Smartphones, Apps, student hackers and startups making revolutionary technology to help the poor at low cost

Technology Review - Last year College Senior Njenga and three classmates developed a program that will let thousands of Kenyan health workers use mobile phones to report and track the spread of diseases in real time—and they'd done it for a tiny fraction of what the government had been on the verge of paying for such an application.

The problem he had tackled was critical in a nation where one in 25 is HIV-positive (10 times the U.S. rate) and AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria are among the leading killers. In 2010, the Kenyan government realized it had to do something about its chaotic system for tracking infectious diseases in order to improve the response to outbreaks and report cases to the World Health Organization. Handwritten reports and text messages describing deaths and new cases of disease would stream in from more than 5,000 clinics around the nation and pivot through more than 100 district offices before being manually entered into a database in Nairobi. The health ministry wanted to let community health workers put information into the database directly from mobile phones, which are ubiquitous in Kenya. The ministry initially sought a solution the usual way: it explored hiring a multinational contractor. It drafted a contract with the Netherlands office of Bharti Airtel, the Indian telecommunications giant that also operates a mobile network in Kenya. The company proposed spending tens of thousands of dollars on mobile phones and SIM cards for the data-gathering task, and it said it would need another $300,000 to develop the data application on the phones. The total package ran to $1.9 million.

Nvidia targets Tegra 2 Smartphones at one fifth the cost of iPhone 4S and soon Tegra 3 smartphones

1. CNET - Nvidia is eying a market for inexpensive dual-core smartphones that underprice the iPhone 4S by 4 or 5 times. The "1,000 RMB phone" in China, will use Nvidia's dual-core Tegra 2 processor paired with a 3G modem. RMB 1,000 is about 80 percent less than the price of an iPhone 4S, which currently retails for RMB 4,988 in China.

Quad-core Tegra 3 production is ramping now and Nvidia expects 50 percent growth in its Tegra business quarter to quarter. The Tegra 3 powers the Asus Transformer Prime tablet. More tablets with Tegra 3 are coming. Huang also intimated that HTC would bring out a quad-core phone. Information about other phones, such as the LG X3, have leaked separately.

Google may launch Android 5.0 in second quarter

Digitimes - Viewing that the adoption of Android 4.0 has fallen short of original expectations and Microsoft will launch Windows 8 in the third quarter of 2012, Google is likely to launch Android 5.0 (Jelly Bean) in the second quarter and appeal for adopting Android 5.0 and Windows 8 in the same tablet PC, according to Taiwan-based supply chain makers.

Android 5.0 will be further optimized for tablet PCs, while Google will also integrate its Chrome system functions to push dual-operating system designs. Brand vendors can either choose to adopt only Android 5.0 or add Android 5.0 to Windows 8 devices with the ability to switch between the two OSes without the need to shut down the computer.

Tablet and E-book reader Ownership Nearly Doubled to 29%

Pew Internet - The share of adults in the United States who own tablet computers nearly doubled from 10% to 19% between mid-December and early January and the same surge in growth also applied to e-book readers, which also jumped from 10% to 19% over the same time period. The number of Americans owning at least one of these digital reading devices jumped from 18% in December to 29% in January.

ZTE and Huawei are pushing android phone pricing to new lows

Forbes - Chinese cellphone makers ZTE and Huawei are heading to dominate the global low and mid end android smartphone markets. Several of the models and particularly the ZTE Blade (which Orange named “San Francisco”) became bestsellers by pushing smartphone pricing to new lows.

The Huawei Blaze is now selling for 60 pounds (US$93) without contract – and it features a 3 MP camera and a 3.2 inch display. It’s only 11 mm thick; a far cry from the chunky low-end smartphones consumers are used to.

ZTE is now targeting 80 Million handset volume in 2012 – and 100% smartphone volume growth. ZTE Blade became the second-best selling W-CDMA phone in China last summer and is now cruising towards 10 million units sold globally. The ZTE Skate is off to an even faster start. And ZTE is actually behind Huawei in China – these two combined are likely to hit 25% share of China’s handset market by summer.

ZTE Blade on wikipedia

Steve Wozniak Praises the Android Smartphones Capabilities that are Better than the iPhone

Daily Tech - Apple Founder Steve Wozniak says the iPhone is for people who like simple, pretty things while the Android-based smartphones offer greater capabilities.

"My primary phone is the iPhone," said Wozniak. "I love the beauty of it. But I wish it did all the things my Android does, I really do."

Wozniak was recently spotted at the Google campus' Android development building to scoop up a pre-release of the company's Galaxy Nexus, causing quite a stir amongst Google fans outside. As it turns out, Wozniak is good friends with Andy Rubin, the head of Android, and regularly uses a Motorola Droid Razr.

