HDR Industrial Videoscope

Olympus creates world's thinnest industrial videoscope, packs HDR (video)

from Engadget by Alexis Santos

Though its medical brethren are considerably slimmer, at 2.4mm in diameter, Olympus says its iPLEX TX is the most slender industrial videoscope on our big blue marble. Rather than using traditional fiber optics to capture footage reminiscent of comic book print, the iPLEX TX houses a miniature CMOS atop one end of the scope and an HDRimage processing technology called WiDER to preserve detail and brighten images. The eagle-eyed scope is also 200 times more resistant to frictional wear than fiberscopes and has over double the slip strength. If you're itching to poke inside impossibly cramped and complex pieces of machinery, jump past the break to catch a glimpse of the video-enabled snake in action from DigInfo.tv.
Continue reading Olympus creates world's thinnest industrial videoscope, packs HDR (video)

(Or: Why Windows 8 Scares Me -- and Should Scare You Too)

Fear and Loathing and Windows 8

from Mobile Opportunity by Michael Mace

(Or: Why Windows 8 Scares Me -- and Should Scare You Too)

I was very excited when I saw the first demos of Windows 8.  After years of settling for mediocre incremental improvements in its core products, Microsoft finally was ready to make bold changes to Windows, something I thought it had to do to stay relevant in computing.  What's more, the changes looked really nice!  Once I'd seen the clean, modern-looking videos of Windows 8, the old Windows looked cramped and a little embarrassing, kind of like finding a picture of the way you dressed when you were a senior in high school (link)......

Here's what I'd like you to take away from this article:

    --Windows 8 is not Windows, it's a new operating system with Windows 7 compatibility tacked onto it.
    --Although Windows 8 looks pretty and is great for tablet-style content consumption, I question its benefits for traditional PC productivity tasks.
    --Big OS transitions like this one traditionally cause users to reconsider their OS decision and potentially switch to something else.
    --Microsoft has worsened the risk that people will migrate away from Windows 8, by disabling some key features of Windows 7, and mishandling the consumer "preview" program.
    --However, people won't necessarily abandon Windows because it's not clear if they have a good alternative to it.
    --Apple could provide the best alternative if it chooses to.  This might be Apple's best chance ever to stick a fork in Windows.
    --If Windows 8 is even moderately successful, it could weaken Google and the big web services companies.  The trend toward bundling web services into the OS is potentially very disruptive to the web community, and they should be quite worried about it.
    --If you're a PC app developer, you should probably hold off on Metro because it's not clear how quickly its user base will grow.

What do you think?  

Thanks for sticking around through a very long article.  I'd like to hear what you think; please post a comment.  Do you believe Windows 8 will take off?  Should app developers support it now?  Would you change anything in it?  If so, what?

Copyright 2012 Michael Mace.

Smartphone tracks Radiation Exposure

Mobile phone operator Softbank Corp  said on Tuesday it would soon begin selling smartphones with radiation detectors, tapping into concerns that atomic hotspots remain along Japan's eastern coast more than a year after the Fukushima crisis.

Parts of northeastern Japan are still off-limits due to high radiation levels after the Fukushima nuclear plant was devastated by a huge earthquake and tsunami, triggering meltdowns and spewing radiation.

Anti-nuclear sentiment is high, with advocacy groups in Tokyo and other cities calling for radiation monitoring at schools and other public facilities.

"The threat from the nuclear accident cannot be seen by the human eye and continues to be a concern for many people, especially for mothers with small children," said Softbank founder and president, Masayoshi Son, standing in front of an aerial photo of the crippled plant.

The smartphone in the company's "Pantone" series will come in eight bright colors and include customized IC chips made by Sharp Corp that measure radiation levels in microsieverts per hour.

The phone, which goes on sale this summer, can also keep track of each location a user tests for radiation levels.

Son, who emerged as an outspoken critic of nuclear power and advocate of renewable energy sources after last year's quake, told vendors and reporters that the smartphone was more portable and user-friendly than conventional Geiger counters.

Softbank, Japan's No. 3 mobile phone operator, has not set a price on the new smartphone yet, but Son told reporters after the event that it would be in an affordable price range.

I'd rather have a ToughPad B1 - Rampage - 2.3 Android Hardened Handset 5.7" Display DOA?

