Asus announce 31.5" 4K IGZO TV!

   At the moment televisions tend to have a maximum resolution 1920 x 1080p, which is sharp and makes things look good. The future though will be stepping things up a lot. Asus are one of the first people out of the blocks with a well sized display with the new 4K, that's 3840 x 2160p resolution across a 31.5-inch monitor.

   That will give you a PPI of 140 and the IGZO panel will give great colours and has four times the pixels which should make everything look absolutely fantastic. The monitor is also super skinny coming in at 3.5cm at the thickest point and there's the benefits of DisplayPort and the US models will offer dual-HDMI ports inputs with Picture-by-Picture support. Speakers will be good too with built-in 2W stereo speakers and there will be wall-mount options, full height, swivel, and tilt adjustments here too, hopefully you won't need to use these swivels too much because there's 176 degree viewing angles at the moment!
Hexus and Asus Via Engadget.

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YouView explain where they are: Android app, Internet television and how they're doing!

   YouView are a UK company which offer you subscription free TV and all you really need is to buy the box and hook it up to your internet and you're good to go. With such a simple solution it's not too much wonder than the  box is being labelled as the "fastest growing TV product in the UK."

   YouView's CEO, Richard Halton, said that the system s now live in more than 400,000 homes in the UK and about 2.2 million video streams are viewed each week. That includes an average of 3 hours of week of on demand TV per box and about 60% of the users make the most of the OnDemand services which are offered on the platform.  YouView don't have exact details on which providers offered how many of those boxes, but TalkTalk said that they've installed 230,000 so that means the rest are BT and other sales of the boxes.

   Halton was keen to emphasise that this is only a good start, he said:

"We are far from resting on our laurels … If launching was crossing the start line, this is the first marker."

   YouView have confirmed that there will be support for internet TV channels coming to their set top box! The company said that this will give the company a massive boost from their current line up of 70 live TV channels which they offer already. YouView did say that initially the TV channels will be offered through BT and TalkTalk so you'll need to be a customer of one of those companies initially and don't worry you can get both HD and standard definition TV shows from these providers.

   There will be a software update for the YouView boxes which will add in the availability this summer and the hope is that it will be ready for BT's new sports offerings! After this integrating update there will be another one in autumn this year which will add pause, skip and record features.

   YouView also confirmed where they are with their Android app. Obviously mobile devices are vital to television offerings these days and the company already has an app for iPhones out in the wild, but YouView have said that the Android app will have the exact same functionality as the iPhone app and it will be available in "the next couple of weeks". The app will be optimised for the Samsung Galaxy S2, Galaxy S3, Galaxy Ace, Nexus 4 and HTC One S and it should work on any device with Android 2.3 or greater!

Via PocketLint (1), (2) and (3).

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Sony's yearly report is in: Here's the plan department by department!

   Sony's annual report which shows us the state of affairs within the company has been released today! In recent years things haven't been too great, but for once there's a few little hints here and there that things might be starting to turn around!

   The good news for Sony was that the company is profitable again! This was mainly down to the film and financial services departments of the company as well as lots of asset sales! Sony still seem to be struggling with consumer electronics, but we'll go into that in a bit more detail now!

The Sony Xperia Z!

   In the smartphone and tablet department things have been going well and the company is looking to build on their solid position with, 'accelerate the speed with which it develops and rapidly delivers compelling products to customers,' so essentially Sony want to cut down their development time to get products to market sooner, which is a solid thing to do given that the flagships for this year are rocking Qualcomm's older Snapdragon S4 Pro processors instead of the new Snapdragon 600's which everyone else is deploying!

   The story is somewhat similar when it comes to computers, but the real focus will be on a new realignment which will see the company prioritizing profitability over increasing sales, which makes sense because Sony's laptops tend to target the higher end at the moment any way!

   Imaging has always been a particular strength of Sony and the company seem to know it. There are plans in place to 'reinforce the professional camera line-up centring on 4K-compatible cameras, as well as cameras for cinematography.' The Japanese company are also looking at new revenue streams with things such as security, sports and medicine being the starting point for this. On a more mundane level consumers can expect compact cameras with 'enhance image quality... reduced size and weight, and higher-powered zoom,' all of which sounds pretty good to us!