ICube unifies CPU and GPU into one core with four threads per core

ICube is a fabless semiconductor company developing semiconductor System-On-Chip (SOC) solutions based on our Harmony Unified Processor Technology, genuinely integrating two different processor types: a central processing unit (CPU) and a graphics processing unit (GPU), into one unified core. Founded by Silicon Valley veterans (Simon Moy, CTO was Principal Engineer at NVIDIA and Fred Chow, is Chief Scientist was Chief Scientist at SGI and principle engineer at MIPS) who are experts in processor, software and integrated circuit development, the strength of our engineering team enjoys international distinction. The company is based in China.

People don’t need another processor. People need new digital devices that are cheaper, with higher performance, and lower power consumption.

MVP is more cost-efficient than existing processors and is better positioned to ride the performance increases projected by Moore’s law, which in turn allows it to adequately meet the needs of emerging applications.

ICube has an Android SoC (system on a chip) with their own core processor technology based on parallel computing with optimizing compilers, parallel programming APIs, and tool sets to assist application migration.

Extremetech - The Harmony Unified Processing Architecture (and the first iteration of that architecture, the IC1) are described as consisting of “the Multi-Thread Virtual Pipeline parallel computing core (MVP), an independent instruction set architecture, an optimizing compiler, and the Agile Switch dynamic load balancer.” Elsewhere, the chip is described as a “parallel computing stream processor core.” We also know, based on available literature, that the chip uses both SMP (Symmetric Multi-Processing) and SMT (Simultaneous Multi-Threading).

At a larger feature size and slower clock speed the UPU has higher performance

Google Android increases US smartphone market shreto 46.9 percent

Comscore - 91.4 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in November, up 8 percent from the preceding three month period. Google Android ranked as the top smartphone platform with 46.9 percent market share, up 3.1 percentage points from the prior three-month period. Apple maintained its #2 position, growing 1.4 percentage point to 28.7 percent of the smartphone market.

Google Voice Understanding Project Majel is a response to Apple Siri

Androidandme - Google’s response to Apple’s Siri voice assistant is codenamed Majel, which comes from Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, better known as the voice of the Federation Computer from Star Trek.

Majel is an evolution of Google’s Voice Actions that is currently available on most Android phones with the addition of natural language processing. Where Voice Actions required you to issue specific commands like “send text to…” or “navigate to…”, Majel will allow you to perform actions in your natural language similar to how Siri functions.

Speaking of actions, it sounds like only Google search queries will be included with the initial release, that could come as soon as this year. I say this year because I’ve heard that engineers at Google X are working around the clock on finishing the first release and the NYTimes previously reported that one product would be released by Google X this year.

Ted wrote: “It’s definitely as good, or better, than Siri. At least on the tablet you can sort through different answers with these swipe-able trays. Like, if you say “show me the Statue of Liberty” it’ll automatically take you to Google Image results, but another tray beneath it might be its location on Google Maps and then another tray might have a Wikipedia page. It’s also pretty good at giving you succinct answers if you ask it a question. The UI is definitely more powerful than Siri’s, even if a little harder to navigate.

At least at one phase of the development you would activate it by saying “Computer…” It was hard not to use a Jean Luc Piccard accent when doing it!”

Spreadtrum releases platforms for $40 Android smartphones

EEtimes - Chinese fabless semiconductor firm Spreadtrum Communications, Inc. has released two new low-cost, 600MHz Android smartphone platforms, made on a 40-nm process, aimed at ultra-cheap smartphones in the $40-50 range.

China Mobile has said it expects to sell over 30 million TD-SCDMA smart phones next year, most of which it predicts will come from the low-cost segment.

Google Android Will Remain Free

Wall Street Journal Google Inc. Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said Tuesday that the Internet search giant remains committed to offering its Android mobile operating system for free to its handset manufacturing partners.

In August, Google unveiled plans to buy the Motorola Mobility and set-top devices for $12.5 billion, a development that has raised anxiety among cellphone makers about whether Google would accord them equal treatment regarding the Android platform.

PC Mag - T-Mobile confirmed Tuesday that the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus will arrive on Nov. 16 for $249.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate. Customers will be required to sign up for a two-year deal with the carrier.

Android 4.0 OS and Galaxy Nexus compared to iPhone4S, HTC Titan and Samsung Galaxy SII

1. Computer World -
Four Android 4.0 innovations that debuted in the Galaxy Nexus Superphone

i.) Face Unlock facial recognition
ii) Android Beam, which uses near-field communication technology;
iii) data monitoring, a potentially powerful user setting.
iv) allows users to speed up the playback of long-winded voice mails.

Android Beam demo - two Galaxy Nexus phones together, back-to-back, would allow wireless transfer of an article from a Web site, a Google map of a specific location, or a YouTube video. He showed how one person playing the game Minecraft on a Galaxy Nexus could tap another Galaxy Nexus, leading the second user immediately to the Minecraft app in Android Market where he could read about it or quickly purchase and download it. The potential for Android Beam is great for connecting "any proximity-based things" such as group chats and more

2. CNET - Android Supersmartphones -

Verizon and Motorola jointly unveiled the Droid Razr, a dual-core 4G LTE smartphone that boasts a thinner profile than the iPhone 4S.