I guess Juniper is a Android want-to-be.. A clunky device originally designed for WinCE and Micorsoft's WIn8 Mobile... IMHO is DOA to any other than those ESRI-ites that do not know better?

Juniper Systems Partners with SDG Systems to Produce the RAMPAGE™ 6, the Mesa Rugged Notepad® with Android (AOSP) Operating System

Logan, Utah, USA – Juniper Systems is proud to announce its partnership with Pennsylvania-based SDG Systems. This partnership will bring to market the Mesa Rugged Notepad® with Android (AOSP) 2.3 operating system, a rugged handheld computer known as the RAMPAGE™ 6 and distributed exclusively through SDG Systems. Availability of the RAMPAGE 6 is scheduled for the third quarter of 2012 and its first public presentation will be at the Esri International User Conference in San Diego, July 23–27, 2012.

The Panasonic is Andorid ICS as well as having a superior 7 inch display for $1200 - the "Rampage".


 
“Our new partnership with SDG Systems will further enhance our ability to provide the best rugged handheld computing solutions to our customers. By working together, we have created a very unique and in-demand handheld computer with the Android (AOSP) operating system, now known as the RAMPAGE 6,” said Rob Campbell, President and CEO of Juniper Systems. “Leveraging the Android expertise of SDG gives our customers an original and powerful data collection device and we couldn’t be more excited about the opportunities this new partnership will bring.”

The Android (AOSP) 2.3 operating system on the RAMPAGE 6 offers many advantages for data collection, including easy multi-tasking, a modern user interface, rich programming environment, multi-platform development, abundant application data storage, open source flexibility, and the opportunity for a custom Android interface developed by SDG Systems. Additionally, its optional kiosk mode allows only certain applications to be accessible by the user, successfully creating a single-purpose device without distractions.

“SDG Systems is proud to develop and distribute the RAMPAGE 6 as our very first SDG-branded handheld computer. Collaborating with Juniper Systems on a product as unique and dependable as the Mesa Rugged Notepad has made this experience very rewarding and we’re excited to put the SDG name on it. Our decision to develop Android (AOSP) for the Mesa was based on its extreme ruggedness, quality design, and dependability. I am confident that the RAMPAGE 6 will live up to those standards,” said Todd Blumer, President and CEO of SDG Systems.

The RAMPAGE 6 will feature the many advantages and benefits of the Mesa Rugged Notepad, including a large 5.7 inch viewing display, IP67 ingress protection rating for water and dust, integrated 2–5 meter GPS receiver, optional integration of a 1D/2D barcode scanner, and optional Class I, Division 2 certification for use in hazardous locations.

Is that a personal radar in your pocket?

Backpack Radar Can Detect Ambushers Within 150 Acres

By Colin LecherPosted 05.24.2012 at 5:33 pm9 Comments

SpotterRF M600C Offering a motion-sensitive look from a long way away. SpotterRF

If you’re a soldier suspecting an ambush, you probably don’t have much time to spare, and you definitely can’t afford to be carrying any unnecessary weight. That’s why so much military tech involves shrinking whatever’s portable, and why, now, a company has thrown its radar-in-a-backpack into the ring.

The SpotterRF M600C weighs four pounds, uses just 10 watts of energy, and looks like the headrest on the driver’s seat of a jalopy (which is a good thing). If ambusher or otherwise comes within 150 acres, the system tracks it, no matter what the weather conditions are.

Besides the weight advantage, it’s also simple. There are no moving parts on the M600C, and manufacturer SpotterRF claims a soldier can learn to use it in 30 to 60 minutes.

If you ever end up in a “Most Dangerous Game”-type situation, the radar backpack kit would be a worthy investment. It comes with two of the M600Cs--important, since each mini-radar unit only tracks within a 90-degree angle. It can connect to Google Earth, FalconView, or RaptorX via an Android tablet to follow the radar feed, and the kit comes with the tablet, a battery, network hub, cables, backpack (of course), and a tripod for setting it all up.

Total weight? Less than 20 pounds.

Still, unless you’re going to be in an overly serious hide-and-go-seek competition, it’s tough to say what non-military purpose this might have, other than being a neat toy.

A half-billion Win8 Yikes!

Ballmer: Windows 8 Will Have 500 Million Users by End of 2013

• By Jeffrey Schwartz
• May 23, 2012

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on Tuesday predicted that 500 million users will have Windows 8 devices by the end of next year.

