08/01, 6:33pm
Existing models still supported for the time being
As of today, NEC is ending the development, manufacturing and sale of smartphones, other than models already on the market. Despite the exit, which has been rumored for some time, NEC will continue providing maintenance and support services for its existing smartphones. NEC will also continue developing and producing conventional "feature" mobile phone handsets. NEC is not exiting the tablet business, and will continue to develop new devices in that sector.
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06/20, 8:49am
Dust, waterproof smartphone uses echo cancellation, noise suppression
AT&T has added a ruggedized smartphone from NEC to its business-oriented range of smartphones. Combining a 3.1-inch display with a QWERTY keyboard, the NEC Terrain is claimed to be waterproof and dustproof, uses a Gorilla Glass screen, and exceeds military specifications for shock distribution, as well as having mid-range smartphone features.
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05/15, 10:07am
Heat transferred from phone processor to graphite radiator via liquid tube
NEC has unveiled a smartphone aimed at women, which it claims to be the first in the world with a water or liquid-cooled processor. The Medias X 06E, forming part of NTT DoCoMo's summer release list, uses a tube of liquid that transfers heat from the quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor to a graphite radiator located elsewhere on the phone, spreading generated heat across the phone instead of in a single place.
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05/15, 5:21am
List includes nine smartphones, one tablet, one Raku-Raku device
Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo has revealed the lineup of mobile devices that it will start offering over the summer. Eleven models make the cut, including nine smartphones, one tablet, and one "Raku-Raku" simplified smartphone. Notable additions include a new Sony Xperia smartphone, the Aquos Phone Zeta, and the Aquos Pad tablet from Sharp.
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05/14, 6:55am
NEC LaVie first to tout Intel 'Haswell' CPUs, beats Intel to the punch
The NEC LaVie L has surfaced on the NEC Japan website and is one of the first notebooks to feature Intel’s next-generation ‘Haswell’ processors. The new chips will carry the ‘Core’ branding and will be available in Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 variants as it has in its previous three generations. NEC has ‘jumped the gun’ somewhat in revealing the specs of the new notebook with Intel not expected to formally launch the chips until Computex Taipei in early June.
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03/29, 8:57am
Sale of phone section could bring NEC back into profit
NEC is reportedly in discussions with Lenovo over the possible sale of its mobile phone unit, in an attempt to return to profitability. It is also claimed that NEC is in negotiations with other potential buyers for the section, as the company tries to turn itself around after enduring two straight years of losses.
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01/22, 5:06am
Android apps usable on single screen or spanning both
An Android smartphone with hinged dual screens has been revealed as part of NTT DoCoMo's new range of mobile phones. Originally shown at Mobile World Congress last year, the NEC Medias W has a pair of 540x960 TFT LCD displays measuring 4.3 inches, which when unfolded, gives the user a 5.5-inch display with a resolution of 1080x960.
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01/09, 6:34am
Light, human sensors adjust monitor brightness automatically
NEC Display has extended its MultiSync EA range with a 24-inch LED-backlit IPS monitor. The EA244WMI screen has many of the same features, such as the wide 178-degree viewing angles and standard 1920x1080 resolution, as its 22-inch predecessor that was released four months ago, but in a larger screen size.
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12/19, 12:01pm
Notebook has bigger screen, maintains half-inch thickness
NEC is preparing to release a notebook that updates its thin line of ultrabooks in Japan with a new size of display, among other upgrades. The LaVie X has a 15.6-inch full HD IPS display, bigger than the LaVie Z's 13.3-inch display shown back in May, while keeping a slender profile that measures 12.8mm (half an inch) thick at its thinnest point.
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11/07, 12:51pm
Monitor includes Eco-mode, carbon footprint meter
NEC has lined up a new monitor for the budget inclined. The AS192WM is a 19-inch AccuSync LED backlit display that offers a 33-percent reduction in power consumption, partly due to removing the Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp backlighting that its predecessor used. The Energy Star 6.0 compliance, EPEAT Silver rating, Eco-mode and carbon footprint meter tools also help it save power and be more environmentally friendly.
