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[Kinitari]

I would pick the N1 over everything, and if it was on Verizon I might have gone that route, despite preferring the physical keyboard. The trackball pisses a lot of people off (scared to put in pocket, gets dirty, faulty input with age or possibly breaks altogether) in the dawn of optical pads, but whatever, N1 is hot.

The Droid is awesome though, and I wouldn't regret choosing it over a Legend, which isn't even snapdragon or as big of a screen as the Droid anyway.

I would get the desire in a best case scenario, but I don't have all that many options. Or money, I really shouldn't be spending money.

 

[Solideliquid]

If the N1 was on Verizon with a subsidized price, I would get it in a heartbeat.

I to was looking forward to upgrading from the droid to N1 on verizon and now I'm hearing the incredible has reception and battery issues. Plus, incredible won't get froyo for who knows how long now because of the verizon/sense combo.

Maybe it's time to get an early release from the droid army... on June 7.

 

[Macho Madness]

I to was looking forward to upgrading from the droid to N1 on verizon and now I'm hearing the incredible has reception and battery issues. Plus, incredible won't get froyo for who knows how long now because of the verizon/sense combo.

Maybe it's time to get an early release from the droid army... on June 7.

I hear ya, that's my exact plan and a lot of it has to do with this ridiculous fragmentation.

 

[Solideliquid]

I hear ya, that's my exact plan and a lot of it has to do with this ridiculous fragmentation.

Not that the N1 is a perfect device either! Trouble with the screen, as well as the touch sensative buttons make it an iffy device.


Edit: also, getting an incredible out of contract, compared to paying the ETF and paying $199 for new ATT iPhone = same money!

 

[Zozz]

From what I hear, HTC has had Sense running on 2.2, they we're going to do so for the EVO but they couldn't upstage the Nexus One and Google. Really don't know why Google is taking their time on this.

 

[Solideliquid]

From what I hear, HTC has had Sense running on 2.2, they we're going to do so for the EVO but they couldn't upstage the Nexus One and Google. Really don't know why Google is taking their time on this.

I don't believe it. HTC just sitting on sense 2.2 ready to go? Yeaaaah...

 

[ThatObviousUser]

Kinda disappointed in the lack of Chrome OS news, aside from the web store which I'm really excited for. Was hoping the first couple pieces of hardware would be shown.

 

[gcubed]

Not that the N1 is a perfect device either! Trouble with the screen, as well as the touch sensative buttons make it an iffy device.


Edit: also, getting an incredible out of contract, compared to paying the ETF and paying $199 for new ATT iPhone = same money!

touch sensitive buttons looked fantastic during the demo, hoping its fixed with the N1 OTA update in a week or two

and andrex, i think that chromeOS is one of those things that needs a real good base before they start throwing hardware at it... the apps was a really good start.

 

[ThatObviousUser]

The base is built - it's Chrome and will use Chrome Extensions and Chrome Web Store. And if it uses Chrome 6+, it's going to have both of those synced to your Google Account. So basically, you sign into any Chrome OS device and it's instantly like you're using your own Chrome OS device or Chrome browser on your PC.

I really don't think hardware really matters for Chrome OS. It's gonna be Atom or Snapdragon, hovering aroun 1 GHz, with 1-2 GB of RAM, and possibly touch screen functionality and/or 3G capability. That's about the baseline for Chrome OS, and for a stripped-down streamlined OS focused on just running the web, that's almost more than enough. Not many websites are going to max that out.

 

[Fatalah]

I to was looking forward to upgrading from the droid to N1 on verizon and now I'm hearing the incredible has reception and battery issues. Plus, incredible won't get froyo for who knows how long now because of the verizon/sense combo.

Maybe it's time to get an early release from the droid army... on June 7.

Battery complaints are mainly coming from people who've never owned a smartphone before. (And those who run "advanced task killer", thinking they're doing themselves a favor)

No reception issues here either.

