Google Street View gets its first underwater panoramic images, ready for desk-based scuba expeditions

admin    HTC, IT News    

After working on its sea legs for some time, Google Street View is ready to take users on virtual scuba expeditions through six living coral reefs with the first underwater panoramic images to hit the service. In partnership with The Catlin Seaview Survey, Mountain View created the on-rails snorkeling experiences using undersea pictures from Heron, Lady Elliot and Wilson Islands at the Great Barrier Reef, Molokini Crater and Hanauma Bay in Hawaii and the Apo Islands in the Philippines. Combined with views from Chichen Itza and Teotihuacan, the new underwater tours might make for a respectable, desk-based vacation. Interested in paddling through the briny depths? Head past the break for a short preview or hit the source links below to dive right in.

[engadget]

HTC acquires S3 Graphics and its prodigious patent portfolio, dares you to sue

admin    HTC, IT News    

Flush with cash, but not a fan of spending it on litigation? We hear you, and apparently so does HTC. The Taiwanese firm announced today it’ll purchase S3 Graphics and its patent portfolio from VIA for a cool $300 million, giving the smartphone maker 265 new weapons in its IP arsenal. Also part of the deal is a perpetual license to the patents’ former owner, so that the chipset manufacturer can keep cranking out silicon without fear of legal reprisal. Given HTC’s competitors recently went on a giant patent shopping spree, we’d surmise that strengthening its warchest is, dare we say, quietly brilliant.

[engadget]

HTC Umumkan Flyer, Tablet 7 Inci dengan Android Gingerbread dan Sense UI

admin    Gadget, HTC, IT News, Tablet    

Selain mengumumkan penyegaran atas jajaran handset Android miliknya, HTC juga mengumumkan sebuah perangkat tablet Android yang disebut HTC Flyer di MWC 2011. Tablet yang sudah lama ditunggu-tunggu ini memakai layar 7 inci dengan OS Android 2.4 Gingerbread, bukan Honeycomb seperti tablet Android lain. Meski hanya Gingerbread namun HTC memasang Sense UI yang telah dioptimasi untuk tablet.

Spesifikasi kunci tablet ini adalah:

• Prosesor 1.5 GHz single-core dengan RAM 1 GB
• Layar sentuh TFT 7 inci 1024 x 600 piksel
• Koneksi HSPA+ up to 14.4 Mbps
• Penyimpan internal 32 GB Flash
• Konstruksi unibody aluminum
• Stilus peka sentuh kapasitif
• Kamera belakang 5 MP, kamera depan 1.3MP
• Baterai 4000 mAh dengan daya tahan 4 jam untuk memutar video terus menerus
• Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP
• Dimensi: 195.4 x 122 x 13.2 mm
• Bobot 415g
• Slot kartu ekspani MicroSD
• OnLive cloud gaming

Tablet Android ini menjadi berbeda dari kebanyakan tablet Android lain yang memakai OS Android 3.0 Honeycomb. Selain itu tablet ini juga memakai stilus peka sentuh yang memakai teknologi HTC Scribe. Dengan teknologi ini akan mudah untuk menulis pesan, menandatangani kontrak, menggambar, ataupun menulis.

HTC menyatakan bahwa keputusan mereka memakai Gingerbread dikarenakan tidak ada cukup waktu untuk memasang kode Honeycomb untuk tablet ini. Selain itu HTC merasa Sense UI yang sudah dioptimasi untuk tablet ini bisa melakukan semua tugas yang dijalankan Honeycomb.

HTC Flyer akan tersedia secara global pada kuartal kedua tahun 2011 ini. Belum ada informasi harga maupun kerjasama dengan operator yang telah diumumkan pada kesempatan ini.

[teknoup]

HTC Flyer spec sheet leaks with Android 2.3, stylus and 7-inch screen?

admin    Gadget, HTC, IT News, Tablet    

Wondering what sort of goodies might be inside HTC’s upcoming tablets? Norwegian tech site Amobil isn’t — they claim to have a pair of inside sources spoon-feeding them all the pertinent details. For the rumored HTC Flyer — which may or may not be pictured at right — that includes the same 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8255 chip you’ll find in several high-end handsets, 1GB of RAM, as well as a 7-inch, 1024 x 600 capacitive touchscreen, a front-facing 1.3 megapixel camera and a rear 5 megapixel imager, and a piddling 4GB of flash storage to hold all your apps (which sounds a little fishy to us). There’s also allegedly 3G for data and Skype calls, an HDMI port, DLNA support and a bonafide stylus to write with, though it’s not clear whether we’re rumoring a fancy N-Trig display or simply a pack-in capacitive pen.

Though Amobil‘s sources say the tablet will be sadly limited to Android 2.3 out of the gate, it will allegedly have a brand-new tablet version of HTC’s Sense UI designed to provide a “desktop feel,” which might be a nice pairing for the “HTC Sensation” trademark presently floating about the internet. If so, don’t expect that UI to be limited to a single slate, though — the last part of this oh-so-juicy rumor is that HTC’s also supposedly got a 10-inch LTE tablet (perhaps the Scribe?) arriving in the second half of the year.

[engadget]

HTC Thunderbolt 4G Diujicoba, 2X Lebih Cepat dari Samsung Galaxy S

admin    Gadget, HTC, IT News, SmartPhone    

Android Spin baru saja berhasil mengujicoba smartphone HTC Thunderbolt 4G yang ditampilkan di CES 2011. Dalam ujicoba ini diperoleh beberapa informasi spesifikasi dan hasil benchmark Quadrant handset yang memiliki koneksi 4G ini.

Beberapa spesifikasi berhasil diketahui saat ujicoba berlangsung di antaranya adalah:

• Prosesor ARM v7 processor, Single Core, 1 Ghz
• Memori internal 8 GB, ditambah kartu memori SD Card 32GB
• Layar 4,3 inci
• Tanpa port HDMI
• Kamera belakang 8 MP, kamera depan sepertinya 1,3MP
• OS Android 2.2.1 dengan HTC Sense UI baru
• HTC Maps and Navigation
• Dukungan DLNA

Sementara itu jika dilihat dari tes benchmark Quadrant yang dilakukan terlihat perangkat ini memiliki performa yang sangat bagus. Dalam tes tersebut HTC Thunderbolt 4G memperoleh skor 1926, jauh di atas angka Samsung Galaxy S (sekitar 800) maupun Nexus One 2.2+ (sekitar 1300).

Dari sumber Android Spin ini juga diketahui bahwa daya tahan baterai HTC Thunderbolt 4G ini tidak terlalu bagus, namun perangkat ini terasa sangat responsif dan berjalan mulus. Namun demikian informasi ini masih perlu dikonfirmasi lagi ketika perangkat ini diumumkan resmi saat CES 2011 yang akan segera berlangsung.

[teknoup]

HTC Mecha / Incredible HD pictured for Verizon with a fancy ’4G’ symbol

admin    Gadget, HTC, IT News, SmartPhone    

If you weren’t so keen on that LTE-enabled LG handset for Verizon that we saw recently, feat your eyes on this puppy. What we’re looking at here is allegedly the HTC Mecha — which may be known at retail as the Droid Incredible HD — and from the looks of it, it’ll be the first true EVO 4G equivalent from HTC for Big Red. And yes, when we say “EVO 4G equivalent,” we mean 4G network support, too: you’ll notice a little “4G” symbol up there toward the right side of the status bar, suggesting this will likely be among the company’s inaugural LTE phones early next year. Android Central‘s source says that the phone is getting 9Mbps down and 5Mbps up in testing right now… so let’s just hope those speeds hold up when the network actually launches.

[engadget]