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09/05, 8:12am
NEC adds EA224WMi to 1080p LED monitor range
NEC is has rolled out its latest 22-inch monitor in its MultiSync EA range, the EA224WMi. It incorporates an IPS planer for wider viewing angles and minimal color shift and offers a standard 1920x1080 resolution with a 16:9 aspect ratio. The use of LED backlighting helps it achieve its EPEAT Gold eco status, while it also lends itself to a thinner design and a lower weight.
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08/01, 7:18am
Access Network Technology set to take on Qualcomm, Samsung
Fujitsu, NEC and NTT Docomo have formed an alliance to manufacture their own smartphone mobile processors. Access Network Technology will see Fujitsu taking a majority 52.8 percent stake, with Docomo holding 19.9 percent and NEC 17.8 percent - Fujitsu Semiconductor will pick up the remaining 9.5 percent stake. The partnership has been borne out necessity as mobile chip supplies are constrained due to global demand, while the Japanese companies want to reduce their reliance on chips sourced from outside Japan.
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06/06, 5:37pm
NEC confirms Ivy Bridge processors in LaVie Z ultrabook
NEC has released specifications for its previously announced ultrabook PC, the LaVie Z. The 2.2-pound notebook with the 13.3-inch display will have the choice of either an i5-2.6GHz or i7-3GHz Ivy Bridge processor, all fitting inside the previously-noted lithium-magnesium alloy enclosure. The LaVie Z is still scheduled to come out this summer in Japan, but NEC hasn't said if it will bring the ultrabook to other markets.
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05/17, 12:25pm
NLT shows 3.1-inch HxDP prototype for advanced, glasses-free 3D
NEC LCD Technologies (NLT) has demonstrated a new prototype display that has six viewpoints and creates a 3D image to the naked eye. It uses low-temperature polycrystalline silicon and new HxDP (Horizontally times Density Pixels) technology to retain full resolution, however, unlike LCD displays that achieve a glasses-free 3D effect, Tech-On reported. It has six viewpoints and is just 3.1 inches in size, sporting a 427x240 resolution.
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05/14, 10:27am
Details on NEC tablet from FCC in short supply
The FCC has revealed details of a new seven-inch 3G tablet from NEC. The filing with the regulator offers very little information on the device, going by the model number KMP7R4D1-1A, with the only detailed image supplied being a sketch showing microphone and speaker placement.
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05/10, 2:54pm
NEC promises ultra-light magnesium-alloy bodied ultrbook this summer
NEC has introduced a new ultrabook PC, the LaVie Z. It gets a lithium-magnesium body that helps the 13.3-inch notebooks tip the scales at just 2.2lbs. Otherwise, specs aren't made available, but NEC is likely to infuse Intel's Ivy Bridge processors for ultrabooks once they become available.
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04/23, 10:00pm
comScore sees smartphone take hold in Japan
Smartphones have broken the reign of the traditional Japanese cellphone for the first time, comScore found late Monday. As of February, smartphones were overall more popular than keitais, the often feature-heavy but complicated basic phones that have dominated Japanese use for more than a decade. Local brands like Sharp still led at 23.5 percent, but they were either flat or down slightly as frequently foreign smartphone brands took hold.
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04/02, 8:55am
NTT DoCoMo and firms don't reach pact in time
In a rare instance of backing off of a major deal, NTT DoCoMo said Monday that it had broken up its planned 4G chip alliance. The Japanese carrier along with Fujitsu, NEC, Panasonic, and Samsung had ended their joint venture in chips after an agreement on exact terms "could not be reached" by the end of the fiscal year, at the end of March. The company NTT DoCoMo had made to get ready for the alliance, Communication Platform Planning Co., was being closed and liquidated as a result.
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03/13, 10:35am
Verizon, NEC US achieve 21.7Tbps in field trials
Verizon and NEC are the first in the industry to attain 21.7 terabits per second over field fiber. The record speed was attained over 934 miles of single-mode field fiber on Verizon's network near Dallas. The modulation levels were increased, and optical carrier spacing reduced, to more than double the per-fiber capacity of current 100-gigabit systems.
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02/27, 12:05pm
Elpida files for bankruptcy protection in Japan
Despite recent efforts to team with Toshiba or partner with Micron, Japanese computer chipmaker has filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday, The Register reported. The DRAM maker has debts that add up to 448 million yen ($5.6 million). In a statement, the company revealed its actions were made necessary by the falling prices of DRAM products due to competition and record yen values against the US dollar.
