Samsung Galaxy S III vs. HTC One X: Quad-core faceoff

International versions of the Samsung Galaxy S III and HTC One X both sport quad-core chips. Which offers better performance? Read on.

The Samsung Galaxy S III's 8-megapixel camera is crammed with features and options.

(Credit: Luke Westaway/CNET UK)

 

Now that Samsung has announced its Galaxy S III muscle phone, one big question is how its core technology stacks up against that of its main Android rival, the HTC One X. So let's take a look under the hood and see.
The S III packs a 1.4GHz quad-core chip, as the company indicated last week. Samsung obviously believes that kind of horsepower is necessary to drive a 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED display with 1,280 x 720 resolution, among other things.
The One X, with a 4.7-inch screen and an identical 1,280 x 720 resolution, also sports a quad-core chip in its European variant -- but opts for dual-core in the U.S. More on that in a moment.
Samsung has gone into some detail to explain why it has gone quad-core for the first time in the Galaxy S series.

Samsung Galaxy S III (European variant) with Exynos 4 Quad highlights:

• Full-speed video: Uses HD 30 frame per second video hardware codec engine for 1080p video recording and play-back. Also includes an embedded image signal processor interface for a high-quality camera and an HDMI 1.4 interface.
• Speed jump: Owing to its 32-nanometer tech, the Exynos 4 Quad has "two times the processing capability over the 45-[nanometer] process based Exynos dual-core while consuming 20-percent less power," Samsung said.
• Ready to plug into new phones: Exynos 4 Quad is "pin-to-pin compatible" with the Exynos 4 Dual, allowing smartphone and tablet suppliers to adopt the new solution without additional engineering or design efforts.
• Based on ARM Cortex A9 design: Based on the current Cortex A9 tech from ARM. The latest and greatest ARM tech is called Cortex A15 but those chips won't emerge as commercial products for a while yet.

Because the Galaxy S III is so new, more in-depth reviews about performance are on the way. (See Galaxy S III performance preview here.) But the HTC One X is a known quantity. Let's look at performance and the processor internals of the European/International variant.

HTC One X (European variant) with quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3:

• Needless to say, fast: "Blazingly fast -- you won't feel any Android 'lag' when using this phone," said CNET Reviews. "HTC also claims a fast camera startup of 0.7 second and 0.2 second autofocus," CNET said.
  
• "Five" cores: Nvidia calls it "Super 4-PLUS-1" Quad Core. The fifth processor core is much more power efficient than the others and is used -- when performance is not required -- to boost battery life. "The single battery-saver core... handles low-power tasks like active standby, music," says Nvidia.
  
• DirectTouch tech: Nvidia DirectTouch is a patent-pending technology that improves touch responsiveness and reduces power consumption by offloading a portion of the touch processing onto the Tegra 3 chip.
  
• Based on ARM Cortex A9 design: Like the Samsung quad-core, the Nvidia also uses a Cortex A9 design. But Nvidia is undoubtedly working on a next-gen Cortex A15 chip; Nvidia is very quick at getting next-gen chips out the door. The Tegra 3 is manufactured with a 40 nanometer fabrication process, a slightly older technology than the 32 nanometer process used to make the Exynos 4.
  
• Battery life: "Top-shelf components and a massive 4.7-inch screen take a toll on this pricey superphone's battery life," said CNET Reviews.
  

In the U.S. market, HTC chose to go with a dual-core Qualcomm S4 processor paired with LTE in the One X. It's not clear yet what Samsung will opt to do in the U.S., although the specs of the HTC One X may be instructive.
LTE and dual-core seem to be a good fit because the Qualcomm S4 squeezes LTE and the processor onto one piece of silicon. (That's just not possible with quad-core and LTE at the moment.) That's quite a feat and something that Qualcomm has done first. That level of integration not only allows for more compact designs but it doesn't compromise on performance, as many reviews attest to.

"I know many HTC fans are disappointed that the U.S. version of the One X has a dual-core CPU instead of the much-hyped quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3," said CNET's Brian Bennett. "Well, I'm here to wash that bitter taste of sour grapes away. Equipped with a powerful 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor... this phone seriously hums," he wrote.
Bennett continues. "It flies through Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and HTC's Sense overlay with oomph and agility."
And battery life? In anecdotal use both over LTE and Wi-Fi, the handset got through an 11-hour workday of running tests, opening apps, and playing music, CNET said.
The upshot is that U.S.-based consumers that opt for Qualcomm's LTE and dual-core in the HTC One X don't have to sacrifice much. And may be able to expect better battery life than quad-core.
That said, quad-core is inevitable for more high-end smartphones. And Qualcomm will be going quad-core, too -- when it's ready.

