Apple Inc buys HP land to accommodate growth

Apple Inc is expanding the size of its Cupertino, California, home base, acquiring nearby facilities from computer pioneer and competitor Hewlett Packard Co.

Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said, “The offices will give the maker of the iPhone more room for its employees as the company continues to grow”.

"We now occupy 57 buildings in Cupertino and our campus is bursting at the seams," he said.

Apple's real estate transaction was first reported by The San Jose Mercury News earlier this week, which said the deal would give Apple an additional 98 acres of land, roughly doubling the size of the company's home base in Cupertino.

Apple, which had 46,600 full-time employees worldwide at the end of September, did not disclose the price it paid for the HP real estate.

Acer unveils dual screen Iconia laptop

There's nothing all that special about a 14-inch Windows-based notebook PC these days - that is, unless we're talking about a laptop boasting two 14-inch displays, with the second screen taking the place of your standard keyboard and doing double-duty as a virtual QWERTY keypad.

Now it could be the time to meet the Iconia, which Acer unveiled at a press event in New York. Armed with an Intel Core i5 processor and powered by Windows 7, the Iconia offers the aforementioned dual displays (14 inches, 1366-by-768), not to mention an HD webcam and integrated 3G.

Engadget has a hands-on photo gallery of the six-pound laptop, and no question: The Iconia makes for an eye-catching piece of hardware, all right. Well, Engadget notes that the Iconia might be the first Windows laptop with a keyboard that's susceptible to glare, adding that the "hard-to-use" virtual keypad hampers the otherwise "clever" touch interface.

PCWorld gives much details on the Iconia and the Acer "Ring," a wheel-shaped touch UI that lets you flick and swipe between various on-screen elements, including the QWERTY keyboard, a "gesture editor," image capture and Web-clip apps, a "TouchMusic" player, and other touch-friendly applications.

The Iconia will also let you super-size your Web-browsing experience by extending pages across both of its 14-inch displays, although you'll have to put up with the gap where the laptop's hinge sits.

Other features on the Iconia include VGA and HDMI outputs, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0, and three USB ports (two with USB 2.0, the other using the new USB 3.0 standard).

How much will the Iconia cost? No hard details on that yet, nor any specific word on when it'll arrive in the States.

Meanwhile, Acer also took the wraps off a pair of Android-based tablets - a 7-incher and a 10-inch model, both with 1280-by-800 displays and Flash Player 10.1 support, as well as a 10-inch Windows-based tablet.

Also on tap from Acer: an aircraft-carrier-sized Android smartphone with a whopping 4.8-inch, 1024-by-480 display, not to mention an 8MP camera, DLNA media sharing, and "immersive" sound courtesy of Dolby Mobile.

Again, pricing and release dates for the upcoming tablets and smartphone remain sketchy, with Acer saying all three of its new Android devices should arrive around April 2011, while the Windows tablet is slated for February.

Samsung Planning More Android Phones

Two more Android devices are rumored to be headed out of Samsung's factory in addition to the Continuum smartphone launched in New York City. Leaked photos and reports are keeping the Nexus Two rumor alive, only now the phone is supposedly called Nexus S.

Best Buy briefly listed the phantom phone on its site, according to several Android-oriented blogs, but withdrew it. However, fans were able to note that the device has a four-inch AMOLED screen and a front-facing camera. T-Mobile is believed to be the carrier, and a November release is rumored.

The Nexus One, made by HTC, was pulled off the market last summer after Google's attempt to market and sell it without carrier stores went horribly wrong. Some blogs speculated that the Samsung Nexus device would premier last week at the company's media event that turned out to be the Continuum launch. A Samsung executive was quoted as denying plans for a Nexus phone.

At the same time, Engadget, the site that obtained leaked photos of Apple's iPhone 4 earlier this year, published shots of what it calls Samsung's "first half flagship" for 2011, an unnamed thin Android phone with a 4.3- or 4.5-inch Super AMOLED 2 display, a 1.2-gigahertz processor, an 8-megapixel camera, and running Android 2.3, Gingerbread. Speculation is that the phone could be unveiled at the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, Spain which begins Feb. 14.

Two more Android phones would bring Samsung's total to 13, tying with HTC behind the 18 offerings running Android made by Motorola, according to a 2010 list on Androphones.com. In 2009 Samsung made just four Android phones. Samsung also uses Android to power its Galaxy Tab tablet.

"Samsung is very aggressive in the mobile market and has the resources to do it," said Gerry Purdy of MobilTrax. "They realize this is a highly competitive environment and right now their products are doing well; they're growing the market. Having spoken with their management, I know they have a road map of products going into Asia, Europe and the U.S. to learn quickly what adapts to what market."

Purdy said, Samsung's careful marketing study shows "they don't plan to come in second to anyone. They're in it to win. It's a question of being sensitive to market demand and sensitive to things like hardware integration and the application environment working equivalent to what Apple has done with the App Store."

Another report on Android and Me, said the Nexus S phone had been scrapped by Samsung in favor of a dual-core phone that could compete with Tegra 2 phones that will debut early next year at the Consumer Electronics Show. The report said the dual-core phone is being held up by issues with Android 2.2.

Android is now second biggest Mobile OS

Google's Android mobile operating system has surpassed Apple's iPhone and Canada's Blackberry to become the second biggest smartphone platform after Nokia's Symbian. It has been revealed by research firm Gartner.

