Wednesday 16 November 2011

RIM's Standing Firm On Physical Keyboards    [ 16-11-2011 18:53 ]

Author: Serge Novikov   Source: Engadget     Translation by: Paul Smith     

RIM's on a bit of a roll today, dishing out thoughts on all manner of topics. Maybe they're just doing it on a whimsy? Either way Engadget are reporting that a contact of their's at RIM has confirmed that the company will indeed be sticking with the good old physical keyboard for its products.

Why is this news you may ask? Well with BBX on the horizon and its more tabletesque screens, not to mention chatter over the possibility of the BlackBerry 'London' being sans keyboard; there has been some thoughts of RIM perhaps finally ditching the physical QWERTY setup and going touch like most of the rest of the industry. Well for anyone in love with the physical thing you will be relieved to hear that it isn't so. According to Engadget's source:

[RIM will] maintain choice within its product portfolio [and is] absolutely committed to building more great keyboard-based smartphones.

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RIM: We're Going To Be Whimsical In 2012    [ 16-11-2011 18:49 ]

Author: Serge Novikov   Source: Pocket-lint     Translation by: Paul Smith     

Your company is losing market share. Your products are increasingly seen as outdated. Customers are flocking to your rivals in droves. Technical faults have caused a spate of bad publicity. Analysts are constantly picking at your corporate strategy. What else could you do but announce that you are going to be more whimsical?

That is exactly the case with RIM. Speaking in an interview with Pocket-lint Todd Wood, RIM's senior vice president of industrial design, told us what we can expect from the Canadian manufacturer in the year ahead. He described 2012's BlackBerry lineup as 'charming, whimsical and fun". Ignoring the fact that 'whimsy' and 'fun' are not two words that ever spring to mind when thinking of BlackBerrys, the fact remains that this sort of talk really isn't doing much to bolster confidence in the company.

RIM's products have consistently been described as being a year, or even two, out of date. Their customers are voting with their feet and picking up Androids and iPhones. Saying you are going to be more whimsical is hardly instilling excitement in people for something awe inspiring on the horizon.

Ok so they've decided upon whimsy, but where is this all coming from? Well apparently the current crop of models was inspired by Bellagio in Italy. However, next year will see inspiration drawn from a design conference in Malmo, in Sweden. Look if it produces some BlackBerrys that actually look fun to use (and more importantly are fun to use!) then we're all for it. Let's just hope that RIM's whimsical flight of fancy doesn't lead it to producing more of what people aren't wanting.

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Intel Shows Off 50-Core Chip    [ 16-11-2011 18:41 ]

Author: Serge Novikov   Source: Seattle Times via Gizmodo     Translation by: Paul Smith     

Intel has been showing off its latest design, the 50-core Knights Ferry (aka Knights Corner). Yes I did say 50-core. The chip, which fits in the palm of the hand, can dish out a cool 1 teraflops of power. That's a pretty meaningless number to the layman so to put it into perspective the current top of the range Core i7 can muster up about 109 gigaflops. Note 'giga' and not 'tera' there. Put another way the 1976 supercomputer, the Cray-1, was capable of 150 megaflops. Note 'mega' and not even 'giga' there. Back then that cost $5 million.

Knights Ferry though isn't designed with the purpose of being the main power behind a computer though. Instead it's a programmable co-processor that will carryout tasks assigned to it by the CPU. It's a little glimpse of what's to come in the not too distant future and at some point these sort of things should be turning up in smartphones.

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Video: The First Funny Siri Video I've Found    [ 16-11-2011 18:40 ]

Author: Irina Turina   Source: College Humour     Translation by: Paul Smith     

I've resisted posting up the various comedic Siri video doing the rounds at the moment, chiefly because I think most are unfunny and rob you of precious minutes of your life watching them. However, this one is actually pretty funny so take a look.

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