Todays & Tomorrows Technology

Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer has struck back at Activision chief Bobby Kotick, claiming his calls to cut PS3 prices are “a lot of noise” and that there’s no “logic” in discounting the console. Speaking to Reuters, Stringer suggested that “I (would) lose money on every PlayStation I make – how’s that for logic.”

The rebuff comes in response to Kotick’s well-publicized threats back in June that Activision might consider dropping PS3 and PSP game development if Sony failed to reduce the entry-price to their flagship console. Kotick, who is in charge of the biggest independent games developer in the world, suggested that Sony’s reluctance to cut the PS3’s cost meant that studios saw fewer games being bought for the console versus its Xbox 360 and Wii rivals.

Sony, meanwhile, are tipped to announce a new version of the PS3, with a slimmed-down casing, that would use cheaper components and, it’s suggested, allow the company to reduce prices without losing money. Rumors suggest the new console will be announced in August or September, allowing retailers to clear stocks of the existing model.

Amazon UK have begun listing the HTC Hero, offering the latest Android smartphone in unlocked, SIM-free form. The dual-band HSPA (900/2100MHz) device is priced at £429.99 ($712) and expected to begin shipping on July 15th; SlashGear was at the Hero launch last week, and you can check out our hands-on video after the cut.

The Hero has a 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen with a fingerprint-resistant coating, a Teflon body and all the usual Android nicities. There’s also HTC Sense, the company’s latest UI advancement, which you can see demonstrated below. Other specs include WiFi b/g, Bluetooth, GPS, a 5-megapixel autofocus camera and digital compass.

Two UK carriers have already confirmed that they will be offering the Hero, Orange and T-Mobile (the latter as the G1Touch). Both will give new customers the smartphone free, but require a new two-year contract.

Earlier in the month we heard that Atom N270 based netbooks and nettops would be unlikely candidates for inclusion in the Windows 7 Upgrade Program, and that’s looking to indeed be the case. ASUS have announced details of their program, including which models will be eligible, and only two of the company’s sprawling Eee PC netbook line are included: the 1101HA and the 1005HA.

Neither of these use the N270: the 1101HA adopts Intel’s Z520 CPU, while the 1005HA has the N280. You’ll also need to have a particular model in order to be eligible: the 1101HA must be running Vista Home Premium, while the 1005HA must be running either XP Pro or Vista Business. Considering most of these netbooks are bought with Windows XP Home, that doesn’t bode well for existing customers.

There are also a few Eee Top all-in-ones and the Eee Box EB1501 nettop, but it’s generally a poor showing for the company’s budget range.

After telling us – and then telling us again – that the Eee Keyboard would arrive this month, ASUS are now promising their nettop-in-a-keyboard will actually drop in August 2009. Rather than blaming manufacturing delays or last-minute firmware tweaks, ASUS claim the Eee Keyboard – which squeezes in an HD capable nettop and 5-inch touchscreen – was in fact held back while they attempted to define a niche for it to sit in.

That’s surprising, given that back at CES in January the company seemed to have a pretty good idea of what the point of the Eee Keyboard was. Fitted with Wireless HDMI, it can stream HD content either stored on its 32GB SSD or from the internet to a nearby display, with controls and other apps shown on the compact touchscreen.

Still no final word on pricing, but the last we heard ASUS were planning for a $400 starting price – though that doesn’t get you Wireless HDMI, only wired – and two different models. Each will have a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, 1GB of RAM and both WiFi b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.0. Earlier this month ASUS demonstrated the Eee Keyboard running Moblin, rather than Windows XP as it has been seen using in the past.

The recently-released MacBook Pro firmware that promises to enable 3.0Gbps SATA connectivity has ironically been causing problems in third-party drives. Apple released the upgrade earlier this week, after users of the new 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pro models reported that the notebooks were limited to 1.5Gbps SATA; this did not affect the speed of standard-fit hard-drives, but may have limited future performance should the user upgrade to a faster HDD or SSD. Now, some users with third-party drives already installed are reporting frequent pauses, usage spikes and data errors with the new firmware.