But yes, it would be cool to have the official Google Phone on Verizon. In the end, Verizon really has to curb fragmentation of Android, as we all know. Do it Chrome browser style!

When I install Chrome for a person who's not computer savvy, I never have to worry about the vulnerabilities of running an old browser version. Auto-update is a good feature for these people.

 

[Solideliquid]

What I don't understand is why it took Verizon three months to release 2.1 on Droid when the mod community had it out much sooner. Why take so long? They can't be that incompetent can they?

Another point is the Droid was six months young when 2.1 hit and we only got three home-screens and no 3D launcher. The 3GS is a YEAR old when 4.0 hits and gets everything 4.0 has to offer.

Edit: I'm really interested in seeing how AT&T and T-Mobile react to the tethering and mobile hotspot options in 2.2.

 

[tokkun]

What I don't understand is why it took Verizon three months to release 2.1 on Droid when the mod community had it out much sooner. Why take so long? They can't be that incompetent can they?

Carriers have to thoroughly test updates because if they cause problems for customers' phones or the network they could stand to lose a lot of money and have to deal with a lot of angry customers. The mod community has no such liability and simply says "use it at your own risk". The fact that they take the time to test software before releasing it shows more competence.

 

[Flying_Phoenix]

Does Google have a media device that uses the Android OS? You know similar to how Apple has the iPod Touch as oppose to the iPhone?

 

[Hawkian]

Does Google have a media device that uses the Android OS? You know similar to how Apple has the iPod Touch as oppose to the iPhone?

Google didn't actually make any devices itself before the Nexus One (and really, it was just another HTC Android phone sold directly by Google).

However, the Archos line of media devices is probably what you're looking for.

 

[Zombie James]

http://www.streamingmedia.com/Artic.../First-Look-H.264-and-VP8-Compared-67266.aspx
http://www.quavlive.com/video_codec_comparison

 

[Hawkian]

Looks like the difference is negligible?

 

[Mudkips]

http://www.quavlive.com/video_codec_comparison

7500 kbps and 15000 kbps comparisons?
:lol those are insane bitrates for anything VP8 is likely to be used for.

And no, they don't look the same. Difference isn't negligible, especially considering how much bitrate was thrown at those two scenes. x264 wins hands down.

Load up both full size images in 2 tabs and toggle between them to see the differences easily.
Be warned, once you see them you can't unsee them.

That said VP8 did a lot better on the flower than on the park.

 

[Raydeen]

Be thankful you don't have a X10...we have to have a petition to get around Sony's lameness. :lol http://www.xperiax10.net/2010/05/24/petition-started-for-froyo-update-on-xperia-x10/ - what a fucking disaster, typical Sony - great hardware, shit software support. Please let the root gods be generous to us - I don't know why Sony don't go the easy route... 'leak' the access to X10 - let the hackerz and coderz write in one month what it takes Sony to do in six and then pay 'em off for their code.

 

[ThatObviousUser]

Broadcom Accelerates WebM Video on Mobile Phones

Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM), a global leader in semiconductors for wired and wireless communications, today announced that its VideoCore(R) mobile multimedia processor family now supports the recently open-sourced WebM video format. VideoCore's unique programmable hardware accelerator architecture enables high quality, low power playback of WebM video content at full resolution, supporting even the most advanced smart-feature and smartphone displays. With hardware accelerated mobile WebM support, consumers will be able to playback a broader spectrum of Internet video content on handsets at higher quality and lower power.

For reference, Broadcom is twice as big as Nvidia and almost as big as AMD (by revenue.)

---

Intel eyes hardware acceleration for Google's WebM

"Just like we did with other codecs like MPEG2, H.264 & VC1, if VP8 establishes itself in the Smart TV space, we will add it to our [hardware] decoders," said Wilfred Martis, general manager for retail consumer electronics at Intel's Digital Home Group.

