The heavily delayed Nokia 808 Pureview could well grace the UK with its presence this week according to one online retailer.
Amazon.co.uk has the 808 Pureview available for pre-order, with the prospective date of arrival set to June 21 – just three days away.
It seems that Nokia may have been having some issues with its 41MP camera toting-handset, as the 808 Pureview's original release date was slated for April.
Delayed until July?
However Clove, another online retailer hasn't been quite so generous with its 808 Pureview release date, stating on its site: "First stock delayed until mid-late July ."
As for key UK mobile retailers Carphone Warehouse and Phones4U, there's no mention of the Nokia 808 Pureview on their sites, so we have contacted them to find out what their plans are for the handset.
We contacted Nokia to see if Amazon is bang on the money, or if Clove had a more accurate estimate, but the Finnish company would not be drawn in, stating; "we haven't made any announcements about the UK availability of the Nokia 808 Pureview."
From Amazon
First the iPhone. Now Renewables. - Yahoo Finance
TOKYO—When Masayoshi Son heard about the nuclear meltdowns in Fukushima last year, he had a mini meltdown of his own.
The chief executive of telecommunications and Internet company Softbank Corp.—these days best known as the man who brought Apple Inc.'s iPhone to Japan—says he told his board he was so concerned by the accident that he couldn't concentrate on his job anymore. Mr. Son said he planned to quit and work on energy issues instead.
"We had a big, big fight," Mr. Son told attendees at a renewable-energy conference earlier this year. "Shouting…banging the table."
The volatile Mr. Son was ultimately persuaded to stay. But he has also become one of the most outspoken advocates of a new energy era in Japan, arguing that solar and wind power, and some outside-the-box thinking, could take the place of electricity generated by nuclear reactors—and many fossil-fuel plants as well.
The challenge is immense. Before the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami sent three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant spinning out of control, nuclear power accounted for around 30% of Japan's total supply, and the government was proposing to raise that to 50% by 2030. Alternative-energy sources like solar power, by comparison, made up less than 1%—one of the lowest percentages in the developed world.
Mr. Son now proposes replacing all of Japan's nuclear generation with renewable energy, including hydroelectric, for a whopping 50% to 60% of Japan's total energy production by 2030, one of the most ambitious targets anywhere.
To jump-start that growth, Mr. Son—whom Forbes lists as the third-richest man in Japan, with an estimated net worth of $6.9 billion—is wasting no time. His audacious plans include 10 mega-solar plants in Japan, six of which are either under construction or soon will be.
A new Softbank subsidiary was created to invest in and manage the projects, in cooperation with local governments and corporate partners. Softbank so far has agreements with 36 of Japan's 47 prefectures to develop renewable projects, including plans for solar plants on abandoned farmland in Minamisoma, a city just north of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Local governments have widely embraced Mr. Son's renewable-energy plans, says Masaru Kaneko, a professor of economics at Keio University. Local political support is crucial in a crowded country where land ownership is fragmented and land use highly regulated. Softbank is seeking preferential tax treatment and regulatory exemptions from the prefectures, which in turn are expected to provide land and some financing. The bulk of financing for the projects will come from Softbank and corporate partners.
Mr. Son also is championing what he calls a "crazy, crazy idea" to connect Japan with other countries in Asia in an electricity "super grid" through which Japan could import wind and solar power from Mongolia. In March, it signed an agreement with Mongolian investment firm Newcom Group and Korea Electric Power Co. to explore a joint wind-power project in the Gobi Desert.
Known for his political influence and deal-making savvy, Mr. Son has won against-the-odds battles before. As a software distributor in the 1980s and 1990s, he helped Microsoft Corp. and other U.S. companies crack a Japanese computer market then dominated by domestic hardware makers peddling proprietary operating systems. In the early 2000s, he lobbied hard for deregulation in telecommunications, leading a charge that ultimately pushed Japan—and his company—to the forefront of broadband deployment globally.
To help his current cause, he created a foundation for policy research and lobbying that develops and promotes policies supportive of renewable energy. Among other efforts, it organizes public seminars and provides counterarguments in running public debates about how best to meet Japan's energy needs in the future.
