Bonnier and BERG unveil MAG+
The Danes tend to know what they’re doing from my experience but unfortunately this is one of those examples where theory is all that’s being exhibited.
Bonnier and BERG teamed up to publish a concept video surrounding the requirements of publishing for tablet format devices – entitled MAG+
According to the Bonnier website this video was primarily a launch spot for discussion as to what exactly issuing magazines to tablet format devices would entail and how best to fit in refined gesture tech along side natural, intuitive human computer interaction.
Once you’ve seen the video I presume there will be questions, of which these are mine:
- The hardware is designed to do the job of a colour ebook reader with multi-touch, video playback, connectivity etc, so how will this formatting distinguish itself from online magazines (usually free) using good web design. Ie. Any android based tablet would be able to find a site designed along these guidelines and read with similar interaction. With the publishing industry working on this sort of platform/system looking for revenue comparable with paper magazines – this will have to weave in to a web-based revenue model to work across all access points and not soley focused on ebook/tablet formats.
- Have I got it all wrong? Could this style of “browsing” with touch and gesture translate into web 2.5 – the start of sites being designed around touch specific controls?
Video and official blog entry can be found here.
Cnet hands all over Fusion Garage Joo Joo
Since the Fusion Garage engineer Chandra Rathakrishnan gave a webcast yesterday concerning the Joo Joo and it’s legal / branding adjustments people have been eagerly awaiting a hands-on demo as was promised by Rathakrishnan.
Well Cnet seemed to be first in the queue and have plenty of pics and a video to demo the device for all to see.
The specs at this time are as follows and the release date is the 11th December 09.
- 12.1 inch, 1,366 x 768 HD capable capacitive touchscreen
- 4GB internal memory
- 5 hours of battery life
- Built-in mic, and speakers
- 1 USB port
- A card slot (multi-format or SD – we’re not sure)
- No details on the CPU, GPU or screen manufacturer
- Linux-based OS designed to only boot to browser which happens in 9 seconds and includes Flash.
- Gesture based browsing support – to include dog-earing of webpages for bookmarking them in the future.
Of course it would be great to see a strip down of the device hardware and better still a Linux full OS hack – I’m thinking Moblin, Chrome OS, CrunchBang or your favourite Linux flavour.
We’re really keen to see this device come to market and the competitive bandwagon be hoped on by all and sundry. And with rumours around of a Google handset being released next year (not just Android OSed but actually Google branded) how long before they edge in to the tablet market?
Crunchpad back from the dead as Fusion Garage Joo Joo
Of course the news of the Crunchpad being cancelled was going to shock readers and leave some without hope of ever seeing a decent tablet device available for purchase (sorry PMPs but you’re just not up to scratch).
Well prepare to be shocked all over again. Fusion Garage – the folks who were working on the original Crunchpad tablet – have issued news that a non-Crunchpad branded Crunchpad will become available soon.
Rebranded as the Fusion Garage Joo Joo Tablet (bit of a mouthful compared to Crunchpad) this should include almost everything the Crunchpad was promised to utilise. But what they left out could lead this tablet to it’s own death before it even takes off – a decent battery life, a reasonable £250-300 price tag, 3G amidst others.
Whether it is greeted with acclaim or dissent, you’ll have to wait till the 11th of December.
Camangi WebStation Android Tablet – early bird discounts
Following from the article we worte about upcoming tablet tech we are now interested in the Camangi WebStation and it’s 7″ Android based device now available for pre-order.
Watch this space to see how it is received and how much they have made of the platform destined to take over the world.
Tablets – The right dosage
The gadgets that are cirulating this year in the run up to Christmas are much the same as last years but this time in HighDefinition, multi-touch and always with the better battery life or new Operating System… That’s why I’m choosing to write about what should have been the big product this Christmas – the Apple Tablet.
I have been yearning over a decent size tablet-only form factor device coming to the UK for a while now. And as the idea isn’t exactly a new one what with swivel-screen laptops having been available for a decade - why could this Christmas be the best time to enter the market?
Lets start with talking about the proposed functionailty of such devices. If I can just dream outloud for a moment, I would liek to see my new tablet made to support the following:
- Android style social network integration (Facebook/Twitter/Flickr ).
- Fully developed apps for web browsing, media playback, image viewing and video conferencing.
- Decent and simple server syncing for Email/Webmail, Contacts, Calendars.
- Android/iPhone style app marketplace for all those little things like PDF viewing, touchscreen PC media remotes.
This should be relatively simple given the strength of the Android system on phones so far. The required hardware would not even need a speedy CPU if the hardware was not to run a full blown Linux distro and simply a lightweight Android system. Saying that – I’m not sure how video would fare especially when the world of HD is moving into the mainstream. – but there are low cost solutions to these quandaries.
The issue is that I know I would always want to do slightly more than an Android system would allow, such as use that touchscreen for drawing and graphics editing, possibly even video editing, but if it were HD video and the OS were Android that would not be a lot of fun. The other thing is the low low cost of netbooks over the past 18months has lead people to understand how little they need spend to get great functionality. This article for instance is being written on an Acer Aspire One netbook which is just a N270 Atom powered 9″ £150 bargain! Luckily a Linux OS – Fedora 12 – picks up where the hardware leaves off and I achieve a large amount of my workload using an inexpensive piece of kit.
So, bar the cost of a multi-touch screen this should all be acheivable on a budget right? Well… that depends on what you want to run on it – whether you’d accept an Android system, a full Linux based distro, Windows 7 or OSX. Obviously Android and Linux can run on cheaper specialised hardware like Via/Qualcomm/ARM etc whereas Windows and OSX will likely only be supported or even workable on more mainstream CPUs.
In terms of those wanting the iTablet (or whatever they’re going to call it) to be capable of everything their £800 macbook can do – you’re going to have to wait. Jobs isn’t bringing anything out in time for Christmas so late and he will have also priced many out of the sweet spot for these devices. What I would concentrate on is the convergence of digital photoframes / alarm clocks / touchscreen remotes / ebook readers etc but all with an expandable OS and larger screen than any current smartphone (or even the Archos PMPs). And that is the next point – to PMP or not to PMP?
The answer is that these devices will converge like just about anything else (sat nav / mp3 / calendars) onto the appropriate smartphone or tablet. For me that means I will continue to play my mp3s back from a netbook/desktop/smartphone as and when it takes my fancy. But do I want to take a massive collection of media everywhere I go? Well, massive no – but 8-16GB SD cards are cheap enough now for me to think 16GB in my phone and 16-32GB in a tablet (via expansion slot obv) is not too much to ask. As both my phone and the tablet would be wirelessly bonded via bluetooth or Wifi I could playback videos taken with my phone on the tablet. Or I can sync important folders between the two. But where does this leave PMPs? I would say, dead in the water unless they bring much bigger touchscreens to their PMPs and only offer an Anrdoid OS / Linux / Windows option. No more homegrown OSes. They’re worse than useless and people expect more.
If you happened to be wishing for the same gadgets in your stockings as I am, here is where I would keep a watchful eye:
Engadget’s Apple Tablet page (face it they’ll know about it within seconds of Apple’s announcements)
Update : The Crunchpad will not be available anytime soon 