Both Samsung and Apple may be eyeing a new waterproofing technology for the companies’ next-generation smartphones. The technology, called HzO, creates a nano-scale film barrier with a special water repelling properties that is applied to the inside of a device. Rather than having consumers use a case or sealant, the technology is applied during the manufacturing process. At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, ZAGG, the company marketing the technology, applied HzO to a number of devices and...

During the Consumer Electronics Show, Samsung announced that the company is working on merging its Bada mobile operating system with the open-source Tizen operating system. “We have an effort that will merge bada and Tizen,” said Tae-Jin Kan, senior vice president of Samsung’s Contents Planning Team, in an interview with Forbes. While he wasn’t aware when the work would be complete, Kang indicated that is has already begun. Read on for more. (more…)

At the Consumer Electronics Show on Thursday, Texas Instruments showed off the company’s OMAP 5 chipset in a reference platform running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. The 28nm system on a chip (SOC) features a dual-core ARM Cortex A15 CPU, 2MB L2 cache, a PowerVR SGX 544MP2 GPU and a dual-channel LPDDR2-533 memory interface. The OMAP 5 supports 24 and 20-megapixel cameras for front and rear 3D HD video recording. It also supports up to 8GB of dual channel DDR3 memory, and includes 3 USB 2.0 ports ...

The Consumer Electronics Show is one of the biggest technology trade shows in the world, and this year’s CES was as big as it has ever been. It was estimated that between 140,000 and 150,000 people attended the show in Las Vegas this week — CES’s record stands at 149,529, achieved last year — and the show was as busy as we’ve ever seen it. Hundreds of companies touted thousands of gadgets and all of the big names were there showing off their upcoming wares. As is always the case, howeve...

Motorola Mobility had quite a presence at the Consumer Electronics Show this year. It launched two brand new high-end smartphones, the DROID 4 and the DROID RAZR MAXX, and Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha also announced that Motorola will become a partner with Intel for its new Medfield processors. The Motorola booth was packed with all of its new technology, as well as a number of products that launched earlier this year. There were even people riding bikes and running on treadmills to show off the company’s ex...

Last summer, Huawei’s MediaPad was one of the first manufactures to ship a device pre-loaded with Android 3.2 Honeycomb. The Chinese company is now attempting a similar strategy with the release of Ice Cream Sandwich. Existing models of the MediaPad will receive an Android 4.0 update by the end of the first quarter, and new MediaPads will come pre-loaded with the software beginning some time the first quarter. Additionally, the tablet will be offered in the current color scheme, and will add sh...

Google TV continues to make a decent impact at the Consumer Electronics Show. On Wednesday, Google and OnLive announced that the company’s streaming game service was coming to Google TV devices. OnLive delivers console-quality games that are synchronized, rendered, and stored on remote servers and then are streamed over the Internet. The service launched in 2010 and is available on Windows, OS X, Android and iOS operating systems. “With OnLive, the latest high-performance video games stream just as in...

Microsoft had a massive booth at the Consumer Electronics Show this year. It was home to brand new laptops, a huge array of Windows Phone devices, demo stations for Xbox 360 and SkyDrive, and plenty more. Sadly, however, there were no Windows 8 devices on display to give show-goers a closer look at Microsoft’s next-generation operating system. We love Windows Phone in its current state and it seems like we aren’t alone; there were tons of people gathered around the phones playing with them and it ...

On Tuesday, Intel announced that it was entering the smartphone space and that Lenovo will be the first vendor to introduce a smartphone powered by Intel’s Medfield processor. Intel also had its manufacturer reference design on display at CES however, which we had a chance to play with. The current device runs Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and felt just as fast as other high-end smartphones we’ve played with recently, such as the DROID RAZR MAXX. The device was extremely thin and is capable of taking ...

At the Consumer Electronics Show, Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt spoke about the idea of fragmentation in Android. Schmidt argued that while there is a “differentiation” between Android devices, it isn’t the same as fragmentation. “Differentiation is positive, fragmentation is negative,” said Schmidt. “Differentiation means that you have a choice and the people who are making the phones, they’re going to compete on their view of innovation, and they&...

We just met with Corning during CES in Las Vegas to check out its new Gorilla Glass 2 panels for smartphones and tablets. The new glass is 20% thinner than before, but just as strong and scratch resistant as the original Gorilla Glass. The thinner build will surely help manufacturers make smaller and lighter smartphones. We stayed to watch a pressure test, images of which are in the gallery below, and were impressed with the strength of the glass. Corning said that it’s already shipping the new panels t...

Imagination Technologies announced at the Consumer Electronics Show on Tuesday that the company’s next-generation PowerVR Series6 GPU core family will offer 20 times more performance over the current generation. Apple is a major shareholder in the company, and have used its chips in the iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, and the Apple TV. The PowerVR G6200 and G6400 GPU are the first in the Power VR Series6 GPU family and stand as a new benchmark for achieving high performance with low power consumption. The...

Motorola is known for the company’s rapid refresh rate on smartphones and tablets. Last fall, the DROID Bionic was released, two months later the DROID RAZR was released, and this week the DROID RAZR MAXX and DROID 4 were announced. Motorola has flooded the Android market with more releases than almost any other manufacturer, however things are about to change. During a roundtable event at the Consumer Electronics Show on Tuesday, Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha announced that the company plans to release fewe...

Viewsonic announced another addition to the company’s ViewPad tablet line at the Consumer Electronics Show on Tuesday, the ViewPad E70. The 7-inch tablet runs Google’s latest operating system, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, and features a 1GHz single-core processor, 4GB of storage, HDMI-out, and a front facing camera. While the specs may not outshine the competition, the $170 price tag absolutely has our attention. The ViewPad E70 is slated to be available late in the first quarter of this year. ...