Windows Phone - The Future of Phones

There are many people interested in smart phones who do not want to buy Apple iPhones, but up until now, there haven't been a whole lot of options that can compare. However, Microsoft seems poised to give the smart phone market their best shot. News has been brewing from a variety of sources about what is now being touted as the Mango (some called it Tango), as a major competitor to the high-end market. The mid-market price point is making a lot of people excited, because instead of going out the gate with a high-priced option, the company is going with a middle of the road price option that will directly compete with Droid and iPhone and knock them down a few pegs.

The stripped-down phone has been named Tango in recent posts, and most are enjoying the play on words that comes along with an operating system that will be native to the device, Mango. Tango Mango is something that Microsoft officials are keeping tight-lipped about.

What people are talking about most often is not so much the name, although there are plenty of pundits that enjoy making fun of the company's naming conventions. Technology buffs are looking at the recent release of the names of the manufacturers that are working closely with Microsoft. Nokia and Samsung are prepping to hose the phones and will hope to combine the software they are developing with a stripped-down phone version that will have plenty of features, including mobile computer networking, with a more intuitive design.

The learning curve that many people have to go through when it comes to getting into the smart phone world is vast, which is why Microsoft is choosing to go with a bit more simplistic approach. While most devices that are being pushed by large companies try to mimic the abilities of Apple, the Windows phone is not trying to be another carbon copy, they are truly trying to innovate. Innovations might seem few and far between with phone technology, especially since most people believe that there is nothing new under the sun in regards to the latest and greatest in communication devices. However, leave it to Bill Gates and company to try and shake things up with all new media implications.

In a recent showcase, the Windows and Nokia model "Apollo" was presented as a stand-alone option that will have voice to speech recognition, text to speech, and so much more. You'll see a fully integrated and intuitive design that is set to be released early 2012 at the very soonest, with many technology bloggers giving it a Mid-2012 time frame.

To clear up some confusion, the Windows Phones Mango, Tango 1, Tango 2, and Apollo are all being released sooner than later, and the phone's OS will be interesting to see. Some videos have leaked to showcase the interesting functionality of the phone, which very well maybe the one true iPhone killer that some fans of Microsoft have been waiting on for some time now. It will be interesting to see if that is in fact what will occur, even though it seems like a tall task.

Penny Lee specializes in providing reliable computer support California to businesses that want to improve productivity and profitability. With IT support in California and computer networking that better maps to your business, you'll never have to worry about technology again.

View the original article here

The HTC Sensation 4G - Taking You Into The Future

We all know how good HTC cell phones are, but what we really need is a phone that is capable of taking us into the future and all that 2012 has to offer, thankfully for us, the makers of HTC decided to launch the HTC Sensation 4G in June 2011. You may wonder what the difference is between this cell phone and those that don't have the 4G label, including the 'HTC Sensation'. The difference is the network that the phone runs on and the fact that it is a lot more secure and quicker to use as opposed to the 3G network.

For now it is only T-Mobile that uses the 4G network on this particular phone in the United States, but other networks may catch up at some point.

This great looking phone is a joy to use and its modern design that stands out from the rest of the cell phones on the market. Let's take a closer look at the HTC Sensation that is ready to take us into the future:

Height: 4.9 inches

Weight: Just over five ounces

Depth: Just under half an inch

Memory Capacity: 768 Megabytes of RAM which isn't the largest memory capacity you will find, but the HTC Sensation 4G does come with an 8 GB micro SD card and the phone can support up to a massive 32 GB of memory, which more than compensates for the lack of RAM.

Camera: An excellent 8 Mega-pixel rear-facing camera that records video with up to 30 frames per second and comes with an LED flash and HD video recording. The front-facing camera has 0.3 mega pixels and works very nicely.

Operating system: Gingerbread 2.3.3 which can be upgraded to the 2.3.4. The HTC overlay 3.0 is also included.

CPU: 1.2 GHz Dual-Core processor which ensures your commands are processed quickly and lag is minimal.

Display: Gorilla glass is used to protect the 4 inch display that gives us plenty of room to work with while you make use of the 540x960 resolution.

Connectivity: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and an FM stereo receiver, plus a USB port that will help you to transfer your files to and from your HTC Sensation 4G via a PC.

Media Files and Formats: When you want to transfer files to your phone, you can be sure that you can transfer a wide variety of them including: WAV, WMA, MP3, Audio AAC and more.

