AT&T, Qualcomm focus on easier development of industrial and health apps

LAS VEGAS -- AT&T and Qualcomm jointly announced a new development platform Monday based on a Qualcomm Gobi chipset to be used to build industrial and health care apps and embedded devices on Java to connect to AT&T 's 3G cellular network in the U.S.

The companies said the platform, called the Internet of Everything (IoE), will be made available to developers in the second quarter of 2013.

The platform relies on the new Qualcomm QSC6270-Turbo chipset and supports Oracle's Java ME Embedded 3.2 developer tool, the companies said in a statement.

The announcement is important to developers who are building cellular-connected products and applications in tracking, industrial controls and health care, the companies said.

"Wireless connectivity makes products better, and this IoE development platform makes it easier for both existing and new AT&T developers to embed wireless into their products," said Chris Penrose, senior vice president of emerging devices for AT&T.

Using the new chipset, developers can also customize and optimize printed circuit boards for end-products without the need for added processors to cut down costs, the companies said.

Overall, the IoE development platform provides on-board sensors and indicators, such as an accelerometer, light sensor and temperature sensors. The platform supports tri-band cellular UMTS/HSDPA and quad-band GSM, as well as 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi for 802.11a/b/g/n through an added Qualcomm Atheros module.

More details are expected to be provided at the AT&T Developer Summit being held here a day before the official start of the International CES trade show on Tuesday.

The summit also traditionally includes announcements of new smartphones and devices that AT&T expects to sell in coming months.

Nvidia unveils Tegra 4 processor, first quad-core Cortex-A15 chip

Nvidia has unveiled its Tegra 4 processor, a chip that will bring consumers more power in mobile devices and help Nvidia remain competitive in the fast moving mobile market.

The Tegra 4 is based on ARM's quad-core Cortex-A15 processor and also packs in 72 graphics processing unit cores.

"This thing is flooded with GPU cores," said Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang.

Those processing cores will provide consumers with faster performance, but pre-launch speculation about the chip had centered on whether portable devices really need more processing power.

Huang sought to address that issue during a demonstration on stage when he pitted a Nexus 10 tablet, which he called "the fastest tablet in the world today," against a Tegra 4-based tablet. The two tablets were set to load 25 high-traffic web sites: the Tegra 4 did it in 27 seconds and the Nexus 10 tablet in 50 seconds.

That works out to an average page load time of one second versus two seconds, so consumers can decide for themselves if they really need to save that second.

Huang also showed other tricks that could be done with the faster chip, such as HDR (high-dynamic range) photography. HDR combines a series of photographs taken at different exposure settings to provide a wider dynamic range and is processor intensive. The iPhone 5 takes about 2 seconds to capture an HDR image, said Huang, while the Tegra 4 can snap two shots almost simultaneously and combine them.

"It basically is a one-shot HDR," he said. "Whatever you can take with one exposure, you can now take in HDR."

The new chip is important if Nvidia is to remain competitive in the smartphone and tablet computer marketplace.

Its previous chip, the Tegra 3, scored some notable successes, including in smartphones from HTC and LG, and tablets such as Google's Nexus 7, Microsoft Surface and Asus's Transformer. But the chip was produced on a 40-nanometer semiconductor production process.

Rival Qualcomm has already moved to a more advanced 28nm process for its Snapdragon S4, which competes with the Tegra.

The nanometer measurement indicates the smallest feature on the surface of the chip, and each jump in technology brings advantages for consumers. Newer production processes mean lower power consumption and smaller chips, or more performance in a chip of any given size.

So chips manufactured on a more advanced production line can be attractive to device makers. Snapdragon's growing influence in the smartphone and tablet space is one of the factors pushing Nvidia to upgrade its Tegra chip.

Facebook app to allow free voice calls to friends

Facebook is preparing to launch a new feature for its Messenger app which allows users of the social networking site to place free voice calls to friends.


The feature is so far available only to smartphone users in Canada and is buried within the latest update to the app, but it will eventually allow users to make free internet voice calls, known as VoIP calls, to any Facebook friend.

Experts are saying it represents an attempt by the world's largest social network to dominate the social world by taking on the default calling function in mobile phones, the 'Daily Mail' reported.

The new feature comes at the same time as Facebook Messenger rolled out a new feature worldwide which allows users to record and send a voicemail-type message to friends.

Working in a similar way to video messaging in the company's Poke app, users press and hold a red record button, speak their message, and it appears in line as part of the conversation.

TechCrunch writer Josh Constine imagines a range of uses for the function, from messaging while driving to recording the waves lapping at a beach to send to friends.

However, its addition to the Messenger app seems merely to make it an 'even more complete app' he writes, adding that he expects video messaging to soon be added as well.

One-tenth the size of the US, but with very similar demographics and mobile usage trends, Facebook is using Canada as a testing ground in advance of rolling out the feature in other markets, the paper said.

By clicking the 'i' icon in the top right of a conversation in the most recent update to Messenger, usersreveal a 'free call' button which allows them to contact any
friend also within the test region.

However, while Facebook is not charging users for the service, the call is not technically free since it will use data on users' existing mobile plans.

TechCrunch said that the move into voice messaging and VoIP can be seen as an attempt by the social network to take on the default, mobile network operated calling function on smartphones.

Use Your Smartphone As Car Key

The NFC technology could be used to unlock the car by waving your phone.

Many of us have seen, how a smartphone can be used as a car key but never been able to use it on practical front. And after a lot of effort, Hyundai has been able utilise NFC (Near field communication) to convert a smartphone into car key.
Rather than using Bluetooth, the system uses wireless Near Field Communication (NFC), allowing you to lock and unlock the car by waving your phone over a small tag on the car window. Hyundai has demonstrated this concept on a Hyundai's popular i30 in Germany, the smartphone integration technology will be available to car buyers in two years, according to a report on carsguide.au.
The system can also store in-car preferences, including radio stations, seating positions and even mirror adjustment - with multiple profiles able to be saved for different drivers. If Hyundai has its way then the thought of attempting to integrate smartphone and car key, will not merely be known for its innovation but could also be used in the near future.

Apart from the NFC-based smartphone key, Hyundai is also looking to utilise the smartphone system on cars to improve reversing cameras and lane departure alert systems with similar technology.

Chrome 25 will disable 'silently installed' extensions

All Chrome extensions installed using offline methods will be disabled until the users decide otherwise, Google says

Starting with version 25 of Google Chrome, browser extensions installed offline by other applications will not be enabled until users give their permission through a dialog box in the browser interface.
At the moment developers have several options to install extensions offline -- not using the browser interface -- in Google Chrome for Windows. One of them involves adding special entries in the Windows registry that tell Chrome that a new extension has been installed and should be enabled.
"This feature was originally intended to allow users to opt-in to adding a useful extension to Chrome as a part of the installation of another application," Peter Ludwig, Google's product manager of Chrome Extensions, said Friday in a blog spot "Unfortunately, this feature has been widely abused by third parties to silently install extensions into Chrome without proper acknowledgment from users."
In order to prevent this type of abuse, starting with Chrome 25, the browser will automatically disable all previously installed "external" extensions and will present users with a one-time dialog box to choose which ones they want to re-enable.
In addition, all extensions that are installed using the offline methods will be disabled by default and the user will be asked if they want to enable them when the browser is restarted.
In July, Google stopped allowing Chrome extensions to be installed from third-party websites, restricting online installations only to extensions found in the official Chrome Web Store
This made it harder for attackers to distribute malicious extensions, but didn't prevent malware from installing rogue Chrome extensions on an already compromised system using the offline methods. The upcoming Chrome 25 changes aim to address that.