Ballmer gave the lofty forecast in a speech at the Seoul Digital Forum, according to a report by France-based newswire AFP RelaxNews.

"It's really, in some senses, a dawning of the rebirth of MS Windows...It's certainly the most important piece of work we've done," Ballmer is reported to have told attendees.

Ballmer characterized Windows 8 as the "deepest, broadest and most impactful" version of Windows in Microsoft's history. Indeed, Windows 8, with its Metro-style interface that will run on both tablets and PCs, is a substantial departure for Microsoft's OS.

During the same talk, Ballmer estimated 350 million Windows 7-based devices will ship this year, AFP said. Microsoft has already shipped 525 million copies of Windows 7 as of January, the last time the company released sales figures for its current client OS.

Ballmer's remarks come as Microsoft is expected to issue the "release preview" of Windows 8 next month.

It remains to be seen whether Windows 8 can in fact come close to that "500 million" figure, given the steep competition from Apple, which has sold 67 million iPads since the debut of its tablet two years ago.

A Microsoft spokeswoman on the Windows team was unable to confirm AFP's report but said she believed what Ballmer meant was that with 525 million Windows 7 PCs now in use, they can all be upgraded to Windows 8 when it ships. According to various published reports, Windows 8 will be available in November.

About the Author

Jeffrey Schwartz is executive editor of Redmondmagazine, an editor-at-large at Redmond Channel Partner and an editor of The Cloud Report newsletter. Follow him on Twitter@JeffreySchwartz.

Pentax Goes Swimming

Pentax makes K-30 official with weatherproofing and 1080p video

from Engadget by Jon Fingas

Pentax didn't wait long after a rather conspicuous leak to make the details official: welcome the K-30, the company's spiritual successor to the long-serving K-r. The camera makes its biggest numerical jump in sensor size, from 12.4 megapixels to 16, but you're primarily shelling out for a much tougher body that's both resistant to rain as well as to dust and temperature extremes; one of the cheapest cameras to do so, if you go by Pentax's word. We're slightly down on the light sensitivity being unchanged from three years ago at ISO 100 to 25,600, though you can now shoot video at a much higher 1080p at 30 frames per second -- and that French catalog was wrong about a drop in burst speeds, which still top out at a healthy 6 fps. Should you be committed to the K-mount ways, stores will have the K-30 in July at $850 body-only and $900 for an 18-55mm kit. While you're in the shop, there will also be a new 50mm f/1.8 prime lens to pick up for $250.

Man-Pack Radar

SpotterRF announced today it has joined the EDGE® Innovation Network, a collaborative, open-environment initiative enabling industry and academia, with government input, to work together to enhance the delivery cycle of new technologies and innovative capabilities to warfighters and first responders.

“We are excited to participate in the EDGE program.” stated Logan Harris CEO. “It represents a valuable relationship through which we can more quickly innovate with the operator community and provide them with the Compact Surveillance Radar technology they need to accomplish their missions and protect themselves in all types of hostile environments.”

Pete Palmer, EDGE Innovation Network director, said, “The EDGE provides a new military and government acquisition paradigm by using both physical and virtual environments where EDGE members and users can collaborate and innovate together to deliver gap-filling capabilities in months rather than years.”

Sponsored by General Dynamics C4 Systems, there are seven EDGE Innovation Centers worldwide and over 180 EDGE members. Recent new members include General Dynamics Land Systems, Sterling Heights, Mich.; Raytheon BBN Technologies Corp., Cambridge, Mass.; WindTamer Corp., Rochester, N.Y.; Information Is Power, Houston, Texas; and Sherborne Sensors., Wyckoff, N.J. More information can be found online at http://www.edge-innovation.com.

SpotterRF is located in Orem, Utah, and is the industry leader in a new class of radar called Compact Surveillance Radar (CSR). Until recently, radar surveillance has only been available in large force protection systems. Now, warfighters in remote combat outposts can deploy SpotterRF M600C radars and have all-weather threat detection, night or day. The M600C is the world’s smallest wide area surveillance radar that tracks dismounts throughout its 150 acres of coverage while weighing only 3.5 lbs and consuming a mere 10 watts of power. For more information, visit http://www.spotterrf.com.

