Sharp’s Snapdragon-powered, Android-running IS01 MID gets a hands-on
Sharp’s new IS01 MID for KDDI au proved to be something of a letdown when it was announced earlier today, partly due to raised expectations, and partly due to a lack of a decent look at it. Thankfully, Akihabara News has now come through on the latter point, and provided a fairly extensive hands-on look at the Snapdragon-powered MID. Anyone hoping for a bit more incentive to buy one may well still come away disappointed, however, as the site describes the device as fairly “cheap” feeling, and says that it doesn’t have multitouch support (although earlier reports have stated that the device has a multitouch display). That said, the Snapdragon processor does apparently ensure that the device is suitably speedy, and there’s always the possibility for some exciting things to emerge from its developer-friendly JN-DK01 counterpart. Hit up the source link for a closer look.
Sharp’s Snapdragon-powered, Android-running IS01 MID gets a hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Mar 2010 03:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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iPhone 3GS bested by Android Archos 5 tablet in browsing benchmarks
We’ve already seen the iPhone 3GS handily win an ARM Cortex A8-powered browsing bakeoff against the Palm Pre, but now that a few more devices have hit the scene with the processor it’s time for another round, don’t you think? Pocketables certainly does, and they’ve pitted the 3GS against a pretty eclectic group of devices, including the Sharp NetWalker Android “smartbook,” the Archos 5 IMT, and the Archos 5 Android PMP. That’s two Android devices, one funky proprietary OS, and the iPhone, all running different browsers on different variants of the same chip design, so there are obviously a lot of variables at play here, but the results are still interesting: the 800MHz Android Archos 5’s WebKit browser was just a tick faster than the 600MHz iPhone 3GS, turning in an average page-load time of 9.0 seconds as opposed to 9.6, while the 800MHz NetWalker and 600MHz Archos 5 IMT trailed at 10.3 and 11.6 seconds. All we’re taking away from that is that WebKit-based mobile browsers still seem to be the speed champs, but we’re sure you have a different opinion.
Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds
iPhone 3GS bested by Android Archos 5 tablet in browsing benchmarks originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted: October 27th, 2009
at 3:46pm by Nilay Patel
Topics: Android, Archos, Archos5, Archos5Android, Archos5Imt, Iphone3gs, SharpNetwalker, archos 5, archos 5 android, archos 5 imt, benchmark, iPhone, iphone 3gs, netwalker, sharp, sharp netwalker, webkit
Sharp to release world’s most efficient solar cell
Sharp Japan announced today it has developed a solar cell with the world’s highest conversion efficiency [press release in English]. The new product features an conversion efficiency of 35.8%, while Sharp only achieved 31.5% with the previous model. The latest model is a compound solar cell, in which two or more elements form photo-absorption layers (see the graphic below).
Solar cells of this kind are mainly used on space satellites and other special equipment. Sharp says this breakthrough is part of an initiative kicked of by Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) to promote R&D in the solar energy sector (NEDO was, by the way, established as early as 1980).
Sharp plans to commercialize the new triple-junction compound solar cell by 2012.
Posted: October 22nd, 2009
at 12:21pm by Serkan Toto
Topics: Headline, Solar Energy, cgjapan, sharp, solar panel
Photo dialing, solar cellphones, and newspapers on TV: only in Japan
Sharp has on display a number of fun new gadgets at CEATEC. As is all too often the case, these things are for Japanese release only (at least for now). Maybe we’ll see them in a couple years.
First up is this digital photo display which integrates a telephone and fax. You can see a visual address book, which allows you to dial recipients by picture. It can also display received faxes on screen, if you’re the faxing kind of person!
Sharp is working to integrate Internet content into some of its AQUOS televisions, and is currently testing digital newspaper delivery. Rather than read a physical newspaper, some Japanese can read the day’s edition right on their AQUOS TV:
At first I thought this was a pretty clever idea; but the more I thought about it the less impressed I was. I don’t know anyone who would actually use their television — no matter how big or how wonderful — to read a newspaper. I think folks I know are much more likely to use a Kindle or similar e-reader. Japan can keep the newspapers-on-TV idea!
And finally, solar powered cell phones. Not entirely solar powered, of course, but chargable through solar energy. Five minutes of sunlight provides one minute of talk time. That’s twelve minutes of talk time for an hour of solar charging. Not great, but not really terrible, either, if you’re the kind of person who consistently forgets to charge your phone.
And as a bonus, I got to play with the Sharp Netwalker PC-Z1!
This thing is nigh-unusable for me. But I still think it’s cool!
Posted: October 6th, 2009
at 7:30pm by Scott Merrill
Topics: Headline, Solar, ceatec, ceatec 2009, netwalker, pc-z1, photo dial, sharp
