Its Bye Bye for S40; Nokia is Getting "SMARTERPHONE" for feature phone lovers

News has just rolled in that Ferd Capital has sold its portfolio company Smarterphone AS (Formerly Kvaleberg AS) to Nokia Corporation which is the world’s leading producer of Cell Phones.  The transaction was already completed in November 2011.

Smarterphone is unique in offering a truly complete solution for mobile phone software. Smarterphone not only offers the complete software, but also handle any desired customization.

Smarterphone 3.0 is an all-encompassing mobile operating system for wireless handsets, allowing OEMs and ODMs to bring new, highly competitive devices to the market quickly and at low cost. Smarterphone 3.0 includes a state of the art application suite, connecting the top-layer applications with the underlying platform, targeting major carrier's strictest requirements.

The company was previously called Kvaleberg, and the product Mimiria. Now its changed to Smarterphone simply because we want to signal that we offer a smarter solution. Compared to conventional smartphones, our solution offers unique possibilities for differentiation, much lower handset BOM and total cost, and a truly integrated user experience of the connected phone, combining all electronic communication needs in one device. 

Smarterphone delivers an operating system optimized for feature phones but provides a user experience which parallels smartphones. The operating system can be tailored according to user requirements and markets. Smarterphone operates out of Oslo , Norway. It remains to be seen whether Nokia will be replacing S40 with the work of its new acquisition or uses it to enhance its own product.

The 2nd Coming of Intel into the SmartPhone World - can LG help them?

If The report is to be believed, The Korea Times reports that LG will debut an Intel-powered smartphone at CES 2012, but the bigger question is whether or not the device will ever make it to market.

LG and Intel’s first mobile partnership yielded an Android smartphone running on Intel’s Moorestown chipset for CES 2011, but the device was ultimately scrapped. According to one of the Times’ executive sources, the device could be released as soon this March. Still, the original LG-Intel phone was pegged with a 2011 release date, so take those claims with a grain of salt for bow.

Hopefully LG’s second coming at an Intel-powered phone fares a little better — it’s said to run on Intel’s next-generation Medfield system-on-a-chip, and early tests have yielded some pretty impressive benchmarks when compared to NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon MSM8260 SoCs.Of course, Intel's lack of presence in the mobile market to date could mean that Medfield could drown in a sea of established ARM-based chipsets.

That’s why the partnership with LG is so critical — despite their handset division spending a few quarters in the red, LG is still the number two handset OEM in the U.S. Having a major hardware vendor taking a chance on their new platform could establish Intel as a real player in the mobile space, and right now Intel’s mobile efforts could use all the visibility they can get.so lets keep our Fingers Crossed .

Make Old Photos to 3-D scene- A Software project from Kevin Karsch

In just a few minutes, users can turn a photograph into a 3-D scene with lighting that makes synthetic objects look real.Making Old Photo Objects into 3-D real is child's play from now on. 

If you can go IEEE Spectrum website (http://spectrum.ieee.org), they have an excellent  interview of Kevin Karsch (http://kevinkarsch.com/), a computer science PhD student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He and his collaborators have developed a method for inserting synthetic objects into photographs without having access to the original location.

By marking the rough physical geometry of the scene and the location of light sources within it, users can quickly add digital objects that behave as if they were in the original photo.

Karsch will present his work in Hong Kong next week, at SIGGRAPH Asia 2011.

To Dig Deep Further:
Karsch's project page (includes full paper and video): http://kevinkarsch.com/publications/sa11.html
Paul Debevec's light probe research: http://ict.debevec.org/~debevec/#Resources

News Courtesy : http://spectrum.ieee.org

Cluzee,The Android replacement Offers Competition For Siri

Siri has been a big selling point for the iPhone 4S, indeed for some it is the only selling point, and it has pretty much lived up to its promise. So good is Siri in fact that it hasn't been uncommon to see Android users asking around for an equivalent service for their device. you might want to check out Cluzee, which might just be the first real competitor for Siri.

The app will be available to Android users from today , but a cloud based version is also in the pipeline that will be usable by anyone who has a mobile, computer, tablet or any device that can connect to the net basically.

Android users can head to the Market to check it out of course, but for the rest of you here is a video until that cloud service gets off the ground.

Microsoft's Next-Gen Surface, Samsung SUR40 - Pre-order Begins

$ 8400 priced Microsoft's next-gen Surface table computer, the Samsung SUR40.

blogs.msdn.com reports that the next-generation Surface "touch-based table computer" is now available for pre-order through Samsung Dealers in 23 countries worldwide. Commercial businesses that has $8400 in their wallet can head to the stores, to find a local representative and establish their place in line when the unit begins to ship in first quarter of 2012.

Named as the Samsung SUR40, the device features PixelSense technology which gives LCD panels the ability to see without the use of cameras. It recognizes up to 50 points of simultaneous touch -- including fingers, hands and other objects placed on the screen -- this is achieved by the 2 million sensors that have been built into the panel to pick up visible or infra-red light.

Automotive, education, finance, healthcare, hospitality, and retail are just some of the industries that will soon be able to take advantage of Samsung SUR40’s PixelSense technology, new, sleeker form factor and horizontal and vertical orientation options.

In addition to the new touch technology, the second-generation Surface sports a more powerful & better processor and improved System control software. As seen ten months ago back at CES 2011, it can also be used horizontally or vertically given that it no longer needs projector cameras (like the first-gen model). It's also cheaper than its predecessor which cost a hefty $12,500 back in 2008.

Countries eligible to pre-order the Samsung SUR40 include: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Korea, the Netherlands, Norway, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States. Stay tuned for product availability in additional markets coming soon

 

Collect More details From :: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hh241326.aspx
Original News Courtesy : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/surface/archive/2011/11/17/preorder.aspx