ACTA has been rejected by the European Parliament, which voted on
Wednesday to put the final nail in the copyright enforcement treaty's
coffin — at least as far as Europe is concerned.
The Parliament
voted by 478 to 39 to reject the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a
move that means it cannot come into force anywhere within the EU. In
doing so, it followed the advice given to it by five parliamentary comitteees and heeded the massive public protests that were sparked by the treaty earlier this year.
The
EU and most of its member states did sign ACTA in January. However,
with such agreements, signatures have to be followed by parliamentary
ratification if they are to mean anything. In the EU, both the European
Parliament and every single member state had to ratify for it to come
into force. Not a single member state has ratified ACTA, and the
Parliament has now joined Poland and other states in flatly rejecting such ratification.
Whether
or not ACTA survives at all now likely depends on whether or not the US
ratifies it — there is some debate as to whether Congress or President
Obama gets to do this. Obama has previously endorsed the treaty, but now finds himself in an election year where the memory of the SOPA/PIPA defeat is still fresh in many activists' minds...
Sony has just announced two new handsets to their NXT series of Android Handsets
the Xperia P and the Xperia U, but if you were interested in a Sony
Android phone whose features are closer to that of the Xperia S, then
perhaps the Sony Xperia P could be the handset you are looking for.
Keeping in line with the rest of Sony’s NXT handsets, the Sony Xperia
P will sport a minimalist design with a precision crafted aluminum
body. It will sport a 4″ display that is powered by Sony’s “WhiteMagic”
technology, which will help with displaying images under bright
sunlight, but will also provide twice the level of brightness when
compared to other smartphones or so Sony claims.
Under the hood, the Xperia P will be powered by a 1GHz dual-core
processor under the hood with 16GB of internal storage, and it will also
sport an 8MP camera with Sony’s Exmor R sensor, a “fast capture”
feature which company boasts will allow the user to go from lock to
camera in a second, and the ability to capture Full HD 1080p quality
videos. The Xperia P will also come with a Smart Dock accessory,
therefore turning your device into a multimedia center. This isn’t
exactly new technology, but it will be interesting to see how Sony plans
to differentiate themselves from the competition.
Last but not least, the Xperia P will include NFC support that is
compatible with Xperia SmartTags, accessories which when used together
with the phone’s NFC function will launch a series of actions at once.
In the example used by Sony, imagine if you were to go for a run but
instead of launching an app one by one, tapping the Xperia P against the
SmartTag will launch all your preset apps at once. A handy feature, we
have to admit, and in a way they could thought of as macros.
The Sony Xperia P will come with Android 2.3 Gingerbread
preinstalled, but fret not as the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update
has been planned for the device. The phone will be available in three
different brushed aluminum finishes and is expected to roll out in Q2 of
2012. No specific dates were mentioned nor pricing, but we expect those
details to be made available further down the line, so check back with
us then if you think that the Sony Xperia P is the phone for you.
Huawei is the company that kicked off today’s series of Mobile World
Congress 2012 conferences and the WaVe@4 was there to provide some
details. First of all, we’ve found out the specs for 3 brand new
handsets from the Huawei Diamond series. I’m talking about the Huawei
Ascend D Quad, Ascend D Quad XL and the Ascend D1.
The Huawei Ascend D Quad is a 4.5 inch handset with an IPS screen
supporting a 1280 x 720 pixel resolution. This device relies on a Huawei
J3V2 quad core 1.2GHz processor, 1GB of RAM and 8GB storage, plus it
runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. It also comes with 5.1 surround
sound technology (Dolby Mobile 3.0 Plus) and an 8 megapixel camera with
BSI, AF and 1080p video capture. The same camera offers a dual LED flash
and HDR. The battery on board is a 1800 mAh unit and on the
connectivity side we get 3G with speeds of up to 21Mbps, plus Bluetooth
3.0 and WiFi b/g/n.
Huawei Ascend D Quad XL only brings a CPU bump to the previous model,
to 1.5GHz and a better battery , at 2.500 mAh. The rest of the specs is
exactly the same as the ones of the Ascend D Quad. Finally, there’s
also a dual core phone in the new Diamond series, the Huawei Ascend D1
model, with a dual core 1.5GHz CPU, Android 4.0, an IPS 4.5 inch HD
display, 8MP shooter with 1080p capture and a 1.670 mAh battery. It’s
strange that we didn’t see the Huawei MediaPad 10 tablet, that was
leaked on the web over the past week. Huawei also said that they expect to sell 60 million units this year
(outside China) and that they know networks better than anyone and can
increase the functioning time of batteries through faster network
reception. No info about the prices of these handsets just yet, but what
we know is that we’re supposed to expect a launch before summer. The
Asian company also announced that they came up with a more compact
display design thatn their rivals.