   Gaming is an interesting topic at the moment too, especially with yesterday's reveal of the Xbox One, the ball is firmly back in Sony's court to see what they do with the PS4! There's not too much detail in this report, but the guys do say that it will arrive in time for the holidays this year and the aim is to offer 'a quality gaming experience only possible through a dedicated gaming system, and will also enable smartphone and tablet users to share in the enjoyment of PS4, even without owning one themselves.'

The battle will be over the next generation of consoles as Sony focus
on gaming and Microsoft go after living room domination!

   The PS Vita will tie in quite closely with the PS4 and owners of both will be rewarded with exclusive content and there will be some interesting price reductions on the Vita, as well as some
more compelling games coming in the near future, especially focused around software downloads instead of physical game sales! The PS3 will be supported for a few more years, but there's not really much doing there now as the focus is shifting to the PS4!
 
   And finally, when it comes to the TV business, things aren't looking great, but the company is pledging to continue to work on their 'Full HD TV models, while also expanding its 4K LCD TV line-up'. There will be a renewed focus on emerging markets because that's where the growth is at the moment with the hope that cost saving can bring this department back into profitability over the next few years!

   If you're interested in checking the report out in more details then head over to Sony's website here and let us know what you think about Sony's future in the comments below!
Via Engadget.

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Google's Eric Schmidt says YouTube's bigger than TV: We're not sure we agree just yet!

   According to reports Google's Eric Schmidt took to the stage at an advertising presentation to proclaim that YouTube and online video has displaced the TV in terms of ads. The news comes on the back of YouTube reaching the milestone of a billion monthly viewers and growth is only expected to keep coming!

   There's probably some truth in what Schmidt said especially with regard to the opportunities for growth, because YouTube hasn't really reached emerging markets and they offer Google huge potentials for growth. Schmidt said:

"Wait until you get to 6 or 7 billion. It’s not a replacement for something that we know. It’s a new thing that we have to think about, to program, to curate and build new platforms."

   Schmidt wasn't the only one to reel off the virtues of the mobile service. The companies 'head of global content Robert Kyncl, was present too and he said that:

 "I thought that YouTube was like TV, but it isn't. I was wrong. TV is one-way. YouTube talks back."

   Obviously that's the case will the majority of online content, which is why it's so immersive for viewers. Obviously we have to take this with a pinch of salt because it's all marketing hyperbole, but does that really detract from the point that YouTube is growing hugely or that eventually we will watch all of our programmes through the internet, definitely not.

   What do you think? Do you think YouTube is bigger than TV? Will it be one day? Let us know in the comments below!
Via PhoneArena.

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23/05/2012

Samsung look to tweak Galaxy Note 10.1?

   The 10.1" Galaxy Note was a great looking little device, but it looks like Samsung feels it needs to up it's game, which is probably a good idea actually, I myself said they very distinctly average when they launched.

   Today it has been rumoured that the tablet will be getting thinner as well as having an update to the processor, giving it a bump to the Galaxy S3's quad-core Exynos chip, instead of a mere dual-core processor. There's also rumoured to be a new S-Pen slot as well in a Galaxy Note-esque fashion.

   As soon as we get an official word from Samsung I'll be sure to keep you in the loop.

Nvidia highlight 'Kai' again, wants to give you $199 quad-core tablets.

   The Asus Eee-pad MeMo could and maybe would be the most perfect Android tablet, with it's 7" form factor and an ultra powerful quad-core processor. Unfortunately though, we have seen little or nothing of this tablet since Asus suggested it'd come to the world soon. 

   However, Nvidia have again reiterated that they are committed to producing a quad-core tablet for less than $200 and with a little bit of 'scret sauce' from the Nvidia Tegra 3 processor while somehow managing to make it considerably cheaper. So hopefully we can see this become a reality in the very near future.

In other news:

• Lenovo manages to turn the tide by posting a 46% profit surge.
• Acer Iconia A510 Olympic Tab to launch in UK next month.
• MySpace is set to relaunch later in 2012.
• IBM blocks Siri over fears sensitive information may lapse into unwanted hands.
• Sony and Samsung are enforcing minimum pricing on their tv's in a desperate bid to protect their profits.
• Samsung releases Galaxy Note source code.
• Facebook are testing a new Timeline layout.
• Xbox 360 may face a ban in the USA over Motorola patents.

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