The M80 is the worlds lightest man portable radar available. Designed for use in high clutter environments, this radar is perfectly suited for perimeter security of high value facilities near urban locations. It is easily integrated with surveillance cameras to augment any security system with wide area situational awareness.Saves lives by detecting possible threats day or night through snow, rain, fog or sand.

• Lightest surveillance radar in the world—3 lbs.
• Integrates with Cue cameras to provide live imagery of moving targets.
• Tracks a walker out to 500m.
• Low power consumption.
• Minimal training required to operate (30-60 minutes in field).
• Integrates with FalconView, Google Earth and RaptorX.
• For perimeter security FOBs, or areas near urban environments. 

M600C

lightwieght radar surveillance outside the wire.

The M600C is a warfighter's dream come true. It provides wide-area all-weather situational awareness that is reliable and simple to use. It's compact size and light weight make it easy to pack several into a rucksack and carry to any location.Get the full M600C datasheet.

• Capable of tracking a walker moving anywhere within 150 Acres.
• low weight (4lb), and low power consumption.
• Integrates with FalconView, Google Earth and RaptorX.
• For surveillance protection of VSO, COPs, FOBs, or borders.
• Cues cameras to provide live imagery of moving targets
• 5 Minutes setup from pack to track using a simple web UI setup.
• Minimal training required to operate (30-60 minutes in field).

Google-rola is Real?

Motorola Mobility Says $12.5B Google Deal To Close Tuesday Or Wednesday. Layoffs Coming?

from TechCrunch by Ingrid Lunden

Google has reached the final regulatory hurdle to its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility, with China approving the transaction over the weekend, and today Motorola Mobility filed an 8-K form that notes that it will close in the next two business days.

So what happens next? A “listening tour,” a source tells us, with new management visiting the whole of the operation, “seeing what everyone does, then making decisions.” One decision that may be close at hand has to do with headcount: we have heard that there will be layoffs coming imminently. At the same time, more details are emerging about the conditions that China put on the deal: they include a guarantee that Android would remain free and open source for the next five years.

Motorola’s statement today noted that the approval from the Anti-Monopoly Bureau of the Ministry of Commerce of China came on May 19, 2012, as we reported earlier. ”As the transaction has now received all required regulatory approvals, the companies are moving to close the transaction within two business days,” it notes.

Motorola’s statement to the market today does not cover restructuring, and Google declined to comment on what we heard.

However, there is a precedent. When Google bought DoubleClick, which had a mere 1,600 employees, it had a mandate to cut 40 percent of that staff. Motorola Mobility, at the time of the Google acquisition announcement last year, had 19,000 employees. It has, however, been going through restructuring already that has been reducing that number, laying off 800 people at the end of October 2011. At the time, Motorola said this was part of a wider restructuring not related to the Google deal but ongoing cost-cutting plans.

Motorola and Google have not confirmed who will be heading up its Motorola operations. In February, Google put its head of Americas, Dennis Woodside, to oversee the merger, and so he is being tipped to head the whole operation after the deal closes, although others have tipped Nikesh Arora, Google’s Chief Business Officer, to lead the operation.

China’s approval of the deal and the inclusion of the Android guarantee points to how central that operating system has become to Chinese smartphone market. In both official Android and forked forms, it has become the most popular platform — in part because its free licensing allows for companies to make devices as cheap as possible.

Panasonic Toughpad A1 Available EOM June?

$1,795 plus shipping...  includes 4G LTE 

otherwise

$1,395

Toughbook Toughpad A1
- Broadband : 4G LTE Wireless Broadband   +$400.00
- Warranty Options : Preferred Warranty 3 YR ( + 0.00 )

SONY Media Goes Swimming

Sony outs water- and dust-resistant Handycam for Japan

updated 01:10 pm EDT, Thu April 26, 2012

Sony has outed a water- and dust-proof Handycam in Japan, similar to another video camera bound for Europe soon. The company suggests the HDR-GW77V can be left underwater for up to an hour at a depth of 16 feet, resists dust, and can survive up to a five-foot drop.

The camcorder features 10x optical zoom and uses an Exmor R CMOS sensor capable of 1080p video capture. A built-in GPS allows for geotagging shoots, while an underwater mode alters the colors when used in shallow water.

The HDR-GW77V appears to be identical to the European GW55VE in almost all respects except by name and the choice of colors available, and will be released in Japan on May 25 for 70,000 Yen (~$862 USD). The GW55VE is due in Europe during May, but it is unknown if it will be released in the US.