Both traditional hard-drives and solid-state storage are presenting problems. One user found his Western Digital Scorpio Blue HDD now suffers intermittent data errors and that the whole machine freezes randomly. Meanwhile another user who has upgraded to an Intel X25-M SSD found his drive no longer works at all following the firmware update. Some have found that re-installing the original SATA 1.5Gbps drive supplied by Apple restores the machine to working order, while others have had no luck.

Apple distanced themselves from aftermarket upgrades when they first released the firmware, warning users that they had “not qualified or offered these drives for Mac notebooks” and that “their use is unsupported.” That seems to mean they won’t fix the issue under warranty: many who have contacted Apple Stores or technical support regarding the firmware issues have been told that “Apple is not responsible for maintaining compatibility with third-party aftermarket hardware with their firmware updates.” However there is also talk that Apple Store “Geniuses” can roll back the firmware if there was a problem during the upgrade itself, though not otherwise.

Palm have announced their Q4 and full-year 2009 financial results [pdf link], covering the period up to the end of May 29th. Palm chairman and CEO Jon Rubinstein revealed full-year revenues of $735.9m and gross profit of $159.8m; he went on to describe the launch of the Palm Pre and webOS shortly after the period finished as when the company “officially reentered the race”. That’s good news, because while smartphone shipments in Q4 rose 6-percent from Q3, year-over-year decline for the quarter was a huge 62-percent.
In Q4 2009, then, Palm report total revenues of $86.8m, with gross profit of $20.1m and a gross margin of 23.1-percent. That amounts to a net loss to common shareholders of $105m, or $0.78 per diluted common share; that’s more than twice the net loss in fiscal-year 2008.

Rubinstein remained positive, however, suggesting that the Pre was a “major milestone in Palm’s transformation” and pointing to “a large group of developers waiting to build great applications for Palm webOS”. He also tipped “a new product pipeline” which is presumed to include the Palm Eos, also based on webOS.

Apple have announced sales figures for the iPhone 3G S, and while there was talk of fewer buyers turning out for their latest-gen smartphone the numbers are still undeniably healthy. The company sold over one million iPhone 3G S handsets through Sunday, June 21st; meanwhile six million users have downloaded iPhone OS 3.0 in the five days since it was released on Wednesday last week.

Apple haven’t revealed how many people picked up the iPhone 3G 8GB in the past couple of weeks. Their previous-generation smartphone was reduced to $99 with a new contract after the iPhone 3G S was announced, offering a new point-of-entry to iPhone ownership though lacking the newer handset’s autofocus camera, extra megapixels, digital compass and other functionality.

For our hands-on first impressions of the iPhone 3G S, check out this post. We’ll have our full review up later this week!

LG and ARM have announced a partnership that will see the former’s HDTVs use the latter’s ARM11 MPCore multicore processor and ARM Mali GPUs. The system will allow for not only high-definition 1080p processing but video-on-demand, voting and polling, games, and e-commerce without the need for a separate set-top box.

ARM’s range of processor and GPU options will allow LG to target different levels of performance and capability to different HDTV price-points. That way, high-end sets could use multiple SMP cores and offer 4x and 16x full scene anti-aliasing (FSAA), 2D and 3D graphics processing and OpenGL ES 2.0 support.

The most obvious benefit to consumers will be straightforward connectivity with a home network, and the ability to view video and other media content on their sets without needing external boxes. LG have not confirmed when the first HDTVs using the ARM CPU/GPU components will be released.