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02/24, 11:40am
LSI chips will allow for multi-network modems
Japanese wireless provider NTT DoCoMo has teamed up with hardware makers NEC, Panasonic, and Fujitsu on developing a rare large-scale integration (LSI) chip for modems that supports GSM, WCDMA, HSPA+, and LTE networks. The companies have developed both the software and hardware intellectual property. An engineering sample of the chips exists, and testing on major mobile networks has been completed.
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02/23, 10:05am
NEC Best Cloud UX touts book-like Android
Joint partnership NEC-Casio Mobile gave a preview Thursday of the Medias-badged devices it would have at Mobile World Congress as part of a major push into smartphones outside of Japan. Topping the group is an unusual dual-screen device, so far only known as the Best Cloud UX Device. The device carries two 4.3-inch screens and folds like a reverse book, with both screens on the outside; the Android 4.0 device becomes more of a tablet ideal for the cloud, NEC claims.
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02/16, 10:40am
Devices shares many specs, support Nottv channel
Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo has dated two new portable Android devices that are also waterproof. The Sharp Aquos SH-06D phone has already been seen before, and despite being promised to launch at the start of December, still hasn't surfaced. The other new device is the seven-inch NEC Medias Tab N-06D, which shares the handset's dual-core 1.2GHz processor.
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02/10, 6:05pm
High-end phone to be waterproof, get LTE, NFC
A new smartphone from NEC Casio is due to launch in Japan at provider NTT DoCoMo. The high-end Medias LTE N-04D will support 4G LTE speeds and sport a 1.2GHz dual-core processor. As is typical of high-end Japanese phones, a 1Seg TV tuner will also be onboard.
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01/29, 9:05pm
NEC slashes jobs to put an end to losses
NEC late this past week said it would drop 10,000 jobs in a bid to turn around a souring business. The drops, which would equate to about 8.6 percent of its entire workforce, were meant to mitigate the sudden estimate that it would lose about 100 billion yen ($1.3 billion) in the fiscal year that ends with March. It had previously predicted that it would make a profit of 15 billion yen ($195.4 million), a reversal from losses over all but one of the past four years.
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01/04, 1:45pm
Claims AMS sold faulty chips for NEC laptops
Contract manufacturer Quanta has filed suit against chip maker AMD. Taiwan-based Quanta alleges that AMD breached its contract by providing defective products that caused the computers, into which they were installed, to malfunction. The complaint, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, specifically identifies the problem as being rooted in NEC laptops.
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12/30, 1:15pm
Casio shows first Bluetooth LE G-Shock watch
Casio Japan, known for its calculators and wristwatches, has just introduced the first watches with Bluetooth LE (low energy) onboard, making it compatible with Bluetooth 4.0 cellphones like the iPhone 4S. The G-Shock GB-6900 will synchronize the current time from paired handsets and will display incoming call names or numbers, e-mails, and text messages on its display. Users can also switch handsets into vibration mode without touching them.
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12/27, 12:15am
Samsung, Pana, DoCoMo may co-create by late March
(Update: official details) Samsung, Panasonic, NTT DoCoMo, Fujitsu, and NEC are working together on smartphone processors, according to apparent slips from the industry early Tuesday. A joint venture as cast by the Wall Street Journal would probably have Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo have majority control over the project, which would go live by late March. Little else is known other than that official news could come as soon as later on Tuesday.
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12/23, 3:45pm
Features carbon dioxide emissions counter
NEC is launching a pair of 24-inch LED backlighted displays. The LCD-EA243WM (white) and LCD-EA243WM-BK (black) carry a brightness of 250cd/m2, a dynamic contrast ratio of 25,000:1 and a response speed of 5ms. The display design incorporates a proximity sensor that recognizes when the viewer has left and dims the screen, as well as a programmable CO2 counter that measures the display's emissions and converts it into carbon emission costs.
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11/07, 9:50am
VirnetX tries to force cash settlement through ITC
VirnetX revealed on Monday that its latest lawsuit against Apple was being joined by a matching International Trade Commission dispute. The complaint touches on the same VPN-related patent used in the main lawsuit and which VirnetX has tried to wield against large parts of the technology industry. It hopes not just to ban future iPad, iPhone, iPod, and Mac sales but to stop all marketing and sales around whatever is currently in stores should it win.