By Electronista Staff

Read more: http://www.electronista.com/articles/12/04/26/sony.waterproof.handycam.identical.to.european/#ixzz1tGQqcnY5

China clears Google acquisition of Motorola, eliminates last barrier to Googorola bliss

from Engadget by Jon Fingas

The final significant roadblock to Google's buyout of Motorola has been cleared, as Chinese regulators have just given their rubber stamp. Their approval follows a few months after the simultaneous American and European clearances, and virtually all that's left now is to formally close the deal and start integrating the two mobile giants. It might still come too late for the combined entity to present a united front at Google I/O, but at least they won't have any awkward glances at each other across the room. We're just trying to decide on whether or not Googorola is the best pet name for the loving, $12.5 billion-dollar Android union. Update: Google has since told the AP that the deal will likely wrap up early next week, so Motorola should be part of the family well in advance of Google I/O. Also, Google has to keep Android freely usable by anyone for at least five years, although no one was expecting that to change anytime soon.

If wishes were fishes?

Cometh The Hour, Cometh The Xobot

from TechCrunch by Jon Evans

Poor old Android is having a bad year. (Especially compared to last year.) Apple’s iPhone issoaring in China, and apparently overtaking Android in the crucial American market. Oracle’s lawsuit against Google has led to several rather awkward claims, eg that the word ‘license’ in the phrase “we need to negotiate a license for Java under the terms we need” referred to “not a license from anybody”, a kind of license with which I was previously entirely unfamiliar. CEO Larry Page’s own testimony was labelled as evasive: “His denial of knowledge and recollection contrasts with evidence,” wrote Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents.

What a headache. Way back in 2005, Android head honcho Andy Rubin wrote in a prescient email:

“If Sun doesn’t want to work with us, we have two options: 1) Abandon our work and adopt MSFT CLR VM and C# language – or – 2) Do Java anyway and defend our decision, perhaps making enemies along the way.”

Just imagine if they’d taken the first road. It’s not widely understood in the industry that Microsoft’s .NET infrastructure is more open than Java in many ways; it and its flagship language C# are ISO and ECMA standards, available to anyone and everyone, legally bulletproofed by the Microsoft Community Promise. Imagine if the Android OS ran on an entirely different technical architecture.

Wait, no. Don’t imagine it: examine it. Like a vision from a parallel universe, it now exists.

Way back in 2001, Miguel de Icaza realized that if he ported .NET to Linux, he would open Linux up to a huge new developer community — and vice versa. The Mono Project was born. it wound up in Novell’s hands, where it continued to mature. Last year much of the Mono team founded a company called Xamarin, whose MonoTouch software lets developers write native Android/iOS apps using .NET technologies.

Android apps run on Google’s Dalvik virtual machine. “Dalvik’s fairly immature, and Mono vastly outperforms it,” says Xamarin’s CEO Nat Friedman. “So we started thinking: hey, what if we translated the entire Android OS to C#? It would run faster, and it wouldn’t have any legal problems.”

First it was just a thought experiment. Then it became more of a science project. And then the Xamarin team actuallydid it, by adopting and improving a tool named Sharpen that translates Java to C#, and using it to translate the entire Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) codebase. They did get a few side benefits — that improved tool, and better graphics handling — but mostly they did it for fun, aka the love of making something better. Oh, and they’ve nowopen-sourced the whole thing, under the name of XobotOS.

What does this mean? Good question. Maybe it’s an impressive technical achievement that’s ultimately inconsequential except as a bright feather in Xamarin’s cap. (If the idea was to get developers’ attention, they’ve certainly succeeded.) Maybe it’s Plan B for Google, in case there is some (unlikely) legal catastrophe.

And maybe the next company that thinks about forking Android for their own use — as Amazon did with the Kindle Fire, and as RIM had to have at least considered last year — will decide to go the Xobot route, for better performance, for legal cover, as a major differentiator, and to appeal to the huge and thriving .NET developer community. On the other hand, existing apps would either have to run on the IKVM virtual machine atop Mono (after tweaking it to handle Dalvik .dex files) which would mean a performance hit, or be Sharpened to C# and recompiled.

Still, at the very least, it’s a technically impressive and interesting feat. And who knows? Watch this space. It just might turn out to be a genuinely disruptive one as well.

