iPhone 6 with 4.8-Inch Display Coming in June 2014 – Analyst

Image comment: iPhone 6 concept by Federico Ciccarese Image credits: Federico Ciccarese (ciccaresedesign.com)

Jefferies analyst Peter Misek has released an estimate of Apple’s upcoming product launches all the way to June 2014, when the Cupertino giant will supposedly unveil the iPhone 6 powered by a new processor and boasting a 4.8-inch display.

Misek has a hit and miss track record on Apple predictions, which is true for pretty much any analyst out there. Though he does seem to be a little more conservative than other Wall Street buffs.

Instead of boasting that Apple will for sure unveil big-screen televisions and iWatches, he maintains that the company will take its time to make forays into new markets.

His first prediction for 2013 is a special event with iTV-related announcements. That’s iTV-related, not the iTV itself.

Misek, like a handful of other analysts, believes Apple will roll out some sort of software development kit (SDK) for developers to code apps for the big screen.

This will be Apple’s first step in its mission to place itself at the center of the living-room, Misek believes.

Come June, Misek believes there’s a good chance Apple will release the iPhone 5S and a low-cost version of the smartphone, as many others have predicted as well. The showcase will be at WWDC, Apple’s annual developer conference.

In the September-October timeframe, the iPad 5 will be released alongside a Retina-display iPad mini 2, and the iTV itself, according to Misek’s estimates.

That’s right. The big-screen Apple TV is coming this year, Misek believes.

The analyst’s chart then skips a few hard to predict product launches to drop a pin on June 2014.

According to the Jefferies analyst, that’s when Apple will unveil an all-new iPhone powered by a supercharged processor, estimated to be manufactured with a 20-nm process.

The phone’s processor could have as many as eight cores, he says, after checking with sources in Apple’s supply chain. The screen size will also increase to 4.8 inches, according to Misek.

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HP Launches Impressive 24” MVA Monitor with Just 11mm Thickness

Image comment: HP's L2401x MVA Slim Monitor Image credits: HP

HP has just launched a whole lot of new products today and we already reported about the Compaq Pro 6305 desktop system here. If you’re searching for an impressively good looking monitor to go with that, HP now has the slim L2401x for you.

The HP L2401x is a very slim monitor that is only 11 millimeters thick and has a very nice metallic looking casing on the back.

HP decided not to use an IPS panel on the L2401x, but went for MVA technology instead.

MVA is short for multi-domain vertical alignment and this was the first technology that was able to offer fast response time and very good contrast rates for the time it was introduced.

MVA is the VA technology evolved, while VA is short for vertical alignment and Wikipedia describes it as:

“Vertical alignment displays are a form of LCDs in which the liquid crystals naturally align vertically to the glass substrates.

When no voltage is applied, the liquid crystals remain perpendicular to the substrate creating a black display between crossed polarizers.

When voltage is applied, the liquid crystals shift to a tilted position allowing light to pass through and create a gray-scale display depending on the amount of tilt generated by the electric field.”

The VA panel technology also brings large viewing angles, higher contrast ratios and it is generally cheaper to make when compared with IPS displays.

In fact, MVA offers very high-quality black and good color reproduction along with very good contrast rates and wide viewing angles that can only be surpassed by S-IPS panels.

One important note that we must emphasize is the fact that the VA technology offers the highest contrast ratios compared to all other popular panel types, which leads to much better black levels.

There is also a disadvantage as the VA technology usually suffers from higher response times when compared with both TN and IPS panels.

MVA is supposed to fix most of the issues of the VA technology and HP’s L2401x certainly has an impressive contrast of 5000 to 1, but can also boast a 10 million to 1 dynamic ratio.

HP will offer two versions of this monitor. The basic one will have a 1-year warranty while the business one will be just $10 more expensive, but it will also benefit from a 3-year warranty period.

Pricing is set at $250 (192 EUR).

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First PlayStation 3 Super Slim Photos Leaked

Image comment: PS3 Super Slim leaked photo Image credits: Tecnoblog

Sony is preparing to debut a brand new version of its PlayStation 3 console later this year, presumably the rumored PS3 Super Slim edition, and now the first images of the new device have been leaked on the web thanks to a Brazilian website.


The PlayStation 3 has been around for quite a long time and it already went through a "slimming" process when the PS3 Slim was presented to the world back in 2009.

It seems that Sony is getting ready to debut a new design for the PS3 in the form of the rumored Super Slim, at least according to FCC files that were uncovered last month.

