S3C6410
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Nox Audio Admiral Touch prototype preview redux: now with more clever ideas and some bass
It's been fully five months since Nox Audio's everything-but-the-kitchen-sink Admiral Touch headset prototype wowed us at CES 2011, and boy, have things changed. That ugly metal band is gone, replaced by a handsome black and silver rig, with a neatly integrated adjusting strap for a comfortable noggin squeeze. Both sides of the Admiral Touch now sport buttons, including one to add the T-Pain Effect (we kid you not). More after the break. %Gallery-125751%
Samsung Transform review
With Epic 4G styling, a front-facing camera and a $150 post-rebate price, it's easy to mistake the Samsung Transform for a high-end phone. Don't. The reality is that it's a evolution of Samsung's mid-range Moment and Intercept more than anything else -- you're paying an additional $50 here to get a front-facing camera, an LED flash and a few welcome tweaks, but the same ho-hum performance plus a few new annoyances to boot. Where does it improve and where does it fail? Find out in our full review. %Gallery-105009% %Gallery-105008%
Samsung / Chumby prototype digiframe hands-on
The Samsung / Chumby digiframe was on hand at CES in a very, very early prototype form. In fact, the demo units didn't even have a back plate covering up the innards. We were told that Samsung's contribution is the processor within, and plans are to release it to market before the end of '09. Our early impressions? The widgets were liquid smooth and lookin' good; the video playback, however, was less than acceptable. Have a glance below for an early look.%Gallery-41417%
Samsung and Chumby partner on internet-connected digiframes
Looking for candidness? We never thought we'd see the day when Chumby and Samsung were collaborating, but we can't help but dole out a round of golf claps for the effort here. As the digiframe market declines from monotonous to completely boring, these two are hoping to put some spunk back into the sector via the power of the world wide web. Here at CES, the pair is showcasing a reference design built on Sammy's S3C6410 application processor for internet-connected digital photo frames. Essentially, it'll enable frames to not only play back media, but to access social networks, messaging services, games, internet radio, video clips, streaming news, weather information, RSS feeds and all sorts of other web-based content. Strangely, the release (hosted after the break) notes that the design is "available now from Chumby," though it doesn't seem that commercialization is yet within sight.
Samsung's latest mobile processor integrates 3D graphics acceleration
Hardware video acceleration is a sore subject for quite a few cellphone fans these days, but it looks like Samsung's next generation of mobile processor will speed up graphics directly by integrating a hardware video accelerator. The 65nm S3C6410 processor is based on a 667MHz ARM core but adds in 3D graphics acceleration and hardware support for H.264 and MPEG4, as well as other codecs. The chip is powerful enough to record and play VGA-res video at the same time, which Samsung says will enable higher-quality video conferencing while saving battery life -- that's what we like to hear. There's no word on when or where we might see this bad boy pop up, but with support for Linux, WinMo, and Symbian, as well as architecture support for various types of DRAM and flash memory, we'd guess there might be a few interested suitors.