Googleola - Makes it Hard

Motorola unveils rugged ET1 Android tablet for enterprise types (video)

By Amar Toor  posted Oct 10th 2011 11:05AM

Well, here it is. After months of beta tests, Motorola's ET1 tablet was finally unveiled today, bringing a taste of Android 2.3 to the enterprise market. Powered by a 1GHz dual-core CPU, this rugged slate packs 8GB of internal storage, along with a 32GB microSD card slot, and features a seven-inch, Gorilla Glass capacitive touchscreen with 1024 x 600 resolution. Weighing in at 1.4 pounds, the ET1 also boasts an eight megapixel rear camera, a front-facing shooter designed for videoconferencing and 720p video capabilities. Plus, retailers can choose to outfit the tablet with a host of accessories, including a barcode reader, magnetic stripe reader, handstrap and holster. At this point, the ET1 boasts only WiFi connectivity, though Motorola Solutions' Sheldon Safir says a Wide Area Network version is in the works. The manufacturer didn't offer a specific price, but Safir tells Computer World that bulk purchases should cost less than $1,000 by the time the slab hits the market, later this year. Head past the break for a full platter of PR, along with a demo video.

Panasonic Droids...

http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/panasonic-eluga-is-a-lightweight-waterproof-and-oddly-named-android-smartphone-20120221/

Back in December, Panasonic announced that it was preparing a full-on global assault on the smartphone market. Up first is Europe, where the company’s opening salvo will be fired in a 4.3″ shell. That phone has now gotten official as the Panasonic Eluga.

An interesting choice in names, to be sure, but it probably has something to do with the phone’s aquatic exploits (like the whale that rhymes with Eluga). It joins the ever-increasing list of waterproof and dustproof phones, though it’s anything but whale-like in terms of weight at just 103g. That makes it lighter than even the waifish NEC Medias N-04C. Hardware details are very thin at this point, but Panasonic has revealed that the Eluga’s 4.3-inch display packs 540 x 960 pixels — no word on whether it uses an OLED panel as previously rumored.

As Sony and Samsung do with their Android phones, Panasonic has designed the Eluga to work in perfect harmony with its Viera smart TVs. Images and videos can be transferred from phone to television with a simple swipe, and you’re also able to display what you’re viewing in the Eluga’s browser using the just-released Viera Remote app version 2.0. One other slick function Panasonic offers is a controller mode, which turns your phone into a gamepad for big-screen fun on compatible Viera sets.

The Eluga is set to land on European shores in the very near future, and it’s being shown off by Panasonic ahead of MWC 2012. Keep your eye on this post for updated hardware details once they’re announced.

Android - Best Security Offer?

George Mason U Makes Hardbody Android

This is a pretty wild piece of news. Google, George Mason University, and the NSA are working to make Android the most secure OS out there. They're developing a "hardened" kernel so Android can pass all the necessary red tape to be deployed for government use. By 2012 they expect Android to be good enough for classified communication, and eventually they'll hit a higher security clearance level than BlackBerrys. Poor BlackBerry, security was one of the last things they had left.

It seems like all the heavy hitters are on board to deploy this super-secure version of Android. The Obama Administration, the FBI, the Justice Department, the Army, and first responders are all mentioned as interested parties. The Army wants to take Android into combat, the White House wants to dump blackberry, and first responders want to replace their insecure radio equipment. That's right, real life Android Police.

No word on when (or if) all this security will trickle down to us civilians; hopefully Google made that part of the deal. More security is always a good thing, right?

NSA constructs hardened Android, unleashes it on world

By John Leyden • Vicious apps squashed by super-spook mobile OS

Posted in Security, 17th January 2012 13:23 GMT

The US Defense Department's The National Security Agency (NSA) has released a security-hardened version of Google's mobile OS, Android.

The spook-enhanced build of the operating system was released last week and is based onSELinux, also created by the National Security Agency. The inaugural release of the SE Android project focuses on limiting the scope for malicious or flawed apps to cause mischief, as explained in the project documentation:

Security Enhanced (SE) Android is a project to identify and address critical gaps in the security of Android. Initially, the SE Android project is enabling the use of SELinux in Android in order to limit the damage that can be done by flawed or malicious apps and in order to enforce separation guarantees between apps. However, the scope of the SE Android project is not limited to SELinux.