Available from $549.00 if you buy the HTC Sensation 4G unsubsidized or $199.99 with a two years contract, this phone has to be one of the best Android phones around that will take you steadily into the future while every other phone is left far behind and desperately trying to catch up.

Hi I'm Mark Francis I hope that you found this article helpful. If you have any comments or questions please do not hesitate to contact me.

PS. Don't forget that it's always cheaper for you to get your phone online than going directly to your local Verizon, Sprint or T-Mobile store. Click on the link below to see how you too can benefit for these amazing online rates.

http://www.cellphonedoc.com/

View the original article here

New '3-D' transistors promising future chips, lighter laptops

 Researchers from Purdue and Harvard universities have created a new type of transistor made from a material that could replace silicon and have a 3-D structure instead of conventional flat computer chips.

The approach could enable engineers to build faster, more compact and efficient integrated circuits and lighter laptops that generate less heat than today's. The transistors contain tiny nanowires made not of silicon, like conventional transistors, but from a material called indium-gallium-arsenide.

The device was created using a so-called "top-down" method, which is akin to industrial processes to precisely etch and position components in transistors. Because the approach is compatible with conventional manufacturing processes, it is promising for adoption by industry, said Peide "Peter" Ye, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue.

A new generation of silicon computer chips, due to debut in 2012, will contain transistors having a vertical structure instead of a conventional flat design. However, because silicon has a limited "electron mobility" -- how fast electrons flow -- other materials will likely be needed soon to continue advancing transistors with this 3-D approach, Ye said.

Indium-gallium-arsenide is among several promising semiconductors being studied to replace silicon. Such semiconductors are called III-V materials because they combine elements from the third and fifth groups of the periodic table.

"Industry and academia are racing to develop transistors from the III-V materials," Ye said. "Here, we have made the world's first 3-D gate-all-around transistor on much higher-mobility material than silicon, the indium-gallium-arsenide."

Findings will be detailed in a paper to be presented during the International Electron Devices Meeting on Dec. 5-7 in Washington, D.C. The work is led by Purdue doctoral student Jiangjiang Gu; Harvard doctoral student Yiqun Liu; Roy Gordon, Harvard's Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Chemistry; and Ye.

Transistors contain critical components called gates, which enable the devices to switch on and off and to direct the flow of electrical current. In today's chips, the length of these gates is about 45 nanometers, or billionths of a meter. However, in 2012 industry will introduce silicon-based 3-D transistors having a gate length of 22 nanometers.

"Next year if you buy a computer it will have the 22-nanometer gate length and 3-D silicon transistors," Ye said.

The 3-D design is critical because the 22-nanometer gate lengths will not work in a flat design.

"Once you shrink gate lengths down to 22 nanometers on silicon you have to do more complicated structure design," Ye said. "The ideal gate is a necklike, gate-all-around structure so that the gate surrounds the transistor on all sides."

The nanowires are coated with a "dielectric," which acts as a gate. Engineers are working to develop transistors that use even smaller gate lengths, 14 nanometers, by 2015.

However, further size reductions beyond 14 nanometers and additional performance improvements are likely not possible using silicon, meaning new designs and materials will be needed to continue progress, Ye said.

"Nanowires made of III-V alloys will get us to the 10 nanometer range," he said.

The new findings confirmed that the device made using a III-V material has the potential to conduct electrons five times faster than silicon.

Creating smaller transistors also will require finding a new type of insulating layer essential for the devices to switch off. As gate lengths shrink smaller than 14 nanometers, the silicon dioxide insulator used in conventional transistors fails to perform properly and is said to "leak" electrical charge.

One potential solution to this leaking problem is to replace silicon dioxide with materials that have a higher insulating value, or "dielectric constant," such as hafnium dioxide or aluminum oxide.

In the new work, the researchers applied a dielectric coating made of aluminum oxide using a method called atomic layer deposition. Because atomic layer deposition is commonly used in industry, the new design may represent a practical solution to the coming limits of conventional silicon transistors.

Using atomic layer deposition might enable engineers to design transistors having thinner oxide and metal layers for the gates, possibly consuming far less electricity than silicon devices.

"A thinner dielectric layer means speed goes up and voltage requirements go down," Ye said.

The work is funded by the National Science Foundation and the Semiconductor Research Corp. and is based at the Birck Nanotechnology Center in Purdue's Discovery Park. The latest research is similar to, but fundamentally different from, research reported by Ye's group in 2009. That work involved a design called a finFET, for fin field-effect transistor, which uses a finlike structure instead of the conventional flat design. The new design uses nanowires instead of the fin design.

