Samsung spoke up the Galaxy S 4 ′ s features with a little Broadway style here at Radio City Songs Hall, but there still are some orderly additions to the device that didn ’ t get a minute in the limelight. The Korean electronic devices titan, for circumstances, tapped a San Francisco company called Mobeam to bring its novel technique to displaying barcodes to the Galaxy S 4.

Instead of sticking to the tried and not-so-true strategy of trying to show a barcode on a phone ’ s screen, Mobeam coaxes the device ’ s infrared distance sensor to pulse a pattern at a barcode scanner. Basically, it ’ s attempting to trick the scanner into thinking that the light flashing at it is a “ reflection ” of a valid barcode — it sounds a little out there, however it certainly appears to work. The problem may appear unimportant to some, however that ’ s definitely not the case for business and marketers that desire a more direct way to communicate with customers.

We ’ ve seen more than a couple of start-ups try to tackle this problem — there ’ s Disrupt Field of battle alumnus SnipSnap for one, while devices like the ambitious iCache Geode tried to address the concern with a secondary display — but Mobeam ’ s option strikes me as one of the smarter ways to do it. After all, why handle paper discount coupons and gift cards that can be found in the mail (that commonly expire and get thrown away anyway) when a company like, say, Coca-Cola could cut out the intermediary and send you retail-friendly deals directly. You get a price break, retailers don ’ t should revamp their point of sales systems, and Coca Cola makes a sale.

According to Mobeam CEO Chris Sellers, the business has been exercising the particulars of this partnership with Samsung for around 18 months. It ’ s the first time that the Mobeam has locked up a collaboration with mobile producer, but they ’ re no stranger to attention from major business — in late 2011 Procter and Gamble teamed with Mobeam in a proposal to better disperse digital discount coupons. With any luck, the Galaxy S 4 gained ’ t be the last gadget to take advantage of Mobeam ’ s tech, as Sellers told TechCrunch that Mobeam has actually been in talks with a lot of major phone OEMs.

At this phase, there wear ’ t seem to be any applications on the Galaxy S 4 that benefit from Mobeam ’ s tech. It ’ s there for curious developers and business to muck around with, but one needs to wonder if Samsung has actually something particular prepared. Back at Mobile World Congress, Samsung formally pulled back the drape on Samsung Wallet, a Passbook clone of kinds that lets users digitally store “ coupons, membership cards, tickets, and boarding passes ” — all things that a device like that S 4 could pass it self off as thanks to Mobeam. Sellers wouldn ’ t verify that Samsung planned to tap into Mobeam ’ s API for Wallet, but if Samsung is really searching for a way to beat Apple and Passbook, this could well be it.

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NFC has constantly struck me as one of those things that everyone says is going to get really huge next year, and the growing lot of smartphones and tablets that come bearing support for the requirement is proof that at least a couple of people care about it. However exactly what if you wish to experience the NFC way of living however your device(s) of selection wear ’ t play good with it? Get in Spain-based Sistel Networks, and its vWand stylus.

Put extremely simply, the vWand is part capacitive stylus, part Bluetooth-friendly NFC adapter — once it ’ s linked up to your tablet or smartphone of choice by means of Bluetooth you ’ ll have a pen that ’ s capable of checking out from and writing data to NFC aspects.

The vWand is a chubby little thing, but it ’ s not excessively heavy thanks to its light-weight, plasticky (however comfortable) body. A pair of LEDs ride high up on the vWand ’ s shaft to let the individual understand when it ’ s on and ready to scan, and a more-than-adequate chunky capacitive nib (not totally unlike the end of Wacom ’ s Bamboo Stylus) enabled me to doodle to my heart ’ s material in Paper for a couple of moments. The genuine magic takes place on the various other end though — tapping the vWand ’ s butt to a set of preset NFC tags at the vWand booth prompted the connected Android tablet to fire up the messaging app, bring up the dialer, or tons specific websites.

As neat as the vWand idea sounds, possibilities are you won ’ t be connecting this up to your iPad or Galaxy Keep in mind anytime soon. At this stage it ’ s indicated mainly as a b2b gadget, and Sistel Networks is wanting to get traction in a slew of industries varying from healthcare (think physicians scanning NFC-enabled wristbands or something) to retail and logistics though business representatives didn ’ t completely rule out the notion that consumers would one day be able to get one too. In fairness, the vWand definitely makes sense as a tool to be pre-owneded in those lines of company, however that doesn ’ t keep me from wanting one simply to muck around with.