Links to SE Android source code and instructions on putting it together can be found on the project's web page. The focus of the project is on damage limitation rather than prevention. The target audience of the project is clearly mobile developers, security experts or perhaps device manufacturers, and not regular Android smartphone users looking for a little extra privacy and security.

App support is low and if you don't know what you are doing you might even end up with a bricked smartphone. The goals of the SE Android were first publicly outlined during a presentation [PDF] at last year's Linux Security Summit. ®

HDMI is a POOR connection

• LockCircle is announced the LockPort 800 for the Nikon D800:

"The LockPort 800 is a new product developed to help avoid damaging your D800 mini HDMI camera port. The LockPort 800 protects definitely the fragile output on your camera from tough production abuse with a rock solid universal clamp and a smart mini to full-size HDMI adapter."

$2.6 Billion Available for NewCOs?

REPORT HIGHLIGHTS

The global remote sensing technologies market is estimated at $8.3 billion in 2011. It is expected to reach at $9.1 billion in 2012 and it will further grow to $12.4 billion by 2017 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.4%.

 
The highest revenue contributor is space based remote sensing technology products, which is estimated at $3.3 billion in 2011. It is expected to reach at $3.6 billion by 2012 and it will further grow to $5.0 billion by 2017 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.8%.

 
The revenues from airborne products are estimated at $2.3 billion in 2011. It is expected to reach at $2.6 billion by 2012 and it will further grow to $3.1 billion by 2017 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.5%.

SUMMARY FIGURE

VALUE OF REMOTE SENSING PRODUCTS, BY PLATFORM, 2011-2017

($ BILLIONS)

Source: BCC Research

REPORT HIGHLIGHTS

The global digital photography market was valued at $65.6 billion in 2010 and $68.4 billion in 2011. By 2016, the digital photography market should reach $82.5 billion, a 3.8% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2011 and 2016. 

Cameras and lenses account for the bulk of the photography market, representing 55% of global sales. This market segment was valued at $37.6 billion in 2011, and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.8%, reaching $49.8 billion in 2016. 

The photo print industry is struggling to maintain growth. In 2016, the segment is expected to slide in sales, decreasing to $24.7 billion, down from $25 billion in 2011.

SUMMARY FIGURE

GLOBAL DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY MARKET BY PRODUCT TYPE, 2008-2016

($ MILLIONS)

Source: BCC Research

FinePix XP170 - Lets go swimming...

Fujifilm FinePix XP170 camera rebuffs water, dust and cold, cuddles up with iOS and Android (video)

By Mat Smith  posted May 8th 2012 6:18AM

Fujifilm's latest rugged point-and-shoot has pulled together some pretty standard specs with some more contemporary connectivity features, all in a hardy shell. The 14-megapixel CMOS sensor is paired with 5x zoom lens, while the rubberized lug is capable of 1080p video, and can increase video capture up to 240 fps at 320 x 240 resolution. Available in blue or orange, the device should survive up to 10 meters of water, a two meter drop and still work at -10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit). We're not sure if that's all at once. Sharing with mobile devices requires Fujifilm's own Android or iOS app and some semblance of a WiFi signal. The FinePix XP170 will sidle up into stores next month for $280, but until then, Fujifilm's got a video to demo those new wireless transfer functions -- if that's your thing, you can check it out right after the break.

Show full PR text

Fujifilm's Rugged XP170 Camera Goes Wireless

 

from All Things Digital by Bonnie Cha

If you’re a thrillseeker, or simply love spending time in the great outdoors, Fujifilm has a camera that will let you instantly share your adventures with family and friends.

The Fujifilm FinePix XP170 is the newest member of the company’s line of rugged digital cameras, and what’s notable about this model is the inclusion of Wi-Fi.



With this new capability, the camera can wirelessly send photos to your iPhone, iPad or Android device with the touch of a button — no need to hassle with cables.

And once your photos and videos are on your smartphone or tablet, you can then use the free Fujifilm Photo Receiver app to upload them to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social networking Web sites.

The 14-megapixel camera also offers such features as 360-degree panorama mode, face detection, 1080p HD video and a 2.7-inch LCD screen. Designed to withstand a bit of rough and tumble, the FinePix XP170 is waterproof up to 33 feet and shockproof up to 6.5 feet. It’s also rustproof, and can handle cold temperatures down to 14 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Fujifilm FinePix XP170 will be available in June, in either blue or orange, for $279.95.

