Anyway, here's five things I saw today that I'm really excited about and interested in learning more about over the next few days:
#1 - The iPad challenger has arrived: The Xoom
Motorola announced their new Xoom tablet, which may be the first actual iPad challenger to come to market (price and launch date still TBA though, so they could still screw it up and do what Samsung did with the Tab and WAY over price it). MSNBC Tech has a nice video of highlights from the presentation. The Xoom was designed through a partnership with Google and Motorola and it might look familiar if you're following the market -- Google's Andy Rubin offered a sneak peak of the device one month ago at All Things D's Dive into Mobile conference. The specs are awesome Tegra 2 Dual-Core processor, dual cameras, 720p video capture and 1080p playback supported, 1 GB of RAM with 32 MB of storage (AND SD support for more memory if you need it) and 3g speed that's upgradeable to LTE! More specs are available here. Speaking of android tablets...
#2 - Android 3.0 (or Honeycomb) looks really tasty.
This video demo from Google speaks for itself; Honeycomb, the Android OS version built for tablet devices looks like it was built for Minority Report or Tron:
#3 - 3-3D-D!!
Perhaps more over-hyped than the dozens of Android tablets coming out, 3D devices are being pimped EVERYWHERE here. While I think 3D has a couple (maybe a few) years to really mature and become reasonably priced and usable for most people, the tech community is exploding with new products and interest in this area. There's even rumors of some 3D tablets here! I'm going to try and hunt them down. Realistically, I'd like to see the mobile and tablet market mature with quality hardware, user experience design, stable broadband connection speeds and serious battery life before I'll really be concerned about 3D mobile experiences, but that's just me.
#4 - Griffin CarTrip wireless monitor
Maybe it's just the gearhead and hacker in me teaming up on my rational censor, but the CarTrip is a facinating device that allows your Apple iOS devices to receive data from you OBD-II chip (the on-board diagnostic computer that runs your car's error codes, fuel mixture, etc.). You can download this information, reset codes, and calculate all sorts of information data, such as your "Carbon Score." This might not exactly be the kind of journalism mobile or tablet device we discuss here normally, but it's really exciting to see how technology is expanding the "Internet of things" and how devices can talk to each other and use that data to help improve our lives.
#5 - Microsoft's Kinect is the sleeper blockbuster
Microsoft's Steve Balmer announced that the Kinect has sold 8 million units in 60 days. That's simply astonishing and more than the much hyped iPhone 4. The Kinect is a ground-breaking device and I've heard a lot about it in tech circles (largely about hackers creating custom software to do all sorts of interesting projects), but just imagine if Microsoft had the marketing savvy, fanboy base and lapdog media in their pocket like Apple does? Imagine how much more they could have sold. That is what's truly astonishing.
TEASER: I'll post more on the new phones announced today (and more gear) later after I get a chance to play with some of them. The demo time is limited and usually controlled by the bigger outlets on this initial announcement day. You can also follow along on the fun via Twitter.
–
Will Sullivan is a 2010-2011 Reynolds Journalism Fellow studying mobile & tablet development. He blogs on the RJI Mobile Blog and Journerdism.com. He can be reached at will @ Journerdism.com, on Twitter @Journerdism or on Facebook.
Comments
Add Your Comment