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Mobile chipmaker Qualcomm has a performance history of pushing new abilities into its chips faster than its rivals in a quote to take a bigger portion of the marketplace. Last year, for instance, its LTE Snapdragon processor helped it to take a 48 per cent income share in H1 (Method Analytics‘ figure), helping to drive even more LTE mobiles into the marketplace which in turn sped up the rate of 4G adoption.

The company made a fascinating acquisitionlast November, purchasing some of the possessions of an Israeli company called EPOS which makes digital ultrasound modern technology. Ultrasound could seem an odd modern technology to push into customer electronic devices however Qualcomm plainly sees it as an additional differentiator for its chips, thanks to its possible to provide some book additions to the user interface area — both for stylus-based inputs and even touch-less interfaces like gestures.

Discussing Qualcomm ’ s interest in ultrasound at the Mobile World Congress tradeshow in Barcelona, Raj Talluri, SVP of Item Management, explained that to put the technology to work in mobile devices an ultrasound transmitter could possibly be located in a stylus, with mics sited on the mobile device that can then spot the position of the pen.

Samsung has already consisted of a capacitive stylus with its Galaxy Note phablet however Talluri said an ultrasound-based stylus would extend the abilities — permitting a stylus to be used off-screen, say on the table top next to where your phone is resting, and still have its input detected.

“ It ’ s is much better [than a capacitive stylus] in some essential various methods which we’re dealing with getting to market– for instance you could possibly write below [on the table alongside the phone] and it will still identify where it is. So let’s state you have a [paper] notepad … and you have a phone [close by on the table] and you could start composing on your notepad it will in fact also be transcribed into text on the phone because exactly what takes place is the ultrasound could be used to calibrate any affordable distance, ” he told TechCrunch.

The innovation could possibly also support gesture-based communications by positioning an ultrasound transmitter on the mobile gadget. “ There are lots of use cases of ultrasound, ” said Talluri. “ You can put a little ultrasound transmitter here [on the edge of the screen] and transmit stuff and then when you cut the ultrasound industry [by swiping above the gadget's display] you can do gestures.

“ There’s lots of different things you can do with it, once you have it. So we’re working on it and ideally we’ll get it to industrial products. ”

Talluri would not be drawn on the likely timeframe of bringing this innovation to market in Qualcomm chips, or which gadget makers Qualcomm is working with. “ We have not announced anything yet. There’s clearly a great deal of work to be done on it. We’re working on it we’re just not prepared to announce, ” he stated. “ We are really considering in, that’s why we acquired the possessions. ”

He would say that Qualcomm is looking at both phone and tablet form aspects for the ultrasound tech however added that it could work “ anywhere ” — consisting of in wearable devices, such as Google Glass.

The system also doesn ’ t always need new mics to function — opening the possibility of ultrasound-enabled add-ons that could be retrofitted to existing gadgets to extend their capacities.

“ The various other nice thing is that we discover that the microphones [on existing mobile gadgets] that we put in to use for speech can also detect ultrasound waves — so you most likely don’t require special microphones. There are great deals of fascinating means to do it … You simply need a transmitter someplace, ” said Talluri.

Discussing how mobile chipsets are typically going to develop, Talluri said in his view the focus will be, not a lot on on simply adding increasingly more cores, however rather on getting all the numerous chipset aspects to cooperate better.

“ We think the next generation of innovation is going to be more on heterogeneous compute. Right now if you search in the phone we’ve got CPUs, we have actually got GPUs, we’ve got video engines, we’ve got audio engines, we’ve got cameras, we’ve got security blocks however they all do one thing at a time. Preferably you simply wish to say I wish to do this and it must just go map itself to whatever its sensible place is and if that place is busy it should work on something else, maybe not optimally, ” he said.

“ That’s what I mean by heterogeneous compute. Every block needs to have the ability to do various other things so that’s kind of where I think SOC in general will develop to. How can you capitalize on the silicon that you put inside the die to do numerous things, not just something at a time. I think that’s a more intriguing concept than just put even more cores. ”

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Each week Joshua Fruhlinger contributes This is the Modem World, a column dedicated to exploring the culture of consumer technology.