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10/03, 5:05pm
NEC shows 7-inch, Android-powered MGX netbook
NEC has plans to bring out a seven-inch netbook that is powered by Android and is just 9.9mm thick. During an interview with the company's senior vice president, Sakae Takatsuka, a prototype of the unit was shown to NotebookItalia. Dubbed MGX, the device has a screen resolution of 1024x600 and both Wi-Fi as well as HSUPA-based 3G.
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09/26, 5:20pm
Almost entire lineup waterproof
Japanese carrier KDDI has announced its winter lineup for the last quarter of 2012. The second largest wireless provider in Japan will be offering six Android phones, two feature phones and a new tablet. In a unique touch, most of these phones offer waterproof protection.
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09/12, 7:35am
Launches in Japan next month
NEC announced an addition to its LaVie line of portable computers, a new tablet today dubbed the LaVie Touch. The Touch features a 10.1-inch IPS LCD panel with 1280x800 resolution and runs Windows 7 Home Premium. It will be bundled with wireless keyboard and mouse, and a DVD dock that also serves as a stand. The Touch is 10.4in x 7.2in, 0.62in. thick and weighs 1.6 pounds.
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09/09, 12:40pm
Lenovo expects to pass Dell in PC sales in 2011
Lenovo chairman Liu Chuanzhi in comments bragged of his company's position in the PC space and expected to take the second place spot away from Dell this year. Lenovo's current pace was quick enough that it would happen in the last few months of the year. CEO Yuanqing Yang pointed to an existing quick pace but also took a dig at HP's possible exit from PCs, suggesting that it wasn't an iPad effect but weak will and poor performance at HP that was leading it to wither in the face of smartphones and the iPad.
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09/06, 5:15pm
NEC shows two new monitors for home, business use
NEC just introduced two new monitors, with the ultra-slim, 20-inch MultiSync EX201W and 24-inch MultiSync P241W for professionals. The former is meant for home use or business applications and offers a 1600x900 resolution and a relatively slim 16.4mm thickness. It also has a 25,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio and a 1,000:1 typical contrast ratio.
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09/01, 1:35am
Hulu Plus now active in Japan
Hulu on cue has launched Hulu Plus for Japan. The country is the first outside of the US to get Hulu and gives it a very different business model. Plus is the only option in the country and costs the equivalent of $19 per month, almost twice as much as the $8 it does in the US.
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08/29, 11:25am
Slim, 7.7mm Medias N-04C phone due in US?
The NEC N-04C Android smartphone that's offered by NTT DoCoMo in Japan may be coming to the US, Japanese daily business paper Nikkei reported. The handset, touted as the world's thinnest at 7.7mm, was announced to be coming to the US last year and may be offered by Verizon and some other carriers. It will be made by NEC Casio Mobile Communications, which was formed back in 2009.
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05/10, 7:35am
Android hits 57pc in Japan vs iPhone at 38pc
Android successfully pushed past the iPhone for the top smartphone platform in Japan last fiscal year, according to MM Research Institute. Google shot up from just 250,000 phones and 11 percent of the market at the end of March 2010 to 4.91 million phones at the end of March this year, or 57.4 percent. Apple moved 3.23 million iPhones over the same period and was 37.8 percent; BlackBerry and Windows Mobile were virtually non-existent.
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04/14, 7:45am
Intel says USB 3 due for Ivy Bridge
Intel during the Developer Forum in Beijing confirmed late Wednesday that its 2012 processor architecture would have native USB 3.0 support. Backing leaked slides, architecture group VP Kirk Skaugen explained that Ivy Bridge, a 22 nanometer version of the Sandy Bridge design used in today's Core processors, should support the interface. He saw the 5Gbps interface as "complimentary" to Thunderbolt in an online event CNET caught.
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04/05, 11:00am
iPad 2 joins list of targeted products
VirnetX is expanding the scope of lawsuits targeting several major technology corporations, according to an announcement. The company has won a new patent from the USPTO, Agile Network Protocol for Secure Communications Using Secure Domain Names, which it is amending to complaints in two separate suits. The first case lists Aastra, Apple, Cisco and NEC as defendants; the second is leveled against Mitel and Siemens.