Intel is working with Google to bring Internet video to TV sets through the Google TV platform, which will blend broadcast TV and Internet content into one interface. Google will supply the software, and the service will be available later this year in some Sony high-definition TVs and Blu-ray DVD players, for which Intel will supply the highly optimized Atom CE4100 chip.

Intel declined to comment on how the lack of hardware acceleration in the CE4100 chips will affect the Google TV project. Google owns YouTube, which is one of the largest video sites on the Internet.

Intel's CE4100 TV chips will be able to decode and play back WebM files using software, Martis said. However, hardware acceleration could provide higher-quality video through faster decoding while consuming less power.

If Intel wants to keep Google happy in their Google TV deal, they'll eventually add it. I expect they'll announce hardware acceleration before the next Google I/O.

 

[SimleuqiR]

Wow! That Broadcom news is huge!

 

[ThatObviousUser]

Wow! That Broadcom news is huge!

Indeed. By the time the first Gingerbread (which will support WebM in the stock browser) handsets start showing up hopefully it'll be ready to go.

I don't know if something like that can be patched to an existing device, though.

 

[ThatObviousUser]

Some more WebM news...

Google switches WebM to a fully BSD license, compatible with GPL 2 and 3.

As it was originally written, if a patent action was brought against Google, the patent license terminated. This provision itself is not unusual in an OSS license, and similar provisions exist in the 2nd Apache License and in version 3 of the GPL. The twist was that ours terminated "any" rights and not just rights to the patents, which made our license GPLv3 and GPLv2 incompatible. Also, in doing this, we effectively created a potentially new open source copyright license, something we are loath to do.

Using patent language borrowed from both the Apache and GPLv3 patent clauses, in this new iteration of the patent clause we've decoupled patents from copyright, thus preserving the pure BSD nature of the copyright license. This means we are no longer creating a new open source copyright license, and the patent grant can exist on its own. Additionally, we have updated the patent grant language to make it clearer that the grant includes the right to modify the code and give it to others. (We've updated the licensing FAQ to reflect these changes as well.)

A lot of folks seem really pleased by this from what I've been reading. Good.

---​

VLC adds support for playing WebM videos in the latest release candidate.

The release of a standalone player for WebM video represents a significant step for the adoption of the new video format. Up until now, users had to download special nightly builds of Firefox, Chrome or Opera to play WebM videos on their systems, and not everyone is committed to running what can essentially be considered an unstable browser version on their machine. VLC’s website also warns visitors that the new release candidate is “aimed at power-users,” but the release will undoubtedly also get some traction with people simply curious about WebM.

The developers of Miro recently released a new version of their Miro Video Converter that can be used to covert various video formats into WebM, so there’s little stopping end users from playing with the new format.

Though in the same release they're finally enabling GPU acceleration for H.264, so it may be a while before that happens to WebM as well. We need the hardware manufacturers to start prepping drivers for what's out there now, then worry about adding it to future products later.

Anyways that last bit about Miro... if it's as amazing as it claims, why haven't I heard of it until now? Can't wait to try it out.

 

[Zombie James]

Anyways that last bit about Miro... if it's as amazing as it claims, why haven't I heard of it until now? Can't wait to try it out.

Hmm...

 

[Mudkips]

I'm on AT&T.
Where's my Froyo OTA update?

 

[ThatObviousUser]

WebM natively comes to FFmpeg

Since FFmpeg’s native VP3/Theora and Vorbis decoders (these are video/audio codecs praised by free software advocates) already perform better than the ones provided by Xiph (libvorbis/libtheora), it is highly likely that our native VP8 decoder will (once properly optimized) also perform better than Google’s libvpx. The pattern here is that since each libXYZ has to reinvent its own wheel, they’ll always fall short of reaching the top. FFmpeg comes closer simply because our existing wheels are like what you’d want on your next sports car.

This is pretty big news for reasons I somehow can't quantify. :lol Just trust me.