Common Paradox Tech Blog

Mobile forms tend to have significantly more constraints than their desktop cousins: screens are smaller; connections are slower; text entry is trickier; the list goes on. So, limiting the number of forms in your mobile applications and websites is generally a good idea. When you do want input from users on mobile devices, radio buttons, checkboxes, select menus and lists tend to work much better than open text fields.

But constraints breed innovation, and mobile forms are no different. The limitations of mobile devices have forced developers and designers to find new ways to allow users to input data faster and more easily. Thanks to the modern solutions covered in this article, the mobile space may not be a place to avoid forms much longer. Instead, it may become the place to encourage them.

Get ready to toss your gaming console out a window. Well, maybe not, but according to Imagination Technologies you might be carrying a phone as powerful as a PS3 in three years. Imagination makes the PowerVR mobile graphics chips found in phones like the iPhone and the Droid among others. The chips are licensed to hardware makers that must incorporate them into hardware. This takes about three years from start to finish. That bit about the PS3 level graphics? They know because they’re developing that chip right now.

Imagination claims that this level of performance will be possible with the usage of multiple processing units. In theory, three to four can be added to a phone without causing too much more power draw. Current PowerVR chips have the theoretical potential to do hardware accelerated Flash and GPGPU computing. Imagination say that internal tests have shown a 300% increase in Flash performance when hardware accelerated. Yeah, we’ll take that.

Let’s hope that Imagination Technologies was being straight here. Of course, much of this relies on hardware makers using the chips. But if the near future holds 720p gaming on our mobile phones, flying cars and jetpacks can’t be far behind… right?

Image via Gizmodo

HP could soon find itself in court, as over 100 Chinese consumers are none too happy with what they claim are faulty laptops, a lawyer for the group said this week.

According to Reuters, Jiang Suhua, a lawyer at Yingke Law Firm in Bejing, claims the problems have to do with overheating videocards ultimately causing the laptops to malfunction. Suhua said there are about 170 complaints so far for a problem that apparently dates back to 2007.

"Yes, we can bring it to court, but right now it has not reached that state," Suhua said.

HP says it had a program in November 2007 to offer a free repair to anyone with an affected laptop, but the OEM stopped short of commenting on this specific complaint.

Image Credit: greenpeace.org

As 2009 came to a close, the top five PC makers each held their position, but it’s the battle for second place that’s particularly interesting. According to iSuppli, Acer grew by 21 percent in 2009, ending the year with 38.5 million shipments, up from 31.8 million in 2008. No other top five PC maker enjoyed more growth.

Meanwhile, Dell was the only top five vendor to post a decline in shipments for the year, dropping 9.9 percent from 43.3 million PCs to 38.96 million. That means Dell shipped enough to maintain a lead over Acer as the second largest PC vendor, but only by a hair (0.2 percent).

"Acer’s 2009 success was driven by the notebook PC market," said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst, compute platforms research, for iSuppli. "Notebooks accounted for nearly 80 percent of Acer’s shipments ni 2009. This allowed the company to capitalize on the fast-growing mobile-computing segment while limiting its exposure to the moribund desktop segment."

Acer may have already leapfrogged ahead of Dell by now (we won’t know until the quarterly numbers are tallied), but even if it hasn’t, given the continued growth of notebooks, we fully expect Acer to stand in the No. 2 spot by the end of the year. Watch out HP.

An unsuspecting Vodafone customer got quite a nasty surprise when she got her new HTC Magic (MyTouch 3G in the states). Upon plugging it into her Windows PC, Panda Antivirus sounded the alarm. It turns out that the new phone contained several malware programs including an installer for the Mariposa botnet.

This wasn’t just any poor soul, lost in the wilds of technology though. Nope, the victim of this sneak attack works for Panda Security. As you can imagine, her coworkers were terribly interested in the phone. Closer examination showed an autorun.inf and autorun.exe that would load the malware on any PC the phone was plugged into. Panda confirmed that the botnet was active, and when installed the software “phoned home” for instructions. They also found a Confiker variant and a password stealer.

Vodafone recently discontinued the Magic, so after current stocks are sold out no one will need fear the phone baddies. Well, until the next time this happens. So how did a Spanish hacker group get their malware on this phone? And more importantly, are more phones affected? It seems unlikely there was just one infected phone, and that it happened to be sold to a Panda employee.

Arrandale is proving to be quite the popular platform of late, with the newest entry coming from MSI. We’re talking about the X-Slim X360, which the company claims offers up to 9 hours of battery life.

Underneath the 13-inch hood sits an Intel Core i5-520UM processor, Intel HM55 chipset, up to 4GB of DDR2 memory, up to a 500GB hard drive, 2-in-1 memory card reader, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 1.3MP webcam, HDMI, two USB 2.0 ports, and either a 4-cell or 8-cell battery.

In an attempt to combine style with portability, MSI touts its exclusive rhombic pattern and Color Film Print, along with an ultraportable chassis measuring less than 1-inch thick and weighing just over 3 pounds.

No word yet on price or availability.

Image Credit: MSI

MSI on Monday announced the availability of its "2010 iF Product Design Award Winning" Wind U160 netbook. This is MSI’s second netbook built around Intel’s Pine Trail platform, and taking full advantage of the new spec, the company claims you can expect up to 15 hours of run time when in MSI’s exclusive ECO mode.

Everything you’d expect from a modern netbook is included, such as a 10-inch backlit LED display, Intel Atom N450 processor, 1GB of DDR2 memory, a 6-cell battery, Bluetooth, Windows 7 Starter, and a 6-cell battery. It also comes with EasyFace facial recognition security software.

Where MSI looks to separate the U160 from the spate of Pine Trail netbooks is in its physical design.

"Abandoning the traditional clamshell form, the Wind U160 ushers in a new era of netbook design," MSI said. "From the illuminated MSI logo on the netbook’s outer surface to the power button placed on the U160’s cylindrical hinge, the newest Wind model sports a slim new footprint. Just 0.98 inches at its widest point, the U160 is the thinnest Wind model to date."

The Wind U160 is available now for $380 at Fry’s, Newegg.com, and Buy.com.

Image Credit: MSI