Recommend this story on Facebook, Twitter,
and Google +1:

Other bookmarking and sharing tools:

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Purdue University. The original article was written by Emil Venere.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

View the original article here

Future Benefits Of 4G Technology For Smartphones Users

As smartphones increase in power and capability, user demand rises also. With the world full of consumers demanding more and more out of their hand held devices, there are certain bottlenecks and limitations that are currently not advancing as everyone would wish. So prepare for 4G connection speeds.

At the moment there are limitations in the capacity of data allowances and battery life. For day to day activities the battery life is an aspect of mobile technology that has fallen behind and currently limits the usage and ability to travel without a charger. Also, all current network providers are limiting the capacity of their current 3G systems. The days of dial-up connections and slowly loading pages are over and consumers expectations are high.

As it stands there's not much availability for 4G at the moment but it's a technology that in a few years every phone will be compatible with and each network provider will offer a much improved service over the current 3G connection speeds. Currently, there are around 8-10 networks providing LTE services, across Europe, North America.

LTE is short for Long Term Evolution and is considered the successor to 3G. But currently is still in the pre-3G stage, but will soon be upgraded to LTE Advanced to offer the full 4G experience. Although LTE is currently available in USA, Britain is hoped to receive this type of service in 2012, this is when the LTE radio spectrum is up for auction. The rival to LTE is WiMAX, which has been very successful in being implemented in emerging markets where there is a lack of mobile infrastructure.

Benefits Of 4G For Mobile Users:

The major benefit and advantage 4G has over the current 3G is speed. With expectations of over 10 times faster network speeds. Allowing users to consume data and information at a much faster rate. Increasing the possibility of the activities currently available with smartphones. Such as using the network speeds much like you would at home or at work, with an expected 5-12mbps download speed. Therefore increasing flexibility and freedom to get access online whenever required because 4G operates in the 700MHz spectrum. This means the signal can penetrate buildings much more easily. Therefore, eliminating the current problem of lost signals when in certain buildings and locations.

Plus, latency on the 4G network is expected to be greatly reduced. By utilising faster throughput with lower latency each and every mobile device can benefit from improved battery performance. Helping carry out daily activities much less of a worry, whether venturing on long trips and not worrying about battery life to making cheap calls to USA or anywhere else in the world, and many other activities that were once a worry will hopefully be resolved with increased battery life when carrying out different tasks.

But beware, all phones will be limited to the networks their available to. As of yet there is little use for fully fledged 4G phones because of such little support form the networks. Therefore it may not be until the next smartphone next upgrade that it should be in place and operational.

Harvey McEwan writes to offer information and advice on a variety of areas, from technology to holiday destinations. Read through Harvey's other articles here to find out more.

View the original article here

New components for future computer memories

ScienceDaily (Nov. 3, 2011) — The European TRAMS (terascale reliable adaptive memory systems) consortium funded under FP7 investigates the impact of statistical NanoCMOS variability on terascale embedded static random-access memories (SRAMs) based on sub-16 nm technology generation using conventional and novel complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) devices.

The statistical variability introduced by the discreteness of charge and matter has become a major obstacle to scaling and integration. Its impact on embedded memories is particularly dramatic, as its slows down supply voltage scaling (particularly for SRAMs) and threatens the continuation of area scaling that helps drive integration targets for systems on chip.

Concerns regarding the area of SRAM cells and power supply scaling are major drivers behind the revolutionary introduction of FinFET devices. TRAMS is striving to understand the implications of FinFET technology for the continuation of CMOS scaling as projected by Moore's law.

This year, TRAMS completed an important milestone by analysing in minute detail the statistical variability in a 10 nm-channel length FinFET on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrate using advanced statistical technology computer-aided design (TCAD) simulation. The FinFETs are carefully designed to meet the requirements of the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) for 11-nm CMOS technology generation. The simulations have been carried out using unique simulation technology that takes into account the major known sources of statistical variability and reliability, including random discrete dopants, the gate and the fin line edge roughness, the metal gate variability and bias temperature instability effects (e.g., NBTI/PBTI).

The results of the physical simulations have been captured in accurate statistical compact models by the TRAMS partners. These models are being used to evaluate the impact of statistical FinFET variability on the design of 11-nm embedded memories and to develop circuit and system countermeasures that will make future embedded memories resilient to statistical variability and reliability.

Recommend this story on Facebook, Twitter,
and Google +1:

Other bookmarking and sharing tools:

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), via AlphaGalileo.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

View the original article here