Now, the first images of this new PS3 have appeared via website Tecnoblog, which apparently got them from the Brazilian Agency of Telecommunications.

As you can see above and in the gallery below, the new PS3 sports a similar shape to the current PS3 Slim but has a ridged finish on its top panel and might feature a top-loading disc drive, which should make it cheaper to produce.

The Sony Brazil document that accompanied the device mentions three actual versions of the PS3 Super Slim, codenamed CECH-4011A, CECH-4011B, and CECH-4011C, which means that three different hard drives will be bundled into the console.

According to the website, these storage options will offer 16, 250, and 500GB of space, which is quite different than the current PS3 Slim that comes in either 160GB or 320GB flavors.

Given the fact that Sony presented the PS3 Slim at Gamescom 2009, it stands to reason that the company will once again debut a new PlayStation 3 model at the upcoming 2012 edition of the large convention this August.

No other details are known as of yet, but you can admire more leaked photos below.

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Google Nexus 7 Is Official

During its annual developer-focused conference, Internet giant company Google has launched its first Android tablet. The new device has a 7” diagonal size and sports a 1280 by 800 pixel resolution.

This is the first 7” tablet that’s being endorsed and marketed by one of the world’s biggest IT companies.

Steve Jobs’ Apple has always mocked the 7” diagonal size and said many times that 7” tablets are not really tablets and, although in a much more humble manner, we tend to agree with him.

Microsoft’s recently presented Surface tablet keeps up with Apple and features a diagonal of more than 7”, and it also brings other innovative features, such as a foldable keyboard/tablet cover.

Therefore, Google is left alone by the big league tablet players on the 7” tablet front and it only competes with the likes of Acer, Samsung and ASUS.

The manufacturer behind Google’s Nexus is, in fact, the Taiwanese mainboard manufacturer called ASUS, the maker of the famous Transformer tablets.

Just like Acer’s Iconia A110, the new Google Nexus is powered by a quad-core Tegra 3 or Tegra 4 + 1 SoC and features 1 GB of system RAM memory.

The screen is a little better than Iconia A110's, as Acer’s tablet only has a 1024 by 600 pixel resolution.

The Nexus 7 has an IPS led backlit screen that’s somewhat protected by Corning’s special glass. It also features a rather mediocre 1.2 MP front-facing camera, Wireless N, Bluetooth, Micro USB and a NFC chip.

Compared with Acer’s Iconia A110, the Google Nexus 7 is 30 grams lighter, weighing just 340 grams.

That’s about 0.75 pounds for the new Google tablet, although we’d rather carry 30 grams more and have the 2 MP webcam sported on the Iconia A110.

Nexus 7 features a rather large and capable 4325 mAh battery that is rated for 8 hours of active use. This is considerably larger than Iconia’s 3420 mAh battery.

There is also a GPS inside, a Magnetometer, Gyroscope, Accelerometer and a Microphone, but no HDMI, unfortunately.

It would have been nice to have some output options like Acer’s HDMI with DualDisplay support on the A110.

The tablet is running Android 4.1, which is the "Jelly Bean" version that everybody is talking about.

There are only 8 GB of flash storage inside, but, overall, Google’s Nexus 7 only brings good news, as the $199 price will force the price down on less popular devices like Acer’s Iconia that we’ve been talking about.

There is also a $249 Nexus 7 version that comes with 16 GB of flash storage, but we find the lack of a microSD slot to be quite a disappointment.

Priced at about €159 for the 8 GB version and €199 for the 16 GB model, Google’s Nexus 7 has just raised the bar in the cheap 7” tablet market niche.

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Japan Gets Crystal White PlayStation Vita on June 28

 White Vita

The Japanese division of Sony has announced that it will be launching a new variant of the PlayStation Vita handheld, called Crystal White, on June 28.

The price of the new color version will be the same as that of the black PlayStation Vita, and Sony will offer both Wi-Fi and 3G models.

Matching headphones will also be released on the same date.

Sony has not yet announced whether it plans to also deliver the Crystal White version of the PlayStation Vita outside of Japan.

The Vita has been less successful than Sony expected on both the home market and in the United States and in Europe, and launching new colors and versions of the device might be a good way of temporarily boosting sales.

Sony is also probably thinking about cutting the price of the PlayStation Vita in order to get more players to pick it up, like Nintendo has done for the 3DS handheld during August 2011.

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Samsung GALAXY S III Official Accessories Unveiled: S-Pebble, Wireless Charger and More

Image comment: S-Pebble MP3 Image credits: Samsung Next >>

Some may consider the third-generation Galaxy smartphone a disappointment, while others continue to praise Samsung’s new Android flagship smartphone.

