The Nook Color Might Be a Better Android Tablet Than We Thought

The Nook Color's built on top of Android, but seemed crippled in its potential to be a killer Android tablet by the way it'd run apps. Well, the reality is, it could be a solid little Android tablet after all.

At the Nook Color announcement, Barnes & Noble wasn't super clear about how apps and its own app store would work in relation to the larger Android ecosystem and Market. But now that we've talked to them about the development program a little more in depth, things look peachier.

Barnes & Noble is going to run their own app store for the Nook Color, distributing and selling applications. It's a "curated" experience, meaning they'll have to approve apps for the store, which developers can start submitting in "early 2011," with apps approved "within weeks" of submission. So the apps that we saw at the launch, like Pandora, is all that'll be available for a couple of months. (They won't disclose how they're splitting revenue with developers but said they're using a "familiar" scheme, so the standard 70/30 probably applies.)

The Nook Color won't run apps straight out of the Android Market, but that doesn't mean it can't run them�in fact, they've done a lot of tests on apps from standard Android smartphones and they "pretty much run on Nook Color," which has Android 2.1 under the hood. (The Nook's native interface and apps are just standard Android application layers.) Barnes & Noble's special Nook SDK runs on top of the standard Android one, and gives developers access to exclusive extensions and APIs for the Nook and its interface. So porting Android apps isn't difficult. B&N says it's more like "optimizing" them for Nook than porting them.

While Barnes & Noble really doesn't want the Nook Color "to be perceived as a multipurpose device," and their goal is to "extend the reading experience through applications," their definition of apps that do that is quite elastic. In fact, they don't have to be text-y at all. I posited a Netflix or other video service app, and B&N's Director of Developer Relations Claudia Romanini said they'd probably fly. "Is it attached to a book? Maybe not. But when I'm looking at content, I'm looking for multiple touch points. The fundamental question B&N is asking of apps is, "Woul
d that reading user be interested in consuming that content?"

Frankly, most of what I use my iPad for is reading�RSS, books, newspapers, email�and Netflix. If the Nook Color can deliver that in a slick way, well, that's all I really want out of an Android tablet, especially for $250. And given that it's plain ol' Android underneath, I won't be surprised when the more enterprising Android nerds make it capable of doing a lot of other things too.

Send an email to matt buchanan, the author of this post, at matt@gizmodo.com.

Source : Gizmodo

Android : ICD's Tegra 2-powered Gemini is the most feature-complete tablet we've seen yet

Vladislav Savov posted Apr 6th 2010 2:29AM

Built around the 1GHz Tegra 2 SOC, the 11.2-inch ICD Gemini should provide comparable endurance to Apple's A4-sporting iPad, while besting it in the grunt stakes with its glorious ability to chew through 1080p video when required. If that wasn't enough, the rest of this thing's spec sheet reads like a wishlist. Headlined by a 3G connection that allows cellular voice calls (crazy, we know!), it also includes a user-replaceable 40Wh battery, an SD card reader, FM radio, GPS, 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth, MicroUSB connectivity to PCs and USB peripherals, stereo speakers, and dual webcams -- a 2 megapixel front-facing unit and a 5 megapixel autofocusing snapper on the back. Multitouch displays will be available in both resistive and capacitive flavors, with the 1,366 x 768 resolution being filled by Google's snappy Android OS. Oh, and did we mention it will run Flash? Because it will. Full specs and a comparison to its direct competitors await after the break, though we've yet to find out when this JooJoo killer will be making its arrival or at what price.

Update: We've come across a couple of real (i.e. not rendered) pictures of an earlier prototype for the Gemini, which looks generic as hell but should give you a good idea of the dimensions and scale of the device in question. Yours after the break.

ICD Gemini official pictures

Source : engadget

Jeroan Tablet Adam Mulai Dibeberkan

Adam (notion ink)

Jakarta - Dalam Mobile World Congress, produsen hardware Notion Ink mulai membeberkan secara resmi spesifikasi jeroan perangkat tabletnya. Beberapa spesifikasinya cukup mengundang perhatian, apalagi jika dibandingkan Apple iPad.

Seperti dikutip detikINET dari Engadget, Selasa (16/2/2010), Adam merupakan perangkat berbasis Android dengan bentuk tablet. Sejak awal kemunculannya Adam selalu dibanding-bandingkan dengan iPad, meskipun tak diyakini bisa mengalahkan popularitas gadget besutan Apple itu.

Prosesor Adam merupakan Tegra 2 dari Nvidia, yaitu prosesor berbasis ARM Cortex A9 dual core. Nama Nvidia di balik Adam membuat kemampuan grafis perangkat ini cukup menjanjikan, paling tidak secara teori.

Layar sentuh yang digunakan Adam merupakan buatan Pixel Qi dengan ukuran 10" dan resolusi 1024 x 600. Hal yang menarik, layar itu memiliki beberapa modus:

• Pertama, modus layar berwarna LCD transmisif;
• Kedua, modus hitam putih reflektif untuk membaca e-book; serta
• Ketiga, modus transflective yang memungkinkan LCD tetap bisa dilihat jelas di bawah terpaan sinar matahari.

Hal lain yang menarik adalah adanya kamera pada Adam. Kamera 3-megapixel itu berada di bagian atas perangkat dan bisa diputar untuk menghadap ke pengguna atau diarahkan ke luar.

Dari sisi port-nya, Adam menyediakan tiga port USB dan satu port HDMI out. Port HDMI-nya memungkinkan Adam untuk memutar video 1080p ke perangkat display eksternal. Fitur lain Adam adalah baterai yang diklaim mencapai 16 jam, kemampuan WiFi, 3G dan Bluetooth.

( wsh / wsh )

MWC 2010

Wicak Hidayat - detikinet