Qualcomm’s Mirasol Ultra Low Power Display Is Almost Magic [Qualcomm]
Ebook readers suffer because they use E-Ink, which isn’t in color and doesn’t refresh fast enough to do video. Qualcomm is quietly showing off its Mirasol display, now in full color with 30-frame-per-second video. See for yourself:
The video was shot by IntoMobile. As they describe it, the tech sounds like a massive DLP chip—that is, a panel covered with tiny reflective mirrors. Each mirror can change color but it’s a passive screen, with no backlight (like most LCDs) and no self-illumination (a la OLED). They get lit up by whatever light is in the room. Saving energy is the key here—anytime you eliminate a light source, you cut way down on the juice. No word on when this will appear on devices, but it’s Qualcomm, so you can bet there will at least be some experimental products before too long.
Speaking of experimental products, Time’s Josh Quittner points out, on his blog, that several of Qualcomm’s components could go together to make a formidable ebook device. Besides this screen, they’ve got the multi-network mobile chipset (Gobi), a respectable mobile CPU (Snapdragon), and a powerful media delivery system (MediaFLO). Forget the Kindle—who needs Amazon? Oh right, books. [IntoMobile via Netly]
Posted: October 8th, 2009
at 12:50pm by Wilson Rothman
Topics: Displays, Ebook, Kindle, Qualcomm mirasol, amazon, e-ink, ebook readers, gobi, lcd, mirasol, qualcomm, snapdragon
HTC Dragon Android device surfaces in firmware build, could pack 1GHz processor
[Via HTCPedia]
Filed under: Cellphones
HTC Dragon Android device surfaces in firmware build, could pack 1GHz processor originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted: October 5th, 2009
at 6:24pm by Donald Melanson
Topics: Android, HtcDragon, dragon, firmware, htc, htc dragon, leak, rumor, snapdragon
Flash 10.1 announced for just about anything with a screen, webOS and WinMo betas this year (update: Pre video!)
Flash 10 already supports HD video on the desktop, but 10.1 — announced this week at Adobe’s MAX conference in Los Angeles — is being billed the first to really reap the full benefits of the Open Screen Project by unifying feature sets across a wide variety of platforms on the desktop, the laptop, and the pocket. As usual, Windows, Mac, and Linux will all get hooked up with the latest release, but public betas of 10.1 for Windows Mobile and webOS will be hitting before the end of the year as well followed by Android and Symbian in “early” 2010. RIM’s also gotten official with its rumored membership in the Open Screen Project, though the lack of a timeline for 10.1 support in BlackBerry OS is a stark reminder of the long technical road that lies ahead for Waterloo as it tries to match the smartphone competition tit-for-tat in the multimedia space. At the end of the day, mobile Flash means nothing without the horsepower to properly drive it, so let’s hope that Tegra, Snapdragon, and next-generation architectures like OMAP4 start to come on board en masse just as these builds come out of beta.
Speaking of fast chipsets, the other big news out of the show is that Flash 10.1 will take advantage of GPU acceleration on a number of key mobile platforms, including both nVidia’s Tegra and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon alongside ION for smooth (well, theoretically smooth) 720p and 1080p video on the latest generation of netbooks and smartbooks.
Update: Added video of the Palm Pre running three instances of Flash in parallel after the break.
Read – Flash 10.1 announcement
Read – RIM joins the OSP
Filed under: Software
Flash 10.1 announced for just about anything with a screen, webOS and WinMo betas this year (update: Pre video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Oct 2009 01:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted: October 5th, 2009
at 2:31am by Chris Ziegler
Topics: 10.1, Android, Flash10.1, NVIDIA, WindowsMobile, adobe, flash, flash 10.1, ion, qualcomm, rim, snapdragon, symbian, tegra, webos, windows mobile