Nevertheless, the latest benchmark results show a pretty solid device, which seems to be the most powerful on the market.

Obviously, we should wait for the final product to hit shelves in late May before running these tests, but the fact that even testing units are more powerful than all other devices currently available on the market pretty much says everything.

Moreover, the phone comes bundled with a series of apps and services, which are meant to improve the overall user’s experience, such as S Beam, S Voice and Direct Call, just to name a few.

Anyway, those who already pre-ordered the Samsung Galaxy S III will be happy to know that the South Korean company already announced at least a dozen of accessories compatible with the super-phone.

The most interesting seem to be the Wireless Charging Kit, as well as the S-Pebble MP3 player, which can be paired with the phone.

The S-Pebble is a 4GB MP3 player, which is useful when you don’t want to carry your phone with you, but still wish to be able to listen to your favorite music.

What’s really interesting about this accessory is that it can be directly hooked to the Galaxy S III via cable, so users can transfer files directly.

With the Wireless Charging Kit users will be able to charge their Samsung Galaxy S III by placing the smartphone on a charging pad.

Furthermore, there’s also an AllCast wireless dongle, which has the potential to beat the Media Link HD for its efficiency. The latter is manufactured by Taiwanese company HTC.

Last but not least, customers will also be able to purchase a spare battery, a flip cover, a metallic dock stand, an HDMI adapter, as well as a car dock.

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Samsung Proudly Shows Its 32 nm Manufacturing Process

Image comment: Microchip Wafer Image credits: rackcdn Next >> The image below has been resized. Click on it to enlarge.

Korean company Samsung has started mass production of Apple’s A5 ARM processor that powers the company’s popular iPAD 2 tablet. The move will have a serious impact on Apple's per-chip cost, but, more importantly, it proves once again how important it is to have a contract with a modern foundry using a quality manufacturing process.

The old dual core A5 CPU was also manufactured by Samsung’s FAB, but the manufacturing technology was 45 nm.

The impact of moving A5 from 45nm to 32 nm is tremendous. Apple never wanted more performance or more features, like other CPU designers offer when moving to a smaller manufacturing process.

They wanted better chip costs and got a lower power consumption practically for free.

Better manufacturing costs derive from the fact that a 32 nm wafer containing 32 nm A5 dies will result in 200% more CPUs.

Of course, not all the CPUs will be perfectly functional and scalability is never perfect, but Samsung managed to get quite close to complete scalability.

Unlike most IC CPU design companies like AMD, Nvidia and Apple, they don’t usually pay for every working chip on a wafer, but for the processed wafer itself. Thus, Apple now pays likely close to the same amount of money for double the number of processors.

We have previously talked about reduced power consumption. For Apple’s iPAD this resulted in an almost 30% longer battery life when the CPU and iGPU is most intensely used.

Samsung's new 32 nm process has been in development since 2010 and Apple's A5 processor is the first truly mass-produced processor using the Korean company's new manufacturing process.

Here are some particular enhancements that Samsung is promising its FAB clients:

2x gate density increase compared to 45nm
Over 100x lower gate leakage
Greater than 40% delay improvement at fixed leakage
10X leakage reduction at fixed speed

Considering that Samsung’s own Exynos quad core ARM Cortex A9 CPU is made using the same process, we can easily see why Samsung’s 32 nm manufacturing capacities are more desirable than TSMC’s current 40 nm process.

Sure, TSMC is already manufacturing advanced chip in 28 nm technology, but the Taiwanese foundry cannot offer the same production volume Samsung does.

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Toshiba Launches 13-Inch Excite 13 Tablet

Toshiba has officially launched its latest tablets, one of which stands out through its sheer size, as well as the quality of its liquid crystal display panel.

The NVIDIA Tegra 3 mobile platform has been used in so many tablets that it is no longer capable of getting one sold on its own, even with its new and shiny 4-PLUS-1 trademark.

Toshiba knew this when it put together its newest slate range, so it went a bit outside the norm.

That is to say, in addition to the expected 10-inch and 7.7-inch Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich models, it conjured up a larger one too.

To be more specific, Toshiba created the Excite 13, a tablet with a 13.3 inches screen diagonal.

What's more, the display features a native resolution of 1,600 x 900 pixels (a so-called HD plus display), making this one of the relatively few Android tablets with a panel better than 1,280 x 800.

Toshiba believes that Excite 13 is just right for the role of “sharing element” in a home, but some test runs will have to come and go before we believe that.