Google Conversation mode voide to voice translation now works for 14 languages

Oct 13, 2011, the Google translate app now can translate among 14 spoken languages. Along with English and Spanish, the app now translates between Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Russian and Turkish.

The number of languages supported for text and text-to-speech translations continues to grow, with 63 languages supported for text, speech-to-text in 17 languages and text-to-speech working in 24 languages.

iPhone and Google Android Compatible Ava Robot has navigation Apps

Forbes - iRobot (maker of the Roomba) has a new robot, called Ava. iRobot made it compatible with applications written for Apple’s iOS operating system and Google’s Android platform. “To truly accelerate the robot industry, we need more people developing for it,” said iRobot Chief Executive Colin Angle in an interview. “Now, if you can develop for Android or iOS, you’re a roboticist.”

Ava has an adjustable three to five-foot-tall “torso” atop a sturdy, triangular set of wheels, utilizes either a tablet computer or a smartphone as its head. The tablet/phone, which doubles as the robot’s brain can be either iOS or Android-powered, such as an iPad, iPhone, Motorola Xoom or Samsung Galaxy Tab. Ava, which runs on an iRobot Linux-based software platform called AWARE is also designed to be controlled remotely with a corresponding tablet or smartphone.

Third-party Ava apps have yet to emerge; iRobot still considers the robot a prototype. But the company has created several apps that it plans to offer to Ava users and outside developers when the robot becomes broadly available, likely some time in 2012.

Robot's mobile robotics platform Ava can run Apple (iOS) and Google Android apps.

Kindle Fire compared to iPad and other tablets

PC World has a comparison of the Kindle Fire with most of the other major tablets.

Barnes and Noble is also rumored to be launching a 10-inch version of the Nook Color before the end of 2011. It is expected to sell for $349, and will give Barnes & Noble a head start against a larger Kindle tablet for users who prefer the 10-inch tablet form factor.

$199 Kindle Fire, $99 Kindle Touch unveiled

CNET - Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos has unveiled a $99 Wi-Fi only, no-button Kindle Touch e-reader and a $149 Kindle Touch 3G--both designed to rival the Nook Touch. He also showed off a redesigned basic, non-touch Kindle e-reader for $79. And the big news of the morning...the $199 Kindle Fire tablet. The 7-inch, 14.6-ounce tablet--Amazon's first foray into tablets--features a simple black border, color touch screen, a dual-core processor, wireless syncing, free Amazon Cloud storage, and Amazon's new Silk browse

The Kindle Fire will be available on November 15 and is available for preorder now.

Apple will have the high-end tablets. Every tablet maker in the middle is screwed. Amazon will own the lowend of the tablet market

Amazon Will Unveil the Kindle Fire Tablet tomorrow

Techcrunch - On Wednesday morning in New York City, Amazon will unveil the Kindle Fire. It will be a 7-inch backlit display tablet that looks similar to the BlackBerry PlayBook.

It will use a Texas Instrument dual-core OMAP chip. This is the same chip used inside many newer Android devices.The clockspeed will probably be 1.2 GHz. This will make it significantly faster than the rival Nook Color, which uses a single core 800 MHz OMAP.

Barnes and Noble is on the verge of launching the Nook Color 2 next month.

The Nook Color 2 will also be built on top of Gingerbread, Android 2.3.
The Kindle Fire is believed to be based on Android 2.1.

Nvidia Tegra 3 Kalel chip will have a fifth CPU core for lower power usage

Nvidia - Variable SMP – A Multi-Core CPU Architecture for Low Power and High Performance (16 pages)

Project Kal-El (Tegra 3) works with a new Variable Symmetric Multiprocessing technology, also known as vSMP. As NVIDIA notes today for the first time, vSMP includes a fifth CPU core called the “Companion” core that’s built using a “special low power silicone process” which works on tasks at a low frequency – this works well for active standby mode, music playback, and video playback. The other main four cores are made in a more standard silicone process which is able to reach much higher frequencies. Each of these five cores is an identical ARM Cortex A9 CPU that’s individually enabled and disabled based on work load.

Android, Amazon tablets and Nvidia news and rumors

1. Inquirer - Nvidia has secured a 34.4 per cent share of the non-Ipad tablet market in the first quarter of 2011. Apple's market share at 61 per cent, meaning that Nvidia essentially has a third of the remaining 39 per cent.

2. Nvidias quad-core Tegra mobile processor called the Kal-El will ship with high-end smartphones and tablets. The Kal-El is more powerful and actually consumes less power than the Tegra 2, Huang said. The company is also working on a unified chipset that includes both a modem and an application processor that will go into lower-end smartphones.

Different views of the tablet future for Android and Apple

Sasha Pallenberg from the specialist Internet site Netbooknews has repeated his prediction that sales of tablet computers using Android would surpass those of the iPad by the end of next year. This prediction seems to be for unit sales volume and depends upon the success of $100 and cheaper tablets and $200 tablets. Dollar volume market share would then still see Apple iPad tablet dominance lasting longer.