Nokia X7 appears again, looks AT&T bound

More photos (well actually renderings) of the youthful looking Nokia X7 surfaced. This time we are getting to see the Symbian^3 smartphone from all sides and once again we notice an AT&T tattoo on its forehead.
In addition to the carrier allegiance, the new Nokia X7 images confirm the 8 megapixel camera with dual-LED flash on the back of the device. If we were gamblers our money would be on it being a fixed-focus unit, much like the one of the E7 and C7.


There is still no information as of when the 4-inch display device (nHD resolution and ClearBlack technology seem certain) might be officially announced. The Mobile World Congress starts next month and sounds like an easy guess, but last year Nokia made no announcements there so we don't know what to expect now.
We'll find out more about that soon enough. Stay tuned!
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RIM Siap Ikut Aturan Soal Penyadapan di Indonesia

Selain soal sensor akses internet di BlackBerry, Research In Motion (RIM) juga dikejar tuntutan pemberian akses penyadapan di lalu lintas sistem pengguna BlackBerry Tanah Air oleh pemerintah.

Menurut Gregory Wade, Managing Director RIM Asia Tenggara, pada dasarnya, perusahaan yang diperkuatnya tersebut akan selalu tunduk pada hukum yang berlaku di negara dimana RIM beroperasi, termasuk di Indonesia.

Nah, terkait dengan permintaan pemerintah untuk dapat membaca data di lalu lintas sistem BlackBerry, Greg memberi sinyal jika hal itu bisa saja dilakukan. Asalkan, ada ketetapan hukum yang mengatur akan hal itu.

Misalnya, dijabarkan Greg, pihak berwajib tengah menjalankan penyelidikan atas suatu kasus dan membutuhkan informasi atau konten yang ada di dalam perangkat personal device.

"Dalam investigasi itu pasti kan ada proses hukum yang melegalkan aktivitas untuk mencari bukti tersebut, dan ada dokumen pendukungnya. Nah, jika secara legal kami akan bekerja sama dengan itu," tukasnya, di sela BlackBerry Developer Conference Asia 2011 di Bali International Convention Expo.

Pemerintah Indonesia sendiri sebelumnya mendesak RIM untuk membuka data yang wara-wiri di sistem BlackBerry untuk kepentingan penyelidikan.

Salah satu yang paling diincar pemerintah salah satunya adalah agar memudahkan untuk membongkar praktek korupsi, meskipun hal ini dapat dimanfaatkan pula untuk kasus lainnya.

Negara lain yang juga menginginkan akses untuk membaca data di sistem BlackBerry adalah India. Negara Bollywood tersebut dilaporkan sangat membutuhkan akses ini untuk lebih memantau aktivitas teroris.

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Cara Baru, Mengisi Baterai dengan 'Menghirup' Udara

Beberapa tahun ke depan, mengisi baterai menggunakan energi listrik mungkin akan kuno. Karena akan bermunculan cara baru mengisi baterai yang lebih ramah lingkungan dan hemat energi. Salah satu contohnya, mengisi baterai dengan 'menghirup' udara!

Ya, ide segar tersebut datang dari IBM dan masuk dalam salah satu dari lima inovasi teknologi yang disiapkan IBM dalam waktu lima tahun ke depan. Disebutkan IBM, kemajuan di bidang teknologi baterai dan transistor memungkinkan sebuah perangkat bertahan 10 kali lipat dari kemampuannya saat ini.

IBM memperkirakan, para ilmuwan di tahun-tahun mendatang tidak lagi mengembangkan baterai lithium-ion berat seperti digunakan saat ini. Salah satu alternatifnya, yakni dengan membuat baterai dapat diisi dengan udara.

"Mereka membuat baterai yang menggunakan udara yang kita hirup dan selanjutnya dapat bereaksi terhadap bahan metal padat energi sehingga baterai bisa lebih tahan lama," terang IBM .
Disebutkan IBM, jika berhasil hasilnya adalah baterai yang dapat diisi ulang, ringan, berdaya besar dan mampu memberi daya apa saja, mulai dari perangkat konsumer hingga mobil listrik. 

IBM juga merekayasa ulang blok bangunan dasar dari perangkat elektronik yaitu transistor, agar jumlah energi per transistor dapat ditekan menjadi kurang dari 0,5 volt.