The Wii U launch sort of came and went, didn’t it? I mean, it’s a nice console, but it certainly didn’t cause any major waves. In fact, Nintendo only sold 57,000 units in January. For those who don’t track game console sales numbers — and why would you — that’s bad. Very bad.

The Wii U, at least so far, has underwhelmed consumers. There isn’t a killer application just yet, and despite some interesting innovation with the touchscreen controller, no one is sitting in his living room, staring at an empty space in his entertainment rack, thinking, “You know what I need? A Wii U.”

And now we’re all waiting so see what Sony does with the PlayStation 4. Rumors are that they’ll do what Sony always does: Pack a ton of technology into a package that will be expensive — but cost less than it should — in order to get early adopters on board. It’s actually possible that by the time this column is posted, Sony will have already released details about its upcoming hardware and you’re too busy oohing and ahhing about frame rates and visual controllers.

I hope so. It’s clear that we need new hardware. We’re desperate for something amazing. We need a new hardware war, something to get us fanboys off our heels. Faint rumors about Microsoft’s next console, images of possible new PS4 controllers and buzz about anti-DRM features have me interested, but I’m not getting the sense that people are bouncing around message boards, gritting their teeth and hungry to get their hands on a new console this year.

Perhaps it’s because the last generation of hardware is still quite serviceable. I still use my PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on a regular basis. The PS3 is my go-to Blu-ray player and I’ve been grinding my way through Ni no Kuni. The Xbox 360 does my Netflix and media playback duties and is also my choice when it comes to playing shooters given Live’s solid performance despite throngs of screaming fools.

At this point in the previous hardware generation, I was more than ready for new hardware. Shadow of the Colossus was dragging the PS2 to its limits. I wished at the time that I was playing it on more powerful hardware. Meanwhile, the giant Xbox was clearly ready for better networking features in order to do all Microsoft wanted to do with Live, and who didn’t want a prettier Halo? Meanwhile, the GameCube desperately needed to be replaced by something more innovative and competitive.

All three companies delivered. The powerful PS3 is still the best Blu-ray player on the market, Xbox Live is the best gaming network outside of Steam and the Wii remains an excellent party device.

I’m worried, though, that this next generation will just be more of the same. The PS4 certainly sounds powerful, but what can it possibly do that will blow our socks off? There isn’t a new optical format to get excited about. The new Xbox will most likely also be a powerhouse, but instead we’re hearing more about how Microsoft could be appeasing publishers with some strict anti-DRM measures. We all saw what Nintendo did: Innovate a little, but keep the Wii brand name and deliver a better — but similar — experience.

In short, these are probably going to be the most conservative game console updates we’ve seen yet. We’ll hear a lot about applications, digital downloads and better performance. We’ll have a hard time telling the difference between a game console and a set-top box. But what we’ll be left with might be underwhelming, and that’s going to be disappointing. Let me be clear: I hope I am wrong.

Maybe it’ll all be in the apps and the way they change the way we consume games and media. Maybe the new devices from Sony and Microsoft will allow us all to finally say goodbye to cable companies. Maybe we’ll never have to rent a Blu-ray disc from Redbox again.

Or maybe it’ll just be more of the same. Here’s hoping it won’t be. C’mon, Sony. C’mon, Microsoft. Get crazy.

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Joshua Fruhlinger is the former Editorial Director for Engadget and current contributor to both Engadget and the Wall Street Journal. You can find him on Twitter at @fruhlinger.

Filed under: Sony

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Sure, an early version of Tizen 2.0 Magnolia could have first arised last September, but now the SDK and source code have actually dropped the “alpha” classification for an appropriate launch. After a few months of incubation, the open source OS has actually been filled with improved support for HTML5 and a beefed up Web UI structure that enables full-screen and multi-window attributes. Developers can now leverage new hardware APIs for Bluetooth and NFC support, and access a gadget’s call history, calendar and messaging “subsystems.” Support for background applications, text-to-speech and IP Push have likewise made it into the os along with reference applications consisting of the similarity a calendar, gallery and phone app. In addition, a native IDE and a spruced up web advancement environment have been launched with the most up to date code. Hit the source link for the full skinny and proper downloads.

[ Image credit: Tizen Project, Flickr ]

Submitted under: Mobile phones, Tablets, Software, MobileCommentsSource: Tizen

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