Slashdot Mirror
Samsung Unveils Windows Phone 8 Device and Android-Based Camera
MrSeb writes "Today Samsung joined Nikon in announcing an Android-powered camera. The Samsung Galaxy Camera weighs 305g, features a 16-megapixel CMOS sensor, 21x super zoom lens, a quad-core 1.4GHz SoC (probably Exynos 4), 8GB of internal storage, and runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. This compares with the Nikon S800c which also has a 16MP CMOS sensor, along with a 7x zoom f/2 lens and runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Since neither unit has shipped, we don't know anything yet about how good they are as cameras, but we do know that the companies are trying to regain some of the ground they've lost to smartphones by integrating sharing right into their cameras. For photographers, there are a couple of critical questions about these new models: First is whether these cameras will have enough additional functionality to justify the added cost and weight when most people already have a serviceable camera in their phone. Second, and more importantly, there is still a big question mark hanging over Nikon and Samsung's long-term intentions for Android. If Android cameras are just standard point-and-shoots with a smartphone OS bolted on for sharing, that'll be a wasted opportunity. It would have been easier to create a camera that instantly tethered to a smartphone instead, and let the phone do all the work. There is an exciting possibility, if Nikon and Samsung do this correctly and allow low-level access to the camera functions via Android, to really unleash the power of Android to enable new photographic solutions."
Samsung has also taken the wraps off the ATIV S, the first smartphone running Windows Phone 8. It has a 4.8" screen, NFC support, and a microSD card slot. Samsung plans to start shipping them in Q4.
I can't believe how terrible the mainstream coverage is of the current smartphone news. Why is no one analyzing the real technological battle being waged and the apparent winner, Qualcomm.
Half of the summaries of the announcement simply say that the Ativ S is "dual core," as opposed to I suppose "quad core." What does that mean? I instantly thought, are they using the Qualcomm processor, perhaps even the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4? But then I also knew that since it was a Windows Phone, there is quite the chance it has to be Qualcomm, the one maker Microsoft currently supports.
For this generation of phones, not only is Qualcomm making many of the baseband chips, certainly those for LTE multimode, but they're also successfully selling the entire SoC even in European markets? For Android, Samsung has already had to produce different phones same model Galaxy SIII, one for the US with Qualcomm processors, one elsewhere with its presumably preferred own ARM processor.
Articles such as http://www.visionmobile.com/blog/2009/02/nokia-st-ericsson-qualcomm-broadcombye-bye-texas-instrument-and-hello-to-the-new-nokia/ claim that in the previous generation "Nokia was designing the core chipset and letting Texas Instruments finish the integration and physically produce the chips: Nokia has been mastering the whole hardware IP of its phones, and has not been relying on generic chipsets for the vast majority of its production, with all the margins this implies ..." Qualcomm and Nokia settled their lawsuit in July 2008, but look what has happened since then. Now it is Nokia that for the Lumias and presumably for their next generation Windows Phones are having to rely on Qualcomm processors and chipsets.
The mainstream press for some reason has missed the single biggest IP story the past decade, one that has destroyed at least one major company Nokia and has established another Qualcomm as a re-emerging hegemon on a world-wide scale. It should be obvious that if one tries to predict the future, the Chinese at least are not likely to meekly accept a Qualcomm monopoly without somehow getting their own capacity to export similar technology, which then leads one to read about China's TD-LTE ongoing effort, and other companies trying to partner with the Chinese in one last stand against Qualcomm.
There's a lot more going on in mobile IP struggles than what is happening with a certain company with a fruit in its name.
Buttons, knobs, and scroll wheels are one of the best things about a DSLR - there is no way I would want them replaced by a touch screen.
"Good things don't end with eum, they end with mania or teria." - H. Simpson
They're losing ground to camera phones - so they apparently came to the conclusion the reason for that is the OS that's on some of those phones?
A different take is that they realized people like to take photos with smartphones because of the large choice ot applications you have to take the photos. Some apps do filters, some do panoramics, some do selective coloring, etc.
When you can do all that right as you are taking an image, who wants a boring old camera where you do that later?
I think it's about as good idea as can be had to revive the concept of a separate compact camera, which otherwise will be totally subsumed by smartphones in short order.
What would be really interesting, is a DSLR that you could program in this way... You could even have the normal camera control software just as one app, but allow people to write others. As long as other apps could take input from all controls on the camera you could get some great alternate takes on control software for a DSLR.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I would buy a "Samsung Galaxy Fuck You Apple". Not sure what it is or what it costs, but I'm pretty sure I need at least two of them. Are the specs going to be better than the "Google Nexus Fuck You Apple" or the "HTC Retribution Fuck You Apple"?
i'm guessing that Microsoft is paying some very serious money to hardware manufacturers to build Windows phones. I can't see them doing it out of any vision of the platform succeeding.