But critics, including energy analysts, say Mr. Son's plans to increase Japan's reliance on renewable energy to as high as 60% are a stretch at best. Wind and solar power are inconstant, notes Hisashi Hoshi, an analyst at the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan's largest energy think tank. If Japan moves ahead with renewables on the scale Mr. Son is proposing, critics add, the country will need to even out power fluctuations with expensive measures like power-storage facilities or a redesign of the electricity grid.
Mr. Son knows his agenda is provocative. But he clearly senses opportunity in Japan's energy industry, which is under pressure to open up to more competition. Japan's power industry currently is controlled by nine regional utilities with near-monopolies on their markets, and little interconnection between the parts of the grid they control. Those utilities have historically concentrated their research efforts on nuclear power, rather than renewable energy.
Next month, Mr. Son's dreams may catch a break when Japan starts requiring utilities to buy solar or wind power from independent companies, the type of regulation that has supported alternative-energy development in Europe.
Far higher hurdles remain, however, for an Asian super grid. Cross-border electricity grids aren't unheard of, but they're tough to execute. Norway and the Netherlands started preparations to connect their electricity grids in 1994, but didn't complete the 580-kilometer link until 2008.
A 125-mile cable could be strung between Japan's southern island of Kyushu and South Korea, with a capacity of around 700 megawatts—similar to the Norway-Netherlands cable, says Hiroshi Takahashi of Fujitsu Research Institute, an expert on international grids. Such a cable would let Japan import power from Korea—where rates are around one-third those of Japan's—as well as points farther west like China or Mongolia.
Mr. Son estimates that Mongolian wind power would cost around three to four yen (four to five cents) per kilowatt-hour, if land for wind farms could be leased virtually free. Transferring power to Japan would cost two yen per kilowatt-hour, making the total cheaper than the roughly nine yen per kilowatt-hour the country pays for nuclear power, he says.
Japan's Electricity Business Act, however, doesn't allow foreign companies to supply electricity in Japan. And passing legislation to change that law in Japan's current divided Parliament won't be easy. Politicians and bureaucrats also worry about what would happen if supplying countries refuse to sell Japan the electricity when there is a power shortage.
Mr. Son is soldiering on. "Let's connect Japan to other Asian countries, and make them compete," he told lawmakers in April. "We import oil and gas. What's wrong with importing electricity?"
After the meeting, Mr. Son admitted his goals are tough ones. "If everybody is just watching, nothing will move forward," he said. "We see it as our role to take risks among uncertainty and set precedents, so other people will follow."
Mr. Obe is a staff reporter in the Tokyo bureau of The Wall Street Journal. He can be reached at mitsuru.obe@wsj.com.
More From The Wall Street Journal
Nokia announces the launch of Nokia 808 PureView mobile phone - AME Info
Since its global launch in February, the Nokia 808 PureView has received multiple awards, including Best New Mobile Device at Mobile World Congress 2012, as well as an award for Best Imaging Innovation for 2012 from the Technical Image Press Association (TIPA).
Vesa Jutila, Head of Smartphones Product Marketing at Nokia, demonstrated PureView's revolutionary imaging features to an elite group of journalists, bloggers and photographers in Jeddah, and said: "Nokia revolutionizes high-end smartphone imaging and sets a new industry standard with the Nokia 808 PureView. With this smartphone, you can capture the sharpest and most detailed pictures ever, and it is easier than ever to relive and share your experiences."
"But this is only the start: we're going to carry on developing the PureView technology for our future smartphones in ways that will again revolutionize the imaging experience," he concluded.
Mandar Bhide, General Manager, Nokia Middle KSA and Yemen said: "We are delighted to launch Nokia 808 PureView, an advanced smartphone full of advanced and exciting features, which is a testament to Nokia's commitment to delivering innovative mobile phone products for consumers across the globe, and to imaging enthusiasts in Saudi Arabia."
"Nokia's global strategy for growth focuses on a new winning smartphone strategy; such as the innovation we witnessed today with Nokia 808 PureView. This is a key part of this strategy as it pioneers new technology in smartphone handsets and sets a new benchmark for innovations in high-end imaging," he added.