Humpty Dumpti had a great fall...?

The many faces of a little green robot
Fragmentation matters to the entire Android community: users, developers, OEMs, brands & networks. It's a blessing and a curse.

The Blessing. Fragmentation allows users to take their pick from thousands of devices. You can choose from phones with 3D screens, projectors, CDMA, GSM, or even CDMA & GSM. You may not care that Tag Heuer has made an Android phone but at least one person does (and they use OpenSignalMaps). It's a triumph for Android that as a single OS it can target so many markets.

The Curse. The proliferation of devices with their associated screen sizes, internal hardware and custom ROMs creates some difficulties. We spend a lot of time making the app presentable (or at less functional) on exotic devices - this is the most common request we get from app users.

The Study. Over the past 6 months we've been logging the new devices that download OpenSignalMaps, we've based this study on 681,900 of these devices. We've looked at model, brand, API level (i.e. the version of Android) and screen size and we've tried to present this in the clearest form we can.




Some of the Android devices we use to test OpenSignalMaps

Model

We've spotted 3997 distinct devices. It comes as no suprise that the GT-i1900 (the Galaxy SII) is the most popular - with 61,389 users downloading OSM in the last 6 months.

One complication is that custom ROMs can overwrite the android.build.MODEL variable that we use for the device model. This partly explains why a staggering 1363 device models appear only once in our database. That said most of these are indeed genuine devices, just not popular ones. Some examples of these solitary devices include: the Concorde Tab (a hungarian 10.1 inch device), the Lemon P1 (a dual SIM Indian phone), the Energy Tablet i724 (a Spanish Tablet aimed at home entertainment), the EBEST E68, the MASTONE W18.

 Brand

Android brands are almost as fragmented as device models, indicating just how much easier it has become to source electronics. We spotted 599 distinct brands - though again some will be artefacts of custom ROMs.

Some highlights: 2 tablets have been spotted sporting the ill-fated FusionGarage brand, 7 with Polaroid's smart-camera. We also came across some 200 by Marvell which we presumed was a type-o for Marvel (the comic book publisher who also released an Android tablet), in fact Marvell is a seperate technology company who do a line in Android devices, just one small example of the confusion caused by such brand diversity (thanks to Trent for pointing this out).

The clear winner is Samsung again with 270,144 devices - or 40% of the market as seen by us.

API Level

API level - or Android version (e.g. Gingerbread, Gingerbread revision 1, ICE Cream Sandwich) has become more fragmented over time. This seems natural as older Android version tend to hang around.

Nevertheless it's surprising how little change there has been, 2.3 (Gingebread) was the dominant version 1 year ago, now it's 2.3.3+ which is a revision of 2.3.3 with various bug fixes and minimal changes to the APIs (i.e. few new features for developers to tap into, though NFC and Voice Recognition were added). Note also, one year ago the top two Android versions accounted for 90% of devices now it's closer to 75% - a challenge for developers.















Resolution


Each point represents a particular resolution e.g 480*800, note the constancy of the line that represents the most common aspect ratio 5:3.






A little bit of coding - we did this in Android - yields a graphic that better illustrates these configurations.




Scale 2:7




Weighting them by frequency highlights the popular ones:






With iPad and iPhone things are rather simpler:




<3 Fragmentation?


Developers tend to bemoan Android fragmentation yet there's much here to be celebrated.


We've collected signal data from 195 countries - the variety of Android devices and manufacturers has been crucial in allowing the OS to reach so many markets. For example the 5 countries where OSM gets most use are: US, Brazil, China, Russia, Mexico. From what we're seeing the developing world is no longer developing but leading Europe.


While the number of different models running Android will continue to increase we've seen Samsung take the lion's share of the Android market, most of that due to the Galaxy product line. Testing on the most popular Samsung & HTC devices will get you a long way.


API and screen fragmentation is probably going to get worse. Android has, however, shown committment to make it easier to target multiple screen sizes - by introducing the (perhaps ironically named) fragments APIs in 2011 which makes it easier to turn view elements into modules.


One of the joys of developing for Android is you have no idea who'll end up using your app.


With many devices under $100 unsubsidized, Android phones and tablets are able to reach a market that can't afford netbooks. For the majority of the world's population smartphones (and not computers) will be the must-have devices. We hope that OpenSignalMaps will be a must-have app.