Sony Enters Tablet War With Wedge- and Burrito-Shaped Devices

Sony is diving into the tablet race, announcing Tuesday that is working on two gadgets that will hit the market this fall.One of the tablets, code-named S1, will be a flat slate with a 9.4-inch screen, just a touch smaller than Apple's iPad

Sony has shown off a pair of tablets that will launch later this year. The S1 is little more than yet another Honeycomb tablet in a Sony-designed box, with a 9.4-inch widescreen display and a wedge-shaped case.

Way more interesting is the S2, a clamshell tablet with two 5.5-inch screens. Each section has a rounded back, making it look like a squashed burrito when closed. When open, you can use it as a tablet with a black stripe down the middle, or each screen can display different content, similar to the dual-screen Nintendo DS consoles.

And the gaming analogy is apt. The tablets will work with the PlayStation Suite platform, which is Sony’s way of putting PS software onto various devices. We got our first glimpse of it on the PlayStation phone at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this year. For more on the gaming aspects of the tablets, head over to our sister site Game|Life where Chris Kohler takes a look.

Both tablets will come with Wi-Fi and optionally 3G or 4G, and run Honeycomb. And both tablets will also pack infrared lamps to control Sony Bravia devices. They’ll also beam music and video to compatible devices via the DLNA wireless protocol, which is similar in concept to Apple’s AirPlay.

All in all, these look like pretty neat devices, especially if you are already heavily invested in Sony gear. Price and availability are both as yet unannounced, but if you pencil in “expensive” and “later this year” then you won’t go far wrong.

Lastly, a weird quote lifted from Sony’s press release. Talking about the OS, Google’s Android boss Andy Ruben apparently said the following: “Android 3.0 is a new version of the Android platform with a new holographic user interface that is designed from the ground up for devices with larger screen sizes, particularly tablets.” Holographic?

via : wired.com

Apple iOS 4.3.3 Is Out; Location-Tracking Removed

Apple iOS 4.3.3 Is Out; Location-Tracking Removed

With the release of iOS 4.3.3, Apple fixes the location caching issue that sparked a controversy on mobile phone privacy last month.

As promised, iOS 4.3.3 reduces the amount of Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower location data stored on the iPhone, and stops backing up this data to a synced computer. The cached information is now encrypted on the iPhone, and can be deleted by turning off Location Services in the phone's settings.

Researchers discovered the cached information in April, and published a PC application that showed a rough approximation of the user's whereabouts based on the iPhone's stored data. The information isn't terribly accurate because it relies on Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers instead of GPS. Still, the cache could show whether the user was out of town or out of state--information that could be valuable to suspicious spouses or employers.

Apple later said that it was collecting anonymous data from these caches "with the goal of providing iPhone users an improved traffic service in the next couple of years." The fact that the phone stored hotspot and cell tower data over long periods of time, with no way to opt out, was a bug, Apple said. The latest iOS update provides an opt-out through the iPhone's Location Services setting, and reduces the history of cached data to seven days.

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But as this story unfolded, a bigger conversation about cell phone location tracking took place. Apple insisted that it is not tracking users, and that iPhones are merely downloading information from nearby hotspots and cell towers. Google tracks users' locations, but uses an anonymous ID that's not associated with any other personal information. Microsoft also uses an anonymous ID to track users, while collecting hotspot and cell tower information for its location services.

Apple's response seemed to cool down the discussion, but in light of the controversy, Apple and Google both promised to testify at a Congressional hearing on user privacy this month.