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03/10, 4:05pm
NEC adds two new short throw business projectors
NEC this week added two new projectors to its business-oriented M range. The M300XS and M300WS are short-throw projectors and share many specs and features, including 3,000 lumens of light output and a 5,000-hour lamp life. Either can throw up images from just 1.8 feet away from the screen or wall.
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02/24, 6:00am
NEC MEDIAS N-O4C, only 0.3-inches thin
Japan’s NTT DoCoMo has introduced what it claims is the world’s thinnest Android smartphone, the NEC MEDIAS N-04C. Measuring just 0.3-inches thin, the phone incorporates an 800MHz processor and runs Android 2.2 with support for Flash 10.1. It also centers on 4-inch TFT LCD with 854×480 resolution with Corning’s Gorilla Glass.
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02/21, 8:35am
NEC preps ultrathin Medias N-04C Android phone
A leak Monday morning has shown NEC leaping into smartphones in earnest with an Android device that would be thinner than any other phone to date. At 7.7mm (0.3in) thick, the Medias N-04C would not only be thinner than the iPhone 4 but even other Android phones that have claimed the title just days earlier, such as the 8.5mm Galaxy S II or Optimus Black. The phone material seen by Draft Life would still manage to fit a four-inch touchscreen, 1Seg over-the-air TV tuning and NFC for using FeliCa wireless payments in Japan.
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02/16, 10:40am
NEC to bring noise suppression tech to cameras
Japanese electronics maker NEC announced on Wednesday it will take steps to suppress the noise made by motors and related mechanisms used in the zoom lenses of its compact digital cameras. The technique would be most useful in movie recording mode. The technology would do so artificially and can be likened to noise cancelling methods, recording the core characteristics of the offending sounds and then removing them in real time from the signals recorded by the microphone.
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02/15, 11:05am
NEC shows LifeTouch Note 7-inch Android netbook
Japan's NEC on Tuesday introduced a new netbook, unique in that it runs on Android 2.2. The 7-inch touchscreen in the LifeTouch Note has an 800x480 resolution, and there is also a GPS sensor, an accelerometer and NVIDIA's Tegra 2 CPU onboard. There is also an SDHC memory card slot and a two-megapixel camera.
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02/02, 1:35pm
Faulty Sandy Bridge mainboards halt PC sales
Alienware, HP and MSI have stopped selling computers powered by Intel's new Sandy Bridge processors due to a design flaw in the chips. Intel said performance of the SATA2 ports on the mainboard can degrade over time. HP and MSI will hold back products with the chips, and Alienware removed the buy page for its m17x gaming notebook. HP, apart from pulling some of its models, will also delay a business product demo scheduled for February 10 in San Francisco.
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01/27, 9:15am
Lenovo and NEC merge PC, tablet plans in Japan
Lenovo and NEC on Thursday confirmed a rumored deal to merge their PC businesses in Japan. The resulting NEC Lenovo Japan Group will be the largest single computer maker in the country and will see the two work together on not just developing computers but on future tablets. Both companies will keep using their brand names on home devices but should also help Japanese companies sell hardware beyond the island and sell servers.
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01/20, 3:35pm
Lenovo said buying major stake in NEC PCs
Lenovo might soon take control of NEC's computer business in a major shakeup of the industry, Japanese media said. The Nikkei claimed anonymous sources that had Lenovo in late stage talks to buy a majority of NEC's shares in its computer group. The move would give Lenovo say over NEC's lineup, although NEC-badged PCs would still exist.
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01/10, 4:45pm
Renesas to ship 16-megapixel sensor in March
Japan's Renesas, which makes camera chips and merged with NEC, has now said it will soon produce a sensor that will allow for cell phones with 16-megapixel cameras. The CE150 sensor will offer a significant improvement over currently available cameras in smartphones, such as the 12.1-megapixel one in the Nokia N8 and some 13-megapixel cameras from Japanese makers. The chip will also allow continuous shooting up to five times faster than the currently available camera phones as well.
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12/30, 12:55pm
EU settles on micro USB for universal phone power
The European Union on Wednesday formally established its micro USB charging standard for phone charging. The approach proposed over a year ago will guarantee that phones and phone chipsets from at least 14 companies, including Apple, LG, Motorola, Nokia and RIM, will support charging over a micro USB connection without needing to switch chargers. The measure was implemented to cut back on both wasted chargers and to let users switch chargers without risking damage or undercharging.
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