Gartner said Finland's Nokia sold 29.5 million smartphones during the third quarter of the year for a 36.6 percent share of the worldwide market, down from 44.6 percent a year ago.

Sales of Android-powered smartphones soared to 20.5 million units, giving the Android platform a 25.5 percent market share, up from just 3.5 percent a year ago, Gartner said.

Apple's iPhone was next on sales of 13.5 million units for a 16.7 percent market share, down from 17.1 percent a year ago.

Canada's Research In Motion, maker of the Blackberry, was in fourth position with sales of 11.9 million units. Its market share dropped to 14.8 percent from 20.7 percent a year ago.

Microsoft's Windows Mobile saw sales of 2.2 million units giving it a 2.8 percent market share, down from 7.9 percent a year ago, Gartner said.

"Smartphone providers have entered a period of accelerated platform evolution, stimulated by more regular product releases, new platform entrants and new device types," said Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner.

"Any platform that fails to innovate quickly - either through a vibrant multi-player ecosystem or clear vision of a single controlling entity - will lose developers, manufacturers, potential partners and ultimately users."

Gartner said worldwide mobile phone sales totaled 417 million units in the third quarter, up 35 percent from a year ago.

Smartphone sales grew 96 percent to 81 million units and accounted for 19.3 percent of overall mobile phone sales in the quarter.

Nokia remained the world's top handset manufacturer with sales of 117.5 million units in the third quarter but saw its worldwide market share slip to 28.2 percent from 36.7 percent a year ago.

South Korea's Samsung was next on sales of 71.7 million units but its market share also fell - to 17.2 percent from 19.6 percent a year ago.

South Korea's LG sold 27.5 million handsets. Its market share dipped to 6.6 percent from 10.3 percent a year ago.

Apple leapfrogged RIM during the quarter with sales of 13.5 million units, giving it a 3.2 percent market share, up from 2.3 percent a year ago.

RIM sold 11.9 million units. Its market share edged up to 2.9 percent from 2.8 percent a year ago.

Sony Ericsson sold 10.3 million units for a 2.5 percent market share, down from 4.5 percent, while US handset maker Motorola sold 9.0 million units for a 2.1 percent market share, down from 4.5 percent a year ago.

Gartner said Samsung was the top Android seller in the quarter with sales of 6.6 million Android phones.

The technology research company said it expects overall mobile device sales to grow 30 percent year-on-year in 2010 and for sales of tablet computers such as Apple's iPad to reach 54.8 million units in 2011.

Sharp to launch 3D Android Phones

How do you feel about the idea of a 3D display on a phone? Having to wear a pair of special glasses to be able to enjoy 3D content on a mobile phone doesn't sound very practical, but Sharp has a solution in the way of two glasses-free 3D Android handsets.

Bearing the names Galapagos 003SH and 005SH, both handsets sport 1GHz Snapdragon CPUs, Android 2.2, and a 3.8-inch 3D-capable display with 800 x 480 pixel resolution. The main difference between the two phones is the full QWERTY keyboard on the 005SH, but 003SH makes up for it with a slightly better camera, a 9.6 megapixel model capable of recording 720p video, while 005SH sports a 8-megapixel camera.

With 3D currently being all the rage in the world of video entertainment, the technology will inevitably start spilling into the world of smartphones, which - in today's world of handsets with large touch screens - are just as much mobile entertainment platforms as they are phones. While we don't know much about the 3D capabilities of Sharp’s upcoming devices, a glasses-free 3D display sounds like the right path in the context of smartphones.

And if you're wondering about the lack of 3D content for these devices, Capcom has announced the 3D versions of their games Mega Man, Ghosts 'n Goblins: Gold Knights, and Resident Evil: Degeneration for Android, and the first smartphones to feature these games will be the 003SH and 005SH from Sharp.

The 003SH is coming to Japan's Softbank this December, and the 005SH is due February next year.

LG Electronics to launch 8.9-inch tablet in 2011

World's No.3 handset vendor, LG Electronics Inc, plans to launch an 8.9-inch tablet device based on an upcoming version of Google’s Android OS.

The device, to run on Google's upcoming "Honeycomb" operating system tailored to tablet PCs, will be rolled out in South Korea and overseas early next year, the source said, who asked not to be identified as the new Google system has not been announced yet.

With the rollout, LG seeks to jump into the fast-growing tablet PC market that is becoming increasingly crowded with the likes of Samsung Electronis, Research In Motion and Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell.

Handset vendors and PC makers are rushing into the new category of devices, which Apple jump-started this year with its hot-selling iPad.

The upcoming LG device will be the first tablet PC for the company, after it dropped a plan to introduce tablets based on the Android 2.2 operating system, also known as "Froyo" citing the need for "the most reliable and suitable Android version," for tablets.

Samsung, however, launched Galaxy Tab, powered by Android 2.2 version, in South Korea after unveiling the 7-inch model in Europe and other Asian countries earlier.

"There's a controversy whether Froyo is a suitable system for tablet devices, but consumers will make the final call on the issue after using Galaxy Tab," said JK Shin, head of Samsung's mobile division.

The delay by LG could deal a further blow to the South Korean electronics firm, which is grappling to turn around its loss-making mobile unit due to a lack of competitive smartphone models to compete with Apple’s iPhone, RIM's BlackBerry and Samsung's Galaxy S.