Samsung R&D spending reached record $9 billion in 2011

Samsung R&D spending reached record $9 billion in 2011: Samsung has bumped up its research and development investment to the largest in the company’s history…

Samsung expects to see 30% on-year growth in 2012 notebook shipments

Samsung expects to see 30% on-year growth in 2012 notebook shipments: Samsung Electronics has internally set a goal of achieving 30% on-year growth in its notebook shipments in 2012 with 30% of the total volume being ultrabooks and the ultrabook proportion is expected to grow to 50% by 2013, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.

Garmin partners with Suzuki for company's first in-dash infotainment system

Garmin partners with Suzuki for company's first in-dash infotainment system:

Sure, the portable GPS may still have a home among multi-car families, or drivers that have yet to make the jump to a smartphone, but we wouldn't be surprised to see the dedicated device's share decline over the next few years. At the same time, in-car infotainment systems are clearly gaining in popularity, so it only makes sense for one of the world's largest handheld GPS makers to make the jump to in-dash. Garmin's partnering with Suzuki for its first factory-installed infotainment system, which includes a 6.1-inch "high-res" touchscreen, a CD player and AM/FM radio, internal flash memory, along with USB, AUX jack and Bluetooth connectivity. The voice control-enabled system also includes backup camera support, Pandora integration and an SD card slot for loading updates. One benefit of vehicle integration is access to the car's speed sensors, allowing the GPS to follow along accurately when it doesn't have a signal, such as in enclosed areas or tunnels. You can also use Garmin Smartphone Link to access traffic, weather and fuel price info. The in-dash system will ship with most American 2013 model year Suzuki vehicles, along with select cars sold in Australia, New Zealand, Europe and Russia. I'll also be on display at Suzuki's New York Auto Show booth next week, if you happen to be planning a trip to the Big Apple.
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If Apple chose to move to OLED, Samsung now has the numbers. Quality still a consideration.

If Apple chose to move to OLED, Samsung now has the numbers. Quality still a consideration.:

The Korea Times reports that Apple may consider moving its displays over to OLED from LCD. Samsung, Apple’s biggest display provider, is ramping up OLED production to the point where it could meet Apple’s demand numbers.

Thanks to the increased volume, chances have been raised to ship Samsung’s OLEDs for Apple’s iPads and even iPhones, said unnamed Samsung executives on the condition of anonymity.
`So far, Apple has questions over an output commitment and product volume as Samsung’s OLED business isn’t on full track. But chances have risen to break the wall,’’ said one Samsung executive.
Apple is Samsung’s biggest customer, buying $7.8 billion of components such as memory chips and LCDs in 2011. This year, it will buy around $11 billion of Samsung parts despite the deepening legal battle between the two companies.
Apple is using LCDs in most of its i-branded products. It’s known that Apple previously denied Samsung’s offer to use OLEDs as the American firm believes OLEDs have some “technological problems.’’
Apple spokesman Steve Park declined to comment.

I am sure Apple’s display requirements are not just demand-based. Those “technical problems” mentioned above likely include “Retina”-type pixel density resolutions and similar color accuracy of LCD. While OLED displays are often impressive to look at, sometimes they are oversaturated in color. Moreover, I have never heard of a model that nears 300PPI.
(Samsung Flexible Super AMOLED Display Pictured)

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• LG announces 55″ OLED HDTV, looks good enough for an Apple Television (9to5mac.com)
• Samsung official: Apple to use Samsung displays in smaller iPad (9to5mac.com)
• You wanna see what the front of the iPad 3 is going to look like? (9to5mac.com)

Consumer Reports: Forget what we said before, new iPad is the best we’ve ever seen

Consumer Reports: Forget what we said before, new iPad is the best we’ve ever seen:

Consumer Reports took a beating for measuring the new iPad’s heat and charging non-issues under intense loads. However, it still overwhelmingly recommended Apple’s new device.

The high-resolution screen of the new iPad establishes a new benchmark in excellence, providing the best rendering of detail and color accuracy we’ve ever seen on a tablet display. As a result, the iPad tops our new tablet Ratings, posted today.
Performance on the new iPad ($500 to $830) was superb in virtually every other way as well. The 5-megapixel camera took very good photos. Verizon’s 4G network yielded very fast, dependable connectivity to a 4G-compatible version of the iPad in our informal tests. And despite the energy-intensive display and graphics, the iPad still has longer battery life than all other tablets.
Responding to consumer comments on the new device, and to coverage from other reviewers, we also carried out further tests that confirmed the new iPad is warmer in its hottest spots than the iPad 2. But we didn’t find those temperatures to be cause for concern. In addition, further tests of observations we made that the new iPad was not recharging when playing a demanding, intense video game, showed that the problem was limited to times when the device was playing a demanding game with the screen fully bright. Our high overall judgment of the new iPad was not affected by the results of either battery of tests.

The biggest downfall?

It said the new iPad’s display “does, in at least some applications, serve to magnify imperfections in content designed for lower screen resolution. For example, some text in e-magazines looks worse on the new device than on the iPad 2, as others, including PC World, have noted.”
So, because the display is so good, it makes content created for older displays look bad. Somehow, this is a downside? I checked; this was posted today, not yesterday.

Related articles

• 5 reasons why the new iPad runs hotter than the old ones (9to5mac.com)
• New iPad as 25+ hour LTE hotspot, runs cooler than some Android tablets (9to5mac.com)
• Consumer Reports: New iPad hits 116 degrees running games,’very warm but not especially uncomfortable’ (9to5mac.com)

Sony HXR-NX30 Camcorder Packs a Pico Projector - and a $2500 Pricetag

Sony HXR-NX30 Camcorder Packs a Pico Projector - and a $2500 Pricetag:
Sony has released a new video of its latest palm-sized camcorder featuring a built-in pico projector.  The Sony HXR-NX30 packs some impressive technology, including: 96GB of embedded flash memory, an ultra-wide angle 26mm Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* lens with 10X optical zoom, balanced optical SteadyShot for superb image stabilization, an enhanced low-light CMOS sensor for incredible image quality in dark environments, as well as the aforementioned embedded pico projector.

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Samsung to release "series" of AMOLED devices with more than 250ppi pixel density

Samsung to release "series" of AMOLED devices with more than 250ppi pixel density: Samsung is by and large the biggest single player in the AMOLED game, and in a post that details the the shifting focus of display companies, Digitimes mentions casually that it will "launch a series of diverse models with increased pixel amounts of over 250ppi"...