ASUS’ Eee PC T91 convertible touchscreen netbook should have been on sale in the UK for several weeks now, but the 8.9-inch tablet has been suspiciously absent from online and bricks-and-mortar retail stores. According to what a company official told AsusTablet, that delay is due to a “logistical mishap” in distribution; we can apparently expect the netbook to arrive in stores from Monday June 22nd.
The ASUS representative did not go on to explain the exact nature of the “mishap”, although they were at pains to point out that the T91 is still shipping. It’s also unclear whether the delay will impact shipments of the netbook outside of the UK; the T91 was supposed to begin shipping in the US this week.

Buyers of the tablet will get an Intel Atom Z520 processor, 1GB of RAM and a 16GB SSD. What makes the T91 interesting is its rotating display, which can be folded flat against the keyboard and thus leaving the netbook as a touchscreen slate. Standard and 3G versions are expected.

Game developer Activision have set their sights on bringing Sony down a peg or two, threatening to cease development for the PS3 and PSP consoles if the company does not reduce royalty fees. CEO Bobby Kotick has accused Sony of “losing a bit of momentum” and complained that the company does not “make it easy for me to support the [PlayStation 3] platform”. Kotick is now asking for a PS3 hardware price-cut.

According to the outspoken CEO, Activision – which is the biggest independent computer game developer in the world, with a market value of $16bn and operating profits of $179m in Q1 2009 – paid $500m to Sony in royalties and “other goods” in 2008. “It’s expensive to develop for the console, and the Wii and the Xbox are just selling better” he suggests, ”Games generate a better return on invested capital on the Xbox than on the PlayStation.”

Sony has maintained that they have no plans to discount the PS3; however, analysts have tipped a $100 reduction in mid-August, timed with the back-to-school shopping season. The company are yet to release a statement regarding Kotick’s comments.

Intel have announced that it will be rebranding its CPU range to supposedly simplify the lineup, focusing on the “Intel Core” prefix and transitioning the Centrino brand to cover the company’s WiFi and WiMAX products. Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 will eventually replace Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad, distinguishing different feature sets; somewhat confusingly, some processors will slot into multiple i-prefix categories, depending on their capabilities.

For instance, the upcoming Lynnfield desktop processor will be an Intel Core chip, but have various models that slot into the i5 or i7 segments. Broadly speaking, i3 is an entry-level chip, i5 is a mid-level chip and i7 is the flagship high-level processor. It’s not all change, though, as the Celeron and Pentium brands limp on to cover “affordable entry-level” and “basic computing” respectively.

Finally, one of the most popular chips over the last twelve months, the Atom range, will also survive, and vPro technology will be offered on certain i5 or i7 chips. There’ll also be a new star-system, shown under the Intel Core logo, which indicates whether its feature-packed or not.

While you’re waiting for iPhone OS 3.0 to download, sit back and watch AT&T backpedal. The carrier has announced new upgrade pricing for the iPhone 3G S, in response to complaints from iPhone 3G users. Now, iPhone 3G users who would be eligible to upgrade in July, August or September this year may now have access to AT&T’s “best upgrade pricing” from Thursday June 18th. They’ve also confirmed that the iPhone’s MMS functionality will arrive in late Summer, and they’ll be charging exactly the same per MMS message as they currently do for SMS text messages.

That basically means that, if you’re a high-spending customer (e.g. you give AT&T more than $99 per month) and would generally be allowed to upgrade 12 or 18 months into a contract, you may be allowed to buy the iPhone 3G S 16GB for $199 or the 32GB version for $299. That’s as opposed to paying $399 and $499 respectively, as is the “normal” early upgrade price.

If you’ve already pre-ordered the iPhone 3G S then AT&T will either reduce the price when you pick the handset up in store, or – if it’s shipped direct to you – they’ll email you with a credit code. You’ll be able to find out if you’re eligible for the new pricing from tomorrow, either by logging in to AT&T’s site or calling them up.

LG Display’s 15-inch OLED TV prototype will launch in Korea as early as December, according to Won Kim, the company’s VP of OLED sales and marketing. According to Kim the 15-inch TV, which was first shown back in January and tipped for a 2009 launch in April, will arrive in December or January, though it’s unclear which brand will be offering it.