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iPhone 5 launching with 4-inch screen, new Dock connector?

That's the latest rumor from iLounge, which claims to have a source with knowledge of Apple's smartphone plans.

The iPhone 5 rumors keep coming.
Apple's upcoming smartphone will come with a 4-inch screen, due mainly to a thinner, taller body, according to Apple-focused site iLounge, citing an unnamed source. The site's source claims Apple's new iPhone will be 10mm taller than the iPhone 4S, and about 2mm thinner. By keeping the same width and tossing in the display to fit the new form factor, Apple is able to deliver more screen space than what's available on 3.5-inch-equipped iPhones, according to the source.
Although the front of the iPhone 5 will look about the same, the back will feature a flat, metal panel stretching from beneath the camera to nearly the bottom. iLounge's sources did not say why the device might come with that additional element. Aside from the metal panel, the device will boast Gorilla Glass 2 technology, according to the site's source.

One of the more surprising moves, though, might be iLounge's contention that Apple will launch the iPhone 5 with a new Dock connector featuring fewer pins than the 30-pin option found across its mobile devices today. The new connector is "closer to a pill shape" and will find its way to all future mobile devices the company launches, according to iLounge.
Rumors have been surrounding the iPhone 5 for months now. Much of what iLounge claims will be coming to the device has already been cited in previous rumors. And in each case, Apple has stayed tight-lipped, allowing the rumor mill to heat up and speculation to run rampant. So, be sure to take all of this with a healthy heaping of salt until the final product is officially announced.

And when might that final product be announced? iLounge says the iPhone 5 is slated for a fall release.

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Facebook IPO: A bet on 'King' Zuck

Mark Zuckerberg will wield near total control over Facebook's future. Some fear that once the hype dies down, the situation could lead to problems no one will be able to do anything about.

When Facebook executives and its bankers hit the road Monday to pitch the company's public offering to money managers, two questions will surely face prospective investors: Should we worry about the slowdown in the business? And what's up with Zuck calling the shots on, well, everything?
The answer to the first question is yes. Facebook does state in its IPO filing that "rates of user and revenue growth will decline over time." And while the company still has unprecedented reach -- an astounding 526 million active daily users -- that's a troubling harbinger given how Facebook has boosted revenue over the years by adding more users to its service.

But what Facebook will do to make more money off that already giant audience leads to the second question, which is a lot harder to answer: Can Mark Zuckerberg can keep coming up with the right answers?
That's because Zuckerberg exerts unusual control over Facebook because of his stock ownership. After the Facebook IPO, Zuckerberg will own 18.4 percent of the stock and control more than 57.3 percent of the voting power, a degree of influence that Facebook alludes to in the risk section of the S-1 document:

As a result, Mr. Zuckerberg has the ability to control the outcome of matters submitted to our stockholders for approval, including the election of directors and any merger, consolidation, or sale of all or substantially all of our assets.

