As expected, LG and Prada's upcoming handset has been shown off on Wednesday. The details confirm many of those leaked earlier. Along with its 4.3-inch Nova Plus screen, it gets a Prada-based texture on the back, its own docking station, and a matching Prada bag.
Imagination Technologies hinted strongly at the roadmap for Apple and other mobile device makers late Tuesday with word that it had handed out the first licenses for PowerVR 6 series graphics. It confirmed that ST-Ericsson's future Nova chips, as well as later TI OMAP processors and unnamed hardware from MediaTek, would use the new technology. Three others were also onboard but were being kept secret, alluding to Apple as one of the clients.
Imagination Technologies in a low-profile step has given out the very first details of its next-generation PowerVR mobile graphics. The 6 series, nicknamed Rogue, is expected to be an exponential speed boost; it should be at least 20 and as much as 100 times faster than the SGX500 series graphics it would replace, the chip designer said. Simultaneously, it won't use any more than one milliwatt of power, keeping it suitable for smartphones and tablets.
Palm's upcoming phone and the Nova operating system it will use will both be major changes from the products the company sells today, a leak to CrunchGear claims. Targeting the iPhone directly, the device will reportedly drop Palm's longstanding design in favor of a full touchscreen; a hardware QWERTY keyboard will be available but will slide down rather than stay fixed. HTC is believed to be the manufacturer for the phone rather than a strict assembly-only firm.
Palm's announced event at this year's Consumer Electronics Show will bring about both its overhauled Nova operating system and a new smartphone to match, according to sources tipping off BusinessWeek. Few details are available for what will appear at the January 8th gathering, though the OS is already known to switch to a Linux-based platform that will run legacy apps in emulation. The magazine also backs company statements which have noted the phone would start a new model line using Nova that would sit in between the basic Centro and professional Treo.
Palm is responding to its recent losses by trimming its workforce of 1050 employees, in an effort to remain competitive against the iPhone 3G and the various BlackBerry models. Reuters reports that the move comes as Palm focuses on its Linux-based "Nova" operating system, as well as a device on which the platform will run. Palm spokeswoman Lynn Fox declined to say how many jobs will be cut, but said the first round began this week.
Palm might not have a finished device based on its new operating system until several months into 2009, according to statements made during the company's results conference call last week. Although the company still says it's on track to finish its next-generation "Nova" mobile operating system by the end of 2008, the company now gives a larger release window that has extended from the previous early 2009 to the first half of that year, hinting at a release as late as June.
Palm chief Ed Colligan today told APC in an interview about some of the first details of the next-generation Palm OS. Internally codenamed Nova, the Linux-based platform will focus on "Internet and Web-based applications" much more than the existing software and is also targeted at a different class of user. Future phones using Nova will be released under a new, unnamed "prosumer" brand that should slot in between the entry-level Centro and business-oriented smartphones such as the Treo line.
In brief: Rush Limbaugh gets his Mac troubleshooting issues resolved, Adobe Font Folio Essentials debuts, the Easter mEgg Hunt" hunt for Mac software has been announced, nova media cuts prices for US media residents, and an Easter icon pack for the iPhone has been released ... Rush Limbaugh's IT professional, in conjunction with an unnamed Apple Engineer has fixed Rush's recent complaints about problems in Mac OS X 10.5. Limbaugh said "Apple engineers to look at, and they found the problem. Basically, what we had to do was delete the null mail folder (that's the folder that processes all e-mail) and then we told the mail app to rebuild its internal director via terminal command, and now it is working flawlessly. So I just wanted to take a moment to thank people at Apple. I'm not going to mention the name of the engineer."
ASUS today introduced one of its rare desktop systems. Called the Nova P22, the PC is aimed squarely at the micro-PC field of the Mac mini and effectively hides virtually all of the front desktops while sitting roughly two inches tall; it includes a slot-load optical drive and places virtually all input at the back. Unlike the mobile CPU of its Apple counterpart, the system is driven by a desktop 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo with a far faster 1.06GHz front side bus.