Not that we don't think the size goes a long way, because we do, but the price of $629 is a bit worrisome.

That's 479.60 Euro according to exchange rates, but European stores will probably list the thing for 500-600 Euro or so.

The rest of the specs are more or less common by now, starting with the aforementioned Tegra 3 quad-core CPU that has 32 GB or 64 GB of storage to work with.

Toshiba tossed in micro USB, a dull-size SD card slot and two cameras: 5 megapixels at the back and 2 megapixels on the front.

Everything somehow fits in a package whose thickness is of 0.4 inches (10.16 millimeters) and whose weight is of 2.2 pounds (just short of one kilogram). Sales will start on June 10 (2012).

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Requiem 3.3 Cracks iBook’s DRM

If up until now iBooks were protected by Apple’s FairPlay digital rights management (DRM) and they couldn’t be played on any unapproved devices, the latest variant of the popular protection-remover called Requiem has the ability to crack the DRM, allowing digital books to be transformed into any eBook format.

Gizmodo informs that the free Requiem 3.3 is able not only to remove the protection on media content (music and movies) taken from iTunes, but the protection on iBooks as well.

On the other hand, the FairPlay DRM is constantly patched up by the Cupertino company with the purpose of ensuring that the features offered by apps such as Requiem are short-lived, which means that this security hole may be addressed pretty soon.

In the meantime, individuals are able to convert all their iBooks to other formats in case they want to read their favorite literature on other platforms than the one provided by Apple.

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Fully Assembled iPad 3 Leaked

A Chinese source claims to have obtained photos of a fully assembled iPad 3 model, touting slight design alterations, such as a more gradual tapering of the back shell, a higher resolution camera, and a Retina display.

Apple Daily previously reported on leaked iPad 3 parts, but this is the first time a Chinese blog / site (or any blog / site in the world, for that matter) obtains photographs of a fully assembled iPad 3 tablet computer.

As the images show, the third-generation Apple iPad seems to be slightly sharper and thinner around the edges. The display is said to feature the same size - 9.7-inches - but its pixel density is said to be increased to Retina-level.

A bigger camera module can be seen on the back of the tablet device. Leaving these changes aside, the iPad 3 looks pretty much identical to the current-generation of tablet computers from Apple.

The company run by Tim Cook is expected to unveil the new iPad at an event scheduled for March 7.

Checks with the schedule of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco indicate that the Wednesday that falls on March 7 should be the day Apple booked a stage for its iPad 3 unveiling.

In addition to the aforementioned features, the iPad 3 is expected to boast LTE (long term evolution) wireless technology. There have been some leaks that pinpointed AT&T as one of the carriers of the LTE-capable iPad 3, but nothing has been confirmed so far.

The tablet device is also said to be a tad thicker than the current generation of iPads. One millimeter thicker, to be precise. The reason seems to be a new backlighting mechanism for the new Retina display.

Finally, the battery in the iPad 3 is said to be slightly larger. Its autonomy should remain at 10 hours because of the A6 processor it needs to power, rumors say.

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Windows 8 Ultrabooks Considering Touchscreens, Convertible Designs

Ultrabooks started off as the same old type of notebook everyone is familiar with, only much thinner, but their makers are now considering new design elements.

People may or may not remember the IdeaPad Yoga, the Lenovo ultrabook that is not really an ultrabook, not in the strictest sense anyway.

Rather that sticking to the standard design concept, the item added a special hinge design which lets its display open at 360-degrees.

That way, it practically switches between a laptop and tablet form factor at will.

It is now reported that there are more and more companies willing, even eager, to integrate this sort of capability into their products.

That is not to say that all of them will have 360-degree hinges, but that there will be some sort of means for changing between laptop and slate roles (rotating/folding screens, sliders, etc.).

In addition to the craving for experimentation, there is another, more important factor behind this newest trend: the operating system.

Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system is just about ready to rumble so, naturally, Ultrabooks will use it. One of the key improvements in this OS is the better support for touch input.

As such, companies on the same page as Lenovo want to give owners a reason and means to use that capability.

Granted, they do risk blurring the line between slates and laptops a bit too severely, since there is a point past which a mobile PC can no longer be called an ultrabook, notebook or netbook, but a convertible tablet.

The source of this latest rumor is said to be the community of notebook hinge makers, who imply that Lenovo, ASUS and Acer all want more transforming ultrabooks out.

One thing is for sure: this trend will make life easy for manufacturers of touch panels as well, not just hinge producers.

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