The dual-class tactic has long rankled shareholder advocates because it's used as a power grab, which is counter to the notion of a public company. Larry Page admitted as much in Google's S-1 from April 2004 when he wrote about the control he and co-founder Sergey Brin were giving themselves: "By investing in Google, you are placing an unusual long-term bet on the team, especially Sergey and me."
While Google started what's become a popular structure among tech companies going public -- LinkedIn, Zynga, and Groupon all took this route -- the issue goes farther back. In 1956, Ford Motor successfully lobbied the New York Stock Exchange so that it could go public with a dual class of stock despite the NYSE's one-share, one-vote rule at the time, said Charles Elson, the director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware. As a result, Henry Ford and his family maintained control after what was then the single largest IPO in Wall Street history.
Media companies, too, have long used dual-class stock structures, from The New York Times to CNET's parent, CBS, at which Sumner Redstone has almost 80 percent voting control. For a public tech company, giving so much power to single individual is unprecedented.
This isn't generally a problem, until problems arise. Look at the stronghold Rupert Murdoch -- with nearly 40 percent control over News Corp. -- maintains over his embattled enterprise. "Investors have no opportunity to take action," said Elson.
Big mutual managers surely will wonder why they ought to put millions of dollars into a company that, with a potential $96 billion valuation, looks crazy by standard Wall Street metrics, such as price-to-earnings ratios. Zuckerberg has so much control over the company -- he designed it that way -- that a bet on Facebook is largely a bet on the talents of the almost-28-year-old tech wunderkind.
"You're betting on a king, on an old-style king," said Elson. "And if the king turns out to be not such a good ruler, you're stuck."
As a cautionary tale for potential Facebook investors, Elson points to Yahoo, which has seen plenty of CEO turnover owing to pressure from shareholders angry at the mess the business is in. Yahoo's current CEO, Scott Thompson, is now under attack by hedge fund Third Point. And last September the board ousted its last CEO, Carol Bartz, in a shakeup that couldn't happen at Facebook no matter how badly Zuckerberg stumbles.
"A board has two jobs," a person who's served on the boards of several public Silicon Valley companies told me, "acting as a sounding board, and hiring and firing the CEO. If the CEO wants to go ahead with something the board doesn't like, the only power they have is to fire him. And in Facebook's case, they can't even fire him."

Zuckerberg has already shown his desire to go it alone when it comes to big decisions. When he bought Instagram for $1 billion in cash and stock, he reportedly didn't even tell his board until the deal was all but done. Maybe board members questioned the price tag, as so many outsiders did after the deal was announced, but maybe they didn't. It probably wouldn't have mattered.
Of course, it'll be in Zuckerberg's interest for the stock to do well. For one, it'll keep his employees from jumping ship. It'll also provide him with a powerful currency with which to do more Instagram-like deals, and perhaps ones far larger.
And a bunch of outcry from finance profs is unlikely to dampen demand for this offer. This is Facebook, after all. Everyone knows it. Everyone wants a piece. And, despite the slowdown in the first quarter, this is still a profitable company on track to generate more than $4 billion in revenue this year. And though the king is just 27, so far he hasn't messed up.
It's also easy to argue Facebook's enormous potential, and that's what the bankers and Facebook executives will naturally stress during the upcoming road show, which is set to culminate with the IPO on May 18. Facebook already has frustrated advertisers eager to give it more money, and there's plenty of speculation that Facebook will become a place for e-commerce transactions, as its acquisition in April of a startup called TagTile suggests. And there's much more.
With such promise, fund managers won't want to be left out, even though money managers often shy away from IPOs with dual-class stocks. Retail investors also will likely jump in as soon as the shares start trading, even if they can't yet separate the price from the hype and all the pundits warn them to sit tight.
"This is one of those times when people act contrary to their own interest," Elson said. "The hype overwhelms good judgement."
Perhaps. But that good judgement also would have kept people out of Google, which since going public at $85 a share in August 2004 has climbed 617 percent. And Facebook seems a lot more Google than it does Groupon.

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iPad is to "tablet" as Starbucks is to "coffee shop"

When a product becomes synonymous with the general term for the item itself, it can own the market.
To paraphrase Ra’s Al Ghul from Batman Begins, “If you make yourself more than just a tablet, if you devote your circuits to an ideal and if they can’t stop you, you become something else entirely – a legend.”
Such is the case with the Apple iPad as it now accounts for 94.64% of all tablet web traffic. It accounted for 2/3rds of the tablets sold in 2011 despite a surge by the Kindle Fire around Christmas. Just like Starbucks, people often interchange the word “iPad” with “tablet” when discussing the mobile device.
The Samsung Galaxy tablet is the 2nd-most common, and yet there are fewer than 1.3 Galaxy tablets for every 100 iPads. Game over. Apple won.

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How Does Google Adwords Work [Infographic]

Google AdWords is Google's main advertising product and main source of revenue. Google's total advertising revenues were USD$28 billion in 2010. 

AdWords offers pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, cost-per-thousand (CPM) advertising, and site-targeted advertising for text, banner, and rich-media ads. 

The AdWords program includes local, national, and international distribution. Google's text advertisements are short, consisting of one headline consisting of 25 characters and two additional text lines consisting of 35 characters each. Image ads can be one of several different Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) standard sizes.Here is an Infographic about how Google Adwoks Work ?

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