The new smartphone also introduces Nokia Rich Recording technology, which enables audio recording at CD-like levels of quality, previously only possible with advanced external microphones, and also features the exclusive Dolby Headphone technology, transforming stereo content into a personal surround sound experience over any headphones and Dolby Digital Plus for 5.1 channel surround sound playback.
The Nokia 808 PureView features a large, high-resolution 41 megapixel sensor with high-performance Carl Zeiss optics and new pixel oversampling technology. At standard resolutions (2/3, 5 and 8 megapixels), this means the ability to zoom without loss of clarity and capture seven pixels of information, condensing into one pixel for the sharpest images imaginable.
At full resolution, it means the ability to capture an image, then zoom, reframe, crop and resize afterwards to expose previously unseen levels of details. The camera offers unprecedented performance in low-light shots, thanks to the pixel oversampling technology and amazing sensor that captures five times the amount of light. With superior low-light performance and the ability to save in compact file sizes for sharing in social networks, email and MMS, the Nokia 808 PureView smartphone makes it possible for anyone to capture professional looking images in any condition, and view it on any device.
Abdullah Al Mofeed, professional Saudi photographer, expressed his opinion on the pictures he took with the smartphone: "Professional and amateur photographers will get great shots alike, and lifestyle nature photographers will much appreciate the unprecedented details in resolution, thanks to this technology. The thing I like the most about this smartphone is that it offers professional imaging features in a small and portable size."
In addition to superior still imaging technology, the Nokia 808 PureView smartphone also includes full high definition 1080p video recording and playback with 4X lossless zoom and the world's first use of Nokia Rich Recording. This feature enables audio recording at CD-like levels of quality, previously only possible with external microphones. The Nokia 808 PureView also features exclusive Dolby Headphone technology, transforming stereo content into a personal surround sound experience over any headphones and Dolby Digital Plus for 5.1 channel surround sound playback.
In addition to the revolutionary experience offered by the Nokia 808 PureView, a big number of imaging mobile applications are available on Nokia store (http://store.nokia.com) to enhance the user experience, which can be directly downloaded to the smartphone.
Nokia 808 PureView uses a 4 inch multi-touch screen, and the highly damage-resistant Corning Gorilla glass helps protect the screen from scratches and accidental drops. The processor runs at 1.3 GHz and it supports Bluetooth 3.0 and Near Field Communication NFC wireless technologies. The battery can run for 9 hours of talk time, or 550 hours in stand-by mode, and the smartphone can connect to high definition television sets through the HDMI port and DLNA wireless technology, while providing high quality flash light to capture the best photographs and videos in low light conditions.
The smartphone supports syncing calendars, contacts and notes with Microsoft Outlook and can open Microsoft Office and PDF documents and compressed ZIP files. Nokia 808 PureView weighs 169 grams and will be available in the Saudi market in early June.
HITB 2012: MuscleNerd Explains Evolution of iPhone Baseband and Unlocks [VIDEO] - ibtimes.co.uk
Like us on Facebook
Among other intriguing concepts, there is mention of iPhone 4 Data Execution Prevention (DEP), explaining how Apple implemented DEP with specific hardware changes in the iPhone 4 baseband and the reason for its failure. Interesting tidbits on how ultrasn0w was designed to work despite aggressive hardware-based DEP are also outlined. Other points of interest include MuscleNerd's explanation of various basebands and customisations employed by Apple, besides detailing the use of activation tickets and baseband tickets.
Here is the complete list of the topics covered as part of the presentation at the 2012 Hat in the Box (HITB) conference, courtesy of modmyi:
Baseband ROP: Overview of the role ROP plays in software unlocks like yellowsn0w and ultrasn0w; comparison to ROP on the main Application-side CPU (jailbreaks) and why ROP wasn't even necessary on the first generation of iPhones.
Software Unlocks vs. Hardware Unlocks: How iPhone software unlocks differ from those using hardware SIM interposers; which layers of the baseband are exposed to each and how the exploit development environment differs. This includes a description of even more radical hacks like baseband chipset retrofitting and what Apple has done to prevent them.
iPhone4 DEP: How Apple implemented DEP with specific hardware changes on the iPhone4 baseband and what went wrong and how ultrasn0w was made to work despite aggressive hardware-based DEP.
