planet. There are other PMPs, sure, but the caliber of these two devices is well beyond the best offerings from Creative, Samsung, or Sony. To make it easy on the Apple fans who are impatient to comment on this story, let me just state it right now for the record: the Zune HD is not an iPod-killer, but it is the only player out there that can go up against it and not be annihilated in the process. It's good enough that everyone owes it to themselves to give it a look — unless you're afraid of just how good it might be.
Tagi: ugly duckling, beautiful swan, zune, gray bird, champis, clear stream, anet, techcrunch, growing pains, ipod touch, thin air, quirks, caliber, sy, hd, offerings, swan, samsung, bush, microsoft

Engadget: Firefox now available for Android 2.0 and above, still at pre-alpha stage

Posted by on under alpha stage, utiliti, codeword, fennec, appetites, quirks, devs, nexus, vladimir, firefox, mozilla, nbsp, debut, boxes, capabilities, memory |

Fennec, Mozilla's codeword for mobile Firefox builds, has just made its pre-alpha debut on Android. The tastefully named Vladimir Vukićević informs us that it's pretty much a debug release, with unoptimized memory utilization and some quirks rebooting the app when it's started and when add-ons are installed, but it is at a stage where the devs felt they could get useful feedback from a broader user base. It's not yet available on the Android Market, so you'll be needing to download it from the link below, and remember that you'll have to have an Android 2.0 or higher device, with OpenGL ES 2.0 capabilities also being recommended. If you've got all those boxes ticked, get downloading and come back to tell us how that WeaveSync is working out for you. We've got video of an older build running on a Nexus one after the break, just to whet some appetites.

[Thanks, Jonathon]

Continue reading Firefox now available for Android 2.0 and above, still at pre-alpha stage

Firefox now available for Android 2.0 and above, still at pre-alpha stage originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Apr 2010 04:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tagi: alpha stage, utiliti, codeword, fennec, appetites, quirks, devs, nexus, vladimir, firefox, mozilla, nbsp, debut, boxes, capabilities, memory

Engadget: Apple's A4 is like Samsung's S5, except where it's not

Posted by on under link ape, ee times, fri, technical dive, ipad, chip designs, source link, diehard fans, s system, quirks, oems, cupertino, s5, footprint, a4, nbsp, samsung, lawyers, intellectual property, brain |

Though the Apple iPad and the Samsung Wave most assuredly share the same brain, EE Times would like you to know there's more to a chip than its core -- analyzing Apple's system-on-a-chip designs in detail back to early iPhones, the publication noticed that Cupertino's silicon both has custom design quirks on top of ARM and shows heavy influence from Samsung as well. EE Times claims that while the A4 and Samsung S5PC110 are similar, there are certainly differences, enough to call the A4 a custom design. Essentially, Apple has a taken a one-size-fits-all product originally engineered to meet the needs of a broad range of OEMs and reduced its complexity, footprint, and cost to match Apple's particular goals. As far as whether PA Semi or Intrinsity had a hand in that design, the authors suggest only the latter seems very involved. What all this means for intellectual property questions is anyone's guess -- we'll let the lawyers fight that one out -- but when you encounter diehard fans that claim one's ripping off the other, at least now you'll be able to calmly explain the situation. Find the deep technical dive at our source link.

Apple's A4 is like Samsung's S5, except where it's not originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Jun 2010 01:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tagi: link ape, ee times, fri, technical dive, ipad, chip designs, source link, diehard fans, s system, quirks, oems, cupertino, s5, footprint, a4, nbsp, samsung, lawyers, intellectual property, brain