"Dengan kebutuhan energi yang rendah, kita mungkin tidak lagi membutuhkan baterai dalam perangkat kecil tertentu, seperti ponsel atau e-reader," jelas IBM.

Hasilnya, disebutkan IBM adalah perangkat elektronik tanpa baterai yang dapat di isi ulang dengan teknik yang disebut energy scavenging. Teknologi ini sudah digunakan beberapa produk modern, misalnya jam tangan. Dengan demikian, jam ini tak perlu lagi diputar dan dapat di isi baterainya dengan menggerakan lengan.

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Asus Eee Pad Slider: Hands On

Las Vegas – Asus unleashed a total of 4 tablets at CES 2011, but only one had a permanently attached keyboard. The Eee Pad Slider has a 10-inch touchscreen that slides up to reveal a physical QWERTY keyboard. Armed with nVidia's Tegra 2 and Android 2.2 (it'll have Honeycomb when Google allows OEMs to release it), the Slider has the foundation for a good tablet experience, and we spent some time with it to see if that was the case.

The one I looked at was an early unit, as paint was still chipping off from various spots. But the Android 2.2 software load was production-ready. Granted, it's supposed to run Google's Honeycomb OS, but so far only Motorola has a working demo of it. When it ships, the Slider will have its own custom Asus skin called, "My Way", which accesses a number of themes pertaining to music (think Apple's cover flow), photo slideshows, and video streaming. The video streaming app is pretty neat, as it can connect to any DLNA device in your living room, which, with a good WiFi connection, can stream video content in 1080p. It took about 2 two seconds for each Asus proprietary app to load, longer than I expected from a tablet of this caliber. All the apps beyond Asus's customizations launched and worked flawlessly.

What makes the Slider different from all its other slates is the built-in keyboard. You lift up the screen from its top a quarter of the way and it'll slide on its own until you see the QWERTY keyboard. It's about half the size of a standard one, and it'll feel cramped after typing on it for a while. Sliding the screen back down took more effort, but I'll just chalk it up to pre-production hardware. In slate mode, the Slider is remarkably thin despite its keyboard attachment, thinner than the Samsung Sliding PC 7 Series, which use a similar sliding screen implementation.

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The 1,280-by-800 resolution is high up there for a 10-inch screen. It has both a front facing camera (1.2 Megapixel) and a rear-facing one (5 Megapixel) with Flash LED. Bluetooth and 802.11n WiFi are your built-in wireless connections, and it'll have 3G at some point later on (Asus declined to comment on which carriers the Slider will support). There's a full size USB 2.0 port, as well a mini one. A Micro SD slot and mini HDMI port are available as well. Local storage will come in the form of a 16GB or 32GB SSD drive.

As with most Android tablets, the preferred platform seems to be Nvidia's Tegra 2. It streams 1080p video, is gaming friendly, and Honeycomb-ready, so what's not to like? Memory configurations go up to 1GB and the 25WH battery promises up to 6 hours of battery life.

When it ships, which is sometime in May, the Asus Eee Pad Slider will run from $499 to $799. Hopefully by then, it'll have Google's Honeycomb and the purported 3G wireless radio.

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Android 2.4 leaks on an XPERIA Arc prototype, is still Gingerbread

Sony Ericsson just announced that the XPERIA Arc will be running Android 2.3 Gingerbread, but a prototype was caught in the wild that claims to have Android 2.4 on board. It appears that Google have another update in store for us before the tablet-ready Honeycomb comes.

Much like Android 2.0 and 2.1, which both carried the Eclair moniker, 2.3 and 2.4 will share the Gingerbread name. As you could imagine the differences between the two versions aren't too dramatic really, but the source claims that there's a notable performance improvement.

Android 2.4 Gingerbread on a Sony Ericsson XPERIA Arc

There are also some new animations, some new player application and noise reduction option in the call options. Some mysterious videochat option also appeared, but it wasn't enabled on that prototype. Have in mind that the guy that got to play with the new Android version only had about 15 minutes to spend with it so there might be more to Android 2.4 than we can tell you right now.

We'll see when the official Google announcement comes. With Honeycomb expected to be finalized in just a few months the Gingerbread preceding it should already be nearing completion.

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