Operating Systems: So far, Apple has used three completely different baseband operating systems in the iPhone line; includes description of which parts Apple tends to customise and why, as well as comparison of past and present custom command parsing.
Infineon vs. Qualcomm: Discussion of the transition from Infineon baseband chipsets to Qualcomm chipsets; comparison of the older serial-based AT interface (still used on many other handsets) to the USB-based QMI used by the iPhone4S.
Activation Tickets: Detailed description of the "activation ticket" Apple uses to authorise use with specific (or all) carriers; how activation tickets interact with the traditional PIN-based NCK codes; and contrasting activation tickets and baseband tickets.
Baseband Tickets: Details on how Apple authenticates software updates to the baseband; comparison of baseband tickets to "ApTickets" that Apple now uses on the main Application CPU to control software changes and why baseband tickets provide even strong protection than ApTickets. This includes the role of nonces in both the baseband and main application CPU.
iPhone4S: What we've learned so far about the iPhone4S baseband; an overview of changes Apple has made to the original Qualcomm BootROM and how the iPhone4S baseband boot process differs from most other Qualcomm-based handsets. This includes which features the iPhone4S baseband has in common with other handsets and which have been removed, a description of the current attack surface, and comparison of iPhone4 and iPhone4S hardware-based protection mechanisms.
Watch MuscleNerd's Video Presentation on Working Principles of iPhone Basebands and Unlocks:
To report problems or to leave feedback about this article, e-mail:
To contact the editor, e-mail:
These are the best renders yet of the iPhone 5 - Crave
Apple didn't let anything slip about the iPhone 5 at WWDC, so leave it to the Internet. These are the finest iPhone 5 renders so far, knocked up by Martin Hajek on Flickr.
Click through to see the full gallery.
Hajek punted out his renders of the black iPhone 5 last week, based on the backplate we spied recently. He's not the first to put together a render based on what we've been hearing rumour-wise, but these are the prettiest yet.
The iPhone as imagined by Hajek features the striped aluminium back, as well as the larger 16:9 screen that's expected to make an appearance on the next-gen phone. The screen on the next iPhone is expected to be 4 inches tall but no wider than the existing 3.5 incher, and with an aspect ratio ideal for movies.
The next iPhone is expected to launch around October time, which is the same time as Windows 8. As well as the bigger screen, it'll come touting the next generation of its software, iOS 6. New additions include Apple's own mapping software (replacing Google Maps), as well as turn-by-turn navigation, meaning the phone doubles as a sat-nav.
A much-improved Siri will also be on board, thankfully capable of telling us about local businesses like pubs, restaurants and taxi services. Previously it could only do this in America.
The iPhone 5 may well have the same A5X chip as in the new iPad too, boosting performance and making it even more of a gaming heavyweight than the iPhone 4S. We could have 4G by the end of the year, so the iPhone 5 could well be 4G-equipped for super-fast surfing and downloads.
What do you think of these renders? And what are you hoping for from the next iPhone? Let me know in the comments, or on our Facebook page.
Nokia after the purge: It's so unfair - The Register
Analysis Last week Nokia did exactly what analysts have been begging it to do for years - it took an axe to the company's bureaucracy and purged the leadership. The latest 10,000 redundancies leave the company with its smallest workforce since 1998. Nokia's reward was a further 18 per cent fall in its share price. Thanks, markets.
The announcements included plant closures, redundancies, a big executive purge, and cash from the sale of Vertu. It also included the acquisition of assets - presumably IP - of imaging company Scalado. This should have been better received, you might think.
The reason is that Nokia began to step back away from one of the three burning platforms identified by Elop last February. It no longer looks like Nokia has the appetite for a fight in all segments of the mobile phone business, from low-margin high-volume Asian markets, to mid-range touchscreen phones, to high-end smartphones.