The Sony Xperia S does seem to be the go-getter kind ofsmartphone, having been spotted inbench mark tests that churned out some rather impressive figures – not to mention having it sport an anti-stain shell as well as a fast chare capability Late last month, the XPERIA S was also spotted over at the FCC, and we also went ahead with a demo of it at CES in Las Vegas this January. Here is a refresher Sony has packed in some pretty impressive hardware into the XPERIA S,
so here is a quick refresher course – we are looking at a 4.3” display
with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich as the operating system of choice
right out of the box, in addition to a 1280 × 720 “Reality Display” that
sports “Mobile Bravia Engine” for superior images. Sony also threw in a
Fastest Capture feature that boots up a “ready to shoot” camera app in a
mere 1.5 seconds, now what do you think of that? Expect the XPERIA S to
arrive in black or white shades later this year (Q2 is most likely).
Prior to MWC, there were rumors suggesting that Samsung would be coming up with a larger version of the Galaxy Note, the Galaxy Note 10.1 to be exact, and for those who were hoping to see a 10.1” tablet with
S-Pen support, you’re in luck as Samsung has officially taken the wraps
off the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1. Users out there who have enjoyed the
Samsung Galaxy Note, but who would prefer a larger display to write/draw
will probably want to check it out.
In terms of hardware, the Samsung Galaxy Note
10.1 will be powered by a dual-core processor under its hood that has
been clocked at 1.4GHz. It will sport 1GB of RAM and will come in
storage capacities of 16/32/64GB, and can be further expanded by an
additional 32GB via microSD. It will also feature a 10.1” 1280×800 PLS
TFT display with a 3MP rear-facing camera and a 2MP front-facing camera.
To showcase the support for the S-Pen, Samsung has include features
such as S Note and S Planner, with the S Note allowing users to create
their own content by joining notes and sketches together with content
from the web, all of which can be done within the app itself without the
need to switch screens. The device will feature a variety of
connectivity options, such as WiFi, HSPA+ 21Mbps, Bluetooth 3.0 and USB.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 will be launched with Android 4.0 Ice
Cream Sandwich on board, but unfortunately no word on pricing or
availability just yet.
We knew that 2012 would be the year of the high resolution tablet. It's
only logical that current tablets, most of which cap out at 1280x800
pixels, would be succeeded by devices with full 1080p 1920x1080 resolution. But to go beyond that
is impressive. Notwithstanding the rumors about the iPad 3 having a
2048x1536 pixel display, the Huawei MediaPad, with its 1920x1200
resolution, will take the crown as the highest resolution tablet yet. My
monitor at work, a full 14" larger than the MediaPad 10, has that same
1920x1200 resolution.
The MediaPad 10 was sort of on display at MWC, that is, they had a
hand-built prototype, which gives us a sense at how close to shipping
the MediaPad 10 is. It'll be a quad-core tablet that manages to be
remarkably thin at under 9mm. No word on pricing, but look for it to
ship in the Q2.
As was widely expected, HTC announced its two halo devices for the first half of the year at M.W.C today, the quad-core HTC One X and slim, dual-core HTC One S. First
revealed as the HTC Edge and HTC Ville, respectively, the two handsets
are both powered by Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and skinned with HTC Sense 4.0.
The One X, pictured up top (and better known by its final codename of
Endeavor), features a Tegra 3 "4+1" quad core processor, 4.7-inch, 720p
HD display, and 1GB of RAM / 32GB ROM. It's got a 1080p-capable
eight-megapixel main camera with the new HTC ImageSense technology, along with a 1.3-megapixel front-facing webcam. Like the One S, and most high-end HTC devices of late, the X brings Beats Audio enhancements to music playback.
While the S (pictured above) shares many of the same specs as the X, it
is highlighted by its 7.9-millimeter profile. The processor is a more
traditional dual-core Snapdragon from Qualcomm, while the display is 4.3
inches at qHD resolution. RAM is the same 1GB as the One S, but
built-in storage is only 16GB. The two phones share the same camera, as
well as a Bluetooth 3.0 radio, Wi-Fi b/g/n, and the usual complement of sensors.
Look for these two flagships to begin rolling out globally in late March
and early April, each with 25GB of free Dropdrop storage in tow. As of
now, the One S has been tipped for US release on T-Mobile, with further
carrier commitments to follow.
