IT-Code-News: IT News Head Lines (AnandTech) 31/07/2011

Motorola Droid 3 Review - Third Time's a Charm
If ever a product has summed up the progression of the Android ecosystem, it’s the Motorola Droid. The first Droid catapulted Android into the mainstream with its first 2.x release, and since then the Droid itself has seen a yearly update cadence that honestly has shown no sign of stopping. The updates thus far track the trends that we’ve seen affect the Android ecosystem as a whole - newer and better versions of Android alongside ever increasing SoC performance, display improvements, camera improvements, and refined hardware design.

I think that pretty much sums up what kind of update the Motorola Droid 3 (henceforth just Droid 3) is. It’s an iterative product launch, for sure, but that belies just how good the improvements all around really are. I noted a few of them already - the Droid 3 includes a dual core OMAP 4430 SoC, larger 4” qHD display, more internal storage, better camera, front facing camera, and most notably a much improved 5 row QWERTY keyboard. Read on for the full review.

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Samsung to Manufacture PS Vita SoC

A report in the (Japanese-language) Semiconductor Industry News today revealed that the quad-core Cortex A9 ARM SoC for Sony's upcoming Playstation Vita handheld would be manufactured by Samsung on a 45nm process. Samsung also supplies 45nm ARM processors for Apple (the A4 and A5) and other smartphone manufacturers.
The move to a relatively off-the-shelf ARM processor is a move away from the expensive proprietary chips that powered Sony's PS2, PSP, and PS3, and it allows Sony to make the Vita more cheaply (it also allows developers to port code more easily from other ARM devices, like smartphones). This is an important move, since it allows Sony to compete more effectively with Apple and Nintendo - the latter, perhaps feeling the pressure from the Vita's impending launch, announced a substantial price cut to its 3DS handheld yesterday.
The Playstation Vita succeeds the PlayStation Portable and is due out at some point this holiday season in Japan and North America. Its announced price is $249.99, $20 more than Apple's low-end iPod Touch and $80 more than Nintendo's 3DS.
Source: Semiconductory Industry News

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AT&T Officially Confirms Throttling Plans for Heaviest Users
There has been considerable talk and rumor in the last week about AT&T considering throttling the heaviest users on its 3G networks. Turns out those rumors were true, as AT&T has just announced that it will begin throttling offending users starting October 1.

Starting October 1, smartphone customers with unlimited data plans may experience reduced speeds once their usage in a billing cycle reaches the level that puts them among the top 5 percent of heaviest data users. These customers can still use unlimited data and their speeds will be restored with the start of the next billing cycle. Before you are affected, we will provide multiple notices, including a grace period.

We've suspected that such a move would be inevitable, and largely marks the start of AT&T's push to begin selling services on speed tiers in addition to data buckets with its forthcoming LTE network rollout. The network already shapes HSUPA traffic to 1.5 Mbps or less in most markets. AT&T curiously notes in its throttling announcement that only a successful merger with T-Mobile will address its spectrum challenges in the short term.

Nothing short of completing the T-Mobile merger will provide additional spectrum capacity to address these near term challenges.

Unlimited data plan subscribers will see no changes until the new policies kick on in October. AT&T has yet to provide specifics about what throughput throttled/offending users will see until the end of their billing cycles, or a specific amount of bandwidth that will toggle the throttling. Hopefully such information is forthcoming, as ambiguous and selectively enforced rules only frustrate users. For comparison, T-Mobile limits users after 5 GB to around 256 kilobits/second. One thing is for certain, this author is going to likely experience firsthand what kind of throttled speeds users get saddled with sometime around October 15.
Source: AT&T

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The Summer of Honeycomb, Part 3: Win a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1
It's the Summer of Honeycomb and we now have two lucky readers who have won Eee Pad Transformers thanks to our friends at NVIDIA. Congrats to AnandTech reader unbellum for winning our second Eee Pad Transformer. Be sure to respond to my email to claim your prize! If you didn't win this time, don't worry - there are still two more chances to win.

With our Eee Pad stock depleted, we're switching over to the Galaxy Tab 10.1 as our giveaway this weekend. Read on for entry details!

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Ask the Experts, Enterprise & Cloud Computing: Answers part 2
Last year we ran a little series called Ask the Experts where you all wrote in your virtualization related questions and we got them answered by experts at Intel, VMWare as well as our own expert on all things Enterprise & Cloud Computing - Johan de Gelas.

Read on for the final installment of Johan's answers to your questions!

Sunday, July 31, 2011

IT News Head Lines (AnandTech) 31/07/2011

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