A global launch will follow on from Korean availability, as LG Display’s manufacturing scales up. The company is already selling mobile-phone scale OLED panels to two unspecified brands in Korea; ironically, though, LG’s own cellphone arm have decided not to use OLED at present, citing high cost and sub-230ppi resolution as their main concerns.

Kim also revealed that the company has no current plans to move into OLED lighting, and that while their flexible-OLED project with UDC continues it’s targeted initially at military applications. As for the OLED TV, no confirmed specifications but the original prototype ran at 1366 x 768 resolution and offered 1,000,000:1 contrast; we’ll have to wait and see what price-tag it carries.

After mintpass’ English-language site was updated to include the mintpad ultra-portable MID earlier this week, speculation began that a launch in the US and/or Europe was imminent. SlashGear has been talking to mintpass as to the state of play, and it seems that while the mintpad hardware is basically ready for its English-language release, the thin-client UZard browser requires new server support.

To make browsing on the mintpad speedy, together with viewable on the device’s 2.86-inch display, it uses a server-based rendering engine that reformats pages to fit. According to our contact at mintpass, it’s reworking how the UZard server handles non-Korean websites that is causing part of the delays. The company is currently looking for regional partners for distribution and support.

Over at Pocketables, meanwhile, there’s news of 40 mintpad units available to bleeding-edge importers, priced at $169 plus shipping. These units don’t yet have an English-language browser, nor the Sapphire file manager (though you can mount the mintpad as an external drive) and Ad-hoc memo chatting isn’t supported, but Jenn claims all of these issues are expected to be resolved by June 30th.

Oh crippling disappointment, how we loathe you. According to Sony Ericsson’s Merran Wrigley, the imminent launch event in Singapore – which kicks off in around 30 minutes, at time of writing – is not, in fact, for the XPERIA X2’s triumphant reveal, but merely a regional recap to announce existing devices.

Those devices will include the Saito, the new brand for the Sony Ericsson Idou, together with the Aino and Yari devices announced at the same time in London. The company will also bring out their GreenHeart range, currently consisting of the C901 GreenHeart and Naite.

As for the new smartphone, Merran says “We’ll have some news on the X2 later in the year, but tomorrow’s event is not it.” That’s at least a roundabout suggestion that what we’ve been seeing so far is likely legitimate, but no comfort to anybody hoping for a launch in the next week or so.

Garmin-ASUS intend to launch the nuvifone G60 by the end of 2009, with some markets expected to see the GPS-centric handset as early as August. That’s the latest news from Garmin’s regional director for Southeast-Asia sales, Hektor Tung, who has also revealed that the partnership plan to ditch their home-grown Linux OS after the G60 and move instead to Android.
Such a move would leave Garmin-ASUS offering just two platforms, Windows Mobile on the nuvifone M20, and Android on their undisclosed open-OS smartphones. The pair have previously blamed the nuvifone G60’s delay on the complexities of new hardware and custom software, something which they’re obviously hoping to bypass in a switch from their own OS to Android.

Earlier rumors suggested that the first Android device would arrive in Q1 2010; however that schedule has apparently been moved up so that the handset would launch by the end of 2009. No further details regarding the device have been released.

You wait for a high-end Nokia phone and two come along at once. Nokia’s N97 has been a long time in coming, but the North America version of the touchscreen QWERTY smartphone should be reaching buyers today; at the same time, the company has announced that their N86 8MP cameraphone, unveiled back at Mobile World Congress, is also now shipping globally.


Pricing for the N86 8MP is yet to be confirmed; it’s not even up for preorder on Nokia’s webstore at time of writing. As for the N97, that’s listed for $699 unlocked and contract-free.

For hands-on video with the Nokia N86 8MP, check out our demo video here; there’s also a full live gallery here. As for the Nokia N97, head over to our demo video here.