The axe swung through Meltemi, an unannounced Linux-based successor to S40, and Qt, with Smartphone staff redeployed to beef up S40. What's left of Qt, acquired with the company Trolltech, could still be spun out, but it won't amount to significant money – perhaps at most a tenth of the €200m received for blingphone manufacturer Vertu.
But did Nokia have any choice - and is this a bad thing?
None of the old Tier 1 manufacturers play in the feature phone market anymore: Motorola and Sony (as Sony Ericsson) have already stopped. If Nokia insists on competing here it needs to do so from a low-cost base – the value will come from bundling Maps and other assets into the phones. Smarterphone was an excellent acquisition, but presumably porting applications like Maps (which are already on S40) to the new platform was considered too slow and expensive. As we wrote here on Thursday, Nokia now doesn't have any indigenous platform software capacity beyond S40 – it is now utterly dependent on Microsoft and Microsoft's execution.
It's worth remembering that Apple was in a similar crisis for three years in the mid-1990s, posting huge losses. In that period Apple marketed an Apple camera, called QuickView, an Apple set-top box, and lots of Apple laser printers. People forget all these now – and tend to remember only the hugely expensive, technically advanced tablet that few people wanted, the Apple Newton. To save the business, Jobs cut the non-core product lines. Elop is doing something very similar.
But as I wrote here two years ago, shortly before Elop's appointment, Nokia doesn't have such a luxury. At the time, Apple served important print markets in which specific skills, and many suppliers and service companies were Apple-based. In the consumer market, migrating away from Apple was a pain. And the purchase cycle in these markets was several years. Nokia, on the other hand, is entirely a consumer business in which switching away from the platform can be done painlessly every 24 months: or even in an instant.
This is not to deny the enormous cost on people and communities of the job losses. The newspaper Helsingin Sanomat carries a report on the impact on Salo – a Nokia town. It isn't pretty.
Elop has by several estimates until the end of 2013 before Nokia runs out of cash. If he fails, it will be because Nokia's board didn't institute radical change in 2007, change that would have nipped the later, explosive growth of Android. It certainly had the raw materials to do so, Qt was part of that, as well as the scale and reach. Many commentators who insist that Nokia needs to compete in the midrange simply underestimate how competitive the Asian handset market is. Elop spelled it out in the Platforms memo, the parts no one likes to quote.
Nokia is by some distance the most important and accomplished European technology company – and it still remains so today. But the margin of area for execution is now almost zero, and much of that is out of Nokia's hands. ®
iPhone 5 transparent concept looks stunning in mock advert - Crave
I'm looking through you -- you're not the same, as birthday boy Paul McCartney memorably put it. This cool advert for a possible future iPhone 5 definitely isn't the same -- and you can look through it.
The first glimpses of the next iPhone have started to emerge, revealing that the phone is set to have a new widescreen design. Those glimpses, such as the video comparing the prospective iPhone 5 with the current iPhone 4S, may or may not be genuine -- but we know this one's from the realm of pure fantasy.
Click play on the video to see the advert for the gorgeous see-through iPhone concept.
Designed by Apple fan Dakota Adney, this speculative iPhone concept design sports an 'iClear retina display' -- in other words, it's transparent, layering text, apps and games on the clear display.
The see-through screen is handy for taking photos, as well as offering augmented reality, layering information on the screen over whatever's in front of you.
Set the phone down on a flat surface and twin projectors beam a virtual keyboard in front of you, with sensors spotting where you tap and turning that into typing.
If you like the idea of a transparent phone, the designer of this concept has also put together a promo video for a transparent iPad.
For more mind-blowing concept phones, check out our favourite made-up iPhone 5 designs, our favourite made-up iPad designs, a Nokia phone that's a touchscreen all over, and a bendy PaperPhone flexible phone.
We're expecting to see the next iPhone this autumn. Whether it's called the iPhone 5 or the new iPhone, Apple's next blower will be the first to show off iOS 6, the latest version of i-flavoured software, complete with improved Siri, a new Apple maps app and assorted other improvements.
Would you use a see-through phone? What would you like to see in the iPhone 5? Tell me your thoughts in the comments or on our Facebook page.
No comments:
Post a Comment